wisdom-of-God

Exodus 6, Job 23, and Psalm 54

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Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Exodus 6, Job 23, and Psalm 54.

This devotional is about Job 23.

Sometimes it seems like God’s presence is real and tangible. You can’t see him or touch him, but his conviction is so powerful, or his work in your life is so undeniable, or the power of his word is so strong that you can sense his presence.

Most of the time, though, we don’t sense the presence of God, at least not that strongly. In the most discouraging moments of life, actually, it feels like God is a million miles away. That’s how Job was feeling in Job 23. He was willing to travel anywhere to have an audience with God (v. 3). His purpose in seeking that audience was to explain to God why his problems were unjust (v. 4) and then to hear God’s response (v. 5). He was confident that God would respond in his favor and reverse all the troubles he had experienced in the opening chapters of this book (vv. 6-7).

Alas, though, he couldn’t find God (vv. 8-9). There was no location on earth Job could travel to and have a direct, personal, tangible give-and-take with the Lord God.

Instead, Job realized that he had to wait for God to summon him. He couldn’t go and find God but he believed that God would find him (v. 10a). And, when God did find him, Job was confident that he would be vindicated (vv. 11-12).

But what if God didn’t vindicate Job? That was the question he considered in verses 13-17. God exists on another level from us, one that we can never approach.

  • God is creator; we are the created.
  • God is infinite; we are finite.
  • God is perfect; we are… not.
  • God has absolute power; we have very limited powers and whatever power we have was delegated from God anyway.
  • God is all-wise; we are foolish.
  • God knows all-things; compared to him, we know nothing.

We desire to know why–why bad things happen to good people, why innocent children suffer painful birth defects, why our hopes and dreams often don’t come true and why those that do come true don’t seem to be as sweet as we thought they would be.

These are common human questions and struggles and they are not necessarily sinful or disrespectful to God.

It is sinful, however, when we challenge God instead of fearing God. To challenge God, one must believe that he knows better than God does and has better moral judgment than God does.

Questions are inevitable. But can you consider them and ask them while still remembering to fear God? The fear of God is to remember that he exists on another level from us, a level we cannot even imagine much less understand. Ask your questions but remember who God is and who you are. Ask your questions in submission, fearing God for who he is. Someday, he may honor you with the answer.

Judges 5, Jeremiah 51, Romans 11

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Read Judges 5, Jeremiah 51, and Romans 11.

This devotional is about Romans 11.

Romans 10 discussed the fact that many Israelites rejected the good news about Christ but, today in chapter 11, Paul was quick to address the fact that not all Jews were in unbelief (v. 1). In verses 2-10, he reminded us that the Jewish people lived in unbelief and rebellion against God for most of their history. So the idea that only some of God’s chosen people were actually chosen to have faith in him is not something new. It is how God has always worked, saving a “remnant” who trusted him from the heart (vv. 5-6).

But why did Israel reject Jesus when he came in human flesh? Wasn’t God’s promise that Messiah would rule over all Israel? Yes, that was the promise and it will still happen (v.26). The reason it didn’t happen with Jesus’ first coming, however, was God’s desire to save us Gentiles (vv. 11-25). God will still redeem Israel, just as he promised, but not “until the full number of Gentiles has come in” (v. 25b).

This is all an expression of God’s mercy (v. 32). He hardened Israel, for a time, so that he would save us. The power of this grace overwhelmed Paul in verses 33-36. It caused him to remark on the greatness of God’s wisdom (v. 33a) and how his wisdom is beyond human comprehension (vv. 34-36).

Is this how you respond to doctrines that are hard to understand? Does the doctrine of election or of the Trinity lift your spirit to worship the immense wisdom of God? Or, does it cause you to question and even deny those doctrines because they are hard for us to understand?

God is all-wise and all-knowing so are we really surprised that he does things we find hard to understand? If everything about God were simple and made perfect sense to limited, fallible people like us, then we should be concerned. So let the difficult doctrines of scripture, the ones you find hard to understand or to accept as true, cause you to look to God in awe. His judgments are “unsearchable… and his paths beyond tracing out!”

Joshua 9, Jeremiah 35, Psalms 81-83

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Read Joshua 9, Jeremiah 35, and Psalms 81-83.

This devotional is about Joshua 9.

What would you do if your country was being attacked by a ruthless band of vagabonds who, despite their limited means, were winning their battles with seemingly supernatural help? That’s the question that the Gibeonites were asking themselves during Joshua’s conquest of Canaan; their answer is recorded here in Joshua 9.

I think my answer would have been unconditional surrender: “Take us over; we’re all yours. Please be merciful to us.”

The Gibeonites, however, didn’t try this. It seems impossible, but perhaps they had heard about the instructions God gave in Deuteronomy 7:1-2: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” That last sentence, “Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy” doesn’t seem to leave any room for surrender. Again, is it possible that the Gibeonites had heard about these instructions? It seems unlikely, but given how much they (vv. 9-10) Rahab (Josh 2:9-11) knew about God and his work on behalf of Israel, maybe word about God’s instructions had spread, too, along with these reports.

Regardless of what they knew about Israel, the Gibeonites responded to the threat of Israel through deception. They concocted a story about being from a “distant country” (v. 6, 9) and backed it up with costumes and props that would support their story (vv. 4-5, 11-13).

Their plan worked and Israel entered into a treaty with the Gibeonite without even knowing where they were from (v. 15, 19). Verse 14 notes that, “The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.” In other words, they trusted the information from their 5 senses enough that they did not look to the Lord for insight and wisdom.

Note the contrast between Joshua 7 and today’s passage in Joshua 9. In Joshua 7, Israel was defeated by Ai, and Joshua started praying (7:6-9) but God told him to stop praying and start rooting sin out of the camp (vv. 10-12). I take this to mean that Joshua should have known there was a sin problem since God had promised to defeat Israel’s enemies and had done so—miraculously so—in Jericho. Joshua and the elders of Israel were asking God, in Joshua 7, why when they should have been asking him, “Who sinned?”

Now here in Joshua 9 they were tempted to depart from God’s clear instructions and yet they did not think to ask God. Instead, they decided to follow what seemed reasonable.

You and I face this kind of temptation, too. We know what God has said but we think the option in front of us is some kind of exception to God’s clear word. When we do this, we are putting ourselves at risk. At the very least we risk making an unwise decision; often we are making a sinful decision, one that will cause us great pain later.

In this case, the Gibeonites saved their skin through this deception (vv. 16-18). That was not the most damaging outcome that could have happened to Israel but it did cause the leadership to lose some credibility (v. 18d).

My question about this passage is: Did Israel really need to honor this treaty? The Gibeonites were completely dishonest. Their argument for the treaty was a total lie and they sold their lie with deception. Doesn’t their dishonesty invalidate the agreement?

I think it probably would have been permissible morally to break their treaty. However, Israel’s leaders were at fault here, too. They could have investigated the claims of the Gibeonites more thoroughly and they could and should have sought guidance from the Lord.

Given that Israel agreed to this—foolishly—it may have been permissible morally to attack the Gibeonites, but it was probably not the godly response. Joshua’s statement in verse 20: “This is what we will do to them: We will let them live, so that God’s wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath we swore to them” was, at last, a godly way to look at the situation. Psalm 15:4b says that a godly person “keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind.” This is why Jesus cautioned us not to take oaths at all (Matt 5:33-37).

Are there any promises you’ve made that you should live up to, even though you made them foolishly and they will be more costly than you expected to fulfill? Let his passage inform your life; be careful about what you commit to do but, if you do commit to do something, make sure you do it. This is an approach that honors our Lord.