You probably discovered last week how bad we are about trying to explain God.  Just think how many times we had to use that STOP sign.  And if you didn’t use it, shame on you.  The secret things belong unto the LORD our God... Deut 29:29

            The Godhead itself is an incomprehensible relationship.  As much as we try to liken it to other things, it is not.  It is unique and, in the scriptures, unexplained.  That alone makes it unexplainable.

            If we could truly understand God, then we wouldn’t worship Him.  By “explaining” Him, we bring Him down to our level, and our level certainly is not worth worshipping.  It is “reverence” masked by irreverence. 

            And we also have something not only unexplainable, but unthinkable:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Phil 2:5-8   God became human.
           
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; Heb 2:14  He partook of flesh and blood.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and was God…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:1, 14.  God became flesh.
           
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Heb 4:15.  He was in all points tempted.

            For God to become human should not just be amazing, it should be a staggering thought.  If it has never taken your breath away and knocked you off your feet, figuratively anyway, you just don’t get it.  In spite of yourself, you have absorbed too much denominational theology.  You’ve spent too much time with Augustine of Hippo and his Reformation disciples.    And that’s where we will finish next week.
 
Dene Ward

Part 7 of a continuing Monday series.  If you have not been with us, you really need to backtrack and read the first 6.  Even if you have been, with a week off, it might help to reread at least the last couple.

            Remember those stop signs you made last week?  Run and get it before we start.  You are really going to need it this week.  And more than that you will need to be willing to examine what you truly believe and the words and phrases you commonly use. 

            First let me ask you this:  why do you pray?  Believe it or not, there is a theology out there that does not believe God will change His mind if you ask.  Now don’t be so quick to judge.  The word they use is “immutability,” which we often use ourselves, and which is NOT a Bible word. 

            First, let’s look at a few passages.  Will our prayers indeed influence God?

            In his discussion of the coming destruction of Jerusalem Jesus said, “Pray that your flight not be in winter or on a Sabbath,” Matt 24:20.

            He also says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:7-11.

            And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Luke 18:1.

            Jesus seemed to believe our prayers would make a difference in God’s actions.  The word “immutability,” though, means “beyond the ability to change.”  Add that to the word “omniscience,” also a word not found in the Bible, which means “knowledge of everything past, present, and future, and therefore never surprised,” and you get a doctrine that says since God knows everything, then He knows the best course of action and the right thing to do and any change would mean He had made a mistake.  That is mainstream theology.

            STOP!  You are sitting there getting ready to say, “Yes, but---“  Don’t.  Just listen, and more important, read what God has to say about Himself.

            In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, “Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” 2Kgs 20:1-6.

            And I[God] thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Jer 3:7.

            “‘I [God] said, How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. ​Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the LORD.’” Jer 3:19-20/

            And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Jer 7:31.

          And have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind-- Jer 19:5.

          They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer 32:35.

          STOP!  You’re about to do it again, I know you are.  You are trying to explain away the plain statements of God about Himself.  What you are doing is trying to make an incomprehensible Being comprehensible to a human mind and that is the ultimate irreverence.  Guess what?  We are not finished yet.  This one will knock your socks off:

          He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Gen 22:12.

          STOP!  Someone out there is thinking, “Are you trying to say…” I (and the teacher I sat under last summer) are not saying anything.  God is.  Do not tell God what He means to be saying and then call it respect.

          There are many, many times in the Bible that God says, “If.”  This one may be the most famous:

          Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Jer 18:5-10.

          Here is the conclusion of all this; God always bases His action on men’s behavior.  And that means not everything is set in stone.  Even God says so.  When you try to push these un-Biblical words on people and define them so strictly, then you wind up with doctrines never taught in the Bible.  And when you do, you wind up with things that are totally inexplicable, like the following passage.

          David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” Then David said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.” And the LORD said, “He will come down.” Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. 1Sam 23:9-13.

          Oops!  God said something was going to happen and it didn’t.  Why?  Because men’s behavior changed what happened.  When we force things on our understanding of God, we always get into trouble.  Better to let God tell us how He acts and thinks, and keep from putting both our feet into our mouths hip-deep. 

          Keep your stop sign handy.  There is more to come.
 
Dene Ward

Part 6 of a continuing Monday morning series.

Before we start this segment, you need to do something.  Find yourself a piece of deep red poster board.  Cut it into an octagon shape at least 10 inches across and high.  Attach a one inch wide stick of some sort (like a Popsicle stick) as a handle.  Now write on both sides “STOP.”  Yes, you have made yourself a stop sign, and no, I didn’t literally mean for you to do this little exercise.  However, as we go through this part of the study you will be tempted to say, “Yes, but…” and a little further on, “But God does (or doesn’t) _______.”  Every time we read a passage and you have that feeling, hold up your [imaginary] stop sign and quit trying to 1) explain away a scripture, or 2) make God comprehensible to the human mind.  You are only denigrating Him when you do so.  He is above us in every way, and that includes our ability to completely understand Him.

            Therefore David blessed the LORD in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. 1Chr 29:10-13

            This is a picture of God drawn by David.  It presents God as one who creates and then relates to the creation.

            Then we have another couple of passages to try to fit in.  See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse, Deut 11:26; choose this day whom you will serve…Josh 24:15. 

            We, God’s creation, have free will.  And we are held accountable for our choices, a proof of that free will.  God is sovereign, which means He has the power to impose His will, but how does that affect our free will?  The question is not does He have the power, but how He chooses to use it.  And that very sovereignty gives Him the freedom in how He uses that power.

            Common theology views God as a novelist—He has absolute control over the characters in His novel.  Here are some of their pet passages:
I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD.” Ezek 24:14

            ​God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Num 23:19

            And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” 1Sam 15:29

            Almost always those passages are taken completely out of context instead of making them fit with other passages.  For example:

            I regret that I have made Saul king…1 Sam 15:11, and The Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel, 1 Sam 15:35.

            Wait a minute!  What happened to the sovereignty of God in this circumstance?  Didn’t God know how Saul would act?  It seems apparent that God did not anticipate these events.  STOP!  You are already trying to do it, aren’t you?  Why can’t we accept the plain meaning of words?  Why can’t we accept God the way HE reveals himself rather than the way we choose to understand Him? 

          There are dozens of passages along this same line and we will eventually get to more of them, but here is the explanation:  God chooses to interact with us, not control us.  How does that go with all those “omni” words?  It doesn’t really, because we define them according to our minuscule, human understanding. 

            And how can we ever understand this?  God has made a covenant with us.  He started from the beginning with Noah, Gen 9:9, moving on to later covenants with Abraham and David.  Covenants are two-party agreements.  God, who made all the earth obligates Himself to an unworthy people.  The covenant with Israel was formalized in Exodus 24, and God keeps His half of the bargain through the ages.

            Why?  Because God wants something He does not have.  Can you imagine that?  ​Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD. Jer 31:20.  “Yearning” implies a lack of something.  Does that word fit into your “omni” understanding?
And how about these? 

            Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. ​I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. Hos 11:3-4

            How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.  Hos 11:8

          God is willing to experience pain, heartache and intense desire for reconciliation.  A pure and holy God actually wants us that badly.  And why is that?

            When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it… for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Jonah 3:10; 4:2

            God wants that interaction with us not because of His sovereignty, but because of His love.

            Keep that stop sign handy.  We aren't finished yet.
 
Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

My cousin Kathryn in discussing the struggle for personal growth recently said this: “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” This instantly struck me as profound. “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” See, one thing I’ve discovered about Christianity is that it is about constant growth toward an ideal, rather than the instant attainment of that ideal. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning to find that I am the perfect Christian man. Sure, if I’ve been a thief, I can stop stealing instantly, get a job, and support myself and immediately get past that sin. The same can be said for a lot of sins: idolatry, adultery, drunkenness, etc. But learning to “suffer long” with my fellow man? That takes work to make it second nature. As do most of the aspects of godly love. I can instantly stop sleeping around, but the struggle to control my thoughts regarding the women I see may take a while to perfect. Etc., etc.

We see this played out throughout the Bible. Abraham, the Father of the Faithful and the Friend of God, grew his faith over the course of almost 50 years. At the end of Genesis 11 he had the faith to leave everything he knew and go to a strange land just because God told him to and made him promises. But in the very next chapter, when famine came and he had to go to Egypt for food, he showed that his faith wasn’t yet complete. Fearing for his life, he lied about his relationship with Sarai, his wife. If his faith in God’s promises was complete, he would have avoided this. (God promised him descendants. As he had no children, God could not allow him to die yet.) Almost 20 years later, in Genesis 20, he repeats this sin. And while we scorn Sarah for quietly laughing at God’s promise when she didn’t know it was God speaking, in Genesis 17 Abraham fell down laughing at God’s promise when he did know it was God speaking.

While Abraham’s faith was great from the beginning, it hadn’t yet reached its fullness. That we see in Genesis 22. This was another 15-20 years in the future, and Abraham had seen God working in his life and had seen the fulfillment of some of the promises and his faith had grown. He knew that the promise of God was to be fulfilled through Isaac, but he didn’t hesitate when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham just thought that God would raise Isaac from the dead. His faith in God’s promise, to be fulfilled in Isaac, was so strong that he just assumed resurrection! But it took him 40-50 years to get to that point.

We see this played out again and again when studying God’s servants. Gideon, David, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Esther, etc. Some started out with strong faith and understanding and just kept getting stronger, some started out with faltering faith and little understanding and became strong. But all grew as servants of the Lord over the course of their lifetimes.

This concept of continued growth is seen in the New Testament as well. Not only are the Apostles themselves excellent examples of this, but they wrote about it, too:

“Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 1:5-8)

This passage clearly implies continued effort to grow in these areas. While we don’t have to take them one at a time and can (and should) try to improve in all of these areas together, none of us are going to wake up tomorrow and be perfect in knowledge. Or patience. Or brotherly kindness. But we should be continually, day by day, getting better at each of these things. It just takes work. Notice that the first thing mentioned, before faith or virtue, is diligence. The ESV says “make every effort”. It takes work, effort, to grow.

Even the great Apostle Paul, who had the confidence to say on multiple occasion “be imitators of me as I am of Christ”, knew the struggle of continued growth:

“Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philp. 3:12-14)

Also, in 1 Corinthians 9, he says that he daily buffeted his body to keep it in subjection. It was an effort, a struggle, to keep growing and to keep from losing what he had already gained. But he did keep growing. He kept getting stronger in the faith. And we can too. It just takes effort.

Next year I’ll be closer to the ideal than I am this year. The following year, I’ll be even a little better than that. In a few decades, I’ll start getting somewhere.

“But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.”
 
Lucas Ward
 

Part 5 of a continuing Monday morning series.
 
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” ​​​​​​​God created man in his own image, ​​​​​​in the image of God he created them, ​​​​​​male and female he created them. Gen 1:26-27

            This passage contains one of the most discussed phrases in the Bible.  What does it mean to be made in the image of God?  The passage itself is full of repetition.  In the Hebrew language (I am told) repetition is used as emphasis because it contains no intensifiers like “very” or “most.”

            ​From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.” Isa 24:16.      The repetition in that last line is obvious.  According to the Hebrew language, these traitors must be the most traitorous of the bunch.

            Now look at Ex 26:33.  You are to hang this curtain under the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there behind the curtain. The curtain will make a division for you between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.  “Most” is not in the Hebrew.  Instead it reads:  “the holy holy place.”  The repetition is the intensifier.

            All of that means that the Genesis passage where we began is emphasizing that we are indeed created in the very image of God—“image” or “likeness” occurs four times.  Scroll up and read it again and see if you catch that.  Now let’s see where that takes us.

            This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Gen 5:1-3

            The concept in this passage is of a father being presented with his newborn child.  He “creates” him, then blesses him, and finally names him.  That is what God did with man, vv 1, 2.  Adam did exactly the same thing with Seth.  He fathered (created) a son in his own image, presumably blessed him as was the custom in ancient times, and named him, v 3.  You only name what belongs to you.  The parallel shows that just as Seth was related to Adam and belonged to him, somehow we are related to God and belong to Him.

            Being in the image of God is so intrinsic to us that it did not change when man sinned.

            “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. Gen 9:6.  This applies to any man, not just godly men.  We are not to kill that which is made in God’s image.  It was still so after the flood.

            With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the image of God. Jas 3:9  It is still true in this age.  James uses that fact to show us the severity of cursing another man.  So how are we made in the image of God?

            Refer back to part 2 of this series.  God is spirit, God is light, and God is love.  Obviously we are not invisible spirit, nor are we a light so holy that man cannot survive it. 

            So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 1John 4:16-17.  Love is what God is so when He gives love, He is giving of Himself.  We are thus “as He is” when we love others, and when we return love to Him.   God intended to create man with the ability to return or reject His love.  Love can only be genuine when it is given by choice.

            Sin is the rejection of God’s love.  When God gave us freewill, He gave us permission to hurt Him.  His wrath, then, is the wrath of a jealous lover, one who has every right to expect that His love be returned.  This righteous jealousy is for the relationship, not against the lover (Zech 8:1-8).

            When we refuse to love others we are rejecting our relationship with God.  We are denying our “image,” one of someone who loves unconditionally and of his own freewill.  Reviling and mistreating anyone, whether they deserve it or not, is a far more serious matter than we realize.
 
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Eph 5:1-2
 
Dene Ward

When we first moved over a thousand miles from my hometown, I eagerly awaited the mailman every day.  As the time approached, I learned to listen from any part of the house for that “Ca-chunk” when he lifted the metal lid on the black box hanging by the door and dropped it in.  Oh, what a lovely sound!

           My sister often wrote long letters and I returned the favor, letters we added onto for days like a diary before we sent them off.  My parents wrote, Keith’s parents wrote, both my grandmothers wrote, and a couple of friends as well.  It was a rare week I did not receive two or three letters.  This generation with their emails, cell phones, and instant messaging has no idea what they are missing, the joy a simple “clunk” can bring when you hear it.

            I was far from home, in a place so different I couldn’t always find what I needed at the grocery store.  Not only were the brands different—and to a cook from the Deep South, brands are important—but the food itself was odd.  It was forty years ago and the Food Network did not yet exist.  Food was far more regional. 

          The first time I asked for “turnips,” I was shown a bin of purple topped white roots.  In the South, “turnips” were the greens.  I asked for black-eye pea and cantaloupe seeds for my garden, and no one knew what they were.  I asked for summer squash and was handed a zucchini.  When I asked for dried black turtle beans—a staple in Tampa—they looked at me like I was surely making that one up.

          So a letter was special, a taste of home in what was almost “a foreign land,” especially to a young, unsophisticated Southern girl who had never seen snow, didn’t know the difference between a spring coat and a winter coat, and had never stepped out on an icy back step and slid all the way across it, clutching at a bag of garbage like it was a life line and praying the icy patch ended before the edge of the stoop.

          Maybe that’s how the exiles first felt when they got Jeremiah’s letter, but the feeling did not last.  They did not want to hear his message.  They were sure the tide would turn, that any day now God would rescue Jerusalem and send Nebuchadnezzar packing.  But that’s not what Jeremiah said.

          The letter…said: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare… For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Jer 29:3-8, 10.

          You are going to be here seventy years, they were told.  Settle down and live your lives.  It took a lot to get these people turned around.  Ezekiel worked at it for years.  They may have been the best of what was left, but they were still unfaithful idolaters who needed to repent in order to become the righteous remnant.

          Which makes it even more remarkable that they had to be told to go about their lives, and especially to “seek the welfare of the city,” the capital of a pagan empire.  To them that was giving up on the city of God, the Promised Land, the house of God, the covenant, and even God Himself.  And it took years for Ezekiel to undo that mindset and make them fit to return in God’s time, not theirs.

          And us?  We have to be reminded that we don’t belong here.  We are exiles in a world of sin.  Yes, you have to live here, Paul says, but don’t live like the world does.  This is not your home.  Peter adds, Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims… 1Pet 2:11.  Too many times we act like this is the place we are headed for instead of merely passing through.

          How many times have I heard Bible classes pat themselves on the back:  “We would never be like those faithless people.”  But occasionally even they outdo us.
 
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb 11:13
 
Dene Ward

I am still learning a few things with this laminate flooring.  Among them, I found out that you really cannot put off dusting under the beds.  I must admit, it doesn’t get done every week.  I usually do it a couple times a month, but a few weeks ago I found out that you simply cannot wait any longer if you want to save your reputation as a housekeeper.  Keith was getting warm as he dressed for church that Sunday morning, so he switched on the fan.  Suddenly, from under the bed, a veritable stampede of dust bunnies came rolling out, some as big as my fist.  At least there were no visitors in the bedroom with us.

            I thought of that little episode when I found the following verse:  Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below, Job 40:12,13.  I think Job means that God has no regard for the arrogant, that death will be their ultimate end, a place in the dust from whence they came. 

            God has special anger for those who do not rely on him.  He reminded the Israelites that everything they had came from him, not from their own hard work or from their own merit. 

            "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deut 28:7-14.  I know that was lengthy, but do you get the point?  Everything the Israelites had came from God.  It was when they forgot this, when they turned to those other gods, that they had their biggest failure.  We, the Israel of God today (Gal 6:16), need to beware lest God hide us in the dust just like he did those people.

            I know we have trouble relying on God when we act like a financial setback is the end of the world, when we fail to pray because the doctor says there is no hope, even when we fail to pray for rain because the forecast is dry.  Just like Israel, we have taken on new gods—modern medicine, financial prognosticators, retirement plans, armies, and weapons.  God can change anything in the blink of an eye.  Do we believe it, or has our religion become a bit too reasonable and logical? 

            I wonder what Gideon would have thought of us, a man who beat an army “without number” with 300 weaponless men.  I wonder what the apostles would say to us, 12 relatively young, poor men who spread the gospel to an entire world.  Do we share the same God they do, or do we rely upon another, weaker god, maybe even ourselves?

            When Ezra returned to Jerusalem with his little band, he refused the king’s offer of an armed guard.  Why?  For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, "The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him." So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty, Ezra 8:22,23.  Ezra understood that relying on something besides God put the lie to his faith, not only to God, but in the eyes of the world as well. 

            What are you relying on this morning?  Would your neighbors know that you depend upon God for everything, or would God turn on the fan, burying you in the ensuing dust cloud with the rest of the idolaters in the world?
 
Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jer 17:5-8
 
Dene Ward

Part 4 in a continuing Monday morning series.  Read this one carefully, and do NOT skip the scriptures!
           
Last time we talked about God’s immanence, his desire to connect with us and have a relationship with us.  God wants “to dwell in our midst.”  But what makes that even more amazing is God’s transcendence, His “Otherness.”  God is so far beyond our understanding that we cannot even comprehend the difference between Him and us.  But the ones who truly realize this show it in fear.  Please note:  “fear” is not a naughty word in the Bible.  It is an entirely appropriate emotion in the right place.

            For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. Isa 8:11-13.  Whom you fear shows your faithfulness to God.

            There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. Isa 11:1-2  Even the Messiah would “fear the Lord.”

            That fear did not stop in the first century, under the New Covenant.  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Acts 9:31

            That word, while it can be translated reverence, also means dread and terror.  Do not minimize it or weaken it because then you will miss the point of God’s transcendence.  In Ex 33 18-23, Moses asks to see God.  God tells him that He will allow Moses to see His goodness, but “you cannot see my face for man cannot see my face and live” (Ex 18:20.  It isn’t that God will kill someone who sees Him; it’s that we mere humans cannot stand to see such a glorious Being—we would die from it; our physical bodies cannot take it!

            Think for a minute about the call of Isaiah.  Chapter 6 begins with the statement that he saw God on his throne, but what did he really look at?  The throne, the train of his robe, the seraphim above the throne, and the smoke filling the room.  Nothing at all is said about how God Himself looks, but even those surrounding things send Isaiah into a panic, sure he will now die because he, a man, has been in the presence of such holiness.

            Look at Ezekiel’s experience in 1:26-28.  He uses the words “like,” “likeness,” “appearance,” and “as it were” again and again.  Is he really seeing God or something that looks like it might be God?  And even that causes him “to fall on his face.”

            When we weaken the concept of fearing God, we lose even the minute understanding we can have of God’s greatness, His glory, His holiness, and His might.  Even the term we often sing about—awe—has become a word denoting the trivial.  “That’s awesome,” we say of everything from basketball shots to a free ice cream cone on your birthday.  We’ve turned God into a big Granddaddy whose lap we can jump into and say, “Hi Pops!”

            When we lessen the fear, we lose the thing it was designed to create as well.  that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, …by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Deut 6:2, and in Ex 20:20, that the fear of Him may be before you that you may not sin.  The fear keeps us from sinning.

            And do not for a minute think that fear lessens love.  For one thing, recognizing the awesomeness, in its true meaning, of God, and knowing that still He wants to have a relationship with us in spite of the great divide in our beings, should inspire love.  God expects this love to be a natural reaction from us.  “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, Deut 10:12.

            A proper recognition of God’s transcendence, a being so far above us that He should not even care about us, yet He does, is essential to serving God properly. 
 
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. Ps 130:3-4
 
Dene Ward

The story of Jehu has always left me a little perplexed.  God sent a prophet to anoint him king over Israel and to give him this mission:  You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, 2 Kgs 9:7.

            Jehu accomplished the mission God gave him, throwing King Joram’s body into Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, and becoming king in his place.  He went on to kill Jezebel and completely wipe out both Ahab’s descendants and the prophets and priests of Baal as well. 

            Yet, in the first chapter of Hosea you read this:  And the LORD said to him, "Call his name [Hosea’s son] Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, v 4.  Now is that fair?  God gave the man a mission and he fulfilled it, and now his descendants will be punished for the very thing God told him to do?

            No, God did not punish Jehu for his obedience.  In fact, he rewarded him.  And the LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel," 2 Kgs 10:30.  The problem was the reason he obeyed.  Later on, when far more needed doing to restore Israel to God, he failed.  But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, v 31.  When you pick and choose the commands you will obey, you are making it obvious that you are only doing what you want to do, not what God wants you to do.  What should have been the hallmark of his obedience became the thing that made his rebellion obvious—he hadn’t really obeyed then either.

            Obedience doesn’t count when it’s what you want to do anyway.  The true test of obedience comes when you don’t want to do it, when it costs you something, when it makes trouble in your life. 

            When you say, “It’s just this time, God won’t care because I have done everything else right,” you are condemning yourself just like Jehu did.  Killing the house of Ahab made him king; of course he wanted to do it.  But getting rid of the golden calves?  Now that might have angered his new followers.  Don’t want to rock the boat, do we?  After all, God, I can accomplish more if I stay in power longer, right?  I can just imagine such rationalizations springing to Jehu’s mind, the same sort of rationalizations we use when we want to get out of a difficult moment our faith has put us in.

            Examine your faith this morning.  Why are you faithful?  Have you ever fudged a little?  Was it because of your own likes and dislikes, or maybe your fear of the consequences?  Did you fail to obey because in that one instance you simply didn’t want to?  If so, then the fact that you have ever obeyed only means that in those cases you didn’t mind doing so, and that means you were only serving yourself and not God. 
 
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. Josh 22:5;  James 2:10.                                                   

Dene Ward      

Last time we talked about knowing who and what God is, and the way He interacts with people.  Let’s look a little further at the reason and the method He chooses to interact with us.

            You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:43-45.

            And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God. Lev 19:1-4.

            Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Lev 20:7

            You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Lev 20:26

            After reading those verses back to back, one cannot help but be impressed with the holiness of God, that this is the “why” of every command God gives.  After this beginning, whenever He gives a command, God merely says, “I am Jehovah,” and expects them to remember that His essence demands their holiness if they are to relate to Him at all.  Check out Leviticus chapters 18 and 19 to see for yourself.

            From the beginning, God wanted a relationship with his creation.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day... Gen 3:8.  It seems He had a regular date with Adam and Eve to get together and talk, an appointment that was lost in their sin and that He took great pains to regain.

            When He brought His people out of Egypt, He tried to set up the same sort of relationship. 

            And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exod 25:8

            There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. Exod 29:43-46

            I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. Lev 26:11-12

            Once again His people rejected that relationship, but do not relegate that concept to the Old Covenant.  God is still trying to reach us in this intimate way.

            What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2Cor 6:16

            in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Eph 2:21-22

            The first of those two passages applies to individuals and the second to the church, his spiritual Temple.  God wants to be among us.  In fact, God wants what He had in the beginning, a relationship that, this time, will continue for Eternity.

            Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband….through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God, Rev 21:1-2; 22:2; 21:3.
 
Dene Ward