Have you ever watched a movie that was much worse than what the trailer for it led you to expect? Were scenes taken out of context, giving you the wrong impression? Was every good scene from the movie already in the trailer, leaving you disappointed?
Every now and then, God gives us a preview of heaven, reminders of His steadfast love for us in our present time that strengthen our hope and empower us to live for Him. When we seek God, He gives a glimpse of the blessings in store for us. He may answer with an encouraging word, a compassionate friend, a moment of mental clarity, or some surprise blessing. David describes something like this in Psalm 36:7-9 –
“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”
David wrote these verses in the present tense, meaning we can take refuge with God right now, and experience the abundance of His love. Commenting on the middle verse, James Montgomery Boice says the Hebrew word translated as delights “is the plural of the word Eden and undoubtedly looks backward to the joys of our first parents before the fall.”[1] By referencing the past paradise of Eden, David also hints of future paradise where we will have eternal life.
Paradise was real and will be real again, and we know the movie will be far better than the trailer could possibly show us. God does not give wrong impressions and He does not disappoint.
Take refuge in Him.
[1] From “March 28.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017).
Mahatma Gandhi apparently said this: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Unfortunately, sometimes I think he had a point. For example, someone I know with diabetes was told by members of their church that it happened because he was such a sinner. What? It’s shameful that church members would treat the unfortunate this way, but it happens, and it is one of the most inappropriate and discouraging things I can imagine.
In this post, I’ll share 2 examples from the Gospels that show Jesus would never speak, or even think, this way. In fact, His attitude was almost the exact opposite.
The first story comes from John 9:1-7, which says:
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.”
This example is relevant to my story about the diabetic because the disciples in the story are making the same connection between a person’s specific sin and their specific illness that the people talking about the diabetic made. Jesus gave a surprising answer to why the man was born blind – to glorify God by showing His healing power. Although people are too often hasty to assign blame, Jesus’ answer shows that there’s an alternative to drawing a straight line from specific sins to specific problems. And interestingly, the answer could apply to any disabled or sick person: all sicknesses will be gone in paradise, and God will be glorified by all of it. Illness is not evidence of sin; there could be other causes.
Another story comes from Luke 13:1-5, which says:
“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.””
In this story, Jesus is questioning the assumption that very bad things happen to very bad people, and that if something very bad happens to you, you must be a very bad person. The lesson Jesus is illustrating is that we should never think that the punishment of other sinners should be worse than the punishment we deserve ourselves. Put another way, if we think someone was punished with diabetes because of their sin, what makes someone think they don’t also deserve diabetes (or worse)?
As John Calvin wrote in his commentary on this story:
“This passage is highly useful, were it for no other reason than that this disease is almost natural to us, to be too rigorous and severe in judging of others, and too much disposed to flatter our own faults. The consequence is, that we not only censure with excessive severity the offenses of our brethren; but whenever they meet with any calamity, we condemn them as wicked and reprobate persons.”
Or as the late pastor and author James Boice said about the story:
“We are asking the wrong question. We are saying, ‘God, how could you let this happen to them?’ When the real question should be, ‘God, why hasn’t it happened to me? Why am I still living, sinner that I am?’”
Whether a person suffers calamity or doesn’t isn’t because of anyone’s righteousness, and Jesus doesn’t offer us an explanation about why. He doesn’t have to. Instead, he said “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”, and implied that one of the things to repent of is thinking that others are “worse sinners” than we are.
Some people who appear righteous end up suffering terribly in this world, while some who are flagrant sinners live prosperous lives. Which brings me to another quote by our Lord Jesus, from Matthew 9:12b-13.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus showed mercy to those who are sick, both physically and spiritually, and so should all of His people. Jesus went out of His way to seek and love the sick and the lost, and so should we.
A picture can be, as they say, worth a thousand words. To make an impression, sometimes God uses pictures or images, and one example is how He lets us know just how holy He is.
When calling Isaiah to be a prophet, God gave him an image in Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” In this vision of a throne room, why bother to mention that “the train of his robe filled the temple”? Because in this image of God’s presence, there is no room for anything that isn’t holy. If anyone tries to walk into the temple, they will tread on the Lord’s robe with their dirty feet, and any lord would be immensely offended at that. James Boice commented on the verse, that: “This suggests that there is room for no one else at the highest pinnacle of the universe. It is not just that Jehovah reigns, therefore, but also that no one else reigns beside Him or in opposition to Him”[1]
A similar picture of holiness comes from Revelation 15:8, which says: “and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.” Until God’s judgment was complete – both on the unrepentant and on the cross for His people – there would continue to be no room in the sanctuary for anyone but the Lord.
A third picture, which was not just a vision, but built in actual, physical form, is the “Holy of Holies.” During most of the Old Testament period, priests implemented an elaborate sacrificial system to illustrate God’s requirements for meeting with sinners: an innocent creature had to die. These animals symbolized the later sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But the “Holy of Holies” was the ultimate statement of how serious approaching God is.
This innermost room of the temple was only entered once per year (on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur), and only by the high priest, who only can enter after hours of preparation. Once there, the high priest would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificed bull on and in front of God’s “mercy seat”, the cover of the ark of the covenant and a sign of His presence. Later Jewish tradition (not found in the Bible) indicates that others would stand outside the room holding a rope that was tied to the high priest, who also had bells tied around his waist. If those outside heard the bells jingling, followed by silence, they would assume the high priest did not atone properly for the sins of the people, died in God’s presence, and needed to be dragged out by the rope. God’s holy presence was to be taken seriously.
So Isaiah, presented with God’s holiness, cried out “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Isaiah’s “Woe” comes down to current times in the expression “Oy!” Isaiah knew instinctually that being in God’s temple was a bad idea. However, God provides redemption for His people, which He pictured for Isaiah like this: “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”[2]
Isaiah was not saved by a burning coal, but by what it represented: the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In God’s steadfast love for His people, He offered Jesus once for all, and the only sacrifice necessary and sufficient for us to know God. Therefore, there is no longer a barrier to His holy presence for God’s people, so the writer of Hebrews says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[3]
Yes, God is holy and must be honored as holy, but when we feel insufficient or feel like yelling “oy!” when things go wrong, we can come “with confidence” to Jesus in His temple and ask Him to reassure us of His provision for our sin. That we may know, like Isaiah, that “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Amen
[1] From “May 9.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017). [2] Isaiah 6:6-7 [3] Hebrews 4:16
Psalm 98:7 declares: “Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!” In Romans 8:19 Paul adds that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
Pastor James Montgomery Boice connects these ideas and says, “The world will one day be renewed.” Nature already shows God’s glory, but it also, like mankind, is not yet as it shall be. Boice adds: “I think of the way C.S. Lewis developed this idea in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the first section of that book, when Narnia was under the power of the wicked Witch of the North, the land was in a state of perpetual winter. Spring never came. But when Aslan rose from the dead, the ice began to melt, flowers bloomed, and the trees turned green.”[1] Creation shares the hope of mankind – regeneration in a future paradise at the coming of its Lord!
Even now, we get an occasional glimpse of nature that’s somehow better than what we’re used to, and perhaps it is a glimpse of the paradise beyond the renewal of all things. In 2022, we were in Wales, on Mount Snowdon and a nearby trail in Llanberis, and below are some pictures from that day. Some of these show the many brilliant shades of green, which seemed more glorious than the greens near our home in the U.S. We don’t often see rocks interact with the greenery like this here.
So, will paradise be even greener than this? Will it seem like a perpetual winter has finally lifted? I’m eagerly waiting to find out someday. In the meantime, enjoy these:
[1] From “April 19.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017).
Being human is difficult, but sometimes a pause to reflect can make a big difference. Ephesians 2:4 says: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…” Pastor James Boice jumps on those first two words as a key turning point: “But God! Here is where the beauty and wonder of the Christian gospel comes in.”
Ephesians 2 begins with people following “the course of this world,” chasing whatever “passions” and “desires” came to mind. Before “but God”, we were all “dead” (v 1) and “by nature children of wrath” (v 3). All of our efforts are doomed to failure.
The story does not stop there. For God’s people it never does. After “but God”, we have been made alive together with Christ (v 5), we are shown the immeasurable riches of His grace (v 7), and we are enabled to do the good, meaningful works He has prepared for us (v 10).
When we wonder whether this world is all there is and that this is the best we can do, we respond “But God…” When frustrated with yourself, with others, or with the world in general, bring to mind the words “but God.” These words are relevant to every situation because He has not left things as they are, but He intervened through Jesus on the cross and through His Spirit in our lives every day. “The words ‘but God’ show what God has done. If you understand those two words – ‘but God’ – they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely.”[1]
Call the words “but God…” to mind whenever you’re overcome with negativity. Say “but God…” to others who are struggling. For every situation, He can fill the “…” with hope if you pause and give Him the opportunity. But also, when you see God’s blessings in your daily life, think “but God” because He has not left us alone.
[1] From “November 7.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017).
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 