The Mystery of Lawlessness

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years… But even in the best of all hearts, there remains an un-uprooted small corner of evil… Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

“And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft…" (Revelation 9:1,2).

 

John’s description of a pit from which demonic forces emerge, suggests that evil is provisionally contained in something like a black hole—a place of anti-matter, chaos and confusion. John did not, of course believe that there was an actual abyss somewhere answering to this description. It was a symbol, the point being that the full manifestation of evil is now contained, but a day is coming when God will remove every restraint and wickedness will be manifest in full.

 

This is what the Apostle Paul called “the mystery of lawlessness”—the revelation that there are evil, demonic forces under the surface of every culture waiting for an opportunity to appear. The containment of these forces is the restraint posed by God’s Spirit, natural law and the forces of law and order, restraints that are under assault today. When that “which is restraining” is taken out of the way, all hell will break loose. (2 Thessalonians 2:7). Literally. We may be very close to that day. 

 

Jesus in the Gospels spoke of another “black hole” out of which “evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, blasphemy, pride, and stupidity” emerge (Mark 7.1–23). “Even in the best of all hearts there remains an un-uprooted small corner of evil.” Wickedness is not color-coded; red and yellow, black and white—"all have sinned” (Romans 3:23).

 

Containment is impossible. Only a new creation will do (2 Corinthians 5:17; John 3: 1-19). 

 

David Roper

6.14.21

  

The Source of Anti-Semitism

 

“Most bigotry is an assertion of inferiority and speaks the language of oppression. Antisemitism is an assertion of impurity and speaks the language of extermination." —David Brooks

 

“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems… 

 

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour the child that is born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.

 

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

 

Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child (Revelation 12:1-9).

 

John sees a red dragon (Satan), standing before a pregnant woman (Israel) waiting to kill a male child (the Messiah) that is about to be born. 

 

The Child escapes but the dragon, knowing that he has but a short time (Genesis 3:15) pursues the woman who gave birth to the child and, hell-bent on her extermination, pursues her to the ends of the earth (Revelation 12:13). 

 

We read of horrific hate-crimes against Jews—the recent slashing of Boston Rabbi Shlomo Noginski springs to mind—but John’s vision reminds us that we're  caught up in a more sinister plot than the one we see displayed in the media. There are monstrous, malign, spiritual forces at play behind the scenes—unseen, unknown, unrecognizable apart from revelation. 

 

Antisemitism is bigotry and intolerance, but it is much, much more. It is Satan's way of avenging the birth of the Christ who came to save us, for, as Jesus reminds us, "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). Antisemitism is Satanic. It stands on the wrong side of redemptive history. No true follower of Jesus would ever embrace it. 

 

David Roper

6.13.21

Rough Men and the Ring of Gyges

“People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”—George Orwell

 

There is a tale, “The Ring of Gyges,” that comes from Plato’s Republic. One of Socrates’ students, a man named Glaucon, offered the story in response to a lesson by Socrates, who argued that people are basically good and will do the right thing if they know the right thing to do. (“Give people light and they will find their own way” is the post-modern equivalent.)

 

Glaucon disagreed, and told a story about a shepherd, Gyges, who stumbled upon a cave with a corpse inside that was wearing a magic ring. When Gyges put on the ring, it made him invisible. (Tolkien, of course, had this story in mind when he wrote The Lord of the Rings.) With no one to monitor his behavior, Gyges went on a personal crime spree, unfettered by the law and its custodians

 

Glaucon’s story poses a question: Will we resist the temptation to do evil if we know that our actions will not be observed and restrained? Glaucon was convinced that we will not. In that, he was in line with all the biblical writers, who insist that there is in every one of us a tendency to do evil and unless that tendency is restrained it will express itself in acts of evil (Romans 3:23). Thus, there is a need for “rough men” to protect us from the evil in us and in others. 

 

So Peter writes, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good” (1 Peter 2:12-14).

 

Certainly, if the authorities compel us to act contrary to the will of God we must respectfully disobey. Furthermore, the authorities must themselves have restraints for the same forces that lead to lawlessness in us reside in them. But the concept of just authority is consistent with the biblical view of the depravity of the human race (Romans 3:23). To do away with these “rough men” who do violence on our behalf is to unleash the dark, spiritual forces of anarchy and terror.  “Do (we) really think (we) can stand upright in the winds that will blow then?” (Sir Thomas More).

 

David Roper

6.11.21

 

The Roots of Our Rage

 

A lion stepped before my eyes!

This one seemed to be coming straight for me,

His head held high,

His hunger hot with wrath…

 

—Dante, ”The Inferno” Canto 1

 

“Only by outraged pride[1] comes contention” (Proverbs 13:10).

 

When Dante begins his spiritual journey toward Paradise, he meets a lion “hot with wrath” impeding his way, a symbol of Dante's smoldering resentment. 

 

Dante was outraged by the injustice visited upon him by his political enemies. He was a rising star in the city of Florence, but his political ambitions were thwarted and he was forced into exile. He railed at the perfidy of those who wronged him—as we’re inclined to do.

 

Pride lies at the root of rage. We are indignant that anyone would stand in our way; that we should have to defer satisfaction; that we should have to suffer. We lash out at those who oppose us: “No one has the right to treat me this way,” we fume. “I will not be silent,” we shout, forgetting the silence of the Lamb who quietly bore injustice and prayed for those who debased him. 

 

We do have rights and when those rights are assailed anger is the normal reaction. The temptation to become angry and bitter is not sin, but it can quickly become sin if we allow it to linger. Temptation to sin can be redeemed by turning it into intercessory prayer (Matthew 5:44).

 

There is a place for righteous anger—moral outrage over injustice done to others—but for those who follow the Lamb, there is no place for bitterness when we have been unjustly treated. This the ”lion” that impedes our progress toward Christ-likeness. 

 

There may be righteous measures to redress a wrong, but we must do so in meekness and humility, and in quiet confidence in our Heavenly Father who alone “judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). We can trust him; He will set things right in the end. 

 

David Roper

6.3.21

[1] The special Hebrew word for pride used here suggest the Rambo-like reaction of those who will not be “kicked around.”

Hyper-Seeing

 “How could you love such an ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful little wretch like me?” asked the little princess. “I saw through it all what you are going to be.” Said the wise woman, kissing her. “But remember, you have yet only begun to be what I saw” (George MacDonald).

There's a term sculptors use to describe the ability to look at a rough piece of stone and see it in its final, perfected form. It's called “hyper-seeing.”

Gutzon Borglum’s housekeeper captured the concept in her own quaint way when Borglum took her to Mt. Rushmore for the first time and she gazed up at the massive faces of the four presidents he had sculpted there: “Mr. Borglum,” she gasped, “How did you know Mr. Lincoln was in that rock?”

Hyper-seeing—is found first in God. He sees all that we are and more: He sees what we shall be when he has completed his work and we stand before him, holy and without blemish: the “splitting image” of Jesus.[i] The God who started this great work in you “will keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Jesus Christ appears!” (Philippians 1:6 The Message).

God will not be denied! He has such a longing for our perfection that nothing can or will remain an obstacle until he has finished the work he began long ago.

If only we will put ourselves in his hands. 

Doubt whispers, ‘Thou art such a blot;

He cannot love poor thee.’

If what I am He lovest not,

He loves what I shall be. —George MacDonald

David Roper

[i] "Evenness and symmetry are got by pairing the two split halves of the same tree, or branch. Hence the country saying: he's the ‘splitting image’—an exact likeness." Dorothy Hartley, Made in England (Cf., 1 John 3:2). 

Wherever You Go

60 years ago, in my seminary bookstore, I picked up a little volume entitled,Light on the Path. The stated purpose of the book is to help young pastors maintain their facility in the biblical languages in the face of the time-pressures of pastoral ministry.  Each day the book offers an Old Testament Hebrew text and an analogous New Testament Greek text, both of which we are encouraged to translate and ponder.

 

Here are the texts I found in this morning's readings and, with apologies to my old Greek and Hebrew professors, my translation:

 

Joshua 1:9

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong, take courage. Don’t be terrified, and don’t be shaken, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

 

Acts 28:15

"And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Appian Market and the Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage."

 

The author’s daily juxtaposition of the two verses is usually insightful, but, I asked myself, what on earth do these verses have in common?

 

Well...let’s look first at the Acts text and Luke's account of Paul's journey to Rome. Midway through the story, Luke informs us that Paul and his shipmates, having wintered on Malta, sailed on to Syracuse in Sicily, then to Reggio on the toe of the boot of Italy and finally up the west coast of Italy to the Bay of Naples. From there they faced an overland journey of 116 miles to Rome.

 

Paul had written a year or so before that he planned to visit Rome and the Christians there were awaiting his arrival. When they heard that he reached Naples, they dispatched a party down the Appian Way to meet him. Some traveled as far as the Three Taverns, on the 33rd milestone from Rome. Others trudged on to the Market of Appius on the 43rd milestone. (Somewhat like walking down Highway 84 from Boise, Idaho to Ontario, Oregon.)

 

In Paul’s day the region around Three Taverns and the Appian Market was an inhospitable bog much like Florida’s Okefenokee Swamp. Horace, a Roman Lyric poet who wrote 50 years before Luke, offered a lively picture of the discomforts of the region, mentioning the lack of adequate sleeping accommodations, the intolerable drinking water, the mosquitos, gnats and frogs which were "enemies to repose," and the exasperating procrastination of muleteers that dragged their boats through the swampy marsh  (Satires 1:5). Nevertheless, out of their love for Paul, this small party of Roman Christians trudged on.

 

Paul himself, having suffered ship wreck, snake bite and a dozen other indignities on his voyage must have approached the city of Rome with trepidation. He must appear before Nero’s tribunal. Would he be set free, or would he face imprisonment and death? 

 

Then he saw his friends in the distance, making their way toward him. "On seeing them,” Luke tells us, “Paul thanked God and took courage."

 

Quite often, God’s promise to “go with us wherever we go,” (Joshua 1:9) is best seen in the faces of brothers and sisters who, at considerable cost to themselves, come to walk with us through our troubles (Acts 18:15). We can thank God that He sends them and take courage from their love.

 

David Roper

6.29.21

 

The Great Awakening (Revelation 8)

"The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up"(Revelation 8:7.)

 

Here in this chapter we hear the blast of four trumpets, warning of imminent danger. They precede the destruction of a third of the earth, the trees, the sea and its creatures, the rivers, and the atmosphere above. The fourth trumpet warns: “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth” (8:13).

 

This is a pictorial representation of environmental disaster designed to awaken those whom John describes as “earth-dwellers”—those who look no further than Mother Earth for answers and take no thought of the One who made the heavens and the earth.

 

So-called natural disasters awaken us to our limitations and the folly of thinking we can control our environment and resolve the earth’s problems. Typhoons, tsunamis, tornados, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, catastrophic flooding, forest fires, drought, pollution, pandemic and extreme heat, show us how helpless we are.

 

May these forces awaken us to give honor to the one who rules heaven and earth and whose voice commands the winds and seas (Mark 4:39). 

 

David Roper

6.28.21