Tag Faith

When Bad Things Happen to the Greatest Disciples

Todd R 2 Comments

“Why do bad things happen to good people?” is a difficult question to answer, and the life and death of John the Baptist is an interesting case, raising another question: did Jesus fail John the Baptist?

John was identified as “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’”[1] prophesied by Isaiah.  John publicly announced the coming of Jesus, and soon baptized Him, then watched the Spirit descend on Him like a dove and heard the voice of the Father declare Jesus as the Son.[2]  Was testifying publicly about Jesus and His miracles John’s mission in life?  If so, why did John find himself in prison, unable to preach in the open?  As Matthew’s Gospel records, Herod Antipas, the Roman ruler of Galilee and Perea, had John arrested for criticizing Herod’s immoral relationship with his brother’s wife.[3]  While under arrest, John began to have some doubts about Jesus and sent messengers to Him, saying “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”[4]  To John, his circumstances didn’t make sense and he reached out to Jesus for an explanation.

Matthew, in preparing his gospel message, intentionally placed this question from John to Jesus after a long section about followers of Jesus meeting opposition and persecution in the world.  If you have time, read Matthew chapters 10 and 11 now, or keep reading here and I’ll quote key verses and ideas as we go, starting with these:

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.” – Matthew 10:24
“Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” – Matthew 11:11

John’s experience gives us several lessons.  First, living like Jesus does not mean Christians will avoid uncomfortable circumstances, including criticism and/or persecution.  Circumstances are not always a sign we’ve done something right or wrong.  When Jesus said “a disciple is not above his teacher” the context tells us that He meant that His perfect life and obedience led to the cross, and if we are like Him we can’t expect to be treated better than He was.  Still, we may be tempted to think that if we live the right life, if we preach the truth of the gospel perfectly, if we do everything we “should”, then we will not be like “sheep in the midst of wolves,”[5] but loved and admired by the world.  By moving right to the story of John in the next chapter, and saying “among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist,”  Matthew is saying that not even the greatest disciple of Jesus who ever lived was exempt from the warnings of chapter 10, including “Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you sin their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.” – Matthew 10:17-18

Even the very best lives and preaching meet opposition, perhaps the most devoted bring even more opposition from those who have no interest in the kingdom of God.

Second, by placing these stories side-by-side, Matthew shows that John the Baptist is an example for us when we have doubts[6].  In prison, John had doubts, but did not give up on Jesus.  If Jesus was who he said He was, then not only the warnings of chapter 10 apply to John and us, but also the assurances and instructions:

“When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.” – Matthew 10:19
“What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops” – Matthew 10:27
“Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven” – Matthew 10:31

John sent disciples to Jesus not to ask for rescue or to complain, but to confirm whether He really was the Messiah.  When we have doubts, we can also seek and find comfort.

Third, there is always more God is doing than we are aware of.  Instead of commenting directly on John’s prison situation to John’s messengers, “Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”[7]  In other words, Jesus was doing everything the Messiah should be doing, and even with John sidelined from public ministry, the kingdom of God was advancing spectacularly.  John had the information needed to believe and should not be “offended” by his unexpected circumstances.  God remained in control of the situation.

Lastly, the circumstances of our lives may be what inspire others to better follow Christ, although it may be invisible to us.  Therefore, our patience and faithfulness in those times, or even the way we express and deal with doubt, can be a powerful witness.  As “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” John saw his audience as those coming out to see Him and be baptized.  From this perspective, being in prison made John feel useless or like a failure to his calling.  What had he and/or Jesus done wrong?  But God, through Matthew’s Gospel, saw John’s audience as all future generations, who could be encouraged that even the “great” John the Baptist faced criticism, persecution, and doubt.  John may have thought his purpose was to keep preaching publicly, but instead his example benefits believers in ways that his freedom couldn’t.

Faith Over Circumstance
Don’t let circumstances determine your faith and willingness to serve Christ.  In Matthew 10, Jesus said political and religious leaders, and even our own families, will resist Christ in us.  Often, they will appear to succeed.  Also, some will tell us that when things aren’t going our way, we need to “have more faith”, “pray harder”, “go to church more”, and convince God to improve our situation.  They argue we need to fix something we’re doing and our circumstances will improve.  But this is not the message of John’s story, and Matthew made sure of that by the way he wrote it.  There is no record of Jesus or Matthew telling John the Baptist why he was suffering and in prison, or that he could do anything about it.  Jesus only asked him to trust.  However, when John was ultimately beheaded[8], he met Jesus face-to face again, but fully glorified, and I believe John understood.  There is always more to our circumstances than we can see or comprehend, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”[9]

If even John the Baptist was not exempt from the warnings of Matthew 10, neither are we.  But also, if John could trust his Lord and Savior to love and provide for him, we can too.

“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it…And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”” – Matthew 10:38-39, 42

[1] Isaiah 40:3, quoted in Matthew 4:3.
[2] Matthew 3:16-17
[3] Matthew 14:3
[4] Matthew 11:3
[5] Matthew 10:16
[6] Also, I recently posted an example from the life of Jeremiah the prophet.
[7] Matthew 11:4-6
[8] Matthew 14:10
[9] Romans 8:28

When All You Have is God

Todd R 1 Comment
Photo by Greg Willson on Unsplash

Near the end of Book 3 in the Psalms (43-89), several Psalms read like cries for help by writers at the end of their rope.  In Psalm 86:14, for example, David writes: “O God, insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.”  While the exact circumstance is unclear, David knows there is a wide conspiracy against him, and his only hope is to turn to God.  The Psalm opens with “Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.”

Likewise, when we feel desperate and don’t know where to turn, these Psalms remind us that God will never turn us away.  On Psalm 86 John Calvin comments that “the more severely any one is oppressed, and the more destitute he is of the resources of human aid, the more inclined is God graciously to help him. That despair therefore may not overwhelm our minds under our greatest afflictions, let us support ourselves from the consideration that the Holy Spirit has dictated this prayer for the poor and the afflicted.”  In other words, because these Psalms are in the Bible, we can be sure that, no matter the mess our own choices or the actions of others have put us in, God in His steadfast love will listen.

Throughout the Psalm, David writes reminders of the character and works of God as a contrast to both his circumstances and his feelings of futility.  Like him we must always remember that our character is never so bad that God loving us is inconsistent with His character, and that our circumstances are never so bad that loving us is beyond His power to achieve.

When all you have is God, He is enough.

Even for the most desperate, there is always a way out, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” In Psalm 86, David does not just pray for a miraculous deliverance, but in verse 11, David looks for the way of escape: “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.”  A united heart is one that feels no anxiety because it knows it is seeking God’s will and willing to act on it based on reverence for Him.  God may urge us to merely wait for His deliverance, or prod us to actions we may not expect, but in all cases, He knows the way, because He is the Way. Only He can unite our hearts.

Bring your desperate anxiety to Him and let Him show you the way forward.  When all you have is God, He is enough.  When you feel your faith is weak because you can’t see or feel God in your life or the world around you, begin with “Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy,” and He will listen.

“Let Not the Flood Sweep Over Me”

Todd R Leave a comment

A recent post was about Jeremiah’s comparison of false religion to a broken cistern, with God alternatively being “the fountain of living waters.”[1]  Jeremiah lived when most of God’s people – including most of the priests and prophets – had turned from Him to follow other gods.  As Jeremiah remained faithful, correctly predicting that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon, he was persecuted, including this instance in Jeremiah 38:6, where King Zedekiah’s officials “took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”

Since God is “the fountain of living waters,” the only path to eternal blessing, it’s incredibly ironic that Jeremiah, one of the few remaining faithful prophets and therefore a rare source of God’s “living waters,” should be cast into a cistern with no water.  Perhaps it was broken.  King Zedekiah thought he could silence the “living waters” Jeremiah represented by casting them into a cistern, trading truth for falsehood.

Photo by Mishal Ibrahim on Unsplash

Later, Jeremiah seems to recall the cistern experience in Lamentations 3:52-57, where he said:

“I have been hunted like a bird
            by those who were my enemies without cause;
they flung me alive into the pit
            and cast stones on me;
water closed over my head;
            I said, ‘I am lost.’
‘I called on your name, O LORD,
            from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
            your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
            you said, ‘Do not fear!’”

Returning to the book of Jeremiah, we read that Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, heard of Jeremiah’s situation and pleaded his case: “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”[2]  This unlikely source – a foreigner – was Jeremiah’s deliverance from God to rescue Jeremiah from the well.  Ebed-melech gathered 30 men, “Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”

Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament figure to suffer for his faithfulness.  Many years earlier, King David also referred to “sinking in the mire” in the Messianic Psalm 69, verses 14-15:

“Deliver me
            from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
            and from the deep waters.
Let not the flood sweep over me,
            or the deep swallow me up,
            or the pit close its mouth over me.”

David knew this feeling of sinking came not because of his sin, but when he was faithfully serving his Lord.  David’s “sinking in the mire” happened under these circumstances from verse 9 of the same Psalm:

“For zeal for your house has consumed me,
            and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”

In Jeremiah’s case, as well as David’s and that of Jesus, whom Psalm 69 foreshadowed[3], we know we that cannot judge our faithfulness based on whether it improves our circumstances.  When we do, we might stop being faithful because it seems we are “sinking in the mire.”  Being reproached by the world and feeling down aren’t the circumstances we prefer, but “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[4]  Through these and all other circumstances, God develops in us deeper trust in Him.

Therefore, with David may we pray:

“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD.
            At an acceptable time, O God,
            in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.” – Psalm 69:13

And in His time, He will deliver us, perhaps in ways we don’t expect.

Coda

In 1995, Christian rock group Jars of Clay released their self-titled album, and the track “Flood” has similar themes to this post.  The song was also a mainstream hit, charting as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart,[5] amazing for a song that is essentially a prayer like David’s in Psalm 69.

You can check out the song’s lyrics here: https://genius.com/Jars-of-clay-flood-lyrics

Or, if you have 3 ½ minutes, watch the music video here:

[1] Jeremiah 3:13
[2] Jeremiah 38:9
[3] John 2:17, 15:25, Acts 1:20, Romans 11:9-10, 15:3
[4] Matthew 5:10
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Jars_of_Clay_song)

Don’t Fear Jezebel’s Algorithm

Todd R 1 Comment

Sometimes we can get frustrated with the way the media, either traditional or social, seems to ignore or block out positive stories about God or Christianity.  Online networks like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook can be very efficient at this, using complex algorithms to filter information, but on top of that human editors can intervene and block users they decide don’t fit their “community standards.”  However, resistance to spreading God’s word is as old as time, and God has never needed the assistance of any kind of media to accomplish what He wants to accomplish.

Consider the Old Testament story of Elijah, who prophesied during the reign of Israel’s evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel.  According to Who’s Who in the Bible, “Jezebel devoted herself to bringing the worship of Baal and his consort Asherah to Israel. She employed 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophetesses of Asherah (1 Kings 18:19), and persecuted the prophets of the Lord, including Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-9).”[1]  Many prophets were killed.

Elijah despaired, as written in 1 Kings 19:10 – “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”  It was as if all Christian voices but Elijah had been silenced by the authorities, and even he couldn’t feel safe.

Apostles also struggled to stay strong, including Paul.  When he was frustrated at resistance and lack of progress in Corinth, “the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”[2]

When Paul needed an example to encourage others to persist, he used Elijah’s story in Romans 11:2 – “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?  ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’  But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’” Corinth seemed like a lost cause, but God reminded Paul not to trust his own judgment.  God had it under control.

Therefore, our hope is not in the editors of our newspaper, or in social networks where we can share God’s message, or in the benevolence of the programmers of algorithms that choose who sees what we post, or in the regulators and legislators who monitor the public square, or in the founding political documents that give us rights.  But:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
            and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
            giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
            it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
            and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11

Like Jezebel killing all the prophets while promoting Baal and Asherah, censorship of Christian content may seem to be everywhere.  However, social network algorithms, editors, regulators, and governments are not our enemy, but our enemy is the one who tries to convince us we need these things more than we need the God who made them and who made us all.  His word will accomplish its purpose, and we have Elijah’s and Paul’s words and actions as evidence.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

[1] Gardner, Paul D., editor.  The Complete Who’s Who in the Bible.  (1995)
[2] Acts 18:9-10

Learning Godly Fear

Todd R Leave a comment

Does being forgiven by God cause us to fear Him less, or to fear Him more?  Perhaps it’s both.

Psalm 130:4 tells us this about God: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  To one way of thinking, this seems backwards: why does knowing that God has forgiven us make us fear Him more?  Shouldn’t we fear Him less when forgiven?  It depends on what we mean by fear.

For me, getting Psalm 130:4 to make sense with the order of forgiveness and fear required a re-thinking of repentance.  My conclusion was: the one who has not been forgiven has not repented, and the reason they did not repent was that they did not fear God.  They did not understand Him properly.  They might be afraid of God, but that’s not the kind of fear referred to in Psalm 130.

In contrast, the one who has been forgiven has repented, and they repented because they understood it was the best thing for them to do, out of a fearful respect for God.  A proper understanding of God’s character makes us turn to Him with our guilt, rather than run away from Him.  We should not be afraid of God, where we are motivated to be passive – avoiding mistakes that would anger the one we fear.  We should fear God in that we revere Him and respect His authority, and therefore actively seek to please Him.

A lot goes into repentance.  When we pray and ask for forgiveness, it’s often a simple prayer made with the proverbial faith of a child, but there are a lot of assumptions we make when we say that prayer.  Every prayer of repentance directly or indirectly acknowledges some or all of these things:

1) God as the source of the law, the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong
2) Him as the righteous judge who is personally offended by our sin
3) His omniscience, knowing we cannot hide our sin
4) His uniqueness, as there is no other God to turn to
5) His steadfast love for us, knowing He bore the cost of our sin, therefore enabling us to approach Him
6) His compassion for us, since He lived as a man
7) His power and willingness to heal us of sin
8) His consistency of character: that He is not arbitrary

If we don’t implicitly or explicitly believe these things, why would we repent and ask forgiveness from God?  Why would we expect to get it?  Exploring that set of statements could fill multiple volumes of theology books, but we don’t need that knowledge.  In His grace, He honors our simple, heartfelt confessions.  He paid the price for all our inadequacies – even when we don’t fully understand our own prayers or who we’re praying to.  The Spirit pleads with the Father on our behalf[1].  Mercifully, our forgiveness is based on His faithfulness to us, not on our detailed theological knowledge.  1 John 1:9 tells us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Even our faith is imperfect, but His faithfulness bridges the gap between our childlike faith and His omniscience.  He knows all our doubts and all their answers.  We come as we are, but with fearful respect, and are forgiven.

Only through acceptance of the cross, where Christ’s atoning blood was shed for us, can God in His Holiness commune with us.  Only through forgiveness will the Holy Spirit come and live in us.  Only by tasting of His goodness do we really know what He is like, not before.  And if we never repent, we don’t learn what it tastes like, we only know what you’ve been told about God, and we might not have been told the truth.

Psalm 130:4 shows us that genuine repentance leads to forgiveness and gives us a better appreciation of who God is.  As we experience Him more, we live Psalm 34:8 for ourselves:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
                        Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

[1] Romans 8:26-27