God Among The gods

Today’s Reading:

• Micah 6:1-7:20; 2 Chronicles 32:1-8; 2 Kings 18:13-18; Isaiah 36:1-3; 2 Kings 18:19-37; Isaiah 36:4-22

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• “Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The LORD will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the LORD can rescue Jerusalem from me?” – Isaiah 36:18-20, NLT

Thoughts:

• It’s easy to wonder if perhaps our God isn’t so unique.

Obviously, if you’ve read anything I have written so far, you know that I am a Christian. I believe in the God of the Bible—of the Old and New Testaments—and I believe specifically that we are set free from our sins and invited to know Him through His Son Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose from the dead and lives forever as the eternal God who also became a man. I believe that I have a relationship with God, and that His Holy Spirit lives in me and changes me and reminds me to look to Jesus day by day.

As a Christian, I also believe that this is the only true God. I deny that the God of Islam is the same God. I deny that those who follow Judaism know the true God, even though they share more than half of my Bible with me, because Judaism without Jesus Christ knows something about the true God but refuses to know Him as He has fully revealed Himself to be. I deny the many gods of Hinduism to be real gods—perhaps demons, but not gods. I deny the gods of ancient Greece, the gods of ancient Rome, the gods of animism, the gods of the cults, the gods that were worshiped by ancient Israel’s neighbors, and any other god or gods that anyone might claim deserve mankind’s worship. There is only one true God. And I know Him.

There. Now I sound really arrogant.

But more than that, in today’s world, I might actually sound stupid. Because in today’s world, with a whole academic field devoted to comparative religions, scholars have discovered not only that different religions are different, but that different religions and deity-related mythologies are eerily similar. For instance, see this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY. The argument in this video is similar to the argument made by Sennacherib’s “chief of staff” (NLT): “Gods are all pretty much the same. The LORD/Jesus is a God/god. Therefore, the LORD/Jesus is no more powerful or real than any other deity.”

How do we deal with this argument? In some ways, it seems to have merit. After all, even though we Christians call many beneficial events in our lives “miraculous,” most of the events we call miracles happen to unbelievers from other religions, and even to atheists. How many of our experiences have been brought to scientists and subjected to their thorough scrutiny to such an extent that even atheists have to deal with scientifically documented evidence of God’s work in our world? And even if we had a bunch of scientifically inexplicable stories, it may well be that people from other religions have some, too—stories which they would use to leverage people toward faith in their gods. And then we would have to deal with the reality that these stories are not the norm—even Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego admitted that God might not help them out of their fiery predicament (Daniel 3:17-18). Christians often go through experiences just as horrible as the experiences anybody else would go through.

I have a couple of suggestions for refuting this argument. First, we should examine (as I still need to do more thoroughly) similar stories to find out whether they were viewed as true earthly history or not. Second, we should examine what archaeology has revealed about our own God, in order to find out what kinds of evidence exist regarding His impact on earthly history. Third, perhaps we should take better notes on current miraculous events—scientists are doing studies to compare healings among prayed for people and unprayed for people, and those of us who have seen God’s wonders ought to be helping them explore the evidence we have experienced. Fourth, we need to turn back to the pages of our Scriptures to remember what the Bible says that God has done in space and time history—the list is very impressive, and we need to consider whether history could possibly have resulted in today’s world without God’s intervention.

Because the Bible’s claim is that God sometimes does intervene. In tomorrow’s reading (2 Kings 19) Hezekiah is saved from an army of 185,000 Assyrians in response to his prayers. If that’s just a myth, then don’t believe it. But if this really happened, don’t just call it a coincidence (even if God used some horrible earthly plague to defeat the huge army). If this is history, then God is not just one of the gods. He is exactly who He claims to be, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe who loves His people, who sent Jesus to save all who believe in Him, and who is making all things new in His time.

Even if others sometimes think of Jesus as just “one of the (false) gods,” the question still remains – Are they right or wrong? The benefits of knowing Him are nothing to sneeze at just because others claim He’s nonsense. Don’t miss out unless there’s nothing to miss out on. Pursue the truth.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

When Jesus Gets Specific

Today’s Reading:

• 2 Chronicles 29:3-31:21

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• “If you return to the LORD, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.” – 2 Chronicles 30:9, NLT

Thoughts:
Jesus blesses those who put their hope in Him.

It’s one thing to make broad, general promises about how Jesus will care for everyone who trusts in Him. “Make Jesus your hope, and He’ll be with you no matter what you go through.” Promises like that are easy to make and hard to challenge. Even when someone’s been forced to walk through the gates of hell itself, who can say that the promise failed?

But specific promises – that’s another story. “Pray, and Jesus will heal her.” “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and Jesus will still feed and clothe you.” What if Jesus doesn’t heal her? What if you sell, give… and starve? Specific promises are testable. Which is scary. For one thing, what happens to me if I risk everything and lose? For another thing, what does it say about the whole question of God’s existence and trustworthiness and goodness when specific promises fail? Someone who has experienced a failed promise is left in the dust of life to sift through his questions and decide whether it was truly God who failed, or merely a man.

And yet specific promises are very much a part of the Scriptures. And they are used to motivate people (more cynical people might suggest that they’re used to manipulate people) to obedience and conformity.

Here in 2 Chronicles, newly crowned King Hezekiah starts off his reign with a zealous push for religious reform, and he wants everyone to get back on board with him to worship the LORD. He not only urges the people of his country, Judah, to attend the Passover – he sends couriers up into the country of Israel to invite them to the celebration, too!

And his couriers carry promises that are founded in earlier prophecies. If the people will repent of their wickedness and live faithfully for the LORD, God will bring their families back from captivity and oppression. What a promise! What a chance for joy! And what an opportunity for discouragement—if the promise fails.

Some of today’s “ministers” abuse the power of God’s hope-giving promises for personal gain. There are those who take every single promise—at least, every “good” one—written in the Scriptures and apply it to themselves and their followers, even when a promise is clearly intended for a specific Bible character. And there are too many who freely make promises on God’s behalf whether the promises are found in God’s Word or not. Because of the abuses, it is tempting to allow disillusionment to set in and to discard the belief that any of God’s specific promises are for us.

But when we listen to what Jesus says in the Scriptures, we can’t help but discover that some of His promises are meant for us. And rather than just claiming to “believe in Jesus” in general, He asks us to trust Him with His specific promises.

Do we dare?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.