Job's Confession of Faith.

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. (Job 19:25)

Previously in this chapter, Job was wallowing in self pity with the realization that his servants no longer answer his call, his family and friends want nothing to do with him and even his wife is detested by the mere sight of him. 

The desperateness of his circumstances turns Job from his current thinking to the comfort of his Redeemer.

We should remember that through troubles and during times of celebration, our Redeemer (Jesus Christ) lives and continues to love us daily.

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. (Psalm 31:24) ~KW

Fear or faith?

(A summary of this past Sunday's lesson on the unlikely hero of Gideon.)

In a culture where there are hand sanitizer pumps everywhere (and we are encouraged to use them!) we are in fear of contact with germs. We wear bike helmets, because we fear getting in a wreck and hitting our heads. We don’t eat French fries very often for fear we will clog our arteries and have a heart attack. We are a society controlled by our fears. We look toward fear more often than we look toward God.

This past Sunday we learned about a man named Gideon who was (by most standards) a very unlikely hero. Gideon was hand picked by the Lord to lead the Israelites into victory against the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples, who had consistently raided them every harvest for seven years. Gideon, who also looked toward fear, questioned God’s choice and pointed out why he was the worst man for the job.

Gideon used the excuses that he was from the smallest tribe, from the least of the families and the youngest in his family

Still God wanted Gideon, because he had big plans for this unlikely hero. God showed Gideon in many ways how he would defeat the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples. God patiently walked with Gideon from a life of fear to a life of faith.

Fear is defined as the distressing emotion we experience when we realize that the circumstances are beyond our control.

We experience fear (just as Gideon did) when we experience situations over which we have little control or when we are forced to step outside of our comfort zones. Living in fear is safe – but boring.

Conversely, faith is looking to God and living in response to Who He is.

The great theologian, A.W. Tozer once stated that faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief [fear] has put self where God should be…Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line.

God was in the process of proving Himself to Gideon by whittling down his army and his resources to less then ten percent of that of the Midianites, Amalekites and the other eastern peoples. God wanted Gideon to realize that the only way victory would come to the Israelites was through their faith in Him. God was removing any of Gideon’s advantages and self-reliance and forcing him to have faith in God as the army moved forward to defeat their adversaries.

Gideon’s 300 men who had faith in God were more powerful than the other 31,700 who were looking toward self and only found fear.

In the midst of humanly impossible circumstances that were outside of the control of Gideon and his men, they marched forward with faith. If they had allowed fear to control them, they would have gone back home to their caves and their holes in the mountain. Instead, their faith in God drove them forward to victory!

So what can we learn from all of this?

Take Away 1: Fear blames God while faith obeys God. 

Take Away 2: Fear is self-reliant while faith is God reliant. 

Take Away 3: Fear will paralyze while faith will mobilize. 

Take Away 4: Fear turns us into control freaks while faith allows God to have control. 

Take Away 5: Fear stunts growth while faith produces growth. 

Take Away 6: Fear keeps us safe while faith takes us to dangerous places.

Max Lucado has stated that when fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. When safety becomes our god, we worship the risk-free life. The worship of safety emasculates greatness. 

Gideon was an unlikely hero because he moved from a life of fear to a life of faith. We wouldn’t know anything about him if he had continued to live a cowardly life in fear.

As Christians, we will go through troubling, uncertain and difficult times. Make no mistake, we should not ignore fear, but we should also not let it control us. As followers of Christ, our lives are not defined by the absence of such circumstances. Instead, our lives are defined by how we respond in such circumstances…

Either give into fear, or turn toward faith. ~MP

A Dog Named Benny and Sin.

I have the greatest dog ever. I am not one of those sappy, love is blind owners. I really have the greatest dog ever. Benny is about 100 lbs and gentle as a bunny rabbit—but scares the crud out of anyone looking at him or hearing him. I leave the family every night for work, thankful for Benny. Benny has never messed in the house. Benny knows not to beg at the table; he’s not even allowed in the kitchen if anyone is eating, and knows it. Benny has never had fleas. This last summer, both of our girls rode a horse at Grandmas. Benny barked at the horse and followed every step—he wasn’t going to let that horse hurt his girls. My only complaint with Benny is the likelihood of replacing him; every dog after him will never be as good.

A while back, I took a metal chain and choked Benny about as hard as I could. It strangled him. He was coughing and shaking it off for quite some time. Hours later, his bark still didn’t sound right. He couldn’t believe it and (I think) was thinking about fighting back. He avoided me for some time; didn’t want anything to do with me. I am glad I did it. If given the chance, I’d do it again with no hesitation.

Now to 2 Kings 23:12-16. This is some classic Old Testament. Good guys kill the bad guys….and kill them a lot. People get wiped out all over the place in the OT.

(Take some time right now to turn in your Bible and read 2 Kings 23:12-16. Go ahead. This blog post will still be here when you get back.)

To put it in context, Josiah is the King of Judah trying to return to God who has forbidden any worship of any other false gods. He is the One True God and He is jealous. Josiah, is cleaning house. And literally cleaning his family’s house—its his dad and grandfather who instituted these “vile” and “detestable” religions. And if you didn’t catch it, he’s breaking their altars, sacred places, and killing the leaders. To top it off, he’s even digging up old dead guys that followed these pagan gods, and throwing their bones on top of the old sites. Something tells me that ole Josiah may have even set up some port-a-lets on site….like I said, classic OT.

I think one of the biggest problems with our understanding the Bible is that everything is so far away. Stories like this are in another part of the world. They come from an entirely different culture. And they are even in a whole different era of time. And because it’s the Bible and everything is not only far away, but far away in so many different ways, it’s easy to write off the people in the stories as crazy or just alien.

The followers of these other religions were not just people with different views or opinions. The cult of Ashtoreth forced every woman to offer her body at the high place, whether she was young, old, married, or single. The god Chemosh only asked for human sacrifice on big events or for favor.

And Molech was the worst. The followers of Molech were told the only way to right their wrongs was by offering their children to Molech. Molech was always a bronze statue with a hollow bottom. Sometimes the arms were outstretched in a cradling form or the chest was hollowed out. A fire was built in the lower half and fed until the statue was red hot. Then the children were put in the “loving” arms of Molech—to sear to death, not just burn, but sear and scald. Ceremonies were always incredibly loud. They played music loudly to drown out the screams.

Father, God, I pray that Josiah wiped out every priest of Molech. God I pray not another sacrifice ever be made. God I pray for a complete extinction of Molech.

So, at first reading, Josiah comes off a little crazy, a little violent, and a tad unforgiving. He falls in line with the violence of the OT and the extremeness of it all. What is there here for us? I have a couple thoughts:
 

Thought 1: God will one day judge everything and right every wrong. If you have been on this little mud ball called Earth for any time, then you’ve had that ache, that weariness of the world. This is an ugly place and praise be to God, that He will one day take us away from all the ugly, nasty things. The longer that I’ve walked with God, the more I’ve ached for His return. Let’s get out of this nasty place, grab the kids and go home to Our Father.

Thought 2: God is not afraid to take extreme measures to save us from sin. In Mark 9 Jesus tells us its better to cut off a sinful hand or pluck out a sinful eye, than to lose your whole body to sin. He is using hyperbole to make His point: if SIN = DEATH, then we must avoid sin at any and all costs. When God saves us, it’s not always gentle.

Earlier, I choked Benny because he had stepped off the curb into the path of a car moving at 45 mph. He had no idea what was coming. He had no way of knowing what would or could happen. And I did not have the luxury of sitting him down and calmly explaining everything. I yanked him by his collar as hard and fast as I could. At this point in my life, I know that God rarely explains why He yanks us. But I have the promise that He does it out of love and for my own good.

Thought 3: Realize that SIN BLINDS. Alcoholics don’t realize how bad it has gotten. Gamblers just know that eventually they will win—and that will make everything ok. Liars think their lies are harmless. We all start out with a conscience; we all have the Holy Spirit telling us right from wrong. But sin severs our connection to God. And the longer a sin festers in our hearts and lives, the more and more we get off base from God’s standards. You have a gauge. Sin will break your gauge. It’s easy to see this in others. I know a guy who has looked at porn most of his life. It’s no surprise to me that he makes lewd jokes that go too far—his gauge is broken. What looks like “pushing the envelope” is a sign of a deeper issue. He has no idea that a hidden sin has spilled out into his day to day life. There is a lot more of this than you would think. A Godly person using discernment sees this often.

Crazy and outlandish as worshiping Molech sounds, it made sense to those people. They were so far off, so far gone, they bought into it. We turn our eyes from atrocities everyday. We turn up the music nice and loud so that we don’t have to hear the screams.

It is so easy to take their dramatic example of sin and pat ourselves on the back for how evolved we are. But I could make a strong argument about our abortion laws and what we allow in our own town but a blog seems a bad venue for such a sensitive topic. I think I can guess Josiah’s opinion of what we do.

What to do: Do a sin inventory. What do YOU struggle with? What sin has had root in your heart for an extended period of time? How has that affected your gauge? Ask God to show you where your gauge is off. LOOK HARD. Addictions like sex, gambling, drinking, and drugs are easy to see and easy to critique. What about your anger or bitterness towards others? What about your compassion? Are you a servant of God or a servant of yourself? Sin is like a weed: it can die, but it like to grow back again and again, if given the chance. Only two things can remove it: Christ’s power on the cross and your wiliness. ~SK