Draw Near to God

Zephaniah 3:2 - "She heeded no voice, she accepted no instruction. She did not trust in the Lord, she did not draw near to her God."

The fourth and final indictment that the Lord gives against Jerusalem in this verse is that she did not draw near to her God. This intrigues me, because when I think of the Old Testament system of worship, nearness is not a word that comes to mind. In the Tabernacle and later in the Temple the Lord dwelt in the midst of His people, but there was still a separation. The veil always said "Stay back!" There was an inability to personally come into God's presence. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, and he could only enter once a year in order to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. So in what sense did the people fail to draw near?

While the religious system failed to grant access into the presence of God it's clear that there were people in the Old Testament who drew near to God, not in some outward, external way, but they drew near to Him in their hearts. And that's really what God is looking for. In First Samuel chapter 16 we read that - "man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." In Isaiah 29:13 the Lord says against His people - "This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote." They had the outward form of religion but they were still failing to draw near to God. God isn't looking for an outward show of religion, He is looking for the inward reality of a relationship with Him.

In the early chapters of Genesis we see this relationship pictured as God walking together with man. "Enoch walked with God... Noah walked with God..." In Genesis chapter 3 the Lord came to walk with Adam and Eve in the midst of the garden but they failed to draw near to Him. Instead they hid themselves from His presence. Why? Because of sin. Isaiah says in chapter 59 and verse 2 - "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God." We have been created for an intimate relationship with our Creator but when Adam sinned it caused him to run away from God rather than draw near to Him. And sin is still having the same effect today. God desires that we would draw near to Him, but when we have sin in our lives it will cause us to shrink back from Him rather than drawing near. But even with the problem of sin in the world, we still have examples of men and women who, though not sinless, drew near to God rather than shrinking back from Him.

So we come to the book of Zephaniah and we learn that Jerusalem as a whole failed to draw near to God. This book was written during the reign of Josiah the king, and he was actually one of the better kings of Judah. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. During his reign he really cleaned up the nation. He removed all the false gods and idols from the land and put to death those who were leading the nation into idolatry. He also gave orders to repair the house of the Lord which had been neglected by previous generations and had fallen into disrepair. It was during this process that the book of the Law was discovered in the house of the Lord, and Josiah gathered all the people of the nation together to read it in their hearing. At this time he made a covenant before the Lord to do all that was commanded in the book. Josiah led the nation in a national revival, but that revival was only superficial. We read in 2 Chronicles 34:33 - "Josiah removed all the abominations from all the lands belonging to the sons of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel to serve the Lord their God. Throughout his lifetime they did not turn from following the Lord God of their fathers." The peoples spiritual performance was motivated by a national decree, not by an inward change of heart. The people were content to follow the Lord as long as their king led the way, but once Josiah died the people turned away from the Lord once again. The drew near to God with their words and gave Him lip service, but their hearts were far from Him. They failed to truly draw near to God.
And lest we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, we need to recognize that we're not immune to this problem today. We can very easily fall into a religious pattern and look very good outwardly without really drawing near to God. If God expected them to draw near to Him as limited as their access was, how much more do you think He expects it from us? Think about it, they had a few of the books of the Old Testament, but by no means all of it. And they didn't have their own individual copies of the books that they did have. If they were going to hear the Word of God it was going to be read aloud to them in a public assembly. They couldn't come into Gods presence, even to offer sacrifices and offerings. They had to bring their offerings to a priest who would then turn and present it to God. The very thought of entering into the presence of God was a foreign concept to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. But we are privileged to have God's Word in our own language, and many copies of it for our own individual use. We have access into God's presence through a new High Priest, Jesus Christ. And unlike the old priests, Christs doesn't simply take our offerings and present them to God, but He presented Himself as our once for all sacrifice to God and then allowed us to come into God's very presence through Him. He is the superior sacrifice, the superior priesthood, the superior tabernacle, He is the fulfillment of all that these Old Testament things were pointing to. This is what the book of Hebrews is all about. And after going through several chapters explaining how Christ is better then the whole Old Testament system, the writer climaxes in Hebrews 10:19-22 where he says - "Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." Christ has made it possible for us to draw near to God and He has issued the invitation for us to do so.But what does it really mean to draw near? What does this look like practically? In Psalm 91:1 we read - "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." This Psalm begins by speaking about the secret place of the Most High, and we're told that the one who dwells there will abide, or remain, in the shadow of the Almighty. What is being talked about here seems to be something permanent, something constant. The words "Dwell" and "Abide" give us the sense that this is something continual. So what does it mean to draw near and dwell in the secret place of the Most High? What does it mean to live continually in Gods presence, or as one Christian put it, to "practice the presence of God?"

Well, like I said, this seems to be something that is constant. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." If the word "Dwell" wasn't strong enough it's reinforced by the word "Abide." Usually when we think about the concept of dwelling we think of it in the context of our houses. My house is where I live, it's my dwelling place. But the fact that I dwell there does not mean that I'm there all the time, or even most of the time. I dwell in a house, but I spend a great deal of my time somewhere else. Is this what is meant by dwelling in the secret place of the Most High? Many things may occupy my time and my thinking, but at the end of the day I always come back to Gods presence, is that what this means? No, that's not what this is saying. Instead of thinking of a house we need to have in our minds the picture of a branch on a grapevine. The two are constantly connected to one another. The branch doesn't simply call the vine home and spend most of it's time somewhere else, but it remains in the vine. This is the picture that the Lord Jesus used in John chapter 15 when He was teaching His disciples the importance of abiding in Him. John 15:4-5 - "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." This is a helpful picture. What is our relationship with God to be like? It's to be like the relationship between a vine and a branch. The relationship between the vine and a branch is constant. The branch doesn't spend an hour each day connected to the vine and then detach itself and go on with it's day. It has a constant connection or else it dies. And this is to be characteristic of our lives. God wants us to draw near to Him, not periodically, but as the tenor of our lives. Does this mean we all need to separate ourselves from the world and become nuns or monks? No, of course not. A life lived in the presence of God is to be lived out in the environment in which the Lord has placed us. In other words, It is possible to dwell in the Lords presence, to abide in Him, to draw near to God while working at the office, or on the job site. It's possible to dwell in Gods presence while carrying out the daily tasks that seem mundane and trivial.

So to draw near to God is to live in a constant awareness of God, and not merely a passive awareness, but an active awareness. Am I to constantly think about Christ? Yes, in a manner of speaking. While it is impossible to hold two thoughts in your mind at one time and do them both justice, the Lord has given us a heart as well as a mind. And our hearts can dwell on Christ while our minds are engaged in our daily work. This is at least a part of what it means to draw near to God.

The second part of Psalm 91:1 talks about abiding in the shadow of the Almighty. Think about your shadow for a minute. As you walk in the light the closest thing to you is always your shadow. So if someone is going to abide in your shadow they'll have to draw near to you. And not only that, but as you move so does your shadow, so if someone is going to remain in your shadow they'll have to walk in step with you. This is a helpful picture when thinking of our relationship with God. We don't simply draw near once and then stay there in His shadow automatically. We must draw near and then walk in step with the Lord. It's possible for us to drift, to go our own way or to simply stop following. So the goal of our lives should be to draw near to God, and this is not some passive one time thing, but to draw near to God is an active, constant pursuit.

In Psalm 27:4 David writes - "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple." David talks about dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of his life. It's important to note that he is not talking about dwelling in Gods house when he dies, but dwelling in Gods house here, in this life. And the house of the Lord from Davids perspective would be the tabernacle. This was the dwelling place of God. But we know from the book of Hebrews that this earthly tabernacle was simply a picture of something more real in the heavens. The earthly tabernacle is a picture of the heavenly tabernacle. The things we can see are merely the shadows, the substance belongs to the unseen. David longed to dwell constantly and perpetually in Gods presence. And this is not something ethereal, this is not something theoretical or beyond us. This is not something impractical, this is something real. Something possible. And beyond that, this is actually our greatest potential in life. To draw near to God and dwell continually in His presence.

All Christians do not occupy the same position in regard to our relationship with Christ. All believers are saved by the same precious blood of the Lord Jesus, but that decision, that stepping into the family of God, is only the beginning. There's is so much more to our relationship with Christ than simply "getting saved." That's just the first step. Once that relationship has been initiated we begin to grow closer to Him and come to know Him in ways we never did before. Our relationship with God is a pursuit. As we draw near to Him we come to know Him more and more. And as we come to know Him we grow in our love for Him. God is infinite, so knowing Him is a pursuit that will last all of eternity.

In some sense all believers look toward the inner sanctuary and the mercy seat, but all do not dwell there. We run there occasionally, in crises moments, and catch a glimpse of Him who sits enthroned above the cherubim, but we do not continually abide in His presence. And yet He has made this possible for everyone. He has not only granted the access, but He has issued us the invitation to draw near and abide in His presence.

God is just as present in the world today as He was in the days of Enoch. He is just as present as in the days of Noah. God is still just as present in our world as He was when He used to speak to Moses face to face. That closeness, that nearness is not something for only a select few. This is the closeness that the Lord desires to have with each of us, and yet so few seem to enter in and lay hold of this. Why? Certainly there were many in the days of Enoch, and yet this one man enjoyed such closeness with the Lord that one day he simply ceased to exist on this earth because God took Him. Can it be that we have become so blinded by the world around us that we fail to draw near to God? He Himself has surely said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." But are we constantly living in the light of His presence? There are so many things which seek to crowd into our lives and rob us of our nearness to God, but this need not be the case. The problem is not that God is distant, the problem, rather, lies with us. We're keeping God at arms length. We're putting things in between us and God. God's love for us is so great that He came to earth and died in our place in order to make it possible for us to draw near and know Him, but it seems that we have become so dull and calloused that it has become a light thing to us to neglect Him, to fail to draw near. He wants us to dwell in His presence, to constantly draw near to Him, but many of us are content to look at Him from a distance and draw near only in crises moments. I fear that the Word of the Lord to Jerusalem fits us far too well, "she did not draw near to her God." And many of us aptly fit into the Lords description of the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, "I have this against you, that you have left your first love." To fail to draw near to God is a sin. And we need to repent of it and ask God to give us a desire to know Him more and to draw us unto Himself.
I must confess that there is something here that I know very little about. As close as these Old Testament saints were to the Lord, the book of Hebrews seems to suggest that we have before us the opportunity of something deeper, something closer. Through the Lord Jesus Christ we have access into the very presence of God and the invitation to draw near. So why don't we? What is stopping us? I read about people like George Mueller, D.L. Moody, F.B. Meyer, A.W. Tozer, and others from a previous generation who seemed to have entered in to this closeness and we can see the evidence of that closeness expressed in the record of their lives and in their writings. I recently read Corrie Ten Boom's, the hiding place, and I was struck by the depth of her and her sister's relationship with Christ. Even in the midst of a Nazi concentration camp these women exhibited a faith in God that blew me away. I wish I knew God like they did. But perhaps the reason I don't is because I don't need God like they did, or at least I don't recognize that I do. They physically had everything taken away from them so that they could rely and depend on nothing and no one but Christ alone. I wonder if I'm bold enough to pray, "Father, remove everything from my life that is keeping me from drawing near to You."
These men and women seemed to know God in a deep and intimate way. A way that I've only heard of but never really experienced. And yet it's open to me. The Lord has issued the invitation to draw near. We need to pray with the bride in Song of Solomon, "Draw me after You and let us run together!"