November 13, 2005

End Time 3 (Saints Triumphant)

In the 1930s, Joe Wise was a young, single doctor at Cook Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.  Patients called him the “doctor with the rose.”  He made them smile by pinning a flower from bedside bouquets on his lab coat.

Madge, however, needed more than a smile.  The automobile accident had left her leg nearly severed at the knee.  She was young, beautiful, and very much afraid.  When Joe spotted her in the ER, he did something he’d never done before.  Joe took his lab coat, with the rose on it, and placed it gently over the young woman.  As she was wheeled into the operating room, the coat was removed, but she asked to keep the flower.  When she awoke from surgery, it was still in her hand.  Being covered with that cloak of love meant a lot to Madge.  She never forgot Joe.

Being covered up when we are weak or lonely or cold or tired is always a very comforting thing.  I am sure you remember being tucked in by your mother or father.  I am sure you have felt that kind of love from someone before.  Being covered with the clothes of love.

Your finest cloak of love, however, came from God.  Never thought of your Creator as a clothier?  Adam and Eve did.  Every clothing store in the world owes its existence to Adam and Eve.  Ironing boards, closets, hangers – all trace their ancestry back to the Garden of Eden.  Before Adam and Eve sinned, they needed no clothing.  After they sinned, they couldn’t get dressed fast enough.  They hid in the bushes and began making a wardrobe out of fig leaves.

They craved protection.  As they should have!  They knew the consequences of their mistake.  God had warned them, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden…or you will die.”  Of course, the one tree they were told not to touch was the one they couldn’t resist, and as soon as they did disobey God, it brought in a whole flood of consequences.

One of which was shame.  Adam and Eve had felt no shame.  Then they felt nothing but.  So they hid, and then they began sewing, but the covering was insufficient.  Didn’t help much.  What protection is found in a grove of trees when God is looking for you?  What protection is found in a fig leaf?  Adam and Eve found themselves, like Madge, vulnerable on a gurney – wounded, not by a car, but by their own sin.

What would God do?  Hadn’t He announced his judgment?  Hadn’t his law been broken?  Didn’t justice demand their death?  Is He not righteous?  He is.  But He is also LOVE.  And so He preached his first Gospel sermon in Genesis 3:15.  He would send a Saviour to defeat the devil and make things right between God and man again.  He preached his second Gospel sermon in Genesis 3:21:  “The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them.”  You’ve heard that before but listen again!  Isn’t it powerful?

It tells us three things.  FIRST:  God slays an animal.  For the first time in the history of the world, dirt is stained with blood.  Innocent blood.  The beast committed no sin.  The creature did not deserve to die.  Adam and Eve did.  The couple deserve to die, but they live!  The animal deserves to live, but it dies!  Innocent blood is shed!

SECOND: Clothing is made.  The Creator of the universe now becomes a tailor!

THIRD:  God clothed them.  He dresses them!  Imagine it!  Adam and Eve are on their way out of the garden.  They’ve been told to leave, but now God tells them to stop.  “Those fig leaves,” He says, shaking his head, “will never do.”  And He produces some clothing.  But He doesn’t throw the garments at their feet and tell them to get dressed.  He dresses them Himself.  As a mother would dress a toddler.  As a father would zip up the jacket of a preschooler.  As a physician would place a lab coat over a frightened girl.  God covers them.  He protects them.

Hasn’t God done the same for us?  We’ve eaten our share of forbidden fruit.  We say what we shouldn’t say.  Go where we shouldn’t go.  Pluck fruit from trees we shouldn’t touch.  And when we do, shame rushes in.  And we hide.  We sew fig leaves.  Flimsy excuses.  See-through justifications.  We cover ourselves in good works and good deeds, but one gust of the wind of truth, and we are naked again. – stark naked in our own failure!

So what does God do?  Exactly what He did for our parents in the garden.  He sheds innocent blood.  He offers the life of his Son.  And from the scene of the sacrifice, the Father takes a robe – not the skin of an animal – but the robe of righteousness.  And does He throw it in our direction and tell us to shape up?  No!  He dresses us Himself!  He dresses us with Himself.  “You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ.”

The robing is his work, not ours!  Did you note the inactivity of Adam and Eve?  They did nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  They didn’t request the sacrifice; they didn’t think of the sacrifice; they didn’t even dress themselves.  They were passive in the process.  So are we.  We have been saved by God’s grace alone!  He covered us with the clothes of His love!

We hide.  He seeks.  We bring sin.  He brings a sacrifice.  We try fig leaves.  He brings the robe of righteousness.  And we are left to sing the song of the prophet: “He has covered me with clothes of salvation and wrapped me with a coat of goodness, like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding, like a bride dressed in jewels.”  (Isaiah 61:10).  We get to join the choir of those dressed in white robes of righteousness in our text in Revelation!  Praising God for the rest of our lives with all the saints!  We are the saints triumphant!  The victory is ours!  Saints – holy people – because what God sees now when He looks at us is one thing – perfection.  The perfection of the robe He gave us to wear.  The robe of righteousness.  The clothes of love.

Dr. Joe Wise had covered Madge with the clothes of love.  You want to know how that story ended?  You want to know how she thanked Him?  She returned his love.  They were married a few years later!  And enjoyed that relationship for over forty years.  She became his bride because he had clothed her with the cloak of love. 

We have become God’s bride.  Because He clothed us with his love and forgiveness.  He promised us his love for all eternity.  When He looks at us, He sees only what is beautiful to Him!  Because of Jesus.  We are the object of his love and will be forever!  Saints triumphant!  Amen.

(Thought content from this sermon taken from Max Lucado’s “A Love Worth Giving.”)

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