Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 10 June 2012
By Captain Michael Ramsay
In the old days, spanking used to be a common way of disciplining – not so much any more. Though it was banned in BC public schools before I ever earned the right to receive a backside blessing, I remember friends of mine who attended other places recalling their displeasure at the strap. In that regard it was a real blessing growing up when I did that I lived in British Columbia: did you know that BC was the first province to ban corporal punishment; they did so in the early 1970s, 16 years before the next province or territory. It was the only place in Canada where I could possibly grow up where I was guaranteed not to get the strap. Saskatchewan here only banned corporal punishment in 2005.
Leaving the schools aside as well as what discipline I may or may not have deserved in elementary grades especially. I have a question for you pertaining to parents and spanking their children: Now I am not going to ask how many of us here have ever earned a backside blessing from Mom or Dad but there is the classic phrase that a parent would stereotypically utter before striking her child; does anyone recall what that might be? …”This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” Has anyone uttered or heard this before? I saw one comic along those lines that I thought was particularly amusing; here it is:
In preparation for today’s talk, I was listening to one speaker recount an episode from her own childhood where her mother was about to strike her and was uttering just those words, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” To which the girl responded, either in fact or fantasy, “No, I’m pretty sure it’s going to hurt me more… but, if you disagree, I think have a solution that would help us both…”
Now, of course, there is some truth to the saying: “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” as far as parental discipline is concerned. I can remember in my own experience as a parent around discipline, not spanking in this case, but discipline nonetheless. There was a sporting event - a Broncos game - that I was really looking forward to going to with one of my daughters. She had already received a warning about a particular behaviour earlier in the evening and that should she repeat that behaviour, missing this event would be the consequence; she then immediately acted out again and she missed the hockey game. That was a consequence of her actions; she missed the game but – as the truth is known – I doubt that she even remembers that now. I do. I was really looking forward to spending some special daddy-daughter time with her but because of her actions and her blatant defiance, that just couldn’t happen and the consequence -I can tell you- hurt me a lot more than it did her. I still remember it.
“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” That, I believe, sums up God’s sentiment behind the whole flood narrative in the scriptures.[1] Genesis 6:5-7:
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”
The Lord is grieved, it says.[2] The Lord is pained, it says. The Lord created the earth and everything in it and it was good (Genesis 1:1-2:3). Now His creation’s heart is ‘only evil all the time’ (Genesis 6:5). God is not going to withhold his children’s well-earned consequence but in delivering it, He might just be saying, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.”
God loves us. We remember the creation story, right? On the first day, God the Father makes day and night and then on the fourth day He lovingly places the sun, moon and stars and in the day and the night that He created. Then on the second day He makes the sky and the sea and on the fifth day He places sea creatures, every bird, and winged creature in this environment that He has lovingly prepared for them. On the third day He creates the ground. Then on the sixth day He creates every animal that walks upon the ground. And our Heavenly Father creates humankind in His own image and He places us in the world that He has lovingly prepared for us. God loves His creation. He loves us. Creation is then finished and it is good. [3] God blesses this day, making it holy and then He rests (cf. also Psalm 33:6, Psalm 93; Isaiah 45:12; John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 11:3). God makes this beautiful world, that He loves and it is good and He creates good people –Adam and Eve- to look after it, but sin creeps in and breaks God’s heart; so He needs to remove people from the land He put us in.[4] In giving us this time-out, the saddened Father might here say, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you,” for even as He is disciplining humankind, He gives Adam and Eve new clothes and a new start. But again, humankind hurts her Heavenly Father.
This time Cain falls prey to sin, killing his brother and becoming further removed from the Lord and the land he is working (Genesis 4). God loves us so much that He even warns Cain before Cain succumbs to sin. He tells him, Genesis 4:7b, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Humanity nonetheless defies God and falls prey to sin again and so God might very well say, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you,” as again humanity needs to be removed from the land that was entrusted to us. God still loves His creation. He gave us, His children, this responsibility to look after His creation for Him and twice now, with Adam and Eve and with Cain, He has had to give us a time-out and twice now He has removed us from the land that He had asked us to look after on His behalf.
Now, it is only a few chapters further along in the story, the years have gone on and God has many more children whom He loves and they are still being disobedient, even with the examples of those before them. As a matter of fact, they are worse than ever. They need a time-out or they need a spanking (depending on your societal and/or generational reference point). Genesis 6:5-6: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.” This makes our loving God very sad.[5] A parent hopes that at some point His children will learn their lesson but alas that time has not yet arrived for the Lord’s children and God the Father in essence must be saying to the children and all His creation that was good and that He still loves as He is about to send the flood, “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you.”
What about us? This side of the cross… what about us? In this country… what about us? Generations and generations later… what about us? Are we any better? In Canada here, God loves us, like He loves people in the world at the time of Noah. God loves us.
Our forefathers when they were founding our nation decided to take a stand in for God, for King, and for country. So, instead of focusing on individualistic liberties and the selfish pursuits of personal happiness at the expense of others, the Canadian Fathers of Confederation focused on peace (Jesus is the Prince of Peace), order (God is a God of order not disorder), and good government (cf. Isaiah 9:5-7, Psalm 72).
Canada’s motto, “A Mari usque ad Mare” is Latin for “from sea to sea.” It comes from Psalm 72, in the Bible. Where, in verse 8, it declares, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea.” That is a key underpinning of our society and of our founding identity, the idea that God himself, shall have dominion from sea to sea. It is not some accident or coincident. It is intentional. Our country was intentionally founded on the Word of God. God loves us. We loved God.
And even as recently as the 20th Century, the Christian Reverends JS Woodsworth (of Manitoba) and Tommy Douglas (Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944-61) and many others intentionally sought to bring about peace and justice through distributing the Lord’s provision to the poor and the needy.[6] We loved God. God loves us.
God saw what He created in Genesis 1-2 and said that His creation was good. God loves this world and God loves this country. God has used this country of Canada to do so much good in the world. But we seem to be changing now; I fear that for us not unlike Genesis 6:5-6: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.”
In Canada today, because He loves us, I imagine the Lord is grieved, that His heart is filled with pain; the crime rate now is higher than it ever used to be as we do unto our neighbour what we would never ever want done to ourselves (Matthew 19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31-33, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9-10, 15:2, Galatians 15:14, Ephesians 4:25, James 2:8, cf. also Exodus 22, Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 5, 19-17, Proverbs). According to the CCVF, crime is so bad right now that many people are losing faith in the authorities abilities to stop it that -in many cases- charges aren’t even being filed anymore.[7] Even economic crime is on the rise in Canada with Reuters reporting that 56 percent of companies surveyed recently (more than half of them) reported falling prey to white-collar crime.[8] And – of course – there is pornography, which horribly is North America’s most lucrative pastime. In the United States, pornography revenue is more than all money made from professional football, baseball and basketball combined. The money made by US pornography exceeds the combined revenues of all their major TV networks (6.2 billion) Child pornography alone generates $3 billion annually.[9]
“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” That, I believe, sums up God’s sentiment and it may be what the Lord is telling us here today as we prepare to meet our much-deserved discipline preceding the echaton. Genesis 6:5-7:
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”
We can just picture the tears running down the Lord’s face: “This is going to hurt me more than it does you.” We are God’s loved creation. There are consequences for our sins. In Genesis 3, we see that the ground is cursed and Adam and Eve are removed from the garden for their sin. In Genesis Chapter 4, we see that the land is cursed for Cain and he becomes a wanderer. In Genesis Chapters 6-9, we see that the ground is cursed with a flood to cleanse the world of our sin.
In Canada today and probably the rest of the so-called Western World, the so-called First World, too, it seems that every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts is drifting towards that same evil that we have been reading about in Genesis – and we should know better. Our culture looks like it is standing before the Lord, He with paddle in hand or -if you prefer- a time-out chair in the corner saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it does you.” And He is right.
Again I think of my daughter and how much I really wanted to spend some quality time with her at the hockey game. I was longing for that. I was looking forward to that. I really wanted to spend quality time strengthening our relationship and getting to know her better. I love my daughter and I was looking forward to spending that time enjoying her company, but she acted out in a way (even when she was warned not to) that resulted in her losing the privilege – and I lost the privilege. I am not sure if she even remembers the incident but it grieves my heart to this day. “This is going to hurt me more than it does you.”
It is the same with us in this world today and it is sad but there is good news. After the flood, God makes a covenant with Noah. God blesses Noah and his sons, saying to them, Genesis 9:1, like He told Adam and Eve in the garden in the beginning “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (see Genesis 1:28) and Genesis 9:7, “...be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” (see Genesis 1:28).[10] And Genesis 9:8-10:
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth.
And we know what the sign of that covenant is, right? The rainbow. And God too makes a covenant with us through the later sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever of us believes in Him shall not perish in the eternal floodwaters but shall have everlasting life. Friends, make no mistake: God loves us and the eschaton is coming. The end is near. It is coming soon and Matthew tells us about the end time, that it will be, Matthew 24:37-39 (see Luke 16:26-27):
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
We cannot forget though that God’s story of the flood actually speaks to correction for the purpose of salvation rather than to mere judgment[11] and 2 Peter 2:5,9: “if [God] did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; ... if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment” (cf. TSA doc. 11). And this applies to us today. God loves us and has provided for our salvation from the impending crisis.
So today, the end is near; the eschatological flood is coming and if you have not yet boarded that ark of eternal salvation, if you have not yet picked up your ticket for that eternal cruise, if you have not yet walked up that gang plank, look around you: the metaphorical animals are already marching up two by two to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. As this is the case, let us all now hop aboard that ark of eternal salvation. It is easy to do. If you haven’t made that reservation yet, please speak to the Lord and if you would like help booking your spot let me know, we can help; and once you have secured your seat, come tell me and everyone else here so that we can welcome you aboard. And for those of us here who have already made this commitment, for those of us here who already reserved our seats, even if it was a long time ago, please let us invite everyone else we know to come and join us aboard as well. This cruise of eternal salvation is real and I guarantee you it will be the ride of your life.
Let us pray.
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[1] Cf. Terence E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984),112.
[2] Cf. T. Desmond Alexander, “Genesis 6:6-7” in The ESV Study Bible, ed. Lane T. Dennis (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2008), Available on-line: http://esvstudybible.org/
[3] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis, (John Knox Press: Atlanta, Georgia, 1982), 74
[4] Cf. John H. Sailhamer, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Genesis/Exposition of Genesis/I. Introduction to the Patriarchs and the Sinai Covenant (1:1-11:26)/D. The Story of Noah (5:1-10:32)/4. The Flood (6:5-9:17)/a. The decree (6:5-12), Book Version: 4.0.2 for a good discussion of the influence of the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil on this story.
[5] Cf. Derek Kidner: Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1967 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 1), S. 91
[6] Cf. Bill Blaikie, The Blaikie Report: An Insider's Look At Faith And Politics (Winnipeg, MB: United Church Publishing House, 2012)
[7] Lorrie Goldstein, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation (Toronto: Oct 25, 2009), cited November 22, 2009. Available on-line:http://www.ccvf.net/articles.cfm?pageID=articles&subpageID=news&viewID=75 : Every five years, Statistics Canada conducts the General Social Survey. It asks a representative sample of Canadians, among other things, whether they have been crime victims. From the last survey in 2004 (the next one is being conducted now, with the findings to be released next year) Statistics Canada reached the following conclusions. First, progressively fewer Canadians who are crime victims are reporting the crime to police -- only 34% in 2004, compared to 37% in 1999. Second, based on the GSS, an estimated 92% of sexual assaults were never reported to police, 46% of break-ins, 51% of motor vehicle/parts thefts, 61% of physical assaults and 54% of robberies.
[8] Economic crime rate rises in Canada, report says (Thu Nov 19, 2009 3:14pm EST) cited November 21, 2009. Available on-line: http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCATRE5AI52E20091119 : "Some 56 percent of companies surveyed reported falling prey to white-collar crime during the period, the 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers' Economic Crime Survey showed. That's a 10 percentage point increase over 2003 and a 4 point increase from two years ago."
[9] Christian Technology Solutions, Pornography Industry Statistics. Cited 21 November, 2009. Available on line: http://christiantechnologysolutions.com/content/view/18/24/
[10] Cf. W. Sibley Towner, “Genesis 9:8-17.” Interpretation 63, no. 2 (April 1, 2009): 168-171. ATLASerials, Religion Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed June 4, 2012).
[11] Terence E. Fretheim, The Book of Genesis, (NIB I: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994),389.
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