Because you have said, “These two nations and countries will be ours and we will take possession of them,” even though I the LORD was there … - Ezekiel 35:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 28, 2014): Ezekiel 35

As the American Civil War dragged on, there is a story told about Abraham Lincoln attending a scientific convention in Washington. At one point during the convention, one of the members of the convention called on the President with a question. "Mr. President, we trust during this time of trial in which the nation is engaged, God is on our side, and will give us victory." Lincoln looked at the inquisitive member and replied, "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God's side. For God is always right!" No one knows for sure if the incident ever happened; there does not seem to be any first hand references to be found with regard to the meeting, with the first mention of the conversation being found in the minutes of the Connecticut Temperance Union in 1881, a little more than fifteen years after Lincoln’s assassination. As a result, some have questioned whether the conversation ever happened. But the comment is in keeping with Lincoln and the moral battle that he was fighting during the civil war. Lincoln’s opposition to slavery was deeply ingrained. In the Peoria speech given by Lincoln opposing the pro-slavery Kansas Act, Lincoln declared "I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ..." But it was more than just the hate the President had for slavery. He chose the hard road that led him into the civil war, and almost to the dissolution of a nation, not because he believed that slavery was wrong, but because everything that he studied and that he knew about God convinced him that God thought that slavery was wrong. And if God thought it was wrong, how could he not oppose it?

The central element of God’s charge against Mount Seir and Edom was not that they opposed Israel and Judah, although that would have been enough. But God says that they opposed the descendants of Jacob even though they knew that God was there. Their concern was for themselves, they wanted what it was that they wanted. And they would chase what they wanted even if it meant that they would have to oppose the will of God. The only God that Edom wanted was one that would blindly agree to the aims of the nation. And that could never be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I have to admit that the one thing that concerns me about the contemporary church – and often contemporary politics – is that we want God to be on our side. But what we don’t seem to want to try to do is to figure out exactly where it is that God seems to be moving. It is easier to pray that God will be on our side; that he will rubber stamp our goals, than it is to make a commitment to be on God’s side. After all, making sure we are on God’s side just might carry us into some conflicts that we just are not ready for.

But if we want to change the world, we don’t need God to be on our side. We need to make sure that we are on God’s side. The last thing that we want to hear when we finally meet God face to face is God asking us why we opposed him – why we didn’t even seem to want to try to be on his side. After all, deep down we know that Abraham Lincoln is correct – God is always right.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 36

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife, Nelda. Have a great day!