His Eye Is On The Sparrow and I Know He Watches Me

“The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers.  But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.” -1 Peter 3:12 NLT

Confronted with passage like this, we often think of the Lord watching over us in the sense of protecting us, and keeping us from harm.  But what do we say when we do come to harm?  Has the Lord looked away?  Has His attention been diverted elsewhere, so that His protection slipped and we fell into misfortune?  Certainly not!  Consider the second part: “his ears are open to their prayers.”  Certainly God hears the prayers of the righteous, and because He hears we know that He will also answer.  But the answer is not always what we expect.  Sometimes we receive the thing we asked for, and sometimes, as James points out, “when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.” (James 4:3 NLT)  Our requests must always line up with the will of God, and when they do not, we must accept His answer in humility.  In the same fashion we must also consider that sometimes the will of God allows us to experience suffering so that He may bring about some greater good than preventing it would have allowed.

I recall, when I was a child, riding my bike along the sidewalks in front of my house, that I slipped and fell in such a manner that I skinned much of the side of my leg.  The cuts were shallow but took much of the top layer of skin off, resulting in a broad wound that seeped and stung like an open blister.  I remember my mother cleaning it and taping gauze to the side of my leg to cover the wound.  Now, bikes are wonderful exercise and they are lots of fun to ride, but they are also by their nature dangerous things.  I could have been prevented from these (and all other manner of smaller injuries) had my parents forbade that I ride one at all.  Indeed any parent knows when they give a child a bike, or a pair of skates or some other such device, that it will result in many falls and scrapes and cuts as the child learns to ride, so why permit it at all?  Why not spare the child the pain that will come their way?  There are many reasons.  One is that the joy of riding is generally considered to be greater than the small injuries that may come as a result.  Another is that those same injuries are part of how we learn; doubtless as a child I would not have scrapped the side of my leg so badly had I not been attempting to ride as fast as I could across a bumpy sidewalk, and so it was a hard lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.

Looking back on the experience now, I see the injury but I don’t feel any animosity toward my parents for letting me have that bike.  Indeed, I continued to ride a bike for years afterward.  What I do remember, with a warm feeling in my heart, is my mother dressing the wound and making me feel better.  How many of our good memories of those we love come because they were expressing their love for us in the midst of suffering?  A friend whom you can enjoy an afternoon with is alright, but a friend who will visit in the hospital or hold you while you cry is a friend indeed.

Sometimes there are joys in life that open us up to the possibility of pain and suffering, such as loving someone who will pass away in time.  Sometimes God allows us to go through painful experiences because he wants us to learn a lesson that we may not otherwise receive through more pleasant means, and sometimes He allows us to experience suffering so that others will learn a lesson through our example.  Whatever His reasons, His heart is filled with love for us.  He has never once turned His attention away from you, but is watching over you at every moment.  Sometimes He is watching to protect us from harm, and sometimes He is watching to pick us up when we fall, to clean our wounds, bandage us up, and hold us tightly in His arms until the pain stops.  But whatever His purposes in our lives, we should always take comfort knowing that He watches, He listens, and He cares more deeply than you or I can ever fathom.

Fear and the End of Days

There are a lot of differing views of the end times, what will happen, when and how, and how to interpret the book of Revelation.  People get awfully worked up about this sort of thing, and a thread that seems to run through Evangelical circles is a kind of fear of what we refer to as the “great tribulation”, a period not only of intense persecution of believers, but also of the outpouring of God’s wrath on the earth.

I’m not writing this to provide a breakdown or study of Revelation, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind with the book that seem to get lost in many churches today.  First off, there is a tendency among evangelicals to “over-spiritualize” the book.  What I mean by that is that many people read and teach Revelation as though the entire book is one grand spiritual, prophetic allegory, which it is not.  The book opens with Christ asking John to write letters to seven churches.  It is sometimes lost on us that these churches actually existed, and that if you look at each of the cities these letters were addressed to, the manner in which Christ addresses and the imagery he uses connects with important and prominent aspects of the cities in which they lived, as well as the historical struggles being faced by them.  It is true that we can draw spiritual principles from these letters, but they do not exist as pure spiritual metaphor, but were practical letters to real people living at the time of John.

But I think the most important issue to address is the one of fear on the part of believers.  Certainly Revelation details some significant persecution and many incredible judgments that God pours out on the earth.  If these things are to be taken as an indication of what is to come, how do believers deal with it?  For many the answer is to defend the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture of the church.  Now, many can make very good scriptural arguments for this, and for those who do so, bravo.  But in many cases it seems that the idea is often clung to out of a fear lest the end times should occur in their day, and a desire to escape the tribulation described in Revelation.

To those people I am compelled to point out two things: first, the persecutions described by John are nothing new.  Remember that Jesus told us that “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).  From the time of the early church until now, God’s people have suffered violence at the hand of unbelievers.  The Apostles knew full-well the sting of persecution, being hunted, beaten, imprisoned and put to death.  Today in many corners of the world the persecution against our brothers and sisters in Christ is severe, and identifying oneself as a believer can be a death sentence.  Consider Iran and North Korea.  Will the “great tribulation” make matters worse for believers in these countries?  There is only so much that man can do, and recognizing this the psalmist writes “The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear.  What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6).

Let us consider then the judgments of God poured out on the Earth in Revelation.  When God pours out His wrath, who will be able to stand?  God’s children, that is who.  Brothers and sisters, if you are fearful because the wrath of God will be poured out on the world, take heart, because that wrath is not for you.  Paul says in Romans 8:1 that “now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”  Whatever believers may be on the earth at the time God pours out His judgment, it will not be for them.  Indeed, Jesus Himself spoke to His disciples about the day when God would pour out His wrath, and to them He said “So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!” (Luke 21:28)  Jesus knew these things were frightening, and the persecutions from man hard to endure, but He encouraged His disciples telling them that not only will they be blessed when persecuted, but that when they see the signs of the end of days, they should look up in hope, because Jesus is returning to take them.  What is judgment for the world is a sign of the impending, eternal and permanent salvation of the believer.

To that end I encourage you all to bear in mind that, whether in the normal course of life or because the end is drawing nigh, persecutions will come in this life, but no persecutions will come that have not been born by your brothers and sisters from the beginning of the church until now, and God will bless us through them.   Jesus said in Luke 6:22, “What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.”  As for the judgments of God, it is a terrible and frightening thing to consider the wrath of God that will be poured out on the unbelieving world.  But as God’s child, you are not subject to God’s wrath.  As God pours out judgment on the world, He will bring out His salvation for His children.  The words that God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, when he prophesied God’s salvation and judgment against enemies that would march against Israel, ring as true for us today: “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

"I Never Knew You"

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’" -Matthew 7:21-23

Note that Jesus answers those who protest that they have done ministry, even signs and wonders, in His name, and who refer to Him as Lord, "I never knew you."  He does not say that they turned away, or fell from His grace; no, He states that they were never His at all.  This is significant.  At no point do the scriptures indicate that one who was saved by Christ's blood, forgiven, redeemed, made new, will ever cease to be redeemed.  Those who turn from God prove that God never indwelt them to begin with.  The Apostle John notes this clearly, saying of those who join with the church and then turn away from God that "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." (1 John 2:19)

These are the ones whom Jesus refers to in the Parable of the Sower (see Matthew 13), those who "spring up quickly", embracing the message of Christ outwardly, but fall away as soon as persecution or hardship arises.  Likewise they are the seed who spring up, but are choked and become unfruitful because of the cares of this world.  Those who fall away and die are not redeemed, though they seem for a time to rejoice in God.  Likewise those who are unfruitful, who embrace the world and its temptations, though they appear at the first to have accepted Christ, are not redeemed, because God cannot indwell a soul without that soul bearing fruit.  "You can identify them by their fruit" Jesus said in Matthew 7:16. What is the fruit of a true believer? "the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23)

This is not to say that the believer cannot sin; he can, and when he does, God will bring discipline, as a father disciplines his child (Hebrews 12:7).  But the believer never ceases to be God's child, and God will produce fruit in the child's life.  Jesus indicates that some will produce more fruit than others (see Matthew 13:8), but fruit they will produce.  A life that is unchanged by the Gospel is a life that has not embraced it, a life that has not been redeemed.  A true child of God may bear fruit slowly, but it is not possible that he will not bear any.

Thus it becomes clear that those who embrace God solely out of a desire to escape Hell, yet live how they please, are presumptuous, thinking that they are cleverly taking advantage of the grace of God.  Take heed, God is not mocked.  It is not possible that a child of God, be he ever so rebellious, can be indwelt by the Spirit of God and yet show no love for God, and there is no love in the heart of one who presumes upon God's grace, all the while caring nothing for God's commands.  Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15).  Those who care nothing for the commandments of God prove that they have no love for Him in their heart.  The true believer will be repentant of his sins, not arrogant and presumptuous.