Wednesday Community Night - December 7, 2011

Isaiah 40: 1 – 11/Psalm 85: 7 – 13/2 Peter 3: 8 - 15a; 18/Mark 1: 1 – 8

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines. D. D.

We will go through Scriptures word for word and I hope you will understand that these are not my thoughts, but God speaking to us.  Probably, ninety-nine percent of the time, when God speaks to us, we ignore it thinking, “It is just the Bishop.”  In reality, when the words come from the Scriptures it is not the Bishop speaking; it is God. Do we choose to ignore God?  I watch people and see some sleeping and it is like they are saying, “It is just the Bishop, I don’t need to pay attention.”  The offense is not against the Bishop; the Bishop only represents and speaks on behalf of God.

In the Old Testament, when the prophet spoke, God did what the prophet said he was going to do.  The people began to realize that if the prophet spoke, they better pay attention because it was going to be what was going to take place.   I want you to hear God. This is not a game we are playing; this is not something that is going to pass away.

We are life given to us by God – a life that nothing can take away from us.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Even death cannot take away life.  Jesus demonstrated this to us when He supposedly died on the cross.  He was buried in the tomb, but to prove that life cannot die, on the third day, He came out of the tomb because life is for eternity. God gave life and it has no end.  I am not saying that we can avoid the bad things because that life is going to be there, and what we do with that life determines what will be our results.

God’s provision – He is so kind and concerned with us.  Scriptures says that He does not do anything without first informing us.  What He says is that He will inform it through the prophets so that they can prepare the way.

This year, we focused on the fact that we have been made a royal priesthood. If we are priests, then there are responsibilities that come upon us. We would say, “I am not a priest.”  It doesn’t matter what you think, but it is what God says that counts. You can deny that you are a priest and do all kinds of things against that thought, but it doesn’t change the truth.  We are not smart enough or wise enough and with enough power to change what God have said.  What He said, He will do.   He said, “You are a holy nation; you are a royal priesthood; you are God’s chosen people.”   With that come the responsibilities of fulfilling what He has done in our response to Him.

When we talk about our responsibilities, Old Testament prophets foretold what was going to take place.  Isaiah 40, a prophecy, so powerfully speaks about John the Baptist fulfilling his ministry, and about you and I becoming like John the Baptist with the same responsibilities – preparing the way.  The song says, “Awake, Awake, O Zion!”  We need to quicken our understanding, the lighting and the fanning of that flame within us so that we recognize the power that belongs to us.

As God’s people, we were given power from Him.  In Genesis 1, He us gave power and authority, and yet for most of us, we see the problems as more powerful than God we have within us.  God says, “I am with you, nobody can be against you.”  Because we don’t see God there, we pay more attention to what we see rather than to what God’s promises are that we live sometimes a life of failure, defeat, pain and sorrow because we have refused to accept what God has spoken to us.

Isaiah 40 says, “Comfort, O comfort My people.” God’s people have been in captivity because of their sin.  They have rebelled against God.  They were in turmoil, in pain, and so much anxiety among them.  Nothing worked right in their lives.  They were in hell, not physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. God, seeing their situation, speaks to them with a hope and says through the prophet, “Comfort, O comfort, My people says your God.” God spoke this. This was not what the prophet was speaking.  The prophet was only reiterating or bringing out of his heart what God said for him to say, “Comfort, My people.”

Comfort, when used as a noun, means strengthen.  If it is used as a verb, it means to have compassion. In reality, if you study it, even the strengthening requires compassion.  It is an instruction that the person that is receiving this message is to strengthen the people with hope so that they are not in turmoil or in strife.

“Comfort, O comfort My people says your God.  Speak kindly to Jerusalem. Call out to her.” This is not what was happening at this moment, but in the plan of God, this had been already set. “Your warfare has ended.  Your iniquity has been removed.”  Surely, this was not for the time of which this was spoken.  This has to be prophetic because their warfare had not yet ended and neither had their iniquity been removed.  Their warfare ended in Christ.  Their iniquity being removed was being taken care of in Christ.  It was foretelling what was coming, but it was foretelling it with an assurance, a confidence, and a hope.

If God said this, this was truth! It hadn’t taken place yet, but God was setting the course. “I made the plan; I set the course; this cannot be changed. This will be accomplished, so therefore, it is yours. Your warfare has ended.  Your iniquity has been removed.  She shall receive of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”    Most of us think that when a person makes a mistake, they are going to get the wrath of God and are going to get punished.  This exactly says the opposite: when we have made a mistake, when we have come before God, God comes to our aid twice as intense as one who has not failed or confessed.  It is double His hand.

If we were listening to this and we were realizing it was God speaking to us, would it not bring hope?  Would it not bring the assurance, “I don’t need to worry about this.  God is here twice as strong than if I have never done anything wrong.”

When Christ came, He came not only in the power of His position in eternity, but He came also with the anointing of the Holy Spirit – double the power.  He was left to live with us.  “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.”  At the same time, when He went back to heaven, He asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit also to be with us – double handed.  It is not just us; it is not just Christ, but God has given to us the Holy Spirit also.

I ask this question, “How powerful is sin?  Is sin more powerful than the blood of Jesus Christ?  Is sin more powerful than the power of the crucifixion, His death and His resurrection?  Is sin able to resurrect in the same manner that righteousness resurrects and life resurrects?  As God’s people, why then is sin such a prominent event around us?   Didn’t God do the job through Christ?  Is it finished or is it not finished?  What did He say?  Hanging on the cross, He said, “It is finished.”  Why do we not accept that?  Why don’t we believe that?

In this prophecy, it is being brought forth double for all our sins.  “A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness.  Make smooth in a desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plan, and the rugged terrain a broad valley.” God uses these symbols which we understand very powerfully.  God says to us, “Straighten these things out.”  When He talks to us about the wilderness, He is not talking about the desert.  He is talking about a life that is separated from God.  It is a life that is not enjoying and not understanding the presence of God in us.   When it talks about “Making smooth a desert a highway,” it is talking about opening the door so that Christ can come into the lives of mankind that there is a hope, an expectation, an understanding.  “I am not cast out.  I am not downtrodden, I am not in despair because God is my creator and He has given me this life.  He will not forsake me.”

How many times we have this thought, “God just left me alone.  I am in trouble. I don’t have God to help me.”  This is not true.  God will never leave us.  Scriptures say that nothing can separate us from that love.  Even if man sinned in the garden, it did not cause God to leave man alone.   God was there all the time, and finally He showed Himself real in Christ, to show that He would not leave us.  He was not going to let the enemy take us away from Him.

This is the hope that we have in our hearts.  Why do we feel that all these things are going to fall apart and sin is going to be so powerful and destroy everything?  Greater is God than the sin! “Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.”  When is the glory of the Lord going to be seen?  It is when we have brought this hope to the people; when we have made the highway straight; when we have built up the valleys and brought down the mountains. When it talks about the valleys, it is not talking about a hole in the earth, but it is our lives.

When we are in such despair, when we are in such fear, doubt, Someone comes to lift us up, Someone substitutes for what we can’t do and He brings us up to a level plain.  If this is not the picture of Christ, I don’t know what it is!  Christ lifted us out of the mire, out of the sin, out of the dust and the dirt; and He brought us up to a point wherein no longer were we in subjection to the enemy. Now, the enemy, in true reality, belongs under our feet because of what Christ did for us.  He brought us out of the valley.  He did it for us. We couldn’t climb out, but He brought us out.

The mountains are the things which seem to be so intense and strong that when we can’t face them, Christ comes to be our aid and tells us, “When I am with you, that mountain shall melt it like wax.”  Where is the Lord today?   The Lord is with us, with our spirit right now!  Whether we understand it or not, He is speaking to us right now. It is not me, but Him! He is letting us know how concerned He is that we stand up and demonstrate what Christ has done in our lives that He be glorified.  More than this, that the earth has that awareness so that it can also be free and He can return and live together with us forever.

Verse 9, “Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion.” Here is the instruction that God speaks to Zion, to His church.  “O Zion, bearer of good news.”   The good news is the gospel that Jesus Christ took away our sin; He restored us; He gave everything pertaining to life and godliness.  We lack in no good gift.  We have been blessed with every spiritual gift in heavenly places.  We have been given our measure of grace, of faith.  We lack in nothing.  How we can say, “I can’t. It is too much for me,” is a fact that we don’t understand everything that God has given to us.

This is prophetic, but it is to be fulfilled.  When John began to do the work of Christ, Christ manifested Himself at the Jordan River because John was doing what he was supposed to do.   Does that not speak to us?  Does that not say to us that if we would get busy doing the work of Christ, and were more concerned about making certain that the good news got out, not murmuring and complaining about taxes, prices, the government, or what somebody else said or did to us, would it be possible to bring Christ back to finalize everything more quickly?

John the Baptist did it.  He forgot the world.  He did not dress in the latest styles.  He just had camel’s hair and leather.  He did not worry about getting the best food.  If you analyze what he ate, he got some powerfully nutritious energy to do the work that he had to do.  When it is talking about a locust, it is not a bug but a plant.  He ate what God gave him to eat and it gave him the energy to do the work that he had to do.  A lot of the things that we eat are not good for us, and some of them cause us health problems.  Yet we like them and so we go ahead and eat them because somebody tells us what we should do. Do we listen to other voices or do we listen to God?  What does God say?

"Get yourself up on a high mountain.” Do not stay in the valley because you have been taken out of the valley; you have no reason to complain about anything because God is your source. Is He not the One who said, “I will supply all your needs?”  It is not the company that you are working for.  It is not the government that you are under.  It is not the bank that you got your money in.  It is not the economic system that is going to supply for you.  God said, “I will supply all your needs.”  He may do it through all these things, but it is not them doing it; it is God using them.

 “Lift up your voices mightily.” Don’t talk about the problems.  You are to be a purveyor of good news. Yes, you’ve got a situation that you are facing, but God is greater than this situation and in actuality, through Christ, this problem has already been solved. The problem is only using deception.  It has no power because all the power is in God.  He is the One who is All-powerful and nothing exists in power unless He gives it.   How many times have we listened to other voices and we have accepted what others say rather than what God had said to us?

Advent is telling us, “This is our task.  Wake up.  Awake, awake, O Zion!  Comfort My people.  Don’t destroy them.  Don’t get involved yourself in gossip so that people lose their hope because that blood is going to be on your hands.”  We are to plant the good news. We are to bring the good tidings.  We are to know first that our God is greater than our situations, and God is going to be the One that will come out on top.  This does not mean that we ignore correction or discipline for straightening things out because that is what it says, “Let every valley be lifted up, every mountain and hill brought low.  Let the rough ground be made plain.” Let all these things be solved, but solve them.  Don’t talk about them and let them become bitterness or anger in our hearts.

You are the bearer of good news.  Lift it up the good news. Do not fear!  Maybe we need to stop reading the newspaper; be better off not listening to the news because it is almost one hundred percent negative.  It is all talking about problems! Our whole lives have been consumed with problems.  We wait till the problem happens, and then, we will do something.  Why don’t we solve the problems before it happens?  We have the power and the ability to do it.  Address the situation before there is a problem.  Take care of it so that the problem does not happen.  This is godly.  Don’t just say, “Oh, one day it will just stop. One day, it will quit and I will replace it.”  Realize that God is with you.  You have the ability to address the situation and to overcome it.

“Lift it up, do not fear.  Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!  Behold!’”  Why are you listening to other voices, letting other things pull you down and take your attentions, your joy and your strength?  Your God does not fail!  Your God does not want to destroy.  He wants to reconcile. He wants to rebuild.  This is your God!  Politics is not your god.  Business deals, the economy are not your god.  Your God is greater than all of these so don’t let these things be under your ability.  They are not going to be controlled by you.  It is God!  When you walk with Him, these things are going to be lost in power.

Isn’t it amazing, Meralco raises its rates; prices go up.  Taxes go up; Presidents become corrupt.  We panic, “What are we going to do?”  Our God is greater than this! When we put our faith in God, these things will begin to fail.  As long as we allow them to captivate our attention and keep our thoughts from the victory, the hope, and the provision of God, we will not rise above them.   Romans 12 says to renew your minds and prove the will of God. Don’t let these things pull us down.  We may have to correct the way we live and do a number of things.  Remember that greater is our God than these circumstances. We are only to tell this, but we are obligated to live it because our lives are more powerful in a message than just words.  God just doesn’t promise; God fulfills His promises. He shows His commitment and power.

“Here is your God!  Behold, the Lord God will come with might.”  It is not necessarily talking about the end of time, but the situation that you find yourself in.  If you put your faith in God, He will come in might. God is greater than the problem, the circumstance.  This is what the Church is supposed to be doing. This is why we begin with Advent so that we realize where we have been and what God has given to us so that we can proclaim it to the world and we can see the finality of Christ return and Him fulfilling all His promises.

The Orthodox theology is, “Already, but not yet.”  Christ has already finished His part.  He is only waiting for us.   He has not got something yet to do; He is finished.  He is waiting for us to put the enemy under our feet.  When we have the enemy under our feet, the enemy is not the one controlling us, not the one planting evil thoughts, fear or anxieties in our minds. God is in control.

“Here is your God! Behold, your God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him.” This is the promise of God.  This is Old Testament prophecy. He foretold this through the prophets.  He said He would and it is amazing how we don’t pay a lot of attention to what God speaks to us.  You think that it is just the Bishop talking, “He is just the Bishop.  Who is he? Does he think he knows everything?”   This is a mockery against God, not against the bishop, because when the bishop speaks on behalf of God, he speaks for Him to share with us His purpose and His plan for our lives that we would walk with the hope that is ours.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” This is our task.  Speak the things of God. Behold your God!  What good is comfort when we say, “I feel so sorry for you.”  This is not comfort. Comfort is strength, hope.  We get into this gossip things and we just destroy one another because we don’t come in with hope. We don’t come in with, “Here is our God.”  Cannot God solve our problems?  We are not supposed to be judging it, anyway. It is not our business.  It is God’s job. This is why when we judge others, it comes back on us.  The things we have said against others to put them down, it comes back, and we are the ones who suffer because we think we take God’s place.  God says, “Fine, I will just let you have it.”

If only we would learn and listen.  “Behold your God!”  Your God is great – All-powerful, Almighty, All-knowing, and All-wisdom! What else can you ask for?  He is your God! He has never lost a battle. He has never failed to fulfill a promise.   This is your God – faithful and true; righteous and just!  This is the hope that you have.  Don’t join in giving a pat on the back and letting people go on in their sorrow.  Bring hope to them.

Here is your God.  He created all of these.  He is the One sustaining up to this time.  He is the One that makes the sun shine everyday.  From that sun comes the energy that we need to bring our lives into the fullness of His provision. We don’t have enough respect for the sun.  The sun is there for a purpose and a reason.  Doctors say, “Do not go out under the sun because you are going to get skin cancer.”   I have heard doctors say that if you don’t get out in the sun at least fifteen minutes a day, your body will not function properly and it will not assimilate the nutrients that you bring into it.  It will not use it properly because you did not take your energy from the sun.

God created the sun for good. We can abuse the good like staying under the sun for long hours and get some problems.  The sun is there for a purpose.  What makes the vegetables grow?  What make the fruit on the trees?  What gives you the health you need? You can’t take it in a pill.  The vitamin D will not replace the sun.  Why do we not listen to God?  We rather listen to man. We think man is smarter than God. How foolish we are!

In this Advent Season, may we realize “Here is my God.  My God never fails.  My God is All-powerful and never fails to fulfill His promises. This is my God!”  I want to tell people when they have a problem, “Let me tell you about your God! Behold, your God!  This is one of the reasons we begin every Advent Season with the Messiah because it makes the declaration; it is powerful; it is necessary; it is valuable; it speaks to us hope!   It does not take away our hope. When we ignore the hope, we have nothing to lean on.

Here is your God.  Your god is not the doctor, the economist, the political strength, the foreign government, or the corporation you work for.  Your God is the One who supplies everything.  It is amazing how we have turned to other gods rather to the one God.  In Advent, we are challenged: share the good news, “Behold this is your God! Comfort the people.”  Don’t join in their sorrow. Don’t sympathize with them as far as crying with them. Give them hope.  “Behold, this is your God.”  He does not fail.  He has never failed and He will not begin with you. Put you faith and trust in Him.

Advent is a beginning of hope for the year.  It is setting a course for us so that we know we are not in despair, in sorrow.  The whole world is crying out, “We don’t know how we are going to handle this financial situation.”  The euro is collapsing; the dollar is collapsing; all these things are falling apart.  This is because they tried to take God’s place. They won’t do it.  They are going to collapse because only God will get the glory.  One day, Babylon will be gone.  It won’t take a long time.  We need to be ready with our hope because otherwise we are going to sit back and moan and groan and cry.  If we know our God, we will have peace.  May the peace of the Lord be with all of us.”