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FLEECES AND FAITH #2
BEING A CHUMP LIKE CHARLIE BROWN
It’s got to be one of the most despairing feelings
in the world. You haven’t started the drinking binge yet, but you know
you’re going to. You know where the bar is, and you know that in 15 minutes
you’ll be sitting there. You also know, with equal conviction and due
to past experience, that in four hours, you’ll be painfully drunk, feeling
sick, and wretchedly wondering why in the world you’re so weak. This well-traveled
road is one where you know every bump and pothole.
Compulsive gamblers log onto the Internet, or book that junket flight
to Vegas, with absolute assurance that 24 hours from now, a thousand dollars
will be gone and they’ll be experiencing that same sick feeling in the
stomach: What? Again? But they have to do it. An old Spanish proverb warns:
“Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables.”
Back about 25 years ago, a certain politician was running
for high office here in the United States. He had a penchant for womanizing
– and no, this isn’t who you maybe are thinking. So his aides and advisors
pled with him: “Senator, please . . . just keep things on track. No philandering,
no scandals, no headlines. We face an uphill battle as it is; we can’t
afford a single bimbo bombshell going off.”
But, a few days into the campaign, they saw their chosen hero eyeing a
certain woman, a well-known socialite. For the candidate to get involved
would be disaster. But they could see it all unfolding right before their
eyes. So they begged him some more: “Please, sir, just stay here in the
suite and let’s work on speeches. Let’s call Room Service and order in.
Let’s map out next month’s debate.” They painted a pointed picture of
the mess that would ensue if he should get into that elevator and go to
Room 232, or whatever it was. They almost tried to put a chain and deadbolt
on the door, from the outside. But . . . all to no avail. An hour or so
later, when a key campaign strategist asked, “Where’s the Boss?”, the
others shrugged. Room 232. The guy just couldn’t help himself. Weeks later
the presidential project fizzled – not just because of this, but it was
certainly part of a deadly pattern.
Well, friend, we probably see faint shadows of this in our own lives where
we KNOW something we’re planning will hurt, will take us left instead
of right, down instead of up . . . and yet off we go. From a spiritual
perspective, we march right into Lucifer’s lair with a sign on our back
that says “Kick me!”
Here in the Old Testament, it seems to be the same as well. For seven
years, we read, Israel just keeps going to the dogs. They know apostasy
hurts, and yet they apostatize. They know Baal is a fallen deity, an impotent
stone carving, and yet they keep going to the temple shrine with its prostitutes
and its lascivious revelry and its hangovers. And year by year, as we
studied yesterday, they forfeit God’s blessings and His protection. The
scourge of invasion hit them. The Midianites, the Amalekites, the Amorites,
and every other “ite” you can think of show up on their doorsteps. It
was a preventable horror – all they had to do was be faithful to the Lord
God Jehovah, who had “brought them out of Egypt” – but they just couldn’t
seem to do that. And these nomadic invaders stripped them clean every
single time. Crops. Livestock. Everything.
But we read something interesting in researching this sorry story. The
Adventist Bible Commentary had a fascinating bit of trivia about this
yearly ransacking festival. Here it is:
“Like the Bedouins today, [these invading hordes] preferred that the settled
peoples should do the work of sowing. Then in a series of raids they would
sweep over the land, confiscating the crops and driving off all the farm
animals they could find.”
What’s hard to comprehend is how this didn’t happen
once, but yearly! The men of Israel would plant crops . . . and these
guys would just come in and take them. “Thank you very much.” And next
year, after Israel had ridden their John Deeres back and forth and planted
crops again, they came and got ‘em a second time. And a third. It was
a yearly mugging, and Israel just didn’t seem able to extricate itself
from the sucker’s side of the story. In fact, here’s the rest of that
paragraph from the commentary. Get this:
“According to custom, [the attackers] left the HOUSES undestroyed in order
that the farmers would be tempted to return and sow the fields once more.”
So it was almost an in-your-face dare. “Come on back.
Plant some more. Rebuild your barns; restock your granaries. Replenish
your herds. And maybe – if we’re feeling generous – we might let you keep
some of your stuff next time.” It’s Lucy holding the football for poor
Charlie Brown and pulling it away every single year. And with a cynical
laugh that echoed through the barren, blackened fields of Israel, the
enemy would saunter out of town with its plunder.
Speaking of cartoon strips, this story reminded us of the one, Calvin
& Hobbes, where our diminutive hero, who’s just a fragile first-grader,
is threatened routinely by Moe, the class bully. “You’re gonna taste asphalt
today,” he growls, pinning Calvin up against his locker. Sometimes if
Calvin gives him 50 cents, he’s allowed to live. Other times, Moe beats
him up, causing Calvin to lament that the school principal must think
that violence is an aerobic exercise in P.E. You would think that rescue
would be available in the form of his tiger pal, Hobbes, but most days
Mom won’t let him take the striped wonder to school with him.
Not that there’s great theological truth to be found in many Calvin &
Hobbes strips, but it’s worth noting that Calvin’s first-grade teacher
is named Miss Wormwood. And creator Sam Watterson confesses that he named
her after the satanic character in C. S. Lewis’ great Christian classic,
The Screwtape Letters. And friend, I can tell you this: the devil loves
to see us in despair and helpless over the pain caused by sin. He loves
it when we’re locked in, when we know our vice will hurt but we just go
there anyway. When we’re bullied by our own destructive behavior, when
our own bad habits are blackmailing us, he and his fallen armies rejoice.
They really do. I’m sure Lucifer enjoys whispering in our ear a temptation
to sin, while simultaneously tweaking our consciences about how terrible
we already know we’ll feel later. And when it IS later? See, I told you,
he hisses. Or she, if there are some “Miss Wormwoods” in Satan’s ranks.
Borrowing from our opening story about booze and going on a bender, the
book of Proverbs actually spells that one out.
“In the end,” the writer warns, “[wine] bites like a snake and poisons
like a viper.” And then, in language every alcoholic knows: “Your eyes
will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. You will
be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging. ‘They
hit me,’ you will say, ‘but I’m not hurt! They beat me, but I don’t feel
it. When will I wake up so I can find another drink?’”
Sound familiar, anyone? In the Message paraphrase,
the guy in the gutter is asked:
“Do you really prefer seeing double, with your speech all slurred, Reeling
and seasick, drunk as a sailor?”
And if it’s not drink for you, maybe it’s pornography
or pride or gossip.
Well, friend, I know. “Been there, done that.” And there have been times
when Yours Truly HAS “been there and done that.” Acted in ways that I
knew would hurt, would cause pain to myself and people I loved. That’s
the tragic nature of sin.
So what is the answer? Well, we do find it here in the book of Judges.
Despite this seven-year streak of rebellion, when God’s people pathetically
manage to croak out His name, He’s still there. He’s still listening.
And “before they ask,” almost, He has a plan for their rescue. At that
very moment, He’s preparing a hero: Gideon son of Joash.
Friend, I want to tell you something from my heart.
Yes, Christians still sin. I know that all too well in my own life. But
the man or woman who’s committed to God doesn’t need to be LOCKED in sin.
It doesn’t hold us as it did before, because the Bible promises freedom
to those who get with God and stay with Him. We become slaves to God instead
of slaves to sin, it says in Romans chapter six.
Here in Judges six, on the other hand, the biblical language literally
has God handing Israel over to her enemies – which are heaven’s enemies
too. God GIVES His children over to the Midianites, the Amalekites, and
all the other “ites.” But He doesn’t WANT to do that. It’s not His original
will; it’s a last resort. All through these rough-and-tumble stories,
we never lose sight of God’s Edenic blueprint: peace, happiness, prosperity,
spiritual power, freedom. God allowed chains, but He never liked them.
He permitted invasions, even though He had always hoped for Israel’s boundaries
to expand, not collapse.
And it’s the same today, friend. Freedom and lasting happiness are waiting
for those who simply turn to Him. He may be setting up your Gideon even
as we speak.
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