I was reading a periodical yesterday that's sent out to many of the churches that comprise the "family" of churches in the "movement" that my church was originally born out of. The movement is historically known as the Restoration Movement, and, in a nutshell, it rose out of many people in the mid-1800s wanting to do away with creeds, denominationalism, and divisions arising from doctrinal disagreements. It also had a lot to do with their seeing the need to baptize by immersion as accords with Scripture, contrary to the many at the time who had moved away from faith-based baptism. Why it's called the "Restoration Movement" is because the original men and women who brought the movement about desired to restore the Church to the New Testament model of church life and day-to-day discipleship. To them, the New Testament was enough without creeds, and elders running the churches was enough without hands-off leaders being "in charge" of churches from some office in a big city disconnected from the churches themselves. I praise God for these people, because even though I disagree with much of their conclusions regarding certain ideologies that I believe were misguided, I DO still believe their hearts were in the right place and I agree mostly with the core ideas--"Let's let the Scriptures guide the Church, let's be autonomous (self-governing as the churches in Acts were), and let's exalt Christ above all things," seems to be what they were about. Sounds good to me! Praise God, that's what I'M all about!: Christ's work, the Bible, and the Church. Let's do it--thus I'm preaching in a Restoration church, because I'm on board.
Yet (and perhaps it's been this way for a long time and I've just now realized it because I've just now started keeping up with it) recently I've noticed a stream of "scholarship" in much of the publications that are put out by Restoration churches and Christians. Getting back to what I started with, I was reading one yesterday and I noticed something that was unsettling. Almost every article spent more time speaking about what Christians are doing wrong than speaking about what Christ has accomplished on the cross and out of the grave. In a sense, they spoke more about what we do bad, instead of what Christ has done good. Of course, we need to speak of what is truth, and if it's all sin and corruption, we need to speak of it. All you need to do is turn to an Old Testament prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah or one of the smaller Prophet books like Malachi and Zechariah to see that sin needs to be spoken to. That's granted and I certainly can't discount the need to speak to it--I speak to sin every week as I preach and teach.
And yet when I look through New Testament teaching, I see something that's somewhat of a slant. The aforementioned publications I'm speaking of get sent out to different churches, and in a sense are LETTERS written by church leaders to encourage other churches, just like Paul's letters were in the New Testament, so the comparison is fair. If I'm attacking the fact that these writers attack other people's sins with almost every paragraph, I know it needs to be said that Paul spoke of sin and corruption as well, which you can see clearly if you look through Romans 14, large chunks of 1 Corinthians, specifically chs. 3, 5, 6, 9, and 14, and we could go on with the rest of his letters, including the ones to the churches AND the ones to the individual young pastors.
Also both John and Peter spoke to specific sins, as you can see if you look at 2 Peter 2, large chunks of 1 John (including the beginning of ch 2, which seems to have John saying this whole letter is written so you won't sin), a part of 3 John, and chs 2 and 3 of Revelation, where Jesus tells the churches what his beef with them is.
Of course, we wouldn't even need to say anything about the four Gospels which each have Jesus not shrinking from calling people out as sinners and holding the inwardly (and outwardly) pious accountable where they were wrong, as is evidenced especially in the middle sections of Luke and John.
What's my point in bringing all of this up? I want to make it known that I know it's important to hold people accountable for their sins, and the Scriptures seem to make it clear all over the place (see Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, and 2 Thessalonians 3 at the end among others). The reason for this necessity to speak truth with each other as Christians is so that we will "grow up in every way in...Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 4:15), and be "competent, equipped for every good work"..."that the Father has prepared for us to do" (2 Timothy 3:17, Ephesians 2:10).
However, let me be clear...and if you're reading this, you obviously care at least a little about what I have to say, and if you do, PLEASE hear me right now: what's MORE important for Christians to know and understand is what Christ has DONE, not what we and our world are DOING. Let me be more clear if that's a confusing statement--no one ever became a Christian by hearing a preacher point out everyone else's faults and the fact that the world has problems. They only became a Christian because a preacher preaches Christ and His finished work IN LIGHT of the world and all it's problems.
In Acts 1:8, right before Jesus ascends and leaves His disciples, He tells them, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." And then He left them.
But did you catch what He said? "You will be my witnesses." The reason this is significant is because I hope you see that Jesus wants His disciples to go and witness FROM Him, TO everyone else. That's what it means to "witness" in any context: to share information with others about what you've seen/heard/felt. Jesus clearly wants His disciples to share what has been accomplished by Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead and ascending to Heaven. Luke tells us at the very end the first part of the story he wrote (his Gospel being the first part, and Acts being the second part), that Jesus told His disciples that "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning with Jerusalem," and He concluded, "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:47-48). Then he picks up with the Acts 1 passage we just looked at IMMEDIATELY after that.
Interestingly, if you read throughout the rest of the Book of Acts, you see that what Jesus told His disciples to do is EXACTLY what they did. "Be my witnesses to the ends of the earth...proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins..." They did it.
You can see it if you look at the sermons of Acts: 2:14-41 is Peter's Pentecost sermon, and he tells them, "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." (v 23) Then he says, "This Jesus, God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses." (v 32) When the people ask what they are to do with Peter's message, he says, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ." (v 38).
Moving onto Peter's sermon at Solomon's portico in 3:11-26, in v 15 he tells them, "you killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses." Then (v 19), "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out..."
In 4:8-12, Peter and John are speaking to the council in Jerusalem regarding their healing of a man who was lame, and they say, "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead--by Him this man is standing before you well" (v 10).
I won't keep going, but suffice it to say that EVERY sermon throughout the rest of the book of Acts, including the rest of Peter's, Stephens huge sermon, and all of Paul's emphasize the work of Christ whether it's His work on the Cross, out of the grave, in their (the preacher's) own individual lives, or all of the above in most cases. (Let it be known, the only exception to this is when Paul talks to the people in Athens in 17:22-31; he doesn't preach Christ to them...rather, he preaches to them ONE GOD (most of these people don't believe in one God, but a team of little 'specialist' gods), and he tells them that this God is bringing forth a judgment. He bridges the gap with their unbelief, and we can assume that if he would have stayed in Athens, the next meeting would have been spent preaching Christ.)
Anyways, like I said I'm not going to go through the rest of the sermons in Acts, but if you'd like to, you'll find them in 7:2-53 (Stephen), 10:34-43 (Peter preaching to Cornelius and Gentiles), 13:13-41 (Paul and Barnabas at Antioch-Pisidia), 15:7-11 (Peter at the Jerusalem council), 20:18-35 (Paul to the Ephesian elders), 21:37-22:21 (Paul in the Temple), 24:10-21 (Paul before the ruler Felix), and 26:2-29 (Paul before Herod Agrippa).
Now I know that just by starting off this blog post calling out fellow brothers and sisters who are wrongfully spending all of their time telling everyone else what they're doing wrong, I'M doing the very thing I'm preaching against. I'll concede that. But what I want you to know is this: God is our Creator, we've rebelled and continue to rebel from Him, and now we're spiritually dead. Jesus Christ went to the cross to atone for sins for all time and to absorb the righteous wrath of God to secure salvation for those who would put their trust in His finished work from first to last (John 3:16, Romans 10:9), who make up a "multitude no man can number" (Revelation 7:9). He then rose from the dead, so that as these sinners come to Him, they would die to sin and be reborn into new life (John 3:5-6, Romans 6:1-4, Galatians 2:20) that lasts eternally and is characterized by the ever-present knowledge that Christ is with them for all of time.
As part of the Restoration Movement, how can we possibly give our time and our energies to anything BUT preaching Christ? The Movement started out of desiring to restore the New Testament Church--and when I read through the New Testament, it seems like all I see is Christ saturated on every page: what He DID, who He IS, what He's DOING, what the Cross means, what salvation in His name is, etc. Yet why aren't men preaching it? I suppose it's because we (myself included) find it easier to point the finger at other people's sins, which like I said, is important--if we've learned anything from Scripture, that's it. But that's not ALL THERE IS, and it's not even MOST of what's in the Scripture. The Bible is about Jesus and what He's accomplished on the cross, conquering sin, and rising from the dead, conquering death. It's that simple.
What do we tell those people we write to and preach to? Very simply what we just said about Christ's work, followed by a "turn to Him, trust in Him, call on Him, and run to Him."
Otherwise, we're Pharisees and I'd hate to hear what Jesus' words to us one day will be.
Scott Stine - Pastor of First Baptist Church, Newton NJ. Follower of Jesus; husband, daddy, PhD student, too distracted by basketball.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Psalm 9:9-10: The God who takes in the oppressed
The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of struggle.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, o Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
In Joel 2, there's a prophesy looking forward to the day when God pours out His Spirit, upon the Messiah's coming. In verse 28 God says that He'll pour out His Spirit "on all flesh", and a few verses down (32) has Him saying, "and it shall come to pass that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." If you take this prophesy along with many of the other similar passages from the Old Testament Prophets such as Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 11 and 36, and much of Isaiah (to name a few of the many) you can easily see that this is referring to the days when the Messiah is going to come.
Of course, we know in hindsight that these days are among us, because Christ Jesus IS the Messiah, and He HAS come. God HAS poured out His Spirit on all flesh already. The temptation would be to ask, "So then why are there so few Christians?", but the answer to this is easy: Just because He's poured out His Spirit, that doesn't mean ALL people are going to receive the Spirit INTO their hearts. That's why the Joel passage says, "In that day, all who call on my name will be saved." Apparently not everyone will, but any that will will be saved.
In the New Testament, Paul quotes this prophesy from Joel in Romans 10:13, in the middle of his famous section on how Christ's work has opened up salvation for all people, and not just Jews. V 12-- "For there is no distinction, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." Paul then cites Joel in v 13 saying, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
The word used to describe this is Gospel. The Gospel, in Paul's letter to the Romans, refers to the fact that since all people have turned from God and sought their own glory apart from God's will after which God has turned them over to their own sin since they didn't want anything to do with Him (1:18-25), and since ALL people are guilty and depraved (3:9-20)...EVEN STILL...Christ Jesus, the perfect and spotless Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the world, by absorbing the holy and righteous wrath of God, so that anyone who has faith in His work is justified apart from THEIR works (3:25-26, 28). Very simply, as a free gift, God has taken His anger over sin out on Jesus, so that anyone who desires to live before the presence of their Creator is free from condemnation if they just believe in who Christ is and what Christ has done. It's a glorious Gospel!
Of course, very often, preachers of the Gospel (myself included) get so caught up in preaching this Gospel of freedom from sins in Jesus' name that we never step out on the limbs of this tree to show what this means for us practically TODAY. Truly the New Testament is ALL about Christ's work, and there's no possibility that "Jesus dying on the cross for my sin" is an insufficient message to preach, but as I was reading Psalm 9, I was challenged to take it a step deeper INTO this Gospel we proclaim, to answer a question: What does this MEAN for us today? It means so much I couldn't even begin to scratch the surface, but I'll try.
1. First, it means that we can approach God's throne. Before Christ completed salvation on the cross, no one could stand in the presence of the Almighty God, and I would be below reproach if I didn't say that we STILL can't contain the glory of God's presence completely. But the book of Hebrews does tell us that through what Jesus accomplished, something HAS certainly changed. According to Heb 1:3, God has revealed Himself through Jesus, who is "the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature". Colossians 1:19 says that in Christ "the FULLNESS of God was pleased to dwell." Even though God's glory can't be beheld by human eyes and human hearts or human thoughts, His glory is in CHRIST, and we have seen Christ. God has come to be among us. Hebrews then goes on in chapters 3 and 4 to compare Jesus to both Moses and Joshua (from the Old Testament), showing that Jesus is GREATER than both of them, and that He is a "great High Priest" (4:14), by whom we can "approach the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy in our time of need" (4:16). To understand this you have to know that in the Old Testament, the Temple had a room called the Most Holy Place where the High Priest for that year would go into once a year to offer sacrifices to God on behalf of himself and the people. This room was where God's presence dwelt on Earth. And the place in the room where sacrifices were offered was called "the Mercy Seat". Hebrews is saying because of what Jesus has done, we can approach the Mercy Seat OURSELVES, whereas we couldn't earlier because of unholiness in sin. Jesus is the NEW and BETTER High Priest, and not only that--He went into the Most Holy place and offered His own blood as the sacrifice, "thus securing eternal redemption" (9:12). Now "we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus...and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith..." (10:19, 21-22a).
To sum up, we can approach God's throne because of what Christ Jesus has done through His work on the cross of offering a final sacrifice for sins. This means very simply that if you are seeking God's mercy and presence, YOU CAN HAVE IT, by coming through Jesus.
2. Secondly, if you have brought the wounds on yourself, you can't expect God to lick your wounds for you, without telling you what He thinks you need to hear first. Like I have already said, because of what Jesus has done, we can approach God's throne. But one thing remains the same with us as it was with the Israelites in the Old Testament who relied on sacrifices made by high priests: It's still our sin that separates us from God. Sin is still the issue for us as we come to the throne of mercy.
Now many will bring up texts such as Romans 8:1 ("there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"), and 1 John 2:1 ("if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous") to argue that sin isn't an issue among us anymore. But the problem with an argument like that is that apparently you didn't read the previous chapter of Romans before you quoted 8:1, which has Paul speaking of how he STILL struggles with sin; nor did you consider the FIRST part of the 1 John 2:1 passage which says, "I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone DOES sin..." which assumes that they WILL sin, but John writes to the believers in hopes that they won't. My point is this: In Christ, we don't have condemnation, as He is our final sacrifice for all time and therefore we can approach God's throne in confidence and faith. However, your and my problems, as we approach God is the fact that He's holy and we're sinful, and we need to come to grips with that if we're going to turn to Him.
Because of this, you need to understand that as you come to God's throne to "receive mercy", He may not always tell you what you want to hear--but that shouldn't be the reason you're coming to Him anyways. I'm convinced that this is much of the reason for the lack of spiritual fervor among Christians as well as the reason many "Christians" "fall away" after being "saved": They approached God expecting that He would operate on them on their terms which is NOT how God is to be approached. He is to be approached with sincere and humble contriteness at the fact that He's God and you're not, He knows everything and you don't, and He knows what's best for you and you don't (see Job 40:3-5, 42:1-6; Psalm 51:16-17; Isaiah 6:1-5; Luke 18:9-14, 21:41-44; and James 4:6-10). You have sinful, self-serving, and world-glorifying motives and eyes you're looking at God through, and if you assume that He's going to give you what you WANT, most of the time you will be sorely disappointed.
On the other hand, if you assume He's going to give you what you NEED, regardless of what you think that is, you will NEVER be disappointed.
The fact that you're sinful when you approach Him doesn't negate the fact that He invites you to come to Him, which is why Jesus invites "all who are burden and heavy-laden" (Matthew 11:28) to come to Him. But since 'what you want' is the problem, the only posture before God's throne is the posture of reverence and humility, whether it's on your knees or on your face.
It's interesting that we find David writing in the Psalm 9 passage that the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, for a few reasons. First, David knows that God is a stronghold in oppression, whether the oppression is David's fault or if it's someone else's. Some of David's problems were there in spite of his innocence, but others were there because he brought them on himself. Still, David knew He could approach God regardless of which scenario was true for the moment. And yet the second reason it's interesting David writes this is the fact that because Christ hadn't offered the sacrifice on the cross yet, people really couldn't approach the throne of mercy, yet. Is this a contradiction?
I don't think so. We see in Exodus 34 (deep into the Old Testament) that "The Lord (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin..." (34:6-7a). Truly we know that as David approached the Lord with contriteness and sincerity in his heart, the Lord met him there (David was the one who wrote the Psalm 51 passage referenced earlier that speaks of a broken heart and a contrite spirit being the sacrifice God desires...and he wrote that song after committing adultery, causing his mistress to commit it, and then killing her husband).
So aren't we still at a contradiction though? No, because if we continue to look into the Exodus 34 passage, we see that verse 7 continues from God's gracious characteristics, "...but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity if the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation."
To the natural mind which is contrary to God (see 1 Corinthians 2), these things seem like contradictions. But they're not, and David's story is a perfect example why--here was a man (a respected and revered KING) who was very sinful before God and others, and yet every time he got himself up a creek without a paddle, he would turn back with a broken and sorry heart to receive mercy from God. And yet the same God who would give him mercy and grace is the same God who caused David's life to fall into shambles because of his sin. Seriously, if you read of King David's family life after he commits the adultery with Bathsheba and kills her husband, you'll see that it was a complete wreck for the rest of his life, the likes you've only seen on Jerry Springer. Why? Because even though God would offer forgiveness where forgiveness is sought, the effects of the sin still linger among the sinner and his/her friends/family...and this is NOT God's fault, but the fault of the one who sinned in the first place.
So when Psalm 9 speaks of the Lord being a stronghold for the oppressed, it's TRUE, whether Jesus died on the cross and rose again or not. Seek the Lord, He'll be found, and you'll be held.
But the only way for the sin to be completely defeated, once and for all, is through Christ's work of taking...not just the sins you've committed in the past and the sins of the present, but...ALL your sin, even from the future onto Himself and receiving the punishment due us from God on Himself, so that we CAN approach the throne of mercy and receive it from our great God who pours it out to those who seek it, bringing an END to the condemnation we so rightly deserve.
If the cross covers the atonement for the sin (which it does) to make us be able to approach God in times of trouble, what does the resurrection cover?
It's simple: At the resurrection, He who knew no sin but became sin until it crushed Him to death (Jesus, of course), DEFEATS death by rising up into new and eternal life. The sin which was on Him is taken into death, but it's not taken into His Resurrection.
Practically, this means that as we approach God as wretched and pitiable sinners, we come to Jesus' work and our sin is forgiven and blotted out; but since we are in Christ Jesus now--Him who is RISEN FROM THE DEAD, WE are to be risen from the dead, without sin, too. Romans 8:13 says, "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live..." (skipping to vv 15-16) "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."
Of course this leads us back to the Joel passage from earlier--"in those days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh". The difference between mercy in the old covenant and mercy in the new covenant is two-fold: 1) no more sacrifices need to be made for sins because Christ has given the final one, and 2) God's Spirit is IN us if we trust in the first point, to cause us to move on and live APART from sin under the righteous reign of Christ Jesus.
The point: You receive mercy and acceptance at God's throne, and then in the Spirit, you live in acceptance and thankfulness at whatever His will is for your life from there on out, because the answer to all of your prayers is Jesus anyways.
May we learn that Jesus doesn't just take care of sin, but that He takes care of us. May we receive mercy as we are taken in by God, and may we learn to stand in the grace that is given through Christ Jesus.
a stronghold in times of struggle.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, o Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
In Joel 2, there's a prophesy looking forward to the day when God pours out His Spirit, upon the Messiah's coming. In verse 28 God says that He'll pour out His Spirit "on all flesh", and a few verses down (32) has Him saying, "and it shall come to pass that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." If you take this prophesy along with many of the other similar passages from the Old Testament Prophets such as Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 11 and 36, and much of Isaiah (to name a few of the many) you can easily see that this is referring to the days when the Messiah is going to come.
Of course, we know in hindsight that these days are among us, because Christ Jesus IS the Messiah, and He HAS come. God HAS poured out His Spirit on all flesh already. The temptation would be to ask, "So then why are there so few Christians?", but the answer to this is easy: Just because He's poured out His Spirit, that doesn't mean ALL people are going to receive the Spirit INTO their hearts. That's why the Joel passage says, "In that day, all who call on my name will be saved." Apparently not everyone will, but any that will will be saved.
In the New Testament, Paul quotes this prophesy from Joel in Romans 10:13, in the middle of his famous section on how Christ's work has opened up salvation for all people, and not just Jews. V 12-- "For there is no distinction, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." Paul then cites Joel in v 13 saying, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
The word used to describe this is Gospel. The Gospel, in Paul's letter to the Romans, refers to the fact that since all people have turned from God and sought their own glory apart from God's will after which God has turned them over to their own sin since they didn't want anything to do with Him (1:18-25), and since ALL people are guilty and depraved (3:9-20)...EVEN STILL...Christ Jesus, the perfect and spotless Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the world, by absorbing the holy and righteous wrath of God, so that anyone who has faith in His work is justified apart from THEIR works (3:25-26, 28). Very simply, as a free gift, God has taken His anger over sin out on Jesus, so that anyone who desires to live before the presence of their Creator is free from condemnation if they just believe in who Christ is and what Christ has done. It's a glorious Gospel!
Of course, very often, preachers of the Gospel (myself included) get so caught up in preaching this Gospel of freedom from sins in Jesus' name that we never step out on the limbs of this tree to show what this means for us practically TODAY. Truly the New Testament is ALL about Christ's work, and there's no possibility that "Jesus dying on the cross for my sin" is an insufficient message to preach, but as I was reading Psalm 9, I was challenged to take it a step deeper INTO this Gospel we proclaim, to answer a question: What does this MEAN for us today? It means so much I couldn't even begin to scratch the surface, but I'll try.
1. First, it means that we can approach God's throne. Before Christ completed salvation on the cross, no one could stand in the presence of the Almighty God, and I would be below reproach if I didn't say that we STILL can't contain the glory of God's presence completely. But the book of Hebrews does tell us that through what Jesus accomplished, something HAS certainly changed. According to Heb 1:3, God has revealed Himself through Jesus, who is "the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature". Colossians 1:19 says that in Christ "the FULLNESS of God was pleased to dwell." Even though God's glory can't be beheld by human eyes and human hearts or human thoughts, His glory is in CHRIST, and we have seen Christ. God has come to be among us. Hebrews then goes on in chapters 3 and 4 to compare Jesus to both Moses and Joshua (from the Old Testament), showing that Jesus is GREATER than both of them, and that He is a "great High Priest" (4:14), by whom we can "approach the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy in our time of need" (4:16). To understand this you have to know that in the Old Testament, the Temple had a room called the Most Holy Place where the High Priest for that year would go into once a year to offer sacrifices to God on behalf of himself and the people. This room was where God's presence dwelt on Earth. And the place in the room where sacrifices were offered was called "the Mercy Seat". Hebrews is saying because of what Jesus has done, we can approach the Mercy Seat OURSELVES, whereas we couldn't earlier because of unholiness in sin. Jesus is the NEW and BETTER High Priest, and not only that--He went into the Most Holy place and offered His own blood as the sacrifice, "thus securing eternal redemption" (9:12). Now "we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus...and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith..." (10:19, 21-22a).
To sum up, we can approach God's throne because of what Christ Jesus has done through His work on the cross of offering a final sacrifice for sins. This means very simply that if you are seeking God's mercy and presence, YOU CAN HAVE IT, by coming through Jesus.
2. Secondly, if you have brought the wounds on yourself, you can't expect God to lick your wounds for you, without telling you what He thinks you need to hear first. Like I have already said, because of what Jesus has done, we can approach God's throne. But one thing remains the same with us as it was with the Israelites in the Old Testament who relied on sacrifices made by high priests: It's still our sin that separates us from God. Sin is still the issue for us as we come to the throne of mercy.
Now many will bring up texts such as Romans 8:1 ("there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"), and 1 John 2:1 ("if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous") to argue that sin isn't an issue among us anymore. But the problem with an argument like that is that apparently you didn't read the previous chapter of Romans before you quoted 8:1, which has Paul speaking of how he STILL struggles with sin; nor did you consider the FIRST part of the 1 John 2:1 passage which says, "I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone DOES sin..." which assumes that they WILL sin, but John writes to the believers in hopes that they won't. My point is this: In Christ, we don't have condemnation, as He is our final sacrifice for all time and therefore we can approach God's throne in confidence and faith. However, your and my problems, as we approach God is the fact that He's holy and we're sinful, and we need to come to grips with that if we're going to turn to Him.
Because of this, you need to understand that as you come to God's throne to "receive mercy", He may not always tell you what you want to hear--but that shouldn't be the reason you're coming to Him anyways. I'm convinced that this is much of the reason for the lack of spiritual fervor among Christians as well as the reason many "Christians" "fall away" after being "saved": They approached God expecting that He would operate on them on their terms which is NOT how God is to be approached. He is to be approached with sincere and humble contriteness at the fact that He's God and you're not, He knows everything and you don't, and He knows what's best for you and you don't (see Job 40:3-5, 42:1-6; Psalm 51:16-17; Isaiah 6:1-5; Luke 18:9-14, 21:41-44; and James 4:6-10). You have sinful, self-serving, and world-glorifying motives and eyes you're looking at God through, and if you assume that He's going to give you what you WANT, most of the time you will be sorely disappointed.
On the other hand, if you assume He's going to give you what you NEED, regardless of what you think that is, you will NEVER be disappointed.
The fact that you're sinful when you approach Him doesn't negate the fact that He invites you to come to Him, which is why Jesus invites "all who are burden and heavy-laden" (Matthew 11:28) to come to Him. But since 'what you want' is the problem, the only posture before God's throne is the posture of reverence and humility, whether it's on your knees or on your face.
It's interesting that we find David writing in the Psalm 9 passage that the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, for a few reasons. First, David knows that God is a stronghold in oppression, whether the oppression is David's fault or if it's someone else's. Some of David's problems were there in spite of his innocence, but others were there because he brought them on himself. Still, David knew He could approach God regardless of which scenario was true for the moment. And yet the second reason it's interesting David writes this is the fact that because Christ hadn't offered the sacrifice on the cross yet, people really couldn't approach the throne of mercy, yet. Is this a contradiction?
I don't think so. We see in Exodus 34 (deep into the Old Testament) that "The Lord (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin..." (34:6-7a). Truly we know that as David approached the Lord with contriteness and sincerity in his heart, the Lord met him there (David was the one who wrote the Psalm 51 passage referenced earlier that speaks of a broken heart and a contrite spirit being the sacrifice God desires...and he wrote that song after committing adultery, causing his mistress to commit it, and then killing her husband).
So aren't we still at a contradiction though? No, because if we continue to look into the Exodus 34 passage, we see that verse 7 continues from God's gracious characteristics, "...but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity if the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation."
To the natural mind which is contrary to God (see 1 Corinthians 2), these things seem like contradictions. But they're not, and David's story is a perfect example why--here was a man (a respected and revered KING) who was very sinful before God and others, and yet every time he got himself up a creek without a paddle, he would turn back with a broken and sorry heart to receive mercy from God. And yet the same God who would give him mercy and grace is the same God who caused David's life to fall into shambles because of his sin. Seriously, if you read of King David's family life after he commits the adultery with Bathsheba and kills her husband, you'll see that it was a complete wreck for the rest of his life, the likes you've only seen on Jerry Springer. Why? Because even though God would offer forgiveness where forgiveness is sought, the effects of the sin still linger among the sinner and his/her friends/family...and this is NOT God's fault, but the fault of the one who sinned in the first place.
So when Psalm 9 speaks of the Lord being a stronghold for the oppressed, it's TRUE, whether Jesus died on the cross and rose again or not. Seek the Lord, He'll be found, and you'll be held.
But the only way for the sin to be completely defeated, once and for all, is through Christ's work of taking...not just the sins you've committed in the past and the sins of the present, but...ALL your sin, even from the future onto Himself and receiving the punishment due us from God on Himself, so that we CAN approach the throne of mercy and receive it from our great God who pours it out to those who seek it, bringing an END to the condemnation we so rightly deserve.
If the cross covers the atonement for the sin (which it does) to make us be able to approach God in times of trouble, what does the resurrection cover?
It's simple: At the resurrection, He who knew no sin but became sin until it crushed Him to death (Jesus, of course), DEFEATS death by rising up into new and eternal life. The sin which was on Him is taken into death, but it's not taken into His Resurrection.
Practically, this means that as we approach God as wretched and pitiable sinners, we come to Jesus' work and our sin is forgiven and blotted out; but since we are in Christ Jesus now--Him who is RISEN FROM THE DEAD, WE are to be risen from the dead, without sin, too. Romans 8:13 says, "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live..." (skipping to vv 15-16) "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."
Of course this leads us back to the Joel passage from earlier--"in those days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh". The difference between mercy in the old covenant and mercy in the new covenant is two-fold: 1) no more sacrifices need to be made for sins because Christ has given the final one, and 2) God's Spirit is IN us if we trust in the first point, to cause us to move on and live APART from sin under the righteous reign of Christ Jesus.
The point: You receive mercy and acceptance at God's throne, and then in the Spirit, you live in acceptance and thankfulness at whatever His will is for your life from there on out, because the answer to all of your prayers is Jesus anyways.
May we learn that Jesus doesn't just take care of sin, but that He takes care of us. May we receive mercy as we are taken in by God, and may we learn to stand in the grace that is given through Christ Jesus.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
God Unchanging--Psalm 9:5-8
You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
Their cities you rooted out;
The very memory of them has perished
But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
He has established his throne for justice,
And he judges the world with righteousness;
He judges the people's with uprightness.
Last week I wrestled with the previous section (9:3-4), dealing with the righteous judgment of God. Today, I want to deal with the same thing, with perhaps another couple of insights, obviously going off of these few verses above.
First off, we need to be honest about Who it is we're dealing with here: GOD. Often times when I've spoken of God or even sang songs of worship to God, I've been guilty of simply singing or talking as if God were just another person, at the same level as me, with a background, a birthday, dreams and visions, feelings that can be hurt, etc.
But this isn't the God we see in the Bible. The God we see in the Bible is a God who is "from all eternity" (Psalm 93:2), is "the eternal King" (Jeremiah 10:10), is "immortal" (Romans 10:23), exists "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:2), and is "the first and the last" (Isaiah 48:12). He is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1-2), He doesn't learn anything new from anyone (Isaiah 40:14), He "never changes" (James 1:17), and not only FROM and THROUGH Him exists all things, but TO Him exists all things (Romans 11:36).
If we're going to speak of God's character, we need to at least be Biblical, instead of speculating about what we think God is like (like we've all done), lest we make mistakes and sell Him short, which we will invariably do if we try to describe who God is in our own terms. Furthermore, why speculate?--He's revealed Himself clearly in Scripture. That's why I bring up all of those passages: Even if there's a distance between us and the pages we're reading (which there always is), we can't say God doesn't clearly show Himself to us in language we can understand. Furthermore, He's revealed Himself expressly through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2-3). The reason we don't go to the Scriptures to be taught by God about who He Himself is is because that would mean a) turning off all of our "noise" and listening to Him, b) being invited in to think the deep thoughts of God whereas our world and society continually pushes for a shallower level of shallowness, and c) humbling ourselves to do that which we know we can't do in and of ourselves. Nevertheless, He's revealed Himself.
God also says of Himself in Isaiah 55:8-9, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
In looking at the clear Scriptural description of God's character, we see a few things very clearly:
-God is transcendent, meaning that even to compare ourselves with God by saying we're ants and God's a genius giant would be a as far under the truth as one edge of the universe is from the other, and then more. There's not even the right language to compare ourselves with God, because He's SO far beyond us in every way. To call Him "transcendent" will suffice for now.
-God is eternal, meaning there's no time when God hasn't existed. Clever skeptics have often asked the question, "Well if God created the universe, who created God?" hoping to elicit a dumbfounded response, and often times met with one. But the question is stupid--NO ONE created God, that's what makes Him God. TIME is His creation, as well as SPACE. There isn't a thing that you could possibly know about anything at any given time without it being a gift from the Living God to you, just by virtue of the fact that it exists in time and space, which exists under God's sovereignty. God is before the beginning of time and after the end of time, as well as being outside of space. He's eternal.
-God is eternally wise and all-knowing. He knows everything, plain and simple. There isn't a single thing that's a surprise to Him, as He perfectly knows the past and the future with perfect clarity. His understanding knows no end.
-God is infinitely powerful, meaning there's no possible way that He could not get what He wants. There's also no possible way that He couldn't fulfill a promise. Because, in power, He's so far above the every day operations of the universe (and is the one who brings them about), there's nothing that couldn't be destroyed at a given second if He wanted it to be. There's also an infinite amount of things to be imagined that He could just call into existence that don't exist right now.
-Finally, God is holy. This means that the measuring rod of morality (right and wrong)--something that EVERYONE has and uses on a daily..even hourly..level--is only perfectly upheld by God. There's nothing He could do that could ever be wrong, because since all things find their source and purpose in Him, including RIGHT AND WRONG, He must be transcendent over that, too! He could ONLY be right, but He could NEVER be wrong.
Why do I bring all of this up? 2 reasons: 1) I want you to worship Him, and 2) I want you to understand (as much as we're capable) that He is the LAW for all things. If He makes rules, and they're not followed, He has every right to flood the Earth and kill off everyone if He wants to. In the Bible, He did that one time.
But that was the ONLY time He did it. He promised immediately afterward that He never would do it again, and He hasn't. So what's God to do with the fact that people STILL turn from Him and sin against Him?
The answer is found in another of God's attributes:
-God is the supreme embodiment of love and graciousness. As Exodus 34:6-7a famously says, "The Lord (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Being a loving God who shows grace and gives forgiveness, He would seem to be presented with a dilemma--what is He to do with this world that He forgives OVER and OVER and OVER again and just doesn't seem like it wants to change? The answer is that, in love, He pours out His Son Jesus to death on the cross, and whoever believes that Jesus is who He said He was (God), is forgiven (as God promised in the Exodus passage), and is filled with the Holy Spirit, which is simply the embodiment of God's presence with us (John 16:7-14, Acts 2:37-38). Being both forgiven of sin and blessed with His presence IN us, we live a lifestyle of repentance from sin into holiness before the Lord, which simply means living with God's glory as our primary target in all of life and practice, which is what we were created for in the first place. What kind of a God is this that would bring salvation to a people rebellious and hostile to Him, and actually do EVERYTHING along the way? The answer is 'no god'. Only THE God can be all of the aforementioned characteristics and still be as loving as He is.
Arguably the two best books I've read on God's character, outside of the Bible are A.W. Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy" and R.C. Sproul's "The Holiness of God". You should read them both. You'll digest them and be set on fire. You'll also be humbled and brought to your knees before God's throne, which wenaturally don't want to be!
Being the Absolute LAW for all of life, we see a passage in Psalm 9 that would make perfect sense from God's perspective, but doesn't seem to make sense from humanity's perspective. It's clear that a god who judges things is railed against almost instantaneously by our society. Why is this? It's simple: No one thinks they're wrong, or that anyone, including a Deity, has a right to judge them. I don't. I've struggled with God calling me a sinner.
But anyone who's a Christian will say easily that even though they didn't like it at first, the more and more they've been given eyes to see the way things really are, regarding the world and their self and the relationship between the world and their self, the more they've realized it's true. The thing that makes me a believer in what the Bible says is the fact that the worldview of the Bible seems to be 100% true. All that it says about how God is made known in His creation, about how the way things are aren't the way things are supposed to be, about how there IS life after death, about how there is better for us in our lives if we'll just surrender to the God who is there, etc., it would seems, makes sense, and is true. It HAS to be true. Otherwise, what hope is there for anything, in a world that seems to be headed to disaster at 100 miles a minute?
Verses 7-8 say "the Lord sits enthroned forever; He has established His throne for justice, and He judges the world with righteousness; He judges the people with uprightness."
Can I just say that this is a relief? Our whole lives are shrouded in the fear of how others will judge us. From the moment we wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and begin to get ourselves ready for the day, we're already in thought over making ourselves presentable. When we begin to walk out the door to some gathering of whatever sort, we're filled with at LEAST a small sense of anxiety over being around all of the people, in the fear that they will notice something imperfect about us, so we make small talk to shield ourselves (and them) from having to share what's really on our hearts and what really sits on the throne of our hearts. In a sense, we're constantly anxious over the fact that we know no one judges perfectly. We know they're imperfect, so we worry about what they'll think of us; and we know WE'RE imperfect, and since WE judge others based on unfair criteria (by what we see, instead of hearing the whole story), we know we'll get the fair treatment in the vice-verse.
But this passage--praise God--tells us that God, on His throne, judges with a perfect righteousness, and could never waver or change His mind regarding what He thinks of someone. How is this possible?: He knows all things, so there's no possibility of Him judging based on what He sees, when He knows what's really going on in someone's heart of hearts.
There's a passage in Isaiah 11 that speaks of when Jesus--God-with-us--will come to the Earth to pay the ransom for sin so that humans can be covenanted with God, and it attributes this same characteristic from the previous passage to Him (vv 3-4): "He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." Who are the poor? Not just those with little money. Everyone is the poor this passage refers to; because compared to Him and His glory He shares with the Father as the Sovereign Lord of all things, everyone is bankrupt. And since His holiness and perfection is beyond all comparison and couldn't even begin to be put into words (see Isaiah 6), the standard of His judgment will be righteousness perfected, just like the God David refers to in Psalm 9 (because Jesus IS that God).
Let me suggest that the reason it's a relief knowing that God judges in righteousness is due to the fact that since He knows all things that are in our hearts and minds, IF He accepts us and draws us to Himself as we are IN SPITE OF knowing the very core of our being, it MUST mean that He loves us. And yet we all know that "love" never means telling people what they want to hear or leaving people in their problems if their problems are killing them--we all know "love" means calling a spade a spade if it's a spade, in the name of HELPING the person who needs to change. They may rail against it at first, but if they stand up to overcome the obstacle, they ALWAYS know in the end that the person who told them the truth is their TRUE friend, compared to the ones who never wanted to confront them with their issue. This is God's character: He tells us what we need to hear, because He loves us. We've missed His standard of holiness, and instead of leaving us in our broken state to rot for eternity, He tells us the truth.
But that's not all: He causes us to change and be brought back into the light of truth. "In that day, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free," are Jesus' words for His disciples. We all know truth stings at first, but if it breaks chains in the end, it was necessary. As God judges in righteousness, from the throne that sits for FOREVER, knowing our hearts from bottom to top, we can trust that He's NEVER wrong, and that's liberating. It's liberating when the hard truth we're hearing from Him is THE truth, because even though it hurts, IT'S THE TRUTH, and that's all we want in the end. And He EMPOWERS us to walk in light of this revealed truth.
I've spoken before about how society's rebelliousness towards God's judgment is misguided, but I'm going to touch on it again.
Many people say that they have trouble believing in a god who judges and tells people when they're wrong or are in sin. They say that a god who has standards is a bad god. But this is a faulty logic on many levels, and I'll list three reasons why:
1. Every single person sits on their own throne of judgment. There's not a person alive who doesn't judge others every single day. From walking on the sidewalk in downtown Pittsburgh and seeing a group of "rough looking" guys standing on the sidewalk ahead of me, I cross to the other side to miss them. Why? Because I'm using judgments based on what I've known in the past, but not necessarily based on the truth. I'm ASSUMING that those guys might jump me or cause problems, based on what? Probably TV more than anything. You've done things like this. Everyone does. Is the answer to just put ourselves in harms way at all times? No--the answer is to admit that we judge ALL the time.
2. If we could design a GOD-like figure, we would assign it standards by which to judge, too. Everyone, in their heart of hearts, knows that it's a bad god who lets everything pass in the name of "freedom". It would be a bad high school principal who lets his students do whatever they want, in the name of freedom and choice. He HAS to exercise rules, authority, and judgments, because if he doesn't anarchy will ensue. This is due to the fact that we don't really have any idea what we're capable of. Many murderers started off just like you. And God has standards because He's good and understands we will turn everything to crap left up to ourselves.
3. The reason why He tells you you're a sinner is because He wants better for you and is willing to come all the way down to your level for the sake of changing your heart and bringing you into that which you were created to be/have/experience. Life is a constant movement out of things we don't find satisfying into things we think are more worth it anyways, and the idea of a God telling you there's more and better is only congruent with our lives already. We change all the time anyways--He just tells us what is better to change into, and actually brings about the change necessary to get there.
In Sproul's "The Holiness of God", one of his main points is that there are far fewer people who don't believe in God than there are people who say they don't but really just don't LIKE God, so they say they don't believe in Him. I've heard that the two points of atheism are: a) I don't believe in God, b) and I hate him...ironic, huh? Why is it such a distressing thing to think of a God who transcends us, is better than us, and sits in the seat of judgment OVER us? It's because our whole lives are a house of cards we've built using perishable things, which is why any time you encounter someone who's better than you at what you're good at, it's devastating. It suddenly negates and tears apart your whole life right before your eyes, and you don't feel better until you go away from this transcendent person, back into your life where you're the go-to-person in this field, and get the house of cards built back up. But a fierce wind comes through, blows the house down again, and you're back to rebuilding.
It's the same way with your relationship to this God of the Bible: You live your life in the framework of no-god-ness, because you don't WANT God to be real, and any time the conversation of His being real comes up, you get defensive because your house of cards is being blown over yet again (maybe it is right now...I commend you for still reading).
But you need to know that even though God tells you His righteous requirements that you've MISSED, He's good for what He says. As I read recently in a Bryan Chapell book, "What God requires, He provides, and what He provides, He perfects." Don't fight it anymore--whatever it is that's causing you to rail against Him, just take a second to ponder on the fact that He MUST be loving if you've missed His righteous requirement and you're still here. He is. He loves you, and even though you sit in His hand right now and it's the the most fearful place in the world, it's also the most freeing place. He will help you live up to His standards. You're living up to someone's standards already in every part of your life, but they're not righteous and you're never promised grace from anyone (including yourself). But with God, you ARE promised grace and forgiveness. So seek HIS standard, knowing that a) they're the best standards, b) He sets them because He loves you and knows what's best for you, and c) He'll help you.
Call out to Jesus who is your hope for salvation. He won't abandon you and He won't leave you in the dust. Instead, He CAME to the dust and WENT to the cross, because the holy God of the universe loves you enough to give His Son for the sake of drawing you to Himself. His throne is forever, His righteousness is righteous, and His hands are good. Trust Him today.
You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
Their cities you rooted out;
The very memory of them has perished
But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
He has established his throne for justice,
And he judges the world with righteousness;
He judges the people's with uprightness.
Last week I wrestled with the previous section (9:3-4), dealing with the righteous judgment of God. Today, I want to deal with the same thing, with perhaps another couple of insights, obviously going off of these few verses above.
First off, we need to be honest about Who it is we're dealing with here: GOD. Often times when I've spoken of God or even sang songs of worship to God, I've been guilty of simply singing or talking as if God were just another person, at the same level as me, with a background, a birthday, dreams and visions, feelings that can be hurt, etc.
But this isn't the God we see in the Bible. The God we see in the Bible is a God who is "from all eternity" (Psalm 93:2), is "the eternal King" (Jeremiah 10:10), is "immortal" (Romans 10:23), exists "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:2), and is "the first and the last" (Isaiah 48:12). He is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1-2), He doesn't learn anything new from anyone (Isaiah 40:14), He "never changes" (James 1:17), and not only FROM and THROUGH Him exists all things, but TO Him exists all things (Romans 11:36).
If we're going to speak of God's character, we need to at least be Biblical, instead of speculating about what we think God is like (like we've all done), lest we make mistakes and sell Him short, which we will invariably do if we try to describe who God is in our own terms. Furthermore, why speculate?--He's revealed Himself clearly in Scripture. That's why I bring up all of those passages: Even if there's a distance between us and the pages we're reading (which there always is), we can't say God doesn't clearly show Himself to us in language we can understand. Furthermore, He's revealed Himself expressly through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2-3). The reason we don't go to the Scriptures to be taught by God about who He Himself is is because that would mean a) turning off all of our "noise" and listening to Him, b) being invited in to think the deep thoughts of God whereas our world and society continually pushes for a shallower level of shallowness, and c) humbling ourselves to do that which we know we can't do in and of ourselves. Nevertheless, He's revealed Himself.
God also says of Himself in Isaiah 55:8-9, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
In looking at the clear Scriptural description of God's character, we see a few things very clearly:
-God is transcendent, meaning that even to compare ourselves with God by saying we're ants and God's a genius giant would be a as far under the truth as one edge of the universe is from the other, and then more. There's not even the right language to compare ourselves with God, because He's SO far beyond us in every way. To call Him "transcendent" will suffice for now.
-God is eternal, meaning there's no time when God hasn't existed. Clever skeptics have often asked the question, "Well if God created the universe, who created God?" hoping to elicit a dumbfounded response, and often times met with one. But the question is stupid--NO ONE created God, that's what makes Him God. TIME is His creation, as well as SPACE. There isn't a thing that you could possibly know about anything at any given time without it being a gift from the Living God to you, just by virtue of the fact that it exists in time and space, which exists under God's sovereignty. God is before the beginning of time and after the end of time, as well as being outside of space. He's eternal.
-God is eternally wise and all-knowing. He knows everything, plain and simple. There isn't a single thing that's a surprise to Him, as He perfectly knows the past and the future with perfect clarity. His understanding knows no end.
-God is infinitely powerful, meaning there's no possible way that He could not get what He wants. There's also no possible way that He couldn't fulfill a promise. Because, in power, He's so far above the every day operations of the universe (and is the one who brings them about), there's nothing that couldn't be destroyed at a given second if He wanted it to be. There's also an infinite amount of things to be imagined that He could just call into existence that don't exist right now.
-Finally, God is holy. This means that the measuring rod of morality (right and wrong)--something that EVERYONE has and uses on a daily..even hourly..level--is only perfectly upheld by God. There's nothing He could do that could ever be wrong, because since all things find their source and purpose in Him, including RIGHT AND WRONG, He must be transcendent over that, too! He could ONLY be right, but He could NEVER be wrong.
Why do I bring all of this up? 2 reasons: 1) I want you to worship Him, and 2) I want you to understand (as much as we're capable) that He is the LAW for all things. If He makes rules, and they're not followed, He has every right to flood the Earth and kill off everyone if He wants to. In the Bible, He did that one time.
But that was the ONLY time He did it. He promised immediately afterward that He never would do it again, and He hasn't. So what's God to do with the fact that people STILL turn from Him and sin against Him?
The answer is found in another of God's attributes:
-God is the supreme embodiment of love and graciousness. As Exodus 34:6-7a famously says, "The Lord (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Being a loving God who shows grace and gives forgiveness, He would seem to be presented with a dilemma--what is He to do with this world that He forgives OVER and OVER and OVER again and just doesn't seem like it wants to change? The answer is that, in love, He pours out His Son Jesus to death on the cross, and whoever believes that Jesus is who He said He was (God), is forgiven (as God promised in the Exodus passage), and is filled with the Holy Spirit, which is simply the embodiment of God's presence with us (John 16:7-14, Acts 2:37-38). Being both forgiven of sin and blessed with His presence IN us, we live a lifestyle of repentance from sin into holiness before the Lord, which simply means living with God's glory as our primary target in all of life and practice, which is what we were created for in the first place. What kind of a God is this that would bring salvation to a people rebellious and hostile to Him, and actually do EVERYTHING along the way? The answer is 'no god'. Only THE God can be all of the aforementioned characteristics and still be as loving as He is.
Arguably the two best books I've read on God's character, outside of the Bible are A.W. Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy" and R.C. Sproul's "The Holiness of God". You should read them both. You'll digest them and be set on fire. You'll also be humbled and brought to your knees before God's throne, which wenaturally don't want to be!
Being the Absolute LAW for all of life, we see a passage in Psalm 9 that would make perfect sense from God's perspective, but doesn't seem to make sense from humanity's perspective. It's clear that a god who judges things is railed against almost instantaneously by our society. Why is this? It's simple: No one thinks they're wrong, or that anyone, including a Deity, has a right to judge them. I don't. I've struggled with God calling me a sinner.
But anyone who's a Christian will say easily that even though they didn't like it at first, the more and more they've been given eyes to see the way things really are, regarding the world and their self and the relationship between the world and their self, the more they've realized it's true. The thing that makes me a believer in what the Bible says is the fact that the worldview of the Bible seems to be 100% true. All that it says about how God is made known in His creation, about how the way things are aren't the way things are supposed to be, about how there IS life after death, about how there is better for us in our lives if we'll just surrender to the God who is there, etc., it would seems, makes sense, and is true. It HAS to be true. Otherwise, what hope is there for anything, in a world that seems to be headed to disaster at 100 miles a minute?
Verses 7-8 say "the Lord sits enthroned forever; He has established His throne for justice, and He judges the world with righteousness; He judges the people with uprightness."
Can I just say that this is a relief? Our whole lives are shrouded in the fear of how others will judge us. From the moment we wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and begin to get ourselves ready for the day, we're already in thought over making ourselves presentable. When we begin to walk out the door to some gathering of whatever sort, we're filled with at LEAST a small sense of anxiety over being around all of the people, in the fear that they will notice something imperfect about us, so we make small talk to shield ourselves (and them) from having to share what's really on our hearts and what really sits on the throne of our hearts. In a sense, we're constantly anxious over the fact that we know no one judges perfectly. We know they're imperfect, so we worry about what they'll think of us; and we know WE'RE imperfect, and since WE judge others based on unfair criteria (by what we see, instead of hearing the whole story), we know we'll get the fair treatment in the vice-verse.
But this passage--praise God--tells us that God, on His throne, judges with a perfect righteousness, and could never waver or change His mind regarding what He thinks of someone. How is this possible?: He knows all things, so there's no possibility of Him judging based on what He sees, when He knows what's really going on in someone's heart of hearts.
There's a passage in Isaiah 11 that speaks of when Jesus--God-with-us--will come to the Earth to pay the ransom for sin so that humans can be covenanted with God, and it attributes this same characteristic from the previous passage to Him (vv 3-4): "He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." Who are the poor? Not just those with little money. Everyone is the poor this passage refers to; because compared to Him and His glory He shares with the Father as the Sovereign Lord of all things, everyone is bankrupt. And since His holiness and perfection is beyond all comparison and couldn't even begin to be put into words (see Isaiah 6), the standard of His judgment will be righteousness perfected, just like the God David refers to in Psalm 9 (because Jesus IS that God).
Let me suggest that the reason it's a relief knowing that God judges in righteousness is due to the fact that since He knows all things that are in our hearts and minds, IF He accepts us and draws us to Himself as we are IN SPITE OF knowing the very core of our being, it MUST mean that He loves us. And yet we all know that "love" never means telling people what they want to hear or leaving people in their problems if their problems are killing them--we all know "love" means calling a spade a spade if it's a spade, in the name of HELPING the person who needs to change. They may rail against it at first, but if they stand up to overcome the obstacle, they ALWAYS know in the end that the person who told them the truth is their TRUE friend, compared to the ones who never wanted to confront them with their issue. This is God's character: He tells us what we need to hear, because He loves us. We've missed His standard of holiness, and instead of leaving us in our broken state to rot for eternity, He tells us the truth.
But that's not all: He causes us to change and be brought back into the light of truth. "In that day, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free," are Jesus' words for His disciples. We all know truth stings at first, but if it breaks chains in the end, it was necessary. As God judges in righteousness, from the throne that sits for FOREVER, knowing our hearts from bottom to top, we can trust that He's NEVER wrong, and that's liberating. It's liberating when the hard truth we're hearing from Him is THE truth, because even though it hurts, IT'S THE TRUTH, and that's all we want in the end. And He EMPOWERS us to walk in light of this revealed truth.
I've spoken before about how society's rebelliousness towards God's judgment is misguided, but I'm going to touch on it again.
Many people say that they have trouble believing in a god who judges and tells people when they're wrong or are in sin. They say that a god who has standards is a bad god. But this is a faulty logic on many levels, and I'll list three reasons why:
1. Every single person sits on their own throne of judgment. There's not a person alive who doesn't judge others every single day. From walking on the sidewalk in downtown Pittsburgh and seeing a group of "rough looking" guys standing on the sidewalk ahead of me, I cross to the other side to miss them. Why? Because I'm using judgments based on what I've known in the past, but not necessarily based on the truth. I'm ASSUMING that those guys might jump me or cause problems, based on what? Probably TV more than anything. You've done things like this. Everyone does. Is the answer to just put ourselves in harms way at all times? No--the answer is to admit that we judge ALL the time.
2. If we could design a GOD-like figure, we would assign it standards by which to judge, too. Everyone, in their heart of hearts, knows that it's a bad god who lets everything pass in the name of "freedom". It would be a bad high school principal who lets his students do whatever they want, in the name of freedom and choice. He HAS to exercise rules, authority, and judgments, because if he doesn't anarchy will ensue. This is due to the fact that we don't really have any idea what we're capable of. Many murderers started off just like you. And God has standards because He's good and understands we will turn everything to crap left up to ourselves.
3. The reason why He tells you you're a sinner is because He wants better for you and is willing to come all the way down to your level for the sake of changing your heart and bringing you into that which you were created to be/have/experience. Life is a constant movement out of things we don't find satisfying into things we think are more worth it anyways, and the idea of a God telling you there's more and better is only congruent with our lives already. We change all the time anyways--He just tells us what is better to change into, and actually brings about the change necessary to get there.
In Sproul's "The Holiness of God", one of his main points is that there are far fewer people who don't believe in God than there are people who say they don't but really just don't LIKE God, so they say they don't believe in Him. I've heard that the two points of atheism are: a) I don't believe in God, b) and I hate him...ironic, huh? Why is it such a distressing thing to think of a God who transcends us, is better than us, and sits in the seat of judgment OVER us? It's because our whole lives are a house of cards we've built using perishable things, which is why any time you encounter someone who's better than you at what you're good at, it's devastating. It suddenly negates and tears apart your whole life right before your eyes, and you don't feel better until you go away from this transcendent person, back into your life where you're the go-to-person in this field, and get the house of cards built back up. But a fierce wind comes through, blows the house down again, and you're back to rebuilding.
It's the same way with your relationship to this God of the Bible: You live your life in the framework of no-god-ness, because you don't WANT God to be real, and any time the conversation of His being real comes up, you get defensive because your house of cards is being blown over yet again (maybe it is right now...I commend you for still reading).
But you need to know that even though God tells you His righteous requirements that you've MISSED, He's good for what He says. As I read recently in a Bryan Chapell book, "What God requires, He provides, and what He provides, He perfects." Don't fight it anymore--whatever it is that's causing you to rail against Him, just take a second to ponder on the fact that He MUST be loving if you've missed His righteous requirement and you're still here. He is. He loves you, and even though you sit in His hand right now and it's the the most fearful place in the world, it's also the most freeing place. He will help you live up to His standards. You're living up to someone's standards already in every part of your life, but they're not righteous and you're never promised grace from anyone (including yourself). But with God, you ARE promised grace and forgiveness. So seek HIS standard, knowing that a) they're the best standards, b) He sets them because He loves you and knows what's best for you, and c) He'll help you.
Call out to Jesus who is your hope for salvation. He won't abandon you and He won't leave you in the dust. Instead, He CAME to the dust and WENT to the cross, because the holy God of the universe loves you enough to give His Son for the sake of drawing you to Himself. His throne is forever, His righteousness is righteous, and His hands are good. Trust Him today.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Righteous Judgment--Psalm 9:3-4
Continuing on in looking at Psalm 9, our verses for this post are 3-4:
When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
The first lie ever told was a lie about words God had said. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent came upon a young bride, Eve, who had just been given instructions to basically do whatever her and her husband want to do with the exception of eating fruit from a specific tree God said not to eat fruit from, and when the serpent approached Eve, he asked her a question that would forever change human history for the worse: "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Then Eve replied, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Then the serpent told the first lie of all time: "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." At that moment Eve reached out and ate from the tree, followed by her husband (Genesis 3:2-5).
We could look at this story from almost an infinite amount of angles, but one thing, with relation to Psalm 9:3-4, jumps out at me, and it's simply that sin comes into the world through the serpent convincing Eve that she can't trust what God said.
Have you ever trusted someone and then they did something to break that trust? That's a silly question, for all people have been through it--a relationship (any kind of relationship) is beautiful and there's trust and purity and all of that, and then one side seems to change, whatever way it happens, so that trust is broken between the two parties or at least from YOUR end, so that you don't believe you can trust that person anymore. What was once there is no longer there anymore, and usually if you're the person who feels betrayed, you're response is something along the lines of, "They changed, I didn't, and I deserve better than that."
Thus we carry our broken heart around as a cross for the rest of our lives and assume that people don't understand us because we've truly suffered, and even if anyone else ever has, they haven't suffered as much as I have.
And yet, since the beginning of time, men and women who have approached the Living God who dwells in unapproachable light and yet reveals Himself to us inasmuch as we can handle it, have been humbled to understand the fact that the fault of the losses they've experienced in relationship to others is most of the time at the very least a 50/50 split, and at the very most a 60/40 split.
What I mean is this: Yes, we were betrayed and suffered what it means to have trust broken. But when we come up underneath the sovereignty and holiness of God, we see others for who they really are, and once we get over the initial shock, we realize that putting as much trust into someone else as we have (truly, all our heart, soul, mind, and strength)is bound to lead to disappointment, because they're imperfect and can't be expected to match up to all of our unreasonable expectations. The pain is still pain, but to cry out to the person "why? why? why?" is an unhealthy alternative to facing up to the fact that we put too much trust into them in the first place, because they're flawed like we are. And the hard truth to have to accept is the fact that our pain and disappointment has just as much to do with our unrealistic expectations placed on others, as it does with their not meeting those expectations. In a sense, our pain at others' breaking trust, isn't all their fault, but is partially ours.
Unfortunately, Eve listened to the serpent's words and felt that God had lied to her. Think about this: she felt that the God who created her, put breath into her body, and gave her all that she sees and feels and experiences, LIED to her. Why would He do that? He wouldn't. So who's at fault here in this story? The serpent? Surely not--he spoke, but didn't make Eve DO anything. Who's at fault for Eve mistrusting God's Word?
It had to be Eve--there's no possibility that God had done anything to break Eve's trust, but for some reason (unknown), the serpent made more sense to her than God did, and all of humanity is lost at that moment.
My point of all of this is this: Since the first sin was not trusting that God's Word was good, we can assume that this is at MOST the basis for all other sin(s) in the world today and at LEAST an ingredient in the problems. If we take this logic as far as it goes, we can easily deduce that a fundamental mistrust of God's Word (whether it's the Scriptures, His voice in prayer, etc.) is really a fundamental mistrust of God Himself. Think about it--do you really trust in Him? Everyone feels like a martyr; like I said earlier, everyone's experienced pain and betrayal and everyone harbors bitterness and resentment. Everyone struggles with that--but do you trust that the Sovereign God allowed that to happen to you BECAUSE HE'S GOOD? You might respond, "What kind of stupid logic is that?--that God lets bad things happen because He's good?" Have you ever thought that perhaps comfort and naive happiness isn't all there is to life, but that maybe the deepest place of peace lies in going through the dark nights of pain it takes to fall on your knees and cast yourself on Christ and find mercy and rest there?--that maybe it TAKES betrayal and pain to realize that God is the only perfectly trustworthy and perfectly good person there is in all of creation?
Most of us struggle with this because, like I said, we don't trust that our God is a good God. Furthermore, most of the reason for atheism is that many have come to the conclusion that God is fake because they started with skepticism that He was good.
In the Bible, we see this all over. Job had his whole life (well, not his whole life--just a lot of his blessings from God) taken from him, and he spends a long time just sitting complaining to God. Finally God speaks to him, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...who determined it's measurements--surely you know!...Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." (Job 38:4,5; 40:2). Job then responds, "Behold I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further." (40:4-5)
Do you see what just happened? Job has had all of his 'stuff' he's acquired (yes, I'm including his recently deceased family members as 'stuff') taken away from him, and as he approaches the Living God from whom all things come and to all things go, to COMPLAIN, instead of worship, God responds in essence, "Who are YOU?" I think God would say, "I understand your pain--but it's misguided and not completely faultless. You feel pain because you've lost those things most precious to you. But that's why it's so painful--those things were most precious to you, and I'M supposed to be most precious to you; and you ALWAYS have me no matter how much you lose!" Of course, God doesn't say all this--He doesn't need to; He just needs to turn the mirror back on lowly Job and say, "This is you. Okay? Now, who am I? GOD, right?" And Job responds, "I'll stop complaining; even though you've taken everything, I trust you because you're God and I'm not and I know you have greater for me."
In Isaiah 40, God is accusing Israel of it's idolatry. Many people ask, "Why is God so selfish as to want worship all the time? I don't like a God like that." But if you're consistent with logic, IF HE'S GOD, doesn't He deserve worship anyways? Shouldn't He call the shots? Israel had forgotten this; instead, they worshiped silly things. "Behold the nations are like a drop in the bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales...to whom will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering (to God) chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move." (Isaiah 40:15, 18-20). God is in essence asking, "Why would you not look to me for your peace and contentment? Don't you trust that if you worship me, I'll give you joy? Instead you CREATE idols and WORSHIP them! What logic is there in worshiping something you can create?!"
There's none. And yet we try to set up ourselves as successful and happy and well-rounded, so as to gain respect and honor from others, so that we'll feel like we matter in this world, so that we can worship ourselves by reveling in our accomplishments--things we've CREATED.
And because we've bought into our own systems of understanding (created systems), and our own systems of feeling good about ourselves (created systems), and whatever else you'd like to fill in the blank with, the idea of a God from whom all things find their source and who demands worship and glory in His creation, at the very least doesn't make sense to us, and at the most appalls us. And most of our minds, as they think of what it means to have a relationship with God, conjure a picture of humanity sitting in a courtroom as the judge, jury, and audience, as God is on the witness stand, desperately hoping to find the words to say to convince us not to sentence Him to death. And nothing could be further from the truth.
Which brings us back to our original passage in Psalm 9:3-4. Verse 3 says that his (David's) enemies "stumble and perish before your (God's) presence". Why do people stumble and perish in God's presence? Because as it is all throughout the Bible, any time God's glory is revealed to humans, they with their darkened hearts can't behold it--they either run and hide, keep their eyes closed, or they die.
People don't like to hear this, and the reason they don't like to hear it is because they can't understand the concept of a God who we can't totally understand--let alone a God who we can't understand because it's OUR fault!
David then says in verse 4, "For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on your throne, giving righteous judgment."
That last phrase is interesting--just three words, and yet perhaps the most polarizing three words David could possibly have written: "Giving righteous judgment."
I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but 'judgment' is not looked too kindly upon in our culture. Of course, this being the common opinion can only be based upon one of two reasons: 1) I don't think I do anything bad enough to be judged, or 2) I know I'm horrible and I don't want to be judged. If you throw the word "righteous" in there, it makes it all the more angering: It's not only judgment, but it's judgment that's completely warranted and justified.
Many people don't think ANYONE sits on a throne high enough that they can judge anyone else. That's why people look at Christianity as a 'strait-jacket' religion--"if you follow God, you can't do anything," they say. Of course, anyone who trusts in Christ and lives to seek God knows this is a complete lie. But this is what many people say.
However, even though they'd say they do, it's not really what many people BELIEVE. If they believed it (it, being the idea that no one should ever judge anyone), they'd see their entire lives fall in shambles, because all of our lives are in some way or another constructed on a foundation of judgments. "I work here because I've judged that this is what I find the most enjoyment in." "I live here because I've judged that this is the best neighborhood." "I watch this show and listen to this music because I've judged that it's the best show and music to give my attention to."
You might say I'm being too simplistic--that I'm not speaking to the real issue, which is judging people. Okay, fair enough. But you do this, too. Anytime you have an opinion about anything or anyone or something someone said, you've judged. Any time you've driven through a rough part of town (like where I live) and locked your doors at a stop-light because of the people on the sidewalk, you've exercised judgment based on what you've known or experienced or what you FEAR. It's not a bad thing--it's a good thing. Better to have your doors locked and be judgmental than to be pulled out of your car and brutally murdered but at least you were open-minded in so doing, right?
But my point is this: "Judgmental-ism" CAN'T be the real issue; because you and I judge all the time with almost every thought. So could it be something else?
I think it is. I think it's more that we think our way is the best way and anyone who tries to trample on it by calling it wrong and telling us we need to change, needs to change THEMSELVES!
Logically, if God is truly God, doesn't He have a right to exercise judgment anytime He wants to whomever He wants? And furthermore, our response to it will probably say a lot about what we really think about God: If we respond in bitter anger, we clearly thought God was just supposed to give me what I want and leave me alone most of the time. But if we believe that God is supposed to be worshiped and glorified by humans, then any time He corrects us we'll take it gladly as a showering down of His Fatherly love in holding us accountable and conforming us to the likeness of His Son Jesus. (see Hebrews 12:3-11) These are two completely different responses, not coincidentally, but because they start from two completely different places: The former views God as a magic genie who worships me, and the second views God as GOD whom I'm supposed to worship.
The very fact that there is a moral law (right vs. wrong) has to start somewhere, and since the world more and more believes truth is relative, it CAN'T have started with us. How do you answer that question if there's not a transcendent Being who is beyond us? You can't.
The fact is that God is real, and the idea of "righteous judgment" in Psalm 9 is the ONLY kind of judgment God could give, because He IS the Law in the universe. There's no possibility of Him making a mistake or being wrong or changing His mind, and if it ever seems like He does or has, it's because we've misunderstood or needed to be taught something by Him. If He calls something wrong, He's not meaning to put a strait-jacket on you--He's helping you be who He created you to be.
To see this best, look at the Cross of Jesus. When you come to the cross for the first time (truly), you never come just because you're a sinner. Nor do you just come because God loves you. Rather, you come because you're a sinner and God loves you. At the cross, we see the wrath of God (the RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT) poured out on Jesus who hangs in our place; but to be able to access forgiveness and all of the effects of Christ's work, we have to admit we NEED it.
A bad god would let everyone be how they are without being honest. A good god would exercise judgment in honesty. But only God Himself would both exercise judgment AND pay the penalty for the problem Himself.
Praise be to God, He is good. Trust in Him. What other choice do you have? And what else would you WANT to do?
When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
The first lie ever told was a lie about words God had said. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent came upon a young bride, Eve, who had just been given instructions to basically do whatever her and her husband want to do with the exception of eating fruit from a specific tree God said not to eat fruit from, and when the serpent approached Eve, he asked her a question that would forever change human history for the worse: "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Then Eve replied, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Then the serpent told the first lie of all time: "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." At that moment Eve reached out and ate from the tree, followed by her husband (Genesis 3:2-5).
We could look at this story from almost an infinite amount of angles, but one thing, with relation to Psalm 9:3-4, jumps out at me, and it's simply that sin comes into the world through the serpent convincing Eve that she can't trust what God said.
Have you ever trusted someone and then they did something to break that trust? That's a silly question, for all people have been through it--a relationship (any kind of relationship) is beautiful and there's trust and purity and all of that, and then one side seems to change, whatever way it happens, so that trust is broken between the two parties or at least from YOUR end, so that you don't believe you can trust that person anymore. What was once there is no longer there anymore, and usually if you're the person who feels betrayed, you're response is something along the lines of, "They changed, I didn't, and I deserve better than that."
Thus we carry our broken heart around as a cross for the rest of our lives and assume that people don't understand us because we've truly suffered, and even if anyone else ever has, they haven't suffered as much as I have.
And yet, since the beginning of time, men and women who have approached the Living God who dwells in unapproachable light and yet reveals Himself to us inasmuch as we can handle it, have been humbled to understand the fact that the fault of the losses they've experienced in relationship to others is most of the time at the very least a 50/50 split, and at the very most a 60/40 split.
What I mean is this: Yes, we were betrayed and suffered what it means to have trust broken. But when we come up underneath the sovereignty and holiness of God, we see others for who they really are, and once we get over the initial shock, we realize that putting as much trust into someone else as we have (truly, all our heart, soul, mind, and strength)is bound to lead to disappointment, because they're imperfect and can't be expected to match up to all of our unreasonable expectations. The pain is still pain, but to cry out to the person "why? why? why?" is an unhealthy alternative to facing up to the fact that we put too much trust into them in the first place, because they're flawed like we are. And the hard truth to have to accept is the fact that our pain and disappointment has just as much to do with our unrealistic expectations placed on others, as it does with their not meeting those expectations. In a sense, our pain at others' breaking trust, isn't all their fault, but is partially ours.
Unfortunately, Eve listened to the serpent's words and felt that God had lied to her. Think about this: she felt that the God who created her, put breath into her body, and gave her all that she sees and feels and experiences, LIED to her. Why would He do that? He wouldn't. So who's at fault here in this story? The serpent? Surely not--he spoke, but didn't make Eve DO anything. Who's at fault for Eve mistrusting God's Word?
It had to be Eve--there's no possibility that God had done anything to break Eve's trust, but for some reason (unknown), the serpent made more sense to her than God did, and all of humanity is lost at that moment.
My point of all of this is this: Since the first sin was not trusting that God's Word was good, we can assume that this is at MOST the basis for all other sin(s) in the world today and at LEAST an ingredient in the problems. If we take this logic as far as it goes, we can easily deduce that a fundamental mistrust of God's Word (whether it's the Scriptures, His voice in prayer, etc.) is really a fundamental mistrust of God Himself. Think about it--do you really trust in Him? Everyone feels like a martyr; like I said earlier, everyone's experienced pain and betrayal and everyone harbors bitterness and resentment. Everyone struggles with that--but do you trust that the Sovereign God allowed that to happen to you BECAUSE HE'S GOOD? You might respond, "What kind of stupid logic is that?--that God lets bad things happen because He's good?" Have you ever thought that perhaps comfort and naive happiness isn't all there is to life, but that maybe the deepest place of peace lies in going through the dark nights of pain it takes to fall on your knees and cast yourself on Christ and find mercy and rest there?--that maybe it TAKES betrayal and pain to realize that God is the only perfectly trustworthy and perfectly good person there is in all of creation?
Most of us struggle with this because, like I said, we don't trust that our God is a good God. Furthermore, most of the reason for atheism is that many have come to the conclusion that God is fake because they started with skepticism that He was good.
In the Bible, we see this all over. Job had his whole life (well, not his whole life--just a lot of his blessings from God) taken from him, and he spends a long time just sitting complaining to God. Finally God speaks to him, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...who determined it's measurements--surely you know!...Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." (Job 38:4,5; 40:2). Job then responds, "Behold I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further." (40:4-5)
Do you see what just happened? Job has had all of his 'stuff' he's acquired (yes, I'm including his recently deceased family members as 'stuff') taken away from him, and as he approaches the Living God from whom all things come and to all things go, to COMPLAIN, instead of worship, God responds in essence, "Who are YOU?" I think God would say, "I understand your pain--but it's misguided and not completely faultless. You feel pain because you've lost those things most precious to you. But that's why it's so painful--those things were most precious to you, and I'M supposed to be most precious to you; and you ALWAYS have me no matter how much you lose!" Of course, God doesn't say all this--He doesn't need to; He just needs to turn the mirror back on lowly Job and say, "This is you. Okay? Now, who am I? GOD, right?" And Job responds, "I'll stop complaining; even though you've taken everything, I trust you because you're God and I'm not and I know you have greater for me."
In Isaiah 40, God is accusing Israel of it's idolatry. Many people ask, "Why is God so selfish as to want worship all the time? I don't like a God like that." But if you're consistent with logic, IF HE'S GOD, doesn't He deserve worship anyways? Shouldn't He call the shots? Israel had forgotten this; instead, they worshiped silly things. "Behold the nations are like a drop in the bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales...to whom will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering (to God) chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move." (Isaiah 40:15, 18-20). God is in essence asking, "Why would you not look to me for your peace and contentment? Don't you trust that if you worship me, I'll give you joy? Instead you CREATE idols and WORSHIP them! What logic is there in worshiping something you can create?!"
There's none. And yet we try to set up ourselves as successful and happy and well-rounded, so as to gain respect and honor from others, so that we'll feel like we matter in this world, so that we can worship ourselves by reveling in our accomplishments--things we've CREATED.
And because we've bought into our own systems of understanding (created systems), and our own systems of feeling good about ourselves (created systems), and whatever else you'd like to fill in the blank with, the idea of a God from whom all things find their source and who demands worship and glory in His creation, at the very least doesn't make sense to us, and at the most appalls us. And most of our minds, as they think of what it means to have a relationship with God, conjure a picture of humanity sitting in a courtroom as the judge, jury, and audience, as God is on the witness stand, desperately hoping to find the words to say to convince us not to sentence Him to death. And nothing could be further from the truth.
Which brings us back to our original passage in Psalm 9:3-4. Verse 3 says that his (David's) enemies "stumble and perish before your (God's) presence". Why do people stumble and perish in God's presence? Because as it is all throughout the Bible, any time God's glory is revealed to humans, they with their darkened hearts can't behold it--they either run and hide, keep their eyes closed, or they die.
People don't like to hear this, and the reason they don't like to hear it is because they can't understand the concept of a God who we can't totally understand--let alone a God who we can't understand because it's OUR fault!
David then says in verse 4, "For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on your throne, giving righteous judgment."
That last phrase is interesting--just three words, and yet perhaps the most polarizing three words David could possibly have written: "Giving righteous judgment."
I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but 'judgment' is not looked too kindly upon in our culture. Of course, this being the common opinion can only be based upon one of two reasons: 1) I don't think I do anything bad enough to be judged, or 2) I know I'm horrible and I don't want to be judged. If you throw the word "righteous" in there, it makes it all the more angering: It's not only judgment, but it's judgment that's completely warranted and justified.
Many people don't think ANYONE sits on a throne high enough that they can judge anyone else. That's why people look at Christianity as a 'strait-jacket' religion--"if you follow God, you can't do anything," they say. Of course, anyone who trusts in Christ and lives to seek God knows this is a complete lie. But this is what many people say.
However, even though they'd say they do, it's not really what many people BELIEVE. If they believed it (it, being the idea that no one should ever judge anyone), they'd see their entire lives fall in shambles, because all of our lives are in some way or another constructed on a foundation of judgments. "I work here because I've judged that this is what I find the most enjoyment in." "I live here because I've judged that this is the best neighborhood." "I watch this show and listen to this music because I've judged that it's the best show and music to give my attention to."
You might say I'm being too simplistic--that I'm not speaking to the real issue, which is judging people. Okay, fair enough. But you do this, too. Anytime you have an opinion about anything or anyone or something someone said, you've judged. Any time you've driven through a rough part of town (like where I live) and locked your doors at a stop-light because of the people on the sidewalk, you've exercised judgment based on what you've known or experienced or what you FEAR. It's not a bad thing--it's a good thing. Better to have your doors locked and be judgmental than to be pulled out of your car and brutally murdered but at least you were open-minded in so doing, right?
But my point is this: "Judgmental-ism" CAN'T be the real issue; because you and I judge all the time with almost every thought. So could it be something else?
I think it is. I think it's more that we think our way is the best way and anyone who tries to trample on it by calling it wrong and telling us we need to change, needs to change THEMSELVES!
Logically, if God is truly God, doesn't He have a right to exercise judgment anytime He wants to whomever He wants? And furthermore, our response to it will probably say a lot about what we really think about God: If we respond in bitter anger, we clearly thought God was just supposed to give me what I want and leave me alone most of the time. But if we believe that God is supposed to be worshiped and glorified by humans, then any time He corrects us we'll take it gladly as a showering down of His Fatherly love in holding us accountable and conforming us to the likeness of His Son Jesus. (see Hebrews 12:3-11) These are two completely different responses, not coincidentally, but because they start from two completely different places: The former views God as a magic genie who worships me, and the second views God as GOD whom I'm supposed to worship.
The very fact that there is a moral law (right vs. wrong) has to start somewhere, and since the world more and more believes truth is relative, it CAN'T have started with us. How do you answer that question if there's not a transcendent Being who is beyond us? You can't.
The fact is that God is real, and the idea of "righteous judgment" in Psalm 9 is the ONLY kind of judgment God could give, because He IS the Law in the universe. There's no possibility of Him making a mistake or being wrong or changing His mind, and if it ever seems like He does or has, it's because we've misunderstood or needed to be taught something by Him. If He calls something wrong, He's not meaning to put a strait-jacket on you--He's helping you be who He created you to be.
To see this best, look at the Cross of Jesus. When you come to the cross for the first time (truly), you never come just because you're a sinner. Nor do you just come because God loves you. Rather, you come because you're a sinner and God loves you. At the cross, we see the wrath of God (the RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT) poured out on Jesus who hangs in our place; but to be able to access forgiveness and all of the effects of Christ's work, we have to admit we NEED it.
A bad god would let everyone be how they are without being honest. A good god would exercise judgment in honesty. But only God Himself would both exercise judgment AND pay the penalty for the problem Himself.
Praise be to God, He is good. Trust in Him. What other choice do you have? And what else would you WANT to do?
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