Waiting Upon the LORD for His Will

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Oct 23, 2012 at 16:59

In this response, some points of clarity are called for, if for no other reason than to provide understanding for those who are not so sure. In the prior response, it is said:

"I would point out that God, and thus also Jesus as well, expects us as Christians to do for ourselves as well."

As much as that has a sounding of good Christian advice, it poses the question: if Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach, expects us to do for ourselves, what are Christians expecting from Almighty God who indwells us by His Holy Spirit? Further, in the upper room, are we not admonished to wait upon the Holy Spirit? There is a good reason for that; we as Christians are not supposed to fight the fight alone, but with His power. If we attempt to advance the cause independent of His Spirit, we take upon ourselves an action and obtain a reaction such as it happened to the Israelites at Ai, do we not?

We do have free will as our 'birthright' of being born human; but it is manifested in free choices that are under a curse, that of our mortal constraints of sinfulness. Our free will can get us into troubles as fast as our thoughts can produce them, so should we be so quick to express them? We as Christians who follow in discipleship of Jesus Christ are given a means to express our free will through a power of the universe that exceeds the mere mortal thoughts of humanity: do we demean that by advancing beyond the expectation of our LORD for our obedience to His will?

Jonah did not run away for fear of his life as much as he had hatred for the Ninevites-he surmised that the LORD had revival in mind and Jonah was not so inclined to share that with his enemies. Eventually, he repented and formed his will under the LORD's will and accomplished a great thing for his time, amassing a great many believers in the LORD that would never have known mercy had Jonah not belatedly decided he should serve Him.

Every Christian today has a 'Jonah' decision to make. When Yeshua gathered His disciples in the upper room to give His last will and testament prior to His crucifixion, part of the bequeath was impartation of the Holy Spirit after His resurrection and ascension to give us access to His power: His power to do His will in our lives. Properly understood, our free will, if we have freely chosen in faith to become one of His disciples, is now surpassed by our obedience to His omniscient will, a better means to make choices since His will is perfect.

Why then, if it is His perfect will for us to respond to Him in His love, would we choose to replace that with actions that conform to our human will?

Ah, but now we come to the great question, not merely of our time, but of thousands of years; of the mention by the prior response of the circumstances that led to the holocaust. "The holocaust: How many Jews were murdered w8n[waiting] for God to save them because they were unwilling or unable of saving themselves? Haven't the Jews learned their lesson? I'd say so since every building in Israel now proclaims very loudly "NEVER AGAIN!"

This is a very touchy subject, especially from a Judaic perspective, since over the centuries Christians have been identified as the chief perpetrators of the persecution that the Jewish communities have endured. There is truth in this, to the extent many who claimed to be Christians did not have the LORD in their hearts and viewed Judaism through the lens of the anti-Semitic eyes of Israel's chief enemy, the Adversary, who sought and still seeks death to all of Judaism to prevent the will of Almighty God to be accomplished.

But what is the will of Almighty God towards Judaism, if, as so many like Islam and replacement theology claim, the time of the Jewish people is over when it is so obvious that this is not true? The Holy Scripture is replete with the answer. Starting with Moses song commencing in Deuteronomy 31:16 et sequiter, to the times we see being fulfilled in Daniel, Ezekiel, Zephaniah and all the other references; among them like 2 Chronicles 7:14, that if my people who are called by my Name… etc., we are given many examples of the fact that Almighty God is definitively not done with the Jewish people.

Now there are uncounted numbers of people, especially those of the Jewish belief that take extreme exception to the application of Scripture to attempt to place the hand of Almighty God in the middle of the Holocaust. In a general sense, the question posed is: how could a loving and merciful Almighty God even encounter let alone permit such a thing such as the holocaust? No humanly reasoned thing could have ever determined the justification of such an event that was so enveloped in the mind of evil. Yet, if we are to presume as Scripture says that all things in earth are under Divine provenance, then this has to have been considered. Still, in horror of such contemplation: why would this be so?

We might go back to the first century of Christianity and ask a similar question, that of the first Christians being Jewish and suffering persecution for having accepted Yeshua HaMashiach as Savior; why were they not protected from the Romans and the Jewish people like Saul of Tarsus who did not believe in Him then and put many Jewish believers to death?

Let us cut to the chase, so to speak; and try answering the point of the previous response; "Are we now as Christians destined to make the same holocaustic mistake? Will we also let ourselves be led to death without resistance hoping for God's intervention when clearly He has shown us that this is our decision, responsibility and duty to avert? .."; is this a valid inquiry? This cannot necessarily be answered by the typical overused quip; whatever be the will of God.

This must be answered as a two part observance. First; going back to the lesson that the Jewish people are supposed to have learned [?]; it is intimated here that NEVER AGAIN is their intention, yet have they returned to the LORD as 2 Chronicles 7:14 requires? And for the Christianity that has all the appearances of falling into the apostasy Jesus spoke of and the Apostle Paul wrote of? True believers have all the power of the Holy Spirit to discern if they are to be accounted as the true believers that are under grace, then the discernment is going to be that as Almighty God has directed, His protection while under His grace is as sure as the Risen Savior.

The Church in its human realm of existence is not indefinite-it does come to a close. Are teh current disciples of Jesus Chirst ready fro any inevitability of teh will of Almighty God? What say the Scriptures? The Church's destiny and those who have sought out the will of Almighty God in their lives have their answer: do not resist being obedient to the LORD.

Do we then avert the true will of Almighty God; or do we seek its fulfillment? As John punctuated the Revelation; even so, return LORD Jesus.

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