Each time I drive over a bridge I get this passing thought about its strength and safety. Then the thoughts go to how many cars cross this bridge every day? When was the last time it was inspected or repaired? How old is this bridge? How many 40 ton semi-trucks cross it each day?
Knowing the condition of America’s infrastructure due to politicians diverting funds for their invulnerability into their pet projects that pay them personal returns; these thoughts are reasonable for a man of my age, and it doesn’t make me gephyrophobic.
Have you ever thought about how they test a bridge? It seems that inspecting a bridge involves a lot of observation. The bridge inspector looks for things that indicate the bridge is in danger of collapse.
Bridge inspectors still reply on hammers, chains, and eyeballs for their inspections. Rust, cracks, bolts, and rivet conditions are indicators of unsafe bridges. The trained eye and the sound of bad metal are still the best ways to examine bridges.
It seems the more high-tech methods of inspecting bridges has limitations and is very time consuming and expensive to do on whole bridges and every bridge; hmmm, hence the politicians ignoring their soundness. One in nine bridges in America have been found structurally deficient with the average age 42 years.
Consider some of the high tech methods outside the laboratory:
penetrant inspection, magnetic particle inspection, ultrasonic inspection, radiographic inspection, eddy current inspection, acoustic emission inspection, and even thermal measuring techniques.
Metal in the laboratory goes through a much more thorough analysis using;
Chemical analysis, mechanical testing, metallographic testing, failure analysis and metal material certifications.
It appears that we make the steel for the bridges with quality procedures, but once they are in place throughout our country, they are pretty much ignored, except for a few spot inspections which are not thoroughly reliable.
Job understood that God does a much better job inspecting and testing humans that modern man does testing bridges.
“What is man, that You think so highly of him and pay so much attention to him? You inspect him every morning, and put him to the test every moment.” Job 7:17-18
God’s plan for humans is for them to rule with Christ as kings and priests for eternity. In order for Him to accomplish this, He has to make absolutely sure that each human passes His divine inspections proving they are made of the right stuff to withstand the glorified atmosphere of heaven.
After all Lucifer wasn’t able to withstand pride and envy even in the Throne Room of God. The Glory of God that should have enabled Lucifer to excel above all the other angels, which it did for a season, became the focus of his jealousy, which in turn changed the character of Lucifer into a Satan.
God cast Satan out of heaven and now is demonstrating to him that He as Almighty God can take a human being made of flesh and put a heart in him that will desire God so much that all the temptations that the devil can throw at him will be resisted.
The devil hates humans so much that he goes to and fro through the earth seeking someone, anyone to devour. Jesus said that Satan came to steal, kill and destroy. Just take a look around you at the world you live in and see the theft, the murder, the destruction in the lives of people, some of them your loved ones. God didn’t do this evil. Jesus came to give eternal life abundantly, a life that we can experience today in this life.
Now if we liken humans to bridges, we find that we become very careful of ‘crossing’ certain individuals. (pun intended)
Put another way we are very careful of who we open our hearts up to who we share our secrets with, who we lean upon for encouragement and support in time of distress.
We even do this with God, because we have been taught that He is a mean Heavenly Father just waiting to hit us over the head with a baseball bat. So we keep our mouths shut and bury the hurt and pain deep inside our souls, fearful that God is going to find out and punish us for our sins.
The truth is God the Father punished His own Son for our sins. Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God bore all sins for all mankind, past, present and future. This is why He cried out; “”Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46
At that moment on the Cross, Jesus bore the total sins of all humanity once and for all. His Father had to forsake Him for God as the Father cannot dwell where there is sin. Jesus as the Lamb bore all the sins alone fulfilling the Tabernacle offering of Atonement. Jesus was the Atonement for your sins and for mine. As soon as Jesus had paid the price, He gave up His Spirit to His Father and at that very second, He became the Great High Priest for every soul who will believe in Him as the Son of God and as the only way to Eternal Life.
God of the Old Testament had to punish sin severely because there was no perfect sacrifice to atone for their sins. Jesus Christ became sinful human flesh without committing sin of any kind, and thus the perfect atoning sacrifice for all sins.
Jesus doesn’t stand with a hammer to strike us. He doesn’t stand with a chain to rake us. He already knows exactly where you hurt, where the pain is, where your weaknesses are, what your sins are, the condition of your heart; He stands with His arms outstretched welcoming you to come unto me and I will give you rest unto your souls.
Jesus knows how much he can bear upon you, how much weight you can carry, and He promises not to put anymore upon you than you can handle, and He always makes away of escape from anything that is going to cause you eternal harm.
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, to convict us of right living, to convict us of the coming judgment, to bring to our remembrance all that He has taught us, to pray with us and instead of us, to strengthen us, to comfort us, to heal us, to enlighten us, to embolden us, to give us living waters that flow into eternal life, to give us oil that soothes our pains, and the list goes on. Does that sound like a harsh, mean, sadistic Heavenly Father with a hammer and a chain?
Only the devil uses a hammer. Only the devil uses chains. Only the devil is out to destroy you with your own fleshing desires that you choose not to control and allow to run rampant into debauchery and self-seeking lifestyles that lead eventually to eternal death and self-destruction. God doesn’t send you to hell. You choose to go there yourself, and He never violates your freedom of choice.
Just like our bridges, we as humans have been made as the supreme example of God’s Craftsmanship. Yet once we are in existence, the only one with qualifications to inspect us is shut out of our lives, and not allowed to point out our flaws; flaws that will endanger us and others for eternity.
Instead of allowing God to inspect our hearts, we create our own modern methods of inspectors under the cloak of New Age Humanistic teachings that exalts man to godhood, and gives us superior insight to examine our own hearts with a false weights and balances. Just like Belshazzar in the book of Daniel, we are found wanting, pretending on the outside to be happy and at peace, when all the hurts, pains, sufferings have been buried on the inside and covered over with right words and right behavior, all of which exalts man and eliminates God as our Judge and inspector.
Job was so oppressed by his so-called friends, wife and the devil, that He took it personally and questioned God as the source. While God uses evil to accomplish His purposes, He is not the source of evil, nor the source of our troubles.
David was shown his sinfulness by the prophet and by the Holy Spirit withdrawing from his daily life. He soon saw his own corruption and cried out: “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.” Psalm 51:10-11
This is where America is today. This is where you are today. You are a bridge wearing away with time and use. How many more loads can you bear? How much more stress can you withstand? When was the last time you allowed the Holy Spirit to conduct a thorough inspection of your inner workings? Are you crying out as Job, questioning God as to why? Or are you crying out as David, acknowledging your sinfulness and pleading for a new heart, a new spirit, and for God not to remove His Holy Presence from your life?
You can be free from the hammer of guilt and chains of shame by acknowledging your sinfulness as David in Psalm 32:3-5
Acknowledge that God is observing you each and every day for sin and weaknesses, because He loves you and desires you to spend eternity with Him. He has no sin.
“When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.” Selah.