Our scripture reading this morning we have in two places. First of all, in 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy 4, verses 1-8, and I'll read from the English Standard Version. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing." And then from 2 Samuel, Chapter 23, verses 13 through 17. 2 Samuel 23. And I begin at verse 13 again from the English Standard Version. And three of the thirty chief men went down and came about harvest time to David at the cave of Adullam, When a band of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim, David was then in the stronghold in the garrison of the Philistines, was then at Bethlehem. And David said longingly, Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate. Then the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem. that was by the gate and carried and brought it to David. But he would not drink of it. He poured it out to the Lord and said, Far be it from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it. These things the three mighty men did. Lord, we pray your blessing now upon Our meditations as we consider the passages we've read, we pray that you'll go with the exposition of it, that the things that are spoken may be true and edifying and that our hearts may be made ready to hear and receive and obey in faith. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Since the last time that I was with you, which I'm not sure, that was probably about a year ago, I have had an extra dimension to my life added in that I'm teaching a couple of hours a week at a Christian school, a 12th grade apologetics class. And for many years I have sort of ignored what is going on in the world of the new atheism. I guess it just has not interested me. I'm not interested in being an atheist. I guess I just get tired of the same old stuff. There's nothing new under the sun, and I don't expect people to come up with any radical new ideas that haven't already been thought of, and so there's a certain weariness about that kind of thing. Teaching a class in apologetics, I felt like, well, I guess I have to become a little more aware of what may be said today, even if it's the same thing that has been said before. It no doubt has been either said in new ways or new names have been attached to it. And those are the names that my students will run into, if not already, when they go to college. We listened to a couple of debates in class, one with Christopher Hitchens and the other with Richard Dawkins, again, people that I sort of gladly ignored before I began teaching the class. But one of the things that just really struck me was the blatancy of some of the assertions, I think both Hitchens and Dawkins, when they were objecting to their opponent's view, they said something to this effect, this idea of a God who demands a punishment for sin and would torture his son on the cross is such a petty idea or conception of God. And I had two reactions to that. And my first reaction is what you're calling petty, even if you have somewhat characterized the gospel, is actually the glory of God. What you call petty is the magnificence of God. The magnificence of a God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And the second reaction was, well if we're going to go down the skeptics road, and we're going to stand upon your presuppositions, who are you to decide what is petty? Who are you to decide and make that value judgment? Indeed, you stand in awe and wonder of the universe, awe and wonder at some of the things that are going on, that I can't begin to describe, black holes and all of these things that the physicists and astrophysicists talk about. I think some of their awe and wonder is not just what's going on in the universe, but awe and wonder at their own intelligence for trying to figure it out and model it. So I think there's a little bit of inward turning in their awe and wonder. But awe and wonder If you are a pure scientist, as you claim to be, and you want to honor the simplest explanation of the facts, then just observe the facts and skip the awe and the wonder. But that would take all the fun out of science. That would take all of the joy and the impetus of their calling. Because you see, there is awe and wonder in what God has done in me, and in black holes and in all of that stuff out there that I don't understand. But what they have done is they've transferred the awe and wonder that is appropriate to the Creator of all of those things, and they've transferred it to something that He has created. something that may indeed allow us to have awe and wonder as we look at what He has created, but it always points back to the Creator. So, if you're going to reduce everything down to the simplest facts, skip the awe and the wonder, just observe and comment, and do you really have to comment if you want to make it as simple as possible? It is what it is. That is a buzzkill for awe and wonder. That takes a lot of the joy out of it. Well, they have awe and wonder because the awe and wonder of the Creator is not so easily suppressed. It just gets transferred. But in those statements about the idea of a God who would exact punishment for sin being petty, I think there's another kind of wonder in that, as scientists love predictability, that kind of statement is entirely predictable in the context of 1 Corinthians 1. The cross is foolishness to those who perish. We could paraphrase it this way, the cross is petty for those who perish. Well, there's a mystery to the cross. It's not the same mystery that Dawkins and Hitchens stumble over. They stumble over the mystery that isn't all that mysterious, that God requires punishment for sin. Even unbelievers, many unbelievers don't lay awake at night mourning the death or the hanging of some Nazis at Nuremberg. It's not that hard of a concept to get a hold of. It's not that mysterious, but there is a mystery of the cross. Actually, several mysteries, many maybe mysteries. How is punishment like that transferable? And why would God bother? Why would God, who loves his Son, bother transferring the punishment that we deserve to his Son? Well, we can give partial answers to some of those questions. There is the idea of solidarity, that in our union with Christ, our sin is transferred to Him and His righteousness is transferred to us, but that just raises other mysteries. But there are mysteries that we see in the New Testament that have a prequel, a beginning in the Old Testament. And this morning we have one of those, I think, in 2 Samuel 23. It's the mystery of what looks like a very wasteful act on the part of David. I don't know, maybe I've used this illustration here before. I lose track of what I say in different places, but some of you may be familiar with the old Henry play around this time of year, Christmas season, where there's this young couple that are very much in love. but they're very poor and they each want to purchase a gift for the other. And the woman's chief treasure was her long, beautiful hair. And the man had one real treasure, and that was his pocket watch. And so what happens is, unbeknownst to the other person, the wife goes and sells her hair, lets it all get cut off, so she can buy a chain for his watch. And you know what he did. He sold his watch so he could buy some lovely combs for her hair. And I remember as a young kid saying, what a waste. Yes, I missed the point. I missed the point completely. But do you ever get the same feeling when you read about David here in 2 Samuel 23? Here are three heroes who have risked their lives so that he can get a drink of water from a well in Bethlehem and they bring back the water and what does he do with it? He pours it out on the ground. And I suppose from one vantage point, those three heroes might say, now why was it we risked our lives again? Why did we do that? But there is something so, I find personally true in some of the reactions of David here. On a more mundane level, I think there's something about the food and beverages of one's youth that get amplified and remembered as truly great when you get older. I remember going to the soda fountain and having a cherry coke where they actually made it there at the fountain and put the stuff in. My memory of it, whether it's a valid memory or not, is that was the greatest stuff I ever had. the tasty treats, kind of a ground beef sandwich that I remember having in high school beforehand. One place I always went to, and that was remembered as one of the best things I ever had, those things from my youth. And one day we were going back to visit family after I was married and had kids. I said, we've got to stop at this place and have this sandwich. And we went in there. I ate the sandwich and I said, what is this stuff? It was kind of a let down. But David had grown up in Bethlehem. He remembered the water of the well, perhaps after being there out in the fields watching sheep and parched throat. And he had grown accustomed to that food the way I suppose a lot of people in Baltimore have come to become accustomed to crabs, which maybe nobody else cares about but are beloved in Baltimore. And he had grown accustomed to that water. And there was this battle going on and he was thirsty. And it was that water because he was in the area. It came to his mind, and so he just sort of gives expression to this thought, oh, if I could have some of that water from that well. I'm sure there was that long experience that entered into part of his expression, but these three heroes, they take him seriously. You want the water? Okay, we'll go get it. And they risk their lives to get it. Here's what I find interesting. I think there's perhaps a structural parallel to something that happened earlier in David's life that may inform how he reacted here. And what I'm thinking of is the very famous, or maybe I should say infamous, example in David's life concerning Uriah. the Hittite in Bathsheba. David had yearned for something, only in this case he yearned for something that was not lawful. There was nothing wrong with yearning for the waters of the well of Bethlehem, but David, one day when perhaps he should have been in battle, sees this woman bathing and he lusts after her. And he takes her. And to cover his sin, he brings back the husband. Says, okay, you're on leave now, military leave. You have liberty. You know what soldiers do when they have leave or liberty? The married ones go home to be with their wives, hopefully. The unmarried ones don't always do the best things. So you're home on leave. Spend some time with your wife. And Uriah makes a kind of noble sacrifice that may not totally make sense. He's home on leave, but he doesn't go into his wife. Because he says, there are other men in the field that don't have that particular luxury. So I will voluntarily abstain from that luxury myself because I have a feeling of solidarity with them. I'm not sure that there was anything that would have been wrong with Uriah having relations with his wife, but he doesn't. Is that a needless, unnecessary sacrifice? I just characterize it as that man's particular sacrifice that is done out of love and loyalty, whether it was necessary or not. And so, this appears with the water of the well of Bethlehem to come sometime later in David's life. David had purposely placed Uriah the Hittite's life at risk. Now, as good Presbyterian, Reformed, Calvinistic type people, do we believe in risk? I would say yes. But it's risk that is underneath God's all-controlling providence. There's nothing risky for God. There's nothing of chance in God's world or universe. And yet God has ordained our lives in such a way, He's ordered things in this creation in such a way that we may properly talk about risk. If you drive 80 miles an hour through a school zone during school days and hours, you are engaging in a foolish risk. And there are some consequences which, if not absolutely inevitable, are probable and disastrous. And so there are risks that attend our decisions. And David calculated that he could put Uriah into the front line of battle, have troops withdraw, and the probabilities, although for God there's no such thing as probability from our standpoint, we can speak of it, the probabilities are that he would be killed. And that's what happened. And these three men took a risk And the providence of God spared them. The providence of God is the sort of thing that we cannot presume upon. But the providence of God is something we do depend upon. That's a mystery, how you put that together. Yes, God has looked out for fools like me who have done some stupid things that have presumed upon the providence of God. And so I depend upon it, but I should not presume upon it. You depend upon it, you should not presume upon it. There are things that we may call risks. In this case, the providence of God spared these three men's lives so they might deliver the water back to David, and David makes a different kind of decision this time. When he was more self-important, thinking that he's the king of Israel and Judah, and that the cause of his well-being was a little bigger than the cause of other people's well-being, perhaps this water would have been received and he would have said, yep, I'll take that water. Kings ought to be treated like kings. He doesn't do it this time. Perhaps somehow he was able to make the connection that he was not there to be served, but he was there to serve God and in serving God to serve his church or his nation. And so when this water comes back to him, he sees what a tremendous act of love and devotion that was incorporated in the action of these three men. And he basically, I think, says, I'm not worthy. But God is worthy of this gift. Now, God's not thirsty, so it doesn't do God all that much good in terms of a practical outcome. But what can we do that ever satisfies God's thirst or hunger or needs? He doesn't need us! But He's pleased to receive Whatever gift or sacrifice we may bring, whether it's two little pennies put by a child in the offering plate, or whether it's the heroic sacrifice of someone who gives his life on a mission field for the gospel, God's pleased to receive that gift. Paul talks, as he comes to the end of his life, about his life being poured out as a kind of drink offering, and that strikes me as an interesting parallel to 2 Samuel 23 here. It does seem like a waste viewed through the lens of practicalities, but service for God done from the heart of love, devotion and commitment is never a waste. I still remember Dr. Clowney speaking about those missionaries that went to Ecuador to bring the gospel to the Aka Indians. I think Jim Elliott and others. Killed killed before they could ever bring a word of the gospel. You might look at that and you might say, all that training, all that education, all those families affected, all that investment of time and energy, wasted. No. Not wasted. Wasted in the eyes of men who have their own particular value system as to what constitutes waste. Not wasted in the eyes of God, because in those lives given for the cause of Christ, whether it had an immediate effect or not, In those lies was an exhibition of the love of Jesus Christ who gave Himself for a people that is not particularly worth it. What kind of a bargain is that for the sinless Son of God to accumulate a hand for a multitude of sinners? It's a mystery. Of course, there is another side to the message. We don't remain sinners indefinitely. We experience some transformation here. And we experience sinless perfection in heaven. So there is something good that comes out of it. And there is something good that came out of Jim Elliot and those missionaries. It did provide and pave a way. for all their missionaries to come and have the gospel received. It may seem curious that their deaths were necessary. Why was that necessary, God? I don't know. I understand why the cross of Christ is necessary as a payment for my sins. I don't understand why God sees fit to allow certain sufferings that we might say He could take away. I venture to say there are many of you, maybe all of you, that have come to some point in your life where you say, I know all things work together for good to those that love God and that He's got a good purpose in mind for me and that I have all of this suffering, but He could do it without the suffering, couldn't He? He's all-powerful. I suppose in theoretical terms, He could. I don't know why He does it the way He does it. What I know is that His love is certain, and that what He does is wise. Necessary? That's getting into a mystery of who's better to run the universe, God or me? Well, you know the answer to that question. Who's better to run your life, God or you? You may think you are, but you should Step back and think about what your life might have been like before God broke into it and started to put it in order. Wasted offering? No. That's not what this water was that was poured on the ground. It was a taste of a better offering to come. An offering of love. and devotion first and foremost to the glory of God, but with great benefits to each and every one of us who have experienced the forgiveness and salvation that came from that offering of Jesus Christ. This is a time of year when you'll have the opportunity to give offerings. And yes, we sometimes in the promotional literature tell you what the practical good will be from them. Home missions, foreign missions, church extension, those ministries may be advanced, but it's not the practical good that is the first point of bringing an offering. Maybe those offerings would somehow be embezzled. No, I'm not accusing anybody in Little Grove, but would that mean any less in the eyes of God, in terms of your love, in your offering, if it didn't turn out to be used? Now let me hasten to add, I think it'll be used well. I think it'll be used well. But let's just get some perspective. Our lives are to be an offering to God. And whether we see what we think are practical good effects coming out of it or not, if they're done to the glory of God, that is a practical good effect in the eyes of God. Quorum day, before the face of God. That's what matters. Let us pray.