It is not about us or how powerful God is, it is about His Word

26/04/13

It is not about us or how powerful God is, it is about His Word

Jeremiah 36:26 - But the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the LORD hid them.

In today's message we read when the king tried to harm Jeremiah and Baruch and the Lord hides them. We also read similar situations in the Gospels when Jews were about to harm Jesus, He escapes through the crowd unharmed or hides from the crowd.

When we look at the great miracles in the Bible where God levelled armies and cities one may ask why did the Almighty want to hide anyone? Why did He not show His might and destroy the enemy and show how great He is. Jesus had authority He could cause fire from Heaven to fall on those who came to attack Him and consume them all like it happened with Sodom and Gomorra, or even get them diseased of bitten by snakes coming out of the ground like it happened with the Israelites, or even an Angle killing them all like it happened at the time of David. But He did not, He preferred hiding or escaping.

The God we worship is an Omnipotent God and man is not even dust before Him. It would not take a second for God to crush evil man and show how powerful He is but He does not. God does hate evil and cannot stand evil yet He tolerates evil man. Why does God do that?

We can understand this from the turn of events in today's message. We read when prophets like Jeremiah spoke the Word from the Lord people like Baruch would note them down either immediately or later. Rarely did the Prophet or Man of God himself write (Moses did most of the time). The original scroll was later copied manually letter to letter and that is how others would get a copy of it. For this job too there were people trained. Today we have many copies of these manuscripts (manual copies of the scriptures) and therefore a confirmation of the text in the Bible. These texts are so accurately written and the mistakes that exist between them are mostly spelling mistake.

The king was very angry when he read a scroll of Jeremiah which was the original and only scroll (a part and not the whole book of Jeremiah). The king did not like what was written in the scroll and cut the scroll and burned it. The king did not fear that the text on the scroll was from the Lord and that he was going not against Jeremiah but against God.

We see later the Lord again tells Jeremiah to note down the same words which were in the previous scroll and then adds to the text what the Lord would do to the king and his generation. God did not say okay the king destroyed it so let bygones be bygone, we will write something new. Instead God had the same identical text, word to word rewritten. He did add but did not remove or replace.

We need to understand the whole of the Bible is inspired by God and is for the benefit of man to understand the salvation of man in Jesus Christ. It is to confirm, correct and reinforce one in his or her faith in Jesus Christ. Paul in his second letter to Timothy states all scriptures, not the New Testament only or the Gospels only but includes the Old Testament also (by that time the whole New Testament was not ready but the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were but John may have not been complete).

If we look at scriptures books like Kings, Chronicles, Proverbs give us an understanding of scriptures or are records of the events confirming the prophesies or how God worked among the people. The Bible (books) is a collection of Prophetic Word, teachings and records / testimonies.

When Paul taught the people about Jesus the people of Berea confirmed what Paul taught by looking up the scriptures (Old Testament). Jesus also spoke that Moses and the Prophets wrote about Him and He fulfilled all that is written by them. Acts like Chronicles and Kings are recordings, the Epistles so also the book of Revelation give an understanding of the Word fulfilled in Jesus and which was already given. If one checks the book of Revelation every scripture would have a cross reference to either Moses or the Prophets or the Words of Jesus.

In the Quran we find Allah is unlike God. When there is a problem with any scripture Muhammad is instructed to replace it with another scripture. This scripture is not the same but a different scripture. We see this Allah behaves like a man who makes mistakes or lack understanding or is not omnipresent (in time and space) and is not omnipotent. That is why the Muslims claim that the Torah, Psalms and Gospel are God's Word but yet are insufficient, incomplete or corrupted. When we look at God in the Bible He did not say He made a mistake in what He said in the Books of Moses or Psalms or the Prophets, but rather confirms them through Jesus. We see the Word is one and complete.

I wrote in my previous message the Angels called the Word of God as Word of Life. We need to understand the purpose of the Word. It is given by God for the salvation of mankind. It is to give life to man not just temporary natural life but eternal spiritual life also. God tolerates things and is slow to anger so that His Word completes what it is sent to and returns to Him fulfilled, doing its job.

In the Kingdom of God it is not about you or me. It is not about how many miracles we perform or how many healing we do or how many problems we solve. It is not about showing how great God is or how powerful He is. It is not about sell Christianity or making God or Jesus Christ famous like a brand name. The Word of God is given for the salvation of man; therefore the Kingdom of God is all about saving mankind. It is about getting prophesies fulfilled and the people which the Word has been sent to save, getting them saved. It is all about the Word. It is the fulfilled Word that will bring glory to God and to us in God.

[ Prayer Starter ]
Lord, we pray your people understand the purpose of your Word. That they know the life it can bring to them. Lord, we pray people do not do things according to their understanding but fulfil the Word as Jesus Christ did as man on earth...

This prayer we make in Jesus' Name, Amen.

[ Reference ]
2 Timothy 3:15-16
15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Isaiah 45:23 - I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Isaiah 55:11 - So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Quran Su 16:101 - when we substitute one revelation for another,-- and Allah knows best what he reveals in stages,-- they say, "thou art but a forger": but most of them understand not.

Quran Su 2:106 - none of our revelations do we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but we substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?

The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others.
(All rights are with God)