Humans are Sinful

Breaking the Cycle (Judges 2:6-23)

Sunday, January 19, 2014

            Every person exists in a story world that is full of meaning and meanings.  Everyone does not live in the same story world as everyone else, but everyone lives in a story world.  You might ever live with different reference points than those identified by someone in your own home. 

A young man receives Jesus into his heart, abandons his wild living, and changes the entire direction of his life.  He’s pointed toward Jesus.  His story is about Jesus and everything else in his life is understood as it relates to his walk with Jesus.  His brother, also a young adult, stays in the party life that involves, drinking, gambling, one-night stands and frequent brush-ups with the law.  When the first brother, the Jesus-follower, says the word ‘redemption,’ he is talking about how Jesus saved him from the death that sin inevitably brings.  He is redeemed for God.  The second brother also loves the word redemption, but when he says it, he means he redeems his winning lottery ticket and gets the cash.  Both brothers have points of reference that define and are defined by the stories in which each lives.

            Early in 2014, we are striving to live within the Bible story so that we are defined by and identified with the God of the Bible.  The Bible becomes the source for our stories as humans created in God’s image and created for relationships of love with God and with each other.

            Last week, we were confronted with the reality that the God we meet in the Bible is complicated.  God loves sinners and forgives us, but also, God punishes sin.  Both are true.  God knows all, yet from our perspective, it certainly appears that God reacts to what we are doing.  Both sovereignty and freedom are God’s and God won’t give up either. 

            God is over all and free and in God’s power and freedom, God chooses to love us.  The supreme expression of God’s love is God coming in human form as Jesus and dying on the cross and rising in resurrection.  The emphatic note of the Bible is that God is love. 

That’s what the Bible tells us about God.  But what does the Bible say about humans?

            It says we are sinners and sin brings pain and death.  From my second semester of Old Testament studies as a first year seminary student, one of the lessons I remember most vividly is the “Judges cycle” found throughout the book of Judges.  We might call it the sin cycle or the sin wheel, one we cannot escape.

Judges 2:16-23 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

¹⁶ From time to time, the Lord would choose special leaders known as judges.^[a] These judges would lead the Israelites into battle and defeat the enemies that made raids on them. ¹⁷ In years gone by, the Israelites had been faithful to the Lord, but now they were quick to be unfaithful and to refuse even to listen to these judges. The Israelites would disobey the Lord, and instead of worshiping him, they would worship other gods.

¹⁸ When enemies made life miserable for the Israelites, the Lord would feel sorry for them. He would choose a judge and help that judge rescue Israel from its enemies. The Lord would be kind to Israel as long as that judge lived. ¹⁹ But afterwards, the Israelites would become even more sinful than their ancestors had been. The Israelites were stubborn—they simply would not stop worshiping other gods or following the teachings of other religions.

²⁰ The Lord was angry with Israel and said:

The Israelites have broken the agreement I made with their ancestors. They won’t obey me, ²¹ so I’ll stop helping them defeat their enemies. Israel still had a lot of enemies when Joshua died,²² and I’m going to let those enemies stay. I’ll use them to test Israel, because then I can find out if Israel will worship and obey me as their ancestors did.

²³ That’s why the Lord had not let Joshua get rid of all those enemy nations right away.

            I am struck by verse 19.  ‘The Israelites were stubborn – they simply would not stop worshipping other gods.”  Throughout the book of Judges, the cycle repeats endlessly.  Israel turns a back on God and worships idols.  God allows the people to fall into the hands of enemy tribes, who kill and enslave.   In misery, battered, knowing they are in their wretched state due to their own choices, the Israelites cry out in desperation. 

            God’s anger subsides and God raises up a hero – those called ‘judges’ – and the hero delivers the people.  Communal life and opportunity for prosperity are restored.  Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson and others are the heroes of God in the book of Judges.  The cycle always goes – sin, fall, cry, deliverance.  The cycle repeats throughout the Old Testament and into the New.  We see it in the life of the Apostle Peter.  Paul writes about it.

            Sin – it will not release us from its grasp.  Paul says that the “wage of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). 

His frustration screams from the pages of the Bible, specifically, Romans 7.

“I have been sold as a slave to sin.  In fact, I don’t understand why I act the way I do.  I do the things I hate.  … I am not the one doing these evil things.  The sin that lives in me is what does them” (Romans 7:14, 15, 17).

            Think of sin as behaviors that harm us, harm others, and cut us off from God.  Sometimes the harm is indirect.  If you spend many hours staring at pornography, you might be tempted to claim it is a victimless crime.  But is it?  The girl in the photograph does not know you are lusting after her.  But you do.  And you know God does.  You know this one is not some naked body, a piece meat for your entertainment.  She is a daughter of God, whether she believes it or not.  You staring at her contribute to her degradation and to yours.  And to your spouse’s.  Or, if you are single, you have cheapened yourself for your future wife.

            I came to face-to-face with sin’s long, damaging reach this week.  I was talking to a recovering addict.  She was proud that had gone a couple of decades “clean,” no drug use.  However, she was so afraid of her addiction that when she had to have a tumor removed, she would not take any narcotic pain medication.  She was afraid the Percoset would trigger in her a desire for stronger drugs. 

            Someone, somewhere had to produce the cocaine; a sin.  Someone else would have to sell it to her; a sin.  She had to have been at a place where for the first time, she knowingly took a deadly, illegal drug; sin. 

            OK, people have said to me, I don’t do drugs and never look at porn.  I don’t get drunk and I have not committed murder.  Do you give completely loyalty to God?  If not, then to what?  Do you treat those around you with grace and love?  Always?  Don’t you sometimes come down hard and manipulatively or abusively on others?  Ever lie?  Can we really lump mild deception, a bit of foul language, and mean words in with murder and drug dealing?  Well, the damage each sin does is different, but when live through the Bible, then we realize that God is holy and anything short of his holiness cuts us off from him.  To be cut off from God is to live apart from God. 

            When Cain killed Abel, God banished him.  Cain said to God, “This punishment is too hard. … You’re making me live far from you” (Genesis 4:14).  In the Bible, the worst possible fate for a person was to be cut off from God.  That’s what our sins do – cut us off from God.  The Bible insists that all people are sinners. 

            Our sin nature, though, does not define God.  God responds to us, but in doing so, God remains God – holy, forgiving, loving.  As we cut ourselves off, God chases after us.  We sin.  God pursues.  The Father in the Prodigal Son story is one of many Biblical pictures of God’s stance toward us in our sin.  The son had thrown away everything, but when he turned back, his father ran to embrace him.  That’s God, arms outstretched, running to us.

            Look again at Judges 6.  Note the relational dynamic.  The Lord says in verse 22, “I [will] find out if Israel will worship and obey me.”  God knew evil was in the world.  When Noah’s family came off the ark after God had wiped out evil in the flood, God received the worship Noah offered and observed that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (Genesis 8:21).  Still, God watched over Israel, appeared to individuals in Israel and reached out to the people.  Time and time again, God called his people back to the lives of holiness he intended for them and for us.  God stuck with this people. 

            When we read the Bible, we accept God as the Bible presents him.  We also come to grips with the reality about ourselves.  We are sinners.  But thank God for Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross!  It means that while our story is marked by sin, those marks have given way to something new – the new creations we become in Christ.  Paul says it well in Romans 3.

Romans 3:22-24

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

²² God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. ²³ All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. ²⁴ But God treats us much better than we deserve,^[a]and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins.

Paul’s matter-0f-fact assertion shows the bottom line: in Christ we are free.  The prophet Hosea, who lived in the sinful century prior to the exile, speaks God’s hear.  This is what drives God to continue with humans after we have turne from him to sin.  After we have walked away from God, violated his commands, hurt each other, after we’ve done it 1, 10, 1000 times, this is God’s way with us.

Hosea 11:8-9 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

⁸ Israel, I can’t let you go.
    I can’t give you up.
How could I possibly destroy you
as I did the towns of Admah
    and Zeboiim?^[a]
I just can’t do it.
My feelings for you
    are much too strong.
⁹ Israel, I won’t lose my temper
    and destroy you again.
I am the Holy God—
not merely some human,
    and I won’t stay angry.

            To get into the Bible and to get the Bible into us, we have to accept what the Bible says about humans, about you and me.  We are made in God’s image.  But, we sin.

            We also accept what is said about God.  He loves us.  In Christ, we are finally free from sin, free to live in holiness and love.

AMEN

The Eternal Fate of those who have Never Heard the Gospel

            Dawson McAlister has answered the anxious phone calls of teenagers for almost 40 years.  In his career, he has seen youth ministry go from record albums to cassettes to CD’s to MP3 files.  He has been on radio shows and run hotlines where teens can call when they are in crisis.  But sometimes the calls are questions, not emergencies. 

He received this letter:

“Dear Dawson, I know the Bible says that knowing Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. But there are people in remote parts of the world who may never get a chance to hear about God or Jesus. What happens to them when they die?”[i]

            Popular pastor and author John Piper received a similar contact and he responded with the following words.

Dear [Sarah], You asked what happens to people who live far away from the gospel and have never heard about Jesus and die without faith in him.[ii]

            It’s really an age-old question.  These are examples of teenagers posing this question to Christians leaders.  But the same query might come to you or me.  How we would respond were we sitting in the seat of Dawson McAlister or John Piper?  What do we say when we are asked what is the eternal state for someone who dies having never known about Jesus?

            We might think of the uneducated peasant in North Korea, someone who never goes to school, never has access to media, knows nothing about the west and is told by oppressive government forces that religion is evil.  Or, perhaps we think of a woman in an extremist country where women are not permitted to get education and are not allowed to know about the world.  How could individuals in these situations know they are to surrender their hearts to Jesus?

            There are adults who have such extreme mental disabilities that they are not able to care for themselves.  Do they stand before God accountable for themselves?  Our courts take a person’s mental state in mind when rendering a verdict.  Is God as merciful as that?  Or, what about children?  We don’t like to say it, but sometimes, children die.  If a child dies and has never expressed faith in Jesus and never been baptized, does that child go to Hell?  I have heard people say a child is not guilty until the age of accountability.  I don’t know where that thinking comes from and I certainly don’t know what the age of accountability is.  I know I received my first spanking by the time I was 2 year old and I certainly knew when I was being naughty. 

            One other category of person I consider here are those who have been taught by abusive pastors or parents.  If the person who tells you to love Jesus is the same person who hits you or violates and rapes you, repeatedly, are you going to be interested in the Jesus that person is offering?

            This is a conundrum for Christians trying to come up with a neat salvation formula.  There are some who don’t fit the categories.  Or, if they do fit the model, then they fit on the side of those who don’t have the gospel, have not responded in faith, and are thus bound for a godless eternity.  Another way we refer to a Godless eternity is Hell.  But if someone never has the chance to receive Christ, then that’s horribly unfair. 

            When we admit that there are a lot of people, probably in the billions, that have no opportunity to know Jesus, then we have a problem with our salvation model. 

            There is a video on You Tube in which Pastor David Platt sticks with the model.  He’s standing in India and he talks about being surrounded by hundreds of millions of Buddhists who are lost for eternity because they don’t know Christ.  His angle is that because we know so many are destined for Hell, we must evangelize with urgency.  Now before I disagree with Platt, I will say a couple of things.  First, I agree evangelism is of the highest importance and we are called to it.  Second, I think he does some good work and I recommend his book Radical.  It is excellent.

            However, on the notion that if we don’t evangelize then billions will go to Hell, I have to disagree.  First, it makes God look bad.  I know Platt and numerous Christians who believe as he does will respond by saying that all people are sinners and all people deserve Hell.  I know Romans 3 says all have sinned (v.23).  Romans 6 says the wage of sin is death (v.23).  Note it says death, not “Hell.”  I know those passages and I absolutely believe all are sinners.  Yet, to take that and say it is by grace that God saves some is still grossly unfair and unjust. 

What kind of tyrant is God to say He’s going to punish us all in Hell because we deserve it, but then He’ll rescue a few if they respond to Jesus correctly?  But to the rest, they don’t even get that chance.  This makes God look callous.  The God of this scheme is not a God of perfect love; limited love, maybe, but not selfless, agape love. 

This thinking is an assault on God’s character.  It also calls into question God’s power.  As we read in 2 Peter 3 two weeks ago, God wants everyone to be saved (v.9).  Is David Platt saying that God is depending on the success or failure of evangelistic Christians to achieve his desire of salvation of people?  Platt may forcefully deny that his is implying this.  Most of the time pastors who take such an approach find the implications distasteful.  But it is unavoidable.  To say we must evangelize because people will go to Hell if we don’t is to put the eternal life of others on our shoulders.  My shoulders aren’t that strong.  God wants me to work with Him – but not like this.

Paul never reduced salvation to a formula or a scheme.  Paul says salvation is worked out with “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  Salvation is something we discover and rediscover throughout our lives.  It is 100% Jesus-dependent, but it is not built on us reciting a creed or having a great testimony.  Salvation is about the work He does on the cross and the places He occupies in our lives.  It is about receiving his forgiveness. 

Having said and having critiqued David Platt’s position, and let me re-emphasize how much respect and appreciation I have for Platt, I have to acknowledge we are still left with the question.  What about people who don’t know Jesus and never hear about him or lack the capacity to express what some call “saving faith”?  What about those who want nothing to do with church because they have only heard Jesus’ name come from the mouths of those who deeply wounded them? 

I reject the idea that we can be assured that they are Hell-bound because such a process makes God look callous and puts too much emphasis upon our evangelistic success.  But, I reject it for an even bigger reason.  This scheme is a failure to trust God’s goodness. 

In Romans 1, Paul identifies people who have never heard any scripture.

¹⁸ From heaven God shows how angry he is with all the wicked and evil things that sinful people do to crush the truth. ¹⁹ They know everything that can be known about God, because God has shown it all to them. ²⁰ God’s eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made. That’s why those people don’t have any excuse. 

           

            Within us, part of being created in God’s image, is an innate sense of the holy.  We see this in Psalm 19.

                The heavens keep telling the wonders of God,
    and the skies declare what he has done.
² Each day informs the following day;
    each night announces to the next.
³ They don’t speak a word,  and there is never
    the sound of a voice.
⁴ Yet their message reaches all the earth,
    and it travels around the world.

            Through nature, through the whisper of the Holy Spirit, and through the hard work of evangelists and missionaries and Christians sharing their stories, God reaches people.  But it is not only through missionaries.  Missionaries do not “take God” to the lost.  God has always been with the lost.  Missionaries and evangelists and witnesses, you and me, we help people understand the truth about the God who has always been with them, speaking through the created world around them.

            When Jesus speaks about the end, the final judgment, he says,

¹³ But if [we]keep on being faithful right to the end, [we] will be saved. ¹⁴ When the good news about the kingdom has been preached all over the world and told to all nations, [then] the end will come (Matthew 24:13-14).

I take this to mean that the Gospel is going to reach the world.  I don’t believe anyone will die and be sentenced to Hell without a chance to respond to God’s grace. 

            In his response to the girl who asked about the eternal fate of people who don’t know Jesus, John Piper said people would not be condemned for knowledge they did not have.  They would not go to Hell for rejecting Jesus.  He also said they would not be saved without knowledge of Jesus.  His conclusion to the letter writer?  He invited her to pray for missionaries and consider becoming one when she got older.

            His answer is not bad, but I like Dawson McAlister’s better.  Like Piper, he invites the questioner to pray for missionaries and consider becoming one.  However, he adds,

We can be assured that God, who is loving and just, is in control. God is sovereign, and he will always do what is right. God is an awesome God, and nothing will stop him from getting the good news to even the most remote parts of the world.[iii]

It may sound too simple, but there are times when we are called to trust God.  He will accomplish salvation. 

            Jesus offers a somewhat stern example of the principle of trusting God after the resurrection.  Peter had denied knowing Jesus prior to the trial.  After the crucifixion and resurrection, three times Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?”  Three times he says, “You know I love you, Lord.”  Three affirmations come for Peter’s three previous denials.  He is reinstated as an apostle, but then Jesus intimates that he will die a martyr’s death. 

            Uncomfortable with this, he wants to know if the same fate will befall the Apostle John.  Listen to the dialogue between him and Jesus:

²⁰ Peter turned and saw Jesus' favorite disciple following them. He was the same one who had sat next to Jesus at the meal and had asked, “Lord, who is going to betray you?” ²¹ When Peter saw that disciple, he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”

²² Jesus answered, “What is it to you, if I want him to live until I return? You must follow me.” 

            Follow me.  That is His command to us.  It is not for us to know who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell.  As I said earlier, I enthusiastically support David Platt’s stance that there Christians must evangelize and do so with urgency.  But the reason I feel this way is not because God needs us to rescue people from Hell.  I am an advocate for evangelism because people are living without Jesus.  I cannot imagine that. 

            If you don’t think Jesus is so awesome you could not imagine life without him, then your biggest need is to discover how wonderful Jesus is.  Not a far off, hopefully-we’ll-see-Him-in-Heaven-someday-Jesus; that is not what I mean.  I mean Holy-Spirit-in-my-life-right-now.  In the Great commission, Matthew 28:19-20, he sends us.  We are to go to the world to make disciples.  We’re not on a mission to rescue people from Hell.  We are out inviting people to life.

            As for those who never hear the Gospel, I don’t know.  I am agnostic, without knowledge regarding their fate.  That is up to God and I am glad it is.  For a second week in a row I have said to you, I don’t know.  Last week, I admitted I do not know if Hell is eternal torment or temporary torment followed by annihilation.  I don’t know and I do not know what happens in eternity to those who do have never the opportunity to hear the Gospel.  I am grateful to leave that to God.  I know God is good.  I am happy to share the words of Anglican Bishop Rowan Williams.

We’re very reluctant, we Christians, to leave things to God to sort out.  We have, often, a vague feeling that God hasn’t read the right books.  And we need to be rather protective toward him and make sure he knows the right policy. 

I find [Williams continues], and I speak only for myself, that I am very content to let God be the judge of how far anyone outside the visible family of faith is related to Jesus or has turned toward the Father. 

Bishop Williams speaks for me also.  I am very content to let God judge people and determine their eternities.  God is fair and better yet, God is merciful.  God’s mercy is far superior to my sense of fairness.  

            I do have a job to do.  We all do, as Christ followers.  We are to announce His Kingdom in the world.  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And we are to make disciples.  He does the work and in His mercy, God invites us to join Him at work in the world.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.christianitytoday.com/iyf/advice/faithdoubt/8c1046.html

[ii] http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/letter-to-a-12-year-old-girl-about-the-eternal-destiny-of-those-who-have-not-heard-the-gospel

[iii] http://www.christianitytoday.com/iyf/advice/faithdoubt/8c1046.html