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DOES HEAVEN EVER PANIC? #2

GOD’S U-TURNS

“Boy, did I take a wrong turn somewhere!”  I guess about eleven years ago, that’s what Captain Joseph Hazelwood had to be saying for sure.  Back on March 24, 1989, maybe you remember, the Exxon Valdez ran aground there in Prince Edward Sound, sending something like 11 million gallons of oil, 260,000 barrels, into that virgin country.

And what can the company and the captain say but “We blew it.  That tanker went where it wasn’t supposed to go.”  It was obviously an intoxicated wrong turn.  And I imagine there were some days of panic, of crisis control, there at Exxon headquarters.

We’re asking the question this week: DOES HEAVEN EVER PANIC?  Does God ever have to respond, wild-eyed and disheveled, to a surprise attack by Satan?  Or, more appropriate to today’s illustration from Alaska, does God Himself ever admit: “I made a mistake.  I blew it.  It sure looks like I took a wrong turn somewhere, and now I’ve got to face up to My own crisis and fix things”?

I’m sure you were as comforted as I was with the verse we studied yesterday, and that beautiful word “sovereign.”  Friend, our God is sovereign, meaning all-powerful, all-knowing.  He’s in control; in fact, He’s fully in control.  Always sober.  And that same verse, Amos 3:7, also tells us that God has a plan — a revealed plan.  So then we ask again: is it possible for God to make mistakes and end up in a panic?  Can we only give Him a B+ for this so-called plan of His?

There’s a great Christian book that’s been very helpful as we prepared for this week.  It’s entitled The Knowledge of the Holy, by the late Christian teacher, A. W. Tozer.  And in a chapter entitled “The Divine Omniscience,” he seems to suggest that God could never run a ship aground or even make the tiniest political blunder.  Notice:

“Because God knows all things perfectly, He knows no thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well.  He never discovers anything.  He is never surprised, never amazed.  He never wonders about anything nor (except when drawing men out for their own good) does He seek information or ask questions.”

That’s a very interesting statement, isn’t it — that God never learns or discovers anything new.  He never has to say to someone, “Where are you going?”, except to draw them into a confession, like when He said to Adam and Eve, “Why did you hide?”  Or: “Did you eat from that tree?”  Or to Cain: “Where is your brother?”  God never asks questions He doesn’t already know the answer to.

From that perspective you would think that God would never once be surprised by a Pearl Harbor attack from Satan, or by a headline in the L.A. Times, or by some unexpected twist in this great war He’s waging against Lucifer.  God would never say, “Oh no!  What will I do now?  I never saw these smart bombs coming.”

But you know, there are passages in the Bible that certainly do make it sound like God is saying that exact thing.  “Oh no!  Everything’s gone wrong!”  Or:  “Help!  I took a wrong turn.”

You’re probably way ahead of me and already thinking of Genesis chapter six where events seem to spin out of control and God decides to send a flood.  Notice with me the seeming U-turn in God’s thinking, as stated in verse six, after describing the relentless wickedness of the human race:

“And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.”

Here’s the Contemporary English Version:

“He was very sorry that He had made them.”

Even the Living Bible:

“He was sorry He had made them.  It broke His heart.”

What do you make of this?  Was our heavenly Father stunned and amazed that His perfect creation had fallen away?  Was He unprepared for this moment?  Is He really admitting a mistake here, and retracting all those cheerful statements from Creation Week and chapters one and two, where it says over and over, even about man: “Everything He made was very good”?  Putting it bluntly, is the flood of Noah God’s own Exxon Valdez moment?

I’d like to share with you a very helpful paragraph coming from a Bible commentary that deals specifically with this passage:  Genesis six.  Back to the King James English, how do the scholars deal with that word “repented,” as in: “It REPENTED the Lord that He had made man on the earth”?

Here’s their comment:

“The force of the words ‘it repented’ the Lord, may be gathered from the explanatory statement ‘it grieved Him’ to His heart.”  Which we noticed in every single version — that grief of God’s.  They continue: “This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose lack of foresight on His part or any variableness in His nature or purpose.”  In other words, this wasn’t an ‘Oops, I blew it’ moment for God.  “In this sense God never repents of anything.  The ‘repentance’ of God is an expression referring to the pain of divine love occasioned by the sinfulness of man.”

In other words, God wasn’t surprised or blindsided by the sinfulness of those early men . . . but He certainly was deeply hurt and pained and grieved as He always is by sin.  It hurt as He watched it all, even though it was no abrupt blinding revelation to Him; He didn’t have to read about man’s sins in the morning paper.  And His grief was so deep over it all that He expresses His sorrow with that word “repented.”

Notice the flavor given to this verse in the Clear Word paraphrase:

“God noticed the growing wickedness among the people and that all day long they thought of nothing else but sinning.  He was SICK AT HEART about His creation.  He had made man in His own image, and now man was acting more like Satan.”

And really, all through the pages of the Bible there’s a lot of sorrow for God.  But I’d like to suggest that there was never surprise for Him.  Our Lord knows the end from the beginning, we’re told in Isaiah 46:10.  In fact, the entire verse is very encouraging to read after a sad story like this one.  Here it is:

“I am God, and there is no other.  I am God, and there is none like Me.  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.”

That’s a wonderful statement from God, isn’t it?  “My purpose will stand.”  Man may sin and grieve God, even to the point where a cleansing flood is necessary, but that cleansing flood isn’t a hasty afterthought or an emotional retaliation for an unexpected rebellion.  God’s purpose stands as He quietly but forcefully and steadily moves forward to bring this big war to an end.

We mentioned some White House politics yesterday where a President and his advisors might be in crisis mode over unexpected scandal headlines.  And sometimes Christians wake up on the day after Election Day, look at the headlines and moan to themselves — or to God: “Oh, no!  Not HIM!”  How could a God who’s in control and who has a plan let this politician with a shady past, who’s so obviously in league with the forces of evil, get into the Oval Office? And of course, Christians of both political parties have had such wake-up mornings.  Has God made another mistake?  Is He repenting again?

There’s an interesting story in the Bible about a not-too-good political leader, and this one wasn’t selected by the people in a November election; he was hand-picked by God Himself.  King Saul was the first monarch of Israel, you might remember, and God had personally selected him and anointed him.  But this man turned out to be a real loser in just about every category.  Except for being nice and tall and looking good on television, he went bad in every other respect.  He was rebellious, headstrong, jealous, and disobedient to God’s explicit commands as given through the prophet Samuel.

And right at the end of this chapter, First Samuel 15, after Saul thumbs his nose at God’s directives yet again, it says very clearly:

“And the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel.”

Is this another political miscue by God?  A crisis due to God’s own inexperience in picking kings?  After all, it was God’s first try; should Israel cut Him some slack because He’s obviously made a mistake the first time around?

No, let me suggest that we should read that word “repented” with the same interpretation here.  God was “grieved” — in fact, most translations render it that way. 

“The Lord grieved over Saul and was sorry that the people had wanted to have a king.”

Would God ever permit a bad king, and maybe even select a bad king, if it fit into His overall plan to lead His children to trust in Him again?  In the course of human events, has God permitted some desperately wicked leaders to rise to power?  The answer’s clear, isn’t it?  Were these mistakes by God, requiring a crisis U-turn as He fixes up His messes?

The prophet Samuel answers that question right here in this very story.  As he tells Saul God is taking the kingdom from him, the desperate king reaches out and grabs Samuel’s robe, tearing it.  Notice what the prophet says to him:

“The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors — to one better than you.  He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie OR CHANGE HIS MIND; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind.”

Had God made a mistake?  No.  Was this part of the timeline painful and grieving to Him?  Without a doubt.  Would He have preferred that Saul lead with humble, spiritual wisdom?  Of course.  But even in His grief over our sins, our God is ever in control.