In chapter two of the book of Joshua we meet a prostitute named Rahab, who lived in Jericho. When Joshua sent spies into Jericho, Rahab hid them and lied about it. Bible commentators have a lot of things to say about Rahab’s lie: Perhaps a lie isn’t as bad a sin as letting the spies be caught. Maybe it was ok because she did it for a good reason. Or it was ok because it was somehow in faith. These explanations should worry us, because if we accept any of them, we can be tempted to apply the same principles anywhere we see fit. Should we rank sins, and allow ourselves to “only” do the lesser ones? Or only do them when we think it is in the best interest of the church or our country? Should murder or other crimes be allowed when we think it is for the greater good of mankind?
I think what really makes the story of Rahab tricky isn’t whether what she did was a sin, but that we know – in general – that God works through sinners, but we don’t like to think that through to the specifics. We don’t want the sins of the sinner to happen quite so close to God’s action of working through sinners. It makes us a little uncomfortable, but the truth is that God has only worked through one sinless person ever – Jesus. Every other person He has used has sinned, and God’s will has always come out ahead.
The message of Rahab’s lie might not be that sin is sometimes ok. It might be that no matter how bad our sin, Christ’s sacrifice is greater. Without this being true, there is no gospel, but somehow it still makes us uncomfortable at times and we want an explanation for God using sinners that just isn’t there, except the explanation of the cross.
Sometimes God’s grace overwhelms our sin, and we succeed in spite of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we did the right thing. Thank God for His love and let His grace overwhelm you today! Don’t look for explanations or excuses, but kneel before the cross where sins of all kinds and degrees were paid for.
Too often I start reading something thinking it will be encouraging, but find it filled with phrases like “post-Christian world,” or “Christianity’s decline.” I just read that apparently, I’m “living in the ruins of Christendom.” However, because Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” our faith and hope are not based on any ruin or decline we see in the communities and world around us. Other things may end up in ruins or in decline, but Christianity does not. It was not in decline on Good Friday and it is not in decline now.
In a recent post about the massive expansion of Christianity under Communist China, I wrote: “As Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 – ‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ This rock is the gospel of the kingdom of God, and not even a brutal regime like that of Chairman Mao could prevail against it.”
The best of the kingdom of God is always in the future, never in the past, which brings me to the Rewind Wednesday part of today’s post, from last November:
“Today, many will hear the good news of the kingdom of Jesus, and some may hear and be saved! Also today, none will be snatched out of His hand! (John 10:28)
During the pandemic, most of us found we had extra time on our hands. In my case, I did not have to commute to work, and many other activities I’d normally do were shut down, so it was easier (not easy) to make time for private time with God in Bible study and prayer. However, as I’m now in “Return to Office” mode, working 2-3 days a week in the office, I’ve been reminded of Mark 1:35, which says: “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, [Jesus] departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
Jesus got up early after a very busy night, which Mark describes in verses 33 and 34: “That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.”
I am not naturally a morning person, and finding time has been harder, but as I’ve written: “whether you’re working at a job, at home, retired, a student, a parent, or in any role in this world, as God’s creativity was to be reproduced by Adam and Eve, the character of Jesus is being developed in His people in this world.” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”[1] If even Jesus needed daily prayer and time to listen to the Father to get His work done, how much more do we all need that time?
My post-pandemic routine is different than my pre-pandemic routine, and daily time with God is not about the means, but the end. He has work for each of us to do, and whatever your means of having relationship with the Father, making time to spend with Him is vital for approaching each day as an act of worship and service.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14
In the previous post in this series on our Master’s voice, I wrote that: “We can’t see the reasons God wants us to trust Him because there is far more at work than we could ever imagine.” Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes great illustrations come from strange fictional places, like Jim Carrey movies and Douglas Adams books for example.
In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,[1] the sequel to the sci-fi comedy classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams imagines a technology that harnesses full awareness of the universe as a profoundly cruel torture device. When Trin Tragula invented the “Total Perspective Vortex” to annoy his wife who kept accusing him of blowing things out of proportion, he found that when he tested it on her, “the shock completely annihilated her brain.” A victim is placed in the TPV and presented with a realistic model of the entire universe, with a tiny dot on top of a tiny dot that says, “you are here.” He concluded that “a sense of proportion” in such a massive universe would only make someone feel completely insignificant, hopeless, and insane beyond all hope of recovery. It’s a sci-fi comedy, but still, be careful what you wish for.
Another example from a different angle is the Jim Carrey movie, Bruce Almighty. This hilarious (but irreverent) comedy is based on Carrey’s character Bruce Nolan raging against God about his frustrating life. God, played by Morgan Freeman, appears and challenges Bruce to do any better, giving him “the job” for a temporary period to teach him a lesson. The 3-ish-minute video embedded here is my favorite part of the movie, where Bruce tries to figure out how to deal with his new awareness of all the prayers of the world.
If God thought it was possible, or a good idea, for us to know it all, we would. After all, even Nipper the dog from the “His Master’s Voice” painting would be distracted and unable to get anything done if he saw this picture, even though it contains only good news:
Our Master speaks to us as our creator, knowing both our limitations, but also what we are capable of as His marvelous creatures if we trust Him!
This post is fourth in a series that started with this post on His Master’s Voice. More to come…
[1] Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. (1980). P. 79
Today we come back to the topic of our Master’s voice, which began with the painting “His Master’s Voice” and continues through the story of Gideon in the book of Judges, chapters 6 and 7. So far, Gideon has done his best to discern whether God was really talking to him, then set out with an army of 22,000 soldiers, which Gideon faithfully whittled down to only 300, at God’s instruction. Against an army “like locusts in abundance,” Gideon might have needed a little reassurance, because outside of a miracle[1] his army was going to fail miserably.
That very night, God spoke to Gideon, saying: “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.”[2] We know Gideon was still afraid because he took Purah and went down into the camp. We also know that God made provision for Gideon’s fear, instead of counting on Gideon to have perfect faith. Should Gideon have needed extra reassurance? No, but God provided what was needed to overcome Gideon’s fear, which was a bit more insight into God’s plan. Victory in battle is never a matter of how many soldiers are on God’s side, as if spiritual warfare was determined by democracy, but by whose side God is on.
When Gideon snuck into the camp: “behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, ‘Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.’ And his comrade answered, ‘This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.’”[3]
Victory in battle is never
a matter of how many
soldiers are on God’s side
Some commentators suggest that the “barley” reference means that an inferior army would win, since barley was considered inferior to wheat and other grains, but what we know is that this dream put fear into the Midianite camp and emboldened Gideon to trust God, even though he didn’t understand Him. Overhearing these words in the camp let Gideon know that that God was at work in far more ways than he could imagine, that victory belongs to the LORD, and that he can trust that God has the knowledge he lacked. God is trustworthy, even if we don’t fully understand Him.
We only know part of our part in God’s plan. He knows all of our part, and also all of everyone else’s part. Each of us are but one of millions of Christians trying to figure out our relationship with God, and we have no idea what those other millions are up to. But God does, and if we insist God tells us everything before we act, we not only disobey God, but lose out on the opportunity to impact those other lives and see how awesome God’s plan really is!
Our ability to hear and obey our Master’s voice is not a question of complete knowledge, but of wisdom. Proverbs 17:24 says, “The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.” Since “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight,”[4] from the story of Gideon, we learn that God was teaching Gideon to revere Him above any desire to see the “ends of the earth.” Wisdom keeps us on the path of life but doesn’t always mark it out for us far into the future. We can’t see the reasons God wants us to trust Him because there is far more at work than we could ever imagine.
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” – Deuteronomy 29:29
This post is third in a series that started with this post on His Master’s Voice. More to come…
[1] Or a certain action film directed by Zack Snyder… [2] Judges 7:9b-11a [3] Judges 7:13-14 [4] Proverbs 9:10
