6. The Eternal One

Lessons from Israel: No.6 : The Eternal One

Ex 3:13-15 13Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob–has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

In the Israelite culture, names were important. Moses is in questioning mode. His first question was “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” (v.11) and God’s answer was simply, “I will be with you.” (v.12). Essentially God was saying, it doesn’t matter who you are; the big question is who I am, to which Moses then asks the question in verse 13 which is a very cultural question. Names in their culture so often had meaning and that meaning often conveyed things about that person’s background or their destiny. Thus it is, that when Moses wants to know about God, about what he can say to the Israelites back in Egypt if he returns (for he clearly isn’t sold on the idea yet!), he asks about God’s name. We would be more likely to ask for a description but for him the name was all important.

Now we often talk about the enigmatic way Jesus spoke, the puzzling way he gave answers, and in that way, he was very much his Father’s Son. God often speaks in ways that require the listener to really think about what He has said. So now the Lord names Himself as, “I AM WHO I AM” or as your footnote with tell you, “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” Now if someone said that to you today your first thought might be that they were refusing to tell you who they are. The shortened version that follows, makes it more specific: “you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Now again that sounds rather enigmatic but when God says, “I Am” it’s like He is stepping outside of time – there is no time connotation to that statement. It’s like He’s saying, whenever, in all of history (long-time past, present or long-time future), you look for me, “I Am” or I will be there. It’s like He is saying I am timeless or I am eternal.  To claim to be the “I Am”, therefore, is to claim to be the Eternal One, the only one.  This sets the mind spinning and this takes Moses’ understanding into a different dimension.

But the moment the Lord does this, He pulls Moses’ mind right back into history: “God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob–has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” There is it again the references to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as we saw in a previous meditation. God is both the God of the eternal who exists outside of time, AND the God who steps into time-space history and interacts with us who do live in time.

But just a minute; there is a reference at the beginning of those verses which has a note next to it that you will find at the bottom of the page in your Bible which reads, “The Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for I AM in verse 14″. From now on in your Bible whenever you see the word ‘LORD’ in capital letters you can take it to mean, “the I AM” or the Eternal One. From now on that will almost be the only way that God is identified. It is a continual reminder that the God we are talking about is utterly unique, there is no other like Him; He is the Eternal One, the One who exists for ever with no beginning and no ending, the One who is utterly unchanging. Everything else in the world may change, but He won’t! That is the extent of the revelation here that is being given to Moses. The One he is now communicating with is One outside of time who never changes, who is utterly unlike us in that respect and is therefore scary (hence ‘fear of the Lord’).

So let’s recap what we have learnt so far about God from this early chapter in Exodus. God is the One who initiates interaction with mankind, He steps into history, He sees all and feels for us, and comes to help us, but actively involves us with Him in that deliverance, and yet He is still the One who is outside of time and space, One who is completely unchanging. That may be quite a lot, but it still leaves us with lots and lots of questions about God. Hopefully as we progress through these meditations in the life of Israel, many of those questions will be answered. The Bible will not give us answers to every question there is about God because the truth of it is that, as today’s verses show, it take us outside of human understanding. Yes, it is true! We have described God as the Eternal One, One who is outside of time and space, but really that description defies our imagination. We can grasp a little of what it means perhaps but the reality is that we will never grasp the enormity of it until we see Him face to face in eternity. However, because He is also the God who interacts with us in history, He does give us sufficient for faith to be built. That which I understand of God, helps me cope with that which I don’t understand.

5. God of Signs

Lessons from Israel: No.5 : God of Signs

Ex 3:12 And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

My daughter, now happily married and mother of two, was confessing the other day how useless she is at navigating around the country in a car. The fact that she had a qualification in geography didn’t help her reading maps and so out of exasperation I eventually said, “Well you could at least just follow the signs.” The signposts on Britain’s road are generally good and all you need to do is follow the signs and you’ll get there but my daughter, like many, obviously doesn’t like following the signs. I think this must be her equivalent to the male ‘thing’ of not wanting to read the instructions on the flat pack until we are desperate! Why are we blind to signs?

Well the Bible has a lot to say about signs and Moses is being given a sign at the moment (perhaps not a very helpful one you may think but we’ll come to that later). Probably the classic ’sign-demander’ in the Bible was Gideon (Judges 6:36-40) with the famous fleece incident. The amazing thing is that the Lord went along with it.

In the New Testament, the Gospel writer, John, referred to Jesus’ miracles as signs (see Jn 2:11,23, 3:2, 6:2, 26, 7:31, 9:16, 11:47, 12:37, 20:30). For him, you had to be blind not to realise who this was that was doing all these amazing things which were like signs pointing out who Jesus was. Now the interesting thing there, was that the things that Jesus did were ’signs’ for those who had eyes to see, whose hearts were open to him. In fact Jesus chided them sometimes that it was only the miraculous that would get them to believe (i.e. they couldn’t believe the character or the teaching, they had to have the impossible done in front of them): “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” (Jn 4:48)  Signs, therefore, as seen with Jesus, were miraculous things but which would only be seen as signs by those with hearts open to him.

On the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Spirit, spoke of Joel’s prophecy, part of which had God declaring, “I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke,” (Acts 2:19) before the last day and the return of Jesus. In other words there will be catastrophes on earth which will be signposts to the days nearing an end (there are other signs given in the New Testament as well), and one might ask, do we have eyes to see the things that are happening in our day and do we see the truths that they are pointing to?

So let’s now look at what the Lord is saying to Moses. Remember, these are very early days in Moses’ relationship with the Lord. Moses hasn’t actually asked for a sign and so the Lord simply volunteers this information: “this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” I think, in all honesty, if I had been Moses at that moment I would have been thinking, “Well excuse me Lord, but that is not very helpful. If you’re going to give me a sign could I have it as a means of reassurance before I go off and do what you want me to do? Signs come to show the way ahead, don’t they?”  Having been around for some time and having observed the prophetic gift working quite extensively, I have learnt that so often prophecy (like God is giving Moses) is considered by the Lord sufficient to encourage. “How will I know if this is the Lord?” sometimes comes the question. Well follow it and then when it’s happened you’ll know it was Him, is the reply.

If you’re struggling with this, stop and think about what is happening to Moses. He’s standing before a burning bush that isn’t being consumed and he’s clearly hearing a voice coming out of it that is clear, coherent and understandable. What more do you need to convince you that this is God? Aren’t these things sufficient in themselves? And when you read on you’re going to see the Lord show Moses how to perform the miraculous with his staff and then, when he starts out, everything he says to Pharaoh is going to be fulfilled as they go along. Won’t all these things be sufficient signposts?

Look back on your own life. Hasn’t the life transformation when you were born again been an incredible sign of God’s love for you? Consider the answers to prayer or the things that the Lord has done for you. Aren’t they sufficient signs of God’s love for you? When that prophetic word was brought to you, didn’t the Holy Spirit within you give you a ‘buzz’, didn’t it come with a sense of authority and blessing? Hey, if you’re still not sure, know that God loves you, understands your hesitancy and will probably speak it again if you’re still being slow.

This ’sign of completion’, for that is what it will be, is just going to be a further bonus from the Lord and He’ll no doubt remind Moses of it when they get back to Sinai with all the people. But don’t think negatively about it. Really Moses has and is going to get so many signs along the way, that this is just the icing on the cake. If you want to pray, “Lord, open my eyes,” He’ll show you the incredible number of things He’s already done for you which, when you have eyes to see, will be more than enough! Go on, risk it, pray it!

4. God of Partnership

Lessons from Israel: No.4 : God of Partnership
Ex 3:9,10 9And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.    11But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12And God said, “I will be with you.

We are in this series, we said, looking at the lessons to be learnt from God’s dealings with Israel, going right back to Moses, and we have been seeing the initiating of contact by God, the Lord revealing Himself as the God of history who had had dealings with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob previously, and who was here now for Israel who were suffering in captivity in Egypt.

Now the previous meditation and this one are very closely linked. We saw in the previous one that the Lord sees all that happens on the earth and is moved to come to bring deliverance. Now we see HOW he will bring that deliverance. I think so far, Moses would be feeling first amazed at this experience, then in awe at the recognition of who it is who is speaking to him and then possibly very glad that God intended to come and deliver his people, the people he left forty years ago, out of the slavery in Egypt.  So far, so good! Indeed when the Lord reiterates what has happened, it’s still all right: “And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.” (v.9). Yes, the Lord sees and knows, so it’s going to be all right now!

But then the bomb falls: “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (v.10) What? Hold on! Hang about! I didn’t see that coming! Where did that come from?  Those are the various responses we might give today. Moses is not excited by this thought; in fact he thinks it’s definitely not a good idea: “But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (v.11) Moses is a smart guy. He’s been doing the maths on this in his head. Pharaoh, big powerful world leader, me, small insignificant shepherd. Power plus insignificance doesn’t work.  Well no, it doesn’t, but God’s going to balance up the equation: “And God said, “I will be with you.” (v.12). Pharaoh versus an insignificant shepherd = disaster (for Moses!). Pharaoh versus the insignificant shepherd + God = disaster (for Pharaoh!).

Now that is a completely different ball game – except Moses isn’t convinced yet, as we’ll see in the next mediation, because he really doesn’t yet know this One who is speaking to him out of a burning bush. He really doesn’t know if he can trust this voice and it’s all very well for that power to have been there centuries before to enable old Abraham to have a baby, but is that power big enough to deal with a seriously nasty ruler? It’s probable that those were the sort of things going round in Moses’ mind, because they are the sort of things that go round in ours, and Moses was no different from us.

So now we come to the crucial question that must be lurking in the back of any thinking mind: why does God want to bother to involve Moses? Why doesn’t God just get on and judge Pharaoh and just take Israel without asking? He’s got the power, so why not do it the easy way? Why involve an insignificant shepherd?

I suspect the answer is to do with communication and visibility. Communication is the fuel for relationships and the Lord is always looking to build relationships with the human beings that He has created. Love always wants to express itself and God wants to express Himself to whoever will listen, come near and get involved. He’s got Moses’ ear but perhaps Pharaoh would not be able to hear God, because he was so self-centred. By visibility, I mean God making Himself known. By the end of this whole episode in history we are going to have learnt a lot about God. The Bible is all about God communicating with people and revealing Himself to people by the way He acts. By the end of all this there is going to be a story to be told – a long story and a story that will get passed on and on, and every time it does, someone else is going to learn some significant stuff about God. So God is going to use an insignificant shepherd to bring the most powerful ruler around to his knees. oh yes, this is going to be a story worth telling – apart from what it is going it achieve, this is going to be important. Do you remember what Paul said? “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:27)

In the New Testament, Paul refers to us as “God’s fellow workers.” (2 Cor 6:1) Today God continues to work alongside us, using US to bring about His purposes on the earth. Yes, He could do it all on His own but He chooses to reveal Himself through His people. Remember though, whenever He calls you to do anything, He doesn’t ask you to do it alone. The message is still the same: “I will be with you.” His power and presence is always with us. Indeed He’s said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Heb 13:5) which evokes the response, “So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.” (Heb 13:6) Let’s remember that.

3. God for us

Lessons from Israel: No.3 : God for Us

Ex 3:7.8 7The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey–the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

The Bible always gives a very accurate picture of mankind. One of the psalmists identified the folly and completely wrong thinking of mankind when he wrote, “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.” (Psa 2:2,3) That was the same folly that Satan got Eve to take on board which was akin to the man in one of Jesus’ parables who said of his master, “I knew that you are a hard man.” (Mt 25:24). The truth which contradicts these lies and misconceptions is seen in our verses above as the Lord explains to Moses what this encounter is all about.

Note what He says: “The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” In this declaration the Lord speaks of three things about Himself – He has seen, heard and, as a result is concerned.  Sometimes when tough times go on we think the Lord doesn’t see what is happening – but He does; He sees everything and He hears everything. Yes, the Lord had seen and heard all that was happening to Israel in Egypt. So why hadn’t He moved before? The answer has surely got to be because He was waiting for the right time to arrive when Israel would be ready to be led out of Egypt.

They had come to Egypt in Joseph’s time and they had prospered there. They probably though it was a great place to be because they were doing so well, and thus they settled there. The only trouble was that it wasn’t the place of God’s choosing for their future, it wasn’t the best place possible for them. No, He had, “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey,” lined up for them, a place free from idol worship (of which there was a lot in Egypt) and free from the domination of ungodly leaders (which there was in Egypt). Even as their circumstances got harder they coped with it and we have an expression that fitted – ‘better the devil you know rather than the one you don’t.’ It is clear from their grumblings, even when they eventually left under miraculous circumstances, that they still had hankerings to be back there. Human sin expresses itself in a variety of ways, and the one that stands out most in this study is our ungratefulness or our inability to accept that God knows best and, even more, God wants the best for us!

But going back to our verses above, note that God doesn’t look on dispassionately. He saw and heard what was going on and he was “concerned about their suffering.” God feels for His people. Again and again in the Gospels we see Jesus moved by compassion (e.g. Mt 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34). He felt for people and what he felt moved him to act. God doesn’t just stand watching dispassionately. He feels for us.

But it doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t just stand at a distance feeling bad about us; He comes and does something: “So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land.” The reason He has come to Moses using this burning bush to attract his attention, is because He has come to do something about the situation. Now in the next meditation we’ll focus on how He does that so often, but for now we just want to focus on the point that He does come to help us because He is for us!  This is the truth that the Bible testifies to again and again. When the apostle Paul says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31) it’s a rhetorical question and he is basically saying, “Because God is for us, who can be against us?”  Have you ever really taken that in? God IS for us! God is FOR us! God is for US!  Everything about salvation says that God has delivered us from the bad old life and has delivered us into a new life of goodness and blessings.

In the same way, in today’s verses, the Lord was speaking of delivering Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. He doesn’t merely deliver us out of the bad and then leave us! No, He has got something much more wonderful to take us into.  We often quote Paul saying, “he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son,” (Col 1:13) but let’s emphasise here the fact that we have been taken out of one place (darkness under Satan’s rule) and been placed into another place (the kingdom of the Son). In this new place we experience forgiveness, no condemnation, adoption as children of God, a new power source that brings us into the experience of knowing love, joy, peace, patience etc. etc. (Gal 5:22,23) And the world talks about being in fetters?  Who has them in fetters? It is not God! He comes to deliver us from the fetters of Satan and Sin. Scream it from the housetops – God is for us!

2. God of History

Lessons from Israel: No.2 : God of History

Ex 3:5,6 5“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

These studies, we said in the first meditation, are to learn from God’s interactions with Israel, right back from the time when Moses first encountered the Lord. So here we are at the burning bush where the Lord attracts Moses and then starts to talk to him. It is at the beginning of the conversation that the Lord identifies Himself. If we have been Christians any length of time this is perhaps a familiar episode in the life of pre-Israel, and so maybe we take it rather for granted. But put yourself in Moses shoes. He is an Israelite refugee, who fled from his people forty years ago, has lived with a Midianite priest and his family and has probably lost all contact with the stories of his people. So who or what, he might legitimately think, have I got here? Whatever is going on? Am I hallucinating?

It is into this possible scenario that the Lord speaks. “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Note for the record that the One speaking is simply referred to as ‘God’ here. That is about to change but for now the writer (whether Moses or some later scribe) simply identifies Him as ‘God’. The first thing Moses gets from God is a warning: “Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Why take of his shoes? Presumably because the inference would be that his shoes would be dirty and nothing dirty should come into the zone of this burning bush. The inference must also surely be that if he defiled this holy ground he might not live! So the first real lesson that comes out from this interaction with God is that God is holy and we need to be careful how we approach Him.

Having given this initial warning we then come to the crucial part of God identifying Himself to Moses. Now He will do this in more detail in a few minutes, but for the moment He simply says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Immediately this puts the Lord in context. He is the One who has been revealed by His dealings with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God who has history, personal history! There is content to this history. This is something most of us take for granted and think little about, but it is crucial. Our faith is not built on clever ideas; it is built on history, on what has happened, that involved God interacting with mankind. The Bible is full of history – history about God – as someone has put it, it is all about “His-story”.

When the Lord starts out with “I am the God of your father,” He reminds Moses of his ancestry.  He may be a wandering shepherd, but he’s also a Hebrew and the Hebrews had history that took them back to the land of Canaan. It was a history that started with Abraham: “I am… the God of Abraham.” It is probable that the stories about Abraham, that we find in Genesis 12 onwards, were conveyed down through the family, so God’s call on Abraham and the subsequent story about how God enabled them to have Isaac, would be known by Moses, as would God’s helping Isaac to have twins, and of His subsequent dealings with Jacob (“I am….. the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”)  It is all this knowledge that produces the reaction that we find in Moses: “At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”

So why was that? Well stop and think about it. You have heard the stories throughout your childhood about this ‘God’ who wasn’t just ‘out there’ but who came and invaded your private space and who said and did things that changed the course of your life. It’s one thing to hear about it in childhood, but it’s another thing to find that He is real and He’s here!

I believe that the more we read and study the historical accounts of God’s dealings with Israel, the more we will come to see His reality and the more we will come to see His ‘other-ness’, His holiness. There is no one like Him. He is unique; He is almighty God, creator and sustainer of the universe and He can speak into and change His world as and when He wants to. As long as He seems to stay ‘out there’ we can cope with that (and this applies to many Christians today as well) but once He seems to come near and make His presence known, that gets a bit scary – and understandably so!

Jesus’ disciples had this same experience once or twice. Much of the time they seemed to be able to cope with him – until he did something that took him onto another realm. Peter was scared out of his life in his boat when Jesus produced a massive shoal of fish and we read, “Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Lk 5:8). Later, when Jesus calmed a storm at sea, “In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” (Lk 8:25). Yes, this is the God, (THE only God) who has history, who we can read about in His book, but who still lives today and delights in coming and making His presence felt. Expect Him!

1. God of Initiative

Lessons from Israel: No.1 : God who Takes the Initiative

Ex 3:1-4   Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up.” 4When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

The purpose of this new series is to examine the life and activities of the nation of Israel as they related to God and see what we can learn about God and about ourselves. Our starting point is, in fact, before they were constituted a nation and we go right back to the time of their slavery in Egypt and will watch them being delivered and then escorted to Sinai and then on into nationhood.

Our story starts with Moses who, for forty years has been a shepherd in the wilderness. They aren’t even his sheep because he was, “tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.” Moses had once been a prince in Egypt but now he was a nobody, looking after someone else’s sheep with no hope for any change in the future. If you look at a map you will see Midian is located to the east of the stretch of water that separates off the Sinai peninsular. It is a very long way from Egypt and a long way from anywhere. More than that, “he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God,” and Horeb, it is thought, is another name for Sinai, which means he was now right on the other side of that water. He’s about as far from anyone as he can be. This is not the most hospitable of places on the earth. This is the last place you would expect anything special to happen, but how wrong can you be!

It is at this point that the turning point of Moses’ life came, although he was not yet aware of it for, “There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.” Now when God sends an angel it doesn’t always mean that he is seen in physical form and when the angel speaks it is as if God speaks and so often the two are referred to interchangeably, so all Moses sees  are flames of fire. Yet there was something strange about what he saw because normally where there are flames they burn up whatever it is that is burning, yet we read, “Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.” That naturally brought a reaction in Moses: “So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up.” If that wasn’t spooky enough, it now really gets spooky: “When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” Suddenly there is a talking bush, and what makes it worse this bush knows who he is! I suspect Moses was somewhat flabbergasted at this point, “And Moses said, “Here I am.” We have just heard Moses’ first words to God, and there are going to be plenty more of them before we finish the whole story as we progress through these mediations.

Now there is something so obvious about all that we have just noted that many of us miss it, but it is a crucial point in Scripture. Very simply it is that God is an initiator. The history of Israel – and indeed of the Church – begins with God. The existence of both has a little to do with man and much to do with God. Wherever anything significant happens in the Bible, it is because God has taken the initiative and God has acted.

The whole of Creation (Gen 1 & 2) is all about God acting and bringing everything into being. In Genesis 12 the story of Abraham starts with God’s call to Abraham. Getting the family of Jacob (Israel) to safety in Egypt, starts with God speaking prophetically to Joseph (Gen 37). Now, hundreds of years later, God takes the initiative with Moses to have Israel delivered out of Egypt. But it’s not merely to take them out of Egypt; it is also to take them in to the Promised Land of Canaan.

When we come to the New Testament, hundreds of years had passed since God last spoke from heaven, as He waited for just the right time to send His Son, but when the time was right, Jesus came. God initiated the plan of salvation. After Jesus returned to heaven, there were days of silence until the day of Pentecost arrived and God poured out His Spirit and the Church was created. Again and again, things happen because God initiated them. Christianity exists because God clearly took the initiative and brought it about. Yes, He used humans, but the real cause of transformed lives was because HE moved. Throughout the history of the Church there have been times that we call times of revival. These are simply times when God takes the initiative and moves powerfully on His Church and upon people and many are saved.

Do you remember what Paul said to the Philippians? “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6) Yes, they were the work of God. HE had begun it, HE had brought them salvation and HE was now working in their lives. When we read the Bible, see the hopeless state of mankind again and again, and then see God taking the initiative to bring salvation. We’ve just seen it with Moses, and we see it in the Church and in our own lives. Praise and worship Him!

38. Changed Lives (2)

Ephesians Meditations No.38

Eph  4:29-32 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you

We continue with this list of very practical things that Paul is writing about, ways of living out the life we now have with Christ. We remind ourselves again that the Christian life is first of all about what has been done to us by God’s Holy Spirit on the basis of the finished work of Christ on the Cross, and then about how that works out in our everyday lives, the part we have to play in it all. In the previous meditation we saw the first three things that Paul highlighted – the way we speak (truthfully), the way we feel (limiting anger) and then the way we respect other people’s possessions (no stealing). So let’s see how he continues.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths.” Now that is challenging, especially in the light of the today’s tendency to be free and easy in respect of speech. Recently we watched a comedian known for one line jokes, performing for about ten minutes. For the first seven minutes you could not fault his humour but in the last three minutes he slid into sexual innuendo (and not innuendo!). It was as if he just couldn’t keep away from it. We heard of another comedian who decided to do an evening without swearing and found he got just as many laughs and so decided to reduce the language from then on. Comedians (and our acceptance of them) are good gauges of society and sadly in the Britain, we don’t show up very well. It used to be said, “Only say what you could have said in front of your grandmother.” Why a grandmother? I think it is because of our assumption that standards used to be much tighter. We’ve lost a lot. Have you? If you have, it’s time to do a clean up on your language if you are a Christian.

But Paul doesn’t leave the language issue negatively. He continues: “but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” He says what Solomon so often says in the Proverbs: your tongue can be a means of blessing others. Do you bless other with what you say to them? Do they feel built up and encouraged by you?

But then there comes a hidden implication: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” The ‘And’ means that is a continuation from what has just been said. In other words you have the capacity, by what you say, of grieving or upsetting the Holy Spirit who lives in you. He is holy and pure. Is your language holy and pure? If not you will be upsetting the Lord who lives within you. (And then we have the nerve to ask things of Him!!). When you first met your husband/wife/partner and fell in love, I am sure you would have only said things to them that you know would have blessed them, and not said things you knew would have upset them, so why do we say things that we know will upset God?

He then continues with a sweeping list: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” The fruit of the spirit is gentleness (Gal 5:22,23) so how can we equate that which He wants to work out in us with any of the things in this list? We shouldn’t need to work our way through this list should we? These things are things in the life of someone who is disturbed and not at peace with themselves or with God; these are the outworkings of a person who is out of control of their life. Yet the fruit of the Spirit is also self-control (Gal 5:23) and we are told to add self-control to our lives (2 Pet 1:6). ‘Rage and anger’ are expressions of a person out of control, but as Christians this should not be us. ‘Slander and malice’ are expressions of a person out of control, unable to be gracious and that must not be us. ‘Bitterness’ is an emotion that has taken us over, and we must not let that happen. ‘Brawling’ is out of control (drunken?) behaviour that often results in harm or damage – and that must not be us. Check it out: get rid of these if they occur in your life!

But again Paul puts in the positive to counter these negatives: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” This is a totally different sort of person and this is what Christ calls us to. Is that you? Good hearted and gentle and caring and feeling for people? Is that you? Not holding onto grievances? The message is simple and straight forward: Christians are supposed to be nice to be around! In an article I came across recently, an atheist grudgingly conceded that “Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.” I thought that was a tremendous testimony, especially coming from an atheist! But that’s how it is supposed to be. As another writer wrote, “Part of the reason for Christianity’s rapid spread, historians have remarked, was simply that the early Christians were such nice people.” Let’s keep it like that!

(This will be the end of the series in Ephesians for a while – we’re going to have a break but will come back and finish the book in a couple of weeks time)

37. Changed Lives (1)

Ephesians Meditations No.37

Eph  4:25-28 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

So here we start with a very obvious ‘link word’ – “Therefore”, i.e. as a consequence of what I’ve just said, do this. So, let’s make sure we follow the flow of Paul’s thinking. In this chapter, in verses 1 to 6 he spoke about unity, then in verses 7 to 16 the body that has been blessed with ministries to bring us to maturity and stability. In verses 17 to 19 he reminded us of the way of unbelievers and then in verses 20 to 24 he spoke about the new approach to life that we now had by having a change of mind, of attitude, of outlook. The ‘Therefore‘ that we now start with, thus says, “Because you are united with Christ and have a new life, here then are practical ways you should live out those new lives. He gives us a list of very practical ways of living.

He starts off, “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one body.” The reference to ‘neighbour’ here is clearly a reference to Christian brothers or sisters, because of the reference to the body, the church. Lying in whatever form has no place in the Christian community. Truth is the currency of our lives. Truth comes up a lot in the New Testament. For example, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Cor 13:6). Being a community of love means we will also be a community of truth, especially when it comes to speech. This was well and truly ingrained in Paul: “For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” (2 Cor 13:8). Earlier here in Ephesians he said, “speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” (v.15). John knew the same thing: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 Jn 3:18). Many of the New Testament references are to the truth of the Gospel, but many are about us living truthful lives. May we heed them!

But he continues, “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Truth is about mind and intellect, anger is about emotions. Note that he doesn’t say, don’t get angry, for he recognises that they will be things that upset us but, he says, don’t let that anger go on, don’t go to bed without resolving it. If you allow anger to fester, he says, you will give the enemy a chance to come in and make use of it to upset you and the body, we suggest. If you have an unresolved conflict which cause you to be stirred up every time you think about it, you need to resolve it with the Lord because it a) makes you vulnerable to enemy attack and b) stops you enjoying the peace and joy that should be yours in Christ. Anger is often a form of defensiveness when we feel slighted. Put down your pride and give it over to the Lord and ask Him for His grace to enable you to let it go. If someone has upset you, pray for them and bless them (Mt 5:44). Do it quickly before the enemy takes the opportunity.

Then he continues with a third practical application of living out the Christian life: “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.” So, we’ve moved from the mind (truth), to emotions (anger) and now to a very practical issue of rightly observing others rights to their own possessions. You ‘own’ something if you have made it, bought it, or been given it. It is yours for you to do with as you will (staying within the bounds of the law). The other side of that coin is that you may not take that which belongs to someone else, whether they are the government, a business or an individual. If something belongs to them, you have no right to take what belongs to them, whatever the situation. We very often think of ’stealing’ as the activity of a burglar or a major criminal, and yet many people quietly help themselves to their employer’s property, small though it may be, often justifying it by, “well they can afford it.” That is not the point; it is still stealing. Videos increasingly have warnings that copying videos is a crime. Likewise the music industry reminds people that downloading music from the Internet is often illegal. Each of these things attest to the truth that we live in a society where the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal”, is being ignored. If you are a Christian you should respect other people’s property rights.

Thus we find ourselves with three very practical and understandable issues here, issues about the right way to live out the Christian life, the way to be righteous. If you offend in any one of these three things you are being unrighteous. The basic truth to be observed here is that being a Christian has very specific outworkings. The Christian life is to be a righteous life and there is clear content to that statement. Paul gives us good examples for everyday living. If we have not observed these things, we would do well to face up to them. Seeking forgiveness may need to be the first step.

36. Made New

Ephesians Meditations No.36

Eph  4:20-24 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

There is a fundamental truth about being a Christian which unbelievers, ‘nominal Christians’ (those in word only) and even so-called ‘liberal Christians’ (those who demean the word of God and only believe the bits they want to believe), miss.  It is, very simply, this basic truth that a Christian is NOT someone who has just ‘turned over a new leaf’, or someone who believes basic information about Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, but it IS someone who, in Jesus’ own language has been ‘born again’ (Jn 3:3-8) and who is, in Paul’s words, ‘a new creation’ (2 Cor 5:17) and in John’s words, are ‘children of God’ and ‘born of God’ (Jn 1:12,13). Christians are people who have been remade by the work of God’s Holy Spirit, because of what Jesus achieved on the Cross at Calvary.

Now the follow-up to the above paragraph, is that there are very practical outworkings of being born again, and it is those outworkings that Paul now speaks about. He has, you may remember, just been writing about how they must not live like unbelievers do in the futility of their thinking, given over to sensual living. So now he emphasises that they mustn’t live like that: “You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.” or “You didn’t continue to know that way of life when you encountered Christ.” Oh no, the Son of God lived a very different way and as we “grow up into the head” (4:15) we become part of One who lives a very different sort of life!

Thus he continues, “Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.” Of course they had heard of Jesus because he had been the foundation of the Gospel and Paul had conveyed that himself when he was in Ephesus. Note the two levels, if you like, of teaching spoken of here: “heard of him” and “taught in him”. The ‘heard‘ is about verbal teaching that has been given to them about Christ, but the ‘taught in him’ is about the learning experience they have been through in their direct encounter with him and in being ‘born again.’ This latter one is a level of teaching that the nominal Christian cannot know about. It is a teaching by experience. Once Christ is in our life we are being impacted by him in a way that was impossible before we received his Spirit. It is direct encounter with God! That teaches and that changes us! Look, says Paul, remember what you heard and remember what has happened to you. All of that was very different from that which the unbelievers know and experience, and that should have told you already that the life you are to live out is very different from theirs!

He continues to explain: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.” That is the first part of it – to ‘put off’. God has totally changed us by putting His Holy Spirit within us and He will be working to bring about a Christ-like nature in us, but He doesn’t make us robots; He still allows us to make choices, to make decisions, to play our part by acts of will. This same language of our responsibility is seen a lot in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “(you) set your hearts on,” (3:1) and “(you) set your minds on,” (3:2) and “(you) Put to death, therefore,” (3:5) and “you must rid yourselves of,” (3:8) and “put on the new self,” (3:10) and “clothe yourselves,” (3:12) and “put on love.” (3:14). This is all the language of effort. It’s the same ideas as Paul conveyed to the Romans: “We died to sin,” (Rom 6:2), and “count yourselves dead to sin,” (6:11), and “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” (6:12). The teaching is 1) Know who you now are, and 2) Make the effort to live like it. Now this ‘making an effort’ is a very different thing to the unbeliever striving to appear good. It is simply making the mind decision to live as the Holy Spirit is prompting you to live – in purity, holiness and righteousness. He’s done the changing and it is now up to us to live out this newness.

See what Paul goes on to say: “to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” There is exactly that which we have been saying. There is a two-sided newness. First there is a new “attitude of your minds” which simply means a determination to live in co-operation with God’s Spirit as He teaches, leads and inspires us. Second, there is the newness of ‘putting on’ or purposefully living like that. It’s not only in the mind; it is to be lived out in the life. God Himself is to be our goal, to be like Him, as we said, living righteous lives (living by God’s standards), lives that are characterized by holiness (distinctive by their purity and goodness).

When you take time to consider these things, it is easy to see that we have a twofold target in living out our daily lives. On one side there is shying away from the old attitudes of self-centred, godless thinking which resulted in sensuous, self-determined living, and on the other side there is reaching out for or putting on, the new nature of Jesus Christ’s purity and goodness, that is now dwelling within us and waiting to be lived out. Let’s make sure we do it! ‘

35. World’s Way

Ephesians Meditations No.35

Eph  4:17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

We start with another ‘link-word’ – “so” i.e. because of all I’ve been saying, Paul says, about being part of this body with Christ as the head, this has consequences – you are the people of God, so live like it. That perhaps sums up what we have here today. But look at how strongly he says it: “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord.” This is as strong as we’ve seen Paul in this letter. This must be very important.

So what is he telling them with such urgency? “that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do.” When he speaks of ‘Gentiles‘ here, it is simply shorthand for ‘unbelievers’, because in fact many of them at Ephesus were Gentiles and not Jews by birth. He has previously, you may remember, in Chapter 2, reminded them of how they used to live, and in many ways this is simply a stronger reminder of that with the exhortation that they should no longer live like that – because they are the body of Christ and are growing up into the head.

But what was it that he had against unbelievers? “the futility of their thinking.” We do really need to understand that the godless, self-centred thinking of the unbeliever is futile. Now if you have ever been a watcher of Sci-fi you will remember the cry of the Borg, “Resistance is futile.” Oh yes, we understand what ‘futile’ means. It means ‘hopeless’. The unbeliever may struggle and strive to achieve, but ultimately it is all hopeless, because you cannot have true peace without knowing God through Christ.

Now Paul describes their state even more: “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God.” Do you see the two things there? There is a mind thing and a relational thing. First the mind thing: “they are darkened in their understanding.” I like the JBP version here – “they live blindfold in a world of illusion.” They don’t understand the truth because darkness prevails, the darkness of sin – the self-centred and godless approach to life – and because of the deception that Satan brings them. (see 2 Cor 4:4 & 1 Jn 2:11). Sin and Satan has blindfolded them and they are trusting in a lie, “I’m all right.”  Second, the relational thing. Sin and Satan have separated them from God. Ask an unbeliever and they will either deny God exists or say something that suggests that He is a million miles away. Neither of these two things is now true of the Christian. Our minds have been enlightened by God and we do see the truth through Christ. We now have a close relationship with the Lord. So, is the implication, don’t live as if you are confused and away from God!

But Paul goes on to explain why they are blind and away from God: “because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” They are ignorant of the things we have been learning about in this letter and the reason they are ignorant is because they have hardened their hearts against God. The unbeliever is not passive; they actively harden themselves against God. The extreme of this is the crusading atheist but it is still true in lesser ways in all other unbelievers. If it wasn’t they would seek God until they find Him, or they would listen and hear what the Lord is saying to them, for He surely does speak to all men and women, I am convinced. This ‘hardening’ may simply be the resistance that says, “I want to rule my life and no one else can.” Thus they push God away and harden themselves to Him. (This only goes to show the marvel of the gospel that God by His Spirit can penetrate sometimes the chinks of this hardness and bring a hunger and then a conviction).

But there is an outworking of that which Paul goes on to explain: “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” This spiritual hardening has a practical outworking. Hardness means a loss of spiritual sensitivity, and a loss of spiritual sensitivity means you are left with only material awareness and when that is utterly self-centred (because that’s all you are left with) then personal pleasure and getting your own way becomes the ultimate and sole focus on life. We see it in a multitude of ways, but this is a true description of the unbeliever. Watch the lives around you, or that you see in the media, and you will observe godlessness and self-centredness. No longer having any boundaries, as God is rejected by society, we thus see the exact working out of what Paul is saying in Western societies. When he speaks of ‘impurity’ and ‘continual lust for more’ you can see these exhibited in Western societies more and more obviously. All you have to do is look with enlightened eyes with God’s help.

What is the point of these verses? It is Paul saying that this godless and self-centred lifestyle is what unbelievers are stuck with. There is absolutely no room for it in the Christian life because we are joined to Christ, part of his body, and he is holy. Check it out. Make sure there is no expression of the godless, self-centred life in you if you are a believer.