Worship Call 0683 Laughing with the sinners

Worship call 0683

Sermon on the mount

Wednesday July 6, 2022

Laughing with the sinners

Fiends, listen carefully!

Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. "Before refrigerators, people used ice-houses to preserve their food. Ice-houses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut from the frozen waters, hauled to the ice-houses, and covered with sawdust. Often these ice-blocks would last well into the summer. |One man lost a valuable watch while working in an ice-house. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the ice-house during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. "I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking." (story taken from "Directions" by James Hamilton) So often life can become so hectic that it becomes hard to find time to sit still and just listen to what the Lord is saying. But Jesus often secluded himself, so that He could commune intimately with His Father. In these days and in this hour it's so imperative that we spend time in our own prayer closets, so we can clearly hear what our Father is saying to us, through His still small voice. If we do, we may find some wonderful and valuable things that others have missed. Friends, the question isn't whether God will speak, but whether we will take the time to be quiet and still enough to hear His voice. Let's be sure to take that time to hear what He's saying to us! Your family in the Lord with much agape love, George, Baht Rivka, Elianna & Obadiah Baltimore, Maryland

Matthew 5:4 (NASB95) — 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

There was pop song in my days gone by and is still played on the radio, I’m sure, where the singer joyously sings

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than to cry with the saints… the sinners are much more fun.”

The world looks for a way to be comfortable in their dead condition and in find comfort on their own terms a way to dismiss their miserable condition. And perhaps some can. Through whatever means that Satan provides to make the world forget that they are indeed dead.

Where does mourning begin?

It is recognizing the reality of the Lord and that I have sinned against God. I have sinned, and infinitely short of the Glory of God. You might say

“Hey, Your being too hard on yourself.”

No

I am lifting up the pure righteousness of God whom I and you have to stand before.

It is the word of God that has stripped off my fig leaves to expose my complete nakedness before God.

The apostle Paul declares

Romans 7:24 (NASB95) — 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

In the seventh chapter of Romans, Paul recognizes the battle between the two natures. Many simply don’t bother. They do what they want, in body mind and spirit without much regard for their relationship with God. But Paul as he tells us to, is working out his salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2),

Isaiah 61:2 (NASB95) — 2 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,

The Great and terrible day of the Lord is coming where there will be those who have had found comfort in the world dismissing the reality of their own sin, putting it far behind, never seeking repentance or declaring their own sin before God asking for forgiveness restoration, a fix to their brokenness.

But there is coming a day when all men will come to the reality that they are accountable before the Judge.

Isaiah went to heaven and stood before the Lord and his spirit crumbled as he viewed the Throne of the Lord, coming face to face with the reality that there is a Lord God who sits on the throne and he is accountable before the Judge.

Isaiah 6:1–7 (NASB95) — 1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

Isaiah was taken to heaven and was introduced face to face with the reality of the Lord.

It is the Logos, the word of God, bringing it into our hearts and prayer to our great God in heaven that brings us to the end of ourselves and sits us truly in the reality of who and what God is, And where we truly stand before this God. it is at some point when the spirit of God takes the word of God and brings us face to face in the reality of the presence of God and then we are moved to declare as with Isaiah the miserable lot that we truly are.

But as that burning coal was touched upon his lips and Isaiah was cleansed, our inequity is removed and there, we find not a God of wrath but a God whom we now can have fellowship with.

By the way the burning Coal is the word of God.

Ephesians 5:26–27 (NASB95) — 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

Hebrews 4:12–13 (NASB95) — 12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Isaiah had the right view of God and the right view of self as it brought him to his knees in humble adoration, and it is that the Lord brought comfort with the restoration of a relationship with the Judge in his miserable state.

Yes, the world is one big party isn’t it. And it exalts itself over the religious prude who spends his and her time seeking after the Lord. While the partier is sleeping away in his bed or out catching up on his work at home after a busy week he scoffs at others on their way to their place of worship.

He even calls them hypocrites and exalts himself as being above them.

Yes, the Hypocrites are on their way to church. The two faces. And there are those among them that recognize and grieve within themselves their own shortcomings before God as they seek to overcome the battle that rages in their hearts between the spirit and the flesh.

Those that pride themselves on the absence of hypocrisy are those who are comfortable in their sin. They laugh with the sinners rather than crying with the saints.

John 16:20–22 (NASB95) — 20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy. 21 “Whenever a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 (NASB95) — 4 A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance.

But woe to those who get them out of order.

IN Luke’s testimony the Lord adds something that is left out by Levi

Luke 6:24–26 (NASB95) — 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. 25 “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

Sin incurs a debt. A Debt to God. and it is that God keeps perfect books. Those that mourn now recognize their own depravity and the inability to pay back and they fall upon the mercy of the one whom they are indebted to. They use their freedom provided by the grace of God which includes the grace provision of time to seek out the one whom they are indebted to and unable to pay crying out for mercy.

When Jesus upon the cross said “Tetilesti,” it was a stamp that was on the letter of indebtedness that read,

“Paid in Full”

Revelation 7:17 (NASB95) — 17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

The mourning that comes to the unbeliever is the recognizing all too late that the party is over and now they will have to pay the debt which is the eternal lake of fire.

What are these tears of the saints?

The mourning comes from the acknowledgement that in my sin I am not only guilty and deserving of the fires of hell, but I have broken trust with the one who has loved me, who loves me now and who will always love me.

Oh, I don’t know if there is any greater example in the whole bible of this than the story of the reunion of Joseph and his brothers.

The Brothers had sold Joseph into slavery some 20 years prior. Joseph’s suffering would eventuate into the salvation of the people including his brothers in the time of the famine.

The brothers with their dealing with Joseph did not yet realize that this was their brother until the time when the Joseph reveals his identity

Genesis 45:1–5 (NASB95) — 1 Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, “Have everyone go out from me.” So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard of it. 3 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. 4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come closer to me.” And they came closer. And he said, “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 “Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

The tears of the saints which are dried and wiped away in heaven are those tears that come for the reality that Christ paid it all and yet the fallen nature remained active, there were still sin in my life breaking heart of the one who truly loves me.

And yet it is his grace that wipes away those tears.

God’s grace has afforded us with the asset of time.

Is it time to live it up and party laughing with the sinners?

Or are we using our time in recognizing of our own broken relationship. grieving over our sin and seeking restoration which he freely gives when we come to the cross in repentance?