When God Is Hiding

[00:00:15] Speaker A: Good morning. Shabbat Shalom. Good to see everybody here with us this morning, as I like to try to do. I'm going to just be a little difficult in things. Okay, so this message, if you want to put the slide up there, the sermon slide is when God is. And then who can find the last word, hiding. Okay, so that little word on the far right, when God is hiding. Okay, so this week we finished up what book? Exodus. Right? Shamot. Great. So we finished up the Book of Exodus with this last Torah portion. And do you remember how it ends, though? Okay, I'll just jog your memory. At the end of Exodus, chapter 40, starting at verse 33, it says. So Moses finished the work. So they're building the tabernacle, right. Then the cloud covered the Ohel moed, or the tabernacle. The ten of meeting and the glory of Hashem filled the tabernacle. Moses was unable to enter the tabernacle or the tenna meeting because the cloud resided there and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Now, whenever the cloud was taken up from the Tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward throughout their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, they did not move until the day it was. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day. If you can see your flowers over here. Fire by day. And the side of all the. Let's see. For the cloud was on there in a fire. Sorry. Cloud by day. This is this one right here. And a fire by night over here. In the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys. Okay, so here's the deal. After Moses and the children of Israel worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked, did everything they were supposed to. Then it says, the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Can you imagine? God showed up. That would be an amazing thing to witness. Right? So God showed up, and that was an awesome experience. And Travis, he was singing this song that we had a really sweet worship service, and I wrote this down so I could remember it. But the line of that one song, his nearness is our good. Do you like that? His nearness is our good. That was powerful. Right? But my question today is, when they built the tabernacle, they did all that work, put all that work into it. What if God didn't show up? What if nothing happened? Would all of their work be in vain? Something to think about. So let's be honest. This isn't always how the story goes in our lives, right? Many times we feel we've done everything God wants us to. We've built the proverbial tabernacle, and once we get it up, set it up, it's all there, ready to go, and we wait. And then nothing happens. It's like lighting a firework. Throw it exactly like that, and nothing happens. Right? Like, where's the kaboom? Right? So you've done all this work, and God is nowhere to be found. But for some reason, in this situation, God is hiding. That's really what I want to address today, because we all have, at some point in our lives, been in a situation like this. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Raise your hand if you've been in a situation like this. You've felt you've done things, and God is just. You're waiting on God. He's hiding or whatever. So here are some real life stories that, I'm not going to mention names, but that came to my mind, thinking just different situations about God seeming to hide. These are people that I know in my life. Just months after you ring the bell to say you're cancer free, they find cancer cells in your blood on your next checkup. Or you have a chronic, debilitating disease that continues to eat away at your body. Or you've moved a dozen times in the last decade in hopes of finding stable employment. Or you've worked your fingers to the bone trying to carve out an honest living, only to be laid off as the product of corporate irresponsibility. You've had tragedy after tragedy, year after year. Finally, you feel you've gotten to the point in your life that things are settling, only to be in a head on collision and spend the next six months of your life trying to recover from it. You've dreamed about something, doing something your whole life, only to have those dreams denied. You and your spouse want desperately to have children, but you've been told it's impossible. You've never had a relationship with God because people all around you who claim to be religious and spiritual have no fruit to show for it. And all you can see is hypocrisy. So in all these situations, we're asking, where are you, God, where are you? Where are you? I prayed. You say, I prayed, and I've asked and I begged God that he just doesn't listen. You've heard that expression, the heavens are brass, right? It comes from the King James version of Deuteronomy 28 23, and it's in the context of God refusing to listen. To the children of Israel because of their disobedience. But really, when God hides himself, how are we supposed to deal with that? I mean, if we have been obedient, if we have done what we're supposed to do, then how are we supposed to deal with this? This whole context is not new. King David struggled with this, and the psalms are filled with this issue. How many of you guys are reading with us to heal him? Psalms and praying the psalms throughout the week? Okay, we got tons of folks online praying with us. If you're not a part of that, I encourage you to do so. You can join Shaloma home and become a part of that and post what you're praying each day. But look at this. We have tons of psalms that you hear the expression of David saying, or one of the psalmists saying, how long, o God, will you wait before you do something, before you show up? Why are you hiding? Psalm, chapter four, Psalm, chapter six. Psalm, chapter 13. Psalm, chapter 35, psalms 74, 75, 8400 and 19. Even in the midst of the praise of the Torah. Okay, says, how long? How long before you make things right? You change things. Here's an example. I'm going to read Psalm 13 to you. It's pretty short, but maybe some of you guys can identify with. For the conductor, a psalm by David. How long, o Lord, will you endlessly forget me? I mean, that's scripture. I mean, it's not feel well. Just somebody wrote that down because they're complaining. But that's a real factor, and we can identify with David. How long will you hide your countenance from me? How long must I set schemes within myself? Is my heart melancholy even by day? How long will my enemies triumph over me? Look, answer me, o Lord, my God, enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies boast I have overcome him, lest my tormentors rejoice when I falter. But as for me, I trust in your kindness, for God will exalt in your salvation, for my heart will rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt kindly with me. Psalm 89 46 says, how long, o Lord, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Even the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 45 verseteen, truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and savior of Israel. Proverbs 25 two says, it's the glory of God to conceal matter and to the glory of kings to what? Search it out. Okay, so in Judaism, there's this concept that we right now, live in this existence, in something called the world of concealment. When we pass to the next life, we will enter into the world of truth. That's what we call it. Okay? And so the world of truth is where God reigns, and there's no obstacles, and everything is truth. There's nothing obscuring. Know Paul talks about, he says, now we look in a glass in a mirror dimly, or through a glass dimly. It's because we have this thing called earth. We have this flesh. We have all kinds of obstacles in the way, but one day, we will all will be revealed right in this world of truth. But we live right now in a world concealment. Sometimes we just can't see the whole picture. Blake, if you'll hit that first slide. So this is a passage in Deuteronomy 30 118. You guys have heard Rabbi sing this song a few times now. It's a beautiful song. It says, beafulu beastara. You heard it? Sheba tok she astara. So this is where this comes from. It's actually a quote by Rabbi Nachman, but it's based off of this scripture right here. And it says, and I will surely hide my face on that day. God's telling the children of Israel, basically, when they turn away from God, this is what's going to happen. I will surely hide my face on the day. So the phrase hasera astir, can you see that? What? I've got it boxed in. That's the phrase there in the Hebrew. So the hasera steer basically means, you can see in the Hebrew that the three root letters are the same, the samik, the tov, and the reish. Okay? That's the root, and it means to conceal or to hide. Now, you may know another word that's similar to that that's coming up next week. What's this lady we're talking about? Esther. Okay, this is the same root word for her name. Her real name is what? Hadassa. Anybody know what Hadassah means, by the way? Myrtle. Good. Like a myrtle tree. But she's given the name Esteh, which means hidden, because she's concealing herself before the king. Okay? But in this right here, God says he's going to hide himself from us. And we have the theme of Esther coming up in the festival of Purim. And so what do we know about the book of Purim? What's unique about it? Who can tell me? God is not explicitly mentioned, let's put it that way, okay? There's some hidden references there, but God is not explicitly mentioned the name God is not. The letters are not there together. The word Elohim was just a generic form of God. Deity. It's not there. We don't hear anything about Jerusalem. We don't hear anything. I mean, it's just a very different book from most books. Song of Solomon is similar in certain ways, but this is really a book about concealment. If you were there for the lunch and learn. Last week, we talked about this. But it's so fascinating, interesting. All of the different hidden things within the book of Esther. But in this Esther, they're in Persia, right? She's jewish. And then what happens? King Ahashverosh gets rid of Vashti and says, okay, let's have a beauty pageant and invite all these women in. And basically, Esther gets. We think of, what's the word? What's the word? When we make something better than it is. Romanticize. Good. Thank you. We romanticize this, right? But in real life, you got to think about this. A king rounds up a bunch of women, puts them in a wagon, brings them to the palace, and tries them out. Okay? That's really what's going on here. And she's put into an awful situation. It's not a good situation until she's chosen. Right? But she's not in this good situation. And on top of that, in the middle of it all, the annihilation of the Jews, her people, is scheduled. Scheduled extinction, scheduled genocide. They had to been asking themselves, God, where are you? Why are you hiding? I don't know what's going on. This is a horrible situation. So when we find ourselves in this similar situation, we have to know what to do. So what is the solution to this? So there's two scenarios I want to present to you. One, it could be a problem on our end, okay? There's something that needs correcting in us for God to be able to reveal himself. Or number two, God simply wants to either, and this is a two part one, either use us for a greater purpose or use this time to put us back on the potter's wheel to do some fine tuning, to do some touch up work. So let's look at this first scenario. Maybe we're simply not doing the things that the Lord wants us to do. We're being disobedient. I mean, that's an obvious thing, right? It's like, if we're disobedient, God's hiding. It makes sense. That's what this whole passage we just looked at was about, right? He said, when you walk away, I am going to hide my face from you. I'm going to conceal myself from you. Or maybe we're one step on the other side of that is that we're trying too hard to get hashem to listen when we should be the ones listening. There's a difference between other religions approaching their God and us approaching our God, or should be. Okay, the other religions especially, we had the ancient paganism and all that kind of stuff. How do they approach their gods? What did they do? They brought their sacrifices. They brought their offerings because they thought they had to appease their gods. They had to get their God to think. Basically it appeased them to stop the wrath of their God. Okay, so if it was the God of the crops fertility, if it was the God of war, the God of what, they had to appease their God and get God to. They had to twist his arm somehow to do what they wanted him to do. Okay, this is what it was all about. But in Judaism, in Christianity, in messianic Judaism, we should be in our coming before the Lord in our prayers, asking to be transformed to what he desires, what he wills. And this makes a huge difference. And the third component of that, maybe he's already responded, but the answer is no. And we just don't like that. No, we're throwing our foot down. Right. However, most likely, it's the second scenario that I talked about. Maybe he wants to use this time to mold us into the version of ourselves that he had in mind when he created us. Okay, how many of you think you're actually, don't raise your hand. This is rhetorical, actually fulfilling that completely. I know I'm not. God had something in mind when he created me, and I'm still striving to live up to that. And I hope you are, too. Maybe like Esther, he's put you in a difficult situation. You're in for a purpose. Maybe he needs you to do something to transform someone else's life and not just your own. Maybe you're in this awful situation, as the book of Esther says, as Mordecai tells Esther, for such a time as this. Right. Personally, I've been through many difficulties in life that have helped me have empathy for others and walk with them through similar situations. You probably can identify, right? You've struggled. You've been through the hills and valleys and mountains and all that kind of stuff. And so when someone else comes along, I can identify with that. And so God puts us through those situations so that we can do that. Now, there's also simply, there's some suffering because he needs us to identify in other ways. By the way, as I was studying this this week, I read first Peter a few different times. The book of first Peter. If you're struggling with suffering, read first Peter. I didn't realize how much he talked about suffering in that book and the benefits of suffering and the outcomes of suffering and what the Lord wants to do in our lives for suffering. But that is a huge encouragement there. In one Peter, chapter two, verses 21 through 25, says to this, you have been called because Messiah also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin. Neither was deceit found in his mouth. So think about this. He's talking about Yeshua. Yeshua is suffering. What did he do wrong? Nothing. So when we're suffering, we feel like we haven't done anything wrong. We haven't done anything wrong. We have this to keep in mind. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds. You have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Okay, here's an interesting passage. You guys are probably familiar with Hebrews. Chapter five, verse eight says, speaking of Yeshua, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. I mean, if Yeshua learned obedience through what he suffered, what does that say to us? I mean, do we feel like that we're better than Yeshua and we deserve something better than suffering? We don't deserve to suffer. I mean, is that what we're saying when we complain and God is seeming absent or going through difficult times? Have we fallen for the prosperity gospel that says that God is supposed to promise us a better roses once we come to Yeshua? Or have we bought into the illusion that life is supposed to be about our comfort rather than our purpose? I mean, why are we here? We're here for a purpose. We're not here to just enjoy. We should enjoy while we're here. But we need to remember that we're servants. We are slaves to the will of God. But some of you, some of us. That image of being a slave to God may not be comfortable, but it's a truth. And servants and slaves don't see their own will. They see the will of their master. Here's some examples. Right now that are currently going on. Got a message in our men's group at Shalom at home. If you're not part of that men, I encourage you to become part of that shalom at home. Join the Macon men group in there, and then you'll be able to participate in the chat section there. And so we've had lots and lots and lots of good discussion the last couple of weeks. Just incredible time of encouraging and learning together and things like that. So if you're not on there, please, I encourage you to be a part of that. But Scott Riley, one of our online members who lives in Missouri, he posted about some missionaries. One of them was a local missionary in Nepal, and the others were some australian missionaries that were taken into captivity. They were arrested by the Nepali authorities. And Pastor Ram, you guys can pray for him. He was tortured. He's been tortured after they got a hold of him, and there's others that they're after. So we need to be praying for these guys, these followers of Yeshua, our brothers and sisters in Messiah. But they're suffering. We have the landlies who were here just a few weeks back. They are now in the Philippines, and they are going to be moving across. I forget where they. Do you know where they're going? Mindanao. Okay. They're going to be in Mindanao. And that is not a good place for followers of Yeshua. It is Muslim dominated, and there are radical Muslims that have just recently bombed churches and various things like that. Okay? And so they're going into rough territory. You may not know this, but Jim, he's already been arrested when he was a missionary in China and tortured while he was there in China. They put him in prison and did awful things to him. But yet he is back on the field. He's willing to suffer because he knows the importance. He knows his purpose, he knows his mission. He knows who is ultimately in control. All these missionaries, they could easily be asking, especially the ones that have gotten arrested recently, they could be asking, God, what's going on? Where are you? Where are you? Why are you hiding? Why are you hiding? And then us, we may be tempted to think, well, they're suffering for a purpose, so it shouldn't be. Maybe in a relative weird sort of way, it shouldn't be as bad. Okay, I know it's a weird way to say it, but our minds work in weird ways, right? But maybe that's the point. We should be asking ourselves, why are we suffering? What fruit does God want to produce in my life because of this? Romans five three through five says we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 818 for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So we need to put things in perspective. I love Peyton introduced me to the apocalyptic gospel podcast and those guys. I'd heard about it for, I don't know, a year or so before. But if you haven't heard that, if you haven't checked that out, I encourage you to check it out. Good stuff. And then I listened to an interview with one of the guys on the first fruits of Zion Messiah podcast, and that just. It's like, oh, man, I gotta have more of that. And so I've been listening to these guys, but one of the things I like about these guys is the perspective, looking at the end goal. Because usually we don't have the end goal in mind. We don't have end game in mind, right? We think we're just happy to get through the day. But if we have the end goal in mind that we are to make it to the end, we are to endure that day of the Lord, and we are to overcome then our struggles now don't seem really anything compared to the trials that will be coming one day upon the world. James 513 is anyone suffering among you? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing. Praise one. Peter 412 through 1213 and 19 beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Oh, my goodness. Why'd this happen? But rejoice insofar as you share Messiah's suffering, so that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Exactly what we're talking about. Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a creator while doing so first. Peter five, six through eleven. I want to skip that. You guys can read that, but my point is, you may be asking, Darren, you said we need to seek the Lord, but seems to sound like you're saying if we do seek him, there are really no guarantees. So what's the point? So my point is we need to evaluate why we serve him, why we're seeking him. Is it for our own just personal comfort, or because he's worthy of being sought? Let me see what so you guys may have heard this story, but this is a story of the Balsham tov. He's the founder of hasidic Judaism. But one day a traveling merchant came to his town and was looking for a place to stay. He ended up staying at the Balsham tov's house and the Balsham tove, he and his daughter lived there. And they were poor, poor, poor. They didn't have anything. They didn't have anything for Passover. Passover was starting that night and they didn't have anything like they were supposed to have. And this man needed a place to stay as he's coming through. And they're like, we're happy to let you stay, but just let you know, Passover begins tonight and we don't have the stuff to really do what we're supposed to do. And he says, that's okay. I brought it all. I brought enough for all of us. So that's one of the things I knew I'd be traveling. I knew I had to stay with somebody, so I wanted to bless my host. And so he's like, wow, incredible. Brook hashem, you know, that's great. And so they had a great Passover and did their seders and all that kind of stuff. And then when it was time for the man to travel a couple days later that he was about to leave, and the Tov said, hey, thank you so much for blessing us like you did. What can we do for you? He said, well, you can pray that we can have a child because my wife and I have been trying. We've been married many years and we're childless. And he said, by heaven, next year you'll be holding a child at this time, okay? And then immediately a bat kol, a heavenly voice resounds and says, you have just forfeit your share in the world to come because you took control over heavenly things that you're not supposed to, okay? Because anyway, we won't go into that. The family did have the child and so his disciples were with him. And all of a sudden their rabbi just began rejoicing, dancing, got excited, got happy. And they're like, this guy has lost it. Okay, what is going on? Like, rabbi, did you not just hear that you have forfeit your share in the world to come? Why are you so happy? He says, don't you get it? He said, all my life I've been troubled by the thought that perhaps my service of the Almighty is tainted by the expectation of reward. Now, however, my service of God will be pure, free of the possibility of ulterior motive. Okay. Free. He doesn't have to second guess whether his motive is pure or not. It's simply for the love of God. Blake, if you'll hit that next slide. This slide right here is of a portion of the shema. We say the we. In our first service, we'll say the whole thing. The second service, we just say the line before this, but this is the phrase, ave hafta et adoshem eloheka bakola vavaka uko menodeka. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. The part that I have highlighted here is the part that says, with all of your heart. The guys who have studied this know where I'm going with this. But in this phrase, you see the highlighted letters. There's two bait or baits there in the word lavadeka. Okay. The hebrew word for heart is. Okay, it's spelled lamed bait, lamid bait. It's just two letters, lave. But for some reason we use levavika. When we say your heart, we add an extra vav in there. It's a weird anomaly within Hebrew. It's a normal thing. It's not just in this passage, but in your heart. But the sages tell us because it's connected to this passage, because we are to love God. How? With all of our heart. What does that mean? Means we have a Yetzer hatov and a yetzahara. We have a good inclination. We have an evil inclination. It's easy to love God with our feel good side, with our easy side, with our part that wants to. But it's difficult to love God with the part that doesn't, with the part that fights against us, you might say, our flesh. Okay. And so this is our commandment is to take those hearts and bring them together and submit them to the will of the divine. We are to love him wholeheartedly and serve him wholeheartedly and just spill my water? It is Shabbat. Can't have Shabbat without a spill, especially at the hucky house. So. Hebrews chapter eleven, verse six says, without faith, it's impossible to please him. You guys know this passage? For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him. Even though the Balsham's toad did this thing not forsake reward, but we know that he does. Reward shouldn't be our main motivation, but it should be an incentive. It should be something that we keep in mind. So I love my children. Thank you, sir. And as you know, you guys may know, my son Kai, my next to the oldest, he is a big lord of the Rings fan, any lord of the Rings fans, okay. And he's all the time bringing something new to the table when it comes to Lord of the Rings. He's listened to the Tolkien professor and things like this for probably longer, more hours. Well, he listened on like three x speed, so he's probably listening more hours than I've been alive, all put together. But anyway, he brings up new stuff, and one of the things he brought up a week or so ago is the Tolkien professor is talking about how Sam, why is Gamgee. He is pushing, pushing, pushing. Frodo. We got to get the ring to Mordor, get rid of it, right? And the Tolkien professor basically said, hey, Sam is pushing. And he thinks that's really the destination. But really what's happening is this whole journey is more important. Well, I say more important, just as important as the destination, because I got to save the world. The world's going to go. So the journey is just as important, because what happens on the journey, Sam, Frodo, the relationship develops where they can fully trust each other. They know without a shadow of the doubt that they would literally, in this case, too, go to the ends of the earth for one another, that they would die for one another, and that they have developed character during this process. They have changed. They've been transformed. It's amazing. Transformation journey. So sometimes, in fact, most of the time, the journey in our lives is equally as important as our destination. Sure, we need a house. We need a car. We need a job. We need good health. But more importantly, we need a deep work from Hashem. We need to know, and we need to experience what he's trying to do within us as we pursue those things. So here's a couple of things to remember. Don't miss the entire journey. Looking for the exit sign. Have you ever been on a trip with your kids? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Look at those mountains. Are we there yet? Look at that. Amazing. Are we there yet? That's my grandmother tells the story of me. She's oohing on over stuff, and I'm like, are we there yet? We may not be able to see the lord in our struggle, but he's there with us, guiding us on the path of transformation. We all have our unique trials and challenges, but they're custom tailored to us to create in us beautiful and resilient souls, the souls that we not only are, but the ones that we're supposed to become. God may be hiding at the moment, but he wants you to find him. Throw this next slide up, Blake. I bet there's not a single person in this room who has not played hide and go seek. Is there anyone who has not played hide and go seek? I would be shocked. Okay, we've all played hide and go seek. So the point of hide and go seek is you cover your eyes, you count to whatever. I think that changes, like, every time you play. Depends on how quick you count and what the kids are doing. And so you cover your eyes, you count, people go hide. And then what's your job? To find them. To find everybody. That's the fun, right? But how boring would it be if you open your eyes and all their kids are just standing there looking at you? I mean, what's the point of that? Well, God's sort of saying the same thing. Says, I want you to seek me. Because when you seek me, you'll find me. I'm not just going to stand there. I'm not just going to wait around and you just look at me and get old looking at me. But I'm going to hide from time to time because I want you to search me out. I want you to find me because the joy is in the journey. What do we do when God is hiding? We uncover our eyes and enjoy the thrill of the hunt. [00:39:05] Speaker B: Please visit our website, shalommaken.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services, access other teachings, sign up for our newsletter. Join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world or contribute to the work of Shalom. Macon, thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with.