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“AND THEIR SHOUTS PREVAILED” #9
THERE’S GOTTA BE A WAY OUT OF HERE
It didn’t wipe him out once. It didn’t wipe him out twice. It wiped him out in all three segments of the clever time-travel trilogy, Back to the Future. If you remember these old DeLorean adventures, a certain Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, goes zipping from 1985 into the past and future, accompanied by the eccentric, frizzy-haired scientist / inventor, Doc Brown.
But a certain overwhelming temptation just kept causing Marty problems. He couldn’t say no. He couldn’t walk away, even with a flux capacitor and time circuits. He couldn’t seem to keep out of this particular trouble. Whenever a gang of thugs or bad guys would taunt him, he would get into a fight. And usually a conflict which would deter him from some noble mission.
The signature line was always the same. With narrowed eyes, he would say it: “Nobody – I mean NOBODY – calls me ‘chicken.’” And that was it. If you called Marty McFly a chicken, it didn’t matter if it was 1985, a futuristic 2015, standing next to an “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance poster in ‘55, or in the wild, wild west circa 1895. He was going to drop his skateboard and come after you. He just didn’t have the ability or willpower to walk away from that taunt. Not from Biff, not from nobody.
The irony was that young Mr. McFly had a huge advantage over the rest of us. When temptation came at him full-force, he did have a time machine! “What am I thinking?” he cried out once, worried that he had forever missed some golden opportunity to do good. “I’ve got all the time I want! I’ve got a time machine.”
Well, let’s climb out of that sci-fi genre as quickly as we can, and get into the pages of God’s Word, which are even more timeless. You know, there were times when another guy with a big mouth – this one named Peter – could have used a DeLorean. Because the expression, “Nobody calls ME chicken,” was his too. He swore up and down, on a balmy Thursday night, that he wouldn’t take nothing from nobody. Anybody who wanted to get to Jesus would have to go through HIM, yessirree. “I’ve got my trusty sword,” he announced, swishing it through the air there in the Upper Room. “Nobody better call me chicken. I’ll die for You, Jesus.” A few short hours later, when three people in a row did call him chicken, the feathers were flying as this same Peter clucked out his denials while the rooster crowed in the distance.
Years later, a chastened and much wiser Peter writes this for our admonition in his second epistle.
“[Jesus’] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” Now here’s the part from the DeLorean brochure. “Through these He has given us His very great and precious PROMISES, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature AND ESCAPE the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
What do you think of that? First of all, if we get Bible promises in our head, we’re going to begin to have a nature like Christ’s. A nature that loves the things of God. A nature that recoils from sinful, destructive ideas. A nature that instinctively prays. A nature in tune with the heavenly Father.
But notice the second promise. Through the promises in the Bible, Genesis through Revelation, we can actually get ourselves AWAY from temptations. We’ve been using as our theme this phrase from Luke: “And their shouts prevailed.” Meaning the mob that wanted Jesus crucified. And sometimes the force of Satan’s attack against us is just so strong, we feel there’s no way out. But here in First Peter we’re told there IS a way out. And the way out is the mountain of promises found right here in this Book.
Let’s just take a few practical examples, shall we? Are you ever tempted to be discouraged, to wallow in self-pity? This being an election year, can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of the Democratic presidential candidates like Gephardt, Clark, or Lieberman who worked so very hard, traveling, shaking hands, making the same speech six times a day, seven days a week, sleeping in different hotel beds every night? And then at the end of it all, you lose! You drop out! Thousands of voters flock to the polls and by their ballots say right in your face, “Are you kidding? We don’t want YOU! Man, we want anybody BUT you!”
And it hurts. We’d like to feel sorry for ourselves, to decry our lack of abilities, our pockmarked resumé. But what does God’s Word say to us in Philippians 4:13?
“I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”
Right away, you may be thinking: “Melashenko, that is one empty promise! That’s good for nothing. Because even if I’m dying to be President of the United States of America, I can’t do THAT through God’s strength . . . or anybody else’s.” Let me tell you something, friend: if it was God’s will that you be President, if He wanted you in that position, and you were willing, you’d be President. But all things according to His will, right?
Since gas is kind of expensive just now, let’s keep our DeLorean parked right here in Philippians chapter 4 and imagine this scenario instead. You’re jealous. Someone where you work, or maybe your kid sister, has everything you wish you had. Her marriage is great; yours is struggling. She and her husband made $200,000 in real estate appreciation just in the last three years; you’re still renting with no end in sight. Her kids are in good colleges; yours have dropped out. Hers have nice boyfriends; yours – well, get out the roach killer. What a temptation it’s got to be to complain, to ask God: “Why her? Why not me?” But just back to verse 11, what does Paul suggest? And keep in mind, he writes this from prison, and has the lash marks on his back still oozing blood:
“I have LEARNED,” he writes – and it took him a little while too – “I have LEARNED to be content whatever the circumstances.”
You know, there have been times when I put on the green sunglasses of envy and looked across the way. And this verse right here helps me to remember how very blessed I am, how many reasons I have to praise God instead of blame Him. And when some long-standing dream really does seem like it may never materialize, I can give that reality to Him too. His work is something He will accomplish; He can and will usher in His kingdom whether or not I play a high-profile part.
Let me ask you to think about a time when impatience was just welling up within you. You were SO MAD! That work pressure, or high expectations from your family, or just the way the cable guy didn’t get to your house even though you took off work and waited three hours. The lost minutes and hours were so very frustrating. Well, God has generously provided a gassed-up DeLorean for you too, friend. Here it is in Psalm 40:1:
“I waited PATIENTLY for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.”
That’s a good one for the freeways, isn’t it? Instead of screaming into your cell phone, why not quietly share your frustrations with the Lord? He knows about your deadlines, your bulging briefcase in the back seat, that overflowing IN box at the office, that bloated e-mail account that just keeps spamming over. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain about it all; just use the Lord’s name. Let Him know. Let Him help.
One more. And this is for the times when you lay in your bed during the midnight hour, staring out at the moon, and you feel crushed with guilt. You sinned, and you know it. The hurt is deep. And even though you’ve confessed to God, even though you’ve been down on your knees, you still feel the weight, the BLOT against you. That unclean feeling is bringing you such despair there in the dark shadows. The lingering guilt is worse than the pain of the original mistake.
Well, here’s a Bible promise that is absolutely huge. It’s a powerful, clean getaway vehicle from the load of false guilt. First John 1:9 is crystal clear, even at midnight:
“If we confess our sins”– which you did – “He is faithful and just and WILL forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Now friend, listen to me here. Your hurting conscience is shouting at you: “Unforgiven!” Lucifer is yelling it in your ear: “Unforgiven!” Fallen angels are whispering it in your dreams, buzzing around as you read your Bible: “Unforgiven!” But the plain reality is that God’s Word, the Holy Bible, this more sure of promises, says instead: “Forgiven!” In heaven’s record books, the sin is gone. In the highest judicial court in a million universes and galaxies, the sin is gone. Are you going to listen to the false accusations of an enemy we both know hates you . . . or the loving, powerful, proven promises of a Savior who forgave you by spending His own blood to do so? Talk about a great escape! It reminds me of the classic line: Oh what needless pain we bear! All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer.
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