Book 3 of Musings God Responds to Us as We Respond to Him
To the faithful God shows Himself faithful.
To the blameless God shows Himself blameless. To those who attempt to outwit Him God shows Himself superior in cunning. If we desire to have mercy shown to us we best had be merciful to others!
I don't believe we have a true picture of God-at least not in the United States of America.
I think we picture God as a kindly old gentleman whose love is so great that no matter what we do God is endlessly forgiving. There is talk today of "unconditional love," meaning we can be wicked and hateful and God will overlook this in His abundant love. In other words, God is softhearted and softheaded.
I would say, based on my meager knowledge of the Scriptures, that we are not correct in this. God is very much a reasonable person. He shows love and mercy to thousands of those who keep His commandments, but those who hate Him He repays in kind.
We Christians are under the new covenant of grace. We have supposed this means God does not respond to us as He did to people in the Old Testament.
Let me say something that may surprise you. Barring the specifics of the Law of Moses, which are found mostly in Exodus through Deuteronomy, all the statements of the Old Testament apply to us.
I know the teaching of Dispensationalism suggests we ignore the admonitions of the Old Testament. This is a destructive point of view.
For example: in the twenty-fourth Psalm we find a description of those who are permitted to ascend the hill of the Lord (which by the way is Mount Zion, which symbolically represents the Lord Jesus Christ).
To ascend the hill of the Lord we must have clean hands and a pure heart.
The teaching today is we can abide in Christ (ascend the hill of the Lord) with dirty hands and an unclean heart. This is error.
Again, in the Book of Isaiah we are told who is qualified to dwell with God, with the consuming Fire. The answer is, "those who walk righteously and speak what is right."
What a terrible error we are teaching when we say that because of grace we can dwell with God and behave unrighteously!
The Apostle Paul told Timothy to correctly handle the word of truth. Paul did not mean by this the New Testament, he meant the Old Testament.
Peter exhorted us to pay attention to the word of the prophets.
What a tremendous loss God's people have experienced by the doctrine that the Old Testament no longer teaches us the ways of the Lord.
We know instinctively this is not true. We apply the twenty-third and ninety-first Psalms to our lives. Somehow we know these are true for us. So we can see the confusion preached by Dispensational teaching. Obviously we cannot claim the twenty-third Psalm and ignore David's teaching about righteous behavior.
As I stated, all of the Old Testament, with the specific exception of the details of the Law of Moses, is profitable and necessary if the Christian is to grow in the Lord.
And how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17)
Training in righteousness! If we had listened to the Apostle Paul we would not be perverting the grace of God as we do today.
Consider the passage above. Paul is not exhorting Timothy concerning the New Testament. Paul is referring to the Old Testament that Timothy had been exposed to from his infancy.
The Old Testament is God-breathed. It is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. By means of the Old Testament the man of God is "thoroughly equipped for every good work."
Does this sound to you like the Old Testament no longer applies? That the exhortation of the twenty-fourth Psalm concerning a pure heart and clean hands no longer applies to us because we are "saved by grace"? That the warning of Isaiah that if we are to live with the consuming Fire we must walk righteously and speak what is right no longer applies to us because we are "saved by grace"?
No, we have incorrect teaching in the churches of America and the destruction of righteous behavior has been horrific. We have lost our moorings. We no longer are exposed to the teaching concerning righteous behavior with which the Old Testament is filled.
David, speaking in the Spirit, told us the Lord rewards us according to our works. David informed us that God responds to us in the same manner we respond to Him.
If we behave righteously, the Lord rewards us accordingly.
If we are faithful, God is faithful to us. If we are blameless, God shows Himself blameless toward us. If we are pure, God shows Himself pure toward us. If we are crooked, God shows Himself to be more cunning than we are.
We might extrapolate from what David taught and say that if we are loyal to Christ He will be loyal to us. If we are lukewarm toward Christ He will be lukewarm toward us. If we do not give our best to Christ, He will not give His best to us. If we patiently and diligently guard the Word of the Lord, then the Lord will patiently and diligently guard us in the hour of temptation.
We need to think about this, because the idea of God responding to us in the same manner we respond to Him is not always taught in the churches of our country. We have an incorrect impression of the Lord Jesus, and we need to go back to Him and ask Him what He really is like.
We are a soft, often disobedient, pleasure-loving people. We are going to be treated accordingly in the days to come if we do not change.
The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. (Psalms 18:24-26)