23. Envy

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.23

Psa 68:16 Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever?

Again we consider a question which is not so much one of God, but one generally, but it still produces much fruit by considering it. Envy is the begrudging of what someone else has got, wishing you had it. Envy is a dissatisfaction with what you have in the light of what someone else has. Envy is one of the signs of insecurity, of not being content with who you are when you look at others. Envy, if we let it grow and fester, leads us to malign others or do wrong to them. It was said of Pilate in respect of the religious authorities handing Jesus over to him, “he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.” (Mt 27:18) James warned, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” (Jas 3:16). Do you see there, James links it with selfish ambition? That’s its close cousin!

In case we weren’t sure, Jesus in his teaching clearly condemned envy as an evil: “What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.‘” (Mk 7:20-23). Paul likewise placed envy alongside lots of other clearly wrong things, things that come from the old sinful nature: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” (Gal 5:19-21).

Now that we are quite clear in our minds about envy we are ready to consider the question today. The Psalm is one of rejoicing over the works of God in delivering and establishing Israel. In v.7 it speaks of God leading the people through the desert from Sinai (v.8). The Lord blessed the new land (v.9,10) and kings fled before Israel (v.12), and the Lord chose Mount Zion as His dwelling place (v.16), the place from which He will reign. The psalmist imagines other bigger mountains in the land being envious of Mount Zion as being the place of His choice for a sanctuary (v.17) where He may dwell (v.18).

The impression that is given is that some of the other mountains, as we said, are bigger, yet it is here the Lord has chosen. The first lesson is not to be envious of others because He has chosen them to do something He hasn’t asked of you. The Lord’s choice is the Lord’s choice and it is always the best choice. It is simply that for some reason that perhaps He alone knows, this other person is a better choice for the role than you, even though you may have other more obvious gifts. Zion was the site of Jerusalem and that was the place over all others that the Lord had chosen for His temple. We don’t know why but it just was. We must learn to rejoice in what God has given us and be at peace in that, not getting upset because it is different from someone else we know.

Another close cousin of envy is jealousy. Saul became jealous of David when he saw the blessing of God on him bringing the adoration of the people: “from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.” (1 Sam 18:9). Saul couldn’t rejoice in this young man’s blessing because he was insecure in his own role that had gone wrong. Each one of us needs to know who we are and what God has gifted us with and be at peace in that. The apostle Paul wrote a lot about us being all one body and the body is made up of lots of different members, each of which is important (1 Cor 12). Envy is the inability to accept your gifting and role in the body when you see it next to others who you consider more gifted or more fortunate. Rejoice in the gifting of others that God has given them and enjoy them. The verse gives us a subtle warning in the question, against measuring ourselves against others.

But there is another side to this. Others will be envious of us. If they saw Jesus and were envious of him, as we noted above, then people will be envious of us, of the gifting that God gives us. Remember what we have said. It is a sign of their insecurity. We don’t have to feel bad about the gifting that God has given us, especially if others indicate their envy. As a leader, at various times in my life I have had those who challenged my role and said, “I ought to be leading this!” Leaders in the kingdom of God know they are what they are because God has called them to it and it’s only with His gifting can they do it. It is an uncomfortable place being out front; you become the first target for the enemy, and one way he will come is through the challenging words of others. The classic example of this was against Moses: “Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard this.” (Num 12:1,2). What they were basically saying was, “He’s just our brother. We’re just as good as him. Why should he be the leader?” Immediately after we read, “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth,” and the inference is that he didn’t defend himself but left it to God, who promptly dealt with them.

It is clear from the account that Joseph’s brothers envied him: “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.” His father obviously loved him more than them and that they couldn’t cope with. That is how the enemy stirs up envy and subsequently strife; he takes a position where one of God’s children is being blessed more than others and then challenges them in the minds of the others. Beware envy, beware the enemy stirring it in you. Seek to be a peacemaker if others are envious of you. Let’s not give the enemy any room to move in us!

22. Pride

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.22

Psa 52:1 Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man? Why do you boast all day long?

Do you ever read or watch the news and wonder? So often there are ‘celebrities’ or ‘great leaders’ or leaders who think they are great, and they come over with such confidence. They have money, stardom or position and they seem so full of themselves. Perhaps you have a college lecturer like that, or a boss at work. They look and sound so sure of themselves, at least in public, and their lifestyles leave much to be desired, and they are godless. In fact they even pronounce on our folly in believing in a make believe God. They don’t need any such belief to support them. They are strong, they are powerful, they have the ear of important people, and who are you after all? You are just some insignificant Christian who doesn’t cause half the ripples in the world that they do!

Boasting is a sign of pride and pride is an overblown estimation of self. Proud people think they are in control, think they are invincible, think they are all-important, think they can do what they like and get away with it. But proud people are wrong! Proud people, although they don’t realise it, have a major problem: “God opposes the proud” (Jas 4:6, 1 Pet 5:5). The apostle Paul taught, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited” (Rom 12:16). Pride we said was an overblown estimation of self. We think our cleverness or our strength or our power has got us to the place where we are, and we don’t realize that it was in fact the grace and mercy of God. We also don’t realize how vulnerable we are. How quickly we fall when the flu strikes or a previously unknown pain strikes, and fear follows a frightening diagnosis. How easily are the mighty fallen!

The heading at the top of the Psalm from which today’s question comes, indicates that David wrote this shortly after he had fled from Saul, gone to the priest for help and been seen by a man by the odd name of Doeg. Yes, this is not so much a question for God as for those who oppose God. Doeg was an Edomite and the Edomites had so often been enemies of God’s people, but Doeg curried favour with Saul to cause upset and opposition against God’s anointed man, David. Doeg was Saul’s chief shepherd (1 Sam 21:7) and Doeg told Saul where David had gone (1 Sam 22:9) and when Saul ordered the priests to be killed, only Doeg would do it (1 Sam 22:18 ,19). Only an outsider would raise his hand against God’s priests. That day he killed 85 of them.

As David writes about this he writes, “Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?” Doeg may think much of himself in his own eyes, but in God’s eyes he’s a disgrace! He may think, “I’m Saul’s chief shepherd, I’m an important man and I helped the king” but God calls him a disgrace. That’s the folly of pride; it wrongly assesses itself. It thinks it’s great but the most important Assessor of all, utterly disdains it! He says through Solomon, “I hate pride and arrogance.” (Prov 8:13)

Obadiah exposed pride when he prophesied against Edom, “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, `Who can bring me down to the ground?” (Obad 1:3). Pride thinks it is secure. The Edomites thought that because they lived in mountain strongholds they were safe. In their pride they boasted, but the word came, “I will bring you down, declares the LORD.” (Obad 1:4). David’s question in our verse today essentially is saying, “Why do you boast you silly person? Don’t you know you are answerable to God and you have no security before Him?”

This is the point, isn’t it, that the proud think they are all important and that they are secure, yet before God they are utterly weak. In that Psalm David goes on, “Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin” (v.5). In other words, don’t you realize you are doomed because you oppose God? David derides him for his folly: “Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!” (v.7). More and more the word of God reveals the folly of this proud man. He trusted in wealth. Presumably Saul had paid him well as chief over all his flocks. He grew strong in Saul’s court by doing Saul’s ungodly and unrighteous bidding and so, foolishly, thought he was completely secure. Don’t worry about the proud; leave them to the Lord!

When Peter, quoting Proverbs, wrote, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5) he prefaced it with, “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.” and followed it by, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” Our call is not to join the ranks of the proud, but to remember who we are, remember our frailty and weakness and need of God, and to get our perspective right. As Paul said, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” (Rom 12:3) When we do this, it will not only act as a safety check for us, it will help us realize again the wonder of who we are in God, because we will find ourselves meditating on the wonder of what God has done for us and in us. When we do that there is no room for pride. “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded” (Rom 3:27 ). Let’s make sure that is how it is.

21. God hiding

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.21

Psa 44:24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?

As we’ve commented a number of times in these meditations, there are bound to be various commonalities in them, the prime ones are that these cries arise when we are in trouble and God doesn’t seem to be responding as we think He should. Today’s cry has aspects that are unique to it. When someone ‘hides’ they are purposefully making themselves not available so that they cannot be found.

References to the Lord hiding His face occur many times in the psalms – 30:7, 88:14, 27:9, 69:17, 102:2, 143:7. Little children hide their face when they are embarrassed and want to pretend they are not there. We tend to think of adults as turning their face away, but it is the same thing. When someone turns their face away there may be three different things they are doing. The first is that they are showing that they don’t want to see what you are doing. It suggests they disapprove of it and therefore don’t want to know about it. The second thing is that they are showing they don’t want to communicate with you. We communicate with our mouths and with our faces generally, and when we don’t want to communicate we turn away and ignore the person. The third reason is that they want to hide what they are feeling, by hiding what is on their face. In each case there is the suggestion that there has been some breakdown in the relationship so that the person hiding their face wants to dissociate themselves from the other person somehow.

With the Lord, seeing His face is a special privilege. When Moses was talking to the Lord on one occasion, the Lord said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Ex 33:20) and “you will see my back; but my face must not be seen” (v.23) yet when the Lord spoke about Moses, He said, “With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.” (Num 12:8) yet the phrase ‘face to face’ clearly didn’t mean that Moses saw the Lord, but that the communication between the two of them was open. The best that could be said was that Moses had seen ‘the form’ of God, the shape or outline. Similarly Moses said to the people, “The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain” (Deut 5:4) and again the phrase ‘face to face’ obviously doesn’t mean ‘visibly clear’ but more ‘distinctly’.

Just before the time of Moses’ death, the Lord warned him that in the future the people would turn away from the Lord and turn to idols at which point He warned, “On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed.” (Deut 31:17). Hiding His face thus also became synonymous with standing back from Israel and allowing judgment through surrounding nations to come upon them. So ‘hiding His face’ came to be used when the Lord cut Himself off from His people and brought judgment on them.

David in Psalm 4 wrote, “Many are asking, ‘Who can show us any good?’ Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.” (Psa 4:6). There he saw that the Lord’s ‘face’ shone with glory and therefore when the Lord turned towards them, His glory would shine on them and would bring God’s goodness to them. In Psalm 11 he said, “For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face.” (Psa 11:7) implying a relationship is there with the Lord for the person who is righteous. Simply seeing his face, means having a relationship so, as we said above, if the Lord turns away His face, it is a sign of His relationship being withdrawn.

Now for us, we need to understand that as Christians, that relationship is only ever withdrawn when there is apostasy, the clear and purposeful turning from a life with God to a life of sin – see Heb 6 (in v.6 ‘fall away’ doesn’t mean to commit an occasional sin, but to completely change your life to sin). However, there is a withdrawal of communion when we are in a wrong attitude that offends the Lord. On those occasions the Lord does ‘hide His face’ from us and there is no communication. Scriptures tells us that it is possible for us to “grieve the Spirit” (Eph 4:30) and on those times there is a breakdown of the relationship as far as communication is concerned. The bizarre thing is that we can generally have our hearts turned towards Him and yet have and maintain a wrong attitude or behaviour towards others, which grieves the Lord. While we persist in that course of thinking or action, it will be as if the Lord hides His face from us and there is little or no communication with Him.

Moses laid down an important principle: “you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut 4:29). If you fear there has been a breakdown in communication between you and the Lord, then the answer is clear: look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you do that, one thing you will find you are doing is examining yourself to ensure there is nothing in your life to hinder that relationship. If you do that wholeheartedly then you will deal with any wrong attitudes or actions and put them right, for you will want nothing, but nothing, to get between you and the Lord. Paul said about Communion, “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” (1 Cor 11:28). It is for the same reason. We can seem apparently good people in public but if we harbour wrong thoughts, then we will find that because this grieves the Lord, He will hide His face. May it not be so!

20. God Asleep?

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.20

Psa 44:23 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.

When someone is asleep they are either working off their tiredness or they are just at peace with the world. In respect of the first aspect, Isaiah gives us an answer as far as God is concerned. He answered the Jews who were complaining, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God” (Isa 40:27) by saying, “The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.” (Isa 40:28). Their complaint was, ‘God doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to our plight; He must be worn out.’ to which Isaiah basically replies, ‘Don’t be silly. God doesn’t get tired.’ So if He doesn’t get tired, if He seems to be sleeping, it must be that He’s at peace with the world and if He’s at peace with the world, why can’t He see our plight? Or, to reverse it, if He can’t see our plight, he must be asleep! However one of the psalmists declared, “He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” (Psa 121:3,4) In other words God doesn’t need sleep. He is always awake, always alert, and always sees what is happening.

Now the same wasn’t true when He came in the form of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus did, having a human body, need to rest, and did need to sleep. In fact the most notorious time when he slept provoked an almost identical response to here: “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mk 4:37,38) What they were saying essentially was, ‘Lord why are you sleeping? Aren’t you aware of our plight? How can you sleep when we’re about to die?’ They expected Jesus to be DOING something in the face of the plight that was facing them.

While we are meditating on this aspect of the Lord, it is also interesting to note how Elijah made fun of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He had made this challenge that they would make an altar, put meat on it and then call upon the one they worshipped to come and devour it. The prophets of Baal jumped up and down, screamed and shouted and even took to cutting themselves, to try to get their ‘god’ to turn up. Eventually Elijah jeered at them, “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” He was putting Baal on the same footing as we now see the Greek and Roman gods – very human in their activities, even falling asleep and needing to be roused. Oh no, our God is not like that! Whatever the plight we find ourselves in, He knows about it!

Now that is the commonality of the Old Testament cry and the New Testament cry, the word we have used several times, ‘plight’, which indicates they were in a threatening predicament. We’re quite happy that God doesn’t seem to be paying attention until suddenly we find ourselves in a predicament where we expect God to help.

Now that is quite interesting. It is something we perhaps take for granted. We assume God is there to help us. Even the unbeliever who faces a life-threatening situation cries out to God for help. There is this implicit assumption that God is sufficiently concerned and sufficiently powerful that He can and will do something about it. Because it is such an obvious thing, we perhaps need to examine this. Why do we have this feeling that if we cry out to God He will help? Is it something about being made in the image of God, that deep down we have this affinity with God which most of the time we ignore, but which, in times of crisis, rises to the surface? Is it that those of us who have read of God’s activities in the Old Testament assume that He will turn up for us in the same way that He turned up for so many people in that time? Or have the wonders of the possibilities of life with Jesus so impacted us that we have come to realize that God truly is for us. Whatever it is, when things go wrong we expect God to turn up for us, and if He doesn’t seem to be doing that we cry out with a variety of cries. This latest one is, essentially, “Lord, have you gone asleep?” because that’s what it seems like.

But the truth, as we’ve already noted, is that God never sleeps. If He is not acting on our behalf it is, as we’ve said a number of times in these meditations, that He has an agenda which He is working to and for whatever reason it requires Him to pause and wait before He acts. Jesus in the boat was completely at peace in the knowledge that His heavenly Father would keep watch over him, AND when it came to it, he himself had the power to deal with the storm. The psalmist had the sense that the Lord’s hesitancy in acting was because He had stood back from Israel’s apostasy and was leaving them to the world. Thus he cried, Do not reject us forever. He had the awareness that because of their apostasy the Lord was rejecting them, but his cry was, don’t let it be forever. Implied within that is the awareness that they did deserve discipline, but not that it would involve Israel’s utter destruction so that they would be lost for ever.

We need to be aware that the Lord does discipline us, those of us who are Christians, who call ourselves God’s children: “the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” (Heb 12:6). If the Lord sees we are wilfully sinning, because He loves us, He will take action to stop us from going down that path. That discipline may be painful, but it isn’t eternal. If that is what is happening and the Lord isn’t seeming to act, He’s just allowing you to weather that time, learn from it, and change. It isn’t eternal rejection. It’s just your loving heavenly Father standing back while you take your medicine. Sounds tough? Well who said it was all right to carry on sinning? Go that way and that’s what you can expect. The simple answer is stay off the path of sin!

19. Forgotten?

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.19

Psa 42:9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”

There is in one sense a commonality in many of these particular studies, a question mark over God’s behaviour as it is seen from our standpoint; it’s just that it comes in a variety of ways. But that is the key: it is from our standpoint. Standpoint is very important. For instance someone once pointed out to me many years ago, the phrase that crops up again and again in Ecclesiastes, “under the sun”. Now “under the sun” means as seen from down here on earth. Ecclesiastes is an earthly assessment of life and as such is very jaded. It was the assessment of Solomon after he had been led away from the Lord by all his foreign wives, an assessment that had little of God in it. As such it is brilliant at helping us see the meaningless of life without God, but it is a very limited viewpoint. The apostle Paul had the exact opposite, a tremendous insight in God’s purposes, but contrary to popular belief, being very heavenly minded doesn’t make you of no earthly use. If makes you far more effective in your use on earth, this side of heaven.

Jesus had the incredible ability to see everything from the heavenly perspective because he had come from there (Jn 6:32 -) and, even more, knew that he was going back there to receive the glory as the Saviour of the world (Heb 12:2). Every time we come up with a “Why?” question it means we have lost perspective. Somehow something has happened which makes us feel one thing that is contrary to the truth.

In the same psalm we looked at yesterday, the psalmist expresses the feeling that he has. He is not only feeling disturbed, he is feeling forgotten. Imagine you were a little child and you were taken by your parents to visit another family and when you arrived at their home, they left you in the front room and said, “We’ve just got to go upstairs and visit Aunt. Your cousins will come and play with you in a minute and we won’t be long.” and they leave you there. Minutes pass, and then an hour and then two hours and no one comes. You have been forgotten. Do you sense the feeling of the little child? Two hours with love and companionship absent. Or perhaps you are an adult and at work your boss has promised you a promotion, but it never seems to come. You feel forgotten. Hopes for something better denied. Or suppose you have a serious accident and they rush you to hospital. You are wheeled into ‘Casualty’ (or ER) and left at one side. No one comes near you. Everyone is hustling and bustling with other patients and you are left there unattended in pain. You are forgotten. Your needs are being unmet. Or suppose you are part of a small army troop sent on special operations in a foreign hostile country. You fight your fight and make for the rendezvous where you will be picked up by helicopters. You arrive at the pickup point and wait, and wait. It is likely the enemy will pursue you. You have only limited time. Where are our helicopters? Time passes and they don’t come. You have been forgotten. Hope of salvation dwindles.

The sense of being forgotten is a sense that someone somewhere doesn’t care. You are not important enough to be in their thoughts and so they have simply forgotten you! The sense of being abandoned is a demeaning one, a belittling one. You are so small that you don’t warrant the attention of someone else. There are a lot of other feelings associated with this feeling of being forgotten! And that is how it seems with God sometimes. Or perhaps we should say, that is how Satan suggests it is with God sometimes, for the truth is that God sees everything, God knows everything and God misses nothing. But perhaps that makes it worse, this thought that He sees me in distress and still doesn’t seem to do anything about it. Why?

The answer of faith has to be that God has a reason, a perfect reason that we may never fully understand this side of heaven. That’s why, as we saw yesterday, sometimes all we can do is say, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” (v.11). Without God we would be stuck in a hopeless situation anyway. At least I know that in the past God has always been there for me, He has always turned up and saved me. I also know what His word promises. His word and His past actions on my behalf can give me confidence for the present. That is what Isaiah knew when he cried, “To the law and to the testimony” (Isa 8:20). When God seems out of sight and we feel forgotten, we need to restate the truth: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Heb 13:5) and “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” (Rom 8:28 ). We may not sense Him but He is there and He is there always working for my good. That is the wonder of the Christian life. Hallelujah!

18. Disturbed

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.18

Psa 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Our emotions are both a blessing and a bane. Joy and laughter are expressions that bless us. Tears even can be a blessing when they are tears of joy. Those are the upside emotions but the many downside emotions are not a blessing. We are sufficiently self-aware these days to know that emotions are linked to our physical state so when we are tired we feel down, we feel low. But there are also times when we feel emotionally low and we cannot see any connection with our physical well-being. Physically we’re fine, yet somehow within us we feel disturbed. Sometimes our deep emotions can act as a warning.

Once, many years ago I came home at the end of the day and found as I talked to my wife about normal things, I began to feel quite disturbed. Disturbed is a good word. Do you remember there was a pool in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day called the Pool of Bethesda where it was believed that an angel came and ’stirred’ the water and when that happened they believed if you got into the pool quickly you would be healed. The man spoke to Jesus, “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.” Stirred here is the same as disturbed. The peaceful water would suddenly be stirred up, it was disturbed. That is how it can be with us and that was how it was with me that day. There seemed to be no natural reason why it should be, so I went away and the Lord said, “You wife’s spirit is disturbed because there was a witch in the house earlier in the day and her disturbed spirit disturbed your wife’s spirit and her disturbed spirit has disturbed yours.” It was true she had been sharing the Lord with this other woman who was deeply into the occult and it had left her with a disturbed spirit. We learnt to ‘clean up’ before the Lord after such encounters.

Sometimes we may be ‘disturbed’ because a loved one is being threatened and it is a warning to us to pray. Sometimes we may be ‘disturbed’ because of the presence of the enemy in someone we encounter, as above. Sometimes we may be ‘disturbed’ because of the enemy rising against us directly. In each case there is an absence of peace deep down or, to put it another way, the still waters of God’s presence are disturbed by the enemy’s presence. The only thing about this dis-peace is that initially at least we don’t know the cause of it. Something or someone is making us feel disturbed but we don’t know who or what. There is yet another cause seen in this psalm.

Thus it was that the psalmist had this awareness of being downcast, of being disturbed, but didn’t know the reason for it. In fact, twice in this psalm and once in the psalm that follows he expresses this uncertainty. For him this sense of inner disquiet is more than feeling just ‘low’; that we might think if we had just the word ‘downcast’, but we also have the word ‘disturbed’. However, even thinking about ‘downcast’ we see it means to be ‘cast down’ and that suggests that someone or something has caused this. It didn’t just happen. Add to that the word disturbed and, using the water analogy above, someone or something has disturbed the peace. Something has happened to cause this, and we need to enquire of the Lord to find what it is. To do that here we need to go back in the psalm.

The first three verses of the psalm seem to indicate a hunger for the Lord which is acute because the Lord doesn’t seem to be there. Yet what makes it worse, are the words of other people who have been chiding him: “men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?” (v.3). Their words make it worse. His awareness of lacking a sense of the Lord’s presence has been made more acute by their remarks. He thinks back (v.4) to the times in the past when they knew the Lord’s presence, but that just seems a distant memory now. That is what has made him feel downcast, that is what has disturbed him. He knows there is something better than he has at the moment, and its absence leaves him feeling both negative and disturbed.

So what to do about such times? Two answers are given. The first is to call to the Lord. That is what he is doing in the psalm. The second thing is to resolve to trust the Lord, to trust that, although the Lord seems distant at the moment, that will change. Listen to what he says: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (v.5,6). He may feel low at the moment but, as he puts his hope in God, he will yet praise the Lord again. The sense isn’t just that he will have to make a supreme effort to praise God, but that God will come and do things that will cause praise to rise afresh in him. In other words, he is declaring that this is a temporary state and he will trust God to turn up in His time and continue doing the things they have known Him do in the past.

So, to conclude; if you have this sense of being cast down and being disturbed by someone or something, and the presence of God seems absent, then see it as a temporary glitch. As you call to the Lord and trust in Him, He will act; He will reveal the cause and bring change. That is faith.

17. Forsaken?

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.17

Psa 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

Rejection is one of the most horrible of human experiences. Rejection occurs when someone you love and who has professed love to you, turns away from you and leaves you. In human terms it is usually linked with them turning to someone else, but it can simply be a giving up by the other on our relationship. It leaves a horrible feeling of loneliness, isolation and inner hurt. At the heart of rejection is the cry of “Why have you done this? What have I done to you that has made you treat me like this?”

Before we look at this verse, I want to take the unusual step in these meditations of stating from the outset my conclusion: God never abandons us! I have the feeling that I need to say that from early on for some who might read this. God has NOT abandoned you. As many of these meditations show, there are many times in life when God seems at a distance and the reasons behind that feeling vary. Your sense of being alone may not have anything to do with what I am just about to share. It is right and proper to ask the Lord why you are feeling as you are and seek answers and solutions.

This cry in today’s verse is probably the most significant prophetic cry in the Old Testament, which is literally heard in the New when Jesus cried out to God on the Cross. (Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34). The whole of Psalm 22 is littered with prophetic utterances in respect of Jesus and his redeeming work on the Cross. This, being the most significant of his words on the Cross, starts the psalm off, which then reflects other aspects of it.

Let’s take it at face value first of all, as how it appears in the human sense. It is the cry of one who feels rejected and abandoned. In the psalm he cries, “O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” (v.2) He cries to God day and night and seems to get no answer. It seems like God has abandoned him. God has rejected and left him. For a moment, at least, that is how it seems. It is the worst of feelings. It is a real heart cry, this cry of anguish. There is no pretence about it; it is utterly genuine, this cry of anguish.

And of course that is exactly how it was with Jesus on the Cross. Throughout the sacrificial law of Moses, is the picture of the one sacrificing the innocent creature placing their hands on its head in identification, with the idea of their sins being transferred to it. In 2 Cor 5:21 Paul said, “God made him who had no sin to be sin.” Even if we take the alternative here, “to be a sin offering,” the sense is the same: Jesus had your sin and my sin put on him! The writer to the Hebrews (Heb 9:28) wrote, “so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” If you bear something, you carry it. The picture is of Jesus carrying the sins of the world as he hung there on the Cross. Imagine every individual sin as a little bit of blackness, and then imagine every sin that is every committed in the entire history of the world coming on Jesus in that three hours. It says that in that time, he was enveloped in the most horrible blackness imaginable.

Imagine this utter darkness of sin coming down upon Jesus, imagine him utterly surrounded by the hoards of hell. The Father has not moved; He is still there, nothing has changed, but for the man-God hanging on the Cross enveloped in this blackness, surrounded by the demonic world, it is impossible to see or sense anything else. All he can sense is blackness and evil. At that point the fullness of Sin put upon him means that his awareness of the Father’s presence (which was still there) was denied to the man so that he cries out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” because that is exactly what it feels like.

That’s why there was this terrible cry piercing history. It was the Son of God himself sensing the awful separation that sin causes. Sometimes it is like that for us. God hasn’t moved, God hasn’t abandoned us, He hasn’t left us – but it feels like that because we are more conscious of other things. It may be our own failure; it may be the pain of attack by the enemy through others. All we know is that it feels, from our perspective, like God has gone away. He hasn’t, He’s still there for you with arms open wide to you.

Do you have a sense of failure and feel like the enemy is crucifying you? Don’t let him! There is no sin, no failure that is too great to be able to be dealt with by Jesus’ work on the Cross. Confession, the acknowledgement of it and the cry out to God for forgiveness, is the prayer that will always reach the Father’s heart, and He responds instantly with words of love. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for sin so, as Paul said, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:38,39). Know that as a truth and experience it.

16. Evil Men

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.16

Psa 10:13 Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, “He won’t call me to account”?

There is a mystery in many people’s minds, a mystery about evil and specifically about evil in people. Why are people like they are? Why do dictators do the terrible things they do? Why do men and women murder, why do men rape, why do fathers abuse children, why do people steal from other people? I once led a law class where the whole class were unanimous that we needed laws to protect the weak “because people are nasty”. What an indictment of the human race!

There are two possible aspects to this verse today – the reason why men act like this, and the reason God lets them act like this. First of all, what is the reason men act like this? Why do people do wrong and then deny the presence of God? Why does the wicked man think he will get away with it?

Well there are two parts to the answer to that. Looking at Scripture, we see that we have an adversary, Satan, who comes against us to tempt us to do wrong, and he does that by getting us to think wrongly. We did consider this the other day but we will look at it more deeply now. At the Fall we find the following sequence of events: “He said to the woman, “Did God really say,’You must not eat from any tree in the garden?“ (Gen 3:1) This was Satan challenging the truth in Eve’s mind as part of his endeavours to get her to go against God. That was followed by, “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman“ (Gen 3:4), his denial of the consequences of her actions. So we see he whispers into people’s minds that it’s all right to do this thing because who’s to say it’s wrong, and anyway, it will be all right. It is wrong and it won’t be all right – “A man reaps what he sows.” (Gal 6:7) There are always consequences to our wrong doing.

Now there is a second reason men now do wrong. It isn’t only Satan; it is the fact that since the Fall, every man, woman and child has been tainted by this thing called Sin, this tendency towards self-centred godlessness which results in unrighteousness. Note that it is now a tendency within us. Once we become Christians we have a greater power within us, the Holy Spirit, who enables us to overcome the old tendency, the old nature. However until a person comes to Christ for salvation, that old nature prevails and Sin prevails in them. Godlessness is most natural; self-centredness is most natural, and unrighteousness is most natural. Now David didn’t have this understanding when he wrote this psalm, but we have all the revelation of the New Testament teaching so we should understand it and we shouldn’t be surprised when we see such things. Satan plus the old sinful nature means that evil is expressed in human beings.

But we said there is a second aspect to this verse – why God allows wicked men to act like this. This is so often the cry of lack of understanding, “Why doesn’t God do something about it?” the ‘it’ being the wrong doing of evil people. Well actually when you think about it there is an easy answer to this one. The Bible indicates quite clearly that God has given us free will. It would be a nonsense if God told us to do things if we did not have the capacity not to do them. The fact that Eve and then Adam ‘fell’, were disobedient, is a clear example of this free will. A variety of other people in the Bible also clearly didn’t do what God told them to do. No, free will is a capacity that God has obviously given us. So when we cry, “Why doesn’t God do something?” we are in fact saying, “Why doesn’t God override this person’s free will?” and that’s where it gets difficult. Put simply, where should He stop? Obviously He should stop murderers and rapists and criminals, you might say. OK, but why stop with them for there are lots and lots of acts of wrongdoing that are not criminal acts? OK, you say, do away with all wrongdoing! Ah! Including in you? Including your wrong thoughts, wrong words and sometimes wrong acts? You want God to take away your free will and make you into a robot who can only do good, whose action will be severely curtailed, and whose human experience will be radically cut back? You want God to do that, because that is your only alternative?

As soon as we come to this point we see the awfulness of Sin and the awfulness of free will, but then we start seeing the wonder of salvation that wins sinful human beings to God’s side to be good. That’s what salvation does, but we have to have the other awful freedom first. Yes, God does act into this world and sometimes He does obviously move against evil men, and yes, men do reap the consequences of their actions, but in the meantime the terrible downside of free will is that man can be evil!

Never blame God for your wrong doing and never demand He takes away free will of other people – or you! Free will is the staggering responsibility that God has bestowed upon mankind. It is, if you like, a sign of His respect for us. He gives us our lives to live as we will, with the potential to achieve wonderful things, but also to do terrible things. The choice is ours. He will be there to help us achieve the former, and His wrath will be there against the latter, but the choice is still ours. Choose wisely.

Why God Permits Satan

We can benefit from understanding the following reasons why God allows Satan’s activities on earth as found in the Bible:

1. To reveal men’s hearts

• 1 Chron 21:1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel – he was to reveal David’s underlying sin of pride – in the parallel verses (2 Sam 24:1) it is seen as God who was behind it (to deal with the sin)

2. To bring judgement on unbelievers

• Rev 9:11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. (both names mean “Destroyer”)

3. To bring discipline to believers

• 1 Cor 5:5 by putting this sinful believer out of the church’s protection, it enabled Satan to come against him and humble him and bring him to repentance

4. To subjugate unbelievers

• 1 Jn 5:19b the whole world is under the control of the evil one
• Satan is allowed to rule where there is unconfessed sin, i.e. over unbelievers

5. To maintain humility in our lives

• One of the key things God does with his children is to seek to develop character in them. As pride is always lurking, sometimes God allows us to be attacked so that we maintain our reliance upon Him and realise that of ourselves we are nothing.
• 2 Cor. 12:7 Because Paul received wonderful revelations from God, to keep him from getting puffed up, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment him and keep him from getting proud.

6. To develop faith & righteousness in our lives

• Faith is one of the key elements God wants to develop in our lives, and so often He does this by allowing us to encounter trying circumstances where our faith is both revealed and developed. Similarly, such testing times are to reveal and bring about greater righteousness within us.
• 1 Peter 1:7 – trials are testings, and testings reveal our faith – such revelation of our faith brings honour in heaven
• 1 Peter 5:8-9 – Satan seeks to attack us, but we are to learn to resist.
• 2 Peter 1:4-8 – the testing of our faith develops our lives in many ways

7. To bring about trials whereby we can be rewarded

• These trials, that involve Satan, make us rely upon God, His word and His Spirit and so the outcome of the battles we fight is that we appreciate Him, His word and His Spirit more and more.
• James 1:12 God blesses the people who patiently endure testing – testing develops us and God blesses through it
• 1 John 2:13,14 – it is a battle with Satan which we can win with God’s word, as we battle we rely on that word more and more
• 1 John 4:1-6 – our battle is also with Satan’s agents; we are to overcome in the mind and we overcome by the Holy Spirit within us, as we overcome we realise the wonder of who it is within us more and more.
• Rev. 2:17 – our reward, as we overcome Satan’s attacks, will be intimacy with Christ
• Rev. 2:26-28 – as we obey Jesus and have the victory so he is preparing us to take authority, both in this world and the next.

8. To teach us how to fight

• As we face such trials we learn how to overcome.
• Judges 3:2 God did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.
• Israel grew in their knowledge of the Lord and how to fight as they opposed the enemy. We do the same in the spiritual sphere.

9. To demonstrate God’s power over the enemy

• We need reminding who is who in the battle. Jesus IS Lord!
• Eph 3:10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
• As we triumph God is glorified in the heavens.
• Mk 1:21-27 As Jesus cast out a demon God was glorified.
• Acts 13:6-12 As Saul triumphs over Elymas God was glorified.

Conclusions:

Although Satan was apparently not created for these express purposes, God takes and uses his rebellion for His purposes.

As Joseph once said, (Gen 50:20) “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Thus it is that in this fallen world where sin dominates, Satan is allowed access for the sake of God’s overall purposes.

We, therefore, need to maintain a right perspective so that we see:

• Where the enemy is being allowed activity because of man’s unrighteousness, and therefore the unrighteousness is the thing to be dealt with.
• Where the enemy should be resisted because he is simply seeking to expand his arena of control, and here we need to look to seek what God is wanting us to learn or develop in resisting the enemy, so we can co-operate with Him.

15. Enemy Defeat

‘WHY?’ QUESTIONS No.15

1 Sam 4:3 Why did the LORD bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines?

That the Christian life is a battle, there is little doubt. Some Christians aren’t aware of it like that, but if you talked to them, they would express things which indicate the normal characteristics of a battle are there. So what is happening? Very simply, Satan or his demons use our old sinful nature to play on, to lead us astray, make us feel down, and make us want to give up our faith. The battle is largely in the mind and so they will whisper things in our minds that are lies: “You will get away with this, it’s all right!” That’s when they seek to lead us in temptation to do something wrong. Or there is, “You’re a failure, you’re a nobody, you’re a bad Christian, I should give up!” That’s when they want to reduce our effectiveness and stop us having impact on the world for Christ. Or it may be, “You’re too tired. Don’t bother to go to the prayer meeting,” or “You know who’s preaching this morning. He’s awful. I should stay in bed for the morning. The rest will do you good!”

Those are the sort of things that come to take us out of fellowship, to take us out of the place where we can encounter God through others in the church. Or perhaps it is, “You’re too tired. I wouldn’t bother with your Bible this morning. Don’t bother to go on line and read a meditation. I shouldn’t bother with praying. You know nothing happens anyway!” This is where they are trying to keep you out of direct contact with God. It is a battle, and sometimes we lose! Now on those occasions when give in and give up, what is the answer? Pick up and start again tomorrow!

But then there are times when all hell seems to break loose and people start getting hostile, and nasty words are spoken, threats are made and abuse is given, and so on. People rise against you. Jobs are lost, hopes are dashed and the future looks bleak and it seems like the enemy has had a field day! Even the apostle Paul knew this: “For we wanted to come to you–certainly I, Paul, did, again and again–but Satan stopped us“ (1 Thess 2:18). Somehow the upsets of Satan thwarted his desires. When Daniel was praying for three weeks an angel came to him and said, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days.“ (Dan 10:12,13) For three weeks the enemy thwarted the angel of God. This is a tough truth, that there are times when the freedom the Lord allows the enemy means that he does seem to get the upper hand for a while. So why should this be? Well tomorrow for one day we’ll step aside and look at a number of reasons why God allows Satan to act as he does.

Here in our verse today, we find this cry – why should our enemy be allowed to overcome us? Let’s look at the circumstances. Samuel was still a young boy when the Lord called him: “And the LORD said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle“ (1 Sam 3:11) Israel were not in a good spiritual state and Eli the priest had been allowing his sons to act badly before God, so the Lord spoke through Samuel warning that He was going to deal with this situation and bring His judgement on Eli’s family and on Israel. Some time later we simply read, “Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines.” (1 Sam 4:1) There seems no specific reason for this apart from the ongoing hostility that prevailed between the two peoples. The outcome of the battle was declared: “as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield,” (v.2) which resulted in the people crying out as above. The answer was simple and obvious: God had said He would bring judgement and this is part of it. He knew what would follow. Superstitious Israel would call for the ark of the Lord, which came to be considered as synonymous with the presence of the Lord, to be taken out to battle Of course Eli’s sons would have to accompany it and they would be killed by the enemy as the ark was taken captive. All this would be part of the outworking of God’s plans to chastise Israel and bring them back to Himself.

Again and again, through adverse enemy circumstances, the Lord is working to bring about His purposes for His people. Yes, we live in a Fallen World and things go wrong, but behind the apparently mundane things, the Lord is moving to achieve His purposes.