Visions of God - Part 5 — David Adams

Morning everyone. I couldn't help but think that brother John was talking about this beautiful weather. We have this morning. Think the Sun must have something to do with movements of these sons of Earth.

Because you see the weather is just broken lovely now because the time of my departure is at hand Reminds me when I think was our very first visit. We made the Costa Rica my wife and I two years back, and we they didn't know us folks which was One of the parts of their good fortune and we ran we arrived there and they put on a little meal for us.

Which is kind of typical Latin thing to do and visitors come to you. And we met in a little corrugated all they have there and they served us their typical food and we enjoyed ourselves, but we're getting to know people little by little as There's been my pleasure to do with you this week.

I Know I won't remember all the names, but I can remember hairdos and colors of blouses and things like that you know and So we had a very nice time we spent. We stayed three months with them on that occasion in the absence of one of the missionary families and and When we came to leave and put on another supper for us and This was this was a real big meal and of course I had to say something and the only thing I could think of I said well You must have been very glad to see us come because I remember the meal or we remember the meal that you put on To welcome us here, but I see that it was hardly Comparable with what you're putting on tonight, so you must be triply glad to see us go.

Was just such a much bigger festive occasion when we were leaving. Can't blame them for that well I Was thinking to that. Remind me something like the Lord said you know when I look at you folks here this morning.

We are they who have continued with me in my tribulations this week and My wife generally instructs me about how to treat the best of friends by the way a man's best. Advice generally comes from his wife in case you're wondering.

She said not don't be cramming on the last Few meetings the last meeting or two and that was what I was planning on doing this morning. How is it that these? Feminine words of instruction come creeping into your mind when you've just planned to do something.

Jacob’s Promise and God’s Faithfulness Through Twenty Years

Because I thought I should wind up our considerations of visions of God particularly in the Old Testament and then skip over into the new and do it in about a half an hour because I'm not going to Abuse your kindness or as Tertullo said the Felix of like clemency.

By going over time this morning because I understand the buses and the station wagons are moving out shortly afterwards. Well what I wanted to do was to pick out a few individuals that we could consider in detail.

But won't today due to time and then Move over quickly and make a few comments about the New Testament. We were considering the life of Jacob when we closed yesterday morning as I recall and got to the place where God met him at Bethel on his way to paid an errand when he was fleeing from the wrath of his brother as God reminded him 20 years later.

The Lord remembers the occasion under which he appeared to Jacob. He was a running as a fugitive really fleeing from the wrath of his brother and God met him there as we were noticing and he Gave him that beautiful promise behold I am with thee and I will keep thee in all places with us wherever thou goest and I will not leave thee.

Until I have done that which I spoken to thee of and I will bring thee into this land again. Now that must have been reverberating through Jacob's memory over the succeeding 20 years. Because it wasn't until the 20 years were over at the clothes that we read in chapter 32 that the Lord appeared to Jacob again Down and paid an errand before he left the house of Laban and these 20 years were not characterized by some sudden spectacular appearance by God to Jacob.

Did you ever Stop to think that only three times in the life of the master. Did he hear a voice from heaven? How many times have you and I just wish that the Lord would say something audibly personally to us on a given?

Difficult occasion we have done that haven't we. I know I have done that and then I remember well The master was here and he was here as we are here and he was walking as I suggested to you Yesterday the path of faith and only three times.

Did he hear an audible voice from heaven? No, he went into the mountaintop on more than one occasion and he stayed all night and communed with his father, but a Audible voice out of heaven it seems he only heard three times.

Three times in that in those three and a half years approximately of his public service. Now the life of Jacob was something similar and I think our experience is something similar. God meets us oftentimes in the beginning of our Christian walk.

I think a lot of Christians have this experience at any rate and Some of them some of us are very young when this happens and some of us perhaps later on but he met Jacob in the early stages of his pilgrimage and He made that wonderful revelation of himself as he stood at the top.

Jehovah stood at the top of a ladder and we noticed yesterday that that ladder is the son of man. It was going to be the one who would bring earth and heaven together. Not that heaven is that far away either neither is hell for that matter when you come to Revelation chapter 9 There's a door open to a shaft that goes into the pit and out of that emerged a cavalry of demonic spirits and it's just right there and Heaven is not some as from astronomical remote distance away from us.

The presence of God may be real to us every day and the presence of the Lord is real to us an individual and intimate. But Jacob goes away for 20 years and he goes away with that promise ringing in his ears.

I will be with thee. I will not forsake thee. I will bless thee and I will bring thee into this land again. That promise stood good for 20 years and it stood good through the labyrinth through the maze through all the twisted experiences and pathway of this Supplanter Jacob.

You remember a way over in the book of Hosea. We read in Hosea chapter 12 that Jacob is a merchant man. The balances of deceit are in his hand. He took his brother by the heel in the womb and He was rightly named as Esau said a supplanter someone who took from another that which belonged to him and so When he's in the house of his father-in-law, he has difficulties multiplied for a 10 to 20 years.

He changes his wages 10 times he endures the cold of the night and the heat of the day he endures the ravages of the wild beasts and He was weary and he tells his wives later on. You know that I have served your father with my whole heart and my very best.

It isn't always the mother-in-law, you know that can give the problems. Here's a father-in-law and he's a very subtle wily deceitful Tyrion and it's a Jacob versus Laban for 20 years and You can't help but wonder at some of these strategy which each of them use against the other.

But all through that all through the mistakes and all through the stumblings and all through the wonderings and all through the conniving from the schemings and the plans. God said I will be with thee and So I think you and I need constantly to hang on to the the solidity of some of these promises.

Which God makes to us not in general terms in his word. But individually as he makes covenants with us as we go on our way through life. Now it's not going to be a spectacular array of mountain-peak experiences.

But I do believe that there are special occasions in the life of each of us when the Lord appears to us. When he speaks to us when he uses mean circumstances people or his word. To make a very special occasion out of a very difficult circumstance.

Now, I'm not speaking in riddles. I'm not speaking Mythically to some of you or most of you have not all of you who've been on the pilgrim way these many years. So 20 years come and 20 years go and at the close of the 20 years God appears to Jacob and he says go back to your country go back to your father's house and Jacob gathers together everything that he has and he starts on his way and when we come to chapter 32 of Genesis Let me notice what it says to you here the opening verse Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him 32 and verse 1.

Without any introduction without any special occasion without any emergency without confronting any major difficulty. Jacob is going on his way and the angels of God met him later on this group of angels is called a host or a camp and later on when when Jacob comes to the Fort Javik he says about how he had gone over the River Jordan with his staff and He's coming home with two bands.

I've wondered about that. On this occasion chapter 32 as he's going on his way, I like this as he went on his way God has directed him. He knows where he's headed. He's going on his way and in the process of the activity of journeying the angels of God met him now.

That's all that said. But isn't it significant? Why a host why a camp why a group of angels? Now we know that the terrain through which Jacob was traveling could be very perilous. It can be very dangerous.

It was fraught with various dangers. Bandits and wild beasts and so on through much of the country. He was traveling and he certainly needed protection. He needed a shield. He needed to be accompanied and he was not one angel.

Smote the camp of the Assyrians in one night 85 ,000 people. He's got a host of them. He's got a group of them and it's in the plural and it's called a camp my nine two bands. And I don't know I can't say with certainty whether Jacob is referring to his own vast array of servants and sons and flocks and herds.

When he later mentions that he says I crossed Jordan with this staff and now I'm coming back again to me two bands. Is he talking about his own group of possessions or is he talking about his own family and his own servants plus?

The host of the angels of God but there was some specific reason evidently why these angels met him at the beginning of chapter 2 and all we may conclude is that God is being good to his promise and he's making very evident to Jacob regardless of all the difficulties regardless of all the problems all the disappointments and the discouragement and and the physical difficulties that he passed through.

God is with him and Not only is God with him God is with his Children his wives and his children and his servants and his flocks and his herds. Comforting isn't it? We're farther down on our journey most of us than we ever thought we would get there aren't you I?

Never thought I would see certainly. And I never thought I never thought I would be over 40 ever be over 40. But here I am and I know I'm actually over 50, but anyway I never thought I would see the decade of the 80s and there I never dreamt we'd ever see the 90s and At any rate the Lord over 88 reasons why the Lord was coming in 1988 you remember that one?

Uh-huh, I read those two books, too. And then do you remember that after the 88 reasons why the Lord had to come in 1988 he didn't do it. It was coming you know between sunset and sunrise September the 13th through 15th.

And he didn't come on those feast days, so then oh, that's right. We made a slight mathematical error. It's 91. He's coming yes in 91 so in the fall of 91 you understand the Lord will be here. Well 91 came and 91 gone.

And I was in North Carolina a while back for a little conference on a weekend. And I was handed some new literature all together printed in blue. I suppose that was to be a heavenly message. And it said that computations had been rectified now and the Lord was definitely coming in the fall of 92.

What are you folks doing here? This is 93 well. They've been making all kinds of Prognostications of that kind and we are still here. And we never thought we would be this far likely on the journey, but regardless of 20 50 60 70 years that may lie behind us God is with us still and All that we have is his and so Jacob moves forward and then something as rather strange happens.

He gets word that Esau is coming now. 20 years have not erased from the memory of Jacob his own trickery. Neither have they wiped out the stain that conscience has left upon his heart, and he's afraid of Esau.

Isn't it remarkable how human nature still. Even after God has done all this for us doubts and questions and is afraid and you come into a new situation. You say how am I ever going to handle that? They've actually invited me to go to park of the palms for a week.

What am I going to do with this? Well look at all those stern Intelligent aged faces and what will I say? So I was quite apprehensive about it to be very honest and frank with you. So in spite of all that the Lord has been to us and has done for us.

We meet new circumstances and here's Jacob and he hears that Esau is coming in. He's afraid. So he gets together. Minka a gift-offering. That goes away back as I suggested to you earlier in the week to Cain and Abel so he gets these presents ready.

Now, I don't know. I have no way of computing this. I'm only suspecting perchance you know that it may have been this way. But when God met Jacob at Bethel in chapter 28 Jacob promised God with the oil poured on top of the pillow that became the pillar.

He promised God that he would give him a tenth of everything. That the Lord would bless him with and I don't read of that ever happening and whether it could or couldn't have happened in the Land of Cain and Aaron.

I leave you to decide. But at any rate he's on his way home. The vow is 20 years old. He has accumulated a tremendous amount of wealth and I don't have any indication that any of it went back to God in any way whatsoever.

So he's coming to meet Esau. What is he going to do? He's going to do for Esau what evidently hasn't done up until now for the Lord. Hmm, I think I see reflection. There somebody's face. That's not likely yours.

So he gets all these presents ready these gift offerings these minkas. He gets these all ready and he sends them over in droves. So many hundreds this and so many hundred of that and so many score of something else.

And he's moving them up ahead with his servants and these are to meet Esau and his 400 men on the way Esau's coming it would seem with an armed force. But at any rate Jacob is afraid. Now is Jacob finally having to give to Esau what he should have been giving to the Lord.

You ever see it work that way. We know that all that we have is his. We know that we should be Giving back to the Lord of the abundance of the things he has given to us. We know that if the Jew was required to give much more than a tenth if you add up all the vote of offerings the gift.

Offerings etc the free will offering and yet it's difficult sometimes to discover The things of our day who goes far as the law. So our shame be said but he's giving it now or offering it now to somebody else.

Should he offer to Esau what he should have already offered to the Lord be that as it may. He sends the presents on and then we come to that marvelous passage. And I I heard you once we come to that marvelous passage in chapter 32 when he sent his wives over in verse 22, and he was left alone in verse 24 and There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

Jacob Wrestles With God and Receives a New Name

Very intriguing passage. A Passage that stirs your mind to consider it visions of God. Who is this? Man of high degree. As he is called. Who is this one that Jacob prevails against. That's a marvelous thing to say.

Isn't it in the Hosea chapter 12? He took his brother by the heel. But he wrestled as a prince with God and he prevailed against the angel of the Lord. He prevailed By his strength. He prevailed it says against the angel of the Lord.

How does a man prevail with God? How does a man wrestle hand-to-hand cheek-to-cheek body-to-body with an angel of the Lord. Who is this one? That retains the authority to change his name now from Jacob to Israel a prince with God.

Who is this strange person who makes him alone? The angels of God met him as a company to a company. But this one meets Jacob as man to man. Let us never forfeit our personal experiences with the Lord because we have them in the aggregate.

Let us never think that because as a congregation we meet and enjoy the presence of the Lord. That's all that we require. Let us remember there are still personal individual encounters with God. And I know it isn't always true or safe perhaps I should say.

Isn't always wise. To take this expression the angel of the Lord and to apply it as a theophany though I do believe often it is one of the manifestations of God. Said the second person of the Godhead in manlike form.

Individually called the angel of the Lord you say I don't think you have confirmation of that. Yes I think I have plenty of confirmation of that and different occasions in the scriptures that when God appears as an angel It is the Lord himself.

He did that as we already saw in Genesis 18 with Abraham. He'll do that again as we may see with Moses at the burning bush the angel the Lord spoke unto Moses and Moses said who art thou he says I am.

And this man who this man of high degree who meets Jacob at the fort Jabbok, I believe is the Lord said and he finally Reduces Jacob my Jacob must have been a very strong individual physically. How could you wrestle all night with an angel of God?

And how was it only that by touching him in his pie and crippling him in that way? That he brought him into a place of submission. Nature died hard doesn't it. And Liberty and weakness frailty and submission.

Come because by nature. We are independent. We are lawless, but it's only when nature is crippled. Only when nature is quiet as we noticed with Abraham in his tent door that God reveals himself to us.

So Jacob is crippled. And he says what is your name. And Jacob clung to him and he said I won't let you go until you bless me. The Perseverance the unjust judge and the widow woman you remember that story.

I won't let you go until you bless me. And this insistence this perseverance is something that God heavenly prizes. How many has come to the Lord with petition and go on her way? We say well that faith enables me to do it.

It might be and it might not be. It might be carelessness that makes us to do it. It might be presumption that makes us to do it. Here's a man. He hangs on to the angel of God all night. He says I won't let you go.

Do you bless me? Then he says what's your name, and he changes his name to Israel a prince with law. Jacob says He called love Bethel the house of God because that's where he met him first. Because the Ford Cabot penny L the faith of God.

For he says I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved visions of God in the night. He moves on he goes on and then the Lord appears to him again in chapter 35. And he says go up to Bethel and dwell there and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee.

That's 35 and 1 when thou fled us from the face of Esau my brother. And then God appears to Jacob again in verse 9 of chapter 35 and so on. I leave Jacob with you. And let's move quickly on. I just want to make mention now of a few of the others that I had Planned or thought about in connection with visions of God in the Old Testament.

Moses, Joshua, and God’s Individual Guidance

When we come out of the book of Genesis. Thought it never going to get out of there. Didn't you. Well when we get out of the book of Genesis We come into Exodus the first thing or very early you meet in the book of Genesis.

Exodus rather is another vision of God. As I've already briefly referred to in connection with Moses. When Moses comes to the burning bush in chapter 3 he meets God face to face the Lord. The Lord is pleased to take up circumstances and conditions and even things as well as people to reveal himself in Accordance with the individual.

The circumstance and the purpose of the visit we would like to box God in. When we don't we find or have you found? Guidance. The matter of guidance about which so many Christians often have difficulty.

Haven't you find guidance. Haven't you found guidance? Just this very thing for example you have a major decision to make and you go to the Lord about it and You don't know what to do or where to go. You're not hearing any audible voices from heaven and you open the book one day and sure.

Enough right there in front of you you have the answer to your problem that ever happened to you of course. It's happened to you happens to Christians everywhere and. So you go on your way and very sure you are and it proves to be so God has given you a definite direction.

Then what happens so many months or even years down the road you come into another similar? Circumstances another major decision to be made. You say I know how this works, so you open the Bible like that boom.

There's nothing there. It doesn't work, so You don't know what to do. There's a loss now to get an answer to your problem. You're talking with another Christian one day and you're making certain things and something a comment is dropped and You've got it right there the Lord says this is it.

It's not alive not you just know this is it and that's your answer. Do you know that your answer and you go your way and certainly not it was the Lord's leading? So you come up to a third difficulty a third decision to be made and you say well I remember how was the first time so you open the book at random and work you go around and talk to a number of people.

Silent. And you you're in a quandary now you say Lord. How are you going to guide me? How are you going to tell me what to do and He's waiting to tell you, but not the way you think he's going to tell you.

So he chooses another method all together. To show you the way now. Why does this happen in our lives as Christians? May I suggest one basic reason? We are naturally inclined to trust Methods and God says with me you don't trust methods you trust me.

And I won't do it the same way every time. Not only because the circumstances are different. But because I will do it with you and be to you by God. He will be to us an individual God as we are to him individual sons and daughters and He will retain at all costs the individuality of his manner of our guidance.

I Have proven that over and over again. Before we ever went to Cuba I better not quit all this a way back in 1940 during the course of the Second World War. Everything was blowing up around us in Canada wasn't so much here in the States at that time.

Not so left at Pearl Harbor, but we were in the midst of it there and I think of it and so I was very much Interested and I thought I had the Lord's leading about going to Cuba as a missionary. I'm gonna tell this story, but at any rate I got very definite guidance from the Lord that we should go to Cuba.

And my wife and I were married back there in 1943 now, you know, I'm over 50 and You got that one figured out already, I'm sure. So what happened was we were given military exemption on the grounds of being minister of the gospel and so we were served in Canada for a number of years and when The war was over and the door was open to go to Cuba.

I went to the Lord and I said Lord I want some Plain indication that we are now to go to Cuba when we couldn't back. That many years ago. And I waited and I prayed and I read and I watched and I waited and I prayed and I read and I watched and I got no guidance.

And I said, I don't understand this the Lord told me so many years ago that that's what he wanted me to be and now where he wants us to be and Now the war is over and we can leave the country and we can get passports to travel et cetera.

And now he won't tell me that he really wants me to go. You know what happened. Well in a nutshell, he just closed doors all around. All around and when all the doors were shut as far as my service was concerned it dawned on this dark benighted mind.

That the Lord hadn't changed his mind at all. He told me once did he have to tell me again? So he just shut all the doors. I said All right. I see What is he doing he is staying true to his first commitment and guidance and The gifts and calling of God are without alteration.

He doesn't fluctuate. He doesn't change his mind. Circumstances common circumstances go but God is the same and his word is the same and he is reliable and his word is reliable. When he makes a covenant with us personally about anything he will stand to that covenant.

So he said all right, all right, but I'll show you you have to be shown. I'll show you and I had all the disappointments and it was disappointing. I have all the doors shut in my face and you use some old preachers to do it, too.

Now they're real. Handy instruments to that sometimes and he shut all the doors around and he blocked me out of everywhere and anything and he said now Where you go said Lord, I'm going to Cuba. The only door is left open, but God retains that right.

To deal with us individually now We come to the next case. Moses at the burning bush. He meets him the I am Commissions him, you know that marvelous story and Moses sees God face to face in the burning bush.

Moses later on goes up Mount Sinai and as the Lord said and I quoted you the other day at the beginning of our studies the Lord said he will see the similitude of Jehovah and I will talk with him face to face.

Moses comes down the tabernacle is built when Moses wants to talk with God. He goes in to the sanctuary and he talks to the Lord in front or before the propitiatory the mercy seat and God answers Moses and this man is characterized by Individual communication with God all the way through he's a man that has seen God.

After Moses who comes to the stage Joshua did Joshua see the Lord River Jordan, he'll go. Stands there ready to go in and possess the land and he sees a man with a drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua says are you for us or for enemies you come in peace or how do you come?

He said no, I came as a captain of the host of the Lord. Take your shoes off your feet and Here's another of the theophanies when a man looks upon God. As he's pleased to present himself to this man in keeping with his calling in keeping with his service in keeping with his charge and in keeping with the work that lies before.

I Insist on leaving with you this thought God is your goal. He's my boss. Your life is not mine. Your experiences are not mine. My needs are not your need my difficulties are not your difficulties. And God meets us individually on the ground which is pleased to do so so Joshua Meets the Lord and then you come out of the book of Joshua in the book of Judges and let me just throw two little brief Instances at you judges chapter 6 we have Gideon poor man, I Was interested to note the various tribes that these men come from God is he makes no exception of persons.

He doesn't discriminate as we say today so frequently and so he takes a poor man of a poor house in the tribe of a poor tribe the tribe of Manasseh and. And he's he's grinding wheat where wheat wasn't supposed to be ground but was in the winepress out of sight of the Midianites because of the the Midianites who were robbing and spoiling and pillaging the land of Israel.

Gideon’s Humility and Confidence in God’s Presence

And the Lord meets him in the angel of our meat Gideon there, and he said God is with thee thou mighty man of Valor. Mighty man of Valor did you say? Why is this Gideon he protest he said I? I'm I'm of a poor family the poorest family in the tribe of Manasseh.

And I'm the very least of my father's house, and if the Lord is with us. Why has all this befallen us? Two major requirements to be used of God. One is personal humility and the second is confidence in the victory of the presence of God.

See what he says. I'm the least in my father's house. My father's house is the least in all the tribe of Manasseh. Why do you say to me thou mighty man of Valor. And then anyway if the Lord is with us?

Why have all these things befallen us and the angel the Lord looks at him? And he says go in this thy might. Where is the strength? Where is the might? Lack of self-confidence and an understanding that the presence of God means victory.

Another one of the interesting visions of God we have in the Old Testament we move over to chapter 13 and. There's a woman in chapter 13. I know we don't have her name. We don't need her name. She was looking after her personal duties her house duties.

And the angel of God appears to her and he says you're going to have a son. But she had all lost all hope of having such. Aren't these childless couples a wonderful study in the scriptures. Marvelous.

And The children that come out of these childless couples so she she wasn't going to have any children and the angel of Lord promised her Children a son rather and what she is to do with this son now.

She belongs to the tribe of Dan, and you know that the tribe of Dan Turned out to be a tribe of inferior quality and even a treachery in Israel. Jacob spoke about them in his dying prophecy in chapter 49 of Genesis and of the tribe of Dan now.

Here's this woman, and she's told by a visit from the angel of the Lord that she is going to have a son. And this is how you'll do this and this and this and she runs out into the field where Manoah her wife is.

Her husband is working and she runs out to tell him. She says there's a man appeared to me. Oh, man, what did he say? He said we're going to have a son. And and he told me what I'm to do and I'm to be careful about this and hunter is this son.

Oh I see Manoah didn't know anything about it. No. No. But his wife knew about it. She not only was a very Able vessel for what was going to happen, but she was a very logical clear-thinking individual.

Manoah goes to the Lord and he asked the Lord says Lord if you've really sent someone to my wife. Have him come back again to convince me that this has really happened. He goes on with his work and his wife's out in the field one day and the man appears to her again.

He's an angel of the Lord she's doing what she's supposed to be doing and he appears to in the in the outworking of the daily duties and Tells her again and and huge he waits there and she runs to tell her husband and her husband comes back, you know the story.

What should we do? How should we order the child? How should we raise this child? How should we conduct ourselves with this child. Samson of the tribe of Dan and. So he tells Manoah again what he had told his wife previously and Manoah says oh, no, if you're really a messenger from God, let us go and get your present and he goes and gets a Meal ready as Abraham did and he brings it and I'll give it to you it for to eat.

Well, he said you'll have to offer it to the Lord where I won't touch your food. And he lays it on a rock and then it says the angel did a wonderful thing. Because fire came and and as the fire went up from the altar was to be a burnt offering.

They went up from the altar the angel disappeared in the flame and Manoah falls on his face and he says we're dead because we've seen God face to face and His wife said You are not thinking straight if God wanted to kill us would he have appeared to us?

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And then you know the rest of that story. Well, we come on through and we keep on coming through visions of God through the Old Testament. Samuel Solomon Daniel.

The Glory of God Revealed in Jesus Christ

When Gabriel comes but but here here's here's the best of it all we come into the New Testament and I was thinking of this word and it was running through my mind. We beheld his glory. John 1 and 14. The word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.