SOME
QUESTIONS FROM GOD
By
Robert Farish
Many questions are recorded in the Scriptures. Some are
questions which God addresses to man; others are questions
which man directs to God. God’s questions are
designed to teach Man; man’s questions are for the
purpose of learning. God “teaches” and man
“learns.”
There are questions which are universally and eternally
relevant to men. Every person who has lived has been
confronted
with these questions
which only an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being can
answer. In the Bible we have the record of men asking such
questions as: “If a man die shall he live
again?” (Job 14:14); “What is man that thou art
mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4); Am I my brother’s
keeper?” (Gen. 4:9); “What must I do to be
saved?” (Acts 16:30); “What kind of body will
the resurrected be?” (1 Cor. 15:35); etc. Answers
from God are given in
the Scriptures to these and all other questions, the
answers to which are necessary for man’s real
happiness here and hereafter. These
questions,
which men ask in order to learn, however, are not the
questions which we
plan to study in this lesson. Rather, we plan to study some
questions from God.
God directs questions to men, not to gain
information
for himself, but to teach man. Teaching is accomplished
when thought is provoked and directed toward the lesson the
student needs to learn. Ponder this: If I were confronted
by God with a question, what would the question be? Relate
each question to your own self.
“WHERE
ART THOU?”
Where are you – now? It is not where you would like
to be, but where are you? No sound expectation can be
entertained of moving toward
where you want to be until you realize where
you are. This is the first question on record and it was
addressed to the first man (Gen. 3:9).
The question is not probing the physical location of Adam.
God’s all-seeing eye could penetrate the foliage of
the trees and see the frightened pair as they cowered
there, vainly trying to hide from God. Neither was the
question designed to assist Adam in locating himself
physically – he knew that he was “amongst the
trees of the garden.” The design of the question is
to bring Adam and his companion to a realization of where
they were in consequence of their action. The enormity of
sin is perceived when one considers the results that
follow. Adam and Eve needed to know
where they were in relation to their God in contrast to
where they were before they sinned. After
they disobeyed God, they came
to know shame. Before sin, they had never known shame. They
were no in a sate where fear abounded. Before sin Adam and
Eve had never known fear. God drove them forth from the
garden of Eden. They, by sin, separated themselves from God
(Is. 59:1-2).
Where are you now? Get your bearings in order to be able to
identify your destiny. Are you in the straight
and narrow way?
It leads to life. Are you in the broad way. Traveling with
the crowd? It leads to destruction.
“HOW LONG GO YE LIMPING BETWEEN THE TWO SIDES?”
This question is recorded in the account of the contest on
Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1
Kings 18:21). The prophet calls on the people to make up
their minds as to who is God. The then provided
them with a clear demonstration that Jehovah was the true
and living God. No man can
acceptably
serve two masters and anytime a person tries to serve the
gods of this world along with the true God, he is limping
between two sides. The wordly-minded church member is a
case in point of limping between two sides; he falters in
his service to God but is unable to completely abandon the
Lord. His religious “conviction” is too weak to
produce total commitment to this soul’s best
interest. A clear-cut choice must be made and Elijah calls
on the people to choose. He is urging them to serve Jehovah
in “singleness of heart”. We must turn unto God
from idols, to serve a living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9).
“WHERE ARE THE NINE?”
Jesus, on the way to Jerusalem, was met at a certain
village by ten people afflicted with leprosy. Their piteous
plea to him was, “Lord, have mercy on us.”
These ten realized their need of mercy and evidently had
some conviction of the Lord’s power to help them, and
therefore the plea, “Lord, have mercy on us.”
Cruden’s concordance lists nine references in which
David in his Psalms uses the word, “Have mercy on me,
O Jehovah…” In the New Testament we read of
“two blind men crying out to Jesus, ‘Have mercy
on us thou son of David’” (Matt. 9:27). The
Canaanitish woman pled for daughter with the words,
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David”
(Matt. 15:22). Over and over again, the words, “Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David” are repeated
by men suffering physical impairment. Men, then as now,
call for mercy when in physical distress, but also then as
now, the masses fail to acknowledge their deep spiritual
need for mercy.
Jesus, being “full of pity, and merciful,”
demonstrated his compassion for the ten lepers by healing
them. As they were on their way to show themselves unto the
priest they were cleansed.
The actions of these who were the recipients of mercy is
significant. One the them, a Samaritan, turning back,
“with a loud voice glorifying God; and he fell on his
face at his feet, giving him thanks” (Luke 17:15-16).
All ten desperately needed mercy; all ten cried for mercy;
but only one out of the ten was grateful enough to express
his thanks. Whether or not this is the proportion of
humanity who are grateful for favors received, we can be
sure that genuine gratitude is in the minority. The sin of
ingratitude is reflected in the pleasure seeking crowds on
the highways and pleasure resorts on the Lord’s day,
in the business as usual in chain stores, the small crowds
at mid-week Bible study. It continues to perplex the
thoughtful t hat people can receive visits, attention,
encouragement and help from brethren when they are sick and
then when they are back in health, manage to go their way
as if they had no obligation of gratitude. Some church
members seem to think that everybody in the church has the
duty to minister to them, but feel no personal duty to
minister to others.
“Were not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were
there none found that returned to give glory to God, save
this stranger? And he said unto him, arise and go thy way:
t hey faith hath made thee whole” (Luke 17:17-19).
The Samaritan, by his works, showed his faith. Are you one
of the nine or is your faith alive? Genuine gratitude is
gracious and ennobling, it is not demeaning. There is no
kinship between groveling and gratitude. The one is
hypocritical; the other is sincere and characterizes every
healthy soul.
The accuracy of the Bible, in picturing humanity’s
action – in various situations – as currently
observable in men, is a mark of its super-human origin. Men
respond today to the grace of God as they did when Jesus
was on the earth.
There are many other questions, which God addresses to men,
recorded in the Bible. God, by these questions, seeks to
focus our attention on vital lessons. Search out the
questions in the Bible; ponder them carefully. They are
intended to help us. They are not just
“fillers” but are of indispensable practical
value. Use them!
Note:
This mornings article is taken from a 1977 edition of the
Christian journal, Vanguard.