Ex. 33:11-18; Psa. 84:1-2, Jesus at Prayer (3)

Jesus was doing what God always desired people to do!

·       Ex. 24:12-16: Consider Moses.  Conversing with God began at a burning bush.  I believe the “Exodus” was as much about the training and perfecting of Moses as the deliverance of Israel.  The people were afraid to be in God’s presence, but Moses was invited into God’s presence.  So Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain.  Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai.  But note: it was six days before the LORD welcomed Moses into His presence in the midst of the mountain.  This was not necessarily a “garden” situation.

·       Ex. 33:11a,13,17-18: But before long we read, So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.  And then, … show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.  And then, Please, show me your glory.  The more one is in fellowship with God the Father through Christ the more that one longs for more and deeper fellowship with Him!

·       Ex. 25:8: In the midst of all this time with Moses, the LORD has said something amazing concerning all the people of Israel: Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.  God is not satisfied with people who are too scared to contemplate fellowship with God.  God’s answer is a place and a system by which there will be the possibility of fellowship.

·       Psalm 84:1-2: You can imagine that Psalms is full of this topic of a relationship with God that satisfies the soul and by which we can receive what God longs to give us.  Here is one of those.  How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts!  My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.  When I read that, I also remember the end of Ps. 73 (25-26): Whom have I in heave but You?  The there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.  My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  He had a relationship.  And God was his portion.

We could find similar longings in the prophets (e.g. Jonah 2; Hab. 3:17-19).  But I want to briefly be sure we understand that this is also the promise we have in Christ.

·       John 14:23: The Trinity dwells in the one who love God and keeps His word.

·       Eph. 3:17: The key to a deep walk with God is being strengthened by the Spirit so that Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith.

·       Phil. 3:10: Paul longed to know Christ.  Read 3:7-16.  The longing was deep!

·       1 John 1:3-4: The purpose of John’s epistle was that we might have the fellowship with fellow-Christians, the fellowship that was with the Father and with His Son.

·       1 John 5:14-15: AND this fellowship comes with a confidence, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

Conversing with God!  Getting things from God!

Psalm 93

In the final years of David’s reign there were cries for Absalom, “Long live the king!” (2 Sam. 16:16) but his reign and life ended suddenly.  A rebel named Sheba gained a following, only to have his head handed to Joab (2 Sam. 20:1,22).  David’s son Adonijah sought to take the kingdom to the cries of “Long live king Adonijah” (1 Kings 1:25).  But by the end of the day his reign had ended and he soon lost his life.  Bathsheba said to David, “Let my lord King David live forever,” yet his personal reign would come to an end shortly.  Solomon was acclaimed by the same cry, “Long live King Solomon” (1 Ki. 1:39).  His long and prosperous rule faded spiritually towards the end and resulted in a divided kingdom.  Political uncertainty afflicted Israel during Old Testament times even as it does in today’s world.

How unlike all of that is the acclaim of this Psalm.  The Lord reigns! 

·         He is clothed with majesty (v1).  Not with the accoutrements of majesty but with majesty itself.  His reign is the definition of majesty!  The pomp and ceremony of today’s leaders is ultimately a public relations campaign.  With the Lord majesty is substance!  His splendor radiates from His very being.

·         He is clothed with strength, girded about so He is always on the ready (v1).  That is why the saints are not among those who trust in chariots and horses but we will remember the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 20:7). 

·         In the Kingdom where the Lord reigns the world is firmly established (v1).  This speaks of the earth, the planet created by God for the good of its inhabitants.  The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1).  By His sovereign wisdom and might He has established the earth; it cannot be moved.  The earth does not disrupt the Kingdom where God reigns but it fulfills His purposes.

·         The reign of the Lord is not something new but is from of old (v2).  There are none of the defeats or difficulties or death such as brought to an end one kingdom of men after another.  His throne is established because He Himself is from everlasting.  The Lord has always reigned; and thus even the earthly reign of the Lord (the Messianic Millennium) is a sure thing. 

·         The certainty of the Lord’s reign on earth is emphasized in v3-4.  There have been and will yet be great floods against the Lord and His reign but none will prevail because the Lord on high is mightier than any of those waves of evil.  Consider particularly a Satanic flood that will be launched against God’s saved Nation in Rev. 12:13-17.  God always protects His people.  And why?

·         Because His testimonies (precepts and promises) are very sure; and because holiness adorns His house (everything about His Kingdom will be uniquely perfect).  Such is the reign of the Lord.  The Lord reigns!

Bow in worship of the Sovereign Lord!  Recognize your citizenship in that Kingdom (Phil. 3:21).  In His reign nothing is uncertain.

Psalm 93 Addendum

93:5: “testimonies.”  The Hebrew is “eda” and is always plural, and always used in relationship to the truth of someone’s word (26 times).  The first use is in Gen. 21:30 where Abraham offered seven lambs that they might be a “witness that I have dug this well.”  Then, Gen. 31:52, where Jacob set up a pillar as a “witness” of the boundary between him and Laban.  Then, in Deuteronomy (3X) and the Psalms (19X) they are used of God’s word (14X in Ps. 119, the Psalm of the Word of God).  God’s word is a full of “testimonies” because they are a witness to God in terms of who He is in truth.  When “witnessing” to others the best thing is to encourage them to read the Bible.  They need our testimony but they need God’s testimony.

Gen. 15:1-6; 32:24-30, Jesus at Prayer (2)

 

Jesus was doing what God always desired people to do!

·       Gen. 13:14: God appeared to Abram after the split with Lot.  It seems Abram trusted God so that he could live with whatever Lot didn’t choose. 

·       Gen. 15:1-6: Again, as usual, God took the initiative to converse with Abram.  But this time, Abram had a question, a question about Christ, the promised “Seed of the woman.”  The LORD did not blow His stack (?) but gave Abram an answer.  Abram believed God’s answer and it was credited to him for righteousness.  Great fellowship.  And Abram receive something from God.

·       Gen. 17:1: It had been a long time (13 years) since Abram and God had a conversation.  Again, God came and God spoke first!  God’s words were clear: Walk before Me and be blameless.  He longed to have the same fellowship He had with Enoch, a “walk” in the garden kind of fellowship.  But sin would not allow for this (the Adam and Eve lesson).  Again, this chapter reveals give-and-take between the LORD and Abraham. 

·       18:1: Here is the start of a conversation where Abraham took the initiative.  The LORD appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day.  Given Abraham’s living situation, this was as close as he could get to a “garden.”  He showed hospitality, and fed the Angel of the LORD and a couple other angels.  And Abraham interceded for Lot!  He pled with the LORD that He might give him something!

·       James 2:23; 2 Chron. 20:7: And he (Abraham) was called the friend of God. When did that happen?  It came from the lips of King Jehoshaphat.  Are you not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?  He knew what Abraham had with God, and likely longs to have that kind of conversation with Him too!

·       Gen. 24:63: And Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening, and he lifted his eyes and looked, and there the camels were coming (with his bride)!

·       Gen. 32:24-30: Jacob had his issues.  But he also had a God who pursued him in loving faithfulness.  He had such a relationship with God that on this occasion a Man wrestled with him.  “Man” gets a capital because the translators understand this was the Angel of the LORD.  And Jacob would not let go of the Man “unless You bless me.”  Jacob was famous for doing things himself, his own way.  But down inside he knew the truth.

·       Gen. 35:1-7: Later, the LORD would initiate a conversation with Jacob, to Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.  For the LORD, it was a place where He could be in fellowship with Jacob. Jacob responded by building an altar.

Are you getting the idea of what God intended with men?  He longed to walk and talk in the garden.  He longs to have this relationship with you and me!

Mark. 14:32-36, Jesus at Prayer (1)

What is prayer?  Just asking so we can think about it a little as we come to one of Jesus’ most well-known prayers, the one in Gethsemane.  I have a couple of books in my library.  One is by Charles Albert Blanchard, published in 1915 by the Bible Institute Colportage Assn, entitles, Prayer: Getting Things from God.  The other, published in 1959 by InterVarsity Press, written by Rosalind Rinker, is called, Prayer: Conversing with God. 

Sometimes I wonder if Blanchard was a bit crass or “lite” in his thinking.  How is his description of prayer different than sitting on Santa’s lap?  But then I open up his book and see that it is actually quite deep.  He deals with some of the thorny questions we often have about prayer.  Then I think about Rinker, and think, “I wish I had that kind of prayer life, one of good fellowship with my heavenly Father.”  I remember the prayer meetings we used to have where we didn’t spend more time gathering requests than we spent in prayer.  We just began to converse with the Lord, and joining the back-and-forth praying as we joined our fellow believers in their times of difficulty.  It was truly a group conversation with God.

You can consider these things as we come to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed, Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.  Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.  I see deep fellowship with the Father, as Jesus, troubled and deeply distressed, entered into prayer, calling upon “Abba, Father.”  He is in full control of His mental faculties, but without doubt, He is filled with emotion.  It is the way you would begin a conversation when you were at the most difficult moment of your life.  And then He asks!  “Take this cup away!”  He wants something from His Father, His God!

Jesus was doing what God always desired people to do!

·       Gen. 2:8; 3:8-10: God desired fellowship with Adam and Eve.  It was fundamental to why He had created them.  He put them in a garden.  That speaks of fellowship, of a place where conversations can be enjoyable.  But we should note that it is a fellowship that cannot exist if there is the presence of sin.  Our parents knew something was wrong, that they were now afraid of God.  So they hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

·       Gen. 5:22-24; Heb. 11:5: Generations later, Enoch had such a close fellowship with God that God took him home.  He had this testimony that he pleased God.

·       Gen. 12:6-8: Abraham was amazing.  Even before he believed so as to be justified (Gen. 15:6) God could talk with him.  He called him from Ur of the Chaldees and Abram obeyed.  Everywhere he went Abram built an altar to the God who was talking with him.  Why?  Because he knew what Abel knew, that God could only be approached by sinners if there was atonement by the shedding of blood.  Think on that and we’ll continue tomorrow.