• “Pay attention to him [the angel, God’s representative and messenger] and listen to what he says.” (Exodus 23:21).
• “Do not rebel against him [the angel]. He will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.” (Exodus 23:21).
• “[Listen] carefully to what he [the angel] says and do all that I say” (Exodus 23:22).
In other words, we need to prepare our hearts to receive God’s direction and hence his blessing. Each of the three things we are told to do is deceptively simple. Sadly, they are things that we seem to find tremendously difficult to do at all, and even more difficult to do consistently. Paying attention, being obedient and listening carefully do not come easily to a society that increasingly replaces reasoned argument with sound-bites, considered reflection with instant gratification and deference with insubordination. We will have to make an extra effort to overcome these tendencies in our dealings with God.
Preparing for blessing.
In order to experience blessing, we must root out what is bad and turn to what is good. Rooting out what is bad has two aspects. First, we need to turn from false gods and the behaviour that accompanies their worship: “Do not bow down before their gods [those of the pagan nations round about] or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.” (Exodus 23:24). Second, we are told, “Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.” (Exodus 23:32-33).
In a multiracial, multicultural, multi-faith society, we may think that this places us in some difficulty. It is one thing to be told not to worship false gods, quite another to be told to “demolish [them and their practices] and break their sacred stones to pieces ... [and] not [to] let them live in your land.” (Exodus 23:24,33). Of course, many of the false gods of the present day are secular in form, but the fact remains that our land is also host to many non-Christian religious groups. The steady erosion of the Christian fabric of our society in the name of fairness and equality between different faiths and a tendency to ‘pick-and-mix’ religious views amongst the population at large may well seem evidence that “the worship of [other] gods will certainly be a snare to [us].” (Exodus 23:33).
We need to feel our way carefully at this point, remembering that things that are played out in physical form in the Old Testament are more often played out in a spiritual dimension in the New Testament. We must also take to heart the overarching message of love that runs throughout the Gospel. We are certainly called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ fearlessly amongst all groups and can expect that its power will indeed metaphorically “break their sacred stones to pieces” (Exodus 23:24), but our duty is always to tell the truth in love. We are specifically told not to use physical violence, but to “turn ... the other [cheek]” (Matthew 5:39 and Luke 6:29), for victory will come “‘Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Zechariah 4:6).
Humility is also required. We should get our own house in order first. Jesus told us: “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5). Our primary duty, therefore, is to make sure that we turn to what is good. This means first and foremost that we must: “Worship the LORD your God” (Exodus 23:25). When we do this properly, everything else will fall into place and, like the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6:20), all the strongholds of the enemy will come a-tumbling down.
Rooting out the bad and turning to the good will bring blessing. This will involve health and long life, fruitfulness and enjoyment of all the good things that the earth has to offer. God says that:
• “[Blessing] will be on your food and water.” (Exodus 23:25).
• “I will take away sickness from among you” (Exodus 23:25).
• “[None] will miscarry or be barren in your land.” (Exodus 23:25).
• “I will give you a full life span.” (Exodus 23:26).
An end to sickness and premature death seems like an impossible dream, a vision of the Promised Land indeed, but this is what the Lord holds out to us. These words are not idly spoken, neither is the prospect a mirage: “For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised” (Deuteronomy 15:6).
Preparing the ground.
The Promised Land points ultimately to heaven, but there is also territory that God requires us to take hold of here on earth. The place that God has prepared for us is a land that is already occupied. The Israelites found the land of Canaan settled by a variety of different tribes. These included “the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites” (Exodus 23:23), peoples noted for their worship of false gods and for their barbarous practices, including child sacrifice and ritual prostitution. In the same way, the spiritual ground we must seize for God is also occupied by those who stand in settled and wilful opposition to him and his ways. Whichever areas we consider, both public and private, there we will find dark forces as well as good: in media, education, health policy and such like. These are the modern equivalents of the tribes that confronted the Israelites, those being physical manifestations and playthings of the spiritual forces that stood behind them.
We might imagine that God will drive out these dark forces in one fell swoop, but that is not so. They will be driven out to an extent and at a pace that is commensurate with our ability to occupy, hold and profitably use the ground that is won. God tells the Israelites that “I will not drive them [the pagan nations] out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” (Exodus 23:29-30).
This is a healthy reminder for us. The fact that there are so many areas of our national life that are under the control of forces inimical to God is in large measure a reflection of the fact that we do not have godly people ready, able and willing to move into them. If we truly wish to see these aspects of the country’s life won for the Lord, we must recruit, equip and train for the job. Up to now, we have shown little appetite for this task, let alone the necessary aptitude and application. Unless and until we do, these areas will remain foreign territory. An awful lot of preparation will be necessary if we are to move forward in the way God wishes.
We should ask God to prepare the ground, but we should not neglect the preparation that we need to undertake: preparing our hearts, preparing for blessing and preparing people to settle territory that the enemy vacates.
Preparing for victory.
We also need to change our attitudes and mentality so that we prepare for victory. God says that: “I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.” (Exodus 23:22). He promises victory to his people: “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.” (Exodus 23:27-28).
However, no-one will achieve victory who believes victory to be impossible. Regrettably, that appears to be our present situation. There is in fact no excuse for defeatism. When God makes a promise, that promise can be relied on. What we need to concentrate on are the conditions we need to fulfil in order to be able to claim the promise.
The Lord extends Israel’s territory: “I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines and from the desert to the River. I will hand over to you the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you.” (Exodus 23:31). He will do the same for us if we “pay attention ... do not rebel ... [and] listen” (Exodus 23:21-22). In similar fashion will he extend our spiritual territory, if and to the extent that we are able to cope with the added responsibility that this will bring.
Conclusion.
The England of Marlowe’s day was a place o
f uncertainty. There was uncertainty about the political future, as an ageing and childless queen neared the end of her days; about the uneasy compromise that governed religious affairs, with Puritans at one end of the spectrum, Roman Catholics at the other and the Church of England in between; about economic disruption resulting from closure of the monasteries, the enclosure of common land and a new class of indigent poor thereby created. The country was coming by degrees to that fork in the road that led eventually to civil war.
We, too, feel ourselves beset by uncertainty. Our fears are understandable, but illusory. Jesus says: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:31-34). Somehow we have to find the ability to set aside fear and worry and to concentrate on what is truly important. We must prepare our hearts, prepare for blessing, prepare the ground and prepare for victory. Like Marlowe’s Faustus, we can choose the road we take: to be ambitious, like him, for worldly things or for the things of God. Our choices will help determine whether the people of this land are claimed by heaven or by hell.
This is a time of preparation. Let us use it wisely.
18. A nation chooses (2)
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12.
Key word: delusions.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s finest tragedies. In the opening scene, three witches prophesy that the victorious general will become thane of Cawdor and thereafter king of Scotland. When the first prediction comes to pass, Macbeth’s wife persuades him to murder King Duncan so as to make the realm his. Remorse, despair and madness unfold against a background of further killing before the usurper dies in battle and the rightful order is restored.
The play was probably finished in 1606, by which time the first Stuart king of England, James, had been three years in London (after already reigning more than thirty years in Scotland). This “wisest fool in Christendom” was the reputed author of the True Law of Free Monarchies, published in the year of his accession to the English throne. The book responds to the contention that a king is elected by and is responsible to the people and makes the countervailing argument: that kings are established by God and are responsible to him alone.
Being a foreigner in England, James trod carefully. His son was less circumspect. As the reign of Charles I progressed it became increasingly obvious that Parliament and the king had competing and mutually exclusive concepts of government. The former looked to the privileges it had won from often reluctant monarchs in preceding reigns and sought to protect and augment them, the right to vote taxes being particularly jealously guarded. The latter proclaimed with increasing stridency the so-called divine right of kings and sought to free administrative purse-strings from the unwelcome control of elected representatives. The contest increasingly acquired a religious overlay as Puritans sided with Parliament, whilst high Anglicans and Roman Catholics aligned with the king.
For eleven years the monarch dispensed with Parliament altogether, using ingenious and ever more desperate schemes to raise the money he needed. At last, however, the need for cash was so acute that he could not avoid recalling elected representatives to vote new taxes. The result was uproar as pent-up resentments burst in a torrent against the king and his ministers. The stage was being set for civil war. Shortly, the nation would be forced to choose: between Parliament and the king, between rebellion and loyalty, between competing visions of right and wrong.
Counterfeits.
In his second letter to the early church in Thessalonica, St Paul wrote “Concerning the coming of our Lords Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him” (2 Thessalonians 2:1). His aim was to scotch false reports, to uncover forged letters and to lay bare false prophecy, which had made people “unsettled or alarmed” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). The difficulty arose from “some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). St Paul advised: “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
The Thessalonians were confronted by counterfeits – perversions and parodies of the truth. This is one of the tricks of the enemy: if we were presented with things that were wholly bad, we would straight away see them for what they are and reject them without further ado. Instead, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). The forces of darkness leaven what they dangle before us with just enough of what appears worthy or desirable for us to mistake it for something good. They show a seemingly glamorous beginning but never a degraded end. They manipulate our weaknesses and even our best intentions for evil purposes. Thus loyalty is transposed into gang mentality, the desire for a father’s love and approval into obedience to dictators large and small, a longing for closeness and affection into promiscuity. “The work of Satan [is] displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
The protagonists in Macbeth utter many of the counterfeits that beset our age:
• That what is good is really bad and vice versa: “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”
• That there is no moral absolute: “This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good.”
• That there is no God to judge us: “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”
• That life is meaningless and there is no existence after death: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
• That nothing and nobody can touch us: “I bear a charmed life.”
• That we are imprisoned by our past, with no hope of acceptance by God: “They have tied me to the stake; I cannot fly. But bear-like must fight the course.”
These are siren voices. They are just as misleading and just as dangerous as those against which St Paul warned. We must recognise them for what they are, look honestly at where they lead and call a spade a spade.
Rebellion.
The power that Satan and his counterfeits have over mankind is ultimately the consequence of our rebellion: rebellion not against an earthly ruler, but against the High King of Heaven, the Lord God Almighty. St Paul writes of “those who are perishing” that “They perish because they refused to love the truth and to be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). To “believe the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11) is a choice, not something that is imposed upon us.
We are not helpless in the face of the counterfeits that surround us. For all that they may take the form of “miracles, signs and wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9), we do not have to be deceived by them. These counterfeits will always be shown up for what they are when they are exposed to the light of God’s truth[39]. The issue is whether we are prepared to accept this truth, adopt it for our own and shine it upon areas of darkness. If we are to do so we must forgo our rebellion against God, cease our refusal “to love the truth and be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10) and no longer be amongst those who “delighted in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:12). In short, we must turn again to the Lord.
Lawlessness.
In our present society, as in all others at every stage of history, those who are on the side of right live amongst those who would rather do wrong. St Paul describes both this and
something more than this, an active rebellion that comprises the supreme opposition of evil to the things of God. Instrumental in such rebellion is “the man of lawlessness ... the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This individual is not Satan (he is clearly distinguished from Satan in verse 9) and neither is he merely a military or political leader. Instead he claims a place above every god and everything associated with worship. He even claims to be the one true God.[40]
At the time when St Paul wrote, the work of the man of lawlessness was under some kind of restraint: the apostle talks of “what is holding him back” (2 Thessalonians 2:6) and of “the one who now holds him back” (2 Thessalonians 2:7). Speculations as to the nature of this curb include the temporal power of the state, the effect of St Paul’s missionary work, the work of the Holy Spirit, the activity of the worldwide church, and others. Whatever the source of this check might be, present circumstances do not readily seem to fit the time when “the one who holds [the secret power of lawlessness] back ... is taken out of the way” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) and the full power of “the lawless one” (2 Thessalonians 2:8) is unleashed. Rather, what we experience here and now is “the secret power of lawlessness ... already at work; [with] the one who now holds it back [continuing] to do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed ...” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8).
Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching) Page 13