Heavenly Mindedness (50)

 

In the word that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace. Hope itself is spiritualized, remaining no longer the hope of imagination but grasping in God the ideal root from which the whole future must spring and blossom in due time. The heavenly world does not appear desirable as simply a second improved edition of this life; that would be nothing else than earthly mindedness projected into the future. The very opposite takes place: heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God. Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails. G. Vos.

 

It has been a while since we’ve worked with Geerhardus Vos and his message at Princeton Seminary, Heavenly Mindedness, based on Hebrews 11:9 – 10; it’s time to pick this back up. Let’s try working through the above quote.

 

“In the word that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace.” David writes that the Word of Yahweh, in its myriad expressions, is “Sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb,” (Psalm 19:10b). The author of Psalm 119:103 says to Yahweh, “How sweet are Your words [or promises] to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Then we have David again in Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that Yahweh is good…!”

 

Our senses are a bit more complex than we usually think; for we can taste, touch, smell, hear, and see not only what Paul terms as “the things which are seen,” but also what he calls “the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). While acknowledging that this can be true in the realm of common human experience, it should be especially true in those who are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, for we are called to “live by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

 

So we taste a good meal, but we can also taste a better meal – God’s Word. In fact, we can partake of the most heavenly and Divine meal – the Person of Jesus Christ, for He says that we are to eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:48 – 58). Partaking of Jesus Christ is to be our way of life, our continuous meal. It is also to be that special and particular sacrament that we celebrate as His People around His Table:

 

“While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins’” (Matthew 26:26 – 28).

 

We also have the bread of doing the will of God (John 4:31 – 34). When we eat of His Word, His Son, and His will – we have a full meal indeed; and of course His Son is His Word and His will – we find our all in all in Jesus Christ.

 

“Hope itself is spiritualized, remaining no longer the hope of imagination but grasping in God the ideal root from which the whole future must spring and blossom in due time.”

 

I wish Vos had used a word other than “spiritualized,” because I’m not quite sure what he means. He also writes that “heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God.” In some sense I think he means that our hope and our present life in God are made real and manifest by taking things to fully come and making them, to some degree, our present experience. This has a Biblical foundation in that we are tasting the good things to come and the Holy Spirit is the seal and deposit of our inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:11 – 14).

 

Our imaginations may conceive of an idea of the future, but there can come a time when we begin to grasp, to lay hold of, to wrap our arms around, “the ideal root.” This root is that “from which the whole future must spring and blossom in due time.” What does Vos mean? I think we can see his meaning in what follows:

 

“Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails.” The image is of us going beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies, communing with the Trinity, and then returning to our spheres of life, bringing with us elements of the fullness of the Presence of God. There is a sense in which we see the fulness of the Divine, we touch it, we taste it, we smell it, we hear it; and we bring a seed of it, a cutting from it (a root), back to our pilgrimage on earth – and allow what we have brought back to grow within us. As what we have brought back grows within us, the fulness of what we touched in the Holy of Holies grows within us to the glory of God and the blessing of others.

 

This is an example of the truth that, in Christ, “we are becoming who we are.” It is an example of what it means to “sit in the heavenlies in Christ” and then to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Ephesians 2:6; 4:1). This is an example of knowing that we are “complete in Him” (Col. 2:10) and of our being “perfected in Him” (Heb. 10:10), and yet we are called to live out this completeness and perfectness on our pilgrimage.

 

Note that the catalyst for our growth in Christ is not a focus on the past, nor a focus on our deficiencies, nor a focus on sin – the catalyst is the Person of Jesus Christ and His perfect and complete work toward His Father and toward His People. I’m going to pick this back up in the next post as we continue to ponder this quote from Vos.

 

While I realize that what Vos is saying, and what the Bible teaches, is foreign to most Christians, I hope that you will take the time to ponder the greatness of Christ’s redemption and purification in His People, and the glory of His inheritance in us and our inheritance in Him.

 

 

Light Shining on Scripture

 

Across the street is a lazy creek; it is too small to be a river and too wide to be a brook. It is best not to attempt to swim from one bank to the other, for from time-to-time alligators stop to spend a day or two or three and one never knows the last time they had a good meal. The creek is east of our home and I enjoy the play of light on the landscape as the day unfolds.

 

Most of us have likely seen seasonal photos of a scene, with fall, winter, spring, and summer – each season with a different perspective, highlighting one facet of the scene one season, and another point of interest the next. The difference between photos of the four seasons and the daily slideshow to the east of our home is that our slideshow changes throughout each day, not just throughout the year. Light determines our slideshow; its presence, its absence, its refraction, its interplay with clouds and temperature and water and the shadows of the woods on our side of the creek.

 

The fact of the creek is always there, the woods are always there, the landscape near and far does not itself change, but my perception of what I see does change, what arrests my interest changes, the composition of the tableau is determined by light – and in the early morning and late afternoon by light that is especially fleeting. The morning dawn waits for no photographer, the evening sunset may linger…but not for long.

 

The kaleidoscopic patterns east of our home may speak to me one way today, and another way tomorrow. In fact, they may say one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon, yet another in the evening, and still another in the stillness of the night. But note – the base reality of the creek, the east and west banks of the creek, the woodland – these remain the same, what changes is the play of light on them – none of my perceptions contradict one another because the base reality remains the same – none of them deny the creek, the water, the woodlands, the banks.

 

And so we meditate on the Scriptures, anticipating the enlightening of them (and our hearts) by the Holy Spirit, looking forward to communing with our Lord Jesus and our heavenly Father. How shall God’s light reveal the tableau of Romans Chapter 1 today? How shall Psalm 34 be revealed to me this morning? How shall Light fall on Deuteronomy Chapter 25?

 

This is why, after reading the Bible for decades, that it can be newer and newer, fresher and fresher, and more exciting than ever…and for sure more surprising in its glory of revealing Jesus Christ. This is why we can read a passage hundreds of times and never grow tired of its beauty as the Light rises to shine on it. Our attention may be drawn to a certain thought today, a prayer tomorrow, a word the next day, a nuance the following day – all in the same passage…all revealing our Lord Jesus, all drawing us into deeper koinonia within the Trinity. All of these images and thoughts are complementary – refracting the base reality in the Word of God, and behind the Word of God. As the Psalmist writes, “In Your Light we see light.”

 

 

A Strange, And Not So Strange, Story (8)

 

Judges Chapters 17 & 18

 

“When these went into Micah’s house and took the graven image, the ephod and household idols and the molten image, the priest said to them, ‘What are you doing?’ They said to him, ‘Be silent, put your hand over your mouth and come with us, and be to us a faither and a priest. Is it better for you to be a priest to the house of one man, or to be a priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?’ The priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod and household idols and the graven image and went among the people.” Judges 18:18 – 20.

 

Is it possible that churches want chaplains and that pastors would be just fine serving as chaplains or social workers? That is, is it possible that what “we the people” really want is someone to dedicate or baptize our children, someone to marry us, someone to bury us, and someone to tell us nice things on Sunday morning? Is it possible that pastors are fine with serving in the foregoing capacity? Is it possible that even those pastors who enter ministry with a passion for Jesus Christ, a desire to see Christians actually become disciples of Christ, and a determination to see others come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, are eventually worn down to the point where they lose the sharpness of their calling and give in to the weight of the status quo?

 

The Danites say to the Levite, “We have a bigger and better job for you, how can you argue with our logic?” This sounds an awful lot like our religious reasoning today – “Bigger is Better” is the Great Commandment and the Great Commission merged into one. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum we have, “We don’t want new wine, we want to preserve our old wineskins.”

 

What happened to the Levite’s relationship with Micah that we see in Judges 17:11? “The Levite agreed to live with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons.” When “bigger is better,” relationships take a back seat. I’m sure there are exceptions to the norm, but how many times have we seen pastors leave one church to serve a smaller church? How often do we take a cut in pay to make a job move?

 

However, let me be quick to say that this mentality of “bigger is better” is not the fault of any one group of people, it is the result of many forces, of many areas in which we acquiesce to the world around us, to the spirit of Babylon. It is what happens when we desert the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. After all, “bigger is better” and inviting money to be our arbiter is really the spirit of the Great Whore – Babylon the Great (Revelation chapters 17 – 18). John Piper titled a book, “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals”; I agree with the thought behind the title, but I’m just not sure we can extricate ourselves from the spider’s web in which we are entangled, it is difficult to function while living in Babylon. What I am trying to say is that we ought not to give ourselves a pass when reading about the idolatrous and mercenary Levite of our passage, either as vocational ministers or as congregations.

 

“When they had gone some distance from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house assembled and overtook the sons of Dan. They cried to the sons of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, ‘What is the matter with you, that you have assembled together’?” (Judges 18:22 – 23).

 

Can we see the sorry result of Micah’s idolatry? Can we see that his neighbors were seduced by his idolatry to the point that they pursued the Danites in an attempt to recover the idols? Micah’s idolatry was a cancer, first spreading to his neighbors and then being perpetuated in the tribe of Dan. The partnership between Micah and his mother was evil, and its fruit poisonous. The Levite added a false sense of legitimacy to the evil, and the evil spread not only to Micah’s neighbors, but then to an entire tribe, affecting others beyond that tribe. How are we influencing our families and neighbors? How are our congregations affecting other congregations?

 

While there are seminaries who remain faithful to Christ, for many generations there have been seminaries which have graduated men and women who reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible. A seminary degree or an ordination certificate do not mean that the person holding them is a Biblical Christian, preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so as not to be misunderstood, there are many who do not have a formal theological education who are also propagating idols within the Temple of God, the Church of Jesus Christ. Just because a person is the equivalent of a Levite, or of the family of Aaron, does not mean that he is teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

False teaching and idolatry have been a threat to the Church since its inception, as a result we have the New Testament letters, including the letter which we call Revelation. O dear friends, when Paul writes of a great “apostasy” (2 Thess. 2:3) and of “deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1) and of “difficult times” in which “men will be lovers of self, lovers of money…having a form of godliness” (2 Tim. 3:1 – 5) let us remember that these evil elements will appear Christian, very very Christian. The music will purport to be “Christian,” the written material will purport to be “Christian,” the teaching will purport to be “Christian.” Just as Micah and his mother and the Levite used the language of Yahweh, false teachers and idolaters today use the language of Jesus Christ and the Bible.

 

As we conclude this series on Judges 17 and 18, where would you like your name recorded? Alongside the idolatrous Levite and his family in Judges 18:30 – 31? Or alongside those faithful to Jesus Christ in Hebrews Chapter 11?

 

 

A Strange, And Not So Strange, Story (7)

 

Judges Chapters 17 & 18

 

In the previous post I wrote that the Danites polluted the ground of their sacred inheritance. Please bear with me as I attempt to explain what I mean.

 

Occasionally I’ve written of my friend, George Will (not the columnist). I first met George in 1966 in Greenville, SC; I last spoke to him around ten years ago. George spent most of his life serving Christ in the Mediterranean, primarily in Italy. In Christ, my life would not be what it is without Christ Jesus using George to influence those early years, indeed, to influence all of my years. While George introduced me to historical mentors who have been with me throughout my life, such as Andrew Murray, Watchman Nee. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A.W. Tozer; he also modeled something for me which only as I write this can I give a name to: simplicity in Christ.

 

When I first met George he was quoting 1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, Let him who glories, glory in the LORD.” When I last spoke with George, some forty-five years later, he was still quoting 1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31. (I assume George is in the Presence of Christ since I haven’t heard from him for so long.) In fact, some of his last words to me were, “I am nothing, Jesus is everything” (see 1 Cor. 1:28).

 

George did not pollute his inheritance in Jesus Christ, he lived his life “looking unto Jesus,” (Heb. 12:2), yet another verse that he was always quoting. I think George could say with Paul, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).  George had a simplicity in Christ that was constant, an anchor, and that humbled me. I have known a few people like George, not many, sometimes I have realized it at the time, but usually I’ve been too dumb to see that I was in a special place with a special person. Anna Nichols was another such person, perhaps I’ll write about Anna sometime, I may have done so around 2010.

 

How do we pollute our inheritance? While I’m sure there are many ways we can do so, such as making merchandise of God’s Word, profiting off insights and understandings which were never ours to begin with, which never belonged to us – going one of the ways of Balaam; more often than not my sense is that we pollute our inheritance when we substitute the inheritance for Jesus Christ, for His Person, for an intimate relationship with Him – a relationship so intimate that the Bible uses the image of a Bride and her Husband.

 

Consider that each tribe of Israel was given a specific inheritance in the Promised Land. As it turned out, much of that inheritance was never fully occupied as the Israelites often sought accommodation with the pagans, a policy in disobedience to the Word of Yahweh. (Aren’t we foolish when we think we know better than God?) In virtually all instances, the tribes of Israel did not hold their inheritance as a trust from Yahweh, but rather as something that they could do with as they pleased, whether that be accommodation with pagans and their cultures, or, as in the case of the Danites of Judges 17 and 18, the establishment their own form of idol worship.

 

If we think of insights we have gained in Christ, of experiences we’ve had, of our various theological and ecclesial traditions – is it possible that in our identification with these experiences and ways of thinking that we have left the simplicity that is in Christ? (See 2 Cor. 11:1 – 3). Paul’s concern for the Corinthians was that their “minds will be led from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

 

Might it be that when we substitute elements of our inheritance in Christ in the place of devotion to Jesus Christ, that we pollute our sacred inheritance? Might this be the equivalent of “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:12)? And note that the trajectory of this passage leads us to 1 Cor. 1:30 – 2:5.

 

 In a recent post in this series I raised the question of whether we speak of Jesus Christ to one another and to our world, or whether our language and conversation is about God/god and church. If our language is of god and church it may be that we have polluted our inheritance, because our inheritance has become our center of gravity, it has become our primary identity. If this is the case, then might we have crafted attractive idols for ourselves and others? Might we have taken a blessing from our Father in Christ and turned it into a platform for self-righteousness, of self-identity – turned it into something it was never meant to be? Might we have convinced ourselves that our experience must be everyone’s experience - no matter where on the experience spectrum we may be?

 

Might we have become so identified with our way of thinking that we assume it doesn’t need critique or adjustment or alignment with the holistic Bible? Have we closed the door on mystery and paradox and enigma and asking the Holy Spirit to not only search our hearts, but to search our minds and our doctrines and dogmas and practices?

 

Over the past few years, when I have done pulpit supply on Sunday mornings it has usually been within a certain denomination. One question that often comes up when I’m in a Sunday school class or in conversation with individuals is, “Are you of our denomination?” (I’ll not use the name of the denomination). They aren’t asking me about my testimony, or about my relationship with Christ, or my calling as a preacher, or about my qualifications to preach – they aren’t asking me about things of the Kingdom, they simply want to know if my identify is their denominational identity – and they want to know this because this is their identity.

 

Now, pretty much wherever I have preached there has been an assumption that I believe the doctrinal distinctives of the place where I am speaking. This is interesting to me, for it indicates what closed systems we live in, how introverted we are; and I understand this because I’ve been there, and am probably still there in some respects. There have been seasons of my life when experience or particular thinking has been my primary identity, rather than the Person of Jesus Christ.

 

This is one reason why the concepts of Mere Christianity and The Great Tradition are important to me, and it is why the simplicity in Christ that George Will modeled has been a North Star for me throughout the years; when I have steered off course I have, by Christ’s grace, been pulled back to the glorious and blessed Trinity.

 

There have been times when I have polluted my inheritance, when I have been so enamored of an experience or a “revelation” or perspective, that I have shifted my love and affection and devotion from Jesus Christ to these other things.

 

Is it possible that you have had, in your own way, this experience also?

 

O how I want to live life in the simplicity of Jesus Christ.

 

What about you?

A Strange, And Not So Strange, Story (6)

 

Judges Chapters 17 & 18

 

“Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were in it living in security after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no ruler humiliating them for anything in the land, and they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. When they came back to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers said to them, What do you report? They said, Arise and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. And will you sit still? Do not delay to go, to enter, to possess the land.” (Judges 18:7 – 9 NASB).

 

Consider the words, “And will you sit still? Do not delay to go, to enter, to possess the land.” We could place an exclamation point “!” at the end of this exhortation to emphasize what the five spies were saying, their excitement at the land they saw, and their sense that their tribe needed to move fast, to take advantage of the situation, for the people of Laish were accustomed to living in peace, without conflict, and they were unprepared for an attack.

 

Now here is a thing that we ought not to lose sight of, while Laish (also known as Leshem in Joshua 19:47) was a place of idol worship when the Sidonians lived there, it would remain a place of idol worship when the Danites moved there, for the Danites would bring their own idols with them, particularly the idols of Micah along with the priest of Micah. That is, after the Danites destroyed the Sidonians living in Laish, along with their Sidonian idols (I really don’t know whether we can assume they destroyed the Sidonian idols), “The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh” (Judges 18:30 – 31).

 

Note the comment, “…all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” Yahweh had established His Tabernacle and Testimony at Shiloh, Shiloh was to be the place where the People of God worshipped, yet the Danites had established their own place of worship, and they turned their inheritance from Yahweh into a center of idol worship. (We would never do that…would we?)

 

The tribe of Dan had “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (Romans 1:23). The People of Yahweh polluted the sacred ground of their inheritance, and this pollution would continue “until the day of the captivity of the land.” Let us not be so foolish as to ignore the warnings of the Risen Christ that He will remove candlesticks (Rev. 2:5).

 

In years to come, the tribe of Dan was a natural place for Jeroboam to set up one of the two golden calves that he made for Israel to worship (1 Kings 12:25 – 33). When the Danites of Judges 18 changed the name of Laish to Dan, in order to honor their ancestor, the son of Jacob, that was hardly an honor – giving the name of their ancestor Dan to a place that would be associated with idol worship until its destruction in the judgment of Yahweh. What fools we can be as we glory in our idols!

 

Do we do the same things? Do we honor those who have gone before us by bestowing their names on idolatrous practices? What might Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Hus, or Francis of Assisi say were they to visit the places and peoples and practices upon which we’ve bestowed their names? What about our recovery of Divine Truth in our lives and “movements,” have we taken what was to have been a portion of our inheritance and turned it into an idol, taking the place of our Lord Jesus Christ?

 

Can we hear the disciples saying, as the woman breaks the vessel filled with precious and costly ointment to anoint Jesus Christ, “Why this waste?”? Can we hear Peter saying, “Let’s make three tabernacles”? Can we see Jesus Christ among the candlesticks of Revelation chapters 1 – 3? Do we see the distinction between the two women of Proverbs Chapter 9? Do we see the difference between the Bride and the Whore of the book of Revelation? Do we sense the concern of Paul when he writes:

 

“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds” (2 Cor. 11:13 – 15)?

 

Idolatry is often attractive and seductive. We might even apply the foolish question heard in popular songs, “How can this be wrong, when it feels so right?” Let’s not forget, Micah and his family, as well as the Danites, were not far removed from Moses or from Joshua; they were not far removed from people who actually saw the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the wonders of manna, the judgments and miracles of the Wilderness, the parting of the Jordan, the victory at Jericho.

 

Let us not forget that the letters of the Apostles reflect our tendency and predisposition to leave the simplicity of a monogamous relationship with Jesus Christ and fall into myriad forms of false teaching and idolatry, nor let us be so foolish as to think that the warnings of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are not for us.

 

I know of no remedy for this, or protection, than to love, and abide in, the Person of Jesus Christ in fellowship with one another and in faithfulness to His Word as it has been confessed through the ages, and as it is embodied in the Nicene Creed. Dear friends, there is no book in any bookstore, nor available in electronic form, as pertinent to our lives and times as the Bible, and within it, the strange and not so strange chapters of Judges 17 and 18. These chapters do not portray some weird thing than happened in centuries long past, they paint of picture of the way we are today, a day in which idols proliferate both within and without the professing church.

 

We ask, “Will this be successful?” Instead of, “What is Jesus saying about this?” We ask, “Will this work? Will this pay for itself? Will we have a return on our investment?” Instead of asking “Where is the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ in this?”

 

We ask, “Will this offend anyone? Will this advance my ministry? Our ministry?” Rather than, “Where is the call of God in Christ?”

 

We ask, “Will people be comfortable with this?” Rather than, “Are we willing to die to our agendas, our preferences, our comfort, so that others may live in Jesus Christ?”

 

May I say, “I love Jesus Christ, and I pray that I will love Him with all that I have and all that I am.” However, having said this, I cannot say that I have never bowed to idols, nor can I say that I have never propagated idols. I found the temptation to idolatry much stronger in vocational ministry than in business, much, much stronger. For you see, in business you can often see idols for what they are, seductive enticements to put yourself first, to accumulate honor and material things. O but in ministry the idols are religious, they look so reasonable and good – what can be wrong with the accolades of peers? Of church growth? Of well – planned and seamless worship services? Of increased offerings? Of music on a professional level? Of excited congregations? Of meeting the felt needs of others? What can be wrong with substituting dumbed – down curricula for the Bible?

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think we owe our Lord Jesus and others our best; but I am also aware of how easily I can substitute the expectations and standards of this world, including the religious world, for the Word of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

 

As a pastor I recall the realization that I was so well – trained in preaching that I could construct a sermon without relying on the Holy Spirit. Not only that, but it occurred to me that in my preaching classes we never once, as far as I recall, talked about dependence on the Holy Spirit, nor about guarding against self – reliance when preparing sermons. Once again, don’t misunderstand me, my preaching classes have been very helpful to me in proclaiming and teaching God’s Word, but I would be a fool not to ask Jesus to save me from myself. My point is that well – prepared sermons can become a religious idol.

 

(This is not an argument against theological education, nor is it an endorsement of ad-hoc preaching, or preaching without preparation – though we ought to be ready to witness and preach at anytime…to be sure…I am simply trying to illustrate how easy it is to follow after religious idols).

 

Again, as a pastor, how many times did I look at congregations and compare us to what the church world expected of us; rather than view my congregations as an organic people in Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ as the Head? How often did I substitute the standards and paradigms of the church world for the Bible? I am simply trying to demonstrate how insidious false images can be and how they can infiltrate our lives and ministries and congregations.

 

Well, I’ll conclude this now because I may be rambling, and we’ll return to Judges 17 and 18 in another post. Please don’t miss the point that Judges 17 and 18 may seem a strange story at first, but maybe it isn’t all that strange…not really.

 

A Strange, And Not So Strange, Story (5)

Judges Chapters 17 & 18

 

“In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6). “In those days there was no king in Israel…” (Judges 18:1a).

 

When Jesus Christ is not acknowledged as King in the Church, we can expect confusion and chaos and cacophony. When Jesus Christ is not served and submitted to, when we do not bow our hearts and knees before Him, we will do what is right in our own eyes. When Jesus Christ is not our King, we can anticipate much of what we see in Judges to be replicated in the professing church.

 

In Judges 18 we see that the tribe of Dan has yet to fully possess its inheritance and that it has sent five men to spy out the region of Laish (see also Joshua 19:40ff). “When they were near the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young man, the Levite; and they turned aside there and said to him, “Who brought you here? And what are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?”

 

We’re not told how the men of Dan knew the Levite, but they must have known him fairly well to have recognized his voice, or the Levite must have had quite the distinctive voice. In any case these five men, who had yet to enter into their inheritance, sought direction from the Levite, who had abdicated his inheritance for idol worship. The Danites knew the voice of the Levite but they did not know the Voice of Yahweh. O that we would know that the fulness of our inheritance is in Jesus Christ and that we will not find it in idols, in syncretistic Christianity, in the ways of this present evil age…no matter how successful these ways may appear.

 

The Danites ask the Levite, “Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether our way on which we are going will be prosperous.” The Levite responds, “Go in peace; your way in which you are going has Yahweh’s approval.”

 

The Danites see Micah’s idols, they see the Levite acting as a priest in Micah’s idolatrous household, and yet they want the Levite to inquire of God concerning their plans – they want to know if they will be prosperous. The Danites have forgotten the Law that Yahweh gave through Moses, they have forgotten their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – or perhaps more accurately, they have chosen to ignore Yahweh’s Law and to reject their heritage.

 

Now while I suppose we ought to be careful about putting too much emphasis on this, I want to point out that the Danites want to know what “God” thinks about their mission, they do not use the name Yahweh, the covenant name of the God of Israel. On the other hand, the Levite does use the name Yahweh when he tells the five men that they have “Yahweh’s approval.”

 

Is our conversation and thinking centered in Jesus Christ? Is it centered in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or is our conversation and thinking centered on “God”? Do we speak of an ambiguous God, or do we speak of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we speak of the Father who gave His Only Son? Do we speak of the Holy Spirit who lives in us? Or do we speak of a nebulous God who has been created in myriad images by mankind?

 

Dear friends, the name Jesus Christ is that Name above all names, “…there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Concerning Christ Jesus Paul writes, “For this reason, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9 – 11).

 

We are called to explicitly and unambiguously preach, teach, and share Jesus Christ with others. As the Church, we are called to be monogamously wedded to Jesus Christ. If we are indeed in a relationship with Jesus Christ we will speak of Jesus Christ to one another in the Church, and to others outside the Church.

 

Now to be sure, there are pseudo-Christians who use the name Jesus just as the Levite used the name Yahweh. There are seminary professors and pastors and authors who attempt to remake Jesus Christ into their own image, thus leading others into darkness. Having said this, I ask the question, “Are we speaking to one another of Jesus Christ? Or…do we speak of “things” and “activities” and such? Are we more likely to talk to others about “church” or about Jesus Christ? Are we more likely to use the ambiguous term “God” when speaking to others or do we speak to others of Jesus Christ…doing so as a result of our relationship with Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ?”

 

This is really only one question, phrased in different ways – is Jesus our all in all? Is He our everything? We can talk of “church” forever, we may speak of a nebulous “god” forever, and no one will hear of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Jesus Christ; no one will hear of the marvelous and wonderful love of the Father for men and women and young people, no one will hear the call to confess their sins, repent, and enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ.  

 

O dear friends, we like to be safe; speaking of church is safe, speaking generally of a god with pithy sayings and cute maxims is safe – but speaking of Jesus Christ is never safe, for the message of Jesus requires us to die to self and live to Him, and it requires us to bear His shame and His rejection – for the sake of a lost and dying world. Tell me now, what do you think, what is the point of a person gaining the entire world but losing his or her soul? (Mark 8:34ff). Are we known as a people who speak of Jesus Christ? Or are we known as a people who talk about morality, politics, church, god, success? Just who do we belong to?

 

Can we say with Paul, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself” (Acts 20:24a)?

 

The Danites wanted to know if they would prosper in their way. Does this sound like our preaching today? The Danites had forgotten that true prosperity is to know the Word of Yahweh, to walk in that Word, to meditate in that Word, and to never allow that Word to depart from our hearts and minds (Joshua 1, Psalm 1).

 

When “everyone does what is right in his own eyes,” everyone has idols; personal idols, family idols, regional idols, national idols. When “there is no King,” we do what we want, when we want, and how we want – not just Monday through Saturday, but on Sunday mornings, for we are accountable to no one and we can bring idols into the Temple as long as they bring us success, otherwise they will not be accepted.

 

Idolatry was normative for Israel, for everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Is it normative for us?

 

O dear friends, to know Jesus is to belong to Jesus; to no longer belong to ourselves. To follow Jesus is to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, to learn His Way of Life, the Way of laying our lives down daily for Him; to glorify Him and so that others might know Him.

 

The Apostle John concluded his first letter to Christians with these words:

 

“Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21).