Light to Live By

"The unfolding of your words gives light ..." (Psalm 119:130a)

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Was It Worth It?

“And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin King of Judah … Evil-merodach King of Babylon … lifted up the head of Jehoiachin King of Judah and brought him out of prision.” (Jeremiah 52:31)

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Jehoiachin, at just eighteen years of age, became king of Judah. His biography is sad, but easily and briefly written: “he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done” (2 Kings 24:9).

His “reign” lasted a mere three months before the inevitable dawned upon him and he surrendered the city and its people to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. Jehoiachin and about ten thousand of his leading citizens were led off captive to that foreign land. He spent the next thirty-seven years in the Babylonian prison system. Think of that! That’s 148 times the length of his reign as king in Jerusalem. How brief and fleeting did those days seem during the long years in prison? How humbling was that nearly four-decade span of “life”?

Yet, in the end, Jehoiachin outlived his conqueror Nebuchadnezzar. The great Babylonian king’s son Evil-merodach, upon ascending to the throne, lifted Jehoiachin up to a place of relative dignity, which he enjoyed to the day of his death.

If God would have permitted us a more expansive biography of Jehoiachin I think I’d have liked to read it. What does prison do to a man? It humbles him, surely. But does he humble himself? Did he ever wonder: “Was it worth it?” Three months of glory; thirty-seven years of ignominy.

Surely it wasn’t. How could it have been?

But then I wonder if, during his imprisonment, Jehoiachin came to embrace Psalm 131?

“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.”

This is one of the Psalms of Ascents—hymns sung by seekers traveling up to Jerusalem to worship God at the annual Jewish festivals. Confined in a foreign prison in a pagan land, under compete defeat, and covered with shame (and who knows what else!), did Jehoiachin ever let his humbled spirit make the journey to Jerusalem in his heart? Did his heart ever set out in pilgrimage to truly know God?

Makes you wonder if it’s worth it, doesn’t it?

I guess it all depends upon what the “it” is.

If by “it” we mean our fifteen minutes of glory (or 3 months of regal status), then the answer is surely “no.”

If we mean the opportunity to know God deeply, then the answer is “yes” … even if it requires thirty-seven years of heart-travel while confined in a prison cell.

When the End Comes

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It is usually a pretty good idea to figure out where you want to come out before you go in. Determine your destination before you set out. Figure out the endgame and then plot your way.

So, what do you want out of life? What’s your goal? What’s your endgame?

Paul stated his pretty simply: “I want to know Christ” (Philippians 3:10, NIV). All else was streamlined to that one goal. So much so that he could say, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (v.8).

But that’s not always the way it is—even among the most religious of people. It broke Jeremiah’s heart when it struck him. God pointed out what was already probably becoming all too obvious to Jeremiah: “… they do not know me, declares the LORD … they refuse to know me, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:3, 6)

Then God set the goal before his prophet: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me …” (vv.23-24a)

The people of Judah had all the trappings of religion: Temple, sacrifices, holy days, priests, heritage, Law, etc. The only problem was, they did not know God. They had wise men (8:9; 9:12, 23). They had strong men (20:1-2). They had rich men (9:23). But they had none who sought intently to know God. The whole lot of them should have known God; it’s not the preoccupation of a specialist or an elite corps. But, alas, they knew Him not.

The logic was pretty simple: They “know not the rules of the LORD” (8:7). Therefore “they did not know how to blush” (8:12). They not only “do not know me” (9:3), says the LORD, “they refuse to know me” (v.6)!

What good is religion if you don’t know God? Religion without the knowledge of God soon grows foul, festering and putrid to the Lord to whom it is offered. Someone once said “There is nothing so foul as the scent of goodness gone bad.” The forms of religion can inoculate against the missing knowledge of God. They blind the eyes of the participants to the fact of their barrenness. They stop-up the ears of the people so they cannot hear the truth about their standing. They deceive the minds of the people so they cannot understand. And all that is left is for God to keep calling to His people through a weeping prophet, right up until “the end” (5:31).

In fact, that’s the endgame Jeremiah set before the people: “the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?” (5:31). When “the end” arrives, the best of our wisdom, might and wealth will fail. All that will matter is that a person “understands and knows” the Lord.

America needs to answer Jeremiah’s question. Americans need to answer that question. America’s religious people need to answer that question. OK, we need to answer Jeremiah’s question.

Is Jesus—“the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3, NASB)—truly our endgame?

Weakest at My Strongest Point

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the mainstay of their might.” (Jeremiah 49:35)

Superman1As God sent word of His judgment upon the nations surrounding Judah (Jeremiah 46-50), He spoke of what would befall the kingdom of Elam. Apparently their great strength and that for which the kingdom was renown was its archers. Ironically, it was right there–at the heart of their greatest strength–that God would strike them. “I will break … the mainstay of their might.” Derek Kidner says, “Elam relied on its archers (35; cf. Is. 22:6), Ammon on its Molech (Milcom, v.3), Edom on its cleverness and crags (vv.7, 16), Damascus on its fame (25), Kedar on its remoteness and its mobility (29, 31).” (The Message of Jeremiah, 147)

It is often at the point of our greatest strength that we are most vulnerable. Our greatest victories may plant the seeds of our demise. The arrogance to which we are vulnerable in times of great success is, no doubt, that which brings us down. I recall hearing Gordon MacDonald, after a hard fall in his personal life, echo words that I believe were original with Oswald Chambers: “An unguarded strength is a double weakness.” Self-satisfaction, complacency and arrogance are dangerous allies.

What, I wonder, is America’s “mainstay of … might”? How might this become our most pronounced weakness? What is mine?

Father, save me from my own successes. Rescue me from my strengths. Deliver me from the gifts which you have invested in me. In all things help me recall my nothingness without you and rest in the sufficiency of your indwelling life. Amen.

The Conundrum of Prayer

Conundrum: “a confusing or difficult problem.”

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That’s what prayer often is. There just doesn’t seem to be many straight lines when it comes to prayer. I pray this. That happens. I pray that. This happens. I call; God is quiet. I implore; it seems nothing happens. Every once in a while it seems there comes a direct answer to prayer, just enough encouragement to keep it up, but then the indirect nature of the conversation seems to dominate again.

We’ll never entirely comprehend this prayer conundrum. We possess neither the nature nor the information required for entire understanding.

But there is a hint in Jeremiah’s prophecies that I think may help us. It doesn’t explain everything, but it does explain something … and that something is a significant part of the mystery, I think.

It begins with a promise from God—a prayer-promise. Which puts it in a class of divine promises that at one and the same time raise our expectations about the possibilities and dash our understanding of the actualities.

God offered this to His prophet: “Call to me and I will answer you …” (33:3a). A simple, pointed promise with a seemingly simple, pointed condition. I must call upon God (pray). When I do, God promises: “I will answer you.” But so often that just doesn’t seem to be the way it works out. I call. In the absence of any apparent answer, I call again. And again. And again. And, if nothing appears to correspond to my prayers, well, I probably give up at some point. And I wonder. I wonder about why. I wonder how to understand God’s promise.

God explained to His prophet: “… I have called to them and they have not answered” (35:17b). God has spoken to us (“I have called”). The call expects (and demands!) a response from us. But God can honestly say, “they have not answered.”

So then, God speaks first—otherwise we would not know He was even there, nor would we have any assurance that He would answer if we did make a move toward Him. So, God speaks first. Part of that is seen in His making the promise of prayer. But we simply either did not hear God or we did not heed God. We have disregarded God’s word and then wondered why He has disregarded ours.

This raises for me the possibility that perhaps the first and most fundamental thing I can do when my prayers seem not to be answered is to examine, not my speaking (Have I asked correctly?), but my listening. Am I asking God to grant me a courtesy that I have not afforded to Him? Am I demanding of Him what I am withholding from Him?

In other words: There is a direct line here after all—the direct line between my obedience and the effectiveness of my prayer life. And doesn’t the Bible tell us plainly this is part of the answer to the conundrum?

  • The psalmist says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18).
  • The sage teaches us: “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
  • The prophet says, “When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (Isaiah 1:15).
  • And the apostle adds, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3).

This does not mean every prayer of a clean heart is answered just as it is asked. Nor does it mean that every seemingly unanswered prayer is because of sin in my life. But it does find at least one straight line in the conundrum of prayer—a line well worth tracing out: Listening must precede speaking; obedience comes before answer.

An Intolerant Take on Tolerance

Recently I picked up a small volume from a stack of books marked, “Free for the taking.” I did so because I recognized the author: Vance Havner. I’ve heard a hand full of recorded messages by Rev. Havner, but only read a few bits and pieces of his works. I’d found his razor sharp insight delivered with country wit rather refreshing. So I thought I’d give Jesus Only a try. When I came to chapter 10 I thought I might be reading something as contemporary as a blog written this week. Change a few of the labels and names and the prophetic insight is startling … and, again, refreshing. The message was originally published in 1946, but it could have been just this morning. I reproduce a rather lengthy section in which Rev. Havner speaks to the matter of tolerance and intolerance.

“The New Testament Church was an intolerant church. At once we throw ourselves open to a broadside of protest. ‘Intolerant’ is a scandalous word to use these days, for if there is anything that is in style among our ‘progressive’ churches it is that word ‘tolerance.’ You would think that intolerance was the unpardonable sin. We are majoring as never in church history on being broad-minded. That we have become so broad we have become also pitifully shallow never seems to disturb us. We must ‘broaden or bust.’ Of course, some experts in tolerance can be amazingly intolerant of those who do not share their broad-mindedness, but that does not disturb them either.

There is, of course, a false, pharisaic intolerance that has no place in a true church. And one encounters it again and again among conservative Christians. It has brought about the remark that the modernists are arid and the fundamentalists are acrid, that the former lack clarity and the latter charity. It has nicknamed the fundamentalists ‘feudamentalists’ and gotten them a reputation for spending so much time sniping at each other that they have little time left to go after the devil.

But there is a proper intolerance, and the New Testament Church had it. They were intolerant of any way of salvation except Jesus Christ. ‘Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). That makes it straight and narrow, and it isn’t what you are hearing in some localities these days. You are hearing that Jesus is the best way but that other ways are good and will lead to God just the same. Union meetings of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews create the impression that a general faith in God is enough without specific faith in Christ. Now, that cannot be true if no man comes to the Father but by Christ. The devils believe that there is one God and tremble: men believe it and do not even tremble, but expect to reach heaven by theism instead of by Calvary.

The New Testament Church was also intolerant of anything that threatened to compromise this Gospel of No Other Name. In Galatia men tried to mix a little legalism, and in Colosse they were slipping in a bit of false mysticism—and Paul would have none of it. He could have been very ‘lovely’ about it and stylishly tolerant, and he could have said nothing about it. I am sure that some of the false teachers must have accused him of seeing bugaboos and hobgoblins. He could have told Timothy to play ball with the apostates of his day, but, instead, he wrote, ‘From such turn away.’ He advised Titus to reject a heretic after the first and second admonition, which sounds uncomfortably intolerant. And even the gentle John forbade hospitality to those who abode not in the doctrine of Christ, asserting that ‘he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.’ To be sure, we are not advised to bawl him out and throw stones after him until he is out of sight: but neither is there any encouragement for that fashionable modern fellowship with unbelievers.

The New Testament Church was intolerant of sin in its midst. When serious trouble first showed up in Ananias and Sapphira it was dealt with in sudden and certain terms. When immorality cropped out in Corinth Paul delivered the offender to the devil for destruction of his flesh. It was in line with our Lord’s teaching on discipline in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. To be sure, it was to be done in love and tenderness, and the brother overtaken in a fault was to be restored by the spiritual ones, and Paul was quick to recommend the restoration of the Corinthians brother. But, still, sin was not to be glossed over and excused as we condone it today in our churches until liars, gamblers, drunkards, and divorcees fill prominent places in Sunday schools and on boards and have never as much as heard that we must be clean who bear the vessels of the Lord. We have let the camel get his foot in the door and then his head, until now the whole camel is inside and along with him other animals far more unsavory. Peter added even hogs and dogs to our spiritual zoology, and the lambs today are so mixed with every other species that what was once a sheepfold has become a zoo. Our Lord warned us that the shepherd who did not stand his ground when the wolves appeared was only a hireling. We are bidden to feed Hi sheep but not to feed wolves. I grant you that it is often a complicated problem and can be handled only on one’s knees. But we are paying an awful price today for our sweet tolerance of sin within the Church. If the church of the Acts had overlooked iniquity and by-passed evil and smilingly looked the other way while the devil sneaked into every phase of her life as we have done today, Christianity would have died in infancy.

The New Testament Church had a healthy, holy intolerance. It got somewhere because it started out on a narrow road and stuck to it. It might easily have taken up a dozen wide boulevards and ended in destruction. We face the peril of the wide gate and the broad way today, and it tantalizes us all the more because ‘many there be which go in thereat.’ We were told a long time ago that ‘few there be’ who take the S. and N. the Straight and Narrow. We Americans especially are gregarious; we like to run with the crowd. We had rather be called almost anything on earth than narrow; yet our Lord chose the adjective, and faithfulness to Him will prove that it still fits today.

I am sure that there were those who called the Early Church ‘exclusive,’ and predicted that it would never get anywhere until it became inclusive. ‘Exclusive’ is another word that is anathema today and has been shoved into the limbo of the outmoded, along with ‘intolerant’ and ‘narrow.’ But the New Testament Church was the most exclusive fellowship on earth. It was not just a society of people with good intentions. It was not a club for improving the old Adam. It was a fellowship of people who believed in Jesus Christ as the one and only Saviour. It seemed not to have a chance in the face of the great Roman world. It could easily have let down the bars and taken in all sorts of religiously minded folk, but it stuck to ‘Jesus Only.’ A river may look very lovely spread out all over a marsh, but to generate power it must narrow itself. We have endeavored to spread out the river today. We have sacrificed death for width and instead of a power dam we have a stagnant swamp.” (pp.60-63)

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