“Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have not been true to me, and have neither remembered me nor taken this to heart? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?” Isaiah 57:11, NIV “Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense, leaving me high and dry, forgetting you ever knew me? Because I don’t yell and make a scene do you think I don’t exist?” Isaiah 57:11, MSG As a general rule for myself, I tend to use the New International Version whenever I quote the Bible. It’s the version that the majority of the world reads and I think there is value in that. For Isaiah 57:11, however, I found the MSG version interesting. It reminds me of the tone a jealous girlfriend might have when she says to her boyfriend, “Why do you keep looking at her like that? Am I not as pretty as her?” “Because I don’t yell and make a scene do you think I don’t exist?” It’s a disturbing question to me for two main reasons: (1) God knows that yelling and making a scene will convince us He exists. (2) God doesn’t yell and make a scene. One of my unbelieving friends was asking me a while back why God doesn’t just speak to His people. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to believe in God if He appeared before all of us and was just like, “Hey guys, just here to let you know that I’m real, so, yeah. Believe in me.”? I didn’t have a good answer, and I still don’t. For a while I went with the whole, “Well, I mean, technically God never really spoke to His people because He used prophets. And even then, in the instances when He spoke to His prophets, there’s no specification that it was a loud, booming voice and not just the small, quiet voice that Christians also hear today (with the exception of the baptism of Jesus in which God’s voice is specified).” It’s not a horrible argument. Maybe it’s not theologically sound, or maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m not a biblical scholar. The point is, that response does not at all answer the question. Even if in the past God didn’t speak to His people directly, the question then becomes why didn’t He then and why doesn’t He now? I can think of a couple good reasons now. Perhaps God only wants whole-hearted believers, so He remains silent in order that we may work our way into His presence, and only those who are genuine will get to hear Him. But then someone can say, “I thought God wants all people to believe.” And He does. He stands waiting with wide open arms for us to turn to Him. Does His remaining silent contradict His open arms? “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” Isaiah 55:6-9 Here’s what I have discovered in my quest to understand why God doesn’t speak to us today: I don’t know, and I never will. Even if I or someone else were to come up with some amazing, theologically sound answer that explains perfectly God’s motives for not speaking…I don’t know if I’d be able to buy it. We just can’t reason like God reasons. We can’t look at the things God does and try to understand His thought-process. We can’t say, “Well, obviously God did this because He was thinking _____.” All we know about God is all He has revealed to us in His Word, and that’s enough. We know He loves us and we know His ways are perfect. We know He made a way for us to be saved and we know what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Just seek the Lord while He may be found—while you still have time. Get to know God. Nothing else matters as much as that. Don’t let your life pass you by without deeply seeking after the One who gave it to you. You get to choose life or death. Choose life. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:33-36 Disclaimer: I understand that some reading this may think that I do not believe God speaks to His people today. I believe He does. I have heard Him myself—through a small, quiet voice in my head, through His Word, and through the words of others. I have not, however, experienced God’s voice as an audible voice, speaking directly to me as a friend would. This is what I mean when I say God does not speak to us today. Perhaps some people have experienced God’s voice as loud and audibly as anyone else talking to them. That is wonderful, and I would love to experience that. However, the point of my post remains the same. Whether or not God speaks to us in this way today, we are still not able to know His motives, and we shouldn't attempt to understand.
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AuthorFighting complacency and advocating change in myself for the world around me. Posts by Date
February 2019
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