“THIS version of the facts”

The physicist Leo Szilard once announced to his friend Hans Bethe that he was thinking of keeping a diary. “I don’t intend to publish it,” he said. “I am merely going to record the facts for the information of God.”

“Don’t you think God already knows the facts?” Bethe asked.

“Yes,” replied Szilard. “He knows the facts. But He does not know THIS version of the facts.”

How many versions of the facts ARE there? Two motorists are involved in a minor fender-bender, witnessed — shall we say? — by no one else. They call a policeman to adjudicate. In such a situation, probably there are three versions of the “facts”. Each motorist has seen it all through his eyes, and with his perception of the other driver. And the poor officer needs to balance two biased, self-interested accounts with his own objective investigation of the evidence — skid marks, exact positions of the two vehicles, damage to each vehicle, positions of each vehicle relative to stop signs or traffic lights or lane markers, etc, etc.

Let us say that three bystanders are nearby, and they all witness the same crash. Each one is standing in a different place; each one has been looking at something different just before the crash; and each one has focused most on some particular feature of the incident.

Now there are almost certainly six different versions of the “facts”.

Are the “facts” further affected by the types of cars each motorist was driving? By the race, or gender, or appearance, or socioeconomic class of the motorists — or of the bystanders?

Yes, of course they are!

In some fundamental way, then, it may be said that every single person who has ever lived has lived in his or her own “world”. No one else has had exactly the same experiences. Even if two people were to have exactly the same experiences, then the subjective biases, dispositions, prejudices, or underlying philosophies of each party would certainly by very different. So each will have his own version of the “facts”.

Is there a TRUE version of the facts? Of course there is. It is God’s! How much time and energy and effort do we all expend, in the unexpressed (but nevertheless very real) “fool’s errand”… of trying to get God to see the “facts” from our viewpoint?

The irrepressible Snoopy sat on the roof of his doghouse, tapping away on his little typewriter. “I see you are still working on your book of theology,” Charlie Brown said. “Do you have a title yet?”

“Yes, indeed,” thought Snoopy — a gleam in his eye. (If you haven’t met them, you should know that Snoopy, being a dog, never actually speaks to the kids in the comic strip. But he has his own ways of getting his message across — the typewriter being one of them. A closer look at the page in the machine tells us Snoopy’s book title. The ultimate title for a book of theology? “Has It Ever Occurred to You that Might Be Wrong?”

Abraham Lincoln often asked visitors to the Oval Office a question. Pointing to a dog nearby, he would ask, “How many legs does that dog have?” “Four, of course,” would be the answer. “Now,” Abe would say, “let’s call his tail a leg. Now, how many legs does he have?” “Five.” “No,” replied Abe, “Still four! Because calling a tail a leg… doesn’t make it so!”

Your facts. My facts. God’s facts. Let’s resolve, from this time forward, to try to see things from God’s point of view; that, and that alone, is the way of understanding.

How do we do that? Read the Bible. Pray about it, and read it again. See what it has to say about real-life situations. Put its teachings into practice, as best you can. Read the Bible some more. See what it has to say about the future. See what is has to say… to YOU, personally. See what it promises to those who believe it. Pray again. Keep on reading.

Don’t ever let someone else tell you what the Bible says; check it out for yourself.

The Bible is the Word of God. In the things that really matter, there simply is no other version of the “facts”!

TOLERANCE, INTOLERANCE, AND IN BETWEEN

The following is a three-way exchange of recent days:

Brother X: “(There is)… a climate of confrontation and intolerance threatening to destroy our unique fellowship.”

Brother Y: “However, it should be pointed out that some of us believe that our unique fellowship is threatened with destruction from excessive tolerance.”

Brother Z: “So we should use slight intolerance…?”

Now this exchange is threatening to give me a headache, for which I have little “tolerance”. So, to head this off, and incidentally to figure out where I stand on this, I headed for the dictionary…

“Tolerance” has at least four distinct meanings (not that they are totally unrelated to one another, but there are gradations involved… and, as everybody knows, the fun is in the “details”!):

• a policy of non-interference with; the desire to allow or permit (something or someone).
• freedom from bigotry or prejudice. (This ought to be further qualified: “bigotry” is “blind, or narrow-minded adherence to a particular point of view” — at least that is the primary definition; and “prejudice” is “suspicion or irrational hatred”.)
• The amount of variation allowed from a standard. (This is basically a scientific definition — as in “allowable or workable deviation” from a manufacturing standard — but it does suggest some interesting points from a Christadelphian point of view.)
• allowing others freedom to hold religious views that differ from the established ones.

Now, this suggests a question: When they use the word “tolerance”, or its negation, “intolerance”, which of the four definitions (or its negation) do each of Brothers X, Y, and Z mean?

Does Brother X mean there is “a climate of blind, narrow-minded… suspicion and irrational hatred”? Or does he mean there is a “climate in which certain beliefs are not allowed”? My guess is… the first. But can I be sure?

When Brother Y says that we may have “excessive tolerance”, does he mean that we have gotten too far away from “blind, narrow-minded… suspicion and irrational hatred”? Or does he mean that we’ve gotten (or could get) to the point where we “allow or permit” certain beliefs that we should not? My guess is… the second.

Is Brother Z suggesting that even “slight bigotry or prejudice” is too much? Of course. Or is he suggesting that we should, as a community, “allow or permit” any and every doctrine? I hope not.

Just a little case study of how the use of the same word with different meanings can drastically affect our discussions. Or, as the fellow once said, “It all depends on what you mean by what you say!”

Now take the four definitions of “tolerance” above:

(a) If by “tolerance” we mean a policy of non-interference with particular doctrines or practices IN THE BROTHERHOOD, then… certainly… absolute “tolerance” would be absolutely destructive of our faith, or at least of our community’s uniqueness. Amongst Christadelphians, such absolute “tolerance” could never be tolerated!

(b) If by “tolerance” we mean freedom from bigotry and prejudice, then we can never have too much! It’s like Peter says in Acts 10 and 11, “I have learned not to call or consider any man common or unclean!” However, as with Cornelius and his household, such men (and women) could not be “tolerated” in the ecclesia unless they believed the first principles and were baptized.

What is interesting about this definition is how the commonly-accepted definitions of ordinary words may come to affect our very thought processes (think “gay” and “pro-choice”). If “intolerance” is so readily equated with “prejudice” and “bigotry”, who would ever want to be “intolerant”? But sometimes, I am sure we all agree, we must be “intolerant”! When and where, that is the question!

(c) If by “tolerance” we mean an acceptable variation from a generally-recognized standard, then — again — tolerance is a very real desideratum (sorry, I was reading John Thomas today: “desideratum: a thing greatly to be desired”). Part of what keeps us together is our adherence to a generally-recognized standard (a statement of faith). But another part of what keeps us together, practically speaking, is that we generally recognize that there are acceptable variations from that standard, ie, certain doctrines and practices not specifically forbidden, because not of a first-principle nature. As has been said, “In essential things –unity. In doubtful things — liberty (or tolerance). And in all things — love.”

(d) If by “tolerance” we mean allowing others to hold religious views that differ from the established ones, we better believe in this. If our governments did not believe in this, where would we be, with our “non-orthodox” views? Hiding in cellars and caves, that’s where!

Submitted in a spirit of equal parts “tolerance” and “intolerance”,

George

I’m not quite sure how one does it — nor even how I do it, sometimes — but I think it’s a good idea to develop some sort of “circuit breaker” in the mind. So sometimes, when I’ve been pretty hard on myself — deservedly so — for a failure or shortcoming or even a chronic deficiency — then I find myself “turning off”… as in, ‘I’m not going to think about that any more for a while’… and maybe going for a walk, or just resting, or sitting in the back yard and listening to the birds… and thinking — not very profoundly or deeply — but just letting the mind wander over… the goodness of God, and how Jesus loved sinners, and stretched out his hand and touched even the leper or the prostitute. And remembering that he — that THEY, God AND His Son — love me! In other words, going “easy” on myself for a little while, and reminding myself that I am the child of God, and that He loves me, warts and all.

Now that doesn’t mean that I should stay in that pleasant, soothing state altogether, or too long. But sometimes I need it, so as not to overload. And being strengthened by that little “break”, after a while, I can go back to the “struggle”, whatever form it takes. But I can’t — I just CAN’T — be struggling all the time!

Now it’s not as though, when I am “wrestling” with this or that problem of mine, or trying diligently to improve in this or that aspect of my life, that I can’t — simultaneously — think of the goodness and mercy of God. And probably that “double-thinking” would be the ideal. So maybe it’s more like… at times, I could easily forget what I SHOULD be remembering all the time: that God loves me, because — well, just look at me! What’s there to love? As brother Dev told us this weekend, “We are a miserable mass of sins and temptations and lusts, and the flesh — like a subtle snake — is inextricably entwined in all we do and think and say!”

And THEN he REALLY got going!

Seriously, though, Dev had a lot more to say than that. But the point is worth remembering, and that can be a corrective to the tendency to dwell too much in the pleasant, soothing atmosphere of “God-loves-me” Land — where a too-long sojourn may possibly leave us thinking something like: “Well, now, since God does love me — freely and without reservation — then why should it make any difference what I do, or don’t do?”

I remember a while back we had this same sort of discussion, when some expressed reservations about my quoting brother Growcott in daily exhortations… because he could be very uncompromising — and too much GVG could leave one feeling hopelessly inadequate.

But what I tried to say then, and I’m trying to repeat now, is: in our lives, we all need some comfort AND some challenge. Some patting on the back AND some kicks in the… backside.

And we each need some of both, but in different proportions. And we each need different proportions at different times.

So, taking GVG’s comments and exhortations, for example, I’ll say for myself that I wouldn’t want to read him all the time or exclusively, any more than I would want to dwell ONLY on the passages in the Bible that tell me, “Be ye holy, as God is holy” or “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. But I need those passages, and those sorts of exhortations, sometimes. And other times, I need to hear that, yes, God loves ME! And I need to believe it.

Why were the Canaanites so bad that God told Israel to kill them all, including children?

Well, it’s a tough question, isn’t it? But the OT is full of the same question — just phrased in different ways: Why was the whole world so bad that God destroyed them all, young and old alike, but saved only eight in the days of Noah? (And, of course, it can be pointed out that in the NT Jesus gives explicit support to the account. If we believe in Jesus, we can’t help but believe that the story of Noah is literally true.)

On one level, the answer is: the Canaanites (so far as we know about them) were grossly idolatrous people; their systems of worship involved the worst forms of sexual abominations, hetero and homo and other things totally unmentionable. Their worship was totally tied up in these things; you couldn’t “worship” the Baalim and the Ashtoreth, etc, without visiting the equivalent of brothels on a regular basis. There were male prostitutes and female prostitutes, who were called “priests” and “priestesses”. The whole business was publicly witnessed, and glorified. And it was “fun” and “exciting”. (Probably not much worry about getting young and old alike out to the “mid-week Bible class” there!) And then there was the offering of babies in the fires to their gods! Sex and violence galore. Las Vegas, Mardi Gras, and the abortion clinic all wrapped up in one!

One can’t tell for sure, but there were possibly some terrible diseases — including sexually transmitted ones — epidemic in these peoples too. There are at least a couple of occasions when God tells Israel to destroy certain peoples, and leave alive only those.. young?… girls who were virgins.. no one else (was this because all the others were so infected?). Other times, of course, He commands that ALL be destroyed. Sometimes He even saves others — like Rahab and all her family — even though a decree of death was placed on all the people of Jericho. Presumable He knew what He was doing in every case… even if we can’t understand it.

What problems might this have presented for Israel if there were pockets of these people, and their worship, everywhere in Israel? We know that some remained, and were “thorns” in the sides of Israel ever after.

On another level, there is this answer to the question: God doesn’t OWE anyone anything. Life, even brief life, is a gift from God, and He is free to take it back when and how He pleases. He cannot be unjust. The only problem is: we have trouble understanding WHY. But that’s our problem, not His. It’s like Job… he keeps asking WHY. Why am I suffering? Why aren’t THEY suffering? Why won’t God explain it all to MY satisfaction? Why won’t God at least come and talk to me?

The thing is: God finally does come to Job, and talk to him, but He DOESN’T explain it! He doesn’t answer all Job’s questions. Not really. Instead, He says, in abbreviated form, “I’m God and you’re not. Were YOU there when I made the heavens and the earth? Who are you to question HOW I do anything?” And, apparently, Job is satisfied and repents — having seen the great and terrible glory of God, up close and personal.

Is that an answer? Sort of, I guess. Not easy to put over to others, I suppose. Unless they are disposed to see it.

But I think that to see a lot of what the Bible teaches, on a very basic level, we have to be prepared to give up a lot of our preconceptions (some might call it “humanism”). To put ourselves in that right place vis a vis God and His Law and His commandments… is very humbling to the flesh and pride of us human beings. We are not the center of the universe, all things do not revolve around us… that’s hard to grasp, because for everyone of us, they do! We are born thinking about ourselves, we live thinking about ourselves, we see the whole world through our own eyes, and no one else’s. And we just have to keep learning, time after time, that there is something bigger than us!

Exhortation for the day concluded.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed… We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Co 4:8,9,14,16-18).

The apostle Paul and his companions spent years trudging up and down the roads of the Roman Empire — always seeking opportunity to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom to their fellowmen. It was not easy work. The demands on the spirit as well as the body were almost overwhelming. There were dangers on every side, at every turn in the road. Foul weather, hunger, thirst, disease, shipwreck. And the constant threat of physical harm — or even death — at the hands of Jewish partisans or Roman authorities (2Co 11:25-28).

Paul never minimized the physical and emotional trials of such work. He knew too well the limitations of mortal man, even though “born again”, forgiven, spiritually re-generated, and Holy Spirit-infused. The life he had pursued was grindingly hard. Sometimes, he despaired even of life itself. Paul wrote: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered… We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death” (2Co 1:8,9a). But he continued: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (vv 9b,10).

So why did Paul go on? Because he hoped in God who raises the dead. Because there had come to him, in that dark room in Damascus years earlier, the absolute knowledge that Jesus was alive — raised from the dead, never to die, again! Nothing else was so real as that simple but earth-shaking fact. Jesus was alive!

Jesus is alive! And those who believe in him, who trust in him, who commit their lives to him, will live with him (1Co 15:20-23; 1Th 4:14-16)!

This is real. This superlative fact will never change. No matter what sufferings a believer must endure, whether for days or weeks or months or years, this reality of a living Lord will never change. In the truly big picture, framed by God and the universe and eternity, the resurrection of Jesus and the offer of everlasting life to his followers are irrefutable fact and unshakable promise. For the believer, these are reality.

For Paul, then, “my troubles are light and momentary and temporary” was much more than a few brave words. In the context of divine reality, “the glory that awaits me is weighty and eternal” made absolute sense. Nothing else counted. Not the pain. Not the illness. Not the privation. Not the heat nor the cold nor the damp nor the blazing sun. And not even the cruelty of other men who should have known better. The sum of all these seemingly terrible things counted for nothing compared with the new life found in Christ.

Listen how Paul explained “what really counts” to the Philippians:

“If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phi 3:4-11).

By Jewish reckoning, Paul’s pre-Christian life was outstandingly admirable and righteous. But even the “best” of men are only actors on a stage of God’s devising. They play their parts, and all too soon they make their final exits, like the “great” men of a hundred generations before them (Eze 31; 32:18-32). All too soon, they go to the eternal grave of dust and ashes — unless they have a hope in God (Ecc 3:18-20; 9:1-10; Psa 49:5-20; Luke 13:1-5; Isa 26:13,14,19-21).

Any “achievements” of those same “great” men — wealth, power, fame, etc — are short-lived and rarely survive the next generation (Ecc 2:1-23). “All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

But Paul knew what to strive for. Continuing on in that same letter to the Philippians, he wrote:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me… Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you” (Phi 3:12-14,16-17).

So what is real? What really counts? What will turn to dust and ashes and what will last forever? In 2Co 5 and 6, Paul says those who find a new life in Christ (being reconciled with God) will fearlessly pursue a lifestyle inspired and controlled by the love of Christ, persuading other men and women that this life, lived with its eyes glued on the future kingdom, is the full, true life — not the shadowy existence. Read his Spirit-inspired indomitable words for yourself:

“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you” (2Co 6:4-11).

Bible believers will see each day’s measure of evil and trial for the trivial thing it is in the light of eternity. They will turn the other cheek. They will walk the extra mile. They will not lose heart. For they know what is coming. They know who is coming! And they know why (Rev 11:15-18)!

When to keep your mouth shut:

• In the heat of anger: Pro 14:17.
• When you don’t have all the facts: Pro 18:13.
• When you haven’t verified the story: Deu 17:6.
• If your words will offend a weaker person: 1Co 8:11.
• When it is time to listen: Pro 13:1.
• When you are tempted to make light of holy things: Ecc 5:2.
• When you are tempted to joke about sin: Pro 14:9.
• If you would be ashamed of your words later: Pro 8:8.
• If your words would convey the wrong impression: Pro 17:27.
• If the issue is none of your business: Pro 14:10.
• When you are tempted to tell an outright lie: Pro 4:24.
• If your words would damage someone else’s reputation: Pro 16:27.
• If your words will damage a friendship: Pro 16:28.
• When you are feeling critical: Jam 3:9.
• If you can’t say it without screaming it: Pro 25:28.
• If your words will be a poor reflection of the Lord or your friends or family: 1Pe 2:21-23.
• If you may have to eat your words later: Pro 18:21.
• If you have already said it more than one time: Pro 19:13.
• When you are tempted to flatter a wicked person: Pro 24:24.
• When you are supposed to be working instead: Pro 14:23.

“Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles”: Pro 21:23.

NEWS FLASH: ISLIP COLLYER GETS WISER THE LONGER HE IS DEAD!

“The Samaritans were neighbours in the most literal sense, but as for loving them, that seemed impossible. Christ loved them and caused his disciples to marvel at the manner in which he spake to the woman at Jacob’s well and afterwards to others who came out to hear him. The Jews as a whole almost made it a part of their religion to hate the Samaritans, and if they were able to analyze their own feelings they would probably have to admit that the hatred was directly traceable to the fact of their being such near neighbours. This is a common weakness of poor human nature. Those who are near but not quite with us arouse more bitterness of feelings than complete strangers. Then when such an evil feeling has been once started, the deceitful heart begins to build up fancies to justify the hatred, thus further traducing those who have already been wronged” (Islip Collyer, “The Guiding Light” 66).

I can remember reading Islip Collyer as a young man (no, I was the young man; he was the old man — even then!), and thinking — in something that passed, I suppose, for “youthful zeal” — that he was the most “wishy-washy” of writers. Why? Because no matter how “serious” the matter upon which he was commenting, including the history of Christadelphian controversies and divisions, he always managed to soften the blow, to try to see the other side, to be fair, to be kind, to be scrupulously honest (or so it seemed) in presenting a point of view other than his own.

And I kept muttering to myself, ‘With an attitude like that, he’ll never get anywhere… in standing up for the Truth, or in rebuking errorists, or in cutting off sinners.’

Funny thing: After 30 years (during which he has been dead the whole time!), he has gotten a lot wiser!

I have a suggestion, for all and sundry (maybe especially for the “sundry”): The next time you feel tempted to indulge in harsh criticism of any brother or sister, in front of others… read Islip Collyer’s “The Scriptural Principles Governing Controversy”. You’ll find it in his book, “Principles and Proverbs”. If you don’t have a copy, go look for it.

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter… Be patient, then, brothers… because the Lord’s coming is near” (James 5:1-8).

James wrote his letter in the first century, and his words of warning were probably addressed to rich Jews, who lorded it over and oppressed their poorer brethren — among whom were found believers in the Messiah.

These “rich men” of Israel, who cheated and lied and stole, and hoarded up their ill-gotten treasures, did not know (or chose to disregard the warnings) about the coming cataclysm. They were in fact living in “the last days” of Judah’s commonwealth, and the Jewish- Roman War of AD 67-70 — culminating in the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the dispersion of the surviving Jews — was leading also to the dissolution of every private fortune. In the face of the greatest national disaster God’s people had ever experienced, their morbid fascination with wealth and its accumulation and enjoyment seems so pathetically childish.

Do these solemn words of James have meaning for our generation? If, as so many signs indicate, we are living in another “last days” period, then we cannot ignore James’ warning to ourselves.

Christ told his followers:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money [or ‘Mammon’: AV]” (Mat 6:19-21,24).

It has been said that he who puts money (or job, or investments, or pleasures, or “consumer goods”, or car, or home, or “the good life”, etc., etc.) first, and God second… is wise for a moment, but a fool forever. Whatever forms one’s “Mammon” takes, any obsession with material things is, in Bible terms, the worship of a “false god”, and thus “idolatry”. (Is this too harsh? The apostle Paul thinks not, for in Col. 3:5 he bluntly equates “greed” or “covetousness” with “idolatry”!).

So, whatever form one’s material “idol” takes, it will be subject to “moth” or “rust” or thieves, and at any rate will become meaningless at the moment of death or Christ’s return — whichever comes first for each man or woman. What has happened before, in limited ways (as when Jerusalem fell in AD 70), will happen once again, with a terrible vengeance upon those who put their trust in uncertain riches. And this time, there will be no place to hide, no place to escape, no place to “squirrel away” one’s puny little cache of “acorns” until the calamity has passed:

“The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that are exalted (and they will be humbled)… and the idols will totally disappear. Men will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. In that day men will throw away to the rodents and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship” (Isa 2:11,12,18-20).

“Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath. Do not trust in extortion or take pride in stolen goods; though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them” (Psa 62:9,10).

“For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it… People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1Ti 6:7-10).

Back to James. While the Bible warns against any trust in uncertain riches at all, it especially condemns the trust in riches obtained in unscrupulous ways. In “A Christmas Carol”, the old miser Scrooge is visited in a dream by the ghost of his dead partner, Marley — a specter who limps into Scrooge’s presence dragging behind him his chains of bondage — the gold and silver which he stole and hoarded during his wretched life, and with which he could not bear to part, continued to burden him beyond the grave!

The theology of the parable is a trifle uncertain at this point, but the moral is good and true, and seems to illustrate these words of James:

“Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty” (Jam 5:4).

Within the last month, America has heard a modern cry very much like this. It arose from the impoverished ghetto of south central Los Angeles, a city known around the world as a mecca of the rich and glamorous. Only a few miles from famed Rodeo Drive, where the world’s elite “worship” at the altar of Mammon, thousands of poor blacks and Hispanics — mired in unemployment and the working poverty of “minimum wage” jobs — emitted a primal scream of hopelessness and rage and resentment, and tried to burn their city down around their ears.

There are many causes for such a state of affairs, not the least of which is the drug-driven violence to which many of the poor in America have fallen prey. And lawlessness and disorder and hatred and violence are sins that the Bible strongly condemns. There were few “innocents” rioting and looting in south central LA.

But the Bible also condemns the smug mentality of “I got mine; to hell with everyone else!” And a rich nation which ignores the poor underclass in its midst, which laments the “symptoms” but ignores the “disease”, is sowing the seeds of its own destruction — even though it claims to be a “Christian” nation.

Shortly before its defeat at the hands of the Babylonians, the prophet Ezekiel compares the “godly” people of Jerusalem to those of Sodom, in the most scathing of terms:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them” (Eze 16:49,50).

But, “be patient, brothers”, says James, “the Lord’s coming is near.” When he comes, he will implement a social welfare program solidly based upon divine principles:

“The king… will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice… He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor… For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence” (Psa 72:1-4,12-14).

“The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him — the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD — and he will delight in the fear of the LORD… with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked” (Isa 11:1-4).

For that day we wait with the greatest anticipation. And as we wait, we try to see our material possessions for what they are in the eyes of God, and to use them prudently, so that we may never be mistaken for the oppressors of the poor and the powerless.

It is true and reassuring (to those who believe and love God) that He is a Father to us, His children. With all that implies of the best and most comforting and most loving of human parents for their children.

But… God is more than this! He is the all-powerful, eternal, and eternally righteous Creator of all things. Something no other fathers or mothers can, in their wildest dreams, imagine themselves being! This awesome fact adds another dimension to His character — which we have to think about, and take into account: that is, Almighty God is a being of such purity that He cannot continue to look upon sin. Sin, wickedness, in any and every form, cannot exist in His presence, any more than darkness can exist where there is perfect light.

The point is: there are, simply put, two primary aspects of God’s character, and neither can exist without the other: (1) there is an absolute holiness, and purity, and righteousness, AND (2) there is a wonderful love, mercy, and peace. But neither of these aspects of character can “drown out” or nullify or negate the other! It’s not an “either-or”, but a “not only — but also”!

Man must find the way, which thankfully God has provided, to enter into the presence of the merciful, loving Father… whilst giving proper acknowledgment and service and deference to the holy and righteous Being, who burns with an unquenchable fire, and who hates sin everlastingly.

That way, as we know, is only through Christ, and an acknowledgment of our sins, and repentance, and renewal, and faith in His promises, and belief in all that God has said. That way cannot be on our own, or based on our own achievements or merit — of which there will never be enough!

If we find that “place”, in the bosom of the Father, then He is — surely — a kind and loving parent to us, His children. But if we lose that place, or leave it — like the Egyptians or Jews who did not remain in their blood-sprinkled houses on the fateful Passover night — then the same Being who can be the loving Father can manifest Himself in a merciless, avenging Angel of Death.

True, He may — with some portion of His vast mercy — continue to bless us, or any other sinner, with long life and good health and/or other “good” things… but the separation and death will be inevitable — because He is a God who cannot tolerate willful disobedience or indifference or neglect.

I keep coming back in my mind to that “either-or” and “not only-but also” choice! So many times, it seems to me, we human beings, in a vain and partial attempt at logic, set out to argue with one another (or even with ourselves, in our own minds!): ‘Let’s see now. The right answer ought to be A or B…” And we seem forget that the right answer might be… A AND B!

We could ask the question: “Which God do I worship? the powerful, jealous, demanding God… or the loving Heavenly Father?” As if we have to choose one or the other. When the right answer should be… “not only, but also”.

Or: “Who best expresses my concept of God? the Presence that burned with fire, and shook the mountain, and opened up the earth to swallow up the rebels in the wilderness? OR the tender and gentle and loving Presence who so loved the world that He became the Father of a human Son — through whom He could reach out to us?” Did Yahweh cease being the one when He became the other?

Or: “Do I serve God because I love Him, or because I fear Him? I must choose one or the other.”

But… should I choose one or the other?

Or… should I try, difficult though it may sometimes be, to worship both?

Years ago Barbara and I headed cross-country (in Texas, that can be some distance) to attend a week-long “fraternal gathering” for one day. (Why only one day? Could it be that that’s as long as we felt the whole-weekers could stand us? Maybe.) (And why “fraternal gathering”? Because this particular brand of Christadelphians were conscientiously opposed to calling their get-together a “Bible school”… because — I’m not joking here — to call it a “Bible school” would “perpetuate the unwholesome and artificial and unseemly dichotomy between teachers and students as found in worldly seminaries of orthodoxy”!)

Now, where was I? Oh, yes.

Turns out our one-day visit (on a Wednesday) coincided with huge rainstorms upriver in the hill country (we didn’t know that, of course, when we started out… but we soon found out!). In Texas they are called “gully-washers”, because most of the year in the hill country you find these more-or-less dry creekbeds (like the Hebrew “wadis”), but in a sudden downpour they can turn into torrential rushing rivers (like the Assyrian Euphratean-like “flood” that overran the Holy Land in Isa 8:7!).

Anyway, by the time we arrived at the vicinity of the campgrounds, the Pedernales River that ran in front of the grounds was assuming impressive and threatening dimensions. It was usually a little rivulet (my mother talked about hopping across it from one stone to another stone as a little girl, never touching the water), but by now it was about 100 feet across, and the current was lapping at the one bridge, for miles around, that led into and out of the campgrounds.

The park rangers attached to the LBJ National Park had general jurisdiction in the immediate vicinity, although the Christadelphian campgrounds were private property, and they were out in force turning people away from the bridge crossing. “Don’t go in,” they were telling people, “with the river rising, we don’t know when you can get out again!” So we dutifully turned around and retraced our steps, homeward bound.

But here’s the really interesting part. We learned later that not every attendee at the Bible school (excuse me, fraternal gathering) reacted the same way. There were some folks who lived on the grounds for the week, in barracks; some of them chose to stay put (‘So what if the river rises; we’ll be here on high ground; we have food; and we’ll carry on with our Bible studies’) while others chose to get out while the getting was good (‘Let me out of here; the flood is coming.’)

Meanwhile, there were other regular attendees who slept at a motel a few miles down the road (and on the safe side of the raging river) and drove into the campgrounds every day. Some motel dwellers stayed where they were, and waited (‘Let’s just see how it goes, okay?’). But some others, hearing about the rising waters, made haste to pack their bags and cross the bridge while it was still operational… desperately trying to get into the “ark” of the campground before it was too late.

And so it was that, at the same time, while the rains pelted down, and the river continued to rise, and the park rangers monitored the situation, there were carloads of Christadelphians hurrying to get OUT of the campground before it was too late… passing on the bridge other carloads of Christadelphians hastening to get IN before it was too late!

Who was right? I don’t know. I do know that the folks in the grounds were virtually isolated for a couple of days, but the waters subsided and they emerged no worse for wear.

So I guess the moral is: No matter how right one way seems to you, there’ll always be someone who feels just as strongly that the exact opposite is the only right way.

People… whatcha gonna do with ’em?