Mark 10:2 “Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’”

People, maybe men in particular, like to tinker. Computer geeks will overclock their processors, add special cooling systems, upgrade their memory and graphics cards, to give their systems an edge when they are gaming. My dad was constantly tinkering with the house in which I grew up: building a deck, finishing the basement, re-siding the house, putting on an addition.

Tinkering with some things is okay. Tinkering with others can get us into trouble. In 1979 China began enforcing a “one family, one child” policy in an attempt to control its population. After a couple had a child, they would be forced to abort any future pregnancies. But the nation’s leaders did not take into account the strong cultural preference for male children. Parents often ended pregnancies when they learned they were expecting a girl so that their one child could be a boy. Today this has created a shortage of women in their country, and this is creating a whole new set of problems that the communist government is scrambling to correct.

Tinkering with human inventions may not do serious harm. Tinkering with God’s work is a recipe for disaster. God created the family to work a certain way. Sinful humans have tinkered with it almost since the beginning of time. The Pharisees questioning Jesus were not so much honest truth seekers looking for an answer to a hard question about marriage and divorce. They were skeptics looking for problems with Jesus’ position.

The institution of marriage suffered in their day much the way it suffers in our own. It is hard for two people to unite their lives, share everything, and create a family together for the rest of their lives. It takes tons of patience, forgiveness, and sacrifice.

Jewish people 2000 years ago were looking for loopholes, for escape routes, for ways to get out of their commitment, just like people do today. Even among the Pharisees there were two positions about what it takes to end a marriage. But that is not the main issue in this story.

The Pharisees tinkered because they did not recognize the Lord of their families, or their marriages. They tried to make God’s word say what they wanted it to say on the topic rather than listening to what he said on the topic. They wanted to justify their bad treatment of God’s good gift.

Divorce has touched the majority of families I know, including my own. I am not here to beat anyone up today for their family’s failings. Divorce always involves sin on someone’s part, but it is not the unforgivable sin.

But let’s not come to Jesus like the Pharisees did. Let’s not come full of defensiveness and excuses, ready to test him and challenge him. If Jesus is Lord of our families, and Lord of our marriages, can we just listen to him? If his words confront something sinful or broken in our past, or in our present, can we just repent, and tell him we are sorry?

He did not come to condemn us, or embarrass us, or make us pay. He came to save us. He came to forgive us. And if we listen to him, maybe he can save our marriages, too–if not the ones in our past, then those of our present or yet to come.

James 4:11-12 “Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment over it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?”

James isn’t talking about going to someone who has offended you personally to talk about their sin. He is talking about making them the object of your gossip to others. You can talk against the people who make you mad. You can sit in judgment and condemn the people you think have hurt you. You can choose to stew and brood and be angry. But does it do any good?

It certainly doesn’t help them. They are no closer to changing and treating you better when you are talking behind their backs or just carrying around a chip on your shoulder. It doesn’t help us. Unless there is something seriously messed up about us psychologically, it doesn’t make us feel better to go around with a belly full of resentment towards someone else. It only adds to our stress and indigestion.

Worse yet, it puts us at odds with God and his law, which is essentially, “love your neighbor,” even “love your enemies.” We are silently saying, “I think God’s way is stupid. My genius idea of carrying my anger and resentment around with me all the time, driving up my blood pressure and ruining my sleep, makes much more sense.”

Do we hear ourselves? Can we see what we are doing? Is there any way to judge others, and judge God’s law, and still think we can submit to God and humble ourselves before him?

James tells us no. “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?” Let it go. Let God be God. We aren’t qualified to stand in his place, and we don’t really want the job anyway.

He can save and destroy. If we need saving from someone else, and that means destroying them, there is One Lawgiver and Judge qualified to make that call. It is not you or me. It is the One who already let himself be destroyed to save us all. We act in self-interest. He acts in self-giving love.

And if the person with whom we have our quarrel can be saved, too, no one knows better than our Lord if that is the case and what he must do. Dealing out proper judgment to people who upset us is above our paygrade as God’s people. Confront their sin and lead them to God’s grace? Yes. Verbally condemn them to others and carry a grudge? No. Let it go. Leave that kind of judgment to God, and find God’s cure for our discontent in the grace he has shown to you and me.

James 4:8-10 “Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

The Lord wants to be with you and on your side. Go to him and he will stick with you. But where is that? We find him where he has promised to be found: in the promises of his word. Paul wrote the Romans, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (That is to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ (That is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming.” We find Jesus, we come to him, in his word, and through that word he comes to us and lives in us. And you can be sure that Jesus is not content to live in an old fixer-upper. He doesn’t live in a place without tearing it apart and improving just about everything about it.

So you recognize who has to change if you aren’t happy with the people around you or with the content of your life. James doesn’t egg us on to go after the other guy. He is pointing you and me to ourselves. “Work on yourself,” he is saying, “if you want me to lift you up in your life.”

That work assumes a life of repentance. The Apostle does not mince words. “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” Some might complain about James’s negativity. “I want to feel good and be uplifted when I worship, not beaten down,” I have heard people say. “You can’t tell people they are bad,” one false teacher on TV has said to defend his greasy smile and sermons composed of shallow flattery.

James makes it clear there is still a place for genuine regret and tears in the believer’s life. He is not saying there is no place at all for joy or happiness. But we still mistreat other people. We still want what God says we can’t have. Our hearts still waver between God’s way and the devil’s. We tell our children to say they’re sorry when they misbehave. That’s what James is telling us here.

“And he (the Lord) will lift you up.” You see, he is not interested in seeing us spend our lives with a frown on our face and tears in our eyes. He replies to our repentance with his grace. He let’s us see our sins, every last one of them, sent to the cross with Jesus and obliterated. He raises us with Jesus to new life now and eternal life to come. He fills our hearts with peace. He fills our lives with meaning and purpose. He promotes us to the dignity of being the sons and daughters of the King, the distinguished members of his royal family. He exchanges this tar-paper shack we call our home for his glorious kingdom.

Yes, we repent. We humble ourselves. But we don’t lose. We win the most fantastic prize ever won. We end up with the immeasurable blessings of his grace.

James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

If non-Christian behavior goes against Bible teaching; if they have priorities wildly out of line with the ones Jesus taught; if their understanding of right and wrong is vastly different than that of Biblical and orthodox Christianity; there is really no surprise. They are non-Christians. They have decided to go a different way. Of course their standards are going to be different.

It’s different for the Christian. Jesus isn’t just a casual friend and a good guy. Believing him isn’t the same as believing my golfing buddy when he tells me about his kid’s success on the football field. We believe in him. We attach ourselves to him as a person. We trust him with our soul’s salvation for all eternity. That’s not like finding a good insurance agent or a reliable mechanic. We follow Christ. We give up our own ideas, our own desires, in favor of his. Or, as James urges, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.”

I don’t have to tell you how hard this is. If it seems easy to you, I have to wonder whether you have ever really taken this call seriously. It means that what God tells you in his word always overrules your own ideas–no exceptions. You don’t get to privately disagree, “Well, the Bible says this, but I think…” It means the Lord gets everything you have–no exceptions. If he wants your child, he can take him. If he wants your health, he can take it. If he wants your life, he can have it. He doesn’t have to explain himself. “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” Because we have not lost the old self, the sinful nature with its desires, we will struggle with this until the day we die.

This also means that we have clearly chosen sides in a cosmic battle between heaven and hell, God and the devil. But here we get some promises. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I have personally met a few men who played professional football. I have shaken hands with Cowboys hall-of-fame quarterback Roger Staubach. I have met former Cowboys backup QB Babe Laufenberg. On TV they looked like the little guys out on the field. In person, I’m sure if I ever had to face them in a fair fight, I would be crushed. They towered over me and weighed twice as much.

I have seen the work the devil does on the pages of Scripture and in the souls of the people I have served as pastor. In a single day he destroys Job’s life with foreign attackers and natural catastrophes. He gets great heroes of faith like Abraham, David, and Peter to fall into horrifying sins and temptations. He has snatched colleagues in the ministry, elders and life-long Christians in my churches, away from the Christian faith altogether. He doesn’t fight fair, but if I had to face him alone, I would be crushed.

Yet James can say, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” How can this be? There is a scene near the end of the C.S. Lewis movie Prince Caspian, in which Queen Lucy, a little 9 year-old girl, comes marching across a bridge toward an entire army of enemy occupiers of her country. She draws out a little kitchen-knife sized sword, and stops the army in its tracks. Why? Behind her, and then beside her, is the miracle-working lion Aslan, the Jesus-character in the story.

It works the same way with the devil. Resist him and he will run away, like the little coward he is, because behind you and beside you is your Lord Jesus, and the devil knows he is outmatched.

Numbers 12:8-15 “‘Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam–leprous, like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; and he said to Moses, ‘Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘O God, please heal her!’ The Lord replied to Moses, ‘If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.’ So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.”

When God’s judgments fall on people in the Bible, sometimes people accuse God of being mean. TV personality Bill Maher said, “God in the Old Testament is a psychopath. He just kills, kills, kills for no reason…” But that isn’t right.

No one understands better than the Lord does how far human beings have fallen in their self-willed rebellion against their Maker. It doesn’t take a very robust faith, as C.S. Lewis once pointed out, to believe that the One who made us and who knows our every thought, knows when it is no more use to try to change us, when there is no more hope of us ever coming around to the right side, and no more use in giving us further chances. It doesn’t take a very robust faith to believe that he knows just how severe his intervention would have to be to shake us back to our senses so that we can be saved. It is not a sad commentary on God, but a sad commentary on the human heart, that the miserable death of hardened souls is sometimes necessary to soften others and lead them to repentance.

So it is with Miriam and Aaron here. The Lord was not out to destroy them. He could have already done that easily enough. He is out to win them. And if the only way to turn these two around was to inflict Miriam with a deadly disease that would see her body slowly rot away while she was still alive, he would not spare her body if it meant he could save their souls. Aaron quickly confessed their sin. God’s mercy may have been severe, but it was effective. Aaron and Miriam repented.

And then the Lord showed his grace. Rather than a life-sentence of misery and a slow death, Miriam was quarantined for a week and able to rejoin society healthy and whole. In these terms the Lord expressed his forgiveness.

God has taken our death away, too, not merely by healing our bodies, but by giving the leprosy of our sin to his Son, and letting it kill him in our place at the cross. Now he has brought us back and joined us to his family of faith, forgiven and restored.

The lesson of this account is not a threat: be good to your spiritual leaders or else. It is template, a pattern, an illustration of how the Lord deals with his people in their brokenness and sin. He confronts what’s wrong. He defends what’s right. He leads us to repent and then he shows his mercy. Receive that mercy. Then follow where he leads.

Numbers 12:3-8 “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, ‘Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you.’ So the three of them came out. Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, he said, ‘Listen to my words: When a Prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord.”

There are three ways that the Lord defended Moses and his character here. First, for us the readers, he records that Moses was “more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” Sometimes we might get the idea that a leader has it coming. He has been so arrogant, so drunk with power, that he needed someone to knock him down a few notches.

That was not Moses. He was not perfect, by far. But he had not pursued this position as leader of Israel. The Lord practically had to force it on him. Moses had objected that he wasn’t qualified. “I don’t really know you that well, Lord. I am a nobody that no one will want to listen to. I am not very good at speaking.” Apparently, this humility had not left him even after the many miracles God had done through him and the defeat of one of the world’s super powers.

The Lord wants us to know this about him. Real leaders don’t have to puff themselves up by bragging about their accomplishments or constantly comparing themselves to others, at least not Christian ones. Humility is a trait of biblical leadership, and Moses was a role model of that trait.

Second, for Aaron and Miriam, the Lord defended Moses as “faithful in all my house.” Moses had not used his leadership for his own advantage. He wasn’t a third world dictator living in luxury while his people starved. He didn’t impose his own rules or ideas in place of Gods. He did not see himself as above the law and give himself permission to commit sins anyone else would be punished for. He delivered God’s word to the people straight and unvarnished even when the people talked of replacing him. God said, “Jump!” and Moses said, “How high?”

There is no character trait the Lord desires more in his leaders than faithfulness. In the New Testament Paul wrote the Corinthians, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2). Nowhere does he say that a leader must prove successful, though more than one pastor has been shown the door for lack of results. He doesn’t say that a leader must prove popular, or even socially skillful. Faithful, doing his best with the gifts God gave him: that was Moses. That is still the kind of leader the Lord will defend if his ministry comes under attack.

Third, the Lord points out how he had clearly demonstrated his satisfaction with Moses and his leadership by the way he dealt with the man. Unlike any other prophet before or since, the Lord spoke to him “face to face.” No other mere mortal ever came closer to seeing the form of God himself than Moses did. No other man in his time was given a more direct word from the Lord than this man.

Moses occupied a unique place in God’s plan. We don’t expect our spiritual leaders to have such direct contact with the Lord today. Nor is it necessary. We have the word of Moses’s great successor Jesus, who brings us God’s word of grace even more directly. “In these last days he (God) has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2). “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Our great need is for leaders today to whom the Lord has revealed himself in his word, people who are open to God’s revelation and put their trust in it. Then we need them to deliver it to others faithfully, regardless of the cost to themselves.

Numbers 12:1-2 “Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. ‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?’ they asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’ And the Lord heard this.”

The issue driving Aaron and Miriam’s power play looks particularly ugly from our vantage point thousands of years later. They were critical of his “mixed marriage.” He had married a non-Israelite. They were indulging their racist prejudices.

We see that racism and ethnic prejudice is not a recent invention. The evil thought processes behind it don’t even have to run along racial lines. We are not certain whether “Cushite” refers to people from Ethiopia or to a tribe much more like the Jews in physical appearance. But it is the same sinful way of judging others that turned so many European peoples against their own neighbors for centuries, or led the Hutus to commit genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, or created the killing fields of Cambodia. Aaron and Miriam suffered from the same moral disease in their day, and we must constantly guard against our own tendency to judge others because they look, sound, or think differently than we do. You can’t embrace racism or prejudice of any kind and love your neighbor at the same time.

The end game for the brother and sister seem to have been Moses’ position as leader of the nation. “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” “Yes he had,” was the simple answer. It was a privilege that the Lord had used Aaron and Miriam as his mouthpieces at times. That in no way invalidated the ministry he had given to Moses. Moses was clearly the one the Lord called at the burning bush.

Their questions were meant to imply more than they really proved. Their arguments did not lead to the conclusion they were implying: “We have just as much reason to be recognized as the leaders of this people as Moses does.” Again, political attack ads are not something we have invented in our time, only refined. This was bad politics, bad church politics, if you will. It stunk as much then as it would now.

And it still stinks pretty bad. Few things drive people away from the churches more than the pathetic way Christians will wrestle for control. Young people become disgusted by their own parents when they see them act this way. It’s not the only reason so many have given up the faith of their fathers, but it is a major one. New members are appalled when they run into it. For non-Christians, it is all the reason they need to avoid churches altogether. It is truly a political game no one can ever win.

Jesus’ own disciples played these kinds of political games during his earthly ministry, arguing about which one of them was “the greatest.” Jesus confronted their sinful ambition by revealing what God is really looking for in a Christian leader: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43-44). “Will you love and serve my people, your fellow believers?” is God’s great concern, not seeing his leaders scratch and claw their way to the top of some kind of pecking order. Jesus’ own life is the great example: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10: 45).            

Jesus’ service and sacrifice is more than an example to follow. It is the salvation of his people. It redeems us from our sins. It is the price that sets us free. He sets us free not only from guilt and death. He even releases us from the selfish ambition that tries to assert our own interests over the people we are here to serve.

Ephesians 6:13-17 “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waste, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

You may recognize that all of these pieces of armor are related to God’s saving work. And some of them may be hard to distinguish from each other. Paul lists them in the order a Roman soldier would put them on. I am going to talk about them by grouping them according to function.

Some of these pieces make it possible for the Christian soldier to maneuver properly when he comes under attack–the belt of truth, and the gospel of peace worn on the feet. Paul isn’t talking about truth as an abstract concept–everything that may be true as opposed to everything that may be false. He certainly doesn’t mean to use “truth” the way that so many people use the word today: “It is true if it works for me.” I once met a man who had struggled with a gambling addiction. He almost lost his business and his family. Today he keeps his addiction under control by following the spiritual disciplines and meditation of some Eastern swami. When another pastor and I tried to share the gospel with him, he didn’t want to suggest that there was anything wrong with our version of truth. I mean, if Jesus worked for us, who was he to say there was anything wrong with that. But he already had a truth that was working for him, and he wasn’t willing to trade it for the truth we were offering.

There is only one truth Paul has in mind when he urges us to put on the belt of truth–Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is the truth Jesus meant when he said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It is the truth of Jesus’ teaching, the truth that sets us free to belong to him, not just any old truth. It is the truth Jesus had in mind when he told Pilate, “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” This truth that Jesus is our only Savior keeps everything in place around our souls and our Christian life, so that Satan can never trap us or corner us with his lies. And with the gospel of free forgiveness on our feet we can stand our ground, or make our escape–whatever the situation calls for at the moment.

Much of this armor is protective. It covers the most vital parts: the head and the heart. So we have God’s righteousness over our heart. What is it that steals the heart out of your faith and Christian life most easily? Isn’t it feelings of guilt? Isn’t it the burden of some sin? Look at Adam and Eve. Didn’t their guilt just cut the heart out of their relationship with God? They no longer run to him as the Father who loves them. They are afraid, and they hide. Adam makes God out to be the enemy and blames God for giving him a wife and making him sin. The beating heart of faith has been cut right out of him.

Righteousness covers the heart–not a righteousness that is full of holes because it is produced by sinners. It is the righteousness of Romans chapter 3. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” God sets the righteousness of Jesus Christ–his perfect life and his innocent death–over our hearts, and the devil can’t turn us against God or make us feel afraid anymore.

So, too, the faith God has given us–not so much my act or my virtue in trusting God, but more the wonderful truths of God’s love and mercy my faith takes hold of–acts as a shield and puts out the little fires of temptation, doubt, or fear the devil tries to light in my soul before they do real damage. Maybe I will never be so wise and intelligent that I can win a battle of wits with the devil. But if I can just keep salvation in front of me–I know my Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep; I know that my Redeemer lives–then I have a helmet to protect my mind from Satan’s deceptions.

At last, we have one weapon to go on the attack, “The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” You know, the devil must laugh his pants off when some Christians come after him with rubber and wooden swords, like “the sword of man-made science and scholarship” or “the sword of feel-good messages” or “the sword of empty-emotionalism” or “the sword of false tolerance and political correctness.” Those swords do nothing but give him a nice massage, or a good back scratch.

But take the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God, out of its sheath and start swinging, and the devil will start running. God gives us spiritual weapons for spiritual battles. Don’t be afraid to use them.

Ephesians 6:10-12 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the fall armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Paul identifies our most dangerous enemy as the devil and his angels. He is not merely imaginary, as some believe. Ten years ago New York Magazine asked Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia if he believed in the devil. He answered that he did. The reporter seemed surprised. One commentator later concluded, “We have a lunatic on the court.” That kind of denial of Satan’s existence is just the way the devil wants it.

It is part of his schemes. If he can’t convince you that he is stronger, kinder, more reasonable, and more fun than God, then he doesn’t want you to think that he exists at all. That’s because denial of the devil’s existence tends to go along with denial of belief that there is a God, a denial that sin has eternal consequences, a willingness to rethink what is right and what is wrong.

He has always been clever at playing both sides of an issue, at finding a way to make seemingly contradictory beliefs or behaviors serve his purposes. If he can’t get you to indulge your sinful desires, he will fill you with pride about how superior you are. If he can’t fill you with pride and blind you to your sin, then he will drive you to despair that God could ever be gracious to you. If he can’t drive you to despair of God’s grace, he will lead you to see God’s grace as a kind of license to sin all you want, as a sign that sin isn’t really so bad if God can forgive it so easily. If he can’t get you to take grace as a license, then he will convince you that grace has all kinds of conditions and stipulations attached to it, so that it ends up being no real grace at all. It’s like a game of chess, and the devil has a way to counter your every move, and he is always thinking at least three or four moves ahead.

Except that it is no game at all. It is a fight for your eternal soul. And look again at what Paul calls your spiritual enemies: rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, spiritual forces of evil. These aren’t just ghosts that jump out and say, “Boo!” There is real power and influence here. These spiritual forces inflict real cruelty on people. They create genuine misery–suffering, shame, fear, doubt, and unbelief.

In Daniel 10 one evil angel was able to delay one of God’s good angels from delivering a message for three weeks until the Lord finally sent the archangel Michael to intervene. If that scares you a little bit, good! Far too many people fail to take the devil and his angels seriously. Of course, in Christ we have the victory, but only in Christ. If you and I are going to be strong for our battle, we need to know our true enemy.