Extreme Heat!
Sabbath School Class Date
November 3, 2007
Larry R Evans
Class notes can be found at: http://ssclassnotes.blogspot.com
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
1. All of God’s biddings are not enabled for completion. True or False [Gen.22]
2. Just because we are having trials doesn’t necessarily mean that God is using them to revive our relationship with Him. True or False [Hosea 2:1-2; 6:1]
3. When catastrophes are permitted by God it is because He has given control of the situation over to Satan and therefore He should not be blamed. True or False [Job2:1-6]
4. Our hurts and disappointments can provide opportunities to minister to others True or False [2 Cor 1:8-11; Heb 4:15)
5. Where there is pain God is not. True or False [Isa. 43:1-7; Heb. 11:35-40]
6. Weaknesses are strengths overextended. True or False [Rom 8:26; 2 Cor 11:30; 2 Cor 13:4]
INTRODUCTION
One of my favorite books of the Bible is Habakkuk. I like it because Habakkuk doesn’t gloss over the bad things he sees. It’s easy to feel his pain but the agony he suffers isn’t only his. It’s worse than that. He sees the hurt of others and the injustices all around him. He can hardly tolerate it. He is brutally honest with God, so much so you’d almost expect lightning to strike any moment but it doesn’t! Listen to his opening words, paraphrased in the Message.
Hab 1:2 GOD, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, "Help! Murder! Police!" before you come to the rescue?
Hab 1:3 Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place.
Hab 1:4 Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head.
Habakkuk clearly puts God on trial, at least at first, as he agonizes with the ever pressing problem: “Where is God when it hurts!” Ever asked that? The answer doesn’t seem like an answer—at least at first, but the turning point in this diatribe with God is found in Habakkuk 2:20.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him."
(NIV)
If the answer to the injustices and trials we face is that “the Lord is in his holy temple” then perhaps we don’t understand the implications of our own questions! We either do not fully understand what is behind our own trials or what it means with God being in His holy temple or both! Habakkuk has launched us into the theme of our study for the week: Just how “hot” will God let it get . . . and does He even care? Who is at the controls?
Reflective Study
1. All of God’s biddings are not enabled for completion. [Gen.22] True
We are familiar with the following: “As the will of man co-operates with the will of God, it becomes omnipotent. Whatever is to be done at His command may be accomplished in His strength. All His biddings are enablings.” {COL 333.1} This statement doesn’t say however, that God won’t change His mind.
It seems at first, that not everything God starts does He intend to finish. Take the story of Abraham and Isaac, for example. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham goes through the personal agony of personal preparation to sacrifice his only son. But then, just before he follows through with God’s command, God speaks and tells him not to! While Abraham rejoiced, the whole episode raises the question of God changing His mind . . . or did He! Was it His mind that changed? It becomes quite clear that God is not as “task oriented” as we sometimes are. Perhaps we could say, that the task God has in mind has priority over the things that sometimes occupy our attention and energies. Developing a character is a primary objective for Him and that road can be circuitous at times.
2. Just because we are having trials doesn’t necessarily mean that God is using them to revive our relationship with Him. [Hosea 2:1-2; 6:1] False
Not every hardship is “caused” by God but it’s safe to say that God is always working to renew us through His covenant love.
The story of Hosea and Gomer is a case in point. Much of the hardship experienced by Gomer was brought on by her own conduct but Hosea’s intervention was symbolic of God using whatever circumstances as a means to bring back His children!
3. When catastrophes are permitted by God it is because He has given control of the situation over to Satan and therefore He should not be blamed. [Job2:1-6] False
The story of Job hardly suggests that God turned him over to Satan to be tempted. While God permitted the hardships to come God did not surrender control. He set boundaries which Satan could not cross. There is a purpose behind God’s permitting Satan to inflict these hardships:
“The Lord in His providence had brought this trial upon Abraham to teach him lessons of submission, patience, and faith--lessons that were to be placed on record for the benefit of all who should afterward be called to endure affliction. God leads His children by a way that they know not, but He does not forget or cast off those who put their trust in Him. He permitted affliction to come upon Job, but He did not forsake him. He allowed the beloved John to be exiled to lonely Patmos, but the Son of God met him there, and his vision was filled with scenes of immortal glory. God permits trials to assail His people, that by their constancy and obedience they themselves may be spiritually enriched, and that their example may be a source of strength to others. "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil." Jeremiah 29:11. The very trials that task our faith most severely and make it seem that God has forsaken us, are to lead us closer to Christ, that we may lay all our burdens at His feet and experience the peace which He will give us in exchange.” {Patriarch and Prophets,p. 129}
4. Our hurts and disappointments can provide opportunities to minister to others. [2 Cor 1:8-11; Heb 4:15) True or False
God permits trials to assail His people, that by their constancy and obedience they themselves may be spiritually enriched, and that their example may be a source of strength to others. (Ibid.)
2Co 1:8 We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it.
2Co 1:9 We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally--not a bad idea since he's the God who raises the dead!
2Co 1:10 And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he'll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing.
2Co 1:11 You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation--I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.
5. Where there is pain God is not. [Isa. 43:1-7; Heb. 11:35-40] False
Don’t believe it! Pain is like a magnet for God. As we see in the life and ministry of Jesus He was drawn to hurting people!
Isa 43:1-2
But now, this is what the LORD says--
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
(NIV)
But there is also another passage where such physical protection was not seen.
Heb 11:35-38
35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. (NIV)
Gavin Anthony, in his book the Refiner’s Fire, suggests five ways to avoid redefining God in the crucible. They are:
1. When the crucible was very hot, Job didn’t stop worshipping.
2. When the crucible was very hot, Joseph kept looking up.
3. When the crucible was very hot, Abraham didn’t stop obeying.
4. When the crucible was very hot, Paul didn’t forget that God was still sovereign.
5. When the crucible was very hot, the people—failed to repent. (pp.55,56)
6. Weaknesses are strengths overextended. [Rom 8:26; 2 Cor 11:30; 2 Cor 13:4] True and False
It can be true. Years ago during a consultant training program I learned an important principle: weaknesses are strengths overextended and if you wish to help correct a problem work with the strengths rather than attack weaknesses. We learned that if we would look carefully, often times we would discover that what we thought was a weakness was more likely a strength which was being exaggerated.
Rom 8:27 He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.
Rom 8:28 That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
Rom 8:29 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.
Rom 8:30 After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
Rom 8:31 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?
“No one gets an exemption from hardship on planet Earth. How we receive it hinges on whether we believe in an alternate reality that transcends the one we know so well. The Bible never minimizes hardship or unfairness—witness books like Job, Psalms, and Lamentations. It simply asks us to withhold final judgment until all the evidence is in.
‘Do not be afraid’ is the most frequent command in the Bible, which seems wholly appropriate in an era when terrorists could strike at any moment and a mailed envelope may carry a biological agent. . . .
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