Part 6
Thus, we must enter into these things, perhaps for long periods of time. Perhaps we must endure to the point that we hear and see nothing of God, until finally God, who is with us in the distress, can bring light into the situation. The very fact that God is in it with us means that the mat ter cannot fail; ultimately God comes to be acknowledged in every tribulation. But we are impelled to enter into it; he must have us, because he wishes to be a God of people, not a philosophical concept. He wants to have children who remain alive even in the deepest darkness. In this way the kingdom of God will finally come.
Many would be quite content if the kingdom were to come to them; but they will have to wait a long time, because that is not the way it works. Rather, God sends his own into the world; they are to be his gospel! In this way we must endure, until the whole world is filled with his living gospel. God grant that in this way we might become servants and bear our tribulation.
However, never should we permit the tribulation to come into our hearts! Do not permit the satan of sadness to enter.
Away with this satan. If it becomes dark in your heart, you can no longer be a person who bears fruit. Today, everyone is called upon to be a living gospel to the glory of God—the God who is with us in the deepest tribulation and darkness and who leads us out again to the high places of life.
CFBL, 3:98-103 (#14). Evening Bible study of January 8,
1898.
T H E p o W E r o f G o d
"Because the poor are despoiled,
because the needy groan, I will now rise up," says the Lord,
"and I will bring relief."
(Ps. 12:5.)
How does God do it? That is always a puzzle. Every where in the Bible we find this: "Get away, let me do it." Sometimes, of course, it sounds as though God is lament ing, as though he were not quite able; but then comes a time when he says, "I can too! The poor are before me, and I must help them." But how?
Different answers are given. The faint-hearted say, "Yes, he knows how to bless even in distress; and then, of course, there is eternity beyond." But in this way not one single misery comes to an end; not one solitary tear is dried! And this is how this business of eternity is; let's face it honestly: if I am constantly advised to seek comfort in eternity, then I cannot genuinely trust God. If I see nothing of succor in this world, who can guarantee it for the next? Or did the Savior come only into the beyond? It seems to me he came to us!
Consequently, comfort cannot simply be equated with "the beyond." Even if in some temporal situations the out
come is not restricted to this earthly life but lies beyond it, the question still remains whether that outcome will be at tained immediately upon my leaving this life. I don't believe it will. God does not operate in the world in so mechanical a way. Matters run much more naturally; and the struggle is more difficult than we imagine. One cannot simply be jumping around in the world and then die—and expect that matters are settled for all eternity. Rather, there are develop ments; there is progress or regression to the degree that the distress can be taken from us and God can succeed in giving relief.
Our achieving blessedness is a question of the power of God. He must employ force, and it is for us to have faith in his capability. After all, God has made us! When, in their spirits, people come near this power of God, they always draw a little of it into themselves and thereby become the best possible instruments of God, in that they have drawn from him a portion of his ministering power.
It is not so much a matter of a person making an obvious and sudden change toward conversion; of primary impor tance is the fact that God bestirs himself on that person's behalf and gathers him in. The history of our redemption progresses by moments of God's demonstrating his aid, in acts toward which we can contribute nothing. And some day, when we shall be in the kingdom of heaven and when the last shock, the jolt of death, has come, we will look back once more and marvel at how often God had to intervene
powerfully on our behalf, even against our will, in order that we might be saved. God's action on our behalf always takes this form: he is in heaven and keeps approaching us, press ing in on us, until he can enter our life here in this world.
This is the intent of God's effort toward us. And conse quently, our assistance regularly seems delayed. Our distress is not alleviated until the barrier of eternity, between this life and the beyond, is penetrated. The opening must be made from above, not from down here upwards. Christen dom has gotten this reversed; now we would make many openings up, out of the world. Through these we would fly like the doves and be saved; and yet we don't even know what is out there! Some people even want to hurry death along; but when they get across to the other side, they make big eyes! One must be extremely cautious! It is very painful for me that the truth of this reversal can't get through to the mind of Christendom. This is why Christianity functions so poorly.
I know how "Blumhardtian" all this is. People will say, "Now Blumhardt is coming up with his queer stories again." But I wish you would prove to me which is biblical: our go ing to God in death, or God's coming to us in life. From the first to the last chapter, the Bible deals with God's coming into the world; and of all this business about dying, nothing is said.
Every word in the Bible guarantees for me God's action here, where I now stand. If God raises only one finger against
my distress, more is accomplished than if men organize a hundred thousand benevolent institutions. It is God's action we need; and very quickly God will have to do something for us, because we cannot pull the load. We must ask God to bestir himself; and we must become biblical again. I would like to say nothing but this: Become biblical! This is what produces understanding and wisdom: our maintaining as a priority the truth that God comes down and Jesus comes down, and that we claim our privilege on earth. Sin and death are overcome here, not through our faith, but through the power of God.
Our pitiful faith doesn't accomplish anything anyway. Most people merely believe according to their heads. This sounds harsh; but I can't help it. I can't bear such prattle about "faith," because it produces the most self-loving of people. They pay attention only to themselves. I, too, know what faith is. But a faith which we create, in which we wish to see things go according to our own ideas, such a faith I don't want. The power of God saves us, and that power is obliged to save many people who don't even believe aright. Who among us would stand up with his faith and say, "Look, I have the right faith!"? That is delusion! But when we reverse this thing and make it biblical, then light comes into every situation, we acquire totally different hearts and heads, totally different hands and feet.
We must be constantly mindful of God's efforts to come into the world and achieve something here. We must not be
satisfied merely to have a religion, as the heathen have a re ligion, even if a little different. God puts no store by our re ligion. When he finds it impossible to come down and help people, he prefers to permit them to become irreligious. In Egypt, the children of Israel were allowed to do as they pleased, and they became religiously dissipated. But God undertook their cause anyway, because his help does not de pend on religion but on his own faithfulness and mercy and power and on the hearts that wait for him to come down.
In this we want to be united, in this hope and in the as surance that God sees the destitute on earth and then says, "There, now I will arise; now I will do it and bring relief." And we know that on the day of Jesus Christ a great restitu tion is yet to come!
CFBL, 1:239-44 (#49). Table talk of February 12, 1886.
T H E r i G H T G o d
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations...(Deut.
7:9)
a person must know whether his faith is on the right track or not. I think that many people gradually become un believers because, of course, they don't have the right God. In the course of time, Christendom has dropped the right God and acquired a philosophical God—still under the name of the old faith but without the actual reality. The true reality has slipped away. One thinks of God simply as someone in the upper spheres who does not manifest himself to us in our circles as a God of action...
No wonder so many folks become unbelievers! I wouldn't believe in such a God either. "If that which you are preach ing to me is God, then I am through; then I will not become a pastor!" This was my sentiment even when I was at the university. "You have the same words, but you no longer have the thing itself. You postulate a God without hands, without a mouth, without feet—so that we can simply do as we please. God has to keep his mouth shut and is prohibited from doing anything." No thanks; I won't believe in such a God!
The same holds true for Christ. When anyone speaks of
demon possession, people turn green with rage. They say that the Savior was deluded, that those were notions of the time, that we don't need that sort of thing today because we have doctors and hospitals, and that is all we need...
But then they can dispute very nimbly about the deity of Christ and speak of how he was God's Son—so that one way or another, we are deprived of a Savior on earth. Yet I tell you, the Savior doesn't ask what we think of his duty or his humanity; he inquires only whether we want to make use of him or not. We weren't commissioned to ponder his person. Whatever he may have been we shall discover soon enough in heaven. But to us it is said: "He is your Savior! Do you want him, or don't you? May he do something for you, or may he not? Are you going to throw him out as the Pharisees did, or do you want to have him as the tax collec tors did?"...
It often may seem that God doesn't do anything, no matter how much we beg. In this or that area of life it is as though everything has gone dead. What is the consequence? That we say, as many do, "Now I believe nothing anymore!"? No, rather I say, "Then we don't have him. We have gotten onto a wrong track; we are no longer turned to him in the right way. Because only a God who intervenes is our God. If he does nothing, it is not our God."
But, take notice! When you again get pointed right, then you have his faithfulness again, you have his mercy again, and then something must happen again. Then we can stand
up again and say, "That is our God!"
We shall never again be able to convince the world with preaching or with books. The world today will have noth ing to do with fantasies. For devout people these are fine; but our world of machines and commerce and life, where people seek a solid foundation on which they can stand, this entire world of business which laughs at us when we come with our ideas—people of this world will no longer decide in favor of a religion of fantasy...
We don't need a religion; we need a man, a God. And if we don't get a God, what then is the purpose of all our Christianity? It produces hypocrites! It is as dynamic as cobblestones are! We need an action-God, a God who does something. That is the God of the Bible. The rest will come of itself.
That is what Israel had with its Yahweh. There it was said, "That is the right God! Didn't you see the smoke on Sinai? Didn't you hear his voice and the trumpets? Didn't you no tice how he gives bread and water when these are lacking, and how he led you with a wonderful hand? Remember that! That is your God; he is the right God; he is able. The other gods are nothing; they have mouths and do not speak, they have hands and do not grasp, they have feet and do not run. But your God is the right God."
And thus it must be with us in regard to the man Jesus. The Lord Jesus is able; and when he does something, then we can say: "Behold, that is the right God; he is able. Your
theological prattle means nothing to me."...We can no lon ger manage with words alone; there must be deeds, "Save us! Save us! Help us, O faithful God, and do something!" And then, when salvation comes, then there is light...
Know that the Lord, your God, who demonstrates himself to you and performs deeds, he is the right God. He is the God who made heaven and earth. He is a faithful God who leads his cause on to the end. Let us place our hope in him today. Let us together cry and pray, "Lord, do something for the many, many people!" And our cry will not be in vain; we shall yet experience it. As I have said, much is tossed down from heaven to those who cry out. He feeds the hungry ra vens; and he will not let his children pray in vain!
CFBL, 1:420-24 (#78). Table talk of September 24, 1887.