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DOES HEAVEN EVER PANIC? #4

“LET ME TELL YOU A THING OR TWO, JESUS”

It was a gathering of Christians, maybe 50,000 of them.  Clear back in 1977, so this Kansas City event must have been a kind of “Promise Keepers before its time.”  But they were in a rambunctious, celebrating, rejoicing-in-the-Lord mood.  And the preacher, with the huge PA system echoing his every word, picked up on that emotion and decided to go with it.  Holding up his well-worn Bible, the man shouted out to the crowd: “If you sneak a peek at the back of this Book, guess what?”  And after letting the suspense build up, he just let ‘er rip:  “Jesus wins!!!”  And the whole place went crazy with ten minutes of cheering and celebrating.

Well, we have to ask today: is that mass hysteria, or are those the facts of the case?  We’ve been using as our radio series title this week: DOES HEAVEN EVER PANIC?  We know that God has a plan and that He’s always moving forward, moving toward resolution of this spiritual war where you and I are foot soldiers.  But is there ever a crisis to God?  Does He ever panic?  Does He look at the e-mail battle reports from His angels down here and then suck in His breath?  “Oh, no, I didn’t anticipate we’d get attacked there.  That’s our Achilles heel!  We’re in trouble now.”

You know, there are a couple of things that the Bible very clearly tells us.  First of all, that Kansas City preacher is right.  The last few pages in the Bible, Revelation chapters 21 and 22 in particular, make it crystal clear that in the end, God is going to win.  Nothing can derail His plan.  Things that would be crises for you or for me or even for our biggest armies with all their nuclear hardware cause no panic whatever to the Commander-in-chief in heaven.

And then all through the pages in the Bible, we find the same thing again and again: there are just no crises for God.  His pulse rate never goes up.  I mentioned yesterday some of the miracles of Jesus which show us how things that might be catastrophes for us are simply part of Christ’s daily workload.  Someone runs out of wine at a party.  For us, a social crisis.  For Jesus, an opportunity to make more wine out of tap water.  Speaking of water, the children of Israel run out of Sparkletts water in the wilderness.  And again, for you or me, that might be a very grave dilemma: Death Valley, out of gas, no shade, no cell phone, no water.  But God tells Moses just to hit a rock and water comes out.  Or just speak to the rock and water comes out.  A Red Sea’s in the way of God’s people, with Pharaoh and the Egyptians in hot pursuit.  It’s the ultimate squeeze play . . . from a human perspective.  But for God, no.  The waters open up and everyone marches through.  Then they close back up and the enemy drowns.  And you know, after reading a few stories like this, you begin to get some confidence in God.  It looks like He isn’t breathing hard as He wins time after time after time.

But as we consider the big picture, our desire for God to score an ultimate victory, I hope we can begin to comprehend how truly in control He is.  All around us, it may appear that Lucifer has the upper hand.  Crime is everywhere; TV is a vulgar cesspool; every movie listed in the newspaper seems to be rated R.  Meanwhile, churches are empty and Christians are discouraged.  Will Jesus ever come?  Will the tide begin to turn ever, because it sure doesn’t seem to have happened in your town yet.

Friend, let me simply give you this encouragement.  Keep holding on to the ultimate truth that God is going to triumph.  Even today, November 30, heaven is marching toward its final destiny of total victory.  There’s no crisis on the other side of the pearly gates.  The God of miracles is still on His throne, and not even perspiring.

There’s a wonderful soundbite from Philip Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew.  He talks about the miracles that Jesus performed — and of course, how easy it was for Him.  But then Yancey makes an interesting observation.  The results of miracles: resurrected life, restored health, demons defeated, graves emptied . . . are a glimpse of the way things ought to be all the time in God’s universe.  It’s the sores and the sorrows and the cemeteries that are the “miracles,” the aberrations. But Yancey can say it better than I can.  Here’s the paragraph:

“Some see miracles as an implausible suspension of the laws of the physical universe.  As signs, though, they serve just the opposite function.  Death, decay, entropy, and destruction are the true suspensions of God’s laws; miracles are the early glimpses of restoration.  In the words of Jürgen Moltmann, ‘Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world.  They are the only truly “natural” things in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.’”

Isn’t that an exciting picture?  We’re surrounded by what looks like crisis.  People hurting, buildings falling over with earthquakes.  And just every now and then, God steps in with a miracle.  But what we can see behind the miracle is our heavenly Father telling us: “Hang on!  Because what you’ve glimpsed here is how I intend for things to be ALL THE TIME!  This is the original blueprint nobody can stop Me from recreating!  Everybody healed; everyone resurrected; every home restored; every family happy and whole and feasting on the eternity I’m preparing.”  Friend, that’s how we should look at miracles.

In the meantime, I know you face the same temptation that I face and every other citizen of heaven.  We want to give advice to the King of heaven, tell Him how to cope with the bad headlines from here below.  “Here’s what I would do if I were You, God,” we say in our prayers.

But wouldn’t we pray differently if we really sensed how heaven absolutely is not in crisis mode — now or ever?  We’ve mentioned a couple of times this week the great encouragement we can get from that old classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, by A. W. Tozer.  Let me share yet another short paragraph from his chapter entitled “The Divine Omniscience,” which refers to God’s all-knowing power.  Here it is:

“The Scriptures teach that God has never learned from anyone.”  So much for our brilliant advice.  Then he adds this beautiful verse: “‘Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counselor hath taught Him?  With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?’” That’s from Isaiah chapter 40.

As you and I consider the political headlines of recent years — or really, of any period in our history, we know there are always counselors and advisors huddling there in the Oval Office with the President or in Cabinet meetings, sipping Maalox and giving counsel.  They lay out options and help the boss recognize the upside and the downside of every choice.  Especially with a scandal like Watergate or Interngate, or however you may dub these messes, everyone weighs in with an opinion.  But friend, that’s not the picture in heaven.  God doesn’t need advice and He doesn’t seek it.  He knows what He’s doing and what He’s going to do.

Almost in an amusing way, it’s really one of the stupidest little scenes in all the Bible.  The little disciple Peter, this sunburned, uneducated, goofball fisherman . . . giving advice to Jesus.  “Jesus, You should go here; You should preach over there.  Here’s a little script I wrote for You, Jesus.”  And then when Jesus announces to the 12 men that He’s going to go to the cross — the very exact purpose for His coming to earth, the very act which will win this global battle, the pivotal moment of sacrifice — Peter jumps in with advice.  “No, You’re not, Jesus,” he scolds.  “Listen to me!  I know better, and You’re not doing that.  Crosses and crucifixions for our Master?  No way!”  And he stands there in the sand trying to give advice to God. Stupid!  Absolutely stupid to think you can do that.  But you and I lose sight of the calmness of heaven’s campaign, and we do the very same thing, don’t we?  We tell God a thing or two every time we get down on our knees.

Well, He must smile, I’m sure, when He listens to us sometimes.  And thank God He carries right on.  He’s still happy to hear from us, despite the Ann Landers columns we mail up to Him.  But let me close today with this final bit of encouragement regarding the plan of our heavenly Father.

Especially when we consider the science of the cross, you and I may not fully understand.  In fact, I can say with total assurance: we do NOT understand! No way!  We can’t grasp the enormity of Calvary — how it works, what it means, how it guarantees God’s victory.  But here again we see the stamp of heaven’s calm strength, God’s quiet, steady determination to never lose us as His trophies.  Here’s a last word from that same wonderful book, The Knowledge of the Holy:

“Atonement too,” Dr. Tozer writes, “was accomplished with the same flawless skill that marks all of God’s acts. However little we understand it all, we know that Christ’s expiatory work [that’s Calvary] perfectly reconciled God and men and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”  And then he adds this bit of wisdom, in case we’re tempted to give advice or scratch our heads at the parts we don’t “get”: “Our concern is not to explain but to proclaim.”

So friend, don’t ask me how, but God wins.  Don’t ask me how, but Jesus saves.  Don’t ask me how, but the Cross spells victory for every man or woman or child who kneels in its shadow and accepts the triumph God says is waiting there for us.