Subject: What is the people sin? |
Bible Note: Confusing: How I wish it were possible to chat in person with some of my friends on the forum, old and new, and since I never meet a stranger, as the saying goes, may I address you as one of my new friends? You know, Job of the Old Testament had some experiences that were obviously confusing to him and in some ways he became confused. The story of Job is an exciting one, now full of faith and doubt, now warmth and pathos, now hope and despair. And Job, being fully human, had some questions of God, and I believe the record would allow us to infer that Job didn't quite fully understand just who God is and how Mighty He is, or at any rate, that Job's vision of the sovereign God had grown pale and dim. In short, Job's God had, in Job's mind, grown a bit too small. So beginning in Chapter 38 of Job and continuing to the end of the book you will find some amazing reading. God, in a long series of highly skillful rhetorical questions -- rhetorical because God knew perfectly well that Job could not answer a single one of them -- God establishes who He is and who Job is, thus firmly but lovingly putting Job in his place. It begins to dawn upon the discerning reader of the Book of Job how foolish and futile it is for finite man to question the infinite God or impugn His motives..... I saw a cartoon frame one time. In the first frame a small boy was looking up to the towering figure of his father and the caption was, "My, but Daddy is a big man." In the second frame, the little boy had grown up to become a young man whose stature over powered the bent, shrunken figure of his father, and the caption was, "Poor little old Dad, the world has left him behind." And in the third and final frame, the youth had grown into a mature man, and he had been matured and buffeted by the trials of life, and he was pictured as a normal-sized man but his father was pictured as a giant of a man, and the caption was, "I was right the first time." Isn't that about how it is, confusing, with us human beings in our perception of God? When we are young, full of faith and trust, we see God as being big indeed. Then we go out into the world and absorb the things of the world, grow wise, self-sufficient and big in our own eyes, while God grows smaller and smaller and we think we need Him less and less. Then, as they always have a way of doing, the storms of life assail us and toss us around, we lose both anchor and rudder, and are eventually washed up on a deserted shore like a derelict ship. And all of a sudden the immensity of God looms on our spiritual horizon and we come to our senses and realize, like the man in the cartoon, that we were right about our heavenly Father the first time. He indeed is big..... And, finally, I'd be so pleased if you should choose to ponder the meaning of Jesus' words as recorded in Mark 10:13-16: "And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. And when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, 'Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.'" It is in trusting Jesus with the absolute trust of a child that we sinful, sorry souls can be justified before a Holy God. The only thing we accomplish by standing before God and asking Him Why this? or Why that? is the making of ourselves greater and greater fools as our years roll by, and we end this vain and fruitless quest, this futile journey, even less wise than when we first began. --Hank |