“And I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you.” Joel 2:25
There is no doubt that God is a just God, and that He will reveal that justice in His dealing with sin, in particular with sin that is deliberately aimed at His honor and glory. But there is also, and equally real and revealed, the grace and mercy of God. This is not to say that God’s justice and righteousness will be cancelled out by His grace and goodness, but it is to declare that we, as human beings have a hard time in understanding God’s ways and thoughts, because we compare them with our own, instead of beginning with His alone. How can one explain God’s dealings with Jacob, who was a thief, and a deceiver? What about David, who was a murderer, and an adulterer? What about Paul, who was complicit in the persecution of the Lord’s disciples, Christians, by seeking them out, throwing them in prison, and even approving of their death? Let us be clear, God will deal equitably, and righteosously with sin. But our interpretation of the His dealings are very limited, as we do not see all that is in the unseen and unknown. It is here that we fall, and often fail in our interpretation of God’s dealings with men, either seeing all through the eyes of judgment or of grace and mercy. What are we to do with such a deficiency of understanding? As with everything else, we are to go to Him our Teacher, and the only one who can anoint our eyes, and GIVE us understanding.
No man can grasp the full significance of Christ on the cross, when He took upon Himself the sins of the world, the punishment for those sins, and by His righteous life, revealed forever in His precious blood, tasting death for EVERY man. However, man can know something of the love of God, and God’s gracious dealings with us, to save us from sin, and to give us to know His very life, by the Spirit, dwelling in our hearts by faith. This is why the Apostle Paul would write to the Ephesian church, whose doctrine was correct, and whose zeal was very commendable, (Rev. 2) that he was praying that God would give them, “…the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him…(of Christ.)” (Eph. 2:17) Why? If the believers in Ephesus were to know this God of their salvation in an increasingly true, and balanced manner, there was no other way than that He take the truths of Scripture, and His testimony in the church, and the believers of all ages, to REVEAL His blessed character, His righteousness and mercy, His judgment and His grace. Here is the eternal God, manifested in the flesh, Christ coming and walking on this earth, providing for the believer a most certain way to understand something of Him, His love and goodness in a world where sin is rampant, and much of what we see is His judgement upon it. One must not minimize the importance of this prayer, for it is a key to a door opening, which gives God in His mercy and grace, because of Christ, the blessed means to reveal Himself to the heart, and to make real in one’s experience that which is real in heaven.
There is a second prayer to the Ephesian church that is also essential, the application of which can be seen in the matter of strength, power, that blessed given ability and authority by the Spirit, to enable the saved soul, though he still be a sinner, the capacity to grasp, and lay hold of the great truths of God, in order to know Him on a daily basis. Paul prayed that the Father, “…would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” (Eph. 3:16)
Dear Father, Strengthen us to believe. In Jesus’ name, Amen.