Sep
12
Proverbs: Too much, continued
Filed Under C.S. Lewis, Christian Living, Ethics, Proverbs | 1 Comment
This past Lord’s Day I preached on the wisdom found in Proverbs concerning excess–or as I called it in the sermon, too much. Alas, I had too much material to include in the time allotted for preaching that evening. I wanted to read a paragraph from C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, in which Ransom is acclimating himself to the new planet, reminiscent of what Adam’s first hours must have been like in Eden (thanks to Grant Carroll for bringing this passage to my attention last week):
Now he had come to a part of the wood where great globes of yellow fruit hung from the tress–clustered as toy-balloons are clustered on the back of the balloon-man and about the same size. He picked one of them and turned it over and over. The rind was smooth and firm and seemed impossible to tear open. Then by accident one of his fingers punctured it and went through into coldness. After a moment’s hesitation he put the little aperture up to his lips. He had meant to extract the smallest, experimental sip, but the first taste put his caution all to flight. It was, of course, a taste, just as his thirst and hunger had been thirst and hunger. But then it was so different from every other taste that it seemed mere pedantry to call it a taste at all. It was like the discovery of a totally new genus of pleasures, something unheard of among men, out of all reckoning, beyond all covenant. For one draught of this on earth wars would be fought and nations betrayed. it could not be classified. He could never tell us, when he came back to the world of men, whether it was sharp or sweet, savoury or voluptuous, creamy or piercing. “Not like that” was all he could ever say to such inquiries. As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again; the childlike innocence of fruit, the labours he had undergone, the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to commend the action. Yet something seemed opposed to this “reason.” It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause, it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity–like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.”
Did you catch that? Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity. Something in Lewis’ thought here sheds light on our sinful tendency to overindulge and binge. We find something good and pleasurable, and we feel we must have more and more and more. Opposed to us is the teaching of Proverbs 25:16: If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it. Paul’s expression their god is their belly comes to mind as well.
When you look at it closely, too much is a lordship problem, a worship disorder. Who is your master, God or your desires? Do you desire God above all else, is he the strength of your heart and your portion forever? Or do you desire something in the creation more than you desire the Creator? At root, drunkards and gluttons and workaholics and exercise-obsessives are worshiping another god. Their worship is actually a form of self-worship. We worship what brings us joy and contentment and rest.
I had the opportunity to feast with dear Christian brethren last night in Fort Collins, Colorado (I’m here for the annual RYM board meeting). My conscience was teased along with the thought: there was plenty of “honey” to eat, but how much better to taste and move on, rather than have my fill and vomit it.
Sep
5
The Perspective of the Cross
Filed Under Christian Living | Leave a Comment
Psalm 44:22 - Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
This is another psalm in which the psalmist is contemplating the exile of the people of God in Babylon. The resounding theme of the psalm can be summarized as, “Why, Lord, have you done this to your people? When will you save your people?” The psalmist looks out over suffering and simply cannot fathom why such devastation has befallen Israel.
In verses 1-3 he asserts God’s redeeming work of planting a rag-tag bunch of Egyptian slaves into a land of promises. In verses 4-8 he reminds God that they had depended on him for their war victories in the conquest of Canaan. But in verses 9-22 the psalmist turns to God’s judgment of exile and asks the question, “Why? Why this suffering? Why this discipline?” We know from other passages of Scripture that this exile was far from undeserved on a national level yet this psalmist argues his case for the godly who had been true to God.
This has always been an note of interest of mine as I have studied the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles cataloged in the Old Testament. God brought a very real and deserved judgment upon his people. Yet in the midst of those judged there was both wheat and tares. The remnant was judged along with the chaff. The true Israelite perished on the same sword as the idolatrous Israelite. And in those moments I have been lead to ask the same question of God, “Why do you afflict your children along with your enemies, O God?”
One of the reasons this question lays heavily upon my heart is because God’s methods have not changed. Right now an extremely large hurricane churns through the Atlantic. I definitely will not make jumps to say what is divine judgment for sin and what is not. But I will say along with Amos that when destruction comes to a city, it is the Lord’s doing. When that hurricane makes land fall, the believer and unbeliever alike will perish. Why? If God truly loves his children, why will he not give them a different fate?
Or take for another example the martyrdom of Christians all throughout the world by pagan extremists of one stripe or another. Why does God allow the whole sale slaughter of his people and yet let the idolatrous unbeliever sleep comfortably in his bed? Does this not make you want to cry out with the son of Korah, “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself!”
The root of our discomfort with God’s ways in the suffering of his people is our inherent doubt of his love for us. The question isn’t so much, “God, how can you do this?” The question goes deeper than that. It is, “God, how can you do this if you love me?”
Thankfully, the New Testament gives us some perspective on this psalm and on this line of questioning. Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 in Romans 8. Following his quotation of this verse he concludes his thought this way,
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The perspective of the cross changes everything. Do you struggle with the suffering of Christians in the world? Do you doubt God’s love for you because of the trials he has brought upon you? Do you cry to God, “Wake up! Why won’t you deliver me from this pain?!” Dear suffering Christian, look at the cross. There, only there, do love and suffering make sense.
Do you doubt God’s love for you? See the cross. See there the love of God for you in the suffering of Jesus Christ. If God sent his son to the cross to redeem you out of the bondage of sin and misery, can you then doubt his love for you in the midst of temporal suffering. If the blood of Jesus Christ testifies to God’s covenant love for you, then what can separate you from it? Can your sin? Can your suffering? Can you doubt God’s love when you look at the cross? No! It is at the cross that we are given a new title, “more than conquerors”. It may feel like we are “more wretched than the defeated” but God’s ways are not man’s ways. You are “more than conquerors” through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Do you doubt God’s purpose for suffering? The major note of redemption is our union to Jesus Christ. Jesus has saved us by uniting us to himself in his death and resurrection. We are in him. That is why his parting words make so much sense of suffering. “If they hated me they will hate you. A servant is no greater than his master. In this world you will have much tribulation but take heart, I have overcome the world.” Our God can use the same suffering on the same group of people for different ends. On one he may bring judgment for sin. On another he may fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. On one he shows his separation from the sinner in judgment. On another he shows that nothing can separate the believer from his loving care. All through the same suffering.
It all depends on our ability to see God’s purposes through the lens of the cross. The psalmist saw judgment and doubted because the day of Jesus had not dawned. He stood in the cold hour before the dawn and trembled with sincere doubt. Paul stood on the other side of the cross, in the noon sun of Christ’s triumph over sin and proclaimed with confidence God’s purposes in suffering. The triumph of the cross changes everything.