A tiny story with massive repercussions (2

Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country. Luke 7:11-17

Last time I highlighted three things that, to me, make this remarkable miracle story so extremely attractive – first, it’s told in such a low-key, matter-of-fact way, just Jesus doing the kind of thing Jesus did, no fuss, no bother; second, it’s essentially all about his compassion, even more than his power, helping us to see where our priorities should lie; and third, it shows him putting human need before religious duty by his willingness to make contact with the dead. Worthwhile lessons, all.

But there’s something else too. It’s unusual among the Gospel miracle stories in that Jesus acted without first seeking, or finding, faith in the person on the receiving end.

Think of the other two stories of raisings from the dead. They are very different.

In Luke 8:40-56 we read about Jairus’ daughter. Her father comes to Jesus pleading that he would heal the girl, who at that point is still alive. But later messengers come with the news that she has in fact died, and there is no reason to doubt that this is the case. Jesus comes as requested and speaks the simple word, “My child, get up!” Which she immediately does.

In this case Jesus had encouraged Jairus: “Don’t be afraid ; just believe, and she will be healed”. Would he have performed the miracle if Jairus had faltered in faith? We don’t know, though I like to think so. But as so often with his miracles, faith is key.

Likewise with Lazarus (John 11). His two sisters, Martha and Mary, are distraught at his death – and puzzled and hurt that Jesus didn’t come more quickly. But he makes it clear that this is a test of their faith; he does come, and proceeds to call Lazarus – entombed, remember, “for four days”! – back from death: “Lazarus, come out!” Imagine the agonising tension of that moment before “the dead man came out”, the breath-taking moment as he appeared standing, perhaps blinking, at the mouth of the tomb. The sisters’ faith was anything but rock solid – but Jesus responded to it nonetheless.

But… regarding the widow of Nain, faith is not so much as mentioned.

All she was expecting that day was, sadly, to say farewell to her son, on whom she was completely dependent. Yet Jesus appeared out of the blue, and, unbidden, acted powerfully and positively on her behalf. He made no demands of her, indeed, as far as we know, didn’t even speak to her; it was her dead son that he spoke to!

I don’t think we need doubt that the time for words - for preaching - would come soon enough, once the dust had settled, so to speak. No doubt Jesus would enter Nain and proclaim the good news of the coming of God’s kingdom to exceptionally large crowds.

But… the deed preceded the words; the act preceded the preaching.

This surely is a principle that applies to us today. Putting it another way: we have no right to preach the message of the gospel unless our lives first demonstrate that the love of God is with us and in us in practical ways. And even if the opportunity to share the gospel in words doesn’t arise, we must never forget that good things are there to be done simply because – well, they are good things. Isn’t that enough? A Christlike act is never wasted, though we may never see what it eventually leads to; and what it eventually leads to – well, that’s God’s business, not ours.

Reading between the lines, I speculate that the widow of Nain had never encountered Jesus before that momentous day; perhaps Nain was a bit of a backwater, and this planned visit was his first. If that is right, perhaps she can stand for us today as an example of “those who have never heard”.

Even though the Christian faith has spread world-wide, there are many millions who have never yet heard the gospel, people to whom the name of Jesus is simply not known. They have never put their faith in Jesus – but then how can they be expected to if they have never heard of him?

Those who have heard the gospel, and have hardened their hearts against it… well, that’s a different matter altogether. But should we be surprised that Jesus here showed such love to one of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”? – that “his heart went out to her and he said ‘Don’t cry’”?

The point is this: faith is not a condition we must fulfil in order to enter the kingdom of God. To treat is as such is to turn the gospel into a threat: “If you don’t have faith you can’t be saved”. No! It’s a word of glad and loving invitation: “You want to be saved? Wonderful! Just believe…!”

Reading the story of the widow of Nain irresistibly calls to my mind the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn “Love diving, all loves excelling”: “Jesus, thou art all compassion,/ Pure, unbounded love thou art;/ Visit us with thy salvation,/ Enter every trembling heart”.

Isn’t that exactly what he did for that woman that long-ago day? And isn’t it exactly what he will do too for you and me if we will only invite him?

Father, as we have received the never-ending compassion of Jesus in our own lives, so help us to bounce it off to others, friends or strangers, Christians or unbelievers, saints or sinners, simply because it’s a good thing to do, and to leave the consequences safely in your hands. Amen.

A tiny story with massive repercussions

Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country. Luke 7:11-17

What a truly wonderful story this is!

When the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy wrote his most famous book War and Peace it took him well over half a million words. Here Luke tells the story of the widow of Nain’s son in little more than one hundred.

So? Well, it’s of no real significance, of course; I’m sure there’s a place for big long books. But it reminds us that words used very economically can muster a real, even life-changing, power. I read War and Peace many, many years ago – and I remember very little about it. But this little story has stayed with me all my adult life and made an impact on me and the kind of person I aim to be.

Jesus and his disciples are heading for a small town called Nain, probably the place known today as Nein, just a few miles from Nazareth. He seems to have picked up “a large crowd” along the way, only to find that they are on a collision course with another crowd coming out of the town gate and heading for the near-by burial ground. It seems that the whole town is turning out to offer support to a woman who, having already suffered the sorrow of losing her husband, is now having to come to terms with the death of her only son.

Jesus and his followers, it seems, “yield right of way”, no doubt out of respect. But Jesus finds it impossible to remain simply a spectator: “he went up and touched the bier (the open coffin)… and said ‘Young man, I tell you, get up!’” And that is exactly what he did – “and began to talk”. I wonder what he said? I like to imagine something like, “Hallo, Mum! What’s going on? Who are all these people, and why are they all crying? And who is this man who’s just woken me up? I was having a wonderful dream…!” But Luke doesn’t see fit to tell us.

Jesus, we’re told, “gave him back to his mother”, just like Elijah with the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:23), and the crowd declare that another “great prophet” has appeared among them. What a day! What an event!

What makes this little story so irresistibly attractive? Here are three things that occur to me…

First, it’s all so low-key.

A momentous miracle is done, but there is no blaring of trumpets or parading of power on Jesus’ part. I suspect that when he set out that morning with his disciples he had no idea that such a thing was going to happen; perhaps he had never preached at Nain before, and simply decided that it was time he did.

But once the set of circumstances had arisen he responded in a spontaneous, indeed an almost matter-of-fact way, and his heavenly Father used him.

Is there a word for us there? When a new day begins the prospect may look pretty ordinary, perhaps quite drab and even unwelcoming, just something to be got through. Perhaps we need to summon the simple faith to believe that, so to speak, God can turn our dull grey to beautiful colour – as long as we are then alert to fresh possibilities as the day unfolds. Who knows what God might have up his sleeve?

Second, it’s all about compassion.

Certainly, this is an incident when the sheer power of Jesus is displayed; but Luke’s emphasis seems to fall more on his overflowing compassion. He tells us that when Jesus saw the widow “his heart went out to her”, using a word which suggests a wrenching of his gut, a powerful moving of his inmost being. Jesus could be a deeply emotional man; we must never forget that on occasions he “wept”.

A song that has become a favourite of mine in recent years is “Soften my heart, Lord, soften my heart…” by Graham Kendrick. If you don’t know it, and especially if you feel your heart to be a little cold and unfeeling, I recommend that you turn it into a personal prayer. In it we pray to “feel Christ’s compassion” – and is there anything greater than that that we can pray for?

Third, it shows Jesus focussed on what really mattered.

Why does Luke bother to tell us that Jesus “touched the bier”? Answer: presumably because, strictly speaking, that was something he shouldn’t have done as an obedient Jew. Contact with the dead would render a person ceremonially “unclean” (see, for example, Numbers 19). Certainly, an unclean person could be cleansed by obeying certain rituals laid down by the priest; but it was something to avoid if at all possible. I can’t help wondering if a suppressed gasp of shock went up from the crowd that day in Nain when Jesus touched the bier.

By taking this action Jesus made the point that the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) failed to recognise: fearful of becoming unclean they “passed by on the other side” when they saw what they took to be a corpse. But Jesus, through the example of the Samaritan, makes clear that the claims of compassion take precedence over any kind of legalistic requirements.

Is this a reminder for some of us? Have we turned our loyalty to Jesus into an essentially rules-based religion? If so, have we lost our true focus? Is it time for some serious self-examination?

I think there is more to be gleaned from this story, but I have run out of space. Pease join me again next time.

Soften my heart, Lord, /Soften my heart. /From all indifference, set me apart; /To feel your compassion, to weep with your tears./Come, soften my heart, Lord,/ Soften my heart. Amen.

 Graham Kendrick.

Safety-first religion?

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

The ordinary homes Jesus was familiar with would have been very basic; certainly no central heating or air conditioning, and no beautifully sealed windows to keep out the drafts. If you lit an oil-lamp and put it on a stand it might give you enough light to see by, but not much more than that. And if there were strong winds outside, there was a good chance that they would snuff the lamp out and leave you in darkness.

So what were you to do? One option would be to find a sheltered corner where the wind couldn’t reach, and tuck the lamp away there. Problem sorted. Except that, no it wasn’t: fine, you now had a lamp that was safe – but which would give only a glimmering of light, and what was the point of that? All you had done was to solve one problem by creating another.

Jesus’ parable of the lamp under the bowl is one of his best-known, perhaps because it is so easy to grasp. Its very absurdity makes us smile – of course no-one in their senses would go to the trouble of lighting a lamp and then hiding it away!

But the point he is making is that, in fact, that is exactly what many of us do. In Jesus we have received from God the very light of the world; yet we keep quiet about him rather than making sure that the light shines. We’re like those fantastically rich people who spend millions of pounds on a precious painting - and then lock it away in a secure room to make sure it doesn’t get damaged or stolen. Our Christianity is in essence a safety-first thing; we’re glad we have it, yes, but are happy to keep it to ourselves.

I imagine that this passage is preached on hundreds of times every year in various churches, with a clear and obvious application: Christian, go out and evangelise! Talk about Jesus to your family and friends, your work-mates and neighbours, your leisure companions and casual acquaintances. Do it tactfully and respectfully, of course; choose your moments with care; but… do it!

Many Bible-teachers, however, believe that Jesus wasn’t only addressing those who would come to believe in him and become known as “Christians”, but also, in the first instance, those who were part of his own people, the Jewish nation.

Jesus was, after all, “the King of the Jews” (among many other titles),  and a big part of his original ministry was to summon his fellow-Jews back to their true calling. Some of the wonderful prophetic passages in the later part of Isaiah relate to this ministry: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and (here comes the key part) a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind…” (Isaiah 42:9).

In short… The Jewish people were favoured by God; he chose them as a select people – but not so that they could look down on the gentiles and condemn them. No! – it was to share with them the heaven-sent light they had already received by God’s grace. And this, Jesus thought, they had failed to do. Stories like the lamp under the bowl were aimed at giving them one last chance to roll their sleeves up and obey their ancestral calling by turning to him.

And we all know what happened: rejection. Jesus’ mounting distress is vividly expressed in sayings like Luke 13:34-35: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who sent you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing…”.

The disturbing thing is that we today - the church, the new Israel - can be guilty of exactly the same mistake as the original Israel: we “hide our light under a bushel”.

But why would we do this? Here are some possibilities…

We fear persecution.

Down through history God’s people have suffered persecution, even, sometimes, to the extent of death. But in our modern western world that doesn’t apply, or only in the mildest sense. Certainly, in places like North Korea, China, Mexico or Cuba it’s a very different picture; but most of us can’t really make persecution our excuse.

Our faith is half-hearted.

Many of us, perhaps, while we still “believe” in the sense of giving mental assent to our inherited Christian faith, quite possibly including church-going, don’t have the kind of faith that inspires and motivates us day by day, shaping the very structure of our lives.

I think it was the Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon who suggested that it’s possible to have “enough Christianity to make us miserable, but not enough to give us joy”. It’s a sad way to be.

Are any of us like that? If so, we are overdue for a very honest self-examination. Otherwise, it’s not so much a matter of hiding our light under a bowl as, putting it bluntly, not really having a light to hide at all.

We still believe, but we have lost confidence.

At the beginning of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul roundly declares “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16). When he says “I am not ashamed…” I think it’s really a deliberate understatement for “I am proud…!”

In our modern western world we Christians can easily lose confidence: our churches are often struggling; numbers overall are falling; modern morality, sexual and otherwise, is brazenly unchristian; the intellectual mood often seems to have tossed Christianity onto the scrap-heap of ideas. So we are tempted to shrink a little into ourselves, still valuing Christ and his cross, yes, but unsure of what reception a clear declaration will receive.

There is only one solution to this dilemma: take out that oil-lamp, re-supply its oil, trim its wick, and let the light shine! We may be surprised - indeed thrilled - by what happens…

Lord Jesus, I want to be faithful and true to you in all circumstances, but I confess that often I am timid and unsure of myself. Please give me courage and confidence, and so help me to make an impact for you on those I meet, by both the words I speak and the life I live. Amen.

Once saved always saved? Er, Yes and No

God chose us in him before the creation of the world… In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ… Ephesians 1:4-5

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. Hebrews 6:4-6

The service had just ended and my friend turned to me and asked, pretty much out of the blue, “Where do you stand on the ‘once-saved-always-saved’ question?”

It rather took me aback because it didn’t seem to relate very closely to anything in the service. But I didn’t know him very well so, as they say, hey-ho. In case you’re a bit puzzled by the question, basically what he wanted to know my opinion about was: Is it possible for a person who has truly trusted in Jesus for salvation to lose that salvation? Or are we eternally secure even if we fall away from Christ?

It took me back to my early days as a teenage Christian, when we used to have long, earnest discussions about it, as we did also about matters like election and predestination, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or the second coming. Those days are long-gone, and it surprised me that here was someone for whom it was obviously a live issue.

For me, the question boils down to a recognition that the Bible contains strands and themes which seem to contradict one another, or which, at least, are extremely hard to reconcile with one another. Questions to which one is sorely tempted to reply “Er, Yes - and No”.

Take predestination, which means God deciding from all eternity what is going to happen in history – including who is going to be saved. It has a bearing on this theme.

It’s certainly taught in scripture. Ephesians 1:4-5, for example, tells us that God “chose us in Christ before the creation of the world… In love he predestined us…”. Verse 11 tells us that we have “been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything according to the purpose of his will…”. Such verses sound pretty clear; so if indeed God has, so to speak, selected in advance those who are to be his children, it’s hard to imagine that any such person can be finally lost. Can the eternal purposes of God himself be so easily thwarted? Surely not! God is utterly in control! (Romans 8:29-30 is a similar classic text.)

But, on the other hand, the simple call of the gospel (“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved…”, Acts 16:31), clearly implies that all of us, as individuals, have to make a decision to believe, which can only mean exercising our power of choice. And that power of choice presumably is not cancelled out once the gift of salvation has been granted. Paul, in Galatians 5:4, plainly tells his readers that “you have fallen away from grace”. And the writer to the Hebrews states explicitly that if a believer has “fallen away” (he seems to assume that it can happen) then “it is impossible” for them to be restored (Hebrews 6:4-6). That’s pretty severe stuff! His approach seems to turn the debate on its head - not that it is impossible for us to fall away, but that if or when we do, it is impossible for us to come back.

How can we reconcile such passages?

The answer is simple: we can’t, and we shouldn’t try. What we need to grasp is that the Bible is not a text book of pre-packaged doctrine, where everything is cut and dried. Different books were written in different historic contexts and for different reasons; it’s no wonder therefore that different emphases emerge, and even seem sometimes to clash. Paul in both Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 was writing to reassure and uplift faithful believers; in Galatians 5 he was writing to warn, even scold, believers who had turned away from the essence of the gospel. Likewise, the writer of Hebrews 6.

I can’t help feeling both cynical and sad when I think about the millions of hours spent and the gallons of ink spilled by learned and saintly men and women as they have tried to pin this question down and get it sorted once for all. However convincing such solutions are, there will always be equally learned and saintly men and women who respond with “Yes - but…”. We understandably shrink from saying that the Bible contains contradictions, because it is divinely inspired – but there can be no doubt that sometimes it seems to do so! Plain honesty forces us to look that fact right in the eye.

Stopping and thinking about it, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that the whole debate is sterile and pointless anyway. After all, if a person we are concerned about as having fallen away eventually comes back, well, we will rejoice and say, “Great! But then we aren’t really surprised – it just proves that the true believer can never fall away!” But if that person goes further and further away from God, we may well end up saying, “Oh well, it looks as if they were never truly converted in the first place”. And how does that help us? It’s like playing a game of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose.

Time spent fruitlessly fretting over the debate would, surely, be better spent positively – praying, or evangelising, or offering pastoral support, or reading scripture, or – well, just getting on with life.

None of us knows for sure the true state of another person’s heart. Only God does. The best thing, therefore, is to be plainly practical: if a true Christian seems to have fallen away, then treat them as a non-believer and work to bring them back. God knows what is needful; can’t we safely leave the outcome to him?

Father, your word contains many wonderful truths and clear-cut teachings; please help me to enjoy them and always cling to them. But it also contains things which are puzzling and hard to understand; give me the humility and honesty to be willing to say “I just don’t know”. Teach me, Lord! Amen.

"... psalms, hymns and spiritual songs..."

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens.
² Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.
³ Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre,
⁴ praise him with timbrel and dancing,
    praise him with the strings and pipe,
⁵ praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.

⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Psalm 150

After they had sung a hymn, they [Jesus and his disciples] went out to the Mount of Olives. Matthew 26:30

… be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, and make music from your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19

The Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins started a poem with the line “Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then?...” I can see him looking up from whatever he is doing and pausing to absorb the news: the news of somebody who obviously mattered to him, though perhaps not in a specially personal or intimate way. If the poem is based on fact, and it certainly feels very much like it, then Hopkins, a member of the Roman Catholic Jesuit order, was Randal’s priest.

I think I know how he felt, having just seen a newspaper headline: Timothy Dudley-Smith the hymn-writer, O he is dead then?

You may not know who Timothy Dudley-Smith was, but he has been pretty much an ever-present in my adult life, even if only on the margins. He was an Anglican clergyman who served in a variety of ways, known as a friend and colleague of John Stott, but primarily as a prolific and highly gifted hymn-writer (some 450 in all). I never met him, but news of his death brought to mind hymns that became popular across the whole Christian spectrum: hymns like “Lord for the years your love has kept and guided”, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord”, and the little, lilting carol “Holy child, how still you lie”.

Music and singing have always been important to God’s people. Judging by Psalm 150 they were quite a rowdy lot in the Jerusalem temple, weren’t they? And even before the supreme crisis of the cross Jesus and his friends “sang a hymn” (no doubt one of the psalms; I wonder what voices they had: baritone, bass, tenor?) And then Paul tells the Christians of Ephesus to sing “psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit”. Music and singing aren’t just optional extras to worship; they are of the essence.

Which is why people like Timothy Dudley-Smith make such a vital contribution, and leave such a memorable mark, on the life of the church. Just re-reading some of his hymns today has given my heart a lift. (Fine tunes as well, by the way.)

The word “hymn” sounds a bit dated today, and it’s not easy to decide what difference there is, if any, between a song and a hymn. Not that it really matters, of course, as long as they are God-centred. Dudley-Smith’s output, from the ones I know, would certainly fall into the “hymn” category – many of them, in fact, are paraphrases from the psalms. They avoid the danger of being overly me-centred, as if Jesus lived, died and rose again purely for the individual; nor are they overly repetitive, but contain plenty of good meat to nourish both soul and mind; some of them, in fact, could be described as sung prayers; they are certainly God-centred.

Here, as a sample, is the final verse of “Lord, for the years”…

Lord, for ourselves; in living power remake us - /Self on the cross and Christ upon the throne./ Past put behind us, for the future take us,/ Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.

Amen to that!

In our English-speaking world we take sung worship for granted, but it’s good to pause and think for a little to see if we can make better use of the massive resources that are available to us. Here are a few suggestions that pastors, vicars, worship-leaders etc might find worth pondering…

First, use the whole range.

Churches can tend to limit their worship-material to match their own doctrinal emphasis. That’s understandable, but it can make for a very stodgy, samey spiritual diet – even, dare I say, a rather boring diet. We can all have too much of a good thing; even the finest bread goes stale.

Venantius Fortunatus, for example (yes, really!), lived from about 530 to 609, but one of his monkish, plainsong-type hymns can bring an echo of a distant age and a bygone spirituality to refresh our jaded palates. Not to mention Martin Luther (“A safe stronghold our God is still”), Charles Wesley (“And can it be that I should gain /An interest in the Saviour’s blood”), William Cowper (“God moves in a mysterious way /His wonders to perform”). Such writers still have something to say to us, treasuries of wisdom to impart to us, alongside Keith Getty, Stuart Townend, Graham Kendrick, Matt Redman and the many others who enrich our modern worship. So, even if only to a limited extent – use them!

Second, it can be good to sit to sing.

Little prayer-songs sung seated can be effective in establishing a mood of quietness and prayer and helping us to focus our minds on God. It’s very easy to breeze casually into God’s presence and go mechanically through the motions without giving a thought to what we’re actually doing. Be still, and know that God is God.

Third, it can be helpful to have a song or hymn read before singing it, perhaps getting volunteers from the congregation. That way, our minds are fixed on the words (and they are what matters most, after all), and we can avoid the danger of singing mindlessly.

Fourth, keep in mind that what we are doing is recognising and enjoying the presence of God, not engaging in a performance.

Good musicians are a great gift from God, and we should be thankful for them, but… it’s not about them. Keep Jesus at the centre.

Fifth (perhaps especially for drummers), remember that God is not deaf. Enough said.

These are just a few thoughts prompted by the death of a great hymn/song-writer. There’s a lot more that could be said, but hopefully this is enough to make us a little more aware of just how blessed we are. May God help us to make full use of the resources he has laid at our feet.

Father, thank you for the wonderful resources, including music, that you inspire in  your church, and for the gifted men and women, both past and present, who produce them. Teach us to value them aright, and to use them to the best advantage. Amen.

Can we change God's mind? (2)

⁹ “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people…

¹⁴ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Exodus 32:9-14

All right, you and I aren’t Moses. Where we live and serve God is in far humbler situations. And, anyway, his description as the “friend” of God (Exodus 33:11) suggests that the depth of his relationship with God was extremely rare, if not unique. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from his example in this incident of the golden calf and his remarkable conversation with God. It can help us as we think about prayer, giving us an example to follow. The following thoughts come to mind…

First, pray boldly.

God declares his intention to destroy his chosen people because of their “corruption” (verse 7) and their stubborn, “stiff-necked” nature (verse 9). How dare a human being, Moses or anybody else, stand against this? But this is exactly what he does: “Lord… why should your anger burn against your people?... Turn from your fierce anger” (verses 11-13). And – guess what? - God chooses to do just that, to “relent” (verse 14).

I’m sure it goes without saying that Moses prayed respectfully - he “sought God’s favour”; he addressed him as “Lord”. But he was unafraid to tell God exactly what was on his mind, and that’s a principle we can all follow (doesn’t God know it all anyway?).

There are many such examples of bold prayer in the Old Testament – think, for example of the “Why, Lord?” prayers of the psalms. An example chosen pretty much at random: “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm10: 1). Isn’t this something all of us think from time to time? Well, why not put it into words, then?

And you don’t need to read far into the book of that combative character Job to find plenty of other examples: “Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me” (Job 10:18). A man not given to mincing his words, even when they are tinged with bitterness! But God’s shoulders are surely broad enough to take it; he far prefers frank, humble honesty to mealy-mouthed grovelling.

So… Are we bold in our praying?

Second, pray as children.

This, of course, is the angle that Jesus himself encourages us to adopt: “Our Father…” We are not God’s “pals”, and shouldn’t pray as if we are; but, wonderfully, we are his children, and we should have that in our minds whenever we pray.

I knew somebody once who delighted so much in the intimacy of his relationship with God that he took to addressing him as “Dad”, which, to most ears, struck a distinctly jarring note for all sorts of reasons. I don’t doubt that God, in his grace, smiled lovingly every time he heard it, but I suspect that that habit didn’t last very long.

Respect and reverence, yes, of course; but neither cold, formal words on the one hand, nor exaggerated casualness on the other - isn’t that the right approach to God in prayer?

So… Do we consciously approach God in prayer as children?

Third, pray with expectation.

Actually, to be strictly accurate, we aren’t told how much Moses expected God to respond to his plea: quite possibly he was taken by surprise by the speed of God’s response. But I don’t think we need doubt that he expected something to happen as a result of his entreaty.

And this, surely, is a good reminder to us when we come to prayer. If, to be honest, we really don’t have any expectation of something happening – well, why bother? Whether in personal prayer or in a gathering with other believers, the danger is that our prayers can become a merely repetitive discipline or an empty ritual.

Admittedly, this can be tricky to get hold of. It’s hard, after all, to remain expectant when a particular prayer seems to have gone unanswered for months and even years.

This is something I personally know a little bit about. I’ve regarded it as part of my pastoral ministry to pray regularly, possibly daily, for certain situations and individuals. And in some cases, even over many years, precisely nothing seems to have happened. Trying to find new forms of words to use makes no difference; nor does trying to “psyche” myself up (after all, you can’t force yourself to feel something you don’t feel). So I simply persevere the only way I can, and finish with, “Well Lord, that’s all I’ve got! I know I can’t twist your arm, so I leave these familiar requests at your feet, and ask that by your Spirit, and in your own good time, you will turn them into power”.

But the thought occurs to me that the fact that I haven’t heard of any change in the prayed-for situation doesn’t necessarily mean that there has been none. Who can tell what God may be doing quietly in someone else’s heart?

I take encouragement from the thought of what might be called “incremental” answers to prayer. The dictionary defines an increment as “a minute increase in quantity”, perhaps easily overlooked, usually in the context of money. But why shouldn’t it also take a “spiritual” form? That person I have been praying for, for example - perhaps that deepening of their relationship with God, that noticeable maturing of their faith, are indirect answers to my feeble-seeming prayer?

To be on the look-out for such “coincidences” can enable us to pray more trustingly and with refreshed confidence. Who knows… we might be in for some wonderful surprises when, ultimately, we stand in the presence of God!

Whatever: Christian, keep praying!

Father in heaven, please help me by your Spirit to pray boldly and honestly, with childlike faith and an expectant spirit – and to have eyes which are open to see answers in unexpected places. Amen.

Can we change God's mind? (1)

 

⁹ “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people…

¹⁴ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Exodus 32:9-14

Can we change God’s mind?

That’s not as simple a question as it might seem. If, as Christians believe, God is perfect and almighty, surely his purposes are established from all eternity? How dare we imagine that sinful creatures like us can do any such thing?

From the early days of the church, indeed, God was held to be “immutable”– that’s just a technical term for “unchangeable” - on the grounds that if something can be changed it can’t have been perfect in the first place: how can you improve on perfection?

All very logical. But if that is the case, what’s the point of praying? “Ah”, says a very spiritually-minded Christian, “but that’s not what prayer is about! It’s not trying to change God’s mind; it’s about growing a deeper relationship with him!” There’s truth in that, to be sure. But also there’s no getting away from the fact that in the Bible God is portrayed as “relenting” (even “repenting”, if we go with the KJV), which is really just another way of saying “changing his mind”.

Exodus 32 is a dramatic example of this.

The people of Israel, delivered from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses, have met with God at Mount Sinai. After receiving the “ten commandments”, God summons Moses up the mountain, where he “enters the cloud” and stays “for forty days and forty nights” (Exodus 24:13-18). Uknown to him, the people down below seem to have virtually panicked at his prolonged absence – and they persuade his brother Aaron to build an idol in the form of a golden calf which they can worship as their god.

God, of course, sees this, and tells Moses to get himself down the mountain while he prepares to destroy his fickle people. But – and this the truly remarkable part - Moses refuses to tamely accept this. There follows a conversation in which you could almost say that Moses calls the shots…

When God says to Moses “Now leave me alone” (verse 10), it’s as if he is telling him to “clear off and stop bothering me, so I can get on with the business of pouring out my anger on the people and destroying them” (putting it in down to earth modern speech). It’s almost as if he – yes, God himself! - is afraid that Moses, the man of prayer, might persuade him to change his mind.

But Moses won’t be put off. He appeals to God to think of his reputation – “If you destroy your own people, who you brought out of the land of Egypt, think what joy that will give to your enemies!” And so we read in verse 14: “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened”.

People sometimes speak of the power of prayer. Well, it’s hard to imagine a clearer example than this! What are we today to make of this slightly bizarre story?

A key need is to recognise that the language of the Bible is extremely varied, especially when portraying God. God is infinite, way beyond our grasp or comprehension, so we need to have him described for us in earthy ways, through metaphors and figures of speech.

A simple example is that God has no physical body (he “is spirit”, John 4:24), yet the Bible repeatedly describes him as having hands (which means he does things) or eyes (he sees everything) or a face (he can express both pleasure and displeasure). According to Exodus 19:4 he “carried you on eagles’ wings” which, taken literally, is just not true, but is a graphic way of conveying the glorious manner in which he delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

The same principle applies to the conversation between God and Moses here in Exodus 32. On first reading, it might seem to portray an angry, rather tetchy God who is determined to destroy his wayward people, but who is then persuaded out of it by a human being who manages to hit a raw nerve in his nature. But we instinctively feel that, of course, it is far, far deeper than that - that it is in fact a way of making us tremble at the just anger of God, and then marvel at the power of the pleading of a holy human being.

Did God literally “change his mind” on that occasion? To our human perception the answer is yes. But the deeper meaning is that God has given to us human beings the dignity of playing a significant part in the outworking of his purposes. Yes, our feeble prayers can and do make a difference to the unfolding of history!

There are other examples in the Old Testament of the unchanging God actually… well, seeming to change. A particularly striking one is 2 Kings 20:1-11. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells the sick King Hezekiah to “put your house in order, because you are going to die”. Hezekiah “weeps bitterly” and prays a heart-broken prayer; whereupon within hours or even minutes he is given a reprieve: “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears: I will heal you”.

Such examples, to be sure, are rare; but surely they are there for a reason?

But back to our earlier question: what are we today to make of the event of Exodus 32? Please join me next time as we try to draw some very practical lessons…

Father, I often struggle in the matter of prayer, especially when I compare my feeble efforts with things I read in your word. Please help me to persevere in faith, so that one day I will see how wonderfully you have answered them. Amen.