MARCH 13 2016
“I CANNOT DO A THING UNTIL YOU GET THERE” (Genesis 19: 22)
Curious title, isn’t it? Even more curious: that’s God speaking who declares himself, well, sort of powerless.
He is referring to the Lot family fleeing from those godless cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God cannot proceed with obliterating these towns until this small family is safely settled. God’s action depends on human cooperation! Perhaps we are more important than we usually portray ourselves.
How did Lot come to live there in that evil region? When he, as Abraham’s nephew, had followed his uncle to The Promised Land, obeying God’s command, these two extremely rich families, were competing for grazing grounds. Even then, in those then so pristine regions, with still a very sparse population, space to accommodate the large herds of these two plutocrats, became so tight that they decided to split up, rather than get into each other’s ways. Abraham, more the gentleman of the two, and wiser as well, left it up to Lot to choose where to go, knowing full well what Lot would do. Lot, the more greedy one set out for the fertile plains where the decadent cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were situated. Abraham wanted to stay away from there because being bad is contagious. Did the prosperity there cause them to become so degenerate? I believe so. In that regard they resemble our world today, a world almost entirely dominated by the root of all evil, the desire for money, usurping all that is precious on the globe: air, seas, soil. God then did not want that evil to spread, at least not yet. Now, I think, evil is out of control: that’s why we too will suffer that same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah. God then rescued that little family, saved them because of their connection to Abraham. When the coming global holocaust hits – and it is coming – God will again rescue his own, you can be sure of that, thanks to their connection to Jesus Christ. Let’s face it: God will not forever condone evil in his Holy Creation.
Back to the Lot clan, a greedy lot, these four persons, who with his wife and their 2 daughters are consorted out by God in person to a safe haven. They, are cautioned not to look back, are warned not to regret their forced exit. Lot’s wife does and this one look paralyzes her. Lot would like to stop and help her on, but, and here come God’s remarkable words: “I CANNOT DO A THING UNTIL YOU GET THERE” (Genesis 19: 22). Get where? Get to the little town that is their safe haven, their refuge, where they will not be affected by the fiery quake that will swallow all their riches, their barns full of cattle and their homes full of treasures: all gone in a twinkling of an eye.
We are still stuck with these remarkable words, telling us that God cannot proceed with destroying these wicked cities until Lot and his two daughters are safely within the confines of that tiny town called Zoar.
Suppose they had refused to go on. Suppose they had said, “No, our treasures are too precious, our herds and pricy possessions are worth more to us than safeguarding our lives”, then evil would have triumphed, then God would not have had the power to destroy these cities. Then SATAN would have scored a major victory: evil would have prevailed because the Bible says that “I CANNOT DO A THING UNTIL YOU GET THERE” (Genesis 19: 22). Strange words. Lot and his daughters are not independent of God here, but nevertheless these three people do have quite a bit of power.
Conclusion: we have more influence on GOD than we realize.
That becomes plain when we skip from Genesis, the first Bible book, to Revelation, the very last part.
A word about the Bible. The Bible is no more than beautiful ancient literature unless we connect it somehow to ourselves and to contemporary happenings: sermons that fail to tie the Bible into what goes on here and now with us and the world around us, are a waste of time. The fact that this is happening all too frequently is the main reason why the church is not going anywhere, suffers a slow death, actually. By now everybody in church already knows the basics: God created; we fell for Satan instead; Jesus made it right again; we are saved by grace.
It is exactly at that point where the church usually goes wrong. Most of the ministers preach that we are destined for heaven, explaining the Bible wrongly, having no notion of the renewed earth, while others often ignore the Bible altogether and present some sort of sociology lesson, which is equally useless. Karl Barth has said: the newspaper, TV, Internet news, whatever, combined with the Bible must guide us in life on our way to the Kingdom. Failure to do so has often caused the church to become a hindrance for understanding the Kingdom, yet the great paradox is that, even though the church may be an impediment for gaining a Kingdom vision, “there is no salvation outside the church”, or as Bonhoeffer puts it, echoing the Roman Catholic church with its love for Latin: Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Savus.
This makes me jump from the first Bible book, Genesis, to the very last one, Revelation 8: 1, where it says: “THEN THERE WAS SILENCE IN HEAVEN FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR.”
It seems to me that today we live in that 30 minute period of silence.
That silence is significant.
Here’s what is happening up there in heaven, before God’s throne. There seven angels are standing poised, each having a trumpet at the ready, eager to announce the greatest event of human history: the arrival of the New Creation.
BUT……………….
Nothing happens.
Everything is silent.
Progress suspended.
History takes a pause.
Development stops.
Everything comes to a standstill: no singing, no praising God, no angels reporting back about their activities as guardians for the believers. There is silence for 30 minutes. Why? Why has all celestial activity been stalled?
“I CANNOT DO A THING UNTIL YOU GET THERE” (Genesis 19: 22)
Something happened similar to what took place with Lot’s small family. Sodom and Gomorrah could not be destroyed until the Lot clan was safe.
Now the church is holding things up. The cruel truth is that the arrival of the Kingdom, the ascent of the New Creation cannot proceed as long as the prayers of the holy, the words arising from the pious men and women on earth have not been placed on the altar before God. Heaven is not able to reveal its full authority and majesty as long as the earth has not prayed for it.
Everything has its prescribed time and so also the last happening before the final end can only begin when the proper time for it has arrived. And one of the factors which determine that the time has come is that the church on earth must have sent up her prayers to God. Failure to do so stalls the arrival of the Kingdom.
What this really comes down to is that in the leading up to the great universal denouement, the final reckoning, the church on earth has a very particular and important task: her task is to pray, pray without ceasing. The space of 30 minutes of silence in heaven, that half an hour of suspense, is there to give the church time. The grand finale, the point in time for which the church lives and has its purpose can only take place when what the church has to do on earth and what takes place in heaven click, are on the same wave length. The return of the Lord in all his glory depends on his body below. If the church is not ready then there is silence in heaven.
And that time of silence in heaven is now. The church is not ready. Her prayer lacks power. Her conduct is not sufficiently intimate, not mature enough. The churches everywhere on earth are far too preoccupied with secular affairs and not enough with the earth itself. The church is too much involved with the ferments and foments here in the affairs of the world, too tied up with her own state of affairs and not sufficiently geared to the final ending, not enough yearning for the completion. Her clock is slower than the heavenly timepiece where everything is in place, where the seventh, the last seal, has been broken. And still nothing stirs in heaven where the silence is deafening. The waiting is for the earthly voices. The waiting is for the church which, amidst this world, has her place and calling.
There’s where the mighty element of delay is to be found. That interlude does not lie in the lack of power of Jesus Christ, because that power is sufficient to make the END come speedily. Neither is the coming of the Kingdom postponed because the world itself is not yet ripe for the judgement. If only the church would confess more ardently, pray more fervently, were to look forward to the coming of the King more eagerly, then it all would fall into place because then God is capable to make all other matters come to pass. The church’s primary task is to look forward to the coming of the Lord. Failure to do so is the real reason why these seven angels are waiting, with their trumpets at the ready. That’s the reason why there is a breathless silence in the heavenly palace. That’s the reason why in the infinite majesty of God’s heavenly temple there is that almost unbearable tension lasting for a specific short time. How long? Who knows. It will last as long as the church clings to its own ineffective ways while the world around her is frantically trying to keep matters from going out of control, with millions on the run toward Europe, and many more millions in America in revolt. With the climate changing and China collapsing, with droughts and floods, the church goes her often irrelevant ways. Now that the very last happenings are knocking at the door, she is not ready, no longer knows how to pray. The Bible tells us to wait on the Lord, but now the rolls are reversed: the Lord is waiting for the church.
THE LORD CANNOT DO A THING UNTIL THE CHURCH ACTS.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his CREATION AND FALL wrote in his introduction: THE CHURCH OF CHRIST WITNESSES TO THE END OF ALL THINGS, IT LIVES FROM THE END, IT THINKS FROM THE END, IT ACTS FROM THE END, IT PROCLAIMS ITS MESSAGE FROM THE END.
Does it? No. The church will not change, and I will not leave the church. I believe in One Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints. Fortunately I find that in the church I attend, a small church, as churches should be, an imperfect church as all churches are.
We underestimate ourselves vis-à-vis God. God could not act until Lot was secure. God will not return until the church sees it real task, praying for the Lord’s return.
The real task of the church is to prepare the people for the Kingdom to come. Jesus’s coming into the world always was centered on that goal: the pearl of great value: all we possess to acquire the Kingdom. All his parables had to do with “Seeking first the Kingdom”, Jesus’ prime message, but the church has different priorities.
A thought struck me while walking in my sugar bush, carrying two pails full of sap. Perhaps the trees whispered it to me. Could it possibly be that the 30 minutes of silence in heaven somewhat resembles our One Minute of Silence remembering a famous personality, in this case a silent tribute to the church that died. I don’t mean the one holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints. I do mean the instituted church with its pope and cardinals, its preachers and doctrines. After all the Old Testament church ceased to be when the curtain between the Holy and the Holy of Holies ripped from bottom to top when Christ died.
What is sure is that everything is changing, including the church, now succumbing to Gnosticism and the Pursuit of Prosperity, while the main-line churches have become a fading gathering of gray-heads.
Can the church’s mantra still become MARANATHA, Lord come quickly?