Unfortunately the writer keeps going. He should know better. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:35-38 NIV) The bad theology gets worse. The conclusion of the passage states that all of these…the ones who opened the mouths of lions as well as those who were lion food were commended for their faith.
What can be said about Paul’s litany of disasters described in 2 Corinthians 11? If God thought it so crucial we have a great life, why did he let Paul get flogged five times, shipwrecked three times and three times be beaten with rods. Not only that he had to constantly justify himself to the churches he started, always needing to prove his apostleship! Sure Job ended up with more cattle and sheep than he had before his disasters but that does not take away the fact that he was tormented…with God’s acceptance. If prosperity rules, then why do the majority of believers world-wide have such a tough time of it? My friend in Russia pastors a church of less than ten; makes do with just enough income to keep him and his wife from starving and is constantly working out new ways to share the gospel with little success. Does God think less of him than my friend in Southern California who is on staff at a mega church that brims with excitement? The truth is that God is not all that enamored with success and feels no compulsion whatsoever to make every one of His best friends successful or even “above average”.
Third, fairness is not a part of the Christian equation. Every parent with more than one child has heard the complaint, “it’s not fair” at least a thousand times. Believers who think God acts “fairly” must find Job almost incomprehensible. God is not “fair” and never pretends to be. Prayers based on trying to get God to play fair are missing the main part of prayer. God is working all things together for our good but He is not making things fair. It certainly isn’t fair that a little gymnast who strained her entire life to reach the Olympics falls off the balance beam and loses her chance at a medal. It isn’t fair to her parents who sacrificed their life savings to get her the coaching she needed to do well. It isn’t fair for the teacher who worked long hours without pay to help this little girl become a star. It wasn’t fair that Job’s children died. It wasn’t fair Jeremiah was put in prison for preaching what God told him.
The sawed in half prophets and the conquerors of Palestine listed in Hebrews 1 are woven together with a single strand. Faith! Faith is what ties the loose ends of our lives together…the “fair” parts and the “unfair”. The climax of Job is not the restoration of Job’s prosperity, it is the faith his friends exhibited when they sacrificed the bulls and rams upon God’s word..not upon any promise everything would work out. As Job in faith prayed for the three, everything came together for all of them. We enter heaven through faith, we move mountains by faith, the dead are raised through faith and we make sense of our lives through faith. As long as Job tried to get things fair, he was a mess, a chaotic wreck. When however he accepted in faith God’s giant greatness overriding his circumstances, Job came together, his life came together and his religion came together.
Faith, when it is born, is conceived in the unfair. The misinterpretation of Jesus’ comment on the eye of a needle has confused many about the Kingdom of God. Jesus, if He was saying anything, it was that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now if He was merely stating that we can’t get into heaven through what we have, then He would not have stopped with the rich. He would have told us that the poor also can’t get in and the middle class can’t get in. What Jesus specifically stated was that it was not possible for the rich to enter the kingdom. Why? It is because prosperity is the enemy of faith. In richness, I have no use for faith. Riches are tangible, viewable, countable, holdable. Faith is none of that. Faith is trust in God who is not seen, belief in God who cannot be pushed, hope in God who is not fair. As long as life was squared off and safe and understandable, Job could only have the weakest and most barely sufficient part of faith. When Job was made certain through his suffering that nothing in life was ever to be fair, then to follow God, He had to take it in faith.
When God makes us poor whether it be one way or another, it is to strip us of our hope at fairness and push us to trust Him. Salvation does not come to us because it is fair. It comes because God is kind. I asked my kids if they would rather have me be fair or have me love them. The Cross is God giving us the final word. He is not fair. But He is good. While we were still SINNERS, Christ died for us. You can only take this in faith…just as you take your broken leg in faith, your dropped savings in faith and your lost career in faith, and even your good health. God may not be fair. He never tries to get you to accept that. But He does love you. Jesus spent a lifetime helping us see that.
No comments:
Post a Comment