Crystallization-Study of Exodus (4)
Message Two
Knowing God and His Ways
Scripture Reading: Exo. 33:13; Psa. 103:7a; John 17:3; Heb. 8:10-11; 1 John 5:20; Dan. 11:32
I. "I delight in…the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings"—Hosea 6:6:
A. God delights in our knowing Him; therefore, He wants us to "pursue knowing Jehovah"—vv. 6, 3.
B. Our knowledge of God is more important than our service to God—v. 6:
1. We should not merely serve God without pursuing knowledge of Him—v. 3.
2. Our service to God is based on our knowledge of Him—4:6.
II. We need to have the consciousness of God and the full knowledge of God—1 Pet. 2:19; 2 Pet. 1:2, 8; 3:18:
A. The consciousness of God is the consciousness of one's relation to God, indicating that one is living in an intimate fellowship with God, having and keeping a good and pure conscience toward God—1 Pet. 2:19; 3:16; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3:
1. Our regenerated spirit has a keen sense toward God, a God- consciousness to deal with God and sense the things of God—Rom. 1:9; 9:1.
2. To have the consciousness of God is to live in the spirit according to God—1 Pet. 4:6; Rom. 8:2; 1 John 2:27.
B. The full knowledge of God is an experiential knowledge of God—2 Pet. 1:2, 8:
1. The full knowledge of the Triune God is for our participation in and enjoyment of His divine life and divine nature—vv. 3-4.
2. In 3:18 the knowledge of the Lord is equal to the truth, the reality of all that He is; hence, to grow in the knowledge of the Lord is to grow by the realization of what Christ is, the realization of the truth—John 8:32; 17:17.
III. "Please let me know now Your ways" (Exo. 33:13a); "He made His ways known to Moses" (Psa. 103:7a):
A. To know God's ways refers to knowing the principles by which He does things—Gen. 18:23-32; Num. 16:46; 1 Sam. 15:22; 2 Sam. 24:24; Isa. 55:10-11.
B. God's ways are the ways in which He deals with us; His ways are higher than our ways—v. 9.
C. The ways of God are what He wants to do concerning us; His ways are the choices that He makes concerning us—Eph. 1:5, 9, 11; 1 Cor. 1:1; Rom. 15:32.
D. We must learn to know the ways of God, the methods by which He deals with us—Exo. 33:13:
1. If we learn to acknowledge the Lord in all our paths, we will acknowledge His ways—Prov. 3:5-6.
2. A great problem among God's people is their wanting everything to revolve around them and to serve their interests—Phil. 2:21.
3. A great need among believers today is to learn the lesson of knowing God's ways and embracing them—Exo. 34:8.
E. God Himself can be known only by revelation, and God's ways can be known only by submission—Eph. 1:17; 4:20-21; Matt. 11:25-29:
1. Without an unveiling of God to us, we cannot accept God's ways—Job 42:5-6.
2. We must first have a revelation before we can accept His ways—Eph. 1:17.
F. In order to know and accept His ways, we need to know God not only as our Father but also as our God—John 20:17; Eph. 1:3, 17:
1. It is one thing to know God as the Father, and it is a different thing to know Him as God—Rom. 11:33-36.
2. Those who have seen God know that He is God; a day will come when God opens our eyes to see Him as God and know Him as God—Job 42:5-6.
3. We need to see that we are not only God's children but also His slaves—1 John 3:1; James 1:1; Rev. 1:1; 22:3.
4. If we have a revelation of God and meet Him as God, we will worship Him and accept His ways—Exo. 33:13; 34:8.
G. Our entire spiritual future hinges on our ability to worship the ways of God:
1. All true worship comes from knowing God and receiving a revelation from God—John 9:35-38; Matt. 2:11; 8:2; 9:18; 28:9, 17-18.
2. To accept the ways of God is to worship the ways of God—Gen. 24:23-27.
3. We must worship God, and we must accept the ways in which He deals with us—Job 42:5-6.
4. Our heart must be brought by God to the point of bowing down before Him and saying, "I worship You for what You choose and for what You have ordained for me."
IV. "That I may know You"—Exo. 33:13:
A. Eternal life is the divine life with a special function, that is, to know God and Christ—John 17:3; cf. Matt. 11:27:
1. To know the divine person, we need the divine life—John 17:3; 11:25.
2. Since the believers are born of the divine life, they can know God and Christ—Heb. 8:11; Phil. 3:10:
a. On the one hand, knowing God gradually increases with our inward growth of life; the more the divine life grows within us, the more we know God.
b. On the other hand, this knowing causes the life within us to grow—Col. 1:10.
B. "They shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me from the little one to the great one among them"—Heb. 8:11:
1. In this verse to know God Himself is to know the nature of God; when we touch the nature of God, we touch God Himself and know God Himself.
2. By imparting His divine life into us, God puts the highest law, the law of life, into our spirit, whence it spreads into our inward parts, such as our mind, emotion, and will, and becomes several laws—v. 10:
a. By the function of the law of life, we know God in the inward way of life—v. 11.
b. We know God not merely according to outward, objective knowledge but in the inward, subjective consciousness by the sense of life—Rom. 8:6.
3. Our inward knowledge of God comes by two means:
a. One is by the law of life, which comes from the life of God, and the other is by the teaching of the anointing, which comes from the Holy Spirit of God—Heb. 8:10-11; 1 John 2:20, 27.
b. The law of life primarily causes us to know the nature of God, which is the characteristic of His life; the teaching of the anointing primarily causes us to know God Himself.
C. The Son of God has come and has given us an understanding so that we might know the true One, the genuine and real God—5:20:
1. This understanding is the faculty of our mind enlightened and empowered by the Spirit of reality to apprehend the divine reality in our regenerated spirit—Eph. 4:23; John 16:12-15.
2. Know in 1 John 5:20 is the ability of the divine life to know the true God in our regenerated spirit through our renewed mind, enlightened by the Spirit of reality—John 17:3; Eph. 1:17.
3. In 1 John 5:20 Him who is true—or the true One—refers to God becoming subjective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience:
a. The true One is the divine reality; to know the true One means to know the divine reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
b. This indicates that the divine reality—God Himself, who was once objective to us—has become a subjective reality in our experience—v. 6.
4. The word this in verse 20 refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us the ability to know Him as the genuine God and be one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ.
5. This refers to the true God and Jesus Christ in whom we are; it includes the fact that we are in this One, the true One, and that we know the true One.
V. "The people who know their God will show strength and take action"—Dan. 11:32:
A. Knowing God strengthens us; our strength depends on the degree of our knowledge of God—Eph. 1:17; 3:16.
B. Only those who know God will show strength and take action—Dan. 11:32:
1. Those who know God will be strong to take action in order to expand their horizons, extend their boundaries, and break new ground for God.
2. On earth today God needs those who know Him in this way.