The Acts of the Apostles- 92

Subtitle:  Shipwrecked

Acts 27:21-44.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 16, 2025.

We are going to continue with Paul on his storm-tossed journey to Rome.  But before we do that, I want to share some similarities and contrasts between the Apostle Paul and the prophet Jonah.

Both of these men were tasked by God with taking a message from Him to Gentiles and their king or kings.  Paul of course has a scope that is much larger than Jonah who was only sent to the capital city of Ninevah.  They both end up in a storm that threatens their lives, but are spared by God in order to deliver their messages.  Finally, they both end up in water that could kill them, but are helped by God.

Yet, there are some big contrasts between Paul and Jonah.  Paul goes toward his task as a willing voice to the Gentiles.  Whereas, Jonah is running away from his meeting as an unwilling voice to the Gentiles.  We could add to this that Paul has a heart of love for the Gentiles (not wanting them to perish), and Jonah wants the Gentiles to be destroyed.  Paul is taken in chains by others to his task, even though he would freely go.  However, Jonah uses his freedom to flee from the task.  Of course, there is great irony in this.  We can see that spiritually Paul is the man who is free and that Jonah is the man who has a spiritual bondage to vindication.  We also see that the storm is sent to chastise Jonah for disobedience.  Whereas, this is not the case for Paul.  The storm only helps people to see God’s mark of approval upon him.  Finally, Paul is happy to see Gentiles saved, but Jonah is sad that they are spared.

Of course, a person could come up with more.  All of this gives us insight into the thorny ground of wanting justice from God while keeping true to His heart towards all people.

Now, let’s get back to our passage at hand.  We left them on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, caught up in a storm so powerful that they are throwing stuff overboard to save their lives.

Hope is given (v. 21-26)

Verse 20 ended with the statement that all hope was gradually being lost.  However, God had different plans.  When we are in hard and difficult times, we can be tempted to complain about them.  Yet, their situation when from hard and difficult to an existential crisis.  They had come to believe that they were going to perish in this storm.

It is at this time that God speaks to the men through the Apostle Paul.  Paul encourages them and gives them hope in this time.  However, this would not be a hope of circumstances, what their eyes could see. 

Our hopes are generally pinned on what we can see, what seems most probable.  However, Christians are told to live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).  Now, that passage is not telling us to ignore the things we can see and to suspend our thinking.  Rather, it is calling us to remember that God is greater than all of the things we can see.  Such a hope is something that is deeper than what we can see.  In a situation absent anything that gives visible hope, a man stands up and says he has been given hope by God, a word from God.  Of course, this begs the question who is this guy.  Men like Luke, Aristarchus would draw great hope from Paul’s words.  He has proven trustworthy to them.  Perhaps a man like Julius the centurion would also draw some hope.  Perhaps everyone else would simply draw hope from the courage it took for him to stand up and say that there is still hope.  Regardless, Paul stands up and speaks hope to them, “after many days” of fighting the storm and going without food.  All told, they would spend 14 days fighting this storm.  We don’t know how close to the end that Paul received his message.  I would think that God did it at just the right timing. 

As Christians, all of us would like to receive a concrete word from the Lord.  However, when God uses someone else to speak into our lives, we are generally not as thrilled to rely upon it.  We balk with the thoughts of how trustworthy they are.  We even balk at whether we think it is possible or not.  This is not a game of “hearing things from the Lord,” as if we are trying to see who can get the best record.   God speaks into every situation generally through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.  However, from time to time, He will speak specifically.  If God has given a word, then it will bear out to be true every time.  If you have been in a situation where you think that God spoke something to you, or someone else told gave you a word from the Lord, and it failed to happen as was said, then the failure wasn’t with God.  You have to go back to God in prayer and humble yourself.  Perhaps you jumped to conclusions about what the word meant.  Look closer.   Perhaps you wanted something so badly that you let your imagination get away from you. 

What we have here is a man who has faith in what God has said, and it will bear out exactly as God told him.

Paul gives the classic I-told-you-so, but it is not given in a vindictive spirit.  Rather, he is really trying to help them.  “You didn’t listen to me before, but listen to me now.”  He is coming alongside of them to encourage them.

We have to be careful not to let our spirit become bitter when people don’t listen to us.  People are free to choose and learn their own lessons.  Yes, your ego may have been hurt, but God is not working in order to spare your fragile ego.  Perhaps we fear that our experience is overly tied to how they respond.  Listen, God is quite capable of helping you regardless of who listens to your godly counsel.  Yet, the foundation question is this.  Am I truly giving godly counsel?

Essentially, Paul tells them that no one will die, but the ship is going to be lost and destroyed.

It is then that he describes how the word of God came to him.  A heavenly messenger spoke to him that very night.  The message is this: don’t be afraid, you must speak before Caesar, and God has granted you all those who sail with you.

There are two things here.  First, the message is really to Paul and about what he will experience.  He doesn’t need to fear because God wants him to appear before Caesar.  Yet, it is also clear that Paul has been praying for the lives of these sailors, soldiers and passengers.  God has heard his prayer and is granting him this request.  I don’t believe the angel is sent to convince Paul that he will survive.  Rather, he is sent to assure Paul that all the others will live.

This is important because Paul shouldn’t even be there in one sense.  He was unjustly arrested without due process, and he is protesting trumped up charges about Jewish religion.  Their salvation physically is going to be due to the intercession of this man.  This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about them.  God cared enough to put His special man on their boat.  As God spoke to Jonah, we can see here.  Jonah didn’t care about Ninevah, but God saw 120,000 people who couldn’t even distinguish their right hand from their left hand spiritually.  They were lost and in the dark, but God cared about them and sent Jonah, sent Paul, sends you and me!

Paul understands this.  He was a man who was supposed to have the light of God, but was absolutely clueless to the truth, until God had mercy and showed him the light.  How much more are these Gentiles worthy of a hearing who have only known darkness and lies?

Paul gives them his conclusion.  They should keep their courage (take heart) regardless of how tough it is going to become.  We don’t always receive such information from God.  When we are in difficult situations, part of us may want to use that to accuse God.  However, faith is not found in knowing the future.  Faith is found in knowing the One who not only knows what will happen, but can work it to our good in impossible ways.

The real question is this.  Do I really know God?  If I do, then that knowledge will help to strengthen my faith, as well as the Spirit’s help.  Yet, this kind of knowing is a knowing of experience.  I can know what God’s word says, but I need to experience times of trusting God (or failing to do so) and finding out that He is trustworthy for myself.

The sailors attempt to save the ship (v. 27-38)

As we said, these men have been caught in this storm for nearly two weeks.  Regardless of when Paul told them this message, the sailors try everything they can (probably with the help of all able-bodied passengers) to save the ship.

We are told that around midnight the sailors sense that they are approaching land.  Even though it is pitch dark with howling wind and rain, they probably hear the sound of the waves dashing against something other than the ship and other water.  Years of sailing had attuned their senses to recognizing that distinct sound.  Was it wishful thinking, their mind playing tricks on them?  Regardless, they were convinced enough to take some sounding with a plummet line.  They soon discovered that the depth went from 20 fathoms to 15 fathoms.  They were sailing towards shallower and shallower waters, which is a hallmark of land.  All ships have a certain depth of water that they can sail in without the bottom of the boat bottoming out.  To keep this from happening, the command is given to throw out anchors.  This is dangerous because of the wind and the waves.  Yet, they had to try something to buy them time for a chance to make it to land.

Some of the sailors used this command as a pretense to try and escape on a small skiff, a lifeboat.  However, Paul recognizes what they are doing and warns the centurion and the soldiers that none of them will live if those men do not stay with the ship.  This may seem strange, but in 2 Corinthians 11, we are told that Paul had been shipwrecked three times and had spent a day and a night in the water.  He had spent a lot of time traveling on ships, so he knew that they were not throwing out an anchor.

Why would Paul say that the soldiers would not survive if those men didn’t stay with the ship?  This does not seem to have been a part of the earlier angelic message, but it may have been something that Paul did not mention.  It is also possible that the Holy Spirit prompted Paul’s mind in the moment that this was not part of God’s plan.  Think about it.  They are buying time for a shot at navigating any rocks and making it to land.  For these sailors to abandon ship in this moment, is to leave the rest of the people to sure death.  It would take everyone of them just to have a hope of getting to the shore.

This is where we should recognize an important fact.  These men’s skills would not be used to save the ship, but they would be used to help get the ship to a place where the people could make it to land.  God wanted to save the men of the ship, but He also wanted to use these sailors, at least partially.

This brings up the mystery of how God uses our actions at times versus sending a miracle.  We could call it the miracle of God including our efforts, even those of unsaved people. 

He wants us to do what we can even when it will never be enough.  Imagine a disheartened dad facing his inability to do a good job with his kids.  He may recognize that he is not up to the task and is failing these kids in many ways.  So, what then?  Do we just quit?  Don’t give up in such situations.  There is a sense in which none of us are enough for every relationship and purpose that God gives us to do.  However, God is not only able to use our weak and feeble attempts, but He intends to use them.  He intends to use your weak efforts, not just to help your kids, but to help you.  In the midst of your weakness, you will find God’s assistance as you give yourself to the task.  You will find yourself growing in ability, but even more, in faith that God can and does work through you and in you.

As it gets close to daylight, Paul encourages the men to eat food for their strength.  “Not a hair from the head of any of you will be lost!”  Yet, pay closer attention to how Paul presents the bread to them.

Luke’s phrasing about Paul giving thanks and breaking the bread suggests that this was also treated as communion for the Christians on board (Luke and Aristarchus).  There is something spiritual happening here as they prepare for the final push to survive.  God is using Paul to implant in the minds of all of these men this crazy man giving God thanks for bread when their lives were in danger.  They don’t know God, but they now have experienced life with a man who does know God.  These 273 (276 minus Paul, Luke and Aristarchus) souls are being touched by the God of heaven who cares for their souls.

At this point, sensing that this is their last chance at land, they send the last of the cargo (the grain) over into the sea.  This would lighten the boat and give them the best ability to steer the ship and maneuver to land.

They fail to save the ship, but God delivers them (v. 39-44)

These men will fail to save the ship, but God does not fail to save their lives, at least physically.

Once there is enough light to see, they make a run for the beach.  This involves putting up the mainsail and cutting away the anchors at the same time.  They don’t recognize the land, but they do see a place on land that is their best chance.  As they put up the sail and cut the anchors, the ship lurches forward.  At some point, they become stuck on a sandbar (often these also have clay under the sand).  The wind and the surf begins tearing up the back of the ship.  It is time to abandon ship and pray to make it to the shore without drowning or being dashed against the rocks.

Things are happening fast at this point.  They will need to swim for their lives.  We are told that the soldiers were preparing to kill the prisoners.  This was common policy for Romans and many cultures of the ancient world.  Those charged with the custody of a prisoner pledged their own life for the life of the prisoner.  If they lost a charge, then they would be put to death.  In situations where there was no way to guarantee their custody, prisoners would be put to death.  Yet, God has been working on Julius the centurion.  He normally would be okay with killing the prisoners, but he favors Paul.  Thus, he tells his men not to kill the prisoners.  Of course, then it comes down to how much they trust him.  They had to respect him enough to follow such an order.

The instructions are quickly given.  Those who can swim are to jump in first and make for land.  Others are to grab a board or something from the ship so that they can hopefully float to shore.  I love the phrase, “so it happened that they all were brought safely to land.”  This was a miracle; but even more, it was a miracle that Paul had proclaimed well in advance.  Paul had testified and witnessed to the fact of his God’s grace for them all.

In the end, the greatest shipwrecks are those that metaphorically happen in the lives of people, individuals, groups and even Republics.  Paul uses this metaphor in 1 Timothy 1:19 for a shipwrecked faith.

Sometimes there are things in our lives that God does not intend to save, even though He intends to save us.  This can bother us.  We are so used to serving Him with those things that it can be unclear just exactly what we are trusting.  Satan tested Job in this way.  God wouldn’t let him kill Job, but he could take away many of the good things in Job’s life.  Would Job curse God and die?  Did the things mean more to him than God?  These are the questions we face as we do life with God.

God always intends to save the souls of people.  The loss of ships and things in our life are not proof that He doesn’t care.  Rather, He cares about much bigger things (like eternal salvation) than we often do.  No matter what we face, God wants to save us, to save our family, to save our church, to save our State, to save our Republic, to save our world.  He is not willing that anyone perish.  So, He is working every day to the ends of saving everyone’s soul.  The real question is do you have enough faith to stand in there with Him like Paul did?

When you face a time of losing things, don’t ask God why He is doing it to you.  Rather, put it on the altar and let Him know that He means more to you than those things.  Then, ask Him what it is that He has for you to do in this situation so that other might know who He is.  Yes, sometimes our trials are just as much about the people watching us go through them than they are about us.

Shipwrecked audio

The Character of God- Part 4

Subtitle:  God is Gracious

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 29, 2024.

Today, we move to the second aspect of God’s character that is revealed in these verses.  He is Gracious!  What does that really mean?

The concept of God being gracious is closely connected to the previous word, compassion.  In fact, they are often connected as pairs throughout the Old Testament.  God is compassionate and gracious!

A definition of Grace

They are somewhat synonyms, but they have different connotations.  Much like comparing Nacho Cheese Doritos with Cool Ranch Doritos.  They are both Doritos, triangular chips, and made of corn meal.  However, they have a different flavor.  Similarly, synonyms can point to the same thing, but with a different flavor, connotation.

The word compassion has the connotation of an inner softening to the plight of another, which leads to helping them.  The same act can be described with the words grace and gracious.  Yet, the word for gracious here begins in a different place.  It has the concept of favor or delight.  The giver of grace favors the recipient, may even delight in them.  This leads to some action on their behalf, which is intended to delight the recipient.

Like compassion, the noun form, grace, can refer to what is happening in the giver, i.e., God has favor for us.  It can also focus on the act itself.  Jesus is the grace of God.  Yet, it may focus on the resultant effect upon the recipient.  Salvation is the grace of God.

In fact, grace does not require a context of the recipient needing help.  It may simply be a gift for the sake of causing delight in another.  This is typically what is behind gifts that we give around Christmas.  The recipient may or may not have asked for the grace.  The situation may or may not involve needing help.  Yet always, the response is about favor and delight rather than merit.

God is gracious in the Old Testament

In the immediate context of Exodus 34, we were told in chapter 33, verses 12 and 17, of God favoring, having grace for Moses.  It is clear that God’s favoring of Moses is not so much about the job he is given.  Moses does not seem to delight in leading 6 million plus stubborn people through the wilderness.  Rather, the grace is seen in the relationship that God has with Moses.  God is with Him.  God reveals Himself, His character, His designs and purposes, to Moses.

We must be careful that we don’t narrow God’s grace only to powerful works.  You see, God favored Moses, and he did powerful works by obeying the Lord.  But, Exodus 34: 6,7 shows us that this is part of His character.  His favor is not just for Moses, but extends out to the Israelites God sent him to.  However, His favor is not just for Israel, but extends to the nations before whom Israel is to be a witness and bring forth the Anointed One who would fix humanity’s sin problem.

Just as Moses found grace in the eyes of the Lord, so we read the same of Noah in Genesis 6:7-8.  In this situation, there is an immediate threat.  Humanity has become so wicked that the chosen line of the “serpent-crusher” (see Genesis 3:15), is being threatened, which threatens the salvation of humanity.  There is an irony in the Flood passage regarding this.  God has to bring destruction upon humanity in order to protect His plan of saving humanity.  This is how horrible sin is.  God must judge humanity, but Noah found favor, grace, in the eyes of the Lord.  God delights in Noah, and leads him to make an ark that allows his family and many animals to be spared the devastating effects of the flood.

This irony crops up in the lives of individuals as well.  Sometimes God allows the destruction of certain things in our life to protect the possibility of our redemption.

These stories are not about Noah and Moses being the “teacher’s pet.”  He does see a faithfulness to Him within them and it draws His favor, but His work of grace in their lives is all about His larger desire to help, favor, humanity in our current problem of sin.

We see a similar thing in the story of Abraham.  We don’t end up with a statement, “Abraham found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”  However, Genesis 18 implicitly says it.  The LORD and two angels have approached Abraham in the heat of the day.  He sees them and runs out to them.  “My LORD, if now I have found favor (grace) in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.”  We then see that they come and eat a meal with Abraham.  The LORD even reveals to Abraham that the time for Sarah to finally conceive has come.  Within a year, she will give birth to a son!  On top of this, the LORD also reveals to Abraham the coming destruction upon Sodom.  Abraham intercedes for the cities of the plain.  He is pictured as the man of God’s favor interceding for a people who are in the dark about His coming judgment.  The intercession doesn’t save the city, but it does save Lot and his family.  The whole passage is dripping with the answer to Abraham’s conditional, “if I have found favor…”  Abraham has found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Thus, the description of God as gracious has been highlighted throughout the passages leading up to this and continues on throughout all of the Old Testament.  Genesis three and the Fall of Humanity doesn’t have the words grace or gracious in it.  Yet, it is absolutely clear that Adam and Eve were dwelling in the favor of God in the garden.  It was His gift to them, a paradise.  Yet, the serpent tricks them into distrusting God and taking hold of their own benefit.  In the scene where all three of them are being judged before the LORD, it is clear that God favors humanity against the serpent.  Even the punishment upon Adam and Eve bears a grace in teaching them the goodness of God even in their unfaithfulness.

Thus, even though grace is simply a gift and doesn’t require the concept of help, this is and has been the true condition of humanity from the Fall to this day.  We are a world full of sin and distrust of God.  We are a world trusting in our own wisdom and our own ability to benefit ourselves.  If God doesn’t help us, then we are not going to make it.  The good news is that God has help us, is even now helping us, and will help us even more in the future.

Israel becomes a picture of God’s larger desire to help humanity in the face of our inability to trust Him enough to make that happen.  The chosen line, and then in Israel, the chosen nation, is not about those who obtain grace and those who don’t.  It is about God protecting the means by which He will give grace to all of humanity.  There are two more scenes of grace in the Old Testament that I want to visit.

In Genesis 33:10, Jacob has returned from what we call northeast Syria after being gone for 20 years.  He had taken advantage of his brother’s hunger to obtain the birthright (a double portion of their father’s estate, etc.), and then, through deception, stole the blessing that Isaac was going to give to Esau.  Jacob left because he knew Esau was angry enough to kill him.

Here, twenty years later, God has told Jacob to go back “home.”  He knows that he has to face Esau if he is to live there.  He needs Esau’s forgiveness, but can’t see how that is going to happen.  This verse is at the end of all that Jacob does to appease his very dangerous brother (who was coming with 400 very dangerous men).  Jacob is asking forgiveness.  “If now I have found favor in your sight, then accept my gift from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.”  Notice that Jacob uses language of Esau as his master and lord, even as God.  This is how important forgiveness from Esau is to him.  Shocker of shockers, Esau gives grace to Jacob, and he is enabled to dwell in the land without fear of reprisals from his brother.  However, sin and forgiveness are not always at the heart of the recipient’s need for grace.  Let’s look at a part of the story of Esther.

Esther 8:5 has Esther approaching king Xerxes in order to ask for grace for her people.  The king has been manipulated by the wicked Haman to empower him to exterminate the Jewish people.  The king did not know that his queen was also a Jew.  Yet, Esther is not a queen like we might think.  She could not enter the king’s presence without a summons from him.  To do so carried the penalty of death, unless the king gave his grace, his favor, and forgave the offense.

The king does delight in Esther, and so, he is gracious to her and her people.  This gives a picture of the intercessor who approaches the king for the sake of their people, rather than for themselves.  We saw this intercession with Moses in Exodus 33.

This becomes a backdrop for understanding the person of Jesus, and ultimately his Church.  In Jesus, God has become a part of the human family.  Thus, he intercedes before God the Father on behalf of humanity, but particularly those who have put their faith in him.  Yet, it may be more proper to see Esther as a picture of the Church of Jesus.  Because God’s favor rest upon Jesus, He will grant him his requests, so our relationship with Jesus brings upon us the favor of the Father too.  We are to use that favor to intercede on behalf of our people who are in jeopardy of the judgment because we too were under a death sentence.

Jesus is the grace of God

This brings us to understanding Jesus as the grace of God.  John’s gospel presents Jesus as a gift from the King of Heaven.  In John 1:14-18, we are told that Jesus is “full of grace and truth.”  In verse 16, he is even “grace upon grace.”  The sense here is that Jesus is the capstone of a long series of God’s grace.  He is both the fullness of grace and the overflow of God’s grace.

In verse 17, the NASB says that Grace and Truth were “realized” through Messiah Jesus.  It literally came into being and came through him.  The body of Jesus began at a point of time.  Prior to this, the Word existed with God and as God throughout eternity past.  Thus, we can contemplate the man Jesus as the fulfilling of the grace of God through what he did.  However, as the Word, we understand that he was always the fullness of God’s grace set in the heavens where no devil could touch it.  Awaiting the moment when the Father would signal the time for incarnating into this world as a human.

When the Word took on flesh and became a human, it opened the door for a new relationship with God the Father that was not available before, at least not in that intimate sense.  Jesus is more than a vehicle of God’s grace.  Rather, He embodies the graciousness of God. 

This leads us to John speaking of the Son being given to the world as a gift in John 3:16-17.  Somehow, humanity has drawn the favor of God.  Yet, God has given His favor in such a way that we must believe in Jesus, trust in him, in order to receive that eternal life.  Imagine this.  The Bible presents both Israel and the Gentiles in a sinful fallen state, and yet, He favored us by sending a gift of His Grace, Jesus.  A gift is given as opposed to a paycheck.  We did not merit it.  Any of our works fell woefully short of accomplishing any salvation.  Yet, God gives us what we don’t deserve.

The Apostle Paul picks up on this in the classic verses on grace, Ephesians 2:8-10.  It says that we have been saved by grace (God delighting to do it) through faith.  If you look at the verses, they emphasize that salvation is a gift.  The work of salvation is entirely the work of God.  “Not by works, so that no one may boast.”  Yet, in verse 10, God does have works for us to do.

The point is that we are not to imagine that we can do a work that merits His grace.  Instead, we are to do works of thankfulness for His gracious salvation in Jesus.

Sometimes people over emphasize that it is faith that is the gift of God.  In other words, you couldn’t even trust God if He didn’t give you a gift of faith.  However, the gift of God refers not just to faith, but to the whole grace of salvation.  It is not just a gift of ability to trust, but of the whole grounds upon which trusting could obtain the grace of salvation.  It was the grace of God that created humans in a way that we could be redeemed.  It was the grace of God that sent a redeemer who would be faithful to do what we could not (would not, even if we could) do for ourselves.  It is the grace of God that our trust in Jesus is acceptable to him in our disqualified state.  It is the grace of God that we are able to believe even after a lifetime of being in bondage to sin.  This is the mystery of the immense grace of God lavished upon humanity.  All of it is grace; all of it is a gift from God.

John presents to us that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is offered as a generous gift of life that is more powerful than our mortality, than death itself.  We now have a relationship with the Father through Jesus in which He pours His eternal life into us each day.  This eternal life works to displace sin and fill us with the works of true righteousness out of thanks.  We can question if it is working, but God’s grace is working in our life.  We were saved when we believed in Jesus (from judgment), we are being saved (from sin and its effects), and we shall be saved on that day when He completes our redemption through the resurrection from the dead!  You can have assurance now because of the faithfulness of God Himself, not because of your perfect performance in the now.

This grace of Jesus is more powerful than our experience of life.  Imagine an Israelite who was a slave in Egypt, and had waited for God’s deliverance all of their life.  Imagine that they die the year before Moses comes out of the wilderness to confront Pharaoh with God.  Did that person miss out on the grace of God?  That is often how we picture it.  If such and such doesn’t happen in my life, then God doesn’t love me, doesn’t have grace for me.  The same is true for things that do happen.  God doesn’t have grace for me because I was born as a slave in Egypt!  These are the ways we tend to think about God’s grace.

But, the testimony of scripture is that God’s grace is bigger than our experience of life.  Of course, as Americans, we have had an experience of life that is better than most of humanity has ever experienced.  Yet, when you are in a problem, that line of reasoning doesn’t comfort you.  It is still the truth nonetheless.  The promise of the resurrection of the righteous will fill with delight even the most tragic of lives.  Countless numbers of people who were martyred via horrible methods will rise and shine like the stars.  They will bask in the favor and delight of God while being filled with delight themselves.  Their past lives of pain and sorrow will only cause the present glory to be all the more flavorful, all the more glorious!

Another thing we see in this story of God’s grace is that gifts only require a person to accept them.  We can also over-emphasize that God’s grace is a gift.  “You don’t do anything,” is the mantra of some.  Yes, but a gift does require someone to receive it, to take hold of it.  It happens every day that God’s offer of salvation is rejected by people.  “You can keep your ‘gift!’ I don’t want it.”  God is saying to the whole world that He has a gift of salvation for us.  However, He will not force us to take hold of it.  A person can spurn the gift of God, the grace of God, and miss it, walk away from it.  In fact, it is rare for those who do accept God’s offer of salvation to have not missed it throughout their life.  Few belief at the first presentation of God’s grace to them.

So, what makes us delightful and favorable in the eyes of the LORD?  Yes, Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD, but how will it ever be said that Marty (insert your name) found grace in the eyes of the LORD, to be favorable to Him?  We tend to look for merit.  Yet, this cannot obtain the grace of God.

In one sense, there is nothing we can do, should do, because we already have the favor of God.  He has favored humanity and made salvation possible for all, if they will only trust in Jesus.  He has done the heavy lifting and put the salvation of Jesus in front of you.  You don’t deserve it, but there it is.  God’s favor to you.  This is because of who He is and what He made us to be.  He made us to be His imagers.  He doesn’t crush failed imagers.  In His favor, He makes a way for us to be redeemed and image Him in truth!

Yet, in another sense, we do need to take hold of this favor.  If His current favor is to effectively bring me to favor at the final judgment, I must properly take hold of it.  We do this by owning our sin.  We quit making the case for our own righteousness (self righteousness), and we agree that it took Jesus dying on a cross to effect our salvation (my salvation).

Those who insist on their own works, and even deride the idea that Jesus paid the price for our sins, are being proud.  Their ego refuses to see the grossness of their sin.  Such pride and arrogance in the face of God’s grace is not lovely to Him.  But, humbling yourself and recognizing that you do not deserve the grace that He has lavished upon you, this is lovely and beautiful to God.  When we surrender and put our trust completely in Jesus and His wisdom, then the current favor of God becomes the same favor that will protect us when we stand before Him on the shores of eternity future.

Like the prodigal son who approaches the father only hoping to be a slave, we come to God knowing we really don’t even deserve to be His slave. Yet, He takes us in His arms and clothes us with robes of righteousness.  He slaughters the fattened calf and holds a celebration that, “My son who was dead is now alive!”

Our belief in Jesus is not just intellectual belief that he lived, or that he was resurrected.  It truly is a trusting in his work and his teaching to us.  Are any of us absolutely perfect in our trust?  Of course, not.  We often have times of doubt, selfishness, even choosing our way over the top of His.  Yet, God’s grace is not about perfect performance.  It is about trusting His character even in the midst of our own mistakes and failures.  Our goal is not to get away with sin, but to become like Jesus.  May God help us to see His great favor in our life despite all the things that we could point to in order to deny its reality.

God is Gracious audio

The Character of God- Part 3

Subtitle:  God is Compassionate

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 22, 2024.

Over the last two weeks, we have looked at the greater context of this passage, which shows God’s promise to help humanity at The Fall in the Garden of Eden.  We then looked at the immediate context of God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt and bringing them to Mt. Sinai in order to make a covenant with them.

Today, we begin looking at the 5 character descriptions that God gives of Himself in Exodus 34:6, which begins with God being compassionate.

As we approach Christmas, it is fitting for us to contemplate the incarnation of Jesus as the compassion of God.  Jesus is the compassion of God that has come down to earth to lift us out of our predicament.

God’s compassion for Israel

In the immediate context, God’s actions toward Israel has been a demonstration of His compassion.  I’m talking about the supernaturally powerful way that God delivered them from Pharaoh and his armies.  They were redeemed out of slavery and back to the inheritance that had been promised them through the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They are brought to Sinai to create a covenant that is sometimes pictured as a marriage.  They are declaring that Yahweh alone will be their God, and Yahweh is declaring that He will make them His special people.

It would be good to define exactly what is meant by the compassion of God.  The Hebrew word in this verse is ra-‘khum and comes from a related noun ra-kha-mim’ (adj.=compassionate, noun=compassion).  This word has an inner and an outer aspect that we will look at.  But, I would like to mention something else before we get into that.

There is a sense that all character descriptions of God are simply facets of a unified being of God that underlies it. It might be better to think of all these different character traits as a facet of love.  God in His being is love, and that love manifests in many colorful ways.  They are all love, but they take on particular aspects of love.  That is what is happening with compassion as we break down what it essentially means.

The inner aspect of compassion refers to a deep-seated feeling (i.e., down in your guts, aka visceral).  This deep-seated feeling involves a softening towards the plight of another.  It is the part of us that sees someone in their difficulties and melts towards their need instead of being hard towards them.  There is typically a natural connection that elicits the emotion, and sometimes even a direct relationship.  This can be one human to another (simply because they are human), or as close as a father and mother towards their child.  In fact, in this passage, we are contemplating an inner softening in the heart of God towards His human creations.  He could have been hard towards the plight of Adam and Eve.  He could have been hard towards the plight of the people of Israel.  Instead, God saw them and was internally softened towards their situation.  He is their Creator.  He made them to be human imagers of Himself, and compassion for them, for us, was deeply felt within Himself.

Yet, there is always an outer aspect to compassion.  It is not a word that only speaks of a feeling.  It also refers to the action that results because of this inner softening.  Sometimes the context of these words may focus on either the inner or the outer aspect, but it is never understood that the other did not happen.  They go hand in hand.  It is the inner compassion of God that drives the external actions of God’s compassion towards us.  He is compelled by His own compassionate character to do something compassionate towards our need.

It is worth pausing at this point and asking yourself this question.  Do I truly believe that God feels compassion and exercises compassion towards me, towards us all?  I say this because there has been a targeted campaign by the devil and his angels against the character of God.  Yes, he makes this case through people, but he does so through tempting rationales like he used with Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.  He accuses God of not being trustworthy, having an ulterior motive, lying, and even keeping Adam and Eve from something good.  So, he tempts us to disbelieve the truth about our compassionate Creator.

God has always been, and even now is, perfect in His compassion towards us all.  He has helped us at all times along the way, but especially through Jesus.  The flip side to God’s compassionate help is our often unwillingness to accept His help.

In the final verses of Exodus 33, God tells Moses what He is going to do in this revelatory event of Exodus 34 that we have been talking about.  In verse 19, He references His compassion.  “Then He said, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you.  I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’”  Essentially, He is declaring that He is sovereign in His compassion.  There is no one who can charge Him with a lack of compassion and so force Him into a particular action.

This causes some to think of God as being whimsical or capricious.  If God is such, then you can never know if you will have His compassion or not.  Perhaps, you would even believe that your own smallness would mitigate against any probability that He would have compassion on you.  This is not what is meant in this verse.  God is sovereign in His compassion, but it is not talking about a sporadic event that only falls upon certain special people that He whimsically picks. 

God’s compassion is not something He does from time to time to break up the monotony, as if He were playing with people.  Rather, the very being of God is compassion.  His actions are not like a New Year’s resolution, i.e., not like us.

This begs the question.  How can I be one to whom God wants to give compassion?  The truth of Scripture is that there is a foundational compassion that everyone has received.  God in His compassion has made salvation and help available to us.  However, we have to have faith in Him in order to take hold of it.  Jesus is the compassion of God.  There is no access to His compassion by ignoring Jesus and trying to sue for it on other grounds.  Even those who are rejecting God’s compassion in Jesus are swimming in the compassion of God.  They may not recognize it.  They may push it aside and go after something they think is better.  But, God’s compassion is all around us at all times.

All of God’s actions, even judgment, are impacted by His compassion.  Yet, they are also informed and affected by His wisdom and knowledge.  Imagine a child complaining that the parents are not being compassionate because they won’t give him some particular item that he fancies.  It is generally not until a child becomes an adult and matures that he comes to see that his parents were compassionate towards him, perhaps especially when they didn’t give him what he wanted.  God knows things that we cannot.  He is infinitely wiser in His decisions than we ever could be.  Thus, there is a part of this discussion about God’s character that calls for true humility on the part of us as humans.

Let’s dial back to the context of this event in Exodus 34.  When God first approached Moses about Israel’s slavery (Exodus 3), it can be read as primarily a judgment upon Egypt.  However, the story is primarily an action of God’s compassion for Israel.  Look at Exodus 3:7-8.

God gives several descriptions that help us to understand His compassion.  He states that He has “surely seen” the affliction of Israel, and that He has “heard their cry.”  He even states, “I know their sorrows.”  I can imagine that many Israelites were even then complaining that God doesn’t see or care about their sorrows in Egypt.

This then leads to verse 8, “so I have come down to deliver…”  The word to deliver has a sense of rescuing, even snatching them out of the hands of Pharaoh.  Thus, even though we can talk about God’s compassion for all humanity, in some situations, there is one part of humanity oppressing another part.  It can also be that both are mistreating one another.  God’s takes all of these things into consideration by His knowledge and through His wisdom.  Yes, God still cares about the Egyptians, but He also cares about all of humanity.  Israel was a key part of His plan to help humanity.  If God is to help all humanity, then He must step in to save Israel.  Yet, how He does it involves a wisdom that we can only superficially know.

I don’t know if we understand just how huge this statement of seeing, hearing, knowing, and coming down, is.  Humans have forever charged that God can’t know what it is like to suffer.  If He did, then surely He would do something about my/our situation.  Yet, when we are completely honest, we will come to see that God is compassionate, but also wiser than we can fully comprehend.

You actually have to get away from suffering before you can gain perspective on it.  When you are in the middle of suffering, it is hard to process your grief and emotions.  I believe that God has compassion upon our difficulties while suffering. 

When you and I imagine God having compassion on us, it does not involve Him coming down and becoming like we are in mortal flesh and vulnerable.  We want Him to strike our enemy down with fire from heaven, but what good does becoming weak like us do?  Well, God’s compassion is much deeper than we often want it to be.

You see, God’s compassion is not just about the difficult situations that may keep us down.  He also has compassion for our enslavement to sin and the consequences it brings.  Yes, He cares about your external situation, but He also cares about our internal slavery to sin.  This is a much harder problem to help.

Our natural bent is to think that God is not compassionate because of difficult things we have experienced and the things that we don’t have.  But, God made you for something greater than you may want to embrace, at least not yet.  Yes, God saw Israel in its external slavery.  Yes, God sees us in our external problems.  But, He also sees something worse in us that needs His help.

We all have different sins that we are drawn towards.  We may even find ourselves in bondage to those sins thinking that God has abandoned us.  We would be like Israel wondering where God is.  Why did He leave them in bondage for so many years, if He was eventually going to deliver them?  They needed to see their internal bondage, but often it is only our external bondage that opens our eyes to the internal bondage of sin.  We may be willing to give lip-service to God and His promises, but at the end of the day, we tend to want to do whatever we please without repercussions.

God saved Israel from Egypt, but their sins kept pulling them away from God and into bondage throughout their time in the “Promised Land.”  Eventually God let the kingdom of Israel be torn in half (north and south).  He later let each of them be conquered and taken into exile, slavery again.  Yet, even in exile, God promised through His prophets that He would have compassion upon them.  Let’s go to Isaiah and see some of these promises.

God’s compassion for humanity (Isaiah 46:3-4 and 49:5-6)

In this passage, God references the birth of Israel from the womb.  By the way, the word for womb here comes from the same root for compassion.  It isn’t the only word for womb, but it is the one used here.

God uses the picture of a mother carrying her newborn baby.  He states that it was He who carried them in their “young age” (as a fledgling nation), and it will be He who carries them “even to your old age,” which must represent their nation being at a place of going out of existence.  God tells them that He will “save” them.  The word for saving them is related to the idea of delivering a baby.

Israel continually had trouble with being unfaithful towards God and turning towards idolatry.  Eventually, God would hand them over to their choice, which always led to bondage.  God in His compassion for Israel (and for us) gave them over to the bondage of their (our) sinful choices.  It is His deep compassion that wrestles with us over our stubborn sin.

It is easy to fear as our predicaments become stronger, and we become weaker (much like a person growing old).  Three chapters later God brings Isaiah back to this again (Isaiah 49:5-6).

The book of Isaiah has a section from chapters 42 through 53 where there are four “servant songs.”  This passage is part of the second one.  They are pictures of, and interactions with, the Promised Messiah.  Here, we have Messiah [Jesus] declaring what God had told him.  Messiah was formed to save Israel!

However, we also see that God says saving Israel is too small a thing for such a Messiah.  The Messiah will also be a light to the nations so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.  You see, God had compassion on Israel, even a compassion that was filled with tough love.  But, in the end, His compassion was not just for Israel.  He had compassion for the rest of the nations as well.

This is where the greater context of the book of Genesis is intended to be understood in Exodus 34.  The tragedy of the Fall in the Garden (Genesis 3), the tragedy of man’s rebellion and destruction in the Flood (Genesis 7-8), and the casting off of the nations at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) may look like God just keeps picking favorites and getting rid of everyone else.  This is far from the truth, however.

Each of these events were accompanied by promises of God to help humanity.  God disciplines humanity, but through it, His compassion has always been present in the promise of the serpent-crusher, the Anointed One of God.

Think about it.  If Israel worried that God didn’t care about their situation, how much more could the Gentiles worry that God didn’t care, or even give up hope on His care?

Yet, later in Isaiah 49 (verses 14-15), God meets their complaint of being abandoned, forsaken, and forgotten, with the image of a nursing woman.  Can a mother forget her nursing child (i.e., helpless)?  Generally, the answer is no, though a broken world can stomp motherly compassion out of some moms.  Even if it happens among humans, God will not forget Israel.  It may feel like He has forgotten them, but this is simply not true.  Yet, at the same time, God cares about the Gentiles too.  He cares about the “light,” the truth, that they are seeing about His true character.  He cares that they are reached with the good news of His faithfulness, even to promises that are millennia old.

Jesus emphasized this faithfulness to his followers before he left to ascend into heaven.  “I will never leave you nor forsake you, even to the end of the age.”

God does care about us, and He has compassion for us.  Yet, in His wisdom, He deals with us in ways that is best for overcoming our sin.  This is true for individuals, but also for people groups, even all of humanity.  Jeremiah was a righteous man, but he witnessed the destruction of Israel.  God’s compassion to him and to Israel was not just focused on external circumstances (like we want it to be).  It is even more focused on internal slavery to sin.  His compassion is bigger than my external situation, bigger than my individuality, and bigger than any one group of people.  It involves all of humanity.

Genesis, Exodus, and the whole Old Testament, are about the promised compassion of God centered in the being we call Messiah, Christ.  This is Jesus.  Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus was born into this world as a baby in Bethlehem.  He is the compassion of God, however, not in the form we wanted.  Yet, he is in a better form than we could have hoped for.  Just think of how easy it is for humans to idolize a person.  We tend to idolize the wrong people because of our sinfulness.  Thus, even embracing Jesus as our Messiah becomes a test of us.

How can the life of a man 2,000 years ago help me today?  Let’s look at what the followers of Jesus discovered about him.

John 14:8-9

In this passage, we see that Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father.  In this moment, they discover that Jesus wasn’t just teaching them about God, but that they were seeing God the Father by seeing him.  Yes, Jesus was human, but in a way they couldn’t understand, he was a perfect picture of what the Father was like.

God in His compassion did not wave a wand over the world in order to fix it.  He didn’t say a word and destroy all of the evil in the universe.  Rather, He joined us in the suffering so that we can see that, all along, it was He who has suffered without us understanding the depths of it.

He who made the eye, does he not see?  He who made the ear, does He not hear?  He who made pain receptors, does He not feel pain?  Sometimes, God lets us feel pain so that we can come to realize the pain that He has endured from before the foundations of the earth.  He is not untouched by everything.  He is in intimate contact with every part of His creation at all times.  As He created, He had already counted the cost and foresaw the price of suffering He would have to pay.  He could heal the pain, and it would be worth it.

We may be angry that God allows their to be consequences to sin, i.e., living life adverse to His wisdom.  Yet, the consequences themselves are an invitation from God to join Him in His suffering, particularly through Jesus.  In Jesus, we are enabled to see just how much God feels about our sinful condition, and what He is willing to do to save us from it.

The amazing thing is this.  When we enter into his suffering, our suffering suddenly takes on meaning.  Victor Frankl spoke of the value of purpose and meaning when a person is suffering.  We can suffer anything, if we think it has purpose and meaning.  In Jesus, the purpose and meaning of suffering takes form.

So the disciples came to understand that seeing, hearing, and following Jesus was to see, hear and follow God the Father.  This is at the heart of the first chapter of John’s Gospel.

John 1:14-18

John describes Jesus in this passage as the very Word of God that created all things.  More than this, he is the glory of the only Son from the Father.  He is full of Grace and Truth, which are two descriptions of God’s character in Exodus 34:6.  John speaks of him existing before himself, even from the beginning of creation.  Lastly, John sees Jesus as the only one who came down from God to reveal him.  He is not just another prophet.  He is God with us, Immanuel.
Let me close by reminding us of the life of compassion that the Lord Jesus lived.  He did not come to pat the elite of Israelite society on the head.  Rather, he spent his time among the common people, the poor, the lowly, the diseased, and the oppressed.  He didn’t do this because they were righteous.  He did this because he was the compassion of God.

It was often said that he was “moved with compassion” at the multitudes.  He touched lepers and cast out evil spirits.  In Matthew 23:37, Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

Notice the big problem with compassion here.  Sometimes the people you are trying to help are actually running from true help.  Sometimes, you have to step back and let them suffer the consequences before they will be open to true help.

Jesus sent his disciples out to share the truth of God’s love, God’s compassion for all those who want it.  May we stop complaining about our lot.  May we start praising God for His loving compassion, and the honor we have to represent it to others.  May we turn from our sin and follow the Promised One from God who leads us in victory over sin, the devil, and a world that often chooses evil over Him!

God is Compassionate audio

The Character of God- Part 1

Subtitle:  Introduction

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 8, 2024.

Structure of the verses

As we approach these verses today, we find a scene where God is declaring his character before Moses on Mt. Sinai.  He refers to Himself as Yahweh, which is often written in English as “LORD” or “Lord.” Some older English versions brought it across as “Jehovah.”  Regardless, this is the name that God reveals to Moses at the burning bush.  It is often recognized as the special name that God uses in making covenant with Israel.  It essentially means, “I am that I am” and is a declaration of being the essence of existence itself, “The One Who Is Existence Itself” or “The Eternally Existent One.”

We will look at these verses in more detail in the weeks ahead, but let me point out a few notes on these verses.  In verse six, we have a five-part description of God’s character.  It is poetically designed to have two sets of two character traits surrounding one.  It looks like this.

• “A God compassionate and gracious
  • Slow to anger,
• And abounding in lovingkindness and faithful truth.”

This has an effect of surrounding a central character trait and bringing focus to it.  This is not to say that God’s slowness to anger is the most important one, but that it sticks out.  This will make more sense when we look at the structure of verse seven.

Verse seven picks up character trait number four, lovingkindness, and comments upon it.  This second verse has a bracketing structure, or bookended one.  This bracketing helps to highlight a central point in this verse similar to verse six.  It looks like this.

• “Who keeps lovingkindness
  • For thousands [of generations]
    • Who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin;
      • Yet, He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
    • Visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren
  • To the third and the fourth generations.”

As  you can see, the numbers (“thousands” versus “third and fourth”) correspond to one another.  Also, the next indents correspond as well (“Who forgives iniquity” versus “visiting the iniquity…”).  These contrasting brackets surround a central point that God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.  Thus, these two verses highlight that God is slow to anger (because of His compassion, Grace, Lovingkindness, and Faithful Truth), and yet, He will not let the guilty go free.  He is merciful, but He is no pushover.

A way to highlight why this is so important is to look at how this tension, between God’s mercy and His ultimate judgment, affects people from different parts of the world.  In the West, we tend to be uneasy about God’s judgment.  We read the second part of verse seven and we think that it has turned bad.  Whereas, people in the Middle East would look at the same verses and think it is the first verse that is problematic.  It makes God sound like He is too merciful.

If you still don’t understand, then think of it as a tension within God’s love.  He will be compassionate, but He must hold the wicked accountable for the sake of those they hurt.  Of course, God perfectly satisfies this tension.  Yes, He is slow to anger, but He can eventually get there.  When He does, He is not like us, losing control and choosing to go down the path of overkill.

We should also notice the contrast of ratio.  God keeps lovingkindness to a 1,000 generations, but only visits the iniquity of the fathers to the 3^rd and 4^th generation.  We see this kind of ratio in Isaiah 61:2.  There the prophet proclaims the “acceptable year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of the LORD our God.”  Here the ratio is roughly 365 days of favor to 1 day of vengeance.  I don’t believe this is intended to emphasize the ratio, but rather the magnitudes of difference.  God’s character requires Him to eventually judge, but He is not “Vengeful.”  His character is about doing what is good to His creation.  However, what do you do when a particular created being seeks the harm of many others?  Eventually the goodness of God requires that creature to be held accountable.  Yet, God does so quickly without relishing in it. 

You could say that it is harder to get into the “doghouse” with God than it is to get out.  This is very different than people.  In fact, some people who are very judgmental of the “God of the Old Testament” will never let others out of the doghouse.  They will hold a grudge against you until they die.  God is not this way.  God’s wrath is intended to be quick, surgical, and a warning to others that they should repent before they end up in that situation.

The Message of Genesis

This revelation to Moses is not in a vacuum.  The context leading up to this passage is the books of Genesis and Exodus.  Let’s look at Genesis first.

Genesis essentially presents the problem with the world and then explains God’s solution to that problem.  Have you ever asked this question, “What in the world is God doing?”  Chapters 1 and 2 establish that the problem is not God’s fault.  He made the creation “very good.”  See Genesis 1:31.  God made the heavens, both the material stars and galaxies as well as the immaterial angels and spirit-realm.  He also made the earth where humans dwell.  All of it was made very good.  Whatever you do, don’t think you are going to get far blaming God for the evil in the world.  What we see today is not what God made.

Chapter 3 then describes how everything went bad.  It has two important aspects.  Adam and Eve (humanity) have a breakdown in their relationship with God.  They had no reason to doubt God, and every reason to trust Him.  Yet, they chose to reject His wisdom and do their own thing.  Fractured relationship with God is at the heart of this world’s problems. 

However, a second issue is highlighted, there has been spiritual interference in that relationship.  The serpent lied to Eve and deceived her into distrusting God.  Revelation 12:9 makes it clear that this ancient serpent is the devil, satan, the dragon.  Regardless of whether you think this is a literal snake that is possessed of the devil or a serpentine manifestation of the devil, the end-result is the same.  The devil meddled in the relationship between humans and God.  He talked them into trusting him rather than trusting God, Who had never failed them before.  What is at question in Genesis 3?  It is God’s character.  Does He speak the truth?  Can He be trusted?  Is He actually holding us back so that we do not become as great as He or greater?  These are the aspersions satan stirs up in their minds.  Humanity has broken faith with God, but a crafty, spiritual meddler took advantage of their youthful innocence.

This sets up Genesis 3:14-15.  God curses the serpent, but gives a promise to mankind through the woman.  First, there will be hostility between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed (the devil’s).  Second, a particular seed, “he,” will crush the serpent’s head while having his heel injured.    If you look closely at those verses, you see that this is a powerful promise from God that their enemy would one day be dealt with through a mortal blow.  Though satan is a spiritual being, he will eventually die like a man. 

This sets up a promise or hope that humanity can hold onto, even when it seems bleak.  God particularly emphasizes the seed of the woman.  The serpent attacked through her, and so God’s counter-attack will come through her.  Yet, it will be a man who crushes the serpent’s head “he.”  God’s solution is a particular man who will be the serpent-crusher.

Genesis 4 becomes important because it shows us what the hostility between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent would essentially look like.  Cain and Abel are both seed of the woman in a biological sense.  Note: if you have listened to YouTube videos or documentaries that try to make Cain the offspring of a physical union between the serpent and Eve (or even Yahweh), then know that this unequivocally cannot be so.  Genesis 4:1 tells us that Adam had sex with his wife and she gave birth to Cain.  She then “gave birth again,” and it was Abel.  There is no room to insert a physical serpent offspring here.  The point of the passage is that Cain is making a spiritual choice to follow (to image) the serpent, rather than God, which is what Abel did.  There is even a scene where God talks to Cain in a Fatherly way, warning him that sin sought to master him.  The two seeds are spiritual dynamics between the sons of righteousness and the sons of wickedness.  The sons of wickedness are hostile to the sons of righteousness and choose to persecute and kill them.  However, Cain didn’t have to choose to be a son of wickedness.  God truly did put a door of hope in front of Him.  He had no reason to break faith with God and follow the path of the serpent (who was a murderer from the beginning, John 8:44).

Eve’s next son is called Seth, “Appointed One,” because God had appointed another seed for her, one to take Abel’s place.  He is not just taking his place physically, but as one appointed for the chosen line, the line from which the Serpent Crusher would come.  We see this chosen line of Appointed, spiritual men who personally represent, and have faith in the promise of God to crush the serpent’s head through a particular seed of the woman. This is revealed through prophecy, which Eve does here with Seth.  We see it several more times with Enoch and Noah.  These men are prophets who hear from God.

Thus, Genesis builds off of the First Rebellion of Genesis 3, presenting two more rebellions.  The Second Rebellion is seen in Genesis 6 as rebel Sons of God come down and create a wicked race of beings.  Regardless of how you interpret this passage, the overall point is that this speeds up wickedness until it fills the whole earth.  Noah and his family are the only ones left faithful in all the earth.  The wickedness threatens the Chosen Line and the possibility of bringing forth the Serpent Crusher.  God sends a flood to cleanse the earth and allow humanity a fresh start.

The Third Rebellion is after the flood in Genesis 11.  At the Tower of Babel, Nimrod leads a rebellion against the purposes of God.  As God confuses the languages, He also casts the nations out of relationship with Him, like Adam and Eve.  They want to worship fallen angels, and so He hands them over to these beings.    From now on, God would not deal with humanity as a whole, but only through the man Abram and the nation of Israel that would come forth from him.  Through Abraham, the chosen line, and later through Israel, a chosen nation, God would bring forth the ultimate Chosen One who would crush the serpent’s head and then bless those people and nations who would bless him.

The book of Genesis ends with Jacob prophesying over his sons in chapter 49.  There he prophesies that the tribe of Judah would hold the kingship, until Shiloh comes.  Shiloh can be translated as “The One To Whom It Belongs,” which in the context of Genesis is clearly the promised Seed of the Woman who would crush the devil’s head.

This book would serve to help an ancient Israelite understand their part in the world and what God was doing.  Things were not hopeless.  God had a particular man that He would bring forward at just the right time.  It was their job (and it is our job) to keep faith in God’s plan and His Man.  They must wait for God’s Serpent Crusher.

But, one might complain with this question.  How will that help me when I am dead?  Yes, that is the question that is eventually answered through the prophets.  Even Job believed that he would see God with his own eyes at the last day, even though he would die (see Job 19:26).

The Message of Exodus

This brings us to the next book.  We find God’s chosen nation in bondage in Egypt, making bricks for the power of this world, Pharaoh.  This is partially because the Egyptians had betrayed them, but also partially because they had begun to worship the God’s of Egypt.  In fact, the Egyptian’s betrayal follows the earlier story of Joseph’s betrayal by his own brothers.  Joseph was then sent on ahead of his brothers to become the one in charge of Egypt in order to save them from a famine.  What happened in this family of Jacob was a picture of what would happen in the family of nations.

You see, you can be the chosen line, the chosen one, the chosen nation, but if you aren’t careful, you can end up in a cast out position, serving the gods of this world.   You can end up as a metaphorical slave in Egypt (your life of bondage to sin) in meaningless work for the false gods of this world.  In that condition, you can cry out, “God, where are you?”  Of course, His response would be something on the order of, “That was my question for you along time ago!”

The chosen line, and chosen nation, are not shown as perfect.  The Serpent Crusher is not a genetic experiment to breed a champion.  It is a miracle of God, despite their (our) failures.  Yet, Abraham believed God; Jacob came to believe God; Joshua, David, Isaiah, Joseph and Mary, all of them believed God.

What does Adam do following the Genesis 3 punishment?  He has a choice.  He can either walk in his own wisdom in further rebellion against God, or, he can go to work in the sweat of his brow.  He can labor to feed his wife and kids.  He can bear that punishment in the hope that God will keep his promise and crush the head of his enemy, the devil.

The message of Exodus is that no matter how chosen we are, and how much God has promised to work through us, we all end up in slavery (personally, nationally, globally).  Salvation can only come by a supernatural work of God.  God must redeem us by His own Right Hand!

Exodus is the template of God’s salvation.  He will come to us in our slavery and powerfully show up the false gods we have been serving.  He will then lift us out of bondage and cause us to inherit what we had lost.  Of course, we must simply trust Him and follow Him.  Jesus Christ is the supernatural intervention of God, and we would do well to put our trust in Him and follow Him at this juncture.

Exodus 1-18 is all about God bringing Israel out of Egypt and to Mt. Sinai, where a covenant He will cut a covenant with them.

Chapters 19 to 40 is all about the covenant.  Yet, the people are afraid of God, so they have Moses be their intermediary.  Moses goes up on the mountain for 40 days (chapters 20 to 32).  As God gives to him the details of the covenant, Israel gets tired of waiting for Moses to come back.  They make a golden calf and worship it as the god who brought them out of Egypt.  This is akin to a person cheating on their marriage partner during the ceremony!  They couldn’t even give God 40 days of faithfulness before they were going astray from Him.

What happens in a case like this?  Does a man simply say that this kind of thing sometimes happens, and then, continue to marry the woman?  God even gives Moses an offer.  He would destroy Israel and make a nation from Moses.  However, Moses points out that this will only make God look weak to the nations.  It would appear that He couldn’t really save these people. 

I believe that God is actually provoking Moses to see and give voice to what God was going to do all along.  God would have mercy on Israel.  He would continue into this covenant with them.  For better or worse, He would be their God and they would be His people.  God doesn’t just want to give us the answers to the test.  He wants us to come to the realization for ourselves that His way really is the better way.  If we listen to God and pay attention, we can come to understand the God who became human and died on a cross for our sins.

Perhaps, we might understand Him enough to follow Him and lay our own lives down in such a way that others may be saved.  How many of us haven’t found ourselves trying to follow God, but then falling short and missing the mark?  Of course, we all have.

How can God put up with Israel?  Their story is our story.  God’s character is such that He helps us, forgives us, is slow to anger.  Yet, He will judge in the end.  This is the backdrop to the event in Exodus 34, where Moses goes back up the mountain after confronting Israel with their sin.  There, God reveals His amazing character to Moses.  This is what we will be looking at for the next 5 weeks.

Character of God 1 audio