God's Personality

Do you remember what you were doing in the latter half of 1977? Now, some of you would have trouble answering that if you weren't here, but I do. Not exactly for all of that period, but one thing I did several times that year, I went to see Star Wars. On the big screen in the movie theaters, when I say I didn't have any choice, DVD players weren't around yet. I think that before all was said and done, that the latter half of 1977 and going into the next year, I went to see that movie about 12 times. Fortunately, it cost a lot less back then. I think it was about $3.00. Less if you went to a matinee. And my memory is a little fuzzy. I think I paid for about half of those out of my own money, and my overly indulgent mother paid for the other half. Now, you might think, how crazy was that? But remember, as I said, we didn't have CDs or even VHS common back then. And when I was studying media history, which I did as a minor in college, I learned that that movie actually changed a lot of the way business was done in theaters. It was the first movie that many people went to see over and over again. It stayed in the theaters for over a year. And that's unheard of these days. I still remember back then we opened something that was called a newspaper to check and see what movies were playing when. And I still remember when it was winding down and say, you know, only four weeks left before it goes away. Nowadays, if a movie's in the theaters for four weeks, it's something else. Now, Star Wars affected our culture in many more ways than just how cinemas did their business. It captured the imaginations of people across the country. That's one of the reasons people are so excited. It's been about a month now since a trailer came out for the new movie, which will be, what, I think number seven out of the total?

And especially, I think for those my generation and younger, it just captured our imaginations. I think there was a time when I was 14 when, at the drop of a hat, I would have loved to have flown off into outer space to fight bad guys and save the galaxy.

Now, to be honest, how many of you guys here would have liked to have been Han Solo? A number? And a number would have preferred to be Luke Skywalker.

I did an informal survey, actually, after I started working on this. Because I remember, you know, my thought then was, sure, Han's cool. He dresses cool. He's got the funny quips. But Luke was the true believer. He was the one who wanted to use the Force and save the day. And I've got a post-it note added to my notes. I did an informal survey just asking a lot of people I knew, and I tried to ask younger ones, about which one of those two characters you identified with more. There was a big age gap, but generally those who are over 45 identified more with Luke than with Han. I suspect it's because they saw the first movie and then had to wait for the next one. And in that first movie, Han was, you know, so-so. You know, Luke was the hero. You know, and later on, that balanced out. What's interesting, among those who were ordained that I asked, all of them identified with Luke. Well, actually, I think one or two of the deacons did, you know. And then some of the younger people thought, I wonder if there's a telltale thing. We can ask some of our teenagers and the ones that like Luke, maybe they put them on a career path. Probably not. You know, I suspect there's personality differences and other things.

I remember one of the lines from Han Solo's, in the first movie, he told Luke, hokey religions and antique weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.

But later, you know, he becomes more of a believer, and he tells Luke, may the force be with you.

That phrase for a while became about as common in America as saying, have a nice day.

And it's still around, I mean, people don't say it now, but sci-fi fans still celebrate the fourth day of the fifth month each year, which I don't know when that came out, which is, if you realize, that's May the fourth. So that day, people will go around saying, may the fourth be with you.

Yeah, I know. You can laugh or not laugh. It wasn't my idea.

Now, you still might wonder, why is he going into all this? Well, the reason is because for people my age and younger, and millions of others, it became tempting to take a plot device at a fictional movie and try to make it into something more, to start believing that some of the religious viewpoints that espoused were actually valid.

And maybe that shouldn't be too surprising, because when you think about it, if you watch Star Wars, some of what it teaches would fit with a lot of eastern mystical-type religions.

And whether or not Star Wars or any other movie was involved, a lot of people around us have started to develop an idea that God is sort of like the Force.

And some studies have shown that especially younger people, and I'm not saying this to put down the younger people in the audience, but some have started to view God in a sort of a semi-deistic view that I don't think really matches what God is like. I want to say that some of these views that are becoming commonplace are not correct. As much as I love Star Wars, God is not the Force.

And I'll note for all of us, we could see some ways that sometimes the Holy Spirit might seem a bit like the Force, but there are some very important differences.

The universe was not made by a vague, formless something, some notion of goodness. No, it was formed by a Creator God. Actually, we could say a God family consisting of God the Father and God the Son, and with the potential of adding many more children to that family, God beings with real personality.

And that's what I want to talk about a bit today, the fact that God has a personality and has specific traits that we can understand.

But before I do that, I want to look at some of the other idea initially and share with you what set me thinking on this. Believe it or not, I was thinking about the idea for this sermon before the new Star Wars trailer came out and captivated my imagination again.

Part of what brought me to this was a book that's come out some time ago, and the title of the book is The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, written by Christopher Smith and Melinda Denton.

Now, I'm going to confess, before you think I'm an expert, I've only read excerpts of the book and some reviews about it, but it was actually at the camp directors' meeting some time ago that Len Martin mentioned to the rest of us that he was reading in it and found it very interesting.

The two authors did an extensive research project to try to determine what young people in America believed as far as religion goes, and they came up with a term, a label, to capture all of it. They used the term moralistic, therapeutic deism. Now, that's a mouthful, which is why I'm not going to say it a whole lot of times, but it's moralistic, therapeutic deism.

Now, they broke down the most common beliefs into five main points, so I'm going to sum them up here to tell you— and this, by the way, I'm not espousing this, but these are the five most common beliefs among young people in America. One is that a god exists, who did create the world and watches over things. That's not bad. The second one is, God wants people to be good, to be nice to each other. And there's differing views among youngsters as to how much the Bible teaches us how to do that, and other religious books do or might add to that.

A third point is, the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

I'll come back to that later. Number four, God does not need to be particularly involved in a person's life, except when he's needed to fix a problem.

And then I like the fifth one. I'm not sure if this just had to be included, but good people go to heaven when they die.

I chuckled at that because I noticed in the reading that young people still believe that good people go to heaven, but apparently they've dropped off thinking that bad people go to the other place. Now, having read the summary points, I want to say I'm not going to give an attack speech against them. No, most of them are beliefs that are somewhat true and that we believe.

The bad here is not so much what is included, because it includes that there is a Creator God, that God wants us to be good.

What's left out concerns me a bit. This view of God, which is quite common today, as I said, especially among teens and young adults, and again, I'm not picking on teens and young adults, but it's this sort of vague notion of someone or something that primarily has the function of providing for us, of being a higher power that you can call on when in need, but who doesn't necessarily need or want to be that involved in your life otherwise. I thought about that and I said, that sounds like a grandparent that lives in the next city.

And then I thought, well, grandparents don't necessarily want to have that role. Sometimes that's just what they have.

And I thought, along with maybe a grandparent distant, or maybe kind of like the Force, this great power of supposedly good that you can draw on when you need it, but not telling you what to do every day.

Now, I want to stop because, as I said, I read some criticisms and reviews of the book, and they pointed out that they used the term deism. Remember, moralistic, therapeutic deism? And you could get confused with what's called pure deism, if there is such a thing. And the history teacher in me thought, well, I don't want us to get confused with the classical deism from the late 17th or late 18th century Enlightenment period. And I thought, only a history teacher would be thinking about the late 18th century Enlightenment period.

But this belief in deism did arise at that time, and especially among well-educated people, Thomas Jefferson being one of the foremost. And they believed that there was a God, but the Bible had nothing to do with that God. But rather, there was a creator who they likened to a giant watchmaker, who created the universe and wound it up and then let it go, and is sort of watching but not paying that close attention. That's deism.

True deists think that, as I said, morals might be useful and good, but they're still human creations, that humans came up with ideas to help make society work better. Well, I wanted to address that and say, well, that's not what we're talking about today when I talk about moralistic therapeutic deism.

No, because a lot of young people would scoff at that kind of thing. They believe in a God that's much closer at hand, and paying more attention. He'd have to be close at hand so he can do things for me, right?

But then again, still, that's some of the concern that I personally have. This widespread view of what some might think is the Christian God says that God is not focusing things like... focused on things like telling us how to live our daily lives. That he's not really focused on what sin is, or on us building character through suffering, or following specific practices of worship, like honoring the Sabbath, prayer, fasting, tithing, things like that. No, no, no. They just say, well, God wants us to be happy. And feel good about ourselves. It's amazing how much that comes up. That's why I'm saying it so often.

Now, a lot of the people that believe this way would say, well, we do need to be morally good, but how would they define morally good? Well, not hurting other people, helping them to feel good about themselves, and helping them to build up their self-esteem. And they would say, when a person does that, God blesses them. I want to sum some of this up. On page 165 of the book by Smith and Denton, they summarize what many people now seem to see God as. They seem to see Him as something like a combination of a divine butler and a cosmic therapist. He's always on call, taking care of any problems that arise, professionally helps His people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process. That's where I got that idea of some people confusing God with the Force from Star Wars.

That way of thinking, though, doesn't let us get to know God as a person to learn what He really wants and likes, and how we should honor and obey Him. I want to turn to... No, I haven't had a lot of Scriptures yet. We're going to get into them. Jeremiah 31, verse 34, is one of our most oft-quoted Scriptures when we think of the Millennium. Many of you might know it right off already. Jeremiah 31, verse 34.

And there it says, Speaking of the time when Christ reigns on earth, No more shall everyone teach his neighbor, and everyone his brother, saying, Know you the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, the Eternal. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I'll remember no more.

It's interesting that focus on knowing the Eternal.

But we don't have to wait for the Millennium. We can get to know Him now.

And I'm going to say... preface what I'm going to go into by saying, I believe all of us more or less do. You're here for that reason. And hopefully we're getting to know our Creator God better as time goes by. But it's something we don't want to take for granted. So let's think, how do we get to know Him?

Well, two ways that I came up with it once, and the first... early on, the first one is one that the true Deus would appreciate. If you turn to Romans chapter 1, Romans 1 and verse 19, we're reminded of a fairly obvious way.

Romans 1, 19 says, Here it is talking about people who should know God, but don't. But for, since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. They're no longer without excuses. Now, saying invisible things can seem very mystical. Think of the Holy Spirit and things like that. But it occurred to me that invisible things about a person can include personality traits and attributes that aren't some foreign, mystical thing. Like, for me, an invisible thing is, what's my favorite color? You ever think, what's God's favorite color? Is He allowed to have one?

I thought of that because I've heard a number of people say, well, God's favorite color must be green, because look at how much green is out there in the world. And then I thought, though, you know, I've gone out in the woods a lot with Connor lately, and I said, I'm not so sure God's favorite color isn't brown, because I see an awful lot of that.

Or if you go out in the outer space and look at the earth, maybe it's blue. My thought is, God likes earth tones. You know, maybe we can't tell for certain, you know, what God's favorite color is, but we can tell, you know, He likes color. He likes variety. There are some things we can see about Him.

He likes symmetry and balance. It's just evident in His creation. These are parts of His personality, I think, that are there. You know, there are some other things I'll touch on later, but I think God has a sense of humor, and that's very evident by looking at the creation. Now, we could go on with this type of speculation for a while, but if we turn to the other way of getting to know God, it involves a lot less guesswork.

That's simply to read what He tells us about Himself. Now, I know the deist would say, well, the Bible isn't really God's Word. It's just a collection of folk tales and myths written by well-intentioned but deceived human beings. Well, I don't necessarily think I need to go into disproving that today. I think we're already here because most of us have proved to ourselves that the Bible is God's Word, and that's why we have it sitting on our laps here. And most of you believe what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3.16, that all Scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by Him, and it's profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction.

And I'm speaking off the top of my head. I always get those things that it's profitable for out of order. But it's important for us to think, if we spend time reading this book, it'll not only tell us how to live our lives, but we'll begin to get to know the Personality of God. We'll see He's not just some nameless force. He's not a cosmic butler. And, according to the Scripture, He is not just one individual.

I touched on that. I tend to use the word God for convenience, and I think most of us do. But in God's Word, it shows us, starting in John 1, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

That's John 1, verses 1 and 2. I'm not going to turn there. But later in that chapter, John reveals that he was writing about the one that became known as Jesus Christ. I do want to turn to Luke chapter 10, verse 22, to see something a bit more. Luke 10. Here, Jesus Christ is speaking to His disciples. Actually, He's in prayer. He says, And we believe He's probably referring to an ellipse, meaning no one knows who the Son is except the Father draws Him, as it says in John 6, 44.

And who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. This means that the way we can get to know the Father, who actually was not the God of the Old Testament, who spoke to Moses and appeared to Abraham and did all that, that was the one that we became to know as Jesus Christ. But the Son reveals. He revealed that there was a Father. Probably, in most of Old Testament times, even people seeking to know God didn't understand quite that there were two personages. We believe David did, and Daniel, because Daniel wrote about the one like the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days.

But of course, and as Mr. Phelps referred to, our understanding is that the God of the Old Testament was the one that John referred to in his first chapter as the Word, who became Jesus Christ. Before Jesus came in the flesh, as I said, a lot of people didn't understand the two personages in the God family. After Christ came, that knowledge was revealed, but only to those whom the Father called to come to Jesus Christ.

I've got some scribbles here that I can't read. Oh, and Jesus says here in Luke 10 that no one really knows the Father unless He reveals to Him. Now, that might seem to imply, well, we don't know the Father at all. Except Jesus said that we do. Turn with me over to Luke chapter, not Luke, John chapter 14, if you will. By knowing Jesus Christ, who we see described in great detail in the Bible, we find that we do know the Father much more than we thought. And so I'm going to begin reading in verse 7. I chuckled when Mr. Phelps turned to verse 6 because he's going to read right through this passage, and then I'm going to read it again. So remember we read verse 6, but in verse 7 he says, this is Jesus speaking, If you had known Me, you would also have known My Father also. And from now on, you know Him and have seen Him. And Philip, I picture Philip raising his hand. He said, Lord, show us the Father. That's sufficient for us. And Jesus said, Philip, how long have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me? Philip, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you, I don't speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me, He does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or believe Me just for the sake of the works. This tells us not only of the family relationship, but it seems to be saying that the Father and Jesus Christ have very similar personalities. And that shouldn't be surprising. It struck me, and I don't know that this was the reason I'm pretty sure it probably wasn't, but they're not portrayed as brothers. Which is good, because how many of us have known brothers who had very different personalities? They're not alike at all. How could they be brothers? But we might know a lot of fathers and sons that, oh yeah, I can tell. You know, they're a lot alike. So I think, as I said, maybe that's a stretch, but I think there could be something to it. I want to look at some of what the Bible tells us about the personality of the Son with us realizing that that'll show us the Father as well. But before I move on, I thought, well, I should also mention something about the Holy Spirit, because I did start talking about the Force in Star Wars. And some people might say, well, God the Son is not the Force. God the Father is not the Force, but the Holy Spirit is not the Force. Isn't that just like the Force?

Well, there are some similarities, but we've got to realize the differences. In the Star Wars movie, the Force was this unseen power that fills the universe and can do amazing, amazing things. Well, that fits. But if in our thinking we get a little bit lazy and we let watching Star Wars movies shape our view of God in the universe, we could get some serious misunderstandings. And I always say if we get lazy in our thinking, because watching movies is easy. Studying the Bible takes a bit more work. But if you think, and I guess I should have asked the question, how many of you have seen Star Wars? I was guessing most, not everyone. Those of you haven't, I apologize. I didn't mean to leave you in the dark, but it's really entertaining. It's worth dropping a dollar in the red box to watch. If you can do that, you can get it from the library for free. Anyways, keep in mind one of the central plot points of that movie is that the Force has a dark side. How many times is Darth Vader... Luke, turn to the dark side. No, I'll never turn to the dark side. I didn't rehearse that. But we want to understand the Holy Spirit does not have a dark side. There is no dark side to the Holy Spirit. And that's easier to understand if we realize where the Holy Spirit comes from, as opposed to where scriptwriters invented the source of the Force. And we learned that from Yoda, I think, in the second movie. He said, I thought I could do the Voice, but I'm not sure I could. Judge me by my side, do you? And well, you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. And he says, life creates it and makes it grow. And that's interesting. I read something on the side. George Lucas originally was thinking of having this Force just be some crystal that had special powers. Instead, it developed into this thing that does more sound like the Holy Spirit. But we want to realize, life doesn't create the Holy Spirit. It doesn't emanate from physical life. Not at all. If we started to believe that, we would be like those in...

I've got a scripture somewhere. Yeah, in Romans 1.25, where it says, some people begin worshipping the creation rather than the Creator. No, we're here in John, if you look in John 15, verse 26.

Jesus is describing the Holy Spirit, and he uses the Greek term paraclete, which is translated helper. He said, when the Helper comes, which I'll send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, we're speaking of the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father, it will testify of me. So, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, not from all life. We have nothing to do with creating the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure most of you know that, but as I said, the idea of what the Force is is very different. Now, some people get confused because many times in the Bible it refers to the Spirit of Christ. And if we turn over to Titus 3, just to wrap this up, Titus 3 and verse 5, we see... get a clearer view of the relationship. Titus 3 and verse 5, I'm breaking into a thought here, he says, "...by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior." So, the Holy Spirit comes from the Father through Jesus Christ. That's a fundamental tenet of theology. Actually, theology in its purest academic sense, and I don't want to go down that road any further. You know, we could spend a lot of time trying to describe exactly how that works, but I have a different goal today. I wanted to look at God's personality. So, let's turn back to consider that. In His nature and His personality, God is not the Force. He's not ambiguous. He's not vague. He's not some cosmic butler. He's not a grandparent that specializes in giving gifts, although God does love to give gifts to His people. To get to know what God is like is an ongoing process. We'll all spend our entire lifetimes doing that, reading and studying His Word. We also need to spend time praying. I'm amazed sometimes at how when I'm praying, I come to greater understanding. I think because God's working back through His Holy Spirit. I start giving myself the answer to the questions I have, or things like that. Of course, we have to allow God's Spirit to work in us. But along with that, I think there are some stories in the Old Testament that really do show God's personality. We have a little time. I'd like to look at two or three of those now. Early on, God developed a close relationship with a man named Abraham. As a matter of fact, if you turn to Isaiah 41, verse 8, I just want to read something briefly here. It reveals something that's a little different that I didn't know before. Isaiah 41, verse 8.

I love this section of Scripture. I've said many times where God is speaking in first person. He says, But you Israel are my servant, Jacob, whom I've chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend. And it was a couple of years ago I was doing research into the Hebrew word, or I found out words, that translated into friend. This particular word translated friend is only used a couple of different times in the Scripture. It's not the normal word. The Hebrew here is ahab, which means dear one or loved one. Or, I thought, in modern vernacular we might say best friend. God is here saying, Abraham, my bestie, my good buddy. And he doesn't say that about other people. God could have a best friend. That's something the force never has. But God does. And he could enjoy a joke and a laugh with his buddy, his friend, and maybe with his buddy's wife. I say that if we turn back to Genesis 18, I want to revisit a story we've seen many times. And I know I've discussed it before, but I thought it fits this so well, it's worth us looking at again. Remember, of course, this is the time that the one who became known as Jesus Christ pays Abraham a personal visit, and he brings a couple angels with him. So we'll read just the first couple verses to set the stage. It says, And Abraham appeared to him, that is Abraham, by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in his tent door in the heat of the day. He, Abraham, lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there were three men standing by him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground. And he said, My Lord, if I've now found favor in your sight, don't pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought. Wash your feet. Rest yourselves. I'll bring a morsel of bread. Now Abraham had talked to God before. It had visions. So, somewhere or another, he recognized who this was. I wonder if he knew the other two were angels, or if he just figured, hey, you know, they're his friends too. I don't know. But it goes on, and we start to see something else develop in chapter 9.

They're having this meal, and they say, Where's Sarah, your wife? So he said, Well, you're in the tent. And he, this is speaking of the Word, Jesus Christ, He said, I'll certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah, your wife, will have a son. Now Sarah was listening in the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were well-invanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself. So, she doesn't laugh out loud, and she's thinking, After I've grown old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? And the eternal said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh? Shall I surely bear a child since I'm old? Is anything too hard for the eternal? At the appointed time, I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah will have a son. Sarah said, I didn't laugh. Because she was afraid. And he said, No, you did laugh.

Now, it might be easy to think of this as a harsh, angry God. Why did Sarah laugh? Why is anything too hard for God? And I see some shaking heads. I don't think it was like that, especially if you just go to the chapter before, and realize that I suspect this might have been a little bit of an inside joke between God and Abraham. Because God had revealed this to Abraham a little earlier. In chapter 17, verse 15, God says to Abraham, see, no wonder Abraham recognized him as soon as he saw him. He'd been talking to him just a chapter earlier. God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be your name. I'll bless her also, and give you a son by her. I'll bless her, and she shall become a mother of nation. Kings of people will come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He didn't stifle it. He fell down just laughing out loud. He said, so a man a hundred years old, and a bear is... Wait. Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear a son? That's not hard to picture. In my mind, I thought, if someone walked back and talked to Ralph Smith and said, Next year, this time, you and Mid are going to have a son. I wouldn't be surprised if he started laughing at me. So this is the way it is. I could see this, and Abraham says to God, Well, old thing is, you might live before you. Look, I've got a twelve-year-old son now. How about him? God said, No, Sarah your wife will have a son, and you'll call his name Isaac. We want to remember that Isaac is the Hebrew word for laughter. So I imagine Abraham's laughing. God's probably starting to laugh himself. Say, let's name him laughter, because we get the joke. It's kind of amusing. And with that in mind, I could see it later. He's talking, and Sarah's there. Instead of the stern God, I imagine she starts laughing, and God says, Why did she laugh? And he probably looks at Abraham and gives a wink. Is anything too hard for God? It's an inside joke they both share. And maybe soon afterwards, they convey to Sarah, Hey, Abraham laughed out loud, too. I know this is, you know, a stretch, but it's going to work. God can do anything.

So there, as I said, I could see God has a personality. He probably enjoyed that kind of thing. Now, I'm using liberty of my imagination to bring this out. I'm not saying it was exactly that way, but it's not hard to picture. It's also, though, important for us to remember that God is not some practical joker. You know, He's not a mean person going around teasing people who don't get it. He's got a good balance and a good touch. I see that in the ways He dealt with Jeremiah. I want to turn to Jeremiah 12, where we can see what I think is God probably having a bit of a chuckle, but then we'll see later He knows when to lay off of that. God and Jeremiah had a very deep, close relationship that developed over time. I've been focusing on this. Of course, I taught Jeremiah in the major prophets class at ABC this year. I'm offered to do a talk on Jeremiah's personal life for Winter Family Weekend, so I'm hoping it comes out the way I planned. But this is one aspect of that. Jeremiah was called when he was very young, and so he learned and grew, and he also saw that things don't happen immediately. So here in chapter 12, Jeremiah says, Righteous are you, O Eternal, when I plead with you, and say, God, I know you're great, you do everything right, but let me talk to you about your judgments. Let's have a talk here. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? Now, Jeremiah's a bit down, saying, why are things not so fair? I don't get it. And I could practically hear the chuckle in God's voice if we drop down to verse 5, where he says, If you've run with a footman and they've wearied you, are you going to run with the horses? And if the land of peace which you trusted wearied you, how are you going to do in the floodplain of Jordan? And today's vernacular, I could see him saying, you haven't seen anything, kid. What are you going to do when things get tough? So he sort of buck up, you know? You think you've got it tough now, you don't so much. But there is a time later, maybe not all that much later, where God knew Jeremiah didn't need a joke and a slap on the back. And if you turn over to chapter 15, you'll see once again, Jeremiah is a little dejected. Chapter 15 and verse 15.

Jeremiah once again addresses God. He says, Oh, eternal, you know. Remember me. Visit me. Take vengeance on me. For me on my persecutors. And your enduring patience. Don't take me away. Know that for your sake I've suffered rebuke. Your words were found and I ate them. Your word was to me a joy and a rejoicing of my heart. For I called on your name, O Lord God of hosts. I didn't sit in the assembly of mockers, nor did I rejoice. I sat alone because of your hand. For you filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed?

Will you surely be to me like an unreliable stream as waters that fail? In this case, I see Jeremiah is starting to lose his cool. He's saying, Look, I'm suffering. It's your fault. You brought this on. Are you going to let me down? Can't I trust you? And I love that God didn't rise up and say, How dare you talk to me that way? And he didn't just joke about it.

In verse 19, we'll see God's answer. Therefore, thus says the Eternal, If you return, I'll bring you back, and you'll stand before me. If you take out the precious from the vial, then you'll be as my mouth. Let them return to you, but you must not return to them. I'll make you to this people as a fortified bronze wall.

They'll fight against you, but shall not prevail against you. For I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the Eternal. God knows when a person can take a joke, and when the person needs a slap on the back, but also when he needs a hug and a kind word. I see that God says, Come here. I'm not letting you down. You're still my guy. I'll take care of you. Nothing's going to hurt you, Jeremiah. I think that fits with the tenor of the words that God spoke there, and that's a lot different than, What are you going to do? If you're where you're running with footmen, what are you going to do with horses?

God used the right tone at the right time, because he could do that. I like the fact that God knows when to do one thing and when to do another, and he's good at all of it. He's not like a person. Some of us have a particular talent. Some can tell a joke really well, but have trouble being serious. And some the other way around. But God is good at all.

I want to turn to one more story that shows another side of God that I think is one of his most predominant traits. We talked about the Psalm in Bible study the other night. If you want to turn to the book of Hosea, through the prophet Hosea, God demonstrates a persistent love.

Hosea acted out some things that showed God's personality. So as you turn to Hosea, we'll begin right at the beginning of the book. Actually, I'm going to start reading in verse 2, because the first one just says, He called him and all these kings were reigning. And the eternal began to speak by Hosea. The eternal said to Hosea, Go take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land is committed to harlotry by departing from the eternal. And the rest of the chapter goes on to discuss them having children.

But God instructed Hosea, I want you to go marry a prostitute. Not exactly a savory character, somebody that Hosea probably dreamed of, his wife. But God said, Go find her, I want you to marry. And I've read some accounts that say, I wonder what it was like for Gomer, was her name.

She was a prostitute. If Hosea was a known prophet, imagine what she thought when he comes in, Hey, I want you to marry me. I'm trying to think of a great religious leader today, and there aren't very many, but if you think back a few years, can you imagine Billy Graham coming to New York and going up to a street walker and saying, I want you to come back and be my wife. I don't know what Gomer thought.

But, of course, as God gives names to these children, showing that basically they weren't his, they weren't obedient. And he's basically showing, I loved Israel, I made this covenant like a marriage, and she left me. Matter of fact, if we go to chapter 2 and verse 2, he says, Bring charges against your mother, bring charges. For she's not my wife, nor am I her husband. Let her put away her harlotries from her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts.

There are a number of other scriptures where God makes this analogy of being married to Israel, wanting that close relationship. If you want to make note, of course, Ezekiel 16 is the most detailed. And it's a very graphic, powerful image of just blatant one person hurting another in a very bad way and not showing love. And it occurs to me that much could be understandable to us. We can understand a marriage not working out, because, unfortunately, it's too common.

Two people marry, and one or the other of them, sometimes both, are not faithful, and it breaks up. What's hard for us, maybe, to understand is the love that God expresses. And it reminds us, again, that God is not a distant force. He's not an amorphous, deistic being. Keep your hand here in Isaiah, because I want to come right back. But if you turn to Ezekiel 6, verse 9, I noted something there that a word that I didn't expect to see, and it's God using about Himself. Ezekiel 6, verse 9, He says, Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which departed from me.

God said, I was crushed. Now, God is God. He's not crushed, literally. But imagine how many of us have had our feelings crushed. That's the way God said He felt, by Israel cheating on Him, turning away from Him. That's, as I said, not some amorphous being that doesn't have real feelings, who doesn't want to have a close, intimate relationship with us, or with people. This is someone who was crushed. And what's amazing, though, is not in the way that God has feelings like us.

I mean, we share that. And then I think how He reacted from then, that He had Hosea demonstrate. If we go back to Hosea and begin reading in chapter 3, in verse 1 here, this is Hosea speaking, Then the Eternal said to me, Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover. Now, I'm using the New King James, and that's not the best translation. The word that's there translated lover is the word that means companion or husband.

And some modern translations say, Go love a woman who's loved by her husband, which means Hosea himself. So God is sort of telling Hosea, Go get her. It's okay. You're her husband. And is committing adultery just like the love of the Eternal for the children of Israel who took to other gods and loved the raisin cakes. That's amazing. God says, Go ahead and love her just like I love Israel.

And Hosea went back and he bought her. Basically, he had to take money. Apparently, she'd fallen back into prostitution, maybe become the property of a pimp. And, you know, Hosea could have been said, Good riddance, boy, don't want to be around that cheater again. But no, he loved her.

And I'd say it wasn't just a feeling. I like to say love is not just a feeling. It's an act of your will. And Hosea acted on that feeling. He went and paid money and brought her back and said, You're not going to do that anymore. You're going to stay with me. And God told him, It's okay. I wonder if he was thinking, Should I do this? And God said, You know, Go ahead. Go get her. You know, like the love of the eternal for the children of Israel.

God is saying, That's the way I feel. And that's why God was able, you know, Jesus Christ, the Word was able to manifest himself in the flesh and die for us. When we were sinners, we were like Gomer, cheating on him. I say we, we weren't born yet when that happened, but mankind in general. What a loving God! Just think. And I said, Hosea loved Gomer that way. Matter of fact, I want to drop back one last scripture in this section in Hosea 2, verse 13.

The way God describes it, He said, I'll punish her for the days of her bales, which she burned incense. She decked herself with earrings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But me, she forgot, says the Eternal. Therefore, behold, I'll allure her. I'll bring her back from the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I'll give her her vineyards from there, or there. And the valley of Acor, which means valley of trouble, shall become a door of hope. And she'll sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the days when she came up from the land of Egypt.

And it'll be in that day, says the Eternal, you'll call me my husband. No longer call me my master. In other words, we're going to have that close relationship. You're not going to come just because I order you and you're my master. You're going to come because we're going to have that loving relationship. That's the God we serve. A God whose mercy never fails, and a God who has undying, unending love.

And that's a God who knows each one of us. He knows us well on a personal basis. And he would never be content to be some distant, amorphous force, or cosmic butler, or even grandparent that likes to give gifts. And it occurred to me, those of us that have grandparents at a distance should remember our grandparents don't want to be like that either. They also want to have a personal relationship. God wants to be involved in our lives, and he wants us to get to know him.

Not like Luke Skywalker learning the ways of the force as a tool to use, but get to know him, what he's like. Build a relationship. It takes time. It'll take all of our lives, and it'll take effort. But I can attest, even though I'm still in the process, that it will be well worth it.