What are the people of God supposed to learn in moments like this?

Last week I introduced the ideas of exile and plague as a means of understanding how to live faithfully in the present.  As I said then, I am not a prophet and am not claiming that God is judging us! 
 
Instead, given that we are experiencing elements of exile and plague, I simply want to be faithful to the word of God by asking, “What are the people of God supposed to learn in moments like this?”  It is easy to let how we think about the current situation be dictated by the media, our personal political philosophy and our understanding of medicine.  While we can learn from these sources, our ultimate guide is the word of God.  It must dictate our thinking.  What does it tell us about times of exile?  What does it tell us about times of plague?
 
As I said last week, I am addressing the church, rather than secular culture, because the pursuit of God and the willingness to let Scripture interpret history must begin in the family of God.  As the adage goes, we cannot give what we do not have.  If we are unwilling to hear what the Bible says about this season, we cannot expect those outside the church to listen. 
 
The summary of biblical theology on both plague and exile is that God uses them to call people to repentance.  His mission is the reconciliation and re-creation of the all things in his Son, Jesus Christ.  Whenever plague and exile occur, it is because mankind, as a whole, needs to be called back from its headlong pursuit of the wrong things and reconciled to God. 
 
This raises the question: From what wrong pursuits are we supposed to turn back?  By what are we tempted?  Before answering this question, I must begin by stating that each of us has our own, particular place where we are pursuing and trusting the wrong thing.  I encourage you all to ask God to reveal to you where you personally need to repent and trust God anew.
 
But we also have tendencies as a culture, and the Bible brings up certain issues frequently because mankind is always tempted by certain types of faithlessness.  As a culture, we are overly dependent on our money, and assume that money will solve the problems of life.  We are also, as a culture, fixated on the idea that the highest common good is personal freedom.  Thoughtful Christian philosophers and theologians have noted that the right to live our lives exactly as we please is the chief virtue of modern America, and that personal pleasure is the primary use of freedom.  The Bible’s explicit claim that freedom is only given so that we might become servants of righteousness and slaves of God falls on deaf ears in America.  Our cultural understanding of freedom for the sake of personal fulfillment and pleasure has infected the church.  As a whole, the church in America has abandoned the notion that the Sabbath is still supposed to be kept (more on this next week!).  We are also often deaf to the preaching of the prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself concerning the vulnerable.  Throughout the Bible, God says frequently that he longs for his people to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, protect the orphans and widows, visit those in prison, bring the homeless into our homes, and receive the sojourner (i.e., immigrant).  We are tempted to let our political systems tell us what to think about these people, rather than letting the Bible transform our political thinking.
 
Perhaps most of all, though, we face the temptation that all men and women who have ever lived have faced.  We face the temptation to depend on something (on anything!) other than God.  We face the temptation to be our own gods or let something we long for be god for us.  Faith, the absolute dependence on God alone, is difficult, and we are face-to-face every day with the temptation to trust something else.
 
I hope and pray that we would let the word of God examine us in this season, and that we would repent of the places where we have trusted in the wrong god.  I hope and pray that the church learns from this experience to worship and serve God alone.  It is only in him that we will find rest for our souls, and he alone is worthy of our adoration.
 
In Christ,
Steven+

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