Chapter 10 THE PROPHETS OF GOD AND THEIR PROBLEMS WITH GOD

While I was living in Israel as a Zionist, someone gave me a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures. My favorite book quickly became the Book of Joshua. Why? Because, in this book, my people were triumphing militarily! It felt like I too was triumphing. However, Joshua soon gave way to the Book of Judges, where I was plunged into defeat along with each Israelite defeat. Consequently, I put the Bible down.

Years later, reading the Bible with a Christian lens, Joshua was replaced by Genesis as my favorite book. I came to realize that this book wasn’t about exalting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as role-models but God Himself, who never gave up on His fearful and highly tainted Patriarchs but persevered with them. Consequently, they were a great encouragement to me. They were far from perfect and so was I. I began to realize that I didn’t have to be perfect but rather, His child, and He would patiently do the heavy lifting for me.

However, the rabbis do not regard the Patriarchs in this way. According to one of many rabbinic sources:

·       Prophets and prophecy are integral to Judaism. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of the Jewish people, were prophets…As the wife of Abraham, Sarah was an equal partner in his efforts to spread monotheistic beliefs and morality. Abraham led the men, and Sarah shepherded the women…Sarah was so holy that her bread would remain fresh all week, her Shabbat candles would burn until the following Friday, and a cloud would hover above her tent. In telling Sarah’s age at the time of her passing, the verse states that her life was “100 years, and 20 years, and 7 years.” The sages explain that when she was 100, she was as pure of sin as a maiden of 20; and when she was 20, she was as beautiful as an innocent 7-year-old. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4058906/jewish/21-Jewish-Prophets-Everyone-Should-Know.htm

The rabbis generally regard the Patriarchs and their other Prophets as super-spiritual. Without warrant, they embellish the Biblical text with their own inventions. However, the NT regards the Patriarchs and Prophets as human as the rest of us:

·       Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. (James 5:17)

We too tend to regard the Prophets and Apostles as spiritual giants. However, they struggled as we do. It also seems that they had issues with God. For a while, Elijah’s presence had brought blessing upon a widow of Zeraphath and her son, but her son suddenly died. Elijah, therefore, accused God:

·       “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” (1 Kings 17:20)

Nevertheless, the Lord healed the son through Elijah.

The Prophet Jonah’s issues with God were even more severe. He rejected God’s calling to preach to Nineveh and fled. It even seems that he preferred death over his heavenly calling. Nevertheless, after being swallowed by a great fish, Jonah agreed to preach to Nineveh. However, the very thing that Jonah had feared came to pass. They repented and God relented from His promise to destroy Nineveh.

However, instead of rejoicing with the Lord, Jonah became angry (Jonah 4:1) and wanted to die, but God tried to teach him that he was his own worst enemy:

·       “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:3-4)

Of course, Jonah’s anger wasn’t serving him well. However, God didn’t give up on Jonah and continued to provide object lessons to expose his anger and rebellion for what they were. Overnight, He provided Jonah with a plant to shade him from the intense sun. God then destroyed the plant, and Jonah foolishly became angry at it – another teachable moment:

·       When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:8-11)

God reasoned with Jonah to win his heart through his mind. Without any clear resolution, the Book of Jonah ends abruptly with these verses. Did Jonah learn God’s lessons? Did he repent of his anger, his self-centered worldview, and his rebellion against the Word of God? We are not told. However, we do see the patience and graciousness of God on his behalf. Despite, Jonah’s rebellion, God remained faithful to His Prophet.

To win the mind is also to win the heart. Once our heart has been opened, faithfulness to our Savior must be secured by reason through our minds. This becomes the seat of transformation (Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:10). We too have our issues with God, and He also has to instruct and humble us.

However, we tend to think that we are miles away from the example of Elijah, who had raised the dead child. However, it is evident that this child was healed not because of Elijah’s great faith, but because of God’s faithfulness.

We despair of having faith like Elijah who had prayed for a drought, and there was drought, and who prayed for rain, and there was rain. However, we often fail to see that Elijah had accomplished what he did not by virtue of His great faith, but in accordance with the Word, the instructions of God (1 Kings 17:1, 9; 18:1, 36). He merely did what God had told him to do:

·       And at the time of the offering of the oblation [in his confrontation with the priests of Baal], Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. (1 Kings 18:36)

As a result, fire came down from heaven to consume Elijah’s offering. This convinced Israel that Elijah was of God and the prophets of Baal were deceivers.

We wrongly conceive of great faith as a matter of intense effort to rid from our minds any doubts or feelings that might betray a lack of confidence, and Elijah was the expert. However, Elijah had merely learned to take God at His Word. God had told him to pray, and Elijah prayed, and God provided the increase. Did he believe that he was accruing brownie-points in heaven or that he had become super-spiritual? Perhaps? However, even if he was beginning to believe this way, his God would not allow such conceit to stand. Immediately after Elijah’s great victory over the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, Elijah lost heart at the threats of King Ahaz’ wife and fled like a coward.

ISAIAH’S PROBLEM WITH GOD

Isaiah didn’t seem to have any illusions about Israel’s lack of merit or righteousness. If he did have any illusions, God promptly dispelled them:

• “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. (Isaiah 1:2-4)

However, Isaiah had a different issue with God. He correctly understood that God is omnipotent and could do anything He wanted to do:

• All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:6-8)

Yes, Israel was rebellious and deserved judgment. However, if God is the potter – and Isaiah was convinced that He is – He should be able to mold Israel into anything He wanted, even into righteous children:

• Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people… After all this, O LORD, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? (Isaiah 64:9,12)

Isaiah was perplexed why God was holding Himself back from molding His clay into a faithful people and upset that God would “punish beyond measure,” at least according to Isaiah’s reckoning. However, God’s answer must have been less than satisfying:

• All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations-- a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick [to false gods]… I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me."  (Isaiah 65:2-3,12)

God didn’t directly answer Isaiah’s question. However, in many ways, God had answered. He had already given Israel everything He could:

• “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He [God] dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5:1-4)

God insisted that there is nothing more that He could have done for Israel, and that He was not holding-back, as Isaiah had charged. However, if God is omnipotent, it is hard for us to understand why God is not more merciful towards His people. If He changed the heart of some, why could He not change the heart of all?

But what is God’s omnipotence? Can He not do anything? It doesn’t seem so. While He can accomplish anything He wants, there are things that He cannot do. He cannot sin – a violation of His character. Nor does it seem that He can violate His promises. Perhaps, also, He also cannot violate His internal logic and create a stone that He cannot lift.

Jesus had petitioned the Father for something that pointed to the Father’s Self-limitation:

• Going a little farther, he [Jesus] fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [the Cross] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)

While God can do all things He wants to do, He cannot do them in any manner. He was not able to grant Jesus His request. His righteous character prevented the payment of humanity’s in any other way. Jesus had to die! Animals certainly weren’t able to bring our forgiveness. Nor was anything else able to display His righteousness (Romans 5:8-10) to the extent that He desired. Only the supreme price, the death of God the Son could adequately communicate His righteousness and the depth of our sins.

Let me apply this to the question of God saving all Israel. While God wants all to be saved (2 Peter 3:9), there might be a Self-limitation within His very Nature that does not permit this.

Nevertheless, God promised that He would show incredible grace to Israel, but only through his Messiah:

• "The Redeemer [the promised Messiah] will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins," declares the LORD. "As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the LORD. "My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever," says the LORD. (Isaiah 59:20-21)

• "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more…  (Isaiah 65:17-19)

In the end, there will be a great salvation. All those left in the end will be rescued:

• From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. (Isaiah 66:23)

This is an indication that, in the end, our Lord will open the floodgates of heaven:

• "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other… Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.'" All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult. (Isaiah 45:22-25; 60:14; also Romans 11:12-27; James 2:13)

But God made us this way, right? Isn’t he also to blame? This is one charge that the Prophets never brought against God. Instead, they accepted what He had revealed – that the fault is all ours, and that God had done for Israel everything that He could do (Isaiah 5:2-5; Jeremiah 2:21).

Isaiah merely charged that God could correct Israel’s heart. However, he probably never received a complete and satisfactory answer, but perhaps what had been revealed to him was enough. Hopefully, it will be enough for us.

JEREMIAH’S PROBLEM WITH GOD

How can we believe in a God of the holocausts, who annihilated the Canaanites and the Amalekites? In our eyes, except for a few bad apples, our fellow human beings do not appear so evil, certainly not so evil that they deserve to die.

This is the most common challenge to our faith. We are troubled by it, but it was also troubling to the prophets of Israel. Habakkuk (1:12-17) had objected that, although his people were sinners, they weren’t bad enough to warrant the coming Babylonian destruction of their homeland! Jeremiah had a similar complaint—God’s indictment against Jerusalem was just too extreme! Therefore, God prepared for His prophet a challenge and an object lesson:

·       "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city. Although they say, 'As surely as the LORD lives,' still they are swearing falsely" (Jeremiah 5:1-2).

Jeremiah didn’t fault God’s gracious offer to forgive. Only one honest person needed to be present in Jerusalem. The offer seemed more than gracious! This was because Jeremiah was convinced that there were many righteous Israelites, and that God’s displeasure could only reasonably apply to the uneducated rabble. Surely, the leadership knew better and would respond to God and would then spearhead the return to God!

·       “O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent. I thought, ‘These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God.’ But with one accord, they too had broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds [of God]” (Jeremiah 5:3-5).

We don’t see as God does. Our own people tend to look pretty good to us, especially those of Jeremiah’s own priestly clan. The prophets’ problem had been much the same as ours. They failed to comprehend the depth of Israel’s sin and rebellion against God.  As a result, God’s punishment seemed extreme and unwarranted. However, Israel’s prophets needed a crash course in human depravity if they were going to represent God faithfully, and He was glad to provide it to them. He enlightened Jeremiah regarding the rebellion of even the educated leadership:

·       "Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes. They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man's wife. Should I not punish them for this?...The house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to me…They [the false prophets] have lied about the LORD” (Jeremiah 5:7-13).

God is faithful, but Israel had been utterly unfaithful. Seen in this light, our Creator and Redeemer had every reason to judge. However, Jeremiah was still unable to see his people through God’s lens.

Holding faith isn’t always comfortable. We don’t always have the answers that our restless minds crave. Life continues to pose the ultimate question to us: “Are you still willing to follow your God even when things don’t make perfect sense?” This had been Jesus’ challenge to multitudes that were following Him because of the free meals. He laid down a difficult teaching to separate those merely looking for another handout from the true seekers: “Unless you drink my blood…” (John 6). It didn’t make sense; it wasn’t the Jewish way, and many left.

God posed a similar question to Abraham when He asked him to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Gen. 22). It seemed to go against everything God had promised Abraham—that the world would be blessed through Isaac and his seed. Abraham didn’t have the answer to this dilemma, but he knew God well enough to know that God did. We too must live with the discomfort of an incomplete puzzle. However, we’ve hopefully learned where to look for the missing pieces!

Nevertheless, it’s amusing to see how quickly our philosophical objections evaporate when we become the object of persecution. Jeremiah’s tune changed, once he realized that even his own educated family wanted to kill him:

·       “Then the LORD told me about the plots my enemies were making against me. I had been as unaware as a lamb on the way to its slaughter. I had no idea that they were planning to kill me!” (Jeremiah 11:18-19)

God revealed to Jeremiah what His prophet could never have imagined:

·       “Even your own brothers, members of your own family, have turned on you. They have plotted, raising a cry against you. Do not trust them, no matter how pleasantly they speak.” (Jeremiah 12:6)

A pleasant facade can be a ploy. Gradually, Jeremiah’s experiences changed his attitude and he began to see things through God’s holy lens:

·       “Avenge me on my persecutors… But you know, O LORD, all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from your sight… let me see your vengeance upon them.” (Jeremiah 15:15; 18:23; 20:12)

Unless we first learn about the righteousness and justice of God’s judgments, we cannot understand His mercy. Jeremiah’s opinion about the pervasiveness of sin was beginning to change. He finally declared:

·       The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Only when we understand the depths of human perversity are we prepared to grasp the depths of God’s mercy. Otherwise, we will regard it as our just entitlement.

THE PROPHET EZEKIEL’S GRIEVANCE

To prepare His prophet for faithful service, the Lord had taken Ezekiel on a spiritual journey into the heart of His Temple where Ezekiel observed the abominations of the priesthood, which he had never dreamed possible. God then gave Ezekiel a vision of the destruction that He would bring upon Israel. However, Ezekiel was still unconvinced about the justice of God’s wrath:

·       So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?" Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see!'” (Ezekiel 9:8-9; 11:13, 16-20)

Ezekiel was unable to grasp the extent of Israel’s corruption, but God was slowly molding Ezekiel into a son of God, a man after His own heart and mind, unlike his self-righteous brethren. He commanded Ezekiel to put the Words of God above everything else:

·       “And if I say to the wicked man, 'You will surely die,' but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right-- if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. "Yet your countrymen say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it. And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so. Yet, O house of Israel, you say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But I will judge each of you according to his own ways." (Ezekiel 33:14-20)

God’s ways never seem just to the self-righteous. Although they might realize that they aren’t perfect, they still believe that their good far outweighs their evil, and that this entitles them to God’s blessings. They might even feel entitled, by their “good moral record,” to do a little evil. However, the reluctant Ezekiel was told to announce that, no matter how good their performance might have been, once they turn to sin, they deserve death. He was also warned that if he proceeded according to his own understanding, instead of God’s Word, and did not warn, he too would be guilty (Ezekiel 33:1-9).

The self-righteous cannot endure such righteous teaching. They believe they stand by virtue of their esteemed moral record and not by the mercy of God. Therefore, a few sins should not change anything. They, therefore, were convinced that “The way of the Lord is not just” and failed to understand that none of us can stand before our righteous God apart from His mercy or conclude that, “He owes me blessings because of my surpassing righteousness.

Repeatedly, Jesus had to teach His Apostles this same lesson. They too were convinced that the educated elite and those blessed with wealth also deserved to be blessed with eternal life. However, Jesus confounded their thinking:

·       But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:24-27)

God’s ways are not our ways. Forgiveness and reconciliation are a gift from God. Although the entire Bible rests upon this truth, it is still so radical to human ears that Israel failed to get their minds around it. However, when we fail to understand this vital truth, we fail to understand God – His righteousness and His love for His wayward humanity. We also fail to perceive and to understand ourselves.

Nor did Jesus’ disciples understand. They saw reality through human eyes, the eyes of their rabbis, and were convinced that the rich and educated were entitled to salvation. Therefore, when Jesus told them that even the rich and esteemed could not be saved by their efforts, incredulously, they responded, “Then who can be saved?”

As the rabbis continued to exchange the truth of God (the Scriptures) for their own self-aggrandizing human traditions, which later became codified as the Babylonian Talmud, they also exchanged the veneration of God for the veneration of their own sages.