The Grace of New Beginnings

A Pocket Paper
from
The Donelson Fellowship
______________

Robert J. Morgan
April 3, 2005 – P.M. Service

 

 

Tonight we’re continuing our initial studies into the book of Zechariah, the book of encouragement for those who feel discouraged with God, with their Christian lives, and with their Christian ministry.  Sometimes we feel like we’d like to scrap everything and get a new start.

 

When I was a boy in school, we devoted one class period to Robert Frost’s great poem, “Birches.”  It’s about the boyish innocence of swinging on Birch trees.  Near the end of the poem he says something rather wistful:  “I’d like to get away from earth awhile,” he wrote, “and then come back to it and begin over.”

 

In school, when I was taking art I was frustrated because I was never very good at drawing or painting.  I’d take my page, draw a few lines, and mess up.  It felt so good to crumple up the paper, throw it away, and to start with a fresh page.

 

So many times, we mess up our day or we mess up our task or we mess up our life, and we need a new page.  Our God is a God who gives new pages.  That’s the way Zechariah begins his book.  In a sense, the Jewish people had been off the planet and had now returned to Jerusalem to get a new start.  Let’s read again Zechariah 1:1-6:

 

In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo:  The Lord was very angry with your forefathers.  Therefore tell the people:  This is what the Lord Almighty says:  Return to Me, declares the Lord Almighty, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty.  Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed:  This is what the Lord Almighty says:  Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.  But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.  Where are your forefathers now?  And the prophets, do they live forever?  But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your fathers?  Then they repented and said, “The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.”

 

For those who forgot to set their clock and missed this morning’s services, let me review very briefly.  The background for the book of Zechariah is given in Ezra 1-5 when the remnant of Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.  After getting a good start, they grew discouraged by the resistance of the local Palestinians, and so the work on the temple of the Lord stopped for eighteen years.  Then Zechariah grew to be a young adult and God touched him and called him to preach to the people.  Under the influence of his ministry (and that of Haggai), work resumed on the temple and it was finished.  Those incredible and powerful sermons are recorded for us in the book of Zechariah, and the first one occurred in this passage.  It had three strands of thought:

 

God’s Warnings are Real

Zechariah talked to the people about the seriousness of God’s warnings.  His warnings were real and were to be taken seriously.  Over and over, God sent prophets to warn Israel and Judah of their spiritual danger and sinfulness;

 

I’ve been reading a fascinating account of George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.  This happened on Christmas Night, which was bitterly cold, and Washington’s army was in terrible shape.  He nevertheless led them to cross the Delaware River and attack the Hessian soldiers that occupied Trenton, New Jersey.

 

Washington’s men were freezing, underfed, under clothed, discouraged, sick, and miserable.  And yet they pulled off the impossible, beat the Hessians, and turned the tide of the War of Revolution.

 

But here’s the rest of the story.

 

The Hessian commander was Colonel Johann Rall, and he was attending a local Christmas party that night.  He didn’t dream that American forces would attack or could attack.  As he was enjoying himself at this Christmas party, a local farmer who was a British sympathizer came with a message that Washington’s men were on the move and mounting an attack.  A servant met the farmer at the door, scribbled down a message, and took it to Colonel Rall.  But he was having a good time playing cards, and he didn’t want to be interrupted, so he stuffed it in his pocket.

 

At daybreak, Washington’s men attacked, and Colonel Rall was mortally wounded.  As the doctor cut away his clothes to treat his wounds, the note fell from his pocket.  It was the message warning of Washington’s approach.  If he had taken the time to read it and heed it, he might have lived to see the Americans defeated and Washington taken prisoner.

 

Before he died, he had a chance to read the note, and he said, “If I had read this, I would not be here.”

 

He ignored the warning, and as a result he lost the battle and he lost his life and he lost the war.

 

God warned the Israelites again and again, and He is warning America.  Every sermon, every Bible lesson, every natural disaster, every crisis—all of these are part of the early warning system God is giving our nation, calling us to repentance and revival.

 

God’s Wrath is Real

Zechariah also reminded the people that the anger of God was real.  Verse 2 says in the literal Hebrew:  Jehovah was angry with anger.  It means that His anger was intensely aroused by the evil of the people.  The Bible speaks of the wrath of God and the anger of Jesus, not in terms of temper tantrums or unrestrained outbursts, but in terms of a righteous and godly indignation against the sin that so mars and harms humanity.  It is a judicial response to sin.  The Bible says that our God is a consuming fire.

 

Even those who are not Christians can envision the judgment of God.  I want to read you part of an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post last week.  It was entitled:  “Koran Scholar:  US Will Cease to Exist in 2007.”  It said:

 

A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the  year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi. 

 

The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.

 

“The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007,” the researcher concluded in his study. “The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah’s force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.”

 

Silwadi… is not a world-renowned scholar. He said he decided to publish the findings of his research “out of a sense of responsibility because what is about to happen is extremely shocking and frightening.”  His fear, he said, is that the world economy, which relies heavily on the US dollar, would be deeply affected by the collapse of the US.

 

It would be fair to say that the world would be better off with a US that is not a superpower and that does not take advantage of weak nations than a world where this country does not exist at all,” he added. “The world will certainly lose a lot if and when this disaster occurs because of the great services that American society has rendered to the economy, industry and science.”

 

Silwadi said he reached the conclusion that several suras (chapters) in the Koran that talk about punishment for those who perpetrate heinous sins actually refer to the US….

 

In his lengthy study, which is being circulated in many Muslim countries, Silwadi noted that the US has often been compared to a tree that grows very quickly and bears fruit, but has no roots.  In an attempt to find a reference to this metaphor in the Koran, Silwadi said he counted 1776 verses from the beginning of the Koran until he reached (the verse which says): “And the parable of an evil word is as an evil tree pulled up from the earth’s surface; it has no stability.”

 

This view has no truthfulness or credibility to it; yet even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  There is a coming day of judgment for the United States and for all the world, not from the Allah of Islam, but from the true God of Israel and of His Church.

 

God’s Wondrous Grace is Real

Having reminded the people of God’s warnings and His wrath, however, Zechariah pinpoints God’s wondrous grace.  The prophet’s first words were:

 

Return to me and I will return to you.  Do not make the same mistake as your forefathers….

 

Let’s have a new beginning.  Come back.  Come home.  Put the past behind you.  Bury the mistakes in the graveyard of forgetfulness, and let’s start all over again. 

 

One of the great heroes of Christian history was Columba, who was born in Ireland in 521.  His grandfather had been baptized by St. Patrick himself, and Columba's parents were believers of royal stock. 

 

Though he had a yearning for learning and for the Lord, Columba was strong-willed and combative.  He possessed a powerful presence with strong features and an authoritative voice; but his fiery temper and iron will lingered, even after becoming a home missionary to his fellow Irish.  One day, Columba copied the contents of a book without permission, and when the owner requested the copy Columba refused.  The argument took on a life of its own, involving more and more people.  Eventually a war erupted in which 3000 men lost their lives.

           

Full of remorse, Columba committed himself to win as many to Christ as had died in the war.  Thus he left Ireland at age 42 to become a missionary to Scotland.  With twelve companions, he established himself on Iona, a bleak, foggy island just off the Scottish coast, three miles long and a mile and a half wide.  He built a crude monastery which soon became a training center for missionaries, one of the most venerable and interesting spots in the history of Christian missions.  It was a lighthouse against heathenism.

           

From Iona, Columba made missionary forays into Scotland, converting large numbers.  An entire tribe of pagans, the Picts, were won to the faith.  He confronted the Druids, contesting with them over their alleged magical arts and demonic powers.  Legends suggest he performed miracles to counter theirs, convincing the populace of the Gospel's superior power.  He spent the rest of his life as the apostle to Scotland and as a trainer of missionaries.

 

That’s the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

Perhaps tonight you need to be more aware and more responsive to God’s warnings and to His wrath; but perhaps you need to respond to His wondrous grace.  You can, in effect, leave the world awhile, hidden in Christ, and come back to start all over again by His grace and glory.

 

Return to Me, He says, and I will return to you.

 

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