Sermon Central
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"Greatest Question Ever”
Contributed by Bubot Parago on Oct 9, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: And when Jesus was on the Cross, He cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” GOD HAD FORSAKEN JESUS!THAT WE MIGHT BE FORGIVEN!!! Where are you now? Are you hiding from God? Listen, not once did He left us.
“But the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9 AMP
I- QUESTION OF CONDITION:
“Where Art Thou?”
The first question of God in the Bible, not asking as if He doesn’t know what’s happening but one that He’s asking for reconciliation.... an unsatisfactory condition for them that was raised through a question by God and wants to do something from such circumstances....
This is our topic today. Not a question or call of an arresting police officer, but the voice of a tender-broken hearted Father.
God comes in the same way as He had done so many times before in the coolness of the day. He comes to visit His children. And the Lord acts as if nothing has changed! That’s the amazing thing we find here! It’s almost like God doesn’t know about their awful fall. HE ACTS AS IF NOTHING HAS CHANGED!
And so we ask ourselves, did God not know what they had done? When He came from heaven to earth and walked in the garden in the cool of the day, did God not know about their sin?
Well of course He did! God knows everything – “even before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely, O Lord,” psalm 139:4 says. Of course God knew about their sin! But the point to remember is that from the Lord’s side, the covenant was not broken. From God’s side, nothing had changed, nothing had happen. God’s faithfulness was unbroken. He came just as He had always come, to visit His children! The break, the separation in the relationship came from the side of Adam and Eve succeeding offspring and not from God’s side! And Adam and Eve are painfully aware of that! They “hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
God’s conditions remains the same to the couple, but Adam and Eve changed in their attitude towards God. Ephesians 2:1 said “It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. 2:2 You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. 2:3 We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us. (The Message) NO ONE’S EXEMPTED HERE. (See my preaching “One Man For The One Man)
II- A QUESTION OF CONVICTION:
“Where Art Thou?”
God wants to bring them back, in which the Bible calls repentance. It’s an honest confession of sin. Not trying to hide or to cover over in any other form. It is a simple, honest confession admitting they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and say, “I did ate it!” What happened was, Adam pointed at Eve, blamed Eve and Eve pointed at the snake, blamed the Snake! and the poor snake doesn’t know who to point to! He’s got no fingers! That’s how sin works ever since, we own it and point to somebody else to blame! “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It damages everything on its path, relationships, the ground, the plants and every creations God had made groans since then!
That’s as far as humans can go in restoring the relationship. Point and blame. If we can only admit it and confess our sin! This is where God always seeks to bring us, because it brings us back to the Father where we belong. He finds us in our failure, our estrangement, our guilt, our sense of nakedness and loss, and He moves to brings us to repentance and reconciliation. That’s what He does here with Adam and Eve. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” [1 John 1:9].
God convicts us of our sin and wants us to come to Him again.
The devil condemns us.
A lot of us believers hear condemning thoughts, and some believers even think it's God telling them these things. My brethren, nothing could be further from the truth! God NEVER tells you what a loser you are. Jesus said He came not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 12:47)! Conviction is known in the Bible as Godly sorrow. God's Word tells us that Godly sorrow is what leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Condemnation tells you, "You are such a failure! Look at what you did!" while conviction tells you, "Come to me... and I will forgive you!"
Not only is God willing to forgive our sins, but He longs (deeply desires) to do so! Isaiah 30:18, "Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him." (NASB)
