Ingress and Egress

"When the people of the land come before the LORD on the appointed feast days, whoever enters by way of the north gate to worship shall go out by way of the south gate; and whoever enters by way of the south gate shall go out by way of the north gate. He shall not return by way of the gate through which he came, but shall go out through the opposite gate. The prince shall then be in their midst. When they go in, he shall go in; and when they go out, he shall go out" (Ezekiel 46:9,10).

 

This is a set of foot-traffic rules for Ezekiel's Messianic temple. In that day, when the people of the Lord come into the temple to worship, they are invited to enter by one entrance and go out by the gate on the opposite side: If they come in from the north side they are to go out by the south side and vice versa. The purpose of this instruction was to promote order and prevent congestion within the narrow confines of the temple courtyard. 

 

But Ezekiel adds a wondrous note. "The Prince will be in their midst. When they go in, he shall go in; and when they go out, he shall go out."

 

Some envision this scene taking place in a millennial temple, rebuilt according to Ezekiel's exact blueprint. Others see it taking place symbolically in Jesus’ present kingdom. That’s an argument I’ll readily leave to the experts.

 

In either case can we not see something wondrous in this scene? We go into God's presence each morning and find that Jesus has entered that place with us, There he worships with us and intercedes with and for us. We listen to him; he listens to us. His presence makes these quiet moments a lavish feast. 

 

And then we go out into our wild and wooly, willy-nilly, plague-ridden world and find, wonder of wonders, that our Lord Jesus has gone out with us in all of his power and majesty. We and our Prince come in and go out together—an ingress and egress that will go on forever: "The LORD will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore" (Psalm 121:18).

 

F.B. Meyer wrote, "He never puts His sheep forth without going before them. He never thrusts us into the fight without preceding us. If we have to take the way of the Cross, we may always count on seeing Him go first, though we follow Him amazed. No ascent so steep that we cannot see His form in advance; no stones so sharp that are not flecked with His blood; no fire so intense that One does not go beside us, whose form is like the Son of God; no waters so deep that Emmanuel does not go beside us."

 

David Roper

10.13.20

"The Turn of Events is from the Lord"

“So the king did not listen to the people; for the turn of events was from the LORD, that He might fulfill His word, which the LORD had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat" (1 Kings 11:11:12).

 

After King Solomon died, the people of Israel approached Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and heir, and asked him to alleviate the taxation, forced labor and expanded military call-up that characterized Solomon's rule. It was a reasonable request.

 

Rehoboam responded by seeking wisdom from the elders who counseled him to show leniency.

 

Rehoboam then sought counsel from the young Turks that made up his inner circle, whose harsh, uncompromising answer swayed Rehoboam to increase his father’s state-imposed burdens, with the result that ten of the tribes of Israel rebelled and established a separate kingdom, a division that lasted for 200 years until Israel fell to the Assyrian Empire.

 

All of this reads like a straight-forward historical account and a polemic, perhaps, to teach respect for elders, but the historian throws us a curve: He understands that these wholly human actions were ordained by God to bring about his will: “The king did not listen…for the turn of events was from the LORD."

 

Rehoboam acted in full and responsible freedom, but God's will was done—an antinomy in logical terms, a paradox, “a thing too loving deep, too lofty wise, for me, poor child, to understand (its) laws” (George MacDonald). 

 

The biblical writers were not unaware of the contradiction in tracing all human activity directly to the hand of God, but they understood the dynamic involved and were invested in our spiritual and emotional well-being. Both our actions and God’s actions are consonant and meaningful, but focusing solely on our activity leads us to work the system and produces the anxiety that accompanies unaided, human effort. Focusing on the activity of God calls us to tranquility and the confidence of faith.

 

The Heidelberg Catechism asks, "What do you understand by the providence of God?" 

 

The answer:

 

The almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought,  fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

 

“Chance is holy chance,” someone has said. And so, though I will vote my mind and conscience next month, the outcome is of the Lord. “‘Tis Mystery all,” but a mystery I find very comforting.

 

David Roper

10.9.20

Making America Great Again

 

I will not give sleep to my eyes

Or slumber to my eyelids,

Until I find a place for the Lord,

A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob." 

—Psalm 132:3-5

 

The first days of a ruler’s incumbency reveal his priorities. David's first act as Israel’s king was to search for the Ark of the Covenant. "David said to all the assembly of Israel... 'Let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.' So all the assembly agreed to do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people" (1 Chronicles 13:2–4).  

 

King Saul, David’s predecessor, was a thoroughly secular man. He cared nothing for the ark, but left it to rot in a tangled thicket for forty years while the nation descended into spiritual and moral ruin. David, on the other hand, could not rest until he retrieved the ark, and placed it in the little tent that was its “dwelling place” (2 Samuel 6:1-15).

 

The ark was just a little box about the size of an army footlocker that contained the tablets of the Law (2 Chronicles 5:10). There was no magic in the ark, Raiders of the Lost Ark notwithstanding. It was representative—symbolic of God's presence and the importance of his word. King David longed to bring God back to his nation—“to find a place for him.” 

 

This was the "David Doctrine”—God first and foremost in the hearts of his countrymen, a top-down platform that began in the heart of the king: David wrote in another place, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I might gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” (Psalms 27:4). 

 

Oh, that God would give us such a “king.”

 

David Roper

10.7.20

Our Indomitable Soul

“Remind them to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2). 

 

The Greek philosopher Zeno wrote: “If you lay violent hands on me, you will have my body, but Stilpo (Zeno’s mentor) will have my soul.”

 

He is saying, in his Stoic way, that his body can be violated, but no one can violate his soul. Jesus’ apostle, Peter, says the same thing in another way: “No one can harm you (your soul) if you are zealous for what is good” (1 Peter 3:13). 

 

Our souls are like fortresses whose walls cannot be breached and whose gates cannot be forced, but can only be opened from within. We can turn away the hate-filled rhetoric that characterizes political and social discourse these days, or we can embrace it as our own. 

 

But once it finds its way into our souls, it becomes our rhetoric, our colloquy, and our shame. 

 

George MacDonald remembers: 

 

Why is it that so often I return

From social converse with a spirit worn,

A lack, a disappointment—even a sting

Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing

 

David Roper

10.3.20

Betwixt Sheep and Goats

“He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats" (Matthew 25:32).

 

As the election looms, confusion reigns: If character matters, what candidate has the requisite character? If policy matters, what party rests on a platform that most nearly approximates God‘s concerns? 

 

These are the questions that trouble us,  made more difficult by the fact that no human candidate or platform can fully satisfy the demands of justice. All fall short of the glory of God.

 

But we, on our part, can acquaint ourselves with both candidates and the platforms their parties embrace and prayerfully lay both candidates and platforms alongside the Word of God, our ultimate source of the knowledge of good and evil. And as we search the scriptures we can ask for wisdom from above for God alone knows the facts and latent forces that lie beyond our ken. And then we can cast our vote, praying that God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

There will always be a measure of uncertainty in our decisions, for we “know in part,” and thus we cannot know all that we need to know. But we can know that we have sought God’s will and not our own. And that’s the best that anyone can do. 

 

In my own heart, O master, in my thought,

Betwixt the woolly sheep and hairy goat

Not clearly I distinguish; but I think

Thou knowest that I fight upon thy side. —George MacDonald

 

David Roper

9.30.20

In God We Trust

He who rules over men must be just,

Ruling in the fear of God.

And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises,

A morning without clouds,

Like the tender grass springing out of the earth,

By clear shining after rain.

For does not my house stand so with God?

For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,

ordered in all things and secure.

For will he not cause to prosper

all my help and my desire? (2 Samuel 23:3-5)

 

These are David’s last words, spoken as an unimpeachable oracle (23:1): Rulers who rule justly, upholding all that God himself upholds, are like the dawn of a cloudless day after a soaking rain that that brings fresh life to the land—an analogy that connotes far more than it denotes. We all know mornings like that though we cannot adequately explain what we feel. 

 

David longed to be such a ruler, but it was not to be: adultery, murder, cruelty, violence, cowardice and duplicity characterized much of his tenure and that of his successors (e.g., 1 Samuel 17—1 Kings 2). It was only through the faithfulness of God that David’s dynasty prospered and endured (23:5) 

 

And so it comes to this: Men will always disappoint us, which is why our national motto rightly reads, “In God we trust,” and not, “Long live the king.”

 

David Roper

9.29.20

Never Hate a Hater

“What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won’t be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let them see to that" (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13).

When a Stoic like Marcus encountered hatred he asked himself, "Can I change this person’s opinion of me?" If not, I will politely ignore him and put all thoughts of him away—an attitude akin to the modern meme that we should not allow unpleasant people to rent space in our heads.  This was the Stoic way.

 

Jesus took Stoic counsel one giant step further. “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:43,44).

 

The Stoics said, "Never hate a hater." Jesus said, "Overcome haters with good."

 

David Roper

9.18.20