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"SHUT UP!" #1
THE GREAT REAGAN COMEBACK LINE
It was a retort which, as much as any other factor,
might have won him the U.S. presidency. In the closing days of the 1980
race between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter, all the polls showed
the race to be pretty much a dead heat. The Iranian hostage crisis, as
it dragged on, was taking points away from Carter. But Republican Ronald
Reagan, prone as he was to a few verbal gaffes of his own, was in the
fight of his life.
Then came the rally where a heckler stepped on his toes just once too
often. Just a smart-mouth kid in the crowd who began zinging the senior
citizen candidate from California about this or that miscue. With maybe
a joke about old Warner Brothers movies co-starring with Bonzo the chimpanzee.
And all of a sudden, Mr. Reagan had just had enough. He turned to the
attack artist and let fly with just two words. "Aw, shut up!!
Well, that response echoed all through the building over the PA; it reverberated
off the rafters. And of course, the largely Republican crowd just went
wild with approval. "Yeah, shut up!" Which, of course, caused
the red-faced heckler to slink down underneath the bleachers. I imagine
that retort by a reinvigorated candidate, that sound bite, made all the
news programs that evening. And a few days later, this time in Orange
County, Reagan was almost looking for another patsy to squash. He wanted
to say "Shut up!" to someone and hear those roars again.
Naturally, the people in the crowd had heard all about the earlier triumph
and were hoping with him. Sure enough, a heckler foolishly began to do
his thing. And Reagan, always the master of timing, let it go for a minute
or two. Then he almost asked the crowd's permission: "Shall I do
it?" And with his trademark Hollywood smile and a bit of venom, he
belted it out: "You know, folks, it felt so good the last time I
said it, I'm going to say it again: ‘Aw, shut up!'"
Well, you know, that expression of indignation and of
strength was at least one of the reasons why Ronald Reagan surged in the
last few days of the race to a ten-point lead. The country was tired of
hearing about energy crises and about hostages being held for 444 days
and about national malaise. They were tired of fireside chats by a man
wearing a sweater. They wanted a hero from a Western B-movie, a man who
could sit tall in the saddle, swell out his chest, and tell enemies to
"shut up"! Maybe if Reagan could tell a kid with a protest poster
to shut up, he could tell the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Evil Empire's
Leonid Brezhnev to shut up too. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I don't know if you were raised in a home where the children were taught
not to say "shut up." And those are harsh, rather inelegant
words — even if they do possess some raw power. But this week we want
to ask a question very, very reverently: Does God ever say something like
"shut up"? Does He ever look an opponent in the eye and say
to him, or to her: "That's enough! No more discussion"?
Those flag-waving crowds who listened to candidate Reagan back in the
fall of 1980 were delighted, of course, when he told off those kids. When
he said "shut up," he was doing it for them as well. They rooted
him on because when he put down his enemies, he was putting down their
enemies too. So there might be times when we would rejoice if God were
to tell our adversary, "Shut up!" We might break into a cheer
instead of getting out our Emily Post guidebooks.
But friend, there may also come a day when we get a message from God directed
right at us. And He may say: "No more. Don't ask about that again,
because I've already stated My will."
Today I'd like for us to think of just one Bible story where we find a
kind of "shut up" being expressed. Actually, we find it said
twice, but to two different people. Part one of the story is in the book
of Deuteronomy chapter three. Moses and his brother Aaron have just sinned
by losing their tempers with the children of Israel. Rather a forgivable
sin, if you read through this part of the Bible. But when God told Moses
just to speak to the rock — and that water would come out — Moses had
given the rock two angry whacks with his own rod. "Do WE have to
bring you water?" he shouted out in his anger. You can read the story
in Numbers chapter 20. And God, always loving but also firm, told Moses
that because of this very public display of anger, because of this sin
of failing to trust in Him, Moses and Aaron were going to be denied the
reward of personally entering into the promised land of Canaan. The nation
would finally enter there, but not these two men who had so faithfully
led for 40 years.
Now back to Deuteronomy three, where this very humble leader of all Israel
is actually recounting the whole experience again for the benefit of all
the people. And he tells them how he begged God to change His mind. After
so many trials and tribulations, couldn't he accompany the people into
the land flowing with milk and honey? After all he'd been through? Please,
oh please, oh please? Here's his cry to heaven beginning in verse 23:
"At that time I pleaded with the Lord: ‘Oh
Sovereign Lord, You have begun to show to Your servant Your greatness
and Your strong hand. . . . Let me go over and see the good land beyond
the Jordan —that fine hill country and Lebanon."
And really, Moses' sin wasn't that great. He wasn't
a rebel; he'd just had that one hot flash of anger against an insurgent
mob of ingrates. But God, knowing the power of example and the importance
of teaching this virgin nation to trust and obey, said no, and He said
no again, and then again. And finally He just basically says "shut
up." Here's verse 26, still Moses talking:
"But because of you [the Israelites] the
Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. ‘That is enough,' the
Lord said. ‘Do not speak to Me anymore about this matter.'"
And that was it. "Shut up about that," the
great God of heaven basically said. "You're still My child; I still
love you. You can still speak to Me in your prayers . . . but not about
that. Moses, I'm telling you — don't bring it up again."
Well, friend, that's the first of two biblical "shut up's."
And if we just had the one, I don't know what you and I might think of
this God. What about this inflexibility, this refusal to at least consider
changing His mind? Is this the same God who says so kindly, "Come,
let us reason together"?
And it gets even harder when you read on the last page
of Deuteronomy how this great old warrior of the Lord, Moses, at the age
of 120, climbed Mount Nebo all by himself. All alone he went up — and
there at the top, his Friend God showed him the land of Canaan. The milk
and the honey. The splendor and the vast abundance of the promised land.
The paradise which was refused to Moses by a God who said "shut up."
And then, in verse five, Moses lay down and died. All alone on the top
of that mountain. The Bible tells us that the Lord Himself buried this
fallen champion of faith:
". . . But no man knoweth of his sepulcher
unto this day," says the King James Bible.
I say again, that would be a sad story if it ended
with just the one "shut up" and then this solitary mountaintop
funeral. But we find something very strange and wonderful in the book
of Mark, the New Testament, many centuries later. Chapter nine — and Jesus
Christ takes three of His disciples up another mountain. There at the
top, these three men are struck dumb with amazement when they see their
Savior talking face to face with . . . Elijah and Moses. Not a "spirit"
Moses, not an ethereal ghost. No, they actually see the man Moses, descended
from heaven! This Moses talks with Jesus, communes with Him. And it's
clear that the man God said "shut up" to, the man who stood
on Mount Nebo, eventually did make it to the Promised Land, the REAL promised
land, after all. But how? And when?
Well, the mystery is revealed in the tiny little book of Jude, right next
to Revelation. And we read about the archangel Michael, the mightiest
of heaven's warriors, who approaches the unmarked place where the body
of Moses was buried. He's intent, you see, on raising up God's servant
to life. Naturally, Lucifer is right there to claim Moses as his own trophy.
"You can't have him!" he probably sneers at his ancient foe.
"He sinned and so he's mine. Get away from here." Well, this
is conjecture, of course, but it's interesting to read what actually happens.
Michael, it says in verse eight of Jude, is in dispute with Lucifer over
the body of Moses. But he doesn't get into an argument; he doesn't get
red in the face. No, just four words: "The Lord rebuke you!"
In other words, "Shut up! I'm taking him. On the authority of God
Himself, I'm taking him . . . and Lucifer, you can just plain shut up."
Oh, listen, friend, God is so good! Don't you want that strength, that
resolve expressed on your behalf against Satan? Don't you want God to
say "shut up" to the Accuser when the devil hurls charges against
your name? Sometimes those are the greatest words a Moses — or maybe a
Melashenko — can ever hear.
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