Discover The Word

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

“What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets” (Hebrews 11:32).

IDEA: We can lose the mystery of faith by making the awesome commonplace.

PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate the wonder of being able to go into the very presence of God.

What do we mean when we talk about “mystery” in connection with God? Are people comfortable with mystery?

I. During the life of Samuel, the people of Israel turned mystery into magic.

What is the Ark of the Covenant? It’s not the same as Noah’s Ark.

The box is veiled in mystery. How?

It was shut in the most sacred place in the worship center at Shiloh.

During Samuel’s day, somehow the people got hold of that box and they treated it like magic.

They felt that they could carry it into battle and it would assure them of the victory.

Instead of God controlling them, they were able to control God.

God moved to keep the Ark away from the people because it had become commonplace. It no longer was mysterious.

II. We can be in danger of trying to control the mystery of God.

We sometimes spend effort in trying to explain God when we should fall on our knees and worship Him.

We are allowed as Christians to go into God’s presence (Hebrews 10:19). There is no veil between us and God.

Yet we often treat prayer as a way to get our will done rather than a means through which God’s will is done.

The Lord’s Prayer makes clear that we are to pray for His kingdom and for His will to be done on earth.

Sometimes we treat prayer indifferently. We use it when it benefits us, so that God becomes like the genie in the bottle: we control Him rather than being controlled by Him.