God’s Hands

If you were a high school student in the United States anytime in the last 100 years, you were probably assigned the reading of a sermon preached in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards, called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It’s not a warm and fuzzy, feel good sermon. Edwards describes God as angry and anxious to dole out justice to all who deserve it.

“So that thus it is, that natural Men are held in the Hand of God over the Pit of Hell; they have deserved the fiery Pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his Anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the Executions of the fierceness of his Wrath in Hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that Anger, neither is God in the least bound by any Promise to hold 'em up one moment; the Devil is waiting for them, Hell is gaping for them, the Flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the Fire pent up in their own Hearts is struggling to break out; and they have no Interest in any Mediator, there are no Means within Reach that can be any Security to them. In short, they have no Refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every Moment is the meer arbitrary Will, and uncovenanted unobliged Forbearance of an incensed God.”[1]

“An incensed God” is terrifying, isn’t it? Combined with the statement that “they have done nothing … to appease or abate that Anger,” we see a belief system that is based on works and fear rather than grace and love. It’s a pity that every year, millions of public school students read this sermon and won’t learn that God is not “an angry God.”

 Before Adam and Eve ever fell for Satan’s lie and ate the fruit, God had made a plan to keep us out of Satan’s reach, a plan that would ensure that anybody who wanted to could live with God forever.

“Ever since the fall of man, Satan has been sowing the seeds of error. It was by a lie that he first gained control over men, and thus he still works to overthrow God’s kingdom in the earth and to bring men under his power. A sower from a higher world, Christ came to sow the seeds of truth. He who had stood in the councils of God, who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, could bring to men the pure principles of truth. Ever since the fall of man, Christ had been the Revealer of truth to the world. By Him the incorruptible seed, ‘the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever,’ is communicated to men. 1 Peter 1:23. In that first promise spoken to our fallen race in Eden, Christ was sowing the gospel seed.” (E.G. White, A Call to Stand Apart, p. 19)

God never wanted His children to be confused about His plan. He gave Adam and Eve the first object lesson. It showed them that sin required that blood be shed through the sacrifice of a perfect lamb.

At Sinai, God gave Moses specific plans for a tabernacle – a constant reminder that God wants to live in the midst of His people. Every part of the tabernacle and the sacrificial system was to point to the coming Messiah, of the plan of salvation and of the original, heavenly sanctuary.

Everywhere that God abides with His people is a form of that sanctuary. Eden was the first earthly version of it – God dwelling with His people. When that wasn’t possible anymore because sin separates people from God, God gave instructions to, first Moses and then Solomon, for a sanctuary that was a model of the one in heaven, where God’s could live with His people.

When Jesus came to earth, He came as Emanuel – God with us. He became our Sanctuary. He was God living among His people.

None of that sounds like an angry God who can hardly wait to throw us over the edge. In fact, we know that Jesus is right now, standing before God, pleading for each of us who have accepted His sacrifice as payment for our sins.

“As the sins of the people were anciently transferred, in figure, to the earthly sanctuary by the blood of the sin offering, so our sins are, in fact, transferred to the heavenly sanctuary by the blood of Christ. And as the typical cleansing of the earthly was accomplished by the removal of the sins by which it had been polluted, so the actual cleansing of the heavenly is to be accomplished by the removal, or blotting out, of the sins which are there recorded. This necessitates an examination of the books of record to determine who, through repentance of sin and faith in Christ, are entitled to the benefits of His atonement.
“Then [in the great day of final award] by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all the truly penitent will be blotted from the books of heaven.
“He [Christ] asks for His people not only pardon and justification, full and complete, but a share in His glory and a seat upon His throne.” (E.G. White, The Faith I Live By, p 206)

“As Jesus once prayed for Peter, now he prays for us… In fact, the New Testament's only glimpse of what Jesus is doing right now depicts him at the right hand of God 'interceding for us.' In three years of active ministry, Jesus changed the moral landscape of the planet. For nearly two thousand years since, he has been using another tactic: prayer.”[2]

Jesus is praying for you and me right now, in the heavenly sanctuary. And we have nothing to fear! There is no angry God totally up every misstep trying to keep as many people as possible out of Heaven. In the heavenly sanctuary is where justice and mercy meet and salvation becomes reality.

God’s hands aren’t holding us over the abyss just waiting to throw us in, they carry the scars of His crucifixion – His death in our place. God’s hands are folded in prayer for each and every one of us.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. He who believes in Him [who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him] is not judged [he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation—he incurs no damnation]; but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already [he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence] because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ’s name.]” John 3:16-18 (AMP)

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[1] Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, A Sermon

Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741.

[2] Philip Yancey, Prayer (Zondervan, 2006), p. 88

UNFORGIVABLE

Does anybody remember the call-in radio show with Dr. Laura? For a while, Laura Schlessinger had a very popular radio advice program where she told people exactly what she thought about their behavior and how they should fix themselves. She often didn’t let the caller get to the actual question before she started telling them how to fix themselves.

Anyway, I will never forget the day I heard her tell a caller that she didn’t have to forgive the person who had wronged her – that some things were just unforgivable. I guess I had never really thought about how I felt about forgiveness, but as soon as Dr. Laura told me what she believed, I knew that my belief was different.

I had a similar experience when I was teaching fourth graders. I was talking to the parents of one of my students and one of the parents said, “I’ve told [Tommy] that if anybody hits him, he’s to hit them back harder.” I don’t believe I had ever heard a parent make that comment ever before. I’m not sure I was able to completely hide the shock I felt at that moment.

I realize I have led an extremely sheltered life and it was good that my closed little mind was forced to expand to take in these other ways of looking and dealing with the world.

Given the opportunity to review my belief system alongside these other two philosophies, I still can’t fit either statement into the way I believe followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to live their lives.

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

You’re right, Micah doesn’t say the word “forgiveness” in that verse at all. But try to picture for a minute what a person who is Godly, humble, merciful, and just would look and sound like. See if you can pick him out in this parable:

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
“But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.” Matthew 18:23-30

Ellen White commented on this parable in the January 1, 1892 edition of Home Missionary.

“While we must depend so entirely upon the mercy of a sin-pardoning Saviour, shall our hearts remain hard and unsympathizing? Can any provocation authorize unkind feelings, or should it cause us to harbor resentment or seek revenge? Can we cast the first stone in condemnation of a brother, when God is extending his mercy to us, and forgiving our trespasses against him? Should God enter into judgment with us, our debt would be found to be immense, yet our heavenly Father forgives the debt. Men will be dealt with by God, not according to their opinion of themselves, not according to their self-confidence, but according to the spirit they reveal toward their erring brethren. We are not forgiven because we forgive, but as we forgive.” (Home Missionary January 1, 1892)

Is there anything that another human can do to us that we can, with good conscience, refuse to forgive? I could be oversimplifying yet again, I don’t believe so.

Now that doesn’t mean I always feel like forgiving. I haven’t gotten to the place where letting go of hurt is easy. Knowing what is right and being willing to do right every time are two very different things.

A friend of mine once defined forgiveness as “giving up the right to continue to punish someone for the wrong they have done us.” Using that definition, if someone has wronged us and we say that we have forgiven them, can we still go from person to person recounting the terrible thing they did to us? Can we still glare at them from across the room? Forgiving them says that we have decided not to punish them for what they’ve done.

Again, our example has to be Jesus. He has every right to punish each and every one of us, and yet he forgives us instead. He even goes a step farther and refuses to remember that we ever did anything wrong.

“He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19

I read a great story this week that illustrates this text.

“One old father was reading Micah 7:19 about God’s putting away of our sins by throwing them into the depths of the ocean. He rejoiced over it and shouted, ‘Glory to God!’ His unbelieving son did not like it, so he brought a scientific encyclopedia for his father to read instead of the Bible. After some time, his son again heard his father shouting, ‘Glory to God!’ The son came and asked his father, ‘What do you read here that you are so excited about?’ The father replied, ‘I read that scientists, even with the best modern equipment, are sometimes unable to go deep enough to explore all the depths of the ocean. It means that our sins are buried there, and no one can dig them up!’[1]

Jesus forgives us for the unforgivable every single day – He gives up the right to ever punish us for those actions. In light of that kind of mercy, how can we do any less than forgive anyone who has wronged us?

“How did the birth of Jesus change the world? Historian Rodney Stark argues that there was one huge factor that helped capture the attention of the ancient world—Christianity's revolutionary emphasis on mercy. Stark writes:
In the midst of the squalor, misery, illness, and anonymity of ancient cities, Christianity provided an island of mercy and security ….. It started with Jesus ….
“In contrast, in the pagan world, and especially among the philosophers, mercy was regarded as a character defect and pity as a pathological emotion: because mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it is contrary to justice …. [Thus] humans must learn ‘to curb the impulse [to show mercy]’; ‘the cry of the undeserving for mercy’ must go ‘unanswered.’ ‘[Showing mercy] was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up.’
“This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that … a merciful God requires humans to be merciful.”[2]

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

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[1] Jiri Moskala , The Lesson in Brief, Lessons 1–13, and The Learning Cycles 7, The Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide

[2] Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity, (HarperOne, 2012), page 112

In God’s Hands

“For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.”  Ecclesiastes 9:1

“In the hands of God” is one of those Christian clichés that we hear all the time, but have you ever thought about what it really means?

Man, I thought this would be easy.  I figured I’d just do a quick word search and grab a couple of texts to illustrate what I thought “in God’s hands” meant to me.  Was I in for a huge surprise! Nearly 2,000 texts with the word “hand” in them.  I had no idea there could be so many contexts for a single word.  Now I’m really confused!  In some of the texts, having God’s hand on you was not a good place to be.  “Your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy.” Exodus 15:6 for example.  Or “The Lord's hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.” Deuteronomy 2:15.  Then we read about Job, who talks about the Lord’s hand being against him.  That was definitely NOT where I thought this search would take me!  Pretty unsettling, …so I kept looking.

Then I found Ezra and Nehemiah who report a more positive experience with the hand of God:

“And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.” Nehemiah 2:8 and “The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way.”  Ezra 8:31. 

Ok, I liked those much better.

 

Then we get to the Psalms where the psalmists talk a lot about being in or touched by God’s hand. Just a couple of examples are:

"My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.” Psalm 31:15

”…though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.” Psalm 37:24

”Like your name, O God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with righteousness.” Psalm 48:10

I was definitely on the right track now, but I still want to know, “What does it mean?”  Clearly, it’s not always a good thing.  In fact, if we asked Job, I think he would say that sometimes it’s pretty awful.

I think the most obvious meaning is ownership.  Right?  When something is in someone’s hand, that person owns whatever it is.  So, if we are in God’s hands, we are owned by God.  Many times in the Old Testament God tells a commander of the Jewish army that He would deliver a certain city or people into the commander’s hand.  That pretty much meant that they were going to own that city when the battle was over.  And to go one step further, ownership means control.  So “in God’s hands” could be interpreted as being under His control.  Is that someplace we want to be?

Well, I also read this from something called The Upward Look by Ellen White:

True faith consists in doing just what God has enjoined, not manufacturing things He has not enjoined. Justice, truth, mercy, are the fruit of faith. We need to walk in the light of God’s law; then good works will be the fruit of our faith, the proceeds of a heart renewed every day.
We must not in any way make self our god. God has given Himself to die for us, that He might purify us from all iniquity. The Lord will carry on this work of perfection for us if we will allow ourselves to be controlled by Him. . . .
The work of righteousness cannot be carried forward unless we exercise implicit faith. Move every day under God’s mighty working power. The fruit of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever. If we had exercised more faith in God and had trusted less to our own ideas and wisdom, God would have manifested His power in a marked manner on human hearts. By a union with Him, by living faith, we are privileged to enjoy the virtue and efficacy of His mediation. Hence we are crucified with Christ, dead with Christ, risen with Christ, to walk in newness of life with Him.
We are not to hold ourselves in our own hands. We are to drop self into the hands of God. . . . Our lack of faith is the reason that we have not seen more of the power of God. We exercise more faith in our own working than in God’s working for us. God designs that everything possible shall be done to enable us to stand heart to heart, mind to mind, shoulder to shoulder. This lack of love and confidence in one another weakens our faith in God.
We need to pray as we never have prayed before for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, for if there was ever a time when we needed this baptism, it is now. There is nothing the Lord has more frequently told us He would bestow upon us, and nothing by which His name would be more glorified in bestowing, than the Holy Spirit. When we partake of this Spirit, men and women will be born again. . . . Souls once lost will be found, and brought back.--Letter 105, Nov. 28, 1898, to Elder and Mrs. S. N. Haskell.

I know that’s a really long quote, but it is so clear about what we need to do.  I love the way Mrs. White says that we should “drop self into the hands of God.”

The question is, do we trust God enough to give Him complete control over our lives?  Are we really ready to surrender everything of ourselves to God no matter where He takes us or what happens to us?  We have no assurance that just because we’re in God’s hands, that we’ll always have sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies, in fact, we’re promised some pretty unpleasant/ uncomfortable experiences if we stay with Him.

“In his dying agony, as he yields up his precious life, he has by faith alone to trust in Him whom it has ever been his joy to obey. He is not cheered with clear, bright rays of hope on the right hand nor on the left. All is enshrouded in oppressive gloom. Amid the awful darkness which is felt even by sympathizing nature, the Redeemer drains the mysterious cup even to its dregs. Denied even bright hope and confidence in the triumph which will be his in the near future, he cries with a loud voice, "Lord into thy hands I commit my spirit." He is acquainted with the character of his Father, his justice, his mercy, and great love. In submission he drops into the hands of his Father. Amid the convulsions of nature are heard by the amazed spectators the dying words of the Man of Calvary, ‘It is finished.’” The Love of Christ, Signs of the Times, February 15, 1883

Once again, Ellen White says it all.  Jesus knows that even though the sins of the world have separated Him from His Father, He knows that God is still there, still loves Him and will hold Him in His hands.

Revenge!

Comment on Sabbath School Lesson for 11.20.10

Have you ever wanted to get revenge on someone?  to make someone pay for what they’ve done to you?  Is there something in particular you think of when you think of revenge?  I think of the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Captain Kirk discovers Khan stranded on a desert planet where 

“Khan reveals that 15 years earlier, Captain Kirk exiled Khan and his followers to Ceti Alpha V after the genetically-engineered supermen nearly captured the Enterprise. …Khan blames Kirk for the death of his wife … and plans to avenge her…”[1]

As the plot progresses, we find out that Khan has spent the better part of the last 15 years plotting his revenge on Kirk.  It has completely consumed every area of his life and it ultimately consumes and destroys not only his life but the lives of all those around him. 

In the classic Alexander Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo,

 “Edmond Dantès, a young and successful merchant sailor …, returns to Marseille to marry his fiancée Mercédès. Leclère, … An anonymous letter accuses Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor …, condemns Dantès without trial to life imprisonment ….”[2]

Dantes spends the next 14 years planning his revenge and then the next many, many years trying to situate himself to carry out his plan. But this story ends differently because Dantes learns forgiveness.

Stories like this don’t just happen in movies and novels, though.  It happens all the time in real life.  If you’ve ever talked to a person who has gone through a bitter divorce, you will often sense a real desire to make the other person pay for the hurt he (or she) has caused.  It’s almost like each person has tunnel vision – neither one of them can think about anything else. 

Matt Woodley of Chicago, Illinois recounts an encounter he had with his friend, Steve:

“Nineteen years ago this guy stole my wife away from me. They got married and moved to Florida while my life unraveled. After I was arrested for assaulting a police officer, this guy smirked through the entire court hearing. When I was convicted, he flipped me the finger. I've hated him for nineteen years. He's coming up here next week, I have a 32-caliber pistol strapped around my ankle, and when I see him I will kill him." Then he chillingly concluded, "I've thought all about it. I'm 63-years-old. I will get a life sentence, but I'll also get free medical and dental and a warm bed and three meals a day. All of this bitterness and resentment feels so right; forgiveness seems weird.”[3]

I believe 19 years counts as premeditation, don’t you?  Anyway, you’ll be relieved to know that Steve changed his mind and chose to forgive the man after all, but we hear on the news everyday about people who have not made that choice.

The Bible also tells us about some folks who chose revenge instead of forgiveness.  Joab is one of those people.  He was King David’s General – he had control of all of David’s fighting men.  During the years when Saul was trying to kill David, Joab stuck right by him.  Somewhere along the way, though, Abner, Saul’s General, ended up killing one of Joab’e brothers in a battle.  That was bad, but things got much worse when Abner switched over to David’s side…Joab could not handle that at all!  As soon as he could, he took his revenge on Abner by killing him, then trying to convince David that he was a traitor.

After that, Joab seems to have become more power-hungry than anything else.  As long as David seemed like the most powerful, Joab was loyal to David (even to the point of carrying out the hit on Uriah), but when David began to look weak in his old age, Joab’s loyalty was all over the place.  Solomon finally stripped him of his office and exiled him because of his collusion with Absalom and Adonijah against both David and Solomon.

It’s not that Joab didn’t know what was right; he did.  He even lectured David about God’s desire for him to show mercy to Absalom.  Joab was one who knew the truth but walked away from it – all for the sake of revenge and power.

Isn’t it a little scary that Joab, a person who knew the truth about God, could become so lost in his own selfish desires.  So lost, in fact, that he eventually he completely lost sight of the “right thing.”  We see almost exactly the same thing happen to Judas.  His bitter, angry spirit heard an insult in almost every interaction.  Following the ancient passive-aggressive pattern for life, Judas never mentioned his  bruised feelings to anyone.  He never asked for any clarification.  He just tucked away each instance in his mind and then replayed them over and over again, until they became the only thing he could see.  Mrs. White describes it this way:

“…his very spirit seemed turned to gall.  Wounded pride and desire for revenge broke down the barriers, and the greed so long indulged held him in control.  This will be the experience of everyone who persists in tampering with sin.  The elements of depravity that are not resisted and overcome respond to Satan’s temptation, and the sould is led captive at his will.”[4]

Do we let ourselves get caught in the same trap?  We file away every perceived slight – “I wasn’t asked to help with VBS this year.”  “The pastor didn’t thank me for the appreciation card I sent.”  “The church board didn’t acknowledge my ideas about…”  Pretty soon, the church family is as fractured as David’s family was.

Let’s ask Jesus to keep our hearts free from that kind of bitterness.

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[1]              "Synopsis for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." n.d. IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. 10 November 2010 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/synopsis>.

[2]              "The Count of Monte Cristo." n.d. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 10 November 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo>.

 [3]Woodley, M. (n.d.). Chicago.

[4] White, E.G. Conflict and Courage, Review and Herald