Chapter 3: What Does God Want?

God Was Betrayed by His Family | Meditation on a Book | What Does God Want? Series | Jesus Christ | Christianity

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Introduction | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Summary and Preview | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

God Was Betrayed by His Family

Those words, the title of chapter 3, hit me hard. Betrayed. By His family. If you haven’t been betrayed by a family member, it may be difficult to feel and understand the painful impact of those words.

Chapter 3 contains four sections:

• Wearing out your welcome

• Law and loyalty

• The downward spiral

• The final betrayal

Wearing Out Your Welcome

After God dealt with humanity’s betrayals in the three rebellions (the Garden, the flood, Tower of Babel), He still honored His promise to Noah to continue in relationship with His human family. How? He called out Abraham (formerly Abram) and promised him a special home plus descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven. Although Yahweh blessed Abraham with wonderful news, He also let him know that things would be rough for Abraham’s descendants:

Genesis 15:13-14 (NLT)
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 14 But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.

Through Joseph, Jacob’s son, God saved the Israelites from perishing during a seven-year-long famine by relocating them to Egypt (read Genesis 45, 46, and 47). Then, with Moses, God punished the Egyptians after new leadership had enslaved the Israelites (entire book of Exodus). He rescued His people by leading them out of Egypt toward home. The Lord’s miracle of the parting of the Red Sea (or the Sea of Reeds) and drowning Pharaoh’s armies demonstrated His commitment to preserve His human family, the ones with whom He had a covenant relationship.

At the end of this section, Heiser wrote that the Israelites wore out their welcome in Egypt by staying way too long after the famine was over. Hence the name of the first section. Through my research I don’t come to that conclusion. The Lord had told Abraham (see verse 14 above) that His people would experience oppression as slaves for four centuries, and then leave that life with “great wealth”. And they did. Yahweh also made a promise to Jacob:

Genesis 46: 2-3 (ESV)
2 And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 3 Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. 4 I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.” [ Emphasis mine ]

I’m not a seminary-educated Bible scholar; that’s just how I read these passages. Feel free to share your thoughts in a comment below this post.

Law and Loyalty

Then, there’s Moses, leading the now-free people of God through the wilderness towards their covenant land. During that journey, Yahweh gave them His laws, what we call the Ten Commandments. Heiser reminds us that the Israelites were already God’s people, already God’s family. Receiving and obeying His laws did not make them His people. They already were.

Exodus 6:7-8 (ESV)
7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”

He didn’t ask them to keep His laws to become His family. Yahweh’s laws, instead, informed His chosen people on how to live as His covenant people, set apart, and very different from the people groups in the surrounding nations who worshiped lesser and created gods (bene elohim).

Exodus 19:3-6 (NLT)
3 Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. The Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “Give these instructions to the family of Jacob; announce it to the descendants of Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.”

These phrases stand out to me from God’s words as they express His heart toward His set-apart people:

• carried you on eagles’ wings

• brought you to myself

• my own special treasure

• my kingdom of priests, my holy nation

How precious they were to the Lord! (And, how precious we all are to him today.)

God kept His promises to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was loyal to His human family, the people He deeply loved. He simply asked for their loyalty in return through His laws, knowing that they could exercise their free will at any time and not proclaim their loyalty to Him.

Through their obedience to His laws, the Israelites demonstrated their “set apart-ness” as Yahweh’s people from the rest of their known world (a pagan world). Their obedience also communicated their love for Him and their loyalty only to Him.

The Downward Spiral

Sadly, the people disobeyed God. The book of Judges chronicles the downward spiral of the people of Israel. In the book, we read of:

• spiritual rebellion (against Yahweh)

• suffering that results from their rebellion

• crying out to Almighty God to rescue and help them

• God lovingly responds, comes back and rescues them

This cycle repeats itself throughout the Old Testament, demonstrating how they were a stubborn and stiff-necked people (read Exodus 32:9; Ex. 33:3; Ex. 33:5; Ex. 34:9; 2 Chronicles 30:8; and Acts 7:51). Eventually, they demanded to have a king just like the other (pagan) nations. They chose Saul, he was a disaster. God then anointed David and established King David’s descendants as the messianic line for the incarnate Son of God.

He didn’t have to do that, but He did. God loves His human family.

The Final Betrayal

After King Solomon’s death, eventually the people of Israel split into two kingdoms (see I Kings and 2 Kings): Israel (northern - 10 tribes) and Judah (southern - 2 tribes). The people in the northern kingdom of Israel quickly fell into idolatry. The Assyrians invaded and captured them, scattering them across the ancient world. The people in the southern kingdom of Judah sank into spiritual rebellion more slowly. Over time (hundreds of years), their spiritual “whoring around” with the gods of their neighbors led the Lord to give up. The people didn’t listen to the many prophets He sent to warn them to return to Him. As a result, the Babylonians swooped in and—this is heart breaking—completely destroyed Jerusalem and God’s temple.

And yet, God still honored His promises, His covenant, with His people. He spoke to His people through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, giving them hope for the future.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NLT)
³¹ “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. ³² This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.

³³ “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴ And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

And…

Ezekiel 36:22-28 (NLT)
²² “Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign Lord: I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations. ²³ I will show how holy my great name is—the name on which you brought shame among the nations. And when I reveal my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign Lord, then the nations will know that I am the Lord. ²⁴ For I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land.

²⁵ “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

²⁸ “And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God

After the years of exile in Babylon ended, God made a way for the people of Judah to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. But, what is God going to do with such a stubborn and stiff-necked people? Throughout the rest of the Old Testament He reveals His plan to give His human family new hearts and His very real presence among them: through the Messiah to come.

Isaiah 7:14 (NKJV)
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.

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Isaiah 9:6 (NKJV)
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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Micah 5:2 (ESV)
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

from ancient days.

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Meditations on Chapter 3

This chapter resonates with me as I’m currently reading through the Old Testament, and nearing the end of the exile period in Babylon. I’m amazed at how faithful God is in the face of constant betrayal by many in His human family. “God was betrayed by His family.” That sentence sums up the entire Old Testament. But, God keeps His promises even when His people—who He loves—are horrifically unfaithful. What encourages me is there always seems to be a “remnant”—those who remain faithful to Yahweh. God uses the remnant to help the repentant return to the Lord and recommit their allegiance to Him.

I enjoy how “What Does God Want?” keeps our focus on God’s loving heart, on His desire to have His human family, and how He remains faithful to us no matter what we free-will-enabled humans do. I hope that’s the heart we have in us whenever we share God with others. I hope we’re telling them that God truly wanted us humans, and He created us to be His dearly beloved family members made in His image. I hope we share the gospel as the good news it is, as the story of God’s loving and bold rescue mission.

God wants His family back.

Sisters and brothers, the majority of the not-yet-redeemed ones will not come to your church. Research is showing that many pagans grew up in the church, were in the church for years, and now stay as far away as they can.

Solution? You and I need to go to them, no matter how uncomfortable a place that may be for us.

Romans 10:14 (NET)
How are they to call on one they have not believed in? And how are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them?

I’m not much of an evangelist. Over the years, I’ve been way too quiet about He Who loved me to the ends of creation, to death and Hell itself, to rescue me. I’m more comfortable at my keyboard writing and publishing online. The Lord is calling me out of my comfort zone because the spiritual realm is very real to me. I’m seeing way too much going on as the spiritual war rages on. I’m seeing the evil ones’ influence and power increase at a scary and rapid rate. I’m watching people struggle with fear, anxiety, depression, and confusion. They are sheep without a shepherd and they are falling head first into deep traps of the enemy’s lies.

God, the One betrayed by His family, is calling us out of our comfort zones to bring His family members back. Back from sin and death, back from the evil ones.

The Son of God left the glories of heaven, to walk among His human family. He’s always with us on this gospel journey to help us help Him get His family back.

Your Turn

What’s your comfort zone, if any? What are your thoughts about stepping out of that comfort zone? What about sharing the true gospel story as a loving God wanting His human family back versus a “sinners in the hands of an angry God” approach?

Soli Deo Gloria!

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