Saved By One

It’s a well known Old Testament story. In Genesis 19 two angels show up at the gate of Sodom where they find Lot sitting there doing…well…the Bible doesn’t tell us but he is there. He immediately stands up and invites these angels to spend the night at his house. Eventually the angels agree to do so but their evening is interrupted when the men of Sodom surround the house looking for trouble. In the end, the Angels escape, dragging Lot and his family behind them, and God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Before this all happened, these same angels visited Abraham (Genesis 18). This time the LORD was with them and Abraham saw three men approaching. During their visit with Abraham, God tells him what He has in store for Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham intercedes on behalf of the cities, with God eventually promising that if He finds ten righteous people in Sodom He will spare the city. Imagine, had there been ten people who feared God, God would have spared the city. But there were not ten and Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

The Gospel tells us that salvation is available to all because of ONE righteous man. The Bible tells us that as God surveys the earth, He finds zero righteous people. In fact, all of our good deeds and good living are but filthy rags before the Lord (Isaiah 64:6). All have sinned (Romans 3:23) and none of us can pay the price needed to avoid the punishment we deserve because of our sin. Like the men of Sodom we all should face destruction and there are not ten righteous for whom God would spare us. But there is one: Jesus Christ whose death on the cross paid for all of our sins.

The presence of ten righteous people would have protected Sodom. Today, there is one righteous man through whom salvation is available. In Christ Jesus we are saved by One.

Who’s In Your Inner Circle? Who Should be Out?

Over my five and a half decades of life I’ve had the misfortune of being in some toxic relationships. It started within my own family where one of my parents was an alcoholic, trapping me in a codependent relationship. Fortunately, in Christ I have been healed of the injuries that resulted from that relationship. But there have been others who wanted to pour toxins into my life. Some I could easily move far away from my inner circle. One in particular was a coworker who regularly tried to sell me on a very negative view of life. God eventually moved that person out to arms length where they could no longer make me a captive audience for their pontifications. As with this coworker, there are people who need to be held at a distance. Sometimes they sneak into our inner circle and we need to be honest and intentional about moving them back out.

In the Bible Samson allowed someone into his inner circle who never should have been there. He found Delilah to be attractive and seemed to enjoy her company. But at some point she became a negative influence as she worked on behalf of her people in order to try to betray Samson. In Judges 16:15-17 the Bible tells us that she pestered him to the point where “... his soul was vexed to death,...” (Judges 16:16 NKJV). Eventually he gave in to her pressure tactics, telling her the secret to his strength. As a result he lost his hair, his strength and the presence of the Lord in his life (Judges 17:20). In the end, because Samson kept Delilah in his inner circle he wound up paying a very steep price.

There are some relationships that we can’t get away from (like with an alcoholic parent). There are others where we can’t completely push the person out but we can keep them at arm's length, like coworkers or even church brethren. There are some relationships that we should get out of but the emotional attachments make it difficult. In all of these situations we need to call upon our God, asking for direction. We need to pray for the other person and for the grace to respond properly. It’s true that sometimes God puts us in a situation to influence people in the name of the Lord. But I believe there will be times when the Lord opens the door and tells us to move a person far, far away. When that happens, we need to pray for the courage to do so.

What Is Your Golden Calf?

 “...And I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.”

Exodus 32:24

It would have been amazing had it happened as Aaron described. He cast the gold into the fire, “..and this calf came out.” Did it climb out on its own or did it just float to the top. More importantly did Aaron truly believe his own lie or was he simply unable to make up anything better on the spot? In fact, he wasn’t the only one buying into explanations that defied what the people experienced and saw with their own eyes. And yet they were comfortable believing in a golden calf, choosing it over God even while seeing and hearing the storm that resulted from His presence on top of the mountain.

In fact they had witnessed a number of different events and things that should have told them to trust in the God of Jacob over some man made statue. Back in Egypt they had front row seats for the battle between the God of Israel and the gods of the Egyptians. With every plague God proved Himself superior to the beliefs of the Egyptians and over their idols. With one parting shot He then proved Himself superior to Pharoah, who was supposed to be the closest to the gods or perhaps even a god himself.

The people of Israel were led out of Egypt, following a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21) which represented the LORD going before them on their journey. They saw the Red Sea parted so that they could cross it on dry land (Exodus 14:15-22) and as the Egyptians tried to follow their army was drowned (Exodus 14:23-31). When they needed it, God provided water (Exodus 15:22-27; 17:1-7). He provided bread from heaven and meat for them to eat (Exodus 16). He gave them victory over the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16). Afterwards, He brought them safely to Mount Sinai where they saw the lightning and they heard thundering along with the sound of trumpets, and they trembled as they witnessed the smoke that covered the top of the mountain. Yet, even in the face of all this evidence of the presence of God with them, they chose to worship a golden calf just because they had to wait a few days for Moses to come down from off the mountain.

Not only do they worship and have a feast in the calf’s honor but they also gave this…thing…credit for the deliverance they had received from their LORD (Exodus 32:4). What a slap in the face. And yet while it’s easy for us, as we read the narrative, to become critical of the people of Israel, there is a question each of us has to ask in order to see what is in our own hearts. Do you and I remain loyal to our God or do we have a golden calf to which we turn in order to cope with the difficulties of life?

What is your golden calf? What are you turning to (or giving credit to) in place of God? Is it your money or your ability to find answers on your own? Is it your job? Is it your control over circumstances? Is it the government or a political party or certain politicians? True, you might not have an object that magically appeared but are there things or people whom you believe in more than you believe in God? When times are difficult or when the answers seem too far off, are you any different than Aaron and the people of Israel?