The Lord's Model Prayer - Part 2 - CrossCulture Inductive Bible Study Series

Exploring the Humanness of GOD

Motivational Passage:  Isaiah 38; cross-reference 2 Kings 20

Hezekiah and changing God’s mind:

Hebrew “nacham”

Jonah 3:9,10 – Destruction of Nineveh

⁹ Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Genesis 6:6 , 7– Destruction of Man

⁶ And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 

Exodus 32:10-14 – Destruction of Israel

¹⁴ And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Numbers 14:11-23 – Destruction of Israel

²⁰ Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked;

1 Samuel 15:11, 35 – Rejection of King Saul

¹⁰ The word of the Lord came to Samuel: ¹¹ “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands.” Samuel was angry; and he cried out to the Lord all night.

1 Chronicles 21:14, 15

¹⁴ So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel; and seventy thousand persons fell in Israel. ¹⁵ And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; but when he was about to destroy it, the Lord took note and relented concerning the calamity; he said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Stay your hand.” The angel of theLord was then standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 

The Flipside: God is NOT Fickle-minded

Numbers 23:19

¹⁹ God is not a human being, that he should lie,
    or a mortal, that he should change his mind.
Has he promised, and will he not do it?
    Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
²⁰ See, I received a command to bless;
    he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

1 Samuel 15:29 vs. 35

²⁸ And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this very day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. ²⁹ Moreover the Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind.”

⁵ Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Psalm 110:4

⁴ The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,
    “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

CONCLUSIONS:

·         The humanness of God is a reality NOT because He is like us but because WE are like Him, created in His image. This means we can deal with God at our level but respecting His Lordship over us.

            God changes His mind in response to the prayers of His people in whom He delights TO DEMONSTRATE HIS UNFAILING LOVE. God NEVER changes His mind when He needs to DEMONSTRATE HIS FAITHFULNESS. (Added 2016-01-16: WOW! Please read the discussion on hesed from the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament [Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. (1999, c1980). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (306). Chicago: Moody Press.]

I have never read this until today. It is a discussion or debate on whether or not the hesed of God is because of His obligation to His covenant or whether it is simply because God is Love which drove Him to make a covenant relationship with His people.
This debate could have been soundly and biblically settled by the conclusion we independently arrived at in this inductive study!!! And we are not even considered Bible scholars.
)

·         The Prayer of supplication is a request for nothing less than divine intervention against the natural or expected course of events. Our prayers should focus more on asking for the supernatural and impossible.