Monday: Seek and Find Me
All through the Bible we find evidence of God’s foreknowledge. That is, He knows beforehand all that will happen. Whether the rise and fall of world empires (Daniel 7) to individual actions just hours before they occur — “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times” (Matthew 26:34) — the Lord knows the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge, even of our free choices, has no bearing whatsoever on the freedom of those choices.
Thus, the Lord knew, even before He brought the children of Israel into the land, what they would do when in the land.
Read Deuteronomy 4:25-28. What did the Lord say that the people would do after they had been in the land promised them?
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
In the verses before, the Lord tells them specifically not to make idols and not to worship them (Deuteronomy 4:15-20). Yet, the following verses pretty much say that making idols and worshiping them is exactly what they are going to do, despite all the warnings.
Notice that in Deuteronomy 4:25, Moses is clear that it won’t happen immediately. After all that they just had experienced, they weren’t likely to fall into idolatry right away. However, over time, after a generation or so, the tendency to “forget” (Deuteronomy 4:9) what the Lord had done for them, and what He had warned them against, would lead them to do exactly what He warned against.
Read Deuteronomy 4:29-31. What does the Lord say He will do for them in this specific situation?
God’s grace is amazing. Even after they fall into the horrific evil of idolatry, even after they have received the due consequences of their sins, if they turn to the Lord, He will forgive them and restore them. In short, if they freely choose to repent, He will accept their repentance.
The word in Deuteronomy 4:30, often translated “turn,” really means “to return.” That is, they are going back to the Lord, to where they were supposed to have been all along. The Hebrew word teshuvah, from that same root word for “to return,” means “repentance.”
Thus, at the core, whatever else is involved in repentance, it is a return to God after we have been separated from Him by our sins.
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The most valuable parable Christ told was the pearl of great price. It is valuable because it gives us an understanding of Deuteromony 4:29-31. It is not talked about much because it refers to Christ as being bought rather than being a gift.
To cut it short today. Salvation cannot be bought, but we are to seek for it with as much interest and perseverance as though we would abandon everything in the world for it.
John, while it is true that "salvation cannot be bought," I believe this parable and others teach us that salvation may cost us everything. Not only are we "to seek for it with as much interest and perseverance as though we would abandon everything in the world for it," but we must actually be willing to abandon everything in the world for it. If there is anything at all in this world that we are not willing to abandon, then God does not truly have our heart, and Satan owns us.
One of the books that has had a lasting impact on my perception of salvation is "Matthew Flinder's Cat" by Bryce Courtenay. Why it is has a title about an early Australian explorer and his feline pet is a long story that I don't have the space to explain just now. It is the story of an alcoholic ex-barrister living rough in the park next to the Sydney Art Gallery. The highlight of his daily life was to get sozzled fairly early in the day. The story tells of how he met a boy who was also living rough and who was in deep trouble. Ultimately, he sees the boy's needs and helps him, using his legal skills, and in doing so he sobers up. It takes time and interaction with some very special people. It is a story of persistence, seeing the needs of others and ultimately of salvation. The road back to sobriety and usefulness was not an easy one. It took patience and persistence.
The story of the Children of Israel in many ways is similar. They were essentially "sozzled" by idolatry. And it wasn't just the worship of phallic poles and bulls, but the whole world view that went with it. And God persistently and patiently stuck with them, bringing them back to the surface when they were drowning in their self-interest and ignorance. He continually reminded them that they had a purpose. Much of the picture of salvation was not about the hereafter but about the influence for good that they should be in the present.
It is a reminder that in our, often cerebral, discussions about grace, faith, salvation and redemption, we need to apply those principles to practical living in the present. We show that we understand salvation when we seek the salvation of others.
Judging by your description and the reviews on Amazon, the book you mention tells the story of an ex-barrister who was redeemed, at least for this life, by focusing on the needs of another.
It is, indeed, a good comparison not just to the Israelites but to us in our day. I really believe that focusing on ministering to others is the only way any of us will be saved. The Israelites lost their way because they became self-focused. Instead of being a light to the world, they wanted to keep the light all to themselves. And self-focus inevitably leads to idolatry of one kind or another.
The Lord is always focused on ministering to the needs of others and we will find Him when we seek Him in that kind of ministry.
Two important and relevant points raised by today's lesson are (1) forgetting and (2) returning.
It is worth being aware that forgetting is most typically (though not always) the result of our failure to (a) actively maintain remembrance and/or (b) actively and constructively maintain the 'remembering machinery' (ie brain health). This is why the call to "remember" by actively setting up and actively maintaining remembering activities is repeated so frequently throughout scripture (eg Deuteronomy 6:6-12; Ecclesiastes 12:1; Isaiah 46:9; Revelation 2:5; etc). Metaphorically, it appears that your brain likes to keep a 'tidy and efficient garden'. Consequently, brain pathways that are not being used are believed to be 'degraded' or 'neurochemically pruned'. Lifestyle factors play a key role in maintaining the remembering machinery - with the typical Western lifestyle doing pretty much everything that compromises the short and long-term health of that machinery.
Returning - or more accurately re-turning as the picture in the lesson well illustrates - involves recognition and acceptance (both being prompted by the Holy Spirit: John 16:8) that you are on a path that is heading to perishing and instead need to actively re-turn back to the one leading to true life (or you will perish). Fundamentally, this is about being on a path of self-seeking versus other-benefiting which is also the same as being on the path of lawlessness versus lawfulness (ie being in harmony with the 'laws'/cause-and-effect principles of true life). This is why Paul is able to say that we are either operating in accordance with the law/cause-and-effect principle of the Spirit of life or the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
In light of the above, I would slightly modify the last sentence of today's lesson to:
"...at the core, whatever else is involved in repentance, it is a re-turning to God whenever we become aware (prompted by the Holy Spirit) that we have, like Eve and Adam in Genesis 3:6-7, separated (ie cleaved, cut-off) ourselves from Him by instead embracing sin (self-seeking lawlessness)." (see Luke 15:17-20; 22:31,32)
Even in the middle of exile, when they choose to seek God with all their hearts He will bring them back. Israel was to know and consider in their hearts that the God they serve is the only God, the one who loves them and chose them. It is only as they focus on this love that they will remain faithful.
The author writes of God’s foreknowledge as simply intellectual awareness of the future and its events. I think it begs the question, when did God actually learn of or come to know of these future events? Is it a Nostradamus-like ability?
God speaks of knowing Jeremiah before He formed him and He consecrated and appointed him as His prophet then (Jer 1:5). Christ, the God-man was foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Pt 1:20).
“Those who reside as aliens…who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ… (1Pt 1:2,3)
“This Man(Christ), delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God…(Acts 2:23).
These cannot be God looking into the future and discovering these events.
God’s overarching declaration: “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.” (2 Tim 2:19)
God said of Abraham: “For I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” (Gen 18:19).
God’s foreknowledge is, to me, inexplicable, but Matt 7:23 gives some insight: “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” This must be related to 2 Tim 2: 19
How is it possible for God to have never known that Christian if His knowledge/foreknowledge is simply cognition, intellectual awareness?
God has declared that He knows the end from the beginning, and He has also urged multiple times to "choose" to worship Him. Precisely *how* He knows He has not revealed, and it is probably beyond our comprehension. It is a matter of His ways being higher than ours because He is greater than we are.
His words, "I never knew you" were spoken to those whose behavior was unloving in the parable. If knowing God *is* eternal life (John 17:3) then not knowing Him and not being known by Him is eternal death. Jesus was declaring that only those who serve God and others in unselfish love are part of His Kingdom.
Amen Inge,
The LORD uses the word "know" in two different ways -
knowledge of what will happen - as in prophesy,
and 'know' as having a relationship - like Adam knew Eve and a son was born
In his consolation to the grieving family of a dear friend, Albert Einstein wrote, “Now he has again preceded me a little in parting from this strange world. This has no importance. For people like us who believe in physics, the separation between past, present and future has only the importance of an admittedly tenacious illusion.” In accord with relativistic physics, every moment of the space-time continuum in which each of us exist is the nexus of points defined by light.
It is interesting that YHWH’s name literally means “I AM,” and that Jesus in his response to a question about the impossibility of the resurrection said, “Have you not read what was spoken to you by God [through Moses, his prophet], ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living!” It appears that God exists in eternity (Isaiah 57:15), that is, every moment of time is “present” to him.
In his final words to the children of Israel, Moses exhorted them:
What is the “it” of which Moses spoke? It is the intimacy of God’s love: “Israel [that is, the body of Christ, his church], remember this! The LORD—and the LORD alone—is our God. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5.)
The One who inhabits eternity is in each moment of life each of us are granted in this world. His desire is to “know” us in that moment, but the question is, “Do we long to know that love at each point in our present?” The intimacy of love requires the “knowing” of two persons. He cannot “know” us if we do not “know” him in love.
It all harkens back to the knowledge of good and evil. “Today [in each moment of time] I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death.”
Hi Richard
Really appreciated what you have outlined. As I read and reflected upon your last two paragraphs that stood out to me in particular, including the natural connection between the thoughts of those two paragraphs, John 17:3 came to mind - with "life eternal" being the ongoing extension of what you described so beautifully in your second last paragraph - the same abundant life of John 10:10.
Thanks for your contribution Richard.
The Israelites, as i put it yesterday, after arriving they thought they have arrive at their destination, and they venture outside the "old paths." This took place indeed through the false prophets who deceived them, saying "Peace, peace, when there is no peace"(Jer 6:14, NKJV). Then we see prophet Jeremiah, urging them to wake up and repent: in other words "Ask for the old paths" (Jer. 6:16 NKJV).
The theme of "Seeking God" as the first structure of repentance is the one we should apply. The first step to these "old paths" to God emerges from a situation of distress. When we are in a hopeless situation due to unfaithfulness, the solution is to turn to God "with all your (our) heart(s)" (Deaut. 4:29, NKJV, emphasis applied). God wishes in the depth of His heart that "they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me" (Deut. 5:29, NKJV). The problem of Israel is that they realize the gravity of their sin, and therefore fear to come to the divine judge who judge who just crushed them.
By revealing God's secret wish, showing His good disposition and hence His love for them, Moses encourages His people to seek God and repent. Since the Israelites were afraid to come to the divine Judge who just crushed them, Job's case should be our perfect illustration, whereby we see Job after having acknowledged God's heavy hand on him, Job makes an incredibe confession faith: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15, NKJV).
However, Job knew that God was the only way out of his tragic condition. Paradoxically, Job flees from God to God (G.T.G). Moses encourages his people to do the same, so as we today.
Questions:
> What does it mean to seek God?
> Why did Israel need to seek God?
The key to remaining faithful to God has to do with one’s heart.Moses reminds the people that they need to examine themselves and watch to make sure they do not forget what they have seen. All that God has done for them is in their hearts, and it is when they forget this that they are in danger of rebellion. Part of the remembering also involves telling others about what God has done; this cements it in the memory
thanks maurice and your team am blessed here at kenya