Luke 4-5 and the Wilderness

A few weeks ago, Stephanie and I had the chance to visit the church where we met 10 years ago--the Woodmont Hills Family of God. While there, I had the chance to visit with an old friend, Terry Smith, who asked about how I was dealing with some lingering issues from my ministerial past. I told him I was not "over it," but I was "better." I also mentioned that being at work, in graduate school, and with a family...I didn't find myself with a tremendous amount of time for introspection. He admonition to me was, "You need to make the time; Because it is in the quiet moments away from the distractions that God meets us."

This encounter had been percolating in my mind when I came to prepare a lesson on Luke chapters 4-5. Perhaps I only saw what I needed to see, but for the first time the recurring theme of "the wilderness" stood out to me. A number of questions present themselves, like "What makes for a wilderness?" In the context of Luke 4, Jesus' temptation takes place in a place of physical isolation and probably some level of danger. Furthermore, the wilderness is not only external but internal as well. Jesus has fasted forty days and is "very hungry." In other words, he is in a weakened physical state. Perhaps most shockingly, we find that the decision to subject Himself to such treatment was not merely a personal fancy, but that in fact Jesus has been "led by the Spirit into the wilderness."(4:1)

After triumphing over his temptation, Luke tells us that Jesus emerges from this time of trial "filled with the Holy Spirit's power" (4:14) and immediately sets about His public ministry. It strikes me as significant that Jesus DID NOT enter upon his Messianic mission immediately following His baptism and the confirming sign of the Holy Spirit's descent.(3:22) It seems as if there is some necessary connection between the experience of suffering and deprivation, and Jesus' ability to emerge with the power (personal, moral, ethical, et al.) to fulfill His God-given mission.

Job: When Life Doesn't Make Sense--Job

I suspect you’ve all heard of Job before. What can you tell me about him?

As near as we can tell, the text of Job is perhaps the oldest book in the Bible. (Some believe it was the first Scripture ever given by God.) It follows the life of a non-Jewish man named Job. The book calls Job a “man from the East.” This has led some people to assume that he was an Edomite, a Persian, or perhaps an Arab. There’s really no way to know for sure. It is important, however, to realize that he wasn’t a Jew.

Why do you think this might be important?

There’s a reason we’re studying Job now. As you recall, we just finished our study of Proverbs. Proverbs formed one of the foundational guides for life that young Israelite men were given. Yet, Proverbs—for all its wisdom—is not the only book of the Bible. There are 65 others meant to complement or, in the case of Job, challenge what we learned from Proverbs. Perhaps the most fundamental challenge to Proverbs in all of Scripture is the book of Job.

Why do you suppose that is? What would be a point of fundamental difference between Job and Proverbs?

I would suggest to you that the key passage for understanding the book of Job is the challenge posed to God in 1:9-11

Job’s story begins with this statement: There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. (Job. 1:1-2) This sentiment is repeated twice more by God Himself (1:8 and 2:3)

Dwell on this comment a moment. Let it sink it. Could anyone say this about you? Could you say this about anyone you know? Have you even heard about someone like this (who isn’t already in the Bible)?

Job was apparently a devoted and caring father. He looked after their spiritual as well as their physical welfare. We’re told in 1:4-5 that: Job’s sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them. When these celebrations ended—sometimes after several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

Integrity is something Job is known for. Twice God spoke of Job’s integrity (1:8 and 2:3). Eliphaz too initially tried to encourage Job to take heart because of his life of integrity (4:6)

What does the word “integrity” mean?
Job’s wife asked him if he really meant to retain his integrity in 2:8. What did she mean by this? What was Job doing (or not doing) that maintained his integrity?

Despite all of this, for much of the story, Job is basically suicidal. Consider the following passages:
· Let the day of my birth be erased, and the night that I was conceived… 3:3-26
· Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant my desire. I wish He would reach out His hand and kill me. 6:8-9
· O God, remember that my life is but a breath, and I will never again feel happiness…I hate my life and don’t want to go on living. Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days. 7:7,16

In the final analysis, this is the Job we’re confronted with in Scripture:

Job, a man of great faith and flawless character, suffers deeply in every dimension of his existence—physical, social, spiritual, and emotional. These dimensions, to be sure, are intertwined in human experience and can be separated only for purposes of discussion. In the physical realm Job loses his vast wealth and all his children in a single day (1:13-14). In these events Job suffers from both the suddenness and the totality of his losses. A little later he is struck down by a dreaded disease (2:8-10). In the social dimension Job, the noblest elder of his community, is alienated from his family and friends as he sits in shame on an ash heap outside the city’s walls (2:7-8; 19:13-19). There the crowds, even the lowest rabble, scorn him as they make him the subject of their taunt songs (16:10; 30:1-15). Since even those who have come to console him turn against him, he feels the treachery of disloyal friends (6:14-23). Spiritually God’s silence terrifies Job (23:8, 9, 15). God’s apparent hostility leads him to imagine that God is a capricious despot, who delights in afflicting his servant (cf. 6:4; 7:17-19; 19:25). Troubled on all sides, Job feels the range of disturbed emotions: troubled thoughts (7:4, 13-14), uncertainty (9:20), rejection and hostility (10:3; 12:4), fear (9:28), dismay (21:6), loneliness (19:13-19), distaste for life (9:2), i.e., the lack of any sense of inner tranquility (3:26). John Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT), (Eerdmans, 1988), 47-8.

Job Webliography

In preparation for our series on Job, I'm putting up a list of links/videos to additional resources I think might be worthwhile. If you know of any other useful material on Job you'd like to recommend I add to the webliography, please contact me via the comments section at the end of this post.

1. Theodicies in the Book of Job

2. The Book of Job Criticism

3. The Book of Job in MP3 Audio Format

4.

5. Audio of Alistair Begg's Sermon: Why Suffering?

You Can't Spell Hopeless without "Hope"

Like many of the earlier passages in Jeremiah, the 16th chapter begins with unqualified messages of judgment (e.g., "these people will die from terrible diseases" vs. 4, "I have taken away My unfailing love and mercy" vs. 5, etc.)

Yet at verse 14 begins we begin to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It is only a glimmer, however. This is no sudden message of immediate pardon and forgiveness such as we are wont to demand--perhaps to the point of inserting it into the text when it does not exist. Rather, what the LORD has to say to Jeremiah is:

“But the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when people who are taking an oath will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt.’ Instead, they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel back to their own land from the land of the north and from all the countries to which he had exiled them.’ For I will bring them back to this land that I gave their ancestors.
“But now I am sending for many fishermen who will catch them,” says the Lord. “I am sending for hunters who will hunt them down in the mountains, hills, and caves. I am watching them closely, and I see every sin. They cannot hope to hide from me. I will double their punishment for all their sins, because they have defiled my land with lifeless images of their detestable gods and have filled my territory with their evil deeds.”

-- Jeremiah 16:14-18

The LORD leaves no doubt that punishment will be meted out--indeed, it will be "doubled." Yet after the necessary suffering, redemption will ensue. How should we interpret this? As with many things in the Divine-human relationship, I suspect we see that which we are looking for. The one who already resents the notion that One other than himself is worthy of the title "God" will see in this evidence of a capricious and punitive Deity, unwilling to suffer the slightest indignity. Conversely, he who believes in a compassionate God will see in this evidence of painful, but necessary, purgatory suffering. This latter man will acknowledge--even if he does not like--the truth that the alcoholic often must hit "rock bottom" before he is willing to forsake the bottle. The drunk must suffer the full effects of his own degeneracy before the "scales will fall from his eyes" and he is willing to see himself as he truly is.

What I find especially interesting from a canonical perspective is the LORD's promise that he will send forth "fishermen" (vs. 16) to "catch" the people. In this context, the fishermen (along with their land-based compatriots, the hunters) are enablers of God's wrath upon the sinful. How fascinating then, that the One who embodied God's ultimate act of compassion, self-revelation, and sacrifice should extend to a handful of common men the possibility of being instruments of His peace by the calling "Follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for people." -- Matt 4:19

What Would God Do?

I had occasion some time ago to hear a gentleman speak about the small, struggling congregation of which he is a member. Apparently the church has struggled for a number of years. At one point a previous minister stood on the steps of the church building and announced: “God has abandoned this church.” The gentleman relating the story seemed to reject the very possibility of such a thing. His appeal was based on Jesus’ promise that “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” (I assume he was referencing the King James Version of Hebrews 13:5) I don’t know the particulars of this situation. Perhaps this was simply a case of a frustrated preacher seeking to place the blame for his own failures on someone else. Frankly, the particulars are irrelevant to the basic point I want to discuss.

I am concerned by the near-certainty many Christians seem to have that God would "never" do such a thing. Of course, this is a discussion that can degenerate into semantics (e.g., What, precisely, do we mean by “abandon”? Does God abandon us, or do we abandon Him? Etc.) It is not that I think these points are invalid. (In Jer. 5:23, in fact, God speaks explicitly of the people having “turned away and abandoned Me.”) Yet I suspect that such digressions are often pursued simply because they afford a convenient way to dodge the uncomfortable question: Is it possible that God may actively bring great misfortune--and even suffering--upon people (even His own people) specifically in punishment for their sins? If we answer that it is at least possible, what are the implications of this possibility for our interpretation of and teaching about suffering?

It has been my experience that in cases of suffering and/or misfortune—the near-ubiquitous response of American Christians is to say, “God didn’t do that. God didn’t bring that about. God doesn’t do that kind of thing”

Yet the fifth chapter of Jeremiah testifies to at least the possibility that those who were once the apple of God’s eye can so degrade themselves and reject the LORD that they are—for want of a better word—abandoned by Him. Consider:

Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy the grapevines, leaving a scattered few alive. Strip the branches from the vines for these people do not belong on the LORD. The people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against Me,” says the LORD. They have lied about the LORD and said, ‘He won’t bother us! No disasters will come upon us. There will be no war or famine. God’s prophets are all windbags who don’t really speak for Him. Let their predictions of disaster fall on themselves!” Therefore, this is what the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies says: “Because the people are talking like this, My messages will flame out of your mouth and burn the people like kindling wood. O Israel, I will bring a distant nation against you, says the LORD…They will devour the food of your harvest; They will devour your sons and daughters. They will devour your flocks and herds; they will devour your grapes and figs. And they will destroy your fortified towns, which you think are so safe…And when your people ask, “Why did the LORD our God do all this to us?” you must reply, “You rejected Him and gave yourselves to foreign gods in your own land. Now you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.” – Jeremiah 5:10-15,17,19.

Reflections Questions
1. Compare Jeremiah 5:1 to Genesis 18:23-33. What seems significant to you about these passages? How do you think the first hearers of Jeremiah’s oracle would have understood his message in light of their knowledge of the Abraham story?

2. It is sometimes conceded that God came in temporal judgment on people in the Old Testament, but He has ceased to operate in that fashion since the coming of Jesus. Now all punishment inflicted by God is—according to this argument—reserved for the Final Judgment. Yet if this is the case, how do we explain:

-The case of Ananias and Sapphira? (Acts 5:1-5)
-Paul’s warning to the Corinthian Christians that “if you eat the bread or drink the cup [of the Lord’s Supper] without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.” (1 Cor. 11:29-30)
-The warnings of the Resurrected Jesus:
*To the church at Ephesus: “I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” (Rev. 2:5)
*To the church at Thyatira: “I will throw [that Jezebel] on a bed of suffering, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the One Who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.” (Rev. 2:22-23)
*To the church at Laodicea: “Since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth!” (Rev. 3:16)

Glass Ceilings and Cracked Cisterns

The oracle in Jeremiah chapter two is quite long. As such, there’s a lot to be gained from meditating upon it. I hope that you will have opportunity to do so this week. What I’d like to address in the devotional is what I see as the core of chapter two: abandoning God.

Sadly, we’re all too familiar with the suffering of abandoned children. We know the empty look in their eyes…and the even emptier feeling in their hearts. There is little that is more torturous than feeling oneself unloved and unappreciated. Jeremiah reveals to us that it is just this sort of pain that God Himself suffers when His people abandon Him to place their trust in other “gods” (i.e., other things)

According to Jeremiah, the people had committed two fundamental evils: They have abandoned Me—the Fountain of Living Water; And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all! (2:13) In the midst of the current economic crisis, I fear that many Christians are discovering that they too have placed their trust in cracked cisterns.

Too often, we allow our faith to degenerate into a product to be marketed, rather than a radical counter-cultural call to be lived out. We expect to be popular…not holy. Eventually, however, the cracked cisterns that we have relied upon to keep us afloat drain out, and we find ourselves at the bottom of a deep pit.

It is my prayer that all of us who find ourselves at the bottom of a cracked cistern now, will respond to this time of privation and testing by restoring our worship of the one true Fountain. So that future generations will not look back on us some day an apply Jeremiah’s pithy and pitiable assessment: They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless themselves. (2:4)

-- justin

Memory Verse

Picture of an empty cistern

Additional Thought/Discussion Questions

1. What does 2:8 suggest about the role of leadership (both political and religious) in the abandonment of God? Is it even possible for a large group to abandon God without the willing compliance of the group leadership?

2. How does God’s self-identification as the “Fountain of Living Water” (2:13) relate to Jesus’ promise to the woman at the well to give her “living water” (John 4:10; see also John 7:36-38)

3. God’s anguished cry to the people of Jeremiah’s day included these words: …I was the One Who planted you, choosing a vine of the purest stock—the very best. How did you grow into this corrupt wild vine? (2:21) Have you ever made a good start of something in your life, only to see it fall apart…a marriage…a job…a child? What steps do you plan to take in the future to prevent the cycle from repeating?