September 23, 2001

The Three R's, #3

Genesis 37-50, Luke 13

Several years ago I had a friend who's son car got stolen. It was a little Honda, and it was the kid's first car. He had saved up for it, finally got it and brought it home, and then fixed it up real nice. He and his father had got it running good, they both worked on painting it, they put in a nice stereo, and then somebody stole it. They found it the next day up in Mendota, some of the windows were broken, it had some big dents in it, and it was pretty well trashed.

I asked how it had gotten stolen, and the boy was careless, he left it in a place that was risky, and left the keys in it. The guys that stole it were not interested in trying to sell it or make any money off it, they were just full of meanness, they beat it around, crashed it through fields, and just tore it up. When the police found it, it didn't even run anymore, the engine was damaged, and it looked pretty rough, but the owners towed it home, and then they had to spend a lot of time restoring it back like it was supposed to be. They also had to go to court to confront the thieves that stole it, to testify against them, to try and get some sense of squaring up the account. They also had to deal with the knowledge that if the boy had not left it in a risky place with the keys in it, the whole thing never would have happened.

That's a little bit like what has happened to us, as the children of Adam and Eve. The Father and Son had made a real nice place for our first parents to live in, it looked good, it was very nice, but great-great grandma and grandad got careless, they did something that they shouldn't have, and they got ripped off.
Our first parents engaged in some foolish and disobedient behavior, and didn't stop to think that there are evil spiritual individuals in this world that are just full of meanness, and would take advantage of them.
It's true that Satan believed that if he could outflank and outmaneuver God, that maybe he could win the war against God, and he has always used humans for that purpose, but on another level, a lot of what Satan did to Adam and Eve was just pure meanness. A lot of what he has done to all of humanity down through the centuries is just pure meanness. What happened last week in New York and D.C. was to a large extent, just pure meanness.

For the last couple weeks we have thought about the ABC's of what it means to be a Christian, the Three R's of our faith, Redemption, Relationships, and Restoration, and we said that they fit under a bigger fourth R: Reconciliation. Being reconciled to God. We have looked at Redemption and Relationships, and learned that you have to be redeemed by God before you can have a relationship with Him, and so those two concepts go together. We have also looked at relationships between spouses, how the fall from innocence in the garden damaged that first relationship, how similar things damage our relationships today, and we thought about perhaps a few things to do to try and do to get our relationships back right.

The attack on our country had me wanting to preach on terrorism, on Islam and Mohammed and the Koran last Sunday, but God said wait, now I know why. Last week would have been too easy to shoot from the hip. Last week I was too hot and angry. Now I'm not hot and angry, I'm just angry. You know how when somebody does something mean and stupid, it's a good idea to count to ten before you respond? I needed some counting time. Probably we all needed counting time. Time to count up what has been stolen, what we have lost, what we need to do to restore things back to some semblance of what they were before, but without making the same mistakes.

I also needed time to see that the restoration that we need as a nation is not all that different from what we need as individuals; being truly restored to God, because none of us are as close to Him as we ought to be.
Being restored to wholeness, because all of us have things wrong in our physical, spiritual and emotional lives. The world we live in is not like God intended, it is not like it ought to be, and it needs restoration.
This assault on our country, what has happened and why? Is there a cause or a reason for this tragedy, this attack? Why do bad things happen to innocent people? Is there any way that we can make sense out of this thing? And finally, restoration. What needs to happen for there to be a restoration?

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Luke 13:1. Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people at Jerusalem and He tells them: " There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Luk 13:2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
Luk 13:3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Luk 13:4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
Luk 13:5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
Jesus points out to the crowd here that calamities or being murdered by an evil person like Pilate does not necessarily come just upon those that are evil, or great sinners, sometimes those things do not seem to have an apparent cause and effect.

On the other hand, remember the children of Lot? They were not described as sinners or doing anything evil, but God allowed Satan to kill them in order to test Lot and try and get him to give up his faith in God. There was a cause and effect, how ever Lot was not able to see it at the time, and the sinfulness or goodness of his children was apparently not part of the equation.

How about Sodom and Gomorrah? In that case, the sinfulness of the people in those cities was a part of the equation. God told Abraham that if only there were even ten righteous people in those cities, He would not destroy them, but they were wholly given over to evil, and judgement fell.

How about Ninevah? The people of Ninevah were cruel and harsh against their enemies and God told Jonah to go to Ninevah and preach against them for their wickedness. What happened? Jonah preached, they repented, and God turned away their judgement.

Is there a cause and effect? Sometimes there is, as we see from Ninevah and Sodom, and sometimes there's not, as Jesus told the crowd concerning the Galileans. Jerry Falwell got himself in hot water for saying that in our case he thought it was cause and effect. Falwell said that God allowed judgement on this country because we legalized aborting millions of babies, spilling their blood on this land, and for legalizing sexual perversion. Naturally the secular media, both liberal and conservative, jumped all over him. He lost his nerve and backed down, but I noticed that some of his accusers took his words out of context. That is not surprising, non Christians have no spiritual discernment. And just to make sure that I don't accidently offend any non Christians, let me rephrase that last statement: non Christians have no Biblicly useful spiritual discernment. There; that's much better...

There is a difference between God judging this country and God withdrawing His hand of protection from over this country. For years we have had millions of people in this land trying to outlaw God and make Him go away. Maybe for a little while He did? Is that the same as judgement? No. Think about what happened to Lot. God allowed Satan to kill Lot's children. I think God allowed the attack to happen. Why would He do that?

Did God give us a preview on the 11th of what can happen to this country if we ban Him, outlaw Him, throw out His Word and His Laws? If we ask Him long enough to go away and He does, that will leave a spiritual vacuum, and Satan will rush in and fill it. Is that the same as judgement? No, but it will certainly look like judgement, and it will certainly feel like judgement.

And those innocent people that get caught in the crossfire will be hurt just as bad either way. Bottom line: we can't see behind the scenes. We can second guess cause and effect, but who knows if we guess right?
Having said all that: we need to make no mistake, there is a lot of sin in this country. There is a lot of ungodliness in this country. There is perversion in this country, and it is legal. There is murder of innocents in this country, and it is legal.

There is a lot of sin in this country, and where there is a lot of sin, God will try and get the attention of the sinners. Is God trying to get our attention? I am not a prophet and I don't know. But I know that if we are wise, we will humble ourselves and ask God to show us if there is anything in our lives that needs dealing with. Is there anything that we need to repent and turn from? We can't repent for the whole country, but we can repent for ourselves.

Is there a cause? Have we got to the place where there is a tremendous need to repent, and meanwhile we are like the Laodiceans, we are so blind, so lukewarm, so rich and increased with goods that we can't even see how spiritually poverty stricken we are? I don't know.

If you aren't sure if you are as close to God as you ought to be, there is a simple solution: get closer to Him. Humble yourself, ask Him to search you by His Holy Spirit and show you what you need to see. Get on your knees before Him and confess your sins and shortcomings and ask Him to deal with them.

Before there can be restoration and getting closer to God, there has to be repentance. You can't get closer to God until you start getting farther away from your sin. You can't go in two directions at once, you have to go one way or the other. Do you want to be closer to God? Then ask Him to put your sins and iniquities behind you and then you walk away from them, and walk toward Him, that's how you start.

How you finish is by walking closely with God, it is not enough just to get away from your sins, you have to fill that empty spot back up with something Godly, or that vacuum will fill up with something worse.
Jesus told the story of the man who was delivered of a demon, and then failed to fill that void in his life up with the things of God. What happened? That demon came back and found things clean and neat and just waiting for an occupant, so he went and found seven more demons worse than himself and they all moved in. It is not enough just to get away from your sins, you have to fill that void with the things of God, or you have accomplished nothing.

Just like the efforts up in New York, it is not enough just to clear away all the rubble and the dead bodies of the victims and scrape things down to bedrock, they will need to build something in it's place. It is not enough just to recover the Honda car that was stolen, it is also necessary to restore it and get it fixed back to where it needs to be. How do we do that? How do we deal with evil, get beyond it, and then move on to restoration?

Turn to Genesis 37:3. For several weeks we have been looking at patterns in the Bible, and there is a pattern here in Genesis of evil behavior against Jacob's son Joseph. Joseph goes through a time of ups and downs, and finally there is a time of restoration. Since there are differences between what happened to Joseph back then, and what happened in this county a little bit ago, it is not an exact parallel, but it is close enough for us to learn a lot from it.
Genesis 37:3. "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
Gen 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Gen 37:5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
Gen 37:6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Gen 37:7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
Gen 37:8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words."

God was giving Joseph a vision of the future, something that would happen years down the road, after Joseph became prime minister of Egypt. Did Joseph do anything wrong? Not really, maybe the only thing he did wrong was to be a little insensitive to his situation, maybe he could have been a little more discreet, but that's all. No sin, no moral failure on Joseph's part, the problem was envy and hatred on the part of his brothers.

Are there people in other parts of the world that are envious and bitter toward Americans? Yes. Did the people who died in those attacks do anything to justify that hatred? Not much, if anything at all. So we have some people who are angry, bitter and envious against someone who has not really done anything wrong against them. That makes things similar to Joseph's brothers, as we see in verse 17, the second half of the verse: "And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.
Gen 37:18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.
Gen 37:19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh."
Verse 23: "And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him;
Gen 37:24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit:" Verse 28: "Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt."
Verse 31: "And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
Gen 37:32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no."
Meanness, lies, treachery, destroying the life of an innocent person. Causing an innocent relative, an innocent family member to grieve. Sounds familiar. We have seen a lot of that this month.

Joseph ends up in Egypt, sold as a slave to the captain of Pharaoh's guard, a man named Potiphar. Since there are some more parallels between his situation and what has happened to us, turn to Chapter 39 and verse 2.
"And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.
Gen 39:3 And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.
Gen 39:4 And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.
Gen 39:5 And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field."
God told Abraham back in Genesis 3, concerning his family and his heirs: "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

In my lifetime, I have seen the United States being careful to help and protect the nation of Israel, the offspring of Abraham, and we have enjoyed great blessings. On the other hand, some nations have especially cursed the offspring of Abraham, and they seem to have all kinds of problems with drought and famines, and their lives seems to be a lot more difficult than ours; their countries generally seem to be harsh and inhospitable. It is not a coincidence. It is a blessing from God.

Some people seem unable to recognize the blessings that come to them from getting in line with God's game plan. Some Kingsport resident wrote in Thursday's paper that if only the United States would quit helping Israel, we wouldn't have these problems. He is right; we would have other problems, and they would be a whole lot worse.

On the other hand, sometimes things get worse before they get better. That might happen to this country, it certainly happened to Joseph. God was blessing Potiphar's house for Joseph's sake, but that was not good enough for Potiphar's wife. She was not satisfied that God's blessing was upon all the house, she decides that she wants Joseph to sleep with her. He refuses both because he knows it would be treacherous to his master, and because it is a sin against God, so she frames him and he gets put into prison. A false accusation.

With Joseph getting put into prison, things have certainly gotten worse. While he is in prison, he is called upon to interpret Pharaoh's dream concerning an impending famine. God gives him perfect insight, and that same day he gets promoted by Pharaoh to being the prime minister over the whole country.
What a roller coaster! What an incredible change of fortune. From the top to the bottom and back to the top again, higher than ever before.

Look at the changes in his life: Joseph started out as the favorite of his father, and then he went downhill lower and lower, until it looked like things couldn't get any worse. He was a prisoner in an Egyptian prison. The keeper of the prison made Joseph the head trustee, but it was still an Egyptian prison, chapter 41 and verse 14 says that Joseph was in the dungeon. How would you like to be locked up in an Egyptian dungeon for two years, never knowing when a scorpion or centipede was going to crawl into your bed at night? No matter how you figure it, it had to be as low an existence as possible.

And then in a matter of hours, things completely changed. From the dungeon to being the second in command of the whole country. Is that restoration or what? But it gets better. During the famine that followed, Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to get food, and eventually he revealed to them who he was, and they and their father were reunited with Joseph. Restoration takes place again on an even greater level.

Eventually Jacob died, and the brothers were fearful that Joseph would avenge himself on them.
Turn to Genesis 50 and verse 15 and see how it turns out. "And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Gen 50:18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
Gen 50:19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Gen 50:21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

Restoration between Joseph and his brothers is complete. Joseph knows that he cannot take the place of God and sit in judgement against his brothers. He also realizes that God was sovereign over everything that had happened to him all the way along. "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." The evil that his brothers did enabled God to use Joseph to save the lives of an untold number of people from dying in the seven years of famine.

Joseph has been restored to an even higher place in his family than he ever was before, and if he had not gone down, he never could have gone up.

Right now our country is in somewhat the same situation. For years the whole world has been sinking deeper into the clutches of evil people, a terrorist network of groups that have been spreading throughout many countries, Arabic and non Arabic, seeking to subvert the world to their particular vision of Islam.
Their evil act against us on September 11th, and the terrible loss of life might have been what was needed to catalyze many nations, and put a stop to this evil for years to come. Perhaps it will move many nations to root out this evil all over the world. Perhaps good will come from evil. Who knows?

Right now this country is a little bit like Joseph; hurt, ripped off, our fortunes are uncertain, our future is unsure, there is a good chance that things will get worse before they get better, and we have gone from having a coat of many colors to wearing a flak jacket.

What do we do next? Where do we go from here? As I said before, I am not a prophet, but that's OK, God's Word is full of what we need to know at times like this. Turn to 1st Peter 2:11: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;"
Fleshly lusts: that can include a desire for revenge and retaliation. I have had a lot of unkind and ungodly thoughts against Muslims these last two weeks, but those were fleshly lusts, and they exactly fit what Peter is telling us here. "Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul;" My anger was damaging my walk with God. My prejudice, my angry bigotry was hurting my fellowship with my Savior. Don't let anger war against your soul.

Verse 12: "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
1Pe 2:13 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
1Pe 2:14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
1Pe 2:15 For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
1Pe 2:16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
1Pe 2:17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king."

There have been times this last two weeks that I was not always happy to be reminded that this is a pluralistic nation, nonetheless we are, and we need to honor all men, whether they are different from us or not. Whether they share our ethics and values, or whether they believe that the time will come that they will convert us to their religion. As long as they live peacefully and honestly under the laws of this country, we are obligated to treat them honorably. As Christians, we can do no less.

Even more than this, it is possible or even likely that God has allowed the evil that these people have done against us to serve as a wake up call that we - like Joseph - have been falling into a pit and need restoration. 2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

This is a promise that God gave King Solomon with regard to His particular people, the nation of Israel. The United States is not Israel, God did not make this promise to us as a nation, but there is certainly a pattern here that we need to consider very carefully. There is within this nation a people that are called by God's name, they are Christians. I believe that in this age of Laodicea, we Christians are generally blind to our sins, and they have overtaken us. It is not a sin to be rich or have goods, but our eyes have gotten focused on our riches and our goods, and they are not looking on the things of God. We have adopted the world's ways of behaving, the world's ways of acting, and the world's ways of thinking, and it has turned us away from God.

We are comfortable with wickedness. We even change our vocabulary to accommodate perversion. If you look up the word "gay" in your King James Bible, and then see what it means, it means "excellent" or "fine." Being a sodomite is not excellent or fine, it is not "gay", it is perversion. For the first 200 years of this country's existence, homosexual acts were a felony; what did our forefathers know that we have forgotten?

Was the attack on our country a wake up call from God? Was it something that our enemies meant for evil, but after all is said and done, we will see that God intended it for the greater good of the whole world? I don't know. The picture is too big and I am too small, and so are you. But I submit to you that this is not a time for business as usual. This is a time for restoration.

We need restoration as a people of God, and we need for God to do a work of restoration in our country.
Let me invite us as a congregation to humble ourselves before God, to gather around the altar and ask God to reveal to us anything that has taken us away from Him, and show us what we need to get back to that place of restoration.

I also want us to pray for this country, that God will do a real work of revival and restoration throughout this land, that people would repent and turn to Him.

And then I want us to go away from here today determined to let God lead us day by day. Not to be conformed to this world, but to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Transformed by the renewing of our minds. Restored to what He wants us to be.