FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Analogy of the Exodus – Continued

From last lesson: To avoid new forms of evil and suffering, they could have returned to the familiar hardships of Egypt. But the strength they gained from their new trials and troubles prepared them to seize and keep the land of their dreams.

The analogy here with the human race is that God could take away our current evil and suffering. But if He did, we might lose the capacity to gain and keep access to the new creation. At best, we think we could return to Eden, but not in the same condition as when we left. The Hebrews, too, deceived themselves in thinking they could return to Egypt as it was before the unleashing of the ten plagues.

We might be tempted to wish that God would take us to the new creation with a little less evil and suffering than we must face in this life. Again, the Hebrews’ journey through the wilderness suggests why He does not fulfill that wish. In spite of the forty-one years of “training” they underwent, and even with the help of all the miracles God showed them both in Egypt and in the promised land, they were barely able to gain possession of the land. Eventually they lost their grip on it and only regained it, partially, in recent years. The history of Israel indicates that God did not overtrain these people.

Likewise, we can be assured that God is not overtraining us. We know how much motivating the Hebrews needed to undertake the exodus out of Egypt. They experienced much evil and suffering but they also experienced many supernatural proofs of His power and protection. Therefore we also should know and be aware of how much motivating we need of a similar nature to undertake the exodus from sin’s captivity. Still more evil and suffering, along with miraculous reassurances, moved the Hebrews along toward possession of the promised land. We, too, need more evil and suffering, along with God’s miraculous reassurances, to move us along through the process of sanctification so that we will be ready for the splendors of the new creation.

Not all the evil and suffering we endure comes for our benefit alone. Sometimes God allows us to experience evil and suffering so that others may benefit also. Stephen, who was stoned to death by an angry mob of religious leaders, seems to be a prime example of this very point. Holding the coats for that crowd, and seeing the radiant faith and face of the “villain” was a young zealot named Saul, whom God later transformed into the apostle Paul.

If we want to shorten the span of this training program we find ourselves in, we can do it. Just as the Hebrews could have shortened their wanderings by cooperating with God and following Moses’ instructions, we can cooperate with God more fully than we have by bending every effort and investing more resources toward completion of Christ’s assignment to us. That assignment, which we call the Great Commission, could be carried out in our lifetime. Our struggles with evil and suffering will end when we successfully, by His enabling, bring the gospel and raise up disciples in every ethnic group on earth. That goal is within reach of the physical and spiritual resources of Christians, and it has been for some time, as determined by researchers at the United States Center for World Missions. While remarkable progress has been made within the last fifteen years, we need increased faith and wider involvement among His people to make way for His coming. Remember, even though God’s desire is that none should perish, our desire should be that at least every person should have the knowledge and ability to make the choice for themselves. Therefore, they need to hear the Word of God.

To Be Continued

Adapted and modified from the book by: Hugh Ross, Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astrophysics Reveal about the Glory and Love of God; chapter 15.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Analogy of the Exodus

An important depiction of the human tendency to prefer the familiar may be seen in the biblical account of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt. Throughout the books of Exodus and Numbers we read of repeated confrontations between Moses and those he was leading into freedom. Again and again, because the promised land did not become immediately and easily accessible to them, the people begged Moses to forget about the promised land and lead them back to Egypt. There they had all the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic they wanted.

The ancient Hebrews’ willingness to trade their freedom and a homeland flowing with milk, honey, fruit, grain, and mineral riches for hard bondage and a few vegetables and fish seems utterly unfathomable. From their perspective, however, the promised land remained unfathomable, mere words. Having never seen it for themselves and having no personal experience of freedom and prosperity, they lacked a vision and hope for what God had promised them. Though they acknowledged that the freedom and the promised land must be better than slavery in Egypt, they had difficulty recognizing that the difference was great enough to be worth a few months or years of hardship and suffering in the wilderness. Just as importantly, they failed to appreciate that without adequate preparation and training, which their hardship and suffering would provide, their ability to retain the blessings of the promised land would be short-lived.

We may be tempted to judge these people harshly, but we shouldn’t be so arrogant as to fall for that, for we are so much like them. Our own experience and considerable psychological research reports that in nearly all circumstances, both children and adults will choose something good that is familiar over something better but unfamiliar.

The children of Israel, similar to our own children and ourselves, could not seem to understand that their resistance to God’s training program, as difficult as it may have been, only brought them far more difficulty. Their wilderness experience was scheduled to last fourteen and a half months. But their rebellion cost them forty extra years of desert wandering.

Nearly one-fifth of the Bible is devoted to the exodus story. One reason I see for God’s giving it so much space is that it reflects the ongoing journey of the entire human race. It truly identifies the constraints of human nature. As the Hebrews set out from Egypt, a land of onions, garlic, and slavery, the human race set out from Eden, a paradise where humans were slaves to the threat of rebellion and sin. Though Adam and Eve were at first free from sin, they were also free-will beings with the capacity to receive and express love, which meant they or their descendants could choose to rebel against God’s authority and reject His goodness. As many Hebrews died in unbelief and rebellion in the wilderness, so too, much of humanity will die without believing or embracing the eternal destiny God has not only promised but has desired for them. Those Hebrews who did follow God into the land were blessed with seeing the glory of God and receiving the bounty of that place. So, too, those who follow Christ into the new creation will be blessed with seeing His glory face-to-face and with receiving the bountiful rewards of that unimaginable place.

God had the option to lead the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan along the north coastal road. By that route the journey would have lasted only five to ten days. No one would have suffered. Much less evil would have been expressed and experienced. But, if God had chosen this option, the Hebrews would have been inadequately prepared to handle the many challenges, both physical and spiritual, of conquering and maintaining the new territory. To avoid new forms of evil and suffering, they could have returned to the familiar hardships of Egypt. But the strength they gained from their new trials and troubles prepared them to seize and keep the land of their dreams.

To Be Continued

Adapted and modified from the book by: Hugh Ross, Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astrophysics Reveal about the Glory and Love of God; chapter 15.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Too Much Evil – Continued

We humans are different from all other species. Both anthropology and theology attest to our uniqueness as spiritual creatures. Our spirit component gives us a powerful capacity both for expressing goodness and for expressing evil. Unlike other species, we can inflict suffering on others for a variety of motives from revenge to perverse pleasure. Unlike other species, we kill for sport, and we tend to kill the best, the trophy animals, rather than the sick and weak, as the animal kingdom is prone to do. As for killing our own species, Leninist and Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Maoist China, revolutionary France, Inquisitionist Spain and countless other modern societies (as well as ancient civilizations) show that we willingly slaughter and torture others.

How much of the injury and death and even disease-promoting behavior perpetrated by humans does anything to enhance the survival or well-being of the race of mankind? A reality check quickly informs us that we cannot chalk up the evil and suffering in our world simply to natural processes and survival instincts. Rather than proving the nonexistence of a spiritual realm and of a Creator-God, evil and suffering, even by our recognition of their repugnance, provide evidence for a good God opposed by some supernatural enemy, a God who for good reasons, some revealed in Scripture, is currently restraining the exercise of His almighty wrath against evil.

Return to Eden

How often we hear God’s critics boast, “If I were in charge, I could have designed the world in such a way as to eliminate evil and suffering.” Whether they admit it or not, such individuals see themselves as wiser and more righteous than God. If we are daring enough to ask for an explanation of what this human-designed, perfect world would be like, we may receive no answer. Or, most likely (in the experience of many spiritual leaders, at least), we will hear a description that closely resembles Eden: a beautiful and pleasant paradise in which we would be protected from all harm for all time. Evil, if it did arise, would be snuffed out immediately so as not to afflict anyone but its own source.

The Garden of Eden indeed was a wonderful place. Given what we know of the universe to this point in time, and its laws of physics, no better environment for the human race could be constructed. Consider what Genesis says of our original parents’ original environment:

• The garden, designed and planted by the wisest and most loving of all beings, was perfectly beautiful, perfectly watered and fertilized, and perfectly free of weeds and pests.
• The plants of the garden pleased not only the eye but also the palate.
• The garden was full of treasures of all kinds, including gold, aromatic resin, and onyx.
• Adam and Eve had access to perfect health and unlimited longevity.
• Adam and Eve were given the capacity and the freedom to enjoy all the riches that abounded around them.
• They lived in perfect peace, harmony, and fellowship with all the animals.
• Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect peace, harmony, and fellowship with one another.
• They both enjoyed perfect peace, harmony, and fellowship with God.
• There was a complete absence of shame.

The biblical description of Eden reveals a human habitat unexcelled in human comprehension, at least not within our current reality’s limits. Eden represents the best environment possible for the human race within the boundaries of the natural reality we know now. We long for Eden because we long for the best our limited experience can suggest to our imagination. But God is not limited. His scope of operation exceeds by far our imaginative capacity. His plans for blessing humanity match His capacity to give above and beyond our current, limited capacity to receive.

How many of us would rather return to Eden, to something good we can visualize, than to move beyond it to the new creation, which God says is better and yet which none of us can visualize? Atheists and agnostics are not the only ones who would rather stick with the familiar realm. Believers and unbelievers alike share this tendency. Many religious systems portray heaven as an Eden-like paradise often embellished with humans’ sexual fantasies.

To Be Continued

Adapted and modified from the book by: Hugh Ross, Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astrophysics Reveal about the Glory and Love of God; chapter 15.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.