October 13, 2010

Today we talked about how the truth in our heads isn’t always a revelation in our hearts. We read from 2 Samuel 24 (David Takes a Census). In the beginning God is angry against the Israelites and he cause David to harm them by taking a census…but God can’t make someone sin. He hardened David’s heart so that he wouldn’t do the right thing and teach the people something. God also does not contradict himself and when we find things in the bible that seem contradictory it means we aren’t interpreting it right. We need to go into reading the bible and think about God’s character. So if there is anything in the bible that contradicts the character of God that means one of two things. Either what we thought about God’s character is wrong, or it is true and we are reading the passage wrong or not seeing the real point. We need to stop and observe so that we maybe come to the understanding that we might not be ready to clearly know what this passage means. By hardening the heart of one person so that others can know Him does not really sound like the character of God. But it seems like this is what is happening in this chapter. However, God is the only one that has and will sacrifice Himself for the good of others. It is possible for Him to harden the heart of any person but He won’t because of His love.
When it says that God had hardened the Pharaohs heart when Moses asked for the slaves to be freed, it means something very simple. Pharaoh was not about to listen to a man that came from slaves or else he would have lost all authority.
In God there is everything. All we have to do is walk in the grace that He has given and we should be obedient and know God and who He is. We prove that we walk in His grace by being obedience in demonstration of love. If we walk in obedience to receive a blessing then we do it with a resentful heart. We then start to be obedient to receive blessings instead of obeying out of love. When we obey in love we aren’t waiting to receive anything. When we obey in love, our goal is that the person we love will be satisfied and happy. In the end, what we want is what we already have. It comes in God’s time and in His way.
There is a story of a man and his wife and their child that lived in a concentration camp during the holocaust. The little boy was very hungry and one day he came to his father and said “Dad! An angel has brought me another piece of bread!” and his father replied, “Yes , son.” And every day his angel gave him an extra piece of bread and he was happy. Then his mother started to get sick and died. The extra piece of bread stopped coming and the boy said to his father, “Dad, the angel has forgotten me today. I only have one piece of bread.” and his father said, “No, the angel did not forget you. The angel loves you and may not be able to give you an extra piece of bread but she will take care of your heart. The angel was your mother.” This is a true story and that boy is one of very few who survived the concentration camp.
We need to give in love and not in order to receive anything. If we know God and love Him, we will give and do for Him even if it costs us absolutely everything. We know that we are saved in grace but often do not know how to live in grace because the grace is something we accept but is not a revelation in our heart. Once it becomes a revelation in our heart, we learn how to rest in God.
Matthew 12:31 “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven-except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.” Does this mean Jesus did not die for all sin and that all sin is not covered by His blood? Absolutely NOT. All sin is forgiven and paid for by Jesus blood and what happened on the cross. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is only one thing; Unbelief (not believing in God). You cannot be saved if you do not believe in God. Not because God does not want to or cannot, but because we are not asking for forgiveness and not accepting it. We are then closing the door to grace.
Pharaoh closed the door to God and His grace. God allows man to continue on the course of the decision he has chosen. He respects our decision and He does not leave us but He does not make us love Him. The people that go to hell are not sent to hell. They choose it. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened because he chose it and did not want to obey God. When we stop obeying God we are going to start quieting the voice of God and believe that the voice of our arguments is valid. Then we lose the sensitivity to listen to God and start listening to spirits which are already in line with what we believe and it gives us false peace. Then our walk becomes something God does not want.
The Christian life is like a bicycle. One peddle is to listen to God and the other is to obey God and when they work together we go forward in our Christian life. The Christian life is easy; we listen and obey. Nothing complicated. We make it complicated with our arguments because we may not want do something that God tells us to his way.
1 Chronicles 21:1 “Satan rose up against Israel and caused David to take a census of the people of Israel.” God allows it to happen because we have free will. Not everything that happens to us is God’s will. It is the consequence of our decision to listen to the enemy.
God lead Moses’s generation to the promised land. The promise was for that generation to take the land but the second generation did. It was not God’s plan for Joshua’s generation to take the land but Moses’s generation did not take it because they did not believe they could. They listened to doubt from the enemy and so they all died in the desert. Our decisions are important and that’s why Satan tries to deceive us continually.
David made the wrong decision of taking a census and afterward the city starts to pay the consequences because of the decision of the King (the authority). Just like the decisions of parents affect the children, of government affect the people, of the pastor affect the church. God gave us the right and authority of creating God’s dream and making it reality but the enemy enters in order to deceive us to destroy our lives and our relationship with God. This brings curses over the next generation.
In 1 Chronicles 21:2 David spoke to Joab and the commanders of the army. And then in verse 3, Joab questions the king about if he really wanted to take the census. Joab was not a wise man, he was a warrior and knew that the king was making a mistake and that it would lead him to sin. But the king had pride from deceit from Satan. Satan found the open door and worked into David’s mind that he thought were good.