The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Classic Version, 2015Sample

Moments of Victory

Jose Henriquez was one of the thirty-three miners trapped 2300 feet underground when a section of the San Jose copper mine in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile collapsed. It was 5 August 2010. For seventeen days all rescue attempts failed. There was no sign of life in the San Jose mine. The trapped miners had enough food for three days and a little drinking water. They faced the prospect of an agonising death through starvation.

I interviewed Jose Henriquez and his wife Bianca at HTB. He told how they had prayed to God for a miracle. He described the moment, on 22 August, when a drill broke through into the tunnel where the men were trapped. They hammered the drill with iron rods. They sprayed paint on it. They hugged it. They sent up many messages on it. Only one stayed on the drill as it went back up to the surface. The message read, ‘We are alright in the shelter, the 33.’

In total, the men survived a record sixty-nine days underground before they were brought to the surface on 13 October 2010. More than a billion people around the world watched the rescue live on television. There were extraordinary scenes as these men, their families, the people of Chile and the whole world celebrated a moment of victory.

The life of faith is full of challenges, difficulties and trials. But there are also moments of victory. In the passages for today we see three different types of victory. 

Psalm 18:16-24

1. Thank God for his victory over our enemies

David faced many battles in life. He was surrounded by enemies. They were ‘too strong’ for him (v.17b). However, they are not too strong for God. David enjoyed moments of victory when God rescued him from those that were too strong for him and brought him into a ‘spacious place’ (v.19). ‘I stood there saved – surprised to be loved!’ (v.19b, MSG).

If you are in a ‘spacious place’ at the moment remember to thank God and enjoy it and make the most of it. If not, cry out to God to rescue you. And if any of your family or friends are struggling at the moment pray that God will bring them too into a ‘spacious place’.

Lord, thank you for the times when you have drawn me out of deep waters and brought me out into a spacious place. Today I pray for … who seems to be facing battle after battle. Lord, would you reach down from on high and bring them into a spacious place.

Matthew 22:15-46

2. Learn from Jesus’ victory over his critics

Jesus’ opponents interrogate Jesus with three questions: a trap question, a trick question and a test question (vv.17,23,35). Each time, he is victorious and gives an answer that not only amazes (v.22) and astonishes (v.33), but also influences the whole of human history: 

• Don’t divide your life into sacred and secular
  First, the Pharisees planned to trap Jesus with his words. They said to Jesus, ‘Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ (v.17). The taxes they referred to were extremely unpopular. If Jesus had said ‘Yes’, he would have been discredited in the eyes of the people. Everyone would have hated him and seen him as a traitor wanting to help the Romans.

Yet if he had said, ‘No’, he would have been guilty of sedition and been liable to arrest and execution.

Jesus, in his unique wisdom, did not lay down rules and regulations but expounded principles that are timeless. He gives an amazing answer: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ (v.21).

Every Christian has a double citizenship. We have a responsibility to play our part as good citizens involved in the structures of our society on earth.

We are also citizens of heaven with a responsibility to God. In principle, the two – Caesar and God – need not be in conflict. We are called to be good citizens of both. We are called to get involved in the life of our society, not to withdraw from it.

It is not that God is in charge of the ‘sacred’ area of our lives and the government is in charge of the ‘secular’ area of our lives. Rather, our whole life is under God’s authority. Giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s is part of giving to God what is God’s. Part of our commitment to God as Christians is to honour and obey the demands that the government legitimately makes on us. Filling in your tax return honestly is as sacred a matter as going to church.   

• Know that there is life after death
  Second, the Sadducees come along with a trick question about a man with seven wives. Because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection they designed a complicated trick question to show how absurd it was (vv.23–28).

Jesus replies, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God’ (v.29). Jesus uses the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible – which are the only ones which the Sadducees trusted) to show that God is ‘not the God of the dead but of the living’ (v.32b).

He does this by quoting God’s words to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:6: ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (Matthew 22:32a). When Moses heard those words, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years. God did not say ‘I was their God’ but ‘I am their God’. They are still alive.

Jesus is showing that this life is not all there is. Furthermore, there will be continuity between this life and the life to come. There is a physical resurrection. Yet, there is discontinuity too for we ‘will be like the angels in heaven’ (v.30). Above all, the Scriptures show that there will be a resurrection and if God is all-powerful, why shouldn’t there be?

• Prioritise love for God and others
  Third, the Pharisees come up with a test question to which Jesus gives a brilliant answer, which goes to the heart of the whole of the Old Testament: love God (‘with all your passion and prayer and intelligence’ (v.37, MSG)) and love people (‘love others as well as you love yourself’ (v.39, MSG)). Everything else is a detailed working out of these two commands (vv.34–40).

Having silenced his critics, Jesus then asks them a question. It is a question about his identity. He shows from the Scriptures that the Christ is not just David’s son – he is David’s Lord (vv.41–46). He demonstrates that the Messiah is far more than simply a great human king. This not only challenges their assumptions about the Messiah, it is also a veiled indication to them of Jesus’ identity.

This is a moment of victory for Jesus: ‘That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good’ (v.46, MSG).

Father, please give me wisdom like Jesus to avoid the traps, to deal with the trick questions and to answer the testing ones.

Job 30:1-32:22

3. Take up the challenge of victory over temptation

The book of Job demonstrates once and for all that sin and suffering are not necessarily directly connected to an individual’s sin or lack of sin. The whole point of the book of Job is that, although Job is not perfect (13:26 and 14:17), it was not Job’s sin that caused his suffering. Job was ‘blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil’ (1:1).

Job knew that in spite of the accusations of his friends he had a totally clear conscience. It is as if he had been put on trial, facing his ‘accuser’ in the dock with an ‘indictment’ (31:35) against him. In today’s passage he gives his defence (v.35).

Job’s life was an example, an inspiration and a challenge. This is a wonderful picture of holy and righteous living.

• Keep yourself pure
  He said, ‘I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl’ (v.1). He was not enticed (v.9) in his heart into adultery. He realised that ‘adultery is a fire that burns the house down’ (v.12, MSG).
• Avoid materialism
  He did not put his trust in riches (v.24) in spite of the great wealth he had. Nor did he put his hope in pure gold by saying, ‘You are my security’ (v.24). Again, his heart had not been ‘secretly enticed’ (v.27).
• Love your enemy
  He had resisted the temptation to hate his enemies. He didn’t gloat when his enemies were in trouble (v.29b) – which is such a powerful temptation. There is a great temptation to speak words of anger, but Job did not allow his ‘mouth to sin by invoking a curse against their life [his enemy]’ (v.30).
• Be generous
  It was not just in his personal life that he avoided sin. He was fair to his employees (v.13). He did not deny ‘the desires of the poor’ (v.16a). His ‘door was always open to the traveller’ (v.32).

Lord, help me to live like Job with a clear conscience. Help me to keep myself pure and to put my trust in you alone. May I never rejoice at my enemy’s misfortune or gloat over their troubles. Help me to be compassionate and generous to all.

Thank you that through the cross of Jesus, you make forgiveness for our past failures possible, and through the power of the Holy Spirit I can be victorious over temptation.

Pippa Adds

I am very impressed with Job’s confidence that God will find him blameless (31:6). He gives a very good list of the way he has lived his life, including that he has not kept his bread to himself (v.17). I didn’t feel at all generous when I returned home to find that Nicky had given all the chocolate brownies I had made to a group of visitors. I have a long way to go!

Notes:
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.