“God is not a man that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?”
Numbers
23:19
In
the Book of Numbers, chapter 23, a prophet by the name of Balaam is summoned by
Balak, King of the Moabites. Balak attempts to entice Balaam to put a curse on
the Israelites. However, instead of speaking a curse over them, Balaam was
instructed by God to speak blessing
Even
after Balaam explained that he could not speak anything, except what he had
heard from God; Balak persisted in trying to get a curse spoken over God’s
people. Balak persisted, in hopes, that God would change his mind or break the
promised blessing Balaam had just spoken over the Israelites. To this God
declared through the prophet that “God is not a man that he should lie, nor a
son of man, that he should change his mind.” What God had spoken he would
fulfill!
Truthfulness
is a pillar of God’s character. To deny the truthfulness of God is to deny God,
because it is who He is! Hebrews 6:17-18 tells us:
“Because God wanted to make the
unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised,
he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things
in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the
hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.”
Throughout
the Scripture, the writers of God’s Holy Word have documented and proclaimed
this to be true about Him. Isaiah the prophet and King David both referred to
Him as the God of Truth and the Apostle John declared that God is truthful and
full of truth.
Everything
about God is bathed in truth. What God does is driven by truth! What God says emerges
from truth! What God thinks is rooted in truth! His truthfulness is consistent
and unchanging:
“For his merciful kindness is great
toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord.”
(KJV)
Psalm
117:2
Truth
is so much more than a list of morally acceptable practices that we try to
conform our lives to keeping. Truth is the expression of God’s thoughts. Jesus
said in John 17:17 that God’s Word is truth. God spoke through Isaiah the
prophet in Isaiah 55:9-11:
“As the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and
flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my
word that goes out of my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will
accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
God’s
desire for us is not a dogmatic adherence to a list of rules and regulations,
but that the truth of His Word would be sown deep into our inmost being!
Pastor
Scott Burr
http://faithandworshipseries.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment