by Robert M. Smith
The game of chess
is one of those rare games that demands of its players a high degree of
intelligence and an absolutely essential capacity for foresight and
planning. Often the chess match is much more akin to the labours of
upper-level administration than it is to relaxation and amusement, but
it is a game nonetheless.
We often refer to
our lives and life in general as one large game of chess as we move
about in society with destinations unbeknown to others; our paths
continuously crossing again and again, amidst this complete tapestry of
interwoven lives; leading one to detect an inkling of a plan which
transcends our mundane, yet meaningful, actions and interactions. Only
in life’s more distasteful moments do we even admit to the possibility
of such a plan, however. And in those times of stress we are not looking
so much for the plan but rather to lay blame upon whomever we
might deem responsible for the plan of life. The thought goes
something like this: “If there is a God, how can He do this to me?” At
times we truly do feel like pawns but we must determine whether,
in fact, we actually are or not before we go around half-cocked
condemning God because we envision Him on the other end of a “joy
stick”.
Does God know
about our calamities before they happen? Certainly He does. There is
sufficient Scripture to verify that conclusion: Ps 139:13-16; Isa
49:1-3; Isa 49:5; Gen 12:1-3; Gen 15:1-6; Gen 37:5-11; Matt 17:24-27;
Matt 26:31-35; Eph 1:3-6 among others. Ah, but does this foreknowledge
presuppose that one is hopelessly compelled to bend to the mind of God,
as if locked into the service of His every strange whim and fancy? Such
a question presumes God to be too human, for with it we judge Him as we
would any man. By claiming that God toys with us we are attempting to
bring Him down to our level of integrity – which, of course, is not very
high. With that we try to eliminate His perfection and holiness, but we
forget that - as we have already considered – He is not a man nor is He
like a man. In this we must never forget the testimony of
passages like Jas 1:13, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am
tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil and He Himself
tempts no one;” (RSV).
God remains
serious about life – He is not tempting or playing with anyone – and He
emphasizes this by His comments about it: it is brief (Jas 4:14; Ps
102:3&11; Ps 144:3); it is terminal (Heb 9:27; Gen 3:19b); it can be
wasted (Jude 11-13; Matt 10:39; Lk 12:19-21); He suffers through our
lives for our benefit (2 Pet 3:9; Rom 5:8).
It can be quickly
and easily ascertained that God does not play with us but our
conceptualization of Him as the great Chess Player does have an awful
lot to say about us.
Even though we may
think of Him thusly – in a negative or depreciative sense – we are, at
the same time, acknowledging, in a manner of speaking, His sovereignty.
It is so very fascinating to find even the most rebellious minds and
lives, in the hour of greatest stress, making reference to their own
incapabilities and to His authority by imagining that He is using life’s
inconveniences and miseries to do them ill. Romans 1:21 [“For
even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks,
but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart
was darkened.”] in conjunction with
John 1:9 [“There was the true Light which, coming into the world,
enlightens every man.”] gives us an
indication that all men have some innate realization that God exists.
Times of pressure tend to reintroduce us to those deep impulses as well
as emphasize them. No man, even here on earth, can suppress that
inexorable twinge for a lifetime. The book of Revelation, chapter
sixteen in particular, reveals this truth to us in the most graphic way
as seven bowls of wrath are poured out upon those who stand defiant to
God. Reading like some extraordinary universal environmental disaster,
the angels of God keep emptying their bowls over a sin-cursed earth
until these events are seen as the unmistakable hand of God. By the time
the fourth bowl is poured out men are responding to God, but in a most
negative way. The text says repeatedly that men blasphemed or cursed God
(Rev 16:9; 11; 21) and refused to repent before Him even as they knew
that He was responsible for these judgments. In verse nine we are
actually given a phrase that defines the moment: “and they
blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues”.
This is an exceptional revelation of the obstinacy of man; that in the
face of such overwhelming Divine intervention, man could be so infected
with sin and disdain for God that he would rather curse than repent. It
is equally an exceptional revelation as it testifies that God’s
sovereignty cannot be denied … no, not even by the ungodly! In fact,
their stance only fortifies His sovereignty all the more.
Secondly, the slur
that some launch at God becomes their own condemnation. They may claim
that God is using them but their accusation merely ricochets back at
them by designating the bankruptcy of their own thoughts and the
subsequent abuse in which they would indulge if they were in a position
of supreme authority. Some accuse Him because that is what they would do
if they were in His place.
Sure, man is not
in God’s place but we try to appease our own desperate and disparate
desires with our insubordinate attitudes and responses to His guidance.
We try to wrest what we can from His grasp and upon occasion fancy
ourselves as masters of our own destinies. Lost in the sheer lunacy of
our own self-importance we begin to gamble with spiritual and eternal
realities, thus doing great harm to ourselves and many others as well.
Let’s look at some
of the games we play:
