Halfway There and Living on a Prayer!

Day 45 Judges 1–5; Isaiah 13–18 Romans 13–16

It's Day 45!  It's Good Friday!  There is the rumbling of thunder outside! How appropriate! Tonight we remember when darkness covered Jerusalem and the earth shook as the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ, suffered and died on the cross.

I begin Judges today and continue Isaiah and finish Romans.  I am halfway through reading the entire Bible and I feel like I've only just begun. Considering Old Testament history, I have read about creation, Noah and the great flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the birth and calling of Moses, the Exodus, the Law, The Wilderness Wanderings and the Conquest.  I have completed the Wisdom texts Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.  And I have read all the New Testament Gospel accounts and the Acts of the Apostles. I have barely scratched the surface in regard to the narrative history.

Israel has no king in the days of the confederacy of tribes in the book of Judges.  Judges settled disputes among the people according to the law of Moses, but they were more than that.  They we deliverers called and empowered by God to save Israel from their enemies. 

There is a pattern in Judges. 

1. The people get comfortable in the land and forget about Yahweh. 
2. They turn to pagan gods because of the Canaanites still living among them
3. Yahweh hands them over to their enemies
4. The people suffer and cry out for help
5. Yahweh pities them sends them a savior...a judge.

Then after things settle down, they get comfortable and forget about Yahweh, turn to pagan gods...and you get the idea.

To say that the Israelites were living on a prayer is a big stretch.  Yahweh was like an "emergency only" option. But to say they were halfway there is also a stretch.  They possess the land, but they fail to drive out all the Canaanites.  Judges chapter 1 reports six instances of failure to drive out the pagans.   As a result they will become like thorns in their eyes (Jos. 23:13).  Yikes! 

I read about Othniel, the youngest brother to Caleb and how he won  city for the hand of his niece in marriage. Uhhh... no comment.

Ehud stabs a fat Moabite king to death and leads the people to victory against the kingless hoard. Fun story for the boys in your home!  Who said the Bible is boring?

And then there is the tent peg assassin, Jael (Jdg.4:21-22)!  Don't ask a Kenite for a drink!  Ouch!  Deborah, the judge, sings her praises and credits the Lord for the courage and strength of those who answered the call to fight.

Isaiah is filled with woe and woo, confrontation and consolation.  Babylon is warned of coming destruction from the Medes.  Assyria is warned. Israel is warned.  God is angry.

I get the feeling that God is playing a game of chess and the nations are pieces on the chessboard.  But who is God playing against?  God is playing against His oldest foe...chaos, the dark waters, the deep (Gen. 1:2).  This life negating primordial ooze of futility has always been. It seeps into heaven and causes eternal angels to disobey the creator and be cast down to the earth (Lucifer, Satan, devil, Azazel, Baalzebul, Belzebub, the serpent).  This chaos seeps into the hearts of humanity and causes sin and death (Gen 6:5-6). 

God from the beginning has created safe places for life to exist, but this life must exist in harmony with Life.  Life is revealed in the Law.  Keep the covenant and have Life.  Choose Life or choose death.  But it is just not so easy, is it?

God's wrath is not an expression of an insecure hothead.  Divine wrath is the jealous love of a rejected Lover, a dishonored Parent, a deposed Ruler.  But God really is in control. From where the prophet is sitting, God uses nation against nation to continue His work to advance His rule in the hearts of humanity.  Israel is His holy (pure and righteous) project.  Israel is to become that shining beacon for God so that all nations will stream to Zion where God's name is exalted and His holy presence blesses.  So God moves the nations to war to punish the wicked.  He uses the wicked against the wicked to accomplish His goal, holiness on earth, heaven on earth, heaven and earth as one.

But The Lord will have compassion on Israel and the captors will become their captives (Isa. 14:1-2).  The remnant who survive the tumultuous corrective actions of Yahweh will begin again the growth of a holy nation, a kingdom of priests.

Jesus suffered and died on a cross as the once for all sacrifice, the lamb of God. His death is God's compassion, God's love on display (Rom. 5:8).  And His resurrection, His victory over death, is the first of a new kind of humanity.  This new humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit and made holy by the blood of Jesus and the presence of Jesus in Spirit.  Now we believers in the power of the gospel (Rom. 1:16) are empowered to be free of chaotic forces of sin that destroy lives.  We are empowered to fulfill the law (Rom. 8:3-4) of Moses.  This does not mean we are perfect rule keepers.  It means we are becoming, through our faith relationship with Jesus Christ, what the law intends to create, a holy nation.  Through the Holy Spirit we are becoming the people who reflect the glory of God.

Therefore, we are not longer to be conformed to the image of this world lost in futility and bound to corruption (Rom. 8:20-21, 12:2).  We love because we understand love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:10).  We love as Christ loved us sacrificially.  We give ourselves away to serve others as Jesus gave Himself away.

We obey the government because we, like Isaiah, understand that God is in control.  God uses the government as His avengers (Rom. 13:4).  We know God is good all the time and His purposes can be trusted to bring His goodness to all.  So we obey the government, even when the government is not serving God, because we know God uses them in spite of themselves.

In the strength of God's Spirit we serve the weaker in faith among us (Rom. 15:1). We lift up one another.  The strength that comes from faith gives us the resources to love without fear and serve out of the abundance we carry within.  We can love freely because we need nothing in return. We have everything we need because of God's grace (Gen. 33:11).

But even from the strength of faith I feel now in my 49 years of journeying with Christ (admittedly at times against Christ), I am only halfway there at best.  The end of the journey is becoming one with Christ, to be as He is (Rom 8:29).  I may boast to say I am even halfway.  But I know I live on prayer.  For it is in prayer that I open my heart to Life and fill again with the Holy Spirit.  I study and pray and worship and serve with the love poured into me through faith.

Now to Him who has power to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the sacred secret kept silent for long ages, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God, to advance the obedience of faith among all nations— to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ—to Him be the glory forever! Amen. (Rom. 16:25-27)