Journey to the Center of the Earth, Part 3 | Blind and Backward Down the Center of the Narrow Road

When I was growing up, there were no waterslide parks comparable to the ones that exist now, at least not where I lived. Which explains why, years later, my 8ish-year-old son was able to persuade me (with no words) to visit a water park and climb a hill in my “mom” swimsuit (despite the large audience of blanket-sitting onlookers in the grass below) to buck my fear of fool-making and give it a go. The rest of the spectacularly fun day is history. 

On either end of the broad hillside of slides were two super-slides that required an extra dose of courage to go down. There was no temptation to try the really tall one that made a person fly all but straight down and left them picking their swimsuit out of places it should not be. The other one was a tube-slide, snake-shaped and fast. (I’m sure it’s much exaggerated in my memory.) The catch on the latter was that there was a risk of injury to down front-facing, so a person had to take it backward, sitting in an innertube. Did I mention that I have a terrible fear of heights, equilibrium problems, and some Serious Trust-Issues?

Nevertheless, I couldn’t walk out of the park without beating that challenge. So, I stood in line, accepted my brightly-colored innertube, and waded through the staging pool in between well-practiced adolescent power-sliders. When it was my turn, I swiveled my heart-thumping self around and leaned backward into the tube... because who wants to hold up a line of adrenalized teens and tweens while you gasp and whisper-scream in bug-eyed panic?

All I could see going down were knees, feet, white knuckles gripping the innertube, and the circular joints of the slide racing past while I grated the words over my teeth, “Trust it! Trust it! Trust it!...” This image is etched in my mind forever. I admit, at some point partway down, it became a thrill more than a terror. However, challenge checked off, I won’t likely be doing it again.

In all honesty, I suspect that the experience was “divinely orchestrated” to teach me a profoundly valuable lesson—one that returns to me every time I’m faced with a fear-inducing decision—whether to do the hard, right thing or side-step it. The lesson was that sometimes it’s better to actively step into the doing before fear has a chance to dissuade you. There will be plenty of time to deal with fear when you’re deep enough in (meaning too far to back out) to experience the faithfulness of the One who prompted you to do the thing in the first place.

Several years back, I was confronted by a major, unavoidable “moment of decision” into which the waterslide image dropped like a cannonball. The hard, right thing—the thing that Jesus was asking me to do—was incredibly unpopular in the Christian world, and emotionally and relationally costly. It wasn’t a decision between political parties or about marriage, family, friends, churches, occupation, or location—though it affected them all. Bottom line, it was a decision about obedience at a cost.

If it weren’t for hyper-self-awareness of my natural propensity for disobedience, I might have missed the lesson. I knew the right thing to do in the moment, and I could also see the extraordinary cost of the decision in the distance—in fact, all the way into the prophesied future end of days. But the lesson of the waterslide spoke clearly into the situation: I can take the step of getting in line in the proverbial staging pool—by doing the hard, right things now—and I must. But without obedience to, reliance on, the rules of the Designer (put there to preserve life), I won’t make it through without devastating damage being done.

Likewise, we are all fully responsible for stepping out in obedience to God’s prompting (by Word or Spirit) to do whatever hard, right thing he places in front of us in a given moment, but we won’t make it through to the end apart from obedient reliance on him to lead us and help us. The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews makes this very case.

Quoting a Psalm of David (Psalm 95:7b-11), in reference to the ancient Israelites on their wilderness journey under the leadership of Moses, the author exhorts his first-century audience:

As it is said,

"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion."

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief...

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

"Today, if you hear his voice,

   do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

   on the day of testing in the wilderness,

where your fathers put me to the test

   and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, 'They always go astray in their heart;

   they have not known my ways.'

As I swore in my wrath,

   'They shall not enter my rest.'"

Hebrews 3:7-11 (emphasis mine)

The author’s original audience is an unidentified group of Jewish believers’ who are drifting, neglecting the teachings of Jesus to the point of immaturity, and in danger of falling away from faith entirely due to disobedience (to slip back into an empty religious system) in the face of persecution and hardship. His purpose is to remind them of the supremacy of Jesus’ sonship, sacrifice, high priesthood, kingship, and mediation of a new (perfected) and better covenant, sealed in his own perfect blood (over the old sacrificial system that could do nothing to permanently deal with sin) and warn them of the danger of not taking it seriously.

To be clear, the author is not speaking here of our everyday failings and continual need for grace and forgiveness. Rather, he’s describing a conscious, deliberate, chronic disobedience to the voice and leading of God (by Word and Spirit) that exposes an underlying state of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12-19). Nevertheless, this is a hard teaching and a hard warning (Hebrews 3:7-4:16, 6:4-12). Many have chosen to ignore it and many will fall away because of it (Matthew 24:10). Thankfully, the author doesn’t leave us there.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:9-12 (emphasis mine)

Reflecting back on the ancient Israelites’ failure of their 40-year period of wilderness testing is exactly what the author’s first-century audience needs to help them see the precariousness of their own “wilderness testing” responses. And it is exactly what we need to see as well—a precious gift to those of us who are (in the view of many) most likely living in the generation that will live to see the final crossing of the fully-redeemed Jewish remnant into the Promised Land, led by the King of kings.

Let us therefore strive to enter [God’s] rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience...

  Hebrews 4:11 (emphasis mine)

Wait... This is a paradox. If we are to 1) “strive” to enter into God’s “rest” so that we don’t 2) fall into “disobedience,” does that mean that disobedience is in opposition to rest? Does it mean that striving to enter God's rest necessarily involves being obedient to him? Yes, and it is the theological dichotomy of the ages. But for a blind, backward trip down a limb-risking waterslide on a limb-saving innertube, I might not comprehend it even now. Bless the author of the letter for making his (and our) solution so obvious, weaving it through the length of the letter like a warp-thread.

“...but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. (Hebrews 3:6, emphasis mine)

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (Hebrews 4:14, emphasis mine)

“...so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” (Hebrews 6:18, emphasis mine)

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23, emphasis mine)

Friends, let us hold fast to our confession of faith in Jesus. Wherever we are, in whatever state each of us is currently in, let the confession of our faith express itself in obedience to the teachings and the voice (the Word and the Spirit) of the One who will faithfully help us and lead us toward the day of our King’s inauguration, and wedding, in Jerusalem—one hard, right step at a time.

A final point to consider. Our nation (the U.S.A.) is truly a blessed nation. We enjoy an extraordinary level of freedom, abundance, and security in comparison with every other nation on the earth, in all of history. Those who know who “gives and takes away” don’t take this for granted. To strive to protect, and treat with honor, that which we’ve been given is absolutely appropriate. But there’s another side to the proverbial coin:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

Of the long list of renowned heroes in the faith that follow this verse, what they had in common was the personal (and sometimes grisly) cost they paid in exchange for promises they would not see fulfilled in their lifetimes (Hebrews 11). They died not seeing the promised benefit of their sacrifices. Why? Because they were confidently waiting for something better laid up in heaven, where moth and rust can’t destroy and thieves can’t steal (Matthew 6:20).

I think of many friends, brothers, and sisters currently living in some of the most violently dangerous places for Christians to live (Nigeria, Sudan, Congo, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, just to name a few) and view them as worthy candidates for this list. Many of them are suffering severe persecution and martyrdom by the thousands as we speak. These modern-day heroes-in-the-faith are teaching those of us waiting in the staging line behind them how to lean into the hand of the Helper in trust and obedience, for the joy set before them and the eternal reward prepared and waiting for them.

In the West, a near mirror-image of this is happening. Droves of professing Christians are abandoning the practice of Jesus’ teaching; instead, putting their faith in any of a variety of political and/or religious figures and movements, all promising to "protect" the Church from such suffering and loss. Where is the reflection of the heroes of the faith, the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on, in this thinking (Hebrews 12:1-2)? Where is the endurance to the point of shedding our blood, as Jesus did (Hebrews 12:3-4)?

The question is not whether responsible, protective measures play a legitimate role in our lives of faith. Of course they do! The question is whether we are neglecting, even abandoning, the commands of our King—relying on someone, or something, other than him to lead us through our time of spiritual “wilderness preparation” toward home.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock...”

Matthew 7:21-25 (emphasis mine)

To be continued...

Maranatha

Next time:

I left an important question dangling in a previous article, the answer to which will be critical in navigating our wilderness testing at the end of the age... What will be the catalyst that divides those on the hard, right path from the others? The prophet, Zechariah, says it clearly.

...On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it...

We are not all called to go to Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is definitely coming to all of us...