Knowing God - Ch 2

Knowing God

J.I. Packer

IVP 1993 Americanized Version

Ch 2 – The People Who Know Their God

Pg. 28 “People who know their God are before anything else people who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God’s glory come[s] to expression is in their prayers. In Daniel 9 we read how, when the prophet “understood from the scriptures” (v. 2) that the foretold time of Israel’s captivity was drawing to an end, and when at the same time he realized that the nation’s sin was still such as to provoke God to judgement rather than mercy, he set himself to seek God “in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (v. 3) and prayed for the restoring of Jerusalem with a vehemence and passion and agony of spirit to which most of us are complete strangers.

Yet the invariable fruit of true knowledge of God is energy to pray for God’s cause – energy, indeed, which can only find an outlet and a relief of inner tension when channeled into such prayer – and the more knowledge, the more energy! By this we may test ourselves. Perhaps we are not in a position to make public gestures against ungodliness and apostasy. Perhaps we are old, or ill, or otherwise limited by our physical situation. But we can all pray about the ungodliness and apostasy which we see in everyday life all around us. If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.” 

What about the 100 talents of Silver?

Then Amaziah assembled the men of Judah and set them by fathers' houses under commanders of thousands and of hundreds for all Judah and Benjamin. He mustered those twenty years old and upward, and found that they were 300,000 choice men, fit for war, able to handle spear and shield. He hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents of silver. But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel, with all these Ephraimites. But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down.” And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The LORD is able to give you much more than this.”
(2 Chronicles 25:5-9 ESV)

Make trial of your faith and you will not be disappointed for, "The LORD is able to give you much more than this."

Rich Veins: Isaiah 25

For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
like heat in a dry place.
 
You subdue the noise of the foreigners;
as heat by the shade of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is put down. 
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
 
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
 
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
 
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the LORD; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
 

Rich Veins: Isaiah 26

O LORD you will ordain peace for us
for you have indeed done for us all our works