Tag Archives: Isaiah

The Gospel in Names

October 27, 2009

The Gospel in NamesNames are important.  That’s an idea that is somewhat lost on many people in today’s culture.  Parents nowadays choose names for their children that merely sound pretty or are unique.  Seemingly gone is the art of naming a child for his or her intended destiny.

The Bible, however, is full of the rich use of naming for conveying meaning for a life.  Jacob, for instance, begins his life with a name that means ‘Deceiver’; and it was one that was very appropriate for the boy who tricked both his father and his brother.  Later on, he is given the name Israel, which means ‘Wrestles with God’.  This was perfectly illustrative of his own encounter with God as well as the combined experience of all those tribes who would later bear his name.  And four times we read that God has given him the name Jeshurun – ‘Upright’ – speaking of the fact that God has justified him.

In the 62nd chapter of Isaiah, this naming of God’s people gets thrown into high-gear with no less than ten different names being given for the people of God.

In verse 1, God begins speaking to Zion and Jerusalem – that mountain and city that were the symbol for God’s presence with His people.  Then in verse 2, He tells them that He will give them a new name.  He says in verse 4 that they shall no more be called Azubah and Shemamah: “Forsaken” and “Desolate”.  The fact that they were called these things shows God’s judgment against their sin and their absolute inability to do anything about it.  All of the good names that God is about to bestow on His people come purely from His grace to completely undeserving sinners.

Verse 4 contines by saying, “but you shall be called Hephzibah (‘My Delight Is in Her’) and your land Beulah (‘Married’).”  God will take delight in and marry His people not because they are beautiful – quite the opposite; they were Forsaken and Desolate!  Rather, He will make them beautiful by His own electing grace, deciding that He will bless them rather than curse them (as they deserve).  By His grace and for His glory He will take a hopeless and bankrupt people and make them His own.

Another four names are fired off in quick succession at the end of the chapter: “The Holy People”, “The Redeemed of the Lord”, “Sought Out”, and “A City Not Forsaken” (verse 12).  The final two are a complete reversal of the names “Forsaken” and “Desolate”, but the first two give the glorious reason for the change os destiny.  The people (and this whole passage refers to God’s work in Christ’s Church) have been made a Holy People precisely because they have been “Redeemed by the Lord”.

Here’s the truth behind the names: God takes people who are forsaken and desolate – absolutely and completely without recourse to save themselves – and He makes them to be holy so that He can delight in the them.  And He does this through the redemption that was purchased on the cross when Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath that was poured for us.  And if we trust in this glorious Christ and His redemption, then it is at that cross where God takes away our name, “Sinner”, and names us His “Saints”.

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Those High Ways

October 24, 2009

Those High WaysSome awful statistics are tossed around in Baptist circles – or maybe the statistics are for all evangelical churches – at any rate, the numbers say that something like 80% of churches baptize no one in a whole year.  An even larger percentage of churches are plateaued or declining in membership.  And the way that this data is usually presented, the finger is pointed at those declining churches, making them responsible for the loss, pouring out guilt on their pastors, and beating up the members for not sharing the gospel more than they do.

Here’s an odd thing: I’ve never been a member of a “growing” church (at least not one that is growing numerically), but for some reason, I always thought that I would pastor one.  I suppose the odds should somewhat prepare young pastors for the likelihood that they will lead churches that are declining, but they don’t.

I think about this issue a lot.  Recently, at our association’s annual meeting, I had to sit and listen to the evidence that my church was in the 80% as the various annual church profile numbers were read aloud from all of the association’s member churches (we’ll not discuss at this point whether or not such a practice is sinful – maybe that would be a good topic for another time).  Why do churches seem to lose ground?  Why aren’t people saved?  I mean, I’m a pastor that loves Christ, I preach the Word of God and try not to preach myself, I share the gospel, I organize mission trips, outreaches, revivals, etc.  So why does this happen?  I always had in my mind the picture of pastors who didn’t care about the Bible or God’s people, who didn’t know the gospel or how to proclaim it, who were content to maintain the status quo and nothing else.  Those were the ones who were supposed to make up the 80% in my mind – not me!

Then I read a passage like Isaiah 55:10-11:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

It sounds like the source of power for growth is the proclamation of the Word of God, and from these verses, it sounds like what it accomplishes will always look positive.  And yet we know that such was not Isaiah’s call.  When God told Isaiah to go and proclaim this powerful Word (Isaiah 6:9-10), He told him:

Go, and say to this people: “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

What I think we have to gather from this is that sometimes God’s intention is that His Word will drive away as much as it draws near.  His Word always accomplishes God’s will as it goes out.  It never returns void.  But God’s will is not always what we think it ought to be.  It is not always a positive number in the ‘baptisms’ column on the annual church profile, or consistently higher numbers on the Sunday School attendance board.  We have to know that God is at work even when we can’t count the signs during the reading of the church letters at an associational meeting.

This reminds me of another passage in Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

God knows what He’s doing even if we don’t.  He is conforming His people ever closer to the image of Christ.  He is crushing pride, stirring up a hunger and a desperation for Himself, and even purging His church of those who were not of His people.  He is working on the pastor, He is working on the pillars of the church who love Christ, He is working on the immature who need to grow, and He is working on the seed of the enemy sown into His field.  Who knows, tomorrow He may begin to bring in a harvest of souls, adding thousands to the number of the faithful.  He’s done it before.  But we must remember that when He does, it is not Paul who planted or Apollos who watered who are anything, but it is God who gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:5-7).

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When Shadows Became Light

October 23, 2009

When Shadows Became LightThere’s no wonder that so much of the Old Testament is written in poetic form.  The whole Old Covenant economy is like unto one giant poem.  Seemingly every character, every event, every command, every object is a symbol or a type of something that was to come.  The book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, tells us that all of these things were shadows whose fulfillment was in Christ.

And so the bloody Old Covenant animal sacrifices were shadows of the one perfect sacrifice that would be offered in Christ.  The Old Covenant tabernacle and temple complexes, where God was present with His people, were shadows of Christ who is Emmanuel, “God with us”.  The prophets were shadows of Christ who would perfectly reveal God.  The kings were shadows of Christ who would completely rule God’s Kingdom.

Many of these shadows also find their fulfillment in the church, which is itself the body of Christ on earth.  The tabernacle, for instance, speaks of Christ coming to be present with His people (“He tabernacled among us”, John 1:14), but it also speaks of the continued presence of Christ with His people in the form of His church: “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).  Old Covenant shadows point to Christ who manifests Himself in His people.

One of those old shadows that eventually finds its light in the New Covenant church is the city of Jerusalem.  It is that congregation of people who dwell in the very presence of God.  It is very easy to see how that picture can find its fulfillment in the New Testament church.  “Where two or three are gathered in my Name, there I am among them” (Matthew 18:20).  Churches come together like little cities with the Lord present at the center – like little heavenly Jerusalems.

The reality behind this shadow is alluded to several times in the Old Testament prophets.  This morning, I came across one of those allusions in Isaiah 52:1, “Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.”

That statement comes right at the beginning of the most clear Old Testament passage we have on the suffering and sacrificial death of the Messiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).  That means that the message of hope that is given to Jerusalem in verse 1 of chapter 52 has to do with that first advent of Jesus Christ and His suffering for sin.  But in this passage, the light is beginning to overpower the shadow, because verse 1 said that “there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.”

We know that Jerusalem, the physical city, has been literally filled with the uncircumcised and the unclean pretty much since that day.  So when we look at a verse like Isaiah 52:1, how do we interpret it?  What Jerusalem is it talking about?  There is a school of thought that says that everything like that which we know has not ever occurred must be referring to some point in the future when it will actually occur.  This would lead some to affirm that Isaiah 52:1 concerns some time in the future when God will save all the Jews, reinstate Old Covenant ceremonial law, and purify the physical city of Jerusalem.  But is that really what this text is talking about?

No, this passage, as I stated earlier, has to do with the first coming of Christ and His sacrificial death.  That sacrifice would purify Jerusalem, not in a physical way in the physical city, but in a spiritual way in the spiritual city: the church.  Isaiah 52:1 has to do with the purity of the city of God: the New Jerusalem – the church – the bride prepared for her Bridegroom (Revelation 21:2).  That’s why in verse 11 of the same chapter, God can tell His people to “go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the LORD.”  The pure spiritual Jerusalem shall go out from the corrupted physical Jerusalem.

We have to be on the lookout for these kinds of shadows, because we are told that they all have their true form now in Christ and His church (Hebrews 10).  It would be foolish to think that the shadow must come again in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled.  The light is more wondrous than the shadow and it disperses it.  In Christ and in His church, all of the Old Covenant promises are ours.

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To Sustain with a Word

October 22, 2009

To Sustain with a WordIsaiah chapter 50 contrasts the sin of Israel with the obedience of the Messiah.  Since that is the case, Isaiah 50:4 is certainly a verse concerning the fitness of the righteous Servant to do the will of the Father.  But, even though it is about Jesus, it is something that I want to be true of myself as well:

The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.  Morning by morning He awakens; He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.

It is certainly not a bad thing to want what is true of Jesus to be true of me.  We are predestined to be conformed to His image after all (Romans 8:29).  Not only that, but specifically in the case of Isaiah 50:4, we have Jesus telling Peter over and over again in John chapter 21 that He wants him to “feed His sheep”.  In order to prepare proper meals for God’s people, His ministers need to be able to “hear as those who are taught” and we need to “know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.”

Oh Lord, please fulfill this verse in my life and in the lives of all of those who are partners with me in the work of the gospel.  Grant us Your wisdom and a knowledge of Your Truth.  Let our tongues only ever speak to others that which is holy and right.  May we know how to comfort and sustain the weary.  Give us open ears, discerning minds, and loving hearts to do Your work in Your people for the sake of Your praise in Jesus’ name.

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He Doesn’t Need Your Kid Gloves

October 21, 2009

He Doesn't Need Your Kid GlovesA lot of times when something good happens in the world or in our own personal lives we like to say that God has “done” amazing things.  We confess that it is He who brings such wonders about.  But when some disaster strikes, either on a personal scale or a global one, we use different language.  We like to say that God “allowed” such and such to come to pass.  That way it doesn’t sound so much like God is directly responsible, but we still acknowledge that it didn’t happen outside of His control.

The idea seems to be that God can generate the energy and the cause to bring about good, but He is more passive when the bad things happen, merely “allowing” them.  But is this an idea that we get from the Bible?

I recently had the pleasure of preaching Psalm 107 at our Olney Baptist Association Annual Meeting this past Monday.  What is striking about that Psalm is that in each of the four main verses, God is actively bringing pain and hardship into the lives of His people in order to develop them by it and then deliver them from it.  In verse 4 there is a reference to wilderness wanderings, something that God directly brought about in the lives of Abraham and later the Israelites of the Exodus.  In verse 12 it is God who bows down their hearts with hard labor so that they fall down.  In verse 25 it is God who stirs up the great storm that frightens His people, just so that He can calm it down again and they can know that He is God.  This is not a God who passively reacts to events in His universe.  This is a God who brings all things to pass for His good purposes.  He does whatever He wants, and He does it all for a reason.

Isaiah 45:7 states the case in probably the most blunt way in all the Bible: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am Yahweh, who does all these things.”

God neither needs nor wants His creatures to soften the truth that He is in control of all things.  We don’t need to use phrases like “God allowed this or that”.  It is perfectly acceptable and Biblical for us to say, “God brought this about for His own purposes, and we know that His purposes are wise and just and good and that His ways are above our ways.  Therefore, we will submit to His will and trust Him to always do the right thing.”

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My Sick Tastes

October 20, 2009

My Sick TastesSometimes people get on to me when I say that some of my favorite parts of the Bible are verses like 1 Samuel 15:33: “And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.”  I like the parts where God orders His people to slaughter children.  I like it when Elisha makes the bear eat the kids in 2 Kings 2:24.  I like it when God tells Satan to wipe out Job.  I like it when Paul says that he wishes the heretics would just cut their genitals off (Galatians 5:12).  My wife has asked me before, “What’s wrong with you?  Those are horrible things!  Those shouldn’t be your favorite parts!”

Well, I suppose that I should say that really they’re not my favorite parts.  Texts like Romans 7 and Ephesians 2 come most often to mind when I really need some hope.  I just really like to keep bringing up some of the more offensive passages at various times because they illustrate perfectly to me how off-kilter most of the popular ideas about God are today.

There are a lot of people in a lot of churches that don’t want to think about “their god” ordering the slaughter of children or telling a prophet to run around naked for two years (see my previous post on that one).  “My god would never do such a thing!” is what you hear sometimes when you delve into the harder parts of the Bible.  So that’s why I like those gross stories so much!  They’re like a litmus test that can gauge whether or not a person really loves the God of the Bible or a figment of their own politically correct imagination.  If “your god would never do such a thing” then you are an idolater, worshiping a god made in your own image, because the God of the Scriptures has revealed Himself as doing these very things!

Well, I found another one of these passages this morning.  Isaiah 43:3 says, “For I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.  I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.”

What’s amazing about this passage is that if you read the chapter in context, you find that Israel has been very naughty.  When we get to Isaiah 43:3, we are not dealing with a God who is destroying the wicked but honoring the good.  No, what we have here is a God that is destroying several evil nations as a “ransom” to save another evil nation for no better reason than that He wanted to do it.  When God killed all of the firstborn of Egypt and then drowned their whole army to save Israel (Exodus 12 & 14), it wasn’t because Israel was a worthy people (have you read Exodus?!).  On the couple of occaisions when God sovereignly redirected the Assyrians to attack Cush and Seba (2 Kings 19, Isaiah 20) instead of Israel, it wasn’t because the Jews were righteous.  Rather, God saves His people because of a covenant.  He decided for reasons of His own that He wanted to save a certain people and then He promised that He would.

Abraham was a pagan idolater just like everyone else when God first came to him and announced His plan to bless him and his descendants.  He didn’t deserve the attention from God.  So why did God pick him?  We know this: it wasn’t because of anything he had done.  And we also know that it wasn’t because of anything that he would do, since God is the One that changes hearts (Ezekiel 36:25-27), give gifts (1 Corinthians 4:7), and leads people along the path that He wants them to follow (Ephesians 2:10).  That power was never in man.  We can see this same logic displayed in Romans 9:10-13.  God’s decision to save someone has nothing to do with man’s choosing (whether in the past or in the future), but is rooted totally in God’s own will and pleasure (Romans 9:15-16).

And this idea is another one of those that works like a litmus test to see if a person is really in love with the God of the Bible or one of their own making.  Do you want a God that loves you because you’re so worthy to be loved, or do you love the God who chose you and saved you in spite of your own worthlessness so that you might live for Him?  It should be no great mystery which one of these views is very friendly with the world and the flesh and deeply man-centered.

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Fear Means Fear

October 17, 2009

Fear Means FearI once knew a woman who was literally afraid of everything.  She had experienced a couple of bad falls, broken some bones, and each subsequent injury took longer and longer to heal, so she became very skittish about walking and especially about getting out of the house.  In fact, she told me that she had gone to church on one occasion, climbed the steps, and reached for the doorknob only to have someone open the door for her.  The sudden fright of the unexpected happening was enough to make her want to go back home immediately in fear.  Like I said, she was scared of everything.  Oddly enough, though, in the same conversation, this woman admitted to me that she had never been afraid of God.  A doorknob, yes, but not the Judge of the universe!  Sadly, however, this is not such an uncommon story.

Today if you go to your average Christian bookstore – the kind that sell more kitschy knick-knacks than books on Bible doctrine – you’re likely to find a lot of books that will (at some point or another) try to explain that when the Bible encourages us to “fear” the Lord, it doesn’t mean be afraid, it means something more like “revere”.  It’s amazing to me that with as many times as I’ve read that in some popular-level Christian book, the Bible translators just aren’t hopping on board with the whole idea.  Even the most modern translations still say “fear” in all of those hundreds of verses where the fear of the Lord is encouraged.  The reason why the tranlators aren’t sold is because even though the word “fear” can (and should) certainly include the idea of “awe”, the word “revere” doesn’t really carry a sense of terror, which is also necessary for the proper understanding of the term.

Now, of course the modern man-centered culture (even the “Christian” branch of it) wants to remove the idea of terror from God.  A God that is scary needs to be pleased and appeased.  It is His will that becomes front and center in such an arrangement.  That takes too much focus off of man.  The god of modern culture lives to serve man.  He’s more like a grandmother than a king.  If you do wrong, she’s always there with a soft hug, never a frown.  If you forget to pay attention to her for years on end, she doesn’t mind.  She’s just glad to have you back whenever you decide to come back.  Such a view wants to overemphasize the tenderness and compassion of God while completely ignoring His justice, sovereignty, and Law.

On the other hand, the Bible regularly repeats the phrase, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  What is it about being terrified of God that makes a person more wise?  The most obvious answer is that if you are scared of God, you are scared of His displeasure with you.  You will not want to break His Law because you know what He could do to you.  When you do break it, you tremble before Him, begging for His forgiveness.  That’s wise!  Contrast that with someone who doesn’t really believe that God will ever settle the score – someone who thinks that God’s commands are more like suggestions.  Such a person is a fool and will likely head to an ugly and swift end – not just in this life, but in eternity as well.

But the Bible’s “fear of the Lord” is not to be compared to a horror movie.  We are not to “fear” God like we would “fear” Freddie Krueger or a grizzly attack (actually, I don’t know about that – see 2 Kings 2:24 ;) ).  Rather, “the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure” (Isaiah 33:6).  It is a treasure!  It is wisdom!  Biblical godly fear is more like a child’s fear of his earthly father.  All of the time there is great love between father and child, but the child is fearful of daddy’s anger when he breaks the rules.  That fear of discipline is what drives the child to greater and greater obedience.  That is the kind of fear we are dealing with in the Bible.  So go “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), but at the same time “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Mark 12:30).

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Sunspots

October 16, 2009

SunspotsDo you know what would happen if a single star fell to the earth?  The very notion is absurd.  Most stars (like our sun) are millions of times larger – and thus more massive – than the earth.  So a star wouldn’t “fall” to earth in the first place.  The earth would have to “fall” into a star, and the effect would be something like a huge whale swallowing up a microscopic plankton.  I doubt that our planet would even make much of a ripple across the surface of an enormous star.  And, of course, it would then be instantly destroyed by heat.

If that is the case, though, then why do popular passages in the Bible like Revelation 6:13 talk about all of the stars falling to earth as if they are only as big as they appear to us in the night sky?  Clearly, if a verse like Revelation 6:13 is not meant to be the absolute end of human history (and there’s quite a bit more in Revelation after chapter 6), then what we have in verse 13 is a figurative statement.

In fact, we find this same picture of judgment on heavenly lights repeated over and over again throughout the Scriptures.  Just take a look at passages like Isaiah 13:10, 24:21-23, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10, Amos 8:9, and Micah 3:6.  In other words, God has promised this kind of judgment before on nations like Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Tyre.  When we get to Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:12-13, the judgment is being directed as apostate Israel, but just as in previous times and previous judgments, what is being described concerning the sun, moon, and stars is not a permanent destruction of celestial bodies, but rather a removal of authority, influence, power, and leadership.

Heavenly lights often represent ruling authority like that of nations or individual rulers, and therefore the failing of those lights represents the collapse of that leadership (see for example Isaiah 14:12-15).  So in a passage like Revelation 6 (or Matthew 24), the lights are failing in the judgment of Jerusalem, which points to the removal of its power and authority.

But we find the opposite of this failing light effect in Isaiah 30:26, when the prophet, speaking of the renewal of the people in Zion (New Covenant) says, “Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people, and heals the wounds inflicted by His blow.”

Now if that verse is meant to be taken literally, then something that is clearly supposed to be a good thing: the brightening of sun and moon versus the darkening of them as seen in so many judgment oracles, would become a horror.  Even now we stress over the amount of sunlight that touches our skin.  Imagine if it was seven times stronger!  It would burn every living thing on the earth to a crisp!  And a moon shining like the sun?  Is that good?  I suppose a better question is: has this happened?  We understand from reading Isaiah 30 that this is a New Covenant blessing, so we should be living in the time of super-sun and sunny-moon even now.

It ought to be apparent that what is being referred to in Isaiah 30 is the reverse of what was being referred to in all of the failing light oracles.  As the other passages indicated a collapse of authority and rule, this intensifying of the light represents an increase in the authority and rule of the New Covenant people of God.  In other words, what would start as a tiny mustard seed in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost would grow and intensify until it spread around the globe.  As the church of the Lord Jesus Christ grows and conquers by the power of the gospel, its influence in the world will brighten.

This is a fantastic message of hope for Christians.  This world is not something to fear and withdraw from – waiting for the day when Jesus will come back to rescue you.  It is a Promised Land to conquer in the name of Jesus Christ with the sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God) and in the power of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God.  So get out there and shine like the stars in the heavens (Philippians 2:15)!

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World of Fruit

October 15, 2009

World of FruitIsaiah 27:6 says, “In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.”

This beautiful picture of Israel’s fruitfulness did not come to pass the way the physical descendants of Jacob might have expected.  In fact, when Jesus came to Jerusalem at the beginning of the last week before His crucifixion, he made a pit-stop at a fig tree in order to teach His disciples a lesson.

In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves.  And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. (Matthew 21:18-19)

What follows this cursing of the fig tree is a series of encounters with the chief priests and elders of Israel that culminates in Jesus telling the religious leaders, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (Matthew 21:43).

Therefore, the amazing truth of Isaiah 27:6 is that it was written concerning us!  It is the New Covenant Church – filled with Gentiles like me – that has blossomed, put forth shoots, and filled the earth with fruit!  We wild branches have been grafted into the original people of God, we are to fulfill its purpose of being a light to the nations, and we are inheritors of all of the original promises to the patriarchs.

This ought to let us know, though, what God wants from His people: fruit.  He doesn’t save us from His wrath just so we can sit around doing nothing.  He saves us and then produces fruit in us, and if there is no fruit, then there is no indication that He has saved us.  Remember that the servant who buried his Master’s money so that it produced no return was thrown into the outer darkness (Matthew 25:30).

So let those of us who know the Lord rejoice in His grafting of us into His family.  Let us rejoice that He intends to produce His fruit in us throughout the world.  But let us take heed lest we fail to do what He has created us to do.

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The Language of Pain

October 14, 2009

The Language of PainSomeone somewhere said that the only language that God can speak that most people will understand is pain.  In other words, human beings don’t seem to pay much attention to God when things are going really well, but they are all ears when their world gets turned upside down.

The prophet Isaiah echoes this sentiment:

My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.  For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.  If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.  (Isaiah 26:9-10)

The unbeliever who has everything that he wants has no desire to pay attention to God.  Why would he?  If he acknowledged that there is an Almighty God that owns and controls the universe, then he would have to obey that God’s rules, and that might mean a reduction in his current satisfaction with his own life and possessions.  So if he does claim to believe in a god, he makes his god distant: one who for the most part leaves him alone, but one who would certainly approve of his life choices.

All that changes when pain and trauma take over a man’s life.  When the things or the people that he once delighted in are suddenly taken from him, when sickness or injury wracks his body and he worries for his life, or when he loses the ability to support himself he suddenly begins to cast about looking for answers.  Situations like this cause him to begin to worry about his ultimate future, and it is at this point that many people want to know about the true God who is revealed in the Bible.

I don’t mean to suggest that this process is random and outside of God’s control – as if a spiritually dead man under his own power could “pull himself up by his bootstraps” and come to faith simply because of pain.  Rather, it is God who uses pain to break us of our pride and arrogance as He draws us to Himself by the life-giving power of the Spirit.  So, while it is true that pain by itself will not automatically create a disciple of the Lord Jesus, suffering is a common method that God uses to call His own into faith.

And since that is the case, we ought to realize that hard times in our nation (like some of the current economic crisis) are actually times when God is most at work, rather than the other way around.  When all things run smoothly, the wicked run swift to their own demise.  We ought to be eternally grateful for some judgment in this life that prevents us from experiencing judgment in the age to come.

So when hard times come to those that we love, we need to look for ways to maximize on the loud voice of the Lord that they are hearing.  Take every opportunity to make the truth of the gospel known so that those trying times may be seen in retrospect as refining fires rather than burning judgments.  Also, though, when hard times and pain hit those of us who are believers, we need to take the time to try to trace the hand of the Lord in our suffering: to find out what He may be teaching us.  But even if we can’t see it, we still need to trust His word that He is making something good in us (Romans 5:3-5, 8:28).

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