On the Brink of Loss

I grew up during the Cold War.  The US and the former Soviet Union were engaged in a deadly dance of what was called "brinksmanship."  How close could we get to an all-out nuclear war?  Could we pull back from the brink in time?  Then you add the policy of MAD--Mutual Assured Destruction.  So, the idea went, if we did not pull back in time, and we went to war, we would bomb each other so effectively, that there would be no winning.  Both countries would be refuse dumps.  If anyone did survive, the world would be enveloped in a perpetual nuclear winter and to quote REM: "It's the end of the world as we know it."

Was it that very idea of a war with no winners and a decimated planet that kept us perched on the brink, not venturing out because the cost was too high?  We were humbled by Trinity, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Russia's "Tsar Bomba" with a projected yield of 100 megatons.  100 megatons.  If that doesn't keep you from getting too bellicose with your enemy, nothing will.  

So, despite the threat of nuclear war, I grew up in a world where the possibility existed but didn't happen, because the outcome was just too horrendous.  

The prospect of what humans had created actually made us stop and think that deployment was a death warrant writ large for humanity.  

So when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, I breathed a sigh of relief along with the rest of the world.  As a little kid, I heard my mom tell of a TV repairman who came to our house and told her that he and his wife had made it "over the wall."  I didn't comprehend what that meant as a six-year-old, but as an adult, the wall tumbling down, like a modern Jericho, meant we were done living on the brink.

But I have seen another kind of war--a war again with brinkmanship.  How close can we come to sharing the gospel without driving the person away?  In other words, we don't actually go to war over someone's soul--we just lure them into church with a culturally relevant service, with a worship team's musical effort duplicating a rock concert and a pastor that is hip, up to date and tells stories and makes jokes.  We will talk about Jesus more as a Life Coach--someone who wants you to live your best life.  

Don't talk about the yucky bits--hell, eternity apart from God and how Jesus had to die to secure our salvation.  The early church talked about His death, burial and resurrection--for that was earth- and heaven-shaking news.  But I have sat in enough churches that are seeker-friendly and in their effort to keep people coming back, the gospel is preached, but the overall message is filled with lots of funny stories, props and video clips, to soften that hard label of "sinner." 

So, this brinksmanship of not offending the culture but trying to preach Jesus but don't drive people away but people need Jesus but if they don't come back they won't get saved but don't emphasize hell and maybe put away the offensive cross from the front of the church but sing songs with concert lighting and smoke machines to create an experience but keep the message light and make people feel welcomed but avoid those hard-hitting Biblical passages about...well...you get it.

But having been on the brink for a while, we see a lot of churches and a lot of Christians who are focused on themselves.  I knew I was in trouble in a previous church when we changed the name from "worship service" (focus on God) to "Sunday experience" (focus on self).  The pastoral staff was sincere, but every Sunday, we stood on the brink.  Yes, Jesus was preached but we never said or did anything that would make anyone feel that the gospel was confrontational.  The main campus pastor even used a stuffed bear up on an altar to discuss what a sacrifice was.  I think.  I was so horrified at the lack of sensitivity to the sacred I really don't remember.  

So, standing on the brink of just enough Christianity to call ourselves Christians reminds me of what Jesus confronted when He began His ministry.  

He was appalled at what the religious leaders had done to His Father's faith.  The Law was drowned in minutiae of how little a person could get away with and still be obedient.  The leaders had cozied up with the Romans so they could operate the Temple with little to no interference.  The people were  burdened with no hope or consolation from the faith in the One True God, because the leaders misrepresented what God demanded of His people.  

Their brinksmanship led the leaders to crucify the very Servant that Isaiah extolled in order to keep the Romans at bay:  

"But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. [Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead] If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”

Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” (John 11:46-50)

The leaders' policy of brinksmanship prevailed a while until 70 AD, when everything the leaders thought was important was destroyed by the very people they had sought to accommodate all those years before.

We dodged the bullet of an all-out nuclear exchange.

The Jews did not dodge the bullet of the Roman empire's fury.

We have stood on the brink for a long time now, accommodating the culture under the pretext of making Christianity relevant.  What do we have now?  Churches that are branded, packaged, streamed and extol rockstar pastors who get people in and keep 'em in--that bigger is blessed and pleasing to God.  Right?

Who, on the other side, is playing the part of the Soviet Union, as it were.  It's an increasingly hostile culture in America towards Christians and their "intolerant" views on Biblical teachings.  The litmus test on whether or not a church person (pastor, singer, teacher) will be acceptable is their position on homosexuality and transgender issues.  If we are vague enough or accommodating enough, we get to go on talk shows, as if that is the highest achievement we can have as modern American Christians.  Woe to someone who stands on the Word without compromise, as Jesus did.

He paid dearly for His intransigence against the prevailing culture of His day as to what was acceptable. 

We are to be messengers, upholding the Word of God with no apologies or back pedaling.  But we are not willing to pay the cost.  Hence, we continue to stand on the brink of truth of the gospel. 

The culture glares at us from the other side.  

The Jewish leadership sadly found out that you cannot sustain accommodation with the values of the world.  At some point, the culture will demand that Christians choose.

I don't know what the bullet that is coming will be, but I don't think we will dodge it. 

Redemption's Operation

I am sure that everyone, in one way or another, is suffering.  I am positing that this planet is a war zone, and like all war zones, suffering is all too common, and kindness is shown far too infrequently, given the magnitude of the suffering.  

"The Diameter of the Bomb" captures how suffering afflicts not just those nearest an event but how it ripples out and touches more and more people.  The poem is by Yehuda Amichai, a modern Israeli poet.

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.

Isn't that we reaction we all have, as the pain rolls out and we suffer more and more, that God is either outside the circle of our suffering or perhaps He doesn't even exist?  Circles are measurable--their diameters--yet suffering defies basic geometry and having made the circle so big, is it possible that even God cannot be in it or is beyond it?

God cannot be measured; if He is defies space and time in His majesty, how can He be unaware of what we are going through in space and time? 

I used the analogy of the D-Day invasion that God did leave the eternal courts of heaven, and stepped into space and time.  He wrapped Himself in flesh and blood, narrowing His circle down to one human being: a poor carpenter's son from Nazareth.  

His birth was both celebrated and condemned.  From the East, three kings appeared at the door of a humble house with gifts fit only for a king.  Another king, in a jealous rage, ordered his men to appear at the door of every house in Bethlehem, and search out all baby boys.  The streets under that star were filled with wailing and that star was reflected in small pools of blood.

That Baby's entrance into this war zone was marked by the murder of innocent children.  His cousin would be executed years later; His followers would be executed themselves.  He, too, would fall under the murderous gaze of the authorities, and would die a hideous death.  

You step onto the shores of planet Earth and you step into sin, atrocity and death.  Sin is well fortified here, just as the Germans were on the beaches of Normandy.  The beaches were lined with German embankments and the Allies were mowed down on what became known as The Longest Day.  As these soldiers disembarked, they knew that they would most likely die.  Yet, they stepped off those landing crafts anyway.  10,000 did die.  But they kept coming, moving up the beach and coming down out of the sky behind enemy lines. 

That is what Good does.  It steps off the landing craft and goes into the chaos with only one goal: victory.  Evil cannot be partially conquered; it must be utterly removed.  Good keeps on coming despite whatever Evil throws at it.  

Jesus knew that redeeming this sin-zone, war-zone planet would be costly.  The destruction is so widespread that no one escapes it--Jesus included.  Evil's fortifications were everywhere, starting with the murder of those Bethlehem boys.  

Jesus' healing ministry put Hell on notice that such evil had an expiration date.  Demons throwing children into the fire, women selling their bodies, disfigured lepers, sons lying in coffins, daughters dying on cots in poor homes, greedy tax collectors, corrupt religious leaders, decadent kings, amoral governors, rapacious insurrectionists--all were present on God's "D-Day"--the Son landed and He would fight to the end to bring about a final conquering of sin and death.

But Jesus didn't direct this redemption operation from a bunker far away from the battle lines.  He Himself was on the front lines: He drove out demons;  He forgave broken women; He raised those sons and daughters from death; He enlisted tax collectors; He decried corrupt religious leaders; He stood in front of kings and governors; His life was swapped for an insurrectionist and He died a criminal's death, having personally committed no crime. 

Our suffering results in loss--of friends, family, children, peace of mind and security.  We are appalled at just how far the enemy reaches into our lives and into our circle.  

Jesus experienced loss, over and over again.  Having sacrificed Himself to paid the wages of humanity's sin and having risen from the dead, He now truly knows what it means to suffer as a human being.  

Knowing how evil operates on this planet--without cessation and without mercy--He stepped on the shores of our Normandy anyway.  He knew He would die.  His Father told Him so as He bid heaven good-bye.  His Torah told Him: sacrificial death is required to reconcile a sinful people to Almighty God. Isaiah told Him: The Suffering Servant would be so disfigured by sin's fury that we would not even recognize Him.

But He came anyway.

This, for me, puts suffering into perspective.  I will not blame God--that is tantamount to blaming the Allies for World War II, not Hitler and his evil minions.

I will not say God ordained the evil or allowed it--that is tantamount of saying the Allies watched and allowed Hitler free rein, and while they could have stopped him at anytime, they did not. (Yes, I know.  The failure of the US to respond earlier to Hitler proved to be catastrophic--the US could have intervened much earlier but because of the isolationism resulting from World War I, it stayed out only until Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Yes, I know: The US provided the Allies with war materiel before we actually stepped in, but our overwhelming manpower could have made a difference earlier on--a kind of manpower blitzkrieg back on the Nazis before they became so entrenched.)

Don't we have contempt for nations that stand by and do nothing, when evil is released and those nations that could intervene do not?  Why then do we ascribe that same callous lack of intervention to God, all in name of His sovereignty?   

Jesus' mission, to rescue us from sin and death, tells us that our planet needed rescue from those very things:

• "He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds." (Titus 2:14)

• When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
  
  'Where, O death, is your victory?
  Where, O death, is your sting?'
  
  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
  
  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:54-58)

I highlighted that last portion to encourage us in these days where suffering seems relentless and loss abounds.   

We have Suffering Servant who stands beside us, and says, "Yes. I know.  I suffered deeply while I was here.  I overcame.  So shall you, because I did and I now live in you."

The Bookends of Suffering: Calvinsim and Prosperity Gospel

I am delving into the matter of suffering.  No one voluntarily enrolls in the School of Job.  We walk past its gate, hoping our name is not called to come in and sit down.  As soon as suffering invades our lives, we are not any different than our founding father of the human race, Adam.  We engage in blame.  Look how Adam and Eve responded to God's inquiry (He knew about them having eaten the fruit on the tree) and how they will not take personal responsibility for their actions:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Gen. 3:8-13)

Our need to blame is driven by a deep fear: the fear of exposure, a glaring light shining right into our shame.  It's not just the guilt we are feeling--guilt results from knowing that we have done something wrong.  Shame results from believing we are past redemption; no good; worthless and one big mistake.  No one wants to feel that way, so we submerge that shame under blaming someone or something, redirecting that glaring light elsewhere. 

Adam blamed God and Eve:  He gave Eve to him and she was the one handing him the fruit.  Eve, unwilling to stand in the light, blamed the serpent.

Nothing has really changed since that day when God shines His light into our lives and our lies, and we immediately redirect the attention elsewhere.  Adam blamed God.  We blame God.  We reason that because He is in charge of the universe, His hand must be involved in whatever takes place, whether good or bad.  In fact, we even created a theology that if examined carefully, have God aiding and abetting felonies on a truly horrendous scale and quite often.

I have had friends throughout the years who are Calvinists.  I am wary of adhering to any -ist or -ism with a human name in front of it as a theological lens, but I have enjoyed conversing with my friends who are -ists.  

Many years ago a pastor friend of mine loaned me a book on Calvinism, hoping I would see the light.  One sentence struck me like a thunderbolt: The author thanked God he was not born a Hottentot (the beleaguered South Africans whose lives were made miserable by European apartheid), implying that God had ordained him to be white and in control.  I was shocked.

Another friend said to me in all sincerity, speaking of her closet friend who had been raped when she was four, "So-and-so has had a hard time accepting that God had ordained her rape."  What?

So if God is in control, everything that occurs on this planet is ordained by Him.  Rape of children.  The Holocaust.  Name your 20th century genocide.  Serial killings.  The list goes on and one, and in their effort to acknowledge God's sovereignty, such believers step right into Adam's shoes,  placing God at the scene of the crime, and His complicity in it.

One day, I was invited by this friend to a play celebrating Martin Luther and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  The play consisted of Luther debating the Pope. (Not historical in fact, but oh well.)  Of course, the pastor as Luther got all the great lines, and the woman's son was the Pope, barely able to stand up under the machine-gun fire responses wrought by Luther. (Kind of an odd morality play to watch in this day and age.)  

After the play was over, as we booed the Pope and clapped for Luther (I refrained), the pastor asked the audience if we had any questions.  I asked him why Luther had descended into a virulent antisemitism in his later years, even to the point of suggesting that Jews should be locked inside their synagogues and burned.  He said that was a regrettable position that Luther had taken.  Hmmm. Later I approached him privately and asked him if he knew about the judensau on many Lutheran churches in Germany, and how there is a debate whether to leave them in tact to teach history, or remove them, due to their highly offensive nature.  He didn't now about them, and when I explained that carved into stone on these churches' wall is a Jew sucking milk from a pig's teat, he looked horrified.  

In this church's effort to celebrate the theology of Calvin and Luther, they had to sneak past history and human suffering very quickly, to get to the intellectually satisfying position that God is in control and ordains everything that happens to us. 

It is very comforting to say, "God willed this."  Or equally say, to the person who is reeling in a tragedy, "God ordained this."  On other words, the fear that our suffering has no meaning and that terrible things happen on this planet randomly, is an abhorrent idea to people who love God and want Him to be in control.  Their fear drives them to ascribe to God culpability for everything, even if it means having Him preside over the rape of a child.    

I am sure some of you will be offended at how much I have reduced Calvinism and Lutheranism. But theology in the seminary is not where the average person lives and breathes, and sweeping dogmatic statements implicating God in criminal behavior needs to be confronted. Yes, both reformers had some good insight into the Bible, but those who have inculcated their views into a daily way of seeing how God works has left me deeply saddened.

But wait!  There's more.  John Piper has identified prosperity gospel as American Christianity's biggest import and is very upset by that.  He feels that it misrepresents the Gospel and when this theology fails, people will move away from God altogether.  I respect him for that.  (Yes, I know he is a Calvinist.  I can still learn from him, even if I disagree with his theological lens.)  The Third World is awash in prosperity gospel preachers, and its appeal is understandable.  The fear your life is ordained, with all of its pain and suffering, is not very appealing, especially when the future looks as bleak as the present.  God's ordaining of your suffering may give it meaning, yes, but in the long run, such a life has little hope in it.  So, what is the answer to suffering?  Instead of placing the responsibility on God, prosperity gospel teachers teach that you haven't yet applied the Laws of Prosperity!  Your suffering comes from your ignorance and now, all you must do is exert your faith and access God's wealth.  Of course, the best way is to tithe money into such a church and God will multiply it over and over for you!  You just need to exert your faith, BOOM! Wealth, health and a prosperous life are yours!

So, according to this theology, your faith is the antidote for suffering.  God ordains, in this theology, a life blessed beyond measure, especially in the material realm, where we live.  So hunger, disease, poverty and suffering are just a big cosmic misunderstanding, and once enlightened, heaven comes down to earth via our faith! 

You may be thinking at this point, Wow, Rhonda, isn't this a bit unfair?  Boiling down a response to suffering as believing either God ordained it or we have the power to change it with our faith--isn't that being a bit reductive? 

No.  I don't think so.  The American church is replete in prosperity theology and our megachurches are awash in its teaching, in some form or another. Many of the Calvinists I have talked to see their theology as a way to strike back at the prosperity gospel, by putting God back on His sovereign throne.  They eagerly want to pull down what they see is presumption parading as faith and toss it in the trash heap.  They agree that God wants our faith, but ultimately, even if we have all the faith in the world, if our child is sick and is going to die, because God wills it, our faith will not have any impact.  The Calvinists revile this faith in faith way of thinking, and the prosperity types don't want a God that doesn't want the best for them in this world, not just in the world to come. 

In this time we are going through, with Covid-19 on the rampage (despite our overwhelming desire to bring back the normal, by not wearing masks and sitting in church) we are faced directly with suffering and we want to cope with it.  Meaninglessness only lasts so long; no one wants to sit and their cosmic lunch alone.  For us to endure suffering in life, we want a meaningful explanation, one that gives us hope and encourages us to face another day.  

I am hoping as we explore suffering, to offer a model that was inspired by a scene in the series, Band of Brothers.  

One of the soldiers, who has driven ahead of the company, is rushing back to tell the sergeant that he needs to come and see something.  The sergeant wants to know what the soldier has seen, but the soldier just can't seem to explain it.  The company pulls up to a barbed wire fence, where gaunt, skeletal men slowly come up to the fence, in stripped uniforms.  The sergeant wants to know what's going on; one of the soldiers, who speaks German, is trying desperately piece together what the inmates are telling him.  More and more people gather and the stench of the camp invades the senses of the soldiers.  They have no idea what they have found, for this is no Geneva Convention guided POW camp; something is horribly wrong, and the Americans who have arrived are completely dumbfounded as to what they are seeing.

We know.  We want to reach in and tell the soldiers this is the real war that Hitler wanted: the utter elimination of the Jewish people.  The D-Day invasion, of which these soldiers have been a part, was only part of the war effort.  But as one soldier realizes, who earlier had been complaining about why they have been fighting so hard, this is why:  to stop this unspeakable evil.  He gets it and at the end, so do we.  This was truly a crusade to stop not just a war but the wholesale slaughter of humanity.

Now, the model that I will be exploring is one of our planet as being one big war zone, with unspeakable evil occurring daily.  The planet was invaded by an evil when Adam and Eve handed it over to the enemy, who had promised them so much and who then gave them a legacy of evil and destruction.  His job, from the moment Adam and Eve took that apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, instead from the Tree of Life (God's wisdom and ways) was to "steal, kill and destroy." (John 10:10)

Jesus stepped into this war zone to retake the planet, one soul at a time.  Suffering is an intrinsic part of war zones.  We will examine how suffering is part of this planet, pure and simple, and the hope is in Jesus and how we follow Him through the chaos.  

Stick with me. 

 

 

Enrolling in the School of Job

Why do people suffer?  This question has rang down the ages like a cry in the dark that will not stop.  Every generation, from Adam and Eve crying over their dead son, Abel, to the survivors of genocide, and everyone in between, have asked that question.  Sometimes, the heavens are silent, as if God wants us to leave a message and the time that we called, and He will get back to us.

It's a legitimate question with no easy answers.  But recently, I have been compelled to ask it and seek those answers.  In fact, it is that very question that drove me into the arms of Jesus.

When I was in the 8th grade, our teacher was on an exchange program with a teacher in Palo Alto, California.  I was living in Hawaii, having moved there a few years earlier from Los Angeles.  This new teacher wanted us to learn about the Holocaust.  This wasn't a new subject to me; my parents talked all the time about the atrocities of World War II.  The movie "Exodus" had a profound effect on them, and how Israel was the only safe place for the Jews.  They mentioned the tortures done to the Jews in the camps; it seemed as if they still couldn't believe something like that could happen on their generation's watch.  But it did and they discussed it with an impressionable young girl, who tried in her imagination to see what has gone on.

Then came this teacher with a movie.  Real images to replace the vague imaginings I had concocted; bodies in pits, closets with heads stacked inside; more pits, and more bodies.  Dismembered body parts, stacked up like cord wood.

This threw me into a deep quest to understand such a horrific event.  I read The Diary of Anne Frank, but that is comfortable history; people hiding, a girl falling in love.  There is no diary that describes what happened to her once she was arrested, deported in a train and died a painful death of typhus in a squalid camp.

I couldn't believe that the God of my Sunday School, and my 50's parents' faith of do the right thing and love America could possibly have overseen such an event without any intervention.  Where was America?  Where were my parents?  Where was God?

I then decided that there could be no God.  Yup.  I declared myself an atheist and had to eat my cosmic lunch alone.  But then it stuck me:  The people who perpetrated such horrors literally got away with murder.  If this earth and its justice system was it, then any kind of justice meted out was paltry in comparison to the enormity of the crime and the numbers of who were involved.

So, I made my way back to God.  Who is He?  Buddhism seemed a good choice, because in Hawaii, that religion is prevalent.  But a quiet individual, seated like a lotus with his eyes closed, seemed too far removed from the heads in the closet.

Then, I pursued Judaism.  I wanted to desperately understand why the Jews had been so mercilessly hunted down and killed.  The God of the Jews was familiar from my Sunday School days; my parents had long stopped going to church, but I remembered the lessons. So, I read every book in our school library about Judaism, Israel and Hitler.  

I desperately wanted to believe that God would comfort the broken lambs and punish the wolves.  What to do?

For a class project, I had to write a biography of a famous person.  A good friend of mine had been telling me about Jesus, and to read the New Testament.  In my wisdom, I declared that the New Testament had been written by Christians, so it was unreliable and biased.  Then came the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar.  Oh wow.  Music and a Jesus who railed against injustice was a potent mix to my searching heart.  Alright then: My biography project would be on Jesus Christ.  But no Bible as a source; I used many books from our school's library.  I wrote a long paper and made a poster of the highlights of His life.  

Now, I faced a conundrum:  I loved Judaism, but this Jew with the fire in his eyes and his call to stand up against evil was far too compelling to ignore.  One night, having laid a Star of David and a cross on my nightstand, I prayed that God would move the one He wanted me to follow.  The room filled with such a warmth and presence that I knew I had met God.  Personally.  Deeply.  I was forever changed.  

My heart's quest had been fulfilled.  I had met the One who had not forgotten this earth, its inhabitants, nor its evil.  He has not been a spectator, but as C.S. Lewis observed, He invaded this planet in the person of His Son, Who, like the troops on D-Day, has been taking back the planet from its evil empire one soul at a time.  

I have been on a quest ever since to reconcile the goodness of God with the immense evil on this planet.  Enroll with me in the School of Job to explore the nature of suffering.  I don't know exactly where we will go, but the Holy Spirit wants us to be bold adventurers and seek truth, no matter where it leads.  

Because, ultimately, a genuine search will lead us back to the One who calls Himself, "Truth."

Will we answer the question of "Why do we suffer?" Maybe yes. Maybe no.  But I have found the one thing such a search brings is a deeper understanding of God, and our relationship to Him.  That alone is worth the journey.

The Best Church Money Can Buy

Let's join Jeremiah in chapter 5 as God gives him an assignment: 

Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares.
If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.
Although they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ still they are swearing falsely. (5:1-2)

Why Jerusalem?  It contained the megachurch of its day--the Temple--and it was the spiritual power center and focal point of the Jewish people.  It had it all, with lots of leaders who knew the Law and all its intricacies.  King David ruled from here. The spiritual leaders led.  The people followed.  But there was a serious problem.  Truth was not in operation, despite all the appearance to the contrary.  Jerusalem looked spiritual enough, with all the hustle and bustle of religious activity. Solomon spared no expense and this megachurch gave the Jewish people a tremendous sense of pride--after all, this was God's House.  It was alive and well.  Was it?  It was alive, but not well.  Jeremiah was asked to search for truth in His people.  The God argued that no one in His city was honest.  God saw into the people's hearts and despite outward religious behavior, they lacked honesty.  Honesty is integral to God's character; He cannot and will not lie.  Those who call upon His name must reflect His character. Jeremiah responds with a rhetorical question, and then makes an observation: 

Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?  You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction.  They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.  I thought, 'These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.' (5:3-4) 

He is mystified why, despite all of God's efforts to correct His people, they refuse to repent.  Jeremiah is giving them some latitude, based on their poverty. Solution?  Jeremiah will seek out those at the top and in doing so, confronts a terrible truth: 

So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God. But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds. (5:5)

What "yoke" had been discarded?  What "bonds" had been cast away?  The leaders--with "one accord"--had thrown away truth.  Truth about what?  The prophet Micah put it succinctly: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)  Those hallmarks of His people were missing.  Why?  Because the leaders had decided that truth had gotten in way of doing great things for God. They might have argued, The Temple is still standing, Jerusalem is still operational, so truth is not necessary to keep a society functioning.  People are being religious and we are still chosen, so let's do what is pragmatic, expedited and popular.  Truth is time-consuming to teach and follow; let's keep the greater good in mind, and if we have to cut corners to do so, well, hey, we are still doing big things for God.

At our core, we are still fallen beings.  Jesus will give us a new heart, but the old sin nature lurks predatorily under the surface.  Paul, in Romans 7, laments this very fact.  Even if we start out sincerely, with our born-anew heart, our prideful self, fed by the Big Time (bigger must be blessed) will eventually take over and destroy us.  God summarizes the Jerusalem leaders well: "for their rebellion is great, and their backslidings many." (5:6) This word "implies repeated apostasy." (NIV Study Bible).  This is not where people make a mistake here and there, or where their sinful nature has kicked in temporarily--it is a repeated departure from the truth, as revealed in God's Word and and as reiterated by His prophets. Reaction?

 

They have lied about the Lord; they said, 'He will do nothing!  No harm will come to us; we will never see sword or famine. The prophets are but wind and the word is not in them; so let what they say be done to them.' (5:12-13)

 

Truth was not being preached.  The consequences for disobedience to the Lord were not being taught.  The prophets were ignored.  Is the modern church in America any different?  Casting Crowns has really captured the modern church in their song, "Start Right Here:"   

We want our coffee in the lobby, we watch our worship on a screen
We got a rockstar preacher, who won't wake us from our dreams
We want out blessings in our pocket, we keep our missions overseas
But for the hurting in our cities, would we even cross the street?

Huh but we wanna see the heart set free and the tyrants kneel
The walls fall down and our land be healed, but church if we want to see a change 

in the world out there, it's got to start right here, it's got to start right now
Lord, I'm starting right here.  Lord, I'm starting right now...

America has the best churches money can buy. Yet we wonder why 2020 has been such a terrible year. 

 

'Among my people are the wicked, who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch people. Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek.  Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice.  They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?'  declares the Lord. 'Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land:  The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?' (5:26-31) 

 

Jeremiah 4: Which Message?

Recently, our church had Dr. Christopher Yuan come and speak, along with his mother and father.  I read his book, Out of a Far Country, many years ago, and was very moved by it.  Having been molested by a neighbor, Christopher would later tell his mother that he was gay.  His mother, whose marriage was on the rocks, decided to take her own life in the face of such overwhelming news.  Christopher had been on the fast track to receive his doctorate; three months shy of completing it, he dropped out of school.

Travelling to her destination, where she would take her life, his mother had a tract in her purse, and she pulled it out and read it.  It was about hope.  Forgiveness.  Life.  Jesus Christ and His gift of salvation.  Then and there she received Jesus.  She did not take her life but was given new life.  

She then started on an eight year campaign to pray for her son.

Meanwhile, her son started using and then dealing drugs.  One day, DEA showed up and Christopher was arrested and was given many years in a federal prison.

He found a Bible in prison and started reading.  He admitted that he was intrigued by the Bible's message, but he desperately wanted to find a biblical justification for his homosexuality.  He read and read, and was dismayed that the Bible did not compromise or alter its message that homosexuality is a sin.  He went to the prison chaplain, who offered him another book that did say being gay was not a sin.

He struggled and struggled with these two incompatible messages.  In the end, he accepted the Biblical message.  He went on to tell us that the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality; it is God's holiness.  His identity is not to be based upon his sexual orientation but on his being a child of God.  

He spoke powerfully.  He spoke with conviction.  He spoke the biblical message of salvation in Jesus Christ and how He wants us to be holy, as He is holy.

Wow.  Please read Christopher's article on the subject:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-opposite-of-homosexuality

Sitting in that prison cell, not so many years ago, Christopher had two books, two messages.  One message fit his desire to remain as he was; another message was calling him to new life.  One message was replacing biblical morality with a man-made, softer version of how to live.  The other message was a call to radically walk away from where he was, to a place of peace, reconciled and born anew in Christ. 

Christopher was given two choices.  He could only pick one.

Judah was given the same opportunity.  It was given two choices.  It could only pick one. 

God said, 

"If you, Israel, will return,
    then return to me,”
declares the Lord.
“If you put your detestable idols out of my sight
    and no longer go astray,  

and if in a truthful, just and righteous way
    you swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’
then the nations will invoke blessings by him
    and in him they will boast.”

This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem:

“Break up your unplowed ground
    and do not sow among thorns.

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
    circumcise your hearts,
    you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire
    because of the evil you have done—
    burn with no one to quench it." (4:1-4)

Later in the chapter God says, 

 “My people are fools;
    they do not know me.
They are senseless children;
    they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil;
    they know not how to do good.” (4:22)

Whoa.  Pretty harsh to our modern, tolerant, culturally relevant ears, huh?

What if Jeremiah had come with the same soft man-made version of God's message that was in the book the chaplain gave Christopher in prison?  It might have gone something like this:

Judah:  I get it.  It is hard to ignore how green and abundant Canaan is, compared to the deserts of Egypt.  It is a land, after all, that flows with milk and honey.  So, could all those Baal worshippers be wrong?  They pray to him, and look what happens!  Abundant crops!  Large herds!  Lots of baby everything!  So, let's not get too hard-line on this idolatry thing.  Yes, God has made it clear He does not tolerate being worshipped alongside other gods--He is God alone.  BUT:  Let's be real, here.  God doesn't want you to ignore how you really feel--you feel that there is a truth behind this Baal worship.  

Fair enough.  But let's lighten up on the child sacrifice thing.  That's extreme, and no self-respecting Yahweh follower would be caught dead (no pun intended!) at a child sacrifice.  Stay home that day.  You're outnumbered by the Canaanites--just tell them that you can't afford to throw in your own kids, but you certainly appreciate how they do and how their devotion benefits the whole society. 

The temple prostitute thing?  Well, don't overdo it.  Go only a few times a year.  Yes, it violates God's rules for marriage, but a few times a year can't hurt. Again:  Could all those Canaanites be wrong?

Finally, stay positive.  Negative vibes from God's prophets just make you feel sad.  Just listen to the ones who encourage your need to be happy, healthy and prosperous.  Ignore the ones calling you to holiness, dependence on God and a life lived that reflects His presence within you.  

Oh yeah, I guess that means me, huh?  I better get online and download some better messages from those people who know how to grow a church.  The Word of God can be a real bummer to those seeking peace with who they are.  God wants better for us; but could all those Canaanites be wrong?  Can't argue with success, can we?   

Pragmatism, majority views and seeking your truth never saved anyone.  In fact, the culture in a fallen world is by definition, going to mislead, lie and misdirect away from God's Word.  It all comes down to that lie whispered millennia ago:  "Did God really say..."

A compromised truth isn't.  We do no one a favor by redefining sin as something else.  Sin is meant, just like its author, to "kill, steal and destroy."  

Jeremiah knew this.

Do we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremiah 3: When Worldviews Collide

We are exploring Jeremiah, and how his words from God as are relevant today as they were back in his time.  Let's look at some interesting verses from chapter 3:

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord. (3:6-10)

I begin with these verses, but walk with me for awhile.  We shall land on them again.

With human beings, you really have only two choices:  We are inherently either good or bad.  

If we are good, then all we need is a the kind of society that brings out the full potential in everyone.  If we are not engaged in the good, then we must improve the society, or remove it altogether, for it clearly it is hindering us more than it is helping us.  

The problem, then, is out THERE, for in our hearts, we believe are good.

It's the HEART that needs reformation, in God's economy. 

If we are fundamentally bad, then the society will reflect that.  It will confirm on the outside the bad we possess on the inside.  We will arrange, change or destroy what we build, always hoping for improvement, finding that, given enough time, even the most well thought-out societies will fall prey to our base nature.     

It is either an inside problem (we are bad) or it's an outside problem (society is bad and is impeding our good).

So, how do we create a profile of human behavior?  What have been the consequences of what we think, believe and then go out and do?

It's in the verses right here.  Judah had to only look at what Israel had done and how God reacted to the Israel's idolatry.  Israel fell prey to the same world view that we can control our world through human action and thus we are in charge of the outcome.  It's a pride-centered, humans-are-basically-good way of living.

How so?  Israel's mindset was, If we want to keep our Promised Land fertile, flush with crops, abundant water and weather that we can plant and harvest crops around, we will sacrifice to the gods, have sex with their prostitutes and then live the way we please, having gotten the gods to do our bidding with our obedience.  All those Canaanites can't be all wrong.  Compared to the desert our ancestors were in, this is a paradise.  The locals must have gotten something right!

 Israel allowed the world view of the Canaanites to permeate their God-centered-people-need-to-be-obedient-to-His-Word-if-they-are-to-live-in-a-moral-society.  Israel compromised.  Generation after generation, the compromises worked their poison and the inherently bad nature of human beings was allowed a freer and freer rein.

Israel was corrupted by what she believed and then by what she did.  

God reminded the people through Jeremiah that Israel was judged and destroyed by doing the very things that Judah was doing now. 

Judah, despite what had happened in and to Israel, decided that idolatry fit her best.  It catered to the base nature in human beings.  It's funny how the rituals idolatry demands amplifies what is already in human beings.  No one has to be coaxed to go up and unite with a temple prostitute.  Yes, sacrificing a child would have been painful, but the gods will give that mother more children and the whole society will be happier.  So, a woman would overcome her mothering instinct and sacrifice her child.  The whole society would  become the very one that Jeremiah is denouncing as he warns Judah.

Learn from history, Judah!

Jeremiah is warning everyone that human beings need God, otherwise the weak and the infirm are cast aside, justice is served to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.  Human beings have no value--they are to be used, abused and exploited by those who have the wealth and power to do so.  Greed permeates every area of human interaction:  Do undo others and then split.  Compassion, mercy and grace sound really nice until they interfere with worldly pursuits of those who feel entitled to do what they want.  The "I Want" list is endless, so is the abuse and wickedness human being will use to fulfill it.

But does Judah learn from history?

Are we?

A society will no restraints on human nature will allow for that very nature to rule supreme, because human being without a changed heart will not have it any other way.  Look at what Ezekiel says, 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (36:26)

Jesus is very clear what human-nature infused heart believes and what actions result from it:

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. (Matt. 15:18-19)

Judah would come under God's heavy hand if they ignored the warning of His prophet.  And sadly, we know from history, they did.

We also know from history that human societies where the corrupted human heart reigns will result in collapse, with devastating and long-lasting results.

But we have to know history.

We have to know His Word.

And we have to know God and receive the new heart He promises us by receiving His Son into our corrupted hearts.  

Society is only as good as the hearts that inhabit it.

America:  We are in trouble.