Beeson Podcast, Episode #
Name
Date

>>Announcer: 

Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. 


>>Timothy George:

Welcome to today’s Beeson Podcast. Dr Robert Smith Jr and I are here once again to introduce you to a sermon, a lively sermon from today’s contemporary pulpit and I’m really excited about the sermon you’re going to hear today because it’s by a theologian. Some people think theologians can’t preach and a lot of them can’t. But we’re going to hear one today who can preach. His name is Richard J Mouw. He’s a friend of mine. He’s the president of Four Theological Seminary. Dr Smith, tell us what we’re going to hear from Dr Richard Mouw. 


>>Dr Smith:

Dr Richard Mouw is going to bring a message on the blessed hope, the second coming and he challenges us because he recognizes that the second coming is a topic that has received less voice and less attention. And so, he keeps together the already and the not yet and challenges us to live the already in the light of the not yet [foreign language 00:01:16], the very light of God. He is a hymnologist and every sermon I’ve ever heard him preach, he has taken a hymn, married it with theology so that he is setting theology to music. And one of the great things he does in this sermon is to take “It Is Well with My Soul”, the hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul” and to say in essence that God greaves because it is not well with the souls of human beings and that Christ came the first time to make it well and will come the next time to make all things new. 


>>Timothy George:

There’s also a fantastic illustration in this sermon in which he talks about reading one of those great mystery novels, 800 pages. I’m not going to tell you what the ending is, you just listen for it. It’s a great illustration of the second coming of Jesus Christ and how we should approach it and live it day by day in our lives. Let’s go now to Hodges Chapel at Beeson Divinity School and the next voice you will hear is that of Richard J Mouw, the President of Four Theological Seminary in a sermon on “The Blessed Hope.”


>>Mouw:

Hear the word of the Lord. “For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions and in the present age, to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and Godly while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of His own who are zealous for good deeds. Declare these things. Exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you.” This is the word of the Lord. 

The second coming of Jesus Christ was regularly proclaimed on the sawdust trail. And this passage from Titus’ epistle was one of the favorite texts for proclaiming that great truth. Here’s the Kind James version of it that was so familiar to the folks on the sawdust trail that were looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. Well, they didn’t always proclaim it in the best way. Sometimes they did it just to scare us, make us worry about doing the things that we were planning to do like going to a movie and you get there, and you worry that Jesus is going to come while you’re there and you’re going to be in big trouble. Sometimes they did it with an overlay of obsession with the details of Bible prophecy, details that were often packaged in terms of fantastic, sensationalized schemes. 

We had a traveling evangelist come to town when I was a teenage and his schtick was that he could play 12 different instruments, five or six at the same time. I played a few myself and so he asked me to travel with him for a few weeks and we went throughout New England, and we’d arrive in a town, and we’d put our posters up. And his great opening sermon was with this title, “Are Hitler and Roosevelt Really Dead?” And he pointed out that no one ever saw Hitler’s body and no one ever, the coffin was closed when Roosevelt lay in state. And his theory was that they were down in Latin America some place planning the take over of the world. And he had all kinds of references to Gog and Magog, and we all know what that refers to in Bible prophecy and Meshech is Moscow and Gomer is Germany. The second coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, was often overlayed with that kind of obsessive and sensationalized, fantastic packaging of Bible prophecy details. And sometimes it was just straight forward escapist. 

We were encouraged to stand at the sidelines of what was going on in the world in the world with our prophetic score cards, checking off event after event that were predicted by Bible prophecy. This is the kind of thing that led Carl F.H. Henry in 1947 to insist that that kind of emphasis on Bible prophecy, Carl Henry said in his Uneasy Conscious of Modern Fundamentalism book, he said it produces enlightened spectators rather than empowered ambassadors, people who are more preoccupied with prophetic conferences than with the Pentecostal challenge. And he was right about that. But for all of that, they proclaim the second coming of Jesus Christ. We don’t hear too much about that these days. That wonderful teaching, that blessed hope of His appearing has kind of faded into the theological background. But we’re going to talk about it this morning. 

What is blessed about that hope that He will return in clouds of glory? That we will see His appearing, His glorious appearing, what is blessed about that for those of us who are gathered here at this conference talking about the kinds of things that we’ve been talking about? Well, for one thing, what’s blessed about it is the very thing that Helen Lee sang about this morning. We’re going to see Jesus. Many of those songs sung on the sawdust trail concentrated on that. Both of my parents died the last few years and by their request, one hymn got sung at each of their funerals. “And I shall see him face to face and tell the story saved by grace.” Fanny Crosby. “I will see in His beauty the king in whose law I delight. We’re going to see Jesus. We’re going to see the savior.” This is also expressed for me marvelously in one of the great confessional documents of my Dutch Reformed tradition. Out of our catechism, question and answer 52, those of you who, I appreciate John Armstrong saying that, you know, we need the ancient creeds and I’ll see him, and I’ll raise him three. “Heidelberg Catechism”, “Canons of Dort”, and the “Belgic Confessions” along with a few others like the “Westminster Shorter Catechism” and the like. But if you’ve ever read the Heidelberg Catechism, study it sometime, you can get it online these days, where it not only explains the teachings of that creed that we heard this morning, but also asks questions about what it means for us in our own personal lives. 

Here’s question and answer 52. What comfort is it to you that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead? And then this wonderful answer that “in all my sorrow and persecution, I lift up my head and eagerly await as judge from heaven, the very same person who before has submitted himself to the judgement of God for my sake and has removed all of the curse from me.” There are many people who worry about the last judgment. They stand in fear. But for those of us who long to see His face, we know that the judge who will come is also, and there’s an older translation of the catechism that goes like this, the self-same one who bore my sins in His own body. And we’re going to see. We will behold Him. That’s a blessed hope. 

But it’s also blessed and glorious because He will be revealed to the larger world then that day. There’s a certain element of vindication, an important element of vindication, that is contained in its teaching. It comes out so clearly in Revelation 1, that great salutation to the early church, to the churches of Asia, where John says in Revelation 1 “look He is coming with the clouds. Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. On His account, all the tribes of the Earth will wail. So, it is to be. Amen.” But the last time the unbelieving world saw Jesus of Nazareth, he was hanging dead and defeated on the cross. But He’s coming again, and every eye will see Him, even those who crucified Him. And when they see Him, the nations of the Earth will wail on behalf of Him. But He will be revealed as the one before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that He is Lord to the glory of the Father. He will be vindicated on that day and that is a blessed hope. 

But it’s also blessed and glorious for the ways in which it encourages our active involvement in the present world. We aren’t passive spectators in the arena of life watching events being ticked off in some prophetically, predetermined way. But we’re called to be actively involved in dealing with the issues of our culture. This is really, I think, what’s being gotten at in verse 14 in this very text where it says that we are to be zealous for good deeds. In the next chapter three, verse one, “be ready for every good work.”

I was so glad we sang yesterday that great hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul.” I had an experience with that hymn a number of years ago when I was invited to be a part of a panel on a secular university campus. The topic was “The Past, Present, and Future of Religion in America.” They had a Rabbi of Christianity in America. They had a rabbi. Incidentally, one of my rabbi friends says, “I’m a rabbi or as Barbara Walter would say, a Jewish rabbi.” There’s a little point in there to be taken seriously. They had a rabbi, they had a Roman Catholic thinker, and a mainline Protestant theologian, and I was representing conservative evangelicalism. And each of us in the morning gave a talk on the past, the history of our own traditions, involvement in the American experiment. Early afternoon we did something about our present situation in North America. Late in the afternoon we did something the future. And then in the evening we were on a panel and responded to questions from a very large audience. And I talked a lot about evangelical Christianity and gave my own attempt to define evangelicalism and the evangelical past in America and the evangelical present, and what I saw to be some trends for the future. 

And the first question was addressed to me. “Dr Mouw,” a young man stood up in the audience, “I think I understand a little better what evangelical Christianity is after hearing your three talks, but I still need a little help.” He said, “could you answer this question? What do you believe that none of the other people on the panel believe?” My friend George Marsden says that whenever I get backed into a corner, I quote a hymn. And the Sunday before, we’d sung that wonderful hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul” and we sang all the verses. And especially verse three was very much on my mind. I want to say parenthetically, when we get to heaven, the first thousand years I’m convinced we’re going to sing all the third verses that song leaders, all the song leaders made us skip. Let’s sing the first, second, and fourth verse. But we sand the first, second, third, and fourth verse and that wonderful verse. And so, I quoted it. “My sin, oh the bliss.” Now you got to be very careful on this one. “My sin,” and then you say, “oh the bliss of this glorious thought”, it’s not my sin that you’re thinking about there but it’s the next clause. So, “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought” that I’m now going to articulate. “My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, it is well with my soul.” And I said, “I’m sure the rabbi doesn’t believe that his sins have been nailed to the cross of Christ on Calvary.” And if the Roman Catholic theologian believes what we Protestants”, I hedge this pretty much, but “what we Protestants believe Roman Catholics believe that the time of the reformation, he would have difficulty with the tones of the once for all, that the fact that I have received the imputed, alien, righteousness of Jesus Christ through His shed blood on the cross by faith in Him, that I can say here and now, it is forever more well with my soul.” And I’ve got to tell you that the Roman Catholic theologian, when I went back to my seat, leaned over and said, “I can sing that song.” And we ought to praise God, we ought to praise God for the wonderful renewal, the wonderful spiritual renewal that has been taking place in the Roman Catholic Church in recent decades. 

Then I said, look, our argument as evangelical Christians with mainline liberal Protestantism has been precisely about this, that was they dismiss as an ancient, primitive, slaughterhouse religion is at the very heart, the very heart of our faith. And that is that Jesus Christ shed His blood and offered up a sacrifice, paid the ransom, and if that transaction between the Father and the Son had not occurred, we’re still lost in our sins. But it has occurred and so we can say, it is forever more well with our souls. I think that’s a good functional, not as good as the one Tim George gave last night, but a good functional definition of evangelicalism. But we have to go on quickly and say this, that the God who has declared on the basis of the atoning work of Jesus Christ that it is forever more well with my soul grieves over a world where it is not well. It is not well in the ghettos and the barrios and the reservations of our land. It is not well in middle class families. It’s not well in marriages in Pasadena, California. It’s not well in Sol, South Korea. It’s not well in Kabul, Afghanistan. It’s not well in Pakistan today. It’s not well in Argentina today. It’s not well in Russia today. 

God looks out at the world, then the God who says that it is forever more well with my soul says it is not well with the creation, and the earth is still the Lords and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein. And God grieves over the unwellness of the world. And God looks forward to the day when He will be able to say on the basis of the victory of Jesus Christ, “behold, I make all things new.” And until that day, we need to be aligned with God’s work of justice and righteousness, and peace, and liberation, and reconciliation, confronting the racisms, and the other prejudices, and the injustices, and the superstitions, and the false teachings that run rampant in our culture. We need to be aligned with God’s great work of renewing the creation that He loves, and He sent the savior to redeem because some day, it will be well with the whole creation. And in the meantime, be ready for every good deed. 

It's also blessed and glorious because of what we will experience about the final revelation of the fullness of the people of God. We heard some good things about h at already this morning. We are living in a world in which there are really two kinds of multiculturalism that are in conflict. There’s that continuing multiculturalism of Babel that confuses, that erects barriers that makes it impossible for people to understand each other. But there’s that marvelous, remedial work of multiculturalism that the Lord God has brought about on Pentecost as Sister Cheryl and Bishop McKinney talked about this morning. That great work at Pentecost where people long victimized, the long under the burden of the confusion of Babel were able to turn to each other and say, did we not hear each of us in our own language? Did we not hear of the glorious deeds of God? And God is putting together a new kind of thing and when Jesus Christ returns, when Jesus Christ is revealed, we’ll also experience that manifestation of the glory of God that the Apostle John experienced and described in the seventh chapter of Revelation, the ninth verse, “after this,” he said, “I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples, and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb robed in white with palm branches in their hands and they cried out in a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the lamb.”

Whatever your theories about church growth, we’re headed for a huge end gathering of the redeemed people of God someday. And when we gather together, we’re going to sing that wonderful song of Revelation 5, that great hymn to the lamb, worthy art though oh Lord, for thou was slain and by thy blood, died as ransom, men and women from God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. On the sawdust trail, preachers often proclaimed the blood of Jesus Christ, but they often limited the scope of the cleansing power of that blood to thing that happen in individual lives and in individual souls. But that great hymn to the lamb tells us something about the cosmic power of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, that because of the blood of Jesus Christ, I may never again boast as if my Dutch ethnic blood really mattered in terms of who I am. I may never again boast of being a red-blooded American male. I may never again boast as if the American blood shed on the sacrifices of the world was that which gave my life meaning. The only blood in which I can boast these days is the blood of Jesus Christ that is putting together a new kind of people, a new kind of nation. Isn’t that marvelous? And it’s by sovereign grace. The same sovereign grace that we proclaimed about our individual lives. 

It says, “and He has made them a kingdom and priest.” This is my Calvinism coming through. “He has made them a kingdom and priest unto out God.” We can’t do it on our own. If left to ourselves, we’re stuck with the multiculturalism of Babel. But through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit that descended upon the church at Pentecost, there’s a new kind of peoplehood being put together and it’s your job and mine to get ready for that day by actively pursuing the unity of the church of Jesus Christ. 

And then finally, a very simple point. The blessed hope is a hope. It gives us strength to go on. I’ve got to tell you, this is my second conference this week. I think about the fifth time I’ve spoken in the last several days and it’s been very, I’m running on adrenaline and it’s great, but I’m tired. When I get on a plane later today, I’m going to read a novel. And the kind of novel I read, I like the spy thriller type novels. Those of you who are into the genre, love Clancy, Ken Follett. I’ve been reading David Baldacci recently. There’s a typical pattern in those novels. They’re usually something like 678 pages long and you get to page 339, and the hero is in big trouble. The house is surrounded by the enemy and the woman he loves is being held captive someplace else. And it’s not at all clear that there’s any human way that they’re going to get back together again. And I get into this, and I get a little tense, so you know what I do? I turn to the last page. I don’t want to read it very carefully because I really don’t want to know all the details, but I scan the last page. And I’m looking for two things, that he’s alive and that the two of them are back together again. When I read that on page 678, I can go back to page 339. I still don’t know how it’s going to go. It still is an interesting and in certain ways, a stressful read but I can go slowly through the plot with the confidence that it will be well in the end because I’ve seen the last page. 

And brothers and sisters, in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have a good word for you this morning. I’ve seen the last page, and it will be well. Jesus is going to come again. And when He comes again, there’s not going to be anymore planes crashing into towers in New York City. Not going to be anymore drive by shootings in the ghettos. Not going to be anymore AIDS, anymore cancer, anymore divorce, anymore parents that can’t talk to their children and vice versa. Not going to be anymore depression. There’s not going to be anymore grieving that tears our hearts away because Jesus is going to come again and when He comes again, He’s going to say, “behold, I make all things new.” And He’s going to wipe the tears from our eyes. And He is indeed going to make all things new. He’s coming again! Praise His name. We’ve seen the last page. 

“Oh Lord, haste the day when the fates shall be site and the clouds be rolled back like a scroll. The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend.” And may it be with each of us today that we can say, “even so, even so, even so, it is well, it is well with my soul.” Amen. 


>>Announcer:

You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timmothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, www.BeesonDivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast with aid and encourage your work, and we hope that you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Besson podcast.