Gadfly's Muse

Micah 5: Nothing Without Purpose...

Image: "Reaching For Glory", 2020, Autumn Clematis, Severna Park, Md

Micah 5:2–3  “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

3 Therefore He shall give them up, Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren Shall return to the children of Israel.

Micah 5:7–8  Then the remnant of Jacob Shall be in the midst of many peoples, Like dew from the LORD, Like showers on the grass, That tarry for no man
Nor wait for the sons of men. 8 And the remnant of Jacob Shall be among the Gentiles, In the midst of many peoples, Like a lion among the beasts of the forest, Like a young lion among flocks of sheep, Who, if he passes through, Both treads down and tears in pieces, And none can deliver.

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Seldom does a Christmas season pass without some "pageant" where cute little kids act out the story of the Wise Men.  I don't have any problem with that at all and have sat through many of them with a smile fixed firmly on my face while nodding encouragement to the fresh faces of the kids and the proud beaming parents.  Necessarily the narrator will retell the story of the wise men hearing the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  Micah 5:2 might be quoted directly and we all are warmed to the promise given and the promise fulfilled.

The message of Micah 5 though is a more mature theme and requires pondering.  Immediately after God promises Bethlehem that it shall have the supreme honor of having the Messiah born in its precincts, God says that "until that time" (vs. 3) He will "give them up", Israel and Judah would be scattered among the nations and shall not truly be returned until their True Shepherd can "feed His flock." (vs. 3)  Thus God speaks into the last days of national Israel / Judah and foretells them that a great period of exile was coming... one that was even greater in scope than the ultimate Babylonian captivity.

Here I think God was foretelling the "diaspora", the dispersion of the Israelites throughout the ancient world so that they would abide "in the midst of many peoples."  We might think that this is nothing more than God's judgment on His people and, of course, it was that, but it was far more than that.  This dispersion has to be understood in terms of the promise that the coming Messiah "shall be great to the ends of the earth, and this One shall be peace." (vs. 4, 5a)  God's purposes in dispersing His people were two-fold beyond the surface judgment.  God's people were to be like "a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep..." (vs. 7)

Now think about that for a moment.  What is the natural "purpose" of a lion among the beasts or a young lion among the sheep?  Is it not that they shall kill and eat?  God says that these dispersed Jews would actually serve to undermine and even bring down the nations among whom they are scattered.  They were to be leavening agents, preparing the world for the coming Messiah Who would bring about victory by building on the foundation or groundwork these Israelites had laid.  We see how this works out in the book of Acts where Paul and the other missionaries went out into the pagan strongholds and went "first to the Jews" that were there and, from them to the "fellow-traveling" God-fearing Gentiles who were instructed in the promises.  From thence it was a short step to reach out to others in those communities like the Philippian jailer.  Thus the Kingdom of Light would displace the Kingdom of Darkness.

Furthermore, we should see in this program a paradigm for how the Lord, having come as promised, would then continue to wage war against darkness throughout the world.  As the Israelites were scattered in order to prepare for the first coming of the Messiah, so Jesus' Church is to be scattered throughout the world to prepare them for His second coming.  His disciples are told that they will "go" and, having gone, they are to "make disciples of all the world, by baptizing them and teaching them to obey." (Mat. 28:19-20)  Certainly on that day, as the Lord promised, He will complete the rest of the prophecies in Micah 5.  He will stand above all the earth and He shall be peace for Himself and for us.  He will purify His people (vs. 10-14) and also "execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations that have not heard." (vs. 15)

What a magnificent "pageant" is presented in these verses.  Here is "strong meat" for hungry disciples... warming comfort for those who shiver in the darkness... and life itself for those who are perishing and long to be saved.  

We are living in the time of our own "dispersion."  We are strangers in a strange land, living priests, and kings of a spiritual nation that the world does not know nor respect.  That is who we are.  But we are here for a purpose... we are here to prepare these lost souls for the manifestation of truth.  What we proclaim and that to which we bear witness is to many "foolishness" but to others, it is the "power of God."  This is how God works... this is how He prepared the world for Jesus of Nazareth in His incarnation and this is how we now, are to prepare it for His coming again.

Nothing God does is without purpose... life is "worth the living" when we align ourselves with that purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

Micah 4: A Living Hope...

Image: "Old and New", 2020, Patapsco State Park scene

Micah 4:1–2  Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow to it. 2 Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Micah 4:6–7  “In that day,” says the LORD, “I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast And those whom I have afflicted; 7 I will make the lame a remnant, And the outcast a strong nation; So the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion From now on, even forever.

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Somewhere along the way I heard or read, that the rising generation is the first in American memory to not believe that their future will be better than the future anticipated by their parents.  What a truly sad thought.

The future for me, when I was enduring the trials of post-teen young adulthood, was like the lights of Vegas shining in the distance over a long desert road.  I thrilled in anticipation of the things that I would see, experience, and achieve.  As my son(s) would put it: "It's gonna be awesome."  Nothing diminished the attraction of that hope.  Every challenge, disappointment, and stumbling failure (and there were many) was shoved behind me and not allowed to distract me from what lay ahead.  That hoped-for future did not fully realize: large chunks of it turned out to be wishful thinking, but I am generally content with what the Lord has allowed and provided.  The point of that personal history was to illustrate how "hope" is designed to work in our lives.

"Hope" is God's sweetener for the bitter draughts of life.  Let's face it, even the most Pollyanna-ish mortal among us can be ground down by the ubiquitous struggles that come at us.  But if we have "hope", then though tears may flow in the evening we know that joy will brighten the morning.  "Hope" breeds perseverance, good-humor, and inspiration.  I believe that "without hope" we are not really human at all.  We were created in hope to live in hope and to have that hope fulfilled.

Unto that end, God has filled His Scriptures with a promised future which is to be the essence of all our hope.  Micah 4 is one of the most beautiful instances of this.

We are to anxiously and eagerly look forward to a day when the "LORD's house" will be established as the preeminent feature in His created order.  It will be set "on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills." (vs. 1)  What this means is that God's Sovereign Kingdom, His glorious Presence, will be visible and attractive to every privileged person who is there to see it.  They (We) shall all see it together as they, like hordes of teenagers lined up for a rock concert, flow into its precincts.  "Peoples shall flow into it."  Not people but peoples.  Entire nations, in fact, the elect from every nation, God's harvest of the entire history of creation, will all be there.

God's Word shall at last flow unhindered by opposing Satanic citadels.  It will flow like a healing river of life, restoring all the devastation wrought by sin.  God's people will walk in His paths without even the possibility of stumbling or transgressing.  The result will be a perfected community of true fellowship.  God's people will exist in love, live in love, and rejoice in love.  All of this shall be accomplished when God Himself, through the risen and glorified Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, will be established in full view as "the Lord of the whole earth." (vs. 13)

Through man's history, there have been various expressions of hope.  Pagan peoples vainly were told that their gods had some Valhalla or consummate bliss set up for them.  Some men, convinced in the perfectibility of human beings by human beings, posited various "utopias" that would bring about man's supreme happiness.  

The point is that man yearns for "hope" and when he doesn't find it naturally available to him in his ignorance or willful blindness, he will manufacture his own.  But, we Christians are not to fall into this.  We are not to deny that "hope" is real and we are not to act as if we are "without hope." (Eph. 2:12)  Our God has proclaimed to us a solid hope, an unfailing hope, a beautiful hope.  Our future is guaranteed and it shall be entirely devoid of failure or disappointment.  The future is ours and we should have this hope energizing us in all things even as "worldly hope" (which can and does disappoint) energized me those many years ago.

God has promised it... it will happen... now let's show forth to the world what living in hope is all about.

 

 

 

Micah 3: Presumptuous Overconfidence

Image: "Old and New", 2020, Patapsco State Park, Md

Micah 3:6 “Therefore you shall have night without vision, And you shall have darkness without divination; The sun shall go down on the prophets, And the day shall be dark for them.

Micah 3:11 Her heads judge for a bribe, Her priests teach for pay, And her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the LORD, and say, “Is not the LORD among us? No harm can come upon us.”

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If there is, or was, one distinctive national trait seemingly ingrained in the American culture, it might very well be a "resigned optimism."  Americans, throughout their history, have faced difficult times that taxed them to the limit.  We may have been "conceived in liberty" (A. Lincoln) but we were birthed in bloody hardship.  The young nation teetered on collapse for decades enduring the financial roller coaster as well as near constant fighting on the frontier as well as Mexico.  The American War Between the States established the powerful Federal government that now threatens to overwhelm individual freedoms but at first it brought some welcome stability.  The 2 World Wars and the intervening Great Depression pushed the Republic to its absolute limits.  Through all of this, even when faced with the immediate prospect of an enveloping blackness, the American mentality was a stubborn expectation that "things will get better... sooner or later."

It doesn't take much effort to project this same attitude back on Israel and Judah in the days of Micah.  There was bad news all around, not the least of which were the aggressions Assyria enacted on a regular basis.  Chapter 3 gives us deeper insight into the corruption that dominated the Jews themselves.  As Micah so starkly puts it: Micah 3:1 And I said: “Hear now, O heads of Jacob, And you rulers of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know justice?  This was a rhetorical question, of course.  Certainly the entire purpose of government is to be a guardian of justice and a weapon against injustice (Rom. 13:4) but Micah is caustically pointing out that such was not the case among God's people.

Micah speaks of the oppressive character of powerful people using the most vivid and horrifying metaphors.  They "hate good and love evil, strip the skin from God's people... eat their flesh... skin them alive and chop them in pieces like meat for the pot" (vs. 2-3).  The prophets participate in this horror for they abuse the hunger for words of comfort from the poor and greedily charge them for false preaching.  Micah says that they actually go to "war" against those who do not bribe them.   (vs. 5)  He sums it up in verse 11 - Zion's "heads judge for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money."  

Here we have a depraved society on full display.  It consists of oppressors and oppressed.  The poor suffering pain and the rich feeding of that pain.  Yet what mindset do we see displayed?  Like the traditional American culture, they just can't believe that things won't get better.  They "lean on the LORD and say: 'Is not the LORD among us?  No harm can come to us.'" (vs. 11)  Jerusalem had been saved so often in the past.  God had relented of His judgment throughout their history.  What we see in Micah and what we see around us today, is presumptuous overconfidence.  It is a deadly disease.

Look what God says in verse 4 and let it really sink in.  Micah 3:4 Then they will cry to the LORD, But He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, Because they have been evil in their deeds.  God is here talking about the poor oppressed class of citizens in this wicked society.  God is doing something very unusual for Him.  He is not saying that He is going to rescue those who are abused this time.  They also are deserving of judgment because they also have been "evil in their deeds."  Oppression has many ripple effects and not the least of these is that it inspires evil even among the oppressed.  Read the accounts of POWs and Concentration Camp inmates.  Often there is a total breakdown of humanity among these people.  God says that this time His judgment was going to be absolutely all encompassing.

That's a sobering thought.

Today, even as the forces of error, anti-Christian ideology, decadent sensuality, outright hatred and violence, tottering financial stability and fear-mongering political advocates, destabilize our entire way of life, the American idea that "tomorrow is another day" still lingers and contemptuously dismisses any counter thoughts.  Micah proclaims to us that this may very well not be the case.  God reached a point, with His own national people, that He would not tolerate it anymore.

There is nothing in the picture of that society that is not characteristic of our culture now.  We can still have hope that God will bring about change, but we must be open to the idea that He may not.  We must guard against presumptuous overconfidence also.

 

Micah 1 & 2: Desecrating God's Glory...

Image: "Darkness Ahead", 2020, Patapsco River State Park, Vicinity of Ellicott City, Md

Micah 1:3–5 For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place; He will come down And tread on the high places of the earth. 4 The mountains will melt under Him,  And the valleys will split Like wax before the fire, Like waters poured down a steep place. 5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?

Micah 2:7 You who are named the house of Jacob: “Is the Spirit of the LORD restricted? Are these His doings? Do not My words do good To him who walks uprightly?

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Micah has been called "the conscience of Judah" (or something similar) and he was to Judah as Amos was to Israel.  He lived during a tumultuous time and was witness to some very scary stuff as well as the sorry decay that produced the judgment.  He is a very clear prophet.  He doesn't beat around the bush and though there is a certain elegance to his style, on the whole it is not filled with overly floral descriptions.  He has a message and he was there to give it.

He spoke (mainly) to Judah though he spoke about the Northern Kingdom Israel also.  It was Israel who would be stripped naked and plundered during his time.  What he wanted the people of Judah to know was that this was God's judgment on Israel's sin, sure enough, ... but the main point was that they should learn from it.  He says so quite plainly in 1:5 - this is all coming down for the transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel.  Micah confronts the Judeans with the flat reality that they were tied to Israel by more than just ancient historical bonds.  God's covenant was with both houses and when one house transgressed that covenant their other brothers could not escape guilt.  Israel had been a constant bad influence on Judah.  Her apparent earthly prosperity and power had lured many to emulating her culture.  If Samaria had prospered while serving the pagan gods then should not Judah follow suit?  Thus Micah asks the rhetorical questions: "what is the transgression of Jacob?  Is it not Samaria?  And what are the high places (of idol worship) of Judah?  Are they not Jerusalem?"  God was giving Judah an opportunity to learn from the judgment coming on Israel.  We know that under Hezekiah some of the lessons took root, but the festering depravity did not go away.

Micah calls out to the cold-hearted and worldly oppressors in the land: Micah 2:1  Woe to those who devise iniquity, And work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand. There were those, as in every time of crisis, who saw every time of hardship as an opportunity for greedy gain.  They have "power in their hand" and such are able to take undue advantage of those who are struggling to survive.  Such moral criminals as these are entirely focused on what they can do next.  They "work out evil on their beds."  Not a waking moment was to be wasted.

Their pitiless greed knew no bounds: Micah 2:9 The women of My people you cast out From their pleasant houses; From their children You have taken away My glory forever. It extended even to the eviction of women and children (presumably widows) from their homes, casting them into the street to survive as they could, finding few options for honest income.  These crimes were not just against these poor souls, they were direct insults to the Covenant God of whose people both sides were included.  God's purposes for His people are always such that in the conduct of their lives and the providential blessings that they receive, that God would be glorified.  When depravity and oppression become the hallmark of a society then that society "takes away God's glory" from among them.  They commit the horrid sin of desecrating His image as it exists not only in individuals but importantly in the community.

Micah lays it out for them in no uncertain terms.  They have recently "risen up as an enemy" to God and to the poor whom He especially loves (2:8) and for this His judgment is certainly coming.  He tells them that the words God is speaking to them are for their good.  If they will heed them and walk uprightly then all is not lost. (2:7).  The Northern Kingdom virtually vanishes but God holds out the hope that one day Judah and the "remnant of Israel" (2:12) will again be reunited and be one flock in one fold.  On that day their "king" will pass before them, the LORD will be at their head.  Even when the storm clouds are bursting overhead, yet there is still a pathway lighted before God's people.  The bridge and the road may appear to transverse scary places, but faith calls us to know that "this is the way, walk in it."

All is not lost as long as God is still calling us to faithful obedience.  We must focus on our pathway and not be terrified by the darkness about us.  God is in His heaven and He is showing His displeasure with the wicked people of the world... but He ensures that we have a path to follow and we must be thankful for that.

Jonah 3 & 4: That Great, Beautiful, Sinful City...

Image: "The Kingdom of Man", 2011, Seattle, Wa - Photographer David Johanson

Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

Jonah 4:10–11 But the LORD said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?

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The book of Jonah is so down-right human in its subject and narrative that it is easy to mistake the main character.  The "Star" of this story is God in all His Triune Majesty, Independence, Wisdom, and Power.  It is only when we stand in awe before Him and humbly confess that His ways are truly higher than ours, that we cannot fully comprehend His purposes and our manifest unworthiness of His revelation, that we can even begin to grasp the message of Jonah. 

The book ends with Jonah moping under the ruins of the withered plant, wishing for death, and with God's solemn decree hanging over his head. We are not told whether Jonah ever came to grips with his own self-righteous anger.  We don't know if he humbled himself and began a new intimacy with God and fruitful service.  The book, like the NT Book of Acts, ends with many questions we might like to have answered.  The book ends as it does because the "Star" is not Jonah... but God and He has the last word in what we are to focus on in this story.

What is the message of Jonah?  We must first get a handle on Nineveh itself and what it represents.

Nineveh was probably the largest and most impressive city in ancient times before Rome reached its fullest magnificence.  According to Jonah 3:3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. It was huge.  Jonah's three-day journey was probably from what we call the "outskirts" of a metropolitan complex to its farthest extent.  The main city itself though was spectacular.  The wall enclosing the central hub measured 7.5 miles in circumference.  Babylon, which rose to power later, essentially copied the Assyrian culture but never rose to match it.  Even the famous "Hanging Gardens" are thought to have been inspired by the Assyrian palace and its gardens.  Imagine an ancient city that supported well over 100,000 inhabitants!  Water had to be brought in by aqueducts, sewage had to be disposed of, some degree of order had to be imposed.  This was, as God said, a "great city." (4:11)

But it was also, as I remarked in the previous meditation, built on violence, arrogance, and pitiless oppression.  Its history, like Babylon which followed it,  dated back to Nimrod, the mighty hunter (Genesis 10:10), and was tied to violence.  Its goddess was Ishtar, the "Queen of Heaven" and she was no "mother earth" type of deity.  She was a war deity who rejoiced in sowing conflict and battle.  In fact, battle itself was sometimes called "the dance" of Ishtar.  Her depraved worship featured lewd symbols and transgender priests/priestesses.  As is a people's god so are the people.  Nineveh was wicked to the core.

Jonah hated Nineveh.  He had no choice but to do the Lord's bidding and he proclaimed to them the message of God's impending judgment.  I think he preached through clenched teeth... but he did it.  The Holy Spirit came and did an amazing thing.  He caused a widespread horror to permeate the Ninevites, from the king's palace right down to the local workshop.  And just as Jonah feared, Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. 

God, for His own reasons, spared Nineveh from immediate judgment.  We can only speculate why He did this.  We know that He would reduce them to rubble later after He had used them as His instrument of judgment on Jonah's own Northern Kingdom.  Why did God "pity" Nineveh?  He says only that there were a lot of people there and that they existed in incredible darkness and ignorance.  The same thing could probably have been said about the later city also.  So we can only draw one solid conclusion and we can also make one reasonable speculation.

First, the reasonable speculation:  It may very well be that Nineveh had reached a crisis of perversion where, as God did during the time of Noah, God simply could not tolerate them continuing to be such a horrible influence in His world.  If this is the case then Jonah was as Noah, a preacher of righteousness but this time the people responded.  We cannot go further.

Second, the solid conclusion:  It's not about Nineveh any more than it is about Jonah.  It's about God.  God here reveals Himself to have sincere and deep concern about all the world's peoples, not just His chosen covenant tribe.  We can draw a parallel between Jesus gazing at the other great, beautiful, sinful, city of Jerusalem and weeping as He rode to it.  God does not delight in the death of the wicked.  He sees the great cities and civilizations that men have erected and He hates the fact that such do not attribute their success to Him as they should.  

We Christians need to see the story of Jonah in terms of God and His desire for the Gospel to be preached to the lost.  We need to see ourselves as Jonah, as he should have been rather than as he was.  Jonah was an unwilling prophet, we must not be.  

We are confronted with the same great "city" of sin, perversion, power, and arrogance today.  We have every reason to hate it as it is.  We have no reason to withhold the message of God's power to them as a result of that hate.  We must love the sinful city for what it might become... and go... and make disciples... and be obedient to our amazing God.

 

 

 

Jonah 1 & 2: Pray For Our Enemies?.... Really?

Image: "Trinity Episcopal Church", 2020, St. Mary's City, Md.

Jonah 1:1–3  Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

Jonah 1:16–17 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the LORD and took vows. 17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:4–6 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God.

Jonah 2:8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy.

Jonah 2:10 So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

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Any serious Christian should have no trouble realizing that Jonah being swallowed by a "big fish" is not the most amazing aspect of the story... and in some ways not even the most miraculous.  Yes, it makes for a nice "hook" to capture small children's imagination.  It does, like Moses' burning bush, provide a sharp focus for the story.  But the most amazing thing in this narrative is that God's purpose was not only to send a warning but to show grace to Nineveh!  

The Assyrian peoples, during Jonah's time, were a cruel, sadistic, and terrifying nation.  Jonah's home town was not that far from the border of that nation and he must have been acquainted, perhaps first-hand, with the results of their periodic raids into northern Israel.  The Assyrians prided themselves on their cruelty and used it to intimidate other peoples.  When we modern Americans view videos of Muslim terrorists severing the heads of their captives in displays of public execution, we should realize that the Assyrians were far worse.  What they did to their victims does not bear repeating.  It cannot be spoken without horror.

Jonah had reason, at least from a fallen human perspective, to hate these folks and evidently he did.

Jonah was an influential prophet (2 Kings 14:25) through whom God had spoken to the Northern Kingdom. There is no indication that he had been resentful of his calling before now.  We have to assume he was faithful and committed to God's service.  But God's command to him seemed just too unreasonable because he knew, as we all should know, that God is a God of mercy.  He knew that if he went to Nineveh and told them the truth, that God was about to rain down fire and destruction on them as a nation, those Assyrians just might repent.  If they did... horror of horrors... God would most likely show mercy to them.  They would not be punished for the terror they had unleashed on his nation.  To Jonah, this was just unacceptable.  It was too much to ask.

So Jonah jumped on a boat to Tarshish, a city in Turkey, far away from his home.  He was prepared to give up everything, his family, his nation, and his ministry, in order to not give those damnable barbarians a shot at redemption.

If anyone cannot identify with this then he must have lead a sheltered life indeed.  No matter how tolerant we may be ordinarily, there are some levels of wickedness that we cannot forgive... at least, not right away... and never apart from God's work in our hearts.

Jonah was guilty of despising the grace of God.  He was more than willing for God to show grace to himself... he was a prophet so he had called his people to repentance and delighted when God showed grace to his nation even under some pretty despicable kings.  But grace for his enemies?  That was hard.

Jesus' later reaffirmed that this difficult calling was not unique to Jonah. (Mat. 5:43-45)  This was a revolutionary teaching in Jesus' day.  The most thorough contemporary scholars, the Pharisees, did not teach this way.  They longed for a warrior Messiah who would decimate His enemies and exalt His people over them.  Forgiveness for idolatrous Pagan nations known for their cruelty was not part of their message.  But it was part of Jesus' gospel and it was God's calling to Jonah.

Trinity Church (photo above) sits on the site where the first settlers came to Maryland.  It's been around for a while but it doesn't date back to 1680 and that tiny group who met for worship and prayer under a tree at this site.  These people knew that their very lives depended on the grace of God.  It was His grace that the Piscataway and Yaocomaco Indians sought to live in peaceful cooperation with them.  They did not establish a great fort... the city was more of a village gathering place.  The setters lived on individual farms.

These people knew the sharp reality of living by faith because their lives hung in the balance.  Perhaps that's what it takes for a person or a church to again seriously undertake to pray for their enemies and to reach out to them with words and good deeds, seeking to awaken them to their desperate plight.  There should be no room for hate in the heart of any man, woman, or child who knows what it means to live by grace; not even against those who have done despicable crimes.

Jonah learned his lesson the hard way.  We ought to pay careful attention.

 

Obadiah: "On Mt. Zion There Shall Be Deliverance!"

Image: "A Seat In The Sun", 2013, Bar Harbor, Me

Obadiah 6 “Oh, how Esau shall be searched out! How his hidden treasures shall be sought after!

Obadiah 15 “For the day of the LORD upon all the nations is near; As you have done, it shall be done to you; Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.

Obadiah 17 “But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, And there shall be holiness; The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

Obadiah 21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion To judge the mountains of Esau, And the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

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This beautiful little book should not be treated lightly.  The power of God speaks through Obadiah with force and clarity and it is particularly interesting because the force of the proclamation is directed not at God's erring people, the Israelites, but at Edom.  This book is thus a clear insight into God's overall attitude and policy toward those Pagan and rebellious nations that are ranged against His people, His Church.  Since it is specifically directed toward perhaps the prime example of such hostility, it is important to see that the prophecy ranges through the present smug complacency of such nations, to the manner in which they will be humbled by the hand of God, and then, ultimately how those people whom they despise, the Israel of God, will be triumphantly established amid the very ruins of their own memories.

Consider Edom as a nation.  It reached its high point of influence and prosperity after Israel went off into captivity but from there, it waned in power and wealth until it essentially vanished as a separate nation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD.  It was geography that gave Moab its character.  It was literally built into the rock.  Go to this site: PETRA and look at the amazing civilization that prospered there.  The only way to approach these cities were through the precipitous canyons the wound through the mountains.  There were points where only a narrow divide allowed access and as such provided nearly impregnable defense points.  Truly Obadiah could quote them as saying: "the pride of your heart has deceived you, who dwell in the clefts of the rock... who say in your heart, 'who will bring me down to the ground.?' "

Edom thus had a base of operations for military adventures into the heartland of Israel and she took full advantage of it. (cf. 2 Chron. 20:10 as one instance) They it was who did not allow Israel to pass through their land when they were journeying from Egypt.  Their hatred dated all the way back to Esau their forefather.     

So here we have a supremely fitting representative of all those nations and powers and principalities that arise in space and time and embody unceasing jealousy and rage against God's people. 

These people amass great fortunes (vs. 6) and smugly trust that it shall always be thus.  They gather many allies among other nations who also seek to despoil God's people (vs. 7).  They make great advances in technology and "understanding" (vs. 8) and thus prosper both in arms and commerce.  And, lastly, but certainly not least, they have a reputation for being mighty in battle. (vs. 9)

God systematically declares that all of these defenses, from their near impregnable location to the various strengths of their power, will come to naught.  God will send messengers to the nations (vs. 1) and will turn their allies into enemies.   He will nullify their defenses and strip their armies of power and, at last, that everyone from the "mountains of Esau" will be cut off by slaughter". (vs. 9)

It is directly because of their hatred for their "brother Jacob" that this will happen. (vs. 10)  They rejoiced when Jerusalem was despoiled and its people subjected to horror. (vs. 10ff - probably one of the earlier invasions and sackings)  Because they had swooped in, like vultures, to tear morsels from Israel's corpse, so they would be treated in their time. (vs. 15)  It is this last quoted verse that opens up the prophecy to us.  God looks at Edom certainly, but He puts Edom in the context of a "day of the LORD upon all the nations..." (vs. 15)

God is speaking not only to the people of Edom but also to all of Israel as it still existed.  He also speaks to all the nations of the world, today as well as to His Church in its present context.  "All you who conspire against My people take note:  look at Edom... look at what happens to those who despise the work of My Holy Spirit and the Witness to My Name that He has raised up.  Look and learn how Edom fared."

"And you, My people, look an learn.  For in the very face of the judgment that I will bring on all your enemies there shall be deliverance for you.  He shall come forth from Mount Ziona and His mission will be to establish holiness (vs. 17, 21) and He will judge Esau and all those nations like him and He will establish His Kingdom in their place."

Though it may be dark under the clouds of the present sky yet there is a place in the sun directly ahead of us.  There we will find rest, to sit and soak in the fellowship of Him who has bought us and preserved us and brought us to Himself.  

Obadiah pierces through the despairing darkness deadly forces can engender, to point out the weakness of all earthly power.  It can be undermined and brought down at any time by the sovereign power of our God.  And He will do just that.

Amos 8 & 9: The God Who Cares....

Image: "Stark Relief", 2013, Harbor Scene, Bar Harbor, Me

Amos 8:4–6 Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, 5 Saying: “When will the New Moon be past, That we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, That we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, 6 That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals— Even sell the bad wheat?”

Amos 8:11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD.

Amos 9:11–12 “On that day I will raise up The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, And repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, And rebuild it as in the days of old; 12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom,  And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,” Says the LORD who does this thing.

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Only those who have had the piercing light of God's Word expose their own inner hearts to the depth of their sin can really appreciate the main thrust of chapter 8.  In verses 4-6, God lays bare the blackness in the hearts of His people.  Far from being mindful of their brothers and sisters who are languishing in poverty and starvation, rather they despise the Sabbath day, the very day that God has set aside specifically for calling to mind His own Person and His righteousness.  The Sabbath is a burden to them.  They hate missing a day when they can wring a penny out of some poor soul who needs a bit of wheat to make bread.  This attitude reflects their fundamental rejection of God's righteousness altogether.  Not only do they long to be free of the Sabbath to sell stuff, but they are anxious to increase their profits by cheating the poor, using dishonest scales, and misrepresenting volume.  They bind those who cannot pay into economic slavery while they walk about in fine shoes and garments.  They even sell "bad wheat", knowing that starving families will eat whatever they can get.

I link all the outworkings of deceit and cheating as flowing from the fundamental attitude toward the Sabbath.  When someone despises God's Day then, for all practical purposes, he registers his rejection of God Himself and all that He stands for.  Such a person has no room for holiness in his life and sees no point in it.  If he cannot measure the value of something in terms of cash flowing into his accounts then that "thing" is not worth his time.  Woe to any person, church, or nation which falls into this trap.  

God says quite clearly what will happen.  When a people despise His Sabbath and hate sitting under the teaching of His Word, then He will take that Word from them.  There will be a "famine" in the land... a famine of Spirit-inspired preaching and Spirit-changed hearts.  As the crops fail so will righteousness among the people fail and it will be registered in the callous disregard of the poor and disenfranchised among them.

Here in "stark relief" is the wrath of God on Israel in Amos' day and it sounds disturbingly familiar to those with eyes to see today.

Chapter 9 continues the solemn warnings.  God's wrath will not delay forever, His "eyes ... are on the sinful kingdom and (He) will destroy it from the face of the earth!" (9:8)  Can any man or nation deny that when their sin is so starkly demonstrated that God is justly motivated to bring their wickedness to an end?  

But God is not only justified in His wrath... He is also justified in His mercy.  There are those in the "sinful kingdom" who are bearing the brunt of their cruel brothers.  There are the poor who cry out to God and cling to Him in the apparent hopelessness of their despair.  These will not be forgotten and God promises that there will come another day when under the true Son of David there will arise a new city, built on the ruins of the old, where they and the "Gentiles who are called by My name" will find their rest and peace.

This is a beautiful promise.  Here we have in the starkest terms, God's intention to make His people a combined society, with Gentiles and Jews walking on equal footing and having the same promises and hope.  Such is the "stark reality" of God's grace and even when the grinding wheels of greed appear close to smothering all honesty, fair play, and benevolence, then we have reason to trust.  

We serve the God who cares... He cares when sin abounds and He intends to judge it... He cares when His people suffer under the yoke of sin and He intends to redeem them from it.

This is the "stark reality of His wrath and His love."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amos 6 & 7: "You Who Are At Ease..."

Image: "Life Is Good", 2020, Severna Park, Md

Amos 6:1 Woe to you who are at ease in Zion, And trust in Mount Samaria, Notable persons in the chief nation, To whom the house of Israel comes!

Amos 6:6 Who drink wine from bowls, And anoint yourselves with the best ointments, But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

Amos 7:1–3  Thus the Lord GOD showed me: Behold, He formed locust swarms at the beginning of the late crop; indeed it was the late crop after the king’s mowings. 2 And so it was, when they had finished eating the grass of the land, that I said:

“O Lord GOD, forgive, I pray! Oh, that Jacob may stand, For he is small!” 3 So the LORD relented concerning this.“It shall not be,” said the LORD.

Amos 7:14 Then Amos answered, and said to Amaziah: “I was no prophet, Nor was I a son of a prophet, But I was a sheep breeder And a tender of sycamore fruit.

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If there are any stark warnings in scripture that speak directly to modern Americans, I think Amos 6:1 pretty much would be it.  In context, God is speaking to Judah (Zion) and saying "Are you paying attention to what I am doing to your erring brothers and sisters in Samaria?"  Here God was judging Israel and the wealthy and comfortable people of Judah were "at ease."  The root of their complacency was the idea that "it won't happen to me."  God responds to that by pointing their eyes all around them, at Calneh and Hamath and Gath of the Philistines, and note what happened to them.  He asks them: "Do you think you are better than these kingdoms... or greater?"  

Yet, God says, you "put off the day of doom" to the distant future in your thinking and you continue to indulge your pleasures, resting on beds of ivory, eating from your flourishing flocks, singing to the sound of stringed instruments.  All this while you do no "grieve for the affliction of Joseph." (6:6)

What God is condemning here is the "I got mine... let everyone else see to their own problems" attitude that can debilitate Christian witness whether individual or a congregation or a national presence.  There must be some attentiveness to what is going on around us and a sense of urgency that moves us from our self-indulgent pleasures to grieve for the hurting and seek to bring justice to the oppressed.

Americans, on the whole, are pretty generous people.  We don't need much urging to send help or go ourselves to scenes of disaster.  Hurricane damage becomes a national focal point for converging workers and volunteers.  We turn out... get the job done... wash the dirt off our hands and go home.  In other words, we do pretty well with finite jobs that can be assessed, addressed, and fixed.

What we don't do well is persevere in doing good in the face of evils that just don't seem to go away or whose scope is such that we don't think they can be fixed.  This latter situation is what is facing us today... it was what faced the people of God in Amos' day... and that makes Amos' words very relevant to us now.

Amos showed the right heart when he saw the proposed judgments God was going to bring on His people: “O Lord GOD, forgive, I pray! Oh, that Jacob may stand, For he is small!” 3 So the LORD relented concerning this.“It shall not be,” said the LORD." (7:2)

This is the first requirement for bearing witness. It is a heart that truly grieves for the awful judgments bearing down on the people and a sincere intercession for them before God.  Who knows if God will relent if the people of God today would turn to Him and cry out at the misery that is hanging over our heads in this country.  God has already begun to display His displeasure in us.  We are teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe as our national debt exceeds our entire Gross Domestic Product.  If we took every dime this country made in an entire year and put it against our debt it would not pay it off.  The big issue is the interest payments.  The amount of money we have to pay each year in interest to foreign nations, like China, is staggering and yet no one seems to be alarmed.

The chaos and lawlessness that surrounds us are only down payments on what will come when financial collapse removes all the bulwarks of security.  

But the real issue is the despair and the deep misery that is present in our nation.  We need to weep for what we have lost and we need to repent for why we have come to this place.

Wealth is a gift of God but it can be a tremendous temptation.  If and when it so lures us into softness and complacency that we do not rise to the challenges that life brings us, then wealth is a millstone about our neck.

Like Amos, I say I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet (though Amos certainly was).  But it seems that common sense and some historical perspective pretty much confirms the analysis I have made.  

We Christians are called to grieve and to speak... in that order... and to not stop there.  We must do all we can to show our fellow citizens a better way.

Amos 4 & 5: "Yet You Have Not Returned to Me!"

Image: "The End of the Line", 2020, Jetty, Pt. Lookout State Park, Scotland, Md

Amos 4:4 “Come to Bethel and transgress, At Gilgal multiply transgression; Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days.

Amos 4:6 “Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.

Amos 4:12 “Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

Amos 5:14 Seek good and not evil, That you may live; So the LORD God of hosts will be with you, As you have spoken.

Amos 5:24  But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.

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Christians, of all peoples, should be disciplined to often inquire: "What is God telling us?"

Now I am not, in the least, saying that we should undertake a deep reflection on the cosmic importance of every challenge or frustration or blessing that we encounter.  We know that God causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the just and the unjust. (Mat. 5:45)  There are such things as ordinary events, good and bad.  But when there seems to be a definite trend in direction, when we can sense a movement of dimly perceived forces, that says God is not acting in His "ordinary" way, then Christians alone of all the peoples of the earth, ought to watch, wonder, pray and proclaim.

Take a look at Israel in Amos' day.  They were, as Paul would say to a later nation in Athens, a "religious" people.  They even directed some of their worship activities toward the name of God.  But, as God says in 4:4, they were only "multiplying transgressions."  Religious practices alone, even when directed toward the one true God, actually constitute egregious sin.  Right worship proceeds from the heart and when the heart is absent, the tokens of religious worship are not only vain, they are greater sins.  

God's people in the Northern Kingdom had been "multiplying transgressions" for a while yet there seemed to be no thoughtful correlation to the steady trend of disasters that had befallen them.  If sacrifices offered in worship did not appear to result in some measure of blessing, one would think that the sacrifices were either being rendered to a false god or else the true God was not accepting them.  It would seem so anyway.

For those who were not religious and did not put much stock in those religious activities, one might think they would ask "what's going on?'  If they thought that man, by his own devices, can successfully offset such mere things as climate catastrophes, when they saw the crops failing, the animals and the crops dying of thirst, and the people dying of plagues, you would think they might begin to question their secular humanistic presuppositions.

And, indeed, these are the kind of conclusions that God clearly teaches they should have reached.  Like the kings and mighty men in Revelation who cried out for the rocks to cover them yet did not repent of their sins, so the people in Israel continued headlong down the road to destruction.  All around them, in the chaos and helplessness, as their leaders proved to be clueless, were all the signs they needed.  We have to do something different.  Such would have been the dawning of repentance but such was not to be.  God solemnly observes: "Yet you have not returned to Me."

The inevitable outcome is stated with stark clarity: "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" (4:12)

Whenever we see wickedness abounding we ought to remember that God deals with stubborn persistence in sin by adding sin on sin.  The "multiplication of transgressions" is a form of punishment because sin brings pain, chaos, and death.  Romans 1 teaches that God will give people over to sin if they reveal that such sins are the deepest desires of their hearts.  

But what God desires in the face of multiply transgression is for "justice to run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (5:24)  Only God's people have the balm that can even begin to work healing in a sin ravaged society.  But it will not be successful if it is just more hypocrisy such as false worship.  "Doing good", even when pursuing "justice", will only serve to deepen the darkness if the light of God's Word is not shining on the effort.  There is that "justice" which the world proclaims and there is that "justice" which is God's justice and which is alone true justice.  What a people must be brought to understand is that only God can establish justice and it will be according to His terms and will glorify His Son.

Here is what Christians should be pondering.  "How can we work for justice and righteousness, as God Himself defines it, in a world that is in blatant rebellion against Him?"  God will show us the way if that becomes the desire of our heart and the subject of unceasing prayer.