!! Warning !!
Recently I have been considering the concept of "warnings". I've been thinking about it because I've noticed over the years in numerous passes throughout the Bible that warnings seem to pop up everywhere from Genesis to Revelation. The fact that God either directly or through angels or through prophets gives warnings has tremendous implications as to the nature and content of God's knowledge. The definition of "warning" in the Cambridge Dictionary of American English is:
1. Notice of a possible danger or problem, so that it can be prevented or avoided.
Here we can see that a warning implies an indefinite or unsure future. Warnings deal with the realm of possibilities, not certainties. This is important for us to understand. If God is warning us about negative "possibilities" in our future paths, and is attempting to get us to change our direction, this clearly means that God does not see our future as fixed, or a done deal. In other words, He does not know our future with absolute certainty. He has good plans for all of us, and tries to steer us through various means into those plans, but obviously we all too often choose to foolishly go our own ways.
The wisest way we can live our lives is to study God's Word and attempt to live our lives according to His revealed will for us. At the same time, we need to cultivate a life of prayer that keeps us in constant communication with God, so that we can ask God on a daily basis to lead and guide us to make wise moment by moment decisions. The world around us is in constant motion and changing rapidly. People around us locally as well as worldwide are all doing their own things, devising secret plans, and making their own decisions that directly impact our lives both for good and evil. God is perfectly aware of all these events taking place and only He can be depended on to skillfully and safely guide us through this vast, changing maze we live in. One of the many great blessings we have as born-again believers is the Holy Spirit who indwells us, and is ever able and willing to teach, comfort, warn and lead us.
To illustrate how this can all play out in our daily lives, let's look at just one of many clear examples of how this works in the life of David as recorded in 1 Samuel 23. First let me give you a little background. David and his companions had been on the road fleeing from King Saul for awhile, when they heard that the town of Keilah was being attacked by the Philistines, Israel's enemies. David then prayed for guidance and the Lord told him to go ahead and attack the Philistines and save the people of Keilah. David obeyed the Lord and successfully saved the town. David and his men were then apparently feeling safe with their new friends in Keilah when they heard a rumor that King Saul knew David was in Keilah and that he was going to destroy the town to get to him. Here's what happened next...
1 Samuel 23:10-13
10 Then David said, "O LORD God of Israel, Your servant has certainly heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city for my sake.
11 Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as Your servant has heard? O LORD God of Israel, I pray, tell Your servant."
And the LORD said, "He will come down."
12 Then David said, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?"
And the LORD said, "They will deliver you."
13 So David and his men, about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah and went wherever they could go. Then it was told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah; so he halted the expedition.
This passage is really amazing. David probes God for information and finds out that if he stays there, the people of Keilah, out of fear no doubt, will turn David over to Saul to be killed. So David wisely leaves town and escapes. However, if David hadn't prayed about it, and just assumed that the grateful town of Keilah would stick up for him and protect him, he would have been wrong, dead wrong.
So, we see here how important it is to pray all the time, relying on God's knowledge of all the possibilities and probabilities that lie ever before us, so that we might always have the best chance of success in all we set our hands and hearts to do. God's warnings are there to tell us not what definitely will happen in our futures, but what might possibly happen if we do not take the appropriate action to avoid it.
-nOFuTuRe
Before I was saved, I thought my Dad could see everything bad that I did from Heaven.It was very uncomfortable, yet I still did things I am not proud of. Now I know God sees everything I do, and even sees in my mind every evil thought. God who is all knowing sends the warning you are talking about. Sometimes I do not listen. He knows more about us then we know about ourselves. Life would be so much easier, if we would take heed, and listen to His warning. Sometimes possible danger very quickly becomes probable danger. Another very thought provoking teaching.
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