29 Nov It is What It Is (Discovering the true character of God…because He is not a car-wrecking, cancer causing Creator, but a loving, life giving Lord!) part 18

Posted at 01:49h in Uncategorized by

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Over the last few months we have been sharing Hebrews 11:6, “For without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

Let’s quickly review…

We shared three very important takeaways:

  1. Notice the word “cometh”.  The Greek tense for the word “cometh” is in the continual tense, meaning it is discussing those who continually come to God.  It could read “those that cometh and cometh and cometh to God”.  It describes a continual, communicative relationship.
  2. When we continually come to God, we must believe that “He IS”…not He was or He will be.  That describes a vast majority of the Body of Christ.  “God did a miracle in Biblical days” or “One day when we all get to Heaven, He will heal then.”  God is not the Great I was or the Great I will be…He IS the Great I AM!
  3. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  Now we’ve left behind three quarters of the Body of Christ.  Most don’t believe He is a rewarder…most believe He is a taker!

Then we gave you 4 View Verifications:

  1. How you view Him will determine how much you come to Him.
  2. How you view Him is how you will treat others.  In other words, if you think He’s mad at you, it will be very difficult for you to treat others kindly.
  3. How you view Him will determine your outlook on life.
  4. How you view Him will determine your destiny.

Then we began to discuss 11 Characteristics concerning the Character of God.

    1. You can’t create God in your own image (Rom. 1:25).  

2. Heaven yes…Hell no!  

    3. Sin ruins the view

 

    4. Will the real God please stand up?  (John 10:10)

 

Then we began to look at Six Nice Nature Necessities:

      1.) In the Old Covenant, sin had not yet been dealt with

      2.) In the Old Covenant, God only acted harshly in judgment.

      3.) Remember the causative verse the permissive tense in the Hebrew language.

This week let’s continue with…

      4.) In the Old Covenant there was very little understanding of the devil.

 

Have you ever noticed that in the Old Testament, no one ever rebuked the devil directly?  Not Moses, Abraham, or even King David!  The reason they could not directly rebuke the devil is that they had no authority over him.   Jesus had not yet come and defeated the devil (see Colossians 2:15) and granted us authority (see Matthew 28:18 and Ephesians 1:18-22).

In the Old Covenant, there are really only five references to the devil.  In Job, Chronicles and Kings (which is the same story), and Ezekiel and Isaiah (which is also the same story).  The reason God chose to reveal so little about the devil was that people of that dispensation had the same nature as the devil (see John 8:44).  Had God revealed a lot about him, they would have readily followed him.  

Therefore to the people of the Old Covenant it was quite unclear as to who was doing what.  You can see that in the Book of Job.  It was clearly the devil who was the culprit, yet Job and his friends confused the work of the devil with the work of God.

Join us next month as we continue to share more from our series…