When Right Seems Wrong

[Just back today from Huatabampo, Mexico where we had a wonderful trip: helped build a church building for a very poor group of Mexican Christians (most of whom are new believers except for the very energetic pastor who led most of them to the Lord in the first place), helped the permanent missionaries down there in their work, gave our testimonies which were translated for us by some excellent Christian translators, and generally were blessed by God to have the opportunity to bless others! It was great! But I did miss being able to continue in our study. We left off in a situation regarding Nollie’s faith about complete and utter obedience to God…at all times and under all circumstances. So, back to our study…]

This is a difficult issue to grasp…Nollie’s kind of faith. Faith that says “I will be obedient to your Word, Lord, even when doing right seems to be the wrong thing to do.”

There is an example of this in the Bible, however, which one of my daughters reminded me of very recently. It has to do with David and can be found in a very brief passage of scripture in I Samuel 23:1-5:

“Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshingfloors. Therefore David enquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah. And David’s men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines? Then David enquired of the Lord yet again. And the Lord answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand. So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.”

If you read a bit further back in I Samuel, before the above incident took place, you’ll understand what all has transpired to cause David to be unsure and to cause his men (a batch of 400 men newly assembled to be David’s small army with him as he hides from Saul who intends to kill him) to be very fearful, especially against the large army of the Philistines. None of which sounds like the prescription for victory, at least not without God. But David does the wise thing and doesn’t rely on his feelings, or the feelings of his men, and returns a second time to the Lord to make sure he has got it right from God…that God does indeed want them to attack the Philistines to save Keilah. And once he’s sure, he just goes on ahead, regardless of all the fear in all the men he calls his army, regardless of whether or not it makes sense, regardless of the fact that he is risking 400 lives besides his own! It is as though, once the decision has been made, he never looks back…he just goes ahead and leaves it all in God’s hands to take care of his men and himself. (That’s a lot of lives to be responsible for if he’s wrong!) But, of course, God takes care of David and his men, and He does so because He is Our God who is faithful to us and because God always takes care of His own who walk in obedience to Him.

So, then, Nollie’s faith isn’t all that different, is it? She is not moved by feelings at all. She simply hears the Word of God and takes her stand. And leaves the situation completely up to God to deal with the consequences of her decision. Actually, she leaves the situation completely up to God to deal with the consequences of HIS decision. Nollie was just following orders….God’s orders.

I don’t know whether or not Nollie was fearful when she opened her mouth to answer the question of whether or not the blonde woman standing next to her was a Jew, but being human as we are, I suspect that she was very fearful, both for the young Jewish girl’s life and for her own! But she was committed to obedience to God….and this commitment to be obedient to God began long before that particular test met her head-on in her own livingroom! And so she was able to pass the test. And when we see her later in her jail cell, whether she was fearful or not in the beginning, at some point soon thereafter she is actually singing praises to the Lord, she was so able to “rest” in HIS decision (although I suspect it took some prayerful “Are you sure about this God?”, much as David did.)

But then, where does that leave Corrie and Betsie and so many other underground workers at the time? Did they sin when they lied to protect someone else’s life?

No. Actually, they were both right. But how can that be?

The answer can be found in Romans chapter 14. We’ll discuss it in more detail tomorrow. Meanwhile, you might want to read Romans 14 for yourselves.

[This blog is an ongoing study of the lives and the faith of Christian women who have experienced and demonstrated victorious living through Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The current study is about Corrie ten Boom which began on September 21, 2009.]