All eyes are aimed Heavenward.  The thousands of voices in the circus big top are now a hushed whisper.  Everyone is focused on the small but compactly muscular acrobat on the high-wire far overhead.  What skill and bravery!  Many think he is crazy.  Only two things, apart from his own ability, serve to keep him from becoming an unwilling victim of gravity.  One is that strong but very thin wire he carefully inches across the abyss on.  The other is a very long pole he uses to maintain balance.  It's great length acts as two extremes of mass to keep the acrobat in the middle properly poised.  God has extremes, just as the acrobat's pole does, and His extremes serve the same purpose - to keep us balanced.

"Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?  I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.  Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep!  See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.  He is able to open the scroll and it's seven seals."  Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne," (Revelation 5:2, 4-6).

A God of Extremes, A Disciple of Extremes:

John, the author of Revelation and disciple of Jesus, is himself a study in extremes.  As a younger follower  of Christ, he and his older brother James once asked Jesus if they ought to call down fire from Heaven to destroy a small Samaritan village that did not welcome them (Luke 9:53-54).  And yet, in later years, this man writes to tell us that "God is love," and claims the title of "the disciple that Jesus loved," (1 John 4, John 13:23).  From the desire to destroy a whole village in anger to a man filled with the love of Jesus, John lived his life from one extreme to another.  How fitting then for the Lord Jesus to reveal to John, the exiled disciple, now aged and dying, the vast extremes of Himself as our Lord, Creator and friend.

The vision John received on Patmos of Jesus ranged to the extremes.  Initially he sees the "Lion of the tribe of Judah" as the triumphant one.  The picture here is of a warrior king, mighty, strong, proud, wise and glorious.  He can lead vast armies confidently into battle because he can never be defeated; his power is supreme.  A lion, the mightiest of the proud and majestic.  That is certainly our Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

And yet, just as He is the Alpha, one extreme of the Greek alphabet, He is also the Omega, the other extreme.  John's beautiful and prophetic vision now shifts to this Omega-extreme.  He sees Jesus, but now He is the "Lamb".  He sees not just any lamb, but a lamb "looking as if it had been slain".  He is no longer majestic, rather, our Lord is now viewed as humble, meek and mild; a willing sacrifice.  He is bloodied and battered, beaten and bruised.  But He is worthy!  As He takes the little scroll which portends the future and end of all things, the creatures of Heaven fall at His feet and worship Him.

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise".  And every creature in existence everywhere exclaims, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" (Revelation 5:12-13).

God is truly a God of extremes, and it is those extremes that we must use to balance out our relationship with Him.  Just as the acrobat uses the mass at each end of a lengthy pole to steady himself, we too must see God in His extremes to keep our "spiritual balance" in this world.

Extreme Examples:

God created ALL things.  With His Word and His thought they came into existence.  The entire universe that we measure in light-years: planets, stars and suns, were spoken into existence by God.  But Jesus tells us that not one small insignificant sparrow will fall to the ground apart from the will of God.  Indeed, even the very hairs on our heads are numbered and known by Him (Matthew 10:29-30)!

God is extreme.  In the macro, He creates worlds and whole galaxies, yet in the micro He does not split hairs, He numbers them!  From the planet wrenching power of earthquakes and volcanoes to the delicate and fragile beauty of a meadow of wildflowers.  He creates mountains and wills the bee to pollinate a lily.  From dinosaurs, rhinos and huge sperm whales to amoebae and bacteria.  Our God does it all!

Hebrews 4:16 tells us to "boldly approach the throne of grace" - God's very throne.  But we must not forget whom we are approaching.  In Leviticus 10:1-10, we see God destroy Aaron's sons Nadib and Abihu for disrespectfully approaching the Most Holy Place - God's throne.  As God tells Aaron in v. 10, "You must distinguish between the holy and the common."  One extreme is holy, and the other is common.

Our extreme God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27).  In 2 Corinthians 12, God tells Paul that power is made perfect in weakness!  Paul reiterates this when he says "that is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in my weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong," (2 Corinthians 12:10).

In Lazarus (John 11), Jesus took a dead man and made him alive; but in Paul, He took a live man and made him to be dead!  Dead to sin and alive to Christ.  If we die with Christ, we will also live with Him (Romans 6)!  Again, if we choose the "freedom" of sin, we are slaves to sin, but if we are set free from sin, we are slaves of God in righteousness.  Oh the glorious freedom of slavery to God!  Dying means living and living means dying.  Freedom is slavery but slavery is freedom.  The extremes can seem confusing, unless you focus on Jesus, as Paul did; "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ,"  (Philippians 3:7).  Profit becomes loss and to lose all is gain!

In Mark 9:35, Jesus does it again.  He teaches us that, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."  Once more in Matthew 10:39, He says, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." How can we understand and accept all this?  We must come to the point of personal faith where we realize that to be yoked in slavery to Jesus will remove from us our worldly burdens (Matthew 11:30), and in faith know that "to live is Christ and to die is gain," (Philippians 1:21).

"I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever,"  (Revelation 1:17-18)!

The acrobat must maintain balance, or he may fall.  The believer must maintain spiritual balance as well, or he too may fall.  We can be steadied by catching a vision of our extreme Lord and Savior.  God is extreme.  He is almighty and loving; powerful and gentle; wise and understanding; timeless and patient.  He is extreme and I love Him for it!

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God Is Extreme

The Goodsoil Discipleship Ministry

By Bro. Andy Madonio

June 30, 1997

Introduction:

In just a few examples outlined in 'Extreme', we can see how our God sweats the details while seeing the entire big picture.  With this story as a prompting, like priming a well, we will begin to see many other instances of how our God does all things so very well.

Think about it!  He authored the entire plan of redemption before His Creation was ever born (Revelation 13:8), and yet he also arranged for a single donkey to be in just the right spot on the precise day in time when Jesus would summon it for His use (Mark 11:1-6, Zechariah 9:9).

He is our Abba Father (Romans 8:15), and a mother hen (Matthew 23:27).  He is both judgment and mercy -- perfectly balanced.  See how it flows from scripture!  I can't stop! Aghhhhhh!

We need to acquire that balance too.  We need to be more like Him.