September 14, 1993
Many a child has heard the proverb, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” particularly after getting caught in a lie meant to deliver themselves from the consequences of some other wrong they did.
Like all proverbs, this one is generally true. The closest exception I know of was when our house contractor put an outlet and switches where a cupboard addition would cover them up (making their location illegal) and misjudged the size of a closet in the front hall.
They thought they would have to rip out a huge area of ceramic tile to correct the first wrong but when they opened up the wall on the opposite side to fix the closet, they exposed the electrical wiring for the kitchen problem. They easily fixed both at the same time, but since both errors were costly to the builder and a nuisance to us, we still have to conclude two wrongs are still two wrongs.
Wrong is also wrong when disaster strikes in other, more extreme, ways. The optimists around us may say, “It will work out okay,” and sometimes it does, but unexpected financial reverses, natural disasters, traffic accidents, sudden deaths, personal failures and moral downfalls can never be called right. Adding two of them together doesn’t help at all towards making them anything but wrong.
However, that does not mean good is left totally out of the equation. A favorite passage of Scripture, Romans 8:28, affirms that God can do something about the wrongs. It says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Since “all things” includes tragic losses, illnesses, or other dark times in our lives, well-meaning people sometimes use this verse to try to comfort us. If we feel they are saying the wrong is good, or good for us in some way, their words hurt, and so they should; that is not what God is saying in Romans 8:28.
Pain and suffering are not His idea. Wrong things came into the world with sin as part of the package. God hates sin and He does not take pleasure in affliction or death. He would never say, “this wrong thing is good for you.” He is not cruel or sadistic.
What Romans 8:28 does say is that God can use all things, good or bad, right or wrong, for our good. In other words, wrong is never right but by the grace of God, it does not have to have the final word.
The promise of verse 28 makes more sense when we compare the last phrase “according to His purpose” with the next verse which says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son....”
In plainer English, this says God knew ahead of time about all those who would become Christians, and with that knowledge it is His plan to change them to be like Jesus Christ. His power is so great that He is able to use anything that happens to us to do it.
We need to remember God draws a line between right and wrong and never changes one into the other. Nor is it His goal that all the dirty deals of life and the wrongs that slap us down cause us to be defeated or bitter. Instead, He longs for our good. What better goal could He have, or what higher good could happen to us than becoming more like Jesus?
Showing posts with label right and wrong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right and wrong. Show all posts
Monday, February 1, 2016
Friday, April 11, 2014
Issues of right and wrong ....................... Parables 104
We live in an age of issues. Canadians are wrestling over everything from zoning laws to abortion rights. These issues are dividing people, drawing them to opposite sides in political, moral, religious and social wars. As angry words are hurled across various battlefields, few are left in the middle without opinions. It is “get on a band wagon” or get slaughtered by the cross fire.
There is much talk about rights in these issues, but should the focus be limited to rights? In concern for personal life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have people cried “I want my rights” so often that they have lost the ability to want or even ask, “What IS right?”
Why have we stopped asking that question? Is it because we have lost the sense of any standard of right? Has modern philosophy, in all its sophistication, become so “me-first” oriented that we don’t even care what is right anymore? Are we only interested in what is comfortable?
It that is so, Jesus Christ encountered similar people. They wanted religious and political rights and the right to do whatever they pleased. But He told them that this life is but a breath of smoke, a short preparation for eternity. He told them that He was the eternal God and that He came, not to judge them, but to save them from wasting their short lives on sin, sin that at best offers only temporary pleasure. He said, “The words that I speak to you . . . are life” (John 6:63).
Jesus said that His Word brings life to those who heed it, separation from God to those who reject it. He warned that ignorance of His Word or neglect offers no permanent escape.
The people didn’t want to hear that. They were caught up in their secular philosophies, no different from today’s attitudes: “This life is all there is . . . I will give it my best shot . . . eat, drink, enjoy myself . . . when you’re dead, you’re dead . . . what is right for me is right for me and no one is going to interfere with my rights . . . least of all God.”
Jesus saw people like sheep without a shepherd, wandering away from the values that would guide them into decisions that bring eternal blessing. He was filled with compassion. He cried out to them. He performed miracles. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He walked on water. He raised the dead. He told them to follow Him and He would not only give them abundant life, He would give them eternal life.
Even a casual reading of the New Testament reveals that the life of Jesus is a perfect example, worthy of possessing. Furthermore, by His standard we can evaluate the quality of our life. But what happens if He is rejected? We are left with our sin-tainted human values, lacking in clarity, unity and objectivity; left with conflicting standards that are so very subject to the “I-wants” of whoever is setting them.
Most of the people Jesus challenged didn’t want eternal life or abundant life. They would have settled for an earthly king who would bring them comfort, but when He wouldn’t do that, they decided to kill Him; “We will not have this man rule over us.” They didn’t like the divine measurement of His sinless life.
Jesus warned them of the consequences: “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day . . . “ (John 12:48-50).
We may say, “What is right for me is right for me . . . I make up my own rules . . . “ but God is outside our systems of philosophy. Psalm 2 says that he laughs over the puny efforts of self-centered man grasping for his “rights” and one day His Word will prevail. In other words, Jesus said those who reject His Standard will some day stand before Him and be judged by the Word they rejected.
It’s never too late to dust it off and see what it says.
There is much talk about rights in these issues, but should the focus be limited to rights? In concern for personal life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have people cried “I want my rights” so often that they have lost the ability to want or even ask, “What IS right?”
Why have we stopped asking that question? Is it because we have lost the sense of any standard of right? Has modern philosophy, in all its sophistication, become so “me-first” oriented that we don’t even care what is right anymore? Are we only interested in what is comfortable?
It that is so, Jesus Christ encountered similar people. They wanted religious and political rights and the right to do whatever they pleased. But He told them that this life is but a breath of smoke, a short preparation for eternity. He told them that He was the eternal God and that He came, not to judge them, but to save them from wasting their short lives on sin, sin that at best offers only temporary pleasure. He said, “The words that I speak to you . . . are life” (John 6:63).
Jesus said that His Word brings life to those who heed it, separation from God to those who reject it. He warned that ignorance of His Word or neglect offers no permanent escape.
The people didn’t want to hear that. They were caught up in their secular philosophies, no different from today’s attitudes: “This life is all there is . . . I will give it my best shot . . . eat, drink, enjoy myself . . . when you’re dead, you’re dead . . . what is right for me is right for me and no one is going to interfere with my rights . . . least of all God.”
Jesus saw people like sheep without a shepherd, wandering away from the values that would guide them into decisions that bring eternal blessing. He was filled with compassion. He cried out to them. He performed miracles. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He walked on water. He raised the dead. He told them to follow Him and He would not only give them abundant life, He would give them eternal life.
Even a casual reading of the New Testament reveals that the life of Jesus is a perfect example, worthy of possessing. Furthermore, by His standard we can evaluate the quality of our life. But what happens if He is rejected? We are left with our sin-tainted human values, lacking in clarity, unity and objectivity; left with conflicting standards that are so very subject to the “I-wants” of whoever is setting them.
Most of the people Jesus challenged didn’t want eternal life or abundant life. They would have settled for an earthly king who would bring them comfort, but when He wouldn’t do that, they decided to kill Him; “We will not have this man rule over us.” They didn’t like the divine measurement of His sinless life.
Jesus warned them of the consequences: “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day . . . “ (John 12:48-50).
We may say, “What is right for me is right for me . . . I make up my own rules . . . “ but God is outside our systems of philosophy. Psalm 2 says that he laughs over the puny efforts of self-centered man grasping for his “rights” and one day His Word will prevail. In other words, Jesus said those who reject His Standard will some day stand before Him and be judged by the Word they rejected.
It’s never too late to dust it off and see what it says.
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