June 4, 2006

Our congregation Various friends, relatives and co-workers

James and Leon in the Army Our nation, leaders and military

EVENTS: Summer Youth Series (7 pm)

June 5 - Memorial (Zambian Vocal Group) July 10 - West Houston (Harding)

June 12 - Sugar Grove (Pepperdine) July 17 - First Colony (LCU - Rob Duncan)

June 19 - Kingwood (OCU) July 24 - Bammel (Lipscomb)

June 26 - Huntsville July 31 - Southeast (ACU/Acappella)

"Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him" (Psalm 115:3).

In an bulletin article many years ago, I mentioned that the Holy Spirit is part of the mystery of God and there are things that one just cannot know about God. One person responded that as a preacher I should know, implying that there were no mysteries about God. I don’t know if many would publicly state that they have God all figured out, but one has to wonder by statements made by individuals.

An assumption in this is that the Bible reveals the totality of God. Since God created us and has given us a mind to reason with, we can figure out all we need. This leads to a deistic view which states that God started it all, left us with scripture, and has remained in heaven watching, but not acting in His creation. That has lead to various interpretations, again not expressly stated in words. Prayer becomes a command and God might or might not do something, but we make decisions using the mind God has given us. We know how God has responded in the past, and since God doesn’t change, that is how He will respond today.

We have God figured out until we come across difficult texts. When confronted with such text we will appeal to the hermeneutical principles that difficult texts should be interpreted in light of clearer texts. In general that is probably a good principle to follow. But I’m not sure that it is always the best. The challenges involved in difficult texts would be better left alone so we can continue smooth sailing in our understanding.

Walter Brueggemann, a Biblical scholar, said the following prayer:

"We would as soon you were stable and reliable.

We would as soon you were predictable and always the same toward us.

We would like to take the hammer of doctrine and take the nails of piety and nail your feet to the

floor and have you stay in one place.

And then we find you moving, always surprising us, always coming at us from new directions.

Always planting us and uprooting us and tearing all things down and making all things new.

You are not the God we would have chosen had we done the choosing, but we are your people

and you have chosen us in freedom."

What are some of the difficulties we face in understanding God? I made a comment one time about how God could use weather to be sending a message. A brother told me not to go there, that there was too much dangerous ground in such suggestions. We have been taught over the years that God does not do evil but that "natural events" like tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes are "evil." One could say the same about unprovoked attacks and wars. Then we read texts like these:

"I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster;

I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isaiah 45:7).

In Amos four, God tells us that He does the following. He brings famine and hunger, drought and plague, and war. Then He said, "Therefore this is what I will do to you Israel, and because I will do this to you Israel, prepare to meet your God" (4:12).

Likewise, in Deuteronomy 32, God warns Israel of what He would do to an unfaithful Israel, including making them envious, bringing war, famine, plagues, and being conquered by enemies. Yet God has a fear. "But I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this’" (vs. 27).

When we read these texts, we see that maybe we need to be careful about what we say about God’s activities. Now I’m no prophet so I cannot say that this or that is an act of God for a certain reason. I trust that God knows what He is doing, even if I don’t.

Another difficulty comes from 1 Timothy 6:16. In speaking about God, Paul says of Him: "who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen." Now I think Paul is right about this. No man has entered heaven and approached God in His setting. If we keep this context in mind, a heavenly context, then we have no problem. Problems come when the heavenly setting is not in mind or we decide that sin cannot enter the presence of God.

First, if sin cannot enter the presence of God, how do we explain Job 1 and 2 where the Accuser enters the presence of God and challenges Him. Some would say that it is a myth or parable and the importance of Job is in how he deals with suffering. There is no reason however, not to accept it as revelation, since we do not know how all that works.

Second, if God does not allow sin in His presence, how do we explain Jesus Christ? He left heaven and came to this sin filled earth to save us from those sins. The holy God came into an unholy world. I think this says much about who God is and how we view Him.

Third, we have this text in Exodus 24. "Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank" (vs. 9-11, underlining my emphasis). Twice we are told that they "saw" God and they did not die. They are on the mountain of God in the desert, and God invites them to dinner! While some would argue that any who see God would die, this text states differently. Do we really have God all figured out?

That brings us to our every day world. The culture of the day said that Jews do not speak to Samaritans and Jewish men do not speak to women in public. Yet we see Jesus doing just that (John 4). When a woman was caught in adultery, the law said stone her. Jesus said that the one without sin should cast the first stone, and the only one there without sin was Jesus. Then, instead of preaching a sermon to her, something many preachers today would advocate, He simply stated, "Go and sin no more" (John 8). The cross was foolishness to Gentiles and shameful to Jews and yet Jesus died on the cross for our sins. In the parable of the lost sons (Luke 15), we see the father doing the unexpected. Through weakness we see strength, through the uneducated we see understanding (1 Corinthians 1:18-31). We see God’s graciousness to a foreign people in Jonah. We see Him loving the outcasts and shamed in the Gospels. And we see Him forgiving those we do not think deserve such forgiveness and grace.

Now do we really have God all figured out? The Psalmist makes it clear that God does whatever He wants. I don’t always understand it, even rarely do I understand it. That is were belief and trust comes in. We walk by faith and not by sight and that is difficult for us. We really want to understand but not this side of heaven. So next time you hear someone imply that he has God figured out, ask him to let God out of the box he keeps him in. Actually, he might be surprised to learn that God isn’t in that box because our God is too exalted, too powerful, and too glorious to be kept locked up. Then maybe we will start seeing that God is more active in His creation than we think, and then we might start depending on Him rather than our reasoning abilities.

George B. Mearns