THE FINAL WORD

They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and wonderful are thy deeds, O Lord God the Almighty!  Just and true are thy ways, O King of the ages!"  Rev. 15:3, R.S.V.


On that great day when the saints receive the kingdom, there will be so much to sing about!  The reunion with friends; the exhilaration of perfect bodies; the ending of all tension; the perfect harmony of all nature.  How easy it would be to sing even about our own joy in being there--our blissful peace and our newfound capacities.

But the Scriptures record that one song shall swallow up every other.  It is not a song written by some musically talented angel, published in large numbers, and distributed to the redeemed for them to memorize and rehearse.  It is a free-flowing song, arising from the experience of the redeemed themselves.  In fact, there are stanzas in the song that only the redeemed can ever fully appreciate.

It is an utterly God-ward song, inspired by and dedicated to the One who shall be known as alone worthy of our praise.  It is called the song of Moses and the Lamb, because Jesus and Moses were the only ones in history ready to put their eternal lives on the line for the salvation of man and the honor of God (see Ex. 32:32).  And it is sung by people who themselves would rather die than knowingly bring dishonor upon the One they have come to love and trust.

I was recently in conversation with a man who holds firmly to a belief in predestination--that God simply selects certain persons to be objects of His grace and others to be reprobates.  "It's just one of the many dark pictures of God," he sighed, "and we simply have to learn to accept it.  If God wills it, it is for that reason 'right.'  Who are we to question?"

How grateful I am to worship a God who is someday soon going to open for review before the universe every act and every decision He has made in His six-thousand-year endeavor to win back His people.  And the universal response will be, "Who will not stand in awe of you, Lord?  Who will refuse to declare your greatness?  You alone are holy.  All the nations will come and worship you, because your just actions are seen by all (Rev. 14:4, T.E.V.).

THE END OF OUR CONFUSION

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!...Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins and share in her plagues."  Rev. 18:2-4, N.E.B.

The crowd is large and the street unfamiliar.  You have become separated from your friend.  You decide to try to return to the place where you last were together.  "Pardon me," you say as you stop someone who looks like he knows where he is going.  "Could you tell me how to find my way?"

"Sure!: he answers.  But in following his direction, you discover yourself still lost.  Asking someone else, you become even more confused.  Suddenly you hear a familiar voice calling your name.  "Over here!"  Together once again with your friend, you work your way through the crowd and home.

In this world, the crowd is large and the way through life uncertain.  We hear conflicting reports about how to get where we want to go.  Not only have we lost sight of our Best Friend; we aren't even sure He is our friend!  The things we hear about Him greatly intensify our anxiety.  When He calls us, "Over here!" we are wary and distrustful.  In the end, it is our own personal Babylon--confusion--that keeps us separated from Him.  And as long as we remain apart from Him, our passage through this life remains hazardous and uncertain.

Does God fold His arms over His chest in disgust, saying, "Well, if they won't come when I call, it's their own fault if they stay lost"?  No!  He is not offended by our confusion.  He does not condemn us for our wrong concepts about Him.  He simply comes closer, mingling with us in the midst of the crowd, pacing Himself with us, going with us down one dark passage after another.  Never does He try to force us to go His way, but quietly converses with us as we stumble along.  Slowly we begin to realize that His commitment to us is genuine.  His love unfailing.  We sense that He is interested in us--not just getting us out of our predicament.

Our good Father calls us to come out of our Babylon confusion and into an understanding of who He is.  We need not remain separated from Him.  We need not experience the woeful effect of that separation--spiritual darkness, emotional starvation, atrophied capacities.  We need not be plagued with guilt and remorse.

Well might we then shout with joy, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!"

​"CHRISTIAN" CONFORMISTS

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.  Rom. 12:2, R.S.V.


Paul's admonition about not being conformed to this world is excellent sermon material.  More preachers than I can recall have shaped their church service homilies around that warning against the evil enticements of this world.

More recently, however, I have sensed that Paul is concerned with something deeper than a contrast between the values of the world and the values of the kingdom of Christ.  Something even more insidious rises to the surface as he contrasts those two words conformed and transformed, for here he is dealing not just with the values one holds but with how he comes to hold them.

A person who is conformed is one who has no inner strength of conviction or purpose but who wishes above all to be accepted by other people.  Rather than risk their rejection, he simply takes on their values or behaviors.  He conforms to the values of the group that promises the most uncritical acceptance.

But this is not God's method for getting people to become Christians.  It completely bypasses the deeper processes of the heart--the transformation of the most fundamental values and attitudes through one's union with Christ Jesus.  It misses the fact that a true Christian is one who has been inwardly made secure through fellowship with his divine Friend.  The conformist, by contrast, is the picture of insecurity.

We must honestly admit that all of us are subject to the tendency to be conformed Christians.  Our lingering insecurities, our grasping desire to belong, our fears of rejection, set us up to embrace the "acceptable" behaviors and attitudes of our church-related friends. If we learn the games of "churchmanship" with adequate skill, we can appease ourselves that real Christian growth has happened.

As much as He values right behavior, our Father does not wish us to embrace it through fear of His rejection.  For this reason, His first message to us assures us of His unconditional love and acceptance.  He wants to set us free from the need to conform so that we can embrace the values of His kingdom for entirely proper reasons.

Only those who are transformed Christians "will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect" (Rom. 12:2, N.E.B.).  Our Father is one who desires that highly intelligent, inwardly free, peacefully harmonious approach to obedience!

GIVE FOR ONE ANOTHER

Forgive us the wrong we have done, as we have forgiven those who have wronged us.  MAtt. 6:12, N.E.B.

"Will you forgive me?"  Countless times in a lifetime we hear these words and repeat them ourselves.  They are spoken with the apparent intent of healing a relationship, yet seldom produce the expected results.  There are an ever-increasing number of broken homes and fractured relationships.  Why?

Could it be that most people want escape from the pain of another's judgment without dealing directly, healingly, with the issues that caused the pain or alienation?  Forgiveness rightly means "giving for" the other, to heal and nurture the other's hurt and needs. When forgiveness is sought only as a method of clearing the offending party of guilt, it actually blocks healing.  It is at this point that much human agony exists, captured in a sort of no-man's land of issues rendered untouchable--"I asked you to forgive me, so don't bring up the subject again!"

Consequently, often the blame is shifted to the one who has suffered the hurt because he cannot respond readily to the offender who has "done his part."  Listen: forgiveness is not something we grit our teeth and do.  It is the product of a healed heart.  And there are no self-healed hearts beating on Planet Earth!  Only God's healing love can make us whole enough to forgive others even as they inflict hurt upon us.

Knowing that God does not expect us to muster up some kind of pious "OK" sets us free to bring to Him our incapacity to forgive our offenders.  Sandwiched between the two clauses concerning forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer is the cry--"Save us from the evil one!"

God wants us to recognize our dilemma--and the way out!  We need saving from the devastating effects of sin in our lives--of our separation from the healing love of the Father.  So God gives for us that we might be able to give for one another.  If we reject the healing process that He has made available to us, we will never be able to give for others.  Giving comes after we have received "our daily bread"--the provisions of our loving, caring Father for our own needs.

Giving for another can be an intensely sweet exercise of faith in who God is, whether we are asking for forgiveness or giving it.  And as we help each other's healing process, we ourselves find deeper healing.

FROM SERVANT TO FRIEND

I shall not call you servants any longer, for a servant does not share his master's confidence.  No, I call you friends, now, because I have told you everything that I have heard from the Father.  John 15:15, Phillips.

A servant is locked into a very distinct relationship with his master.  And it is not an enviable one!  The master bears final authority over the life of the servant, commanding his every action.  The master has the power to reward obedience and to punish disobedience.

The servant, then, views his master primarily with fear and servile intimidation.  He does not expect to share in the inner soul of the master--to know his thoughts or goals.  He is sure that the master cares not one whit to share his own deepest thoughts with someone so insignificant as a servant.

The master/servant relationship exists entirely for the benefit of the master.  It is not expected that the servant will grow or benefit from it.  It is a dehumanizing, humiliating posture for the servant.  One could hardly respect a master for imposing it upon another human.  And yet, almost without exception, the people to whom Jesus was speaking viewed the Father as a stern master and themselves as the trifling servants.  They saw themselves, by the very order of things, to be locked into the master's displeasure.

So Jesus dared to challenge them to break the grip of that misunderstood relationship.  Though they could but barely grasp the meaning at the time, He invited them to enter into a friend/friend relationship.  As proof of His serious intentions, He reminded them of how intimate and vulnerable He had been in sharing with them the richest treasures of His heart--something that would never happen in a master/servant relationship!

Friends look toward each other in mutual regard, each desiring the very best for the other.  Remember, it is the Creator of the universe, speaking to His sin-damaged creatures, saying in effect, "I refuse to play one-upmanship with you.  I do not want you groveling in front of Me as frightened servants.  I want us to enjoy each other as friends, so that I can keep teaching you marvelous things about our Father."

Dear reader, do you hear our Father this day calling you from the oppression of servanthood to the joys of friendship?

THE GAMES GOD DOESN'T PLAY

Shall I bring to the point of birth and not deliver?  Isa. 66:9, N.E.B.

"He never meant to marry me!  He just wanted to see how far I would go!"  The young woman spoke ruefully to her friend.  Yet she herself had just "conned" her younger sister into doing a job for her by promising to take her to town when she was finished--a promise she never intended to keep.

We live in a world of disappointed hopes and broken promises.  The "game of life" seems full of tricks and illusions.  Many people become cynical, others despondent, still others doggedly cunning.  This tragedy of broken and calloused hearts causes unspeakable grief to the heart of our faithful heavenly Father.  He wants to assure us of His good intentions concerning us, but we have acquired through our relations with others a wariness that can render us faith-crippled.

Have you secretly wondered if God is ever going to come through with all that He has promised?  Is He interested in an isolated experience called "unwavering faith" apart from the concrete benefits of being in an ongoing relationship with Him?  As we come to know Him, we begin to understand that He is utterly trustworthy.  He enters into no "game-playing" with us.  His promises are as good as He Himself, because in essence, in every promise He is offering to give us Himself.

Our text for today is one of my favorites, and speaks directly to this issue: "Shall I bring to the point of birth and not deliver?"  Our Father is too kind to build up our hopes only to dash them to pieces just to see if we will still believe in Him!  Though life's situations sometimes seem to support that He does just this, we may confidently know that this is not so.  We have been living in a world distorted by separation from Him.  Because of His regard for every man's freedom, often things happen as a result of other people's choices that are neither His will nor our own.

We may be sure, when disappointment comes, that the last chapter of this earth's history has yet to be written.  We may remain undaunted in our aspirations, unthwarted as we stretch toward our goals.  It is our privilege to know that someday all the restraints of this life, all the game-playing, will pass.  Personally, I think God is just plain excited about the prospects!

HOW TO RUIN A FRIENDSHIP

Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ.  You are outside God's grace.  Gal. 5:4, T.E.V.

You have received a personal request from a famous head of state that you share a meal with him.  But he wants to come to your house.  Your excitement turns quickly to dread as you think about your humble dress, your untrained manners, your small vocabulary, and narrow scope of conversational interests.  You doubt that you would be a very satisfying dinner companion.  Thinking that your host would be more satisfied with your presence if you could persuade him of your fitness, you request a postponement and begin a crash program of self-improvement.

Months stretch into year while, as on a treadmill, you doubt that you have sufficiently merited accepting the invitation.  Your attention shifts entirely toward your performance until you lose track of the anticipated fellowship your host wanted to enjoy with you.  Having become convinced that the friendship can happen only when you become fit for it, you ruin the friendship that itself would make you a fit companion.

The Bible speaks very sparingly about what it takes to commit "spiritual divorce."  Jesus has courted our affection with such diligence, and offered us such security in union with Himself, that He sees little merit in giving large attention to how the relationship might die.  We might stumble in our Christian walk, but His response is that He will forgive us "seventy times seven"--to start with!  But He will not file for divorce on us.


In his Galatians letter, Paul spells it out: If you approach your friendship with Christ on the basis of your own merits, the relationship is ruined, not because Jesus will turn against you but because you will never open the door to His presence.  Thinking that Jesus is one who requires merit rather than one who makes people whole through love, we have no common ground with Him.  We remain perpetually cowering behind the door, fearing His searching, judgmental arrival.

But Jesus stands outside the door, gently knocking.  If we listen with our hearts, we can hear Him telling us that He desires fellowship, not merit.  He longs for union of the soul, not our credit list.  Rather than our trying to prepare ourselves for His presence, He wants to prepare us by His presence.  Who could close the door to such an appealing invitation?

IS IT WRONG TO ASK FOR A SIGN?

He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign?  I tell you the truth, no sign will be given it"  Mark 8:12, N.I.V.


The young girl was filled with earnestness.  She spoke of her pending engagement to a young man she'd met at college.  "We're praying for a sign from God to let us know whether or not we should marry."  As I pondered the significance of their request, something Jesus said came to my mind: "No sign will be given."

A large crowd of people had listened to the Master speak for three days.  Many had come from long distances.  Looking upon them, Jesus was moved with compassion.  He knew  that some would collapse if they were sent home hungry.  He took a few loaves and fishes and fed several  thousand people.  Not long after that, the Pharisees came to question Him.  "To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven.  He sighed deeply and said, 'Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign?  I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.' "

Why?  Is it wrong to ask for a sign?  Gideon did, twice, and God gave him exactly what he desired.  Joshua and Hezekiah received the signs they asked for.  When Ahaz was king of Judah, God spoke to him.  "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights" (Isa. 7:11).  When Ahaz refused, God volunteered the prophetic sign of the virgin birth that would herald the coming Messiah (see verse 14).

May I suggest that asking for a sign can be an effort to shortcut the reasoning process that God so wisely desires us to develop.  "Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1, N.I.V.), there is less need today to seek supernatural manifestations of God's will.  His desire is for us to "have [our] faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil" (chap. 5:14, R.S.V.).  Couples contemplating marriage need to consider carefully their compatibility, their family backgrounds, individual temperaments and lifestyles, as well as stated goals for life--not to look for an occurrence of some extraneous event tagged as evidence of God's feelings in the matter.

It's not wrong to ask for a sign--but God would rather we come to know Him so thoroughly that we no longer feel the need to ask for one.

WEARY IN WELL-DOING

Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.  Gal. 6:9, R.S.V.

To the surprise of many of his classmates, a young man with a positive Christian character began keeping company with a rebellious and deceitful young woman.  Before long, they were spiraling together into activities that violated their parents' trust and their own commitments.

Several weeks later, when he once again stood on solid ground, he explained what had happened.  "I just got tired of being the one with principles when so many others were enjoying a comfortable slide downhill.  I got tired of saying No when everyone else was saying Yes.  I got tired of being expected to live up to high ideals when it is so costly, so emotionally demanding.  I just wanted to be with someone who didn't expect anything of me."

The Bible says that "the way of transgressors is hard" (Prov. 13:15) but that "the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn" (chap. 4:18, R.S.V.).  Since that is true, then why is it so wearying to walk the paths of well-doing?  Why does Paul need to warn against growing weary?  Why can so many of us identify with the young man who simply claimed he was too tired to continue on?  Should we fall into a fit of self-doubt, wondering if indeed we are even converted?

We will have to remember that Paul was a realist.  Though he knew the grandeur of walking the high paths, he also knew that most people aren't instantly acclimatized to thin air.  He knew that although the Christian has cast his steps toward a new and eternal country, he still walks in regular contact with entrenched earthlings.  It takes time to learn the values of the new kingdom and to detach ourselves from the reference point of old friends' approval.

Some of the true joys of obedience are not as quick in coming as the temporary joys of indulgence; our minds must learn to reference to the larger picture.  It was Jesus Himself who reminded us that the plant grows in stages, starting first with but a tiny blade.  We shall indeed reap, Paul said, if we do not lose heart.  Our God is not the kind of friend who leads His people down wearying, dead-end paths.

WHO IS THE ACCUSER?

Then I heard a voice in heaven proclaiming aloud: "This is the hour of victory for our God...when his Christ comes to his rightful rule!  For the accuser of our brothers is overthrown, who day and night accused them before our God."  Rev. 12:10, 11, N.E.B.

Imagine that you have just made the acquaintance of two men.  One is obviously a high-principled man who lives above reproach.  You know that he would never stoop to doing anything wrong, nor knowingly tolerate anyone else's wrongdoing.  The other man could best be described as a shady character.  A man of questionable background and suspicious intent, he could be expected to be in trouble with the law.

Apart from your appraisal of their values, it would be interesting to consider this question: In whose presence would you most likely feel accused or condemned?  Who would most likely project to you the impression that you had failed to live up to his expectations?  Had you yourself lived a flawed and embarrassing past, in whose presence would you likely find the most acceptance and understanding?

It is hard for us to shake the image of righteous people as being very condemning, and of unrighteous people as looking for company in their misery.  Most of us draw the same conclusions when we think of the two great adversaries in the great controversy.  We suspect that our holy God would be very intolerant and accusing toward sinful people.  By contrast, since Satan doesn't stand for anything good, our slim efforts at righteousness would not let him play one-upmanship with us.  The very fact that we do not like to feel accused of wrongs that already have us smarting, drives many people away from God and toward Satan.

Satan has been woefully successful in coaxing some people to put together a theology that places God in the role of the accuser; he has gloated as people that have squirmed away from God and toward himself.  Meanwhile, he has continued to do the baleful work of crushing bruised sinners with accusations.  The bony finger of condemnation and rejection is attached to the enemy's hand.  But the Lord has much better plans for healing His people.  Having persuaded them that they are out of relationship with Him (see John 16:9), He quickly offers to all who come home that He will never condemn them (Rom. 8:1) nor cast them out (John 6:37).  That's the kind of good news that will topple Satan's kingdom.