Month: May 2020

276. Deliver His People

Ezekiel 13:23 Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

God promises to deliver us from evil. This is big; and this promise is wide-ranging. It includes evil of all kinds. Evil is anything and everything that is separated from God, and subsequently opposed to God and an enemy of God (and of us). We pray, “Deliver us from evil, or The Evil One.” Satan is personified evil and the source of all evil; he brought sin; sin brought death. All of this is evil, and from this God, through His Son, delivers us. Deliverance is the Lord’s promise, and so we can confidently pray for it.

The specific evil in this context that the Lord promises to deliver us from is mentioned in verse 22: false teaching, that is, false prophets and false teachers. They lie and make the righteous sad; they strengthen the wicked by promising life without the need to repent or return from his wicked way. Lies and false promises destroy people all the time. We need deliverance from this evil, for it is all around us in the world and also in us, in our deceitful-above-all-things heart. Satan is the father of lies, but he uses the world and the flesh. 

False teaching comes at us in many forms and disguises and even from well-meaning people. We are not wise enough, discerning enough, nor strong enough to perceive the lie by ourselves. But God has given us the Truth of Christ, and this truth is in the Word of God. And He gives the Spirit to properly understand and believe the Word of Truth. In this way, the Lord delivers us from The Lie. 

The liars make the heart of the believer sad by questioning, “Hath God said?” We may avoid the lies with the teaching of the Spirit who uses the Gospel. “Thy Word is Truth,” and, “The Truth will make you free.” According to v. 22 of Ezekiel 13, the Lie is the cause of sadness in the righteous believer. If you are sad, you may ask yourself, “Am I believing the lie or the truth?” The first truth is “I am a sinner,” so I repent; the second truth is “I am forgiven,” so I believe the gospel. The liars promise the sinner life without the need for repentance and faith, thereby strengthening him in his sin and wickedness. Thus liars keep the sinner from repentance, and they keep the righteous from believing. But God says, “I will deliver you from the evil liars and you will know that I am the Lord.” Jesus is the Truth, and the Deliverer.

275. God will Perform His Word

Ezekiel 12:25, 28 For I am the Lord: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God.…The word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord.

God promises to keep His promises. This promise undergirds all the hundreds of promises in the Bible. God will do what He says. His Word is Truth and He will do it. God speaks the word, and it is done. The word He speaks will come to pass. This promise of God is essential to our entire Christian faith and life. Believing God’s promises also expands our life and living. Relying of His promises to come true and be effective in our lives generates genuine peace in the heart, joy in the emotions and unconditional love in relationships.

Thank God that He speaks. When He speaks all things are created. When He speaks the Word becomes flesh. When He speaks sins are forgiven in truth and in fact. When He speaks eternal life it is unalterably granted. He has the words of eternal life. How can I be so sure I will live forever? God said so. What makes me so sure and certain of God’s word and promise? Jesus rose from the dead. When I believe that I can believe all God promises.

In our days the Lord will say the word. “In your days” originally in context refers to the days of Exile in Babylon. In that most excruciating circumstance God speaks a word. In all of our circumstances God speaks a word. Whatever the circumstances are in your days, the Lord God will speak into them. They will be words of Law and Gospel, words of judgment and mercy, words of sin and grace, words of threat and promise, words of warning and comfort, words of death and life, words of conviction and forgiveness, and finally and forever, words of Love. The Holy Spirit prompts us to listen to and study and believe the word He is speaking to us in the present trouble or crisis. Open the Bible and listen. Receive the word as truth and promise and enjoy the life God gives.

274. Be God’s people

Ezekiel 11:20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

The purpose for the Lord giving us one heart, a new spirit, and a soft heart of flesh is that we may live according to the Law of God and obey His commandments. God gives a new and right spirit so the Spirit within will influence our lives in such a way that they will be more in conformity to God’s character. Then the promise comes: we will be His people and He will be our God.

This repeated Scriptural promise (His people, our God) gives a clue to the ultimate purpose of life, of creation, and of God. The Lord is strongly desirous of having a people that He can relate to, that He can know personally, that He can have an intimate relationship with, and that He may be in communion with. This is because God is love, and love seeks an object. According to some theologians, God’s love compelled Him to create the universe, that He might share His life. He wanted to love you and be loved in return.

The problem with love is that it cannot be forced or coerced, and it should not be selfish (loving only for what pleasure I might gain out of the action). It must be mutual (go both ways) and be freely given and received. The Satan accuses us (like Job) of loving God only for what good we might get out of the worship of God. The issue that arises in any love-seeking relationship is that it can be rejected, or spurned or ignored, like Adam and Eve (and us) who failed the test. So God made another way: He sent His Son.

Another problem with love is that a truly loving, giving, caring mutual relationship can only be with another of the same kind. The humans that God intends to love would have to be in His image, like God. We lost that image and became enemies of God. So the Lord had to give us a new spirit that would want to, not have to, love God, obey Him, believe Him, and walk in His ways. This He did, as promised. Now we are His people and He is our God. This new way of living is wonderful all the way around, for both God and for us. 

And, by the way, God does not wait for us to walk in His ways or to become righteous and God-like. He gives such righteousness to us by grace first; we believe it and receive it; and then we begin to live in it. Faith makes us His people, and we gradually begin to look more and more like it, all because God promises.

273. A New Spirit

Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.

The Lord promises to give His people one heart, a new spirit, and a heart of flesh. The one heart is a single-minded devotion to the One God, and it unites believers in their worship and belief in the One True God. A new spirit is the regeneration of the dead spirit within to make it alive. A heart of flesh indicates a soft heart, like plowed ground, to receive the impression of God upon it; this is in place of the stony heart on which God’s attempts to influence the heart is resisted and the Word just bounces off and never takes root to grow.

David prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” This is our response to hearing the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. The heart is cleaned and softened by the Word and the Spirit, who combines the experiences of life with the truth of the gospel. This is the new life of the born again believer. The Holy Spirit resides in our dead spirit making it alive. The believer now has a new and living human spirit that begins to affect the soul’s mind, will and emotions to influence our thoughts, decisions, and behavior more in line with God’s personality and character. This is the life-long process of Sanctification, which will not be perfected until death when the holiness-making process is completed. Then we shall be resurrected and live with God in His eternal home.

This daily renewing process occurs when we remember our baptism by repentance and faith in the Gospel, and then we, too, “might walk in newness of life.” The Old Man is drowned and dies and a new man arises. We live with both old man and new man, with both sinful flesh and Spirit-filled spirit, and these are at war with each other. However, based on the Victory of Jesus Christ, we go on from victory unto victory, although suffering some defeats along the way. To win the daily victory we need the promise of a new spirit and a soft heart. God does not quit when we sin, but He forgives and gives new strength of faith to get up and go on from there.

272. Gather Us Home

Ezekiel 11:17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

God promises the Jews that He will gather and assemble His people from the foreign lands and give them the land of Israel. Once again, the exile will end and the return home will happen. The Lord gave His people the land once, rescuing them from Egypt, but then He scattered them again to Assyria and Babylon because of Sin. He promises to gather them again and give them the land again.

We, too, as God’s created human beings were once in the Land where God dwells, the Garden of Eden, the Paradise of God, in the time and space where we were in communion with and connection to God. This is the Home with God where we belong. Every person in the world and in history knows somehow down deep within that there is an ideal life of perfect peace and abiding joy. Everyone has a vague remembrance that he or she was once in Adam in a perfect paradise. Once there was a time and place without death, sin, suffering, trouble, or any evil. We just know innately that once there was such a life. Many, many cultures throughout the world remember and tell mythical stories of such a place and time.

But as we are in Adam in Paradise, so we are in Adam when we sinned and brought death into our world and were banished from Eden. We yearn to go back to our heavenly home and fill the God-shaped vacuum in the soul. And just as we “remember” heaven, so also we have a hope of going to our future heavenly place. All people have eternity in the heart, a yearning for life without death, a hope for an afterlife, or a hope for another life than this one.

The Good News is that the Lord God fills this hope with reality, He promises us a return to the Land, and He gives eternal life. God gathers us out of this world of Exile (symbolized as Egypt and Babylon) and gives us the Land we long for by forgiving our sins because of Christ. He promises to save and bless and bring us Home. The Exile will be over. The World will end. And God has a New Land ready for us.

271. A Little Sanctuary

Ezekiel 11:16 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.

Even though the Jews were in exile in foreign countries among unbelievers, the Lord promises that He Himself will be to them as a little sanctuary. There is no longer a nation, a king, a city or a temple; so where is our God? The surprising good news is that He is with you where you are, and His presence with you is like a little sanctuary. You don’t need a stone temple to house your God. Worship takes place anywhere you are, for the Lord is there.

We, too, are in exile in this world. We are not in our home in heaven with God, but we live among a world of heathen afar off. We admit that it is the Lord who has cast us off; our sin has separated us from God and from Home. But the Lord promises not to leave us alone in a foreign land, the world. He will be with us always and everywhere. The Lord is to us as a little sanctuary. A sanctuary is a holy place set apart for the worship of God. The sanctuary now is the heart of the believer; there God has made a home, a church, a holy place, and a place of worship. We will have a new outlook about ourselves when we understand our bodies as “temples” of the Holy Spirit. Each believer’s body is a little sanctuary. There is a place we may go to find a safe place even in the midst of the sin and evil, corruption and filth, strangeness and foreignness, and dangerous lies and temptations of the world.

Jesus says to the woman at the well in Samaria, “But the hour is coming, and now is here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” The Jews learned, the woman learned, and we learn that God is not confined to any place; He is with us and in us and we may truly worship by faith anywhere we are. The Lord who saves is with us inside to make a sanctuary of His Presence. This promise enables us to pray, worship, and believe even while we are surrounded by problems. The problem-solver is with us.

270. The Lord Draws Near

Lamentations 3:56-57 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. Thou drawest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidest, Fear not.

The Lord promises to draw near when we call upon Him. This promise to hear our prayers is repeated many times, especially in the Psalms. Paul picks up this theme in Romans 10 and applies it to salvation: confess with the mouth and believe in the heart in the Lord Jesus. This is calling on the Lord. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” When one calls on and believes in the Lord He draws near. 

God promises to draw near. God could draw near to judge, punish and afflict, or He could draw near to save, forgive and bless. To encourage us to call and trust God to do good and not harm, He says, “Fear not.” Fear is in the sense of truly believe, yes; but fear not in the sense of be not afraid. He will come to bless. In the Bible when God or an angel shows up His first words are, “Fear not!” All men will be fearful in the face of the awesome presence and glory of God. But then the Lord comes with a word of blessing and peace. For instance, when Peter saw the miracle of fish He feared, but then Jesus said, “Fear not, from now on you will catch men. Follow me.” Peter had been awestruck dumb with fear. After such an encounter who would not but follow? Paul and John and others had similar experiences. When one meets God he might first be properly filled with terror; then when God speaks it is a word of grace.

God will not hide when we breathe and cry. He draws near when we call in faith. And He does not come to judge, but to have mercy. In most cases when the Lord appears to someone in the Bible the person confronted is given a mission to do or a word to speak. Truth be told, when the Lord draws near to us after we call on Him, He often gives us a charge. And we willing follow, for we are overwhelmed with awe-full grace. At any rate, we pray, for he promises to hear.

269. Compassion according to Mercies

Lamentations 3:32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

God always acts according to His character. God has several attributes, but a case can be made that Love is the basic character of God, which motivates and drives the decisions, actions and behavior of God. Love compels the Lord almost beyond His own ability to control it. Love, for instance, moves Him to give His only Son. In this way God loved the world. The love of God drives the Lord to do what He does throughout the Bible. In one sense, the Bible is the historical record of God expressing His love for human beings. The other primary character of God that makes Him do what He does is Holiness, or Justice. It is the Love and the Justice of God that put His Son on the cross to die for our sins. Both love and justice come together in the death of Jesus to solve the contradiction between the two. Will God be just or will He have mercy? Will God judge or will He forgive? Yes, He does both. Justice justly judges the sins of all people in Christ so that God can justly forgive their sin, and so completely satisfy His Love.

For this reason, because of Christ, we take hold of this promise that the Lord will have compassion according to His many mercies. God the Father desperately wants to show mercy, like the father of the prodigal son. Compassion is the practical expression of the love of God, exhibited primarily on the cross. We can believe the promise: God will have compassion. Why? It is because of the multitude of His mercies. How do we know? We know because we see it in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This event is the practical outworking of mercy, grace and love. We see it; we believe it; we have no doubt: God will have compassion.

There are several reasons why Jesus does the miracles and healings He does in the Gospels, but compassion is one of the main reasons for the miracles. For example, why did He feed the 5000? He had compassion on them. Several times His power went from Him to heal, mixed with compassion for the sufferer. Ultimately, Jesus laid down His life because He had compassion on you and me. The compassion of the Lord is very practical and specific: it feeds, it provides, it cares, it heals, and finally, it saves. The Lord has more love in Him than we can ever comprehend, and it flows out of Him in extravagant compassion. God has compassion; we are loved.

268. Not Cast Off Forever

Lamentations 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever.

Jesus says, “I will never, no never, not ever forsake you.” Here the Lord through Jeremiah promises He will not cast us off forever. The entire book laments the apparent fact that the Lord has indeed forsaken His people, or that He has cast them off. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the Kingdom was a judgment and a punishment, but it was not a casting off forever. It feels like the Lord has cast off, abandoned and forsaken His people, but the destruction of the city and the temple and the exile of the king and many of the people does not mean that the Lord has cast them off. He Himself, as the true and only King, is still with the people, wherever they are. The outward political and worship systems are gone, but that does mean that God left.

There will be times in life when it may appear to us that God has cast us off. We are spiritually dry. Our prayers don’t reach past the ceiling. We feel the dark night of the soul. We may feel alone and abandoned, like Jesus on the cross. But always, and especially in those times, we need to remember God’s abundant promises that He will not leave us forever. That would be the absolute worst fate we could ever experience. Sin causes such death and separation. Ask Adam in the Garden. Ask the Prodigal Son. Ask Jesus in the Garden and on the Cross.  Our sin on Jesus caused Him to experience death as a separation from God. The Father had cast Jesus off at that moment when He took our sins on Himself. But after Jesus paid the price of sin, which was death and separation, God raised Him from the dead, without any sin or death, to live life forever.

God will cast off sin forever, but He will not cast off the sinner forever, for the sinner has been forgiven and his sins taken away. Meanwhile, while we live, we face the fact that our sins do have consequences, one of which is separation from God. He casts us off, but not forever. The Spirit is grieved, though He does not leave. But repentance and faith in the Gospel is the way back to union with God. God is with you. Repent and believe; then you are with God.

267. Hope for Salvation

Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

Hoping and waiting for salvation is a good thing. God promises salvation. It will surely come. Hope for it and wait for it. I have been saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is already finished. It is mine in reality. However, at the same time, I am still waiting for the final fulfillment of salvation in my experience. I have salvation by faith, but not yet by sight. I live by faith. Salvation is already but not yet. The present life is a life of hope and waiting.

Salvation is past in that salvation has been finished and secured in history. Salvation is present in that we have it by faith in the Gospel and the Spirit applies it to our present needs. Salvation is future in that what we are saved from and what we are saved for is not yet realized: Sin, Death and Satan will be confined to the Lake of Fire, and the new heaven and new earth will come from God to our resurrected bodies. In the meantime in the present we hope and we wait. And the Lord calls this a good thing: it is good that we hope and wait for God’s salvation. We wait to possess and enjoy what we already have.

We live by faith: Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The hoping and waiting is the faith that has it, and that is good. We live surrounded by the Enemies we are saved from. The Enemies attack, tempt, threaten, scare and try to destroy us, but we are saved from their final effects. We live by that promise. The Lord saved us, He is saving us, and He will save us. It is hard to wait for what we don’t yet see, but it is easy to wait for something we already have, (eternal life).