Recovering Intimacy with a Loving God

Psalm 95:6-11

Recovering Intimacy with a Loving God[1]

Come, let us bow down in worship,

let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

for he is our God

and we are the people of his pasture,

the flock under his care.

Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,

as you did that day at Massah in the desert,

where your fathers tested and tried me,

though they had seen what I did.

For forty years I was angry with that generation;

I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,

and they have not known my ways.”

So I declared on oath in my anger,

“They shall never enter my rest.”

ur relationship with God is founded on love.  In love He sought us and if we are saved we responded lovingly to His loving call.  Inherently we recognise that God is love and we long for those times of intimacy which each Christian has experienced in greater or lesser measure.  What happens, however, when intimacy with God is lost?  How can we ever hope to recover such intimacy?

Perhaps we have sacrificed intimacy with God through flagrant rebellion.  More likely, however, we look back and realise that it is a series of minor choices to resist God’s clear leadership which has culminated in estrangement.  Perhaps in the midst of conflict our vision was obscured and we momentarily took our eyes off Him only to awaken alone and forlorn.  Though we are still Christians, though we know we are His children, we are miserable.  We are disturbed because we become aware of a growing hardness of heart and an accompanying helplessness to recover what has been lost.

The common perception is that a Christian can return to intimacy with God whenever we decide to do so.  Somehow we think that intimacy is at our discretion.  However, thoughtful reflection will shortly convince each of us that we did not first come to God through our choice but as result of His calling, just as the Master Himself has said: You did not choose me, but I chose you [John 15:16].  If somehow that cautionary note were insufficient to give us pause there is always the sobering statement of the Saviour which cautions all people that no one comes to the Father except through me [John 14:6].

We who have wandered from intimacy with God discover in moments of deep searching and quiet desperation that even the willingness to turn again to God is missing.  At the last we are compelled to confess that we must come to Him on His terms and at His time or we will not come at all.

The underlying plea of this 95th Psalm is that we guard against hardening our hearts.  In order to illustrate the nature of this dangerous condition the Psalmist refers to a critical moment in Israel’s history.  The people were camped at Kadesh Barnea and God’s leader, Moses, dispatched spies into the neighbouring land of Canaan.  God sought to encourage the people whom He had only recently delivered from slavery.

However, when the spies surveyed the land they could only see giants.  They were unable to see God walking with them.  Therefore, their report discouraged the people and they turned their eyes from God in their midst and thought about the giants before them.  They refused to follow God or do what He told them to do with the result that they lost intimacy with Him.  God judged their disobedience by sentencing them to wander in the wilderness for forty years, and informed them that they would die in that same wilderness as result of their disobedience.

That night the whole congregation reflected on God’s judgement.  The next morning they repented and returned to Moses.  Now they were willing to obey God.  Now they were willing to enter Canaan and conquer the giants.  “It is too late,” was Moses’ warning, but the people refused to hear him.  They assumed that they could turn again and enjoy the same intimacy with God which they had enjoyed previously.  The people precipitated a battle which cost them dearly.  The lesson was obvious—God had opened a window of opportunity and they had failed to obey.  Their refusal to obey was costly, for their hardened hearts cost them a sentence of wandering for an additional generation in the wilderness.  God would give Canaan to another generation of faith.

God speaks to men and women of faith.  God speaks to churches, calling them to obedience.  We are responsible to obey Him when He calls so that we may accomplish whatever it is that He may call us to do.  Our God is the same God as Israel’s God and the need for immediate obedience has never changed.  The other side of that issue is also unchanged.  There are consequences when we fail to obey.  With every delay opportunities are lost and intimacy is sacrificed.

A Calling Master —

Today, if you hear his voice…

God calls man to listen, to heed His voice.  This divine call tests our understanding of God.  If we know Him, if we truly understand who He is and what He desires, we will eagerly accept His call to walk with Him.  Can we ignore His call?  Of course we can ignore God’s call, but only with serious consequences.  Can we substitute our own plans for His?  Of course we can pursue our own will, but it will always result in disaster.  Is there anything God will accept in the place of simple obedience to His expressed will?  We know the answer is No.  Nothing at all will suffice except obedience to His will.

Take note of the profound significance of God’s call.  The urgency with which we respond to any voice is directly related to the personal significance of the one calling.  Should you question that statement I challenge you to watch a group of mothers visiting with one another while their children play nearby.  The noise created by children at play can only be described as raucous as the air is filled with the clamour of little voices.  Yet those mothers will sit calmly visiting until one of them hears the voice of her child.  That is a voice she knows; it is a call she will not disregard.

The One calling us to intimacy is our Saviour, for He is the Rock of our salvation [Psalm 95:1].  The One calling is our Sovereign.  The Psalmist says He is our God and we are the people of His pasture [verse 7].  The One calling us is our Sustainer.  Again, the Psalmist writes that In His hand are the depths of the earth [verse 4].  This One calling us is our Source.  The sea is His … and His hands formed the dry land [verse 5].  According to the Psalmist He is also our Maker.  Let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [verse 6].  This One who calls us has accepted the responsibility for our welfare.  He calls us.  Shall we ignore His voice?

Some of you may recall the congressional hearings during the Iran-Contra affair in the United States during the second term of office for President Ronald Reagan.  During testimony, a Marine lieutenant colonel at the centre of the congressional hearing (Lt. Col. Oliver North) was asked how he would respond to any request the President of his country might make.  He stated that his President was also his Commander-in-chief and that no request, however ridiculous it might seem, would be denied.  He recognised that in human terms the President holds the ultimate authority for American citizens and soldiers.  The Psalmist is not referring to a mere mortal, though that mortal may be a commander-in-chief, but he speaks of the True and Living God to whom we must all answer.  This God calls us to intimacy with Him.

Notice also the personal subject of His call.  Today, if you hear his voice…  In years past I was frequently engaged to speak on the campus of the University of British Columbia.  Not uncommonly the students I addressed were struggling with issues related to the call of God.  They were weighing their futures and they wanted to honour God.  Young men and women frequently ask how they may recognise the call of God.  The answer is simpler than we wish to make it.

Knowing is inherent in the call.  You know God is speaking to you.  God is a powerful communicator and He speaks with distinction.  If you wonder whether you have heard the voice of God, you likely have not been called.  When God speaks you know He is speaking to you.  Many young men have questioned whether they have been called to enter ministry.  I always tell them that if they can do anything else they should do it.  If the call is not so clear that there is no mistake they should not invest time in that avenue of divine service.  As far as God is concerned, when He speaks obedience is either immediate, or it is not obedience at all.

However, though God calls all Christians to serve Him through serving one another in love, not every call from God is to vocational service.  God calls His people to serve Him, to worship Him, to glorify Him.  God calls His people to honour Him.  He does this through calling His people to live in harmony with one another, through calling His people to prayer, through calling His people to resist evil.  The call of God is primarily seen through the written Word of God, which means that a people unfamiliar with the written Word are a people yearning for but never quite achieving intimacy with God since they cannot know the will of God.  Those who do not know the will of God cannot obey Him.  Underscore in your mind that God does call His people.

Finally, note the particular sound of God’s call.  People often hide disobedience behind the skirts of feigned ignorance.  “I didn’t know what God wanted me to do,” is a frequent plea of those who have lost intimacy.  Faith must come to the level of maturity that accepts that God holds us accountable for all our decisions.  Sufficient knowledge of His will is always available so that we can respond appropriately.

The “voice” to which the Psalmist refers is not some muffled, indistinguishable sound.  The “voice” is the clarion call of God.  There may be times you think God has spoken to you, but when God speaks to you, you know it is God who is speaking.  God is a clear communicator.

Clearly God speaks to us in the midst of our times of turmoil as at no other time.  Someone has said that God whispers in our pleasures and shouts in our tempests.  When everything is moving well and there are no conflicts we don’t often hear the voice of God, but when trials assail us and demand our attention we hear the voice of God clearly calling out to us.  His call is meant to be obeyed and quickly.

A Contrary Mind-set —

Do not harden your hearts…

I am surprised when I read this admonition against hardening the heart.  This is not the only time the Word employs this plea, for the author of Hebrews repeatedly warns against hardening the heart.  Indulge me a moment while we read an extended passage of the Word from Hebrews 3:7-4:13.

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion,

during the time of testing in the desert,

where your fathers tested and tried me

and for forty years saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation,

and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,

and they have not known my ways.’

So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.  As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion.”

Who were they who heard and rebelled?  Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?  And with whom was he angry for forty years?  Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert?  And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?  So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.  For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.  Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.  For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.”  And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.  Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.  There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.  Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

The fact that this extended passage focus so intently on the warning against hardening the heart should give us pause.  Is it possible that the consequences of a hardened heart are more costly than we dare imagine?  Why would you suppose that God is so concerned about this condition?  Shouldn’t we take heed from the repeated manner in which He addresses this concern?

Hardening the heart requires a conscious effort.  Hardening the heart is something one does to himself or herself.  Look again at the warning: do not harden your hearts…  You must make a deliberate choice to respond to God rather than resist His leadership and suffer serious consequences.

The history of the church is replete with the names of people who grew bitter during some conflict or another and as result were set aside from effective service to the Master.  Such people will frequently excuse their bitterness by detailing the circumstances they believe brought about their condition.  They were offended, they were attacked, they were hurt, they were unjustly accused…  In reality, if you focus on the eighth verse it becomes apparent that we are the authors of our own misfortune.  Those Christians who are set aside, who have sacrificed intimacy with the Lord God, have suffered loss because they chose to respond inappropriately to the trials they faced.  They brought loss upon themselves.

Whenever you meet an embittered person, you know that you could readily find someone who has walked through circumstances that are similar (or worse) than those they encountered.  Furthermore, you can find people who walked where they have walked and yet they emerged from the ordeal with a sensitive heart and a gracious spirit.  Such joyful people made the right choice as they passed through difficult circumstances.  You cannot always control your circumstances, but you can choose your response.  Underscore this truth in your mind: you are responsible to choose your response to life.

No doubt we have known people obsessed with vindicating themselves.  They have been wronged by the church and they are determined to set matters straight.  Enraged, they determine that they will take vengeance into their own hands, ignoring Scripture.  Thus they grow more cynical, more bitter, more resentful.  I had the misfortune to pastor just such a man in a former church.  He occupied a position of some responsibility within the congregation.

For some years prior to my coming he had abused that position of trust, but I called him to account before the board.  I reminded him that decisions in the church are the prerogative of the congregation and not the purview of one man.  When first the Board and then the congregation backed me on a certain issue he made wild and heinous accusations against the members of the Board and against me.  For over a year he came to me with one crazy charge after another levelled against virtually every church member in his or her turn.  It was obvious that he was enraged.

He would frequently neglect his family business to drive more than one hundred kilometres to prove to me that he was wronged.  He would weary me with his arguments until at last I was sufficiently tired of his accusations and raging to demand that it cease.  I told him to his face that he was an angry man, a manipulator, a liar and unsubmissive.  All he could see was his will, but he had no love for the church or for Christ Himself.  At the last I challenged him, asking what there was in his life to make me think that he knew the love of God.  To this day that man rages against the church, rages against the Christians in that assembly, rages against his own daughters because they will not be enraged with him.  He has made a conscious decision to be enraged and it is destroying him, destroying his family, and at the last his rage will destroy his life.

Here is the unfortunate part of that story—his story of that man is not unusual!  Many people, indeed many professing Christians, have hardened their hearts because they refuse to submit to a Sovereign Lord and they refuse to be submissive before the people of God.  Such people must bear responsibility for their own hardened hearts.  They cannot blame God, cannot blame the preacher, cannot blame the congregation, nor can they blame circumstances for their own choice.

Hardening the heart also registers a cumulative effect.  The effect of wrong choices increases with each successive resistance, making further disobedience even easier.  William Mason says, Each day we wait to obey God leaves one more day to repent of and one less day to repent in.  Hard-heartedness can become habitual altogether too easily.  When once we have hardened our heart, we close it more and more to God making it harder and harder to share times of intimacy with Him.  Prayer becomes harder.  Worship ceases.  All the time we are moving farther from home and farther from hope for reconciliation with God who loves us.

The Hebrew word translated harden refers to a condition of stubbornness or a condition which grows progressively resistant to change.  Underlying this Hebrew hiphil imperfect verb [hv;q;] is something akin to the process underlying development of a callous on the skin.  It is the picture of successive layers of skin inuring one against irritation.  The identical thought is conveyed in the Greek language [sklhrovthta] by Romans 2:5.  Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.  The more I resist the appeal of God the harder my heart grows.  The harder my heart grows, the more I resist the appeal of God.

Is it possible that some of us sense such a hardened condition in our own hearts?  Perhaps God has spoken to us about our attitude and we have not responded to His call.  Perhaps He has clearly called us to reconcile with a brother or sister but we have refused to surrender to His call, knowing it means humbling ourselves before a fellow saint.  As result of our obstinacy we sense a loss of fellowship with Him and we wonder whether prayer will ever work again.  This is the same thing as saying that we question whether God cares and whether He will ever answer with grace.  Our minds know that God still loves us, but we have no evidence of that love at the moment and the problem is us.  It is possible that our present situation is just one more link in a long chain of resistance.

Pastor Steve addressed this congregation on Sunday, June 11.  At that time he confessed that he had sinned and asked forgiveness of the congregation for his own sin and failures.  It was a beautiful exhibition of godly repentance which no doubt encouraged many of the saints.

As he spoke you will remember that he read from the 126th Psalm. 

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,

we were like men who dreamed.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us,

and we are filled with joy. 

[Psalm 126:1-3]

You will recall that he said that the lack of reconciliation had kept him penned up in a prison, but that confession allowed him to dream again.  Later, we spoke together and he said he worshipped that day for the first time in three months.  Hardened hearts steal our joy because they steal our intimacy with God.  Hardened hearts will ensure that we cease to worship and ensure that we cease to dream and ensure that we suffer horribly.  That day Pastor Steve’s hardened heart was softened, the callus was removed, God was again able to embrace His child and intimacy was restored.  As he spoke I nearly shouted for joy, Free at last!  Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty I am free at last!

Hardening the heart results in a continuing expression.  Each time Israel resisted God it became easier to say “no” to His leading.  The South is noted for its colourful language.  Of some men it is said, He finds it easier to climb a tree and tell a lie than to stand on the ground and tell the truth.  You know the history of Israel.  The Jewish people moved ever further from God, never quite recapturing the previous height of intimacy.  Ultimately they would practise idolatry and even sacrifice their own children, just as we are capable of worshipping wealth and slaughtering our unborn to secure our own pleasure and position.

You would not stand on a street corner and shake your fist at God.  I doubt that any among us have ever shouted obscenities at Him, challenging Him to do something about it.  We have less obvious ways of being just as obstinate in resisting Him and in resisting His will.  We can become like a child who hears but does not obey the voice of his parents.  God calls us to unity in the church, to reconciliation with estranged brothers, to harmony in our service.  Will we continue to be spiritually deaf, or will we obey?

A Critical Moment —

Today…

There is a sense of urgency which I dare not permit you to miss.  The Psalmist says, today…  God calls, and I believe He is calling even now, and He expects our response without delay.  Why should we respond now?

This is the obvious time for us to respond.  This is the very heart of the issue—immediate obedience!  Failure to respond now is what constitutes hard-heartedness!  Failure to respond today only makes more likely our refusal to yield to God in the future.  Israel’s experience should be a lesson to each of us.  God gave them an opportunity to possess the land, but that possession had to be on His terms and in His time.  We must listen to God and obey His call!  Isn’t it obvious that He wants us to enter into intimacy with Him today?  Can we be sure that if we make no change today, we will have heart for it tomorrow?

Every pastor has had the sad duty of standing by the bedside of some dying individual who could not bring himself or herself to confess Christ as Lord.  Often, standing there waiting for the inevitable the pastor’s thoughts will return to a time when the heart was softer and the call clearer, but the answer even then was No.  Now, as that dying person is poised on the brink of eternity he cannot do what he always intended to do.  He always intended to trust Christ before death, but death comes and hell waits for the hardened heart and yet the procrastinator cannot submit to Christ.  What a tragedy!  In a similar manner, hard-hearted believers miss opportunities that can never be recovered.

We must respond now because this is the opportune time for us to respond.  Tom Elliff says the simple rendering of the Hebrew word translated today is in the warm hours.  He continues by making the observation that even the secular world speaks about “hot” deals that must be seized now or forever lost.[2]  Isaiah pleads with sinners in strong language.

Seek the LORD while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

[Isaiah 55:6]

Why such urgency?  Because there will come a time when God will not be found, a time when He will no longer be near and a time when He will no longer hear prayer.  Just so, the saint whose heart is hard will one day come to a time when God ceases to call, or worse yet, when that saint no longer misses the intimacy.

People can be so utterly wicked.  Adulterous individuals will sometimes attempt to excuse their sin by reminding the preacher that David, a man after God’s own heart, had similar problems.  There is a decided difference between David and such individuals, however.  When David was confronted with his sin, he immediately repented and confessed his sin.  Those who attempt to justify what they have done try to find excuses for their wickedness and their disobedience by citing selected portions of the biblical record.

God is convicting such wicked men, but in their warm hour they do not agree with Him, turn from their sin and do what would honour Him.  Likewise, we, if God speaks to us to seek intimacy with Him through seeking reconciliation with estranged brothers and through seeking unity in the church and we yet refuse, are permitting the warm hour to flee and risking intimacy for the remainder of our days.

Finally, this is the only time for us to respond.  Yesterday is past—and with it our opportunity to agree with God.  Tomorrow has not arrived—and for any one of us it may never arrive.  Only today is at our disposal.  This is the moment when God wants us to break the cycle of hard-hearted indifference and answer His call.

You dare not assume you can wait until tomorrow and find that it is just the same as today.  Remember Israel’s sad experience—one hour of rejection brought forty years in the wilderness.  Your actions are a vital part of God’s plan.  There are individuals that need to respond now.  There are men and women in this congregation who need to seek out a fellow member of this church and be reconciled now.  There are men and women listening to my voice who need to go to another person and confess that they have sinned now.  Listen to God’s Word.  Today … do not harden your hearts.  Amen.

William Mason says, Each day we wait to obey God leaves one more day to repent of and one less day to repent in.

----

[1] I am indebted to Tom Elliff for the concept for this sermon.  Tom Elliff, A Passion for Prayer, Crossway Books, Ó 1998, pp. 25-32

[2] Elliff, op. cit. Pg. 31