GOD'S RESPONSE TO OUR RESPONSE

July 11, 2016

God's Response to our Response

God has spoken consistently throughout His Word and revealed to us Who He is and why He does what He does.   Our study, taken consideration and knowledge of Him is imperative to know these truths revealed in the Bible. 

The following is a listing of the Scriptures that gives us these Biblical truth of how God will respond in blessing or cursing based upon our responses as a nation, His church, and our own private lives and hearts. 

may you glean and grow in these Biblical truths:

Leviticus 26:23, 24 "And if ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me; v. 24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins." 
Also the same phrase used in : Leviticus 26:27, 28; 26:40, 41;

Three times in this chapter we have God telling them that He will judge them if they walk contrary unto Him in obeying His commands.  He tells them that the next round of judgments would be 7x times greater against them, unless they repented and restored their way with Him.  And God's response directly meets their response in judgment; 'If you walk contrary unto Me, I will walk contrary unto you.'

Deuteronomy 31:16 & 17, ". . .this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither the go to be among them, and will forsake Me, and break My covenant which I have made with them.  v. 17 Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. . . ."

This is a constant response mentioned in the Bible, men forsake God, therefore Gods' response is to forsake them.   

Deuteronomy 32:21, "They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities:  and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation."  

There are 2 responses from God to the responses of Israel in this one verse.
1.  They have moved Me to jealousy, therefore I will move them to jealousy.  The Lord is using this song of Moses to tell them what shall come after Moses is dead and they enter into the promised land.  They will fill their bellies become content and then turn away from the Lord to serve false gods.  This will provoke the Lord to jealousy over His people.  The Scripture declares the Lord is a jealous God;  Exodus 34, "for the Lord, Whose Name is Jealous".  And because they make Him jealous for turning away from Him, His response will be to make them jealous.

He will move them to jealousy by those which are not a people.  He will use those things that make them so much desire that they wish they had never turned away from the Lord.  Is it not a prophetic look at the Gentiles coming to Christ?  They will have that relationship God intended for the Jews, but they would not.  And so as they provoked Him to jealousy in forsaking Him and turning to false gods; so they will be jealousy that a people, not Jews, will have the love and attention of the Lord.  Ultimately in hell they will be jealous and say, 'that all could have been ours, if only. . .'

2.  They provoked Him to anger with their vanities, their lusts and their sins; He will provoke them to anger with another nation.   And as God was moved to anger against them, for forsaking and replacing Him.  They took their love, affection, attention and time and put it on vanities, He was moved to provocation against them.

He will have them to be provoked to anger by another nation that will aggravate, be a thorn in their side, and afflict them openly for their provoking the Lord to anger. 

II Chronicles 30:6 - 9, "So the posts went with the letters from the king, and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.  v. 8, . . .that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. v. 9 For if ye turn again unto the Lord, . . .and He will not turn away His face from you, if ye return unto Him."

Turn and return.  There are multiple facets of this action and reaction implied.
1.  There is the simple instruction 'if you turn to the Lord, He will turn to you'.  The same action of returning unto Him, for they had turned away from Him, He will return to them.  there is the promise at the end of verse 9, If they turn to Him, He will not turn away His face from them.
2.  The reciprocal of this truth is also found as a warning to them.  If they do not turn back to Him and serve Him, then the Lord will not turn away His wrath from them.  This is the side of punishment due to their sin.

We are faced with this reality today.  The Lord is immutable, He changes not.  and if He was this way to His own children of Israel and Judah and their leadership, the sons of David.  Then why would we expect any thing less upon His bride, His sons and daughters, His church.  Just as they was in covenant, the old covenant of Abraham and the covenant of David; so we are under covenant with Christ.     


Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:  because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me:  seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

There are 2 found in this verse:
1.  because we reject knowledge of the Word of God, He rejects us;
2.  because we forget the Law of God, He forgets our children;

Zechariah 1:3, "Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts."

Again we see the truth, God is waiting for us.  He is more than willing to turn unto us for favor and restoring of this soured, broken relationship.  we must understand our responsibility; we must turn unto Him and He will turn unto us.  It is not just good enough to say, " I have turned or turned back to the Lord", but as the Lord said to turn unto Him.  "Turn not unto Me feignedly but with all your heart";  David said it countless times, 'With the whole heart'.  Turn unto Him so that there is nothing left to turn back to sin, self or Satan. 

Zechariah 7:13  "Therefore it is come to pass, that as He cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts."

Throughout all of Scripture is found this truth, 'he that hath ears to hear, let him hear'.  And we find in this verse God's response to a people that have ears to hear and will not hear.  And so the time comes when they finally turn to the Lord, but it is too late.  Therefore God responds as they responded, 'He will not hear them'.  Oh, what shall we do when God refuses to hear us. 

First, let us confess that we are the guilty party, and that God's response is to directly to the failure of a nation and His church and our own hearts, we failed to obey His voice.  HE commanded and we rebelled;  He spoke and we turned a deaf ear to Him; He gave the Word and removed it. 

Malachi 3:7, "Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from Mine ordiances, and have not kept them.  Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts, But ye said, Wherein shall we return?"

It is very clear here that God has declared that due to Israel's continued rebellion and disobedience, He has left them.  And once again His mercy is extended to show us that if they would return to Him, He would return to them. 
Yet the people in asking the question, 'wherein shall we return?'  show their continued defiance that they would not return.  Are we not in the same place?  Our fathers of this nation have departed from Him, our church fathers have departed from Him and we have not kept the ways of the Lord to please, but only to provoke Him. 
Now how shall we return?  It is the same directive, 'with all your heart, mind and soul'.  It is not a partial return to what is convenient, but it is a full hearted surrender to love Him, to obey Him and to follow after Him.  How long can one last without God?  The need to return is great. 

Luke 12:8, "Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:"
We begin with this verse, but it is a two-fold response of God to man in verse 8 and 9.  Confession and denial of Christ is found here to demonstrate that God responds to man's response. 
If you confess Christ as the Son of God and your Lord and Savior, then He will confess you before the angels of God and His heavenly Father.  But if you do not confess Him as Lord, then He will not confess you. 
How do we confess Him?  WE confess with our mouths that He is God, and that we are His and He is ours.  Confession is a profession of faith about what our hearts believe.  Many a mouth has confessed only to find out that their heart was not in agreement. 

Luke 12:9, "But he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God."
AS God responded to the confession of man to confess them in right relationship; so God denies the one that denies Him. 

II Timothy 2:12, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him:  if we deny Him, He also will deny us."
This is coupled with Christ command that if we profess Him, He will profess us before the Heavenly Father.  And the truth of the opposite that if we are not professing Him as Lord and Savior then we are denying Him. 
But herein of this verse is God's response to our response, 'if we deny Him, He denies us.' 
How do we deny Him?  We deny through a life that is lived in exact opposite of His life.  He was holy, we cannot live in sin; He was perfect, we cannot live in defiance and willful rebellion of His ways; He was pure, we cannot be defiled; He was righteous, we cannot live in self-righteousness or unrightesouness.  Let our life so meet our content of Who we follow.  We cannot deny Him with opposite living practices, routines and patterns. 
We can deny Him simply by a profession of not beiong a follower of Christ.  Many Christians did this when Romans and other evil entities put Chrisitans in the place of deny Christ or die; they denied Him.  the church wrestled with whether you could be forgiven and renewed after openly denying Him to safe oneself or family. 
We can deny Him in our heart.  Although one may live in public and open profession of being a Christian by being good and religious, secretly in their heart they are guilty of 'professing with the mouth, but the heart is far from Him'.
And when we bow before Him at the judgment seat of eternity, if we are found guilty of any of these things, He will deny us.  He will say, 'I never knew you. Take this unprofitable servant and cast them into eternal hell.'  There will be no bartering, no reasoning, no arguing, what God pronounces is a done deal. 
The FAther will have last say, 'You denied Me, you denied My Son, and now we deny you as one of our own.' 

James 4:8, "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.  Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."

One of the positive responses that many in the church love to hold and pray.  And it is a Divine promise from the Lord that He is more than willing to draw nigh to us.  As in other verses, we see the problem of God's distance, absence and void is not on His unwillingness, but on our own failure to respond. 

Our response dictates God's.  He has given us the permission to do this, to draw near to Him.  Is there any place we would rather be? 

And you should note that as sinful man draws near to a holy God, the next phrase is that we must deal with our sins.  It is the great joy and rejoicing that we are allowed through Christ to 'drawn near'.  He has made a way for us to 'come boldly before the throne of grace'.  And therefore as God the Father accepts His beloved children in the faith through the atonement, blood and righteousness of Christ in our sinful behalf, we are granted entrance into the Holy of Holy. 

But let not any self-righteous, arrogant attitude that we come on our own be our thought or motto.  Or that we simply make up our mind to draw near to Him.  WE come not of our own;  yea, I don't believe any man or woman comes on their own.  'No man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My FAther' - John 6:65.  IT is the grace and mercy of God that quickens us, draws us and we reciprocate by drawing near unto Him.  So in a way it is not us drawing near unto Him so His response is to draw near unto us;  but He draws near, then we draw near and He draws near again.

How is this?  The HOly Spirit draws near to bring forth the Truth, the Word that quickens us, stirs us.  This is all the beginning of the work of salvation; wherein this verse of promise is more about after salvation and our continued relationship with Him. 


Started:  July 11, 2016

Continued:  7/13; 7/14; 7/15; 7:16; 7/17; 7/18; 7/23; 7/26; 7/30; 8/5; 8/6;10/31;

Finished: