I recently taught a class in which the various tenets of a major religious philosophy came up for discussion.  After a lengthy explanation of only one of those items, one of the class members said to me, “It must take a theologian to make something that is so simple so complicated.”  The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her.  Just a little common sense makes them all sound ridiculous.

           Have you heard that we are all born in sin, totally depraved and unable to do anything good?  Yes, I can take some passages out of context and completely apart from the rest of the teaching of scriptures and make them say anything I want them to say too.  So?  Common sense makes it plain that this is a ploy to blame our sins on God.  After all, He is the one who made us, who created us the way He did.

            Now just exactly how did God create man?  He made us in his own image!  Now tell me I am completely and totally depraved and unable to do anything good.  That is not only ridiculous, but patently irreverent and probably sacrilegious as well, if I am indeed made in the image of God.

            But that doctrine does do this for me:  it takes the blame off of me when I sin.  It makes my sins completely and utterly God’s fault for making me that way.  Let me know if you are willing to be the one who stands before Him and tries out that excuse.

            The Bible teaches that there was a time when I was without sin, Rom 7:9.  What could that possibly be but childhood, before I was unable to recognize a consciousness of sin?  At that point, “Sin revived and I died [spiritually].”  So much for “born in sin.”

            Then there are passages galore that tell us that sinning is our choice.  “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies,” Rom 6:12.  “God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability but will with the temptation provide the way of escape,” 1 Cor 10:13.  “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7.  My class easily came up with a dozen more telling us that sin is not inevitable for the Christian, the one who now has the help of Christ, that he now has a choice.  That means we do not have to sin--the blame is ours, not God’s, not the church’s, not our parents’, not society’s—not even Adam’s.

            And it certainly makes wonderful and obvious sense that someone created in the image of God was not only created “very good,” Gen 1:31, but also has the power to choose between right and wrong.  The problem comes not because we have no choice, but when we make the wrong choice.  You have to work pretty hard to complicate that.
 
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen 1:26.
Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright, Eccl 7:29.
"'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'” Acts 17:28.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:24.
 
Dene Ward
 

Question 4 on our lesson sheet for the second lament was "What is the focus of this lament?" 

              Almost in unison came the answer:  "The anger of God." 

             You couldn't miss it.  The poet uses three Hebrew nouns 7 times along with two verbal expressions for anger.  Then you have the list of things God did in His anger—and there was no quibbling about it:  God did them, not the Babylonians.  He "laid waste his booth," " laid in ruins his meetingplace," "spurned king and priest," "made Zion forget Sabbath," "scorned his altar," and "disowned his sanctuary."  He destroyed the very worship he had set up for his people and the people seemed to have no trouble recognizing that God had every right to do it.  They broke the Covenant.  It was all their fault.

              Today we all want to focus on the God of love.  I know it when I hear things like, "God wants me to be happy.  He would never be angry about such a little thing.  He would never _______________."

              First of all, what God wants is for us to be holy so we can spend an Eternity with him.  We cannot if we are anything less than pure because we couldn't—wouldn't—give up the pleasures of even the smallest of sins, and that means that sometime we won't be very "happy.".  "Sin separates you from God."  If, after all the blessings I have received from Him and after the huge sacrifice He made for me, I am so unspiritual that I cannot make a relatively insignificant sacrifice for Him in order to make myself acceptable, I deserve His anger and whatever punishment goes along with it.  Yes, He will too ____________, and even these stubborn, selfish, prideful, ungrateful, unmerciful, and unfaithful people of His eventually figured it out. 

              For us to picture God as a one-dimensional Being who only forgives and loves is nothing short of arrogant.  God as our Creator has every right to be angry with the created ones who break His laws.  When unbelievers blast God for that anger—"How could a just God allow these things to happen?"--don't think you have to apologize for Him.  He doesn't need us to explain it away in order to make Him more palatable to a shallow, ungodly, and disobedient world now any more than He did then.
 
The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers. He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around. He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire. The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. (Lam 2:2-5)
             
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

God lifted Ezekiel and took him from Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem in a vision. In a divinely led tour of the temple, Ezekiel saw abomination after abomination in the very house of God. At each stop, God said, "Do you see this, you shall see greater abominations than these,” and led Ezekiel on to the next scene. At tour's end, God said, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? (Ezek 8:17, ESV2011).

Did you catch that? God considered the desecration of the temple to be a "light thing" in comparison to the things they were doing in the land. Instead of "light thing," we might say, "no big deal."

The "image of jealousy" in the court of the house of God is small? Seventy elders in the chambers that shared a wall with the temple itself worshiping all manner of idols and creatures is a thing to be dismissed? Women idolaters, men who turned their back on the house of God to worship the sun--these are small?

Maybe we need to re-evaluate the way we view our service. If a modern Ezekiel toured a church and saw instruments of worship, women preachers, open misuse of the Lord's Supper and worse, God might well say that these were light things in view of the violence done by his people to get ahead in life, to be dismissed in comparison with parent's neglect of children to pursue social standing, small things in relation to the indifference shown to the souls of the lost we never find time or a way to invite. Does our anger in rush hour traffic fill the land with violence? You can continue the list with your own observations of the daily failures to measure up to the correct worship we do on Sunday. [With Jesus we exhort, "These you ought to have done and not leave the others undone"].

God does not think like we do. We think if the public worship is by the book, then we are a sound church.

Ezekiel learned otherwise.

We still do not know God.
 
Keith Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

God, rather famously, expected His people to be holy. The command is repeatedly repeated in the Law. Lev. 11:44-45 “For I am Jehovah your God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am holy . . . For I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev. 20:7-8 “Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am Jehovah your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am Jehovah who sanctifies you.”

To be holy is to be separate or to be set apart. Something that is holy is set aside for a specific use and is to be only used for that purpose. We usually think about this in religious terms, but the concept is universal. My mother has a special set of silver that rarely sees use. It has been set aside for special occasions. These utensils are not every day, common forks and knives. They are special and are only used when special company is over or on other special occasions. In a sense, they are holy to special occasions.

This is what God expected from His chosen people. They were to be special to Him and His use. They weren’t supposed to be like all the regular people across the world. They were supposed to be set apart for Him. They failed in this. Isa. 2:6 “For thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they are filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners.” They hadn’t set themselves apart for God, instead they were just like all the foreigners.

We, too, are supposed to be a holy people. Notice that when Peter gives us this instruction, he tells us that we are to be holy as children of obedience and sets being holy opposite of fashioning ourselves according to our lusts. Living according to our common desires is the opposite of being holy:

1 Pet. 1:13-16 “Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance: but like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”

All rules of righteous living boil down to the concept of holiness. If we are set apart to be God’s people, we need to follow His will. Leviticus 19 illustrates this concept. In verse two the Israelites were told to be holy, as He is holy. Then verses 3-4 instruct them to obey their parents, keep the Sabbath, and abhor idols. Why? Because, He says, “I AM Jehovah”. Then verses 9-10 command them to take care of the poor. Why? Because, He says, “I AM Jehovah”. Then verses 11-12 tell them not to steal, lie, or swear falsely by His name. Why? Because, He says, “I AM Jehovah”. They are to be holy, as He is, set apart for His use. They are to do these things because He, for whose use they are to be set apart, so directs them.

I think we sometimes consider being holy as only abstaining from evil, and that’s just not true. As He is castigating the Israelites for not being holy, God makes this plea: Isa. 1:16-17 “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” He doesn’t just say “cease to do evil” but also implores them to “learn to do well”. Paul tell Christians the same thing: Eph. 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” We are created for good works.

Mom’s silver isn’t used except on special occasions, but on those occasions it is used. It is set aside for a purpose and is used for that purpose. We, as Christians are supposed to be set apart for God’s use. Not just staying “unspotted from the world” but actively doing the works He instructs us to do. Paul tell Titus (2:14) that Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” His people have been redeemed from lawlessness and are zealous for good works. Zealous for good works. Every time I read this passage I wonder if Christ would recognize me as one of His. It’s not that I spend my time doing evil things, it’s just that so much of my time is used for my own entertainment: football, web-browsing, movie watching, Netflix binging, etc. Occasionally I do something actively good. Does that raise to the level of being zealous for good works? If I am holy, set apart for His use, I need to be working toward the use He has for me.

As holy people we are set apart for His use, to do His will. This doesn’t mean we are fuddy-duddies or dull buzz-kills who never do anything fun. Rather we are busy people actively

Isa. 61:6 “but you shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast.”
 
Lucas Ward

We visited our son a couple of months ago—the bachelor son.  He always spends nearly a full day cleaning before we arrive.  I know it’s true—you can smell the pines, the lemons, and the bleach when you walk in the door.  The vacuum, the broom, and the mop are usually still standing in the corner.  The bed is made with fresh, crisp sheets and his best towels hang in the bathroom.  He has obviously worked hard.

              But he is a man.  Some things he just doesn’t see or even think to look for.  I was loading the dishwasher one morning and after rinsing a plate my eyes fell on the window sill.  A layer of dust coated it, which, being in the kitchen where cooking grease rises in the steam and settles with an adhesive and almost audible thump, couldn’t just be quickly wiped away. 

              That evening when I stepped out of the shower, I saw the top of the baseboards.  And that’s when it hit me.  What about my baseboards?  What about my kitchen window sill?  When was the last time I cleaned them?  When was the last time I even thought to look and see if they needed cleaning?

              It’s so much easier to see someone else’s dirt—and that goes for spiritual dirt too.  Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye?  Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,  Matt 7:3-5.  Jesus warns us about judging others more harshly than ourselves, about expecting perfection from others who might actually be closer to it than we are.  My son’s apartment was a lot cleaner than the house I left behind at that point.

              It takes a practiced eye to see the dirt.  I still remember the day I really learned to wipe off the dinner table.  I thought I’d done exactly that, but my mother called me back.  Indeed I had gotten every crumb and obvious spill but she showed me how to lean so that the overhead light shone on the table.  I had wiped, but had only smeared butter, gravy, and other assorted foodstuffs.  First you wipe up the crumbs and spills, then you rinse your cloth and actually clean the table.

              Experienced housekeepers know that kitchen surfaces collect greasy dirt and that any flat surface—even narrow little baseboards—collect dust.  They know ceilings “grow” cobwebs and shower doors amass soap scum.  They know that wiping off the top of anything isn’t even half the battle.  There are sides, a bottom, and sometimes insides that need our careful attention.

              Maybe it’s time to do a real housecleaning on ourselves.  If you don’t know where to look for dirt, try all those places you find it so easily in others.
             
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence! Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so the outside of it may also become clean. Matt 23:25,26.
 
Dene Ward

After six months, working 20-30 minutes at the time, I finally finished stacking that woodpile.  When it became apparent that I was near the end, and I hoped “this” would be the last load, I stacked the garden cart just a little too high. 

            Have you seen those old Garden Way carts?  A large wooden three sided box sits on two bicycle tires, with two props in front (instead of two more wheels) and a tubular handle that comes straight out from the bottom of the cart.  You lift on that handle and pull or push the cart at an angle to the ground.  Basically, it’s one giant lever. 

            Since I was hoping to finish that day, I started stacking the wood into the cart from the back, behind the wheels.  Instead of laying the whole first layer, which would have been so much smarter, I kept stacking the back higher and higher.  Then as I turned around to grab a log for the first layer on the front end of the cart, I heard a sudden WHAM!  I was almost afraid to look, but when I did, I saw that the cart had tipped and fallen on its back and all that carefully stacked wood had tumbled out onto the ground.  Instead of balancing the weight on, behind, and in front of the wheels, I had put it all behind the wheels.  What should I have expected?  God doesn’t ordinarily change the laws of physics when his children act in a less than intelligent manner.

            We all have tipping points and we are often just as brainless about them.  God warns us over and over that sin can enslave us.  It isn’t something we can dabble in and then step out when we’re ready to.  Peter says we reach a point when we “cannot cease from sin” (2 Pet 2:14).  Paul says we can become “past feeling” at which point we will “give ourselves over” to unrighteousness (Eph 4:19).  He also talks about people who have their “consciences branded” (1 Tim 4:2). 

            Slaves were branded in the first century.  When, having sinned over and over, we reach the point that we have become “obedient slaves of sin” (Rom 6:16), our consciences become branded.  We may think we are free, but that is part of the entrapment.  Somewhere along the line we have become addicted to our sin and we cannot stop, cannot cease, have given ourselves over to this master.

            And when that happens God “gives us over” as well (Rom 1:24).  Whatever we want to do, He will allow, however we want to live, He will not stand in the way.  “There remains no longer a sacrifice” for us (Heb 10:26).

            When do we reach that tipping point?  I do not know.  I do know that the thought of it scares me to death.  If anything will keep me righteous, maybe that is it—the idea that somewhere along the way I can reach a point where even God gives up on me.  Maybe that will make me stay away from that balancing act altogether. 

            Does that make me yet another kind of slave?  You bet—a slave of righteousness.  But tipping over in that direction will bring an entirely different result.
 
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification… But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  Rom 6:16-19,22.
 
Dene Ward
 

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 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

I tried to call Keith from the doctor’s office the other day.  I had just stepped out of the elevator and was standing in an enclosed “breezeway” between the bank of elevators and the eye clinic, lined with windows and a view of the city from four floors up.  The little screen on the phone showed “Calling work,” then suddenly switched back to the home screen.  I never did hear it ring on the other end.  I tried twice more but both times the phone stayed silent. 

            I knew I had called from that site before, so I stepped a few paces to the left and tried again.  This time I got a rough ring on the other end and Keith picked up.   We still had a difficult conversation between the phone connection losing every other word of his and him being so deaf that even an amplifier is not an instant cure, but at least we communicated the necessities—I had managed to make another trip into town without running over anyone or anyone running into me.

            Sometimes we have difficulty making connections with God, and usually that is our fault—we are standing in the wrong place. 
 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isa 59:2
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear, Psa 66:18.
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness, Deut 32:20.
 
            We overstate the matter, and miss the point entirely, when we say God only hears Christians.  He heard Cornelius’s prayer before he was converted, Acts 10:4.  God answered that “prayer of a sinner,” not with the instant forgiveness promised by televangelists today, but by sending Peter to preach the gospel, Acts 11:14, “words whereby you shall be saved.”

            The passages listed above were all said of people who claimed to be children of God, “children in whom there is no faithfulness,” yet people we would have called “believers” today.  Faithfulness involves dependent trust.  When God’s people in the Old Testament began relying on the gods of their pagan neighbors, participating in their worship, while at the same time claiming to worship him, he had them carried into captivity as a punishment.

            What are you relying on besides God?  Whatever it is, it stands between you and the connection you so badly need to help you handle life’s difficulties.  If you pray and pray and pray, yet still feel deserted by God, look around.  Are you standing behind a pillar of self-reliance?  Do you count your financial preparations as the ultimate security?  Do you look at the life you have led thus far and find yourself so completely satisfied with your efforts that you think you have salvation “in the bag?”  Security in the promises of God is one thing—arrogance and self-righteousness is quite another.  When we trust in anything besides God, we have become the same faithless children as those ancient Jews.

            God never tells us that life will be easy.  He never says that nothing bad will happen to us as long as we are faithful.  What he does tell us, is that as long as we rely on him alone, he will not forsake us.  He will give us the help we need to get through the tough times, and ultimately to the eternal salvation that will make this life look like a mere blink of the eye.

            Are you having a difficult time making a connection with God these days?  Take a step or two in the right direction, and suddenly the signal will become loud and clear.
 
And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on you…Oh Jehovah you are our God, 2 Chron 14:11.
 
Dene Ward