Sunday, God Is a God of Great and Supernatural Reversals

FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM TIM KELLER'S NEW BOOK,  HOPE IN TIMES OF FEAR, The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter:

THE STORYLINE NOBODY WANTS TO BE IN

We want the storyline of our lives to go from strength to strength, from success to success, and end happily ever after. But throughout the Bible we see something completely different---a persistent narrative pattern of life through death or of triumph through weakness that reveals how God works in history and in our lives.......

The account of David and Goliath may be the most well-known story from the Olid Testament that shows us how this narrative plays out. The Phillistines' army had a champion, Goliath, who challenged an Israelite warrior to one-on-one combat. The nation of the man who lost the contest would be considered conquered and under the power of the country of the man who won.  David was not a top soldier---he wasn't a soldier at all! He was a boy too young to fight in the army.  But he won, not in spite of his smallness and weakness but because of it.  His slight stature led the giant to lower his defenses and mad hime vulnerable to a small but lethal stone from David's sling. "God.....caused strength to come from his youthful weakness in order to conquer the strong giant." To drive the point home, God says in Samuel the prophet, who at the moment was judging 'king material'  by physical appearance, that ' the Lord sees not as a man sees: man looks at the outer appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV). 

This pattern is clear and pervasive.  The author of the letter to the Hebrews, looking back on all the figures in the history of Israel, sums all the stories up this way: And what more shall I say?  I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barack, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength.....Women received back their dead, raised to life again.  There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released, so that they might gain an even better resurrection. (Hebrews 11: 32-35)