The Uselessness of Fighting Against God

by Jeff Curtis

James Weldon Johnson began a new poem – a sermon in verse – on the prodigal son with these words: “Young man, young man, your arms too short to box with God.” Those lines stick in the memory because of the vivid imagery. Picture a boxer with short arms trying vainly to hit an opponent who has much longer arms. Imagine two men from the Middle Ages wearing armor and mounted on horses for a jousting contest. One has a lance twelve feet long, and the other’s six feet long! Similarly, we might think of two athletic teams that are completely mismatched. For instance, in the 2003 rugby World Cup series, the Australian team defeated Namibia 142-0. The poet Johnson was saying that when we fight against God, our situation is like that. There is no way we can win.

The futility of fighting against God is well illustrated in the book of Exodus. The story in this book is basically a story of the one true God versus the many false gods of Egypt. We might also view it as the one true God against Pharoah, who was regarded a god. Ultimately, of course, God won the battle. Israel was delivered, and Pharoah had to acknowledge God’s power.

The first chapter of Exodus gives a preview of the story. Here, Pharoah made a concerted effort to defeat God’s people, and so to defeat God, but he was beaten in every attempt.

1. Pharoah enslaved the people. Why? Because he was afraid of them. What was the result? The people of Israel multiplied and spread out (1:12).
2. Pharaoh made their work more difficult. When he saw that his first effort didn’t accomplish his purpose, he made the people work even harder (1:13-14). Apparently, that didn’t work either, since Pharaoh took other steps.
3. Pharoah told the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys (1:15-16). The midwives refused to obey Pharoah because they “feared God” (1:17-21), and God honored these midwives. He “established households for them” (1:21) by giving them “families” (NRSV). In addition, He preserved their stories and their names for posterity. (Notice that these women are named in Exodus while Pharaoh remains nameless.) The mighty pharaoh’s plan was stopped by two lowly midwives.
4. Pharoah next commanded that the baby boys be thrown in the Nile (1:22). In a sense, Pharaoh succeeded this time in that his orders were carried out. Later, the Egyptians would pay for these murders with the lives of their firstborn (4:23). In another sense, the strategy backfired, for it allowed God to raise up the deliverer of Israel in Pharoah’s household, being nursed by his own Hebrew mother at Pharoah’s expense. God was working behind the scenes during all this to bring about the fulfillment of His plan.

Fighting against God is useless. All the forces of evil in this world, though they may seem to be winning, now, will be defeated in the end. (That is the theme of the book of Revelation). Pharaoh’s futile efforts to beat God proves that human beings cannot fight against God and win. We fight against Him when we act as if we can sin with impunity, as if we can sin against God and not get caught. We cannot “get away with” anything where God is concerned. He set a law of consequences in operation in His universe: “Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). We will be called to account for our rebellion against the Creator of the Universe.

God’s law of sowing and reaping in inevitable. However, He gave us something that supersedes that law. We can avoid reaping the ultimate consequences of our sin because Christ died for us. By repenting and coming to Christ in obedience, we can have our debt cancelled by the grace of God and the blood of Christ.

I Am Going to Stay a Father

by Frank Butler

At a time when being a buddy to one’s son is popular, I am going to stay a father. I believe it may yet prove to have been a bit sad psychology when dads are called, “Jim, Pete, Art, Tom or Jack” by their children. When Spock, Freud, Dewey and William James have conspired to make dad a minor stockholder on the home’s board of directors, when women’s rights, civil rights, people’s rights, children’s rights and property rights have made it wrong for fathers to speak with authority, I am going to stay a father.

If a gap exists between my sons and daughters, and myself, I am going to work hard to understand. But I am also going to work hard to be understood. I shall try to understand why long hair, when kept clean is reactionary, any more than short identifies one as a clean, moral, upright citizen. But I shall ape my sons. I will abide by an older distinction, when long hair was a fitting symbol of womanliness. The young may refer to Samson, to medieval pictures of Jesus, or to the powdered wigs, or braided locks of fathers of country – but I shall refer them to Paul, who said, “Does not nature teach that it is a shame for a man to have long hair?”

When they tell it like it is, I’ll listen, even if I like it better like it was. If old-fashioned things as prayer, Bible study, worship, and faith in God ever seem to my children to be out of it, square, or whatever – I trust God’s help to have faith enough to pray for them, and pledge with Job, to offer up additional sacrifices for them.

With love in our home, I will answer their questions about the facts of life, but at nudeness or lewdness I refuse to wink. Drinking and smoking are as out of place and unwanted as profanity or the plague. And if experimentation with drugs or marijuana is ever a problem, it will be in violation of my every prayer and request. No laissez faire attitude will be accepted here – even if the weed is legalized and social “tripping” becomes as acceptable as social drinking.

I want my children to know that I made mistakes, that I am foolish, proud and often inconsistent. But I will not tolerate that as an excuse for my hypocrisy. I ask them the help me change as children should, and to expect me to help them change in the methods expected as a parent. Others may look to the under-30 crowd for the wisdom to throw away the past and to say what will remain for future generations; others may let the offspring in the house determine the foods, music and the spending of the household, but I am going to stay a father. – by Paul Harvey

(Note: This article was published in the Eastside bulletin in 1992, the article was by Paul Harvey from 1972. Bro. Frank Butler said it was worth another read then, and I believe it’s worthy of another reading, here in 2021, 49 years later.)

Meeting at Hickory Heights.

I was invited to speak at the Hickory Heights congregation in Lewisburg, TN last week.

I appreciate the elders there inviting me to speak, as well as our elders allowing to go there and preach.

I also would thank those who spoke in my absence.

The church there had an attendance of about 83 for Bible study and 111 in attendance for worship.

They struggled during Covid, with several members suffering from this virus, but have rebounded quiet nicely.