Obvious or oblivious?

 

 

While searching for a word in one of those word search puzzles, I often wonder if they left it out. But when I find the word, it is so obviously there that I wondered how I missed it. Another person might find it sooner because what seems obvious to some is not plain or even noticed by others.

This is true in spiritual matters also, except that some things are OBVIOUS, plain to everyone. For instance, this passage speaks of God’s wrath against those who suppress obvious truth, then says,

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19–20)

If this were not from God’s Word, I would shake my head. It seems to me that most people are oblivious to what seems obvious to me, yet God says all human beings can know certain things about Him, suppressed and muddied as these things are by various other theories to explain how and why they exist.

What else is obvious about God? It is not the identity of Christ as God in human flesh; this truth needs to be revealed. It is also not that God is wise and sovereignly rules over all, for people curse Him rather than trust Him. It is not that He does miracles, for many are dismissed as coincidental.

According to the Bible, a significant answer to what God is like should be obvious by the behavior of those who follow Him. 1 John 3:10 says, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

This has been muddied also, partly by excuses for unrighteous behavior and partly by a failure to practice spiritual disciplines that keep believers close to God and in a godly lifestyle.

One writer says we obviously, need reminding that knowing God has challenges, but knowing ourselves also has challenges. This becomes obvious when we do something awful and are surprised by it. Yet the Bible says:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

“Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” (Psalm 19:12).

Someone once said to me, “It must be easier to be a Christian as you get older.” Obviously, he was younger and had no idea what older people experience. He didn’t realize how oblivious we are to the depth of our sinfulness and how God persists even to the very end to reveal our sin and sanctify our souls.

Humanity is also oblivious to the will of God. Jesus’ brothers assumed he would want fame and public recognition and would go to Jerusalem to gain it at the feast. They were wrong, as were the crowds who assumed that Jesus was a deceiver, or the religious leaders who assumed He could not read their minds and know  their plot to kill Him. To them, it seemed obvious that Jesus’ message must be false since only the ‘ignorant’ took it seriously — but that was wrong too.

Sincere belief in what appears to be obvious is no excuse for not searching for truth. Our belief system should rest on what God says, not on the opinions of others, social media, critics, pundits and soothsayers.

Galatians 3:10–12 points out the obvious by saying it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’ ” Is this obvious to all? Hardly.

Yet sin can be obvious. Galatians 5:19–21 lists some of it: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

And 1 Timothy 5:24–25 adds this, “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.” The evidence that sin is obvious is described later concerning those who “oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all . . . .”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. While not all is obvious, keeping my focus on the Lord makes seeing truth about Him easier, clearer. Besides, “When the day of the Lord arrives, the work I have (or have not) done for the Lord will be shown for what it is” so it seems obvious to discover and do His will rather than be oblivious and ashamed on that day.

 

An ancient text is right up to date!

Yesterday I had a look at the syllabus of my next course. (I’m finishing a degree online.) This one is a systematic theology study of Christ and the Church. Most of the readings are from old, even ancient sources. I’m to write briefs on all of them, and an essay on one that was written between 1265-1274. I read that one through and felt overwhelmed by the language. English has changed. Not only that, this piece had been translated way back when, and many terms were not even in an ordinary dictionary.

This morning’s devotion was also written many years ago. The author was Augustine* who lived 354-430 A.D. It was edited in the 1800s to more readable English than the reading for my essay. My first thought was, “How like God to give me this as an encouragement to my apprehension about trying to understand what these early church writers were trying to say.”

Actually, today’s reading is fairly simple. It is based on this verse and discusses one aspect of what it means to be born into sin…

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)

Augustine says that “of the devil” means to imitate the devil because the devil has never fathered anyone or  created anyone. Yet in biblical terms, whoever follows and imitates the devil becomes as if he were his child.

The Scriptures speak in the same way about being a child of Abraham. Abraham did not father me, but the Bible says that because I have or imitate the faith of Abraham, I am a child of Abraham.

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. (Galatians 3:6–7)

Augustine repeats what the Bible says in several places that those who were of the lineage of Abraham by birth but did not imitate his faith and were put out of the inheritance promised to him. Instead, they because children of the devil, just as Jesus told them.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

Those who “imitate the Devil in the way he became proud and impious against God, you will be a child of the Devil” and the “reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

Augustine says, “All sinners are born of the Devil, as sinners. Adam was made by God, but when he consented to the Devil, he was born of the Devil, and he fathered all as he was himself. With lust itself we were born, even before we add our sins; from that condemnation we have our birth. For if we are born without any sin, why this running with infants to baptism that they may be released? Then mark well, friends, the two birth-stocks; Adam and Christ are two men, but one of them, a man that is human; the other, a Man that is God. By the man that is human we are sinners; by the Man that is God we are justified. That birth has cast down to death, this birth has raised up to life; that birth brings with it sin, this birth sets free from sin. For this purpose Christ came as human, to undo human sins. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil’s work.”

Besides the practical nature of this writing (who can disobey God and not see how serious that disobedience is?), Augustine writes with understandable simplicity, even a black/white tone that fits with the way I think. While other ancient writers may not be so plain of speech (and translation), God encourages me that at least one of them speaks loud and clear.

------------------

*Augustine was an important influence on the development of Christianity. His theological system dominated the church until the thirteenth century and its influence is still felt today. Many of his writings still exist. I read one of the most famous, Confessions (written about 397), and was thoroughly blessed. It is an autobiography but more like a long prayer of repentance and thanksgiving for God’s grace. During the first 33 years of his life, he lived as a child of the devil while his mother prayed with great passion for his salvation. Then Christ came into his life and he was transformed by grace into the God-fearing man that he became.