Hope From the Word

Narrator: The wonders of God. That's next on Hope From the Word with Bill Luebkemann. Remember the wonders: he parted the Red Sea, he parted the river as they came into the promised land, he brought water from the rock. When Moses took that bath, we saw that earlier.

There were healings in the Old Testament even, people brought back to life. Elijah and Elisha both raising people to life through their prayers. Naaman being cleansed of leprosy. The wonders that he did when Jesus walked the earth, the people that he healed, that he touched, that he cleansed the lepers and healed the sick and made the blind be able to see. His biggest wonder of all, that he came back to life.

True wonder will capture the whole person. If it doesn't, it's merely novelty or surprise. But true wonder is not some isolated event. It's an attitude affecting the outlook of an entire life. You're listening to Hope From the Word, an outreach of Calvary Chapel of Marlton. Thanks for dropping by. Our teacher is Bill Luebkemann and today's scripture is a psalm of thanks penned by David. It's tucked away in the Old Testament book of First Chronicles. We join Pastor Bill in chapter 16, picking up in verse 12.

Bill Luebkemann: Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced. Remember these things, the wonders. We can look in this scripture and see all the wonders that he did. It was a wonder that he made Adam from nothing and made Eve from dirt—and he made Eve from a part of Adam. Mankind being made from the dust of the earth. That was a wonder.

It was a wonder that he made a promise to Abraham that he continued to Isaac and also to Jacob, and then he made a covenant with Israel when they were in the desert and he kept that covenant when they went into the promised land, even though they were never faithful at any point for more than a very short period of time. They were faithful for two minutes and then they were back to their own ways.

Remember the wonders: he parted the Red Sea, he parted the river as they came into the promised land, he brought water from the rock. When Moses took that bath, we saw that earlier. There were healings in the Old Testament even, people brought back to life. Elijah and Elisha both raising people to life through their prayers. Naaman being cleansed of leprosy.

The wonders that he did when Jesus walked the earth: the people that he healed, that he touched, that he cleansed the lepers and healed the sick and made the blind be able to see. His biggest wonder of all, that he came back to life. That he was nailed to a cross and came back to life. I was reading there's some guy going around now saying the Bible isn't really true. It was in the newspaper.

He says Christianity is all about Jesus, it's not about the Bible. The Bible's basically just—well some of it might be true but a lot of it's not true and it was written by man. He says you have to believe in Jesus of course but not the Bible. Well if you don't believe in the Bible, what do you know about this Jesus that you're going to believe in?

He says the Bible is not the word of God. This is one of the trends in the so-called emergent church today is they say the Bible's not the word of God. It's not the inspired, infallible, perfect word of God given to us. It's just written by man and you can interpret it your way or not interpret it at all. Whatever Jesus is to you, that'll be just fine. If your interpretation's a little different than mine, no problem. But I say big problem.

This is the word of God. This is the only thing he left us. It's also the only book that makes sense. If we don't believe in this, then we don't know the wonders that he did. And then we can't follow these instructions to remember the wonders that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

Equally on the one side you have the miracles where he provided for and blessed the people and did all these things: providing water when they needed it, providing meat when they complained they wanted meat in the desert, manna every day for 40 years, even the fact that their shoes didn't wear out. I'm okay with their shoes not wearing out, but what about the kids whose feet got bigger? Did the shoes get bigger along the way too? I'd like to know the answer to that question.

He also did the opposite though: judgments against the unrighteous. He judged all kinds of peoples and brought judgment against Israel when they weren't following him. And at times he used Israel to bring judgment against other nations. He performed miracles and judgments by his decision and by his will. And David says here, "Remember what he has done, O descendants of Israel, his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones."

He's reminding them they are the descendants of Israel. Some of you may not realize this but Chronicles was written after the time of the exile. So this was maybe 400 years or so after the time of King David. A lot of people look at Chronicles and say First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, and First and Second Chronicles repeat a lot of the same stuff. Why is it repeated? Well the answer is very simple.

This was written hundreds of years later. It wasn't written when these events happened. And it was written when the people after the exile were going back to Jerusalem and back to the promised land. The chronicler who wrote these wanted to communicate to these people who they were: you're God's chosen people, this is your history. This is who you are.

That's why Chronicles, the first nine chapters, has all kinds of genealogy so that they could see where they fit into God's plan and who they're descended from. They did not necessarily know all this stuff. They couldn't just run down to the Sunshine Christian bookstore and pick up a Bible and get up to speed on it. It wasn't widely available. There weren't that many of them and they weren't that easy to come by.

So whoever wrote the Chronicles—we're not really sure who did it, there's some ideas—whoever wrote it wants to tell these people, "Look, you're descended from Israel, you're sons of Jacob, you're his chosen people." These are the things that God did and you should be aware of them and you should make them known.

Chronicles starts at the very beginning but very quickly gets up to the time when David is king. The chronicler just gives a quick overview in the first nine chapters. You could read that and say, "Why is all this stuff in here? I don't care who begat who begat who." But it was important for them to know who they were descended from. This is their record of their genealogy.

And he's telling these people who are about to go back to the promised land, back to Jerusalem, "You're descended from Israel, God's servant, you are sons of Jacob, his chosen ones." You need to remember these things. And just these few verses here, what a great overview it is of worship. Give thanks to the Lord, number one. Number two, call on his name. Number three, make known.

If we just look at the operative words here: make known, sing to him, tell. Tell of all his wonderful acts. "Glory" is used as a verb there. We should be glorying in his name. Let our hearts rejoice, look to him, remember these things, rehearse them in your heart. We need to be thinking about this. People say this is a book of myths and fables and it's not really true. Well you're not going to go very far with that kind of mentality.

We need to remember what he has done. This is the bedrock foundation of it all. But like I said earlier, we all have things in our own life that we can talk about. We all have wonders in our own life. I remember the first time I needed real surgery. I put it off for like two years because I was afraid of doctors and needles and I tried every way you could to get rid of a hernia.

I read on the internet you can't get rid of it; anyway, you need surgery. Well I'll be the one guy that finds another way to get rid of it. It didn't work. I put it off and put it off and finally I went and had it done and the Lord saw me through it. And it was a big fat zero when I came home. I thought, "Man, what a fool I am." Just for two years being worried about something that took five minutes to fix and didn't hurt at all.

And somehow that was the beginning of many hospital visits, as some of you know. I used to be scared just to go into the hospital to visit somebody. And God showed me he was bigger than any hospital or any doctor with any pointy object. And thank goodness. I was having some skin cancer cut off my face a few years ago and I was laying there waiting for them to come in and the lady in the next room I hear, "Ah! Ah!"

I thought, "Oh great, this does not bode well." And then I hear them say, "Ma'am, we haven't touched you yet." When I had the surgery done, they were shaving my belly with a little electric razor. And they said, "Does that hurt?" "No, it doesn't hurt." "What's it feel like?" "Well, it kind of feels like you're tickling me." "Well, the last person we did that to was screaming."

And that's all we were doing was shaving the belly. That's because maybe they weren't thinking about who they could call upon. There's someone greater than them who's there to see it through. And to me it's a wonder that I could even drive by a hospital and not have a raised heartbeat.

His miracles, his judgments, O descendants of Israel his servant, O sons of Jacob his chosen ones. He is the Lord our God. This next section here remembers the background of who he is. He is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded for a thousand generations.

The covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac, he confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit." Here he is reminding them, "Look, we worship the Lord and we do all these things. We sing to him, we glory in his name, we look to him, we remember him, we give thanks, we tell others about him, we seek his face."

But who is it that we're doing all these things about? Who is it that we're giving praise to? Who is it that we're glorying in? Who is it that we're looking to? Who is it that we're seeking? Who is it that we're remembering? Who is it? Well that's in the next few verses here: He's the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He's over everything.

Look, this was written to the Israelites. But it could have said his judgments are over you guys because you're his chosen children, and everybody else forget about them. But he didn't. His judgments are in all the earth. They were his chosen people but God's judgments affected everybody. And today God's judgments affect everybody whether they're a Christian or not.

The Lord provides for everybody. The rain falls on the just and the unjust as it says. The difference between one person and the next in the world today is one person knows who's providing and one person doesn't know who's providing, but they're all getting provided for. And all his judgments come upon all as he sees fit whether or not we believe.

Some people say, "Well, I don't believe the Bible and so it doesn't matter." That's like telling a bad guy who has a gun pointed at you, "Well, I don't believe that gun, I don't believe in guns." So it doesn't matter if you believe in guns or not. It doesn't matter if you're for guns, against guns, if you believe in the laws of physics or understand them or not, it doesn't matter what you believe.

They pull the trigger, it's going to affect you in a big way. And I was robbed at gunpoint once so I know a little something about what that's like. He is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth and it doesn't matter who you are or what you believe or anything, you're going to deal with him one way or the other.

When we die and stand before him and the devil's there to accuse us and say, "God, this is Bill here, these are all the things he did, I happen to have a list, let me roll it out here," and he starts reading what all of our sins are, our defense attorney is going to be there: Jesus Christ. He's going to go up to the judge and say, "Dad, this is one of mine. And yes he's guilty but the price has already been paid."

Case dismissed. Price paid. Case over with. Someone else who's guilty and hasn't had their sins paid for by the blood of Christ, they're not going to have a defense attorney. They're not going to be so successful. Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live, he's not going to be able to help you.

Jesus Christ can help you. He is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. They affect everybody. He remembers his covenant forever. What covenant? He made a covenant with Abraham. He said, "I'm going to give you this promised land." He told Isaac about it and Jacob about it. And then when they were in the desert he made a covenant with the people and they agreed to follow him.

But he's got a sort of a covenant going in the New Testament also when he said that he came to pay the price for our sins, that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to everlasting life. He made a promise to us. The work of God is this: to believe in the one that he sent. If we accept the one that he sent, then our price is paid.

He remembers that. He remembers his covenant forever. We're not going to stand up there in heaven and he says, "Oh, I changed the deal." That's what credit card companies do. I never read those things they send in the mail. Does anybody read them? It's like every month you get another thing that says changes to your terms. What's wrong with these people? Can't they get it right the first time? Credit cards are not new. Why don't they decide what the rules are and then just stick with them? Why do they always have to change them?

I can't figure out what they change. I don't know what the last one said. So I read all the fine print and everything and I don't know what they're saying. God doesn't do that. He doesn't change the terms. He's not going to say, "Oh, we ended that promotion. Sorry, you can't get into heaven that way anymore." No, he remembers his covenant forever.

He's addressing them about the covenant that was made with Moses. But for us he remembers his promise forever. The word he commanded for a thousand generations. The earth hasn't been here that long. The translation there is forever. The covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac, he confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit."

He's telling these people as they're going back to the promised land, "You have a right to go back here. This is your land. God gave it to you, it's his covenant, it's good forever. That's where you're going back to. This is who you are, this is what you're about, and this is why you're going back and you have a right and a privilege and a duty and an honor to be there."

He remembers it. And they needed to be reminded of it. And we need to be reminded that God's promises are true and they never fail. And when he says that anyone who believes in him will not die but have everlasting life, he means that exact same thing. It's not going to change, it's not a different offer, there's not going to be a second New Testament with a different plan, there's not going to be three testaments.

The Bible's written, nobody's adding any more chapters, books, or verses to it. And his plan is good. And we need to remember today, just like he made this covenant with Abraham and the oath he swore to Isaac, we can read all that stuff and say, "Why did you do all this, Lord?" And maybe one of the reasons was because he wanted us to see that he keeps his word.

I was reading Ezekiel lately and I read Isaiah and Jeremiah before that. And honestly I was reading all this stuff thinking, "Lord, why did you say the same thing over and over and over again to these people? Why not just one time and then pow or maybe two times or something?"

Why over and over and over again? "And then I saw a vision from the Lord and this is what..." and "Then the word of the Lord came to me," and "Then the word of the Lord..." and over and over he says the same thing. And then I remembered: Ezekiel's career as a prophet spanned a few decades. So if you take everything he wrote and spread it out, he didn't get that many visions. He maybe got a couple a year.

We try to read them all at once and it seems like a lot, but when you look at the way that really happened, God was telling his people over and over and over again for years and years and years, decades and centuries, "This is my way, do it my way and you won't be judged. Tell them this and maybe they'll change their mind. Bring my word to them and maybe this time they'll do it the right way, maybe this time they'll return to me."

You just see he's the God of the second chance, the third chance, the fourth chance, the 3,053rd chance and he just kept giving them chance and chance and chance. And we sit there and try to read what was written over hundreds of years in a short period of time and say, "Well, this looks pretty intense." But they were reminders that kept coming to God's people and that should remind us more than anything he's good for his covenant.

And he's good for the covenant with us that he made when he died for us on that cross. He's good for it. He paid the price and he redeemed us and that's how we get into heaven: by believing in the one that he sent. When you stand there and they ask you, "Why should we let you into heaven?" do not say, "Well, because I was a Boy Scout. I was an American. I was singing The Star-Spangled Banner when I slid out of my mother's womb."

Even if you were singing Amazing Grace when you slid out of your mother's womb, that's not good enough. What's good enough is that you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Mankind has taken this and distorted it by adding so much junk to it over the years, so many systems that are made by man, religious systems.

You have to follow these rituals, you have to do it this way. No, none of that stuff. That's what the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees had done in the time of Christ. They had taken the simple Old Testament and made it into a complicated religious system. And that's what's been done today. And the truth is very simple: if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you'll be saved.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth you confess and are saved. Justified. Some people think of it this way: just as if I never sinned. And that's maybe not perfectly accurate but it's a good generalization. When you believe in the one that he sent, just believe.

They can survey everybody in America today and you could read these surveys put out by Barna—is it Barna or is it P.T. Barnum that puts out those surveys? You can read the surveys and say 86% of people in America say they're Christian. Certainly over 60 say that they're Christians. But then when they ask the people, "Well, do you believe in the virgin birth?" "Well, no we don't believe in that." "Well, do you believe the word of God?" "No, we don't believe in that."

"Well, do you believe Jesus really died and rose again?" This guy I was reading about in the paper is going around telling people Christianity's all about Jesus and you can believe in Jesus without the Bible. And by the way, he doesn't believe Jesus died and rose again. I guess he believes he died but he doesn't believe he rose again.

If he didn't rise again, then you're believing in the wrong Jesus. Because my Jesus died and he rose again. And he did it to pay the price for my sins and to prove to the rest of the world that he had the keyring to life and death. You can do a lot with keys: you can get into a building, you can start a car. You have locks where you need security, you lock your house at night.

He has the keyring to life and death. He can start it up and switch it off easier than we can start our car. Sometimes we go to start our car and it doesn't start. But when he turns on light, it comes on. And he can take the bones and put the flesh on them and bring us back to life. If you're walking around today and you don't know Jesus Christ, you're nothing more than bones without flesh.

But if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will spend eternity with him in heaven. There's a lot of other things you should do. You need to believe the Bible is the word of God and you should read it so that God can speak to you. And he says, "Repent and be baptized," and you should be baptized also.

But the thief on the cross didn't get baptized and he still spent eternity—we'll see him in heaven. If you confess with your mouth—this is the simple truth of what the Bible says. As the scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." Never. If you trust in him you will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. No matter who you are.

Thankfully this is available to everybody. I'm a Gentile, I'm not a Jew. You're either a Jew or a Gentile. You're a Jew or you're not a Jew. And if you're not a Jew the word is Gentile in the Bible. So most of us here are Gentiles, but this deal is good for everybody. There's no difference in fact. The same Lord is the Lord of all and he blesses everyone who calls on him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You're not going to call on his name and not be saved. Now there's people out today that'll tell you, "Well, you didn't do it the right way. You can only do it the right way if you come to our denomination." Or "You can only do it the right way if after you are born again you have to be baptized. And if you come back tomorrow to get baptized and you get hit by a car this afternoon then you won't go to heaven."

Some churches want to dunk you right away. You get saved, "We better dunk you right away. You could have a heart attack any second now. Let's get you in the water so that you're really saved." No, none of that stuff. We should be baptized. If you're not getting baptized for some reason, you have an obedience problem with God and you need to deal with that.

But that's not what makes you get into heaven or what allows you to get into heaven. What allows you to get into heaven is that you call on the name of the Lord, that you believe in your heart and you believe and are justified because the work of God is this, to believe in the one that he sent.

Narrator: You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of First Chronicles. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet.

If you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org.

And if you take a moment to write Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives. And we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in First Chronicles next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.