October 9, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: 2 Chronicles 16-20

Weekly Memory Verse: Mark 12:30

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

I have been out of the loop today.  We are trying to wrap up our house, packing up stuff, selling stuff, and giving away stuff.  So much stuff!  Our house is in the final stages of being sold, the loan for the buyer is supposed to have final approval on Monday, then loan docs are signed by about Wednesday, which means that we are looking to be out of the house by Saturday.  That is, if it goes without a hitch.  I’m taking one more day off of work to wrap up the house, then hopefully will return to work on Monday and life will settle down in a couple of weeks.  We appreciate your prayers, it is a busy time for us.

Isaiah 8:17 (NASB95)
¹⁷ And I will wait for the Lord who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob; I will even look eagerly for Him.

1 Samuel 13:14 (NASB95)
¹⁴ “But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Acts 13:22 (NASB95)
²² “After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’

Psalm 10:1 (NASB95)
¹ Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?

Psalm 22:2 (NASB95)
² O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest.

Psalm 43:2 (NASB95)
² For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

Psalm 44:23 (NASB95)
²³ Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not reject us forever.

Psalm 74:11 (NASB95)
¹¹ Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? From within Your bosom, destroy them!

Psalm 88:14 (NASB95)
¹⁴ O Lord, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?

Psalm 89:49 (NASB95)
⁴⁹ Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness? ^[1]

I wonder as I consider the verses today how many times that we have thought that God has departed from our lives.  I can vouch for a time when I was angry with God and I turned my back on Him.  I stubbornly refused to return to God for fifteen years of my life.  During that time I walked in rebellion, yet was it God’s fault?  Absolutely not, rather, God withdraws from our lives in order to test us to see if we are willing to walk the walk out of obedience rather than out of feelings.  When we first come to know Christ, we are covered for a while by special grace where God speaks and works in our lives in order to ground us in His word.   The grounding is what is important during this time, if our grounding is into the Word of God, then our roots run deep into the good soil and we will grow strong and firm in the Lord.  If on the other hand our roots are only sunk into emotions and feelings, then when the winds of trouble come along, we may be uprooted.  God didn’t withdraw from us, rather we weren’t focused upon God in the first place.  We were focused upon the results of God in our lives, we looked at the effects that God had caused in our lives and considered them to be acts of God.  When God withdraws, we find out who we are really in love with.  We are able at that point to see beyond the clutter what God is in our lives. 

Mark 4:3-20 (NASB95)
³ “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; ⁴ as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ “Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. ⁶ “And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. ⁷ “Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. ⁸ “Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” ⁹ And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” ¹⁰ As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. ¹¹ And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, ¹² so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.” ¹³ And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴ “The sower sows the word. ¹⁵ “These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. ¹⁶ “In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; ¹⁷ and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸ “And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, ¹⁹ but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” ^[2]

This chapter deals with God being silent in the Christian’s life.  As I think about this, and consider it, God can’t speak to us because we can’t hear Him.  You can rest assured that God is listening to you, He can hear your prayers, but you can’t hear His answers.  If you consider the situation of noise for a moment, have you ever tried to carry on a conversation in a noisy environment?  It is very difficult, often the message has to be repeated several times before it is communicated.  Consider for a moment what Elijah felt when He was searching for God:

1 Kings 19:11-14 (NASB95)
¹¹ So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁴ Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” ^[3]

Notice that Elijah was at a dry time in his life.  He had watched all of his fellow prophets get killed for following God.  Somehow God seemed to be silent, and more than that, God allowed the prophets to be killed!  The devil certainly demonstrated his power by killing the prophets, yet God seemed to do nothing.  Elijah sought after God at a time when God was seemingly silent.  Look especially at what Elijah found out about God, He didn’t come in the great powerful acts of nature, rather, he came in a small gentle wind.  We often try to lasso the whirlwind, and forget that God is speaking to us in the quiet of our homes, in a small voice, one that is hardly noticed in a busy world. 

Is God really silent?  Consider the noise in our lives that is drowning Him out, TV, internet, sports, using our toys, work, etc, etc, and etc.  The list goes on and on, it is endless.  Our lives are cluttered with busy time consumers that draw us away from the Word of God and focus our attention on circumstances, God has to use a megaphone just to be heard in our lives.  I wish that I had an easy solution for this problem, I don’t.  I have a suggestion though, if God seems to be silent in your life, first consider what your spiritual position is in Him.  Are you genuinely focused upon God in your life, or has the noise of your life drowned God out?  If God were to be speaking to you, could you work Him into your busy schedule?  If that has to be asked, then perhaps our lives have become so noisy that we can’t hear God speaking to our hearts because we are so busy living life that we have forgotten Him.

Another thought along this same line, God tries to speak to us, but we stubbornly refuse to draw near to Him.  How often have we managed to be home on Sunday and failed to go to church?  The truth is that Church is not the issue, fellowship with other believers is the issue, setting aside time for God is the issue.  Our lives are so cluttered with noise that we find excuses not to worship God, we find excuses not to set aside time for Him.  Perhaps God hasn’t moved at all, maybe we moved. 

Rick goes into a detailed study as to how God withdraws and the reason’s behind it.  I would encourage you to check your position out before accusing God of moving.  I sprang off of Rick’s topic for today, and really did not cover it completely.  I would encourage you to pick up his book and read the chapter.  I will be picking up a few more copies tomorrow for anyone who wants one.  The books are available for the asking. 

Father, as we consider Your word and the way that You work in our lives, I pray that you will give us the wisdom to turn down our noise makers so that we can hear the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts. 

In Him,

Joe Turner.