We Agents of The Lord

I was 13 years old when Hurricane Agnes caused the Flood of ’72 that ruined my home, along with the entire surrounding area. After devastating a large swath of Pennsylvania, the storm swamped much of upstate New York where I grew up, just above the Pennsylvania border.

I have many memories from that summer, of the kindness shown to my family, and of how my parents struggled to press on and rebuild. But I want to speak just now of one particular memory, about a young man who came to our muddy home. As I recall, he was wearing a white short sleeved shirt. I remember the clipboard in his hand and the pocket protector in his shirt.

He surveyed the damage and gave my dad a check for $5,000 – a grant to help rebuild and recover. He also told my dad he’d be eligible for a very low interest loan, as the costs to repair would easily exceed that grant. The young man then left, on his way to one of our devastated neighbors.

The young man wasn’t an eccentric and generous millionaire. He wasn’t handing out funds from his own bank account. President Nixon had declared our state a Federal Disaster Area. There is a formal process that is followed before a disaster area is officially declared. An assessment is made, based on eyewitness accounts and aerial reviews, etc. Once the need is established, the declaration is made. Such a declaration makes a huge amount of aid available to disaster areas and the victims living within it. The young man we encountered had been authorized to implement the Presidential declaration and deal out the aid it made available. I’m sure he was one of many authorized and sent out.

I am telling you about this incident from my past because it is a picture of the New Covenant and the Church Age in which we live. God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the disaster that is fallen humanity. He experienced the devastation firsthand and is palpably aware of the dire straits we face. The Triune God has declared our realm a disaster area and has made available more than enough of the treasure of heaven to overcome the wreckage and rebuild what has been destroyed. And He has authorized people to implement it, to make available the wealth of heaven and to deal it out.

Like all metaphors, mine only goes so far to approximate the reality we face. I won’t overstrain it. But this much is true: The Church is deputized, authorized, and equipped to overcome the devastation groaning all around us. We can approach anyone whose life has been wrecked by sin – their own; their parents’ sins that have harmed them; the harm others have done to them in sinning against them; the corrosion caused by the harm they have caused. All of it! And all its manifestations! We have all been damaged in our spirits, souls, and bodies. The provision of God in Jesus Christ can reach every ill in every nook and cranny of humanity.

But the Lord needs His agents to take both His good news and His provision to the devastated people mourning in their disaster areas. Moses was sent to the enslaved people of Israel not just with good news of deliverance, but with the delegated power to accomplish it. From his first encounter with Pharaoh to the splitting of the Red Sea after their exodus, Moses’ ministry was always marked by the miraculous. It always consisted of word and deed, of prophecy and power. God had come down to free His people, yet He involved His man in every step along the way, from his staff turned into a serpent to the lifting of that staff against the raging sea. Any miracle that did not flow through Moses directly, such as the final plague, was first declared by him.

Jesus also moved in word and deed. Nicodemus said he knew Jesus was a teacher sent by God because of the “signs” - attesting miracles - He performed. In his first anointed preaching, Peter told those gathered Jesus was “attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him among you” (Act 2:22). His earthly ministry was marked by miracles from His conception to His resurrection and ascension.

But just as Joshua followed Moses with the miraculous still in operation, so the Church has carried on in the miraculous after Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of Majesty. The Lord assured Joshua He would be with him as He had been with Moses. So also, Jesus assured His disciples that He would not abandon them, but would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. We accept the eye-witness accounts of the miraculous in operation in the Church after Jesus ascended just as we do the accounts of Jesus’ miracles. The notion that the miraculous dissipated away a few years later is as unscriptural as it is foolish.

If we were the Church of John the Baptist we would function as he did, for “John did no sign, yet everything John said about Jesus was true” (Jn 10:41). But we aren’t the Church of John the Baptist; we’re the Church of Jesus Christ. We are His many-membered body. We are His agents, authorized by Him to carry on His miraculous mission. He promised to be with us until the end of the age, not just until the bible was completed. His body isn’t paralyzed, neither has His arm grown short! The finger that cast out demons then can still cast them out today!

That young man with a pocket protector and clipboard wasn’t overly impressive. I don’t recall him being muscular or handsome. He didn’t speak with the voice of Walter Cronkite. He was an ordinary guy. Nor did he struggle to write that check. The flood mud didn’t oppose him; its stench didn’t slow him down; sadness and fear didn’t grab at the checkbook or swat at the pen. For him, it was a mundane moment and a simple act. For my family, it was life changing.

Christ has conquered and Christ has scattered His gifts abroad. We are His occupying force, implementing His rule and administering His aid. But “these signs follow and accompany them who believe” (Mk 16:17). Christians have carried what they believed across the centuries and across the continents. But how often was what they carried limited by unbelief? How often did they take less than they were allotted and administer less than was available?

“I don’t have silver or gold,” Peter said, “but what I have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Act 3:6) Why do so many Christians have confidence to preach in His name and baptize in His name but not heal in His name? Beloved, the lack isn’t in His name.

“The just shall live by faith.” Live by it. Work is a big part of our lives. From laundry and dishes at home to earning a living across town, work is a constituent part of our lives. Nor is this because of the fall. Man was tending to the garden before sin and will take charge of cities after sin is destroyed. But we are called to do this by faith. “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Christ in us is our hope of glory. We are supposed to be preaching a “glorious gospel” (1 Tim 1:11) – a gospel accompanied by glory. Therefore, I quoted Jesus earlier, that signs would “accompany” those who go for Him in faith.

As always, Theophilus, I write these things to stir us up to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24). These must be wrought in Christ, to demonstrate He is certifying us as His deputies, authorized to impose His grace and truth in this realm. Let’s not merely tell others about Him; let’s show them Him. He is still called Emmanuel, God With Us. His name remains Jehovah Shammah, The Lord is There (Ezek 48:35).

Then Moses said to the Lord, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. Indeed, how then can it be known that we have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?" (Exo 33:15-16)