Covenant Promise and Revival

Amos 3:7 famously tells us -

Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, but he reveals his secret unto his servants the prophets.

But God doesn't necessarily reveal his timetable immediately.

Over the years many prophets have spoken fine words of revival over the Scottish nation. Prophets like Jean Darnell who in 1967 who spoke of fires being lit in Scotland that would spread southwards with a fervour that would set light to the whole of Great Britain and spread across the world.

Well, 1967 was a few years ago, and although a few have faithfully held onto that word, many more have laid it aside - some even suggesting that Jean Darnell had missed God and spoken from a heart of well-meaning wishful thinking.

 

Today’s Church is very much coloured by the worldly tint of impatience and forgets that the instantaneous fulfilment of prophecy is far from the rule.

The same God who promised a 75-year-old Abram a son, did not fulfil his word until Abraham was 100. And when, years later Abraham took his son Isaac up Mount Moriah, to sacrifice him, God did not stay his hand until the knife was raised and ready to strike.

The same God who gave Joseph dreams of greatness, allowed him to be thrown down a well, stolen from his family, sold into slavery, falsely accused of attempted rape and flung into prison where he was forgotten and forsaken for years - even by those he had well-served. When fulfilment came, it came suddenly, but he did not become Prime Minister of Egypt overnight: Not until God’s timing was met.

 

In the Year of our Lord, Sixteen Hundred and Thirty-Eight, Scotland did something that no other nation outside of Israel has ever done before or since - the entire nation entered into a solemn Covenant with their Creator - In effect, Scotland married God.

A devout faction of Reformed believers - called the Supplicants - resisted the Crown and told the King, who was beginning to veer back to the Church of Rome that they would accept his rule over them just so long as he acknowledged the King of kings, Jesus Christ, as his Lord and King. Charles I was horrified. A Stuart monarch, he believed in the ‘divine right of kings’ and that a king was answerable to God alone, but he did not believe in the Supplanters’ vision of a king who was answerable to their God.

In 1638 Scotland and England still had their own separate parliaments, and Charles was engaged with the English parliament and Puritans such as Oliver Cromwell, so he was not happy at being withstood by his Scottish subjects. And on both sides of the Border, all of Britain was concerned at the influence of the Pope on British politics, because in those days the Pope was more than just a spiritual figurehead, he was also a secular prince with real political clout, who Reformers saw as a threat to their hard-won religious freedoms.

So in 1638, tensions rose in both kingdoms and, in Scotland, the harder King Charles pushed, the more the Supplicants resisted him. Finally, the Supplicants framed a National Covenant binding them in wholehearted allegiance to God, which was first signed at Greyfriars in Edinburgh on the 28^th of February, whereupon copies were distributed across the land to be sworn and signed by all. And if you couldn’t sign it, your mark would do, because the entire nation - from the highest born noble to the commonest servant was called upon to enter into solemn Covenant with God. And what’s even more remarkable, is that - almost to a man - they did! There was just one notable exception who refused to sign - King Charles I, himself.

Covenanters were banned from meeting and thrown out of their churches, so they met in open-air meetings in their thousands on Scotland’s moors and heaths, an on the Preaching Braes, in defiance of a king who would not bow his knee to his Lord.

Things were to get pretty nasty and days would come when Covenanters were shot and hanged and hunted down, but still would not recant their faith, but went to the gallows singing God’s praises, because a man‘s word in those days was given before God - and they preferred to die rather than face their Maker as perjurers.

But as things were only beginning to escalate and things had not gotten quite that bad, there came the political manoeuvrings, as king and Covenanter danced a political jig for control of the Kirk. And Covenanters were thrown into prison en mass. And that was where the Assembly of Glasgow enters the story.

This was the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland which convened in Glasgow in the November of 1638, where the National Covenant came into its own and the Covenanters effectively wrested control of the government of Scotland from the Crown.

 

The rest, as they say, is history. And the events that followed from those heady days had unforeseeably wide-ranging consequences, including the execution of Charles I, and eventually the establishment of the United States of America.

Genesis 1:14 tells us:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”.

 

This is not to be confused with Genesis 1:3, which reads:

And God said, “Let there be light”: and there was light.

The rabbinical understanding of verse 14 has always been that that the sun, the moon and the stars were placed in the heavens to provide more than just light. They were for man’s guidance, by allowing him to calculate and anticipate, not only the natural times and seasons, but the spiritual times and seasons, also.

Sabbaths, holy days, festivals and prophecies all hinge around the times and seasons marked by the heavenly bodies. And that is why, as I write this, I know not only that it is the 22^nd of September 2010, but that at sunset this evening begins the First Day of Sukkoth - the Feast of Tabernacles.

And that is why yesterday I had the most peculiar revelation from God.

 

The church where I am assistant pastor is New Hope Community Church in Wishaw. We meet in an old church building in Kenilworth Avenue that stands on what was once a Covenanter site, outside there are two plaques to a Covenanter who was killed nearby. And for some time my senior pastor, Marshall Cross, and I have felt impressed that it is God’s purpose to rekindle his Covenant and reignite the fire of passion for God.

Now, I by passion for God I don’t mean to suggest that we embrace or condone any of the violence or abuses that were perpetrated on both sides in the Seventeenth Century. The Covenanters were men and women of their time and in my view often strove too hard in their own flesh to achieve what should have been spiritual goals.

But it is important to remember that God is well able to look beyond our human frailties and into the heart hidden behind our all too fallible flesh. And there is no doubt that the Covenanters were uncompromising in their defence of their limited understanding of the Gospel, and it that zeal - if not always its manifestation that we admire.

After all, many innocent lives were lost in World War Two at the hands of British soldiers, sailors and airmen, but that doesn’t mean we should have avoided war and laid out the red carpet for Hitler. Had we done so, far more than the deplorable one third of all Jews killed in the Holocaust would have perished. And many of the ideas that the Covenanters stood and died for would have unanticipated consequences that resonated down through succeeding centuries, leading - as I mentioned previously - to the emergence as a nation, of the United States of America, as well as modern democracy, and the re-establishment of the modern state of Israel.

But it was a bloody birth.

So what about the revelation I mentioned earlier?

As I say, while Pastor Cross and I have no rose-tinted illusions that the Covenanters were men of undiluted grace, affection and mercy, we nevertheless recognise the zeal they carried borne out of the times in which they lived. And we were walking and talking of just these things last Sunday witha minister friend of ours, the Reverend Bill Mackie from Edinburgh - a man with whom we share the same vision.

On Tuesday, the Lord prompted me to revisit the Scottish National Covenant of 1638 where he would show me something remarkable, and I did so intending to post a quote on FaceBook. As I did so, a familiar story unfolded which did not seem much of a revelation, but I persisted in the hope that God would indeed reveal something startlingly new.

I read of the Covenant being signed at Greyfriars at the end of February, and of copies being distributed across the land, to be sworn and signed by all. Even if you could not sign, your mark would be accepted because the Covenant was for everyone - from the noblest lord to the humblest peasant. Andthe most remarkable thing about it was that - almost to a man - they did. With the one notable exception already mentioned - the king.

But it was at the Glasgow Assemblyon the 21st of November 1638, that the Covenanters effectively seized control of the Scottish government.

None of which was new, however. None of which was startling. Maybe I'd missed God, because I certainly saw no relevance in that date, but the Holy Spirit told me to look a little closer.

Then I remembered to adjust for the changeover from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which meant adding ten or eleven days. By making which adjustment it became Wednesday the 1st or Thursday the 2nd of December 1638 - and that meant it was the 25th of Kislev 5399 - Hanukkah - 'the Feast of Dedication' or 'Festival of lights'.

Hanukkah was observed by Jesus (John 10:22) and is commemorated by lighting the 9-branched menorah, remembering the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, and God's miraculous provision in keeping the Temple flame burning for eight days on just one day's supply of oil (symbolising the Holy Spirit).

That was the day that Scotland married God and, although she has long since walked away from her husband, he does not so readily forget or forsake his covenants.

Another interesting thing about Hanukkah is that it begins in the month of Hebrew of Kislev which may be translated as ‘Trust’ or ‘Hope’, in anticipation of the coming rains, while our church is called New Hope. It is also nicknamed the ‘Month of Dreams’ which reminded me of the prophet Joel, who said:

And it shall be afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also I will pour out my Spirit on the slaves and on the slave-girls in those days. (Joel 2:28-29)

Quaint, and possibly quite fanciful, but what relevance might such musing have for today?

Well, for one thing, it hadn’t been that obvious. In fact, the Hebrew association had been double-encrypted - obscured by both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Then there was a quite remarkable convergence, which any scholar conversant with the Hebrew calendar will recognise as rare, that today, in 2010, the first day of Hanukkah (the 25th of Kislev, 5771) begins at sunset on Wednesday 1st December until sunset on Thursday the 2^nd, in an extraordinarily precise mirroring of the Hanukkah of 1638: Day-for-day, date-for-date, on both the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars.

That is to say, there is a random, if slender, chance that the 25^th of Kislev will occasionally fall from sunset to sunset on the 1^st and 2^nd of December. But it is considerably less likely that this will coincide with Thursday and Friday. It’s not that any of these unusual events is so impossible that they could not have happened coincidentally, but that they have compounded upon each other in a way that has made the explanation of coincidence progressively less and less likely. So, it is in this light that the tenuous link between ‘Kislev’ and ‘New Hope’, or the 'Month of Dreams' and the prophet Joel has to be considered.

One coincidence is, well - most probably a coincidence. Two coincidences are beginning to look curious. But when coincidence is heaped upon coincidence, even I begin to take notice, just as Moses did in the Wilderness, in Exodus 3:1-4

And Moses was feeding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock behind the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the Angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire from the middle of a thorn bush. And he looked, and behold, the thorn bush was burning with fire, and the thorn bush was not burned up!

 

And Moses said, “I will turn aside now and see this great sight, why the thorn bush is not burned up.” And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the thorn bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!” And he said, “Behold me.”

That’s one of my favourite scriptures for teaching the importance of paying attention when God is moving. Notice the pivotal causal relationship:

Cause:

And Moses said, “I will turn aside now and see this great sight…

Effect:

And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him…

So, what is God going to do next? To be candid, I have no idea, but do know that he has a plan and a purpose, and I believe we have been invited along to take our part in it. Like Moses, we have seen something remarkable and turned aside to enquire more closely what it might be about.

Are we going to wrest the Scotland’s government from the Holyrood Parliament? - No!

Are we going to take to the hills and defy Crown? - No!

But we do believe that God has a destiny for Scotland - Not because we are a peculiarly good virtuous people - far fro it. But because God is a Covenant Keeping God (Psalm 89:34) and 372 years ago a whole bunch of Scottish folks swore an oath to him and married their nation to his Son.

We might take that lightly - or even with a pinch of salt - but in Matthew 12:36-37 Jesus very solemnly warned us that God does not.

But I say to you, that every idle word, whatever men may speak, they shall give an account of it in Judgment Day. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

And in Matthew 5:37, he added:

But let your word be Yes, yes; No, no. For the excess of these is from evil.

And don’t suppose that the same God who once warned Abraham that his descendants would spend four hundred years in Egyptian captivity (Genesis 15:13) would so easily forget a Covenant that a little nation once made with him only 372 years ago.

Yes, some of the language was a bit abrasive, but God has grace for that because men wrote the text not God, and at the heart of the Covenant was obedience, which means that God can dictate the terms on which that obedience is required - though love, and grace, and mercy.

So, is Scotland headed for Revival? I pray we are.

But before we can go there, we need to turn aside and heed what God is demanding of us first - which is to dig up the ancient wells (Genesis 26:18) and to rededicate the Temple, which this time round is no mere building of stone. But I’ll let apostle Paul tells it like it is, in 1 Corinthians 3:16-23,

Do you not know that you are a sanctuary of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?

 

If anyone corrupts the sanctuary of God, God will bring that one to corruption; for the sanctuary of God is holy, which you are.

 

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks to be wise among you in this age, let him become foolish, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; for it has been written, "He takes the wise in their own craftiness." And again, "The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are worthless."

 

So let no one glory in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.