God Is a Type of Killjoy
We are Under Grace (Rom. 6:15)
Resosurce
Quote
Law Like a Brush Fire
Negative and Positive Commands
Topic : Law
No Fishing From the Balcony
The Flagship Hotel in Galveston, Texas, is built next to the water. Large plate-glass windows adorn the ground-level dining room. Occasionally, guests used to come up with the “brilliant” idea of fishing from their balconies, located directly above the dining room.
Using heavy sinkers, they would cast their hook and bait into the water. Unfortunately, the lines were sometimes too short and the leaded sinkers would swing down, shattering the $600 windows. After spending large sums without solving the problem, the hotel management finally stumbled on a simple solution. They removed the “No Fishing from Balcony” signs from the rooms!
God Is a Type of Killjoy
Q: Oswald Chambers said that the root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. Isn’t it true that somehow we’ve got a generation of kids—and perhaps their parents as well—who think that God is not good, that sin is attractive, and that God is a type of killjoy'
A: I think that’s true. And that’s why, in my relationship with my own children, I have hammered home the idea that within every negative precept—every “Thou shalt not”—there are always two positive principles. One, God gives them to protect us. And second, He gives them to provide. He’s not a cosmic killjoy who wants to take the fun out of life.
My new book has many illustrations of this. One is the story of a high school guy who wanted to go swimming with his girlfriend at midnight. The neighbors down the block had a pool, and he knew it. So they ran down there and scaled the fence even though there were No Trespassing and Do Not Enter signs. Just as he hit the diving board, the girl yelled, but it was too late. There was only a foot of water in the pool. He broke his neck, and he’s in therapy to this day. He didn’t realize that the signs on the fence—the precepts—would have protected him.
We are Under Grace (Rom. 6:15)
Some years ago, I had a little school for young Indian men and women, who came to my home in Oakland, California, from the various tribes in northern Arizona. One of these was a Navajo young man of unusually keen intelligence. One Sunday evening, he went with me to our young people’s meeting. They were talking about the epistle to the Galatians, and the special subject was law and grace. They were not very clear about it, and finally one turned to the Indian and said, “I wonder whether our Indian friend has anything to say about this.”
He rose to his feet and said,
“Well, my friends, I have been listening very carefully, because I am here to learn all I can in order to take it back to my people. I do not understand all that you are talking about, and I do not think you do yourselves. But concerning this law and grace business, let me see if I can make it clear. I think it is like this. When Mr. Ironside brought me from my home we took the longest railroad journey I ever took. We got out at Barstow, and there I saw the most beautiful railroad station and hotel I have ever seen. I walked all around and saw at one end a sign, ‘Do not spit here.’ I looked at that sign and then looked down at the ground and saw many had spitted there, and before I think what I am doing I have spitted myself. Isn’t that strange when the sign say, ‘Do not spit here’'
“I come to Oakland and go to the home of the lady who invited me to dinner today and I am in the nicest home I have been in. Such beautiful furniture and carpets, I hate to step on them. I sank into a comfortable chair, and the lady said, ‘Now, John, you sit there while I go out and see whether the maid has dinner ready.’ I look around at the beautiful pictures, at the grand piano, and I walk all around those rooms. I am looking for a sign; and the sign I am looking for is, ‘Do not spit here,’ but I look around those two beautiful drawing rooms, and cannot find a sign like this. I think ‘What a pity when this is such a beautiful home to have people spitting all over it—too bad they don’t put up a sign!’ So I look all over that carpet, but cannot find that anybody have spitted there. What a queer thing! Where the sign says, ‘Do not spit,’ a lot of people spitted. Where there was no sign at all, in that beautiful home, nobody spitted. Now I understand! That sign is law, but inside the home it is grace. They love their beautiful home, and they want to keep it clean. They do not need a sign to tell them so. I think that explains the law and grace business.”
As he sat down, a murmur of approval went round the room and the leader exclaimed, “I think that is the best illustration of law and grace I have ever heard.”
Resosurce
- Between Two Truths, Klyne Snodgrass, Zondervan, 1990, p. 107
Quote
- The law is the light that reveals how dirty the room is, not the broom that sweeps it clean.
Law Like a Brush Fire
A duck hunter was with a friend in the wide-open land of southeastern Georgia. Far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon he could hear crackling as the wind shifted. He realized the terrible truth; a brushfire was advancing, so fast they couldn’t outrun it.
Rifling through his pockets, he soon found what he was looking for—a book of matches. He lit a small fire around the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth, waiting for the fire to come.
They didn’t have to wait long. They covered their mouths with handkerchiefs and braced themselves. The fire came near—and swept over them. But they were completely unhurt, untouched. Fire would not pass where fire already had passed.
The law is like a brushfire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned-over place, not a hair of my head will be singed. Christ’s death has disarmed it.
Negative and Positive Commands
According to a third century rabbi, Moses gave 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands. David reduced them to eleven in Psalm 15. Isaiah made them six (Isaiah 33:14, 15). Micah 6:8 binds them into three commands. Habbakuk reduces them all to one great statement: The just shall live by faith.
