In my devotional reading I have moved back into the Minor Prophets. I always joke that these are the easiest part of any Bible to find because the pages are usually still stuck together. It is sad that these are so overlooked by the average Bible reader—seldom read except as part of an organized Bible reading program. The Minor Prophets have much to say to us today about major questions we have in life.

One such question is my philosophical favorite—the question of evil. The question of evil is one that has inspired generations of unbelief from people seeking but failing to find an answer. It is asked in various ways:

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God allow evil to exist?”

“Why would God permit sin, especially some of the more horrendous sins?”

If you think you are the first to ask this, rest assured that you are not alone. If you would like to consider my answer, check out my article here. This question has been asked from time immemorial. In the Minor Prophets we find it addressed in Habakkuk. The prophet starts by asking God why He seems to not listen to calls for help (1:2), and why it seems the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails (1:4). We’ve all felt this way at times and we want to call God to task for it, just as Job did and as Habakkuk does here. God responded to Job by showing his own smallness in asking the question. God responds to Habakkuk by declaring the intent to make things even worse.

God tells Habakkuk that He is going to answer the question of why evil succeeds and good fails, by calling up and bringing forth a far more evil nation—Babylon—to sack Judea and carry God’s people into captivity. In other words, God is going to answer the question of evil by sovereignly calling into service those who are far more evil. An evil nation will prosper and those under God’s covenant are to be scourged by them.

Habakkuk’s response is beautiful: “O Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish” (1:12). He sees that God, who is their everlasting Lord, has a different time frame from mankind. While mankind wants an answer and delivery now, God has His own plan, agenda and schedule. God will follow that and not be held to a creature’s standards. The prophet knows that God’s plan includes the eventual delivery of his people and their purification. Habakkuk trusts God to make the right decision and understands that whatever God does is within God’s right to do.

When you look at the world around and wonder why evil seems to flourish and good seems to fail, understand that God is in control. His schedule is working. His plan is succeeding.

Ruth Gleaning

I’ve moved to one of the most beautiful stories of scripture for my devotional reading, the book of Ruth. This story moves me as I think of an old woman and her daughter-in-law reduced to harvesting grain left over in the fields and then go on through the story and discover how God cares for them. The story begins with the heart breaking story of a Jewish family moving to Moab to escape a famine in their homeland. While there the father dies and the two sons take Moabite wives. In time, the sons die. In the world view of Naomi, the old woman, God has greatly stricken her. For what sin was she stricken? She gives no indication of knowing, but insists that the actions of God have been for her harm. It is easy for us to fall into this same pattern. We assume bad things are a punishment from God. This book should dispel that habit.

Had these things not happened we would not have the beautiful story of an outsider being accepted into the people of God. Not only was Ruth accepted into Israel, a relative by marriage overlooked her place and condition taking her as wife (another saw this as too much). In time she went on to become the grandmother of the King of Israel. This of course made Naomi the great grandmother of the king, and when Ruth was blessed Naomi was blessed as well. When bad things come our way, it is natural to assume the worst, to complain that God is unfair or to assume he is punishing us. Perhaps he is pushing us along to get us into the area where he intends to bless us. Perhaps his blows are not affliction, but the wind driving us into the land of blessing. When life seems to punch you in the head, take a quick look back to see if God is showing you an area to repent. If there is such, then repent quickly and turn from your sins. However, realize that God is pointing you forward, not back. He is the God who makes what was into what will be. He is working on you, through good and bad. They are not meant to simply grind you into the ground, but to make you stronger.

Much ink has been shed over the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. While the Calvinist has no problem seeing God acting to assure Pharaoh would not listen, those who hold to a certain view of free-will see this as unfair to Pharaoh and not in keeping with a just, loving God. While I am not going to take the usual tack here and join in this fray, I will share some thoughts on the interchange between Moses and Pharaoh. Out of this I am sure you will conclude that, Calvinist that I am, I see no problem with the idea that God would sovereignly ordain Pharaoh’s disobedience, so I might as well admit that up front. For those who interject a cry of foul and unfair I will point to the words of Paul (Romans 9:20f NIV): “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” For now lay aside these thoughts as we look at the events, as recorded.

In Chapter 7, God lays out his plan to Moses. Moses and his brother Aaron are to go to Pharaoh and tell him to release the children of Israel. God will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not release them until terrible plagues have cost the Egyptians dearly. Before you judge the events too harshly, look at the next passage (Ex 7:5) where God gives his reason: “And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.” God wants to demonstrate the truth about himself to the people of Egypt as the true God; the one God; the universal God. He must strike their gods—which the plagues accomplish. The greatest obstacle between YHWH and the Egyptians is the “Son of Ra,” Pharaoh himself.

In our society of equality before the law and democracy we don’t grasp details of monarchy quickly. In a theocratic monarchy, where the monarch is not only chosen by God, but seen as a god in his own right, there is one will that matters, and in Egypt that will was Pharaoh’s. YHWY demonstrated to the Egyptians the futility of worshipping false gods, those of flesh or those of stone. So why would God make such a demonstration to the people of Egypt? God intended to take his people from Egypt and plant them in Canaan—they would border the Egyptians in a land long contested by Egyptians and Hittites. Imagine you are a nation holding a minority people as slaves. The slaves secure their freedom against your will and a few years later you find they have settled within easy reach of your army. For the sake of His people God must make the Egyptians fear Him and them. In such an autocratic society, as Egypt, one touches society by touching the king. If God wants to teach the Egyptians a lesson he must teach it through their king. For the sakes of Israelites and Egyptians, God must harden the heart of Pharaoh. This is confirmed in Ex 9:16, where God raised up Pharaoh for the specific purpose of showing His power to the world.

Before you conclude that such an act would still be unfair, let’s look closer at the hardening itself. In each of the first miraculous signs and plagues (Ex 7:8-13, 14-24; 8:1-15) we see Moses demonstrate power to Pharaoh (staff turned to snakes, water turned to blood and the plague frogs) and each time the Egyptian magicians were able to mimic the miraculous act and then we read: “But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard.” While this example from Ex 7:22, shows Pharaoh’s heart being hardened by seeing his magicians doing the same deed, understand that Pharaoh’s hardness of heart was already a fact, but these actions confirmed, justified and intensified the hardness. From this point on the magicians are outdone with ever more dreadful plagues, but still Pharaoh’s heart remained hard.

While God sovereignly hardened the heart of Pharaoh for the sake of his people, the people of Egypt and the people of the world, Pharaoh played a part in this. He trusted his magicians, with their tricks and incantations. He chose to be deceived by them and to close his ears and eyes to what God was showing. Most amazingly he chose to believe his own press. He chose to keep believing his own divinity no matter how bad things got for him. It was not until the death of his own son—heir to the throne and of equal divinity to himself—that he would bend his will to that of YHWH. The true God had won the battle.

By the end of Exodus chapter four, Moses has fled from Pharaoh; taken a bride in Midian; spoken to God on the sacred mountain; met his brother in the desert and returned to Egypt, to deliver his people from bondage. In the last passage of that chapter (v31b) we read, “And when [the Israelites] heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”

We see these people asking questions about God that we ourselves sometimes ask. As they suffered four hundred years of bondage it was natural to wonder if God cared about their suffering, or even heard their prayers and petitions. To understand this relief, we must understand their fear. They did not have the benefit of thousands of years of monotheistic thought and divine revelation as we do today. They would have only the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph to hold on to. At the same time they were surrounded by various polytheistic cultures. We know the Israelites had themselves resorted to worship of some of the local deities because they carried their images with them in the Exodus. Upon their victory in the land Joshua had to charge them to choose which god they would serve. The concept of one universal God was as alien to them as the concept of child sacrifice is to us today.

At this time they were not true monotheists and their fears about God hearing and caring (according to what they would have understood) were well founded. They were at best henotheists (believers in local deities or tribal gods) at this time with YHWH being seen as their tribal deity or a deity of Canaan and Haran. The idea of local gods meant that some deities were bound not to a people, but to a local geographic region. Their sovereignty was limited to this region alone and those who lived in the region had to learn to please this deity, regardless of whom they served elsewhere. We see this, many centuries later, when the Assyrians move foreigners into Samaria to replace the displaced northern tribes. The newcomers approached the locals to learn of the god that was worshipped in that area and adopted that worship as their own—thus was born Samaritan Judaism. The Israelites in Egypt would wonder if YHWH had authority in Egypt; is it possible his powers stopped at the border of Egypt? Is it possible that God did not live in Egypt and therefore couldn’t even hear their petitions? Of course they knew of the Egyptian sojourns of Abraham and Joseph, but four hundred years is a long time.

The other side of the question, “Does God care?” has been asked all through history and is common for us today. In their world the gods did not care for man. They performed for man because man did sufficient acts to appease them and earn their favor. The gods could be capricious and cruel. In the Babylonian flood story, found in Gilgamesh, we see this capriciousness when the gods caused the flood to destroy all humans because people are too noisy, making it is difficult for the gods to sleep. This is their view of deity. Moses brought word of a very different sort from their God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God cares and hears.

We today ask the same questions: Does God care? Does God hear? We go through situations of life and we wonder if God even knows what we are going through. Is he even there, or has He withdrawn himself. Even when we know better, we still question. If we understand that God hears and knows about our suffering, we question whether He cares. If He cared, He’d act. Wouldn’t He? We understand that if our child were suffering we would do whatever it took to alleviate that suffering and as God’s children we expect the same from Him. Of course we overlook the times that we permit or even inflict certain forms of suffering on our children for their own benefit.

In times of suffering what we require is not deliverance but the knowledge that God cares and hears. Knowing this, we can withstand anything; resist anything; suffer anything. God loves you; His word assures you He hears and cares. Prepare for suffering, tribulation and deliverance—all three are the birth-right of God’s children.

“Consider it pure joy, my brother, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4 NIV.

Yesterday I read Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower, recounting his concentration camp experiences and concentrating on the day he was summoned to the bed of a dying man. The man was an SS officer who had taken part in the horrible death of many Jews. He wanted to speak to a Jew, any Jew, to seek forgiveness before his death.

After hearing the man out, Simon’s response was to walk out without saying anything—refusing to forgive. The rest of the book is his wrestling with the decision—did he do the right thing? Several questions are asked throughout the book, the most important for me was whether one has the right to forgive actions done against another. In other words, “If someone sins against a person, does a third person have the right to forgive them for that sin?” Of course those I speak to say sins can only be forgiven by the person sinned against or by God alone. They would agree with Simon’s friend in the camp, Jakob, who said he had no right to forgive the man or even to consider it because those killed were the only ones with that right.

Whether he was right or not, based on his circumstances, I find hard to judge. He ends the book with the question, “What would you have done?” I am old enough to know that I cannot know what I would have done in the same situation because of the magnitude of the events. What Simon and his people were going through was horrible and the whole world was guilty to a degree.

I would contend that the man was not looking for forgiveness in the traditional sense—the removal of sins through confession and absolution—but was looking for a single Jew who would not hold him in revulsion for his crime. This, the author had every right to do and through the rest of the story he spent years wrestling with his own revulsion for the man’s actions.

When we, as Christians, are told to forgive it is for our benefit as well as the benefit of the sinner. It is also an expression of the work of Christ on mankind’s sin. I have spoken in several places about how sins against us are sins against God and his right to forgive those sins through the blood of Christ. We as Christians must come to grips with the fact that sins against us can be covered by the same blood that washes away our own sins. To refuse to forgive is to question the efficacy of Christ’s blood for forgiveness. The type of forgiveness in this book is seldom spoken of—letting go of our right, not to take offense as victim, but to take offense for another.

Forgiving those who sin against us is an admirable and beautiful act of obedience. However, when one sins against another we take offense to that and can feel justified in holding on to it. This must be released into the hands of Christ just like everything else. We must forgive the sins committed against us and forgive the sins done to others by giving up our right to hold the sinner in revulsion.

As the people near the Jordan and prepare to enter the land, God’s chosen leader send’s spies to gather intelligence. Unlike forty years earlier, when Moses had sent out twelve spies publicly, this mission will be very different. This will not be the people’s spies, but the leader’s personal spies. Joshua was not about to relive that. He secretly chose and sent two men with instructions to concentrate on Jericho. In Joshua 2 we can follow this mission.

The differences are evident from the beginning. In the first mission twelve men were chosen, one from each tribe, to spy out the land and bring back information on the people, the land and the strength of the cities. The tribes knew spies had gone out and saw this group as being their eyes and ears on the ground. They believed their report was for the purpose of determining whether they should try to take the land. This time was different—the people had nothing to do with picking, or sending out the men. They were hand selected by the man who would lead them into the land—a man, who had been one of the twelve earlier spies, and had been one of two not cowed by what they found. The people were not to be allowed to interfere with plans and were to be given no excuse for disobedience.

This mission also differs because he only sent two men. The earlier group of twelve was unwieldy, but probably necessary because they were to spy out the whole land. This small band was to concentrate on the first target—Jericho. With two there is less chance of the herd mentality when it comes time to report. Joshua was not going to risk another forty years in the desert. Another benefit of sending two—the two were able to get into a city and speak to the people. Twelve strangers showing up are likely to set off alarms so the earlier party probably had to stay outside the cities, simply seeing their strength from without. They had no way to determine the morale of the enemy as this smaller detachment did.

The conclusion of the spy mission is the most telling. While the first mission concluded with fear that they would be unable to take the land. This smaller, more direct, secret mission reported to Joshua: “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting because of us.”

How quickly things change. Shortly after the greatest delivery they could imagine in which the very walls of a strong city had crumbled before them, the people now questioned God’s motives. Even their ordained leader lay on his face asking God, “Why did you bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?”

After forty years of wandering the people had finally crossed the Jordan. God did a great miracle by stopping the river, during flood stage. This boosted the morale of Israel and demoralized the enemy. The enemy had already expressed fear of Israel and their God in the words of Rahab the harlot: “When we heard of [your conquests] our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God of heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:11).

Their first campaign had been Jericho, one of the strongest defended cities of ancient Canaan. Rather than humanly besieging the city, they marched around the city once a day for six days then retired to their camp. On the seventh they walked around the city seven times blowing trumpets and shouting. Siege work was so difficult that it often took years to subdue a well defended and supplied city. A perimeter would be set up to keep out supplies and starve the city into either submission or a weakened state, for a costly assault. Not this time. God handed the city to Israel in a week. But how quickly people change when the situation changes.

Before assaulting their next target, Ai, Israel got proud. Spies reported they had no need of the whole people, only two or three thousand were needed. This force was dispatched but was quickly routed by the enemy. Now rather than asking what had prompted God’s punishment, they longed to be back on the other side of the Jordan (Joshua 7:7). We do the same thing in our own lives today.

We get wrapped up in situations and allow the moment to dictate our faith and feelings about God. When things go well, we feel warmly about God and his love for us. When things go wrong we quickly question God’s love and forget all the good things. God’s response to Joshua is something we need to hear, “Stand up! What are you doing on your face? Israel has sinned . . .” (Joshua 7:10f). Yes, it would be good if God would speak to us in this way and I don’t doubt that he can and that with some he does, but he can also speak to us through this story and his words to Joshua.

When the situations around us turn bad it is acceptable for people of faith to question our conduct and wonder if God is punishing us. If we find something, the situation can lead us to repentance.  The problem comes when we doubt God’s love and wallow in self-pity. Scripture tells us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 8:38f that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Even when he punishes us it is as sons being corrected. God is not vindictive to his children; everything done is for their good—everything done is for our good. When you see the world pressing in, remember that his love will not falter and He will be there. He will permit things in your life to rebuke, to correct, to teach, or strengthen you. Rather than falling on your face in fear and trembling, fall on your face in awe that God loves and will never leave you. Keep in mind that you have something they did not have. You have God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, who came and died for you t rise again. Such apocalyptic love is all consuming and unwavering—never changing faltering. Rest in it and thank him for it. Express your love to him in the darkest moments and remind yourself of the good things He has done.

The titles we give to God—Eternal God, Uncaused Cause, Unmoved First Mover, Loving Father—attempt to scratch the surface of an infinitesimally complex subject. Often they are the very cause of problems in our discussions. Because of nuance defining God in human words is bound to fail. We describe Him, but only in part. We speak of Him and his attributes but he escapes definition. The greatest barrier to defining God is transcendence. Regardless of being formed in His image, God is so different from us that our greatest efforts and deepest thoughts prove inadequate. Read the rest of this entry »

During my devotional time I was reading 1 Peter and came across a passage that I have read and studied thousands of times. This time it especially stood out to me because of an experience last week with a young man who was questioning his salvation and fearful that he might be lost. I was able through talking to him and praying with him to see his faith and hear what he was trusting in so that I could show him several passages that help with assurance. He left feeling much relieved, but I guess it tuned my ear to other passages of assurance. When I read a certain passage I had to stop and chew on it. Read the rest of this entry »

The balance between law and grace is precarious. Some insist that the law must remain in effect in the New Testament to restrain licentiousness. They insist on the place of the law and reinterpret it to work in line with Christ. Others look at morality itself and see it as a bane of humanity and would declare believers free to live as they please, excess and all. Neither position is supported by scripture. Like most issues, the truth of scripture is a middle way: the law was fulfilled in Christ. We are, by grace, now equipped to live a truly holy life—not fearful of the law but animated by the Spirit. Read the rest of this entry »