Expecting God To Repeat Himself

I like patterns.  It's my way of making sense of the chaos that is life.  There is the simple understanding of cause and effect, inductive reasoning that makes life smoother, such as knowing that if my children go to bed after 8 pm, there will be an afternoon meltdown the next day or that if I skip a single day of my daughter reading to me, the day after will be like pulling teeth with her sounding out words she flew through the day before.

Then, there are those patterns that require more observation, a stepping back and seeing the whole picture, mysteries that can leave me scratching my head for months until I finally crack the code. 

When attempting to understand the Word of God, I've learned how much can be understood simply by looking for patterns, which can only be accomplished fully by knowing the whole story.  Sometimes, that involves tracking a word's usage throughout the pages of the entire Old Testament, looking at historical context, taking the original audience's understanding into consideration, or simply looking at other parts of the specific book of the Bible. 

It's all part of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture.

Yet, too often, when I read a passage that reminds me of another similar passage I've read before, I make the mistake of automatically reading it with the same interpretation in mind.  While God often repeats Himself, sometimes, He also often does the unexpected, reminding us that even when we're at the top of our game, God is still a mystery at His core.

The prophet Elijah learned this lesson when running from Jezebel.  At the lowest point in his career, the Lord told him, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by" (1 Kin. 19:11).

Scripture records, "Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave" (1 Kings 19:11-13).

Most Sunday School children know this part of the story.  God was not in the wind.  He was not in the earthquake.  He was not in the fire.  God was merely in a still, small voice.

Elijah would have known Israel's history quite well, a history in which the children of Israel had seen God in the wind, in the earthquake, and in fire.  In fact, a simple glimpse at the Israelites' escape from Egypt showed God in all three.

When the Israelites were trapped at the edge of the Red Sea, Pharaoh's army nipping at their heels, God was in the wind that held back the waters so an entire nation could cross on dry land: "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left" (Ex. 14:21-22).  

As they wandered into the desert and camped at the base of Mt. Sinai, the children of Israel beheld God in both earthquake and fire: "Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently" (Ex. 19:18).  That fire would go on to light up every night sky as they wandered in the desert for forty years until crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, a trek that all started with God appearing to Moses within a bush aflame.  And then, later, as Solomon dedicated the temple, fire would fall from heaven once more to light up the altar of sacrifice.

There was Biblical precedence for God being in all of the above.  What's more, Elijah, himself, had witnessed God in the wind and fire quite recently as he defeated the prophets of Baal atop Mt. Carmel (Ex. 18:38,45).

Yes, Elijah heard the wind and probably expected it to be the Lord.  He felt the earthquake and thought, surely this is the Lord.  And when the fire blazed, he must have expected this to be the Lord.

Yet, the Lord did not do the expected.

He came as He had never come before--in a still, small voice.  He came not in a display of power but in gentleness.

What's interesting is that Elijah, this man who loved and followed God with his whole heart--Elijah did not come out to meet God in the expected.  He waited and knew this was not the Lord.  Yet, He knew the Lord in this small voice even though there was not really precedence for the Lord appearing in such a manner.  Somehow, Elijah knew the Lord.

Pastor R. T. Kendall says, "When God repeats Himself it is easier to accept Him.  We love the familiar...The thing is, when something is repeated that was previously clearly the Lord's manifestation, most people assume hastily and uncritically, 'This is God showing up again.'...Jonathan Edwards taught us that the task of every generation is to discover the direction in which the Sovereign Redeemer is moving, then move in that direction.  It is easy to look for what has happened before" (Kendall 144).

Consider this statement and Elijah's experience in light of our Savior.  When Jesus came to earth in the wrappings of flesh, He did not come in the power of the wind, the earthquake, or fire.  He came in the gentleness of a sacrificial lamb.  Because of that, many missed His coming, for they were looking for God to appear in strength and power and refused to reevaluate their understanding of God and Scripture.

From these passages, we can take away two things. 

First, we must be cautious of boxing God in, expecting for Him to work or speak in always the same way He has done before.  God can and does do the unexpected. 

Secondly, we can be comforted.  Those who truly seek the Lord as did Elijah will know Him, even when He shows up in the most unexpected of ways. 

Why We Read Every Last Page

I'll admit I have my favorite passages, those stories from my childhood that I am drawn to because I can visualize them (usually with Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses).  Then, there are those verses and books that are difficult, the kind that make me run rough hands through unruly curls, rub my throbbing temples, and sigh at the ceiling.

When it comes to the pages of Scripture, we all have our favorite and our not-so-favorite chapter and verse.  My father loves Revelation and anything prophetic.  I, on the other hand, am a people person and cultural analyst at heart, so I prefer the histories found in the Kings and Chronicles.

Yet, even though we have our favorite passages, that doesn't mean we're excused from studying the entire Word of God, yes, even if we think some passages are "too hard" or not really pertinent to us since God was speaking to the Jews and not us Gentiles.

Our perception of The Bible is often times warped.  Looked at one way, the tome does seem pretty big.  In fact, if a person were to drop a Bible on his toe, he you might think God sure said an awful lot.  But if one stops to consider that God fit the history of several thousand years into the Old Testament alone and then skipped 400 years between testaments before presenting the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament, well, that reveals a pretty small book, considering, an author God who just gives the highlights.

The Bible does mince words. Thus, when we pick and choose which passages we would like to study and ignore the rest, we don't know what we're missing out on.

My studies just this past week reminded me of how important it is for me to let Scripture interpret Scripture, to continue building a knowledge base of each book so I can better understand the other books, whether individually or in their totality.

Back in September of 2011, I was studying the book of Ezra.  In one post, I wrote on the exiles who rebuilt the temple, then celebrated after the new temple's foundation was built.  In the midst of that celebration, the returned exiles who had seen the former temple wept: "Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people" (Ez. 3:12-13).

While some of the weeping was due to happiness over this restoration, many tears were because of how ordinary this temple foundation was in comparison to the luxurious original built by Solomon and because even when physically restored, God's presence was not residing within the holy of holies as He once had.

This concept of disappointment is confirmed when later at the temple's completion, God spoke through the prophet Haggai: "'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it seem to you like nothing in comparison?'" (Hag. 2:3).

This is what I understood at the time.  But because I had not yet studied the book of Ezekiel in depth, I missed another important reason why these exiles may have been crying. 

In the latter half of Ezekiel's prophecy, God gives a vision of His glory returning to a future temple.  In chapters 40-42, He even takes Ezekiel on a guided tour of that temple, wherein a man with a measuring rod reveals the height, width, and length of each wall in intricate detail, describing the gates, windows, courts, chambers, rooms, etc.  This future temple would be a huge complex, much larger than even Solomon's temple in all its glory.

Then, after receiving this blueprint, God says, "As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight, so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them" (Ez. 43:10).

Here, God invites Ezekiel to share this vision of the "new temple" with those exiles who are with him in Babylon, those who have yet to be released by King Cyrus to go back home. 

Surely, some of these same people who heard of this future temple expected that this prophecy would be fulfilled in their lifetime.  Surely, when Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and gave orders for the temple rebuilt, they believed the temple built with their hands would be the magnificent one from Ezekiel's vision.

Yet, it wasn't.  Clearly.  In fact, it wasn't even as big as the temple King Solomon had built.  And so, they wept.

As such, their tears were not merely because they were looking back in sorrow over what once was and was no longer but also because they were looking forward in sorrow.  Anyone who had heard the detailed blueprint in Ezekiel's prophecy would immediately realize that this smaller temple could never be the one in the vision that saw God's glory return, never to leave again.

And so, their weeping was in the knowledge that God's promise to dwell with them forever was still far off because of their sin.

This revelation may not seem earth shattering, maybe not even important.  But, it spoke to me of how we should mourn.

Presently, Christians seem to want to mourn our present state by looking backwards to the "good ole days."  We mourn a country, a people who aren't as holy, as God-fearing as they were "back then."  Yet, instead of looking backwards all the time, I believe we should be looking forwards and mourning because of the holiness to come promised through the prophets, a time that seems so far from us at times.  

Both types of mourning require us to look at our sin, repent, and look to Christ.  However, looking backwards tends to focus more on people and their accomplishments as we wish we could be more like they were whereas looking forward tends to keep our focus more on God, His perfection, and His promises to come.  Whether we keep our hope in the past or in the future is important.

Had I said the book of Ezekiel was too difficult, too controversial, or too elusive to grasp completely, I would have missed the simple message God had planned for me.  It's a word of encouragement to all of us.  Even though we may prefer to read something else, God says to study His Word, and that means all of it.  

Who knows what simple truth He may have hiding for us in those favorite passages, perhaps little nuggets of life-altering wisdom that we'll never receive unless we veer from the well-worn path into the wilderness of those unknown books.  We may just find a missing piece we never knew we were looking for.


Image: from Derek Griz' blog, calling to Christians to read the Bible through in one year.

Why Not Fifty Shades of Gray

My mother-in-law loves cats.  My father-in-law is a dog person.  

Like oil and water, the two simply don't mix.  They may appear to come together for a brief moment, but wait a few minutes, and they're back on their side of the beaker.

When Opa is working in one of the barns or taking his morning walk down the length of our quarter-mile driveway, his pack of five large dogs follows him away from the house, making room for Oma's seven cats to freely walk in the open without the fear of being chased (or worse).

Yet, as soon as the dogs return, the cats scatter, some high atop the red Dodge farm truck, some to the pump house, and others into the woods.  

Even though they've all lived on the same farm for years, they still can't co-exist together, at least not in such a great number.  It's always one or the other greeting me when I walk down, never both.

This is the image that came to mind when reading Ezekiel 8 this week, the chapter where God explains why His presence is leaving the temple in Jerusalem.

Even though "the glory of the God of Israel was there" still in the temple of Jerusalem, those left behind after the deportation and exile to Babylon hadn't learned their lesson.  Instead, they ignored God like never before, worshipping their own idols and defiling His holy sanctuary (v.4).

Ezekiel states, "Then He said to me, 'Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north.' So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol of jealousy at the entrance. And He said to me, 'Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary?'" (v. 5-6). 

This idolatry, this sin was causing God to "be far from" His people.   

It wasn't a foreign power, not King Nebuchadnezzar and his mighty armies.  No.  Sin was expelling God from His holy sanctuary just as sure as sin expelled the people from the land of Israel.

Holiness simply cannot continually dwell in the presence of evil. 

In the rest of the chapter, God outlines the abominations of Israel.  There is an idol at the temple court's entrance, idols worshipped in secret, idols carved on the walls, women worshipping a false god, and even men turning their back on God's holy place to worship the sun in the temple's inner court.

This wasn't just one who had turned from God.  All had sinned.  All were worshipping other idols.

Yet, God saw what idols they had carved in their inner closets, those hidden behind secret panels that no one else could find.

God knew.  And God still knows today.

The sin that separated Him from His people back them still separates Him from you and me until we are covered by the blood of Christ.

His presence cannot reside where continual sin flourishes and thrives, unashamed, unchecked, unrepented.
 
Two chapters later, Ezekiel describes God slowly leaving the temple until "The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city" (Ez. 11:23).

That was it.  God's holy presence would no longer reside with sinful man until the time for Christ would be come.

Sin is that serious.  Even what we may rationalize away as "little white sins" are that divisive.

This side of the cross, Christ resides in the hearts and souls of men and women versus a physical temple.  Still, though, Paul repeatedly tells us in Romans that holiness and sin cannot dwell together.   We can either worship in spirit or in flesh, serve one master or another (Rom. 6).

If our lives are characterized by continuous sin and worship of anything that causes us to compromise God's holy standards, we need to really examine our hearts to see if we have ever truly repented and turned to serve Christ.  Yet, even if we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, continuous, unchecked sin in our lives can still divide us from the power of Christ within us.

It's time to look at our souls as oil or water, black or white, not fifty shades of gray.


Image: Cool science experiment found here. 

The Ties that Bind: A Heritage of Fire

My father has always been the one interested in our family's heritage.  More than once in my childhood, I would walk past the dining room to find half the table littered with multi-branched charts taped together, tea-stained pictures of some distant stoic-faced relative, and stacks of photocopies.  Some were of pages in library books, detailed letters from one relative to another, or accounting ledgers.

Most all the interesting pieces were filled with cramped, painfully-consistent cursive handwriting, almost illegible and just like my Great Grandma Maggie's. 

All of it was my heritage.

Biologically, I can trace my lineage across the oceans to a time before America's formation as a country.

But what about my lineage as a Christian?  That's much harder.

Granted, my own salvation is a direct result of my parent's training me up in the Lord as is their salvation.  From there, though, moving backwards is a bit more difficult, especially since faith isn't always passed down biologically.  Often, one's faith is a direct result of someone of a different bloodline sharing the gospel.

While I can't fill in the gaps in-between, I do believe Scripture provides Gentile Christians like myself with the starting point, the "Adam and Eve," if you will, of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the consuming fire that burns within each Christian.

Consider both the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament.

When God first deigned to dwell below with His people in the desert, He gave Moses plans to build the tabernacle.  Then, when this temporary dwelling place was completed, He filled the tabernacle with His presence in two ways: by cloud and fire: "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle...the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel" (Ex. 40:34, 38).

The fire from heaven was not merely a symbol.  It was the only fire permitted to light the lamp stand of God's presence within the Holy place as well as to light the altars of sacrifice wherein people could gain atonement for their sin.  Any other fire on the altars would be considered "strange fire" presented to the Lord, an act punishable by death (Lev. 10:1-2).  

When the priesthood of Aaron first offered burnt offerings to the Lord at the newly completed tabernacle, God sent the needed fire from heaven: "Then fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the portions of fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces" (Lev. 9:24).  Once God lit the fire, making a way for man to find atonement, it was supposed to be permanent: "Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out"(Lev. 6:13).

Later, when King Solomon built a permanent dwelling for God, His presence came down in the same manner: "Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house.  The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house" (2 Chron. 7:1-2).

But then, Israel fell into sin.  The fire on the altar was allowed to go out, the temple was ransacked, and God's people were carted away in the chains of slavery.  When the lamp of God's presence flickered its last, there was no longer any potential for atonement for one's sin.

That's when the Father sent His only Son, Jesus, to be God with Us, the ultimate sacrifice, once and for all.

When Christ left, He left His followers with God's comforting presence in the form of the Holy Spirit to light the temple lamp of as many who would come to Him.  This is why Jesus told His followers: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house" (Matt. 5:14-15).  This is why Paul told Christians, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?" (1 Cor. 6:19).  

When God's Presence came down to fill His earthly temples one last time with the Holy Spirit, it was, again, with fire: "And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:3-4).

Fire filled the temple of God for the third time in recorded Scripture, only this time, the temple was made of flesh and blood.  This time, the lamp lighted with God's presence was you and me.

Just imagine--when the Holy Spirit fell in tongues of fire on those first Christians, he was lighting the first lamps that would stay lit until today.

If you are a Christian, your heritage goes all the way back to that upper room when the Holy Spirit fell on the very first believers in Christ, lighting the lampstand of the new temples of flesh. 

It is an awesome thought.

It's also an awesome responsibility.

Just as the priesthood of Aaron wasn't supposed to let God's fire go out, we Christians today are also charged with keeping our lamps trimmed and mounted high on a stand for all the world to see God's Presence within our temple.

To God be the glory!