From the Desert to the Battle Ground

I would like to return to seeing how the story of Exodus is a beautiful metaphor for what we go through as Christians.  

We are slaves under a ruthless Pharaoh when we first cry out.  Pharaoh (Satan) and our sin nature have enslaved us.  These two work together to bring us a life that is not fulfilling and not focused on what really matters:  God Himself.  We are lost amongst the monuments of the world's values:  bigger is better; whoever has the gold makes the rules; don't question life because the idols you ask will remain eerily silent.  Your job, your President, your politics and your entertainment can't tell you who you are and what your purpose in life truly is.  

But what about that Goshen? We have times in our lives where life is good; we may not be completely  happy, but at least we are not totally unhappy either.  Then something or someone in our lives changes and our slavery becomes apparent.  We feel the rough edge of the society, our family or our conscience.  We romanticize the good old days--basking in the soft glow of our selective memory.  But Goshen is not the Promised Land.  We settled for second best or third best or tenth best--it doesn't really  matter.  We've settled.

Then comes our cry.  Our slavery stings, our emptiness hurts and the meaninglessness of it all makes us wonder, "Why am I here?"

Then God sends the Deliverer--our condition, our state and our bondage cannot be made better in any way.  Religion can't do it:  We can never be good enough to assuage our sullied and unsettled conscience.  Political activism cannot do it:  Our leaders, our system, our fellow activists will let us down in one way or another.  Our friends and family cannot do it: Our children, parents, or those we admire and enjoy are all too human, and like us, will blow it or disappoint us to the core.

So we cry out and God hears.  His Son is our Moses:  He sacrificed Himself to lead us out of bondage to the very Land we were supposed to be in:  The Land of Continuous Fellowship with God.  The Land where we are His people and He is our God.  No monuments, no kings, no works--just the beautiful whisper of His voice and the knowledge that we are loved beyond all measure.

So, we ask this Deliverer into our hearts and He resides as Savior (cleansed by His blood, we are forgiven and given a new life in Him) and Lord (He is our King, our Friend and the One to Whom we owe our life, love and obedience).

As we are delivered out of bondage, we watch our "gods" fall under His heavy hand of judgement.  There is nothing like our God.  Period.  The sea closes over the last hurrah of the world to drag us back and we stand on the far shore, amazed at how much this God is willing to do to lead His children out of slavery.

Next stop:  the character-building desert!  Yahoo!  

What?  You mean that I must depend on God for absolutely everything now that I am in Him?

Yes.  That's it exactly.

But think of it this way:  That was God's intention all along.  Trek back into time for a brief moment to Adam and Eve.  God's provision was everywhere in the Garden of Eden.  He gave Adam and Eve the supreme choice:  You can eat from the Tree of Life or you can eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  You can choose a life in Me or a life in you.  Knowledge from Me or knowledge from you.  A personal relationship with Me or an alienated one in you. Utter dependence on Me, or prideful dependence on you.  

Choose they did.

That's why, when Jesus comes to us, we are in Egypt.

So having chosen a life in us, knowledge derived from us, an alienated existence from God and a prideful dependence on ourselves, we need a Deliverer.  But, once we are delivered, we need our character to be re-molded and conformed to the image of Jesus:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-29)

How so? 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2) 

That's why He put the children of Israel in the desert and why we go in as well:  We must learn that this new life is lived in Christ alone.  We try to sometimes take over Jesus' Lordship (but our flesh will sabotage us every time) and we can't save ourselves (we wouldn't be in perpetual Egypt if we could).  So, every aspect of the Christian life is relying on Jesus for His sustenance, saving and security:

• He is the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) to forgive our sins
  
• He is our Manna (John 6:35) to fed and nourish us
  
• He is the stricken Rock that gives us water (1 Cor. 10:4) to quench our spiritual thirst
  
• He is our Prophet (Deut. 18:15) to guide us through a difficult terrain

Done.  But here's where the suffering comes in.  The desert was harsh, to be sure, for the children of Israel, but they were safe from real battle.  Yes, they were attacked by the Amalekites, but those guys were defeated by Joshua (whose name in Hebrew is the same as Jesus'...coincidence?  I think not.)  

But, that attack was a foretaste of what was to come.  The Promised Land, where we dwell in the place God has chosen for us, is not empty.  It is not Heaven on earth--free of suffering, disease, pain or hurt.  Quite the opposite:  It is filled with all of these challenges and more.  It is filled with suffering.  It is filled with battles.  Constant battles.  Formidable enemies.  Skirmishes.  Theft.  Massacre.  

What?

Our life in Christ is not free of suffering as long as we dwell in the Promised Land on this earth.  We will suffer.  A lot.  

But so did Jesus.  

Next stop:  The Promised Land.  It is here that we rely on God to go before us, but He draws us deeper into a relationship with Him to go and enter into battle with Him.   If we partner with Jesus on this planet, we are partnering for warfare.  

Jesus is our Joshua.  But we never enter the war alone.  That is what we will explore next.

Our Modern Idols

Many years ago, a pastor told a story of a fellow pastor whose turn it was to preach that Sunday.  The man walked quietly up to the pulpit.  He held both sides of the podium in his hands, looked out at the congregation and said, "Jesus."

Then he sat down.

I could simply do the same thing today with my blog.  I could type "Jesus," and hit "publish."    He is what we need now, more than ever.

But, I would like to weigh in on last week--my heart is broken at what culminated at the Capitol.  Just seeing the people scaling the walls, the people moving angrily and the young woman climbing through the transom window in the Capitol, only to be shot in the back of the head and falling to the floor with blood streaming from her mouth, caused me great anguish.  

I was stunned to see a standing President behind bullet-proof glass while a riled-up mob surged below him.  It felt like anti-Christ moment.  "Anti-" in Greek means "against" or "instead of."  

NO, I do not mean THE Anti-Christ.  I mean, that at that moment, the adoration, acclamation, and admiration of the crowd and the arrogance, attitude and approval of the man standing there, should be for Christ alone.  

But this cult of personality is not just conferred upon our President.  It is conferred upon pastors.  How many people talk about, "I go to So-and-So's church!"  (I have heard this.)

How many people leave an area to follow a pastor to his next church? (I know of several.)

How many people will divide an existing church by leaving en masse to follow a pastor to his new church? (I saw this.)

Why have churches become dynastic in who leads them after the founder dies, with the son taking over (who may or may not be called) because he can continue the brand?  (I know of several of churches like this.)

Why, when scandals arise, the boards of these churches are stymied in their efforts to exert discipline--because they know that if the pastor goes, so does the church?  Or they try and the pastor responds with a victim mentality instead of humbling himself and accepting discipline?  (This has happened.)

Why are people so loyal to a human being?  Whether it's a political leader or a pastor, the results are the same:  People are willing to defend the person no matter what (it's his enemies that are causing this!) or they resist anything that gets in the way of their need for this person.  If disturbing information, bad behavior, inflammatory rhetoric or questionable ideas/theology come forth, people defend this leader--why?  To quote a friend of mine who attends a church that has not taken enough steps to protect the congregation (the pastor now has Covid, sad to say): "I need it."

There it is:  "I need it."  We may love Jesus, but we follow our pastor.  We pray to Jesus but when our pastor wants to do something, go somewhere or start a project, we defer to him, even if we have misgivings, because, after all, he's the pastor and is tight with God, right?

We love Jesus but we bask in the warmth and charisma of our pastor.  We love the Word of God but allow the pastor to wrestle, interpret and show us its meaning each week.  He meets a need in us:  to be loved, respected and made to feel special. 

So many men in lives have let us down--fathers especially, so a charismatic pastor or president can take that role in our lives and fill a need for male approval.  We love that this person knows our frustration, our pain and our longing.  Or so we believe. 

We love Jesus but want more and more of this person--he has become an "Instead of Christ," i.e. an anti-Christ.  

Jesus taught of wolves in sheep clothing.  The wolves know the sheeps' need to belong, to be safe and cared for by someone who is greater than they. It is interesting that Jesus was speaking of leaders, of false prophets, who come to exploit the natural needs of the sheep:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matt. 7:15-20)

Ultimately, the truth will out and that's when the sheep face a decision:  Do I ignore the rather lupine behavior of this sheep, make excuses and defend him, or do I seek God and His wisdom about this person?

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-8)

Now, I have a choice:  Do I leave or stay?  Do I remain loyal or do I step away?  John gives us the answer: "Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God's place in your hearts." (1 John 5:21 NLT) 

In the Greek, it is translated: "keep yourself from idols."

In other words, stay away from people or things that have become "Instead of Christ."

No one wakes up and says, "I am going to follow a wolf.  I am going to replace my loyalty to Christ with a loyalty to a leader.  I am going to stop questioning this leader and allow him to think, feel and believe for me, because I feel so complete in his presence.  His leadership is helping me to be a better person.  I can't leave or be disloyal."

The process is insidious.  The charismatic leader will tap into us deeply, make us feel special and when issues arise, we defend that person, angry that others do not see him the way we do. 

In America, we seem to be gravitating more and more to strong, charismatic leaders who speak for us, feel for us, and make us feel that he gets us. 

We love Jesus, but when the push comes to shove, we turn on our TV, or go to church, looking for answers and grabbing hold of the words coming from that leader.

We should be sitting quietly with Jesus, reading His Word and asking Him for wisdom.  Once He dispenses it, we need to obey, even if that means standing alone.

Let us not demean our God by nodding to Him on our way to following an idol. 

 

Happy New Year! 202: The Year of the Desert?

I want to heartily wish you all a happy New Year!  Wow.  No one will miss 2020, I am sure.  

Yet, maybe 2020 was our time to leave Egypt and be led out into the desert by God through these trying times.  

Let's unpack this analogy for a minute.  Ray Vander Laan does a wonderful teaching on the book of Exodus.  He points out that the Israelites lived in the land of Goshen--and it's a beautiful region in the Nile Delta.  The Israelites were "extremely powerful and filled the land." (Ex. 1:7)  

But they were not in the Promised Land and serving the God of their ancestors--Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Instead, they were surrounded by temples, statues and monuments that proclaimed that the gods of Egypt were supreme and the Pharaoh was a god as well--the embodiment of divine power to bring about and sustain maat.  He brought order--maat--to chaos and all of Egypt knew he kept it by obeying the dictates of the gods.   

The Israelites saw nothing else but the enormous monuments that shouted of the supreme power of the gods and Pharaoh. 

Then it got ugly.  A new king, who didn't know the history of Joseph and his contribution to the welfare of Egypt, came to power and was shocked about how many Israelites there were.  Then he condemned them to slavery.

Stop for a moment.  How so like us?  We live in the slavery of a sinful nature, but let's be honest--it can be like Goshen.  It's not so bad.  The "fruits" of the flesh are beneficial to us, for we have a kind of freedom to do what we want, when we want--in other words, it takes no effort to live by the values of the flesh: 

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21 NIV)

So Goshen is easy.  Easy to forget why we are here.  Easy to forget the value of one another.  Easy to forget that we are not meant to live in accordance with the flesh, for it is fallen and hostile to God.  God gives us purpose, not following the pursuits of our flesh.  We are not in the Promised Land when we are living in the Goshen of our flesh.  

Ray Vander Laan makes the interesting observation that God, through an angry Pharaoh, allowed slavery to take over the lives of the Israelites.  Otherwise, they never would have left Goshen--there wasn't a reason to--but being enslaved and subjected to state-sponsored infanticide was the catalyst for the people crying out to God.  But as Vander Laan points out, they just cried out--to the heavens:

Years passed...But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery.  They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God.  God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He looked down on the people and knew it was time to act. (Ex. 2:23-25, NLT).

They didn't know their God nor their purpose which was to be in a covenant relationship with God--to be His people and live in the land He chose for them long ago.  He wanted them to be His, in His land, under His forgiveness and in His way of life.  

So Goshen had to become miserable for them to want to leave. 

The flesh and sin have to become miserable for us to want to leave.  We hear God's call for reconciliation and restoration, but we have to feel the weight of the flesh--the bondage of our nature before God's call becomes a song of freedom.  

Deliverance requires a Deliverer.  God sent Moses.  He tried to liberate the Israelites on his own, by striking dead an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite.  He murdered the man when no one was looking and then hid the body.  When we try to slay the flesh, one sin at a time, trying to be good, hiding it in the sand, so to speak, we end up more miserable as before.  Moses did.  He was afraid after he received taunting the next day from two of his fellow Israelites, and he ran away.

So do we.  To the desert of guilt and shame. Yet, even there, even there, God waits for us.  He waited for Moses in the burning bush.  He waits in Jesus on the cross.  He calls us, tells us who He is and how He sent Jesus to die for our sins.  He wants us to be in Him, living out the purpose He chose for us long ago.

The desert transforms our focus from just being about us, to realizing we cannot survive on our own--our character, tainted and marred by sin--is a liability in the desert.  Why?  In order to survive, we must be entirely dependent on God for spiritual food, water and guidance.  Manna, quail, and pillars of smoke or fire are metaphors for this time we experience in the desert.  Yes, we want to flee back to Egypt, where we know the lay of the land and how easy it is to live according to our nature. 

But Egypt isn't the Promised Land.  In between the two places is the desert.  The desert builds our character--for it strips away all superfluities--and causes us to look at our lives.  It schools us to see how fragile life is, how the world mistreats us and how our value vacillates depending on what group we are consigned to or how we allow others to treat us.  

Was God leading us out of Goshen--a materialistic, narcissistic America where money trumps integrity--into a desert of a pandemic, civil unrest, brutality, lawlessness and verbal abuse to make us stop and reevaluate who we are?  Sure, we want to go back to the slavery of Goshen--it's sure a lot better than the unknown aspects of the desert...right?

God, using this year of the desert, 2020, asked us:  "Who are you?  Why are you here?  Do you have purpose?"

God will use 2021 to continue to call to us.  

Take a few minutes and listen to this short ten minute video.  It really captures the one thing our sin nature can never give us:  purpose.  That Egypt, with all of its wow factor, will not bring order to our chaos.  Man's efforts are mere silent stones and will not lift us out of the chaos of our culture. 

Listen, enjoy and I wish you all a happy New Year, in Him.  Tell me what you think. 

https://youtu.be/8fcLxYLJdCI

Via con Dios.