The Wall

Ezekiel 42:20 NIV

So he measured the area on all four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the holy from the common.

Can God Trust You At The Wall?

Years ago, when we were newlyweds, Mary Jo and I each were running to get into better shape. We

started with two miles and then three.  Eventually we were running four miles a day and we kept pushing ourselves further.  Mary Jo was actually in training, preparing to compete in the Crescent City Classic, a ten-kilometer race through New Orleans.  I did not plan on running in it but because of my pride, I did not want her outrunning me so each time she extended her runs, I did mine also.  We were running five miles, and then we were at six miles, four times a week.  Finally we were running seven miles together and then the week before the race, we ran a full ten miles.  Because the Crescent City Classic is only 6.2 miles, we both felt confident we could do well in the race.  There was only one problem.  I did not want to run in it.  Although Mary Jo kept urging me to enter, I told her I wouldn’t.   I did all the training for the race but I refused to run when it was time.  I cannot say why I wouldn’t compete.  I might have been afraid I wouldn’t do well.  It could have been that I was concerned that Mary Jo might beat me.  It’s not that I did not like to run or wasn’t prepared for the race.  For some reason, there was a wall that kept me from running in it; a wall I refused to climb.

When you or I come up against a wall, we have to decide what to do about it.  Perhaps the answer is easy; we have no interest in what is behind the wall.  It might be though that the wall seems insurmountable and although we would like to get beyond it, we give up because we are afraid to try to scale it.  We aren’t after all Spiderman; we don’t have super powers.  There are walls that seem to be morally wrong to climb.  It is against the law.  To climb the wall would require we do something that violates our values.  Maybe you aren’t sure that it is worth the effort trying to get past the wall.  Perhaps there is a wall before you right now and you haven’t decided what to do about it.  Will you pretend that you just don’t see it, will you ignore it or will you gather up all your power and try to scale it?    Will you turn away from it?  Will you consult with others who have faced similar walls and find out what they did?  Are you the only one in this world who knows about the wall you have before you?

Consider the possibility that there might be a wall you face and God is watching carefully to see what you will do about it.  He might in fact have placed that wall before you to test you, to try your resolve, reveal your character.  When the nation of Israel began its journey into the new land God had picked out for her to settle and make her home, a wall stood before the people.  For forty years the Israelites had wandered about in the desert just outside Palestine as punishment for refusing to believe God would enable them to conquer the people living in the land God wanted them to settle.  Fear kept that entire generation of Israelites out of the land that they comfortably could have inhabited.  Now, forty years later, the people had a far more difficult challenge before them if they were to live in the Promised Land.  They had to attack a walled city and bring it down.  It was a city fortress.  Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. (Joshua 6:1 NIV) God did have a plan for how they were to attack the city.  It certainly was not a commonly practiced military strategy though.   March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.  Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.  When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."  (Joshua  6:3-5 NIV)

Imagine standing before the city of Jericho and staring up at that wall with those orders to follow.  Would you have taken them seriously?   Would you have followed them or come up with another plan?  Consider this possibility; that every wall that is set before you God has a specific way of addressing it.  There are not two ways; there is not an alternative plan He has in mind.  Only one solution is acceptable to Him, only one method for dealing with it.  What if you know what He wants done and you must decide if you will trust Him in it?  Will you let Him be in charge?  Consider this possibility.  Not only Is God wanting you to trust Him with regard to the wall, He has trusted you to follow His instructions.  Is God making a good decision?  Should He trust you?  Can the Lord count on you to follow His instructions, to do things the way He wants them done?  Will you embarrass Him by the way you deal with the wall you face?

Nehemiah is often referred to as, “The Wall Builder”.  Jerusalem had for three generations remained in ruins.  A few homes had been rebuilt, some gardens started, commerce reestablished.  But its wall remained a wreck.  As long as this was the case, the few settlers in the city were in danger of being killed or enslaved by any marauding band of soldiers passing through the territory.  Nehemiah was a high ranking official in the Persian court, the cupbearer to the king.  One day his brother came to town and informed Nehemiah what he discovered when he visited Jerusalem.  Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.   They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."  (Nehemiah 1:2-3 NIV)  At this point, as Nehemiah heard the news of the condition of the chief city of his ancestors, he had to process carefully what this meant for him.  The wall required someone with leadership skills to lead the rebuilding effort.  It would be a monumental task.  Nehemiah really did not  yet even know how great an effort it would take to get it done.  He did however realize that for more than seventy years nothing had been done about the demolished wall and for good reason.  No one thought the wall could be rebuilt.

Consider carefully this possibility.  The reason Nehemiah found out about how bad the situation in Jerusalem was and the condition of the wall is because the Lord gave him that information.  It was God who put together his brother’s trip to Jerusalem and his eyewitness account to Nehemiah of what he saw.  If that is the case and the Biblical view of life is that God is in charge of it all, what we see and what we hear and what we face, then, it was the Lord who gave him that information about the wall.  Now why would the Lord do that?  Why would he give Nehemiah this report of the terrible need for help in Jerusalem?  Perhaps the wall was Nehemiah’s responsibility to fix.  Maybe God was assigning this task to him.  That is why He told Nehemiah about it.  That is why he gave Nehemiah the career he had, gave him his friendship with the king of Persia.  Is it possible that the wall “had Nehemiah’s name on it”?  Nehemiah seemed to think so.  Why else did he ask the king for permission to go to Jerusalem and work on it.  The king said to me, "What is it you want?"  Then I prayed to the God of heaven,  and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it." (Nehemiah 2:4-5 NIV)

When Nehemiah got to Jerusalem he discovered that conditions were even worse than he imagined.  The people were disorganized and discouraged.   Threats were made against his life by leaders of neighboring countries who did not want the wall rebuilt.  God gave Nehemiah a wall to build but he did not make it easy for him.  In fact it was a foolish and terrifying proposition to try and rebuild the wall.  God left this wall in Nehemiah’s hands.  It was up to Nehemiah to take up the project of rebuilding the wall.  He trusted Nehemiah to make the right decision.  What if God has a wall for you to build?  What if it is too hard for you to build?  It is too much work?  It is not something anyone else thinks you should do.  Will you do it anyway?  Will you build that wall?  What if God is waiting for you to do it?  What if He trusts you with this wall?  Will you prove Him right to believe in you?    You cannot say you do not know about the wall.  He has already laid out all the facts.  What will you do about it?

It is surprising when you give it much thought how many of God’s prophets faced terrible circumstances.  Many were put in nearly impossible circumstances that that would have pushed most of us to quit.  Why tell people what God has said when no one wants to listen?  Why put yourself in danger when it seems pointless?  Why keep preaching when if feels hopeless.  The prophet Habakkuk stood on the wall of Jerusalem and saw nothing but darkness.  The Babylonians were going to come and conquer Judah.  It was impossible to stop them.  Disaster loomed and Habakkuk had no inspiring revelation from God that all would work out if he just did not lose hope.  The last words of the book he wrote are some of the most elevating found in Scripture though.  They state the sort of determination that heroes in movies and great works of literature make, that Ivanhoe or Aragorn or Captain America or Wonder Woman or the Black Panther would make.  No matter what may happen, no matter how bad it gets, I will not yield.  I will not quit.  God trusted Habakkuk to not surrender to fear, to not give in to despair.  He trusted Habakkuk with the great message of trouble.  Habakkuk made one of the most inspiring declarations found anywhere in Scripture and we must carefully let it sink in to us.  I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.  Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.  Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16-19 NIV)

The Lord trusted Habakkuk at the wall.  God let him see what really was going to happen, gave him the complete picture and believed his friend could handle it.  He told Habakkuk that trouble was coming, trouble that would shatter the faith of many and he watched to see how Habakkuk took it.  What if you heard that your life was going to be tough, that it would be hard what you face?  Would you stand with your eyes staring into the storm and trust Christ then?  Would you courageously believe that God will be with you and see you through the hurricane that is on the horizon?  Will you trust the Lord not just when it is sunny and clear but also when the lightning flashes and the thunder billows and the wind threatens your home?  Can God trust you at the wall?  Are you the one who has the courage to stand when others run away and hide?  Do you truly believe in Christ your Savior?  Your time will come when the evidence seems to indicate that God does not love you, that He has forgotten you and that you are alone in this.  Yet the evidence will be wrong and those who will tell you to give up on your God and your faith in Him will be wrong.  You alone will be able to quiet the critics and the noise of despair by declaring with Habakkuk.  “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”  Decide now.  At the foot of the wall, make your declaration. “The Sovereign Lord is my strength!”  God will see you through the storm and you will be victorious.  The future is on your side!

Sleep

Psalm 127:2 NIV

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Are You A Hard Worker?

The other day I was sitting in the sanctuary praying and I realized I was dreaming…literally REM dreaming.  I shook my head, closed my eyes again to pray and fell asleep once more with vivid dreaming.  A third time I started praying and tried a different tact, trying to pray for each person who came to my mind.  This worked for a while until I got distracted and started thinking about what I had to do.  I did not have what you might call a very spiritual experience.  For a while, the “power nap” was a popular concept.  Who doesn’t like the idea of in the middle of a work-day taking a break to snooze?  Doctors have recommended the practice but how many managers and supervisors want their workers sleeping on the job. The Bible doesn’t seem to be an enthusiastic supporter of naps!  How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:9-11 NIV)  The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth! (Proverbs 19:24 NIV)  That sounds like a power nap in the cafeteria.  I wonder how well that would go over at most work places!

Probably you are a hard worker and would never consider yourself a sluggard.  You get up early and start your day off with a cup of coffee or a shower to charge your batteries and then off you go.  Maybe you don’t like getting up and “getting off” but you do it because it is right and necessary.  There are plenty in the world who consider work the most noble of ventures and success the goal in life.  The Bible isn’t exactly against hard work and in fact it is celebrated in many places.  Yet there is a passage in the Psalms that provides critical insight into our work habits and God’s view of how we use our time.

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1 NIV)  The thought that all one’s effort could be a waste of time is rather disconcerting!  Who hasn’t felt though at one point or another like that?  What good is it to try so hard at something when it is bound to fail anyway or it won’t be appreciated or it won’t matter in the long run?  This verse creates an immense line of demarcation between two categories of work.  The first is work that is contained completely within the realm of human effort.  Whether it is the building of a great housing complex or the stacking of vegetables on the kitchen counter, it either is done in God or it isn’t.  If it isn’t, then it is work done in vain.  The term translated “vain” does not imply that it was done out of a desire to puff up oneself but rather that it was empty of purpose, without value.  Jesus expressed this idea in vivid fashion when He warned against storing up for yourself treasures on earth that moths and rust can wreck and thieves just take.  Stored up earthly treasures are vain in this sense, they are without reason or purpose.  They are “empty” possessions.  The same can be true of work.  If God is not behind it and not in agreement with it, the work, whatever it might be gets gobbled up and becomes worthless.  This of course is not logical and perhaps not even reasonable to most.  Why does every work have to go through God?  Were computers developed by those holding prayer meetings?  Did the ones who put together the internet have their Bibles open as they worked?  Plenty of great things have been done by those who did not care one bit what God thought of their efforts.

Yet we do know that the marvelous invention of the phonograph became obsolete when eight tracks were developed.  Cell phones make landlines a dinosaur and whoever thought of rotary dialing is not celebrated today.  Those who worked so hard on their movies find that they are eventually forgotten and ignored.  Does anyone care who invented the wheel or started the first fire by rubbing sticks together?  All work, regardless of how great we might think it is today will be buried in time and no one will give it a funeral.  Only God can keep alive the memory of work that is done and make it as meaningful and important today as it was ten thousand years ago.  However, we see work started and completed without any thought given whatsoever to how God views its value or thinks of the effort.  Solomon used the term “vanity of vanities” to describe so much of how we spend our time.  At the top of his list of vanity of vanities would be our attempt to get done what is not inspired or empowered by God.

If it seems from these comments that God is not in favor of hard work or creative thought, but that is not the case.  Our Lord wants us to work.  It must though be done in the right way and for the right reasons.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)  We see work assigned by God all through the Bible.  Whether it was Bezalel designing and putting together the Ark of the Covenant or Paul sewing tents, work is honored by God.  Of course you can make a good living doing all sorts of work and even be celebrated by your supervisors or the public at large for what you have done but it will in the end be forgotten and fall apart if God is not in it.  Our Lord promises you an inheritance that will last as long as He does if you work for Him.  Everything else you do will be devoured by time and lost.

There is a more practical reason for doing your work through God.  It comes from the next verse in the Psalm we quoted earlier.  In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:2 NIV)  This verse has a wealth of insight to it that some translations do not make clear.  It is worthless, the verse insists, for us to get up early and stay up late trying to get things done that God has no interest in us doing.  The Hebrew, which is translated by some English versions as staying up late toiling for food to eat more literally describes staying up late and putting off eating the bread your hard and wearisome work has produced.  This is work generated by worldly cares, by concerns that are produced in those who are disconnected from God.  The more we work without Christ empowering and inspiring it, the less pleasure it brings and the more burdensome it becomes.

More than that though is the promise this verse provides us.  The NIV translation has a footnote in this verse that brings clarity to it.  The promise is not that our Lord rewards those who live in Him with sleep.  It is that He gives to His beloved ones in sleep.  The New American Standard Version translates this phrase, “For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”   The Grammar in this little phrase is tricky but certain.  Sleep is a powerful mechanism by which the Lord pours Himself Into you.  There are instances in Scripture documenting the way God has spoken to His people while they were sleeping including Jacob in the Old Testament when he was running from his brother in fear of his life and in the New Testament Joseph who was engaged to Mary the mother of Jesus providing for him comfort and reassurance that Mary had done no wrong in becoming pregnant. And then there is the example of Daniel who as he slept was shown by the Lord the content of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and how to interpret it.  God wants His people to sleep because of what He can do in them when they sleep.  It is not just that we physically need to rest.  In sleep God can get at the places where sin has done its most damage, in the deep parts of the heart or mind if you will, and comfort us and encourage us and strengthen us.  Just some sleep and the pain we felt before over a loss, a tragic event, an insult or a failure can be healed and we feel it when we awaken.

Do not just go to sleep.  Prepare yourself for God to work in you when you sleep.  Pray and get ready.  Tell God what you think you need before you fall asleep.  Talk to Him about what is bothering you.  Pray with someone else, if you have that person, just before bed.  Who knows what God might do for you and in you through the praying of someone who loves you?  Sleep is when God blesses us with some of His greatest comfort and insight.  What you could not grasp before you slept, with Christ working in you as you sleep, it can come to you as easily as holding a feather in your hand.  The world and all the pressures it can bring to bear upon you can wait a while as you meet with God in the depths of your heart.  Did you know that you can pray even while you are sleeping?  You can but you must quiet your heart in tender worship beforehand to make it ready to meet with Him there.  Try an experiment this week.  Just before you go to sleep, read a little bit of scripture or quote some to yourself and then pray quietly.  See what the Holy Spirit does in you as you rest in Christ.

Elite?

Recently quarterback Eli Manning of the New York Giants declared himself an “elite” quarterback in the NFL.  Whether you agree with his self-assessment or not or even care, it brought me to this question.  What makes an elite Christian?    How do you know if you are one or not?   Would it be worth the effort to be one if you thought you could?  Does performance matter in the Kingdom of God? 

We know for example that the Disciples cared about such things for how else can you explain the jostling for position when James and John’s mother asked Jesus if her sons could sit on Jesus’ right and left when he came into the Kingdom.  Jesus did not completely distance Himself from such an effort when He told them that whoever would be first in the Kingdom must first be last.  Rewards are certainly said to be handed out at the end based on performance.    We are told to go after treasures in heaven which cannot be corrupted by moth or rust.

So what makes an “elite” Christian?  The most obvious answers would include:  skillful and determined gospel sharing, sacrificial generosity, fervency in prayer, warm and neighborly disposition, faithful and loyal service to the church and a hunger for deep extensive and Bible study.  Or course, nothing on this list should be denigrated but it is not the formula the Lord offers for elite Christianity.  Micah 6: 8 gives three benchmarks for radical loyalty to God.   Here goes…  Act justly.  Love mercy.  Walk humbly with your God. 

If we take just the middle directive,” love mercy”, we are entering elite territory.   What is real mercy except mercy toward those who disrespect you…mercy toward those who treat you badly…mercy toward those who are incompetent, lazy or slow-witted?  Who hasn’t lashed out at her husband for poor decision-making, bitterly castigated (at least in the dark recesses of the mind) a co-worker for making one’s job more difficult, taken umbrage at a driver who recklessly endangers everyone on the road, been disgusted with a store manager who stupidly won’t consider a logical request.  Mercy is not for the timid.  Mercy, when full-blown is marked by allowances for bad behavior, the decided disregard of a callous snub, the generous and almost happy granting of pardon to those who hurt us terribly.  Merciful people see the best in others even in the worst of circumstances, forgive before being asked and assume that if given the same circumstances and background one would act even more barbarically than the terrible person making one’s life miserable. 

Mercy stubbornly, doggedly, tenaciously sees more in others than they may see in themselves.   It is the assent to the great generosity of Christ Himself to endow every creature in our path with the bedrock substance of God amply distributed throughout his or her entire being.    No one can look at another person with the full realization that that person is made in the image of God and utterly reject that one and still hope to have any semblance of God’s love coursing through the veins.  It is mercy that refuses to give the best of oneself to the worst of another and not count it joy to be included in God’s circle of friends.