Our Father Which Art In Heaven

Duet. 7:6-11, Isaiah 43:1-28, Jeremiah 29:10-14

On this Father’s Day, I would like to spend a few minutes discussing our True Father and His children, the chosen people of Israel! God’s children.

Deut. 7:6-11.........God chose this group of people, this is very interesting, because God made humans and gave them the ability to reproduce, so in truth we all belong to God, we all are His creation, but He chose this ethnic group to be His people!

Why? The promise goes back to Abraham, and God’s promise that He would give Abraham and Sarah a son and from that son will be God’s chosen!

That is how the ethnicity starts because it is through Abraham’s seed, but why Abraham?

James 2:23 “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.”

Everything about God’s children began because of faith and out of that people of faith will a “holy” people, set apart for God!

These are to be above all other peoples on the earth!

That is a pretty strong declaration, but true! The only way to be apart of this ethnic group was faith, belief in nothing else but God, to renounce all other sources and to believe in God as the Owner and Maker of all things and follow His way!

Those that did not would certainly be repayed, they would be considered haters of God and receive the wrath of God!

This is a powerful declaration and it has not changed, nor has God changed.....but mercy has intervened and because we all are not destroyed! Love and Mercy is the only explanation why God has avenged the prophets that were killed, the apostles, and all those that have died for Jesus’ Name sake!

Turn with me briefly to Jeremiah 29.....we have been here before, I just want to point out something before we get into our final text.....

We quote Jer. 29:11 for graduations and such as that....which is ok....but this is a spiritual peace and prosperity, it has nothing to do with earthly goods, that stuff comes and goes, but there is an eternal peace, rest, joy, goodness with God that is unfathomable.........1 Corinthians 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

I can search out history and find men that faithfully served Jesus Christ, whose life on earth was the exact opposite of peace and prosperity, but these promise of peace and prosperity they received when they entered into the presence of God!

Notice, however, that Israel is in captivity which God allowed them to be in, because of their idolatry and disobedience........but God is promising them an expected end.......this almost sounds like a prophecy of the great tribulation when the Jews as nation will come to repentance and believe in Jesus Christ and will receive their inheritance.....God also delivers them from their captivity after 70 years (which was ordained by God)!

Those that seek God with all their heart.....that means abandon all our so-called sources and follow His Source which is Jesus Christ for us now,.........

God does shut off being found by His own people who have continually fallen away from their God and Father!

Tracey and I were talking Friday and she said something about how many people in the our country today who say they don’t believe in God......

You can go back to Noah, Adam was alive when Noah came to be, so all of Noah’s generation had to know about God, the Garden of Eden, the Fall, the casting out of the Garden, Cain and Abel,.....everyone had to know that.....

Then you have this old man (Noah) building a ship (arc) at the Lord’s command, because He was going to flood the earth, because of disobedience, they hated God by refusing to believe in Him!

Peter calls Noah, a preacher of righteousness, as he built the arc, when haven’t every rained in that day, no one believing that the earth would be flooded, but Noah preached the right way to go by building in faith....

With all the previous knowledge of history with Adam and a faithful preacher, Noah only 8 people chose the right way!

Abraham, as he came to Sodom and Gomorrah, he prayed for this city....

If there be 50 righteous spare it, 50 was not found

40....none found

10.....none found

How quickly humans forget God and fall back to the fallen way!! There is a way of peace and it is only through faith in God’s way!

Leonard Ravenhill said in a sermon one time, speaking of the United States and all the pages of God’s Word that we have, all the history of mankind and God’s punishments and deliverances.......... “with all this that we have to feed on, we are still the rottenest nation on earth!”

I believe God feels that way and felt that way back in those historic moments of disobedience and deliverance!

Turn with me to Isaiah 43........Really I started only to touch on one thing....why does God our Father use captivity and other means on Israel and even us at times.........but this Word has grown within me.....

However, human beings like to go their own way....that was the first sin and continues to be the Great Sin....Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way; And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Israel done it over and over again, Gentiles have done it over and over again!

God will cause a calamity, it seems that God the Father, takes away our comforts and allows us to suffer for a time to cause us to turn back to Him!

It is not that way in every case, but He has used that on Israel as we have seen!

God has a promise for us and it is a great one.....this chapter God tells of a “new thing”......something greater than anything we can see, hear, or think of.....it is not available in the fallen creation.....it is only available with God and following Him and that will bring us to that expected end/new thing!

But why does God allow His people to fall into these calamities.......I would say the reason belongs to us and our continuing falling away......God just opens the door for those things to happen to show us Who is and also what is the reality of following our flesh and the world!

Hebrews 12:11 “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

The answer is int his text....that there is only One God, there was nothing before God and there will never be anything after Him.......He and His Way is the ONLY Savior......there is not another anywhere!

There has been, is, and will be so much devastation in human existence and it has all been caused by us going our own way!

How does God change our desire of going our own way, is to really open up our own way, a life without God, how would that be for you?

You can read about Sodom and Gomorrah, there was not even 10 people there that trusted God and walked in His ways.........and you see how those people were, perverted, violent, people doing unseemly things!

God gives us a glimpse of a life without His Gracious protection, to bring us to the place where we understand that anything other than God Himself is evil!

What is even greater than His protection is His Grace, His forgiveness and willingness to forgive.....to not ever remember our trespasses!

Israel will be forgiven and be redeemed in the millennial reign of Christ....but in the meantime it has been a pretty bad go for them and will get worse......

But God will deliver them! They will turn from their idolatry and disobedience and follow Jesus!

The main point is the God is the Only Way, through Jesus Christ, He is the only One, there is no other.......human’s redemption does not come unless it is by God....

Satan has tried to hide human’s need for redemption.......we fall into his trap on many occasions, God will allow our disobedience to be tough to reveal to us that we have no other hope than God!

It is God Who has loved us, we play no part in this.......1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Later on in 1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”

In our Wed. Night study we are in Daniel and last Wed. we read ch. 3 about the 3 Hebrew children........

They were commanded to bow down to the King’s golden image and they refused.........

Their response was powerful......Daniel 3:17-18 “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

Their faith wasn’t in the deliverance, it was in God.......they had no doubts of God’s power, never questioned it through their captivity..........their faith was in that there was only One God and there was none before God nor will there be one after God.......and they was not going to compromise their faith in God by bowing down to an image, just to save their life!

God delivered them from the fiery furnace, but that actual power in this historical event was not the deliverance, their faith in God gave them the understanding that God can do anything, what jumps off the page is their belief in God period and not jeopardizing that!

Let us quit looking at the circumstance and believe in God our Father, and believe.......