For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:12-13).
Those of us who played on sports teams growing up will recall the mantra of good coaches around the world: “Keep your eye on the ball!” Whether learning to hit a baseball, to catch a football, to kick a soccer ball, we had to learn not to look away from the ball in an attempt to find out what was going on around us.
My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Withiam, yelled at me one day at recess because I wasn’t keeping my eye on the ball. Instead, I had my eye on the center-field fence and visions of a mammoth homerun. Exasperated by his inability to get me to focus on the ball, Mr. Withiam exclaimed, “My grandmother can hit better than you!” To which I—budding wise guy that I was—immediately replied, “That’s because she’s had so much more experience.” But he was right, I was not keeping my eye on the ball and I was striking out more than I was hitting the ball.
In the spiritual realm, keeping your eye on the ball is analogous to having the proper perspective, looking in the right direction, not being distracted from reality by focusing on shadows. As Paul has stated it, we are engaged in a very real spiritual struggle, one in which our role is to clothe ourselves in God’s armor and to stand and withstand in the day of evil (e.g., Today).
For the past two months I have devoted extra time to watching cable news programs (although I do read news and essays from a variety of positions online, including some overseas news outlets). I have been immersed in a heavy dose of focusing on the agendas and histrionics of a flesh-and-blood President, Senate, and House of Representatives, in particular. So I am constantly battling the temptation to …wrestle against flesh and blood instead of the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. I need to keep my eye on the ball.
After watching various programs and news personalities, I am reminded yet again of the subtle danger confronting Christians who watch these programs: we can begin believing that the news and views these shows present are reality. In fact, it is for the most part big business and entertainment carefully choreographed to make the accompanying worldview more palatable. So it is essential to maintaining our spiritual vitality that we filter all information through the reality grid of God’s Word.
My news viewing has coincided with the time during which the nation has been embroiled in a national healthcare debate. On Sunday, March 21, 2010 the Congress of the United States “passed” some of the most sweeping legislation in our history, giving the government control over the nation’s healthcare industry. And it was passed over the objections of the majority of citizens these representatives profess to represent.
I would hasten to point out that there is not a Christian position on this legislation. There are godly men and women who oppose the healthcare reform legislation and godly men and women who support it. And, depending upon our viewpoint, we can mistakenly conclude that God has either failed or prevailed on our behalf. While I have a strong opinion about this legislation, I want to know God’s mind about it. If God is sovereign (and He is) and if God allows things which we don’t always understand or agree with (and He does), then I need to be open and willing to gain wisdom from God. Would that we were as zealous for the glory of God and orthodox doctrine as we are for the correct political affiliations and policy positions!
Interestingly, although opposing sides often enlist God for their cause, God doesn’t really figure into any equation (be it Democrat, Republican, or Independent). So, here are some thoughts on wisdom from God’s Word that have come to mind as I continue to reflect on our culture’s obsession with information:
1) When words are many, transgression is not lacking… (Proverbs 10:19a);
2) The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:33);
3) The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. (Proverbs 18:10);
4) Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21);
5) Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2);
6) No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord. (Proverbs 21:30) and,
7) Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. (Proverbs 23:23).
Notice that it is God’s wisdom that is a choice commodity, not knowledge or information. We live in an information age, to be sure, but we are being seduced into believing that having information is the same as having knowledge, and that having knowledge is the same as gaining wisdom; therefore, our faulty reasoning tells us, the more information we garner, the wiser we become. And since information can be obtained with little or no inconvenience to ourselves, it is easy to opt for information.
What I have noticed about “news watching” is that there is an unrelenting sensual assault; that is, a continual, unremitting attack on the viewer’s mind and heart and emotions. In addition to the continual “breaking news” or “new alerts”, there is also a constant information “ticker” at the bottom of the screen providing additional reasons to fear or to be upset or to cause thirst for additional information. It’s like drinking soft drinks to quench your thirst, only to find that sodas are not designed to quench thirst, but to increase thirst, so you will buy more soft drinks!
When this assault is left unchecked, we are infused with a worldview (conservative, liberal, capitalist, socialist, etc.) that is contrary to God’s worldview—His view of the world that He has created. I know many Christians who are up on all the latest developments in Washington, Iran, and North Korea, but do not have time to spend in God’s Word. The Bible is where we find the real state of the union—our union or lack thereof, with Christ.
The irony of this situation, of course, is that we are the ones who have real news, Good News, but we are in danger of that letting that news drain from our hearts and minds and mouths through fear of the bad news that constantly assaults us. But isn’t that the point? Aren’t we to be ambassadors for Christ, taking the message of Good News to a world drowning in its own bad news cycle? Isn’t that the real news?
We are living in uncertain times, possibly even perilous times. But as resident aliens (see 1 Peter 2:11), we are to be in the world, not of the world, for we are waiting for a better world to be revealed at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in all his glory. We are to be proclaimers of God’s Good News—to be advocates of God’s wisdom, not consumers of information. Does this ring a bell? Does it remind you of your calling? Does it recall to mind what your life was like before God reached down and rescued you? At all times and in all ways we are to keep our eye on the ball!
The author of the book of Hebrews has given us this exhortation,
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2) [my emphasis]
Run the race with endurance. Keep your eye on the ball (my paraphrase!). The cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12 are the faithful saints of old. These are righteous men and women who ran the race set before them with perseverance, enduring to the end. They are a cloud of witnesses in the sense that their lives witness to us of faithful men and women who trusted in the promises of God and were saved, as we are, by grace through faith (see Ephesians 2:8). They are not—as I have heard it taught—perched upon clouds looking down upon us! They are not omnipresent nor are they all-seeing spectators at the game of life. They are testifiers to the grace of God by lives lived faithfully in the face of often severe opposition. These witnesses were strangers and aliens who looked forward to “a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:16)
We, too, are called to be strangers and aliens who are looking forward to a better country, that is, a heavenly one. And while we have the freedom and the responsibility to participate in our governmental processes, we must not mistake our temporary citizenship for our eternal citizenship.
I have not checked since the healthcare legislation passed, but I am almost certain that by now there are countless writings posted on blogs and websites around the world, citing this event as another fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, moving us closer to a One World Government and ushering in the reign of Anti-Christ, the mark of the beast, and increased book sales for so-called end-times experts, and possibly a reference or two to oil drilling in Israel. (Such fear-mongering is similar to the way in which various Christians cashed in on the Y2K panic by writing books and charging exorbitant fees on the church lecture circuit; yet who were strangely silent following the successful transition to the new millennium!)
David faced the same kind of fear-mongering, the same kind of end-times panic. He had fellow-Israelites coming to him telling him that things were out of control, that God was indifferent to the current situation, that the righteous were being shoved aside, the wicked were being exalted. Rather than give in to these panic-inspired—and erroneous—conclusions, David sought the Lord.
In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. (Psalm11:1-4) [my emphasis]
When we get our eye off the ball (i.e., God’s sovereignty and divine perspective), we are at the mercy of irrational fears and the ubiquitous conspiracy theorists of both secular and religious ilk. And we are easy prey to lies and half-truths, leading to panic or anger or threatening behavior. I have heard (more times than I can count) Christians quoting this passage of Scripture (Psalm 11:1-4) to prove their contention that things in their world are out of control. But this is like quoting Job’s comforters as a source of truth and wisdom! If you read this Psalm carefully, you will notice that David is not saying that the foundations are destroyed; he is saying that this is what his “friends and advisors” are telling him is the true situation.
The truth is this: If someone who professes faith in Christ says that the foundations are destroyed, then his foundation is sand, not rock (see Luke 6:46-49). The foundation for the righteous is knowing God and knowing his Word and doing his Word. It is not getting our way in public policy decisions (as good as that may be), nor is it getting our way in the life of the church. Our foundation and our satisfaction in this life come from God.
In the first three verses of Psalm 11 we find David quoting the fearful and faithless among the children of Israel. He was not agreeing with them. We know this because in the very next verse (v. 4) David makes a declaration based not upon what his eyes have seen or his ears have heard, but what he knows of God by faith, by experience and, most importantly, by knowledge of God’s power and character revealed in God’s Word. “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.”
Yet when I am constantly barraged with opinion polls, the latest bad news on the economy, jobless rates, and so on, my heart can easily become overwhelmed. I lose heart unless I draw my strength and courage from the One whose “eyes see” and whose “eyelids test the children of man.”
When events seem to threaten only chaos and destruction and our hearts tremble with fearful expectations, God is still enthroned in his holy temple. But this is not to say that we should not be concerned about policy decisions affecting us and our children and our children’s children. I am very concerned about disturbing trends in our government under both Republican and Democratic leadership. I have a son who is a medical doctor and he is deeply troubled about the future of medical care in this country and his own future in medicine. So I have been praying and will continue to pray about the healthcare legislation that has been signed into law by the President. And so should we all be in prayer for our country, our elected leaders at the national, state, and local levels.
At the same time, however, I am even more concerned that the honor, the glory, and the reputation of God not be diminished by the words and actions of professing Christians. In my lifetime, there have been many opportunities for individual Christians to keep their eye on the ball. And in many of those instances, we have fumbled the ball and then blamed someone else for our mistakes. So I am concerned for how Christians will comport themselves in this country in light of the events of the past few days and weeks.
Let me illustrate my concern with an experience that so shocked me that it immediately came to mind as a warning to us today. About 25 years ago I attended a meeting for parents of public school children hosted by the new Superintendent of Schools. Many, if not most, of the parents in attendance were Christians who had grave concerns about some policy issues within the school district. Emotions were running high and civility was quickly ebbing away. The Superintendent made some statement in response to one parent’s comments and suddenly a strident voice called out, “We know where you live!” I admit that I was stunned and embarrassed by this blatant threat by someone (whom I knew) who professed to being a Christian. But what was worse was the tacit approval given to this outburst by other Christians who were nodding vigorous assent.
These parents took their eyes off the ball. Their actions belied their profession of faith when they trusted in the arm of flesh rather than in the righteousness of God. May God forbid this would happen on a national level. They thought that their foundations were being destroyed. They lost heart.
God has purposes for us individually, as His church, and as a nation (this is not to say that we are a Christian nation, but that God has always used nations to serve His purposes). But those purposes are God’s purposes and sometimes He keeps His own counsel as to just what those purposes are and how He intends to carry them out. The question is not, Is God on our side? but, Are we siding with God? Are we aligning our will with God’s will?
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)
Joshua learned a very important lesson that day, when confronted by the commander of the army of the Lord (who many commentators agree is the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God). The lesson is this: As strongly as Joshua felt about carrying out his God-given commission, he served at God’s pleasure, under God’s banner, for God’s glory.
Even after this dramatic encounter, Joshua’s training was not yet complete. Not too long after this experience, Joshua was given an opportunity to demonstrate what he had learned about God’s purposes. In Joshua chapter 9, we read about a group of people called the Gibeonites, who lived in Canaan. They were terrified when the Israelites began conquering territory under the banner of the Lord. So they sent emissaries to Joshua to make a peace treaty. The messengers took stale bread, cracked wineskins, and wore old sandals and garments. They pretended that they came from a far country to make peace with Joshua.
Here was a perfect opportunity for Joshua to draw upon his knowledge of God, to ask God, “What does my lord say to his servant?” Instead Joshua and the men with him trusted in their own wisdom, their own realm of experience, their own ability to interpret signs and motives. They took their eye off the ball!
So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them. And the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. (Joshua 9:14-18a) [my emphasis].
Joshua and the leaders of the congregation violated the covenant God made with them concerning the Promised Land. They were wise in their own eyes because of the information they had gleaned through their observations. This caused serious consequences for the Israelites for generations to come (e.g., 2 Samuel 21). These consequences came about because they took their eye off the ball, they trusted in their own wisdom and judgment rather than God’s wisdom and judgment, they did not ask counsel from the Lord (did not inquire of the Lord, NIV). They were wise in their own eyes (see Isaiah 5:21).
We are living in a time of uncertainty, but in this we are not alone. The great cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews 12 also lived in uncertain times, as have the faithful throughout history. How we respond to these uncertain times will be the true witness to our faith. The life of faith is trusting and being found trustworthy in the face of uncertainty. Oswald Chambers called this “The Graciousness of Uncertainty”.
Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God (My Utmost for His Highest, April 29th reading) [my emphasis].
We live in troubling times and are faced with great uncertainty. But we must resolve to inquire of the Lord, to put on spiritual armor, to trust in the arm of the Lord not the arm of the flesh. The apostle John lived in uncertain times and faithfully served God’s children who also lived with the graciousness of uncertainty. His greeting to them should resound in our ears, in our minds, in our hearts and characterize our lives as the people of God at this time in history, as we resolve once more to keep our eye on the ball!
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth (3 John 4).
Soli Deo Gloria!
from → Expanded Teachings
“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord”
(Psalm 31:24).
Ask anyone who has served in any branch of the armed forces to express one thought that characterized life in the military and you will invariably hear, “Hurry up and wait!” or something to that effect. When I was in the Navy it seemed that most of my time was spent trying to arrive somewhere on time in order to spend more time waiting once I arrived. In Boot Camp we would march quickly to our destination, only to wait in formation (often at attention!) once our destination was reached. We waited for shots. We waited for chow. We waited for mail call. We waited…well, you get the point.
The idea behind the Navy’s unspoken philosophy of hurry up and wait seemed to be designed mismanagement, a colossal waste of time and manpower. In our collective wisdom it was apparent that, even as raw recruits, we could have run the Navy much more efficiently than the powers that be.
Several years ago I read a book about journalists and how they reported the Civil War. It was a fascinating study because of the politics of the war. In the early days especially, most battles were fought within easy distance of Washington, DC. Many reporters were based in DC and would ride out to the site of the battle, maybe interview generals, junior officers, and even enlisted men either before or after the engagement. They would then travel back to Washington where they retired (often to a bar) to write their stories for the papers back home.
As the war progressed, however, the battlefields were located farther from the reporters’ base of operations. This meant that most of those wanting to write firsthand reports would take a train to wherever the armies were gathering. But the railroads were under the control of the heads of armies; various generals had their own railroad lines and exercised control over who and what used their railroads. When a reporter wrote any piece unfavorable to one of these generals, they were often punished by being denied access to the only train going to the desired destination. Further, reporters also came to realize that they had to hurry up and wait much more of the time than they cared for.
So, for either or both of these reasons, as the war continued to grind slowly on, some creative reporters decided they could save themselves time and effort by writing their battle reports from the comfort of their favorite bar or office or rooming house. Of course, this led to some highly inaccurate reporting, to say the least! At times, reports were published in newspapers describing battles in detail, including the numbers of killed, wounded, and captured on both sides, and which army won the battle—but all the facts were wrong, because they were fabricated.
The point is that hurry up and wait is not something new or uncommon to any of us and we all have our ways of dealing with this aspect of life. Some of these coping mechanisms are quite creative and humorous. But sometimes these coping mechanisms backfire and we end up wasting more time and effort. A good example of this occurs when we are stuck in traffic and quickly improvise a shortcut. In my many years of driving, I have devised several shortcuts, some of them have worked beautifully, while others have created worse problems along the lines of hurry up and wait than I would have encountered had I simply exercised patience.
We all have our hurry up and wait stories. I know some people who always seem to land on their feet in this area; they never seem to have to wait. They are the ones who always get in a line at the bank or grocery store that moves quickly, while we wait impatiently, then decide to jump to another line that is really moving along, only to have some dear soul lay out ten items, all needing a price check.
But what do you do when God tells you to hurry up and wait?[1] Have you ever had such an experience? If not, you will someday if you walk with the Lord for any length of time. Why? Because God’s purposes are different than our purposes and the foundation of our relationship to Him is faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Throughout Scripture we see God relating to people through His promises, which almost always entail a hurry up and wait component designed to develop our faith.
God called Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans to go where God directed. Abram was told that God would make him a great nation (Genesis 12:2) and that in him “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (v. 3). Abram hurried out of Ur in obedience to the Lord and then waited for the rest of his life to see these promises of God fulfilled. God did give him two sons, one the son of promise, Isaac, and the other the son of the flesh, Ishmael (see Galatians 4:21-31). Yet, Abram (now Abraham) did not live to see that God had made him a great nation or that all the nations of the earth had been blessed through him. God’s promises had not failed. God’s promises never fail. But Abraham did not see the situation from God’s perspective. So what’s the point of God telling us things that seem imminent but are far off?
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons….For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:7-8, 11).
God is more interested in developing our faith and our character, than in satisfying our penchant for formulas and plans (as in prayer request, answer, next prayer request…).
The New Testament is full of exhortations to hurry up and wait. Our whole kingdom orientation is that we are to live now with a sense of urgency (hurry up) in the light and the reality of the kingdom of God, while we are waiting for the fullness of the kingdom of God to be ushered in on the Day of the Lord.
“And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away” (Acts 1:9-12).
The two angels told the disciples, in so many words, “Jesus is coming back and you have to wait for Him; now hurry up and wait!” But we must learn that God’s version of waiting is a time of fullness, of active rest. It would do no good for the disciples to stand there, looking up into heaven. Had they continued gazing up like that, they would sooner or later have realized that something was wrong. They were waiting and nothing was happening! But God had work for them to do. The first item on His agenda was for the disciples to hurry back to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to be poured out.
Paul tells us in Romans that, “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19) and, “not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).
This is how we often hurry up and wait; God gives us a strong sense of urgency for a thing to be done immediately, if not sooner, and then the very longing itself requires that we wait. This is a discipline that we must learn if we are to grow in our faith.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8).
And the apostle John reports this final hurry up and wait statement from Jesus Christ: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20). For almost two millennia believers have been responding to Jesus’ words in Revelation with the expression, “Our Lord, come (Greek Maranatha)! (1 Corinthians 16:22) and “Amen. Come Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). Christians have been eagerly, urgently, looking for and longing for Christ’s appearing. We are in a hurry for Christ to return; yet, we continue to wait.
Of course, when God tells us to hurry up and wait, it is not like any other experience we encounter. Our hurry up and wait experiences are always linear: hurry up and get there, so you can wait once you arrive. With God’s hurry up and wait, on the other hand, we do both simultaneously: we are to hurry up and we are to wait at the same time. A good example of this is found in God’s Word to the prophet Habakkuk.
“And the Lord answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:2-3).
Here we find God telling Habakkuk the vision awaits a future, appointed time and the vision hastens. If it seems slow, wait…it will not delay. (Although this prophecy was fulfilled, it did not happen in Habakkuk’s lifetime.) God is telling Habakkuk the same thing He said through the prophet Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my 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” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
In writing about the Day of the Lord, Peter tells us, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…” (2 Peter 3:8-10a).
It seems slow, but will come suddenly, like a thief. It awaits its appointed time, but it hastens to the end. It seems slow, but it will not delay. It seems one way to you, Habakkuk, because My thoughts are not your thoughts (conversely, your thoughts are not My thoughts). It seems one way to you, Habakkuk, because your ways are not My ways (conversely, My ways are not your ways). In other words, when we look at our circumstances and immediately draw conclusions based on what our senses and our experience tell us, there is a strong possibility that we are going to miss what the Lord is doing and saying. We will continue to miss God’s perspective because we are so enamored of our own point of view.
Perhaps you are thinking, “That’s great for Habakkuk, he was a prophet of God and expected to hear strange, prophetic kinds of things from Him. But I have a real problem in my life that I am dealing with. I need answers. I need God to do something now. I need out of this situation.” But that is not always going to be God’s way of rescuing you. In 1 Corinthians we read these words:
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NIV).
God doesn’t just come in when we can bear no more. He is always involved in our lives. It’s been said that God uses the good (easy) times in our lives to sustain us through the hard times (or in Christian lingo, God uses our mountain top experiences to see us through the valleys). My experience, however, has been just the opposite: God uses the hard times to sustain me through the easy times! The reason for this is found in our human nature. When we go through trials and difficulties it is actually easier to cast ourselves upon God because we know that we won’t make it without His help and direction and sustaining grace. Yet when we begin to get some breathing room and the intensity of the trials is decreasing, we are strongly tempted to decrease the intensity with which we seek the Lord. It’s as if we say to the Lord, “Okay God. Thanks for the help, but I can take it from here. I’ll call you if I should ever need help again.”
But if you are always waiting upon God for deliverance out of whatever your current circumstances may be, you are going to be disappointed! In this passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul first instructs us in our common lot; what has overtaken you is common to mankind. Next we read that God is faithful. We must always hold onto that reality, because often our circumstances scream at us to deny God’s faithfulness. Finally, Paul tells us that God will come in at our point of need, when we think we can bear no more. God provides a way out so you can stand up under. God is concerned with our character development and the trials of life are often designed especially for us by a loving God, our Father who has our best interests in mind.
Yet, we often end up rebuking the devil right, left, and center, “taking authority” over our situation, when it is really God orchestrating our life in such a way that we will grow up, accept His discipline, and produce fruit befitting repentance and, if we have been producing fruit in our lives, to accept God’s pruning us back so that we can be even more fruitful. Ultimately, this is what it is all about, being a fruitful vine in God’s vineyard. And if you want a key to this whole discipline of learning to hurry up and wait, here it is in a nutshell: although it always involves you, it is not primarily about you; it is about God and His glory and His purposes being fulfilled and His kingdom being expanded in the earth. God uses the prunings and spiritual disciplines to conform us to the image of Christ, yes, but the fruit spreads (no pun intended!) to others as well (see 2 Corinthians 1:1-7 and 2 Peter 1:3-11).
Years ago I was going through a long and difficult time of waiting upon God in just about every area of my life. One Sunday morning while driving to our church meeting, I felt completely overwhelmed by our situation. I felt that I had had enough and that I could not go on. After I parked the car I turned to Lynn and said, “I’m at the end of my rope.” But guess what? God was not impressed! He was not intimidated. He didn’t call a quick huddle among the Trinity and say, “Oh no! Do you think we might have pushed him too far?” He did not suddenly relinquish control of the situation to me. Do you know what God did when I got to the end of my rope? He didn’t remove me from the situation; He lengthened the rope! At the very point where I felt that I could bear no more, God provided a way out. He renewed my strength, my ability to hang on for much longer than I would have thought possible or even prudent.
This is what is meant by the oft-quoted passage from the book of Isaiah:
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:28-31).
If you trust to your own devices, your own wits, your own strength, then you will not make it. You will grow weak in your spiritual life; you will grow discouraged in your prayer life; you will become discouraged and bitter toward God and others because you are walking in your own strength. It is impossible for a Christian to walk in his own strength and to walk by faith at the same time. When we trust in ourselves and our own strength we are not trusting in God’s goodness, His wisdom, and His perspective on our circumstances. “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23b). “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
If we are to move beyond merely surviving in this life to being useful, productive citizens of the kingdom of God on earth, then we must learn to wait upon the Lord. We must learn what it means to wait, because waiting is essential to a life of faith.
In his characteristic style, Oswald Chambers cuts to the heart of the matter. In his book, The Moral Foundations of Life, Chambers writes, “We shall never see God’s point of view as long as we bring our own ideas to Him and dictate to God what we expect Him to do. We must become as little children, be essentially simple, keep our minds brooding on what God tells us to brood on, and let God do as He likes” (p 68).
I am often simultaneously encouraged, challenged, and rebuked by reading through Hebrews chapter 11 (the “Hall of Faith”). Here we read of godly individuals, saints of old, justified by faith in the living God, many of whom faithfully endured unimaginable trials, pressures, even torture and death. Where do our responses to our trials and struggles place us in relation to these people? When we read their histories, it quickly becomes apparent that there is more to faith than formulas for denying the reality of our situation or for ejecting ourselves out of uncomfortable situations. These heroes of the faith were living on the “shadows, types, and expectations” side of the Cross of Christ. Yet, they lived by faith and they died in faith; though they did not have a clear understanding of God’s plan of redemption, nevertheless they trusted Him.
Yet at the close of the chapter we read: “And all these though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39-40).
Learning to hurry up and wait in God’s kingdom requires a faith-based commitment to God’s perspective first, last, and foremost. This is why James wrote, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). This is a clue to the nature of perplexing circumstances in our lives. There are times when things just don’t look right, don’t feel right, and we can’t seem to pray ourselves out of our circumstances. It is a painful process having Christ formed in us (Galatians 4:19). There are no shortcuts. You can read all those exciting testimonies written by people who say, “When I was in such and such a situation, I just prayed this prayer and within 10 minutes I was no longer bald!” And you can pray what they prayed until the cows come home and your forehead will still cause people to pause and reflect! God does not follow formulas and He is not impressed by formulas we devise in our attempts to satisfy our own desires.
Let’s go back to Habakkuk and look at his situation and his perspective when God spoke to him. Habakkuk was living under the rule of Assyria, subsequent to the disastrous plea for protection initiated by the wicked king Ahaz when he was confronted with an Israel-Syria alliance. The destruction of Israel seemed imminent and “the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). By contrast, Isaiah’s response to this dreadful prospect was to steel himself and set his will toward God, his only hope. “I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him” (Isaiah 8:17). Can you see the sharp contrast between a faith response and a flesh response? We are continually confronted by situations in which we have choices, but these are actually the only options available to us when it comes time to choose. Will we choose a faith response as did Isaiah? Or will we choose a flesh response as did Ahaz?
There were a few high points from that period during which Isaiah prophesied until the days of Habakkuk, but those high points were few and far between. Hezekiah and Josiah come to mind as two kings coming after Ahaz who walked in the ways of king David, but the damage had already been done. God had pronounced judgment through Isaiah, Israel (the northern kingdom) had already been destroyed, and time was running out for Judah (the southern kingdom). The majority of the people of Judah and Jerusalem were following after the false gods of the Assyrians and of the surrounding nations. The atmosphere in Judah was oppressive to godly people (the remnant whom God was going to preserve through captivity in Babylon). This is the basis of Habakkuk’s first complaint to God:
“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted” (Habakkuk 1:2-4).
God’s answer provided no relief to Habakkuk; if anything, it increased Habakkuk’s distress, “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own” (Habakkuk 1:5-6).
Habakkuk was urgent in his complaint to God. He was in a hurry to get an answer, perhaps to get something to tell the people that would encourage them and explain their situation. Yet when the Lord spoke Habakkuk couldn’t reconcile God’s answer to his question, to his “need to know.”
Have you ever noticed the way in which God will provide answers that don’t seem to match our questions? It can make you ask, “What’s that all about!” This can be seen on several occasions in the Gospel accounts when people come to Jesus to pose their questions and He responds to them with His own questions, or he makes statements that seem to be unrelated to the conversation at hand. Here are a few examples:
“Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.’ He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’” (Matthew 15:1-3).
“When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves….” (John 6:25-26).
What? They asked Jesus how he got there and He starts talking about signs and loaves. Didn’t He hear the question? Was He distracted? No, Jesus always heard what was said and what was the heart motivation behind the question. It is the larger question (i.e., the heart) that Jesus is always concerned with answering.
It’s not that God is not giving us the correct answers; it is that we often are so caught up in our question, our need to know, our situation, that it is beyond our comprehension that God would interject His Big Picture into our little life, that He would enlarge our thinking! We are finite creatures. We tend to be linear thinkers: “I have a problem (A) to which I need an answer (B). I go to God with (A) in order to receive (B) and He throws the entire alphabet at me! It’s too much for me to sort out.” This is the kind of dilemma that engenders a hurry up and wait scenario.
But if we are to learn to hear God’s voice and recognize His perspective we must learn to hurry up and wait. When God tells us something which creates a sense of urgency within us, He is often testing our faith. The reason believers often grow discouraged is that this sense of urgency usually leads us to form expectations regarding what God is saying, expectations of what God is going to do, and how and when God must fulfill this word. And when those expectations are not met, we tend to become testy, because we do not understand God’s larger purposes.
“’It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.’ God will not have us come with an impatient curiosity. Moral or intellectual or spiritual insanity must result if we attempt to push down barriers which God has set in place before our spiritual progress is fit for the revelation. “This is a day of intolerant inquisitiveness. Men will not wait for the slow, steady, majestic way of the Son of God; they try to enter in by this door and that door” (Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help, p 92).
Not only does God not always tell us what He is doing, He doesn’t satisfy our craving for minutiae, the obsession we have for having all the facts; nor does He have any obligation to do so! God told Habakkuk that even if He told him what He was up to, Habakkuk wouldn’t believe it. At times God tells us essentially the same thing; even if we knew what God is up to, we wouldn’t believe it, so move on to more productive interactions (e.g., trusting and waiting).
After God answered him, Habakkuk still didn’t understand, so he prayed to God again. This is another of those keys to developing an effective prayer relationship with God—when God shows you something in response to your prayers and you don’t understand, pray again! Keep asking and waiting and listening until you hear clearly what God is saying.
When Habakkuk had voiced his second complaint to God, he then set himself to wait, to listen, to watch. “I will take up my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint” (Habakkuk 2:1). He needed to hear from God. He had to have an answer to take back to the people.
This is a wonderful illustration of the posture of prayer. I am not necessarily speaking of kneeling or lying face down before the Lord, although I am a great believer in both. What I am referring to is the manner in which we approach God in prayer, taking prayer seriously, as a relationship, as a discipline, as a responsibility. How many Christians think of prayer simply as taking a list of requests before the Lord, running through each item on the list, and then checking off, checking out, and moving on to the next activity?
In the days of Zechariah, the prophet of God to Judah, the people had a form of godliness, but denied its power and its righteous requirements. We read this description of these self-righteous people: “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry” (Zechariah 7:12, NIV).
Conversely, we read of the heart attitude of the prophet Isaiah, and of his Christ (who is foreshadowed in this passage): Because the Sovereign Lord helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know I will not be put to shame” (Isaiah 50:7; compare Luke 9:51).
Whenever we are faced with baffling circumstances, with a trial, with suffering, with unexplained reversals of fortune, or just life’s “usual” routine (for which we also need God’s wisdom), we really have only two choices: we can set our hearts like flint against the Lord and his will; or, we can set our faces like flint to serve the Lord. We can fly into a panic or we can learn to hurry up and wait, knowing that God is never late, that His timing is always perfect, that our times are in His hands (Psalm 31:14-15), and that in the end we will not be put to shame.
Here is a question that has helped me through years of learning to hurry up and wait. Ask yourself: Are you waiting for God or for something to happen? If your answer is that you are waiting for God, then you will never be disappointed. But if you are waiting for something to happen, watch out! You may be trading in future blessings for an immediate reprieve.
This is not a formula or a quick-and-easy method for learning to hurry up and wait, but I am including here a few practical things to do (and not to do) while you wait. They are not in any sort of order and the lists are not exhaustive.
Some things to do…
- Be thankful and confess God’s attributes (e.g., His goodness, kindness, steadfast love, and faithfulness).
- Regularly search the Psalms for vocabulary, words and phrases with which to praise God.
- Testify (even if only to yourself) of God’s faithful dealings with you in the past and of His sustaining grace in the present.
- Look for ways to encourage others.
- Keep a journal and write down what God is showing you while you wait. Record answers to prayer and review them at regular intervals; it will be an encouragement to you and will serve to strengthen your faith as you learn to hurry up and wait.
Some things to avoid…
- Drawing conclusions (you don’t have all the facts).
- Setting arbitrary deadlines (how long you will agree to wait for God to work before you take matters into your own hands).
- Giving in to emotional outbursts.
- Blaming God or others for your impatience and discomfort.
- Giving up!
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever” (Ephesians 3:16-21 NIV).
Soli Deo Gloria
[1] It is appropriate and needful to mention a few points here. Everything that I am writing about hearing God’s voice and God’s word to us presupposes a few things.
- God’s written Word is our supreme authority for knowing God and His revealed will.
- God will never speak to us any message that contradicts or contravenes His written Word, or give an individual a private, doctrinal interpretation of the Scriptures; that is, a “new” doctrine or a new meaning that has been hidden over the centuries until this person arrived on the scene. (This is different than a devotional use of Scripture, in which God will use passages of Scripture in meaningful ways in a person’s devotional life as an encouragement, that is not necessarily what that passage teaches or means in its context .)
- When I refer to Gods speaking to us or to God’s voice, I am not referring to an audible voice, but to the gentle impressions that we receive during prayer and while meditating on God’s written Word. (Although God is certainly free to speak audibly, that has been the exception to the rule throughout history) Again, this hearing is always subject to the greater authority of God’s written Word.
- There is no new revelation. By this I mean that God’s Plan of Redemption has been revealed and fulfilled through His Son, Jesus Christ. The God-Inspired canon of Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) has been completed. So when Christians speak of God’s revelation to them or how God has revealed a word to them, it is to be understood as God’s illuminating work in a believer’s mind and heart. (See #2 above.)
- I whole-heartedly believe that God does still speak to believers today, within the framework of these stated presuppositions.
from → Expanded Teachings
“Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds” (Psalm 77:10-12).
When our children were small we used to play a game with them called “Memory”, which consists of several pairs of small square cards with pictures on one side while the back sides all look the same. The object of the game is to remember where matching cards are on the table and to flip over the matching picture cards. The winner is the person who has the greatest number of pairs of matching sets in his possession. This is a fun game that develops concentration, memory, and the ability to associate similar objects and to discriminate between dissimilar objects. read more…
from → Expanded Teachings
Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.
(Psalm 48:3)
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to overlook things? It seems that the more familiar something is, the more we tend not to notice it. We even have a saying that expresses our attitude toward the familiar, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
Sadly, this is all too often true of our attitude toward God and the things of God. If you don’t think this is the case, then take time to listen and to observe comments, postures, and attitudes when you are in the presence of fellow believers. Better yet, listen to yourself when you talk to God! All of us are guilty to one degree or another, at one time or another, of taking God for granted, for assuming He owes us whatever it is we take for granted (our health, our job, our family).
If we are to correct our heart-attitude, to train ourselves for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7), to strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:7-17), then we must be much more intentional about hiding God’s Word in our hearts that we might not sin against Him (Ps. 119:11). But we also have a need to be more intentional about allowing God’s Word to shape us—our minds and hearts, with the goal that our every thought, decision, action, and even our outlook on whatever comes our way, will reflect the mind and the will of God.
With that in mind, I want to consider Psalm 48:3, “Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.” This is one of those verses that we’ve all probably read hundreds of times, it is a familiar passage. But the implication of this verse is truly astounding. It describes radical discipleship for the people of God under both the Old and New Covenants.
What the psalmist is declaring is that God is The Citadel within the citadel, The Fortress within the fortress, The Rock within the rock walls of Jerusalem. True faith sees past the temporal situation to eternal realities. The psalmist was addressing a truth that many in Israel overlooked: that God was the true fortress in Jerusalem, the citadel of Israel. The reality was that the walls surrounding Jerusalem, impressive though they were, would be no match for someone like the Assyrian king with his ruthless armies and his siege weapons. The only salvation for Israel, whether spiritual or physical, was Israel’s God, not a rock enclosure.
But the Jews were captivated by the city of God and the temple of God. Their hearts had grown cold and callous; they worshiped God with their lips but their hearts were far from him (Isaiah 29:13-14); they had allowed themselves to take that city and that temple for granted. Truly, familiarity had bred contempt for the things of God. The reverence due to God had been redirected toward themselves as the objects of God’s affection and led to an unholy regard for God.
After He had cleansed the temple for the first time, the Jews taunted Jesus:
“So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus replied, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:18-22).
Just as the Jews thought the Ark of the Covenant was their corporate talisman in battle, and the walled city of Jerusalem was their citadel, so too they thought that the temple within the city of Jerusalem was the true temple.
“When the foundation of the second temple was laid after the return of the exiles, “many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid…” (Ezra 3:12)
They were so focused on the glory of the temple that they forgot that it merely pointed to the greater reality: the glory of the Lord of the temple and the truth that the earthly temple was only a representation of the greater temple, the heavenly temple. (In his vision of the heavenly Jerusalem coming down to the new earth at the inauguration of the age to come, John reveals that the true Temple is not a stone edifice at all, but God Himself. In Revelation 21:22 we read the following: And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.)
Correcting the exiles’ thinking was so important that God sent the prophet Haggai to rebuke and encourage the people.
“‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?….Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not….And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts….The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” (selected verses from Haggai 2:3-9).
This promise has yet to be completed, as God is bringing “the treasures of all nations” to Himself. But the point is that the glory is God’s and His alone! The temple has no inherent glory, only the glory given to it by the presence of God. There is no protection in the temple, no protection within the walls of Jerusalem. Our safety and our focus of worship, the source of all glory and joy, is God, the Lord of hosts. We would do well to remind ourselves of this truth on a regular basis, because we are just as susceptible to the error of attributing glory to the things of God, instead of to God Himself, God alone.
Earlier in Israel’s history, during the time in which Isaiah prophesied, a situation developed between Judah and the allied forces of Israel and Syria to the north. (Ahaz was a wicked king of Judah who practiced baal worship and sacrificed his sons as burnt offerings to foreign gods—possibly Chemosh or Molech—the gods of the nations God had driven out when He settled Israel in the Promised Land.) According to 2 Chronicles 28, Pekah (king of Israel) killed 120,000 men of Judah in one day and took 200,000 prisoners. But God raised up the prophet Oded to go to Pekah and demand that he release the prisoners, who were his kinsmen. Pekah obeyed the Word of the Lord and returned the captives, but he plotted with Rezin, King of Syria, to attack Judah yet again.
Pekah and Rezin surrounded Jerusalem to war against Ahaz, but were unable to mount an attack. When Ahaz heard of this renewed threat, “the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). Here was Ahaz within the citadel, the city of God, and his heart shook as the trees of the forest! Because although he was in the citadel, he didn’t recognize the fortress. His faith was in the citadel, but not in the Citadel! In fact, so faithless was this wicked king, that he sent emissaries to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria (the world power of the day) saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Kings 16:7).
Ahaz stripped the treasures from the temple in order to bribe Tiglath-pileser and to save his own neck. Eventually, Ahaz even had a new altar built, a replica of the one in Damascus; he displaced God’s altar in the temple and substituted the Assyrian altar and began sacrificing to Assyria’s gods. In the end, of course, the king of Assyria betrayed Ahaz, took his bribe and more and then advanced upon Jerusalem to conquer it. (And he would have succeeded in this, had not God intervened.)
Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.
God has made himself known…so men are without excuse (see Romans 1:18-23). Now it is all well and good to read about Ahaz and shake our heads in disgust at his immoral behavior, his cowardice, his avarice and desire for self-preservation. But what about us? What happens when we are surrounded by the pressures of life? When our circumstances lay siege to our hearts and minds? What happens then?
Do we look at the siege ramps outside the walls? Or do we look to the true fortress, the Rock of our Salvation? Do we cry out to God and entrust our lives and the lives of our loved ones to Him? Or…do our hearts shake “as the trees of the forest shake before the wind?”
Where do we turn for help when trouble comes? From where does our strength come? Do we send emissaries out hither and yon hoping we can cut a deal? Our do we turn to our fortress? “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
Oh, there is one more part of the Ahaz saga that needs mentioning. When the combined armies of Israel and Syria came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, and Ahaz stood trembling in fear and despair, God sent Isaiah to speak to Ahaz.
God had Isaiah tell Ahaz that He was going to judge both Israel and Syria. Then the Lord spoke further to Ahaz and told him to ask for a sign. “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven” (Isaiah 7:10). Essentially, God gave Ahaz a blank check! He could ask for anything and God would deliver. What did Ahaz ask of the Lord as a sign? Nothing! This man who sacrificed his sons to the fire, who worshiped baal, whose heart turned to water in the presence of his enemies tried to act humble, contrite, and spiritual in the presence of the God who looks not at outward things, but who examines the heart (1 Samuel 16:7b). Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test” (Isaiah 7:12). Sounds good. Sounds spiritual. We might say, Ahaz didn’t feel led to take God up on his offer! But he was merely posturing in front of God and Isaiah, neither of whom believed him for a moment. In his heart, Ahaz was already negotiating with an enemy of God and of Israel.
And now we see a wonderful demonstration of the grace, the mercy, and the goodness of God. He could have told Isaiah to shake the dust from his feet and return to his home. Instead, God spoke through Isaiah and said,
“Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:13-14).
God’s response to the faithlessness of Ahaz was to reaffirm His faithfulness by delivering a wonderful promise of the coming of Messiah. God was saying to Ahaz and to the residents of Jerusalem that the situation was not hopeless. God’s saw these two local armies for what they were, “two smoldering stumps of firebrands” (Isaiah 7:4b). And God saw the future glory of Judah as the true King, the true Temple, the true Fortress, Jesus Christ, God’s Son comes to make peace on earth.
This God is our God. How then can we be casual in His presence? How can we not fear Him and offer reverent worship? And how can we not trust God to do good, even when we cannot see the good?
The saints under the Old Covenant knew that God was the true fortress within the citadel. Nahum knew the character of God who is the true fortress within the citadel and he exclaimed, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him” (Nahum 1:7).
May Nahum’s proclamation be our confession every day, not just in the day of trouble. May we realize that our hope is in the One who alone can save us. And may we never take for granted the awe-inspiring truth that God has made Himself known as a fortress!
Soli Deo Gloria
from → Expanded Teachings