Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
- Elizabeth Gilbert
Psalms in the Night…
With so many wonderful Biblical promises and powerful examples of God's interaction with mankind, see Psalms of Delight, Psalms in the Night are a way of exploring and sharing some of the difficult and challenging thoughts, feelings and experiences God's people encounter while endeavoring to fully enjoy His presence and power, protection and provision. In ever more genuine and meaningful ways. For themselves and their children, family and friends.
Psalms in the Night are written in concert with Psalms of Delight. Both series contain Modern Psalms meant to comfort and inspire those seeking the Omni-God revealed in Scripture.
Ultimate Question Summary
Psalms in the Night by Robert R. Pennington
When it comes to God, some are inclined to be more inquisitive than others. A percentage of these are looking to escape responsibility by pin pointing what seems to be Biblical errancy, untenable positions or unanswerable questions. Others, honestly desiring knowledge and understanding, find themselves stymied by the apparent silence and distance of God. Particular in the face of the imminent approach of eternity. Another tiny fraction of believers, fully appreciating the reasonableness of faith, making plodding progress, often hindered by a question not timidly asked or answered.
Ultimate Question
Modern Psalm in the Night 26
Today, as everyday for years, I began my strategic daily prayer with the following disclaimer, “Good morning Lord God Almighty, Creator of 200 billion trillion suns and perhaps a trillion trillion planted. Each sun born, existing and expiring as a consuming fire many reaching a million degrees and earth masses. Many orbiting super massive galactic black holes reaching billions of years of age, degrees and solar masses. All spread across a canopy with a growing observable diameter of 100 billion light years, theorized to have arisen from a singularity a million trillionth the size of a proton! In this the first and perhaps least of three heavens…”
Then I asked You for “permission to think and speak freely” realizing all too well that asking doesn’t automatically equate to receiving. As Omnity You’ve been thoroughly familiar with each of our thoughts and actions before the foundation of the world. You know how for some time I’ve considered the wisdom of writing down Christianity’s most precariously question, along with a handful of others surrounding Scripture’s rarely considered yet seemingly singular conundrum.
You know that prior to broaching such topics I’ve tried to lay an appropriate foundation. For decades I’ve carefully and cautiously identified the flaws of deficient gospels and the various versions of Christ they offer. I’ve noted our obvious issues with You as well as ubiquitous levels of temptation and deception, Me-ism and sin. I’ve mourned over Christianity’s deterioration into mere Churchianity. Over Biblical illiteracy and prayerlessness resulting in the promulgation of half a gospel or less, in turn culminating in a flagrant disregard for the kind of costly and radical discipleship required to daily carrying our cross as Christ demands.
I’ve reiterated the follies of immorality and abortion, inside and outside the church, along with Your discarded warnings regarding the Rich Young Ruler and Rich Man and Lazarus, Good Samaritan and Ten Virgins. I’ve freely admitted the dangerous proclivity I share with modern Christianity towards dualism and double-mindedness. I’ve continually and compassionately explained the potential and pitfalls of modern fellowship and worship. I’ve practiced and preached the crucial role of brokenness and repentance, sanctification and living faith.
With hell to loose and heaven to gain I’ve meditated deeply over Christ’s costly atonement and what we must do to be saved. I’ve contemplated the quantum nature of positional vs. conditional righteousness, corporate and personal sanctification. Appreciating the precariousness of our overall situation I’ve daily sought the love and mercy, faithfulness and glory of our awesome and awful Creator and Savior.
I’ve trumpeted the call to heed Scripture’s prophetic advice, our need to follow Your formula for repentance in hopes of sowing seeds for a true sacred assembly based on the missing virtue of the fear of God taught and exemplified by Christ and His apostles. More than most I’ve recognized our need of renewal and revival if not reformation, a New Pentecost, with an immediate global impact of a million “upper rooms.”
Before and after being ordained as a pastor I’ve spent decades in intercession, attending well over a thousand corporate prayer meetings. Mindful of Christ’s parables of the friend who comes at midnight and the persistent widow, I’ve endeavored to answer yes to Jesus’ question, “But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?” Practicing in hopes of developing spiritual sensitivity, I’ve waited on and wrestled with You for real time answers to prayer, hopeful of discerning the difference between the working definition of insanity and perseverance.
Honest enough to admit Your silence and distance, I recognize we seem to be off-line. With so many of our blessings cursed and judgment all but imminent, I’ve fasted and humbled myself praying we might realize Your presence and power, provision and protection. Seeking a full if not overflowing restoration of the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Banking on mercy triumphing over judgment, I’ve worked hard on approaching You. Thankful that You take no pleasure in the death of the wicked and aren’t willing any should perish I’m also cognizant that outside exclusions for children and possibly the poor, many, if not most are.
Which brings me to the horns of our dilemma. Isn’t such a slaughter all but spiritual humanicide? As Christ warned:
- “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV
So, after tens of thousands of hours of strategically seeking and serving You, including authoring thousands of modern proverbs and psalms, articles and books, I’m compelled to delve deeper. For better or worse to once and for all please allow me to identify what I believe is the principal plight of mankind, clearly stating my ultimate concern. To in the spirit of Jeremiah’s lament and Habukkuk’s complaint risk writing that at which I’ve so often poked and prodded. To with all due respect voice my objection to what appears to be a central aspect of Your plan for the ages as revealed by Scripture’s history of eternity. All the while, like Peter fully acknowledging, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” On behalf of all of us, particularly those bereft of enough spiritual insight to pose the question, at this late hour allow me to press You as Jesus suggested in the story of the beggar who comes at midnight:
- “Then he said, “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’ “The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I can’t get up to give you anything.’ “But let me tell you, even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need. “Here’s what I’m saying: Ask and you’ll get; Seek and you’ll find; Knock and the door will open.” Luke 11:5-9 MSG
Context of Scripture
Since the bulk of my complaint deals largely with the past, present and future impact of heaven’s angelic rebellion on mankind, one last disclaimer. You alone know the true degree that the insurrection in eternity has and continues to devastate humanity. Few among the clergy, much less laity, remotely give the Devil his due, nor are they aware of a tenth of the recklessness and ruin directly and indirectly attributable to the influence of the spirit of the antichrist and demonic resistance. Nonetheless, it’s my intent to circumvent two errors of which Scripture warns. Namely, the reviling of angelic majesties and/or obsession regarding them:
- “Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong.” 2 Peter 2:10-13 NAS
- “In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.” Jude 1:8-10 NIV
- “Stay right there on top of things so that the teaching stays on track. Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience.” 1 Tim 1:4 MSG
- “Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.” Colossians 2:18-19 MSG
- “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 NASB
- “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” 2 Timothy 2:24-26 NKJV
- “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
- “To keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions.” 2 Corinthians 2:11 AMP
- “In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [be empowered through your union with Him]; draw your strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides]. Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil. For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.” Ephesians 6:10-12 AMP
- “[God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross].” Colossians 2:15 AMP
- “But the [Holy] Spirit distinctly and expressly declares that in latter times some will turn away from the faith, giving attention to deluding and seducing spirits and doctrines that demons teach…” 1 Timothy 4:1 AMP
- “[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done].” 1 John 3:8 AMP
Having made a case for cautiously approaching You, I ask to be allowed to do so with this most weighty of matters. Simply put, our Enemy, the same great Archangel You allowed to instigate heavenly rebellion without summary judgment and imprisonment, the same angelic insurrection You in incredible Divine restraint have yet to fully quell, is clearly proving too great for the likes of we mere mortals in general and even those making up the rank and file of modern Christianity. This is clearly the case, even offered the empowerment of the Holy Sprit as in the apostle John’s encouragement, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” And why, with such exceedingly great and precious promises, should mankind, including Churchianity continually be spiritually decimated? Because of the overwhelming mismatch between fallen angels and humanity. A tragic narrative compounded by the fact that all Your gracious offers are contingent on the degree were are authentically “of God.”
In these last days Satanic temptation and deception are so ubiquitous that, from the greatest to the least, billions stand in eternal peril. Ever increasing levels of Biblical illiteracy and prayerlessness, Me-ism and sin all attest to the reality that “believers” are becoming practical agnostics in droves and detractors increasingly brazen and belligerent.
Militant Opposition
Case in point Dr. Richard Dawkins. Earning five doctorates and awarded five more, mankind’s most outspoken critic slanders Your name with bellicose boldness: "Yahweh: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." — Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
Dr. Dawkins' opinion regarding Christ's' costly atonement fares little better: "I have described the atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity as vicious, sadomasochistic and repellant. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for it's ubiquitous familiarity having dulled our objectivity."
In all honesty, when it comes to escalating levels of unbelief in the God of the Bible, Dawkins as chief protagonist seems to hit the nail on the head. His ravings against Yahweh are telling, particularly his use of the two key words “unpleasant” and “fiction.”
As to the latter, he is quite correct to place such emphasis on whether Omnity’s existence is fact or fantasy. Yet, in doing so he and all atheists are disingenuous. Those diligently seeking answers to the ultimate issues posed by life and death soon find faith not only reasonable but crucial when faced with the absolute and scientific certainty of the existence of God. A fact, in part demonstrated by the fantastic fine tuning and astounding intricacies of actual intelligent design. Including amazing scientific discoveries described millennia ago in Biblical passages regarding astronomy and physics, biology and human origins, earth science and understanding the universe.
Such overwhelming evidence is augmented by the simple fact that for anything to exist, it must have either been created, created itself, or possess self existence (one of the five attributes of Divinity). Such rationale holds true for everything from the tiniest particle of matter to an infinite number of universes to Omnity itself. Self evident, this undeniable proof of Your existence is easily demonstrated by the simplest possible math equation: 0 + 0 = 0.
All such reasoning is unceremoniously jettisoned by the word “fiction.” In doing so, the foundation of all following religious rationale is skewed if not twisted and inverted. And this confidently done by infinitesimal mortal beings, the entire species of which are best described as a mist, here in the morning and burnt off by mid morning.' Thinking feeling sinful reeds to whom a little water added or withheld may mean life or death. Soulish spirits in bloody meatcycles on skeletal sticks, 'fearfully and wonderfully made' yet with little or no concern over the demands of our Maker to be obedient, productive and thankful. All this, even though for the most part we are born between feces and urine and for all our pomp will die as dogs.
In this and during countless other similar accusations, there is no substantively reasonable offering of a competing theory. For example, in Ben Stein's revealing interview at the end of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" when pressed on where a planet capable of possessing the miracle of human life came from, Dawkins admitted the agnostic community's best guess might be aliens. Even when it was pointed out that without being God, such intelligent designers or their forbearers would themselves have to have evolved from nothing through solely naturalistic means, he failed to acknowledge the obvious paradox.
I’m hopeful You welcome honest scrutiny of such significant subjects. Yet given the perpetual and intensifying pressure of sin within, without and above, hundreds of millions of our best and brightest are dismissing the relevance if not the very concept of God. Still, the mystery and challenge of Your apparent distance and silence notwithstanding, such out of hand dismissal flies in the face of mankind’s perilous situation as well as evidence for Divine Biblical inspiration that demands a verdict.
Ignoring the impossibility of the existence of anything without an original source of causation being causeless, and thus self existent and Divine, is a dubious act of faith. One billions of atheist and agnostics choose, too blithely dismissing any responsibility to know and please You. Tragically, to prematurely jeopardize eternity in the name of enlightenment for the sake of a few decades of modest self determinism, pleasure and gain is the height of foolishness.
Evidence of Your existence can also be reinforced philosophically by simple and honest reasoning:
1. Either God exists or doesn’t: If so, wisdom warrants continued investigation. If not even Scripture suggests we “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
2. Either God is knowable or isn’t: If so, wisdom warrants continued investigation. If not let us “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
3. Either God is good or isn’t: If so, wisdom warrants continued investigation. If not, we may attempt placating Divinity or simply “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
4. Either God has been revealed or hasn’t: If so, wisdom warrants continued investigation. If not, let us “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
5. Either the Bible is God’s revelation or isn’t: If so, it greatly behooves humanity to continue investigating. To corporately and individually seek to know and serve the Creator and Savior. If not, given the myriad of vastly lessor candidates mankind is up a creek without a canoe much less paddle.
While the afore mentioned substantiations adequately demonstrate Omnity’s existence, additional evidence along the lines previously mentioned is needed to move from agnostic to Christian.
Furthermore, such analysis in and of itself means less and less to those enamored with the undeniably impressive impact of scientific advancements. Ironically, these very gifts are from You, yet the net effect has been an untethering from the harsher realities of life. So much so as to temporarily disperse concerns over identifying, much less pleasing, any so called Creator. A position billions consider strengthened by insights into the evolutionary process. Yet neither theories or technological progress could ever disprove Intelligent design which has little or nothing to do with the mechanism You used to plan and guide the miraculous appearance of simple, much less sentient earthly life. Examples of which are well documented by organizations like “Reasons To Believe” who make a compelling case for the integration of general revelation (the record of nature) with Old Earth creationism’s place in special revelation (the Scriptures).
Dr. Dawkins primary point, beyond God being fiction, is the use of the word “unpleasant” with a most poignant description: “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Had to look up a word or two, but it’s hard not to get the gist. Placed in this fearful and wonderful place, being fearfully and wonderfully made, we live fearful and/or wonderful lives, facing either a most fearful or wonderful eternity. Modern Christianity’s inappropriately intimate worship notwithstanding, Your apparent distance is disheartening and silence deafening. Billions are casualties or POWs of a loosing battle with sin above, about and within. Spiritually shell shocked, whether we admit it or not we all have serious concerns regarding Your fairness and goodness, just two of several serious issues mankind has with Omnity.
This is the main reason Your all time best seller, six billion copies, all too often sits around gathering dust. Alienated or angry with You millions if not billions of “believers” along with their secular counterparts daily give You the cold shoulder through prayerlessness and Biblically illiteracy. Others, caring enough to read or listen through the Bible every year or two, ignore or cringe at Scripture’s obvious and/or implied destructive tendencies. For example the ethnic extermination You command against people groups during the Hebrews exodus from a devastated Egypt and throughout their conquest of Canaan. An equal opportunity Destroyer, centuries later You do all but the same to Israel, and then the Babylonians, whom You used to scourge and scatter Your disobedient people.
And it’s not just the passages skimming over millennia of incalculable pain and death. It’s the parade of Books of the Bible announcing Your intentions with torturous detail. Chapter after chapter, warnings and threats are mixed with Your prophet’s prayers and pleas for repentance, all falling first on deaf and then dead ears. A student of prophecy, from my 21st century vantage point I recognized a downward spiral of Divine judgments and decrees rolling like thunder and lightning backward and forwards throughout human history. Each storm growing in strength, more troubling and terrible than the last.
Dawkin’s “unpleasant” seems a euphemism indeed. Yet, for those unwilling to prematurely throw God out with the bathwater, it’s only half the story. Scripture also reveals Your an equal opportunity Creator and Savior, taking no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The Bible explains that Your not willing that any perish but that all should come to the knowledge of truth, repentance and salvation:
- “Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?" Ezekiel 33:10-11 MSG
- “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-4 NIV
- "The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people's conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering, extraordinarily patient toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 AMP
- “The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing. The Messiah’s Spirit let them in on some of it—that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when. All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves—through the Holy Spirit—the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!” 1 Peter 1:10-12 MSG
Costly Atonement
Even more inconceivable than Christ’s incarnation is His incalculable costly atonement. Given Divine justice demands the penalty of sin be paid in full, God the Son became sin, drinking to the dregs mankind’s cup of wrath that we might become the righteousness of God:
- "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:6-11 NIV
- “Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.” He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood." Luke 22:39-44 NIV
- "God has made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21
- "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Galatians 3:13
- "After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:11-12
- "For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Romans 5:10-11
- "For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s." 1 Corinthians 6:20
- "Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets." Colossians 2:14-15 The Message
The eternal rewards and everlasting punishments humanity faces in eternity are well documented. Clearly Christ purchased mankind's redemption at great cost. While the Bible's clear on the Who and why, the how is somewhat sketchy. The exact price tag may well have included experiencing the full individual penalty of sin on behalf of every human being:
For both rebel angels and men, the full penalty for sin against God and His creation is eternity in the Lake of Fire. The above graphs both represent the same volume of suffering. The first is a finite level of pain, as experienced in resurrected bodies confined in the Lake of Fire for an infinite duration. A horrific eternal fate that Scripture reveals awaits lost members of creation. Angelic and human. The second is an infinite level of pain over a finite duration. As may have been experienced by Christ the Creator/Savior. An inscrutable act of Divine mercy and grace, purchasing life from the dead for all mankind, and everlasting salvation for the redeemed.
Modern physics allows for the possibility of God the Son exhausting the equivalent torment of billions suffering horrifying, yet limited pain for eternity, by accessing multiple dimensions of time.
Hardened skeptics scoff at such rationale as circular or nonsensical. Not so for those honest and humble enough to admit that we’re working with only 2-3lbs of decaying brain matter grasping for truth during lifespans of less than an eternal yoctosecond. Humanity’s weakness juxtaposed against the size and age, dynamics and majesty of the cosmos, much less their glorious and awe-ful Creator, clearly reveal “our thoughts are not Your thoughts nor our ways Your ways.”
Thus if Scripture is true, the Gospel is by far the greatest story ever told:
- “This is what makes you so great, Master God! There is none like you, no God but you, nothing to compare with what we’ve heard with our own ears.” 2 Samuel 7:22 MSG
- “We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—What God has arranged for those who love him. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. “ 1 Corinthians 2:6-13 MSG
And so it goes. You are and dwell in unapproachable light far above all need or reproach, while:
1. Holy and fallen angels, walking the resplendent yet somewhat dysfunctional golden streets of heaven, armed for war.
2. Mankind, largely children of wrath, store up wrath against the day of judgment.
Solving either of the these two problems are ends enough to justify the means of redemption’s plan. Particularly in regards to heaven’s unfallen citizenry, no doubt in need of Divine anesthesia provided by God the Son’s incomprehensibly costly incarnation and atonement, necessary prior to excising so great a cancer as the Lucifer’s rebellion. Few appreciate the traumatic shockwaves summery judgment and expulsion to the Lake of Fire of such glorious beings would have sent rippling throughout eternity. It may well have proved catastrophic to have heaven’s unspeakably eternal bliss shattered by premature war among such ancient and advanced angelic majesties, who for eons enjoyed a love and unity the likes of which humans can hardly imagine.
So it appears our universe, Scripture’s first heaven, was created for the purpose of populating earth. Earth, in turn, to provide a proving ground for culminating the trial of rebel angels, as well as dealing with it’s overflow indelibly marring mankind. Mankind, as both evidence and witness, furnishing the means and meaning for Christ’s incarnation and triumph over Satan and sin. Atonement, both wherewithal and weapon, to forever punish Your foes and reward Your friends. Redeemed humanity, recompense and angelic replacement through a share in Christ’s triumph over principalities and powers.
Under such extraordinary circumstance we live, move and have our being. Creatures of extremely limited and fleeting free will. Pieces on a three tier chess board, hardly able to perceive even the most basic of moves and then only for a moment of time on a tiny fraction of earth’s playing field. All but clueless, we hardly know who we are or where we come from, much less were we are going. Twisted sideways, backwards and upside-down, we stand pitted against unseen forces and realities. All this spiritually discerned by few, even as everything hidden is about to come crashing into reality as we know it and You prepare to melt all that we’ve begun to know in fervent heat.
Little wonder that some or Your decisions boarder on the inexplicable. Take for example one of the Old Testament’s most problematic passages. Your command of the vengeful slaughtering of Midianites by Israel on their way to cross the Jordan where they would do more of the same:
- The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.” So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them.” Numbers 31:1-3 NIV
- They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder.” Numbers 31:7-9 NIV
- “Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” Numbers 31:14-18 NIV
- “The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man… All the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds that Moses and Eleazar presented as a gift to the Lord weighed 16,750 shekels. Each soldier had taken plunder for himself. Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord.” Numbers 31:32-34, 52-54 NIV
- “While Israel was camped at Shittim (Acacia Grove), the men began to have sex with the Moabite women. It started when the women invited the men to their sex-and-religion worship. They ate together and then worshiped their gods. Israel ended up joining in the worship of the Baal of Peor. God was furious, his anger blazing out against Israel. God said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of Israel and kill them by hanging, leaving them publicly exposed in order to turn God’s anger away from Israel.” Moses issued orders to the judges of Israel: “Each of you must execute the men under your jurisdiction who joined in the worship of Baal Peor.” Just then, while everyone was weeping in penitence at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, an Israelite man, flaunting his behavior in front of Moses and the whole assembly, paraded a Midianite woman into his family tent. Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw what he was doing, grabbed his spear, and followed them into the tent. With one thrust he drove the spear through the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, right through their private parts. That stopped the plague from continuing among the People of Israel. But 24,000 had already died.” Numbers 25:1-9 MSG
- “When the sun was setting, a deep sleep overcame Abram, and a horror (a terror, a shuddering fear) of great darkness assailed and oppressed him. And [God] said to Abram, Know positively that your descendants will be strangers dwelling as temporary residents in a land that is not theirs [Egypt], and they will be slaves there and will be afflicted and oppressed for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on that nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. And you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. And in the fourth generation they [your descendants] shall come back here [to Canaan] again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full and complete. When the sun had gone down and a [thick] darkness had come on, behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant (promise, pledge) with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates—the land of The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, The Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, The Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Genesis 15:12-21 AMP
Such rationale is nonsensical for all those caring enough to at least vaguely imagine being born a Canaanite. Rendering the scene in real time, what would it mean to my pre-teen daughter or granddaughters to see their dads or grandpas, brothers and cousins, aunties and uncles hacked in to pieces, all for the glory of a God about whom they had heard little or nothing? How does the Lord of love and family values order they and their sisters, mothers and aunties, grandmas, and great grandmas, friends and pets, flocks and herds all marched off to slaughter or slavery?
Such rationale is incompatible with being omnipotent and omniscient, omnipresent and good. First, as Creator, You set the stage and the play in motion. Second, mankind’s extremely finite and limited free will could never be a puzzle too difficult for Omnity to figure out or rock too heavy to lift.
So what’s up? I don’t know. It’s one of Christianity’s great, yet rarely asked and never satisfactorily answered questions.
I do understand a piece of the mystery. A partial explanation that brings some balance to the equation. For reasons of Your own You allowed an angelic rebellion and chose to forestall commensurate judgment, a hallmark of Divine patience. Rather it would appear You entered into a unprecedented heavenly legal proceeding, a kind of eternal Wager that necessitated and Agreement binding on both parties. Satan’s overreaching opened the door for Christ’s incarnation, which will ultimately result in the judgment and sentencing of Lucifer’s rebellion while simultaneously making mercy and atonement available for all mankind. All this required a people and place. Israel. A tiny nation, not the size of America or even the state of California. Not even half the size of Southern California. To minimize the impact You selected a piece of real estate the size of a county like San Bernardino.
Having formed more than 200 billion galaxies, each with more than 200 billion stars You chose to occupy a single county on a single planet in a single solar system… And that for a only about a millennia.
Why? So Omnity could shred Itself. So before all creation God the Son could empty Himself, disrobing unspeakable glory and being reduced to a sperm inserted into the womb of a virgin in Nazareth. So that the Son of God could be born in a feeding trough and grow up in obscurity, minister to and be murdered by that same nation in cahoots with it’s Gentile overlords.
Why? So the Suffering Servant could become the Conquering King, taking the keys of hell and death thus destroying the works of the Evil One:
- “Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death. It’s obvious, of course, that he didn’t go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham. That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed.” Hebrews 2:14-18 MSG
Bottom Line
This is all amazing. All the more so when factoring in the gift of the Holy Spirit, sent as a kind of downpayment and guarantee of Christ in us the promised hope of glory:
- “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him! That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:15-28 MSG
Levels of unprecedented temptation and deception are skyrocketing as entitlement and sin enjoy a meteoric rise. Atheists and agnostic grow more militant as the world suffers increasing poverty and violence. All the while Christianity is devolving into Churchianity even as secularism and worse only serves to tighten Satan’s grasp on earth.
So, reaching the end of our story I’m left asking the Great Question: Why? Why this existence? Why this plan for the ages?
And as a follow up: Is there nothing more that can be done? Clearly You’ve done Your part and we’ve failed to do ours. Nonetheless, given our woeful spiritual impasse, of which You were entirely familiar before initiating creation, won’t You do something more? Would You consider pouring out Your Spirit on lost Churchianity, turning us from modern day Laodiceans to Philiadelphians?
- “Write this to Philadelphia, to the Angel of the church. The Holy, the True—David’s key in his hand, opening doors no one can lock, locking doors no one can open—speaks: “I see what you’ve done. Now see what I’ve done. I’ve opened a door before you that no one can slam shut. You don’t have much strength, I know that; you used what you had to keep my Word. You didn’t deny me when times were rough. And watch as I take those who call themselves true believers but are nothing of the kind, pretenders whose true membership is in the club of Satan—watch as I strip off their pretensions and they’re forced to acknowledge it’s you that I’ve loved. Because you kept my Word in passionate patience, I’ll keep you safe in the time of testing that will be here soon, and all over the earth, every man, woman, and child put to the test. I’m on my way; I’ll be there soon. Keep a tight grip on what you have so no one distracts you and steals your crown. I’ll make each conqueror a pillar in the sanctuary of my God, a permanent position of honor. Then I’ll write names on you, the pillars: the Name of my God, the Name of God’s City—the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven—and my new Name. Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches.”
- “Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God’s Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God’s creation, says: “I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, ‘I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone,’ oblivious that in fact you’re a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless. Here’s what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that’s been through the refiner’s fire. Then you’ll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You’ve gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see. The people I love, I call to account—prod and correct and guide so that they’ll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God! Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That’s my gift to the conquerors! Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches.” Revelation 3:7-22 MSG
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