No room

Finding a place for God and His Word in our Nation and Church

When Jesus was born into this world, there was no room for him (Luke 2:7). So often in Scripture there was no room or place for God amongst His own people, as well as amongst the nations. Because, in Herod’s heart there was no room for another King in Judaea, Herod sought to kill and to displace Jesus (Matthew 2:13).

In John 8:37, Jesus told the descendants of Abraham, “You are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.” Jesus faced a series of challenges from the Pharisees. They appeared to want Him to validate His testimony (John 8:13), but really they wanted to kill Him, just as Herod had wanted to kill Him. In reality, these Pharisees were not the children of Abraham. Abraham was not their father. Their father was the devil (John 8:44) and their desires and deeds were of their father, the devil. The devil, Jesus explained, was a murderer from the beginning.

In John 5:39, Jesus speaking again said, “You pore (diligently study) over the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.” The Jews added to the Scriptures with their oral tradition, man-made rules to build a fence around the Mosaic Law, to protect themselves from breaking the Commandments; but in doing so, they neglected what the Scriptures were all about; “these are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me” (John 5:39-40). The danger of Christians doing this, and some do, is that we can lose sight of Jesus in the process. We profess Jesus, but we live according to rules we place around His word, just as the Jews did. If we live by the Law, we will be judged by the Law (John 5:45-47, Romans 2:12).

Created vs. Creator

Created beings, in John, are demanding that their Creator validate Himself before them. At the Great White Throne of judgement (Revelation 20:11-15) they will give account to the One they condemned. Listen to the Pharisees in John 8:13, after Jesus had declared Himself to be the Light of the world – “you are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.” In John 5:31 Jesus had said, “if I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.” In the following verses Jesus accuses His Jewish opponents of misunderstanding their Scriptures and alienating God. How tragic, when the Law was given to lead them to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Deuteronomy 17:6 teaches that in capital cases, two or three witnesses are required. Jesus points to the testimony of John the Baptist (v33), His works and God’s works (v36), the Father (37) and the Scriptures (vv39-47) as witnesses. Jesus is described as doing God’s work in the passage we are looking at here and in 5:20; 7:21; 9:3; 10:32,37; 14:10-12; 15:24. They all hint at the belief that Jesus is the prophet-like-Moses predicted by Deuteronomy 18:15, as expected by both Jews and Samaritans.

“Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one” (John 8:14-15). They judged by appearance, by human standards. They did not judge as God and Jesus would judge. When we are not governed by the Word of God, we cannot rightly govern ourselves. If we have no room for His Word, we judge by human standards and our decisions and choices are human standards and choices. It is why we go into error. It is why the Church has gone into error. It is why the nation is floundering and drifting in all directions and none and why the judges in the land make ungodly judgements (see John 9:39). There is no room for God, and there is no place for His Word.

The Church flounders

I have mentioned before that we have the LGBT+ situation in the Church because of our acceptance and instigation of divorce and remarriage. Judging purely by human standards, the Church made a wrong judgment and decision. In November 2002, after some twenty years of debate, The Church of England made the decision to bless the remarriage of divorced people. The church’s General Synod confirmed its final approval to church remarriages. At the time, the Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles issue was hotly debated. Would the decision allow them to marry since Parker Bowles’ husband was still alive and kicking (and he is still). She, and Prince Charles, had played significant parts in the breakup of their first marriages. In a victory for liberals, the general synod voted by 269 votes to 83 in favour of the move.

The Church and the nation have been dying a slow death since those days. Divorce and remarriage thrive, and it makes no difference whatever whether a previous marriage partner is alive or dead. In 2001, Prince Charles was asked whether he had plans to remarry. He answered, “Who knows what the good Lord has planned.”

Henry VIII had various issues, some of which he disposed of in his own way. His issues concerning divorce and remarriage and all the decisions involved, were made according to human standards and did not come from a right judgment influenced by God and by His Word. The flesh kills and the Spirit gives life. Henry VIII used death to live his life his way.

Writing this article in November 2019, my thoughts are that, because the Lord is good, there will be no great revival in Britain, or renewal in the Church. While we refuse to acknowledge our sin and repent before the Lord, death, not Britannia, will rule and reign over the land. A man and his wife were unbelievers. They thought that they had years ahead of them. However, the husband collapsed and died. His wife lived on for some time, until she suffered a heart attack and died instantly. She couldn’t cope with being inside a church, it caused her to faint. Her sons discovered a funeral plan that their mother had drawn up for herself. She didn’t want a ceremony of any kind. She simply wanted to be taken from the funeral parlour to the hole in the ground prepared for her. God did not feature in her life, or in her death. Britain and the West is heading towards a hole that it has dug for itself. Because there is no room for God, and no place for His Word at the heart of our nation, God is giving us over to the gods we worship, and to the sinful desires of our hearts (Romans 1:18ff). Persecution of God’s people will increase, lawlessness will abound and the wholesale murder of the innocent will eventually begin. There was weeping in Ramah in Jeremiah’s day. Rachel was weeping because it was from Ramah that the conquering Babylonians were deporting the captive Jews from Jerusalem. Because king Herod had no room in his life for God or His Word, in Matthew 2:18, “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

A door of hope

There were a number of times when Israel was estranged from her God. The prophet Hosea addressed one such occasion. The people of Israel “did not know” that it was “I” who gave her the new grain, and the wine, and the oil, and showered silver upon her and gold as well – gold that the Israelites used to fashion idols to Baal (Hosea 2:8). The word “I” ’anokhi, is for emphasis. Israel thought her lovers provided all she needed (v7), but it was actually God that bestowed national prosperity on Israel. It was God Who showered, multiplied, made abundant the riches of Israel, riches that Israel wasted on idol worship. There was no room for God and no place for His word, much like the Church. The frivolity among many church leaders about the things God loves is shocking. One national church youth leader loaded a photo onto his Facebook timeline for all to see, along with his comment “CRE was worth it for this strategically placed pole.” The poster has the word ‘ARISE’ distorted because of a pole in front of the letter ‘I’. What you read in the photo is, ‘ARSE ZION’. The missing “I” is like the “I” of Hosea, or the “I AM” (Exodus 3:14), because it is by God alone that Zion can arise; and it is Zion where God placed His name. The mentality behind the photo has no room for God. The Church is replete with doubt, spiritual estrangement, base desires and temptations, and serial failure.

In Hosea, God was going to deal with Israel, as He will His Church. Israel would suffer, but there was hope. The Chastiser is also the Deliverer.

“Therefore, I am about to beguile her and will lead her to the wilderness and speak to her very heart. And I will give her from there her vineyards and the Valley of Achor an opening to hope, and she shall sing out there as in the days of her youth, as on the day she came up from the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:14-15). The word beguile is often used to mean “entice” or “to seduce,” but it is used here in a positive sense, suggesting tenderness. Achor ’akhor suggests “trouble,” but in the bright future this very dark place will become the entranceway, the doorway to hope.

For those who enjoy some Hebrew thinking, one rabbi states; ‘Now old and broken, Hosea takes Gomer back home and says they are going to make their Valley of Achor a door of hope. Their wasted lives became a Valley of Achor, but now it can become a door of hope if you will let it, in God’s will’. (Hosea 2:15) Another rabbi explains the Valley of Achor, to be the valley of Jezreel, “because I (Jehovah) troubled her there, it will turn to a door of hope.” Yet another rabbi explains it as the depth of the exile, where they were troubled; so “I will give her a door of hope, the beginning of hope, that out of the midst of those troubles I will give her a heart to return to Me.”

Jesus is the door (John 10:9). We have a hope that is steadfast and certain (Hebrews 6:19), when we make room for God.