‘A man poor but wise
... saved the city by his wisdom.
But
nobody remembered that poor man.’ Ecclesiastes 9:15
‘I was demonised
and vilified’, ‘life isn’t fair’, ‘sometimes you step off the pavement and get
hit by a bus’. The words are those of Tony Hayward, Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum, soon to
step aside from his £1m per annum job in the wake of the massive Gulf of Mexico
oil spill. When I heard that phrase, ‘life’s not fair’, one question flashed immediately into my mind. Has Mr. Hayward only just discovered that
life isn’t fair? Some of us discovered
that a long time ago, and have tried to instil the lesson into our
children. And there was another reaction
to Mr. Hayward’s petulant comments.
Learning that he was to move aside with contractual benefits in the
region of $ 17 US dollars, or £11 million, one e-mailer remarked, ‘Hey, I’d like to be hit by a bus that produced no physical
injuries and gave me $17 million. That’s
my kind of bus!’
But
what shall we say to the man who looks at life with a cool mind and detached
eye, and says, ‘You
know, life’s not fair?’ The author of Ecclesiastes shared that
sentiment. The author purports to be
King Solomon, the monarch renowned for his wisdom. He has tried all sorts of activities in the
quest for happiness and satisfaction.
But the hunt proved fruitless. He
dismisses it all as ‘vanity’. The
translators have rung the changes on his verdict, ‘Vanity of vanity, all is vanity’. ‘Meaningless, a chasing after the wind’, or as Petersen
puts it, ‘spitting into the wind’.
He
reminds his readers of an event they may have been familiar with. A lopsided battle takes place. On one side there was a small city with few
inhabitants; on the other a great king and his army, which builds huge
earthworks against the city. In the city
a poor but wise man had a plan for its deliverance. It says, in verse 13, that he
saved the city, but some modern translations suggest it should read, ‘when he might have delivered
the city’. There are two alternatives, therefore. Either, the man who could have saved the city
was overlooked, as verse 16 seems to suggest, ‘But the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are no
longer heeded’. Or he saved the city, but was promptly
forgotten.
When
the danger was over, perspectives changed.
You may recall the bargain struck by the burgers in Browning’s poem The
Pied Piper of Hamelin. Faced with the plague of rats, the good
men promised the piper 1,000 guilders, if he would rid them of the vermin. But when the job was done, and the piper came
to collect his earnings, it was a different tune.
‘But as for the guilders, what we spoke of them, as you very
well know, was in joke. Besides, our
losses have made us thrifty, a thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!’
The piper could have identified
with the ‘life’s
not fair’ mentality.
In
the book of Genesis, Joseph knew a
similar experience. In prison in
As
the scholar Derek Kidner
observed, ‘We
should learn not to count on anything as fleeting as public gratitude’. That wise man
who saved the city could say with Tony Hayward, ‘Life’s not fair’. How do we
respond to that attitude?
First, it poses a
problem
Logically,
the apparent unfairness of life is a
problem for the Christian, but for no one else. It is not a problem for atheists like Richard Dawkins. They take the view that there is only one
reality - the physical, material universe around us. Their belief has been summarized as ‘stuff is all there is’, and any unpleasant aspects of life are explained by
the current state of evolution within the universe, and things therefore could
not be any different, so why complain?
Nor
does the unfairness of life affect religions like Buddhism or Hinduism. They claim that we are all part of the one great
Being and that all distinctions are illusory.
The idea that there is a difference between good and evil is an illusion
- something we will have to overcome on our path to enlightenment.
But
for those in the Judeo-Christian tradition there really is a problem if life
isn’t fair. Christians believe both that
God is loving and that God is all-powerful and the
existence of evil and misfortune disproves one or the other. Someone put it like this - either God is
all-powerful and could prevent all evil and suffering, but since he fails to do
so, he cannot be loving; or, if He is loving, and
longs to prevent such things, his failure to do so proves that he is not
all-powerful. That’s the Christian’s
problem.
In
the Old Testament, the Book of Job was a Jewish attempt to wrestle with that
very issue.
And
for the Christian the problem is at its most acute when we look at the Cross of
[*
See “The
Theophanies of the Old Testament” at end.]
Second, it preserves
the truth
The
truth is that we live in a fallen world.
There is moral evil in the world - pride, envy, lust, greed. And there is natural evil - the awesome force
of earthquake and flood and tornado; and the cruelty in the animal creation
where one species is a predator on another, nature red in tooth and claw.
The
Bible asserts that these things point to the reality that this is a fallen
world. The story in Genesis 3 has weird features - a speaking serpent,
for instance - but it contains precious insights. This world is not as God meant it to be. Something alien has entered in to mar and
destroy. Shame and guilt will haunt us,
work will be laborious, and the land will produce thorns and thistles. The apostle Paul spoke of the creation ‘groaning’. Life isn’t as
it was meant to be.
The evidence is all around us, in
distorted values. Someone said that the world to him looked like a shop
window into which a criminal had broken during the night, and rearranged all
the price tags, so that the trivial things were highly priced and the truly
valuable things were marked at a pittance.
A great scholar wrote, ‘What counts in the worlds judgement is wealth and
self-advertisement’. ‘Genuine, unostentatious merit goes unrecognised, unrewarded.’ That’s our
topsy-turvy world.
Now
to say that we are fallen people is not an insult, but a compliment. It is to say that we were meant for something
higher. Do away with the Bible’s truth
about the fall, and we are literally hopeless.
We are saying that in this harsh, lopsided world things are the best
they can be, and we’d better get used to it. It’s the Bible’s message that is
full of hope. It tells us that we need to be redeemed, but also that since we are
made in the image of God, we can be redeemed.
Third, it presents a
challenge
We
are quick to accuse God for allowing wicked things to happen; but might not God challenge us about the part
we play in contributing to an unfair world.
Might
He not ask, ‘There
are thousands of children dying every, minute from preventable diseases which
you have the means, but obviously not the will, to stop. Is that fair?’
Might
He not ask, ‘There
are millions dying a slow death from starvation while in your western society
more and more of you are becoming obese, through gluttony? Is that fair?’
Might
He not ask, ‘There
are millions who have less to live on each day than you spend when you go out
for a cup of coffee.
And there are others who have more individual wealth than some entire
countries. Is that fair?’
Might
He not ask, ‘And
think how you pollute my world, with oil spills and C02 emissions, and spend
vast sums on yourselves and your homes ... with weddings that cost £3. 2 million dollars ... while millions are homeless refugees. Is that fair?’
Yes,
it is difficult for one person, or even one group, to make much of an impact in
addressing the world’s inequalities. But
the old Chinese proverb is right, ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness’.
Fourth, it points to
the future
Oswald Chambers commenting on the little story in Ecclesiastes said, ‘Solomon’s counsel is to take
into account the fact that you cannot expect to be recognised’. And Chambers went on to place the problem
in its proper context, ‘Remember that your lasting relationship is with God,
otherwise you will find heartbreak and disappointment and become cynical’.
And
it is the context of eternity that puts our problem into focus. The book of Revelation speaks of the day when
God shall judge the earth. And while we
may shudder at the thought, it is intrinsically good news, because it assures
us that we live in a moral universe, and that evil and wickedness will not
finally win. As Chris Wright has written, ‘On the judgment day of God all wrongs will be exposed. There will no longer be any hiding place. ... The day of judgment
will reveal everything, assess everything, and deal with everything. All unrepented, persistent wickedness will be
met with the verdict of God’s perfect justice. ... God will put all
things right’.
And
for the righteous on that day there will be the joys of the new Jerusalem, with
no more death or mourning, or crying or pain; no more sin; no more shame or
deceit; no more strife.* The curse of
[* On the contrary, ‘on that day’ at the conclusion of the millennium, Satan will be
released for a short time upon this restored earth and its rebellious
inhabitants will be destroyed. Only
afterwards, in ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev. 21: 1), will there be no more crying, pain;
sin, shame, deceit or strife.]
C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled, The Great Divorce, based on the great gulf that separates heaven
and hell. He imagines a bus trip which
the ghosts, the inhabitants of hell, make to the solid people, the citizens of
heaven. There a ghost meets a solid
person, someone whom he recognised as having been a murderer while on
earth. He is outraged that he should be
living in a pigsty in hell, while the former murderer lives in luxury in
heaven. The murderer informs him that he
had repented of his sin, that he had been forgiven, and that he had been
reconciled to the man he had murdered.
The ghost feels a sense of unfairness.
‘I want my rights, I want my rights’, he
shouts. But the solid person interrupts,
‘You won’t get your rights’, he said, ‘you’ll get something far better.’
Life’s not fair, Mr.
Hayward. And heaven isn’t fair
either. It’s much better than we deserve!
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THE THEOPHANIES OF
THE OLD TESTAMENT*
By ALEX SOUTTERER
* It will be helpful to explain for the sake of younger students not
acquainted with the subject, that “Theophany” is the term used
to describe the manifestation of the
presence of God in the early history of Old Testament times. There are at least seven definite instances
of the appearances in the books of Exodus, Joshua, and Judges; but there are
also other appearances of “the Angel of Jehovah” or “Angel of His Presence” mentioned in
connection with the Exodus, e.g., (23: 20ff.)
These Theophanies were not mere spectacular “happenings”,
but always had a divine, definite,
purpose of particular import in them. The clear distinction must be kept, therefore between the usual
meaning of angel used generally to describe spirit-beings of heavenly
character, and the particular Angel of the Theophanies.
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Hagar’s Flight
The story of Hagar’s flight (her
name, significantly enough, means ‘Flight’, or
‘Wandering’) is exquisitely told in the minimum
of words in Genesis 16. What gives
this passage of Scripture so great importance is the portraiture it contains of
the Angel of Jehovah. This is the first manifestation of God in
angelic or human form, and therefore the first of the Theophanies
of Scripture. So that, despite
the smallness of Hagar’s moral stature, the record enshrined in these verses is
of compelling significance. Eight verses
(Gen. 16: 7-14), describe what happened at Beer-lahai-roi
in the following chiasmus:
A.
The Spring (Divine provision) v. 7.
B.
God calls Hagar by name (the Grace of God displayed) v. 8.
C. Hagar’s transformed line of conduct, (“return”); (“submit”) v. 9.
D. Racial increase (“I will multiply thy seed”) v. 10.
D. Racial ‘head’ (“call his name Ishmael”) v. 11.
C. Ishmael’s perverse character. (“wild ass of a man”) v. 12.
B. Hagar calls God by a new Name (the human response to
Grace) v. 13.
A. The Well (appropriation of God’s provision) v. 14.
The Ishmaelite race followed in the steps of Ishmael
its head.
He
was a son of the desert, “a wild ass among men” (R.V.), who dwelt “to the east of his brethren” (v.
12, R.V. marg.). The Bedouin of the desert may well he
regarded as Ishmael’s descendants. “His hand will be against
every man, and every man’s hand against him” well fits the wild ways of the Bedouin of all
ages. The term Ishmaelite has also a
broader signification in Gen.
37: 28 where it is identified with the Midianites.
It
seems strange that Ishmael, so untamed and untameable, so restless and
resisting, should have sprung from the loins of Abraham. His twelve
princely sons and their posterity were as fleshly and wild as their
father. The Ishmaelite line continued
through the centuries to move in estrangement and alienation from God. In Saul’s day two or three of their tribes
were driven from the region they occupied east of
This
darksome background throws into greater relief the record of two or three
individuals belonging to Ishmael’s nomad race who were raised to royal favour
in David’s reign. First, the Chronicler (1 Chron.
27) in setting down the names of
the officers in charge of the king’s substance, mentions Obil the Ishmaelite who was,
appropriately, over the camels. Who
could surpass those sons of the desert in their knowledge of this desert beast
of burden? Then, at the end of the
intriguing list of twelve names is that of Jaziz who looked after David’s
sheep. Last but not least! Can we not hear David saying something like
this? “Now Jaziz I am
putting you in charge of my flocks. Feed
them. Shepherd them. Take the oversight thereof not by constraint
but willingly, not merely for your monthly wage but of a ready mind. Though now a king I am still a shepherd - your
chief shepherd”. Then, turning
back to 1 Chron. 2: 17 we find
evidence of another Ishmaelite: occupying such a place of privilege that he
married Abigail, David’s sister. His son
Amasa
became entrapped in the rebellion of Absalom but he was made commander of
David’s army notwithstanding. But Joab saw to it
that this honour was short-lived.
1 All this may seem to be an unnecessary digression
from the theme in hand. But in reality
the history of the race and this happening that heralded its beginnings are in
closest harmony. Grace overtook those
desert wanderers and gave them to taste of God’s bounty, just as grace overtook Hagar and beckoned her back to that chosen
family who dwelt in a chosen land.
Writ large over the record of this divine phenomenon
is the kindness of God. Phenomenon it undoubtedly was. For the first time in human history One of the Godhead was manifested on earth
in angelic form. And to whom? To a
low-born Egyptian woman; a slave; a wanderer; to one whose insolence to and contempt
for Sarah her mistress compelled the latter, abruptly to alter her attitude towards her.
The pull of
Further, divine instruction followed in the wake of this divine
visitation. Hagar was doing wrong in returning to Egypt. Her
propensity to wander had gained control.
But the Lord went after her, and turned her face towards the only place
that held for her, peace and protection.
Abraham was, after all, responsible for the bringing up of the child yet
to be born. If Khammurabi’s
code of laws made it a legal custom for Hagar to become Abraham’s concubine
(though God’s approval did not rest upon it) a higher code of laws - God’s own
- demanded that the father of the child should rear and nurture him. Hence this correction from the hand of God
and the resultant return of Hagar to dwell under Abraham’s roof until the time
was ripe for her final departure.
Furthermore, the naming of the well shows to what
extent this desert experience had been to Hagar a revelation from God. A revelation of God’s love and care. An unveiling of His
thoughts and counsels concerning her.
All this filled her with wonder, and her wonderment is expressed in the
name, Beer-lahai-roi – “The
well of the living One Who seeth”, or, “Who
reveals Himself”. (Hagar led the
way in the naming of wells; Abraham named one afterwards; Isaac named three;
see 21:31; 26: 20, 21, 22). It was
indeed amazing grace for God thus to reveal Himself to Hagar, and she knew
it. She had been brought up in a land
whose gods hid themselves in impenetrable darkness -
so the Egyptians believed. She had
doubtless learned in
1 A perusal of this inspired narrative brings home to
heart and mind the immutability and depth of the divine purposes. Had
we written the story we should have wanted to write about a more
happy sequel. In this unique fashion God comes down to
earth to speak to an erring creature.
He has not appeared in this fashion before. Are the results spectacular, or even from the
human viewpoint, wholly satisfactory?
Scarcely! Hagar obeyed; but how
she ended her days we cannot say. Her progeny lived far from God and Islamic
power in our own day is a grim reminder of it. Yet, knowing the end from
the beginning, God appeared to Hagar and gave her to taste of His great
goodness. His purposes stood fast
despite the waywardness, of the creature.
When God gives His servants a commission, human standards of success
cannot serve as a criterion of its fulfilment or its faithful discharge. The
sent one must needs use big time and talent as one who
serves God and not man, and leave, the results with his Master. When the prophet said, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my
strength for nought”, he did not abandon himself to utter despair, for he
went on to say, “Yet
surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God?” Our Lord’s
service on earth was utterly free from failure - yet there were many defections
among His followers, and, even the twelve failed Him at the crucial hour. There was, in many cases, a total lack of
response to His overtures of love, and His own nation cast Him out. Yet how perfectly He
served. How gloriously He
fulfilled, to the last jot and tittle, the will of God enshrined in the volume
of the Book.
So that the story of Hagar’s flight and Hagar’s
return, highlights this basic principle that divine service can only be rendered for God’s highest glory if the
servant’s gaze is fixed, not on seeing results, but on his unseen Master. We follow Him Who was
at once the Author and the Herald of the message given to Hagar, and we must
needs fulfil our commission after His pattern, whether the results seem
short-lived or of long duration.
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