The Lord makes His
accusations against His people very clear.
He asks if there has ever been a nation who has changed their gods,
especially for gods that are not gods at all.
They have forsaken Him even after all He has done for them in bringing
them into the Land and giving it to them.
There was a time when they were like a bride, they loved Him and
followed Him but those times didn't last long when they came into the
Land. Now, they have defiled the Land,
they have forsaken Him, even the priests and prophets do not know Him or seek
after Him. Ultimately, there are two
sins they have committed, they have forsaken Him, the fountain of living
waters, but not for nothing, they have instead hewn out cisterns and these are
not even suited to the task of holding water.
A cistern is a fine thing but living waters, flowing waters, are far
preferable.
One of the key words
in John's Gospel is believe. Here, Jesus
responds to the official's request to heal his daughter by saying unless y'all
see signs and wonders you won't believe.
The man simply responds by saying, essentially, "Can we go now, the
work still needs to be done." When Jesus
tells him to go alone, the man believes and goes and on his arrival at home
finds his child healed. When he learns
that the healing occurred at the time Jesus was speaking to him, John tells us
that he and all his household believed. It
seems to me that there are three points in the story in which the man believed:
when he first asked Jesus to come, when he walked away alone, and when the
healing happened. How is that
possible? Belief is a continuum, walking
in faith will frequently lead us into situations where we find our faith
deepened by seeing. Let us take those
first steps believing in the promises of God to be with us in our work of
making disciples and expect to see Him
work.
Is Paul actually a
pre-scientific man, captive to his own lack of knowledge concerning the
world? Science today makes claims that
would overthrow Paul's argument here, that the creation reveals the invisible
attributes of its Creator. Science says
there is no creator, this is all there is, scientific naturalism. If we buy into the idea, we lose much and
without getting anything into the bargain.
Fortunately, all scientists don't agree on this point. Faith matters, faith in the revealed word of
God. If Jesus is who He said He was, we
have a creator God. Paul says it all
begins and ends with faith, acknowledging there are those things we cannot know
with certainty apart from revelation, and walking in faith to receive more
revelations. We need to check our
worldview to see if it is living water or a leaky, broken cistern.
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