Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
God's Involvement in Human Affairs
(From Forerunner Commentary)
|
Ruth 3:11-18
Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, return from Moab after losing their husbands. Still a young woman, Ruth wants to be married again, especially because of the security and sufficiency that a husband would bring to her and Naomi. She happens to glean in the field of Boaz, and he generously helps her, giving her special privileges and a great deal of grain. Being a responsible mother-in-law, Naomi designs a scheme to get Boaz to marry Ruth. She instructs Ruth on what to do, and the young woman follows them precisely. Boaz is a good man, and perhaps, too, very predictable. He does exactly what Naomi had figured he would do and responds to Ruth's request to "take your maidservant under your wing" (Ruth 3:9). What sort of emotions do about-to-be-betrothed couples exhibit? Certainly "excitement" just begins to describe the emotions going through a bride-to-be's mind. Ruth was probably, in turns, ecstatic, nervous, relieved, and uncertain. Remember that she was a Moabitess in Israel. She had likely considered her chances of finding a husband to be slim to none. Nor should we discount that Boaz had given her six ephahs of barley. We fail to realize just how generous a gift this was. If nothing else, it meant that she and Naomi would not go hungry for quite a while, as six ephahs equate to three bushels or 132 liters of grain—it was a wonder that she could carry so much home! It also amounted to a small bit of wealth because not only could they eat it, but they could also sell it. Even so, the barley was probably not the primary reason for her excitement. All atwitter, she spilled out her story to Naomi, tripping over her words in her giddiness, pacing the floor, grabbing her mother-in-law's hands, and hugging her, imagining everything that could go wrong and despairing that it would. Naomi, older and wiser—and surely tired from a long night of waiting—says, "Ruth, just sit still and see how all this turns out." To get the lesson from this charming story, we must recall that Boaz is a type of Jesus Christ, and Ruth represents the newly called individual. Boaz, here, is redeeming Ruth, just as Christ redeems us from the death penalty that falls on us when we sin. Not only that, like Christ, Boaz was preparing his bride, as it were, smoothing the road for himself to take her as his wife. In addition, Naomi is a type of the church, the one responsible for instructing this young woman who was just beginning to have a relationship with Boaz. Her advice, to sit still and see how her redemption would work out, is just as timely today for all Christians, new and old. Our God will redeem us, but we are often ignorant or blind to how He is going about it. If we simply sit still, be patient, and let events run their course without trying to interfere in them, we will soon learn how God works and build faith in Him. Only when we are still and focused on seeing God at work can we see His intimate involvement in our affairs.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Beating the Rat Race (Part Five)
|
|
Proverbs 24:21
Obviously, this is a caution against revolution, attempting to overthrow the government. Most rebellions are hugely unsuccessful, stamped out by the government with merciless violence, shown to great effect in Les Miserables. The hotheaded university students' revolution against the French state suffers brutal annihilation, their hasty barricades overrun, and all their hopes for just and glorious change dashed. This warning takes on greater significance due to the mention of God's involvement. If we believe Romans 13:1-7 is true, we also believe that God is engaged in the governance of nations, working out His purpose through "the lowest of men" (Daniel 4:17; see verses 25, 32; 5:21). Moreover, in the modern nations of Israel, He is even more intimately involved. As Winston Churchill declared, ". . . he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below." From this vantage point, we can conclude that agitating for change could be fighting against God. He may very well have orchestrated the nation's intolerable conditions to instigate the next phase of His plan. Among humans, change is inevitable because people are different. No two people can agree completely about anything, it seems, so their solutions to problems will often be diverse. And not all change is bad; things can be changed for the better. Certainly, when people sincerely repent and turn to God, what great changes occur (II Corinthians 7:11)! Yet, change for the sake of change is dangerous, for who can foresee the effects that change will bring? The surest course we can take is to throw in our lot with God and cling to Him and His way with all our might. He says in Malachi 3:6, "For I am the LORD, I do not change." Why should He change when His way, His government, is perfect?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Word of the Hour
|
|
Amos 4:6-13
In the book of Amos, God shows that He uses "natural" disasters to teach people lessons, to bring them to repentance, to correct their ways. In this passage, He also admits that most people fail to make the connection between the disaster and their sins. Secular Americans snicker at insurance policies that refer to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters as "acts of God," when they, in their scientific arrogance, prefer to call them "acts of nature" or "weather events." Even those who are moderately religious, like the Deists of the Enlightenment, do not believe that God is active in earth's events, whether natural or human. To them, He may be watching, but He certainly is not involved in human affairs. This points out how utterly blind to God most people are, even Christians. For starters, because they are not looking for God's hand of intervention in their lives, they are certainly not going to see it. Having become so secular and scientific in their outlook, the miraculous is totally off their radar. They consider those who report of miracles to be medieval in their thinking and the miracles themselves to be mere coincidences of natural phenomena or overstatements of what actually occurred. To them, miracles are impossible because, by definition, they are unverifiable by scientific methods and therefore do not and never have happened. Today's thoroughly modern Christian does not derive this negative view of God's intervention from His Book. In the Bible, divine involvement in human affairs occurs from cover to cover—in fact, it is the central fact of human existence, which the Bible takes great pains to reveal. At every critical point in man's history, God has been involved. At Creation, before and after the Flood, at the dispersal of the nations from Babel, in the history of Israel, among the great empires of ancient history from Egypt to Rome—God was instrumental. God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came to this earth and lived among us, bringing us the good news of His Kingdom and dying for our salvation. Then He sent His apostles to the four corners of the globe to spread the word among those He would call. That sounds as if God is active and involved in human affairs. As Creator, He certainly has power over the various elements of His creation. Manipulating the weather is like child's play to Him. He can send rain or drought anywhere, anytime. He flooded the entire earth to a depth greater than the height of the tallest mountain of the time, so flashfloods, coastal floods, and river floods are easy. Spinning tornadoes is like breathing to Him, and earthquakes rumble and tumble at His command. The Bible makes many claims about His power over the elements (Job 26:7-12; Psalm 147:15-18; Nahum 1:3-6; etc.). Jesus Himself calmed the storm with a word (Matthew 8:24-26). He also says that in His Millennial Kingdom, He will send drought on areas that refuse to keep His feasts (Zechariah 14:16-19). Are we to assume that, for some reason, He does not punish for sin now?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Divine Intervention
|
|
James 5:15-18
To many people, it is a head-scratcher to consider the vagaries of answered prayer—or should I say "unanswered prayer"? That is precisely the puzzler: Why are some prayers answered and some not? Why are some people miraculously healed of a dreaded disease, while others with the same affliction suffer ghastly declines and die? Is there rhyme or reason to having one's prayer answered, or is it just the luck of the draw? So far, we have not mentioned God, yet it is our understanding of Him that either provides us the answer or leaves us confused, dejected, and perhaps in doubt. In fact, to true believers, prayer is a prime example of God's existence and providence. On the other hand, skeptics almost invariably bring up the "prayer question" when spreading their disbelief, saying, "How can a loving God allow those who pray to Him to suffer so much?" Or, "Statistically, praying people are only a little more fortunate than non-praying people when it comes to overcoming normally fatal illnesses." Or, "There is no proof whatsoever that one's prayers rise any higher than the ceiling. Didn't Solomon say, 'Everything occurs alike to all' in Ecclesiastes 9:2? So how can we know that a so-called 'answer to prayer' is more than mere happenstance?" No one who knows God would utter such cynical things. The Supreme Being revealed in the pages of the Bible is not capricious, uncaring, distracted, respecting of persons, or absent without leave, as these doubting comments suggest. To the contrary, Scripture shows Him to be reliable, loving, alert, just, and involved in the affairs of His creatures. If not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without His notice, how much more involved is He with the well-being of humanity—and individual humans? Thus, the mystery surrounding the answered-prayer question cannot be solved by finding fault with God or by doubting Him or His existence. The fault lies in us, in our understanding of His purpose and in our expectations of what He will do. At its most critical level, the solution to this prayer conundrum begins with the fact that God tells us to pray to Him. If we believe that He is reasonable and purposeful, we must conclude that He has determined that praying is meaningful and helpful to us. By itself, praying to God benefits us whether or not any of our requests are fulfilled. This has little to do with such things as whether we live longer or are healthier or happier because we pray. All things considered, God is less concerned with our length of days or our joie de vivre than He is with our eternal life and spiritual character, though He certainly wants us well and joyful. Therefore, the reason God commands us to pray to Him is fundamentally spiritual in nature and so the benefits of praying are also mostly spiritual. Jesus teaches in John 17:3 that eternal life is knowing "the only true God, and Jesus Christ." This informs us, then, that true spirituality, true religion, revolves around a relationship with God the Father and His Son. Communication is vital to the success of any relationship, and prayer is fundamentally a form of communication. Through the sacrifice of our Savior and the facility of the Holy Spirit given to all true Christians, in prayer we have an open line of communication with the very God of the universe! Prayer allows us to maintain and deepen our relationship with our Father and Elder Brother despite the distance and the differences in our natures. In addition, Jesus came to reveal the Supreme Being to mankind as a Father (John 1:18), and He instructs us to come before Him in prayer as children to their Father (Matthew 6:9). This sets the basic bounds of the relationship: of a loving, faithful Father to his obedient and adoring children. It is not a relationship of equals, nor is it a business partnership or trade association. It is a family relationship, in which God is the ultimate Superior and the other, the Christian, a humble subordinate. In all relationships of this kind, the will and purposes of the superior always take priority. As even Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, after asking for His cup of suffering and death to pass from Him, "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). These are not the only principles we need to understand about prayer, but they are among the most important. What do they imply? First, prayer is not simply a means of getting things from God. In fact, if that is our approach to prayer, we are working counter to God's purpose for us, for He is trying to instill His giving, outgoing character in us. Until we change our motives for praying, we will find prayer to be frustrating and ineffective. Second, prayer is just one facet of a far larger, spiritual relationship. It must be seen in its place in God's purpose in our lives. We may be praying from morning until night, but it will be just a string of empty words if we are not also conforming the rest of our lives to the will of God. Third, prayer requires faith. The world's view of faith is cheap and simplistic, but biblical faith—real confidence in God's goodness toward us—is an essential part of Christian prayer. A Christian who prays in faith makes his petitions known to God and trusts that he is not only heard but answered to his ultimate good. Whether the answer is "positive" or "negative," he can smile and say, "What You decide on this request is the best for me right now." This final point is what Paul concludes in Romans 8:23-30: God knows best what will bring us to eternal life and glory in His Kingdom. So, in the end, to those who know God, there really is no prayer conundrum. Our prayers are heard and answered, and all things will work out for the good of those whom God has chosen to have a loving relationship with Him.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Prayer Conundrum
|
|
 |
The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment
Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. This daily newsletter provides a starting point for personal study, and gives valuable insight into the verses that make up the Word of God. See what over 155,000 subscribers are already receiving each day.
Email Address:
|
We respect your privacy. Your email address will not be sold, distributed, rented, or in any way given out to a third party. We have nothing to sell. You may easily unsubscribe at any time. |
|
|
