Introduction
Over the past month we have been looking at the Biblical imagery in the song, These are the Days of Elijah and seeing what lessons of revival or renewal we can learn from it. Tonight we finish the series. While there may be one or two lines that I could force a whole sermon out of, as I was looking at these last few phrases, I found that for most of them, I would be stretching it to preach a whole sermon on just that bit. So instead what I thought we would do, is something a bit different tonight and rather than having on sermon at the end of our service, we would look at each of the remaining bits separately and spaced throughout the service. And we’ll try and reinforce these ideas with Bible readings and songs.
Part 1
Ezekial 37:1-14
These are the days of Ezekiel,
The dry bones becoming as flesh;
This one is quite interesting because it does very clearly speak of revival. Of God taking the remnants that are dead and making them to be his people in all their splendour and blessings. As a minor side note or annoyance it can be noted that none of this was actually to happen in the days of Ezekiel. The valley of the dry bones was a vision of things that would happen it the future. So speaking of the days of Ezekiel would refer to the promise of revival rather than the reality of revival. But lets not nitpick, much as my background in Science and Science Fiction has taught me to (unless you like science you don’t want to watch Armageddon, the movie not the battle at the end of time with me), and take the message that the song writer meant to give us, that of the days of revival.
This bit basically establishes what the song is about, revival. But the meaning we can take from this is that the situation is never hopeless. God is constantly wanting to breathe new life into dry bones. Do we sometimes feel like dry bones, like there is no joy left, that everything we try fails and God seems to be nowhere. Then God has the power to restore new life. By saying these are the days, we are saying that God is moving amongst us, that the time of dryness is at an end and that God is doing something new and life bringing among us. I believe this to be the case. However, the passage also contains a warning, this is something that God must do and not something we can accomplish alone. We do not make this so by declaring it to be so, but if we see the evidence of God moving than we can declare it to be so.
Part 2
Hebrews 10:32-39
And though these are days of great trial,
Of famine and darkness and sword,
This bit is just a reminder that times of revival or renewal when God’s Spirit moves are not necessarily trouble free times. In fact more often than not they are times full of trouble. However, I do think that the Bible teaches that there is necessarily a link between times of suffering or prosperity and God’s approval or a moving of the Spirit. One of the big problems I have with some of the Christian TV channels is that quite often they promote what is known as the prosperity gospel or ideas such as “name it and claim it”. The idea being that if we follow God as we should then all things will go well for us, we will be healthy and wealthy. And indeed if you look at the churches that these people come from then they usually are full of healthy and wealthy people. However, this is usually because if a person is not healthy and wealthy there is only so much “you don’t have enough faith” or “repent from your hidden sin” that they can take before they move to a more biblically based church or abandon God altogether. The truth is that sometimes God chooses to heal us and sometimes not. Sometimes God does send prosperity our way, sometimes he doesn’t. It is a fact that for many people when they become Christians their financial situation improves, although this is often due to giving up wasting all their money on gambling, alcohol, becoming more responsible with their lives and money. But there is no guarantee, Christians can and do suffer financially and Christians often are sick and die of diseases. And this is not to be taken as proof that either their faith is small or they are sinners. If financial success bears any kind of relation to spirituality then as a group our pastors must be the most unspiritual groups within the church. Not to mention the fact that Jesus himself must have been really wicked given his financial situation.
However, we do not need to be that extreme to have something of the same attitude in our lives. Last weekend when I was at home I heard one sermon from a layman which worried me and the positive way it was received worried me even more. It was loosely based on the book “The Prayer of Jabez”. The preacher talked about how God wanted to give us all this blessing but we don’t get most of it because we don’t ask God for it. Now this kind of talk can be very dangerous, if we are not careful. I haven’t read the Prayer of Jabez book although I think I probably should as I here more and more about it, because I thought it sounded dodgy. The problem comes when we see God’s blessing as the material things in our life. Sometimes God blesses us materially and sometimes he doesn’t. It doesn’t mean we’re any less spiritual. But if we understand this to mean spiritual blessings, is that ok. Well, possibly but what do you mean by Spiritual blessings. It doesn’t mean your always going to be happy. I’m not even sure it means freedom from depression. It doesn’t mean that every worship service you go to your going to come away feeling “blessed”, which we usually translate to feeling happy. It does mean growing closer to God, being more Christ-like, getting more and more victory over sin.
But here’s were it gets harder and even some of the stuff I preached in this series can be misinterpretated. You see we can get the idea that there’s a nice HOWTO about growing your church. Just follow these simple steps, have enough faith and your church will grow. Unfortunately its not true. Having a Spiritual church is not a guarantee of having a growing church. Even if we do everything right its not a guarantee we’re going to grow. Now don’t get me wrong, if we’re not growing we need to do all we can to grow and sometimes that means saying we’ve tried the same thing for 10 years its not worked its time we tried something new, but success is never guaranteed. In most cases a spiritual church who’s working hard at outreach will grow but not always. Sometimes we do face days of famine, darkness and sword and that’s not necessarily a sign that we are doing things wrong, although it can be.
Part 3
Psalm 14
Out of Zion’s hill salvation comes.
So where or what is Zion and what does it’s hill have to do with salvation. Zion is basically another name for Jerusalem and is used synonymously in the Bible. In Hebrew poetry which often uses two lines to say the same thing twice in slightly different ways you will often see things like daughters of Jerusalem do something, daughters of Zion do the same thing. Zion and Jerusalem they basically mean the same thing. Now I can either take you on a long history of the two words and how they came to be the name for the city but I’m guessing you’d rather I didn’t. Now while Jerusalem and Zion basically mean the same thing theologically, Zion came to be associated with the mountain on which Jerusalem was built, hence the frequent mentions to mount Zion or Zion’s hill.
Now some of you will have heard Zion talked about in relation to heaven. This arises from the fact that there are a lot of prophecies about what Zion or Jerusalem was supposed to be like. This greeat haven of peace, security and true worship of the one God. However, the real Jerusalem was seldom like this and was often the seat of corruption and idolitary. This gave rise to the idea of a heavenly city or a heavenly Jerusalem where it really would be this place of peace, security and the true worship of the true. Indeed that’s how Revelation finished with the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven to be the dwelling place of God on the new earth. As Jerusalem is commonly recognised as an earthly city while not many are aware of exactly what Zion means, Zion is more closely associated with the new Jerusalem and heaven in some Christian thought, although as with Jerusalem it really refers to both.
But what does the line out of zion’s hill salvation comes mean. There are two psalms that talk about God’s salvation coming from Zion, we read one Psalm 14 the other is psalm 53 but it’s very very similar, so you can look it up later if you want to. Basically, the idea in the psalm is that the human race is corrupt and the psalmist longs for God to come and rescue the righteous for salvation to come. The psalmist identifies this salvation comes from Zion.
So what does this mean? Well we have a number of meanings. Firstly, Zion or Jerusalem was very much seen as the seat of the Israel’s true king, who was descended from David. Thus, we could have some sort of messianic message here. The psalmist could be looking for the true King to come and set things right. The problem with this view is that David wrote the psalm. Another possibility is that Zion is the place of the temple, which is the dwelling place of God on earth. Therefore the psalm is saying that salvation is from God. Although again we face the problem that the psalm claims to have been written before the temple, although as we were looking at this morning even in the time of David it was the location of the ark of the Covenant which symbolised the presence of God and was the reason for God’s dwelling in the temple. This is the probably meaning, that God’s dwelling place on earth is associated with Jerusalem / Zion and therefore the salvation was to come from God.
However, it takes on a new meaning for Christians as Jerusalem / Zion was the place where Jesus died and rose again. In particular Zion’s hill may be referring to this. Therefore “out of Zion’s hill” refers to the fact that salvation is to be found in Jesus and because of his death and resurrection.
Part 4
John 4:27-38
These are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white in the world,
And we are the labourers in the vineyard,
Declaring the word of the Lord.
Here the song writer draws on the words of Jesus from John 4 in the King James Version. He is essentially saying that now is the time of the harvest, that people are just waiting to become Christians all we need to do is go and pick them, by preaching the word of the Lord. This was certainly true in the time of Jesus and the early church where the church literally exploded onto the world scene, going from an obscure sect of Judaism to the official religion of the Roman Empire in around 300 years, converting millions in that time. It’s certainly true in Africa, South America and Korea now a days, but is it true of Wales and the UK. Are the fields really white, is it the days of harvest. For many it appears not. Churches are shrinking and closing and people are not being saved. One person I talked to recently said its been 17 years since someones been saved in this church. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but we haven’t really exploded recently. So can we really say the fields are white?
Well actually, I think we can. I think people are crying out for the message of salvation, for a relationship with God. Despite what some people say we are not a secular society. Belief in all sorts of religions, superstitions and faiths are rampant. Even a majority of those who don’t actively practice a religion believe in God or at least something out there. The trouble is their looking in the wrong place and the church isn’t giving them the answer. We are told to go into the fields and harvest not wait for the wind to blow the grain through the barn doors. We have a message that is the answer to what people are crying out for but we’re not delivering it. It’s true churchs are in decline mostly because they’re not making a real attempt to reach people, either by expecting people to just walk in or by talking about things in a way that non-Christians don’t understand. Or by expecting people to clean themselves up before coming to church in total defiance of Christ’s commands, that people come and then he cleans them up. The fields are white to harvest if we are willing to get our hands dirty and do whatever it takes to bring in the harvest. Some churches are in decline but others are growing, not by compromising or changing the message but by going to the people, meeting their needs and showing them that God and the church cares and can do something for them.
The fields are white to harvest the question is are we ready to do what it takes to reap.
Part 5
Revelation 1:9-20
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18
Behold He comes riding on the clouds,
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call;
Imagery is often associated with Christ’s second coming and this is what is meant in the song, particularly when associated with a trumpet call. The proper Biblical imagery for Christ riding on the clouds is not the second coming but rather his return to heaven and his vindication. That he is proved right before God, that his death was not a mistake or a victory for the devil but rather part of the plan and the victory of God. When you read in the gospels about Jesus riding on the clouds, Jesus is drawing on the imagery of Daniel to talk about his life, ministry and ultimately himself being proved to be in the right. It is the stamp of God’s approval, of returning to God to receive his blessing and approval.
However, as we said, the writer of this song is using the phrase it as it is popularly understood to refer to the second coming. There is a bit of support for this in the passage we read we’re the believers are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and in Acts where Christ ascends into the air and is hidden by a cloud and the disciples are told that Christ will return in the same way. I’m not getting into the issue of what coming on the clouds any more.
The shinning like the sun, is a reference to the description of Jesus we read from revelation chapter 1, which contains lots of metaphors to describe various aspects of Jesus character. Shinning like the sun, speaks of Christ’s holiness and his approachability for sinners. Try looking directly at the sun and you’ll find you can’t and actually you shouldn’t because it can blind you. When we read the description of Jesus from Revelation 1 there is a great deal about the intensity or holiness of God. John flings himself on his face before Jesus, and this the disciple who leaned on Jesus breast during the last supper. But notice also, this truly awesome God, this one who you cannot even look at, says do not be afraid and invites John to be with him. The unapproachable made approachable by what Jesus did. Again this imagery is not particularly associated with Christ’s return other than it is in revelation. However, when Christ returns we will see him like this, so we’ll give credit here.
But what is the significance of Christ’s return in the context of revival. We are told in 2 Peter that we can hurry the day of Christ’s return by seeing others won to Christ, but is that all there is to it. Well sort of. The return of Christ is the goal towards which we are working. The time when the world will truly be revived, in that all will see and all will serve. We just need to do as much as possible to get people to recognise Christ before then.
But the idea of Christ’s vindication and the return of Christ are linked in the passage we read from Hebrews 10 a while ago. It’s worth persevering in the times of darkness, famine and the sword, because Jesus is right and he is coming again and it will all be worth it in the end. When Christ returns and sets up his kingdom for ever and ever.
