T-shirt fans: Reflection on Wavering Faith in the OT

In recent weeks, I have noticed a recurring theme among people and organizations around me, one which rings true throughout history.  When things are going poorly, or perhaps simply less than expected, people are quite inclined toward change.  In fact, in situations such as this people are very likely to assume that change automatically means improvement.

From sports culture to politics, this theme is evident even in the last few weeks.  When America’s favorite football team produces a season far short of capabilities and expectations, cries for the firing of the head coach begin.  As the season worsens, the murmurings grow into rampant facebook statuses calling for some sort of drastic change.  One can’t help but think that if things had been going better no one would question a thing.

If your favorite college football team’s quarterback is playing poorly, put in the back up! We love him! Or worse, when an unknown team suddenly emerges, everyone joins the band wagon.  When things go south, the t-shirt fans are much less likely to put on the team colors.

This evening I watched as likely Speaker of the House candidate and U.S. Representative John Boehner acknowledged the victories of the GOP and brought a message which centered on the demand to “Change Course.” I couldn’t help but remember the last time the word change rang through political talk, as President Obama’s campaign championed the terms “hope” and “change”.  Indeed, political history of the last decades reveals a theme of change and turnover.  Tonight marked the third dramatic change election in a row for the U.S. Congress.  One can note historical events (i.e. wars, economic anomalies, etc.), but it’s clear that when things aren’t going well, the turnover rate is incredibly high.

Throughout the Old Testament we have continued to see the swaying back and forth of the faithfulness of God’s people.  It’d be nice to say that through thick and thin they never questioned God, but that is not reality. They are, after all, people.  When troubles come or life is not what was expected, the theme of wavering can be seen from the faith of Abraham to the murmuring traditions of the Exodus and no doubt carries into the Joshua-Judges events.

The narratives and accounts of the Old Testament continually reveal a people who struggle to maintain faithfulness, purity of belief, unwavering holiness, and unhindered devotion as they experience difficulty or distress in life.

In the Western world today, I fear we have far too many t-shirt fans of God. People who would consider themselves Christians are happy to attend church and acknowledge God’s glory and goodness in times of social, economic, or personal success, but they are prepared to throw that out the window if it doesn’t seem to better their life.  In his recent book, The Christian Atheist, Craig Groeschel points out the large number of people who are “believing in God but living as if he doesn’t exist.”  Though our culture and worldview may be apt for change when things are going well, this theme must be jettisoned when it comes to our faith!

As God’s people, we must seek solidarity, pursue faithfulness, and hold firm in our faith in God as we fix our eyes on Him. “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” And as we pursue a Deuteronomy 4 kind of faith, one which truly loves the Lord with all heart, soul, and strength, may we recognize that this is our aim for both the good times and the bad.  No fair weather fans permitted.  No changing when you don’t like how things go.  God is God, and we are not.

Maybe it’s my fault.

In Joshua 7, we read of a story in which the Israelites find great defeat.  At the hands of the men of Ai, they find themselves routed and chased from far their city.  For Joshua and the people of God, this event comes as a shock.  Had not God promised them victories? Were not they supposed to take full control of the land and wipe out all others? Tearing his clothes and falling facedown before the ark of the Lord, Joshua lets out a vivid lament to the Lord:

“Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?” (7:7-9)

Struck by defeat and confused as to why, having received such a promise, there army was so defeated, Joshua cries out to the Lord.  He questions the very motives of God. He questions the plans of God. He questions the faithfulness of God.  For Joshua, it simply makes no sense. Why would God bring them thus far, only to hand them over to their new enemies?

Joshua is then so bold as to ask God what He will possibly do for His name if the Israelites are defeated. As if without their nation, God would be rendered useless.  As if without them, God would simply have to fold his hand, call it quits in the world, have no way to show the glory of His name. And God responds:

“Stand up! What are you doing on you face?” (7:10)

God rebukes Joshua. He corrects him.  Joshua felt as though God was wronging the people by his absence.  God makes it clear that it is their sin which has caused this.  The people have broken the rules. They have taken for granted the precursor to God’s fighting on their behalf: Obedience.

Amidst Joshua’s excuses for why God has abandoned them, making the past useless, he forgets to first make sure they had been putting in the work on their end.  Being God’s people isn’t easy.  Having the Divine Warrior on your behalf is not without stipulations, primarily being obedient.

Joshua asks what God will do for His own name, and God replies by asking what Israel will do for His name.

This Michael Jordan video reminds us that work comes before success.

Joshua blames God for all that is going wrong.  He finds God at fault for not helping them through.  And it is as if God sends a message similar to this video: “Maybe it’s my fault. Or maybe… you’re just makin excuses.”

Being God’s people is not easy and was not easy from the start. The Israelites will have to repent, and continue to work at it every single day of their life if they desire success.  So also, must we all realize that the Christian life does not come from mere belief in God, but through hard work, discipline, and obedience.

“Stand up! What are you doing on your face?” Maybe it’s God’s fault that things aren’t going as He promised or that your relationship with Him is nominal.  Or maybe… you’re just making excuses. What then will you do for His great name?

Sport is sport. A rule is a rule.

At the outset of the book of Joshua, one finds God’s commissioning of this new leader.  God establishes Joshua with the leadership once held by Moses, and sets out the task for which he has been raised up: to lead the people into their inheritance of the Land of Promise.  The first chapter begins with God’s charge to Joshua to assume this new leadership.  Verse 6 offers a powerful exhortation to “Be strong and courageous” in his pursuit to bring the people into the new land.

However, in verse 7, the command is repeated.  Only this time it is strengthened.  Joshua is to be “strong and very courageous” in being careful to do according to all the law that Moses has commanded.  In verse 8, this is explained further as the Lord says that Joshua is to “meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Future enemies, struggles, hardships, and task may require courage, but Joshua is going to need extra strength and courage to take the law and make it permeate all that he is.  Here, God reveals to Joshua the importance of this new way of living spelled out in the law.  Joshua is to make this rule be THE rule. It is to so infiltrate all that he is that he might not turn away at all, but will pursue the rule that the Lord has established in all ways.

This law, this rule, is to become a universal way of life.  It was with Moses and now is with Joshua and is to be for the Hebrew people THE way of conducting one’s own life. No matter where they go, live, or are taken, the law is the law.

Video link – http://www.adland.tv/commercials/gatorade-sport-sport-long-2004-045-usa.   For this new nation, “it’s 90 feet to first no matter where home is.” Regardless of their changing position, God’s way is the way.

The Lord’s call to “very courageous” indeed reminds us of the challenge of allowing His ways to completely transform our way of life and thinking.  Joshua, though a man in command, is to allow himself to be commanded by this way of life.  It will surely require courage.  It is clear that prosperity and success will not be found outside of following the Lord (vs. 8).  Matthew Henry’s commentary reminds us of this as he notes that “Those that make the word of the God their rule, and conscientiously walk by that rule, shall both do well and speed well […] and it will entitle them to the best blessings: God shall give them the desires of their heart.”

So also, may we make the word of God our rule, no matter where we might be.  May it permeate our lives as we “meditate on it day and night,” being careful to what is written.  This will surely require much courage.  To this end, it is even more powerful a promise that God offers in Joshua 1:9 as He says that “the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

God’s camp will be holy

Numbers beings with two chapters that are devoted to addressing the laity of the Israelite community.  Following these, the next two chapters turn the attention to the priestly Levite crew.  For the most part, instructions regarding the tabernacle have remained positive.  The holiness of the tabernacle has remained a theme since its introduction into scripture. The same is seen in these opening chapters of the book of Numbers, the dwelling place of God is to be handled in exactly the manner which he has spoken.

Reaching Chapter 5, the manner of achieving this holiness does change.  The shift is from positive reinforcement, “do this” “stand there” “place that here”, to one which is much more negative in nature: “put them out.. remove them… break faith with them.”  However, it is clear that the concern in the same.

God’s camp is to be holy.

In Numbers 5, this means putting out human impurity of any kind, even those of physical ailment, for example, lepers.  There is no question of confusion: the temple of the Lord will remain holy.  The dwelling place of God retains the greatest sanctity.

The chapter continues by revealing even how to deal with deliberate sin, making confession, acknowledgement, and retribution central to righting all wrongs before the Lord.  In fact, there is no doubt that to sin against your fellow-man is to sin against God himself.  It is for this reason that atonement again comes to the forefront.  It is only through the confession and restitution for wrongs that one can proceed with the priestly ritual for atonement.

The theme is powerful: there is no place for sin in the community of God.

The temple of the Lord is to be removed of all impurities.  The place where God dwells is to have not a hint of uncleanliness.

I didn’t realize we were exclusive.

Perhaps you’ve seen this scenario on TV or in real life: the dating relationship in which both parties understand the status, or at least the rules of engagement, of this relationship quite differently. One may find it to be a serious bond with far reaching implications while the other may be oblivious that anything had escalated to that point at all.  And perhaps you’ve heard movie character A or relationship B come out with the words, “I didn’t realize we were exclusive.”

Many are familiar with the story found in Exodus 32 regarding the infamous golden calf.  Absurdities flow in abundance here, for sure.  Hasn’t God proved Himself? Why do they need to make a new god? Who melts their own jewelry to worship it? And does Aaron really think we believe it jumped out of the fire in that shape?

But Moses’ reactions to what they’ve done while he was gone are interesting.

Angry, Moses takes this golden calf and has it burnt and ground to powder.  He then proceeds to scatter it all over the water and make the people of Israel drink it. But why?

Maybe this is a reprimand.  We’ve all made mistakes as children, and maybe this is some classic punishment. Moses is simply the stern mother of the Israelites and he is going to force these folks to wash their mouths out with soap! Hamilton’s Handbook of the Pentateuch suggests it may even have been a means to establishing guilt, giving the Levites knowledge of whom to kill.

However, Hamilton also helps us to draw a connection between this passage and one found in Numbers 5.  In this passage, a wife who has been unfaithful to her mate is to drink water from the laver that is mixed with dirt from the tabernacle floor.  The drinking of this mix is both an admission of guilt and physical representation of it.

Like our couple from above, these two passages needed some serious DTR time. (define the relationship for you old folks) Have these people forgotten that the relationship was exclusive?

In both, a betrayal has occurred. In the instance of this adulterous woman and our idolatrous Israel, we find a great need to return to an exclusive relationship.  Our God desires an exclusive relationship. If they didn’t find that in the beginning, if they skipped that part of the 10 Commandments, if they missed the revelations along the journey, surely they can see it now.

Israelites, this is to be an exclusive relationship with God.

We are to be exclusively His.

Exclusive: excluding other things.  Focused or targeted on one thing only. Sole. Constant. Undivided. Unbroken. Absolute.

“I’ve been told…”

I’m no psychologist, but I do tend lean on the side of environmental influence. In other words, I tend to look around me and notice the things that are a product of what we have been told should or could be. Let’s face it, we all make decisions daily that are the result of how we were raised, how our society has influenced our life, or how a successful person looks, thinks, acts and lives in our communities.

When I encounter the laws laid out throughout the book of Exodus, both in the Decalogue (10 commandments) and beyond, I join the average reader in losing interest rapidly. I often find them with little to offer to my own current situations. However, this is far from the truth.

They have, after all, completely influenced not only the way that I live, but the way in which people have acted for centuries. It’s as if God is laying out for the Hebrew people a manner of living, both in relation to God (Commandments 1-4) and in relation to fellow man (6-10), that is to become the way in which they are conditioned. I am realizing that these principles for life, these standards of conduct, these ethical paradigms are largely responsible for the development of a much greater sociological phenomenon. To borrow the language of America’s founding fathers, what is found in the 10 Commandments are no doubt truths that so many of us hold to be self-evident.

God’s revelation of the law, his revealing of these rules, convey to us not only much about His own character but also much about what many Christian’s today take as obvious. Of course, Jesus would extend the scope of these laws in an interpretation which would transform the Christian community, but in the first revelation of these in Exodus the reader finds a foundation, a compass of sorts, for much of what is to come for humanity.

As God’s people, may we be formed, molded, indeed conditioned, by these very principles. But let us not forget the way in which these laws would later be abused. Jesus expands the entire scope of this foundation in Matthew 5. For Jesus, it seems that the Jewish community has lost sight of the true spirit of these ethical standards. Because of this, we find his delineation of these laws and much broader application as an awakening for the people of his time and for us. They had become complacent in their legalistic interpretation of the laws, and Jesus presents a whole new way to understand them. Suddenly, there is an entirely new way of thinking about how to live, act, and think. What they had been told… wasn’t all there was to it. There was better to be had. Jesus makes groundbreaking interpretations of the law, each beginning with “You have heard it said…”

Jesus says, you may have been told a lot of things, but let me tell you how it should be.

Luxury car company, Audi, diminishes it competition while pointing out some parallel truth in this video:

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.”

The fascinating and well known events surrounding the crossing of the Red Sea, found in Ex. 13 and 14 provide for us a fascinating account of the LORD’s provision and the protection of His people.  Interestingly enough, the story begins by immediately acknowledging the weakness of the men and women whom God is delivering. Indeed, these people are being led by Moses by the hand of the Lord out of captivity! Yet, we read that God has not led them down the road through the Philistine country, even though it was shorter.

“For God said, ‘If they face war they might change their minds and return to Egypt.’” (13:17b)

God is already preparing the Israelites for battle, setting in motion events that will help them to not turn back.  This is but a mere foreshadow of the grumblings and murmurings and outright complaints that would be forged against both God and Moses a few verses later and for chapters to come. However, amidst this often told story of God’s miraculous provision for his people (who again find themselves traversing between a promise and its fulfillment), we encounter a Moses who boldly and wisely proclaims the power of God before an immediately retreating Israelite people.

The questions and complaints begin pouring out in Ch. 14 as the Egyptians approach , “marching after them.”  The people begin to question the journey, the reasons, the difficulties, and even whether or not their original plight was all that bad to begin with.

And Moses replies to his people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still” (14:14)

A profound statement amidst such brash questioning by his people.  Yet Moses’ statements here are even more prolific if one but lingers 10 or 11 chapters back to a man who stood before the voice of God and did some questioning of his own. This after all, is the man who replied to the calling of God with such phrases as: “Who am I?” “They will not believe me,” “I am not eloquent,” “send someone else.” Surely, this is a man who had come realize that His journey, which we but critically read of today, was far more about who the LORD is than who they are.

Note also that his words “you need only to be still” are as often translated “you have only to be silent.” The “not eloquent” man we once met in the beginnings of Exodus has now stood before the people of God to offer these words of wisdom, encouragement, and strength.

Brother and sisters, you need only, in faith, to watch what Lord is capable of, he tells them.

In the absence of your ability, the LORD shall display His.