Invitation from God

Our text tonight is verse 19, where God lays out several foundational principles about himself and how he operates that inform us on what the benefits of this invitation are and should Motivate everyone to take advantage of this invitation. So turn in your, or since you're already turned there, look at verse 19, which reads, I have not spoken in secret in a dark place of the earth. I did not say to the seat of Jacob, seek me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right." Now, if that sounds a little bit off, it's because I'm reading from the New King James Version, but you should clearly see that it's the same. I'm going to focus in on several words within this text that relate to these foundational principles about God that I'm focusing on tonight. So the first statement that God makes here is, I have not spoken in secret. So in the midst of describing himself He's also contrasting himself to the idols and the false gods of this world. And so we see a statement in the negative here. The first three statements are in the negative. I have not spoken in secret. This word secret means covered. hidden or secret, pretty straightforward. It speaks of proclamations of false gods and idols are not clear. They're covered or hidden. They're not direct and open. God, on the other hand, is open and clear. Keith brought out this point in his sermon this morning when he was speaking of the fact that when God spoke and when he acted in the earth as when he brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, he did it openly and clearly. contradicted and defeated all the gods. of Egypt, all the false gods of Egypt, as he was judging them through the plagues that came upon Egypt. And he did that in such an open fashion that the news preceded the Israelites as they left the land of Egypt and proceeded into the Promised Land, where the peoples who occupied the Promised Land already knew the glory of God and what he had done and how he had established himself as sovereign over the gods of Egypt. So God does not operate in a secret fashion or a hidden fashion like the idols and the false gods who were typically sought out in the hidden or or obscure places of the earth, the dens and the caves of the earth, as the Bible describes it. Even when the Israelites were practicing idolatry against God, often they did it in what were called high places. The Bunis secluded areas in the hills away from public view in a hidden or secret place. God continues in verse 19, I've not spoken in secret, I've not spoken in a dark place of the earth. The word dark here also means secret or hidden. But it speaks of occultic practices. Demons and familiar spirits and dark, destructive, hidden messages. God does not operate in that way. God speaks life and truth. Now another figurative idea of this word dark is backbiting. I was surprised to find this in my concordance. And I'm not really sure how it works in, but I'm going to offer you a couple of ideas. One is this idea of backbiting, which means slander or criticizing someone behind their backs. God is saying that in practicing idolatry, these idols and false gods of yours are really doing damage to you, slandering you behind your back, though you don't know it, you're not paying attention. They're bringing harm to you, or really you're bringing harm to yourself by participating in these dark practices with your idols and your false gods. Second idea is that God is really giving sort of a backhanded slap at these false idols and false gods themselves, saying that, or actually slandering them, which he does in this chapter more than once, saying, They're just dumb idols. They can't do anything. And God's saying, yeah, I'm slandering your false gods and your idols. And it doesn't concern me at all because I'm the one true God. Those idols are nothing and they can't do anything about my slander. They can't do anything about anything because they're nothing. So I'll let you ponder those ideas as you will. The verse continues, I did not say to the seed of Jacob, seek me in vain. The word vain meaning empty or worthless. And God, again, is contrasting himself to the false gods and idols of this world, who really give no message at all, because they can't. They can't do anything. And Keith, again, touched on this idea in his message this morning. when he mentioned how the Philistines, when their lands were being ravaged and people were dying right and left because the Ark was in their midst and God was judging them, they didn't know what to do. So they ended up attaching or putting the ark on a cart and attaching multikind and saying, hey, let's wait and see what happens here, and then we might get a clue. Because Dagon's not seeing anything. And he's not going to. And it seems like they knew that, but they still continued in in their idolatry rather than submitting to the one true God. So those are the negative statements. Now we move to the positive statements that God makes regarding himself. I, the Lord, speak righteousness. Righteousness is what is right. Includes the ideas of equity, justice, and prosperity. These are things we intrinsically know are right and good, the things that we really want in life, the things that we desire, the things that we really know are right and good. These are also the things that God has accomplished through the gospel of Jesus Christ. He brought equity. The same gospel is offered to everyone regardless of status in life or the degree of our sin or whatever. Salvation is offered freely to everyone. Justice. was accomplished by Jesus on the cross when he took our sin upon himself, totally sinless, and paid the price to accomplish the justice that God required and the prosperity that he gives through a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, which will ultimately end in eternity with God face to face. I the Lord speak righteousness and I declare things that are right. This word right speaks of evenness, prosperity again, concord and agreement. Even as speaking of if to the degree that we are in Christ, we can live at a high level and stay there regardless of the circumstances that we face. Whereas if we're depending upon ourselves and this world, we're going to go up and down with the circumstances. Prosperity, as I've mentioned just a moment ago, concord. and agreement, fellowship, and good interaction with others, especially of the household of faith. But as the proverb says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Now this invitation God offered to an unsaved world, look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth. But we can still obviously apply these principles in our lives. As we have said, we have our own idols and problems of sin in our lives. But our calling is to put those things aside. Hebrews 1, or Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1, tells us to lay aside the sin which so easily besets us and run with patience the race that God has set before us. I was struck by Chris Kaiser's prayer this morning when he pointed it out. that even as Christians we can deceive ourselves and make an idol of God by approaching God as a means to our own selfish ends rather than as our one true desire. We need to put away the sin that hinders us and holds us back from realizing the fullness that God has called us to And we need to pursue God as our one and only true desire in order to experience the fullness that he intends for us in our relationship with Jesus Christ. God gives a faithful invitation to the world. It's up to us to receive that invitation Recognize the benefits and take advantage of it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are good. Everything that you do is right and true. Oh, speak to us, draw us near. Let our hearts be totally submitted to you. Let your face be that which we seek and your person our one desire. There is no other. We praise you. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.