Get To Know the Lord

We’re starting a series on getting to know the Lord through looking at some of the men and women in the Bible. It will, however not be in sequence all the time, but will be thrown in-between the other postings as we go along. We’ll look at what we can learn by identifying with these Bible characters.
 

If you’d like to get to know God, you need to read the Old Testament. In the Old Testament much is revealed about His relationship with His people.

If you’d like to understand how the Lord thinks about the church it is important to realise that the church is the New Testament version of Israel, i.e. a type of Israel. Israel is the physical children of Abraham and the church is his spiritual children. Therefore anything that God addressed physically in His people Israel, He addresses spiritually in His people, the church, e.g. in the Old Testament physical intercourse outside of marriage was considered adultery. Jesus made adultery a mental and spiritual connection (Matthew 5:28).

 
Israel’s enemies were the ungodly nations among whom they settled, such as the Philistines and Moabites. Whenever Israel invaded new territory, God instructed them to get rid of all the people and not to mix with them, which Israel didn’t do and these people then led them into idol worship and sin as a result. These nations also attacked Israel quite often and God used them to discipline His people or to teach them certain things.

Our enemies are the ungodly spiritual forces who make it their business to cause us to sin against the Lord and to lure us into idol worship, just like the nations did to Israel. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).” If we persist in sin and the Lord needs to get our attention or needs to discipline us, He makes use of the evil forces as well. Paul told the Corinthians who tolerated a man committing horrific sexual sins to “hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:5).” Israel had to fight the physical enemies and we have to fight the spiritual enemies.

When Israel sinned against the Lord, He sent prophets to warn them and when they did not listen, He disciplined them. When they’ve learnt their lesson, He usually sent a man or in some cases a woman to deliver them from the enemies whom the Lord used to attack them as part of the discipline.

If we allow sin to control us, either as a church or as individuals, the Lord sends us word through various prophets. It could be a message in church, on the radio or television, from an individual or through the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. If we do not comply, He allows discipline to be exercised on us. He allows the evil forces to teach us a lesson. When we’ve learnt our lesson and repented, He uses the church to bring us back on track. We’ll touch on the role of the church in this respect as we go along.

Therefore, if you’re unsure how the spiritual realm works, simply read the Old Testament and picture the church as above. In future postings we’ll look into this in practical detail.

Lord, please open my eyes to understand this.