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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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