He came to make all thingsright: Why Christmas, #6

Why did Jesus come? #6

Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging out under the altar. "I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging. . .?” (Revelation 6:9-10) These martyrs are not alone. Throughout history, down to this present hour, God's people ask,   "How long, O LORD, will I call for help, and You will not hear?  I cry out to You, “Violence!” Yet You do not save.  Why do You make me see iniquity,  And cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me;  Strife exists and contention arises. (Habakkuk 1:2-3) In my life, I've known people who have a keen eye for, and an uncanny feel for equilibrium. If something is just the slightest bit uneven they can detect it. They don't feel right unless their world is plumb and level. I think all of us have a detector like that in our soul. We know when things aren't right, and it makes us ill at ease. Christ came to make all things right. The process hasn't been completed. That last great enemy, death, still struts around this fallen world. But Christ in His death and Resurrection defeated even that enemy. We sing "Joy to the World" at Christmas, and rightly so, but that song is not really about Christ's coming as a babe, but about that time, yet future, when he will come as a king. Make no mistake, though, the victorious coming again has been secured by victory won in humility, that passed through a manger in Bethlehem. Another Christmas carol puts it this way, "Born that man no more may die." Why did Christ come? He came to make all things right. It's STTA (Something To Think About).      Click the image to see the story of redemption The link will take you to chapter 1. You can go from there.

Wide-Eyed Wonder:

I'm involved in a slow--because of who I am--intermittent--because of other responsibilities and interupptions--reading of Millard Erickson's Theology.  It's a good sized book over a thousand pages long.

When I opened the text this morning, my marker was on a major division page.  The section it introduces is about one-hundred-fifteen pages long. 

 

"PART FOUR

What God Does"

I opened the book right after reading a Facebook posting.  A sharp, perceptive, preschooler asked his mom, "Why doesn't God make "broken germs"?"

For those of you aren't as perceptive as this young man, broken germs wouldn't be able to do what germs do, which is make people sick.  I'm fairly sure that after working on it for forty years I still can't give this budding theodicy-seeker an answer that he would find satisfying.  So, I was already in a humbled state when I opened the book of the learned Doctor and saw the headline, "What God Does."

I immediately thought:  I could have saved a lot of paper and ink.  Dr. Erickson, in your revised edition I propose that Part Four consist of this:

Whatever He Wants!*

 

 (I realize, of course, that that might require a couple hundred pages of footnotes.)

Lord, may I never get over the wide-eyed wonder that You are greater than I can know.  Thanks for the reminder that mental boxes are as inadequate for containing You, as are cardboard cartons.

Help me to continue to learn more about you, and to gain a greater grasp of the truth of Romans 8.

And, Lord, I look forward to a day when all germs will be broken.  Come quickly, Lord.

Amen 

(I Suffer from hangups.  I didn't feel right putting a link in a prayer, so here it is:  Romans 8.)

It's STTA.

On our website, covingtonbblechurch.com, put your cursor over the "Devotional and Study Aids" tab and select "Thirty Days of Praying the Names and Attributes of God."  Follow the link.

   

There is lots of information about the one Who died so that we could have life at our webpage, covingtonbiblechurch.com.  Click on "Life's most important question."

  

 (* I realize, of course, that that might require a couple hundred pages of footnotes.)

The Face of Evil

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT What does the face of evil look like? We see it all around us, but most often we see it in silhouette, if you will.  In fact, often as we sort through the aftermath of grotesque wickedness, like the law-enforcement investigators in Boston, we see the horrendous aftermath, but we don't see the face that perpetrated the crime.    The fact is, evil wears different masks:  They are found all across the spectrum from the distortion of extreme righteousness, so called, as was the case with evil on that first Good Friday, all the way to the just out-and-out, unadulterated badness, that too often stalks our streets.     The Bible is clear that evil is here.  The Devil is not merely a personification; he is a real, spiritual person, Satan, Lucifer, the Dragon, and he gets around, and gets a lot done.  In the book of Job, he describes the territory he has marked with his foul scent:  "I've been 'roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.'"   (Job 1:7)  In the New Testament he is described as the "Prince of the Power of the Air."  (Ephesians 2:2)--no more localized than the air we breath.  He is not the evil opposite of God.  He lacks, for instance, the omni attributes: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. He does get around, though, he is cunning and powerful, and he does have help.  His network is so widespread and effective that John says "The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."  (1 John 5:19)    Not only are these spiritual entities busily spreading evil, you and I, the Bible makes clear, have evil in our core, and in the same way that the physical ecosystems of our world are degraded, the moral spiritual realm is polluted.  (Read Romans 8, and Ephesians 2:1-10 for both description and hope.  An evil tempter, tempting people with a propensity to sin, in a world that is skewed in an evil direction--there is a recipe for a mess.   Carnage, like that in Boston, gets our attention and causes us to cry out for answers:   "Who?" "Why?" "Where is God?" As to the last question, I assert that God is both here, with you, and in Boston.  The Bible teaches that He doesn't take coffee-breaks.  Look here, here, and especially here to see some things I have written after past tragedies. The face of evil is sometimes sanctimonious, at other times on fire with raw hatred.  It often is heavily colored with selfishness.  If you look around the eyes you can detect deception.  Ironically, and in a way that troubles me the mouth on the face of evil is often seen to be grinning.   I guess what troubles me most about thinking of the face of evil is I sometimes see it looking back at me from the mirror.   It's STTA.

Life's Unfairness, #3:

"It's always darkest just before the dawn." 

Really?

Lot's of people would argue with that, with good reason, I might add.  The experience of many is, "It's always darkest just before the lights go totally out."

Eleven of Joseph's 28 years had been spent as a slave or in jail.  Even if Joseph had done something worthy of incarceration back in Israel, he would have been tried as juvenile--by today's standards.  The fact is, other than, perhaps, getting caught being stupid and having a penchant for self-importance--a tendency, which was fed by his father's foolish behavior--Joseph was innocent.  But it's LIFE that appears to be wearing the black robe, sitting behind the big desk and life isn't fair.  

Even in jail, Joseph's abilities were clear, those and the blessing of his God.  Even though Joseph in essence ran the jail, I am sure he wanted out.  He was about 28 years old when an opportunity presented itself.  Joseph successfully interpreted the king's cupbearer's dream.  Sure enough, just like the dream said, the high-ranking servant was restored to his position.  Surely his gratitude would cause him to remember Joseph, his jailhouse buddy, the one who first broke the good news.

How many mornings did Joseph get up thinking, "It will probably be today.  Pharaoh will send guards to get me, and few minutes examination will reveal that I was thrown in this place because of lies."?  How many nights did he go to bed thinking, "Maybe tomorrow."?  

I don't know, but I have to believe that on one of those 730+ days the bottom fell out.  "He's not going to remember me."  Or worse, "He did remember me and Pharaoh didn't listen."  

That was the day hope came crashing down.  

Perhaps life's greatest unfairness is to allow us to think it is going to get better, so that when the realization comes that it is going to stay bad, our disappointment will be all the worse.  The words of the Sawi, a cannibalistic stone age tribe in New Guinea, "To fatten him with kindness for the slaughter," certainly apply.  It seems that life is like a hog farm--lotta weight being put on to a deadly end.  

It is clear to me that part--a big part--of God's purpose for letting this world be the way it is, is to keep us from loving it.  If we love it with all its unfairness, just think how much we would if skies were always blue, and cupbearers always remembered their buddies back in jail.  

Again I encourage you to readRomans 8.  

If you put your ultimate hope in anything in this world, look out.  All bottoms are subject to falling out without warning.

It's STTA. 

You'll find some resources that explains the true hope here.