Untying God's Hands
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 7:32PM Untying God's Hands
Larry Kirkpatrick.. Moab SDA Church.Psalm 78:40-43 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy. How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan:
Approaching to God Without Arrival?
Would you turn with me today to Isaiah 58:1, 2? Let us start in that place.
"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God."Twenty-seven hundred years ago Isaiah recorded the then current piety of God's people. He said that even though they were sinning and really living in opposition to Him, still they sought Him daily, and were diligent in learning from His Word. "They seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways." Oh yes, they were quite religious, "as a nation that did righteousness," he says. He doesn't say that they did righteousness, but that they acted as if they were righteous. "They ask of Me the ordinances of justice," that is, they pled with God to be fair to them; they thought that they were entitled to something from Him. "We're O.K., so where's God's blessing?" they wondered. They took delight in approaching to God, but it was all approach and no arrival. There was too much ceremonialism and not enough authentic brokenness of heart. Did they realize that "God does not desire our ceremonial compliments, but the unspoken cry of the heart broken and subdued with a sense of its sin and utter weakness..." Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 87?
Clearing the King's Highway
They had a necessary work to do before they could expect to see God working on their behalf. And so do we. Our necessary work today is to personally clear the King's highway so that we may cooperate with God in ending the great controversy. And this work can only be accomplished through prayer and the putting away of sin.
If we want to see this new series of prophecy meetings change lives, then we have a work to do ourselves. We must clear the King's highway. We must be purposefully involved in a work of
- Putting away personal sin
- Personal conversion and reconversion
- Interpersonal reconciliation
- Spiritual growth
- Coming into harmony with God.
When a special effort to win souls is put forth by laborers of experience in a community where our own people live, there rests upon every believer in that field a most solemn obligation to do all in his power to clear the King's highway, by putting away every sin that would hinder him from co-operating with God and with his brethren.And that's not saying anything that the Bible doesn't already say, is it? Each one of us must be spiritually "on" or we won't be able to cooperate effectively with God; we'll limit the Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 78:40-43). But how can a mere individual like me or you "hinder" God? He is sovereign, He is in control; man is dust, a vapor. Can man limit God?
Can Man Really Hinder God?
God is Sovereign
God is really the Being who is ultimately in control, there is no question of that. Psalm 115:3 says "Our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." There is no question that God is sovereign. Even in the book of Job we find it clearly presented that Satan is kept under wraps by God. He is not permitted to indulge his Luciferian malice past a certain point. And you know 1 Corinthians 10:13:"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."God and Satan have no partnership at all. They are working at exactly opposite purposes. God would be a fool to cooperate with Satan; a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:24). That's why Satan has been thrown out of the house. God has let him have a long rope in order to hang himself with it. Satan is like "that wicked Haman" in the book of Esther, who built himself a gallows to hang Mordecai the representative of God on, but wound up dangling from it himself. God is all-powerful. He has the sheer unstoppable strength to do whatever He wants. No being could begin to fight against the strength of God.
But He Exercises Self-Limitation
Although God is all-powerful, He has decided to exist and operate His kingdom in harmony with a set of non-arbitrary moral principles. That is, He has chosen to make known to the universe what is morally right and wrong, proper and improper, and then to hold to those principles. Satan can use lies against God to try to further his purposes. But God refuses to use lies against Satan; He will only use truth. For God, this is a long-term bonus, but a short-term problem. Time reveals what is truth and what is not, what is a lie and what is not. The devil wants us to make our spiritual decisions either prematurely or post-maturely; either before we have the information we need, or after we have passed the most opportune moment of decision. God is "bound" in the sense that He exists and operates in self-limitation. He refuses to cross the line. Even though He is right, and He knows He is right, He won't bypass dealing in the fairest way possible with the sin problem. The Bible says that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Habakkuk 1:13. But He does every day. He sees you and me and the random murderer in Texas or LA or Moab. Does He immediately carry out judgment when He sees sin? Ecclesiastes reminds us that "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Ecclesiastes 8:11. So what? Does God enjoy giving the wicked time to build up an overwhelming pile of guilt and them "whammo," really let them have it? Keep in mind a few things. Paul, before his conversion was an accomplice in the murder of Stephen. But he turned to God and was changed. David murdered Uriah the Hittite and took his wife. But David turned back to God and was changed. King Manasseh sawed Isaiah in half, that's how he died (Hebrews 11:36-38), but he finally repented and turned to God (2 Chronicles 33:11-13). Apparently he'll be in the kingdom, but he left behind an earthly nation in moral wreckage. What of all of these folk? What about you or me, when we hated our brother in our heart? Were we not murderers too? (1 John 3:15). I'm glad that God did not cut me down then, and I'm glad that He didn't cut Manasseh or David or Paul down when they were murderers. God gives "space" for repentance (Revelation 2:21), He exercises mercy that men might fear before Him. Time showed that these men turned away from selfishness and subscribed to the kingdom of God. They enlisted in God's army and He changed them. No, God can't let evil run on unchecked indefinitely. But he is willing to restrain His wrath against it in order that those who want to choose the One altogether lovely can turn to Him and be changed. Yes, God permits evil to exist temporarily. But the completion of Haman's gallows--of Satan's gallows--is almost finished.God Remains True to Himself
God won't cross the line. Don't we pray too often asking Him to cross the line, to enter into our moral space and either force His decision upon us or to take the decision away from us? How many years will we go on like this? How much time must be wasted before we each learn that such prayers are futile. Let's learn how to cooperate with Him. Let's learn the science of prayer and go forward. Do you remember the confrontation at the red sea? God told Moses (Exodus 14:1-4) what He would have Israel camp in a place with no escape before Pharaoh's angry following army. And the Egyptians showed up right on schedule to find Israel encamped with their backs against the sea. And the people came up and cried out against Moses about it. And Moses told them to watch and see what the Lord will do. And then he prayed to the Lord. How do we know Moses prayed to the Lord at that point? Look at Exodus 14:15: God says to Moses, "Wherefore criest thou unto Me? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward!" Go forward? But where? There was no where to go! But there was. They went forward out there into the Red sea, God parted the waters, and they walked out on dry ground. Have you or I encamped with our back against the sea, and prayed to God for deliverance? Could it be that He would likewise say to us, "What are you praying to Me for now about this? Go forward!" Second Timothy 2:14 reveals that God remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself. Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie. God won't violate His own principles; He operates within them. So He waits. Oh yes, He reserves the right to respond in His own way and His own time. But He operates within His own principles. The operation of divine laws does not take away God's freedom (Great Controversy, p. 525). God answers prayer in a manner consistent with His self-limitation.
Our Prayers Authorize God to Act
Did you realize that our prayers authorize our God to act within His supremely fair self-limitation in the great controversy? Haven't you heard this remark before, from Great Controversy, p. 525:
"It is a part of God's plan to grant us, in answer to the prayer of faith, that which He would not bestow did we not thus ask."And don't just look there. Look at Mark 6:5 and Matthew 17:23, and other places. It is because of unbelief--because of small faith--that God is limited in His reponse to us. We'd best ask and ask in faith. Then we'll see something. So we'd better be asking. Let's get this thing over with. Oh, and by the way, you know that when we pray for deliverance from sin, the response is automatic?
"When we pray for earthly blessings, the answer to our prayer may be delayed, or God may give us something other than we ask, but not so when we ask for deliverance from sin. It is His will to cleanse us from sin, to make us His children, and to enable us to live a holy life." Gal 1:4; 1 John 5:14, 15; 1 John 1:9. Desire of Ages, p. 266.But there are Scriptural conditions. And we need to know about them.
Conditions to Answered Prayer
The very first condition of acceptance is acknowledgment of our personal guilt. "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Psalm 34:18. Here is a first step.
Those who have not humbled their souls before God in acknowledging their guilt, have not yet fulfilled the first condition of acceptance. If we have not experienced that repentance which is not to be repented of, and have not with true humiliation of soul and brokenness of spirit confessed our sins, abhorring our iniquity, we have never truly sought for the forgiveness of sin; and if we have never sought, we have never found the peace of God. The only reason why we do not have remission of sins that are past is that we are not willing to humble our hearts and comply with the conditions of the word of truth. Explicit instruction is given concerning this matter. Confession of sin, whether public or private, should be heartfelt and freely expressed. It is not to be urged from the sinner. It is not to be made in a flippant and careless way, or forced from those who have no realizing sense of the abhorrent character of sin. The confession that is the outpouring of the inmost soul finds its way to the God of infinite pity. Steps to Christ, p. 37.
God "...knows whether we are clearing the King's highway from all rubbish and hindrance, so that He can beckon our souls onward and upward, or whether we are filling the path with rubbish and blocking up our own way, and placing stumbling blocks in the way of sinners to hinder the salvation of precious souls for whom Christ died." Mind, Character, and Personality, vol. 2, p. 434.We must let God take away not only our sins, but our character defects. What are they? Perhaps we can consider them to be long-term patterns of dealing with life that bring dishonor to Jesus and are harmful to our spiritual development. Have we I got any of those? Let's ask God to work on it with us. Let's get started. Ask Him to reveal and then ask Him to empower. He will answer both requests!
All of these things we've talked about today are important if we would stop limiting the Holy One of Israel; if we would untie God's hands so that we personally can become more like Jesus, and effectively work for the salvation of others. We should pray for God to intervene in our lives and bring others whom He has already been preparing across our pathway. But our first work is to see that our own souls are right. And we should personally intercede for other souls who need our Jesus. But again, let us be careful, so that our prayers may not be hindered.Let's untie God's hands that our spiritual drowsiness have tied. Today is a day of hope here in Moab. As we grow more serious about our own spiritual state, God will use us to His glory. And soon will His Kingdom come! |
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