R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 17

The Gates of Death

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea

Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Have you understood the expanse of the earth?

Tell Me, if you know all this.

Where is the way to the dwelling of light?

And darkness, where is its place,

That you may take it to its territory

And that you may discern the paths to its home?

You know, for you were born then,

And the number of your days is great!” (Job 38:16-21)

Job had lost his family and his health and he was beginning to lose his belief in God’s love. God’s response to Job’s flagging faith was sarcasm. God asked him a series of questions that he knew Job would not be able to answer. Why did God respond to Job’s suffering by heaping sarcasm and insults upon him?

God wondered why Job’s inability to fathom an explanation for his suffering was any different from Job’s inability to explain where light lived or where the gates of death might be. Job had concluded that there was no good reason for his pain so God must hate him or be bad or unreasonable. Job’s conclusion made as much sense as it would for him to conclude God was bad or unreasonable or hated him because Job couldn’t explain where light came from. Job learned that God wouldn’t necessarily answer all the questions he wondered about. In fact, the answers he got might not even be to the questions he was asking. He learned that too often he didn’t even know what the right questions might be.

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No Food For You

But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, “Surely this calamity is from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD: ‘Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”

So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, “Look, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?”

And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” (2 Kings 6:32-7:2)

Doubt can kill you. Elijah had ascended by chariot into heaven, but Ahab was still the king. Due to a siege against Samaria by Ben Hadad, the king of Aram, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel was nearly out of food. Some had resorted to cannibalism. Ahab blamed Elisha and wanted him dead.

Then Elisha predicted that the famine would end by the next day. One of the king’s officers couldn’t see how, suggesting even God couldn’t do it.

That night, four men with leprosy decided that they’d rather be killed by the Arameans than starve. So they snuck out and found the Aramean camp deserted. God had convinced the Aramean army that they were being attacked by the Hittites and Egyptians—and so they had fled, abandoning their provisions, their tents, their horses and donkeys.

The lepers filled their bellies. They gathered gold and silver and hid it. Then they decided they should return to the city with the news. In the mad rush of desperate people leaving the city for the suddenly available food, the doubting officer was trampled to death. He saw Elisha’s words come true, but was never able to benefit from them.

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God, You Just Don’t Understand

“Go out and stand on the mountain,” the LORD replied. “I want you to see me when I pass by.”

All at once, a strong wind shook the mountain and shattered the rocks. But the LORD was not in the wind. Next, there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.

Finally, there was a gentle breeze, and when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat. He went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. The LORD asked, “Elijah, why are you here?” Elijah answered, “LORD God All-Powerful, I’ve always done my best to obey you. But your people have broken their solemn promise to you. They have torn down your altars and killed all your prophets, except me. And now they are even trying to kill me!”

The LORD said:

Elijah, you can go back to the desert near Damascus. And when you get there, appoint Hazael to be king of Syria. Then appoint Jehu son of Nimshi to be king of Israel, and Elisha son of Shaphat to take your place as my prophet. Hazael will start killing the people who worship Baal. Jehu will kill those who escape from Hazael, and Elisha will kill those who escape from Jehu.

But seven thousand Israelites have refused to worship Baal, and they will live. (1 Kings 19:11-18)

Doesn’t God understand how bad things are? Why doesn’t he do something? Jezebel, the foreign queen of Israel, had executed as many prophets of God as she could find. Baal worship was rampant. So Elijah, one of God’s remaining prophets, challenged Baal’s prophets to a contest to see who was most powerful: God or Baal. God won, of course.

Jezebel responded by threatening to kill Elijah, and so he ran away. For weeks Elijah, exhausted and discouraged, hid in the wilderness. Finally, while Elijah was sitting in a cave, God told him that he was about to pass by. Elijah anticipated glorious things. But Elijah’s thinking needed to be changed, and God began the process by arriving in a whisper rather than a spectacle. Elijah thought God just didn’t understand his situation. By his silence, followed by his simple question, God showed that Elijah was the one who really didn’t understand. Enlightenment came to Elijah only as illusions were shattered and he was forced to see things as they actually were. Sometimes the reason we don’t see God’s solution is simply because we’re looking the wrong way.

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An Unreasonable Request

But after a while, it dried up because there was no rain.

The LORD told Elijah, “Go to the town of Zarephath in Sidon and live there. I’ve told a widow in that town to give you food.”

When Elijah came near the town gate of Zarephath, he saw a widow gathering sticks for a fire. “Would you please bring me a cup of water?” he asked. As she left to get it, he asked, “Would you also please bring me a piece of bread?”

The widow answered, “In the name of the living LORD your God, I swear that I don’t have any bread. All I have is a handful of flour and a little olive oil. I’m on my way home now with these few sticks to cook what I have for my son and me. After that, we will starve to death.”

Elijah said, “Everything will be fine. Do what you said. Go home and fix something for you and your son. But first, please make a small piece of bread and bring it to me. The LORD God of Israel has promised that your jar of flour won’t run out and your bottle of oil won’t dry up before he sends rain for the crops.” (1 Kings 17:7-14)

Elijah took food out of the mouth of a hungry child. Because of the drought, people were starting to starve. When Elijah approached the widow—at God’s command because the stream he’d been living beside had run out of water—she was teetering on the edge of starvation. From this poor, desperate woman, Elijah demanded her last bit of food.

In the New Testament (Luke 4:24-30), Jesus points out that prophets were without honor in their own homes and that God had reached out to non-Israelites as a consequence. There were doubtless many widows in Israel. Many of God’s people were suffering the consequences of the drought God had sent to punish Ahab. But Elijah only went to one hungry person: a widow in Zarephath, in the region of Sidon. She was not an Israelite. She was, therefore, even more unlikely to be a worshiper of Yahweh. And yet it was to this desperate woman that the prophet went. His request was unreasonable. But she believed him and took him in. So she prospered in the dark times because of it. Faith is a gift of God that he grants to whom he will, even the least likely. It is not given on the basis of merit.

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Food From the Sky

And then this happened: Elijah the Tishbite, from among the settlers of Gilead, confronted Ahab: “As surely as God lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand in obedient service, the next years are going to see a total drought—not a drop of dew or rain unless I say otherwise.”

God then told Elijah, “Get out of here, and fast. Head east and hide out at the Kerith Ravine on the other side of the Jordan River. You can drink fresh water from the brook; I’ve ordered the ravens to feed you.”

Elijah obeyed God’s orders. He went and camped in the Kerith canyon on the other side of the Jordan. And sure enough, ravens brought him his meals, both breakfast and supper, and he drank from the brook.(1 Kings 17:1-6)

Elijah was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. There was nothing special about him. His faith was no greater than anyone else’s. He simply believed whatever it was God told him.

Ahab was the king of Israel. He had married Jezebel, a non-Israelite. Ahab and his wife encouraged the people to worship gods other than just Yahweh. So Elijah delivered God’s message to Ahab: because of your sin, no more rain.

When God told him to run away from Ahab, Elijah obeyed that command just as quick as he’d obeyed the previous. God’s message to Ahab included the line that the rain would stay away until Elijah said otherwise. Elijah understood what Ahab might do to him if he stayed.

Ahab’s response to Elijah tells us something unexpected about Ahab. Although he was ruthless and despicable, he believed God, and believed what Elijah had told him. Ahab wouldn’t have waited for drought before arresting poor Elijah. He knew already that Elijah was a prophet. He knew already what God could and would do. Which also tells us something about faith: it doesn’t necessarily make people behave well or choose wisely. But then the sin in our own lives already tells us that.

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Night Whispers

Meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the LORD by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the LORD were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.

One night Eli, who was almost blind by now, had gone to bed. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the Tabernacle near the Ark of God. Suddenly the LORD called out, “Samuel!”

“Yes?” Samuel replied. “What is it?” He got up and ran to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go back to bed.” So he did.

Then the LORD called out again, “Samuel!”

Again Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you, my son,” Eli said. “Go back to bed.”

Samuel did not yet know the LORD because he had never had a message from the LORD before. (1 Samuel 3:1-7)

God’s people hear his voice, but they don’t always recognize it. Samuel heard a voice in the night and responded, but he didn’t know who was calling him. Oddly, God did not identify himself. He let Samuel repeatedly run to Eli to wake him up.

Eli did not hear God’s voice, but he recognized it. This, despite the fact that he was not in the habit of listening to God.

Eli’s children were disobedient and unfaithful to God, demanding extra meat from those who came to sacrifice. Worse, they were sleeping with the priestesses of Asherah in the Tabernacle. Many Israelites had started worshipping other gods and goddesses, and the goddess Asherah was one of the most popular. Men worshipped her by doing what Eli’s sons did, thereby engaging in a form of sympathetic magic: Asherah was a fertility goddess and by so worshipping her she was supposed to grant fertility to crops, farm animals, and wives. Eli never did anything to stop his son’s wickedness.

God’s people still recognize him, no matter how far they’ve drifted or how long since the last time they talked to him. Like seeing an old friend after years of separation, Eli knew who Samuel had heard, even if he didn’t care to hear from him himself.

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I Have A Dream

So the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

Now the same night it came about that the LORD said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hands.

“But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp, and you will hear what they say; and afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go down against the camp.” So he went with Purah his servant down to the outposts of the army that was in the camp.

Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

When Gideon came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend. And he said, “Behold, I had a dream; a loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat.”

His friend replied, “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.”

When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the LORD has given the camp of Midian into your hands.” (Judges 7:8-15)

The word of God was not sufficient for Gideon. He also needed words from his enemies. How come? Adam had God as a constant companion, and yet God said it wasn’t good for him to be alone. God had spoken through prophets for centuries, and yet he had to become human to really get humanity’s attention. We trust people we can see more than God whom we can’t.

The Amalekites were descended from Amalek, the grandson of Isaac’s son Esau (Genesis 36:15-16). They were a thorn in Israel’s side until the time of David; after that, they vanished from the pages of the Bible. Together with the Midianites, they were a source of suffering for the Israelites during the time of Gideon.

After his sizable army had been reduced to a mere three hundred by God, Gideon’s confidence in God’s mission was at a low ebb. He was fearful. Although he didn’t say anything to anyone, not even a prayer to God, God knew what was going on in his head. For most of us, hearing God tell us to do something would seem like enough; but in his case, he needed to hear an enemy’s dream. God knows what we need and he makes sure we get it.

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Who Am I?

Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”

Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”

So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.” (Judges 6:11-16)

Gideon didn’t think much of himself or his abilities. He belonged to an insignificant family in a small tribe. He was just an ordinary person trying to survive, wondering why God didn’t rescue his people from their dire conditions: seven years of oppression by Midianite raiders who stole crops and impoverished them. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham, one of his sons born to his wife Keturah whom he’d married after Sarah died. The Midianites had sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28, 36; 39:1). Moses’ first wife, Zipporah, was the daughter of a priest of Midian (Exodus 2:16; 3:1).

Sure, God had rescued the Israelites from Egypt, but what had he done for them lately? Seemed to Gideon that they had gone from the frying pan to the fire. Slavery was slavery, even if you weren’t in Egypt any more. And while Gideon sort of expected God to raise up a new Moses to save them, the last thing he imagined was that God had chosen him to fill that role.

But God was not dependent upon Gideon’s sense of his own importance, nor was he dependent upon Gideon having enormous faith. God can use whoever he wants, and those he picks are invariably changed as a result. Heroes are made, not born.

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But They’re Bigger Than Us

Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed; take all the fighting men with you, and go up now to Ai. See, I have handed over to you the king of Ai with his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; only its spoil and its livestock you may take as booty for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city, behind it.”

So Joshua and all the fighting men set out to go up against Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand warriors and sent them out by night with the command, “You shall lie in ambush against the city, behind it; do not go very far from the city, but all of you stay alert. I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When they come out against us, as before, we shall flee from them. They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us, as before.’ While we flee from them, you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city; for the LORD your God will give it into your hand. And when you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire, doing as the LORD has ordered; see, I have commanded you.” (Joshua 8:1-8)

Israel had suffered a bitter defeat. Achan had stolen what had belonged to God at Jericho and the Israelites had suffered for his crime.

The Israelites had been slaves four hundred years and God kept them from battle as long as he could (see Exodus 13:17). Until Ai, he had given them only victories. Ai had been their first defeat since entering the Promised Land.

The Canaanites were not a unified nation. Instead, they were a conglomeration of competing cities scattered across hundreds of square miles. Each city would have to be defeated separately. The war that Joshua began would have to go on until every last Canaanite city was defeated: and there were hundreds of cities, some large, some small, ranging in population from a hundred thousand to a few hundred. Ai was a small village. But it was walled and set on a hill. Despite its size, it was not a simple matter to conquer. But God reassured his people: their previous loss, their subsequent fear, did not mean that God was not still with them. Victory was certain despite how things looked because victory was not dependent upon them, or the size of their faith. It was dependent upon the size of their God.

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Miracles are Unconvincing

God said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘God, the God of the Hebrews, says: Release my people so they can worship me. If you refuse to release them and continue to hold on to them, I’m giving you fair warning: God will come down hard on your livestock out in the fields—horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep—striking them with a severe disease. God will draw a sharp line between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. Not one animal that belongs to the Israelites will die.’ ”

Then God set the time: “Tomorrow God will do this thing.”

And the next day God did it. All the livestock of Egypt died, but not one animal of the Israelites died. Pharaoh sent men to find out what had happened and there it was: none of the livestock of the Israelites had died—not one death. But Pharaoh stayed stubborn. He wouldn’t release the people. (Exodus 9:1-7)

Some people think that if only God would perform a miracle, then they would believe him. But Pharaoh was not so easily convinced by Moses. Not until ten plagues had destroyed his nation did Pharaoh reluctantly—and temporarily—grant the request to “let my people go.”

The plagues were not just attacks against farm animals. They were also attacks on the Egyptian gods and goddesses (Exodus 12:12). Why should Pharaoh, himself a god according to Egyptian belief, pay the slightest attention to Yahweh, God of slaves?

But with plague after plague, Egyptian god after Egyptian god, was laid low. The bull was the symbol of Apis, a protector of the diseased. The cow was the symbol of Hathor, the goddess of love, beauty and joy. A common title for the Pharaoh was “strong bull of his mother Hathor.” That their animals should be so slaughtered could only be interpreted by the Egyptians as a victory of Yahweh over those gods.

But there were many gods in Egypt. That’s why Pharaoh didn’t give in easily. His attitude was, so what if Yahweh could beat a few of them? A lost battle did not mean a lost war. It took many plagues before Israel’s God could convince Pharaoh of the error of his ways.

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