With or Without Him?

Is God with you?

Let me begin this piece with a story. It involves my two pets. I try to take my dog for a walk twice daily, something she is always quite keen on. (I probably should do more things with her – she might have a rather boring life in some ways!)

When we head out the front door, my dog will race out. But often my cat wants to go out as well, but she takes her dear sweet time doing so. I urge her to hurry it up, so I can close the door and catch up with my dog. But often Jilly dog will wait at the end of the driveway, turn around and look back to see if I am still with her. I am always glad she does that: she still depends on me, at least to some extent. She knows that I should be with her.

And that is all good sermon material for a discussion about God’s presence. There are at least three senses in which God is with us. One, he is with everyone in the sense that he is omnipresent. No one can escape his presence. But two, he is with his people in a special sense. The Holy Spirit indwells believers, but not non-believers. And three, there may be special tasks or missions God calls us to in which we especially need him to be with us.

That is, you might think you are supposed to do something particular for God, but perhaps it is the wrong time or not being done in the right way. Thus if you recklessly charge ahead without carefully and prayerfully seeking God in all of it, you might be going without God. That is not a good place to be in. Consider what we find in Exodus 33:12-17:

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 favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

Moses had it right: we would not go anywhere unless he was convinced that the Lord was with him. He knew that disaster, not blessing, would occur if Israel attempted to do anything apart from the Lord’s presence. Various other clear examples of this are found in the Old Testament narratives.

Recall the story of the 12 Israelite spies who went to Canaan and came back with their differing reports. Only two of the 12 believed that Israel could take the land that God had promised. In Numbers 14:36-45 we read this:

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.

Such presumption! Iain Duguid comments on this episode as follows:

The people of Israel were not radically transformed by their experience of the Lord’s mercy. Even though they mourned bitterly, they were far from repentant in their hearts. They were sorry for the effects of their sin, but not for the sin itself. You can see that was the case from the fact that their very next act was a continuation of their unbelief. Instead of following the Lord’s instructions and setting out back toward the Red Sea, they set out to try and take Canaan in their own strength (14:40). In spite of Moses’ warning that they would not succeed, they set off presumptuously to try to reverse the judgement on themselves. Earlier they refused to enter the land because of unbelief: now they tried to enter the land out of unbelief. Unsurprisingly, beaten back by the inhabitants of the land (14:45). Without the Lord’s help they should indeed have been afraid to take on the giants who occupied the land.

And another noteworthy example of all this is found in Joshua 6-8. Let me lay it out for you in outline form:

Joshua 6 tells us about how the people of Israel defeated the people of Jericho.
Joshua 7 tells us about how the people of Ai defeated the people of Israel.
Joshua 8 tells us about how the people of Israel defeated the people of Ai.

So what was going on there? Those familiar with these stories know that there was a great win at Jericho. The reason for it, and a summary of what my article is about, is found in Josh. 6:27: ^“So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.”

But God was no longer with Israel when they challenged Ai, because there was sin in the camp. The sin of Achan had infected the whole of the people, and that had to be dealt with first (Josh. 7). After it was, then they could go out and see victory, because God was with them (Josh. 8).

The lessons for Christians today should be obvious. God has taken up residence in believers, which is great news. But we still need to know what to do and when to do it. If we go off half-cocked, without having sought to discern the Lord’s will about a certain activity or endeavour, we may well fall flat on our faces, because God did not go with us.

We must never be presumptuous in other words. Certainly, all important decisions in life (choosing a spouse, a new job, and so on) must not be lightly entered into, but much prayer and consideration is needed. We want to discern the will of God in such matters.

So too in various Christian activities, be it heading overseas as a missionary, setting up a new church, or even holding a neighbourhood Bible study. We want to know first that God is in it and that he will be with us. And a related lesson is that just because God may have led us one way in the past does not mean he will always work the same way in the future. In his studies in the book of Joshua, Francis Schaeffer put it this way:

The sequence of events at the fall of Ai was completely different from what had happened at Jericho. At Jericho there had been a miracle: The walls had fallen. At Ai there was no miracle. The Israelites had to take the city through the normal processes of war. God is not mechanical but personal. He is not going to deal with every situation in a mechanical way. We must not think that because God acts one way in one moment, he will act the same way in another. We must recognize that God is free. He uses many methods. At Jericho there was a miracle; at Ai none.

 

We Christians should not be surprised when the Holy Spirit leads us in different ways at different times. He will not contradict his own principles or character as set forth in the Scripture, but he will not act like a machine, always responding to similar situations in exactly the same ways. When a Christian falls into the idea that because Jericho has been taken one way, Ai must be taken the same way, he has stopped thinking of God as personal.

I also quite like what David Howard says about the contrasts found in Joshua:

Several parallels exist between the accounts in Joshua 2 and 7. In Joshua 2, Rahab, a believing Canaanite, acted faithfully and, as a result, was promised deliverance from destruction. In effect, she became an Israelite. In Joshua 7, Achan, a disbelieving Israelite, acted faithlessly and, as a result, was not delivered but destroyed. In effect, he became a Canaanite. Achan thus stands as a foil to Rahab, and the two characters embody striking contrasts.

Yes quite so. Christians can act like Christians at certain times, while acting like pagans at other times. It all depends on whether we are earnestly seeking to follow the Lord and obey him in all things. Putting together these various comments, we can say that God may have called a Christian to a certain ministry, but….

It may have been successful, but it came to its appointed end. But other folks might encourage this person to get back into it, or start another one like it. But if God is not leading this way, the results will not be good. We cannot live on past successes and past leading. God may have had us do things for a certain season, but no longer. We need to keep in step with the Spirit for our daily leading and direction.

A final and related lesson for the believer is found in the words of James Montgomery Boice as he discusses the chapters from Joshua that we have been considering. He writes:

What a short step there is between a great victory and a great defeat. One moment we are riding high on the cloud of some great spiritual success. The next moment we are plunged into the dark valley of some grim spiritual failure. One moment we are Elijah standing on Mount Carmel, calling down fire on God’s altar. The next moment we are Elijah at Horeb, complaining to God: “I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (1 Kings 19:10).

Yes, there will always be highs and there will always be lows. We will not always win every battle, and sometimes we may well struggle, despair and even doubt. But God never changes. So even though our circumstances or outcomes might change, God does not.

Thus we can persevere, knowing that we will not be abandoned by God, and our seeming lows and failures are not the end of the story. So we must remain faithful. And I conclude with what I began this piece with. I am glad that my Jilly dog, even as she ages, still will pause and look back and make sure that I am still with her.

She knows that it is good to be with the master, and not to run ahead. I also need to keep learning this lesson – to always stay with my Master in all that I am doing. And you may need to learn that lesson as well.

[2075 words]