Man Gains God’s Blessings Because of His Sincerity and Obedience
Was the blessing given to Abraham by God that we read of here great? Just how great? There is one key sentence here: “And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” which shows that Abraham received blessings not given to any who came before or after. When, as asked by God, Abraham returned his only son—his beloved only son—to God (note: Here we cannot use the word “offered”; we should say he returned his son to God), not only did God not allow Abraham to offer Isaac, but He also blessed him. With what promise did He bless Abraham? The promise to multiply his offspring. And by how many were they to be multiplied? The Scriptures provide the following record: “… as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is on the sea shore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
What was the context in which God uttered these words? Which is to say, how did Abraham receive God’s blessings? He received them just as God says in the Scriptures: “because you have obeyed My voice.” That is, because Abraham had followed God’s command, because he had done everything that God had said, asked and commanded without the slightest complaint, thus God made such a promise to him. There is one crucial sentence in this promise that touches upon God’s thoughts at the time. Have you seen it? You may not have paid much attention to God’s words that “By Myself have I sworn.” What they mean is that, when God uttered these words, He was swearing by Himself. What do people swear by when they make an oath? They swear by Heaven, which is to say, they make an oath to God and swear by God. People might not have much of an understanding of the phenomenon by which God swore by Himself, but you’ll be able to understand when I provide you with the correct explanation. Being faced with a man who could only hear His words but not understand His heart once more made God feel lonely and at a loss. In desperation—and, it can be said, subconsciously—God did something very natural: God put His hand on His heart and addressed Himself when bestowing this promise upon Abraham, and from this man heard God say “By Myself have I sworn.” Through God’s actions, you may think of yourself. When you put your hand on your heart and speak to yourself, do you have a clear idea of what you’re saying? Is your attitude sincere? Do you speak candidly, with your heart? Thus, we see here that when God spoke to Abraham, He was earnest and sincere. At the same time as speaking to and blessing Abraham, God was also speaking to Himself. He was telling Himself: I will bless Abraham, and make his progeny as numerous as the stars of heaven, and as plentiful as the sand on the sea shore, because he obeyed My words and he is the one I choose. When God said “By Myself have I sworn,” God resolved that in Abraham He would produce the chosen people of Israel, after which He would lead these people forward apace with His work. That is, God would make Abraham’s descendants bear the work of God’s management, and the work of God and that expressed by God would begin with Abraham, and would continue in Abraham’s descendants, thus realizing God’s wish to save man. What say you, is this not a blessed thing? For man, there is no greater blessing than this; this, it can be said, is the most blessed thing. The blessing gained by Abraham was not the multiplication of his offspring, but God’s achievement of His management, His commission, and His work in the descendants of Abraham. This means that the blessings gained by Abraham were not temporary, but continued on as God’s management plan progressed. When God spoke, when God swore by Himself, He had already made a resolution. Was the process of this resolution true? Was it real? God resolved that, from then onward, His efforts, the price He paid, what He has and is, His everything, and even His life would be given to Abraham and the descendants of Abraham. So too did God resolve that, starting from this group of people, He would make manifest His deeds, and allow man to see His wisdom, authority, and power.
Gaining Those Who Know God and Are Able to Testify to Him Is God’s Unchanging Wish
At the same time as speaking to Himself, God also spoke to Abraham, but apart from hearing the blessings that God gave to him, was Abraham able to understand God’s true wishes in all of His words at that moment? He was not! And so, at that moment, when God swore by Himself, His heart was still lonely and sorrowful. There was still not one person able to understand or comprehend what He intended and planned. At that moment, no one—including Abraham—was able to speak to Him in confidence, much less was anyone able to cooperate with Him in doing the work that He must do. On the surface, God had gained Abraham, and had gained someone who could obey His words. But in fact, this person’s knowledge of God was barely more than nothing. Even though God had blessed Abraham, God’s heart was still not satisfied. What does it mean that God was not satisfied? It means that His management had only just begun, it means that the people He wanted to gain, the people He longed to see, the people He loved, were still distant from Him; He needed time, He needed to wait, He needed to be patient. For at that time, apart from God Himself, there was no one who knew what He needed, or what He wished to gain, or what He longed for. And so, at the same time as feeling very excited, God also felt heavy of heart. Yet He did not halt His steps, and continued to plan the next step of what He must do.
What do you see in God’s promise to Abraham? God bestowed great blessings upon Abraham simply because he listened to God’s words. Although, on the surface, this seems normal, and a matter of course, in it we see God’s heart: God especially treasures man’s obedience to Him, and cherishes man’s understanding of Him and sincerity toward Him. How much does God cherish this sincerity? You may not understand how much He cherishes it, and there may well be none who realize it. God gave Abraham a son, and when that son had grown up, God asked Abraham to offer his son to God. Abraham followed God’s command to the letter, he obeyed God’s word, and his sincerity moved God and was treasured by God. How much did God treasure it? And why did He treasure it? At a time when no one comprehended God’s words or understood His heart, Abraham did something that shook the heaven and trembled the earth, and it made God feel an unprecedented sense of satisfaction, and brought God the joy of gaining someone who was able to obey His words. This satisfaction and joy came from a creature made by God’s own hand, and was the first “sacrifice” that man had offered to God and that was most treasured by God, since man was created. God had had a hard time waiting for this sacrifice, and He treated it as the first most important gift from man, whom He had created. It showed God the first fruit of His efforts and the price He had paid, and allowed Him to see the hope in mankind. Afterward, God had an even greater yearning for a group of such people to keep Him company, to treat Him with sincerity, to care for Him with sincerity. God even hoped that Abraham would live on, for He wished to have such a heart accompany Him and be with Him as He continued in His management. No matter what God wanted, it was just a wish, just an idea—for Abraham was merely a man who was able to obey Him, and did not have the slightest understanding or knowledge of God. He was someone who fell far short of the standards of God’s requirements for man: knowing God, being able to testify to God, and being of one mind with God. And so, he could not walk with God. In Abraham’s offering of Isaac, God saw the sincerity and obedience of Abraham, and saw that he had withstood God’s test of him. Even though God accepted his sincerity and obedience, he was still unworthy of becoming God’s confidant, of becoming someone who knew God, and understood God, and was informed of God’s disposition; he was far from being of one mind with God and doing God’s will. And so, in His heart, God was still lonely and anxious. The more lonely and anxious God became, the more He needed to continue with His management as soon as possible, and be able to select and gain a group of people to accomplish His management plan and achieve His will as soon as possible. This was God’s eager desire, and it has remained unchanged from the very beginning until today. Ever since He created man in the beginning, God has yearned for a group of overcomers, a group that will walk with Him and are able to understand, comprehend and know His disposition. This wish of God has never changed. Regardless of how long He still has to wait, regardless of how hard the road ahead, no matter how far off the objectives He yearns for, God has never altered or given up on His expectations for man. Now that I’ve said this, do you realize something of God’s wish? Perhaps what you’ve realized isn’t very profound—but it will come gradually!
During the same period as Abraham, God also destroyed a city. This city was called Sodom. Without doubt, many people are familiar with the story of Sodom, but none are acquainted with the thoughts of God that were background to His destruction of the city.
And so today, through God’s exchanges with Abraham below, we will learn of His thoughts at that time, while also learning of His disposition. Next, let us read the following passages of scripture.
B. God Must Destroy Sodom
Gen 18:26 And Jehovah said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
Gen 18:29 And he spoke to Him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And He said, I will not do it.
Gen 18:30 And he said to Him, Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And He said, I will not do it.
Gen 18:31 And he said, Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And He said, I will not destroy it.
Gen 18:32 And he said, Peradventure ten shall be found there. And He said, I will not destroy it.
These are a few excerpts I have chosen from the Bible. They are not the complete, original versions. If you wish to see those, you can look them up in the Bible yourselves; to save time, I have omitted part of the original content. Here I have only selected several key passages and sentences, leaving out several sentences that have no bearing on our fellowship today. In all the passages and content we fellowship about, our focus skips over the details of the stories and man’s conduct in the stories; instead, we only speak of what God’s thoughts and ideas were at the time. In God’s thoughts and ideas, we will see the disposition of God, and from everything God did, we will see the true God Himself—and in this we will achieve our objective.
God Only Cares About Those Who Are Able to Obey His Words and Follow His Commands
The passages above contain several key words: numbers. First, Jehovah God said that if He found fifty righteous within the city, then He would spare all the place, which is to say, He would not destroy the city. So were there, in fact, fifty righteous within Sodom? There were not. Soon after, what did Abraham say to God? He said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there? And God said, I will not do it. Next, Abraham said, Peradventure there shall thirty be found there? And God said, I will not do it. And peradventure twenty? I will not do it. Ten? I will not do it. Were there, in fact, ten righteous within the city? There were not ten—but there was one. And who was this one? It was Lot. At the time, there was but one righteous person in Sodom, but was God very stringent or exacting when it came to this number? No, He was not! And so when man kept asking, “What about forty?” “What about thirty?” until he got to “What about ten?” God said, “Even if there were only ten, I would not destroy the city; I would spare it, and forgive the other people besides these ten.” Ten would have been pitiable enough, but it turned out that, in fact, there was not even that number of righteous people in Sodom. You see, then, that in the eyes of God, the sin and evil of the city’s people were such that God had no choice but to destroy them. What did God mean when He said that He would not destroy the city if there were fifty righteous? These numbers were not important to God. What was important was whether or not the city contained the righteous that He wanted. If the city had but one righteous person, God would not allow them to come to harm due to His destruction of the city. What this means is that, regardless of whether or not God was going to destroy the city, and regardless of how many righteous were within it, to God this sinful city was cursed and execrable, and should be destroyed, should vanish from the eyes of God, while the righteous should remain. Regardless of the age, regardless of the stage of mankind’s development, the attitude of God does not change: He hates evil, and cares about the righteous in His eyes. This clear attitude of God is also the true revelation of the substance of God. Because there was but one righteous person within the city, God hesitated no longer. The end result was that Sodom would inevitably be destroyed. What do you see in this? In that age, God would not destroy a city if there were fifty righteous within it, nor if there were ten, which means that God would decide to forgive and be tolerant toward mankind, or would do the work of guidance, because of a few people who were able to revere and worship Him. God places great stock in man’s righteous deeds, He places great stock in those who are able to worship Him, and He places great stock in those who are able to do good deeds before Him.
From the earliest times until today, have you ever read in the Bible of God communicating the truth, or speaking about the way of God, to any person? No, never. The words of God to man that we read of only told people what to do. Some went and did it, some didn’t; some believed, and some didn’t. That’s all there was. Thus, the righteous of that age—those who were righteous in the eyes of God—were merely those who could hear God’s words and follow God’s commands. They were servants who carried out God’s words among man. Could such people be called those who know God? Could they be called people who were made perfect by God? No, they could not. And so, regardless of their number, in the eyes of God were these righteous people worthy of being called the confidants of God? Could they be called God’s witnesses? Certainly not! They were certainly not worthy of being called God’s confidants and witnesses. And so what did God call such people? In the Bible, up until the passages of scripture that we have just read, there are many instances of God calling them “My servant.” Which is to say, at that time, in the eyes of God these righteous people were the servants of God, they were the people who served Him on earth. And how did God think of this appellation? Why did He call them so? Does God have standards for what He calls people in His heart? He certainly does. God has standards, regardless of whether He calls people righteous, perfect, upright, or servants. When He calls someone His servant, He is of the firm belief that this person is able to receive His messengers, and able to follow His commands, and can carry out that which is commanded by the messengers. And what does this person carry out? That which God commands man to do and carry out on earth. At that time, could that which God asked man to do and carry out on earth be called the way of God? No, it could not. For at that time, God asked only that man do a few simple things; He uttered a few simple commands, telling man to only do this or that, and nothing more. God was working according to His plan. Because, at that time, many conditions were not yet present, the time was not yet ripe, and it was difficult for mankind to bear the way of God, thus the way of God had yet to begin to be issued forth from God’s heart. God saw the righteous people He spoke of, whom we see here—whether thirty or twenty—as His servants. When the messengers of God came upon these servants, they would be able to receive them, and follow their commands, and act according to their words. This was precisely what should be done, and attained, by the servants in God’s eyes. God is judicious in His appellations for people. He did not call them His servants because they were as you are now—because they had heard much preaching, knew what God was to do, understood much of God’s will, and comprehended His management plan—but because their humanity was honest and they were able to comply with God’s words; when God commanded them, they were able to put aside what they were doing and carry out that which God had commanded. And so, for God, the other layer of meaning in the title of[a] servant is that they cooperated with His work on earth, and although they were not the messengers of God, they were the executors and implementers of God’s words on earth. You see, then, that these servants or righteous people carried great weight in the heart of God. The work that God was to embark upon on earth could not be without people to cooperate with Him, and the role undertaken by the servants of God was irreplaceable by the messengers of God. Each task that God commanded unto these servants was of great importance to Him, and so He could not lose them. Without these servants’ cooperation with God, His work among mankind would have come to a standstill, as a result of which God’s management plan and God’s hopes would have come to naught.
No comments:
Post a Comment