July 3, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Be still before the Lord, all humankind, because He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling.” (Zechariah 2.13)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I don’t know about your experience with waking your dad up from a nap. Regardless of whether it was intentional or unintentional, you probably had some thoughts of trepidation before actually having to disturb your father’s nap. Now my dad had a story that was bound around some military, and I assumed a war time, experience associated with his reactions to being awakened. It took me some time to finally figure out that my dad didn’t actually serve during any war time. He served after the Korean Conflict and before the Vietnam War. Fortunately for him, he served during peace time. It was peaceful enough that his sea duty consisted of sailing up and down the west coast playing baseball against other military base teams. He was good at it but was always in conflict about whether it was his future. Maybe that is what the angst was that caused his naptime being interrupted so traumatic for him and dangerous for us. I don’t know. But, there was always this warning given, usually by my mother, to not wake up my dad from his nap. So, we never did. To this day, I still don’t know what would happen if we did. There was, however, the fear that something terrible, frightening and maybe even harmful would happen to us if we “roused” our father. Maybe you can use that story as a point of reference for what is said of God in Zechariah 2.13, “Be still before the Lord, all humankind, because He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling.”

Notice, it doesn’t say that anyone else “roused” God. It doesn’t say that His Son, intentionally or unintentionally, “roused” His Father. Maybe He had heard a warning from the Holy Spirit or one of the angels to not stir God from His nap. Does God take naps? I don’t think so. Even scripture says “God never sleeps nor slumbers.” (Psalm 121.4) So slumber must equate to “taking a nap.” But God does take a rest on the Sabbath day. (Genesis 2.2) The Sabbath day is blessed because on it God took a rest from all the work He had done. It actually never tells us what God does when God takes a rest from His labors of creation. We can say with some surety that God is motivated by the thought of “Give it a rest, won’t you.” Now I am not trying to be funny. It serves us well, however, to take seriously the concept of Sabbath rest as we reflect on verse 13. The situation that was being described to Zechariah was so severe that God “roused Himself” from His Sabbath rest to balance the scales of justice which had been meted out by Him on Israel. He used, or allowed, other nations to essentially have their way with Israel. I have the sneaking suspicion that the conquests of Israel and God’s people had so much more to do with their opinion about God than it really did about the people or the nation. Throughout history, we have seen this pattern of interaction between Israel and the nations of the world who rise against her. I would draw your attention to how it mirrors the conflict between Lucifer and God in Heaven. The hope of turning angels against God, their creation, was an insurrection by storming the citadel of faith. I doubt that Lucifer actually believed he could defeat God in a showdown of power. After all, any and all power Lucifer had, including any position he held, was directed attributed to him by God. Of course, that would include that attribute of freewill. So, the hope of Lucifer had to be based on numbers. The question of power is always about numbers: who has the most people, money, weapons and ideas. Power is always about opportunity: what you do with what you have. Lucifer seized the opportunity because he had a belief that the numbers were on his side. Quite possibly his ego led him to believe it. We know that when God was “roused,” the rebellion was quelled and Lucifer with one-third of the angels of Heaven were sent out of Heaven and cast down into other realms including earth. It should be a testimony to all other created beings that rebellion against God is a losing battle regardless of how powerful and opportunistic we think we are.

Now I want to offer this perspective in reading verse 13 based on two pieces of knowledge I have presented: Lucifer’s position in Heaven was that of a worship leader and God roused Himself in response to a wrong being done. The perspective I present to you has to do with the opportunity afforded to us all by the Sabbath. While God is beyond time, space and matter (in that it does not and cannot control Him), He is always within time, space and matter (the Kingdom of God is in the midst of us- Immanuel is the name of that opportunity.) The very understanding that God was “roused,” by Himself or any other, speaks to the very presence of Sabbath. Was all that was happening to Israel as the collective of God’s people on whom His name was placed occurring as in the framework of the “six days”? When God was “roused,” calling Himself to action, it was on the Sabbath day. God’s intention for the Sabbath day was to make it holy. His reaction to the overreaction of the foreign nations against Israel was to make Israel holy again. We already know that the word was given that these nations had “gone too far” in what they were doing to Israel and, as I suggest, more so against God. This “call to action” speaks against the very thought of all the people that God was “asleep” and uncaring about the welfare of Israel or the state of the world as it existed on earth. God cared as much about that situation on earth as He did when something similar had happened in Heaven. God cared then and God cares now.

Mighty ones of God, let us consider for a moment, that what is happening to God’s people (both Israel and the Church) is falling into a similar paradigm as scripture has laid out for us historically. The opportunity is given to us to maintain the holiness and righteousness which God affords us. It is a gift of opportunity and power freely given. It is a gift that is filled with consequences both positive and negative. Those consequences are contingent upon the choices we make on how to use those resources. When we take them too far, based upon our own understanding of them for ourselves, God will be roused. He will act on the behalf of authentic holiness and righteousness. He will restore the order and peace that was intended to be and exampled before us on earth as it is to be in Heaven by the very concept of Sabbath. It would behoove us, I believe, that we take more seriously the call Sabbath rest. That call should remind us, as I was warned about my father’s naptime, to not cause God to be roused. Trust me, mighty ones, we have seen nothing yet of the true likes of God’s rousing. We are given glimpses of it as warnings and lessons to be learned. Yet, there will be those who, like Lucifer/Satan, will not learn and who refuse to be taught. Woe to them and any who choose to follow after them. They will receive what it is they desire: no Sabbath, no God and no rest.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.