I think we are touching on two separate issues. 1. God's gospel to mankind and 2. The level of interaction God has with mankind.
God's gospel to mankind has always being simply repent and He will draw us to Him. NT, Him being Jesus.
Living after the cross, you are right. We definitely have a level of interaction with God that no generation before has had.
Just thinking further. I wonder about the prophets. They spoke like they were in constant fellowship with God and were confident that they were going to be with Him. I mean Jonah said Jonah 4:2. ''He knew God''. Are we closer to God then the prophets were? Is their confidence in going to be with God not evidence of them being new creations from looking forward at the cross? Can we better David's psalms? If their is a case to be made for the prophets, then surely many more...? I am confusing myself now.
Those are VERY good questions and definately worth asking . I have found if you ask a good question of God one that is provoked by scripture. Sooner or later you will awlays get a good answer.
There are two ways to ask God a question .
One on the foundation of unbelief .
This is after the order of John the Baptiss father .Who simply did not believe the message of the angel sent to him that his barren wife would conceive a child.
The other is of the order of Mary . Who believed the message but needed more light for understanding ."how can this be seeign I know not a man......?"
I would add to your list/ Job. Who said "in his flesh he will see God " For "he knew his redeemer liveth " and He woudl call and I will answer" Though his body lay corrupt ed in the grave .
The key to his understanding was that he ahd only HEARD of God "but now mine eyes seeth thee"
They were in constant fellowship with God .Oneman confessed to standing before the face of God .
"Little children ye knwo the father and your sins are forgiven you"
Little children know thier father . But thier expereince is of that he goes in and out . they know their mother more than their father .
"Ye fathers ye know Him who is from the beginning" It is my conviction that the church does not know God .They have in the main but heard of Him "who is from the beginning" How can it be otherwise when they do not believe he who inspired men to so write "In the beginning God created the HEAVEN and the EARTH ? and have mixed mans vain philosophies with the truth?
With the storms that are coming the church and every believer needs to know Him who is from the beginning .
Knowing him as SAVIOUR is not enough .He needs to be known who is King of kings and Lord of lords as well.
Even as to be saved FROM Egypt is not enough either .For that is but a half(?) of it for we are also saved TO God.
There are many instances of fameous people of faith in the Bible who had but heard of God .That is to say saw God as of only in the past as it were.
Modern equivelants but by no means all are those who say the day of miracles are past but not for the present.
If you listen to some who have a very ritualistic aproach to God .Theyt oo see God only in the distant past and if any future in a very distant future also .
Davids Pslams I too have found that if I have any experience in God or in life .He has bene there already and was by the grace of God able to articulate it not only for his edification and comfort but for all those who followed him.
For does not the scripture say "with the comfort we have been comforted with we comfort others"?
Some peopl e live or see God only working at the Reformation. Not denied at all that he did .
But then if he so worked then in the lives of men . Why not now?
Gidion had the same questions.
For he believed God and was meditating and asking a good question.Where was God who had wrought so mightily in the past. Judges 6
The answer was simple .The people of God had done evil in the sight of God .
Those very same people ; Midianites ,Amalekites and children of the East are the same people who are ravaging the UK and other places today.
The scriptures say that the Assyrians WERE the scourge of Israel for thier hipocracy and idolitory .It also says they were raised up to be the scourge of the gentiles too and worse. For the same reasons.
Assyria is the womb of islam and if islam has any successes today it is because of the people fo God doign what is right in thier own eyes. and primarily the USA and the UK who have know the truth and better things .
For God has not changed he si the same yesterday today and forever .
That beign so we ,the church has to start facing reality . and face it in the light of who God is what He has done for us who it is who is with us and what he ahs promised for the future and in THAT light we may do things we never would have thought was possible.
"For they that know thier God will be strong and do exploits"
The great problem Muslim have is they are under the delusion that thye are strong and they are numerically .
But it does not need many christains to defeat them.
I am not talking about bloodshed here you understand?
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal"
But they have not seen or too rarely seen strong christians full of the Spirit of God and who knwo their God sufficiently to withstand them.
or can bare witness to the truth .
There is coming a day "when thier minds will change ........" and islam will be judged .The end is sure.
But it was when Gidion began to think the right things and his thoughts drew him towards God that God then spoke to him . It weas when the communication lines were opened AND established that things began to change for the better . Both in his own life and in the lives of all "the other little ships"
and God blessed the many by the few.
He always does . Even to the Battle of Britain.
For those brave airmen did not endure what had to be endured in thier own strength . But the whole nation was praying for them and God was answerign those prayers and as the scriptures say of it "He bore them up as on eagles wings"
In the 1945 general election we forgot 1940 .
and laid the foundations of a Socialist and Godless state .
Which Winston Churchill warned this nation. "In the end the socialist will have to resort to some form of Gestapo............."
I hear as much in the States when Godless forces are trying to take 'religion' or rather Christianity out of government .
Which is an indirect attack on the Constituion and its first and primary principle .
"It is a self evident truth that all men were CREATED equal"
They are therefore trying to cut the States off at its roots .
and" if the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?"
So here so there .
But God raised up the UK and then the USA to be the defenders and upholders of those liberties that the world nwo calls its rights .
They are not rights at all.
For God is not mocked whatsoever a man sows that shall he reap.
and if any man takes diobolical liberties with his liberty he will lose them Even as Adam and Eve did thiers .
and no bill of human rights will can does or even should preserve them.
You are right then.
and i perfectly understand the 'confusion'
But it stems praimarily from the fact that THE Gospel our "so GREAT a Salvation" has been reduced at best to beign but BORNagain. At worst it has been so watered down that if it was a poison it would not kill anybody and if a medicine heal no one.
That the message TO THE CHURCHES given by HIM who said "I am the Alpha and Omega the begining and the end " who John saw and depsite the fact he was the one the closest to the Lord still fell down when |He saw him as one dead.
Said to all but one of the churches to "repent." has by those churches all changed the message as NOT applying to them . But to the world which needs to repent.
But was not the children of Isreal given for our ensample?
Another aspect to your question.
Paul says to be NOT like them. and was for that matter very concerned that the church would be decived as Eve was .That is she like Eve would believe the wrong message . or another gospel ."Not that there is another gospell............."
The old testement men of faith Paul says "were not made perfect without us" or could not be .
if they then by Pauls list in hebrews did so much with thier imperfection.(?) How then we do so little without pefection(?)
If you want a 'modern' equivelent .
If they at the reformation did so much with thier so little understanding. How is it we do so little with what some boast as our "better understanding"?
Then I must conclude as a whole we do not know God as we should or could.
I would then agree with the Lord that he is "Outside the church knocking on its door"
The knocking on the door then is a call to the whole church INSIDE to repent.
For no matter what church you or I may belong to .Wether we consider it to be THE church by whcih all must conform to or a member of THE church . then we are ALL inside the the church if we are.
Then the Lord knocking on the door for ingress . Suggests he is either unwilling or unable to enter of His own volition.
Despite the fact that after the resurection there was no door closed or locked that was either an obstical or hinderence to him eneterign a room.
The call then is to all inside the church to repent .The promise however is not to all but given to those who "have ears to hear and open the door " To THEM ........................"will I and the Father have fellowship with .
But the church has said that is not for us .it is for the unsaved and the world where the lord is knockign on the hearts door.
For we are rich increased in goods and ion need of nothing?
The world is on a downward spiral of chaos corruption and death.
The devil is trying to preempt God .
We are in the last days . Indeed the days are no longer "green" but "dry"and ready for the fire.
But that does not mean the church should go all happy clappy and 'celebrate' while millions are chained to the devils chariot to hell whos mouth is wide open and is "never satisfied"
Better would it be that she should weep now rather than rejoice that she may" enter with her sheaves rejoicing " Than to rejoice now so much and enter heaven weeping and empty handed then.
God in the beginning gave a greater light to RULE the day and a lesser light to RULE the night .
The moon even in the darkest night when it still shines ; bares witness to the world that the sun still shines adn there is coming a pefect day .
But she can only do this if her face or attitude is towards the sun constantly . and her attitude to the world is also right .
You cannot save the world by beign like the world .
Nor can you be light if you do not have light .
You cnanot excersise authority unless you are subject to authority .
and Authority never comes from below (man) but from above .
Jesus spoke with authority not as the Pharasses .
He spoke with authority because he was sent by God .
As the Father sent me so send I you.
He was sent for he proceeded from the Father .
We are sent because we have come not on our own name but His.
An easy thing to say and amny religionists have said it and do even to false prophets and apostles .
"he who comes in his own name seeks his won glory . But he who comes in the name of Him who sent him is both righteous and his message true ."
Isiah was indeed a true prophet of God.
Yet when "he saw the Lord high and lifted up " he said "woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips "
When Job saw the Lord as God revealed himself to him..
He confessed " I had heard of thee now mine eyes seeth thee ;I repent in dust and ashes........"
There are too many of such instances that we can lightly go over them and not take note.
There must come a point in every believers life when they meet with God .
Someone say s they know God ?
As Little children?
Young men?
or as fathers?
in Christ
gerald
