Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Our Forgiving God”. A good study this week on the prayer made by the Levites as the Children of Israel mourned and confessed their faithlessness. And not just their own faithlessness but the faithlessness of their ancestors back through time. A most sobering realization to the people as the law was read and translated… and finally understood in their own tongue.
What happened to you when you first understood? Didn’t we, too, mourn and confess like they? Didn’t we, too, weep and shed tears? Didn’t we rejoice in the salvation of our God… the salvation so freely given, yet revealing the infinite cost of such love so freely given? Yes, we did. And after the rejoicing, we desired to know more and more. And in the desire to know more and still more, did we not realize even more fully the magnitude of our sinfulness… the magnitude of our self-centeredness? And this led to even deeper contrition and repentance. So the prayer offered in our study this week could be much like our own prayer of confession, too. A deep heart contrition and confession. And along with this contrition and confession can come one more thing. The same thing that we see in this prayer. We see a promise. A promise to God from man. But a promise that God knew we could not fulfill on our own. A covenant promise that we make in response to our heartfelt contrition. A promise to do God’s requirements… to do His law. Impossible apart from an abiding relationship with our God of love! Yet they (and maybe us, too) did make this promise. A natural reaction. We see the depth of our sinfulness and resolve to never be so sinful again. A natural reaction from the natural heart of mankind. But this is not the reaction that will yield results. It is so often the promise from a prideful heart. A heart determined, not a heart submitted. A heart desiring self-preservation and not the heart of understanding and sacrificial love. A heart that stands hard and resisting, not from a heart that is yielding and pliable before our God. A heart that hopes for reward, not a heart that takes no thought of reward. It is from a heart that sees partially but not fully. Does not yet understand the Father… nor yet understands the depth of sinfulness that lies latent in every single person’s heart. And that sinfulness has a name. And that name is pride.
In our contrition and our desire to please we often make such promises to God. But God knows such promises are worthless. They are worthless because we sinners are “without strength” (Romans 5:6). But we, in our ignorance of God and ignorance of our own true condition, make these foolhardy promises. Promises that have their root in our pride. We may not recognize those promises as pride. We may believe that we are doing God’s will by such promises. That we are able… that He expects us to be able. And, therefore, we will perform.
I hope you are beginning to see our latent pride at work. And these promises of man are what constitutes the “Old Covenant” (more on this in next week’s “thought”). God’s original design was that we would never make such impossible promises or “vows”. But when sinful man first ignorantly promised “all that the Lord has said we will do” at the foot of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:8), then God knew He had to show the people precisely what they had just promised… the magnitude of the “works of God” they had just promise to “do” . He had to show them what the works of righteousness really are. The law given on Mt. Sinai and expanded in the 613 other laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is to show us the magnitude of holiness and our high calling… and convict us of sin... of how far we are from the spirit of the law. Obeying the Law that convicts you, cannot make you righteous. Righteousness only comes by faith in Him who is righteous. And so the Israelites in Nehemiah’s day as their forebears before them, make the same promise. Unwittingly perhaps, make the same foolhardy “covenant” based on the promises of man. Not the “Everlasting Covenant” as given to Abraham and offered to the children of Israel in Exodus 19, but the “Old Covenant” of Exodus 20. A covenant of promises “which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (Acts 15:10).
So why would God command something that cannot be done, outside of an intimate personal relationship with Him? So that those who strove to obey would see how much they needed Him. How much they needed this relationship with Him. As Paul so eloquently states, “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). And the sooner those who prided themselves in “doing the works of God” could see the truth by failing at doing the “works of God”, the sooner they would come to understand that “this is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29). So they would come to have faith in God to change their heart into true law-abiders. To have the same faith as Abraham…, “and he (Abram) believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
The study this week helps us see the beginning of the condition that existed when Christ came. The children of Israel in Christ’s day had become embroiled in pride and self-promotion. They so strove to honor God by obeying all His Laws. Even adding details to God’s laws. And they believed they were quite successful, too. Yet they really did not know God. So much so that they called His Son, Satan. Amazing! And the seeds for this rejection in Christ’s day are being sown in Nehemiah’s day. They strove to do what God said, to obey His law, but few had the love that fulfills that law.
In conclusion, I mentioned in my ”thought” for September 29, that we needed to watch this quarter for any beginning attributes of the people or their leaders (any “seeds”) that would bear the fruit we see at the time of Christ. Any beginnings of nationalistic pride, any “seeds” of a religion based on “works”, any “seeds” of misunderstanding God. And in this lesson we can see some of that beginning. We have a very sincere people repeating the same human promises to God, the same “old covenant” promise that their forebears made. In our lesson today, we see their seriousness, their determination to exterminate sin from their lives. Unfortunately, sin is not the presence of evil. Sin is the absence of love. So exterminating sin is a misguided goal. It leads us to be very busy avoiding all “sin”, but keeps us from learning the lessons of love. It leads us to be self-focused and not other-focused. It makes us narrow and critical and not loving large and magnanimous. It makes us petty spies instead of loving courageous brothers and sisters. Exterminating sin is the motive of the prideful heart, the heart that is more concerned with itself. The heart of love is never concerned with self. Is only concerned with doing what is right and true for the “other”. Taking no stock of self. Never weighing the cost of love. But loves others prodigally. Giving all with no thought of recompense. This is the purpose of the Law. Not to promote frail human promises. Not to provoke “old covenant” promises. But to lead us deeper and still deeper into the heart of God until all of self is gone into the infinite ocean of true love. Unfortunately, the people of Nehemiah’s day are repeating the same mistake as their forebears.
May we not, at this late date, repeat their mistake. In our enthusiasm and our zeal, we may. We may be so focused on correct theology that we are blind to the great love-deficit all-around us. God’s law needs to lead us to the lawgiver, not to a stalwart self-focus in self-performed “so-called” obedience. Love is the only true obedience there is. And that is only found… ONLY FOUND… in a love relationship with Him who is love. The law needs to lead us to love, not to personal piety. May we all see God, is my prayer for us all.
With brotherly love,
Jim