Friday: Further Thought ~ Waiting in the Crucible
Further Thought:
Read Ellen G. White, “The Anointing of David,” Pages 637-642, in Patriarchs and Prophets.
God’s plan for us may require that we do a lot of waiting, and this really can feel like a crucible.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
Learning patience during this time can happen as we focus on the person of God and trust that He is acting for us. There are many reasons for waiting, but all are concerned with the fulfillment of God’s plans for us and His kingdom. We can lose much if we rush ahead of God, but we can gain much by maintaining an attitude of trust and delight in Him.
The Lord weighs and measures every trial.
“I cannot read the purpose of God in my affliction, but He knows what is best, and I will commit my soul, body, and spirit to Him as unto my faithful Creator. ’For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day’ (2 Timothy 1:12). If we educated and trained our souls to have more faith, more love, greater patience, and a more perfect trust in our heavenly Father, I know we would have more peace and happiness day by day as we pass through the conflicts of this life.
The Lord is not pleased to have us fret and worry ourselves out of the arms of Jesus. More is needed of the quiet waiting and watching combined. We think unless we have feeling that we are not in the right track, and we keep looking within for some sign befitting the occasion; but the reckoning is not of feeling but of faith.” — Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 2, p. 242.
Discussion Questions:
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The title "Waiting in the Crucible" essentially implies the elephant in the room for Seventh-day Adventists. Our very name embodies the notion that we are waiting for the second advent, and a fair bit of our interpretation of the Gospel is focused on the second coming. But, Jesus has not come. As an older 4th generation Seventh-day Adventist, I and my family have been waiting a long time. We have lived through events that we were sure heralded Jesus' return. We have been through on the Sabbath School lessons on time-based prophecy where it is reiterated that we are living in end times. We are in the crucible of waiting.
Yet, Jesus has not come! And some of the excuses we propose are growing a little thin. How can a church, whose theology developed in the late 1800s, around the expectation that Jesus would come within one generation, remain relevant in the twenty-first century?
I don't have all the answers either. I am in the same boat as every other Seventh-day Adventist. We have been preaching a long time. I do think about the issue a lot though and I want to present just one idea:
Perhaps we have been focused to much of the physical manifestations of the end-time. I have lost track of the number of times I have heard a second-coming sermon based on recent events. A big earthquake, a tsunami. a major war, the death of a pope, the rise of Islam, the passing of a contentious law, the development of a new identification system, a major pandemic, laws to limit its spread, and so on. All have been grist for the eschatological mill. (As I write this morning, I am sure that the death of Queen Elisabeth will come in somewhere too!) I wonder if this focus on events and catastrophes has taken the focus away from where it should be.
As I read the passages in the Gospel about the Second Coming, the big picture idea I come away with is that professed Christians are simply not prepared for it. That does not mean that they do not know the signs; it's their heart preparation that is at fault. The second coming is sudden and their hearts are not in the right place.
We want Jesus to come soon. I submit that for most of us, we want Jesus to come so that we can thumb our noses at the wicked and say, "I told you so!" We want to be vindicated because against all the opposition we have believed what is right.
Jonah had his own crucible experience in the hot sun outside Ninevah. He had preached an eschatological message to Ninevah for about a month and then he sat down outside the city and waited to be vindicated. But, God had a lesson for Jonah, and that lesson had to be learned in the boiling sun under a withering gourd vine.
Is the purpose of the crucible of waiting for the second coming burning off the dross of eschatological vindication?
What are we waiting for?
Jesus asked:
Read the parable that Jesus told after that quote for one answer to our crucible exprience.
I appreciate what you’re saying Maurice. I believe we, as a church, have had our focus on looking for “the signs”. I remember as a child, there was quite the buzz about a young boy/teenager, that was claiming to be “the Christ”. My parents were sure it was just a matter if time before Jesus came. I’m almost 65 now, so what happened? Romans 12:2 comes to mind as to what our focus should be.
2 Corinthians 3:18 is another one. There are many that tell us what our focus should be, and none of them include looking for the signs that Jesus told us about.
There are a lot of places that have experienced a lot of flooding of recent. Perhaps you have seen video footage of some of the rescues that have taken place in areas where water is flowing swiftly. If so, you will notice that rescue teams typically use an anchor line that they attach themselves to so they too don't get washed downstream.
Feelings and emotions can certainly be very powerful. And just like swift water, they can carry us away in an unpleasant journey to unpleasant places. Psalm 42 appears to be describing precisely such an experience. But note what the Psalmist does when they come to a point of awareness amid their distress. They reach out for an anchor line: "O my God, my soul despairs within me.
Therefore I remember You... (Psalm 42:6)". The Psalmist makes a choice to focus on remembering God in a way that restores a sense of hope. And this hope is reality-based, not just wishful thinking. And being a psalmist, it is quite possible that what the psalmist remembered was via a song.
There are various ways we can 'remember God'. We can remember (intentionally focus on) the nature and character of God - either in a general sense and/or in more specific detail/s. We can also remember past times when in-the-moment we were stuck and helpless, but then God revealed a way through and beyond. This aligns with Ellen White's famous statement that we have nothing to fear for the future except we forget the way God has led in our past.
One aspect of God's nature and character that I draw upon at times is Romans 8:31-32.
Is there something that you intentionally draw upon to help you anchor beyond your feelings and strengthen faith?
Phil - When reading the Scripture passage you provided, Rom.8:31-32, a thought came to mind which impressed on me the depth of this question. It is not ‘just’ the physical presence of the Son of God among us which we draw strength from, but the essence of the message embodied in Him which is available to us by his presence, then in the physical form, now in the spiritual form through the Holy Spirit, providing the life-giving bread for our spiritual life.
All things contained in the ‘Son of God’ are beneficial and meant for man's benefit. ‘All things’ are way beyond the beneficial, physical aspects we experience by living a spirit filled life; they are the spiritual aspects of life everlasting, which without Him having lived among us, would not be available to us.
Prayer is the best I can do to help me coping with time! My time is certainly not God's. I've already waited for things over a decade. And I'm still 'preparing' myself for some (silly) dream in life, but I'm fine if it does not really happens, because what I've learnt over the years is that God's reality for me is such a greater surprise! Let Him guide me is wiser, I'm very limited! Thank God because He knows my heart better than myself.
Learning patience during this time can happen as we focus on the person, nature and character of God and trust that He is acting for us.
In my devotional time currently I am delving into the book of John and I have so far discovered that if I study the character, the thoughts and ways of Jesus Christ then it will show me the character, the thoughts and ways of God the Father.
Jesus' words are clear and straight forward and easy to understand.
John 5:19-24NLT
So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. 21 For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants. 22 In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, 23 so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him.
24“I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
John 14:9-11NLT
9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. 11 Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.
Concerning Elijah, I don’t think a man who ran ahead of King Ahab and who, impelled by fear, ran or walked more than 60 miles from Mt Carmel to Beersheba and further into the wilderness was physically, mentally, or emotionally exhausted. I think we can compare Peter’s venture out to walk to Christ on the Sea of Galilee with Elijah’s encounter with Jezebel.
Peter entrusted himself fully to Christ and His call and ventured out into the stormy sea. He was, like Christ, actually walking on the water approaching Christ. He began to sink when he became frightened upon “looking at the wind”(Matt 14:30). I think he disregarded trust in Christ in that moment and began to congratulate himself. However it was not his power or ability that had him walking on water. Human fear of a stormy sea naturally overtook him and he began to sink
Elijah fearlessly appeared in the presence of Ahab upon God’s command. This was the king who sought all over the land to find Elijah and kill him. Elijah customarily ascribed the honor and glory to God in all God’s manifestations to him - when he raised the widow’s son to life, when God kept him fed throughout the famine, when the widow’s oil and flour never waned, and upon God’s crushing defeat of Baal and his prophets on Carmel.
But when Jezebel credits him with vanquishing her prophets, directing attention to himself, apparently he owned it. (The serpent directed Eve to attend to self exaltation and she grabbed it). Like Peter when we turn our focus to ourselves, God, in mercy, shows us our natural condition and reveals our absolute need of Him. Nebuchadnezzar was another example. Elijah began the “I and Me” refrain. He considered himself a failure like his fathers. He thought he was the only faithful in Israel.
God loved His prophet and relieved him of his earthly office and took him to heaven.