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1 Corinthians 4:4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 1 John 3:19 This then is how we . . . set our hearts at rest in his presence (20) whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Proverbs 16:2 All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD. Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 30:12 . . . who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth. Return to the webpage God will use to set you free!

Rare Exceptions to the Rule? I’ve gone way outside mainstream Old Testament prophecy to find a couple of highly exceptional examples, right? Wrong. Many Christians are like me in having wrongly supposed that if God prophesies something, it is final. The startling truth is that Scripture emphatically and repeatedly declares that whether God’s prophecies come true depends on the response of the people the prophecy is aimed at. We’ve looked at famous minor prophet Jonah and major prophet Isaiah. Let’s now seal it with the pronouncement of yet another renowned prophet: Jeremiah. This time, the Lord, through the prophet, clearly states the very principle we have discovered: Jeremiah 18:7-8 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation . . . turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them. We are plunging into some of the blackest parts of Scripture and yet even here we keep finding enormous hope for any condemned person or nation that repents. The Bible was written not as an historical curiosity; it was written by God for you (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 9:10; 10:6,11). So if ever you feel damned and utterly rejected by God, take seriously Scripture’s words of hope to people who likewise seemed doomed. Later in the same book the Lord again reveals the intent of his prophecies of disaster: Jeremiah 26:3 It may be they will listen, and turn every man from his evil way; that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do to them because of the evil of their doings. Jeremiah 26:13 Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the Lord your God’s voice; and the Lord will repent him of the evil that he has pronounced against you. Jeremiah 36:3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do to them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. These verses in Jeremiah are like islands of hope in a terrifying sea of fire. Prophecies of judgment are often worded as if God hates the people and that their fate is sealed. Our Lord goes to such lengths in firing words of doom at people not because there is no hope of them escaping the prophesied disasters, but precisely because there is hope. Prophecies are worded to seem final, not because everything is set in concrete, but to arm the prophecies with sufficient power to blast people back to reality. Our loving Lord goes to the extreme of what seem angry, hate-filled words as a last-ditch effort to snap his loved ones out of the complacency that is threatening their eternity. In his grace, he is giving them a foretaste of what it would be like unless they get serious with God, the only one who can save them. So most prophecies are not declaring the inevitable future but are detailing what the target audience can expect if they do not change their hearts. Again in Amos 7:1-3 the prophet is shown in a vision a swarm of locusts that devastates the entire land. Amos intercedes, asking the Lord’s forgiveness, and the Lord relents, promising it will not happen. Then in the next verses we read: Amos 7:4-6 Thus the Lord showed me and behold, the Lord called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land. Then I said, “Lord, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.” The Lord relented concerning this. “This also shall not be,” says the Lord. It is not our purpose here to explore prophecies of blessings, but Scripture is clear that the same principle applies: a change of heart – this time a change for the worse – can also nullify prophecies of blessings (1 Samuel 2:30; Jeremiah 18:7; Ezekiel 33:13). If your mind is reeling as your entire view of prophecy comes crashing down, I can well understand your reaction. We’ve now looked at four prophets. Scripture says that the truth of a matter shall be established out of the mouth of two or three witnesses. To God, for a prophecy of doom to “fail” is the ultimate success. Nevertheless, the notion that divine prophecies can fail to materialize is so shattering to common opinion, that perhaps you are demanding a fifth Scriptural witness. No problem. This time we will go to yet another major prophet: Ezekiel. Ezekiel 33:14-16 Again, when I say to the wicked, You shall surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right . . . None of his sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him: he has done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. The yearning of God’s heart is not to waste people’s time by giving them information they can’t do anything with; much less to torment them by letting them know there is no hope. What drives our Lord to talk about future disasters is a longing to avert tragedy. As God, through Ezekiel, said just moments earlier: Ezekiel 33:11 Tell them, “As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. . . .” God’s purpose in telling people they are facing destruction is to motivate them to call upon him, because “Everyone [no exceptions] who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32; Romans 10:13). If God truly wanted people damned, he would keep them blissfully ignorant of their fate because once they realized their fearful predicament, they might call out to God for help. Then the Lord would be compelled to keep his word and save them! Now that I have cited two minor and three major prophets, for any reader to have the tiniest doubt would be ridiculous. If, after all of this, someone wanted still more confirmation, I would be astounded, but I would be quite unfazed. You see, Scripture heaps up even more proof. Let’s look at yet another minor prophet. Micah’s ministry is summarized in one of Scripture’s historical comments. Jeremiah 26:18 Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, “The Lord of Armies says: ‘Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’” Here, yet again, we have a prophecy of doom, offering no hope. Let’s read the next verse: Jeremiah 26:19  . . . Didn’t he fear the Lord, and entreat the favor of the Lord, and the Lord relented of the disaster which he had pronounced against them? . . . Let’s examine Micah’s prophecy to see if it really was a damning as the above quote suggests: Micah 1:1 The Lord’s word that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. . . . Micah 3:9-12 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob,and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity . . . Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest. Perhaps you are sometimes tempted to feel as doomed to destruction as Jerusalem was in this prophecy. If so, remember that Hezekiah repented and the Lord relented. We’ve noted that even prophecies of blessing can be nullified. That means we can’t be complacent. If you are fearing that you have gone beyond God’s grace, however, that very fear means that, regardless of how you felt other times, you are anything but complacent right now. It would be a mistake to take Scriptures intended for the complacent or rebellious, and apply them to yourself if, as of this moment, you are no longer complacent or rebellious. You might have appallingly abused God’s grace right up until ten seconds ago, but because of the power of Jesus’ blood to wipe out the past, all that matters is your present attitude.

Sweet Revenge! Turning Hate into Healing The Righteous Lust for Vengeance: Satisfaction at Last! Someone has left you suffering severe emotional pain, or financial ruin, or physical disfigurement, or insomnia, or post-traumatic stress syndrome, or the loss of a loved one, or false guilt, or some other devastation. You have suffered far too much. You desperately need closure. But that cannot happen until full justice is executed on your behalf. Here’s how to see it happen. Explanation: If you have been shabbily treated, this webpage intelligently and soberly expresses the magnitude of the offense against you and your right to vengeance. Almost every human advancement starts off with a dream. So we will begin by dreaming up the ideal punishment. We will then convert our findings to practical reality. The following can be read both from the perspective of justice and also as therapy. I have written as if your offender were a male acting alone. If, as you read, you need to mentally adjust the gender or number to fit your situation, please do so. But stay focused on the text. It will initially seem that your imagination could do better, but although the first paragraphs might be mistaken for the work of a hate-crazed crackpot, the text is carefully designed to maximize your satisfaction. Take this seriously, and things more wonderful than you dare dream will happen. WARNING: Choose the Milder Version , unless you are sure you can handle graphic descriptions of violence against your offender The Dream A public lynching would be far too kind for the despicable creature who hurt you. Let’s for a moment let our minds run wild to determine exactly what punishment would be fitting. Start by dragging him before court. Let him face the music. Let his accusers point the finger. Let their hate erupt like vomit over his head. Make him sweat as they scream their chilling accusations. In fact, just for fun, make it three courts – one trial after another after another. That should raise his blood pressure. But it in no way settles the score. Hire professional thugs. With the vilest language they spit on him; demeaning their human plaything, while hammering him with their fists. Here’s an idea: have him blindfolded so that he waits in terror, never knowing when or from where the next sickening clout will come from. Blow upon blow smashes his face and body. Keep it up! Make him reel! More! More! Finally, he’s utterly broken. He’s sobbing uncontrollably, tears flooding down his bloodied face, longing for mercy. This is fun! “You’re not so tough now!” you laugh. “What’s the matter, big boy? Can’t take a little pain? Go on – grovel at my feet! Writhe like the worm you are!” You are grinning from ear to ear. But we need some instrument that inflicts more pain than fists. A whip? The thugs rip off his clothes and lash his naked back. Whack! He screams as the whip mercilessly tears through his skin. Blood spurts. Excellent! Whack! The whip cruelly digs in, ripping out more flesh. Now you’ve got him where you want him. He’s cringing in pain; a sobbing, bloodied wreck. You’re laughing hysterically. Whack! Scream. Whack! Scream. Flay his flesh! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Don’t weaken – what mercy did he have when he ruined your life? Pulverize his back! Whack! Whack! Whack! Fire up your rage. Remember the grubby way he treated you. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! . . . Oh, no! He’s lost consciousness. Drench him with water. Shake him. Slap him around. Great! He’s conscious again! Whack! Whimper. Whack! Whimper. Whack! Whack! You’ve run out of skin on his back. Turn him over. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! . . . Keep it up! More! More! Rats! You can’t keep him conscious any longer. You’ll have to wait a couple hours until he comes around again. That will give you more time to dream up new horrors. At last! He’s conscious again! You sneer at him in disgust. “It’s pay back time, vermin!” Jerk him to his feet. “Your day of reckoning has come!” Parade him through the busy streets, with everyone knowing he’s a condemned criminal. Incite the mobs to expel their venom on him, hissing and cursing and despising him like the nauseating slime that he is. He drops to the ground. Belt him until he staggers up again and stumbles on. A few more steps and he’s down again. Another wonderful opportunity to swat this lowlife! Finally the thugs have to drag him. What’s something new we can try? I know! Strip him naked. Shamefully naked. Fully exposed; humiliated in front of the gawking, piercing, critical eyes of crowds of laughing, jeering women and men and children. Now we need some new instrument of torture; something that will make every second sheer hell but will keep him alive minute after never-ending minute; hour after endless hour. Make the tiniest movement – every breath – a source of torment, while he remains fully exposed, with every shred of decency stripped from him, for the sneering crowds to continue to gloat. Pin him out like a captured bug on public display, with no where to hide his shame, no rock to slither under, as the world stares wide-eyed. The crowds are teasing and slandering him, yet something is still missing. I know: the sickening stench of this vermin’s offense has reached high heaven. Almighty God must be furious at what this degenerate did to you. Has injustice ever fired uncontrollable rage within you? That is but a breath relative to the terrifying tornado of divine wrath at that injustice. If a mouse is angry, you can snigger; if a grizzly bear is angry, you can fear; but if the Almighty is angry, there is no human emotion to express the chilling terror that rips through its victim. Every conceivable scale of sheer dread is exploded by this horror. Dying the most violent death a thousand times over is more preferable. The Judge of all humanity – the God who flung the flaming stars in space – storms down torrent upon torrent of his fearsome fury on this pathetic excuse for a man. In a sense, it would be exquisite to keep this torture up forever, but earth should be rid of this contemptible beast. More significant still, you need closure so that at last you can get on with life. Otherwise, like a deadly cancer, lust for revenge would eat your insides, slowly destroying you. So, finally, his body slumps in death. Now grab a long, dirty blade and have your last fling. Vent your wrath on that stinking body. Gleefully tear into the corpse, ripping it open in rage. Plunge in from below the rib cage. Burrow right through to his heart. Now mutilate that lifeless organ. Yes! There’s nothing left of this animal but meat and offal. He’s dead! Savor that word: D-E-A-D. Perfect? Sweet revenge! But wait. Although you need him dead, your ordeal has been more prolonged than his. How can this discrepancy be righted? We will soon apply our findings in a very practical way, but while we are using fantasy to establish the ideal, let’s not limit ourselves to what seems possible. What would be perfect is if somehow he could have known since he was a little child that this horror awaited him. Let him dread it, nightmare after nightmare, day after day, year after year, all his life. Perfect! Almost. There’s just one missing element. Brutal, de-humanizing treatment is merely what this slithering snake deserves. This is in stark contrast to what he did to you. In no way did you deserve the shameful way he treated you. Wouldn’t it be exquisite revenge if he could somehow be totally innocent – as pure as the driven snow; kinder and gentler than anyone – and yet still have forced upon him all the torment we have detailed! Now that, if only it were possible, would truly be justice. The Exciting Reality This, as gruesome and distasteful as it reads, is exactly the punishment that fits the crime against you. It is no exaggeration. God himself affirms that the offense you suffered was so gross that it deserves every bit of this torture, finally ending in agonizing death. In fact, the Judge of all humanity agrees so whole-heartedly with this assessment that it is exactly the nerve-jangling torment he took upon himself to ensure the penalty for the crime against you was paid, right down to the last drop of blood. I’ve been detailing Christ’s treatment at the hands of the people he loved. It is staggering how many elements of Jesus’ ghastly ordeal fit perfectly what you have suffered. For instance, you have probably felt betrayed. Jesus was betrayed. Maybe people suspected you were being ill-treated and did nothing to intervene. It was the same with Jesus. Maybe you felt abandoned by God. So did Jesus. “You make it sound so personal,” says someone, with pain in her voice, “Surely Jesus died for everyone, not just to comfort me.” Your healing hinges on grasping this one point: Jesus agonized specifically for you. Were God like everyone else we have ever known, he would be unable to focus on you as if you and your offender were the only people in the universe. But the infinite, all-knowing Lord is altogether without such limitations. For the vaguest conception of the immensity of God’s attention and devotion to you, imagine someone who has no distractions in life. He is head-over-heels in love with you, his whole world revolving around you. His only reason for living is to make you happy. God’s uniqueness and the inconceivable intensity of his selfless devotion to you means that any analogy is riddled with holes. One of the many holes in the one just given is that it doesn’t allow for the mind-boggling vastness of the Infinite Lord’s intimate knowledge of you. He knows you not only better than anyone else does, but unfathomably deeper than you could ever know yourself. God’s attention to everything about you, right down to your every molecule, is so incomprehensibly vast that it would blow the circuits of any human brain to hold such detailed, compassionate understanding of you and of everything that touches you. You are the focus of divine love. It is not hard to recognize that with his infinite intellect and astounding supernatural abilities, God has the ability to treat us this way. Far more difficult, is believing that we are important to God. For all our lives, the treatment we have received from other people keeps telling us that we are rather insignificant and not too lovable. We keep falling for the delusion that God must be like all the puny, self-seeking people we have ever met. “No one could love me like that,” are the sad words of people whose experience has been limited to human love. For you, that limitation might soon be exploded. You could be on the edge of life’s most exciting discovery. Jesus’ actions were targeted specifically at you. From his perspective, it couldn’t have been more personal. How personal it seems to you depends on how deeply you understand Jesus’ perspective. You can forget the millions: your pain sears his heart. Christ’s yearning to see you released from distress is so overwhelming that no terror, or pain, no matter how extreme, could deflect him from his determination to restore your honor and avenge the injustice you suffered. “Not good enough!” complains someone. Jesus isn’t good enough? “Well . . . he’s too good. The person who did wrong should suffer. Jesus was innocent. He doesn’t deserve to suffer for what I suffered.” We noted that the suffering of your guilty offender does not exactly balance the books because his suffering is deserved whereas your suffering was undeserved. Nevertheless, I understand your concern. The uniqueness of both Jesus’ person and his love for you has empowered him to do something that leaves us flabbergasted. In the next few paragraphs I’d like to walk you through the perplexing issues it raises. Before doing this, however, we need to see this matter in perspective. Let us agree together that your torment has been so horrific that a whole range of seemingly impossible things would need to occur for all the wrong you have suffered to be put right. Christ’s sacrificial love for you is so staggering, and so sacred, that I can hardly bear the thought of implying it is not enough. Nevertheless, if Christ did nothing but die an agonizing death for you, then as far as being adequately compensated for what you suffered, I agree that there is a sense in which you could legitimately claim to be short-changed. To right the wrong you have suffered, the following things would have to happen: * You would need total healing of every emotional and physical hurt the offender inflicted. * More than an end to your current distress, you would have to be fully compensated for every speck of past distress and for all the years of unique pleasures you have lost. You would need to be so abundantly compensated that you have not the slightest regret that it ever happened. It is beyond the edge of human imagination to conceive of anything so wonderful that it could do this. But what if there really is a God who gives eternal life and is capable of infinitely more than we could dream? What if the Almighty cares for you so deeply that he has reserved for you rewards so astounding that they make the best things in earthly life seem pathetic? * You would need for everyone who matters to you, to fully understand how much you have suffered, and to empathize with you. * You would need your honor to be completely restored. * You would need for everyone to know that you did not in any way deserve to be treated the way you were. You, yourself, would need assurance that what you suffered was not God’s punishment, and you would need to be set free from every trace of guilt – a big issue with victims of child abuse, for example. * You would need to know you are loved so tenderly and passionately that even when you had thought you were suffering alone, that special person who cares for you so deeply was with you in spirit, moment by moment sharing your pain. * You would need to see justice fully executed on your behalf, so that no one minimizes the gravity of the offense against you and every aspect is soberly dealt with. * Your offender would have to realize how wrong he was when he hurt you. He would have to reel in remorse over what he did and he would now have to want your well-being as fervently as he had previously wanted to harm you. * You would need to know that what you suffered was not a meaningless waste, but that as evil and as senseless as it originally was, it will be supernaturally transformed into an invaluable stepping stone to fulfillment and achievement you would otherwise have not had. It would be sweet revenge indeed for the offender’s attempts to bring you down to actually lift you higher! We will examine each of these serious matters. Since we can only do this one at a time, however, it is inevitable that while I am dealing with an aspect of one matter, you will have still other needs screaming for attention. So I beg your patience. Please try to focus on the issue at hand and know that we will get to the other matters soon. Until then, let me assure you that the Almighty’s love for you is so mind-boggling that he will repeatedly do for you things that are humanly impossible. Although on earth you will take giant steps toward receiving full compensation, your time on earth is but an infinitesimal fraction of eternity; and eternity is the realm in which you will experience the ultimate compensation and restoration. For example, one feature of heaven is that we will no longer be subject to the limitations that on earth keep people from understanding your heart and what you have suffered. We should touch on one final matter to help our perspective. It is because of his astounding love that God longs to restore you. It is not as if the things you suffered were in any way God’s doing. The person hurting you was breaking God’s laws and God’s heart; defiantly doing the exact opposite of what God wanted. The divine dilemma is that you – the darling of God’s heart – have also chosen to break God’s laws, just like the rest of us. We have suffered because we live in a world in which people hurt each other as a manifestation of their rebellion against God and his ways. But we ourselves are part of that rebellion. For God to stop wrongdoing and suffering by wiping out everyone the moment they are about to rebel against him and his loving ways, he would have had to wipe out the entire human race before we were even born. To say God should tolerate some rebellion against God’s loving ways (that which you and I have committed and try our hardest to excuse), but not other rebellion, would be the height of hypocrisy. We’d love to call down fire on those who have hurt us, but we want the divine Judge to overlook the times we – by lies, cheating, stealing, or whatever – have hurt others. The Lord, no matter how much he loves us, cannot be partner to such double standards. The Holy Judge must be utterly impartial. The time is careering toward us when all evil will be annihilated. Everyone who has not allowed Christ’s holiness to enter their lives through spiritual union with him, will be destroyed. Every second the Almighty restrains his stupendous urge to destroy all evil is yet another second in which billions of the people he loves have yet another chance to come to Christ before it’s too late. So now that we have had a little overview, let’s return to the matter at hand: feeling uncomfortable with the notion of Jesus being tortured instead of the one who hurt us. It is indeed heart-wrenching to see such cruelty poured out on the kindest person earth has seen; for humanity’s most innocent to be treated like the most contemptible of criminals. And yet to lust after further vengeance is to spurn his sacrifice and pour contempt on the greatest act of love you will ever receive. Of course, Jesus deserved none of what he suffered, but for you he chose it. At any moment he could have opted out, but he endured every last dreg of the devastation and searing pain because you are so special to him. Driven by his passion for you, yearning to defend your name, he forced himself to hang on. So precious are you to him that even more unbearable than his shameful torture, was the thought of the crime against you being swept under the carpet. To him, the outrage you suffered matters enormously. If someone deeply in love with you fully understood the extent of your pain, it would break his heart. Jesus’ incomprehensible love for you means that even without his agony on the cross, he would still have reeled in emotional pain just because you hurt. Jesus’ torturous physical pain was just a logical consequence of his inner pain for you, but by physically suffering he was able to do something immensely practical both to comfort you and to restore your honor. He couldn’t stand idly by and see you suffer. Love compelled him to intervene. Where was Jesus when you were suffering injustice? He was not just weeping for you; the timeless Son of God, whom you thought was too slow in responding to your cries for help, was two thousand earth years ahead of you, having already suffered for you, so that relief would be waiting for you, the instant you realized what he had done for you. The One you thought did not care about your anguish, cared so passionately that he suffered all your pain. Why didn’t God elect to physically prevent people from breaking his laws and his heart by hurting others, yourself included? That’s a complex issue that I deal with in links at the end of this webpage. For the moment, be content to realize that if there were no downsides to merely preventing people from hurting each other, the One who suffered so much for you would have taken that easy way out. “I don’t want an innocent person suffering.” But weren’t you innocent when that brute ill-treated you? A significant feature of what you suffered is that you didn’t deserve it. So how could that offense be atoned for by merely giving someone what he deserves? When dreaming up the features of the perfect punishment, we decided that for the punishment to fit the crime it should, theoretically, be extracted from someone as innocent as you were. It makes us recoil in horror, and yet there is no other way to perfectly balance the books. Jesus’ intervention suddenly brings to reality what had previously seemed an impossible dream. In Jesus’ eyes the ghastly offense against you warranted the severest imaginable response. You suffered injustice, so to restore your honor, Christ voluntarily allowed himself to suffer the ultimate injustice. He was innocent, not just relative to the beast who hurt you, but in the absolute sense – innocent to a degree unknown in all humanity. In the dazzling light of his holy perfection, the purest, sweetest virgin is defiled. And this Innocent of innocents suffered the vilest physical and spiritual abuse for the crime against you, because you are so important to him. This is rather more than a bunch of flowers and a mumbled apology. This is the ultimate restoration of your honor. “That’s astounding. But I still want the person who hurt me to suffer.” You are right in thinking that, by itself, the torment of an innocent cannot fully ease your pain. But seeing the guilty person hurt won’t do it either. Justice is important and must be executed, but there are two other factors, one or both of which could be moving you to want revenge. The problem is that neither revenge nor justice could ever resolve these other factors. Here are the additional, barely conscious, reasons that could be goading you to want to see the offender suffer: 1. You are still hurting. Either you are still suffering physical or emotional pain, or even if you are completely restored to a normal life, it feels as if nothing could compensate for your past suffering and loss. 2. Hidden deep within you is the need to feel morally superior to your offender. A victim of child molestation, for instance, has usually been cruelly manipulated by the molester to feel responsible for the molester’s crime. Many others who have suffered are tormented by the fear that somehow their suffering was divine punishment for previous sins. People wresting with either, or both, of the above dilemmas usually discover that maintaining the rage against their offender eases their own pain and/or guilt, by shifting their focus off their own internal struggles. This psychological ploy – a mere trick of the mind – might bring temporary relief, but it will ultimately do nothing other than delay genuine healing. So although these two big needs might be subconsciously pushing you to want the offender to suffer, the satisfaction you imagine you would feel in seeing him tortured, is a mirage. It would still leave these needs unmet. “But I still think the person who did wrong should suffer, not Jesus.” Let’s explore the consequences of that logic. Certainly, one guilty person could never pay the penalty for the sins of another guilty person. Scripture reveals that death is the penalty for the slightest moral imperfection. “The wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23). It would be presumptuous for me, or any of my kind, to consider dying for someone else’s sins. Once I pay my own death penalty I have nothing left over for anyone else’s sin. Only a morally perfect person could suffer and die, and it not be for his own moral deficiencies. No wonder this concept is so foreign to us – we are not in the habit of meeting sinlessly perfect people who volunteer to suffer injustice! If, however, justice demanded that whoever does wrong must pay the penalty himself, it means everyone who has ever had the slightest moral imperfection – every human except Jesus – must end up in hell. It would also mean Jesus is a mistaken fool who suffered his horrific death for nothing. It would mean God is not the righteous, holy Judge; his sense of justice would be defective and we would be holier and smarter than him. Since all this is unthinkable, might I suggest that justice has been fully met? Let me explain why we desperately need the intervention of someone truly innocent – someone who is not part of the never-ending cycle of wrong-doing that plagues the entire human race. Suppose a sickening case of child abuse is discovered. The abuser – the child’s father – is thoroughly investigated by police, psychologists and the courts. It turns out that the abuser had himself been a victim of such awful child abuse from his own father that it even dwarfed the abuse he had meted out. In fact, his upbringing had left him so psychologically deranged, with such distorted views of what is normal loving behavior, that it is a marvel that he treated his child as well as he did. (Please stay with me: I know victims of crime have the right to vengeance, no matter what the claims of “experts.”) The grandfather is now dead, but the little that can be uncovered about him shows that the grandfather, too, had suffered severe child abuse. What can be done? We are rightly incensed that such a crime has been committed. If the child’s abuser doesn’t deserve the severest penalty because he was so deranged by what he himself had suffered, how else could this crime be avenged? And what about the grandfather – the abuser’s abuser – who is now dead and beyond the reach of the courts? And what if the latest victim has already mimicked the treatment dished out to him and has horribly abused his little sister? This mess describes the predicament in which all humanity finds itself. We excuse our own offenses and imagine others have done worse, but our biased tolerance of our own wrong-doing does not lower the gravity of what we have done. The magnitude of the ill-treatment might vary, but the fact clings like a noose around our necks that we have each been hurt, and in turn have hurt others. This is why we each needed the eternal Son of God to enter the human race and be willing to do the unthinkable – to have compassion on those who deserve the severest punishment and to love us so deeply as to suffer and die for every time we have been sinned against, and for every time we have sinned. What makes acceptable the extreme violation of this Innocent’s rights is that he suffered it willingly, having planned every detail to match your suffering. Driven by your need to find peace, and his longing to see justice executed on your behalf, your Savior has done everything required to release you from the never-ending, never-satisfying need to try to extort justice from the offender. Like you, Jesus suffered injustice at the hands of sinful men. The difference is that your torment was involuntary; his was voluntary. He chose that agony in order to vindicate you and avenge the crime against you. Nevertheless, there is a vital matter that can only be settled between the offender himself and his Judge. The offender will rot in hell if he dies without having faced up to his crime and admitted to himself and to Christ that what he did to you was so evil that he deserves an eternity in hell for his offense. With God, however, your rights and peace of mind are paramount. He hasn’t left things half finished, so that you are left dangling on tenterhooks worrying about the outcome. Your Avenger has seen to it that irrespective of the offender’s response, you have already been vindicated. You can rest easy: the injustice you suffered has been avenged to the last agonizing breath. Almighty God has settled the score. Moreover, you can now move on, leaving the offender’s destiny to a private matter between the offender and the God who restored your name. The offender’s fate will be determined on the basis of whether he truly has a change of heart and is filled with remorse for what he did to you. The Judge must be fair; the same rules must apply to everyone, or God himself would be corrupt. The same human sacrifice that secured forgiveness for the sins you committed, has to be the same for the sins you suffered. The very same rules that give you a chance to get to heaven – whether you repent of your wrongdoing and commit your life into Jesus’ hands – give your offender a chance. If, however, on earth the offender does not regret what he did to you and cry out to Jesus for the forgiveness he desperately needs, he will for all of eternity regret what he did to you – an indescribably terrifying prospect. Enjoying the Benefits Christ was more than just defiled, slandered, cheated, humiliated and tortured; he absorbed within his own body and spirit all the abuse and cruelty and injustice that humanity is capable of dishing out until it actually killed him. Having suffered the ultimate defeat, being well and truly dead, he burst back to life, triumphantly exploding and disintegrating every trace of shame and pain, returning to honor and sparkling purity. Christ identified with you so fully that he suffered and won in the hope that you, in turn, would identify with him. He believed in you. All that is needed to complete the miracle is for you to believe in him. Trusting him with every aspect of your life – including justice issues – will release the divine miracle whereby you and Jesus become spiritually one. This oneness is without equal (1 Corinthians 6:16-17). The closest human parallel is a perfect marriage in which the couple are so devoted to each other that each partner’s joys and sorrows, honor and shame, assets and liabilities merge into one. If one partner is hurting, inner pain stabs the other. If one is honored, the other feels honored. If one has a pay rise, the other is enriched. If one has a speeding fine, both suffer loss. This is a vague shadow of the oneness existing between a sinner and his/her Savior, through the miracle of what Christ accomplished when he treated as his very own, every offense you have suffered and every offense you have committed. By the abuse meted out to the innocent Son of God, the Almighty Lord, the Judge of all the earth, has proclaimed that the offense against you was so grave, and your honor so precious to him, that nothing less than the horrors Jesus suffered could put it right. Now, at last, you can exult in the knowledge that the debt owed you has been paid in full. Now there can be closure. When you are one with your Savior, you can proclaim with your crucified Lord those triumphant words, “It is finished!” And as he sprang back to life, brimming with honor and glorious in his perfection, you, whose life has been on hold because of what you have suffered, can not only start living again but you can enter an entirely new level of life. Once your spiritual union with Christ takes place, heaven sees you in a totally new way. Christ’s purity, for instance, becomes your purity. What this means is so mind-blowing that it can take years for just some of the implications to sink in, but it is the most liberating experience anyone can ever have. Furthermore, Christ’s triumph over evil becomes your triumph, thereby empowering you to reign in life as victor over the offense that had threatened to crush you, just as he has been victorious over the humiliation he suffered. Like him – and because of him – you will live in eternal honor, totally freed from your past shame and pain. In the eyes of the Final Judge – in the highest court in the universe – you have been vindicated. Whether you view yourself as vindicated depends on your understanding of what Christ has done for you. And whether others regard you as being vindicated depends on their understanding. But God has set a Day when everyone will finally understand, and that Day will never end. Christ sweat blood to ensure everything needed to heal your broken life has been done. No one has ever done so much for you, nor paid such a price. A box of chocolates and a candlelit dinner are not in the same league! And yet, sadly, this greatest conceivable proof of love can still have an air of unreality about it. This, of course, is not because of any deficiency in Jesus but simply because you don’t know him intimately enough to be thoroughly convinced of his powers and of the depth of his devotion to you. Imagine a pleasant, rather attractive woman who is convinced she is fat, ugly and in every way despicable. The only time men have ever spoken of love to her has been as a con trick to try to weaken her resistance so that they can use her for their evil purposes. In all her life she has known nothing but deception, rejection and cruelty. Now the most desirable man she has ever met has started using the love word. He’s different. His love is genuine. He can fulfill her fondest dreams, but she keeps rejecting him, convinced it is just another sordid trick. What chance has she got of discovering he is genuine if she keeps pushing him away? It’s scary, but the only way the tragedy of rejected love can be averted is for her to get as close to him as she can, open up to him as much as she dares, and gradually learn to trust him. It might take her years to be convinced enough to marry him. Even then she might have only the vaguest idea of the depth of his love for her and of how stunningly beautiful she is in his eyes. She might still fear he will leave her, with everything within her screaming that she is unlovable and that at best his love for her must be shallow. The more time she spends with him, listening to him, observing him, believing him, the more it will sink in that she truly is loved, and her harsh assessment of herself will gradually be dispelled. The more she learns to trust and get closer and closer to this man, the more healing she will experience. This analogy points the way to the greatest of healings. The only way to know a fraction of the incomprehensible vastness of Christ’s personal love for you, and the enormous benefits of what he has done for you, is to get closer and closer to Jesus. You will never know, without spending time with him, sharing your heart with him and getting to know him better and better. Many of us sense that our primary need is not therapy but a life-changing relationship; not some special program but a special person. Although this is thrillingly true, we must leave fairy tales behind, and face reality. Not even the best romance humanity can offer will satisfy your need. In fact, you dare not trust a human – the best and most loving of whom is weak and fallible – until you know intimately the faithful Lord who alone gives the security you need to sustain you through the times when human relationships don’t match your dreams. Jesus is like no one else you have ever met. He is genuine and good and strong and dependable. His love is real. He is perfect. He has not merely sympathized with your pain, he has made it his own. Snuggle into him. Let his love splash over you. It will take a lifetime of intimacy to grasp the faintest hint of how precious you are to him and what he has done for you. So the sooner you start, the sooner the amazing benefits will start flowing into your life. Our need is not for a spectacular one-off miracle, nor even a spiritual revolution based on Jesus’ sacrifice (as essential as that is). Not even a once-a-week relationship with God himself will suffice. Our desperate need is for never-ending, ever-growing intimacy with our Savior. That alone will give us the security we need, building our trust in the One who reeled in agony for us. Only such intimacy will continually allow God’s life and healing to flow into our lives. As we physically need oxygen continuously, we spiritually need Jesus. Enjoying the Ultimate Revenge Many people endowed with the potential to be champions and heroes will never be acclaimed as such, simply because life never presented them with the adverse circumstances needed to showcase their abilities. For example, you cannot be a war hero if your country is at peace. For another example: what transformed Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic trek into an outstandingly heroic feat of endurance was losing much of his supplies down a crevasse. Likewise, in heaven’s eyes, the injustice you suffered is the very thing able to transform you into an eternally acclaimed hero, if you respond to the challenge with Christlike forgiveness. Though your offender never intended to give you a chance to shine forever, this is exactly what he has done. When you are yielded to Christ, your offender’s attempt to bring you down will lift you high. In his creative genius, God longs not only to eternally compensate you for everything you have suffered, he will use the injustice you suffered as your stepping stone to greatness. For all of eternity you get to enjoy the last laugh. Maximized Joy We earlier drew comfort from the realization that the infinite intellect of Almighty God gives him the unique ability to focus on everything (including our every need) simultaneously. This is one of the ways in which we are almost the exact opposite of God. When we focus on something, everything else goes out of focus. No where is this more dangerously evident than when we fixate on someone else’s sin. The result is that in our eyes – not in anyone else’s – our own sin blurs, so that we begin to lose awareness of our own shortcomings. Hypocrisy soon results, putting us in grave spiritual danger. Our personality becomes increasingly ugly and sin-stained and we don’t even realize it. People most likely to fall into this fearful trap are those who feel haunted and repulsed by their sin. They discover that focusing on someone else’s sin – usually someone who has wronged them – eases their own distress and so they almost unconsciously use this as a means of survival. The only safe solution to unpleasant feelings about ourselves, however, is to focus, not on someone’s sin, but on Christ’s sinlessness. Ideally, we should glimpse our own spiritual ugliness only long enough to be driven to Christ for his forgiveness, then we need to fix our gaze on Christ’s beauty. This two-pronged action – recognize your sin and keep your eyes on Christ – will remove guilt and transform a person like nothing else in the universe. We inevitably become increasingly like what we focus on. That’s a horrifying prospect if we keep dwelling on the sins of someone who has wronged us. Without realizing it, we will become increasingly like the person we resent. We will remain convinced this isn’t happening because our focus is the other person, not ourselves and because we will manifest our ugliness slightly differently to how the other person acted. Nevertheless, this life principle of becoming like the person we focus on becomes a glorious prospect if we keep our minds on Jesus, who is in every way desirable. We will become increasingly like the most beautiful Person in the universe. When driving a car, we will crash unless we discipline ourselves to keep looking in the direction we wish to travel, with at most only the briefest, occasional glance at anything else. Likewise, the only way to successfully steer our lives away from acting like the person who hurt us is to fix our eyes on the moral perfection and wisdom and love of Jesus. In contrast, resentment causes us to keep focusing on a person’s shameful behavior. The inevitable result of letting resentment control our minds is that our minds will churn with agitation, ugliness, hate and the other person’s low morals, until our actual behavior will begin to reflect our thought-life. In fact, have you ever considered that a desire to see someone treated as badly as he treated you, sends you crashing to the same moral depravity as him? Let resentment control your life and, instead of steering toward purity, you will fixate so much on that person’s sin that you will indeed crash into a version of the very behavior you despise. But if, instead of getting distracted, you habitually look to Jesus, your life will fill with the beauty, love, peace and freedom that characterize him. For you, the holy Son of God let himself become the devil’s plaything; physically violated, emotionally broken, spiritually raped by evil. Will you let the magnitude of his sacrifice soothe your anger and give you peace? Bitterness is like barbed wire in your insides. Will you let his love dissolve it? We have uncovered many deeply moving reasons for nestling as close as we can to Jesus and staying there. And there are a multitude of reasons we have not even touched. So why not begin right now by offering what might be the most honest prayer you have ever uttered? Try something like this: Precious Jesus, Most of this webpage seems too good to be true. To think I am the focus of such mind-boggling love and that at last there can be closure on the awful time I’ve had is almost unbelievable. I need you to open my eyes to the perfection of your justice. Explode every hindrance to my understanding of your personal love for me. Having known no-one else willing to help me, I’ve grown so used to feeling forced to fend for myself that I keep feeling the need to scheme my own revenge, even though the bitterness is eating me up and ruining my life. As my lust for revenge and issues of justice ceaselessly churn within me I am forced to admit that these matters are too big for any mortal to handle. I need supernatural help. Yes, I desperately need you. Yet I keep wanting to execute my own justice and protect my own interests because it’s so hard to trust you to do it properly. How can I trust you to take care of my needs when I doubt that my concerns are as important to you as they are to me? And how can I know the depth of your selfless love and devotion to me when I don’t let myself get close to you? You seem so unreal, so distant, and yet I guess I can’t expect anything else when, driven by my insecurities, I nervously keep you at arm’s length. What a bind! I don’t trust you enough to get close to you and I don’t get close enough to learn that I can trust you. This vicious circle feels too strong to be broken by my own efforts alone. Yes, I need your help on this one, too. I know you have already taken the initiative by relinquishing your right to justice and your ability to enforce it and voluntarily suffering the ultimate injustice for me, two thousand years ahead of me. And I greedily look to you for still more help but I now determine to cooperate with you by doing whatever I can to break this bind. I commit myself to keep pressing through my doubts and draw close to you, so that I can know you better. I believe this will not only break the negative cycle that has been crippling my life but it will commence an exciting positive one. The closer I get to you, the better I will know you. The better I know you, the more I’ll love and trust you. And the more I love and trust you, the closer I’ll want to get to you and so the better I’ll know you. May this positive cycle keep building in my life forever, giving me an ever-deepening awareness of your love and liberating me from the negative emotions that have darkened my life. Thank you that as I do all that I can do to reach out to you, you will do all that I cannot do, and meet my needs for love, peace, joy, security and so many other things beyond my grasp. I am beginning to believe that on the cross you gave yourself for me. So, as much as I can, I now return your love and give myself to you; trusting you to care for me far better than I could ever care for myself. As you identified with my suffering, I identify with you. As you rose from the dead, triumphant over the horrific abuse of your rights, I cling to you to likewise start a new life, triumphant over what I have suffered. I join myself to you so that your victories are my victories and your concerns are my concerns. As God graciously accepted your sacrifice as sufficient for my sins against God, I now accept your sacrifice as sufficient for my offender’s sins against me. As you forgave those who shamefully wronged you, I forgive those who have wronged me. I will stop trying to scheme my own revenge, so that I can demonstrate my faith that you are resolving perfectly every matter that concerns me. Whenever the old resentments come to mind I will push them away, so that I can make you my God, making you the focus of my thinking, as you deserve, and so that my heart and your heart can beat as one. Thank you that no matter what my past, you are eager to cleanse me of any and every sin that I admit to and want removed from my life. Like someone fearing a cancer diagnosis, I have tried to excuse, hide and push from my consciousness my sins. I feared the truth about myself, preferring to live in denial because I’ve suspected my sin problem is incurable or that treatment would be painful. Indeed it should be both unbearable agony and terminal but you yourself suffered that agony – all the way to death – to make the cure not only possible but swift and painless for me. In your astounding love you suffered the fate you did not deserve, to spare me the fate I deserve. The only thing that is now painful and terminal for me is if I choose to live in denial. I feared I’m not good enough to be the focus of your love and approval. I now believe that you are so good and so loving that you long to forgive me, no matter how bad I have been. You are humanity’s only soul surgeon. All you require is for me to, as it were, sign the release form, giving you permission to operate on me and remove my moral blemishes. Sin is terminal, and since you will leave any sin I refuse to admit to, I ask you to shine your spotlight in the dark corners of my life and cause me to see and face up to those things I must ask you to remove. Thank you that you have good plans for me. I trust your love and wisdom; believing that you have my best interests at heart, even more than I ever have. So I invite you to take control of my life. I rest in you.

Revenge Without Shame Don’t get angry, get even The Dream A public lynching would be far too kind for the despicable creature who hurt you. Let’s for a moment let our minds run wild to determine exactly what punishment would be fitting. We could start by dragging him before court. Let his accusers point the finger. Let chills run through him as they scream their accusations. In fact, just for fun, let’s make it three courts – one trial after another after another. That should raise his blood pressure. But it in no way settles the score. Hire professional thugs. With the vilest language, they spit on him; demeaning their human plaything, while beating him with their fists. Here’s an idea: have him blindfolded so that he waits in terror, never knowing when or from where the next sickening blow will come from. Make him reel! More! More! Finally, he’s utterly broken. He’s sobbing uncontrollably, tears flooding down his bloodied face, longing for mercy. This is fun! “You’re not so tough now!” you laugh. “What’s the matter, big boy? Can’t take a little pain? Go on – grovel at my feet! Writhe like the worm you are!” You are grinning from ear to ear. But we need some instrument that inflicts more pain than fists. A whip? The thugs rip off his clothes and lash his naked back. Whack! He screams as the whip mercilessly tears through his skin. Whack! The whip cruelly digs in, ripping out more flesh. Whack! Scream. Don’t weaken. Fire up your rage. What mercy did he have when he ruined your life? Whack! Whack! Whack! Now you’ve got him where you want him. He’s cringing in pain; a sobbing, bloodied wreck. You’re laughing hysterically. Whack! Whack! Flay his flesh! Whack! Whack! Whack! . . . Oh, no! He’s lost consciousness. Drench him with water. Shake him. Slap him around. Great! He’s conscious again! Whack! Whimper. Whack! Whimper. Whack! Whack! . . . Keep it up! More! Rats! You can’t keep him conscious any longer. You’ll have to wait a couple hours until he comes around again. That will give you more time to dream up new horrors. At last! He’s conscious again! You sneer in disgust. “It’s pay back time, vermin!” Jerk him to his feet. “Your day of reckoning has come!” Parade him through the busy streets, with everyone knowing he’s a condemned criminal. Incite the mobs to expel their venom on him, hissing and cursing and despising him. He drops to the ground. Belt him until he staggers up again and stumbles on. A few more steps and he’s down again. Another wonderful opportunity to swat this lowlife! Finally the thugs have to drag him. Now strip him naked. Shamefully naked. Fully exposed; humiliated in front of the gawking, piercing, critical eyes of crowds of laughing, jeering women and men and children. We need some new instrument of torture; something that will make every second sheer hell but will keep him alive minute after never-ending minute, hour after endless hour. Make the tiniest movement – every breath – a source of torment, while he remains fully exposed, with every shred of decency stripped from him, for the sneering crowds to continue to gloat. Pin him out like a captured bug on public display, with no where to hide his shame, no rock to slither under, as the world stares wide-eyed. The crowds are teasing and slandering him, yet something is still missing. I know: the sickening stench of this vermin’s offense has reached high heaven. Almighty God must be furious at what this degenerate did to you. Has injustice ever fired uncontrollable rage within you? That is but a breath relative to the terrifying tornado of divine wrath at that injustice. If a mouse is angry, you can snigger; if a grizzly bear is angry, you can fear; but if the Almighty is angry, there is no human emotion to express the chilling terror that rips through its victim. Every conceivable scale of sheer dread is exploded by this horror. The Judge of all humanity – the God who flung the flaming stars in space – storms down torrent upon torrent of his fearsome fury on this pathetic excuse for a man. In a sense, it would be exquisite to keep this torture up forever, but earth should be rid of this contemptible beast. More important still, you need closure so that at last you can get on with life. Otherwise, like a deadly cancer, lust for revenge will eat your insides, slowly destroying you. So finally his body slumps in death. Now grab a long blade and have your final fling. Vent your wrath on his corpse. Plunge through to his heart, mutilating that lifeless organ. Yes! He’s dead! Savor that word: D-E-A-D. Back to the climax of Sweet Revenge (You have just read the milder version of the beginning of Sweet Revenge. The above link takes you to the remainder of that significant webpage.)

Christian Help When Ashamed of One’s Stupid Mistakes How to Live With One’s Idiotic Blunders Shamed & Embarrassed by One’s Own Stupidity Do you ever beat yourself up over past blunders? I know that pain. Even as a Christian, it has taken me a lifetime to break through the agony, but finally I have answers. Although Christians talk a lot about God wiping out past sin, it doesn’t touch my problem. My source of torment is not the things for which Christ was tortured to death to wipe from heaven’s data banks, but all my quirks and slow-mindedness and foot-in-mouth disease. I’m no genius but I have brain waves – my brain waves goodbye and returns in time to find another reason to be red-faced for the rest of my natural life. How do I live with myself when the issue is not sin but my own stupidity – all the times I’ve made a fool of myself, humiliated myself, shamed myself? Some people reach the point where they can look back on their slips and laugh. Not me. Whenever haunted by a memory of any of the embarrassingly many idiotic things I’ve done, I feel like shriveling up and wishing it were possible to die of embarrassment. What of all the times I have been just too dumb to do better – especially on the spur of the moment, but sometimes even after enormous effort? And then there’s everything about me that makes me weird, unpopular, a loser, a social misfit. I don’t even know the latest word for cool but I do know it isn’t me. Given the petty nature of my affliction, you might feel like stoning me for being a wimp. I am not so self-obsessed, however, not to realize that there are some very human slip-ups that cut so deeply as to send even the toughest of us reeling. Longing to lift your spirits, I’ll keep most of this light, but lest you think me insensitive to the horrendous depths to which feelings of shame and remorse can plunge, I’ve scoured my writings for two heart-wrenching examples. I’ll commence with George Whitefield, a world-renowned evangelist who was a contemporary of John Wesley, and almost as famous. When his wife was pregnant with their only child, George Whitefield knew he had heard from God: it would be a boy and this son would become a great evangelist. Newspapers grabbed the story and mocked. Whitefield was unmoved. The whole world could laugh; time would vindicate him. Finally, the baby was born. It died. Doug Hunt, chief pilot for Wycliffe Bible Translators – dead. Dr. Darlene Bee, brilliant linguist and Bible translator – dead. In all, seven mangled corpses lay strewn amongst the aircraft wreckage. All because a missionary-mechanic neglected to tighten a nut. “The funeral was a ghastly ordeal,” confessed the shattered mechanic. “The sight of those caskets lined up . . . hit me like a blow to the stomach. I wanted nothing but to get out of there . . . How could I face my friends? How could I face myself?” Anyone who can keep going after that is not a negligent mechanic. He’s a spiritual giant. “Except for God’s grace,” he later wrote, “I’d be somewhere cowering in a corner in guilt-ridden despair – the eighth fatality of that Aztec crash.” These horrors make my worries seem pathetic. Somewhere in between, however, are disabilities beyond what average people battle. This was brought home to me by a dear friend who for years has been kindly proofreading my webpages. Upon checking this webpage, she shared her private list of frustrating and embarrassing limitations that advancing years have placed on her. For most of my life, I’ve been plagued by some sort of chronic fatigue that annoys me greatly, but there is no denying that I’ve had it easy, relative to many people. What makes this webpage important is that having limitations beyond the norm is challenging enough, without twisting the knife by tormenting ourselves over them. If you belong to the in-group, or can look into the past and giggle at your faux pas, or you are not continually battling feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and stupidity, this webpage has little to offer. I’m writing for people who are squirming, even decades after the event, over their limitations or unintended acts of stupidity. This is a matter so little mentioned in Christian circles that I have no idea how many of us there are. What I do know, however, is that someone who is literally a genius responded to one of my webpages and began sharing his heart. Especially considering all the dumb things I’d done, I am jealous of his astonishing intellect. Even he, however, has suffered horrifically as someone who doesn’t fit in. In his case, it is precisely because he is so smart. It might be 90% illusion, but the other guy’s grass always looks greener. I know someone who, from puberty onwards has been tall, which further accentuates the fact that he is abnormally skinny and he has no other redeeming physical features. He has no fashion sense, nor any interest in it. He considers clothes not worth wasting money on and, even when he considers himself well-dressed, usually wears the dorkiest second-hand clothes. He has no sporting ability, nor any interest in the subject. Likewise, he has no interest in music or movies. For most of his life, he was agonizingly lonely and desperate for a girlfriend, but was always too scared to ever ask anyone for a date because he was sure no one would say yes. He was always the odd one out and never grew out of it. Now it’s time to confess that I’m referring to me. I’m such an oddball that I never want to talk about myself because it would depress me, let alone anyone having to hear me. I’m not interested in a pity party. It just seems necessary, for the sake of this webpage, to be honest with you. I’ve crammed the following with humor, lest my confessions make someone cringe to death but, for me, this has been a painfully serious matter that has haunted me all my life, despite my every effort to push it from my consciousness. Although I hate talking about myself, it is my conviction that sharing my journey with you will help you see not just the pitfalls of letting oneself be tormented by the past, but will also reveal the solutions. That way, you’ll be able to find the road to peace and fulfillment much quicker than I did. My life has produced a spectacular array of things to beat myself up over. Mostly, in the grand scheme, they are ludicrously insignificant things, and yet they claw at me as if they really mattered. Often, it is things done decades ago – a slip of the tongue, or whatever – but whenever my spinning mind slows until it lands on the memory, I feel as much shame and torment as I would if it had just happened. I have all the answers for anything that could be called sin – things that I could claim forgiveness for – but what I kept floundering over was how to cope with my own inadequacies. Close to twenty years ago, the Associate Editor of a national Christian magazine e-mailed me, saying she would like to join my ministry’s prayer team. Deeply honored and anxious to impress, I immediately e-mailed her back, saying among other things, that I expected she was very busy. Well, that was the plan. If you know the saying, “The best-laid plans of mice and men . . .” you’ll have an inkling where this is heading. Have you heard of Murphy’s Law? (“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”) It’s actually my biography. They must have changed the name as an act of mercy. Anyhow, by Murphy’s Law t and y are right next to each other on the keyboard. My finger slipped, hitting both keys at the same time. I had just told the woman behind this significant Christian publication, “I guess you are very busty.” (Why are rocks so hard to find when you need to crawl under one?) This is one of the rare cases I can actually laugh about. I happened to catch the blunder seconds before clicking Send. Otherwise, it would have been tacked on to my nearly endless list of foibles and rattle-brained antics; the memory of which orbit my head, ready to re-enter my consciousness to torment me whenever I’m alone with my thoughts. I continually limit myself to writing because if I spend enough hours on a paragraph, I might come across as adequate. In any other situation, it’s immediately obvious that I don’t fit in. I finally married – in my mid-fifties, would you believe (I lived with my mother until then – don’t even go there). And I was forced into retirement due to health issues. Nowadays, I’ve become such a recluse that I sometimes go for months without speaking face to face to anyone except my wife and an occasional bare minimum to a shop assistant if I buy something. To quote what I wrote decades ago (feel free to slide down if you have already seen it): Of my legendary brain malfunctions, you’ll squeeze just one example from me. Divulge more, and I’d be sentenced to wearing a paper bag over my head for the rest of my natural life – and that’s a prospect I don’t relish, no matter how much you think it improves my looks. I was about to go home when a manager said he couldn’t start his car. Some idiot had left the headlights on. Suddenly my nerves thought I’d caught malaria. That morning I had tested the lights of our entire vehicle fleet. “That’s funny,” added another manager, “I can’t start my car either – battery’s dead.” (It was definitely malaria, maybe yellow fever as well.) Up walked another manager – and was that another one behind him? I’ve got a mechanical mind; it’s just that the gears have jammed. When I have mistake and onions it’s neither rare nor well done. And just when I’ve had my fill I’m forced to eat my words. And that’s only the entrée. Somehow I always end up in the soup and have to pay for it. Humble pie follows with a generous serve of raspberries and I scream. I make more slips than a 1950’s lingerie company. As my mind lurches from one goof-up to the next, I fill with despair. Then I limp to the Bible and find comfort. I bump into Isaac, who blessed the wrong twin; (Genesis 27:21-35) and Jacob, the scheming mummy’s boy, who had to marry his sister-in-law to patch up his first mistake (Genesis 29:20-28). I hear Job clawing for words to recount the tragedy that marred his childhood – he was born alive (Job 3:1-19). I see Saul hiding amongst the baggage; (1 Samuel 10:22) David squabbling with his brothers; (1 Samuel 17:28-29) Jonah bewailing the death of a weed; (Jonah 4:7-9) Thomas poking holes in Jesus’ side (John 20:24-25). I don’t know that they had pogo sticks back then, but if they did, they played under the table for too long. Hard-boiled? These egg-heads were always in hot water. Whenever they had a brainwave heaven ducked for cover. Of course, Solomon had a good head on his shoulders – a cute brunette one night, a redhead the next. I think he ended up counting his wives and kissing his money. Jesus hand-picked the quiet, intelligent type. When they were quiet, they were intelligent. They spent the rest of their time turning howlers into an art form. Their business cards must have read Bloopers for Every Occasion. There were the sons of blunder, James and John, armed with tongues programmed to shoot first and ask questions at the inquest. Those thunder-heads even thought the Prince of Peace was into star wars (Luke 9:54). Then there was Peter, whose mouth went into spasms whenever his brain died. He always spoke with his mouth full, and still found room for the other foot. (Any normal sized mouth would have had corns.) You were sure to find this crying shame somewhere between boo-boo and boo-hoo. And while our silver-tongued, lead brained hero was doing what came naturally, everyone else was scrambling to prove they had the IQ of a doughnut hole. Who could forget that ridiculous prayer-meeting when the maid left Peter locked out in the cold, the pray-ers thought the maid had gone around the twist for being so stupid as to think their prayers had been answered, and they finally made the brilliant deduction that the guy, who looks and sounds like Peter bashing on the door, must be Peter’s angel (Acts 12:12-16)? They believed in keeping their brains in ‘as new’ condition. Remember the dozer with the window seat who fell three floors to sleep during Paul’s sermon (Acts 20:9)? They make that drop-out look like a genius. Paul wasn’t kidding when he said that by normal standards few of the Corinthian Christians were wise (1 Corinthians 2:26-27). If they were anything like the rest, you could pool their intellects and not have enough to power a headache. I could put my feet up with folks like that. And what fires me is that these scatter-brains are God’s sort of people – the type through whom he changes the world. Christians squabble over whether tongues have ceased, but no one doubts that signs and blunders are with us still. The centuries have made Christians no brighter, nor any less treasured by heaven. My favorite is Dwight Moody. He hated his first name, pronounced Jerusalem in two syllables, and wrote without a speck of punctuation. Can you guess the words he was attempting to spell in the following: sucksead, beleave, shure, clurks, bead, hav, don, bimb bi, peter? (Succeed, believe, sure, clerks, bed, have, done, ‘by ‘n by’, better.) “I am getting over the difficulty,” said middle-aged Moody about his spelling, “I am always sure of the first letter and the last . . . ” Such shortcomings are endearing. To scorn them is to act like a thirteen-year-old despising childish behavior in his little sister – behavior that more mature people find adorable. Had we a massive intellect and love approaching that of our great King, we would not only discern the frailty of even the greatest earthly minds, we would probably feel as warmly about their foibles as we do about those of the cutest child. Yep, that’s what I wrote. And did I take it to heart? Nope. In the above, I had amassed an impressive stockpile of powerful ammunition for us not-quite-geniuses. Unused weapons, however, will keep no one safe. I might, for a while, have used these truths to fight the inferiority and inadequacy that plagues me, but instead of relentlessly persisting, I gradually let them drift from my consciousness. Let me explain my error so that I can spare you years of having things gnaw at you. When God’s people entered the Promised Land, do you recall how critical it was that they remove not just most of the enemy but every trace of them, and how not doing so brought enormous problems upon themselves? Should they compromise on totally obliterating the enemy, here’s what the Lord declared would happen: Joshua 23:13 know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you. Like eradicating cancer, no matter how great an achievement it might seem to remove 99% of the enemy from our lives, it is not enough. The little that is left is deadly. Give us an inch and we’ll take a mile is virtually our enemies’ manifesto. Any thinking that does not line up with how God sees us is a treacherous foe that must be continually fought until it is utterly defeated and permanently evicted. Instead of ruthlessly eradicating wrong thinking from my life, however, I learned to live with it. Rather than live victoriously, I came up with workarounds that made the affliction more tolerable. Letting wrong thinking harass me had become so much a part of me that I was barely aware of how needlessly crippled I really was. I certainly didn’t thrive, but I survived the attacks that haunted me, by cramming my little mind with so much that there was seldom any room left for all the things queuing up to bite me yet again. I inevitably wake up several times in the night. Most days, I’m working on a webpage, and so as soon as I wake, my mind immediately drifts to my latest writing project. Before long, I would find myself jotting down new thoughts, instead of my mind slumping to sources of torment from my past. When I was up, I avoided mindless tasks like exercise or housework (“Very convenient,” you say) or I would soon be squirming over something embarrassingly idiotic I did ten or twenty or thirty or more years ago, or lamenting my frustratingly many limitations or all my hopes and dreams that have not materialized. I tried to devote every waking moment to ministry. I not only wanted to give the Lord my utmost, it kept me distracted from thoughts that dragged me down. Being alone with my thoughts was so torturous, however, that when my mind was too weary to engage in more ministry, I felt forced to waste my time watching mindless television to keep the memories and depressing thoughts at bay. Lately, however, I’ve been having significant problems sleeping; leaving me too exhausted, even when I’m out of bed, to keep pesky thoughts at bay by burying myself in perpetual ministry. Adding to my self-doubt was that although I once used to receive a stream of encouraging e-mails from people saying how much they were helped by my webpages, it has now virtually dried up, exposing fertile soil in which to sow dark thoughts. Actually this is such an appalling source of agony that I recoil from going near it, least I slide into a bottomless hole of depression. I have been pouring my life into publishing webpages on the Internet for over twenty years and for years before that devoted every moment I could scrounge preparing for it. Expressing my love for God this way is all I have lived for. I’ve removed none of them but kept faithfully adding still more. Whereas once God powerfully used them to touch needy hearts, however, readership has been seriously declining for years, leaving me reeling in bewilderment. All these afflictions might be labelled an attack of the enemy – and on one level it was – but it has proved itself a precious gift of God because it prevented me from resorting to my old ways of tolerating, rather than defeating, my negative thoughts. I personally know very many precious people who suffer horrific battles with memories of past trauma, such as rape, physical torture, and so on. I can understand that. My heart goes out to them. But who would have thought someone could be tormented for decades over social slip-ups that everyone but him has most likely forgotten? Is this as pathetic as it sounds? With exhaustion stripping me of my usual coping mechanisms, it became undeniable that if someone wanted to torture me, he could forget the cattle prod, waterboarding, and so on. All it would take is to put me in solitary confinement and let me torture myself with my own memories and putdowns. It’s ridiculous, but I would be in agony within an hour. I recall Jesus in the wilderness, Moses alone in the desert tending his father-in-law’s sheep (Exodus 3:1), David’s countless hours as a shepherd boy (1 Samuel 17:34), and so on. Being alone with my thoughts, like they must have been, would be horrific for me. Something must be very wrong with me to react this way. It cannot be natural, nor consistent with God’s wishes for me. The Lord had to let things become almost intolerable before I finally came to my senses and realized that this is so contrary to God that it must be an attack of the enemy. Still more disturbing is that I had been agreeing with the enemy – in effect, telling myself yes, I’m stupid; yes, I’m a social reject; yes, I have atrocious limitations – instead of refusing to entertain these accusations, and going on the attack when these thoughts come. I know as well as you that God’s Word says resist the devil, and he will flee (James 4:7). But instead of resisting his lies, making him feel like an unwanted intruder, here was I agreeing with the enemy. A chill swept through me when I realized how agreeing with him was not only siding with the Evil One, but making him feel welcome. In fact, although I’m ashamed to put it this way, I was virtually falling at the Devil’s feet and worshipping him as a source of truth. Jesus – the one I’m meant to model my life on – fought the devil’s lies; citing Scripture’s truths over and over when tempted in the wilderness. “It is written . . . it is written . . .it is written . . .” was his response (Matthew 4:4, 6, 10). And finally, “Get behind me, Satan!” It hit me that instead of trying to avoid the accusations by frantically cramming my mind with other things, I needed to face this lifelong problem head-on. I needed to stop being bullied by monstrous thoughts and reverencing them as truth. I needed to rise up in my Christ-bought authority and defeat this foe. Anything less is an insult to the One who paid such a horrendous price so I could live in victory. We know how Scripture says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against dark spiritual powers (Ephesians 6:12). You might also recall how it calls the devil the Christians’ accuser (Revelation 12:10). It took me far too long to realize that what seem like self-accusations must surely be spiritually powered by the Evil One and his cohorts. They love to camouflage themselves and hide in the shadows, but just as evil lurks behind temptation and condemnation, so it is with beating ourselves up over our limitations, goof-ups and so on. I’m not referring to demon possession or anything kinky. I was no more possessed than the Spirit-filled apostle, who was tormented by an angel/messenger of Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7), or the holy Son of God, who in the wilderness was needled by Satan himself (Matthew 4:1). Nevertheless, just as good exists, so does evil. The ultimate source of good is God, who not only has supernatural power and intelligence, but also works through various lesser intelligences (angels and people) as well as impersonal agencies in nature. Likewise, behind evil is the Devil, a supernatural being who employs various intelligences and impersonal forces to execute his plans. If modern nations at war try to demoralize their enemies by what is sometimes called psychological warfare – and even the Bible cites instances of it being used to try to weaken God’s people and incite them to surrender (Examples) – surely evil spiritual powers will try similar attacks on God’s people today. Want it or not, realize it or not, this means every person on earth is in a spiritual war zone. Rather than being hapless victims of a battle between spiritual superpowers, however, everyone who is united to Christ is not only on the winning side, but a powerful combatant in this war. For every Christian, battling a demon is like confronting an armed intruder. As menacing as he seems, he is no match for you because no matter how armed to the hilt he seems, all his guns are empty, and yours are loaded. Just squeeze the trigger and he is doomed. The one thing keeping the outcome from being a foregone conclusion is that, from a distance, loaded and unloaded guns look the same. Your enemy has the audacity to pretend to have the upper hand, in the hope of fooling you into thinking the situation is reversed – that his guns are loaded and yours are empty. For as long as his bluff works, he can relax and bully you as much as he likes, but the moment he realizes that someone knows the real situation, even the most powerful demon is terrified of the weakest Christian. The Devil is the deceiver. He beguiles. But that is all he can do. He is powerless to change spiritual reality. He cannot undo Christ’s stupendous victory on the cross that defeated evil powers, secured our forgiveness and enabled God to pour out all his blessings upon us. The Evil One cannot stop God from believing in us, loving us with all he has, and wanting the best for us. All he can do is to try to dupe us. He is amazingly skilled at it, however. He longs to mess with our heads; enticing us to feel useless, to feel hard done by and resent God and other people. If we believe his lies, we will end up as confused as a painfully thin anorexic hounded by the lie that she is fat. We all know that anorexia is not just torturous but life-threatening. Likewise, the enemy of our souls and his minions want not just to afflict us, but disable us and even, if they possibly can, reduce us to being physically or spiritually suicidal. I’m not at all aggressive, but when my eyes were finally opened to the tricks those slimy con artists had been playing at my expense, I was peeved enough to want to confront them. It would probably have been appropriate for me to be even more angry at them, but I was annoyed enough to relish the thought of them daring to attack me yet again so that I could inflict a stinging rebuke on the sleazy liars behind these attacks. Astonishingly, however, the attacks immediately ceased. Those cowardly fiends were nowhere to be found. To provide examples for this webpage, I have tried recalling embarrassing events that used to hound me, and to my bewilderment, I cannot even recall most of them, and the few I can recall no longer sting. I was taken aback, and even disappointed, because I was itching for a fight. Apparently, they sensed their cover had been blown and that I was ready to go on the offensive and so they backed off. I had expected it would take a prolonged battle to send them fleeing but I was determined to keep resisting them for however long it took to thoroughly whip them. I confess to being a novice in spiritual warfare. My every other battle has been protracted and I expect that this is the norm, at least until we become experienced and confident in sending demons skedaddling. If they sense they might be able to bluff their way into staying, they will try their hardest to hang around, in the hope that we give up and let them stay. In a tiny area of my life, those scammers had managed to make me their plaything by concealing their identity, but now that they had been unmasked it seems they feared a front-on attack. Another possibility is that the Lord graciously gave me a taste of what it is like to be free from accusations I had been foolishly accepting as truth, and this taste of freedom has made me more determined than ever to never again let myself engage in self-condemnation. Whatever the reason, though somewhat mystified by this remarkably easy transformation, I know enough about spiritual warfare to understand that demons loathe losing their chumps/victims. In fact, they hate losing, period. Even with the undefeated Son of God, Satan tried not one, not two, but three different attacks in the wilderness and even then, left him only “until another time” (Luke 4:13). Since the cross has rendered every evil power a defeated foe, and the weakest Christian who realizes this can whip their hide, they quake in terror. However, our spiritual enemies have had more than enough experience with humans to know that if they have fooled us in the past, there’s a good chance we will eventually lose sight of our new revelation and we will slide back into letting them fool us again: Luke 11:24-26 The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’ When he returns, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes, and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter if the demon returns with an entire battalion of reinforcements, they are still demons that Christ has utterly defeated, and Christ is in every Christian. The only concern is whether we let them bluff us into not using our Christ-bought authority. Since they are already conquered, demons have no option but be cunning. They love sneak attacks when we least expect them; when we are most vulnerable and least prepared. They are therefore likely to attack when I’m half asleep or below par. To leave everything until then to work out how to send them fleeing would be foolish. So I resolved to fully prepare myself for the next battle by building myself up right now and planning my counterattack ahead of time. I recalled this Scripture: Revelation 12:10-12 I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “. . . the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. . . .Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.” The great news is that the devil has no divine authority for his accusations. Heaven has shut its ears. In fact, it has thrown him out. That does not mean he has stopped slandering us – actually, we can expect him to redouble his efforts because “he has but a short time” – but if heaven refuses to accept what he says about us, why should we? In fact, how dare we? Dare we exalt “the father of lies” (John 8:44, many translations) as a source of truth, in defiance of our Lord who is truth? Instead of tolerating his accusations, we must go on the offensive and keep attacking him until he eventually flees. But how do we do this? I believe we need a three-pronged attack. 1. Preemptive Prayer By this, I mean making the most of any lull in the battle by prayerfully looking to God to build ourselves up spiritually and obtain from our Lord his strategy for victory. We see this hinted at in such Scriptures as: Luke 21:34-36 So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly. For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth. Therefore be watchful all the time, praying that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man. Luke 22:40, 44-46 When he was at the place, he said to them, “Pray that you don’t enter into temptation.” . . . Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he rose up from his prayer, he came to the disciples, and found them sleeping because of grief, and said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Sometimes we are caught so unaware that we find ourselves in the heat of the battle without having prepared ourselves in this way. At such times, we can still pray quick, urgent prayers, but the ideal is to spiritually prepare ourselves ahead of time. 2. Direct Attack Directly rebuking the enemy – seeing him as a trespasser who has no right to con us into believing his lies, and keep authoritatively commanding him to leave in Jesus’ name until he obeys. For more on this see the Spiritual Warfare: Turning Spiritual Attack into Victory link at the end of this page. 3. Praise Psalm 149:6-9 May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hand; To execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the written judgment. All his saints have this honor. . . . The final prong of our attack is to keep praising our Lord until we actually rejoice and delight in the very things that used to make us cringe. At first thought, this seems not only ludicrous but almost impossible. So I must explain how I reached this conclusion. I remembered the apostle Paul’s divinely-given strategy when he was tormented (the word used in many translations) by “a messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7). The Lord told the apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Here’s Paul’s response to this staggering revelation: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 . . . Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (NIV). The mighty apostle was taught of God to glory in his weaknesses and to view them as sources of strength. His weaknesses, and the insults, hardships, opposition, and difficulties he suffered – the very things in his circumstances that he and his observers were tempted to despise – were windows that let the grace of God shine into his life, flooding him with divine blessing and empowering. His weaknesses were his greatest assets? He should exult in his sources of shame? And that applies to us as well? That’s so mind-boggling as to initially send us staggering in disbelief. So let’s walk through this together. I recalled Paul’s previous letter to the Corinthians, where he wrote: 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are (NIV). The Word of God authoritatively pronounces that the things that caused most of its readers to be despised by others were indeed things to celebrate. They are, in fact, the very things that caused them to be divinely chosen. Again we read: Matthew 11:25-26 . . . Jesus answered, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight. . . .” Who would want to join the ranks of “the wise and understanding” who miss out on divine revelation? Here’s yet another indication how status, even in the eyes of the apparently godly, can be a significant spiritual disadvantage: Luke 4:25-27 But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, except Naaman, the Syrian.” In both cases, it was Gentiles – people God’s chosen thought of as rejects – who received miracles, not those everyone considered more worthy. Yet another time, Jesus said: Luke 6:26 Woe to you when all people speak well of you . . . (NET Bible and several other versions) In fact, he went so far as to say: Luke 16:15 . . . For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Earlier I provided a long list of hare-brained acts of Bible saints. Let’s also remember that the Almighty has an exceptionally long history of choosing no-bodies. Consider, for example: * Moses, the stutterer, who felt so useless he almost rejected his calling (Exodus 4:10) . More about this. * Gideon, who upon being called a “mighty man of valor” (Judges 6:12) told the angel of the Lord, “. . . how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (Judges 6:15). In fact, his greatest obstacle was not that the army he eventually mustered was hopelessly outnumbered, but that it was not pathetic enough (Judges 7:2) and had to whittled down from twenty-two thousand (Judges 7:3) to a mere three hundred (Judges 7:7). * Saul, who likewise told the God who was calling him, “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? And my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? . . .” (1 Samuel 9:21). He was so shy when he was about to be proclaimed king that no one could find him, until the Lord told them he was hiding among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22). That’s an act that would have haunted me for the rest of my life. * Isaiah, overwhelmed by his “unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). * Jeremiah who, upon his calling, replied, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I don’t know how to speak; for I am a child” (Jeremiah 1:6). * Amos, who declared, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs . . .” (Amos 7:14). * Peter, who commenced his discipleship with the words, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.” (Luke 5:8). * Paul, whose first position in the church was chief persecutor. * For still more on this strong biblical theme, see God’s Favorite People. As explained in the God Isn’t Fair? link at the end of this webpage, whatever causes us to feel inferior, or perhaps envious of other people, can be the very thing that keeps us from falling into pride and compels us to cling so tightly to our Lord that we soar to greater spiritual heights than those who seem to have all the natural advantages, and even seem to have greater spiritual blessings. When praise lifts us from the earthly to the heavenly, we begin to see things from God’s vantage point. And since God is truth, this is a profoundly important perspective. As I continued to let praise take me higher, I looked down on what I was leaving behind and was appalled to see something insidious that, until now, I had been disturbingly blind to. My thinking had been so distorted that, without even realizing it, I had allowed envy and self-pity to fester. Oozing from that ugliness was possibly even a trace of resentment toward my flawless Lord. This Scripture came to mind: Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who strives with his Maker – a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ . . . Remember me saying how the other guy always has the best grass? Dare I give another example of how my warped thinking has fallen for this illusion? Please don’t be offended. I raise this matter only to highlight how wrong my thinking has been, not to say anything sensible about gender. Many women talk about gender inequality and feel hard done by, and maybe they are, but most of my life I have been envious of women and felt the odds are stacked in their favor. There might be less female CEOs but I’d never get anywhere close to being a CEO, no matter what my gender. Many women might earn less than the average man but my salary has always been way below that of the average male and I think the same was true of my father. In fact, I’ve spent my life in jobs where women were given preferential treatment. Moreover, women have significantly longer life expectancies, significantly fewer are incarcerated, they have a lower suicide rate, are much less likely to be loners, and on and on I could go. I raise this only to emphasize that I’m wrong to be envious of others. It’s ridiculously easy to fall into self-pity and slump into despair and resentment and even envy. The truth that praise reveals is that even if you or I were born into the most discriminated-against people-group on the planet – purple-skinned, three-legged giants with iridescent acne, or whatever – the Lord would still treasure us as much as anyone else, and would turn all the negatives around for good until they end up blessing us for all eternity. As, from my new vantage point, I looked upon the ugly tangle of envy, self-pity and a smattering of ill-feeling toward the Perfect One, I realized I had been regularly lopping off this growth’s more obvious tentacles but I had never killed it. More disturbing still: I was no longer dealing with matters that are not sin. I looked to the Holy One, not only for forgiveness but for divine empowering to break through my jadedness to see how hideously wrong I had been. This was not so I could keep sloshing around in the mud of self-condemnation but so I could honor my Lord and shine with his beauty by identifying and eagerly jettisoning everything that needed to go. As I kept looking to God to open my eyes, still more divine insights rose from within – revelations I had recorded decades ago but somehow, through the ravages of time, had faded from my consciousness. They were like polish that removes the grime of lies, enabling the truth to gleam. Those despicable lies must be removed, not only because they slander us but because they slander our Maker, and goad us to think ill of the One whose love, goodness and wisdom are heart-stopping in their perfection. For some of these truths, see More Encouragement. Now, I’m ready for an attack. I’m going on the offensive. When those thoughts come I’m going to rebuke them in the name of Jesus and I’m going to praise God that he loves me and accepts me regardless; that it’s when I’m weak I am strong and that he singles out for special callings those who have inadequacies and seem to have reason for despising themselves.

They were beasts, not men, who violated your innocence. They stripped you of your decency. They invaded your body; shaming you, humiliating you. Terror gripped you by the throat. Stark naked, bleeding, pinned like a bug on display they exposed you to the world. Relentlessly they reviled and defiled you. You longed for mercy. No one so much as lifted an eyebrow for you. To them it was a game. They had robbed you not only of every thread of clothing and respectability, but of your very humanity. You were sport, a plaything, a bit of fun before being tossed away. You existed only to be gawked at, jeered at, spat on. With bloodcurdling callousness they continued to desecrate your person with vile, inhuman, despicable acts. Where was God in the midst of all this horror? If those savaging you were beasts, you were a gentle, innocent dove. Within you was not a shadow of lust or bitterness or spite. You knew only how to be tender and caring. You let them do their worst, absorbing all the evil and returning kindness for hate. Your only retaliation was to want the best for those who wanted you dead. They sank their vicious fangs into you and ripped you apart. And where was God? No one had understood you. You had been betrayed by one who should have shielded you; abandoned by those closest to you; falsely accused by those whose duty it is to protect the innocent. Abusing their God-given authority, those revered as model citizens pronounced themselves righteous and declared you guilty. No one defended your innocence. They all turned away, or pointed the finger, or spat on you. Just hours ago – yet it seems forever – you sparkled with purity. The transparency of your innocence gleamed like exquisite glass; a work of priceless beauty. Your every move made the sun dance. No grubby hand had ever touched your perfection. Not the tiniest speck of humanity’s grime had ever stained you. Then they arose in fury and vandalized you; crushing you, smashing you, shattering you. You were ruined. Yet in senseless rage they continued their assault, mercilessly pounding all those broken pieces to dust. Your perfection, your value, your beauty were lost forever. Once you were priceless, now trash; once cherished, now fit only to be thrown away. Yet, as you reeled in torturous agony, you who with one breath could vaporize the planet, gasped, “Father, forgive them.” But where was God? Like a never-ending tornado, searing pain raged through every jangled nerve of your mutilated body. Your desirability gone, like a rose ripped apart; your priceless innocence, like crystal shattered beyond repair; your reputation, like the purest mountain stream reduced to putrid sludge, you cried in desperation to your only Hope, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Bleak silence stabbed your heart. Your pain rocketed to inconceivable levels. Abused by those you loved, deserted by those who meant everything to you, but abandoned by God? Treated by your eternal Father as if your hate-crazed torturers were innocent and you were the vilest sinner! The God who hates evil with terrifying fury, did nothing. With agonizing slowness your torturers began to choke the remaining life from you. You thought of the God who had abandoned you to unspeakable horrors; the God who had turned his back on you; the God who had failed to give the slightest comfort as you suffered alone. Yet still you trusted his love and wisdom. He had deserted you in death and yet you committed yourself to him for all eternity. “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.” They thrust a spear up you – ripping you all the way to your heart. They dragged you away, a hideous corpse. Once so fresh, now you stink. Once pristine; now polluted. Once unique; now extinct. Once so honored; now they turn from you in disgust. Day after day, the God you had trusted left your body to rot. Suddenly the Almighty showed his hand. Now the world would see what he had always planned. The impossible happened: you sprang to life! Tears turned to triumph; grief erupted into joy; hideous wounds transmuted into marks of honor. You again sparkled with purity. Just moments before, you had been like the finest art vandalized beyond recognition. Then the Master Artist, tears in his eyes, lovingly labored on his ruined treasure until each stroke of the vandal became a source of new splendor. The final masterpiece is even more spectacular than ever before – so breathtaking that heaven and earth can only gaze in awe at your loveliness. Radiant with holy glory, renewed to perfection, you rose not just to the innocence and matchless honor that had eternally been yours, but to new and even greater honor. Now you are not only the One through whom we were made, but the One through whom everyone who lets you is restored to the sinless perfection of your purity and to your honor and eternal destiny. Oh, astounding God! Truly, you are the Lord of the happy ending; the Master of the surprise twist to the tale, startling the universe by transforming disaster into triumph and grief into endless joy. You are the God of the unexpected; with the flick of a finger flipping meaninglessness into meaning, as effortlessly as flipping a hideous tangle of threads to reveal the most stunning tapestry on the other side. Who could have guessed that what seemed ugly chaos was but a necessary side of a work of breathtaking perfection? Oh, keep me from the stupidity of judging your work before reaching the other side! Just when everyone is sure of the inevitable outcome, you flabbergast us with your genius by bringing victory from nowhere; bliss out of pain; beauty out of filth. In the twinkling of an eye, the defeated win, the oppressed rule, the despised are honored, hopeless losers are hailed as champions. Truly, you are the God of the impossible. Like precious gold from rocks mercilessly thrown into intolerable heat, you tenderly draw exquisite good out of the vicious fires of senseless evil. The unveiling of your feats leaves all creation awestruck. One day all will be revealed. Suddenly, everyone who in ignorant fury has raged against you will be speechless. All who have arrogantly shaken their fists will fall on their faces, loathing themselves for their foolish accusations. Every complaining voice will be hushed, then erupt in thunderous praise, rejoicing in the stupendous power, genius and goodness of the magnificent Lord. In you, infinite love meets infinite knowledge, and infinite intelligence meets infinite goodness. To say that makes you utterly trustworthy is like saying the universe might be big enough for me. Oh, how much we miss when we can barely see your beauty through eyes clouded with self-pity or self-preoccupation! You are perfection personified; adorable in every conceivable way. Everything good and beautiful has its source in you. You are beyond everything I could ever wish for. To call you warm and virtuous is to call the ocean a drop of water. You are the standard by which the loftiest human attempts at virtue are measured and found wanting. Alongside you, the most heartwarming human acts of kindness fall to the ground, suddenly seeming shallow and clouded by mixed motives. To perfect the beautiful surprise you have planned for each of your loved ones, you cleverly conceal critical parts of what to us is a puzzle. Until the final piece clicks into place, few of us will ever guess the mind-boggling extent to which everything you do brims with tender compassion, loving power, and awesome wisdom. Everything is working toward the culmination of the spectacular surprise that only you in your boundless love, power and genius could create. May I trust your loving tenderness and breath-taking goodness right now, before the full unveiling of your plans, so that I will not be ashamed of my mistrust when the perfection of your eternal purposes finally materializes. If beautiful works of art often look ugly in the early stage of their creation; if a house undergoing major renovations can seem a disaster zone until the work is finished; if in the midst of life-saving surgery, an injured person has more gaping wounds than before the operation, I cannot expect to appreciate the grandeur of what you are doing in my life until your work in me is complete. Father God, how horrifically you suffered – knowing your Son’s pain as intimately as only the all-knowing Lord could know, and yet still persisting with the plan to rescue me that you and your Innocent had agreed on. You are the ultimate in passionate caring, unstoppable love and selfless compassion. There is no pain you would spare yourself, no extremes you would not go to, so that I could have your very best. Precious Jesus, the very thought of the horrors you would suffer had sickened you with mind-numbing dread. Divine holiness would be desecrated by filthiness. You, who had eternally known exquisite intimacy and union with the Father, would be emotionally ripped from the Father’s heart and subjected to all the wrath the Almighty had stored up against all of sinful humanity. The divine, eternal oneness would be smashed. Your whole being recoiled, wanting to flee in panic-stricken terror and revulsion. How you longed for there to be some other way to meet humanity’s deepest needs! But there was none. So in a spine-chilling act of sheer willpower you mustered your every speck of determination, forcing yourself to endure unthinkable agonies. You chose this because you knew that forever you would look back on your torment and exult in the knowledge that your every millisecond of agony was worth it. You knew your God would waste not a single tear but would achieve from your ordeal infinite good in so many lives. You thrilled in the certainty that your agony would end up filling your undeserving, undesirable, self-centered loved ones with immeasurable joy for all eternity. Mighty Lord – more innocent than a baby, more powerful than a billion nuclear bombs, more aware of every consequence than the combined intellects of every being in the universe – in every way your sacrificial love is without equal. Others have suffered injustice and been overpowered, but you volunteered and refused to escape. Others did not know what they were getting into; you knew precisely what would happen. Others have been robbed of great riches, but you deliberately came down from heaven to lose more than anyone has ever lost. You delighted your haters by acting weak and vulnerable, when with a flicker of an eyelid you could have reduced them to ash. You fulfilled their joy by letting them vomit their hate over you. You let them expel on you their sadistic lust to inflict pain; filling them with glee as you let them trample you under their feet, grinding you into the dust of death. Humanity is blighted with people who sacrifice their lives to kill and maim – even in the name of peace. You sacrificed your life to heal and restore, risking everything to forgive those who hate you. You willingly suffered what you did not deserve so that we might not suffer what we deserve. Such is your exorbitant love that you chose physical torture, because it hurt you even more, just to see me, your loved one, doomed to the eternal consequences of my own sin. With you, I’m completely out of my depth. I’m a microbe overwhelmed by the Niagara of your love. As a newborn is unable to appreciate its mother’s love, so your love for me soars far beyond my comprehension. How can I adequately thank you? How can I return to you the enormity of your love? What can I give you that isn’t already yours? My love for you is no virtue. To be head-over-heels in love with you is nothing but the inevitable response to glimpsing your beauty, goodness, wisdom, love and all your other qualities that take my breath away. The most I’ve done is let you inspire me to wrench my eyes off worldly distractions long enough to begin to know you. No one ever suffers alone. You feel the pain of every individual that has ever lived. Even an ordinary, hardhearted, self-centered human recognizes that it affects a person profoundly to know that a loved one is hurting. A mother can be more distraught by her darling’s suffering than the child itself. The more aware we are of someone’s suffering, and the more we love that person, the more their pain hurts us. Your feelings for us, however, soar far beyond that of humanity’s most sensitive person. No human can approach the mind-boggling magnitude of your love for us, nor the intensity of your awareness of our every distress and most hidden hurt. You are inconceivable tenderness and acute awareness exploded to infinity. The result is a sensitivity way beyond my powers of imagination. You can’t help but take it personally when anyone even mildly hurts someone. Your heart breaks even at sins that initially seem to hurt no one. If any sin were the harmless fun we imagine it to be, it would not be sin at all, and you would approve of it. It is the very nature of sin that it ends up hurting people. Our dilemma is that we are so eager to sin that we claim almost anything short of a chain saw massacre ‘doesn’t hurt anyone.’ Sin is so terrifyingly deceptive and subtle that it sometimes takes centuries before finally manifesting itself as perhaps genetic abnormalities or environmental disasters. We are so eager to sin that we forget that the guidance you give us is always the product of your super-intelligence and selfless love for us. Follow the chain reaction for long enough, and any deviation we take from your guidance will eventually produce such a tragedy that you reel in grief over how much people will end up hurt. Even if the offender hurt only himself, that would be enough to break your heart. Both by the infinite depth of your feelings for suffering humanity and by what you endured on the cross, all suffering falls on you. And as if the intensity of this agony were not already beyond human comprehension, the unthinkable happens – your pain doubles as people who mean everything to you have the hide to blame you for the suffering induced by anti-God acts that hurt not just them but you. As the Source of everything good, you should forever be adored by hearts overwhelmed with gratitude. You give and give and give. Yet you, who hate human suffering with a terrifying passion, end up the focus of the venom and anger of misguided people who blame the one Person who alone is truly innocent. An animal might bite the hand that feeds it, a child might lash out at its mother’s concern for its safety, someone attempting suicide might fight off his rescuer, but nothing comes close to the appalling way you are treated. No one is nearly so deserving of love, thanks and honor as you are, but is anyone more hated or resented or rejected? The One most worthy of adoration, receives the most abuse! I don’t wish to grieve you by speaking unkindly of your loved ones – all of humanity – but it is time we faced the reality of the pain you silently bear. We are well aware that you alone have infinite knowledge and that we have nothing like your mental capacity to grapple with the facts. We recognize that we are not perfect, which means that, relative to you, we are riddled with selfishness, corrupted by evil and blinded by hypocrisy. And yet we have treacherously tried to shift the blame by accusing the one person in our lives who is pure, perfect and selfless! You gave us the power of speech and we use it to curse you! Everything we have ever enjoyed comes from you, and we have the hide to turn you into a dartboard, spearing your heart with insults and false accusations. Your holiness is indescribable. You are terrifyingly perfect, overwhelmingly superior, incomparably just, impeccably good, irreproachably and unapproachably moral, extravagantly compassionate. You are justice personified. You are the Source of morality; the Exalted One; the most generous Person in the universe. We are mean-spirited, defiled and in every way inferior to you. And we dare to judge our Judge! And you dare to keep offering forgiveness. I am shattered to realize that our reason for raging against you is that you choose to rule the universe by love, rather than by tyrannical force. We resist your holy ways, gleefully exploiting for our own selfishness the freedom of choice you have privileged us with. We insist you must allow us to be selfish – sin against others – but how dare you let others sin against us! Like spoilt brats, we would blow our stack if you prevented us from indulging in our favorite sins, and yet we blast you if you treat certain other people the same way by not stopping them from engaging in their preferred sins. We don’t want you interfering in our lives, but we fill with hypocritical rage at you for not interfering in other people’s lives and stopping them when their selfishness inconveniences us. How our shameful double standards break your heart! If you ruled with an iron fist, we would lose all choice, and all chance of gaining honor by making right decisions, but the world would be flawless. Everything would work with the sterile, mechanical precision of a divinely operated machine. Nothing would bring you shame or pain. Instead, you have entrusted us with the ability to love, and for that we need the power of choice – something that by its very nature can be used for immense good or abused for horrific evil. You choose to be driven by love. That, it seems to me, must be the riskiest, most painful, but most rewarding of all options. To deeply love someone means you could have everything else in the universe, and yet without that person’s love you would still be heartbroken. To love is to make oneself so vulnerable that even having unlimited power could not help. There are obviously things that not even omnipotence can do. It cannot, for example, produce a five-sided triangle, because to be a triangle it must have exactly three sides. Neither could omnipotence force a person to love someone, because to be genuine, love must be utterly unforced. There are innumerable possibilities open to omnipotence to try to induce love in a person. You could choose from an enormous range of deceits, threats, bribes, drugs, brainwashing, illusions or genetic programming. Each possibility, however, would not only be of questionable morality but anything it manufactured within a person would be a sham, not love. Someone of infinite power and ability could easily delude a person into imagining he is in love, or could compel someone to act as if he were in love, but the result would be fake. Even with unlimited power, there is little anyone could do to spark genuine love in a person, other than be loving and wait for a response. We would be appalled if a man kidnapped a woman and raped and enslaved her because he claims he loves her, wants her as his wife and is convinced he can make her happy. It would be an immoral abuse of power, regardless of whether he used physical force or threats – in which case she would be conscious of the violation of her rights – or if he used drugs or hypnotism so that she is unaware that what is happening is against her will. We don’t have to be divine to understand that real love respects the desires of the beloved, no matter how much it clashes with the lover’s personal yearnings, and no matter how certain he is that the person would benefit from lifelong intimacy with him. But rather than us spend ten seconds considering that maybe the all-knowing God is doing the right thing, we lash out at you. Nothing wounds like hate-filled curses hurled at a person by someone he loves. No one loves like you love those who rage against you, so no one hurts like you. Perfect One, what they did to you on the cross is no worse than the way they have always hated you. A mere glimpse of the pain we cause you fills my eyes with tears, but in reality my heart is as hard as ice and my insight is but a clouded pinprick. If all earth’s oceans were tears and every grain of sand an eye; if every day since creation were an eon of time in which to mourn, it would not suffice to grieve the appalling treatment you receive from those you love. We abuse your love and your patience by dishing out to you the grossest of all injustices, when our every heartbeat depends on you. The extent to which you have been misunderstood by those who mean more to you than every galaxy in the universe must surely be the greatest of all tragedies. And yet, because of your staggering love for us, the same people who so deeply hurt you, bring you unsurpassable joy the moment they begin to change their attitude toward you. I reel at the dangerous predicament of people too blinded by hypocritical rage over their own hurt to see the terrifying implications of the reality that they themselves have hurt people. Can’t they see that their very presence in a perfect world would ruin its perfection? No matter how morally superior they imagine themselves to be, their selfishness – just like mine – would soon begin hurting people. Don’t they know that as the Perfect Judge you must be fearsomely impartial? You love humanity so fervently that even the most minor cause of human suffering infuriates you. The time is hurtling toward this planet when they will get their wish, but they don’t understand that this is the worst thing that could ever happen to them. You will indeed produce a perfect world by destroying every cause of suffering. What breaks your heart is that each of your loved ones is, in fact, a cause of suffering. Each of us has lied or cheated or stolen or slandered or been selfish and by so doing we have hurt people – contributed to human suffering. Oh, mighty Judge, stay your hand just a little longer! These poor people are too focused on the sins of others to see their desperate predicament. Their only hope is if, before it is too late, they avail themselves of the spiritual transformation made possible only by you suffering in their place. I beg you, give them a little longer to want to be rid of every trace of selfishness and seek you for the only transformation that would enable them to enter a perfect world in the next life without ruining it. Each moment you suppress your explosive yearning to remove every cause of human pain, is yet another moment in which people have the chance to yield to you before it is too late to avoid the eternal consequences. If only your loved ones understood that the very reason for them thinking ill of you – your temporary tolerance of evil – is dramatic proof of your loving goodness and mercy! Your present tolerance of sins you hate is the only reason any of us has so far avoided instant banishment to hell. (And if it can be unpleasant living in a world where both good and evil abound, how intolerable it would be in a place where only evil exists.) The unavoidable reality is that removal of all evil from earth necessitates the eternal removal of every source of suffering that has not sought spiritual transformation through you. If some people can’t see it, I can. I willingly choose to be subjected to earthly suffering if the delay in the eradication of all evil gives billions of people more time to come to their senses before that fateful Day of Reckoning. I dare not imagine I could endure what you endured when you sacrificed everything for sinful humanity. Nevertheless, despite my yearning for an evil-free world, I would rather embrace significant suffering than for billions to be without another chance to avoid their fate. The very thing that exposes me to suffering – the presence of imperfect people on this planet – props open the door of salvation for multitudes. In this extremely limited and indirect sense, my exposure to suffering plays a role in people’s eternal salvation. What a staggering thought! Present pleasures are but the pathetic shadow of the endless delights reserved for everyone who yields to your love. The eternal surprises you have for me will literally be out of this world. That makes them incomparably superior to anything I could hope for down here. Staying on a planet where evil exists makes it inevitable that life will sometimes be nearly intolerable. To use your own words, ‘In the world you will have tribulation’ (John 16:33). Here, unlike most people, I have no special loved ones. Except when I’m worshipping you – and sometimes even then – my mood swings seem to wobble from medium to mild depression, further lowering my ability to enjoy anything down here. Nevertheless, I still crave the privilege of living behind enemy lines in a dangerous, anti-God world of pain, suffering, death and tragedy. How could I make a vast difference to people’s lives in a world that is already perfect? How could heaven’s perfections approach the exciting opportunities and challenges of living in a hostile world, where I can be used of you to totally reverse people’s eternal destinies? This dark planet is the place for daring exploits. This is where heroes are made. This is where I can win honor for you, my Lord. Not only do you have a God-sized empathy beyond my comprehension, but you, the Innocent One, suffered on the cross for every anti-God action that has ever inflicted hurt. And there is yet another way in which all suffering finds its culmination in you. Through you, every hurting person can find meaning in their suffering. How I love you for transforming being victimized into the most meaningful act in the universe! Let me briefly remind myself of just how meaningful and beneficial your earthly suffering was. For you, defeat led to honor; shame led to being revered as holy; powerlessness led to the loving way to rule the universe. Your repulsive wounds healed into medals of valor. Your suffering became the reason that millions so adore you that they would give their lives for you. Becoming an object of shame catapulted you to being revered by all generations. You became sin-sick, so that I might be healed of my every spiritual wound. By letting yourself be treated as filth, you made it legal for me, the soiled one, to be so completely purified that now I am treated by the Holy Lord as spotlessly perfect. You sank to the depths so that I, drowning in a cesspool of my own filth, would be raised above even angels to the status of divine royalty, empowering me to rule the universe with you from the very throne of God. Your torment split history in two, creating an entirely new spiritual era. It terminated the Old Testament law and the spiritual distinction between Jew and non-Jew. It released the torrent of the Holy Spirit upon all humanity, sweeping over all subsequent generations, regardless of race, age, gender or social standing. Even more significantly, all divine interaction with humanity – even for all generations prior to your suffering – hinged on the certainty that you would be tortured for their sins. Your trauma gained spiritual, mental and physical benefits for all eternity for multiplied millions of people of all eras and cultures. Not only has the mix of heaven’s inhabitants and leadership structure been transformed by what you endured, but even sub-human creation will benefit (Romans 8:19-22). And not only the physical realm, but the entire spirit world has been revolutionized by what seemed like just another vicious attack on a hapless victim. By becoming the devil’s plaything, you defeated and sealed the fate of the Evil One and each of his millions of demons. Whether they supposed their motives to be good or unashamedly bad, millions throughout history have tried using violence to defeat evil or bring happiness. You succeeded where everyone else failed, and you did it not by violence, but by suffering violence. You became the victor by becoming the victim. You achieved the impossible, and you did it not by a sword in the hand but by a sword in the side. Suffering humiliation and senseless violence empowered you to identify with us and to minister to our otherwise incurable needs. Similarly, through your triumph, what we have suffered at the hands of evil people or powers can become invaluable, both in gaining for us the rightful authority and ability to minister to other hurting people and by achieving for us eternal honor. Just as Father God ensured none of your tears were wasted, so enormous good can be achieved through our tears. All we need do is follow your lead in your attitude to suffering and to those who have inflicted it, and by entrusting our pain to God’s resolution, just as you did. I wonder if I could be engrossed for all eternity, forever plumbing new depths in all that you achieved when you yielded your innocence to sadists, letting injustice crush the life out of you, as you became our scapegoat. The senseless cruelty that ended your life achieved infinitely more than the combined lifetime efforts of every human who has ever existed. Your ill-treatment by thugs had such immense meaning that through it, all meaningless suffering inflicted by anti-God forces can suddenly brim with meaning. If you turned torment into triumph, and suffering indignities into the flight path to greatness, so can I. I can do it, because everything you did, you did for me. You died so that I could be born of God – born with divine genes so that all your achievements are now within my reach. By becoming one of us, you proved that traumas that should destroy us will end up exalting us. We need only let you empower us to follow your example, especially in: trusting God to bring good from the senseless acts of anti-God behavior that have hurt us, forgiving those who deserve annihilation for the godless way they have treated us. You enable us to achieve this humanly impossible level of trust and forgiveness, not merely by showing us how it is done, but through doing it for us by living inside us. You wait only for us to let you do it for us.

The Christian Dilemma Turn the Other Cheek Or Get Even With the Beast? Justice or Forgiveness? If you’re like me, poetry turns you off. Nevertheless, I’ll be astounded if the following does not powerfully move you; inspiring you to prayerfully ponder an exceedingly important message. If you refuse to read poetry, there is prose you can read, but you’ll be poorer if you miss the following. Even Better Surely not! He shamed you And blamed you And you want to . . . what? Get even? Get a head! How can you get ahead If you only get even? Don’t you know That to get even With an evildoer Is to put yourself On the level Of an evildoer? Isn’t it true That even the heathen get even? You don’t need me to say If you’ve been born anew, Seeded with God’s DNA; More is required of you! ~:~ Surely you know You reap what you sow; That to win a fight Is to lose your blood-bought right To be raised high And become God-like. If we can rule our spirit, We’ll rule forever; If we give up Judging people, We’ll end up Judging angels. So why make God sigh? Why act like a fool When you can rule With the Lord of all? ~:~ To act like the rest Makes you part of the mess. To be salt Where there is no taste, And be light In a gloomy place, We must be so unlike The seething throng Who as slaves are held In the senseless grip Of the need to fight Wrong with wrong. To act like others Is to let them smother Your light And kill your fire Until you are cold and dark, Just like others. ~:~ How could you ever get even, When in Acts you read of Stephen, Who forgave while being stoned And the Lord rose from his throne To honor a forgiver Whose love flowed as a river That would never be stopped; Who lived as a giver Till the moment he dropped; Only to be raised, And for endless days, Crowned with heavenly praise? ~:~ How do you know If the one enjoying your fall Could be moved by the scene Like mean, despicable Saul Who became the mighty apostle Paul? He got even with Stephen. Granted a new start, Transformed from above, He became like a dove When whipped and stoned; Knowing he was enthroned With the One whose love Now beat in his forgiven heart. ~:~ We could talk of David And the other Saul – How he won all By not lifting a hand Against the man Plotting his fall. Leaving vengeance undone Kept David on the run With the risk so real That he would be killed. Danger and dread Dragged on for years But despite the fears, Deprivation and tears, He lifted not his hand And proved himself a man After God’s own heart. ~:~ Could we grow strong, By going on and on, About saints Who did not faint In doing good In the face of wrong? Perhaps we could – To a degree – But it’s beyond our might To consistently Do right When wronged. ~:~ We need a way That’s better still; That makes the supernatural real. So lift your eyes even higher, Through the clouds Of heroes that inspire; Go beyond human feats Till your eyes meet Your glorious Savior. The One who forgave ya Turned his cheek And refused to speak To save himself From lies that kill. In noble silence he stood, Refusing to blame Or even complain. If he was a lamb, Where was the bleating? They hit him hard, But couldn’t beat him. They made him bleed But couldn’t defeat him. They did their worst, But instead of a curse, He forgave. Their hate turned to rage, They ranted and raved, They stripped him and spat But still he forgave. They were beasts, He was a dove. They ripped him apart; And out came love. Blow upon blow They nailed him to wood, Spilling more blood; Doing all they could To bring him low. Yet still he loved, Soaring above The shame and blame And roaring pain; Defeating evil with good. By this was the Lord from above Made worthy to reign. ~:~ Let’s not fail To follow the trail That Jesus blazed. How tragic it would be To miss our destiny, Yet we will suffer this shame Forever, Unless we face the pain That never lasts, And fill our days With Christ’s ways. ~:~ There’s no better way To make the devil’s day Than to fight for right The wrong way. There’s no greater way To multiply evil Than to try to stop evil By acting like the devil. When you come against sin In the lives of others, You either act like the Son Or the devil has won Before you even start. Yes, the devil wins, He’s got you by the heart, If in fighting wrong, You act like him. ~:~ Sweating blood in agony, Jesus refused the cowardly way. The devil lost at Gethsemane But still the devil can grin: If we don’t love our enemies We’ve become like him In blackening Christ’s name. It’s as the sin of blasphemy To use God’s name And return Anger for anger, Sin for sin. ~:~ Get even? Yes, get even More like Christ. He has led the way; Will you follow? Will you cease To shamefully wallow In thoughts that kill, And join the Prince of Peace Impaled upon the hill? The blameless way And the painless way Never cross. The way that skirts pain, Flirts with shame And ends in loss. Though the Christlike way Seems doomed To fail, There’s a twist To the tale; The Christless way Is to fume And fight for all they’re worth, But it’s the meek Who inherit the earth. To greet hate with love Seems extreme, Yet every other way Is to fight a wildfire With gasoline. You end darkness With light, Not more darkness. You fight Bitterness with sweetness; Cruelty with kindness; Hate with love. That takes real courage, But we who live by faith, Know faith and courage Go hand in glove. ~:~ To this you are called: To be like Christ, Who laid down his life To forgive Those who give Him pain. The way to reign Is to be the same As Christ, Who sacrificed To bless those who cursed And did their worst To break him. This is the way to endless gain; The path to eternal glory. ~:~ We’ve looked beyond Human copies Who outshone Those who wronged Them. We’ve soared above Those who had it tough, Till we reached the One Uniquely pure, Treated as the world’s sewer; We’ve looked at the One From above Whose love Outshines the sun. We’ve been inspired By what transpired When even in the throes Of death He loved and sacrificed His all for those Who didn’t care. But when things get tough, Will it be enough Merely to look At the One who loved Till his last breath? When the going gets rough, Being moved By the scene Of Christ Giving his life Will not be enough To make us love Like the Crucified. To sacrifice like Christ Will seem An idle dream, A hope that’s hollow, Until pride is swallowed And Christ is seen Not as things to do Or an ideal to follow But as the Lord of all Who must live his life in you. ~:~ For strife to cease A new life must start, With the Prince of peace Enthroned as king. As without the vine A branch is just dead wood, So are we without our Lord. To smother evil with good You must tap Into infinite love. To do what’s right And never bend, Takes a friend From above; Who not only inspires But never tires Of lifting you higher Than you could ever go. For bitterness to end And sweetness to flow, Takes oneness with the divine As perfect as a branch in a vine. ~:~ Imagine if you and he Could spend From now to eternity With hearts beating as one. There’d be no end To what you could do If Christ could live His life in you, But he is the Sinless One, So fearsomely holy, That we could sooner Have the sun inside us Than have the Son inside us. To be pure as he is pure Is to be cleansed by the sacrifice, Of the sinless Christ. Then he can live in you, Doing what you could never do. ~:~ Through the price he paid The commands of Christ Can now be obeyed. With him in you, You can do What he tells you to. With Christ in you, His hardest commands Are more than demands Or pie in the sky; They are his promise Of power from on high To do what you could never do. “Impossible” Becomes “him possible.” The “ideal” Becomes so real That people will gasp And angels applaud What you and the Lord Together will do. ~:~ This does not mean An end to pain; Christ will lead you Through the flame; He’ll take you to the cross, Where, like him, You’ll suffer shame And temporary loss, To win eternal fame. ~:~ To turn the other cheek Or wash your enemy’s feet; To quench the thirst Of those who curse; To be a lamb To vicious wolves, Is not just to fight Wrong with right; It is to suffer for Christ. And to suffer for Christ, Is to suffer with Christ. There’s nothing so intimate As to feel Someone’s pain. Anyone can give an offering But to share in Christ’s suffering Takes you to a realm That makes love real. Those who for this hour Bear Christ’s pain Will forever Share his reign. ~:~ So patiently wait, For the coming Of perfect justice. Return love for hate, Be kind to the cruel, Treat foes as friends And in the end You shall rule With the Lord of all. ~:~ The time will come When like the sun, Justice will rise On a New Day When God’s perfect way Is always done; A Day of surprise For everyone; As each receives his prize That never ends; A prize as unique As his fingerprint. It’s a Day to be cheered Or greatly feared; When some are raised And some are razed, But all are dazed By how their ways In earthly days Meet rewards That last always. Come the Day When every wrong Is brought to light; When every wrong Will bow to right; When wrong will end And right will reign. ~:~ So lift your eyes And soar beyond the skies. See yourself Seated with Christ Who with his life Paid the price To forgive his haters. Lift your sights To these heights And become like your Maker. Raise those eyes And boldly rise To your heavenly call; Take Christ’s hand And conquer all. Related Pages Christian Revenge and the Wrath of God The Righteous Lust for Vengeance God’s commitment to pay the price of justice Where was God When You suffered Unspeakable Horrors? God Isn’t fair? How could God be fair when some get an abundance and some get a raw deal? Hints for Public Reading The poem contains plays on words that the eye can detect, but not the ear. The following suggestions will remove that difficulty. For the line: Get even? Get a head! Tap your head with your finger when saying “Get a head!” For the lines: Have the sun inside us Than have the Son inside us. Don’t say the word sun or Son at all. Simply spell those words: Have the S-U-N inside us Than have the S-O-N inside us. Replace: When some are raised And some are razed, With: When some are praised And some are fazed

Christian Justice or Love Your Enemy? Bible Insights Into Moral Dilemmas How come “an eye for an eye” is found in the same Book as “turn the other cheek”? Did we suddenly get a new God when the New Testament was made? Actually, this tension exists throughout Scripture. In a previous webpage we discovered that the Old Testament speaks of loving one’s enemy, and as we proceed we’ll increasingly discover just how much the New Testament speaks of God’s wrath and justice. So it’s not a case of God changing, but of us oversimplifying his message and reducing to a shadow the most magnificent Person in the universe; stripping him of an entire dimension. The Almighty has always been a God of compassion and wrath, just as the Eternal Son of God has always been a “lion” and a “lamb.” Both aspects of God’s perfection go hand in hand. How can parents be unmoved when seeing children they adore, ruining their potential? How can anyone have genuine compassion for the exploited without feeling anger at those who deliberately exploit them? The Lord’s love of people and his love of justice are manifestations of the same passion. We see, for example, Jesus’ love compelling him to use a makeshift whip to prevent temple money changers from exploiting many people and disturbing the prayers of others (Matthew 21:12-13). This is the same Jesus who, rather than protect himself, let thugs torture him to death. The book of Revelation powerfully encapsulates the complexity of the divine nature when it speaks of the ferocious “wrath of the Lamb.” Justice or Perish Not only would it be illogical for God to say, “I love you, so justice no longer matters,” were he to adopt such an attitude, the Almighty’s entire reign would crumble. Justice is the very foundation of God’s rulership. Psalms 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. A commitment to justice is an inseparable part of divine perfection. Exodus 34:6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, (7) maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Hebrews 10:30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” . . . ( Emphasis mine ) “An eye for an eye” comes from God’s description of the divinely ordained judicial system for ancient Israel. The Almighty is far too smart not to be intensely practical. He, better than anyone in the universe, understands the need for law and order in fallen humanity. He knows the chaos we would quickly slide into if there were no earthly justice. This is so vital that even though most people have never been protected by ancient Israel’s judicial system, the Lord of all has lovingly ordained that other institutions fill this role throughout humanity, right down to modern times and to your society. Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (2) Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. (3) For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. (4) For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, (14)or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. ( Emphasis mine ) Perfect Justice The Lord is always just and loving. He doesn’t suspend his love when he judges. Nor does he abandon justice when he is loving. As the Lord so beautifully told my friend, Jesus is a lamb with the heart of a lion and a lion with the heart of a lamb. In God are qualities so superior to our own and balanced to such perfection that human comprehension is left far behind. Most of us know that salt – that uniquely tasty, essential-to-life substance – is a chemical blend of a poisonous gas and a substance that explodes in water. Either of those chemicals without the other is hideous. Similarly, if we were to separate love and justice, the result would be hideous. God is never like that, and we must endeavor to never be like that. God is that exquisite, life-giving blend of love and justice. If you cannot imagine love turning hideous, picture parents who “love” their child so much that they sacrifice everything – even their child’s morals and his character development – to indulge his every self-destructive whim. We are so starved of the genuine article and so used to seeing foolishness, selfishness, pride and lust ruining love that we have little idea of how grotesque human love is. Likewise, divine justice is drastically removed from the hypocritical bursts of hate and selfishness that we pretend to be longings for justice. God’s justice is powered by love. It is as opposite of the offender’s motives as good is the opposite of evil. The Almighty often delays justice in the hope of the offender having a complete change of heart that could radically change the dynamics of judgment. Nevertheless, Judgment Day is speedily coming. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (11) Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives (12) as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (13) But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (14) So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. (15) Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation The One who came not to judge the world, will come again to judge the world ( Scriptures ). The Lord’s earthly justice is a carefully planned measure to protect others by limiting the spread of evil and to motivate the offender to a change of heart. What we often forget – but God never forgets – is that punishment can never force a change of heart. For a change of heart to be genuine, it must be voluntary, or the person is still destined to eternal punishment. Earthly punishment can sometimes even be counterproductive. Because we only see this side of eternity, we rarely realize how effective kindness and deferred punishment can be. The Almighty’s love fuels a wrath more terrifying than the worst nightmare. So passionate is his love for you that he is furious with those who have hurt you. The divine dilemma, however, is that to be fair, he must be equally furious with you, since you, like the rest of us, have hurt other people who are precious to God. The only alternative in the universe was for God to pour out his fearsome wrath upon the only truly innocent human – Jesus Christ. To spare you, not only did his only Son have to volunteer to suffer inconceivable horrors, but he also had to patiently endure you sinning over and over and hurting people until at long last you repented and sought forgiveness through Jesus. People hurt us – as they did our crucified Lord – because God delays judgment and didn’t wipe them out before they touched our lives. Nevertheless, had God not been exceptionally patient in tolerating our ancestors’ sins, our entire family tree would have been wiped out long before we ever had the chance to exist. Moreover, anyone not exceedingly grateful for God’s reluctance to execute justice, has no conception of the hell we would suffer if we ourselves had been subjected to full and swift justice before we eventually accepted cleansing and forgiveness through Jesus. The Almighty is fair and loves each of us with equal passion. So for him to be as patient with us as we desperately need him to be, he must also be patient with others. There are so many conflicting needs in this present world that for us to complain about divine justice is like children complaining about the rain that farmers are praising the Lord for. If we all knew long in advance, the exact date of our death, most of us would be even less likely to get right with God early in life. Like death, for maximum spiritual impact, earthly justice needs to be somewhat unpredictable. God’s justice in the here and now will seem imperfect – even chaotic – because what we currently see is like a barely begun work of art. Those granted an eternal vantage point from which to gaze upon the completion of God’s handiwork will be awestruck by the exquisite perfection of divine justice. The Key Role of the Oppressed in Releasing God’s Judgment We tend to wrongly presume that God’s sovereignty means he rules the world with little regard for our input. Most of us continually underestimate the key role of our prayers and actions in determining what God does in everything from nature (eg 1 Kings 8:35-39) and world affairs right down to events so minor as to barely touch one person. There is a big emphasis in Scripture that whether God executes earthly judgment on oppressors (be they individuals or entire nations) is largely dependent upon the prayers, attitudes and behavior of the oppressed. Let’s look at a few biblical examples. In the era of the Judges we see the cycle repeated over and over of the Israelites disregarding God’s ways and this leading to them being oppressed by people, followed by their cries to the Lord resulting in their deliverance. Judges 3:9 But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. Judges 3:15 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer – Ehud, a left-handed man . . . Judges 4:3 Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the LORD for help. Judges 6:7 When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian, . . . (12) . . . the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon . . . (14) The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” Note in the following the pivotal role of the oppressed crying to the Lord: Exodus 22:22 Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. (23) If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. (24) My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.  . . . (26) If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, (27) because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. Deuteronomy 15:9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Deuteronomy 24:15 Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. ( Emphasis mine ) In a divine summary of many different historical events we read: Judges 10:11 The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, (12) the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? . . .” But God’s intervention is not automatic. The passage continues: (13) But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. (14) Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble! Nevertheless, the people repented and the Lord once again delivered them. Not just the prayers, but the attitude of the oppressed is critical, as seen in such Scriptures as the following: Proverbs 24: 17 Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, (18) or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (20) On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” The more righteous the oppressed are, the more it invites God’s judgment on the oppressors. If we fill with hypocritical self-righteousness, however, and wish ill upon our oppressors, the difference between us and our oppressors becomes so minimal that God could not, in fairness, bring his judgment upon them without doing the same to us. When Stephen prayed for the forgiveness of those stoning him to death, he was not wasting his breath. It was a key factor in God’s treatment of his persecutors. The Lord looks to us to take up the challenge of Christlikeness. He tells us: Luke 6:27  . . . Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, (28) bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. He looks to us to suffer as Christ suffered so we can reign with Christ forever and so that those who have hurt us will – either through heartfelt repentance or divine punishment – regret the way they treated us. Justice Now Scripture is acutely aware that society needs law and order, and that although God’s longing for mercy and the need for justice usually pull in opposite directions, there are times when God’s love for the victim – or potential victims – must take precedence over his love for the offender (and we are all offenders). There are times when God needs to intervene this side of eternity, rather than waiting until the next life for injustice to be righted. Ecclesiastes 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Isaiah 26:9  . . . When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. Deuteronomy 10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. (18) He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. Because kindness and an unselfish longing for justice reflects the very heart of God, he expects his people to act likewise. Just how important this is to him, is seen in such Scriptures as: Exodus 22:21 Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him . . . (22) Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. (23) If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. (24) My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. It is our Christian duty to submit to civil law (wherever doing so does not prevent us from obeying God – Acts 4:19,20; 5:29) and most countries make it illegal not to report crimes. Moreover, other potential victims need protection from the offender; and other potential offenders, as an extra incentive to keep their sins in check, need to know that offenders are punished. So our loving Christian duty usually compels us to report crimes. Our motive, however, must not be revenge, bitterness or a self-righteous feeling of superiority, but genuine love for the offender, sorrow that justice is required and an acute awareness that we, too, are offenders. Consider David, for example. When divine justice caught up with King Saul and he was killed, David was rescued from Saul’s murderous hands and given the throne. Nevertheless, this man after God’s own heart did not rejoice. Instead, he genuinely mourned Saul’s death (2 Samuel 1:1-27). God punishes his children when they need it. Of course, this is done with perfection and as a manifestation of love; although it might not seem that way at the time. Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, (6) because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” (7) Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? (8) If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. (9) Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! (10) Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. (11) No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Since God disciplines his children, he expects us to do likewise. Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. Proverbs 23:14 Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death. Proverbs 29:15 The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother. However, this must always be done with wisdom, compassion and kindness. Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children . . . Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Even within the church there is a need for disciplining those who do wrong. Matthew 18:14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. (15) If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. (16) But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ (17) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 1 Corinthians 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: (3)  . . . I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. (4) When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, (5) hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. . . . (11)  . . . you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. (12) What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? The spirit with which this should be executed, however, demands great maturity of Christian character, as Paul explains: Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. (2) Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (3) If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (4) Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else . . . Make Your Enemies Grovel at Your Feet Though we act with love, gentleness and humility, dwelling within us is the greatest power in the universe. We will win. Revelation 3:9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan . . . come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. Isaiah 14:2  . . . the house of Israel  . . . will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors. Isaiah 49:23 Kings . . . and their queens . . . will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed. Isaiah 60:14 The sons of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet . . . Malachi 4:2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise  . . . (3) Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things, says the LORD Almighty. Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. . . . Jesus is the trailblazer. He has established the pattern for every Christian life; becoming our role model. We are to take up our cross and follow him all the way through humiliation and unjust treatment to eternal exaltation. We are to imitate not merely a fragment of our Leader’s life, but the entire thrust of his divine mission – which was to humble himself, do so much good that he makes enemies, be treated unjustly by them, turn the other cheek, meekly suffer at their hands, even to the point of them seeming to completely triumph, and then be exalted forever, with every enemy bowing before him in either adoring love or abject fear. Jesus, who loved his enemies till the end, took them all by surprise; turning what seemed utter defeat into astounding victory. Those who say, “Life is full of surprises” will be left without words when the next life reveals what God has been doing behind the scenes. Who would have thought a lamb could strike terror into the bravest hearts? And yet he will: Revelation 6:16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Call on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! . . .” Jesus is the ultimate Victor because he abandoned human tactics, chose the way of love, and staked his life, reputation – everything – on the unlimited power of Almighty God. By imitating him, we become victors over all those who mistreat us, and receive eternal vindication and glory. Scripture keeps telling us that this is our mission but we keep missing it because we are rightly so conscious that as a person and as an achiever, Christ is so beyond us that the notion of us emulating – in even the remotest way – what he achieved by suffering mistreatment is so mind-boggling as to seem preposterous – even blasphemous. If Christ were the world’s finest chef, the best of us would be playing in the dirt “baking” mud pies. The greatest follower of Christ is as far behind him as a tiny child playing at being a make-believe brain surgeon. Nevertheless, as off the scale as the eternal Son of God is, and as little as our persecution and unjust treatment can achieve relative to his sacrifice, he insists that we follow his lead. Let’s look afresh at some of the diverse Scriptures that ram home how central and foundational this is to biblical Christianity. The verses might not be new to you, but don’t let a superficial familiarity with the words stop you from grasping their true significance. 1 Peter 2:20  . . . if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. (21) To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude . . . John 15:20  . . . ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. Matthew 10:38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’ Matthew 20:26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, (27) and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – (28) just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 1 John 3:16  . . . Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (13) Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Ephesians 5:2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 2 Corinthians 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. (23) Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets. Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (3) Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ( Emphasis mine ) Scripture asks us not only to adore Jesus for his mind-blowing love and the stupendous achievements of his sacrifice but it implores us to build inside us the very same mindset that drove Jesus to defeat his enemies by letting them torment him. Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: (6) Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, (7) but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. More than just giving us theological insight into the nature of Christ, this teaches us, as followers of Christ, the value of voluntary humiliation. When people rejected him, James and John asked Jesus for his power to call down fire from heaven to destroy them. Of course, Jesus rebuked them because their attitude was so contrary to his own (Luke 9:54-55). Jesus’ glory was that although he had the power to call down fire on those who mistreated him, he chose not to. We also have power, no matter how oppressed and enslaved we may be. We don’t always have a choice as to what we suffer but we always have a choice as to how we suffer – whether we respond with love or hate; bitterness or sweetness. We always have the power to curse or bless – to secretly wish a person harm or good. Our glory is to follow Christ’s lead – or to put it another way, to let the Christ resident within us rise up – and consciously bless those who curse us, even, if necessary, to the heroic extreme of maintaining this sweetness while being tortured to death. (8) And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! (9) Therefore God exalted him to the highest place It is astounding how often Scripture tells us to humble ourselves – to relinquish dignity we suppose we deserve – in order to be exalted ( Scriptures ). Like turning the other cheek, this is something Jesus not only taught but lived to the highest extreme. Let’s continue with this passage: and gave him the name that is above every name, (10) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, (11) and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. As implied in this powerful passage, there is no glory or Christlikeness in involuntary responses. For example, because rape is forced, it is morally neutral for the person suffering it (though, of course, for the rapist it is a grave offense). Where the choice – and hence the opportunity for glory – lies is in whether we let ourselves turn into a beast like the rapist – filling with hate and wanting him to suffer like he has caused others to suffer – or whether even in the face of extreme provocation we choose to remain sweet and loving and forgiving. We by no means condone or facilitate sin, but by refusing to let the sinner make us bitter and twisted like him, we refuse to let the sinner win. For centuries before the event it was known to Bible readers that all his enemies would bow to the Messiah: Isaiah 45:24  . . . All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. Psalm 110:1 The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Psalms 2:9 You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery. What so many missed – despite it being prophesied – is the humble, loving, sacrificial path the Lord of glory would choose to achieve the defeat of his enemies. Likewise, the humble, loving, sacrificial path to our triumph over our enemies is spelled out in Scripture, and yet many Bible readers miss it. The secret of the early church and of the revival in modern China and in certain other places and times is summarized in these words: if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him ( Scriptures ). Fake Christianity supposes we can escape this fundamental truth and somehow reign with Christ without suffering with him. In contrast, the yearning of Paul’s heart was to share in Christ’s suffering. It is the pinnacle of spiritual intimacy. Philippians 3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings Colossians 1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. In this yearning to share in Christ’s suffering, Paul was not on some Christian fringe. It is at the heart of authentic Christianity. Acts 5:40  . . . They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. (41) The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. (42) Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. 1 Peter 4:12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. (13) But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (14) If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. You have probably heard people say, “I’ve read the end of the book and we win!” But have you read that before the end we, like Jesus on the cross, to all appearances seem to lose? Revelation 13: 6 He opened his mouth to blaspheme God . . . (7) He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them . . . (10) If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. Doesn’t Paul, with his appalling list of beatings, incarcerations and shipwrecks seem like the biggest loser? He was so filled with faith in the final victory that when we are reading his writings we gloss over all the times he didn’t even have enough to eat ( Scriptures ) and was repeatedly deserted by Christians and continually criticized, opposed from even within the church. This is the man who said “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Despite the short-lived gains of aggressors, the meek will inherit the earth. Wrap Up By piecing together many Scriptures, this picture emerges: The very Person whom our sins callously murdered is the Judge of all humanity. The Judge loves not only us, despite our sins, but he loves those who have hurt us, despite their sins. He will show us only the degree of love and mercy that we show those who shamefully treat us. Matthew 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Give and it shall be given unto you,” is a principle of divine justice so fundamental that it applies to almost everything. Just how all-embracing is this principle, is demonstrated by Jesus applying it even to the attention we give to divine revelation. “ ‘Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. ‘With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more.’ ” (Mark 4:24). Whatever we sow into people’s lives – be it generosity, kindness, mercy, goodness, forgiveness, gossip, condemnation, harshness, anger, violence, and so on – we shall reap in our own lives. Psalms 18:25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful . . . Proverbs 11:17 A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself. Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Whether we see a shadow of it in this life does not change the fact that we will finally end up with thirty, sixty or even a hundred fold of what we have sown. Our future is in our hands. If we sow strife, that is what we will receive many times over. “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). If, instead, we sow kindness, that is what we will reap from God in abundance. Whoever is faithful with little will be given much. Whoever is unfaithful with little will lose much. Scripture is plain that not even those who escape hell will escape this aspect of divine justice. Some, upon entering heaven, will suffer devastating loss and some will receive rewards too extravagant for earthly words. 2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 1 Corinthians 3:12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, (13) his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. (14) If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. (15) If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. Scripture speaks of us judging angels. Then the passage continues: 1 Corinthians 6:7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? . . . . (9) Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? . . . Do you suppose the Lord will entrust the huge responsibility of judging angels to those who have proved themselves too intoxicated by greed, selfishness or spite to be impartial in their judgment of those who have hurt them? God is looking for people driven by love and humility. These are his choice of people to rule with him for eternity. Ultimately, forced obedience achieves little, and God wants love, not slaves. What our wise, loving Lord longs for in his enemies is not just changed behavior but a change of heart – repentance. God’s favorite way of bringing people to repentance is through kindness ( Romans 2:4 ) and patience ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). Nevertheless, in some instances, discipline, affliction and even punishment can produce a change of heart. Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. Psalms 119:71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The way we treat those who hurt us should be as courageous as turning the other cheek, and as selfless as going the extra mile. We should be as reluctant to see our enemy hurt as we are to see ourselves hurt. As we sometimes need to drag ourselves to the dentist, however, so there could be occasions when there is no option as loving as reluctantly allowing something unpleasant to happen to an enemy in order to help him avoid worse trauma later on. That’s a scary option for us because it involves us thinking ourselves wiser and more moral than our enemy. God judges those who think themselves better than others. He exalts the humble but cuts down the proud. If we get it wrong – or even if we get it right but let a wrong attitude seep into our hearts – we are in grave danger. We should avoid like a landmine treating someone we dislike with anything but gentleness and kindness unless we are certain before God that love requires it of us. God’s longing is to save his enemies from the judgment they deserve. He wants everyone saved and no one to perish (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). The Lord will grieve deeply over everyone who continually spurns his love and ends up in hell. They are not God’s failures. God knows only success. Those who end up in hell are their own failures. They chose not to accept God’s meticulously planned way for sinners to find restoration and righteousness. Had it been God’s plan to force everyone into heaven, he would have achieved that. Such a place would not be the heaven we will enjoy, however. It would either be the same mess as earth, where there is killing, stealing, lying, and other evil, or it would be a place of slavery where people lose freedom of choice. The need for mercy and to love our enemies is immense and you’ll find it highlighted in three webpages: Christian Revenge, Love your Enemy and Heap Burning Coals on his Head and Turn the Other Cheek. Nevertheless, there is also a divinely recognized need for justice. Knowing when we should execute justice and when to show mercy is a perplexing dilemma demanding much prayer and divine wisdom. Since God longs for the rescue and restoration of his enemies, so must we if we are to be friends of God. We have the certainty, however, that when we do things God’s way then either by a dramatic change of heart or by an eternity in hell, those who have treated us badly will suffer deep remorse for their actions. Nevertheless, the key issue for us is whether we will suffer remorse or, by responding in a Christlike way to those who mistreat us, rejoice in triumph forever. Other Important Pages On This Topic Turn the Other Cheek A significant and moving poem The Righteous Lust for Vengeance God’s commitment to pay the price of justice Where was God When You suffered Unspeakable Horrors? God Isn’t fair? How could God be fair when some get an abundance and some get a raw deal? Damned by God? Forgiveness and restoration is the goal of far more harsh prophecies than most of us realize

God Isn’t fair? How could God be fair when some get an abundance and some get a raw deal? The Truth About God I’ll begin with a story. I will mention its source later but whether it is true or factitious is not the issue. The question we must grapple with is whether God sees it as realistic. Is it how God operates or it is off-track? Angelo, a dirty, smelly street bum, trudges down the street. A kitten gets in his way. He almost boots the creature, then thinks better of it and roughly shoves it out of the way with his foot. In another corner of the world, a man on fire for God teaches the Word of God, witnesses, and visits the sick without let up. He loves the Lord fervently, and genuinely cares for people. Obviously, his ministry delights the Lord more than Angelo’s decision not to kick the cat, right? Wrong. As much as God approved of this man’s godly life, the Lord was even more moved by Angelo’s action. The man doing so much good had been born into a wonderful, godly family, grew up in a thriving church, and studied at one of the best Bible colleges. He had been entrusted with a hundred portions of the capacity to love but was using only seventy-five. Angelo, on the other hand, had been born deaf. He was abused and kept in a dark, cold attic until found by authorities when he was eight years old. Then he was shunted from one institution to another where the abuse continued. Finally he was turned out on to the streets. Angelo had been given just three portions of the ability to love and such was the rage within him that he had to use every speck of those three portions to refrain from hurting that kitten. Angelo proved so faithful with the little that God had given him, that the Lord gave him three more portions of the ability to love. He used every bit of that to stop stealing. He almost starved. He collected bottles to buy the little food he could get. Though still unable to hear, he learned to read and the Lord sent him a gospel tract and he welcomed Jesus into his life. Again the Lord doubled the love given to Angelo and again Angelo used it all, spending over half of the little money he had to buy gospel tracts to hand out to people. Every church rejected him. In the eyes of everyone on earth, he achieved almost nothing. In his entire life he won only one person to the Lord. Finally he died, frozen to death trying to keep a drunk warm. Now flash to the hereafter. See Angelo among heaven’s elite, ruling from a magnificent throne, hosts of angels waiting to respond to his command. See him honored above millions of Christians and rewarded far beyond multitudes of famous Christian leaders. If this story reflects spiritual reality, then it might be that in eternity there are equalizers that perfectly compensate for earthly inequalities. But is the thought behind this story mere fantasy? The story has come to us by a controversial means. A Christian author claims he learned the above story through a powerful series of divine visions ( source ). Whether you dismiss this author as a crackpot or revere him as a man of God is of no consequence to a discussion about whether God is fair. What matters is whether or not such a story is consistent with how God treats people. Is every Christian’s heavenly reward the same? Or could an illiterate outrank a godly theologian in the next life? Could a retarded person be exalted above a spiritually gifted person? Are there eternal compensations so extravagant as to somehow make the most severe earthly suffering worthwhile? Could it be that in the assigning of heavenly rewards, our earthly disadvantages and hardships are so lovingly considered and with such precision that the final result is so exquisitely fair as to leave everyone awestruck? We will grapple with such issues by first considering whether the story of Angelo lines up with the Word of God. Then we will tackle other matters that make us question God’s fairness. ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? ? ?   ?  ?  ?  ?  ? Biblical Reality Versus Fantasy Jesus kept emphasizing that the person who is faithful in little will be given much. He also stressed that the assigning of heavenly rewards will differ so markedly from the present distribution of comfort and honor that many will be flabbergasted. Biblical revelation is clear that eternal rewards and compensations for earthly trials will differ immensely from Christian to Christian. For instance, Paul taught that as we build upon the foundation of Christ, we can use ‘wood, hay or straw,’ or we can choose precious, fire-resistant materials. The fire of Judgment Day will reveal the true nature of what each person has built. ‘If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames’ (1 Corinthians 3:14-15). In one of Jesus’ parables, all were entrusted with the same amount of money but one ended up with eleven times more plus control over ten cities, another had only five times more than he started with and control over five cities, and one ended up with nothing but his life, while the master’s enemies lost even their lives (Luke 19:12-27). Just as we all have life, and yet have very different lives, so all true Christians will have eternal life, but very different eternities. Paul urged us to run the race of life, motivated by the knowledge that in a race there is only one winner (1 Corinthians 9:24). In other words, many miss the prize. To win heaven’s higher rewards is rare and takes extreme diligence. Eternal life is God’s gift to every competitor who merely lasts the distance. Beyond that, our heavenly prize hinges upon our earthly faithfulness. ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? ? ?   ?  ?  ?  ?  ? Scriptures Throwing Doubt on the Story of Angelo Screaming in the minds of many readers are some serious objections and questions to the above and if I were to proceed those screams would grow even louder. Rather than tease you by waiting until later to ease these concerns, I’ll stop mid-stream to face these matters head on. Although we could keep citing Scriptures about Christians receiving differing heavenly rewards, there are other Scriptures that seem to say that we each receive identical rewards and even that there is no such thing as a reward for earthly faithfulness because, given our sinfulness, every good thing is a gift from God, not something we could ever earn or deserve. It is important to note that this clash of biblical truths is not, for example, the apostle Paul seeming to contradict Jesus, but Jesus seeming to contradict himself, and Paul seeming to contradict himself. Both of them emphasize both truths. Obviously, in the mind of Jesus, and also in the minds of other biblical writers, there was no contradiction. The problem must not be with them, but with our difficulty in understanding precisely what they are referring to. Let’s start with Jesus’ parable of workers who were employed for different lengths of time and yet received the same payment (Matthew 20:1-16). First, we should remind ourselves that although powerfully inspired, parables are simple stories. As such, they are usually intended not to detail every conceivable complexity but to illuminate a single point. Other complications are likely to be taken up elsewhere in Scripture, but no matter how divinely inspired parables are, it would be ludicrous to expect each tiny story to cover every possible scenario. This parable looks at those who were not given the opportunity to work until the latter part of the day. No mention is made of people who deliberately kept refusing work until the last moment, hoping to grab full payment for little effort. Nor were there people who commenced work and then spent most of their time in the field goofing off. How these two latter groups would be treated, is an issue not addressed in this parable. To consider it here would be to ruin the memorable simplicity of the story. Many other parables suggest that such people would lose some of their reward. Nevertheless, this parable is not about such people. It is about those who until the last moment seemed to be getting a raw deal. Even though they wanted to work, it seemed until almost the last hour that they would miss out entirely, and then that they would get little, despite their need being as great as anyone else’s. In the end, however, this apparent unfairness was fully corrected. Every true Christian knows that we are born into God’s family as a completely undeserved gift from God. We realize that this priceless gift is received simply by trusting that Jesus died in our place to remove all the spiritually devastating consequences of our sins, thus making us as holy as the One whom we can now be on intimate terms with. Despite this understanding, however, we are still tempted to fall into the trap of thinking that after spiritual birth the rules suddenly change – that spiritual growth ceases to be an unearned gift from God but comes through God rewarding us for our devout attempts to please him. These who feel at home with spiritual jargon would put it this way: it is a most dangerous error to suppose that although we commence our spiritual lives by grace through faith, we proceed to maturity by works. We attain holiness, answered prayer, victorious living, spiritual blessings, and God’s special favor and approval, the same way we receive salvation – by grace through faith. Such blessings are never earned. They are gifts from God, not rewards for our efforts. They come to us by the sheer generosity of the Almighty, who gives to all who simply believe that the specific blessing we want is freely available through what Jesus achieved by sacrificing his life for our inadequacies. God’s blessings are gifts, and yet they are not surprises, except perhaps for their timing. They come to those who know enough about God to expect them. God never gives us what we deserve. If he did, we would each be thrown into hell the moment of our first sin; in fact, the moment of our birth, if you consider the full ramifications of original sin. So any moment any human spends outside of hell is solely the grace of God. Since we deserve not reward but eternal punishment, God has not the slightest obligation to positively reward anyone for anything. As Jesus implied, the best that the greatest of us could achieve is to be ‘unworthy servants’ (Luke 17:10). There is no way the Almighty needs our labors. We can give him nothing that is not his already. Anything we try to do for God would have been done better and quicker and cause him less embarrassment if he had done it himself. Nevertheless, in his extravagant love, God chooses to reward his servants according to their faithfulness. Without incentives and consequences, life would lose much of its meaning. No matter how many superficial pleasures it contained, a life in which nothing we do matters would be hellish. A society in which no one is ever called to account would be chaos. Could it be that as we continue to explore this subject we might discover that God’s rewards are the great equalizers that correct life’s current inequalities? Could it be partly as a result of the way the Lord will assign eternal rewards that everyone complaining against God will finally be lost in awe at the perfection of his ways? As you read further, other objections are likely to come to your mind. I hope to address each one of them, but of course we can deal only with one matter at a time, so please keep reading until your mind is fully satisfied. ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? ? ?   ?  ?  ?  ?  ? God’s Staggeringly Different Perspective People are putting money in the offering. You see varying amounts go in. A well-dressed man pulls out a huge wad of notes. Your eyes nearly pop. There must be thousands of dollars in his fist as he drops them in. Then it’s the turn of a withered, shabbily dressed woman. In her time-ravished hand are two five cent coins – a miserable total of ten cents.  Why does she even bother?  you ask yourself,  What good . . . ?  Suddenly you notice that Jesus’ eyes have lit up. Excitedly, he gathers his disciples around him and proudly declares, ‘This poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on’ (Mark 12:43-44). It was the one who seemed to be giving the least, whom he exalted as giving the most. Jesus makes visible the very heart of God. What matters to God is not how much we give but how deep we had to dig to give it; not the actual value of our contribution to the kingdom, but how much of what we have that we give. This divine principle applies to every aspect of life. If, for instance, we have almost no faith but we give God 90 percent of the little we have, the all-knowing Lord sees this as being more commendable than those who display much greater faith but are actually using only 80 percent of all the faith that they could muster. A person filled with doubts and fears and suppressed anger at God, but still doing the little he or she can to hold on to God, could easily be seen by the Lord as having more faith than someone used to raise the dead. All our abilities and opportunities are gifts from God. We can’t impress him with his own gifts. Just as a good parent is as proud of a helpless new born baby as he is of its toddler brother and teenaged sister, the Omnipotent Lord thinks no higher of someone with many gifts or responsibilities. The one thing that moves the Almighty is the extent to which we seek to maximize however much or little he has entrusted to us. If our eternal reward hinged on earthly advantages we might have reason to question God’s fairness, but the Judge is not like that. None of us knows our true potential. God alone knows how we have fared relative to that potential, and it is on this basis that Christians are rewarded. God is Judge and everyone knows that a judge must be impartial. ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ asked Abraham (Genesis 18:25), with as much confidence as if he had asked, ‘Will not the sun rise tomorrow?’ Our conviction that a judge must be fair comes from God himself ( Scriptures ). Of course, there is such a thing as a corrupt judge, but wherever you go in the Bible it shouts that God is righteous. Life is full of injustices, and the ultimate injustice was when the Son of God – in the absolute sense, humanity’s only Innocent – was crucified. He bore in his entire being the full consequences of every injustice this planet has ever seen. He did this to make it legal for him to reverse – by force if necessary – every injustice. That is what the Second Coming is all about. His delay is none other than his mercy in giving us opportunity to repent before crunch time. Those who respond before it is too late will spend eternity marveling at God’s justice. The rest will spend eternity suffering God’s justice. We might often misuse it, but the brain we think with was made by God. He’s a bit smarter than us. Likewise our ability to understand morality doesn’t come from an accident in a primeval swamp. It comes from God. The Almighty’s understanding of justice is as superior to our own as everything else about him is superior. We, not God, are the ones who see and know imperfectly. We are the ones who have biases. When all is revealed, we will see that God alone judges perfectly.

Divine Vengeance Against Those Who Hurt You Christian Revenge and the Wrath of God Turn the other cheek? Teach him a lesson he will never forget! Love your enemy? Avenge yourself and get even with those who hate you? Divine justice. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord (Romans 12:19, NKJV) God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you (2 Thessalonians 1:6) If you imagine God to be the slightest impersonal or disinterested, you have yet to have life’s most thrilling experience – a genuine encounter with the Living God. As we are a higher life form and more personal than plants, so God is higher and more personal than us. With passion, powers of attention, and concern for every detail that makes a nuclear explosion seem like a popgun, the Almighty is so intensely personal that alongside him we are colorless and superficial. And this magnificent God of perfection is in love with you. As a consequence, Almighty God is furious with those who have hurt you. So extreme is God’s passion to execute justice on your behalf that no human could generate such intense yearning. And yet the God who longs for us to be like him, urges us not to take vengeance into our own hands. The Bible insists that even in this life, justice is important, and yet it speaks of turning the other cheek. We will explore these mysteries, plunging deep into the heart of God and gaining new insight into the breathtaking perfection of God’s ways, and in the process discover the path to inner peace. Because it is from God, Bible truth on virtually any subject is so vast that to our puny human minds it seems almost contradictory. In a desperate attempt to cope with the mind-boggling complexity, we are constantly tempted to push from our consciousness those parts of divine revelation that don’t fit our simplistic understanding. To do so, however, not only gives us a twisted view of the breathtakingly beautiful, perfect and lovable Lord, but it robs us of comfort and help God longs for us to enjoy. So a goal of this webpage is to embrace as much of the full truth as we can, while keeping it easy to understand. Before discussing God’s vengeance on those who mistreat you, let’s examine the significant reasons why he pleads with us not to avenge ourselves. If someone attacks us and we attack him back, we have just become as bad as that person. “But he started it!” we retort like children. Yes, and by that we admit that we have exalted that person to being our leader and moral teacher. We have taken the very person we acknowledge as behaving badly and made him the one who teaches us how to behave. How dumb is that! If someone hates us so much that we end up hating him, not only have we, by our hate, become like that person, we have highly esteemed his actions. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” Yes, he started it, but rather than that justifying us acting like him, our longing for revenge justifies his actions. We have declared him so right that we have made him our role models, inspiring us to acts of unkindness. And, even more terrifying, by letting someone get under our skin, we usually become so blinded with self-righteous anger that we have no idea that we have become like the person we despise. We fool ourselves into thinking we are better than that person, and yet even if he didn’t specifically want us to suffer and it was more a side effect of his actions, we, with premeditated deliberation, want him to suffer. If someone hurts us, we want to “teach him a lesson,” but if we tried to retaliate, not only would we fail to teach him how to be godly, we would end up letting that person teach us how to be ungodly. If being hit does not teach us not to hit but only inflames our desire to hit back, why do we suppose that us hitting him would do anything other than intensify his desire to hit back? Instead of teaching him not to lash out, we have merely increased his passion for it and taught him that even those who think themselves morally superior end up concluding that unkind behavior is the best way to act. If our only reason for not hitting back is because we are not strong enough to fight the person or because we fear the consequences, we have still let our heart become as black as that person’s and in addition we have greater fear or weakness than the person we despise. Spiritually, that person has succeeded in making us his clone. Not only has evil not been reduced, it has been multiplied – and multiplied in the worst possible way – by us becoming like the person we despise. If, however, it is with godly motives that we restrain ourselves, wondrous possibilities emerge. So how do you teach an evil person a lesson? Certainly not by becoming a role model in showing him how to be ungodly. He’s already mastered that art. You teach him a lesson by letting him know first hand how good it is to be on the receiving end of loving kindness. You stop evil in its tracks by refusing to duplicate their behavior or attitude in your own life. Then you use loving kindness to cause evil to retreat in the lives of those who are in its grip. “Overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) is one of the most profound statements ever uttered. Not surprisingly with something so profound, it distills into a few words a fundamental aspect of Jesus’ teaching. Like so much of Jesus’ teaching, something deep within us finds it peculiarly attractive and yet we are constantly tempted to dismiss it as too otherworldly to actually work. This foundational truth is also taught in more of the rest of Scripture than we sometimes recall. For example, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat,” seems like the honey that repeatedly dripped from Jesus’ lips, and yet it is actually not from Jesus but from Proverbs 25:21. Again we read, “ Do not say, ‘I’ll do to him as he has done to me; I’ll pay that man back for what he did.’” (Proverbs 24:29). Even the Old Testament Law says such things as, “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him,” (Exodus 23:4) and, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). This intimate connection between Jesus’ words, and the Old Testament is to be expected. If Jesus’ teaching had no precedence in the written word of God revealed prior to Christ’s coming, we would have reason to question whether Jesus truly is the Word of God made flesh. And, of course, this eternal truth is reaffirmed by later revelation. For instance, Paul says such things as, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. . . . Do not take revenge . .  (Romans 12:14,19) and Peter said, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). Like Jesus, the first Christian martyr prayed God’s forgiveness upon his murderers. He achieved this, not by finally yielding after years of reluctant wrestling with the issue, but while being pounded by the stones that killed him (Acts 7:59-60). That we should return good for evil is clearly divine revelation, not just because it appears in so many diverse Scriptures, but because it is so contrary to human thinking. “Love your enemies,” sounds off the planet. It is! It’s from another world. It’s from heaven itself – a world so holy and superior that it is the opposite of the way this world thinks and acts. “Overcome evil with good,” sounds impractical but in reality there is simply no alternative. The only way to kill evil is to smother it with love. To fight bitterness with bitterness or in any other way return evil for evil is to fight a wildfire with gasoline. Any way other that love not only fails to overcome evil, it causes evil to spread and therefore to triumph. More frightening still is where it causes the evil to spread – into one’s own heart. The loving Lord passionately longs to save you from the terrifying fact that we end up like the person we hate. We either imitate Christ who died to forgive his haters or we imitate those who touch us with their evil. You don’t fight corruption by becoming corrupt; you don’t end anger by getting angry. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1). Only light can eliminate darkness. To suppose you can fight darkness with more darkness is stupidity. Spiritual darkness retreats, not by us copying the works of darkness, but only by letting our light so shine that people see our good works. To counteract bitterness you need much sweetness. Lose your sweetness and you lose your usefulness. Become bitter and you become part of the problem. Nothing increases evil like trying to fight evil with evil. To use unrighteous methods in the hope of stopping unrighteousness is like thinking you can eliminate rape by becoming a rapist. It is hypocrisy at its worst. Just suppose your pipe dream came true and you succeeded in using unchristlike methods to stop someone from spreading evil. How could you claim the slightest victory in fighting evil when by choosing ungodly methods you have let evil win in your very own life? To get even with an evildoer who mistreats us is to be brought to the level of an evildoer. To forgive is to be raised to the level of the godly. But how can anyone become so Christlike as to turn the other cheek and do good to those who seek our harm? Only by inviting Christ himself into our very life and – by letting him take over – release him to love others through us with the superhuman love that is God’s alone. Lift Up Your Head In a wide range of Scriptures, God pleads with us to fix our minds on Christ. John 6:40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son . . . 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory . . . (KJV) Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above . . . Philippians 4:8  . . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure . . . think about such things. Philippians 3:13  . . . Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead (14) I press on toward the goal . . . Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . . Nothing other than fixing our attention on Christ will elevate us. Of everything God wants from us, the objects of his love, Jesus said that the most critical is that we love God with all our heart, soul and mind. In practice, “mind” could almost be omitted from the supreme commandment. If we just loved the Lord with all our hearts, it would be reflected in how often our minds drifted to him. It is wisely said that our real God is whatever our minds habitually drift to when we have nothing in particular to think about. And whatever regularly captivates our thoughts determines the person we are destined to become. We know how critical it is when driving to fix our eyes on where we want to go. If we keep looking at objects on the side, we will find ourselves veering dangerously in whatever direction we gaze. Likewise, if we travel through life with our hearts filled with disgust or resentment toward someone, then, like a moth drawn to deadly flames, our minds will keep drifting toward that person. Our gaze will keep slipping from whatever is true, noble, right, pure and worthy of praise – which in the ultimate is Christ himself – and, instead of Christ, our lives will resolve around the person we despise. If our minds keep drifting to that person, rather than Christ, it shows we have become more passionate about the one who hates us than we are about the One who loves us. That person will fill our minds as much as if we were hopelessly in love with him/her. In effect, our fixation upon the behavior of the person we despise causes that person, not Christ, to become our role model, and even – in a disturbingly real sense- our god. We will actually become increasingly like the person we hate. This is no idle theory. What moved me begin this webpage is my distress over continually seeing this truth displayed as tragic reality in the lives of many people who e-mail me, sharing their traumatic past and their current problems. And this is confirmed by research around the world into the backgrounds and attitudes of people. Unless we forgive, we will be so tied to that person that we will end up wherever he/she ends up – or worse. The Surprise Twist to this Tale Whenever our finite minds think we have the infinite Lord figured out, we are heading for a shock. Just when we expect Scripture to emphasize love as being the reason for being kind to one’s enemies, it stuns us by speaking of this being the door to vengeance and releasing God’s wrath upon the enemies. To explore this mystery, see Love your Enemy and Heap Burning Coals on his Head For a moving webpage about importance of love, see Turn the Other Cheek Another significant page: Why God’s Anger is Comforting

Christian CompassionAnd the Wrath of God Love your Enemy And Heap Burning Coals on his Head! Justice: So Important to the God of Love Several Scriptures telling us not to retaliate, emphasize that this is not to let the offender get off scot-free, but to release the Almighty to execute judgment. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (20) On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Proverbs 24: 17 Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, (18) or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him. This shocks us, even though it blends in with other Scriptures that seem to speak of vengeance with peculiar relish: 2 Thessalonians 1:4 . . . we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. (5) All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. (6) God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you (7) and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. (8) He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power Revelation 6:9 . . . I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. (10) They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (11) Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. Deuteronomy 32:43 Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people. We discovered in the previous page, significant reasons for God urging us not to take vengeance into our own hands. For even more insight into this perplexing issue and an examination of how loving our enemies fits into divine vengeance, let’s explore a powerful passage of Scripture, commenting as we go. Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, Absorb those words: “at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself.” Over and over, Scripture emphasizes that no matter what happens in the short term, eternity will reveal that only people who humble themselves end up exalted. In contrast to humble people, whoever judges someone considers himself morally superior to the person he judges. By judging, he proves himself to be so far from the spirit of humility as to be in grave spiritual danger. Jesus emphasized this when he said, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God’ ” (Luke 18:10-14). The man overwhelmed by the immensity of his own sin was forgiven, whereas the man who looked down on certain people remained tragically unaware that he was condemned. Most of us delight in finding people whose sins we can despise. We rarely analyze why we do this, but it is actually our pathetic way of getting our minds off our own sins and drowning out the screams of our consciences. There are “those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth” ( Proverbs 30:12). The only way to be pure is to admit to ourselves and to God our desperate need of cleansing. Living in denial of the gravity of our own sins is eternally more dangerous than a person with a deadly cancer living in denial of the need to seek medical help. Better than being cured of cancer, facing head-on the truth about one’s filth, and coming to Christ to be pronounced spotlessly pure, is the most liberating experience in the universe. Salvation from eternal judgment depends on you believing that Jesus was nailed to the cross to pardon your sin. How can anyone possibly imagine a more horrific sin than one that required the Innocent One – the only Son of Almighty God – being tortured to death? How, then, could anyone accepting salvation through Christ’s sacrifice possibly believe there could be a worse sin than his own? And yet isn’t this exactly the deluded, self-righteous belief of anyone who judges another? Doesn’t judging involve thinking someone’s sin is worse than one’s own sin? Anyone claiming to be a Christian who judges someone, thinks to himself, “Because that person’s behavior offends me, he is a more serious offender than little ol’ me. I’m almost perfect. After all, my sin merely tortured to death God’s only Son.” Who in their right mind could claim to be a Christian and think like that? To judge anyone – considering yourself morally superior to someone – is to so minimize your own sin as to virtually live in denial of the fact that it was because of your sin that the Savior died. Such a denial would involve either rejecting your one hope of salvation – the fact that Christ died for your sin – or at least edging precariously close to that point. Is it any wonder that someone judging another stands in danger of eternal condemnation? We saw from Romans 2:1 that merely thinking ourselves morally superior to anyone exposes us to divine condemnation. What, then, will be the consequences of having such an inflated view of our self-righteousness that we suppose ourselves justified not only in condemning someone but in wanting to take the law of God into our hands and see our self-centered, hypocritical wrath executed on that person?Dare we have the audacity to think we know better than the Judge of all humanity and accuse the holy Lord – the one who at any instant would be fully justified in sending us to eternal torment – of being too soft? If thinking ourselves better than other people exposes us to judgment, what does thinking ourselves better than God do? Other Scriptures are even more emphatic that our very salvation hangs in the balance when we daydream of “getting even.” Jesus repeatedly said such things as, “ . . . if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14). Now to continue with Romans 2: because you who pass judgment do the same things “No I don’t!” we protest in chorus. Our response shows just how deeply a judgmental spirit blinds us to our own sins. We all have our particular version of hypocrisy in which we manage to see our own sins through the wrong end of the binoculars but see more clearly the sins of those who have hurt us. In God’s eyes, our hypocritically biased view is as pathetic as the following exchange. “How dare he steal yellow jellybeans! I want a law passed that anyone stealing yellow jellybeans be jailed for life!” “But you’ve stolen jellybeans. You’ll be sentencing yourself to jail.” “Of course not! I only steal red jellybeans!” The Lord graciously – it certainly was not my doing – blessed me with wonderful Christian parents and through Christ he spiritually joined me to himself at a young age and I’ve never drifted from him. Consequently, I could produce a long list of common sins I have never indulged in. I would sooner publicly display my bodily filth than present any of that as a suggestion that I’m the slightest less worthy of hell than the most sadistic mass murderer on the planet. If anything, my spiritually privileged background fills me with shame. It means I’ve never overcome the huge obstacles to faith that so many have had to overcome to believe in Jesus. Of course, salvation is always undeserved but someone who becomes a Christian despite being born to non-Christians is rather like someone who becomes a millionaire by starting a business with nothing, whereas I’m more like a millionaire who simply inherited his money from his parents. My sheltered background also means there are many powerful addictions – even smoking – that I have never broken in my own life, since I have never had the slightest exposure to them. For all these reasons, my supposedly less sinful life is simply an illusion – and a dangerously seductive illusion that I must not fall for, lest the resulting hypocrisy expose me to the wrath of God. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded,” warned Jesus (Luke 12:48). I dare not point the finger at anyone. Had I lived my highly sheltered life until I was born again as a child and then lived sinlessly for the rest of my life, no one that ever existed would be more worthy of hell than me. Even if, like Adam, I had merely had a piece of fruit that I shouldn’t, I’d be worthy of hell, let alone all the horrific sins I’ve committed. In a flash of anger I once wished my little sister were dead. That makes me a murderer in the view of the One whose piercing eye bores through one’s hypocrisy into one’s heart. Like a rapist, I have lusted. Like a con artist, I have deceived. To try to throw up as an excuse the fact that almost everyone else has acted similarly, would not only fail to reduce the magnitude of my sin, it would expose myself to eternal judgment because, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). For years I considered my sins minor. Not even now has my calloused conscience fully softened to the gravity of the offenses each of us try to excuse. How dare I have the audacity to want God to be merciful to me if I – being guilty of the atrocious sins I mentioned – cannot be gracious toward the sins of others! If there is one thing that riled Jesus, it is hypocrisy. Anyone not wholeheartedly agreeing that you and I are equal to the vilest of sinners, has no conception of the holiness of God. Tragically, most people have spent so long looking down on others that they cannot even imagine what it would be like to look up and behold the Holy One. They have so closed their eyes to spiritual reality that they live in a world of make believe – a world that, to their eternal horror, will one day shatter. No matter how horrifically someone has treated you, his offense against you is not as grave as what you have done to God. Your sins were so atrocious that nothing short of Jesus’ death could atone for them. In effect, your sins tortured and murdered the Holy Son of God, the Lord of the universe. In the terrifying words of Peter, “You killed the author of life” (Acts 3:15). Oops! That has to be biggest conceivable blunders. Imagine ignorantly destroying the very One who upholds the fabric of the entire universe; the One keeping our very atoms from disintegrating, along with every atom in all creation. That is the magnitude of our sin. We are so self-centered that we are acutely aware of our pain when others hurt us, but barely conscious of God’s pain when we hurt him. In our hypocrisy we are usually full of excuses for our own sins, grossly downplaying their gravity, but rarely are we as generous in excusing anyone else’s sin. We seem hell-bent on pointing to the speck of dust in someone’s eye, utterly oblivious to the sandpit in our own eye. We suppose it is the other person who is annoying us, but it is primarily the yet-to-be-discovered sand in our own eye that is the real source of our irritation. When we start accusing others as if we are better than them, the problem isn’t their sin, but our blindness to our own sins. Let’s proceed to the next verse in Romans: (2) Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. God’s judgment is based on truth, not only because he alone sees everything and knows every heart, but in stark contrast to even the most unbiased of us, he alone does not view people through a hypocritical, self-centered haze. (3) So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Suddenly, the issue is no longer, Why hasn’t God’s judgment fallen on that person? but, How speedily will divine judgment fall on me for my self-righteous hypocrisy? Note the words, “you, a mere man.” Did we create ourselves? Did we design the molecules of the person we want punished? What makes that person answerable to us? Do we have a perfect, unbiased grasp of the intricacies of morality? Do we know everyone’s secret thoughts, pressures and motives? Just who do we think we are in usurping God’s right to be Judge? (4) Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? The driving force behind God’s kindness toward his enemies is the hope that they would repent. His longing is that those who continually hurt him – and we ourselves once fell into that terrifying category – will have a genuine and complete change of heart so that they can become his treasured friends, totally new people and fully trustworthy. This, too, is a major reason why he wants us to show this same kindness to those who don’t deserve it. If they respond to our kindness by repenting, we have truly succeeded in “teaching them a lesson.” Instead of simply doing what it takes to avoid unpleasantness, someone changed by kindness, not force, genuinely wants to do right. The person’s sincerity invites God into his life. He becomes a new person. (5) But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. We might think those we despise are beyond change, but if the Almighty can change you and me, he can change anyone. Nevertheless, any who refuse to repent are “storing up wrath.” God’s restraint in kindly giving people more time to come to their senses is a window of opportunity that if not seized by the guilty, will end in a full outpouring of divine wrath. The Lord told Ezekiel, “When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself (Ezekiel 33:8-9). The same principle applies to us being kind to those who mistreat us. If we don’t show kindness to offenders, we will be held responsible. If we do the right thing and they refuse to repent, however, they will be held accountable, but we will be innocent. “You are storing up wrath” is in the present tense, implying an on-going process. It is my conviction that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not merely saying that wrath has been delayed, but that wrath is constantly being added to the store during the time of kindness, thus continuously increasing the final outpouring of wrath if there is no repentance. For confirmation from Bible scholars, see “Storing up Wrath.” Likewise, our kindness to our enemies makes us godlike and increases the stakes for them. It gives our enemies a greater opportunity to come to their senses by seeing first hand that there is a better alternative to their own lifestyle. Love is perhaps the most powerful way of proving to people the spiritual reality of Christianity. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Again, Scripture reveals to wives that loving gentleness is the best way to bring unbelieving husbands to salvation (1 Peter 3:1-4) Likewise, there is nothing more powerful in transforming this planet for the glory of God than you displaying the character of God with supernatural patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness, goodness, love, joy and peace. And the best opportunity you will ever have – in this life or the next – to portray the beauty of the Lord is when people mistreat you. Under normal conditions, to try to demonstrate the reality of God is like trying to show a movie in a Drive-In during daylight. When the deeds of darkness touch us is like when darkness falls at a Drive-In. It is then that people can appreciate what is being displayed. Jesus referred to his enemies tormenting him to death as his “hour” – the pinnacle of his ministry, his glory (John 12:23,27; 13:30-31). Likewise, the time when we are cruelly treated is our moment of glory. It is our finest hour; our stupendous opportunity to show forth the reality of the Lord who indwells and empowers us. A greater demonstration of the reality of Christ and a greater opportunity to repent, however, increases the accountability of those receiving our kindness, so that if they don’t repent they will face even greater severity on Judgment Day. Paul urges us to consider both the kindness and severity of God (Romans 11:22) – kindness to those who respond to his love by a genuine change of heart, and severity to those who abuse his grace. Of course there is heaven and hell, but if there is just one eternal reward given equally to all Christians, and just one uniform punishment, talk of increased accountability and accumulating wrath would be almost meaningless. Throughout the world there is an enormous range of accountability, from babies to intelligent adults who have not heard of Jesus through to those who have witnessed mind-boggling miracles and proofs of God’s power and yet have stubbornly refused Jesus’ salvation. There are also vast differences in degrees of faithfulness and in the varying abilities and opportunities assigned to different Christians. If the Judge of all humanity could access just one reward and one punishment to assign to each of such diverse people, it would seem hard for him to adequately respond to all this variability. The options available to the Judge, however, are up to the task. Scripture refers to a whole range of rewards and punishments. Punishment varying according to accountability is hinted at in many Scriptures. For example: Luke 12:47 That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. (48) But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. For more Scriptures and explanations, see Degrees of Punishment. There are also varying rewards. Consider Jesus’ parable in which servants were each given an equal sum of money known as a mina. Because of their varying faithfulness, one servant ended up with eleven minas and control of ten cities, another had five minas and control of five cities, another had nothing but his life, and the enemies of the returning king lost even their lives (Luke 19:12-27). For explanations and other Scriptures, see Heavenly Rewards. Parables A man is in court, convicted of driving a car while intoxicated. The law says he should lose his driver’s license. The man pleads with the judge that his job depends on him having a driver’s license. The judge is in a dilemma; he wants to be merciful but if this man re-offends someone could be killed. Finally, the judge agrees to let him keep his license but pronounces that if this man again appears in court convinced of this offense he will not just lose his license, and hence his job, but he will be jailed. God’s kindness is like that. It raises the stakes because it unavoidably raises our accountability. A woman wearing her finest clothes is attacked by a man who grabs her by her dress. As much as she loves that dress she has no option but to tug at it with all her might. The dress will either tear and be ruined or she will retrieve it undamaged. Either way, however, that evil man will not win. Likewise, when the Evil One attacks God by holding on to someone important to God – and that’s every human – the Lord pours out his mercy on that person, engaging the Evil One in a supernatural tug-of-war for the person’s soul. That person will either respond to God’s kindness and be saved or refuse and be ruined. Either way, when the battle is over, the Evil one will end up with nothing. So it is when you show kindness to the undeserving. Your action invites God to apply supernatural force to that person. By the time God has finished, the person will end up either restored or ruined, but you, like that woman, will be free. Whatever the outcome for that person, you will triumph, be vindicated and eternally exalted. You acting in a loving, non-judgmental way causes everything to slot together with divine precision. It releases God to execute perfect justice, while allowing the Judge to be merciful to you and also stopping evil in its tracks by preventing the offender from contaminating your own heart. When you and I were God’s enemies he loved us so much that he went to the extreme of the cross to make us his friends. And beyond that, he had to tolerate much evil until we finally accepted his forgiveness, and even then we try his patience. If God didn’t treat kindly those who hurt him, we’d all be in hell right now. How dare anyone forgiven so very much not forgive others! From the moment all is revealed, the redeemed with spend the whole of eternity marveling at God’s judgments. Revelation 16:7 And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” Psalms 145:17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. Psalms 96:11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; (12) let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; (13) they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth. Burning Coals? Let’s see if we now have deeper insight into that mysterious Scripture with which we commenced this webpage. Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (20) On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” In biblical thought, burning coals are most commonly associated with divine wrath. For example, we read in Scripture, referring to God: Psalms 120:4 He will punish you with a warrior’s sharp arrows, with burning coals . . . Psalms 11:6 On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur . . . 2 Samuel 22:8 “The earth trembled . . . because he was angry. (9) Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. Psalms 140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. In fact, the connection between burning coals and divine wrath is so strong that Bible readers can hardly get it out of their mind. Nevertheless, despite the reference to divine vengeance just a few words earlier, it seems so out of place to bring wrath or vengeance into an exhortation to love that Bible scholars struggle with this interpretation. They typically opt for the reference to burning coals to mean that our kindness will fill our enemy with “burning shame.” Renowned theologian, Charles Hodge wrote, “To heap fires of coal on anyone is a punishment which no one can bear; he must yield to it. Kindness is no less effectual; the most malignant enemy cannot always withstand it.” (Source). This is true. It would seem almost impossible not to eventually win an enemy over by continued kindness. Here’s a fascinating reference to burning coals: Isaiah 6:5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (6) Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. (7) With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” A burning coal to the lips would normally have tortured a person. Instead, Isaiah being cut to the core over his sinfulness allowed that coal to sanctify and transform him. Likewise, if your enemies repent, the coals your kindness heaps on their head will burn off their defilement, transforming them into godly people filled with “burning shame” over what they did to you. Nevertheless, as a last resort, divine vengeance hovers over the head of the offender so that one way or the other – heartfelt remorse or eternal judgment – your enemy will indeed be overwhelmed with regret over his past misdeeds. Regret – One Way or Another Even God’s judgmental, wrath-filled pronouncements of doom are usually our loving Lord’s last-ditch effort to avert judgment. An obvious example is Jonah’s prophecy that in forty days’ time Nineveh would be destroyed. There seemed not a glimmer of hope in his entire message. It had the effect God longed for and that Jonah dreaded. The evil city repented and God relented. As I have shown elsewhere (see the link at the end of this series of webpages) forgiveness and restoration is more often the goal of harsh prophecies than most of us realize. We don’t know a lot about the next life. We know that divine forgiveness means we will go to heaven, but Scripture shows us that forgiveness does not mean an end to our remorse over past sin. For example, God forgave David over his sin with Bathsheba but David kept suffering the consequences for decades to come. 2 Samuel 12:11 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. (12) You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” (13) Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. (14) But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” Suppose David had eluded punishment and repented only on his deathbed. If suffering regret and loss after forgiveness is an insight into divine judgment, I can’t see David’s last-minute repentance saving him from suffering regret and loss over his sin. Forgiveness means that a genuine deathbed repentance would allow David to go to heaven, but he would still suffer loss because of his sin. I also believe that in heaven he would receive a divine revelation of the sinfulness of sin and of God’s holiness beyond anything we are likely to experience this side of eternity. I can only assume that this would flood him with heart-wrenching regret over how he had wronged Bathsheba’s husband. Whoever has sinned against you will either end up with his eyes opened to the gravity of his offence and reeling with remorse over what he did to you, or he will be eternally punished for his sins. Either way, it is certain that the person who has wronged you will forever regret his actions. There is no question about that. The only question mark dangles over our neck is whether we will be filled with shame over crashing to the level of the someone who has wronged us by trying to “get even,” or will we be eternally pleased with the victorious, Christlike way we responded to the challenge? Understanding Divine Wrath There is nothing more fundamental to God than love and justice. Before we can claim even a superficial understanding of the heart and mind of God, we must come to terms with the fact that “An eye for an eye” is instruction from the same unchanging Lord who said “Turn the other cheek.” Ultimately, it is not a choice between love or justice. This world is hurtling toward both. Both are God’s passion and must be our passion. That’s why you must read An Eye For An Eye: Christian Justice or Love Your Enemy? Related Page Turn the Other Cheek

The Quest for Music Miracles APPENDIX (PART B) NOTE 1.8: The Jewish Preference For The Shophar The ram’s horn might have been the first instrument played on earth. The ‘father of all those who play the lyre and pipe’ was Jubal, a name related to the Hebrew word for ram (Genesis 31:27). It is such a primitive instrument as to raise the question of why its use continued throughout the Old Testament era. There were pipes, end-blown flutes, double clarinets, double oboes, and – in the Greco-Roman period – ‘terra-cotta rhyton-shaped wind instruments’. In fact, unlike the metal trumpets used in the Bible times, the ram’s horn is still used today! Part of the answer for its continued use is probably that despite musical limitations, rams’ horns were effective noise-makers. Perhaps the other half of the answer lies in the fact that they were literally horns from rams. To the Hebrew mind, horns were potent symbols. Not only did they symbolize physical power, (e.g. Deuteronomy 33:17) but the holy altars designed by God – both the sacrificial altar and the altar of incense – had horns (Exodus 27:1-2; 30:1 ,f) and the Lord Himself is the ‘horn of our salvation’ (2 Samuel 22:3; Psalm 18:2). Furthermore, each shophar came from an animal suitable for God-ordained sacrifice and the animal had, presumably, actually died. In addition, horns ( shophars ) carried the divine anointing oil (1 Samuel 16:1). Then there’s the fact that, relative to most other instruments, an animal horn is divinely made. Finally – and perhaps least significantly – horn-blowing was a way of involving nature in praise to the Creator. In their choice of instrument, ancient Jews were not beyond considering its tone (Mishna, Arakhin 2:3 – a reed-pipe was preferred to a pipe of bronze because its sound was sweeter). At least in the post-Old-Testament era, however, factors other than sound assumed great significance. For instance, cow horns were forbidden for ritual blowing, (Mishna, Rosh Ha-Shanah 3:2) apparently because cows were not sacrificial animals (the Jewish Talmud). According to the Jewish Mishnah , the voice of a sacrificial victim is multiplied seven times when it dies because its horns become shophar s, its two leg-bones become flutes, its hide becomes a drum, its entrails are used for lyres, and its chitterlings for harps (Mishna, Kinnim 3:6) According to a Jewish legend, David’s harp strings were made from the gut of the ram Abraham slew on Mount Moriah. In the synagogues ram’s horns were used as a reminder of that ram sacrificed in Isaac’s stead. NOTE 1.9: Identifying The Bible’s Songs The exact number of songs in the Bible is difficult to determine. There are many songs in Scripture, clearly identified as such, outside of the Psalter ( Exodus 15:1-18 , 21 ; Numbers 21:17-18 ; Deuteronomy 31:22-32:44 ; Judges 5:1-31 ; 1 Samuel 18:7 ; 2 Samuel 3:33-34 ; 22:2-51 ; 1 Chronicles 16:7-36 ; Song of Solomon; Isaiah 5:1 ff; 23:16; 26:1 ff; Habakkuk 3:2-19 ; Revelation 5:9-10 , 13 ; 15:3-4 ). With poetry being so common in Scripture, it would have been fairly easy to set large portions of it to music. Many passages appear to be songs although Scripture does not specifically call them songs or indicate that they were intended to be set to music (e.g. 1 Samuel 2:1-10 ; the entire book of Lamentations; Isaiah 6:3 ; 23:15-16 ; Ezekiel 19:1-14 ; 22:2 ff; 32:2,16; Jonah 2:2-9 ; Daniel 2:20-23 ; 4:34 b-35; Amos 5:1-2 ; Luke 1:46-55 , 68-79 ; 2:14 , 29-32 ). Some of these read so much like psalms it is hard to read them without imagining them being set to music (see for yourself: 2 Samuel 1:17-27 ; 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 ; Isaiah 12:1-6 ; 38:9-20 ; Jonah 2:2-9 ; and verses around Isaiah 42:10 ; 44:23 ; 49:13 ; Jeremiah 20:13 ; Zephaniah 3:14 , 17 ). If some were not originally set to music they seem to cry out for music so loudly that it is hard to conceive of them being bereft of music for long. Some Bibles, by printing poetry in lines of uneven length, make it immediately obvious which parts of Scripture are poetry. Consulting such a Bible opens a new dimension to Scripture, not just making possible songs easier to identify or adding interest for the musician and beauty for the lover of literature, but also aiding interpretation. Possible songs pop up in the most unlikely places. In the search for fragments of Christian hymns, scholars have been drawn to many Scriptures, including John 1:1-18 ; Romans 3:13-18 , 23-25 ; 8:31-39 ; 9:33 ; 11:33-35 ; 1 Corinthians 13:1 ff; Ephesians 1:3-14 ; 2:4-7 , 10 , 19-22 ; 5:14 ; Philippians 2:6-11 ; Colossians 1:15-20 ; 2:9-15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17 ; 3:16 ; 6:15-16 ; 2 Timothy 2:11-13 ; Titus 3:4-7 ; Hebrews 1:1-3 ; 1 Peter 2:6-7 , 21-25 ; 3:18-22 ; Revelation 4:8 , 11 ; 5:9 , 12-13 ; 7:10 , 12 ; 11:15 , 17-18 ; 12:10 ff: 14:7; 15:3-4; 19:1-2, 6-8. Unfortunately, most of this remains highly speculative. Such an examination of the Old Testament would produce a huge list. The first Biblical song is said to be Genesis 4:23 . Some Bible versions specifically call Numbers 21:27-30 a song (AMP, RSV and GNB, but not KJV, NKJV, NEB, LB or NASB). There is another factor: Scriptures have been sung which were apparently not originally intended to be songs. The practice of reciting even the prose parts of Scripture in a singing voice may have extended back centuries before Christ. Psalm 119:54 could be relevant to this practice: ‘Your statutes have been my songs . . .’ Harold Best (Best, 4:316) believes that by Jesus’ time this practice may have been so established as to make it likely that Jesus employed it when delivering Scripture in the synagogue ( Luke 4:16-20 ). Eventually, it came to be questioned whether it was acceptable to ever read Scripture without melody (The Talmud, Megillah 32a). So, whether they were aware of it or not, contributors to the Old Testament ended up writing lyrics to songs. Who can authoritatively declare that this result was not in God’s mind when He originally inspired the writers? NOTE 1.10: Hebrews 2:12 – The Son of God Singing The highly esteemed Greek lexicon by Arndt and Gingrich, along with eleven of the thirteen translations I consulted, see in Hebrews 2:12 a reference to singing. This certainly seems to be the usual meaning of the key word. However, to be strictly unbiased, I should point out that this word is sometimes applied to spoken, rather than sung, praise. Singing seems to be hinted at, rather than emphatically stated. NOTE 1.11: Divine Singing, Trumpeting And Whistling Does Zephaniah 3:17 indicate that God sings? God’s trumpet-playing is hinted at in Zechariah 9:14 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 . The problem, of course, is to know how literally this should be interpreted. Literal trumpet blasts from heaven are mentioned in the Bible but they might be unmusical signals ( Exodus 19:6 ; 20:18 ; Psalms 47:5 ; Isaiah 27:13 ; Matthew 24:31 ). Isaiah 5:26 ; 7:18 and Zechariah 10:8 refer to God ‘whistling’. But since these are references to signaling, it is unlikely that a tune would be involved. Chapter 2 Notes – Celestial Choirs NOTE 2.1: Drugs, Hallucinations and After Death Experiences Dr. Karlis Osis and his associates analyzed the reports of over one thousand medical personnel who regularly worked with dying patients. They found that patients taking drugs or sedatives known to produce hallucinations were less likely to report an afterlife experience than those who took no medication. Likewise, those illnesses that produce hallucinations were associated with less afterlife reports than other illnesses. The patients’ experiences did not usually conform to what they expected and they appeared as frequently to people who fully expected to recover as to those who knew they were dying. Dr. Charles Garfield, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California Medical Centre, states that life-after-death experiences are entirely different from drug-induced hallucinations or the sensations sometimes associated with severe pain. Dr. Maurice Rawlings agrees. ‘Drug effects, alcoholic delirium tremens, carbon dioxide narcosis, and psychotic reactions deal more with objects in the present world and not with situations in the next world. NOTE 2.2: Errors In Non-Christian Analyses of ‘After Death’ Experiences When researching anything related to spiritual matters, non-Christians inevitably get things hopelessly confused. In two excellent books, Dr. Maurice Rawlings does much to sort out the chaos. He points out that only about twenty percent of resuscitated patients volunteer information about their experience. We are thus dealing with a very biased sample. He rightly asks, who would boast about being such a moral failure that one is sent to hell? Many people joke about it, but it’s a very different thing to be faced with the reality of hell. Dr. Rawlings was desperately trying to save a postman’s life. In between times of clinical death, his patient kept screaming that he had been in hell. He pleaded with the reluctant doctor to lead him in prayer. His certainty that he was entering hell was so convincing that it removed the doctor’s personal skepticism. The patient survived the ordeal and became a Christian. He could recall the prayer and viewing his body from a distance, and yet he could remember nothing of his hellish experience. Apparently, it was so horrific that his mind had suppressed it. Previous researchers had not personally resuscitated patients. They were content to interview people who had sufficient time to repress unpleasant experiences. The doctor records another man’s description of his experiences after his heart stopped beating. It ended up being so horrendous that the patient was certain he had been to hell. It brought about his conversion. Yet the first part of his experience was blissful – floating above his body, feeling happy, at peace and free from pain. Had he been resuscitated at that point, his impression of life after death would have been vastly different. Eighty-five percent of people resuscitated after suicide attempts reported being glad to be alive. Every account Dr. Rawlings has collected from such people has been ‘hellish’. Overall, he found that interviewing people immediately after resuscitation produced as many reports of bad experiences as good ones. In line with Scripture’s affirmation that multitudes will have an unpleasant after-life, a number of people have reported hearing unpleasant sound, rather than beautiful music. Mention is made of ‘the awfullest, eerie sounds,’ ‘a roaring noise,’ and an unforgettable, ‘really bad buzzing noise’. The bias that many people have is illustrated by the fact that Dr. Rawlings himself has been misquoted in a way that suggested all after-death experiences are pleasant. We are justifiably dubious of experiences which cause some non-Christians to give glowing reports of ‘life after death’. However, it seems theoretically possible that even some of these could be in accordance with reality, though misinterpreted. Certainly, most non-Christians have some pleasant earthly experiences which are neither Satanic deception, nor indicative of where they will spend eternity. I confess ignorance, but it seems theoretically possible that on the other side of the grave they could also have a few moments in pleasant surrounds before being ushered into a strikingly different abode. The Bible seems to hint at this possibility. Before being hurled into the lake of fire, (Revelation 20:15) non-Christians will be brought before the great white throne (Revelation 20:11). Presumably, this is situated in a very beautiful, heavenly place. Hence, for at least this brief moment, it seems that non-Christians could be in lovely surrounds before being cast into hell. Conclusion Reports from resuscitated patients are usually consistent with the reality of hell. When correctly interpreted, even non-Christian data is more creditable than we might have imagined. So we are certainly justified in examining Christian reports with an open mind. The Deceiver always tries to pervert the most beautiful, loving and holy acts of God into opportunities to amplify his evil. He bent the miraculous provision of manna into an occasion for the Israelites to murmur against their Lord (Numbers 11.5-6). He twisted God’s infallible Word into a weapon of deception against the holy Son of God (Matthew 4:5-6). He used Jesus’ power over demons to blaspheme Him as the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24). He turned divine judgment into an opportunity to curse God instead of repent (Revelation 16:10-11). Rather than list a hundred more examples, let’s focus on the point: if we failed to differentiate between an act of God and the evil interpretation with which Satan tries to tar it, we could end up labelling as satanic virtually everything God has ever done. NOTE 2.3: More Information About Dr. Eby I shudder at Dr. Eby’s apparently uncritical account of how his mother, as a girl, came under the influence of an American Indian medicine man. Nevertheless, I believe a careful reading of the whole book restores one’s faith in the genuineness of Dr. Eby’s Christian experience. As biblical support for the reality of his celestial journey, Dr. Eby equates Paul (2 Corinthians 12:1-4) with the time the apostle was stoned and left for dead (Acts 14:19). Though I disagree, this in no way detracts from the genuineness of the doctor’s experience. The weakness in his argument is that even after ‘being caught up into paradise’, Paul did not know whether he had been in or out of the body, (2 Corinthians 12:2-3) in the stoning incident his body seems to have clearly been on earth. The doctor’s theory is based on the assumption that Paul actually died when stoned, something Scripture does not specifically state (Contrast Acts 14:19 with Acts 20:9). Finally, there is a chronological problem: the stoning does not appear to have occurred in the year referred to in 2 Corinthians 12:2 (i.e. not fourteen years prior to the penning of 2 Corinthians). NOTE 2.4: More Reports Of Celestial Music In the following instances, reports were too brief to add to our understanding of celestial music. Their mere existence, however, tend to confirm the reliability of the accounts recorded in the body of the book. Obviously, the larger the number of independent witnesses, the harder it is to escape the conclusion that heavenly strains have touched earthly ears. Moreover, some bear striking resemblances to incidents already cited. August Hermann Francke (3-1727), a German clergyman and educator, is renowned for his important role in a spiritual movement intended to revive the Lutheran church at a time when it was becoming increasingly formal and lifeless. According to Basilea Schlink, he heard heavenly music as he was dying. It is said that even his family heard it. Prompted by the Lord, Rev. W. B. McKay’s wife closed the door, drew the curtains and commenced praying. Suddenly, the room was filled with a brilliant light. The Lord Jesus appeared, saying He had come to show her the splendors of heaven. Together with Jesus and a host of angels, she spiraled up to heaven, leaving her body behind. As they ascended, Mrs. McKay heard angelic music and singing which she says was indescribable. In the city of God, she witnessed many things, including the redeemed, some of whom she had known on earth, singing. The Lord declared that she and her husband would be given a healing ministry. He urged her to remain humble so that He could work through her. The entire experience may have lasted seven hours. Her spirit then returned to earth. Over her body were three highly concerned men: her husband, a doctor, and the Bible college president. Until that moment, the doctor had been unable to detect any pulse. Mrs. McKay later testified that this heavenly encounter radically changed her life. Both she and her husband received the prophesied healing ministry. This incident dovetails nicely with several of the accounts I have cited. Numerous people have reported hearing ethereal music during, or on the verge of, clinical death. Perhaps all of these were born-again believers. The information given is sometimes too scanty to be sure. Only six of the hundred cases in Osis’ study heard ‘sacred music or heavenly choruses’. His sample was taken from the general population. Had he weeded out non-Christians, I suspect the percentage would have been much higher. Unfortunately, the nature of the music heard rarely receives any attention from researchers. One lady described the music as ‘majestic’. Another called what she heard ‘organ music’. (You may recall that Mrs. Grace Murphy also mentioned organ music in her attempt to describe the sounds she heard.) Other accounts were even less descriptive, merely using such words as ‘beautiful’ and ‘wonderful’. So common is this phenomenon that when I saw a compilation about dying Christians I bought it, confident that I would find reference to celestial music. I was not disappointed. In five separate reports, dying Christians heard music with such vividness that they expected others in the room to be able to hear it and of such quality that with obvious pleasure, even excitement, they summoned strength to speak of it. ‘Hear that music!’ exclaimed Rev. Hiram Case, ‘they don’t have such music as that on earth.’ There were other reports beside these five, but of particular interest was about an African youth, not long converted from heathenism, who had been gored by an elephant. Though ‘not preconditioned to descriptions of heaven,’ in his last moments he described angels to missionary Paul Landrus ‘and spoke of music like Landrus knew he had never heard in his lifetime.’ Chapter 3: Notes – The Culmination of Music NOTE 3.1: Ezekiel’s Temple and the Future of Music In its description of the temple Ezekiel saw in his vision, the King James Version refers to ‘the chambers of the singers in the inner court’ ( Ezekiel 40:44, KJV , supported by RV, NKJV, NASB, RSV marg only, NRSV, NIV, marg only, but not AMP, LB, Moffatt, NEB). Several English versions omit reference to singers here, preferring to follow the ancient Greek version, rather than the Hebrew. Depending upon your interpretation of this vision and whether you accept the reliability of the Hebrew (Masoretic) text at this point, you might see this as provision for the music ministry in the age to come. NOTE 3.2: ‘Harps of God’ Theologian, Leon Morris points out that the term harps of God in the book of Revelation is ‘unusual’. King James Bible readers would be excused for not recognizing this. In their version, 1 Chronicles 16:42 uses a similar expression ( instruments of God ) to refer to earthly Levitical musical instruments. The apparent similarity of terms, however, is a quirk of the King James Version. It is not found in the ancient translations of 1 Chronicles 16:42 , (Septuagint, Targum, Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate) nor in most modern versions. Not even Young’s literal, nor Jay Green’s Literal Translation, which both follow the King James text, nor the old Revised Version, has this expression. A more accepted translation is instruments of the songs of God . We find a similar expression to this elsewhere in even the King James Version – instruments of the music of the Lord ( 2 Chronicles 7:6 ). As a further complication, however, the NIV employs the expression the Lord’s musical instruments and the Lord’s instruments of praise in 2 Chronicles ( 2 Chronicles 7:6 ; 30:21 ). This rendition is not followed by other versions consulted (i.e. not used in the RSV, NASB, LB, GNB, NEB, NKJV or KJV) Old Testament musical instruments are otherwise referred to as the instruments of David ( 2 Chronicles 29:26-27 ; Nehemiah 12:36 ; cf 1 Chronicles 23:5 ; 2 Chronicles 7:6 ; Amos 6:5 ). So although translation problems abound – further intensified by the fact that the New and Old Testaments were written in different languages – it seems that rather than reflecting Old Testament terminology, harps of God contrasts with the Old Testament term instruments of David . In fact, the closest biblical parallel is trumpet of God ( 1 Thessalonians 4:16 ). Obviously, this ‘trumpet’ is of non-human origin.