Love your enemies?

And the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, “I came to Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to spend the night. And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me, and they violated my concubine, and she is dead. So I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel, for they have committed abomination and outrage in Israel. Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here.” 
And all the people arose as one man, saying, “None of us will go to his tent, and none of us will return to his house. But now this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot. . . .  (and) repay Gibeah of Benjamin for all the outrage that they have committed in Israel.” 
So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man. And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What evil is this that has taken place among you? Now therefore give up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and purge evil from Israel.” 
But the Benjaminites would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel. Then the people of Benjamin came together out of the cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the people of Israel. And the people of Benjamin mustered out of their cities on that day 26,000 men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who mustered 700 chosen men. . . .  all these were men of war. The people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God, “Who shall go up first for us to fight against the people of Benjamin?” 
And the Lord said, “Judah shall go up first.” . . . . 
(Judges 20:1–28)

The people of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and destroyed on that day 22,000 men of the Israelites. This happened again, but the third time, after prayer and fasting, and offerings to the Lord, they asked again and the Lord said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand.” 

Last night our home group were asked what quality of God we would emphasize: His kindness or His sternness? Most said His kindness as shown in Jesus Christ rather than His sternness as seen in this narrative in Judges. However, I thought of Jesus overthrowing the money-changers tables in the NT and the several times His anger was expressed. God is both gracious showing mercy, yet holy and displaying His outrage at sin. 

Romans 11 tells how He uses even the sin of the Jews to show mercy to the Gentiles, and the faith of the Gentiles to reach the Jews. Then Paul declares, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

It seems contrary to God's love and mercy to pit one tribe of His people against another, yet His attitude toward sin shows up in Judges, just as it shows up in the NT at the cross where His outrage against sin combined with mercy for sinners tell me that God is both. We would not realize His kindness if we didn’t know His outrage.

Jesus, You hate sin so much and love sinners so much that the only thing to do was take our sin upon Yourself and die for it so that we could escape its grasp. Your mercy is meaningless without realizing how badly we need it.

 

Burdens and prayer for revival

Last week I said that no one needs to teach children to do wrong; we must teach them to do right. One person responded by saying no one has any right to decide what is right or wrong, moral or immoral. This morning, I watched a news article where children were being introduced to a lifestyle the Lord condemns, taking place in a library and singing “the more we get together, the happier we will be.” What happens when we tell children that immoral is okay?

Yesterday we worshiped God, exalting righteousness and rejoicing in the One who has forgiven our sin and set us free from its penalty and power. Thinking about the contrast makes me thankful on one hand and extremely sad on the other. Jesus came to save us from our sinful selves, yet so many blaspheme His name and rejoice in their freedom to sin, not realizing that it has made them slaves.

Christians are accused of a holier-than-thou attitude and sometimes it is true. The reality is, sinfulness is a human condition. All fall short of the holy standard of God. We miss the mark. Our only hope is in the One who died for our sin, was buried, and rose again to give us His righteousness.

As for our children, I can see all around me the folly of not teaching them to trust in Jesus and walk with Him. Far too many of them seem to be on a slippery slope from cute little kids, to bratty little kids, to sinful adults who deny God and boast in their depravity.

What is the solution? Not for our sinfulness — God has provided that, but for the churning in my stomach and the ache in my heart? This morning, Tozer sends me to this passage. It begins with Solomon on his knees before God in praise. First he made a bronze platform, set it in the court, and he stood on it. Then he knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven, and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart . . . .” (2 Chronicles 6:13–14)

Tozer tells me to beware of routine prayer and singing songs that are not much anyway and have lost any significance by meaningless repetition. He goads me to reverent thought, to consider the Body of Christ, to sense God’s Presence in stillness, solemnity, wonder, and holy fear. He says Christians need a restoration of penitence, humility and tears. He tells me to follow Solomon and kneel in breathless, wondering adoration in God’s presence.

The rest of the passage tells me what to do about the burdens in my heart. I need to pray like Solomon did:

“If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before your altar in this house, then hear from heaven and act and judge your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness. If your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you, and they turn again and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them again to the land that you gave to them and to their fathers. When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.” (2 Chronicles 6:22–27)

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I’m going to pray like he did because we are all in a slippery slope world where one sin leads to another and soon Your people are oblivious to our calling, never mind those around us who curse You and call good evil and evil good. We need a revival and revival always begins with Your people. Forgive us. We need Your grace to walk worthy of the love You have shown us.

Intercession

At times, after observing ungodliness in the world and my own tendency to drift away from full obedience, I do not know how to pray. I am dismayed at the power of sin to keep even the people of God from listening to Him. We know He loves us. We know that He wants the best for us, yet too often we do our own thing, then lament because going our own way always gets us into trouble. If catastrophe has not yet come, it is only because the Lord is showing great patience. 

While I don’t sit waiting for the ax to fall and am thankful for the mercy and grace of God, at the same time, I have to agree with Ruth Graham. She said that if God does not do something soon about the sin in America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Perhaps the reason the Lord has not poured out judgment is that a remnant of His people are fervently praying that He will show mercy. The Bible records some of these amazing intercessory prayers. One example is Daniel’s cry to God confessing his own sin and that of His people.

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets…. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly….Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.” (Daniel 9:3–19)

Daniel’s plea is based on the mercy and righteousness of God. No one deserves His blessing. No one can earn it. Everyone of us has turned aside and done our own thing, ignoring or resisting God and His grace. It is because of His grace and because of Jesus Christ that I can even pray, or even realize that prayer is necessary and even possible. For this reason, Jesus is our redemption and our hope. Today Daniel’s prayer will be included in my prayers for our world and for myself.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. (John 14:13–14)

Why I pray for mercy

Last night I read a paragraph that sent me immediately to intercessory prayer. This paragraph is from a book by Allen P. Ross called Recalling the Hope of Glory. It is about biblical worship from the garden of Eden until the church was formed, and shows the adoration that God deserves and how easily even His own people fall away from true worship. The paragraph says:

The prophetic denunciation of idolatry (by Old Testament prophets) was important because of the serious consequences of rejecting the sovereign God to embrace idolatry. It was not merely a sanctuary matter, but affected every aspect of society. If there were no sovereign God, then there was not absolute law to obey. (Starting to sound familiar?) The breakdown of morality and ethics and the neglect of social justice . . . is the result of refusing to entrust oneself to the sovereign, loving, and just God. . . . When people believe that the cosmic order is uninterested in human welfare and that those who succeed are those who know how to capture these forces for their own purposes—which is the underlying attitude of idolatry—the more helpless and vulnerable in society are crushed.

In essence, those who refuse God will worship something, in this case, their own ability to manipulate whatever they can to get whatever they want, at any cost. Instead of God, the great “I want” is put on the throne and, as a result, all of society suffers.

As I read this, I thought how our nation, even the entire world, is captured by idolatry. I began asking God for forgiveness and mercy, for me, for everyone.

This morning, my devotional reading from another book is about that very request. The Scripture is Psalm 51, and it begins with these four verses:

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.

There are two players in this prayer. God is responsible for being merciful, loving, kind, and to blot out sin and wash it from my life. I am responsible for acknowledging my sin, realizing that God sees it and that it offends Him, and agreeing with His assessment of it. God is correct when He says that I have sinned, and He is just in His condemnation of it.

What is so difficult about that? The first time I noticed the power of confessing sin was as a new Christian and a single mother. I couldn’t stop screaming at my children and finally confessed this to God as sinful. A few weeks later, I realized that I wasn’t doing it anymore.

Over many years, when I do my part, I have seen that He will do His part. This week, I noticed I had a bad attitude toward my husband. I confessed this to God as sin, and it was gone, replaced by the right one.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Christianity is very practical. When we do what God says, He does what He promises to do as a result.

The rub is having to admit sin. Most people are not like the psalmist. He acknowledged his sins and realized he was accountable to God for them. Most people, myself included, have a lot of trouble doing this. We either don’t notice when we sin, or if we do, we make excuses, shift the blame, or dismiss what we’ve done as “not as bad as so-and-so.”

The paragraph from Ross’s book puts idolatry at the root of things. Instead of worshiping God, who is worthy of our worship, we put anything and everything else at the top of our awe-list. When I assume my sin is nothing, or shift the blame, I’m putting my own opinion above that of Almighty God. When I make excuses, I am saying that God’s ideas about sin are not worthy of my consideration and again am putting me above God and making myself my idol. Once I do that, what else will go to the bottom of the priority list? Everything. If my opinion and ideas are the most valued, anyone or anything else will take second place, unless of course giving them value is to my advantage.

Isn’t that the state of our world? Hasn’t humanity, in general, dropped God as “old-fashioned nonsense” in favor of running their own lives? While not every activity of every person seems totally selfish, God (who knows the heart) says it is. In our smug assessment that we know better, we lose the only opportunity we have to be rid of that self-centered sinfulness.

Until I honestly face the facts of my sins and agree with what God says about what I do, I am stuck with what I have decided is right and stuck with the consequences. This is foolishness.

However, multiply that foolishness by billions of souls. No wonder much of the news is bad. God says our sinful self-worship is as a dark, idolatrous thing that binds individuals, societies, and the entire world in a trap. He says that those who are unwilling to see or confess this as sin cannot experience His forgiveness and cleansing, and without God’s mercy, the eventual outcome is His wrath.