The Girl Nobody Wanted

Succumbing to the world's definition of success brings devastation and disappointment, but God works with, through, and in weak people to give satisfaction.

Timothy J. Keller

Text: Genesis 29:15–35

Topic: Where to find satisfaction

Introduction

I'm going to read you a passage out of the Old Testament: Genesis 29. And one of the things we're struck with immediately is that the Bible is the most unsentimental of all books when it comes to the subject of marriage and family. It is utterly realistic about this—that it is always hard and often devastating to not be married and it is always hard and sometimes devastating to be married.

Keeping this biblical understanding is very difficult, because there's almost no support for it institutionally, structurally. Outside Christian circles, or in the secular world at large, there's a tremendous amount of fear and a tremendous amount of cynicism about marriage, and with good reason, because of one of the things I just said that the Bible talks about. On the other hand, inside Christian circles there is a tendency to say, ah, marriage, that's what life's about. Marriage, family, kids, white picket fence. And the Bible says both of those attitudes are utterly wrong, because the Bible does not show us Jesus Christ pointing to marriage saying, "This is what you need." But rather the Bible shows us marriage both in its strengths and even in its tremendous difficulties pointing to Jesus Christ as the thing we need.

Now it's never been more obvious when I read you this account. I'm going to read Genesis 29:15-35:

Now after Jacob had been with Laban for a month, Laban said to him, "Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be." Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah; the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel." Laban said, "It's better that I should give her to you than some other man. Stay here with me."

So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed. I want to lie with her." So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. And when evening came he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her and Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid servant.

But when morning came, behold, it was Leah. So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me. I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?" And Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter's bridal week, and then we'll give you the younger one also in return for another seven years of work."

And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. And Jacob lay with Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.

Now when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb though Rachel was barren. And Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben for she said "It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now." She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too." So she named him Simeon. And again she conceived. And when she gave birth to a son she said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me because I have born him three sons." So he was named Levi. And she conceived yet again. And when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the Lord." So she named him Judah, and then she stopped having children.

A Family of Grace, a Family of Suffering

First of all, there are two things you have to know as background of this story. You have to know that Jacob came from a family chosen by grace and a family filled with suffering. Jacob had a grandfather named Abraham. One day God comes to Abraham and says, "Abraham, look at the world. Do you see the misery? Do you see the cruelty? Do you see the injustice? Do you see the disease? Do you see the tragedy? Do you see death itself? I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to heal it. I'm going to redeem it all. And I'm going to do it through your family. One of your descendants will be the Messiah."

God says to Abraham, "And, therefore, this is what has to happen. You need to know that, in every generation of your family there will be children, but one of the children will be the seed. One child will be the messianic seed, the bearer of the messianic strain. And that child should be head of the family, and that child must walk before me, and that child must pass the true faith along to all the family, because, of all those children, one of them will be the true seed, until someday one seed will be the Seed, and one prophet will be the Prophet, and one priest will be the Priest, and one king will be the King of kings and Lord of lords."

And that was why this was a very special family Jacob was part of. But also, in spite of that—and this is a lesson all by itself—this is a family filled with suffering. Abraham had one son, Isaac, and when Isaac's wife, Rebekah, was pregnant and she had two twin sons in her womb, God sent a prophecy to Isaac and said, "The elder will serve the younger." And that means God was saying to Isaac, the second one out is the seed, not the first one; not the elder but the younger—that's the seed. That's the one I've chosen.

But out they come, Jacob and Esau, and Isaac ignores what God says. He puts his heart on Esau and clearly favors him and loves him more than Jacob. And as a result, devastation is wreaked on both the boys as they grow up. Their characters are ravaged by this. Esau grow up to be willful, proud, and with no self-control at all because of the way that Isaac dotes on him and makes him the favorite, and Jacob turns into a liar. Jacob turns into a deceiver. Jacob turns into a manipulator.

Many of you know the story. What happens is, when they come of age, Jacob deceives his father one day. His father is old and blind, and Jacob dresses up as Esau and goes in and gets Isaac to give Jacob the blessing, to give Jacob the birthright, to give Jacob the headship of the clan. But when Esau realizes what Jacob has done, how he's been deceitful, Esau vows to kill him. And so Jacob has got to run, and he flees far, far away, to the other side of the Fertile Crescent, where his mother's relatives take him in. His uncle Laban takes him in.

Now Jacob's life is over. Jacob isn't sure if it's God that screwed up, if he's the one who screwed up, if his father or his family screwed up. But he'll never fulfill his destiny now. He's got no faith. It's all ruined. He's got no money. He's got no place. He's not in his homeland anymore. It's all over. So that's the story; that's the background.

Laban's Plot and Leah's Lot

But now the story has two parts to it—Laban's plot and Leah's lot. First of all, Laban—Laban's plot. Laban is the uncle, and Laban brings Jacob in as a sort of charity case, and Jacob's working for him for a month as a shepherd. And Laban suddenly realizes something. He looks and he says, This guy's a great shepherd. This guy's got management capabilities. And he realizes that if Jacob becomes a foreman for him, he could tremendously expand his operation and he could make a tremendous amount of money, as long as he doesn't have to pay Jacob too much. So he comes to Jacob and he says, "I'd like to give you a contract. What do you want in order to work for me?" And Jacob says, "Rachel."

Now Jacob really screwed up here, because when you're talking to a con artist, you never let them know your area of weakness. As soon as Laban sees this, as soon as he realizes this guy will do anything for Rachel, Laban's got him. Why? Because in Laban Jacob has met his match; because Jacob's a liar, Jacob's a con artist, and so is Laban, but Laban's been at it twenty-five more years. And as a result, you see, he's much more experienced at this.

And so Laban thinks, I got a way that I can deal with two problems at once. I will use this; I will exploit this man's weakness to deal with two problems at once. Well, what are the two problems? The first problem is, of course, How do I make lots and lots and lots of money? How do I get out of this guy a tremendous amount of valuable skill with very little to pay for it so I can become a wealthy man?

But his second problem is Leah. This man had two daughters, and the verse of course you might remember. I tried to read it slowly, but I probably didn't. It says, "Now Laban had two daughters. The older was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful."

Now if you go to diverse translations you'll find that every single one of the translations will describe Leah's eyes differently. Some will say she had tender eyes. Some will say she had delicate eyes. Some will say she had broken eyes, because what the word really means is, "a breakable, fragile thing." And nobody really quite knows exactly what the word means. But it's not that hard when you look at the context. When the text uses the word "weak," does it mean that Leah's vision was weak? Well, if it says Leah's vision was weak, it should say, "Leah had weak vision, but Rachel could see a long, long way." But that's not what it says. It's not talking about how they looked; it's talking about how they looked. It's not talking about how they looked with their eyes; it's talking about what they looked like.

What it's really saying is this. These were two girls. These were not women yet, almost for sure. And Laban had two girls here, and one of them had either crossed eyes or protruding eyes, or some kind of eye disorder, but whatever it was she was ugly. And Rachel was gorgeous. One was an ugly duckling who would never become a swan, and one was absolutely gorgeous; and these two girls had to grow up with each other. And Laban had a problem.

Here's where the Bible is brutally frank. And you say, ah, thank goodness we're beyond all this. But are we? Are we? Laban thinks I'll never marry this poor woman off. I'll never marry this daughter off. I have a way to get rich and get rid of the daughter that would be around my neck for the rest of my life. That's the kind of man he was.

And so what does he do? Well, it's pretty interesting. Jacob says, "I'll work for Rachel for seven years." What does Laban say in verse 19? "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. So stay here with me." He didn't say yes. In other words, he said something that led Jacob to believe he was saying yes, but he would always be able to come back later and say, "Jacob, read the fine print." He says, "It's better for me that she should go to you than some stranger," but he didn't say yes.

So Jacob works for seven years and says, "Now I've done my seven years. Send me my wife." Laban says fine. And of course, at the time, a wedding feast was a week long. Jacob was happier than most people at wedding feasts because, Now I have Rachel. Now finally something is going right in my life. Finally, something will console me for all the problems I've always had. And so everybody begins to feast and everybody begins to get drunk. And right in the middle of the very first night in comes the wife, in comes the bride all veiled. And they embrace and they are married, and they go into the tent and they go to bed together. And the Hebrew literally says (and it's a great narrative ploy), "But when morning came, behold it was Leah."

Jacob goes to Laban and says, "Why have you done this to me." And Laban says, "Wait. It's a custom. You can't marry the younger daughter off before the older. It's illegal here. It's the custom. This is the way we do things. The older daughter has to be married before the younger." And lovesick Jacob says, "Well, what do I do?" He says, "I'll tell you what. You can marry Rachel too, but you'll have to work another seven years for her." And Jacob says yes.

And because of all this greed and manipulation in these deceiving men, Leah is thrown into hell. Leah, who probably could have hardened her heart—had she stayed single for a long time, she could have dealt with the fact that she was unwanted, dealt with the fact that in a world like this she was not marketable. You say, aw, we're beyond all that. Are we beyond all that? Is our society that different? She might have been able to harden her heart, but because of these men she is now put into a situation where she is married to a man who not only doesn't love her—and many, many people have that—but the person that he does love is also the wife right there. And it's her sister. And Leah is put into hell.

The last verses of this passage are the most plaintive I know of anywhere in the Bible or any place, because every time she names a child when she begins to have children she says: Now … now maybe my husband will love me. Now maybe I'll have some meaning in life.

And she names Rueben because Rueben means, "I'm seen." And Simeon means, "I'm heard." And Levi means, "I'm attached." And every time a child comes along she says: Now maybe, finally, I'll be visible. Now maybe, finally, I'll be heard. Now maybe, finally, he'll cleave to me. See? Surely now my husband will love me now. And it never happens.

But in the last verse, this is what we read. In the last verse we read, "And finally she conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, 'This time I will praise the Lord.' So she named him Judah, and she stopped having children."

Let's draw out the lessons and let's do the way the gospel does. Six lessons—three are bad news, three are good news. That's how the gospel goes—lots of bad news at the beginning, but then the good news is much "gooder" than the bad news was bad. Now let's take the first three. There are three things here. Let's do the bad news. There's a lot of bad news in this story.

Bad News: Sin does you.

Number one: you never do sin; sin does you. You never commit sin. Sin commits you. Look carefully. People think that when you do a sin, when you break God's law, when you lie, when you use somebody, when you trample on somebody, when you sin, you feel like that's just an event, just an action. No, it's not. The Bible says that when you sin you don't just do an event and then pass on. You create and you release a devastating power that careens around your life indefinitely. Look at what's going on here. There are so many examples of this in here.

I don't have time to trace them all out. Look at what Isaac does to Jacob. Look at how he favors Esau. Look at what he does to Jacob, and now look what's going on, reverb. Jacob is doing the very same thing to Leah that his father did to him. And not only that, because Jacob does back to Isaac what Isaac did to him. And eventually, if you keep on going down, the fact that Jacob does this to Leah means that Leah's children hate Rachel's children when they finally show up. And because Leah's children hate Rachel's children, because of the way in which Jacob sinned and deceived, they eventually sell Joseph into slavery and then they deceive Jacob and say he's dead. And Jacob goes through utter hell.

Hell begets hell. Lie begets lie. Sin begets sin. You never sin. You don't do it. It does you. You never sin and pass away. Sin is like a boulder, not a stone; sin is like dropping a boulder into water. The shock waves go out forever.

You never get away with sin. You never get away with it. Anything that's a violation of God's will for how people should live here and how people should live together, you never get away with it. You don't do sin; sin does you. That's the first bit of bad news.

Bad News: In the morning, it's always Leah.

The second bit of bad news is, all life here is marked by cosmic disappointment. Cosmic disappointment. I want to say something quickly. Having read this thing and thought about this passage, I want you to know that I love Leah and I am protective of her in this story. But for a minute I have to tell you that she represents something very bad. One of the most fascinating things in the narrative is the way it turns on you, because here is Jacob saying finally, finally I'm going to have happiness in this life. Finally, finally I've got Rachel. But, behold, in the morning it was Leah.

And there is a very interesting little commentary written by one of my favorite writers, Derrick Kidner, and he puts it this way. Derrick Kidner says, "But in the morning, behold, it was Leah. This is a miniature of our disillusionment experienced from Eden onwards." You know what he's saying? He's saying this is a miniature, a fact that everybody in this room needs to know, and that is this: No matter what your hopes for a project, no matter what your hopes for marriage, no matter what your hopes for love, no matter what your hopes for a career, no matter what you have hopes in, in the morning it will always be Leah. No matter what you think is Rachel, it will always be Leah. Nobody ever put it any better than C. S. Lewis in his chapter on hope. He says:

Most people if they really learn to look into their own heart [and that's what I'm urging you to do right now] most people if they really learn to look into their own hearts would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that excites us are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning can ever really satisfy. I am not speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or failures of holidays and so on. I'm speaking of the very best possible ones. There is always something we have grasped at. There's always something in that first moment of longing but fades away in the reality. The spouse may be a good spouse. The scenery has been excellent. It turned out to be a good job. But it's evaded us. In the morning it's always Leah.

Now the reason you have to understand that is because it's painful to overhear people's lives. You notice what I said. I didn't say overhear people's words, because people don't say these things out loud. But you hear it in their life. You hear it. I overhear it when I see people's choices. I overhear it when I see people's attitudes, when I see what they're doing. And that is this. You overhear people saying, essentially, Oh, I'm going to have such a career. I'm going to get myself a hunk. I'm going to get myself a babe. And I'm going to live in this place, and I'm going to live in this place, and I'm going to live in this place. And I am going to have a life. In the morning it's always Leah. This is a miniature of the disillusionment which is our lot from Eden onwards.

Eventually, it is definitely going to come through. Eventually, you're going to see it. And when you do there are only four possible ways of responding to that. There are only four ways to go, and you're going to have to choose one of them and it will totally shape the rest of your life.

1. You'll either blame the things you have and say I've got to get better ones—better woman, better man, better job.

2. Or secondly, you'll blame yourself and just hate yourself.

3. Or thirdly, you'll blame life and you'll harden yourself so you'll never hope for anything at all.

4. Or fourthly, you can blame the theory of reality and you can say if there's nothing in this world that ever is Rachel, then Rachel must be beyond this world. If there's nothing in this world that will ever satisfy me, then it means that I am made for something beyond this world.

Now there are only four possible responses. Which one is it going to be?

1. One makes you a fool.

2. One makes you a self-hater.

3. One makes you an utterly hard cynic.

4. And one makes you a Christian.

So, the first bit of bad news is sin. You never do sin; sin does you. Secondly, all life is marked by cosmic disappointment. In the morning it's always Leah. Always. Thirdly, as bad as life is, you make it much worse through idolatry, and especially the idolatry of a family.

Bad News: We make our own lives worse through idolizing family.

Now I know this may sound very strange, but what we have here is a form of idolatry where you put your hope in something to give you a sense of being loved, of being valuable, of giving your life meaning. And these are not idols of the liberal world. These are idols of the conservative world, because Jacob says, if I get this gorgeous wife on my arm, if I am married, then I finally will have happiness. And it didn't work And poor Leah turns and says, if I have a child, if I have children, if I have sons, if I have this wonderful family then I'll be worth something. Then I'll be loved. And it never works.

Don't you know that when you build your life on a white picket fence, when you build your life on being married and having a perfect family and all of your children growing up to be so happy, the Bible comes against that. Huh? Well, doesn't the Bible come against immorality and adultery and orgies and living together and, you know? Well, yeah, some other place. That's not the text we have here.

We have a text coming against conservative idols here. We have a text coming against traditional values. We have a text that's saying if you build your life on a spouse then, at the very best, you'll be emotionally dependent or controlling or judgmental; and if anything goes wrong with that spouse, if that spouse has any problems, you will go to pieces and you'll be of no help to that spouse or anybody else. If you build your life on your children then, at the very least, you'll try to live your life out through your children till they either hate you or they just don't have any identity of their own. And at worst, you'll end up abusing them because they have got to be good, they have got to be right, they have got to love you or you don't have a life. Again and again you see Leah saying, ah, a son. Now … She just fit right in with traditional values, especially at the time. You're nobody unless you have children. You're a woman, so you must have children. And she does, and it doesn't work.

If she had a nicer husband she might have been able to live in a delusion for a longer time. But, fortunately for her, she didn't, and she came to see that idols always make the disappointment of this world far, far, far worse. Now that's the bad news.

But what's the good news? The good news is "gooder" than the bad news was bad.

Good News: God works with weak people.

First of all, the good news is that God works with a very weak people. Now surely somebody out there is saying, This is the stuff I hate in the Bible. Why did you bring something out like this? Here you've got Jacob, and look how he's oppressing his women. Look at how he's acting. Polygamy, bigamy. Look at women being moved around and abused and sold. Look at this. This is what I hate about the Bible.

Now, dear friends, we could spend a little bit of time on that. In every place, the Bible condemns bigamy and polygamy—every part of God's law. This text is showing us the absolute misery and hell that comes when women are treated like this; if you think this text in any way condones that behavior, this text is a screed against that. That's not your real problem. The reason why people that read these kinds of stories get so bummed out and confused is this: they have a spiritual paradigm I want to shatter right now.

When you read the Bible and you see all this stupidity and all this stabbing in the back and all this foolishness on the part of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and everything, you say "What's going on here?" You know why you're so upset? Because you think the Bible should be a book of virtues. You think the Bible should be a series of inspirational stories with role models. You think the Bible should be a series of stories of heroes. And that proves that you don't understand the gospel.

The Bible is not about role models. It's not about emulating these great people. The Bible gives you, again and again and again, men and women whom God continues to work with even though they resist his grace, they don't deserve his grace, they don't seek his grace, and then they don't even appreciate after they've been saved by his grace. And it's story after story after story. Now why would God give us stories like that? Why would God continue to work with this guy?

My dear friends, listen. If you think the Bible should be a book of virtues or inspirational stories of role models we should be emulating, that means you think that the Bible should be like all the other scriptures and all the other religions. Every other religion says god is at the top of the ladder. He's put a ladder down between you and heaven, heaven and earth, and he's standing at the top of the ladder and he's saying, "Perform. Do good. Live right. Emulate the heroes. If you try real hard you can come up the ladder to heaven."

But Jesus Christ said, you will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, because Christ said you'll never come up the ladder. You'll never emulate. Look at all these guys. Look at all that they have—revelation from God, miracles in their lives—they have all kinds of incredible things happen to them and they screw up again and again and again. Our Bible, our God, the Christian God is not a God who stands at the top of the ladder, but one who sent his Son down to be the ladder. He's not a God who says perform. But he says my Son, Jesus Christ, will come down and live the life you should have lived and die the death you should have died. And that's the reason why Bible stories are not a series of stories of role models to emulate, but of weak people like you and me whom a strong God had to come down and become weak and die on the cross to save. God works with weak people. That's the first good news.

Good News: God works through weak people.

Second good news: God works through weak people. Laban really hurt Leah, didn't he? Laban really hurt Jacob, didn't he? And yet, if you understand how God used Laban in their lives, you'll see that it was only because of Laban and all of his tricks and all of his meanness that Jacob finally began to get humbled.

A lot of commentators say, oh my goodness, why didn't Jacob put up more of a fuss when he realized what Laban was doing? He could have insisted. He could have said no way to seven more years for Rachel. Why didn't he? Because he realized what was happening to him was exactly what he had been doing. He saw himself in Laban and he hated it. He finally began to come around. He finally began to get some perspective. He finally began to realize who he really was and what he'd really done.

God works in your life through weak people. Right now there's a Laban in your life. Instead of just screaming, Why in the world, Lord, have you put this Laban in my life? you have to realize that God works not just with weak people but he works in your life through weak people.

Good News: God works in the weakest.

Lastly, God is attracted to the weakest. He doesn't just work with and work through but he works in the weakest and the most broken of all. This is what is so astounding about Leah. One thing you can't realize as you watch her cry out to God and talk about how she wants her husband to love her is that she uses a vocabulary that commentators over the years have been struck by.

There are two words that are used for God in the Old Testament in your English translation. The one word is the Hebrew word translated Elohim. It's a generic name for God. It just means God, and everybody used the word. All religions, all people, everybody used the word God. It meant "the great one."

But when God came down to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob he gave them a new name. He gave them a personal name. It was the name Yahweh. This word, Yahweh, was a name he only gave to people to whom he was also giving the story of salvation. He only said Yahweh to people to whom he said "I want you to believe my promise that through a descendant I will save the world." And every place the word Yahweh shows up in the English Old Testament you don't see the word God translated. What do you see? The LORD.

And Leah, floundering around like a mad woman, doing anything she can to deal with the hell she's in, anything, feeling like, How do I get out of this? I always knew I was homely. I always knew in the world's eyes I was nothing. And now every day it's just pushed into my face. How am I going to survive this? And she says a child, a child. But every time she has a child she cries out and she faces her husband. Now my husband will save me. Now my husband will love me. And she looks at her child but she also says, every time, the Lord.

She begins to call on the name Yahweh. Now, wait a minute. What happened? Where did Leah hear about this? Leah must have heard the promise, the promise of the seed, the promise of salvation. And she began not just to believe in a general God at the top of the ladder to whom she must submit, which is what everybody else in the world believed; but she began to grab hold of the idea of the Lord, Yahweh, the God who will save by grace.

And what's so fascinating is, look carefully and you will see if you go back and read this passage, that she's turning to her husband until the very end. And at the very, very end something changes. Something radically changes. Every time she says, "Now my husband will love me." "Now my husband will love me." "Now my husband will love me." And then it says she conceived again, and then she gave birth to a son and she said, "This time I will praise the Lord." Finally, no talk about her husband. What had happened? Through this suffering she stopped turning to her husband, she stopped looking to her children, she stopped looking to anything else and she said I'm going to praise the Lord. And at that moment she got her life back. At that moment, Laban and Jacob and all the people who had used her and abused her as long as she had stayed in the idolatry fell away; at that point she stood up and she got her life back.

And more than that, look—who was the child? When she finally stopped looking to her husband for those things that only God can give and when she finally turned to God, she said, "This time I will praise the Lord," and the child was who? It was Judah. Who's Judah? Get this. God comes to Leah and says, "You'll be the mother of Jesus," because Judah was the seed.

But more than that, Leah became the seed—Leah the outsider, the Leah the ugly, Leah the rejected. Because she grabbed hold with faith, she got her life back from all the people that had ruined it for her. She got it back. And God comes down and makes her into the seed. She goes ahead of her husband. She understands the gospel better than her husband. And at the very end God says, Now through your suffering, because you have come to understand the gospel of grace, you are the seed and your son Judah is the seed, and you become the mother of Jesus.

Now how could this be? How could this possibly be? Why would God choose Leah to do that? And the answer is right here. "When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved he came to her." And now we know. The Old Testament shows us what the New Testament really, really tells us. God loves those who others don't love. God is attracted to the weak because of his gracious nature and he wants the ones that no one else wants.

But more than that, when he sees a wife who's not loved, he shows her that there's a heavenly Bridegroom. He shows her that there's a heavenly Husband. Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us, is the Bridegroom. He's not just the King and we're the servants. He's not just the Shepherd, and we're the sheep. He's the Bridegroom, and we're the bride. And what happened is, Jesus Christ came to earth and died. He lost his true beauty, the beauty of a noble soul, the beauty of holiness. He lost his true beauty to live a life we should have lived and die the death we should have died, so that when we believe in him we become his bride.

I'll tell you what it is. Though we may look like Leah, to Jesus Christ we look like Rachel. That's the gospel. We might look like Leah in ourselves, but to Jesus Christ we look gorgeous. And that is exactly what God does here. We see here in the Old Testament a foretaste and a hint of the fact that God is the heavenly Bridegroom. He sees the wife who's unwanted. That's the reason why God chooses the foolish to shame the wise. God chooses the weak to shame the strong. God chooses the things that are despised, even the things that not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that we might understand God's grace.

Conclusion

If you're a person here who's still searching for God you need to understand this: God is not the top of the ladder. He sent his Son to be the ladder.

Secondly, if you're a person who is very upset whenever you get near a wedding because you're so angry that you're not married, or if you're still just incredibly desperate to be married, you've missed the point. In the morning it's never what you thought. You cannot look to anything but Jesus. In heaven we have a Father that will deal with all of our imperfect fathers here. In heaven we have a Brother that will deal with all our imperfect families. In heaven we have a Spouse that will deal with all our imperfect spouses. And until we make him the One, until we say "this time I will praise the Lord," we'll never be able to deal with all the imperfection around us.

If there's anybody in this building right now that feels like somebody else has ruined my life, look at Leah. Leah gets her life back. She doesn't have to be bitter. She doesn't have to hate. She doesn't have to deceive back. She says, "This time I will praise the Lord." I won't look to anything else to give me what only Jesus Christ can be for me. I will not add anything to Jesus Christ as a requirement for being happy. Do that, and you'll get your life back.

Is there anybody here who feels ugly? The only eyes that count are radiant with you. The only eyes that count are ravished by you. And that's the only comfort that can't be quenched.

© Tim Keller

www.PreachingToday.com

A resource of Christianity Today International

The Advent of Humility

Jesus is the reason to stop concentrating on ourselves.

Tim Keller | posted 12/22/2008 05:07PM

Innumerable Christmas devotionals point out the humble circumstances of Jesus' birth—among shepherds, in a crude stable, with a feed trough for a bassinet. When Jesus himself tried to summarize why people should take up the yoke of following him, he said it was because he was meek and humble (Matt. 11:29). Seldom, however, do we explore the full implications of how Jesus' radical humility shapes the way we live our lives every day.

Humility is crucial for Christians. We can only receive Christ through meekness and humility (Matt. 5:3, 5; 18:3-4). Jesus humbled himself and was exalted by God (Phil. 2:8-9); therefore joy and power through humility is the very dynamic of the Christian life (Luke 14:11; 18:14; 1 Pet. 5:5).

The teaching seems simple and obvious. The problem is that it takes great humility to understand humility, and even more to resist the pride that comes so naturally with even a discussion of the subject.

We are on slippery ground because humility cannot be attained directly. Once we become aware of the poison of pride, we begin to notice it all around us. We hear it in the sarcastic, snarky voices in newspaper columns and weblogs. We see it in civic, cultural, and business leaders who never admit weakness or failure. We see it in our neighbors and some friends with their jealousy, self-pity, and boasting.

And so we vow not to talk or act like that. If we then notice "a humble turn of mind" in ourselves, we immediately become smug—but that is pride in our humility. If we catch ourselves doing that we will be particularly impressed with how nuanced and subtle we have become. Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves. To even ask the question, "Am I humble?" is to not be so. Examining your own heart, even for pride, often leads to being proud about your diligence and circumspection.

Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less, as C. S. Lewis so memorably said. It is to be no longer always noticing yourself and how you are doing and how you are being treated. It is "blessed self-forgetfulness."

Humility is a byproduct of belief in the gospel of Christ. In the gospel, we have a confidence not based in our performance but in the love of God in Christ (Rom. 3:22-24). This frees us from having to always be looking at ourselves. Our sin was so great, nothing less than the death of Jesus could save us. He had to die for us. But his love for us was so great, Jesus was glad to die for us.

Grace, Not Goodness

We are on slippery ground when we discuss humility, because religion and morality inhibit humility. It is common in the evangelical community to talk about one's worldview—a set of basic beliefs and commitments that shape the way we live in every particular. Others prefer the term "narrative identity." This is a set of answers to the questions, "Who am I? What is my life all about? What am I here for? What are the main barriers keeping me from fulfillment? How can I deal with those barriers?"

There are two basic narrative identities at work among professing Christians. The first is what I will call the moral-performance narrative identity. These are people who in their heart of hearts say, I obey; therefore I am accepted by God. The second is what I will call the grace narrative identity. This basic operating principle is, I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore I obey.

People living their lives on the basis of these two different principles may superficially look alike. They may sit right beside one another in the church pew, both striving to obey the law of God, to pray, to give money generously, to be good family members. But they are doing so out of radically different motives, in radically different spirits, resulting in radically different personal characters.

When persons living in the moral-performance narrative are criticized, they are furious or devastated because they cannot tolerate threats to their self-image of being a "good person."

But in the gospel our identity is not built on such an image, and we have the emotional ballast to handle criticism without attacking back. When people living in the moral-performance narrative base their self-worth on being hard working or theologically sound, then they must look down on those whom they perceive to be lazy or theologically weak.

But those who understand the gospel cannot possibly look down on anyone, since they were saved by sheer grace, not by their perfect doctrine or strong moral character.

The Stench of Moralism

Another mark of the moral-performance narrative is a constant need to find fault, win arguments, and prove that all opponents are not just mistaken but dishonest sellouts. However, when the gospel is deeply grasped, our need to win arguments is removed, and our language becomes gracious. We don't have to ridicule our opponents, but instead we can engage them respectfully.

People who live in the moral-performance narrative use sarcastic, self-righteous putdown humor, or have no sense of humor at all. Lewis speaks of "the unsmiling concentration upon Self, which is the mark of hell." The gospel, however, creates a gentle sense of irony. We find a lot to laugh at, starting with our own weaknesses. They don't threaten us anymore because our ultimate worth is not based on our record or performance.

Martin Luther had the basic insight that moralism is the default mode of the human heart. Even Christians who believe the gospel of grace on one level can continue to operate as if they have been saved by their works. In "The Great Sin" in Mere Christianity, Lewis writes, "If we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the Devil."

Gracious, self-forgetful humility should be one of the primary things that distinguishes Christian believers from the many other types of moral, decent people in the world. But I think it is fair to say that humility, which is a key differentiating mark of the Christian, is largely missing in the church. Nonbelievers, detecting the stench of sanctimony, turn away.

Some will say, "Phariseeism and moralism are not our culture's big problems right now. Our problems are license and antinomianism. There is no need to talk about grace all the time to postmodern people." But postmodern people have been rejecting Christianity for years, thinking that it was indistinguishable from moralism. Only if you show them there's a difference—that what they rejected wasn't real Christianity—will they even begin to listen again.

Get Your Fresh Humility Here

This is the place where the author is supposed to come up with practical solutions. I don't have any. Here's why.

First, the problem is too big for practical solutions. The wing of the evangelical church that is most concerned about the loss of truth and about compromise is actually infamous in our culture for its self-righteousness and pride. However, there are many in our circles who, in reaction to what they perceive as arrogance, are backing away from many of the classic Protestant doctrines (such as Forensic Justification and Substitutionary Atonement) that are crucial and irreplaceable — as well as the best possible resources for humility.

Second, directly talking about practical ways to become humble, either as individuals or as communities, will always backfire. I have said that major wings of the evangelical church are wrong. So who is left? Me? Am I beginning to think only we few, we happy few, have achieved the balance that the church so needs? I think I hear Wormwood whispering in my ear, "Yes, only you can really see things clearly."

I do hope to clarify, or I wouldn't have written on the topic at all. But there is no way to begin telling people how to become humble without destroying what fragments of humility they may already possess.

Third, humility is only achieved as a byproduct of understanding, believing, and marveling in the gospel of grace. But the gospel doesn't change us in a mechanical way. Recently I heard a sociologist say that for the most part, the frameworks of meaning by which we navigate our lives are so deeply embedded in us that they operate "pre-reflectively." They don't exist only as a list of propositions, but also as themes, motives, and attitudes. When we listen to the gospel preached or meditate on it in the Scriptures, we are driving it so deeply into our hearts, imaginations, and thinking that we begin to instinctively "live out" the gospel.

So let us preach grace till humility just starts to grow in us.

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York, and author of The Reason for God.


http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/december/20.51.html?start=3

Idolatry In Postmodernists

Idolatry In The Bible

When I first began reading through the Bible I looked for some unifying themes. I concluded that there are many and that if we make just one theme the theme (such as ‘covenant’ or ‘kingdom’) we run the danger of reductionism. However, one of the main ways to read the Bible is as the ages-long struggle between true faith and idolatry. In the beginning, human beings were made to worship and serve God, and to rule over all created things in God’s name (Gen 1:26–28). Paul understands humanity’s original sin as an act of idolatry: “They exchanged the glory of the immortal God… and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator” (Rom 1:21–25). Instead of living for God, we began to live for ourselves, or our work, or for material goods. We reversed the original intended order. And when we began to worship and serve created things, paradoxically, the created things came to rule over us. Instead of being God’s vice-regents, ruling over creation, now creation masters us. We are now subject to decay and disease and disaster. The final proof of this is death itself. We live for our own glory by toiling in the dust, but eventually we return to the dust – the dust “wins” (Gen 3:17–19). We live to make a name for ourselves but our names are forgotten. Here in the beginning of the Bible we learn that idolatry means slavery and death.

The Ten Commandments’ first two and most basic laws (one-fifth of all God’s law to humankind) are against idolatry.* Exodus does not envision any third option between true faith and idolatry. We will either worship the uncreated God or we will worship some created thing (an idol). There is no possibility of our worshipping nothing. The classic New Testament text is Romans 1:18-25. This extensive passage on idolatry is often seen as only referring to the pagan Gentiles, but instead we should recognize it as an analysis of what sin is and how it works. Verse 21 tells us that the reason we turn to idols is because we want to control our lives, though we know that we owe God everything. “Though they knew God, they neither glorified God nor gave thanks to him.” Verse 25 tells us the strategy for control – taking created things and setting our hearts on them and building our lives around them. Since we need to worship something, because of how we are created, we cannot eliminate God without creating God-substitutes. Verses 21 and 25 tell us the two results of idolatry:

1. Deception – “their thinking became futile and their hearts were darkened,” and
2. Slavery – “they worshipped and served” created things.

Whatever we worship we will serve, for worship and service are always inextricably bound together. We are “covenantal” beings. We enter into covenant service with whatever most captures our imagination and heart. It ensnares us. So every human personality, community, thought-form, and culture will be based on some ultimate concern or some ultimate allegiance – either to God or to some God-substitute. Individually, we will ultimately look either to God or to success, romance, family, status, popularity, beauty or something else to make us feel personally significant and secure, and to guide our choices. Culturally we will ultimately look to either God or to the free market, the state, the elites, the will of the people, science and technology, military might, human reason, racial pride, or something else to make us corporately significant and secure, and to guide our choices.

No one grasped this better than Martin Luther, who ties the Old Testament and New Testament together remarkably in his exposition of the Ten Commandments. Luther saw how the Old Testament law against idols and the New Testament emphasis on justification by faith alone are essentially the same. He said that the Ten Commandments begin with two commandments against idolatry. It is because the fundamental problem in law-breaking is always idolatry. In other words, we never break the other commandments without first breaking the law against idolatry. Luther understood that the first commandment is really all about justification by faith, and to fail to believe in justification by faith is idolatry, which is the root of all that displeases God.

All those who do not at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this [First] Commandment, and practice real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, obedience, patience, and chastity of all the saints combined. For the chief work is not present, without which all the others are nothing but mere sham, show and pretense, with nothing back of them… If we doubt or do not believe that God is gracious to us and is pleased with us, or if we presumptuously expect to please Him only through and after our works, then it is all pure deception, outwardly honoring God, but inwardly setting up self as a false [savior]…. (Part X. XI) Excerpts from Martin Luther, Treatise Concerning Good Works (1520).

Here Luther says that failure to believe that God accepts us fully in Christ – and to look to something else for our salvation—is a failure to keep the first commandment; namely, having no other gods before him. To try to earn your own salvation through works-righteousness is breaking the first commandment. Then he says that we cannot truly keep any of the other laws unless we keep the first law – against idolatry and works-righteousness. Thus beneath any particular sin is this sin of rejecting Christ-salvation and indulging in self-salvation.

For example, let’s say a person cheats on his income tax form. Why does he do that? Well, you say, because he is a sinner. Yes, but why does his sin take this form? Luther’s answer would be that the man only cheated because he was making money and possessions – and the status or comfort from having more of them – more important than God and his favor. Or let’s say a person lies to a friend rather than lose face over something she has done. In that case the underlying sin is making human approval or your reputation more important than the righteousness you have in Christ.

The Bible, then, does not consider idolatry to be one sin among many (and a rare sin found only among primitive people). Rather, all our failures to trust God wholly or to live rightly are at root idolatry – something we make more important than God. There is always a reason for a sin. Under our sins are idolatrous desires.

Idolatry In Postmodern Culture

The biblical teaching about idolatry is particularly helpful for evangelism in a postmodern context. The typical way that Christians define sin is to say that it is breaking God’s law. Properly explained, of course, that is a good and sufficient definition. But the law of God includes both sins of omission and of commission, and it includes the attitudes of the heart as well as behavior. Those wrong attitudes and motivations are usually inordinate desires – forms of idolatry. However, when most listeners hear us define sin as “breaking God’s law” all the emphasis in their minds falls on the negative (sins of commission) and on the external (behaviors rather than attitudes.) There are significant reasons, then, that “law-breaking” isn’t the best way to first describe sin to postmodern listeners.

I ordinarily begin speaking about sin to a young, urban, non-Christian like this: Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.

Why is this a good path to take?

1. First, this definition of sin includes a group of people that postmodern people are acutely aware of. Postmodern people rightly believe that much harm has been done by self-righteous religious people. If we say “sin is breaking God’s law” without a great deal of further explanation, it appears that the Pharisaical people they have known are ‘in’ and most other people are ‘out.’ Pharisees, of course, are quite fastidious in their keeping of the moral law, and therefore (to the hearer) they seem to be the very essence of what a Christian should be. An emphasis on idolatry avoids this problem. As Luther points out, Pharisees, while not bowing to literal idols, were looking to themselves and their moral goodness for their justification, and therefore they were actually breaking the first commandment. Their morality was self-justifying motivation and therefore spiritually pathological. At the bottom of all their law-keeping they were actually breaking the most fundamental law of all. When we give definitions and descriptions of sin to postmodern people, we must do so in a way that not only challenges prostitutes to change but also Pharisees.
2. There is another reason we need a different definition of sin for postmodern people. They are relativists, and the moment you say, “Sin is breaking God’s moral standards,” they will retort, “Well, who is to say whose moral standards are right? Everyone has different ones! What makes Christians think that theirs are the only right set of moral standards?” The usual way to respond to this is to become sidetracked from your presentation of sin and grace into an apologetic discussion about relativism. Of course, postmodern people must be strongly challenged about their mushy view of truth, but I think there is a way to move forward and actually make a credible and convicting gospel presentation before you get into the apologetic issues. I do it this way, I take a page from Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and I define sin as building your identity – your self-worth and happiness – on anything other than God. Instead of telling them they are sinning because they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their careers and romances to save them, to give them everything that they should be looking for in God. This idolatry leads to drivenness, addictions, severe anxiety, obsessiveness, envy of others, and resentment.

I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not offer much resistance. They doubt there is any real alternative, but they admit sheepishly that this is what they are doing. I have also found that this makes sin more personal. Making an idol out of something means giving it the love you should be giving your Creator and Sustainer. To depict sin as not only a violation of law but also of love is more compelling. Of course a complete description of sin and grace includes recognition of our rebellion against God’s authority. But I’ve found that if people become convicted about their sin as idolatry and mis-directed love, it is easier to show them that one of the effects of sin is to put them into denial about their hostility to God. In some ways, idolatry is like addiction writ large. We are ensnared by our spiritual idols just like people are ensnared by drink and drugs. We live in denial of how much we are rebelling against God’s rule just like addicts live in denial of how much they are trampling on their families and loved ones.

The biblical theme of idolatry has far more implications for ministry in a postmodern society than what we have discussed. Not only is it a key for evangelism, it is also crucial for discipling and counseling, as David Powlison has shown in his many writings on the subject. (See his easily accessible essay “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair,” available at a number of places online.)* The Dutch Calvinists have also shown that the best way to analyze cultures is by identifying their corporate idols. Indeed, each field of vocation and study has its reigning idols, as do political parties and ideologies. While secular societies have made an idol of human reason and human autonomy, other more traditional societies make idols of the family or racial purity.

In her recent memoir, Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, Darcey Steinke recounts how she, the daughter of a Lutheran minister, left her Christian profession. Moving to New York City she entered a life of club hopping and sexual obsession. She wrote several novels. She continued, however, to be extremely restless and unfulfilled. In the middle of the book she quotes from Simone Weill as summarizing the main issue in her life. “One has only the choice between God and idolatry,” Weil wrote.“If one denies God… one is worshiping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such, but in fact, though unknown to oneself imagining the attributes of Divinity in them.”* Stephen Metcalf, writing a review of the memoir in the New York Times calls Weill’s quote “‘extraordinary.’” This is testimony to how penetrating the concept of idolatry is to postmodern people.

————————————————————————————————————————-

* It could be argued that the tenth commandment against coveting is also aimed at idolatrous attitudes in the heart.
* David Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair,” Journal of Biblical Counseling, 13.2 (1995).
* Darcey Steinke, Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, (Bloomsbury, 2007), 114.

This article by Tim Keller originally posted at The Gospel Coalition on April 2007.

HOW CAN I KNOW GOD?

June, 1991
TIM KELLER

What is Christianity? Some say it is a philosophy, others say it is an ethical stance, while still others claim it is actually an experience. None of these things really gets to the heart of the matter, however. Each is something a Christian has, but not one of them serves as a definition of what a Christian is. Christianity has at its core a transaction between a person and God. A person who becomes a Christian moves from knowing about God distantly to knowing about him directly and intimately. Christianity is knowing God.

“Now this is eternal life; that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” -- John 17:3

Why do I need to know God?
Our desire for personal knowledge of God is strong, but we usually fail to recognize that desire for what it is. When we first fall in love, when we first marry, when we finally break into our chosen field, when we at last get that weekend house—these breakthroughs arouse in us antic ipation of something which, as it turns out, never occurs. We eventually discover that our desire for that precious something is a longing no lover or career or achievement, even the best possible ones, can ever satisfy. The satisfaction fades even as we close our fingers around our goal. Nothing delivers the joy it seemed to promise. Many of us avoid the yawning emptiness through busyness or denial, but at best there is just a postponement. “Nothing tastes,” said Marie Antoinette.


There are several ways to respond to this:

By blaming the things themselves – by finding fault in everyone and everything around you. You believe that a better spouse, a better career, a better boss or salary would finally yield the elusive joy. Many of the most successful people of the world are like this – bored, discontented, running from new thing to new thing, often changing counselors, mates, partners, or settings.

By blaming yourself – by trying harder to live up to standards. Many people believe they have made poor choices or have failed to measure up to challenges and to achieve the things that would give them joy and satisfaction. Such people are wracked with selfdoubts and tend to burn themselves out. They think, “If only I could reach my goals, then this emptiness would be gone.” But it is not so.

By blaming the universe itself – by giving up seeking fulfillment at all. This is the person who says, “Yes, when I was young I was idealistic, but at my age I have stopped howling after the moon.” This makes you become cynical, you decide to repress that part of yourself that once wanted fulfillment and joy. But you become hard, and you can feel yourself losing your humanity, compassion, and joy.

By blaming and recognizing your separation from God – by seeing that the emptiness comes from your separation from God, and by establishing a personal relationship with him.

In order to form a personal relationship with God, you must know
three things:

1) Who we are:
God’s creation. God created us and built us for a relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, everything. Because humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will always try to worship something – if not God, we will choose some other object of ultimate devotion to give our lives meaning.

Sinners. We have all chosen (and re-affirm daily) to reject God and to make our own joy and happiness our highest priority. We do not want to worship God and surrender ourself as master, yet we are built to worship, so we cling to idols, centering our lives on things that promise to give us meaning: success, relationships, influence, love, comfort, and so on.

In spiritual bondage. To live for anything else but God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the water, which he was built for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a loss of meaning. If we achieve these things, they cannot deliver satisfaction, because they were never meant to be “gods.” They were never meant to replace God. Worshiping other things besides God also leads to self- image problems. We end up defining ourselves in terms of our achievement in these things. We must have them or all is lost; so they drive us to work too hard, or they fill us with terror if they are jeopardized.

2) Who God is:
Love and justice. His active concern is for our joy and well-being. Most people love those who love them, yet God loves and seeks the good even of people who are his enemies. But because God is good and loving, he cannot tolerate evil. The opposite of love is not anger, but indifference. “The more you love your son, the more you hate in him the liar, the drunkard, the traitor,” (E. Gifford). To imagine God’s situation, imagine a judge who also is a father, who sits at the trial of his guilty son. A judge knows he cannot let his son go, for without justice no society can survive. How much less can a loving God merely ignore or suspend justice for us—who are loved, yet guilty of rebellion against his loving authority?

Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself come to Earth. He first lived a perfect life, loving God with all his heart, soul, and mind, fulfilling all human obligation to God. He lived the life you owed—a perfect record. Then, instead of receiving his deserved reward (eternal life), Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins, taking the punishment and death each of us owed. When we believe in him: 1) our sins are paid for by his death, and 2) his perfect life record is transferred to our account. So God accepts and regards us as if we have done all Christ has done.

3) What you must do:
Repent. There first must be an admission that you have been living as your own master, worshipping the wrong things, violating God’s loving laws. “Repentance” means you ask forgiveness and turn from that stance with a willingness to live for and center on him.

Believe. Faith is transferring your trust from your own efforts to the efforts of Christ. You were relying on other things to make you acceptable, but now you consciously begin relying on what Jesus did for your acceptance with God. All you need is nothing. If you think, “God owes me something for all my efforts,” you are still on the outside.

Pray after this fashion: “I see I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but that I am even more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I turn from my old life of living for myself. I have nothing in my record to merit your approval, but I now rest in what Jesus did and ask to be accepted into God’s family for his sake.”

When you make this transaction, two things happen at once: 1) your accounts are cleared, your sins are wiped out permanently, you are adopted legally into God’s family and 2) the Holy Spirit enters your heart and begins to change you into the character of Jesus.

Follow through. Tell a Christian friend about your commitment. Get yourself training in the basic Christian disciplines of prayer, worship, Bible study, and fellowship with other Christians.


Why should I seek God?
On one hand, you may feel that you “need” him. Even though you may recognize that you have needs only God can meet, you must not try to use him to achieve your own ends. It is not possible to bargain with God. (I’ll do this if you will do that.”) That is not Christianity at all, but a form of magic or paganism in which you “appease” the cranky deity in exchange for a favor. Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you? Those are two opposite motives and they result in two different religions. You must come to God because 1) you owe it to him to give him your life (because he is your creator) and 2) you are deeply grateful to him for sacrificing his son (because he is your redeemer.)

On the other hand, you may feel no need or interest to know God at all. This does not mean you should stay uncommitted. If you were created by God, then you owe him your life, whether you feel like it or not. You are obligated to seek him and ask him to soften your heart, open your eyes, and enlighten you. If you say, “I have no faith,” that is no excuse either. You need only doubt your doubts. No one can doubt everything at once— you must believe in something to doubt something else. For example, do you believe you are competent to run your own life? Where is the evidence of that? Why doubt everything but your doubts about God and your faith in yourself? Is that fair? You owe it to God to seek him. Do so.

What if I’m not ready to proceed?
Make a list of the issues that you perceive to be barriers to your crossing the line into faith. Here is a possible set of headings:

Content issues. Do you understand the basics of the Christian message—sin, Jesus as God, sacrifice, faith?

Coherence issues. Are there intellectual problems you have with Christianity? Are there objections to the Christian faith that you cannot resolve in your own mind?

Cost issues. Do you perceive that a move into full Christian faith will cost you dearly? What fears do you have about commitment?

Now talk to a Christian friend until these issues are resolved. Consider reading: Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis (MacMillan) and Basic Christianity, by John Stott (IVP)
© 1991, Timothy Keller

http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/How_Can_I_Know_God-Keller.pdf

The Importance of Hell

There are plenty of people today who don't believe in Bible's teaching on everlasting punishment, even those who do find it an unreal and remote concept.

by Tim Keller

In 2003 a research group discovered 64% of Americans expect to go to heaven when they die, but less than 1% think they might go to hell. Not only are there plenty of people today who don't believe in the Bible's teaching on everlasting punishment, even those who do find it an unreal and a remote concept. Nevertheless, it is a very important part of the Christian faith, for several reasons.

1. It is important because Jesus taught about it more than all other Biblical authors put together. Jesus speaks of "eternal fire and punishment" as the final abode of the angels and human beings who have rejected God (Matthew 25:41,46) He says that those who give into sin will be in danger of the "fire of hell" (Matthew 5:22; 18:8-9.) The word Jesus uses for 'hell' is Gehenna, a valley in which piles of garbage were daily burned as well as the corpses of those without families who could bury them. In Mark 9:43 Jesus speaks of a person going to "hell [gehenna], where 'their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.' " Jesus is referring to the maggots that live in the corpses on the garbage heap. When all the flesh is consumed, the maggots die. Jesus is saying, however, that the spiritual decomposition of hell never ends, and that is why 'their worm does not die.'

----------------------------------------------------
If Jesus, the Lord of Love and Author
of Grace spoke about hell more often,
and in a more vivid,
blood-curdling manner than anyone else,
it must be a crucial truth.
----------------------------------------------------

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says, "Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." He is speaking to disciples, some of whom will eventually be tortured, sawn in half, flayed and burned alive. Yet, he says, that is a picnic compared to hell. Clearly, for Jesus hell was a real place, since he said that after judgment day people would experience it in their bodies. Hell is a place not only of physical but also of spiritual misery.

Jesus constantly depicted hell as painful fire and "outer darkness" (Matt 25:30; cf. Jude 6,7,13,) a place of unimaginably terrible misery and unhappiness. If Jesus, the Lord of Love and Author of Grace spoke about hell more often, and in a more vivid, blood-curdling manner than anyone else, it must be a crucial truth. But why was it so important to Jesus?

2. It is important because it shows how infinitely dependent we are on God for everything. Virtually all commentators and theologians believe that the Biblical images of fire and outer darkness are metaphorical. (Since souls are in hell right now, without bodies, how could the fire be literal, physical fire?) Even Jonathan Edwards pointed out that the Biblical language for hell was symbolic, but, he added, 'when metaphors are used in Scripture about spiritual things . . . they fall short of the literal truth." (from "The Torments of Hell are Exceeding Great" in volume 14 of the Yale edition of Edwards works.) To say that the Scriptural image of hell-fire is not wholly literal is of no comfort whatsoever. The reality will be far worse than the image. What, then, are the 'fire' and 'darkness' symbols for? They are vivid ways to describe what happens when we lose the presence of God. Darkness refers to the isolation, and fire to the disintegration of being separated from God. Away from the favor and face of God, we literally, horrifically, and endlessly fall apart.

In the teaching of Jesus the ultimate condemnation from the mouth of God is 'depart from me.' That is remarkable--to simply be away from God is the worst thing that can happen to us! Why? We were originally created to walk in God's immediate presence (Genesis 2.) In one sense, of course, God is everywhere and upholds everything. Only in him do we all speak and move and have our being (Acts 17:28.) In that sense, then, it is impossible to depart from the Lord; even hell cannot exist unless God upholds it. But the Bible says sin excludes us from God's 'face' (Isaiah 59:2.) All the life, joy, love, strength, and meaning we have looked for and longed for is found in his face (Psalm 16:11)-that is, in his favor, presence, fellowship, and pleasure.

Sin removes us from that aspect of his power that sustains and supports us. It is to us as water is to a fish-away from it our life slowly ebbs away. That is what has been happening to us throughout history. That is why, for Paul, the everlasting fire and destruction of hell is 'exclusion from the presence of the Lord." (2 Thessalonians 1:9.) Separation from God and his blessings forever is the reality to which all the symbols point. For example, when Jesus speaks being 'destroyed' in hell, the word used is apollumi, meaning not to be annihilated out of existence but to be 'totaled' and ruined so as to be useless for its intended purpose.

The image of 'gehenna' and 'maggots' means decomposition. Once a body is dead it loses its beauty and strength and coherence, it begins to break into its constituent parts, to stink and to disintegrate. So what is a 'totaled' human soul? It does not cease to exist, but rather becomes completely incapable of all the things a human soul is for--reasoning, feeling, choosing, giving or receiving love or joy. Why? Because the human soul was built for worshipping and enjoying the true God, and all truly human life flows from that. In this world, all of humanity, even those who have turned away from God, still are supported by 'kindly providences' or 'common grace' (Acts 14:16-17; Psalm 104:10-30; James 1:17) keeping us still capable of wisdom, love, joy, and goodness. But when we lose God's supportive presence all together, the result is hell.

3. It is important because it unveils the seriousness and danger of living life for yourself. In Romans 1-2 Paul explains that God, in his wrath against those who reject him, 'gives them up' to the sinful passions of their hearts. Commentators (cf. Douglas Moo) point out that this cannot mean God impels people to sin, since in Ephesians 4:19 it is said that sinners give themselves up to their sinful desires. It means that the worst (and fairest) punishment God can give a person is to allow them their sinful hearts' deepest desire.

What is that? The desire of the sinful human heart is for independence. We want to choose and go our own way (Isaiah 53:6.) This is no idle 'wandering from the path.' As Jeremiah puts it, 'No one repents . . . each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle. (8:6)' (We want to get away from God-but, as we have seen, this is the very thing that is most destructive to us. Cain is warned not to sin because sin is slavery. (Genesis 4:7; John 8:34.) It destroys your ability to choose, love, enjoy. Sin also brings blindness-the more you reject the truth about God the more incapable you are of perceiving any truth about yourself or the world (Isaiah 29:9-10; Romans 1:21.)

What is hell, then? It is God actively giving us up to what we have freely chosen-to go our own way, be our own "the master of our fate, the captain of our soul," to get away from him and his control. It is God banishing us to regions we have desperately tried to get into all our lives. J.I.Packer writes: "Scripture sees hell as self-chosen . . . [H]ell appears as God's gesture of respect for human choice. All receive what they actually chose, either to be with God forever, worshipping him, or without God forever, worshipping themselves." (J.I.Packer, Concise Theology p.262-263.) If the thing you most want is to worship God in the beauty of his holiness, then that is what you will get (Ps 96:9-13.) If the thing you most want is to be your own master, then the holiness of God will become an agony, and the presence of God a terror you will flee forever (Rev 6:16; cf. Is 6:1-6.)

Why is this so extremely important to stress in our preaching and teaching today? The idea of hell is implausible to people because they see it as unfair that infinite punishment would be meted out for comparably minor, finite false steps (like not embracing Christianity.) Also, almost no one knows anyone (including themselves) that seem to be bad enough to merit hell. But the Biblical teaching on hell answers both of these objections. First, it tells us that people only get in the afterlife what they have most wanted-either to have God as Savior and Master or to be their own Saviors and Masters. Secondly, it tells us that hell is a natural consequence. Even in this world it is clear that self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness makes you miserable and blind. The more self-centered, self-absorbed, self-pitying, and self-justifying people are, the more breakdowns occur, relationally, psychologically, and even physically. They also go deeper into denial about the source of their problems.

On the other hand, a soul that has decided to center its life on God and his glory moves toward increasing joy and wholeness. We can see both of these 'trajectories' even in this life. But if, as the Bible teaches, our souls will go on forever, then just imagine where these two kinds of souls will be in a billion years. Hell is simply one's freely chosen path going on forever. We wanted to get away from God, and God, in his infinite justice, sends us where we wanted to go.

In the parable of Luke 16:19ff, Jesus tells us of a rich man who goes to hell and who is now in torment and horrible thirst because of the fire (v.24) But there are interesting insights into what is going on in his soul. He urges Abraham to send a messenger to go and warn his still-living brothers about the reality of hell. Commentators have pointed out that this is not a gesture of compassion, but rather an effort at blame-shifting. He is saying that he did not have a chance, he did not have adequate information to avoid hell. That is clearly his point, because Abraham says forcefully that people in this life have been well-informed through the Scriptures. It is intriguing to find exactly what we would expect-even knowing he is in hell and knowing God has sent him there, he is deeply in denial, angry at God, unable to admit that it was a just decision, wishing he could be less miserable (v.24) but in no way willing to repent or seek the presence of God.

I believe one of the reasons the Bible tells us about hell is so it can act like 'smelling salts' about the true danger and seriousness of even minor sins. However, I've found that only stressing the symbols of hell (fire and darkness) in preaching rather than going into what the symbols refer to (eternal, spiritual decomposition) actually prevents modern people from finding hell a deterrent. Some years ago I remember a man who said that talk about the fires of hell simply didn't scare him, it seemed too far-fetched, even silly. So I read him lines from C.S. Lewis:

Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others . . . but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

To my surprise he got very quiet and said, "Now that scares me to death." He almost immediately began to see that hell was a) perfectly fair and just, and b) something that he realized he might be headed for if he didn't change. If we really want skeptics and non-believers to be properly frightened by hell, we cannot simply repeat over and over that 'hell is a place of fire.' We must go deeper into the realities that the Biblical images represent. When we do so, we will find that even secular people can be affected.

We run from the presence of God and therefore God actively gives us up to our desire (Romans 1:24, 26.) Hell is therefore a prison in which the doors are first locked from the inside by us and therefore are locked from the outside by God (Luke 16:26.) Every indication is that those doors continue to stay forever barred from the inside. Though every knee and tongue in hell knows that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11,) no one can seek or want that Lordship without the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3.This is why we can say that no one goes to hell who does not choose both to go and to stay there. What could be more fair than that?

4. The doctrine of hell is important because it is the only way to know how much Jesus loved us and how much he did for us. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says that no physical destruction can be compared with the spiritual destruction of hell, of losing the presence of God. But this is exactly what happened to Jesus on the cross-he was forsaken by the Father (Matthew 27:46.) In Luke 16:24 the rich man in hell is desperately thirsty (v.24) and on the cross Jesus said "I thirst" (John 19:28.) The water of life, the presence of God, was taken from him. The point is this. Unless we come to grips with this "terrible" doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him he was experiencing hell itself. But consider--if our debt for sin is so great that it is never paid off there, but our hell stretches on for eternity, then what are we to conclude from the fact that Jesus said the payment was "finished" (John 19:30) after only three hours? We learn that what he felt on the cross was far worse and deeper than all of our deserved hells put together.

And this makes emotional sense when we consider the relationship he lost. If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you--that hurts. If a good friend does the same--that hurts far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you saying, "I never want to see you again," that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more tortuous is any separation. But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginningless and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. He experienced the full wrath of the Father. And he did it voluntarily, for us.

Fairly often I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all." Why, I ask? "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin." But this shows a deep misunderstanding of both God and the cross. On the cross, God HIMSELF, incarnated as Jesus, took the punishment. He didn't visit it on a third party, however willing.

So the question becomes: what did it cost your kind of god to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this god agonize, cry out, and where were his nails and thorns? The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary." But then ironically, in our effort to make God more loving, we have made him less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a god like this will be at most impersonal, cognitive, and ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We could not sing to him "love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." Only through the cross could our separation from God be removed, and we will spend all eternity loving and praising God for what he has done (Rev 5:9-14.)

And if Jesus did not experience hell itself for us, then we ourselves are devalued. In Isaiah, we are told, "The results of his suffering he shall see, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). This is a stupendous thought. Jesus suffered infinitely more than any human soul in eternal hell, yet he looks at us and says, "It was worth it." What could make us feel more loved and valued than that? The Savior presented in the gospel waded through hell itself rather than lose us, and no other savior ever depicted has loved us at such a cost.

Conclusion The doctrine of hell is crucial-without it we can't understand our complete dependence on God, the character and danger of even the smallest sins, and the true scope of the costly love of Jesus. Nevertheless, it is possible to stress the doctrine of hell in unwise ways. Many, for fear of doctrinal compromise, want to put all the emphasis on God's active judgment, and none on the self-chosen character of hell. Ironically, as we have seen, this unBiblical imbalance often makes it less of a deterrent to non-believers rather than more of one. And some can preach hell in such a way that people reform their lives only out of a self-interested fear of avoiding consequences, not out of love and loyalty to the one who embraced and experienced hell in our place. The distinction between those two motives is all-important. The first creates a moralist, the second a born-again believer.

We must come to grips with the fact that Jesus said more about hell than Daniel, Isaiah, Paul, John, Peter put together. Before we dismiss this, we have to realize we are saying to Jesus, the pre-eminent teacher of love and grace in history, "I am less barbaric than you, Jesus--I am more compassionate and wiser than you." Surely that should give us pause! Indeed, upon reflection, it is because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamations of grace and love are so astounding.

http://www.redeemer.com/news_and_events/articles/the_importance_of_hell.html

Σπάνιος χειρόγραφος κώδικας ανακαλύφθηκε στη Μονή του Σινά

Τυχαία ανακάλυψε απόσπασμα από ένα από τα σημαντικότερα έγγραφα στην ιστορία του ανθρώπινου πολιτισμού ο Νίκολας Σάρις, μελετητής από τη Βρετανία, καθώς περιεργαζόταν φωτογραφίες χειρογράφων στη βιβλιοθήκη της Μονής της Αγίας Αικατερίνης του Σινά, στην Αίγυπτο. Αυτό που εντόπισε ο Σάρις είναι ένα απόσπασμα του περίφημου Σιναϊτικού Κώδικα που χρονολογείται από το 350 μ.Χ. Ενας αρχαίος χειρόγραφος κώδικας που περιέχει τα βιβλία της Καινής Διαθήκης και ένα μέρος των βιβλίων της Παλαιάς Διαθήκης. Ανακαλύφθηκε από τον Κόνσταντιν φον Τίσεντορφ στη Μονή της Αγίας Αικατερίνης, στους πρόποδες του όρους Σινά, το 1859. Ο Κώδικας, που είχε γραφτεί με το χέρι πάνω σε δέρμα ζώου, είναι σήμερα «σκορπισμένος» σε τέσσερα ιδρύματα, μεταξύ των οποίων και η Βρετανική Βιβλιοθήκη. Εδώ και μερικούς μήνες ακαδημαϊκοί από τη Βρετανία, την Αμερική, την Αίγυπτο και τη Ρωσία συνεργάζονται για να μεταφέρουν ολόκληρο τον Κώδικα στο Διαδίκτυο, αλλά εν τω μεταξύ όλο και καινούργια αποσπάσματα έρχονται στο φως.

Ο Σάρις, 30 ετών, «έπεσε» πάνω στο απόσπασμα καθώς μελετούσε φωτογραφίες μιας σειράς βιβλιοδεσίας που είχαν συλλέξει δύο μοναχοί τον 18ο αιώνα. Φαίνεται πως μέσα στο πέρασμα των αιώνων οι ένοικοι του μοναστηριού χρησιμοποιούσαν το δερμάτινο χειρόγραφο για να δένουν τα βιβλία τους λόγω της ανθεκτικότητας του υλικού, αλλά και λόγω της αδυναμίας τους να βρίσκουν «φρέσκες» περγαμηνές σε ένα τόσο απομονωμένο μέρος του κόσμου. Αφού εντόπισε την περγαμηνή με το απόσπασμα, ο Σάρις επικοινώνησε με τον αρχιβιβλιοθηκάριο της Μονής για να ζητήσει και τη δική του επιβεβαίωση. «Δεν ξέρουμε αν θα βρούμε και άλλα αποσπάσματα του Κώδικα στη βιβλιοθήκη της Μονής, αλλά σίγουρα θα ψάξουμε» είπε ο Σάρις.

http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=4&artId=286439&dt=03/09/2009