The Bible Reading Program has had a large impact on my spiritual life.  It is a daily reminder of God’s plan for mankind and puts into focus His love for us.  There has been reading groups formed on Social Media for participants to talk about their thoughts and reactions to the assigned reading.  One of these discussion groups is moderated by Ben Light and recently there was a participant that struggled with some of the bible reading.  Now this young woman was not in the church as far as we know but was interested in reading the bible in this chronological format as was at first, an eager participant. 

But she became disillusioned by the way woman were often portrayed in the bible and how God condoned what she saw horrible.   When someone stated that Lot was listed as a righteous man in the New Testament, it seemed completely wrong to her.  As I read some of the responses made by church members who belonged to this group I was sad to see a sort of callousness emerge.  As if to say, “The Bible says Lot was righteous, so that’s that.  This woman went away discouraged and dropped the reading program.   It was so sad to me that church members when trying to give an answer to the hope that is in us would discourage someone with that answer.  What I determined was that the answer lacked hope and therefore the young woman went away without any.

The title of the sermon today is:

Bible Passages that are hard to swallow

If you have read the Bible through from cover to cover, you get a perspective you can’t get just picking and choosing certain passages.  And as you continue to read you find that often times scriptures that appear harsh and therefore sanctioned by God, are not always as they first appear and through further study, you can bring them into their proper cultural and historical context and see the patience and mercy of God.  If we are to pass on that hope we want to avoid superficial answers that don’t speak to the heart of those asking difficult questions.

Today I am going to cover 3 truths that must be considered before you can understand a Bible passage.  Of course, I am speaking to the choir here so we are going to assume the truth that God was open our eyes to see the truth, and that we must exercise the Holy Spirit as well.  Each of these three truths that I am going to cover can be used by themselves or with other truths to weave the proper understanding of difficult scripture.

 God judged those in scripture by what they understood and not by what we understand.

Mr. Walker always says that to understand a scripture you must first understand what the scripture actually says, then, what did it mean to the people who the passage was written, and only then, consider what it means to the modern reader.

When we read about Polygamy, Slavery, and the family dynamic you have to keep this in mind.  Turn to Exodus 21:1-11

Exodus 21:1-11  NKJ  "Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them:  2 "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh, he shall go out free and pay nothing.  3 "If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.  4 "If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.  5 "But if the servant plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,'  6 "then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.  7 " And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.  8 "If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has dealt deceitfully with her.  9 "And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.  10 "If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights.  11 "And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

Now does this sound like the Kingdom of God?  Clearly, we see things like marriage, divorce, buying and selling of people, looked at in a very disturbing way.  Why was this allowed?  These are God’s commands on how to deal with these subjects?  Remember that chapter 21 comes right at the end of the giving of the 10 Commandments to the children of Israel.  They had just been released from Slavery where the buying and selling of human beings were a way of life.  Marriage was perverted and so was family life.  God did not immediately teach them how to live a perfect life.  He gave them only what they could handle.  Consider that when they left Egypt they walked for over a month before God pointed out they were not keeping the Sabbath.  He could have told them when they were in Egypt.  But then He only explained the Passover.  Later he added the Sabbath, then the Holy Days.  In the mean-time, God worked with the people who belonged to strange families, living in bondage, giving spouses to slaves, selling children into bondage, and he gave the rules to protect the individuals. 

For instance.  Later, Israel would have a method for helping the poor so that indentured servitude was not the only way to handle debt.  Later, there would instruction on having one wife.

1 Timothy 3:2  2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,

1 Timothy 3:12   12 Let deacons be the husbands of one wife,

These are requirements for people of Paul’s day to be part of the leadership of the church which meant there were those that practiced otherwise.  But this was not just for the leadership.  Remember what Jesus said in Matt. 19 about marriage and Divorce.

Matthew 19:3-8   3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?"  4 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'  5 "and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?  6 "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."  7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"  8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so.

This brings us to the next truth that needs to be understood before reading difficult scripture. 

The absence of condemnation is not proof of acceptance by God but of His Patience and Mercy.

Here the first passage I would go to 1 Samuel 21.  This is the story of David being on the run.  He is starving and seeking shelter where ever he can find it.  Of course, not everyone on the kingdom knows that Saul is trying to kill him, least of all Ahimelech the priest.

So then David tells him this false story to get aid.

1 Samuel 21:1-3  NKJ Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one is with you?"  2 So David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has ordered me on some business, and said to me, 'Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you, or what I have commanded you.' And I have directed my young men to such and such a place.  3 "Now, therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found."

Of course, there were no food to give David except for the Bread in the Tabernacle, the showbread that was special for God.  As you read the story, Saul comes and executes the priests and their families for believing the tale David, his son-in-law.  It seems so harsh and there is nothing said of God about this incident in the Old Testament.   We wouldn’t know how God felt about it until we read Jesus’ words his disciples that were criticized for harvesting grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry.

Matthew 12:3-7  NKJ 3 But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  4 "how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

Then he gives the example of the hard work the Priests have to do on the Sabbath involving the preparation of sacrifices.  Then:

7 "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Just because God does not speak up and condemn something, does not mean something is alright.  Take for instance, Polygamy.  It was a way of life but how did it work out for God’s people that tried it?

Jacob was tricked into marrying more than just Rachel, but then had no trouble adding more when Rachel and Leah started to compete with one another.  That did not work out too well.  Abraham life was not simpler with Hagar in the picture and there is that little spat in the Middle East that we still have to this day.

David life was not better for having multiple wives, and Solomon really went astray by those many wives even though God warned His people that when they come into the land which God gives them, do not do as the other nations do, specifically in verse 17 of Deut 17.

Deuteronomy 17:17  17 "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

When we understand the God is patient and allows His people time to grow and become more like Him, it should add to our awe of God, not take anything away.

Marriage is a huge part of God’s plan.  Woman are not second class to God.  But God is working with carnal people in warped cultures and God judges based on the understanding that He gives someone. 

Here is a good time to talk about Lot and his daughter.  We often read about the exchange where the Angels come to the city and Lot, seeing they are special, invite them in out of the horrible neighborhood that he lives in.  So Lot knew where he lived had huge problems.  But let’s fill in the rest of the story. 

You have to ask, why were they even there?

We know that when we last saw Lot he and his entourage were so numerous, that there was not enough grazing land for Abraham and Lots family, cattle, Herdsmen their family to share the same space.  We have two cities living in the same valley trying to co-exist.  Lot chose the cities on the plain so they could have the city life, and still have their cattle.  Notice verse 12 of Gen13.

Genesis 13:12  and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.  

So it sounds like they were scattered among the different cities but one of them, in particular, attracted Lot, or His family to live.  Any of those cities would have been better than Sodom but this is where He ended up. 

And what was he doing there?

Genesis 19:1  NKJ Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.

The City Gates is where the Wise men of the city would hand out judgment, where public proclamations were read, and where commerce took place.  In verse 9 of Gen 19 we get another clue.

Genesis 19:9   9 And they said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them.

So he was probably a leading citizen, wealthy person, and therefore looked at as a wise man for people of great wealth had to get it because of there intelligence in their culture.  And it appears that Lot was offering unwanted moral guidance on more than a few occasions.  But seeing how horrible it was, why didn’t he leave?  Simple, his family did not want to leave.

Genesis 19:14   14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, "Get up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city!" But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking.

So they had no intention of leaving.  it wasn’t that bad to them.

Genesis 19:15-16   15 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, "Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city."  16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

Its clear that lot has some sense of right and wrong but he had been corrupted by this city.  His family had been corrupted and Lot recognized that these men were from God so he put the lives of his family lower than the lives of God’s messengers.  That does not mean what he did was right.  Notice that Lot and his family lingered behind when it was time to leave and out of God’s mercy, they were all taken by the hand.  It was Lot’s wife that looked longingly back to Sodom and was destroyed.  I see Lot as a weaker man with a stronger wife that makes the decisions and offering his daughters, however wrong, was one of the few privileges he felt he could exercise in the circumstances.  Why does Peter call Lot righteous?

2 Peter 2:6-8   6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;  7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked  8 (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) --

Lot may have been trying to save his countrymen from the horrible life they were living.  He may have been daily crying about the sins of the people and so God spared Lot for his righteous resistance and warnings to the evil there.  This is clearly making a connection between his resistance to the evil of this city, and the sacrifice Lot made to turn the city around. 

Lot’s life was saved but he lost everything else that was important to him.  His family, aside from his two daughters, gone.  His livestock, gone, his wealth, gone.  All gone.

It was good that he finally followed God out of this city and while he was there he was probably the only voice of reason but his earlier mistakes cost him everything so don’t think that everything Lot did was righteous.  Lot lived with his mistakes just as Abraham lived with his.  We too have to live by our mistakes.  We can be forgiven but that doesn’t mean our mistakes will just disappear.

The Bible should be read for the continuity of God’s love and not for hidden messages or obscure meanings.

NKJ Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Here is one of these little passages that some have used to prove the doctrine of going to heaven when you die.  But what does it actually say?

NLT Genesis 5:24 He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly, he disappeared because God took him.

NKJ Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

So how do we reconcile the truth that is throughout the bible that there will one day be a resurrection for each and every person? 

John 3:13   13 "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.

We know Jesus is the firstborn of many brethren.  Enoch could not have been first.  In fact, the entire story of God’s plan speaks to this fact.  That God made man and man turned from God.  God sent His son to make a way for reconciliation with God so that the coming Kingdom of God is ushered in with the Return of Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection of the Saints to be followed later by the great resurrection of the dead so that they can have the opportunity of reconciliation.

  So we need to remember that much of the Bible was written about cultures long since past and that God judged them based on what they understood and not by what we understand today.  We also need to understand that the absence of God’s condemnation is not evidence of His approval, rather, it shows us his patience and mercy. And lastly, the Bible should be read for the continuity of God’s love and not for hidden messages or obscure meanings. 

We see His love for us when we read the scriptures together and remember what God taught each and every generation, building on what He taught before coming into the New Covenant and the coming Kingdom of God where Jesus Christ will wipe away every tear.  This is what we want to look for and share with one another as we read through the scriptures and never forget His love for us in the process.