A note on the Scripture in this study: every verse is printed WHOLE. The words set in ordinary type are the ones this lesson leans on and emphasizes . . . the words in italics are the rest of the verse, printed so that nothing is ever handed to you as a fragment with the remainder missing.
Part Two said that God APPOINTED the asking . . . and the minute a man believes that, a hard question walks in right behind it.
If my asking makes a difference . . . then did I move God? Did I talk Him into something? And if I did – what kind of God is it that can be talked into things?
Now this is not a made-up problem . . . it comes straight out of the Bible, because the Bible says both of these things and does not apologize for either one.
Numbers 23:19 — “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
Exodus 32:14 — “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”
God does not repent & then God did repent. Same Bible, and both of them written by Moses.
So we have got to work this out, and we are going to work it out the way we work anything out – by letting the Bible define its own word.
FIRST — THE WORD ITSELF
The word behind repented in our Old Testament is NACHAM. And it does not mean what our word repent means when we use it about ourselves.
When we say a man repented, we mean he was wrong and he turned around . . . that is not what nacham says. Nacham means to be moved deeply . . . to sigh . . . to grieve . . . and out of that (because of that), to turn from a course...
It is a word about feeling and about turning . . . it is NOT a word about being mistaken.
And that matters, because every time somebody uses Exodus 32 to argue that God got it wrong and had to be corrected, they are reading our English word back into a Hebrew word that never carried it.
SECOND — LOOK AT WHERE IT NEVER MOVES
Now let us put down the things that DO NOT CHANGE, because they are the fixed points and everything else has to fit around them.
Malachi 3:6 — “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
James 1:17 — “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
1 Samuel 15:29 — “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
No variableness. Neither shadow of turning. God's CHARACTER does not move. His purpose does not move. His promises do not move . . . and notice the mercy hidden in Malachi – it is BECAUSE He does not change that we are not consumed. If God could change His mind about us, none of us would be safe for an hour.
THIRD — THEN WHAT DID MOVE?
So go back to Exodus 32 and read the whole thing, because the answer is sitting right there in the text and most of us have never slowed down enough to see it.
Israel is at the foot of the mountain with a golden calf. God speaks to Moses:
Exodus 32:10 — “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.”
Let me alone. Now stop right there . . . why would God say that? A man does not say let me alone to somebody who is not holding onto him. God is telling Moses to turn loose – which is the same as telling him that he is holding on, and that the holding on matters.
That is not the language of a mind ALREADY SHUT . . . that is an invitation, dressed up as a warning.
And Moses does not turn loose. He argues – and look at what he argues with:
Exodus 32:13 — “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.”
Moses does not say the people deserve better. He knows better than that – he is the one who came down the mountain and saw the calf. Moses pleads God's own promise back to God.
And then:
Exodus 32:14 — “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”
So what moved? Not God's character . . . not God's purpose . . . and certainly not God's promise, since the promise is the very thing Moses stood on. What moved was the standing of the people – and it moved because God had appointed a man to stand in the gap, and the man stood there.
✍️ AUTHOR'S NOTE
I once pastored a dying church – I labored – I prayed – I witnessed – but to no avail… The community would simply not move… finally the church died – the members dispersed – the building was sold… and now nothing remains. I cannot explain with a WHY… In regard to our next example – the rope was real – the rock was real – but the boat never moved… — C.T.
THE BOAT AND THE ROCK
Here is the picture that finally settled this one for me.
A man in a rowboat throws a rope around a big rock on the bank and pulls . . . the boat comes in to the rock. Now – did the rock move?
Of course it didn’t . . . the rock never budged an inch . . . but everything about that man's position changed, and it changed because HE PULLED.
And here is the part that matters the most: who put the rock there, and who gave him the rope? God did. God set the rock, God gave the rope, and God told him to pull . . . so when the boat comes in, nobody says the rock was moved . . . and nobody says the pulling did not matter, either.
God is the rock. Prayer is the rope . . . and when we pray, we do not drag God over to where we are . . . we come to where He has been standing the whole time.
Simple truth: God does not move . . . the boat moves . . . and God appointed the rope.
FOURTH — GOD TOLD US THIS IS HOW HE WORKS
And this is not something we figured out and set on top of the text. God laid the rule down Himself, in Jeremiah, and once you see it - you will see it everywhere:
Jeremiah 18:7 — “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;”
Jeremiah 18:8 — “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.”
There it is in writing, ahead of time. God says that when He pronounces judgment on a nation, and that nation turns – He turns too. That is not God changing His mind . . . that is God keeping a rule He published in advance.
A warning is not A FORECAST . . . a warning is a door.
Nineveh is the test case
Jonah walks through the city and preaches eight words:
Jonah 3:4 — “And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Flat. No conditions attached…
Jonah 3:10 — “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”
And Jonah was angry about it, and we know exactly why. He had preached destruction and it did not come – and he was afraid he would look like a fool. But God had never been anything other than consistent. He does what Jeremiah 18 says He does, EVERY TIME...
And Hezekiah
Same thing with a man instead of a city. Isaiah walks in and hands a king a death sentence:
Isaiah 38:1 — “In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.”
Thou shalt die, and not live. And Hezekiah turns his face to the wall and prays and weeps – and before Isaiah has gotten out of the middle court, God sends him back with this:
Isaiah 38:5 — “Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.”
I have heard thy prayer. I have seen thy tears. God did not say Isaiah misheard Me. God said I heard YOU.
📖 FROM THE PULPIT
Well – I suppose that every preacher who has been called to a church in answer to prayer – and then a few years later – is burdened in his heart to leave that church which before had been an answer to his prayers - experiences a sort of “reversal” – or a change in a direction that he had been praying to be secure… But as a servant – God does not promise to keep us in our comfort zone – He promises to strengthen us in times of trial – when we are led to step OUT of that comfort zone… Nothing about service to God – is one and done – but EVERYTHING about service to God is a daily sacrifice… — C.T.
NOW LET ME GUARD THIS
Two things to be careful of, and I want to name them both.
Do not go away thinking you can talk God into anything. You cannot. God is not weighing our arguments to see if we make a good case. Moses did not win because his reasoning was clever – Moses won because he stood on a promise God had ALREADY made . . . there is no leverage on God anywhere except the things God has already said.
And do not go away thinking your praying is pointless because God does not change. That is the OTHER ditch, and it is the one most of our people are actually in. God said let me alone. God said I have heard thy prayer. God published the rule in Jeremiah 18 so we would know how He works. He has gone out of His way to tell us that the pulling matters.
BEFORE YOU LEAVE
So - do I change God's mind? No. And thank God for that – because a God who could be talked out of His promises could be talked out of the ones He made to us.
But does my praying CHANGE anything? It surely does . . . it changes where the boat is sitting . . . and God is the one who tied the rope to it.
God is not a man that He should repent. And He appointed men to stand in the gap . . . both of those are His doing.
TRY IT THIS WEEK
Pray Moses' prayer this week – and by that I mean pray a promise back to God.
Find something God has said in His word about the thing you are carrying . . . then take that verse to Him and say it back . . . not to remind Him – He has not forgotten. Say it back because that is the only ground there has ever been to stand on . . . and it is ground He put there Himself.
For example – God has promised to NEVER leave us nor to forsake us… So – when you are in a valley – when you are tempted to believe that God may have forsaken you – pray that He will give you the wisdom to see the lies that Satan is placing before you – and the understanding to realize that a single set of footprints in the sand does not mean what it looks like – He has not forsaken you – but He is carrying you…
NEXT — Part Four: When the Answer Is No. Paul asked three times and God said no three times . . . this is the hardest part in the study and the one most of us need worst, and it is not answered with a tidy verse.
No comments:
Post a Comment