It's 3 days before the end of my "read through the Bible plan" and I am 5 days behind. I am in a mad dash to finish before the New Year comes and it feels like a humbling punch in the face. This is what I read yesterday...
“Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?”
Lamentations 3:37-38
Those are theologically heavy words for my human ears.
Chapter 1: Can heat in the hand of God be like a (notice the simile) river of living water?
The danger, when I run across passages like this and also Isaiah 45:7, is that I either awkwardly sweep these verses under my theological rug or just outrightly explain them away by spiritual-correctness. But what I have been learning over this "read through the Bible in a year plan" is that if we as Christians do not have a robust biblical understanding and trust of who God is in His totality, we will have a difficult time explaining how heat in our lives and the lives of the people we are trying to help is actually a God-sized reality (Is. 45:7). Heat is in the hand of God.
“Wait a minute, Joel. Are you saying, heat comes from God? Have you not read James 1:11-15 in your "read through the Bible in a year plan" yet? The little brother of Jesus says that, 'God is not tempted by evil, nor does tempt anyone.'"
Great question! Notice what James says about a person’s circumstances in which they are being tempted--James 1:11-15:
"For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away…" (This guy is in a luxury garden with a manicured lawn with automatic sprinklers and yet he gets dried up and maybe even burned by the "scorching heat.")
"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial..." (This “blessed” guy is living “under” the looming, dark cloud of a persistent “trial” so which one is worse, scorching heat or persistent trials?)
"...when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life..." (Notice the timeframe of how long the “blessed” guy has to remain steadfast in order to receive this crown…all his life! Because James makes it clear that he doesn’t receive the “crown of life” until the trial is over and the trial is not over until he dies.)
Verse 12 goes on to say, “...which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." James 1:11-15
Guess where those “desires” are? Yep, you guessed it, hidden, inside us, hanging around the exit row of our heart, just waiting for the opportunity to make a grand entrance into the physical world of our life. Nothing encourages our desires to open the exit door of our hearts more than a little (or a lot of) heat. And the Bible makes it clear that heat in the form of temptation is “common to man…” (1 Cor. 10:13).
"Hold your theological horses, Joel. Now you are just going in circles."
Ok, so here's what I mean.
“Heat” can come in the form of evil, like what Satan did to bring about the death of Job’s children, but when heat comes from God it is never evil. For example, the life-saving restraint God put on Satan in Job 1:12 was still heat, “…all that he has is in your (Satan's) hand. Only against him (physically) do not stretch your hand.” God gave Satan permission to turn up the heat in Job's life, but he was not allowed to cook him to death. Satan was given the opportunity to cook Job, just not kill him in the process (as a matter of fact, it was so hot Job wished he could die, see Job 3:20-22).
“Heat” from God in any form is always used as a blessing by God's providence (all-powerful all-knowing care) when we trust Him (Prov. 3:3*-8 and Rom. 8:22-28*). Now you know why I started this out by saying, "These are theologically heavy words for my human ears," but here's my theological bottom line...
A robust biblical understanding of who God is in His totality can save us in the most difficult and painful realities.
How can I say this with such confidence? Because God himself says this (Isaiah 59:1) and he never lies (Hebrews 6:18).
Remember the sparkling river in Jeremiah 17:8 passage? The “blessed man” was the man who faced a devastating “year of drought” with scorching, intense heat and yet because his roots were deeply trusting in God, he was like a tree (notice the simile) planted by a river that “does not fear when the heat comes…and is not anxious in the year of drought” (v. 9). The same heat that dries up the desert shrub is the same heat that drives the roots deeper in the tree, "whose trust is the LORD" (Jer. 17:7).
So what in the world does that actually look like?
Where you are planted, metaphorically speaking, will determine what you are like.
Chapter 2: The “Simile” of Profound Reality
Psalm 1:3 “He is like a tree planted by the streams of water…”
This is one of the most vivid and well known similes in the whole Bible, but we must not confuse it with the personification of an easy life. Don't lose me here! Being like a willow tree overlooking a romantically placid stream in some Victorian novel (or Hallmark movie) is not what Jeremiah the prophet or the psalmist David wanted us to picture in our minds.
The use of these two similes is pointing out that even though the famine and drought comes upon us and the deadly heat of the desert’s sun is scorching the world we live in, it does not bring death or dread or even anxiety. Why? For those who trust in the Lord, we are a biblical simile, “like” a tree that has tapped into an underground, unseen source of life that will allow us to withstand whatever the sun throws at us.
The underground "way of escape": These two similes used in Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1 are the reason the Apostle Paul can write, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability (just like He did with Job), but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
The underground “way of escape” comes in the form of those “streams of water” for those whose “trust is the LORD” (Jer. 17:7).
In other words, the “heat” is never the problem for those who have "a robust biblical understanding and trust of the totality of God." Even though “heat” can come by the hand of God, God is always using the “heat” to get to our hearts. The real problem is not what is above making us sweat (our circumstances), but below the surface of circumstances at the soul level...except one time in history.
Chapter 3: Only one time in history...
Almost starving to death because of a 40 day fast, pushing his body to the metabolic limit of compromise, exposed to scorching heat in the day and freezing temperatures at night, alone in the desert for 40 days with no The North Face camping gear or a Sig Sauer 226 MK25 9mm (Navy SEAL weapon of choice) to scare off roving coyotes (Mark 1:13b), the Gospels of Matthew and Mark tell us of the jaw-clenching event and the one and only time in history where the "heat" was the problem and the "heart" was the solution.
When Jesus was in the desert with the Devil being spiritually and verbally tormented by profound and pervasive temptations (see Matt. 1:1-10), he was not sinning by being presented with opportunities to sin (we could call that extreme heat). And in the end, Jesus did not sin because He did not long for (desire) the opportunity to sin nor did He want (desire) what the devil was offering Him. In other words, God turned up the heat in His Son’s life so that the world would see what He was made of, to see what Jesus really desired in his heart, what was really going on below the surface of His spiritual devotion.
In the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33-36), when Jesus “began to be greatly distressed and troubled...he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’” (Mark 14:33-36). Those final words are haunting because we know that the Father did not "remove" that cup from His Son.
To a troubled soul, to someone “under trial,” these words are theologically heavy for our human ears because it is in the "heat" of life that we have a difficult time wanting (desiring) what our Father wants (desires). Jesus wanted relief but He wanted His Father’s will more than He wanted His own version of “good” like Adam and Eve wanted (Gen. 3:5-6) in the problem-free Garden. This is why Jesus is called the “last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45, “Thus it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being;' the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”
Question: What can "a robust biblical understanding and trust of who God is in His totality" actually do for you and me in the heat of life? (By the way, if you're still reading at this point, message me with your address to be entered in a drawing for Costa Rican coffee....not kidding.)
Answer: It offers to us the "a life-giving spirit" that is like (notice the simile) "a stream of water"(Ps. 1:3; Jer. 17:8) in the desert drought of life. The second Adam extinguished the fires of hell for those of us who trust Him, so that we are not "surprised at the fiery trials when it comes upon you, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Pet. 4:12).
Just in case I'm tempted to forget why it's so hot some days, I am going to finish my "read through the Bible in a year plan" to remind myself why I trust the Lord, and then I'm going to do it again this year so that if I find myself in the desert being tempted to forget God and take the shady way out, I will turn to the only Man who walked out of the desert alive and uncompromised by the heat of life. In my weakness, He is strong.