Same Jesus
The Character of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Recap
Recap
We have been studying regarding the Character of God and what that means for a few weeks now, and we said God cannot be known by;
Experience
Another man’s experience
General assumptions
These are common ways we come to conclusions about God. Yet, knowing God is by revelation.
12 Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ 13 Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”
Show me now your way, that I may know you.
This is exactly what this study is about. It is that we have to seek to find the revealed God within events and not make assumptions.
As we read on, we see then in Exodus 34:5-7, God’s revelation of himself “Proclaimed the name of the LORD”.
5 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
And we said, this is God himself, declaring who he is. We find exactly thesame words in many text of the scriptures, for example
6 The Lord executes righteousness And justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. 9 He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. 10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.
Now, Something common you will see is that within the text of the bible, the very Character of God we will find the actions that resoult from his character within the story of God and Israel alot more, why?
The bible is filled with the conversation, events, experiences between himself and Israel. It is God’s big story, howbeit with man in the conversation.
Hence, when I want to see and trace God’s character and his actions, we have to look within the stories, and that is what we have been doing.
Hesed
Hesed
It reveals something to us, that the study of God’s character, I can study how it plays out within God’s jouney with Israel, and that Journey began with his covenant with Abraham.
13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—
On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram.
Now that covenant is seen continually in that God would redeem the people of Israel, when they are in Egypt.
23 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. 24 So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
That very covenant of God, was remembered by God. Remember the promise, he will give them a land to possess and God would work with the descendant of Abraham, irrespective of how they behave or who they are, the descendants, he would work with.
As the story continues, we see that God himself, made a covenant with the descendants that left Egypt with Moses.
4 And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.”
This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.
This is exactly a different covenant from that with Abraham, it is for a generation among the descendant, that will work and walk with God or not.
This generation you find, not faithful to God, they chose their own ways and would not listen to yahweh.
20 Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word; 21 but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord—22 because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, 23 they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.
Apart from Caleb and Joshua, entering into the land, these ones perished.
Then another covenant with the generation, their children.
13 “ ‘Now rise and cross over the Valley of the Zered.’ So we crossed over the Valley of the Zered. 14 And the time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of the Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them. 15 For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp until they were consumed. 16 “So it was, when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people,
He re-stated same covenant to the descendants after the generation of war has passed.
1 These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.
Notice, in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb, but yet, same terms of the covenant to be with this people and work with them.
14 “I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, 15 but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today 16 (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, 17 and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold); 18 so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood;
Now, we should ask, what will be the result of their disobedience?
24 All nations would say, ‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ 25 Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; 26 for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. 27 Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. 28 And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’
So they will be removed from the land if they are not faithful to the terms of the covenant. This is how what we call “to the third and fourth generation is.” From generation to generation, not turning to the Lord.
Removal, what next?
Removal, what next?
1 “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, 2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. 5 Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. 6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
So, the return back to the land is found mainly in that they “return to the LORD, obey his voice”.
What happens when the generation that goes into exile continues in their wickedness, is that they remain in exile, hence, what we call visiting of iniquity to the third and fourth generation.
21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. 22 For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. 23 But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. 26 Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. 27 “Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you.
So Jeremiah speaking to his own generation would say, since the day of the fathers, to this day, God sent prophets nit tjeu did not incline their ear, THEY DID WORSE THAN THEIR FATHERS.
Now, what we still have is a promise, cos of God’s covenant with Abraham, he will work with the people, he will reach the world with them.
We have that God coming on the scene to act again.
Who is Jesus?
Who is Jesus?
Jesus and his act then, are within the confines of God’s covenant still with Abraham, he is God acting in line with his covenant with Abraham.
That is God on the scene himself. In Jesus, we find his covenant with Abraham to work with his descendants to come to pass.
1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:
Notice, son of David, the Son of Abraham. Jesus is a descendant of Abraham, hence why we have his geneology.
Hence, what do we have in Jesus? Same God who is planning to work with Abraham and his descendants.
Hence, Jesus is a proof of God’s character, and since he himself is God, all of God’s character will be found in him.
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Express image of His person.
WHEN WE STUDY THE EXILE OF ISRAEL, WE WILL FIND GOD YET WITHIN THE COVENANT, RETORING HIS PEOPLE ISRAEL, HOWBEIT IN HIMSELF, WE FIND THE CONSISTENCY OF GOD’S CHARACTER IF WE STICK TO THE EVENT, EXILE WASN’T THE END.
