Theological term
Portent
2 sermons · All terms
The Darkness and the Derelict
Mark 15:33–34 presents two interlocked realities at Calvary: the supernatural darkness over the land and the cry of dereliction from the lips of the Son of God. The darkness is both a portent of coming judgment upon the generation that rejected the Lord of glory and a sign of the terrible deprivation the suffering servant endured as God withdrew from Him. The cry — 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' — is examined under four questions: who is crying, why He cries, what He has done, and for whom, establishing that Christ was made the derelict so that all who believe in Him might never themselves be forsaken by God. The sermon closes with exhortations to fear the judgment if you reject Christ, to rest in the assurance that God will never forsake His people, and to never neglect the ordinances — especially the Lord's Supper — through which that assurance is sealed.
The Cleansing of the Temple, Part 1
Matthew 21:12–17 records Jesus entering the temple and driving out the buyers and sellers — an act that is neither impulsive nor isolated but stands as a prophetically scripted portent of divine judgment on apostate Israel. Drawing on Haggai 2, Zechariah 14, and Malachi 3, the sermon establishes that Christ's entrance into and cleansing of the temple fulfils the office of prophet-king-priest announced across the post-exilic writings, and that the glory of this latter temple infinitely exceeds Solomon's because Christ himself is the temple. Three ecclesiastical implications follow: the purity of divinely authorized worship is a primary concern of God; the church must pursue faithful obedience over popularity; and hypocrisy — living in sin while invoking the covenant — is precisely what the temple cleansing condemns.