Put on your wooly coat (or die of exposure)
Andrew Hoseason
25 April 1997
Sometimes an umbrella can come in very useful.
Particularly useful if certain young ladies are about with buckets of water!
A good umbrella can certainly confound their fiendish plans!
I would like to share with you today the message about an umbrella of sorts which God offers us to protect us from the downpour of his own judgement against sin. him hide his face from you."
Over the past few years I have read the "Dragons of Pern" series by Anne McCaffrey. In this series of books, people on a far away world are troubled by a form of rain which eats up all living things that it comes into contact with. That includes the people. Luckily for them, the world in the story happens to be home to friendly dragons who breathe fire which burns up the deadly rain while it is still in the air!
The people had a form of shelter or protection from the inevitable.
The follower of Christ also has a form of protection, in this case, from the judgement of their sin.
There are rules of physics which relate to the physical world and I would like to suggest that the same trend applies to the spiritual world. Specifically, we are told that positive and negative energy cannot come into contact.
Scripture says, "The Lord hasn’t lost his powerful strength; his ability to save us. He can still hear and answer prayers.
But your sins have separated you from God. Your sins have made
"Because you do not repent, you are storing up retribution against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his judgement will be revealed."
From this scripture, it seems clear that God cannot come close to, or be at one with, someone who does not accept him and be like him.
Those who are consciously rooted in obeying God are able to come into contact with God.
Those who are not rooted in God, simply cannot get close to
Our first reading from Ezekiel said,
"I will judge each one of you according to your record," says the Lord God.
Then he says,
"Repent, renounce all your offences, then sin will not be your downfall!"
You see he is clearly saying that more is required than
to have done more good than bad.
We must reject the unGodly things we have done in the past and him. They are "caught in the open" and subject to the downpouring of God’s judgement because he does not recognise them.
You may have heard the illustration of the surrogate sheep.
The ewe accepts the other lamb when she recognises it as her own. God will recognise us as belonging to him, and will be able to come into contact with him in eternal life if we turn our back on our sins and we accept him as perfection in our place, accepting his example and instruction for our lives.
This is how we receive a covering that God will recognise and be able to come close to.
This is quite opposite from the common idea that anyone who is basically good will end up being with God.
Let me share with you an illustation.
I have before me a glass. I fill it half-full with water. Would you like to drink it? Yes of course. Now I fill the remainder of the glass full with bleach. Would you drink it now? No. It is polluted.
Now here is another glass. I fill it half full with water and then add the tiniest fraction of bleach. Would you drink it now? Why not? Obviously, it is still polluted.
It is similar with God. He views us and finds us polutted. We need to be cleansed to his sight.
The Bible tells us that it is not sufficient just to be a good person.make a firm commitment to avoid sin in the future, and to repent should we slip up.
"Throw off the load of your misdeeds," he says.
"Get yourself a new heart and a new spirit."
In other words, change your ways and don’t say, "Well, I’ve done more good than bad in my life so God must like me!"
None of us are perfect and our sin will inevitably be seen by God. We do need some sort of a screen or protection so that our sin and God’s judgement don’t meet.
In Old Testament times, God taught the Israelites that he alone provides the means for us to be with him. He showed this through dictating the ceremony of the Day of Atonement.
Atonement means At One Ment,
in other words, bringing together into harmony of those who have been separated.
In the Old Testament texts Atonement is expressed by the verb Kaphar whose root meaning is to cover over.
Two goats were used . One was given as a sacrificially burnt offering for forgiveness of sins.
It was well understood that the goat’s death stood for nothing in itself. It was only of importance because of the faith that was put in God’s promise that he would accept this as the means of forgiveness. The Old Testament ceremonies were but symbols and shadows: the New Testament records the realities.
The Israelites’ faith in God’s provision was the main issue.
The second goat was the scapegoat. The Israelites were asked to lay their hands on the head of a goat, which would figuratively take all their sins away. The goat was released far away from the camp. This ceremony was meant as an image of the actual removal of sins carried out by Jesus. It was an image to prepare the people. To make them understand that they needed to have their sins taken from them before they could have a closeness with God.
The downside of this is :
If one is not rooted in God, and have not accepted Christ as our covering and transferred our sins to him, for him to deal with,
our sin is exposed like a flashing beacon to the scourging and isolating nature of God’s judgement.
This message is firstly for those of us who know ourselves to be in a relationship with God, thanks to his grace!
It is a message of celebration about his love and provision for us.
Although this message is for everyone, it is particularly for those who have not come to the point of accepting that you are a sinner and then repenting. At the end of the day, I can’t tell who that may be.
The question is:
Have you accepted Jesus as your covering that will allow you to escape exposure to God’s judgement?
If not, why not? Are you perfect?
You may think that I am picking on you particularly.
And you would be right to think that. I care about you and about the fact that you may not be able to make the most of the opportunity that God is offering you. This is why I am speaking so specifically to those who have not accepted Christ as their means to overcome the separation between their sin and God.
Remember the words of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 24:36-51.
"For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
We should be ready for the return of the master because we do not know when he will return.
We should be ready. We don’t know the time or the place for Christ’s return. Some feel it may tajke place around the year 2000. Now we shouldn’t put any weight in such prediction in themselves, but they should sharpen our minds to the fact that Jesus’ return is closer now than it ever has been.
And some people will not be ready for his return.
Some people will not be ready.
Some people will always delay this simple step in their lives.
Some will do so on the day Christ returns.
And at the rate some are going, there will be no hope for them.
I myself was in no way ready, despite a lifetime of attending church. I just did not get told, and did not realise what the situation was. I thought Jesus intended the church to be somewhere that you could get together and sing and listen to speeches. Now I know that the church is the vehicle in which God’s invitation of atonement is shared.
I am now in the position of being grateful for having been told, and am wanting to ensure that everyone here knows this message.
I know someone, a non-believer. Everyone who knows her says she is a wonderful person. She has endured a lot of upset in her life but still comes out on top. She is entirely sincere and honest, a generous and loving person.
But, like me, she still sins, even if that may be unintentionally.
And it upsets me that she should be separated from God?
In the passage in Ezekiel we see that God himself is perplexed by this.
"When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die.
Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life.
Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live."
Yet there is nothing that God can do more than provide a means to overcome my friends sin, if she will not agree to accept what he has provided.
As things stand, she’s going to be separated from God in eternal life. And that is what hell is.
Not because she is a bad person. Believe me, she is much more good than bad
But she still has bleach in her water, and God just won’t drink it - he won’t come close to her. It is simply that her sin is still obvious to God, so she is unable to come into contact with God. She has not been wrapped up and covered in Jesus, God’s own means of atonement. So she will have to be separated from God in eternal life.
Are you secure enough about your future? I would love to share with you a celebration of our relationship with God.
You can choose what you do now, but you can’t choose what happens as a result of your choice. The judgement is an automatic process. No negotiation. You’re either accepted or your sin is exposed and you suffer the effects.
Repent and live, unless you desire spiritual suicide.
