Resting in the Knowledge of the Eternal Promises of God
Good Morning,
I used to joke with my wife that we were a Toyotathon house, not a Lexus December-to-Remember one. It was one of those inside jokes that makes married life fun. It makes no sense, but it doesn’t need to either. Some of the most insufferable people in the world are folks who always need to be in the know, and to understand everything. Mystery is the spice of life. God’s greatest gift to us as human beings is not telling us what we don’t need to know, what in fact we can’t know because of our inborn weakness. As a for instance think about if you knew the day of your death. While it may at first seem like a good thing to be able to plan an organized life imagine the stress and anxiety involved in trying to outwit the future. Yet, that’s in fact how most unbelievers live. They know in their heart of hearts that to die outside of Christ is vanity, however, they try and try to find a way, a loophole, to get out of the inevitable. Since all men are under the law as a covenant of works their default position is to do what they can to earn merit in order to fulfill their purpose. A Sisyphean task if there ever was one.
A popular saying on the internet is the reason for a system is what it does. Same is true of humanity. We’ve been made for obedience, to God specifically, and we will be obedient to whatever and whomever we make into the divine. Hence why Jesus says that a person cannot serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, or love the one and hate the other. A house divided against itself cannot stand. For today’s prayer and worship help what we are going to do is think through our relationship with the one who made heaven and earth and why there is peace in ignorance.
When God comes to Job near the end of his book we have the scene where Job is standing in the midst of the whirlwind as the Lord asks a series of increasingly majestic rhetorical questions that all have the same answer . . . I wasn’t there and I didn’t do it. For the reader you can almost feel bad for Job as you can hear his brain wanting to tell his mouth to speak, but his tongue being too afraid to in any sense respond. Though as we think about, “Where Were You When I . . .” we need to consider for a moment what we would do with the power God has. Our sinful heart and the temptations of the evil one tell us often that if we were in Jehovah’s position we would do things differently, and for the better. That mindset is simply what we call sin. Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law begins with a heart which confirms the question Satan asked of Eve. Why does the wife of Adam listen? Because her soul was already turned from trusting in the authority, but more importantly, the love of God her savior. She thought in the depths of her person that she was god, and that she defined good. There was no interest in listening to what the Lord had revealed and showed in Himself, so that when Satan did ask that question she would be able to say, “My Creator has said and He will do.”
As a parent there is a different kind of pain when your kid skins their knee versus when they do something that breaks your heart. The former leaves you scrambling for first aid whereas the latter leaves you scratching your head and searching your bosom for some kind of salve which can deal with the disappointment. How much more so is this the case when you consider what you do to God when you take the revelation of the Bible and live in such a way that belies any faith or fear of the Lord? It is out respect that men will follow a leader into a brick wall. The same is true of a follower of Christ. That particular action is born out of experience, knowing that regardless of the unknown the same God who took care in the past will take care in the future no matter the circumstance. That hope in the uncharted means seeing without eyes, with faith.
In the above example of a despondent parent there is often a part of you that wants to blame yourself, and to try and figure out what you did wrong, what you didn’t say, or how you said it that leads you to blame yourself for your youngin’s sin. Now, you may have done something wrong, and if we are honest in our parenting we often leave much to be desired, I know I do. Yet, at the end of the day we recognize that our children are their own persons. They are responsible for themselves, especially if they are outside the womb. There is good news in the midst of all that. Returning back to something we mentioned at the beginning and that is this whole idea of knowing the day of your death. For the parent who baptized their child and brought them to Sabbath School, worship, etc. . . and raised their little ones in the assurance of Proverbs 22:6 there is hope when that child walks away from professed belief in the God of peace. The whole tells you that when they are old they will not wander. That’s not to say you must needs wait that long to see a course correction, but that the promise is not yours to be nervous about. All things remain in the hands of the one who made all things. Or as it is said in Job 22:21, “Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; Thereby good will come to you.“.
In closing, while we may not know the details and specifics there is a sense in which all those things do not matter for we know the end of all things. A set of eyes which are looking unto the heavens cannot be distracted by the trees in the way. Each step is one step closer to death, for sure, but for the believer to be absent from the body is to be with God. What a wonderful world it would be if we would learn to think and to live not in the moment, but in the forever with Jesus.
A last word:
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/GTY94/an-eternal-perspective-on-temporal-trials
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church
