1.
Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this morning is
taken from 2 Chron. 36:11-21 & Jeremiah 23:5-6 (READ TEXT). It’s entitled, “Catastrophe, Disaster,
Judgment,” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
It finally happened. The event of
which prophets like Jeremiah had warned for years had come to pass. The
Babylonians came, and this time the Lord didn’t spare Judah and Jerusalem. The
city David had conquered now lay in ruins. The temple his son had built had
been burned down. Judah’s sin was overwhelming, and the Lord hadn’t been
kidding. The entire situation was a catastrophe, disaster, and the judgment
of God.
3.
After good King Josiah died, the
next few kings of Judah weren’t terribly distinguished. One of Josiah’s sons
ruled for three months, then another for eleven years. The Babylonians took him
off into exile, then three months later his son, the next king, too. Another
son of Josiah was left to be king, a king the Babylonians decided to call Zedekiah.
This name turns out to be tragically ironic. It means “The Lord is righteous,”
but King Zedekiah was not. Defiant toward both God and man, Zedekiah polluted
the temple his father had cleansed and rebelled against the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar. Under his leadership the people mocked God’s prophets. They
despised his Word, and so the Lord brought the Babylonians against them. As well he should, we might say. After all,
they deserved that disaster. As for us, we’re not that bad. Or are we?
4.
“After World War I, General Pershing
planned a series of victory parades through many European capitals. He needed
27,000 soldiers to march in those parades, and each participant was to possess
two qualities. Each soldier was to have an unblemished military record, and he
was to stand, at least, one meter, eighty-six centimeters tall. “40 American soldiers, guarding an ammunition
dump about 100 miles from Paris, read with interest the notice about Pershing’s
victory marches. What’s more, each man in the company met the first
qualification. None of them had ever been court- martialed. “The second condition, however, puzzled them.
They did not know how high one meter, eighty-six centimeters was. The
corporal asked the sergeant, and the sergeant didn’t know. Then the corporal
said, ‘Well, Sarge, I know that I’m taller than you are.’ After that it
began. Since nobody in the camp knew how tall one meter, eighty-six
centimeters was, the soldiers began to compare themselves with one another.
They stood back to back like children in a kindergarten until they knew the
tallest through the shortest men in the company. “Slim, the tallest, kidded his buddies about
taking a look at the girls in the capitals and sending back picture postcards.
And Shorty knew that if he marched in the parade, everyone else would, too. “When a captain from headquarters arrived to
find out if anybody qualified, the soldiers told him their problem, ‘We don’t
know how tall one meter, eighty-six centimeters is.’ So he translated
the meter and centimeters into feet and inches and made a mark on the mess hall
wall. “Some of the men looked at that mark and turned away, knowing they could
not measure up to it. Others stood up against the wall, but they fell short of
the mark by an inch or more. Finally, Slim stretched himself as tall as
possible, but he fell one-quarter of an inch short. Not one of them came to the
six feet, one and one-fifth inches that one meter, eighty-six
centimeters represents. “Pershing eventually found qualified men who
marched in his victory parades, but the point of the story is that when we have
an absolute standard it is futile to measure ourselves against other men and
women. We must stand up to the mark.”1
Haddon W. Robinson, What Jesus Said about Successful Living: Principles from
the Sermon on the Mount for Today (Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers,
1991), 12–13.
5.
You and I have an absolute standard
to meet, set by God himself. He says, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD
your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Jesus insisted that we are to be
perfect like our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:48). We all fall short of
God’s glory (Romans 3:23). Note well that anyone who does not meet this
absolute standard is headed for disaster. For the moment I am not talking
about the disasters that befall us in this life. I am talking about the
greatest disaster of them all: standing before God’s judgment without measuring
up. You see, in the destruction of Jerusalem, God was giving his people a
little peek at what it is like when he acts in judgment. The great eternal
disaster is God’s condemnation. The Bible says that the Lord shuts the mouth of
every sinner, and one of the ways he does so even now is to point out that by
ourselves we are on the road to this very disaster.
6.
Besides warnings of doom, though,
Jeremiah and the other prophets brought into this terrible situation great and
comforting news. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I
will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal
wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days
Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by
which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ ”
(Jeremiah 23:5–6).
7.
This future King’s name would be
even better than Zedekiah, which, remember, meant “The Lord is righteous.”
That is fine for God. But the coming Branch of David would be “The-Lord-our-righteousness,”
which is great for us. For we have an absolute standard to meet, and we don’t
meet it. He meets it. He meets it for us. By doing everything right, he acts
wisely and establishes righteousness. A few chapters later, Jeremiah added that
this will also be the name of his people, “The LORD is our righteousness”
(Jeremiah 33:16). We dwell in safety when he puts his name and his
righteousness upon us.
8.
Both Old and New Testaments teach
this. Isaiah had already written of the Lord who dresses us in garments
of salvation and wraps us in a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). Jesus told
a parable about a great wedding feast where one could not remain unless
he was wearing the wedding garment that was provided free to all guests at the
feast (Matthew 22:1–14). Here is a picture of how God covers us with
righteousness—his righteousness.
9.
Years ago, before cars came equipped
with air bags, and even before seat belts were installed in a lot of them, a
mother and daughter in one car were struck head-on by a drunk driver on a
two-lane road. The five-year-old girl was found unharmed but covered in blood.
The blood was that of her mother, who had died. It seems that at the last
moment before the collision, this mother had thrown herself across her
daughter. She covered her daughter with her own life.2 God has covered us with
righteousness in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Still more, he gives us
the righteousness of Christ’s life. 2
Klaus, 26.
10.
Here was a Man who never did a
sinful thing, spoke a sinful word, or thought a sinful thought—and it was all
for you, in your place. Regardless of the pressure or the temptations, he never
sinned. He asked his enemies who of them could charge him with sin. None could.
Even when he was suffering unimaginably for our sins, not only the agony of
torture by men but also the torment of abandonment by God, he complained not a
word. It was all for you. This Man was truly righteous. He had gone through
life meditating upon God’s Word, praying to the Lord and proclaiming his
message. Jesus loved God above all, and loved his neighbor as himself. He even
loved those who were crucifying him. He did that, too, for you—as your
Substitute. God covers us with the righteousness of Christ. “Therefore, as
one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads
to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the
many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”
(Romans 5:18–19).
11.
Students everywhere know what a
teacher’s grade book is. Your teacher’s grade book contains the records of all
your scores on tests, quizzes, and various assignments. Suppose there was a
class where everyone got As, and another where all the grades were Fs.
Then suppose the grade books got switched somehow, and the report cards in the
F class came out with nothing but As. That is, in effect, what our God
has done for us. He gave Christ all our “Fs,” and Jesus died under the
weight of them all. Not only that, though: God also gives us all of Christ’s “As.”
In fact, Christ himself is risen from the dead and lives today to apply to us
all the righteousness from his perfect life as well as his innocent suffering
and death.
12.
Thus, our outlook on the disasters
in this life can be different. For we have perspective. “There is . . . no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Therefore, no
matter what disaster befalls those who believe in Christ—be it hurricane,
earthquake, or terrorist attack—we can remain confident that the Lord is in
no way punishing us for our sins. Think
of this: two people who live right next to each other can experience the same
disaster, such as a flood, but in very different respects under God. For the unbeliever,
it may well be an expression of God’s wrath and judgment against sin and
unrighteousness. However, for the Christian it is the loving if firm
hand of discipline of a heavenly Father who has put away his wrath by laying it
on Christ.
13.
Harry Huth, a Lutheran Seminary Professor
used to say, “When I appear before the judgment- throne of Christ, I will be
wearing a perfect robe of righteousness—not mine, but his. It’s the
righteousness of his work. He has given it to me. So if he says, ‘Harry, that’s
not good enough. You have to go to hell,’ I will respond, ‘Then you have to
come right along with me.’ ”3 It was a little joke with a serious point:
the Lord is our righteousness. Covered by Christ’s righteousness, like God’s
people of old, we can face the worst disasters in this world. 3 Dr. Harry A. Huth. Amen. Now
the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus until life everlasting.
Amen.
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