OUR PROBLEM WITH GOD

There is one challenge that I think that all true believers in Christ face. We become disappointed with God. How? The painful and discouraging realities of our lives seem to be miles away from His promises. For example, our Lord promises:

·       “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

However, rest seems to be almost unattainable. Therefore, we are tempted to conclude that His rest is a fiction and His promises are just wishful thinking, a vain human attempt to find peace in an un-peaceful world. Consequently, many abandon the Bible and its promises of greener pastures. They lament:

• I had prayed that my mother would be healed, but she died an excruciating death.
• I prayed that God would free me from same-sex attraction, but He didn't.
• I asked God to take away my loneliness and isolation, but nothing happened.

However, the Psalmists also had this problem. They saw the wicked prospering, while the righteous suffering, and this tormented them:

• “For I was envious of the boastful, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked...Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, And washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued, And chastened every morning...When I thought how to understand this, It was too painful for me—” (Psalms 73:3, 13-14, 16)

This is also painful for us. We find that we are languishing instead of rejoicing. We try to understand this, but understanding eludes us, as it had the Psalmists.

However, I have found that my tears can bring the message of Scripture into greater clarity. It prepares us by teaching that suffering is inevitable:

• “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

If we want to be like Jesus, we also must be like Him in His suffering:

• Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:10-11)

To make his point about the need and inevitability of suffering, Paul used the word "always" twice. 

Even Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering:

• In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. (Hebrews 5:7-8)

If Jesus had to learn through suffering, so must we!

But doesn't this contradict God's many promises that if we ask, we shall have?

• “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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

However, we often overlook three conditions. Our asking has to be according to God's will. Many verses attest to this fact:

• You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

Our motives must be God-centered:

• “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

Receiving from God is a matter of putting Him before all else. 

Also, our un-confessed sins might be temporarily blocking us from receiving. Peter provides one example of this:

• Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” (I Peter 3:7)

Whenever we refuse to confess our sins, we tell God, "I want to handle this matter on my own." This He allows. When we turn away from God, He turns away from us. Consequently, we must examine ourselves:

• For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. (I Corinthians 11:31)

Suffering is a great tool.  It forces us to dig into our filth.

Lastly, patience is necessary:

• And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:11-12)

However, in the midst of my suffering, I was convinced that I had confessed my sins, asked according to His will, and had waited patiently. I, therefore concluded that God had failed me. However, we are called to endure:

• My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. (James 5:10-11)

We often protest: "How can such treatment be regarded as 'very compassionate and merciful'?" We need to see the big picture, the picture Jesus saw on the Cross, which enabled Him to endure the Cross.

• Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame...(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Job needed to look heavenward. However, his charges against God precluded this. It is hard to trust in God as we accuse Him of wrongdoing.

However, mercifully, God accused Job of ignorance. He asked Job a series of questions, none of which could Job answer. He got God's intended message. If he was so ignorant that he could not answer basic questions about creation, how could he presume to bring charges against the Creator! Job repented.

We too presume to know far more than we actually do. We suppose that God has not been faithful and that there couldn't possibly be a good reason for our disappointment.

The Psalmist couldn't find any good reason for the thriving of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous. However, his God gave him a revelation of the big picture, and this made the difference:

• I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. (Psalms 73:22-24)

We too think too much of our own understanding. We need to be humbled. Paul also thought too much of himself. If he was to be of use to the Lord, he too would have to be humbled:

• For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (II Corinthians 1:8-9)

May we too learn this necessary lesson.

IS THE HOLY SPIRIT A DISTINCT PERSON OF THE TRINITY

The cults insist that the Holy Spirit is just a mere impersonal force, but the Scriptural evidence shows us otherwise:

·       ACT 13:2 - As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Impersonal forces do not have intelligence and do not speak. The Spirit intercedes for us according to His superior wisdom. Impersonal forces like the wind do not have wisdom:

·       ROM 8:26 – Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.  For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.

To intercede, the Spirit must be a distinct Person. It doesn’t make any sense that God would intercede with Himself.

Jesus referred to the Spirit as ANOTHER Helper. That suggests that He is distinct from the Father and the Son:

·       JOH 14:16 “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever –

·       JOH 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

“Spirit” (“pneuma” – Greek) is neuter, while “He” (referring to the Spirit) is clearly not. Of course, this is a masculine pronoun and, ordinarily, it is grammatically incorrect to be associated with a neuter noun. Instead, “pneuma” should take the neuter pronoun “it.” However, the writers of the NT opted to be theologically correct and grammatically incorrect to demonstrate that the Spirit is a Person and not an “it.”

The Spirit has His own authority. Impersonal forces do not:

·       JOH 16:7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth.  It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you…16:13-14 “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.

·       1 Cor. 12:11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

This doctrine is not a NT invention. Instead, we find that the Spirit as a distinct Person even in the OT:
 

·       Isaiah 63:9-11 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit…Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses. Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them,

·       2 Samuel 23:1-2 Now these are the last words of David: The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: “The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.”

·       Ezekiel 11:5 And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the LORD: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind.

The Spirit sends, speaks, and is rebelled against. We cannot rebel against an impersonal force, as we cannot rebel against the wind:

·       Ezekiel 2:1-3  And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.”

PERSONALITY OF THE SPIRIT

The Spirit has emotions. Impersonal forces do not:

·       Ephes. 4:30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 

The Spirit is vulnerable to offense. Impersonal forces are not

·       Acts 5:3-4 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God [the Spirit]."

·       Acts 7:51 "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.

·       Hebrews 10:29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

·       Matthew 12:31-32 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Yet the cults call us “liars” and “deceivers” for maintaining this. They also claim that we have borrowed this doctrine from paganism. I hope that the above evidence will put such charges to rest.

WAS JESUS ANTI-NATIONALISTIC?

Progressive Christians regard Jesus as one of their own, a citizen of a borderless world:

* Progressive Christians have long held the conviction that the whole Christian-America-thing is actually anti-Christian. Christianity has an implicit anti-nationalist bent. Jesus actively resisted the nationalist aspirations of his followers, which made him a disappointment to them — and ultimately cost him his life (initially!). https://www.onfaith.co/…/4-ways-christian-fundamental…/33537

Was Jesus an anti-nationalist? Admittedly, He was inclusive of all who would come to Him (John 6:37). However, He did not initiate them into a borderless existence but into the Kingdom of God.

This Kingdom is a Kingdom set apart from the rest of the world. It is exclusive but inclusive of any who will come. It is also a Kingdom with stringent requirements and boundaries:

* “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

Nor is this Kingdom universal but particular, for a particular people who would enter it:

* "Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Luke 13:24)

Consistent with the particularism of His Kingdom, Jesus only prayed for a particular group of people:

* “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me; for they are thine:” (John 17:9 ASV)

However, the Progressive will respond:

* Jesus was teaching about a spiritual kingdom not a physical nation with physical borders.

However, Jesus consistently affirmed the particularism of the Old Testament against progressive universalism. Likewise, He did not teach that we have equal responsibility for all parents but affirmed our overriding responsibility for our own parents (Matthew 15), children, and family (Matthew 24:43).

This was a particularism reaffirmed by Jesus' authoritative commentators, the Apostles:

* But if any provideth not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)

Let's return to the particularity of nations and nationalism. We are not saying "God and Nation," as Progressive Christians allege. God and nation are clearly not equals. Instead, everything is under God - family, friends, and patriotism.

However, there is a Biblical place for patriotism, at least for Christ-honoring expressions of patriotic concern.

If we are to have an overriding love and concern for our wives, children, and even our block association or neighborhood, it is certainly not illegitimate to have an overriding and particular concern for our nation.

This does not mean that we shouldn't have a love and concern for other families and nations. However, if love does not start at home, it is not love. It is something inhumane and unnatural, and therefore, had to be sustained by threat and even genocide, as we have seen in every communistic, universalistic experiment.

Besides, if we fail to show a particularistic love for our own wives and children, jealousy and bitterness will arise. Consequently, the best way to love our communities is to start by loving our own families. By doing this, we will create an army of love-emissaries.

Likewise, the Church has, in so many ways, proved to be a vehicle of mercy to its community. How? By loving first on the inside and then those on the outside.

Jesus had opposed an ungodly form of nationalism, one which self-righteously looked down on the other peoples. However, He never spoke against nationalism per se.

MUST WE CALL GOD “JEHOVAH?”

My response to a Jehovah’s Witness:

“I am Jehovah. That is my name” (Isaiah 42:8)? Does this mean that we must call God “Jehovah?”

I tend to regard this, not as a command to call God “Jehovah” but as a description of who He is, like Jesus being called “Immanuel”:

·       Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

 

Or:

·       Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In Hebrew thinking, names were to be a description of the person. Consequently, God renamed “Abram” as “Abraham,” because this described what God would do with him. He would make him father of many nations:

·       Genesis 17:5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”

Is “Jehovah” a name by which we MUST call God or rather a description? Jesus didn’t call Him “Jehovah” but rather, “Father.” The Jews wouldn’t even pronounce this name “Jehovah,” which they regarded as holy.

In light of this, we should understand “Jehovah” as a description of who He is. Well what does “Jehovah” mean? Here is our best guess:

·       Exodus 3:13-14 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

It seems that God was teaching Moses that He is undefinable and that He is greater than any name that can be applied to Him. “I AM WHO I AM” is almost identical to “Jehovah” in the Hebrew, perhaps a shorthand for this idea.