Tag Archives: death

Rotten Through And Through

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ROTTEN THROUGH AND THROUGH 

“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve those who practise them.” Romans 1:28-32.

What am I reading, the Bible or the newspaper? Who is Paul writing about, the people then or now? Nothing has changed, has it? What a description of dehumanised people and a dehumanised society!

In my country, the decision was made by parliament to write into our constitution that we are a secular country. God is no longer welcome or acknowledged. The results are obvious; many wicked practices have been written into our law books as legal; abortion and homosexual marriages, for example; human rights now tip in favour of the criminal and the lawless ones; parents are losing their right to discipline their children and there is now a move to disallow parents the right to have a say in their children’s education.

Lawbreakers, thieves, fraudsters and corrupt public servants simply disappear from one portfolio and turn up somewhere else, as arrogant as ever. Convicted criminals who happen to be public figures are let out of jail on trumped up health issues.  They quietly move back into society as though nothing happened.

The prophet Habakkuk had the same complaint about society in his day. He took his problem to God: “Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” Habakkuk 1:4.

Although God seems silent and inactive; He is actually righteous and just by simply allowing the wicked to go their own way. Their judgment is written into their choices and actions. God does not have to do anything because they have done it to themselves. They have become incapable of living decent human lives. Their minds have become so depraved and perverted that they call right “wrong” and wrong “right” and applaud those who do what they do.

There is no place in God’s presence for those who think and behave contrary to the nature of God. They are rotten and putrefying in their sin and the only place that will accommodate them in the end will be the rubbish dump. They enjoy their wickedness now, but they have no idea what it will be like to live forever in complete darkness, physical and moral darkness so dark that they cannot even see a finger in front of their faces and can only think evil thoughts always.

Hebrew people described hell as a boundary less place. Boundaries are never intended to be restrictive, but protective. When people deliberately overshoot the boundaries, they have to face the dangers that lie on the other side. To deny them does not make them any less real. God had clearly stated His boundaries and when they are ignored, the consequences come into play.

Why did Paul paint such a gloomy picture of his society and ours? For two reasons: firstly, because it was accurate and secondly, because it formed the backdrop to God’s amazing answer, His grace revealed through His righteousness. But first of all, Paul had to show his readers that the whole world is guilty before God. There is not one sector of society or of the world that escapes God’s judgment. Before he can give them God’s answer, he has to ensure that they understand their plight.

No amount of religious fervour or rule-keeping can change the heart of a human being. Of what use is it to eat or not to eat certain foods since food only influences our bodies? What can the “holy” water do to cleanse a polluted conscience? It only touches the skin but leaves the soul unchanged. How can doing good alter our debit balance in God’s books? Even good works are done by people rotten with selfishness.

Paul is building up to a solution so breath-taking that only God could have thought it up!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

 

Trust His Heart

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TRUST HIS HEART

“Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair). So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’ When He heard this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may also be glorified through it.'” John 11:1-4 NIV.

Jesus was faced with something He had never experienced before. Lazarus was no stranger to Him. He was a member of a family whose home was like a second home to Him. In the past few weeks He had spent much time there, using it as a refuge from His adversaries as He moved in and out of Jerusalem before His final Passover.

There was a strong bond between this family and Jesus. Mary had expressed her faith and adoration by anointing His feet with her costliest treasure — her alabaster box of spikenard, worth an entire year’s wages in Jewish terms. Jesus must have felt comfortable in their home. He knew He was always welcome and He was always provided for when He stayed there with His disciples.

His miracles had always been done to strangers or casual acquaintances at the most, but now His beloved friend, Lazarus lay deathly sick. His illness must have been much more than a common cold since the sisters felt the need to send for Him. Jesus’ response shows us that Lazarus was dying. What was He to do? His natural response would have been to set off immediately so that He could get to him before he died.

Yet Jesus said and did something unusual. Instead of leaving for Bethany right then, He remarked to His disciples, ‘Lazarus won’t die. This is about God’s glory and mine as well.’ What did He mean? Once again Jesus put this crisis into perspective. What appeared obvious in the circumstances was part of a much bigger picture — God’s glory — and it was Jesus’ role to act within what God was doing, not what would have been His natural inclination.

Every situation, even if it touched someone as dear to Him as Lazarus and his sisters, was no cause for panic. He had to see it from His Father’s point of view and act within the Father’s will. There was always one guiding principle that showed Jesus what to do — whatever brought the greatest glory to the Father.

When He and His disciples met a man born blind, He used it as an opportunity to reveal the Father’s mercy by restoring His sight as a sign, especially to His opponents, that it was the Father’s desire for people to have 20/20 spiritual vision by believing in Him. The miracle triggered a debate that exposed the blindness of the Jewish leaders who vehemently defended their claim that they could “see”.

Jesus was now faced with the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity of His ministry. He had raised others from the dead, not recorded by John but by the other gospel writers, but never a person whose body had already been decaying for four days. But that is still to come…

His disciples must have been puzzled by His attitude. He seemed quite casual about His friends’ urgent message. First He seemed confident that Lazarus would not die; then He made no effort to hurry to his bedside. What was going on?

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days, and then He said to His disciples, ‘Let us go back to Judea.'” John 11:5-7 NIV

Isn’t that a strange way to show His love?  Are we not also face with the same strange response from God? We cry out to Him in our crisis and He says nothing and He does nothing! It is almost as though He deliberately turns a deaf ear. What is He doing?

God is never deaf to the cries of His beloved but, like Jesus He sees the bigger picture. There was a great lesson for the two sisters in His action as well as revelation of who He was that impacted them and their brother far more powerfully than healing Lazarus would have done.

He is calling us to trust Him; to trust His love, His power and His intention which is much bigger than anything we can imagine.