Henry T. Blackaby - The Ways of God: Working Through Us to Reveal Himself to a Watching World

In 1989, Roy Edgemon crossed into the Communist side of Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. Getting into East Berlin through the checkpoint was easy, once he showed his passport and bought East German currency. Stunned by the cruel contrast of his freedom as a tourist and the citizens' lack of it because they were residents, he was also overwhelmed by the poverty-stricken conditions on the Communist side of the infamous Berlin Wall. What could anyone do?

The wall was begun in 1961 to separate the free side of Berlin from East Germany. In the years following, many people had been caught or killed as they tried to get over or under the wall. Roy saw the rows of razor-sharp barbed wire and the machine guns that were trained on the walltheir purpose, to keep people on the Communist side from getting out.

Western governments had tried for years to have that horrible wall of death and separation torn down. Then, suddenly, the wall and its purpose began to crack. People on the East German side began to tear down the wall without being shot in the process. Television and newspaper reporters began to flood the world with the news that the Berlin Wall was coming down!

People on both sides of the wall began to demolish the hated barrier. Wars and threats of wars had not torn it down. The Cold War years of spying and intrigue had not brought it down. Diplomatic treaties and talks did not bring it down. As people by the thousands prayed, God brought down that wall in His sovereign time. There is no explanation for this historical event other than the hand of God. What diplomacy, even threats, could not do, God did!

Consider the Berlin Wall, fortified and guarded by an army, only to be torn down peacefully by civilians. Like the walls of ancient Jericho, the Berlin Wall seemed permanent. God revealed Himself in both places by eliminating both walls in unconventional ways. God's purpose in removing barriers we face is to reveal Himself to us and those around us. Revealing Himself to the world is one of God's ways.

As you read this book, I hope that the words of Scripture will be brought to life by the Holy Spirit, and that you will see that God's ways are not like our ways. But if God lives and works through us, the difference that only God can make will be apparent as His nature and ways transform us to become more like Him.

Henry T. Blackaby

GOD'S WAYS ARE DIFFERENT

from our ways! You can start in Genesis and go all the way through Revelation, and you will find that whenever God moves, it is not like anything you or I would have chosen to do. And yet, time and again, God chooses to work through His people to accomplish His purposes. If God's people desire to be on mission with Him to accomplish His purposes, they must understand His nature and His ways.

If you are in business, you have at least heard about seminars on business principles: about having a vision and setting your purposes, establishing your goal, setting your priorities. That is the way the world works, but it is not the way God works.

For instance, how might you or I have chosen to take the walled city of Jericho (Josh. 6:1-5)? Given the opportunity, we probably would have called in a military strategist, or read the latest book on the way other walled cities have been taken down. We might have consulted world rulers to see how they win victories. We might have even gone to work on a new kind of weapon.

How did God choose to bring down Jericho? In Joshua 6, God told Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, that Jericho was already in their hands. God had already given Jericho to them, and they would receive it in a way only God could have arranged.

God delivered Jericho to the Israelites in a way that would reveal Him to the land and the people. One way God revealed Himself was to have His people go in and take the land that He had given them. But they first had to believe that God had truly gone before them. Did God say something similar in Christ's command to go and make disciples in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20)? Anytime God gives a command, He has already provided for its accomplishment. But we have to do the hands-on, certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1-2). Faith in Him is a way of God! God does not work apart from faith! So God's people followed His commands.

God's instructions for taking the land indicated another way of God. He used an approach that could only succeed through God's activity. God told Joshua to march the Israelite army around the city once each day for six days. The sacred Ark of the Covenant would be carried with them, led by priests blowing trumpets. On the seventh day this march would occur seven times, ending with one long blast on the trumpets followed by a loud shout from the Israelites. Then the walls of Jericho would collapse.

The Israelites could have used battering rams and long ladders to breach the walls. Man's experience and man's reasoning might have chosen man's way. They could have done that, but they would have missed God's purpose. God's purpose was not to take Jericho. God's primary purpose was to put the fear of Him in the hearts of all the kings in Canaan. This would allow His children to take the entire land. When God was through with that moment, the kings of Canaan did not fear the Israelites. They feared the God of the Israelites. They had no doubt that the God of the Israelites had brought down the walls of Jericho. That was God's purpose. He had purposed ahead of time to reveal Himself to the nations by the way He worked with His people.

God deliberately chooses not to use the ways of the world so that the world will know the difference that He makes. However, we are sometimes caught up in the ways of the world. We may try to baptize them into the kingdom and ask God to get glory from it. But God does not work that way. God's goal is first to reveal Himself to the world so they will know Him and be drawn to Himnot simply to accomplish a task. That is what this book is about. That is a way of God.

CHAPTER 1

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,

declares the LORD.

As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

AS THE CREATOR AND RULER

of the world, God's very nature is eternal and supreme. He is the Sovereign God. We are flesh and blood, created by God to serve God, placed in the context of time by God. It is no surprise that His ways are different from ours. What is surprising is how often we ignore or mistake that incredible difference. Not as surprising is that we overlook the main element of that differencesin.

Sin is failing to walk in God's ways, or choosing not to follow them. Sin has affected everyone (Rom. 3:23); therefore, no human naturally has godly ways. We build our own cultures and societies, even within Christianity. We can easily make critical judgments and choices based on traditions, old or new, instead of looking to God's Word as the plumb line of eternal truth.

How can we recognize God's ways if they are not like our ways? The Bible provides instruction on how the Word of God can help us learn the ways of God. Some people have a tendency to select verses and use them out of the context from which they were written. Any verse they might choose will be true, but no one can understand the dimension of a verse without knowing what comes immediately before and after it.