2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Friends,
Christmas cards, particularly ones with letters and personal messages in them, are always a welcome arrival at our house. I read those messages, feeling blessed that our friends are willing to share the last year of their lives with us. Some of them begin these messages with an apology for boasting or boring us. If these people only knew how very interested we are in what goes on with them, they would never feel the need to apologize again. One such letter may have been God’s way of encouraging me to look at what His attitude is about how we should share our lives with others.
I went to the Scriptures in an effort to better understand God’s attitude and found some lessons in them that I would like to share with you. What God had put in David’s mind about this is revealed in PS 34. PS 34: 1-3, “I will always thank the Lord. I will never stop praising Him. I will praise Him for what He has done; may all who are oppressed listen and be glad! Proclaim with me the Lord’s greatness; let us praise His name together.” What a great way for us to begin a letter! If I must write to someone who doesn’t share our faith, it is my belief that God challenges me to find a way to do this without offending my reader. But, I think He wants me to do it just the same. In David’s prayer we can see God’s sovereignty, compassion, and desire for us to have the hope that comes from faith.
We can learn more about God’s attitude in Isaiah 10. At this time God, through Isaiah, is telling the Jews of the southern kingdom of Judah His view of the events of the Assyrian captivity of the northern kindgom of Israel already in progress. He is also prophesying what will happen to them if they don’t give up their sinful ways. (5) “The Lord said, ‘ Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry.” (11) “I have destroyed Samaria and all of its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshipped there.” (13) “The Emperor of Assyria boasts, ‘I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled the people who live there.” The obvious lesson in these citations is that God hates idolatry. However, there is another lesson that is also here. God wants us to understand His supremacy, omnipotence, sovereignty, and compassion too. He also wants us to understand that we have a responsibility to respond appropriately to His sovereignty. That He is punishing and not obliterating the Jews for their iniquity, demonstrates His love for His people and unwillingness to give up on them. I believe He feels the same compassion for all who have faith in Him. Frankly, it’s comforting to have a Sovereign with that attitude on my side!
God’s attitude about boasting is very clear in the book of Daniel. Daniel sees a vision of four beasts in DN 7. His comments in DN 7: 8 about the fourth beast are particularly revealing. “While I was staring at the horns [the beast had 10 of them], I saw a little horn coming up amongst the others. It tore out three of the horns that were already there. This horn had human eyes and a mouth that was boasting proudly.” Later in DN 11, we begin to see that this little horn symbolized the cruel and audacious Selucid despot, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 BC) who was anti-Semitic and wanted nothing more than to assimilate the Jews into the Greek culture causing their culture and faith to disappear from the scene entirely. It was he who, in 168 BC after usurping control of the temple in Jerusalem, caused a swine to be sacrificed on its highest altar. That event, known as the Abomination of Desolation, was the greatest affront that could have been leveled at the Jews. DN 11: 36 reveals God’s attitude toward this boaster. “The king of Syria will do as he pleases. He will boast that he is greater than any god, superior even to the Supreme God. He will be able to do this until the time when God punishes him. God will do exactly what He has planned.” History tells us that it wasn’t too long before this boaster was off the scene permanently. Of significance to us is that Antiochus IV Epiphanes is an archetype of the antichrist yet to come. Daniel reveals in DN 2 : 34-35 that the antichrist will meet the same fate. This prophesy is supported in Revelation.
In Romans 2, God shows us that hypocrisy is also unacceptable in the way we share our lives with others, when he speaks through Paul about the traditional Jews of Paul’s day. RO 2: 23-24 “You boast about having God’s law, but do you bring shame on God by breaking His law? The Scripture [IS 52: 5] says, ‘Because of you Jews, the Gentiles speak evil of God.’ “ It is my belief that God wants as many people to be saved as possible. In His infinite wisdom He knows that we can’t encourage faith in others if we are hypocrites in the way we share our lives with others. So, that is why He wants us to learn from the mistakes of others revealed in the Bible. Just think, God loves you enough to entrust you with His greatest gift, the Gospel, and believes in you enough that He is counting on you to share it faithfully and accurately.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, God’s attitude is further revealed. EPH 2: 9, “For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift so that no one can boast about it.” Another way of looking at this is seen in 2 COR 10: 15 when Paul is defending his ministry and discussing the work that the early Christians have done. “So, we do not boast about the work that has been done beyond the limits of what God set for us. Instead, we hope that your faith may grow and that we may be able to do a much greater work among you, always within the limit God has set.” We can learn a valuable lesson from a man who was a truly great “bondservant of Christ set apart for the Gospel” [Paul], that understanding the limits of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility to it is crucial to our very salvation. His epistles reflect that repeatedly.
PRAYER: O Lord, we praise You for your faithfulness and thank You for making the lessons available to us that You reveal in Your Word. Guide us to keep Your sovereignty and our responsibility to it in mind when we share our lives with others. Help us to be faith-builders in those lives. In Christ’s name, amen.
My purpose in sharing these lessons with you is not to frighten you into refusing to write letters in your Christmas cards. It is to show you how very blessed our lives can be when we are willing to submit to God’s sovereignty over them. As we get ready to commemorate the birth of His Son and enter the new year, take joy in knowing that Your loving Abba has a totally righteous agenda for you. I know if you will put your trust in Him, you will find the greatest joy available in the end, the joy that comes from having faith.
On a personal note, Dear Readers, my very wise husband has asked me to take a break from writing these messages from Christmas day until the day after New Years day (one week), so that I may spend some time with our son and his fiancee who are coming for a visit from CA and to recharge my batteries. If God leads me to write during that week, I will, but please don’t think that I’m quitting. It is my promise that you will begin receiving my messages again right after the New Years day. Peter joins me in sending our love and warmest wishes for the holidays.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn