When you read through the Old Testament like you might read a book--all in one gulp--you might discover something interesting. People in those days were really stupid. No, really, look at it.
God told Adam not to do ONE THING. Adam did that one thing. God created the universe and put us in charge and we messed it up. God made Adam flawless and Adam produced flaws. Noah miraculously survived a worldwide flood ... and then got drunk and passed out naked in his tent. Abraham had the explicit promise of God that he would have a son ... and then he slept with Hagar (producing the son that became the father of Israel's enemies to this day) and lied repeatedly about his wife because he was scared. Of whom? Moses stood there talking to God in a burning bush and said, "I don't have the mouth to do what you command." Really, Moses? That's the position you want to take in the face of God? God split the Red Sea so Israel could cross on dry land and three days later they were complaining that Moses was bringing them into the wilderness so they could all die.
It's not small. It's not occasional. It's not, after a little while, even funny. Time after time after time people had direct, miraculous, undeniable interaction with the providence of God and time after time they forget, almost in minutes. Sometimes less. Elijah (you know, "super prophet") took on Baal's prophets and beat them in a fire fight (an actual fire fight). The people saw who was God, chased down the prophets of Baal, and killed them. You'd think Elijah would be on a high at this point, but some stupid queen said, "I'm going to kill you," and the next thing we find is Elijah sitting under a bush in the desert moaning, "I should never have been born." Come on, man! You just saw fire from heaven, called down by your little prayer, that consumed rocks. You're worried about Jezebel?? Worse, take Ahab. He asked Jehoshaphat, Judah's king, to go to war with him against their enemies. Jehoshaphat required a word from God. What word did they get? "Ahab, God is planning to kill you." So what did Ahab do? He went to war ... and died. Wow, there's a shocker, eh? Even Solomon, the wisest man ever, had 300 wives and 700 concubines (against God's injunctions against kings having multiple wives) and ended up an idolatrous old fool.
People in the Old Testament were what I would call terminally stupid. That is, their foolishness often got them killed. But, of course, it wasn't limited to the Old. There was Peter who spent some of the closest time with Christ of anybody and was heard to say, "No, Lord", as if that made any sense. Ananias was called on by God Himself to go talk to Saul. His response? "Um, Lord, perhaps you haven't heard how much evil he has done." Like God would smack His forehead and say, "Oh, man, how do I lose touch like this? Thanks for keeping Me up to date, Ananias. Never mind." And so it goes.
Of course, if you're not careful, you may think "It was all them" and miss entirely that we do this kind of stuff ... daily. As it turns out, God is daily providing and intervening and speaking and we are, for the large part, standing around complaining that God isn't doing enough and "Why do bad things have to happen to me?" It seems as if the entire Bible was written with the message, "God is really, really great ... and you need Him really badly." In Paul's first epistle to the church at Corinth he writes about the Israelites in the desert and how badly they messed things up (1 Cor 10). He tells how God took care of them and they ended up being "overthrown in the wilderness." Then he says, "Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did." (1 Cor 10:6) Because, you see, we suffer, as a race, from the same stupidity that the Old and New Testament characters did. And, as it turns out, God really is marvelous, and we need Him very badly. Something to remember the next time you (or I) get ready to do something patently foolish.
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