(In the Old Testament)
It is blessed for the people of God to realise that theirs is a living God who is intensely interested in all that concerns them, who meets all their varied needs, and who preserves them amidst all the dangers with which they are surrounded in a hostile world. Men generally, even in Christendom, are ignorant of God and indifferent to His claims; but the true believer has learned from the Holy Scriptures that He is indeed a living God, the originator of life, the sustainer of life, and the preserver of life. Although the evidences of death are all around, yet the universe pulsates with life which testifies to the work of a living God; but there is also a life over which death has no power, the eternal life that was manifested in the Son of God, and which He has given to every one who believes in His Name.
After the flood idolatry came into the world, and men worshipped gods of their own making of whom the Psalmist wrote, “They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not…they have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not” (Psalm 115:5-7). How very different to the idols of the heathen was the living God, who said to Moses, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them” (Ex. 3:7-8). From the very commencement of man’s history, God has shown Himself interested in his welfare, with special interest in those who trust Him.
Israel’s Peculiar Privilege
In Deuteronomy 5 Moses speaks to Israel of the appearance of Jehovah amidst the flames of Sinai, saying, “For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?” (verse 26). Moses had been personally favoured in hearing God’s voice from out the burning bush, but no other nation but Israel had been so favoured as to have God among them, and speaking to them directly.
God not only spoke to Israel, He also heard them speak, even as Moses said, “And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken” (verse 27). Moreover, they had been delivered by the mighty hand of God from the bondage of Egypt, and the hand of Pharaoh, having witnessed the manifestations of the power of the living God in Egypt, and at the Red Sea. All this made the idolatry of Israel so inexcusable. How quickly they turned from the living God to a golden calf, manifesting how little their hearts had been affected by all the evidences of the power of the One who so graciously had come down to deliver them.
Divine Assurance for Israel
When Israel were about to enter the land of promise, Joshua said to them, “Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites…Behold the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan” (Joshua 3:10-11). The ark was the symbol of the presence of the living God, and before Him the overflowing floods of Jordan would be rolled back; and this was to assure Israel that the living God who was in their midst would drive back the forces of the nations inhabiting the land of Canaan.
The presence of the living God at the Red Sea had destroyed the enemies of Israel; His presence drove back the waters of Jordan; and soon He would break into the citadel of Jericho without His people raising their swords, all they had to do was to march at His command, to blow their rams’ horns, and to shout when He gave the word. How the hearts of Israel should have been assured by these things; and our hearts should also be assured by what these great events foretold, even the overcoming of all our foes in Christ’s death, our death and resurrection with Him, and that from henceforth we have not to meet the power of the enemy, which He broke, but only his wiles and fiery darts.
David’s Confidence
There had not been in David’s day the wonderful displays of divine power that been witnessed by Moses and Joshua, but as a shepherd boy David had in secret learned that Jehovah was interested in him, and had delivered him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear. He did not attribute the destruction of the lion and the bear to his own skill and strength, but to the God of Israel who watched over His people.
Having learned in secret to confide in the living God, David was not dismayed when he heard the challenge of the champion of the Philistines. He viewed the challenge, as Saul and the men of Israel ought to have viewed it, not to the armies of the king, but as defiance of “the armies of the living God” (1 Sam. 17:26, 36). In the eyes of those who left God out of their reckoning Goliath appeared in all his natural strength and prowess, but these things were of little account when he was measured alongside the forces of the living God that faith saw in His armies.
If we are “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, we shall not fear the forces of evil that have to be met in the divine conflict, knowing that the true David has already vanquished all our foes. The enemy might despise the weapons of the Lord, but in death He used the enemy’s own sword to complete his defeat. It was by death that He annulled him that had the power of death, that is the [devil], and delivered them who through fear of death were, all their lifetime, subject to bondage.
Hezekiah’s Plea
In the days of Hezekiah the ten tribes were led captive, and their conqueror, the king of Assyria, sent his forces against Jerusalem. Hezekiah well knew that he had not the power to resist the victorious armies of Assyria, but he knew that Israel’s God was the living God. Rabshakeh, the Assyrian general, was ignorant of God, and, in his folly, said, “Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest…neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us” (2 Kings 18:19-30).
Hezekiah was not a man of great faith, but he discerned that the profane king of Assyria was not only challenging him, but was reproaching the God of Israel, therefore he sent a message to Isaiah, the prophet of Jehovah, in which he said, “It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God” (2 Kings 19:4). Even if Hezekiah’s faith was small, the Lord answered his cry, for the glory of His Name was in question, therefore we have the divine reply to the king, “Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold I will send a blast upon him…and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”
Had the faith of Hezekiah been stronger, he would have been able to say “my God,” instead of “thy God,” but in spite of feeble faith, God answered, for the feeble faith was in a strong and powerful living God. What encouragement there is for us in this. Our faith may be very feeble, like that of Hezekiah, not the strong faith of a Paul who could write, “But my God shall supply all your need” (Phil. 4:19), but “the faintest, feeblest cry we raise will reach the Saviour’s ear.”
The Psalmist's Desire
The addresses of Psalms 42 and 84 are “To the chief Musician,” and are for “the sons of Korah.” God, in His sovereignty, had chosen Aaron for the priesthood, and Korah and his companions in challenging Moses and Aaron had called in question God’s right to choose His own priests. God’s righteous judgment on the rebels made known that it was a most serious matter to come into conflict with the living God. But in judgment, God showed mercy, for He spared the sons of Korah, who henceforth were a living testimony that God was sovereign in mercy as in His choice of priests.
It was to those who had tasted that the Lord is gracious that the Psalmist wrote, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:2). God would have us to learn that He not only desires us to know His mercy, but also that He delights to have us before Him, finding every desire satisfied in His own company. The same desire is expressed in Psalm 84:2, “My soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God.” The presence of the Lord was a delight for the Psalmist, and so it should be for His people now.
The Government of God
Addressing His people Israel through the prophet Jeremiah, Jehovah speaks of the idols of the heathen, saying, “For one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not” (Jer. 10:3-4). How different was the God of Israel, “the Lord, the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting king: at His wrath the earth shall tremble, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens” (verse 11).
How very sad it was that God should have so to speak to His people, for “the prophet, and the priest, and the people” were all marked by departure from Him, so that the Lord has to say to them, “For ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God” (Jer. 23:34-36). In spite of having been the special subjects of God’s care, and of His having done His wonderful works among them, Israel had turned from the living and true God to serve the idols of the heathen. Is it any wonder that God, in his righteous government, allowed the heathen to take them captive.
When Israel, or a remnant of Israel, was brought back from captivity, they had been purged by divine government from idolatry; but in spite of all God’s goodness, when Messiah came they refused Him, and in consequence they were again driven from the land. If Israel refused the mercies of the living God, there were those who received them, for God sent His Gospel to the Gentiles, and of them it could be written, “Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9). If in God’s dealings with Israel we learn of His government, how wonderful it is to learn also of his sovereign grace in His dealings with the Gentiles, so that we can say with Paul, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out” (Rom. 11:33).
Daniel’s Testimony
During Israel’s captivity, God had His faithful remnant by whom His Name was honoured among the Gentiles. Of such was Daniel who, because of his faithfulness to God was honoured by various Gentile monarchs, being most useful to them as the servant of the living God. Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to own to Daniel, “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings” (Dan. 2:47).
But Daniel’s faithful testimony to God was not respected by all, and envious rivals by flattering deception of the king caused him to make a decree for the destruction of Daniel. After realising that he had been deceived, but having to consign Daniel to the den of lions, the king rose early in the morning and came to the lion’s den, and spoke to Daniel, saying, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, whom thou servest continually, is thy God able to deliver thee from the lions?” (Dan. 6:20). In delivering Daniel, God proved to the king that He was indeed the living God, as had been borne out in Daniel’s life of witness to Him; and this testimony is acknowledged in the decree of the king, who wrote, “the God of Daniel…He is the living God” (Dan. 6:26).
Hosea’s Prophecy
Although God in His government rejected Israel because of their idolatry, and called them Lo-ammi, not my people, they were not to be cast off for ever. Even before God’s judgment fell upon the house of Jehu, which had followed the sins of Jeroboam, God had announced, “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God” (Hosea 1:10).
This will be fulfilled concerning Israel in the coming day, when, under the New Covenant, Israel will be blessed in the land of promise. But there is already a partial fulfilment in those who now believe in the Lord Jesus Christ from among the children of Israel, and also an application of the truth to believing Gentiles, even as it is written, “Even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles” (Rom. 9:23-25), then the verse from Hosea 1:10 is quoted.
Israel as a nation had been spoken of as God’s son in Exodus 4:23, and Solomon was promised as God’s son, a type of the coming Son of God (1 Chr. 17:13); but here the nation of the coming day is to know the blessedness of this relationship with God, as those who form God’s assembly now have it in a special way in relation to heaven and the eternal counsels of God (Eph. 1:4-6).
The Scriptures contemplated surely bring before us that our God is indeed a living God, intensely interested in all that belongs to Him, and having special care of those whom He has chosen to be His people. If this is seen in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, it is also seen in the New Testament where, among many more wonderful things, the living God is presented as the “preserver of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).
R. 2.7.66