If you have a God, it is important for you to know what He has said He will do for you. And after you review what He has said He will do for you, it is good to determine whether He is able to do it. And after you have established that He is able to do it, you should also make certain that He is willing to do it, that He wants to do it for you. These are questions of faith.
The Christian world as a whole does not believe that God will interfere in the lives of men. You must believe that He loves you, but also that His love is a personal force which will, if necessary, interfere with every process of your life and being in order to bring forth His best, His goodness and His mercy to you.
Psalm 78:13–25 is a good passage to establish a basic faith in the Lord. He divided the sea, and caused them (Israel of old) to pass through; and He made the waters stand up like a heap. Then He led them with the cloud by day, and all the night with a light of fire. He split the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths. He brought forth streams also from the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. Yet they still continued to sin against Him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. And in their heart they put God to the test by asking food according to their desire. Then they spoke against God; they said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, He struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams were overflowing; can He give bread also? Will He provide meat for His people?”
Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath, and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also mounted against Israel; because they did not believe in God, and did not trust in His salvation. Yet He commanded the clouds above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.
This is one of the ten or twelve Psalms referred to as historical Psalms which recount events that occurred in some period of the history of Israel.
Our text presents this question: Can God provide a table in the wilderness for all these people? And do not be too quick to answer, “Yes, I have read the Word. I know God can do that because He did it.”
Suppose you knew nothing about what God had ever done, and you were confronted by this question for the first time. Would you be willing to walk out to Death Valley, along with three and one-half million believers, and believe God that every morning you could go out and pick up your breakfast? That every morning for forty years God would rain down from heaven everything you needed? Before you write off those Israelites for their murmuring and their unbelief, reflect on what you would think and what you would do. Would you dare to believe? Would you trust the Lord to take care of you?
If you remember, the Lord was not provoked by the fact that they were not trusting for the manna, but because they insisted on having some meat. Then the Lord sent the quails for them to eat. That in itself was no small miracle. How many quails would it take to feed about three and one-half million people?
When you deal with a promise of God—or the promise of anyone—you want to know, “Can they perform?” In the business world, it is not the salesman who comes in with a persuasive sales pitch who makes the sale. The prospective buyer wants to know, “Can your company produce or perform what you are promising?” Ah, there is the difficulty. In order to get a more positive picture of what God can do, look to
Romans 4:20, 21. Speaking of the faith of Abraham, it says: Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
Abraham had a promise from God. Imagine what it was like to live back in Abraham’s day—a day of many dangers, with marauding bands coming in from the Arabian Desert ready to kill and to steal. Abraham was vulnerable because he had no walled city to protect him. He just led his untold flocks out where they could be preyed upon. At night God would say, “Come on, Abraham. Let’s take a walk.”
“Thank You, Lord; we’ll take a walk.”
“Look up, Abraham. What do you see?”
“I see a lot of stars—millions of them.”
“Can you count them?”
“No.”
“You are going to have more descendants than that, Abraham.”
“Hmm, poor old barren Sarah. All right, I will believe that what You have promised You are able also to perform. I will not stagger at that promise, Lord.”
The next morning the Lord said, “Abraham, let’s take another walk.”
“All right, Lord—though I haven’t recovered from that last walk yet.”
As they walked along, they saw the desert sands. “Can you tell how many grains of sand there are, Abraham?”
“No. I can’t tell. Must be millions.”
“That is the way your seed is going to be, Abraham.”
“How about that! I will believe You, Lord. Just let me work on it a little bit, because I am not going to stagger at Your promises through unbelief.”
Now—how about those promises that you have? Do not stagger at them. Do as Abraham did. Believe that what God has promised, He is able also to perform. He can do it. When you first heard the promise, your heart leaped within you, and you said, “That’s the word of the Lord.” Was it still leaping within you a year later?
Think of how many years Abraham walked with his promise. Of course, God renewed it now and then, but He does the same for all of us. He will keep coming back to remind us, “Now, you did not forget that Word, did you? I will give it to you again, in case you did not get it really clear in your mind.” Then He gives us another Word, with the assurance, “Be sure to remember that there will be a miracle.”
Joseph’s dream seemed like a fantastic promise for a young teenager to receive. It was quite another thing for a man who had been forgotten in the Egyptian prison to still believe that Word. But overnight he was exalted to be the high regent, next to the Pharaoh. What God has promised He is able to perform.
Most of God’s dealings seem to have an impersonal quality to them. You almost feel as if you get initiated into a walk with God by going through a spanking machine. When you first come into a walk with God, everything is just lovely. The next thing you know, you are bending over, getting blistered. He scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12:6b. It seems impersonal. And if you do not watch it, you will get the impression, “God does not care for me personally. I am just going through the mill. I am just one of many, part of a long line. It does not make any difference who the violator was; we all are getting blistered.” But that is not really the case. You have to accept what God’s word says, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens” (Hebrews 12:6). On a human level you would certainly never believe that God loves you very much from the way He treats you. If a man says he loves his wife, and then treats her the way the Lord treats the Church, she will not believe it.
The things God does to get your attention just do not seem to be manifestations of love. Has that been your experience? Then we must establish a fact: Is God really willing? Does He love me enough? Is He concerned about me as an individual? And that is what a walk with God is all about.
In the midst of adversity and trial, there ought to be a continual rejoicing in the Lord. I Thessalonians 5:18 tells us: In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Everything! In everything that happens to you as a child of God, He is trying in some way to manifest His love and His willingness in your life. Remember that, because it is the truth! You can give thanks for everything that happens to you, because you know that in some way God is trying to manifest His love and His deep concern for you, and His willingness to work things out in your life. Believe that down deep in your heart.
Do you realize that God often manifests His love by what seems to be, on human terms, inattention? When people first come into a New Testament church, they get a lot of attention. Then they take their place in the congregation and just sit. Sometimes you grow by attention, and sometimes you grow by lack of attention. God knows just how to order it for each individual. The human reaction, of course, is to wish for a little more attention. In fact, you would probably rather be rebuked by everyone than to be ignored.
We are dealing with two important questions: “Can God?” and “Will God?” And we have to answer: “Yes, He can, and He is willing.” David comes up with the right conclusion in Psalm 27:13, 14: I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Ah, that is it. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage: yes, wait for the Lord. All the promises of God are not coming to our hearts as an answer to a desperation within us. We are trusting in the Lord, confident that He is going to work things out. We know that He is willing and that He is able; yet, in the midst of His testings, you can get so shaken that you are not really sure anymore just what is going to happen. That is the time you must have a basic faith in the goodness of the Lord, that He is working out something good in your life anyway.
You have probably heard the story about the man who was a dishwasher on a boat and was brought up out of the galley because they were short-handed on deck, with practically the entire crew sick with the flu. They put him in front of the helm and told him to steer the boat. They pointed out a star in the sky and said, “You just follow that star.” After a while, he called out, “Captain, come up here quick. I have passed that star. Give me another one.” Sometimes we, too, feel as if we have passed the star and we have nothing more to follow, nothing more to pursue after. The Lord just has to work it out. Then when you do not have any more stars to follow, or it is cloudy overhead, you have to say, “I am going to believe to see the goodness of the Lord in my life. I believe that He who raised us up together to stand in His presence has a basic goodness.”
If you do not believe that about God, what can you believe? that God is some kind of monster who has promised all kinds of things, knowing in advance, with His foreknowledge and wisdom, that He was never going to do it at all? Can you believe in that kind of God—a God who torments men, driving them up the wall with promises of the things they can never have, driving them to believe for things that can never be attained? We have to believe just the opposite—in the goodness of the Lord.
O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8. Mmm, taste it. If the sample is good, the rest will be even better. I have a feeling that none of us has gone beyond the hors d’oeuvre stage in our walk with God. We are just getting a little appetizer to open up the taste buds and whet the appetite. Now that you have acquired a taste for the Lord, don’t you want more of Him? You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Believe in this basic goodness of the Lord.
Keep on rejoicing—even if it is with tears streaming down your cheeks. Rejoice, because the Lord is bringing forth good things.