The Lord Our Banner

He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding … Daniel 2:21

I don't put much trust in governments, presidents, or monarchs. Daniel raises an interesting question as to whether God is “in control” of government. Governments are generally engines of corruption, and the bigger the government, the more corruption is produces. God, however, is not an author or sponsor of evil. He does not even tempt us to evil (James 1:13). The wickedness and decadence of a society come from the heart of man.

God is alive. He is acting. He responds as well as initiates. But He also has laws in place, both physical and spiritual. Bad choices have consequences, as do good choices. When a person, a people, a nation or an empire makes consistently wrong, stupid, unwise, or evil choices, they are going to reap the harvest.

Sometime, several years ago now, writing here, I talked about a remnant. God always has a remnant like the 7000 He spoke of to Elijah (1 Kings 19:18). I believe that the remnant has been praying and seeking God, and I believe that God has responded with an awakening. That doesn't mean I think any kind of utopia is coming, and it is certainly not a time to become comfortable or complacent spiritually. I still believe that hard times are ahead, possibly much chaos, division, violence, even bloodshed. 

 Being awake, watching and praying, doesn't mean we won't have to deal with danger, trouble, and strife; it just means we will be ready for it when it comes. Now is not the time to go back to sleep. No great victory has been won. The enemy is not going to surrender. It is, though, the time to connect, to reach out, to build up from the foundation of the remnant. The next battle is going to be harder, the enemy more conniving and subtle. 

 The devil has, for the last few years, overplayed his hand. Sin makes sin bold. Sin always emboldens itself when it faces no apparent rebuke, but sin, when it is underground and out of sight, may still grow and burst forth in unexpected places. Scandals in the church house, failures by those we trust, betrayals, cowardice -- these are great dangers in a time of awakening. We must guard against discouragement and being disheartened.

The standardbearers are neither perfect nor invulnerable. The banner is what must be upheld and looked to, not the ones who bear it. Our standard is Jehovah-Nissi (Exodus 17:15). Our God does reign.

Getting A Handle On It

 Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots!  Does the clay say to him who forms it, What are you making? or Your work has no handles?

Woe to him who says to a father, What are you begetting? or to a woman, With what are you in labor?

Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? -- Isaiah 45:9-11

Are we going to tell God what to do with our lives or ask Him why He has made us the way we are, or why He has allowed the things into our lives that He has? 

I’ll admit that it seems presumptuous for the pot to ask why the potter has not added handles.  As the hillbillies used to say, It’s a shame I wasn’t born rich instead of so good-looking.  God did not put handles on us because we are not the kind that has to be carried around.  We are the waiting and holding kind, the pot that rests on the shelf, ready to receive what the handled pot brings in.  Or we are the kind with handles, and we envy our fellow pots that never get dragged out into the field or down to the water with all the risks of damage and breakage.  We may be the kind that gets lowered again and again into the cold, black pit to draw forth from the well of sorrows. 

We look around and wonder, What has been sown?  What is coming forth?  Where is the plan in this?  Where’s the kingdom? 

On the one hand, I believe God says, “Sit down; shut up; hang on.”  That applies more to the overall situation.  Remember the end of John’s Gospel, where Peter asks, “Lord, what about this man?” (John 21:21), and Jesus replies, “…[W]hat is that to you?  You follow Me!” 

Yet the Lord had just spoken to Peter of what he would do and even how he would die following his Master.  God always seems willing enough to speak with us and reveal to us those things that we need to know.  He will give us the visions and the dreams that will motivate and encourage and prepare us for the work to which we are called.  He assures, and He reassures.  He listens to us, and He responds to our cries for mercy, help, grace, and strength. 

The relationship between God and man is not one sided.  We are not merely tools in His hands, but sons and daughters working cooperatively and creatively.  I would like to think that, once in a while, maybe once in a lifetime, I might do something Good without being told to.  I think that would make God smile.     

Keys

And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.  -- Jeremiah 18:4

I suppose I have always read this as saying, more or less, “God is in control.”  And He is.  He’s the potter; we’re the clay.  He can do with us as He pleases.  Nevertheless, He allows us to decide how it is going to be:

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.  And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

This is repeated by other prophets, notably Ezekiel, but the thing here is that it occurs within a passage that has a flavor of predestination. 

Over the weekend, I was praying Psalm 32.  In verses 8 and 9, the Lord responds to David saying, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.  Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. “

Yes, the Lord can beat a person like a rented mule to get their attention.  He can make our lives so miserable that we may feel that we have no choice except to obey.  He’d prefer not to.  He invites us to be close to Him.  He has made every provision possible for us to abide with Him, and He with us.  He knocks, and all we have to do is ask Him in.  The one thing that will prevent that is our own stubbornness. 

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, knew what was coming to his people.  He pleaded over and over for them to hear and to repent.  They remained defiant.  They resisted the calling of the Lord to change, to repent, and to receive forgiveness.     

“Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’   But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” (Jeremiah 18:11-12)

We want to exalt the sovereignty of God.  We want to glory in His omnipotence and rejoice in the fact that He rules and reigns over all things, that He has a hand in even the most mundane aspects of our lives.  I understand the motivation and the thinking of those who minimize man and maximize God.  Man is nothing compared to God.  But the Lord makes us something.  That, too, is His glory, that He willingly and in love hands to men the keys of the kingdom.  He says, “What you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.”  (Matthew 16:19)  Here are the keys of history.  Here are the keys to the potent force on earth.  Here are the keys to life, and to death.  Take care how you choose. 

From Useless to Useful

[B]ut I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will.  -- Philemon 1:14

There is not much virtue in our doing what we are obligated or compelled to do.  Jesus spoke of the Roman law that said a soldier could compel a civilian to carry his pack a mile.  At the mile marker, the bearer had a choice to put down the load or to carry it on to the next marker.  If he chooses to continue, the bearer has another choice, for he can go the extra mile out of defiance and pride, or out of a Christ-like love for the man whose pack he carries. 

It won’t look much different on the outside.  The soldier may not respond positively.  He may not care one way or the other.  He may be suspicious of the bearer’s motives.  The burden-bearer has no control over the other person’s reactions in the near term or over time.   

However, the person who is willing to be meek and whose genuine desire is to love others will find that he is moving away from self and toward truth.  Following Jesus means dying to self.  A defiant, arrogant person – such as I am naturally – has all kinds of trouble with meekness and humility, and even love.  A situation in which I am humbled to some degree is an opportunity to embrace the character of Christ by faith and hamstring the old nature. 

The story of Paul’s letter to Philemon began when a slave named Onesimus – the name means “useful” – ran away from his master, Philemon, thereby becoming “useless”.  Paul himself makes the wordplay on the name in verse eleven.  Somehow, Onesimus came into contact with Paul and became a Christian.  Paul is sending the letter to Philemon by the hand of this runaway.  I could wish we had recorded for our edification the contents of the conversation between Paul and Onesimus in which the latter was convinced to return to his master. 

Both men must face the challenge of putting down the old nature and responding in Christ to one another.  Philemon has been wronged.  We have Paul’s testimony of his Christian character.  He is unlikely to have been harsh or unreasonable with his servant.  Onesimus was likely discontented and rebellious.  Perhaps he fled because he had stolen from his master.  It reminds me a little of how Jean Valjean’s theft of silverware from the virtuous Bishop Myriel transformed his life in Les Miserables. 

The one who has done the wrong and the one who was wronged, now being brothers in Christ, must be reconciled to one another, putting the old relationship and the old way of interacting into the past.  They will go back to being master and slave in one sense.  However, Onesimus will now be acting and serving out of the love of Christ for his master, and Philemon will receive the service and respond in turn more as a father to his once-wayward son. 

I am not capable of understanding all the theological concepts involved.  Concretely and pragmatically, I know that Jesus has set the example and provided me with the power to live and act in accordance with God’s will and purpose.  If free will is not a reality then all of Christianity is a cosmic joke.  Virtue, obedience, and goodness do not really exist for us. 

But we know they do exist, and that acting out of love is the path to heaven, rough at times, always strait and narrow, sometimes with precipices on either side, but always true, and, however winding, always carrying us nearer to the heart of God.

What Pleases God

Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him. – 2 Samuel 10:12

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.  -- Psalm 115:3

The verse from Second Samuel is a statement by David’s general, Joab.  If I had been writing the Bible, I would probably have left Joab out or at least left out some of his contradictions and complexities.  As it is, the character fascinates me.  I may have said this before.  As best I can tell, Joab is kinfolk -- David’s nephew, the son of David’s sister Zeruiah (1 Chronicles 2:16).  Joab seems very often to know the will and ways of God better than David and is unfailingly loyal.  He is also vengeful, conniving, and ambitious.  He is both a courageous warrior and a pragmatic, cold-blooded politician. 

Here we see an example of Joab who believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The Ammonites had foolishly provoked Israel to battle.  Joab when out to fight them only to find that they had multiplied their forces by hiring the Syrians, surrounding the army of Israel.  Rather than panic, Joab divided his forces, putting some of the army under command of his brother, Abishai, to attack the Ammonites while he, with a handpicked cadre, would assault the Syrians.  In the end, Joab was wise enough to reckon that “the battle is the Lord’s”. 

If God is going to do “all that He pleases”, what is our responsibility?  Why should we worry about anything?  We were pointing in the previous post that worry is needless.  Does that mean there is no part for us to play?  Moses held up his staff and the sea parted.  Did Moses do that?  Moses did his part.  Joshua and the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days, blew their trumpets and the walls fell down.  Who knocked down those walls?  Joshua did his part.  Gideon and his three hundred broke their pitchers, blew their trumpets and shouted, and the Midianites fell into confusion, slaughtered one another and fled.  Gideon did his part.  David faced Goliath and slung a stone.  Joab and his army attacked. 

I trust God to provide for me, but I get up every morning and go to work.  If I wanted to find a job, I’d trust God, but I’d also go out and look for one.  God doing what he pleases and our doing what we can are not contradictory concepts.  God’s sovereignty does not interdict man’s free will and responsibility.  He did not create puppets but people, and what He really wants is for us to delight to do His will. 

I am afraid that one of the reasons Joab has such a strong appeal for me is that I am too much like him.  Loyalty and courage are the two virtues I admire almost more than any.  I'm actually pretty good at loyalty.  I could never call myself brave, but I would like to if I could.  Love, by contrast, seems almost self-serving because the one who loves gains so much joy from it.  Love ought to hurt – as it sometimes does.  People should -- more to the point, God should respect my self-sacrifice and unselfishness.  That seems right to me.  Nevertheless, I am wrong.  In “The Weight of Glory” Lewis says: 

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness.  But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love.  … The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.  I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. 

It irks a part of me that God does not recognize Joab as the better man.  Joab is out doing what needs to be done, stabbing people and cutting throats.  David is nearly a sissy by comparison -- whining around about all the blood shed for his benefit, just about swooning before God.  He loved God, praised and served Him for the pure joy he found doing so.  To Joab, the Lord was someone to appease and, usually, obey rather than someone in whom to delight.  Yes, I am wrong.  

David was flawed, often weak and prone to mistakes of misplaced empathy, mercy, and compassion.  Yet, in this, he is more like God, closer to the heart of God than old canny, practical Joab me.