This is what the Lord says:
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
I have nothing to add…
Why did so many Christian churches not speak out against the injustices of the Nazi regime? Fear, maybe, of persecution or simply a decline in offerings? Wanting to ride the wave of popularity and power? Perhaps it was easier to tell people what they wanted to hear? Who knows? But that disgraceful failure is one of the more dangerous consequences of picking and choosing from the Bible what seems convenient to believe.
Today, the same failure is routinely practiced in churches. It’s no mystery why churches that only preach what people want to hear are wildly popular. But God said,
“…prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
“Peace, peace,” they say,
when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 8:10b-11)
Imagine going to the doctor with a gangrenous wound, hoping it’s not serious. The doctor knows you are worried, so he says, “This is no big deal; we’ll just put a band-aid on it.” Inconceivable, but precisely what has been done, far too often, by people entrusted with the truth of God’s Word. Paul warned Timothy not to be tempted by the strong pull of popular opinion and desire. He said:
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:2-4)
If you haven’t found one yet, look for a church that delivers “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Here’s a special treat. In the last several posts we have chewed on Ecclesiastes, but how can we scoop its message all together? It seems so full of contradictions – just like you! Scholars have tried for centuries to make sense of it. But, Ecclesiastes is about real life, real life that throws curve balls. Recently, my son sent me a wonderful You Tube about Ecclesiastes. These guys really get it. I couldn’t summarize the book any better. Check it out. But do yourself a favor and wait for a moment when you can really watch and listen. It begins with a short Hebrew song and then goes way deep. Click HERE.
But wait, there’s more! No, not steak knives… This same group produced a beautiful song based on the teachings of Ecclesiastes. You’ll find it HERE.
And, If you missed this short series, the first one is found HERE.
Grace and peace.
If you want to write a hit song for Millennials, here’s how (that is, according to a joke I saw recently): First you start with some banjo. Then all the musicians shout “Hey!” The body of the song should contain complaints about life by Millennials. Then another “Hey!” Finish with a bit more banjo, played faster and fading out. Like any good joke, it’s an exaggeration based on a bit of truth. And the truth is, young people tend to complain when things aren’t going the way they hoped. And write songs about it. It’s not just Millennials. My generation did it back in the 60’s. “I’m just a man of constant sorrow. I’ve seen trouble all my days.” We sang that with earnest looks, even though our “days” were just getting started.
But, spend time with an old farmer, someone who has struggled through the ups and downs of a tough life, and you’re much more apt to hear a fiddle tune than a bunch of complaining. The farmers I have known are well acquainted with the fact that life ebbs and flows through good times and bad, and that complaining only makes it worse. In fairness to Millennials, their generation is also known for a desire to “keep it real.” And in time, by “keeping it real,” they will be known for patient acceptance of life’s various seasons. Because those seasons are real.
Perhaps the most famous section of Ecclesiastes are these next verses.
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
Try to identify exactly which of these seasons you have experienced and when. Call to mind any of the ways you experienced God’s influence and care during them.
Why do people whisper in an art museum? Never could figure that out but suppose it has something to do with awe. Stand in front of a Rembrandt and somehow you don’t feel like talking. At least not out loud. And yet, in most church settings, as people come bopping in, laughing, calling to their friends, there seems to be no sense of awe. This is nothing new and it is understandable. You can see a Rembrandt and you can’t see God. It’s easy to forget where you are and what you are doing.
But God is here. Not just in church, but here, with us as we go through life. And when we pause, to talk things over with Him, here’s a reminder from Ecclesiastes:
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2)
There’s a great scene in the movie, Papa, where a cub reporter, who idolizes Ernest Hemingway, and has sent him a fan letter, answers the phone and discovers it is his hero calling. Once he’s gone through the “Who is this really?” routine and knows it really is Hemingway on the phone, suddenly he can hardly form a single word, much less a sentence. That’s the idea here.
That is why I cringe when I hear someone say, “Well, I guess we better start with a quick word of prayer.” Or, “Ralph, would you say the blessing?” If we could open our eyes to see Jesus, Himself, seated in the meeting or at the table, such lines would seem insulting. Like, “Before we tell you what we think you should do, God, we’re just going to say a few religious sounding words to kind of set the right tone…”
If we are in our right minds, we fear God. This means treating Him with appropriate reverence, respect and a willingness to let Him call the shots. It means recognizing He is God and we are not, not even close. There is no more important setting for the fear of God than when we are about to address Him and listen.
Maybe the man was schizo. Or confused. When he wrote Ecclesiastes, he said:
Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 5:19)
And he also wrote:
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
Which is it? Should we enjoy God’s generous gifts or fear Him? It’s both, but let me explain. To “fear” means to treat someone with great reverence or respect, paying careful attention to his desires or commands. Can you do that with God, while simultaneously enjoying His gifts? Here is a fantasy illustrating how to do both – fear and enjoy.
Let’s say my guitar hero, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, invites me to his home. I’m in shocked disbelief and show up, quivering with excitement. He welcomes me in, shows me around, and then we discuss guitar picking. We jam a little and he teaches me a few of his trademark licks. Then, as I am about to leave, be asks if I would be willing to take his prize acoustic guitar and take care of it for him. He said, “I want you to play it regularly, but there’s a few things you’ll need to be very careful about.” Perhaps you can imagine how astonished, delighted and thrilled I’d be for such an opportunity. Stunned by his generosity. And extremely careful to follow his instructions. I would fearfully enjoy his gift until such time as he decided to take it back. That’s what Ecclesiastes teaches should be out attitude toward God with respect to His gift of life.
You are going to die, so what’s the point of living? According to the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes, there is no point. Once you are dead, theres no difference between the wise person and the fool. They wind up in the same condition and will both, eventually be forgotten.
Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die! So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:15 -17)
But this hopeless outlook changes when we do not limit our perspective to only that which happens “under the sun.” (See Part 2 for further explanation)
If you look at a piece of stitchwork from the back side, it doesn’t make much sense – bunch of tangled, knotted yarn hanging down. But if you look from above, you see a beautiful picture. That’s the vantage point advantage. When we look at our circumstances from God’s vantage point, seeing things as He does instead of merely from “under the sun,” life seems less hopeless and pointless. We begin to see life as a gift from a generous God.
This principle is stated and restated many times and ways throughout Ecclesiastes. It’s a recurrent theme in all of scripture. Without God, everything looks pointless because we die. But when we are reverently mindful of God, the outlook changes. So,
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 5:18 -19)
File this under “Things I Wish I Had Known.” I wish I had understood what this meant when I was first married:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-28)
I’ve heard sermons on how Jesus “gave Himself up for” the church and how husbands should adopt that attitude, but never one that continues on to explain how the “to make her holy, cleansing her…” and “…to present her to Himself … holy and blameless” pertains to marriage. What’s that all about? I wish I had someone sit me down as a young man and explain all that in an understandable way.
Let’s start with this: When you hire a babysitter, your deepest hope is that he or she will take care of your child with all the love and care you would. You entrust your child into the sitter’s care. When you enter into marriage, God entrusts you with the love and care of His precious daughter. And she has been brought up in a world that is awash in distorted ideas about what it means to be a woman. Even if she is not one of the one-in-seven girls who is sexually abused as a child, she has been bombarded with destructive lies about what makes a woman attractive and valuable. Part of a husband’s role and responsibility is to treat his wife with honor and respect, protecting her and gently cleansing away those twisted attitudes. To do so involves some “giving himself up.” But the end result is marriage with a real woman, who knows her full value, instead of one who desperately tries to measure up to unrealistic “performance” standards.
As we eventually discovered, the payoff is worth it.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:28)
Don’t bother praying for those people; it won’t do any good. That’s what God said! He said, it’s a waste of time to pray for them because I’m not going to listen and I won’t help them. Really? Who was He talking about? ISIS? Babylon? Nope. He was talking about His own, Chosen People. He’d had enough. Here it is, straight out of the Bible:
16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. (Jeremiah 7:16)
Obviously His own people had done something very offensive to lead to that attitude from the same God Who rescued them from slavery, provided them a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and protected them from their hostile neighbors. What had they done that was so bad?
17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. (Jeremiah 7:17-18)
Today, this same evil masquerades as religious tolerance. “All gods are the same; all religions are equally valid.” “I won’t teach my children about God because I want them to choose which god to worship – if any.” Go far enough down that road and you can forget about praying. The real God won’t be listening.
But, in case this sounds to you as though God has an ego problem, consider, when He brought His people out of slavery, the first thing He taught them was this:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3)
His motivation was not for His own fame or esteem but for their well being. Here’s the rest of what He said to Jeremiah:
22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. (Jeremiah 7:22-23)
Laced through all the tough, “don’t bother praying” passages in this prophecy, is the invitation and plea for His people to turn back and be restored. God isn’t being cruel. He alone is God. He knows what works and what does not.
Jesus chased people out of the temple courts with a whip. Why? They were using the place to make money. Another time, as He tipped over their tables and chased them away, He said:
“‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ (Matthew 21:13)
If those guys had been paying attention to God’s Word, they’d have known better. Jesus was quoting from a complaint by God written several hundred years earlier. Here’s the first half of what Jeremiah wrote:
Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? (Jeremiah 7:11a)
Religious shysters were nothing new in Jesus’ day. They are still at it today. A quick Google search, using “pastor” and “swindling” will give you 401,000 hits! Apparently those crooks aren’t paying attention either. Instead of shaking down the flock they’d be shaking in their boots. Here’s the rest of what God said:
Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. ( Jeremiah 7:11)
God wasn’t kidding…
FRESH BREAD OF LIFE 