Face God now? Or Eventually?

Ezekiel 23:1–49, Revelation 11:1–14, Job 35:9–16

A friend once said to me, “I don’t know why people think it is difficult to believe that Jesus died for the sin of the world. I don’t have a problem with that.”

I replied, “But what about your sin?”

There was a long pause, and he said, “Oh, I see what you mean.”

Human nature has not changed. Sin-filled people do not what to hear about it, even try to hide from hearing the truth. When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid in the garden trying to escape God. We all do it, one way or another.

Today’s reading in the OT describes the sin of God’s people in graphic terms. The metaphors make me blush. Near the end of these descriptions, God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Declare to them their abominations. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house.” (Ezekiel 23:36–39)

A few verses later, God repeats how He will use their enemies to punish them. He says, “And they shall return your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 23:49)

We don’t want to see our sin, and we don’t want to go face to face with the Living God. However, as this chapter describe, all who we resist God in this life, we will meet Him eventually.

Sometimes sinners will mask their resistance to God. They seem okay on the outside, even have a pious exterior. Job’s young ‘friend’ Elihu knew about those people. He said, “There they cry out, but he does not answer, because of the pride of evil men. Surely God does not hear an empty cry, nor does the Almighty regard it.” (Job 35:12–13)

He spoke the truth about the way pride keeps us from a two-way relationship with God and how prideful prayers bounce off the ceiling. Yet Elihu erred by accusing Job of being one of those people: “Job opens his mouth in empty talk; he multiplies words without knowledge.” (Job 35:16)

Job may have been without understanding concerning God’s reason behind his suffering, yet God eventually said that Job spoke “what is right” so his words were not empty talk. He trusted God and spoke directly to Him. He was not afraid to let God examine his life or hear his innermost thoughts and fears. Job had not rejected God, even when he felt that God had turned away from him.

Sinners might think that God isn’t looking and He does not care about what they do, but the Bible is filled with descriptions of how God deals with those who reject Him. Even at the end, He speaks of those who mock the people who serve Him. He tells John (who wrote Revelation), “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” (Revelation 11:1–3)

In those final and terrible days, it seems sensible that everyone would turn to God and His people for help. Instead, God continues to describe the attitude of godless people. In this case, it is their attitude toward His two witnesses: “And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.” (Revelation 11:7–10)

Three and a half days later, God put life into those two. “They stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” (Revelation 11:11–13)

A witness is someone who describes what they have seen. These witnesses told people about God, and to do that, they had to know Him, not run away from Him. Turning from sin and facing the Lord means admitting sin and being honest with God. This is unpleasant at best, but the result is far better than the alternative, for the mockers die and the faithful witnesses live with God forever.

To Live is Christ — joyful in His presence

After reading and studying the Bible for almost forty years, I occasionally find myself thinking of God as represented by artists. I know that God the Son became the man Jesus Christ, but God is not limited by time and space like we are. God is spirit and He is everywhere.

“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:24)

One theologian says that the nearest thing he can do to imagine God is air. Me too. Air is everywhere, at least to us who inhabit earth. It surrounds us and it permeates everything.

The big difference of course is that air is inert, without personality. While it moves at times with great power, air cannot hear and answer prayer, forgive sin, or heal the sick. Contrasting God, as the above verse says, air cannot see me either.

In context (see yesterday’s post), this verse is God’s answer to those who try to hide from Him. God says they are deceiving themselves. Hiding from God is impossible. Before Christ came into my life, I may have tried it; I don’t remember. Now, I cannot imagine wanting to flee from His presence. Because I know Him, knowing that He fills heaven and earth and knowing that He sees me is great comfort.

Sensing the presence of God is very much like sensing the presence of a visible person. The young woman that had been living with us since April moved out last week. She worked shifts, so sometimes when she was here, she was sleeping during the day and very quiet. Nevertheless, I sensed her presence. Now that she is gone, I notice that sense of her is missing — and I miss her.

It is like that with God. Most of the time I am very aware of His presence. I can talk to Him and He speaks to my heart. I am comforted to know that I am never alone, and to know that He is watching over me.

During the trials of life, His presence is especially meaningful. Through one particularly difficult time, a song, “You are There,”  became my prayer and the anchor that kept me encouraged. The words of this song came from a Psalm.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:7–10)

The presence of God is not a fearful thing to those who know Him through faith in Jesus Christ. Instead, He is here to comfort, guide, encourage, stabilize and care for me. He also fills my heart with peace. If anyone sees me smiling for no reason at all, it is because I know God is with me — and I am simply joyful in His presence!

To Live is Christ — without hiding

I have moved twenty-eight times, almost half of those since Christ came into my life. God has blessed by leading me to solid, Bible-preaching churches in all those moves. While we’ve had our share of cults coming to the door, no false teachers were in the congregations of those churches.

However, false teachers and false doctrine abound. God has always warned His people to close their ears to them. He used His faithful prophets to give those warnings.

Don’t listen to the lies of these false prophets, you people of Judah! The message they preach is something they imagined; it did not come from me, the Lord All-Powerful. These prophets go to people who refuse to respect me and who are stubborn and do whatever they want. The prophets tell them, “The Lord has promised everything will be fine.” But I, the Lord, tell you that these prophets have never attended a meeting of my council in heaven or heard me speak. They are evil! So in my anger I will strike them like a violent storm. I won’t calm down, until I have finished what I have decided to do. Someday you will understand exactly what I mean. I did not send these prophets or speak to them, but they ran to find you and to preach their message. If they had been in a meeting of my council in heaven, they would have told you people of Judah to give up your sins and come back to me. I am everywhere — both near and far, in heaven and on earth. There are no secret places where you can hide from me. (Jeremiah 23:16–24, CEV)

The bottom line here is that those who speak falsely and those who listen are trying to hide from God. They do not want to give up their sins, so instead of listening to the good news of repentance and forgiveness and the gospel of grace, they try to hide from the truth in false teaching.

This never occurred to me as the basic lure of cults and teaching that claims to be Bible-based but is not. However this hiding to avoid truth is not just in the Old Testament. Jesus said it this way . . . 

No one who has faith in God’s Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn’t have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God’s only Son. The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won’t come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done. But everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do. (John 3:18–21, CEV)

When I think of people hiding in the dark, I picture their ‘darkness’ at the least as ignorance, and at the worst as flagrant sin. Yet the Bible says false teaching is also a form of darkness. Those who do not want to give up their sin can hide in “religion” by putting on a form of godliness. Paul says it this way . . . 

You can be certain that in the last days there will be some very hard times. People will love only themselves and money. They will be proud, stuck-up, rude, and disobedient to their parents. They will also be ungrateful, godless, heartless, and hateful. Their words will be cruel, and they will have no self-control or pity. These people will hate everything that is good. They will be sneaky, reckless, and puffed up with pride. Instead of loving God, they will love pleasure. Even though they will make a show of being religious, their religion won’t be real. Don’t have anything to do with such people. Some men fool whole families, just to get power over those women who are slaves of sin and are controlled by all sorts of desires. These women always want to learn something new, but they never can discover the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, these people are enemies of the truth. Their minds are sick, and their faith isn’t real. (2 Timothy 3:1–8, CEV, italics mine)

The danger of false teachers is very real. The only way to avoid deception is to avoid the root problem. Instead of clinging to sin, I must always want to get rid of it. Instead of trying to look good on the outside and cling to “my way” on the inside, I must be willing to humble myself and admit my sinfulness. God’s grace is there for me. I can try to hide from God, but as Jeremiah says, He is everywhere and knows my heart.

No matter what false teachers do to look good, they cannot hide from Him either.

Hide or Seek?

When Adam and Eve sinned, they tried to hide from God. Shame and guilt are like that. However, God searched them out and covered their sin, in symbol with animal skins and in reality with grace and that animal’s shed blood. They found out that the God they were so afraid of offers forgiveness and mercy. They didn’t have to hide.

Job knew that. In one of the oldest stories from Scripture, this afflicted man was not aware of a specific sin, yet when he felt so alone and it seemed that God had abandoned him, he said, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat!” (Job 23:3)

Instead of hiding from the scrutiny of God, Job wanted to come to His judgment seat. He wanted a hearing, and he knew that God would be fair. My devotional reading today says that Job’s attitude of seeking rather than hiding is indicative of true faith.

A person who knows, believes in, and trusts God realizes not only the futility of trying to hide from Him, but the imperative of seeking His face. Who but God can forgive and cleanse sin? Who but God can help us out of the messes we get ourselves in and give us direction when we are confused?

David said, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7). He knew that God is omnipresent. Who can hide from Him?

Yet in sinfulness, I’ve tried. Or at least I’ve hidden behind busyness, excuses or finger-pointing. These things are so silly. Even a to-do list a mile long will not stop God from zooming in on my heart and getting my attention. Excuses as thick as the hide of an elephant cannot prevent Him from seeing right through me. Shifting the blame for my sinful foolishness does not deflect the deep conviction produced by the Holy Spirit. Like David, I know that I cannot hide from God.

The alternative is seeking Him. Knowing that He never leaves, never forsakes me does not negate the sometimes sense that He is gone. Job felt that and said, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him. . . .” yet within a few verses, he also says this:

Look, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; when He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; when He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

Odd this sense of both knowing He is here and feeling that He has abandoned me. One comes from the Holy Spirit who lives inside me to assure me of the truth; the other comes from my flesh which is determined to walk by sight and not faith. Of course these two are in conflict with one another. One is true and of God; the other is not.

Job’s sense of God was the same as all those who trust in Him. He knew that despite his current feelings, the purposes of God for his life would stand firm. God was determined that this man be restored to the image in which he was created. God would use the trials of life, including this great trial in Job’s life, to reshape and restore him, and Job knew it.

In Job’s case, there was no sin from which he felt he had to hide or conceal. Sometimes my troubles are not so innocent, yet I experience the same sense of knowing God is with me and at work in my life, even when it feels as if He has abandoned me.

In such situations, there is no use hiding. God knows the way that I take too, and when I seek His face and ask His forgiveness, His purpose for my life is back on track. Far better to hasten that process than try to hide from the God who is always with me.