Please open your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 16:1-9 which we will read in a few minutes.
In 2 Chronicles 14 we see King Asa come to power as the king of Judah, the southern kingdom. In the 10th year of his reign a vast army came out against Judah and King Asa prayed the LORD the God of Israel for deliverance and the LORD delivered the opposing army into the hands of the army of Judah.
It was a great victory brought about by a great trust in the One and only true God.
King Asa spent the next five years removing all of the idols and places of pagan worship from the land and after that there were 20 years of peace.
2 Chronicles 15:19 says, “There was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.”
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read: 2 Chronicles 16:1-9
Now, King Asa was one of the few good kings after the reign of King David but it is a great warning to us as individuals and as a nation to trust in anyone other than the God of the Bible. But, that’s not what we’re looking at today. Today, let’s take a look at the first part of :
2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV
“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.”
What does that mean, “the eyes of the LORD”? Jesus Himself said in John 4:24 God is Spirit …” Does God who is a Spirit have eyes?
Yet, the phrase “the eyes of the LORD” and “in the sight of the LORD” occurs 92 times in the Bible.
Of course we know that Jesus came to earth and took on a human body. He was and is incarnate. Incarnate simply means “in the flesh”.
God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, took on flesh and became God the Man, in the flesh, incarnate.
Now, we know that Jesus has actual eyes but many references to the Lord “seeing” are in the Bible and were written long before Jesus came to earth incarnate.
So, before we get into this thing about the Lord seeing but not having eyes there is this long winded word called
Anthropomorphism: God relates to us in human terms.
And it’s a good thing He does relate to us in human terms.
I mean even if God the Spirit did have actual, physical eyes how did David declare that the Lord saw his unformed body while he was still in his mother’s womb?
The fact is that God is so much higher than us that He must explain things in a way that we can grasp. We live in a physical, three dimension world. The Lord created us as physical beings with certain senses and we use those senses to learn and to make determinations.
So, when God wants to indicate that He knows what is happening in our physical world He uses “the eyes of the LORD” as one way to explain it to us.
All through the Bible we know that the Lord sees us, exactly how that happens we don’t know.
For instance, the Bible says that, “God saw that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence.”
Daniel was delivered from death in the lion’s den because the Lord found him to be innocent in His sight.
In the New Testament the Lord saw when Ananias and Sapphria lied to the Holy Spirit.
And, this may be a warning or a blessing but the Lord saw what I did this week and He saw what you did this week.
He sees me now and He sees you now and He knows our spiritual condition.
If He has seen sin in my life He has graciously brought conviction to my heart and made a way for repentance and reconciliation.
If He has seen righteousness in my life He has given me peace.
We often talk about keeping our eyes on the Lord, but we also know that the Lord keeps His “eyes” on us!
Let me ask you a question, when you think about the Lord keeping His eyes on you every moment of every day, is that a comfort to your heart or is it a conviction to your heart?
What got me thinking about all of this is that I heard someone years ago taking about one of our memory Scriptures and that Scripture is:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
“God-breathed”. Does God who is a Spirit have lungs?
Many translations use this same phrase of “All Scripture is God-breathed …”
Other translations of the Bible read this way, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God …”
A couple of translations even put it this way, “All Scripture is breathed out by God …”
All of these translations are saying the very same thing just using different phrasing to express the idea.
I love to think of it this way, God breathing out His Holy Scriptures and the prophet or apostolic writer breathed in what God breathed out. Then the writer wrote down what the Lord had breathed into him. What a beautiful picture of the transmission of God’s Word to us through the prophets and the apostolic writers.
We also see God the Creator breathing the breath of life into Adam in Genesis 2 and Jesus breathing upon the disciples and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” in John 20.
But, God the Spirit doesn’t have actual lungs so He uses the anthropomorphological imagery of breathing out His message to us.
While we may not understand exactly how the Holy Spirit breathes life into our spirits that is what He does.
When we seek to know the Lord better and better the Holy Spirit does His breathing.
The Holy Spirit breathed the Scriptures into the souls of the Biblical writers and they wrote down what was breathed into them.
In much the same way the Holy Spirit breathes the Scriptures into us and makes them come alive to the glory of God and for His kingdom.
As we said before, the Lord may not have physical eyes but He sees us.
For better or for worse, He sees us.
The Holy Spirit may not have physical lungs but He breathes spiritual life into our souls when we seek Him.
We know that the Lord watches over us continually and we also know that we can please the Holy Spirit with our love-driven obedience or we can grieve the Holy Spirit with our self-centered disobedience and rebellion.
Listen to these verses found in Isaiah 63:7-10.
Now, here the Lord is speaking of His relationship with the nation of Israel but the same can be true of our individual relationships with the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 63:7-10 NIV
I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us - yes, the many good things He has done for Israel, according to His compassion and many kindnesses.
He said, “Surely they are My people, children who will be true to Me”; and so He became their Savior.
In all their distress He too was distressed, and the angel of His presence saved them.
In His love and mercy He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
Yet they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.
So He turned and became their enemy and He Himself fought against them.
Is that one of the saddest things you’ve ever heard?
Safe in the protective arms of the LORD.
Being showered with His compassion and kindnesses.
When they were distressed, He was moved to action and saved them.
With love and mercy He lifted them up and carried them.
What a truly kind and generous God.
So we see that the Lord is compassionate and protective of His people.
In those days He was watching over them, He was seeing their righteous actions and their rebellious actions.
In the same way that all Scripture is God-breathed, He was teaching them by speaking through the prophets with His Holy Spirit.
“Yet, they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.”
How else does God related to us using human terms?
Exodus 7:5, "And the Egyptians shall know that I Am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”
Num. 6:24, "The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you."
Psalm 33:6, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth."
Psalm 34:15, "The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry."
Psalm 89:10, “You crushed Rahab like one of the slain; with Your strong arm You scattered Your enemies.”
So we see the Lord relating to us using human physical characteristics: eyes, ears, face, hands, strong arms, breath, etc.
This enables us to have a basic understanding of the capabilities of the Lord and how He uses those capabilities on our behalf.
As we read through the Old Testament we are awestruck with how the Lord watched over His people, listened to their prayers, spoke to them through the prophets, held back seas of water and defeated overwhelming armies with His might right arm and covered them with His people with hands of provision when they lived in righteousness.
We also tremble when we notice how the Lord watched His people when they turned their backs on Him, how He shut His ears to their prayers, how He continued to speak to them through His prophets with words of warning, how He raised up overwhelming armies to punish them and sent famines and locusts when they lived in rebellion and spiritual adultery.
And, He was patient, oh so patient with them time and time again.
Finally, in the greatest demonstration of grace every given, the Father sent His own Son, incarnate, in the flesh to show us the path to salvation.
Finally, we had God with us. Immanuel!
When we think of the attributes of the Lord being expressed in human terms do we think of them in a positive way or a negative way?
Do we think of the eyes of the Lord watching over us as a good parent watches over their children or do we think of Him as spying on us, trying to catch us doing something bad?
When we think of the God-breathed Scriptures do we think of them as teaching us the way that leads to everlasting life or do we think of them as a bunch of do’s and don’ts?
When we think of the hands of God do we envision them as hands of help and protection or do we think of them as hands of punishment?
“And when I think of God His Son not sparing …” (sing this verse and chorus of How Great Thou Art a Cappella)
Closing remarks and prayer
