Four Views of God

Good morning, everyone. This past year there was a survey released, a three-year survey that had been done by Baylor University, a religious college down in Texas. They did a major survey on religion in America. Now, there are all kinds of surveys on religion in America that I happened to run across. They say this was the largest survey ever conducted. 1,700 people were asked 400 questions about American religion and spirituality. I don't know if they could get me to participate in such a survey. I don't know if I have the patience to answer 400 questions myself.

But evidently 1,700 people did. They did a different approach on this particular survey. What they did was to organize all of their data into new categories. They basically focused on dividing American religion, all of its forms and shapes, into four ways that people view God. This is how they organized everything.

Do you believe in God? Do you go to church regularly? It was what is your view of God? Four views. The four views were authoritarian, benevolent, critical, and distant. Those are the four ways that they divided the responses into how people view God. One of the professors that was in charge of the survey said it was a very powerful way to understand core differences in the United States. He said this, he said, if I know your image of God, I can tell all kinds of things about you. It's a central part of worldview and it's linked to how you think about the world in general.

I thought that was very striking. If I know your image of God, how you view God, then I know a lot of things about you. It is a central part of how you look at the world. Now, this was interesting just to break it down. Those that were categorized as looking at God as authoritarian, 31% of the people responded. 31% said they view God as authoritarian. Meaning that they look upon God as someone who is deeply involved in daily life and world events, but he's also angry and he can punish the unfaithful and the ungodly.

That's how they defined an authoritarian God. 31% of the people looked at God that way. 23% looked at God as benevolent, a God who's deeply involved in daily life and world events, but is mainly a positive force, less willing to punish. He's not quite as ticked off. Third category of the critical God, 16% of the people looked at God as critical. This is a God who does not really interact with the world, but is unhappy with the current state of the world and will exact divine judgment. 16% of the people felt that way.

And then the last category, a distant God. 24% of the people looked upon God as distant, a God who does not interact with the world and is not angry. God is more of a cosmic force that set the laws of nature in motion and just kind of walked off and just left it all to run on and it's not really involved.

A very distant God, kind of like a distant parent who walks through the house and doesn't do or say anything and walks on through and is not very involved. It's interesting. So three quarters of the people, roughly, either looked at God as authoritarian, critical, or distant. That's not a very positive view of God, is it? Distant, critical, or authoritarian. Three quarters of the people looked at God in that way. Only 23%, almost a quarter of the people, looked at God as benevolent.

Now, it's an interesting study. There was more. Two of this was published in Time Magazine a few weeks ago and it was interesting to look at that. But let me ask you this. How do you describe God? Where would you fall in that category? Or do none of them fit you? How is it that you would describe your God? Benevolent or critical, authoritarian, distant. It's going to depend a lot on how we were raised by parents. Our view of our father, mother, will inevitably impact how we view a deity in God himself.

But how would you describe God? Would you look at God as a God that blesses? Do you feel blessed by God? Do you feel that He is one who you can approach? In whatever capacity in your life? What's the lens through which you view God and how you view God of creation? Do we really know and worship by God that we know in our heart and our heart of hearts? And understand that God as someone who really wants to be involved in our life and most importantly, bless us.

This study triggered some thoughts in my mind because at the same time I read this article in Time Magazine, we were also having one of our ministers' conferences in late October. And as we do and have done for 11 years, every time we have a ministerial conference, we always conclude by reading a section of Scripture and a prayer.

The section of Scripture that we read is back in the book of Numbers 6. You can go ahead and turn there. Numbers 6. It's a blessing. And it is really a view of God. And it's a description of God of really what He's like and what He desires for His people and what He wants to do for them. It's a beautiful description of God that's found here in the book of Numbers.

Now, it's interesting that this view of God is found in the book of Numbers because, you know, some of you and a lot of people kind of divide God into an Old Testament God and a New Testament God. And most people would want to believe or believe in a New Testament idea of God, benevolent, kind, compassionate, caring, the qualities we associate with Jesus Christ. The Old Testament God that people tend to draw in their mind's eye is a vengeful, authoritarian, critical type God who is distant or willing to exact judgment upon people and is just, you know, basically ticked off. Okay? The Old Testament God. A lot of people walk around with that approach toward God.

And interestingly, this view of God that we're going to talk about here today from Numbers, chapter 6, is found, of all places, the Old Testament. And it's found within that section of the Old Testament called—are you ready?—the law. The law. That part that some people just don't even want to be—they don't even like the term, the law. When the church was breaking up about 11 years ago and we would deliberately sing, oh, how love I thy law, you could look around the congregation and tell who was going to fall where in the whole shebang.

Because of how they were either—they weren't singing for number one and they would have a frown on their face. So I deliberately told them the Last Sabbath we were associated there. I told the song leader, I said, last song you lead today, oh, how love I thy law. And we made a statement anyway. I know I didn't repent of that. I was going to say we repented of doing that, but we didn't.

But here is a view of God from Numbers 6 that really tells us—because in this chapter, beginning in verse 22, we have an account where God said to Moses, have this blessing put upon my people by the priests, Aaron and his sons, because this is going to be a declaration to them of how I feel about them. And it's a blessing that you get the impression that he wanted them told every time that there was an opportunity. Verse 23 says, speak to Aaron and his son, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. So God wanted this blessing put upon them not just once, but you get to him feeling—and some commentators feel that every time there was any type of a service within the congregation of Israel or in the temple complex and where the priests officiated—this blessing was uttered.

God wanted his people to know how he felt about them. And this is a blessing. They said, you shall say this and say to them these things. This was going to be what formed their view of God. And if you were being told this on a regular basis, if you and I were reading this, thinking about this, it could not help but impact our view of God in a positive way and a fuller way of understanding exactly how God feels about us, what he wants to do for us, and what he is doing for us.

And we recognize that and we can then develop a better relationship about God, with God, and for God among ourselves within the church. And it would be ingrained in our lives and in our hearts and believed because it is true, as it forms a framework or, if you will, a God view for us of how God really is.

Let me just read. Let's read this blessing and we'll go through it in detail. In verse 24, it begins, Very beautiful, short blessing. It doesn't go on and on and on. And it ends in verse 27, But verses 24, 25, and 26 are the real blessing that is here.

And within these three verses, there are really six great truths that we discover about God in this blessing about what he's like and what he is doing for us and how we should react back toward him. If we look at them individually, then we can begin to break it down and I think have a better view of God and make sure that we fall in certainly in a category that really fully understands God for what he is.

Now, these four categories that I gave you from this Baylor University survey in themselves are not a full description of God because certainly God is authoritarian. But it's how you define that authoritarian. God does have authority. He does have a law. He is benevolent. And God can be very critical of human behavior and does get so in the scriptures.

But if you look only at that, then you miss the whole dimension of God, his character, his nature, his purpose and his plan, what he's doing with us. I was writing this week one of my column for the next issue of World News and Prophecy and I took my column's title off of a book that I read last weekend called The History of the End of the World. It was the title of the book.

It was a book about Revelation. And the author typically just misread, misconstrued the book of Revelation as he goes through all the various misapplications through history of the book. But it's a typical of people's view of God and certainly about prophecy and even of what the world is all about because the main focus from the title is the end of the world. And the world isn't going to end. But if you take that approach and you come at everything from the idea that the world's going to end because God's ticked off and he's going to blow it up and this and that, then you misunderstand really the message of God in any shape and form whether it's Revelation, Book of Matthew, Psalms, or what's said back here in the law in the book of Numbers.

Anyway, let's go into this and let's look at this first truth in verse 24 where it says, and it's talking about what God wants to do for us and that is, he wants to bless us because it opens it says, The Lord bless you. The Lord bless you. Now this is very deep. I mean, we trivialize it sometimes.

People sneeze and somebody says, bless you. Bless you. And we kind of trivialize a blessing or we say, God bless you or this or that. But as so much of the Bible needs to be just, we need to stop, analyze what is being said, think about it, and look at what the Scriptures are telling us.

Because in this first statement, the fact is that we're being told that God wants to bless us. He desires to bless us. Even more than you and I may want to be blessed. You know, it may be that humanly speaking, so many don't even want God involved in their life. Even those who come to church, wherever their church affiliation may be, they really don't want God involved in their life. Church is just a cultural thing. Church is an obligation.

It's a duty. It's a socially acceptable thing. It's insurance. You know, just in case there is a God. But they really don't want to be blessed. They don't want God in their life. They don't want God involved whatsoever. And they don't look at God in that way as someone who is involved in their life. But this blessing as it opens is a point of reality that God will bless us. You look at the Scriptures, blessings are as old. They run throughout the entire Bible. The blessings of God run throughout the entire Bible. What did God do when He rested on the seventh day, as we're told in the book of Genesis? We're told that He blessed the seventh day.

He blessed that day. This day. This day is a blessing. It's not a curse. It's not a legalism. It's not an obligation in a burdensome way. It is an obligation, yes, in a sense that God does command us in His law to observe it. But it all begins with a blessing. God blessed Adam and Eve.

How? Well, He told them to be fruitful and multiply. God blessed Abraham. He said, I'm going to bless you if you go and do as I tell you and obey me and get up and go to this country. He blessed Noah after the flood. He blessed Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Christ took little children up in His arms. And what did He do? He blessed them. He blessed them. On the Sermon on the Mount, what does Christ say? Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And you go right down the list. You find blessings all through the Bible. He blessed His disciples when He departed from them in Acts 1. And He ascended for the final time.

He pronounced a blessing on them. In the book of Revelation, that dastardly book of all books that is the book about the end of the world is the title of the one book I read last week said, there are blessings throughout the book of Revelation. I gave a sermon a couple of years ago, I think it has been, on the seven blessings from the book of Revelation.

There are many blessings right there. So from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible talks about blessing and God wanting to bless. That's His desire. Is that benevolent? Yes. Is that caring? Yes. Is that distant? I don't think so. But is it our view of God? No, when you look at the word blessing, we find it throughout the Scriptures and obviously the instances are there.

It's interesting just to look at the meaning of the word and what God is telling us. In the Hebrew, the Hebrew word for blessing or declaration as it comes out is barak, B-A-R-A-K. And has nothing to do with the potential presidential runner here, but it is barak, B-A-R-A-K. The Greek word that is translated blessing is makarios, M-A-K-A-R-I-O-S. M-A-K-A-R-I-O-S. Makarios. That means happy. In other words, so you put it together, you kind of declare to be happy or oh how happy. You know, blessing is a term of happiness.

In the Greek, the word makarios, you may have heard that term because there are certain Greek Orthodox patriarchs that have been named makarios in recent memory. But the word, it comes from a description for the island of Cyprus, the Greek island off of the coastal Greece there in the Mediterranean, that was looked upon in the ancient times as a paradise of exquisite beauty.

They looked and described what we call Cyprus with that term of makarios and a place that had it all. It was beautiful in the epitome of perfection. In other words, it was a place where you didn't need anything. And the Greeks believed that the people who lived on that island had it made. They didn't really need anything. No reason to leave the island. It was all there. You put it all together and you kind of get a picture that when God blesses us and in His blessing of us, that God gives us all that He has because He does own all.

And with that blessing and with that spiritual relationship, we really have what all that we do need. That doesn't mean we have all the money we need or every aspect of our life necessarily filled in with all the details. We still have choices to make, a life to live. But it represents that the inner core of our life is filled. And we have what we need in the terms of a spiritual understanding and a spiritual relationship. The answers are at hand. In the very first verse of the very favorite Psalm, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, it says.

With God as our shepherd, with that God that we know, we know we're not going to be in want. We're going to have what we need. Again, God blesses us, and that blessing has material aspects to it, but far more importantly, it has a spiritual dimension in terms of that relationship that we have with God. And if we understand that, and the calling and our focus is on God, then we know we have all that we need. And from there, it will begin to guide direct the decisions that we make, the way we live our daily life.

It will produce a contentment. It should produce a peace of mind, peace of heart. And it should present a focus on us of what God desires to do with our lives. Let's look at the second truth that we see here in the latter part of verse 24, and it says, And keep you. The Lord bless you and keep you. God wants to keep us. He wants us to be assured that He's watching over us physically.

He's watching over us spiritually. We're not alone. We will forget that. We will sometimes think that we are all by ourselves. Moses thought that at various times. Elijah thought it. He came through the biggest demonstration of God's work with Him and His confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And then he ran from Jezebel into the wilderness and he cowered from her and he felt he was all alone. And that's a common human trait.

Sometimes even after we feel that we have been closer to God or God has dramatically intervened in our life and we have a deep feeling that God has been involved with us, we can the next day of the next week or very shortly thereafter we can be we could take a slump spiritually, emotionally, mentally and feel we're all alone. Wake up one morning or something happens and we feel that we're all by ourselves. Even after we've had a spiritual triumph, a spiritual success, that's part of the way God's servants react. And yet we are told He will keep us physically and spiritually.

I looked up the word keep in the dictionary and it was just in this case a very interesting exercise. I have a Webster's Standard Collegiate dictionary on my shelf and I don't I have to admit I don't pull it off the shelf as much anymore because whenever I have a word that I want to look up for spelling or definition, it is easier now to Google it.

And you just type it into Google, boom! It comes right up. I mean, I can't even get up out of my chair, walk across my office any quicker to pull the book off of the shelf. But this time I did and I looked up the word keep. It would be an interesting exercise. And nearly a third of a column and then maybe a quarter into the second column in the dictionary was taken up with a definition of this English word keep and what it means.

And, you know, it means to preserve. It means to maintain. It means to watch over and to defend, to conduct, or in a sense that we are conducted safely through to safety, to a safer arrival on a trip or a journey, to manage, to maintain a course, direction, or progress, to continue without interruption or without distraction.

There's an archaic use of the word that we don't use so much anymore, but if you're reading or watching a movie about knights and kings in the Middle Ages and castles, you ever heard the term the keep of the castle? The castle keep? Well, the keep of a castle, of an ancient fortress, was probably the innermost room behind the walls and within the castle. They called it the castle keep. It was the most hidden, secure section of a castle or of a fortress.

So you put your most valuable possessions in the keep, and there it was kept from harm, from robbery, from discovery. The castle keep. It's an interesting study of the word, and it can help us understand this idea of God keeping us and this promise that He gives us to keep us.

The Lord bless you and keep you. He is going to hold us, keep us, and keep us from harm, and usher us safely through the journey of this life, the adventure of this life, ultimately into the sure salvation of His kingdom. Let's look at just one or two references here back in the book of Jude. Jude 24.

Jude 24 is just one reference to where God His promise to keep us. God is able to keep us from stumbling, to keep us ultimately through faith for salvation. He will keep us. That doesn't mean we abrogate our responsibility. We have our part to play as well. Actually, if you look back at verse 21, we are reminded of that when it says, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. We have our role to play as well. So there's no contradiction. God will keep us, but we have to make sure we are vigilant and keep ourselves as well. So there's two sides to this coin. But it's God guiding us and leading us as a parent would with a child walking across a street, takes the child's hand, wants to keep it from harm, keep it safe, wants to keep it on the journey across the street, isn't it? Or through the mall, through the Kmart or Walmart, wherever it is that we find ourselves with our kids, with our grandkids, and we take their hand, we want to take them safely through that particular or across. To do that, you've got to have the cooperation of the kid. If you take the child's hand, you want them to willingly give it to you and keep it there. You don't want them to jerk away from you when you're right in the middle of the intersection. Or when you turn your head and you're looking at some item on the shelves, and they jerk away from you and run off and disappear and upsets everything and you can't find them. So it takes the desire to keep and the cooperation to work together on that, to accomplish this. But it is very, very important. God keeps us in our life, in our faith, as we do our job, in our responsibilities. Some might ask, maybe you were thinking, you know, sometimes even in spite of our best efforts and what we think are God's best efforts, we're still in trouble. Or we still have a trial. Well, you know what? The answer to that is, sometimes God keeps us in trouble. He keeps us in a trial. And He keeps us in that way. And in that He protects us through the trial. He protects us to the point that we will not be completely destroyed emotionally, spiritually. But He's going to allow trials to come upon us. We know that from many other scriptures. It's not a point to go through all of that. But God guides us even through the messes that we have made, till we honor Him, till we learn what we need to learn. And sometimes He even allows situations to develop in our lives that He might receive the glory. As we learn faithfulness in Him, we look at people like Daniel, who had to be cast into the lion's den, through no fault of his own, other than faithfulness. But God's glory was shown in that. Now, we don't go through such dramatic experiences for God's glory to be shown. But if we look how we have been delivered, if we look at how we've even been kept, then we can understand. Christ Himself had to go into the wilderness as He began His ministry in Matthew 4, we're told. He went into the wilderness to be tempted. And that's part of His preparation for what had to come.

God's Spirit led Him into that wilderness. It didn't lead Him away from the wilderness. It led Him into the wilderness, we're told. You know, we might say, what about accidents, terrible accidents that happened to good people? What about death?

And those whys? Where's the keeping there? Well, I think also we have to realize that God's promise is for us to live forever in His Kingdom. Sometimes it is to live long, and sometimes it is to die peacefully, but it's not always. We have no say over the length of our life, only the quality of our life, as we know God and we live it accordingly. God provides the strength and the comfort as the need emerges, in life and in death, because He owns both worlds. He is in control of both, and we have to accept His will as we go through that. There's a wonderful poem that I heard many years ago. I'll take the moment to read this poem. It's called, The Man at the Gate. And it kind of speaks to this, of putting our hand in God's hand or letting God guide us even when we don't always see exactly the whys and the wheres. It's called, The Man at the Gate. I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied, Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than the light and safer than a known way. So I went forth, and finding the hand of God trod gladly into the light.

It's an interesting poem. King George VI, the present queen's mother, I'm sorry, father, read this in 1939, actually 1938, just a few months before England and Europe was plunged into World War II. They saw the war clouds on the horizon. And he read this poem in his year-end address. And it is a good poem for the year-end. The days are dark and gloomy. The light is short to focus in that way, to put our hand into God's and go out into the dark toward the light, the gate of the year. Let's go back to the third truth here in verse 20, back in Numbers 6.

And it says in verse 25, The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. You know, a smiling countenance, a friendly face, is always interpreted as a mark of pleasure when it's turned toward someone. You think of when your children accomplish something, when your adult children walk through the door, when the grandkids come running, whether it's with your children, with your grandchildren, you want to bathe them in affection. You want to let your face, you beam, you just light up. We talk about people beaming in terms of expectation or actual realization. This verse here really tells us, brethren, that we don't worship a ticked-off God. We don't worship a God that is just hostile or critical or distant. But God's face shines upon us.

This is how God looks at us. God is good. God is gracious. He is very good. Back in Psalm 86.

The 86th Psalm.

Verse 5.

Down in verse 8.

For you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God. God looks down upon us and He shines His face upon us. What was it that Christ said to His disciples just before His death? He said, I call you friends.

I call you friends. That's what God has called us into, that type of a relationship, to experience and to enjoy His love, what He is and what He's doing for us. His comfort, His care, and His concern. It transcends the darkness with the light of His smile. And that's the kind of God that we have. The very type of God who likes to see us, who enjoys hearing from us, who enjoys the fact that we have accepted that calling, His invitation to eternal life, and we walk into the doors of His house.

And we address Him every morning, every day, and invite Him into our life. That we look to Him first. That we look to Him more than we look to any other human being, any other human organization.

We look to Him and we rely on Him. He is pleased by that because His face shines upon us and He is very gracious. This is what this blessing says. And He is concerned and He wants to hear from us and that relationship lights up our life. Let's look at the fourth truth. It says, And be gracious unto you, and be gracious unto you.

Now that's another reality about God, and it's another gift from God. We can't be reminded of that too often. We get here into the concept, obviously, about grace, mercy, and everything that involves, because we have the term looked upon. But it says, May He be gracious unto you. I've talked about this before, and I think one of the best ways that, you know, sometimes we have a, maybe you do, I don't know, I look at people that have been gracious, that are gracious people, who are polite, who are considerate of others, who want to say kind words, and who are not just always picking or critical, but people who are very gracious in their life. And we talk about a gracious lifestyle or a gracious style, and, you know, very often people used to, you don't hear it so much anymore used, but people used to name the girls grace a lot more often than you see today. That doesn't mean that that little girl named Grace is going to be a gracious person, but from time to time I've known a Grace or two that indeed are. They live up to their name. But it's a quality of life. But when we look at it from God, it is how He is. You know, Grace, understood from a biblical point of view, is very important. Grace is different from mercy. Grace is different from justice. Justice is getting what we deserve. Justice is getting what we deserve. Maybe kind of like Saddam Hussein last night. Did he get what he deserved? And the Iraqi court decided that he did.

That's what justice is. Mercy is different, obviously. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. You deserve ten years. You deserve five hours of detention in school or whatever it might be after school. I don't know how they do meet-up punishments today so much in school, but you know, you used to have to stay after school for five hours, and so it would be like five days that you would have to stay after. You'd be given that. But if somebody extended us mercy, we may have deserved it, but we didn't get it. We were given mercy. But that's not grace. Grace is not mercy. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. It's getting what you don't deserve. We don't deserve grace. We don't deserve it, but we get it. That's what grace is. That's how you distinguish between grace and mercy, especially. We get grace from God. May His grace, may He be gracious to you. We don't deserve that. God's going to give us salvation. He's going to give us eternal life. We don't deserve it. No way we can earn it, but He's going to give it to us by His grace. We're going to get what we don't deserve. God gives us His grace even when we aren't even mindful of it. Even when we don't even know enough about it to thank Him for His grace. This blessing says that He is gracious unto us.

And you know something? Those of... Let's face it, most of you knock around in today's world a whole lot more than I do. You know, I deal with members of the church. I deal with church issues. In recent years, I do a lot more study, research, and writing for editorial than even some of the other things. You get out, you deal with the public, as my dad used to tell me. In Europe, jobs, your businesses, your factories, your places of employment, you deal with this world all the time. And it's a knockabout type of situation. Very often, the only smiling face you might get is when you come to church. Or the only grace, really, ultimately, that you're going to find is from God. It's only God who will be gracious. And sometimes, even... depends on where we find ourselves, that may be the only place that we find it altogether.

We get that favorable regard from God, but we need that. We don't deserve it. God gives it anyway. He gives it when we forget to acknowledge it. He gives it to us when we are as bad as we might be at any given time, in terms of an attitude or caught in a trap of a sin. He still gives us grace. He still looks upon us in a gracious way. Far more, in a way, that it's very difficult for us to understand.

And we need that. We need the love and the support and the forgiveness of a God that constantly loves us and desires our success. You know, in the story, in the Gospels, where Christ said to Peter that Satan has desired you, to sift you. But I've prayed for you, Peter. And he says, and when you return, strengthen the brethren. Christ knew what was going to happen with Peter. He knew what was taking place behind the scenes. He knew that Peter was one that was singled out by Satan for special attention. And that Peter was going to fall. He was going to have a big come-down. Peter didn't know it. At the time, Peter thought he was the first among equals. And he didn't really look at the others as his equal. He thought he was better than the other eleven. And he was going to be the one to be God's Christ champion and defender. And Christ said, look, Satan has desired to sift you. And by that, Christ was saying he can sift you just like that. And Peter, you're going to come down. But Christ knew that beyond there was, and there will be an opportunity. And Peter would respond to it, because he'd already scoped out his character. And he knew that Peter would come back.

Christ was, in a sense, dealing with Peter in a gracious way.

He was telling, he was giving him a warning, but he was also giving him encouragement. That even after you, you know, you're in the midst of your shame, your disappointment in yourself, and you think you've really blown it, Peter, remember what I say.

Strengthen the brother, which means you can get grace. You can come back. And that must have been in Peter's mind long after that night, when he had denied Christ three times, and helped him to work through in the succeeding days back into the man that he ultimately became, with the help of God's Spirit, because God's grace was upon him. And that was a part of the blessing. Let's look at a fifth truth here in Numbers 6.

Verse 26 says, the Lord lift up His countenance upon you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, which means God is always attentive to us. His face is looking at us. His eyes are on us. As we say, look at me. He's looking at us right here. And He's paying attention. Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody, and you can tell by their eyes and their body language, that they don't want to be talking to you, and they're looking over your shoulder to see who else has come into the room, or where else they can be? And they're not looking at you, and you're talking to them. You're trying to explain something. You're pouring your heart out, perhaps, and you're into it, and they're looking over your shoulder. And you finally realize they don't want to talk to me. How sad that is. I mean, we've all had it happen to us. And probably a lot of us have done it to other people, too, haven't we? No, I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to be hearing this. Can I get over toward the punch bowl? Can I sit down next to somebody else? Or are there cell phone rings? And they get up and leave. Like mine did two weeks ago.

It's off today.

I guess it's a good thing I had it on. It was a member whose father had died that called two weeks ago. Mr. Dowling had died, and his daughter was calling, and she didn't know I would be here. And we laughed about it at the funeral, but I explained to her where I was. And she heard me pick it up and open it and say, I forgot to turn this off. And she knew where I was, and that's why she didn't call back, but it was off anyway. But anyway, even at that, we can talk about that phenomenon that we have today, with all of us being wired into with a cell phone, and people walking around in the midst of a crowd, or I've seen people get up during church and answer a call. They're not engaged with you. They're not engaged with what's going on. And sometimes I've seen people who truly do use the phone, that cell phone, as a tool to promote themselves and to give the impression that they're an important person. And they're more important than whatever's going on in the meeting or whatever, and they have to take this call, and you see them pacing or walking, and you get the message very quickly that they think they're more important. And you take the measure of someone like that, and someone that may be looking over your shoulder when you're trying to talk with them, and you realize they're not interested. Their countenance isn't upon you. It's really on them and someone else that can do something more for them. But that's not how God looks at us, you and I. His eyes are on us. His ears are attentive to our prayers, as one of the psalms says. When it mentions lifting up this countenance, it means to focus by looking, noticing, showing interest. We have God's full attention. That's what this part of the blessing is saying. We have God's full attention when we talk to Him. Now, we need to be reminded of that at times, because when we pray, we often might wonder, is it getting any further than the ceiling? Is it really making any difference? But if we believe God's word, if we believe this blessing, if we look at this blessing as part of what frames our view about God, then we believe that His eyes and His ears are focused on us at that moment. And He is listening, which means we better be careful what we say, what we ask for. We might get more than what we bargained for at a particular time. There's an instance in the book of Daniel, chapter 9, where Daniel was wanting understanding regarding the 70-weeks prophecy that had been made through Jeremiah. Daniel, chapter 9.

And he started his prayer. He started his period of seeking God. And he goes through what may be a summation here. The prayer begins in verse 1 of chapter 9. It goes through 19 verses, and this prayer being poured out by Daniel.

And verse 21 tells us that while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. So there had been some time go by, and he informed me and talked with me and said, Oh, Daniel, I've now come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplication, the command went out, and I've come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved. Therefore, consider the matter and understand the vision. So several hours at least had gone by in this period of prayer that Daniel was in. And he's told here that really the command went forth from the very beginning. You were heard from the beginning. God's countenance was upon you, Daniel. His eyes were upon you. His ears were open to what you were saying. It was just now there was a little bit of a delay. God always reserves the right to delay his response and to delay an answer. But that doesn't mean he's not hearing. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care. That doesn't mean even that he will intervene in the affirmative. Because this blessing tells us that God is, his countenance is always upon us. He's watching and he's responding. And we can expect that as we live our life each day with God, the one who walks along beside us. God's countenance is always upon us. The last phrase that we can look at here is, and give you peace. And give you peace. May his countenance be upon you and give you peace. This is really speaking about a tranquility of heart, a peace of mind. It's not always the absence of strife. It's not always the absence of discord. We can still have peace of mind in the midst of turmoil, in the midst of a trial, in the midst of anger and angry people, upset. In many situations, we can still have peace of mind, again, if we are looking to God. It's an inner strength. It's a security of the heart of a person whose mind is on God, whose mind is focused there. And we have God completely in a full perspective of our life. Remember what Christ said, again, going back to his final hours with his disciples, as John tells us? Christ said, peace I leave you. A peace that's not of this world. But he said, peace I leave you. And looking back on it, perhaps the disciples felt, what did he mean by that? We are entering into the biggest time of trial. He's being killed. We're being hounded and hunted. And it looks like it's all up. What do you mean, peace? Christ was giving them the biggest gift that they needed to move forward with their life and with the work of the church. Peace. His peace, which is an inner peace. As he had with Peter, Christ had visited the future. He knew what lay ahead, but he also knew what it would take to go through. Christ waits in the future to meet us. He's already there. He was already there in his mind, even as he was about to face the biggest trial of his life, because he had that peace of mind. Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7 give a whole listing of things for us to meditate on. Things that are noble, pure, and peaceful. When we meditate on those things, then we have a mind of what God is like. The things we have been discussing tell us and show us that. Now, going back here to Numbers 6, the blessing is three verses. But then it concludes, by God saying, So shall they put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

This is not, per se, the blessing, but it is a part of what God wants us to learn from it, because he says, This is how I put my name on them. Now, you understand so much of the symbols of the Old Testament situation, the tabernacle, the way the tribes were camped around the tabernacle. The tabernacle was always in the center of the encampments of Israel during their years here in Numbers and the time of wandering in the wilderness. The tabernacle was set up in the center, and the tribes would set up their camps around the tabernacle. So God was always in the center of his people. Just as God is always in the center of our life, of our heart and of our mind. That's where God is, and that's where he is working. And the Israelites had to face their tents toward the tabernacle to give them a view of what God was and is and what he was doing. And God is saying, my name will be upon them and I will bless them.

That's the all-encompassing aspect of God's identity and has great significance. He's the center of our life. Just as he was in the center of the camp of Israel, he is at the center of our life. We understand what this blessing is talking about. So what is our view of God as a result of this? I hope that we can begin to make this part of our blessing, part of something that we go back to and we think about. We recognize and we understand God through this blessing. As I said, this has become a tradition for the ministry. Every time we have a regional meeting and gathering, we will conclude by a minister coming up and reading this, and then we will have a brief prayer of dismissal. It's something that we expect. It's grown on us over the years. We didn't do that previously, but it's been done among our gatherings in the United Church of God. It focuses, centers, and it does provide us a measure of peace.

It should be something that we look back on and help to frame our minds. Let me read it once more here in conclusion, and let's make sure that it's something we begin to be written in our mind and in our heart to help us frame and focus our view upon the great God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.