Jesus sat on a bluff overlooking Jerusalem and lamented with tears: �Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. �Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!� (Matthew 23:37-38). God is drawing us to himself just as He was constantly drawing Old Testament Israel. However Israel was unwilling to come. God wanted to gather them like a mother hen draws her chicks by spreading her wings for the chicks to gain refuge against anything that would otherwise befall them.
Also in Psalm 91 He says: �He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, �My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!� For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper And from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark� (vs. 1-4). The entire Psalm speaks of the protection of the Lord to the one who draws near. �A thousand may fall at your side And ten thousand at your right hand, But it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes And see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the LORD, my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, Nor will any plague come near your tent� (vs. 7-10).
God said the house of Israel was left desolate. Throughout their history God would send armies to defeat them because they were unwilling to seek His protection by doing righteousness i.e. Assyria, Babylon, Scythians (Syria) and then Rome. They were always at war with the Canaanite tribes who would seize on their weaknesses when they were sinning and harass them.
In all cases God sent prophets to warn them of the evil to come but, as the Lord said, the people not only didn�t listen but they stoned and killed the men of God like Jeremiah and Isaiah (see Hebrews 11). They refused to be drawn close to the Lord when that is all He was trying to accomplish.
We also have a human nature that is unwilling to be drawn to the Lord. We are actually repelled by God when we should be drawn. It is a perversity in our old nature that refuses the Lord with his wings spread out ready to take us under His wing into His Kingdom.
One major perversity in out nature that prevents us from coming to Him is self condemnation. Romans 8:1-2 identifies this weakness and identifies its destruction. �Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death�. Condemnation makes us unwilling to be drawn to the Father. Feeling unworthy, we pull back rather that press in. Condemnation is the ultimate flinch. We say �Oh I did something wrong so God doesn�t love me anymore. How could he love such a wretched creature?� Religion is a great culprit in this area. They would have you toe the line and try to obey God in your flesh when that is not the point. The legalistic walk with God ended when Christ fulfilled the law for us on the cross. He brought the new covenant of grace. �For the righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again� (Proverbs 24:16). One version reads �and the Lord lifts him up�.
Christ said: �If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.� Philip said to Him, �Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.� Jesus said to him, �Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, �Show us the Father�? �Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. �Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves� (John 14:7-11).
Religion has the wrong idea about Christ. Christ was a representation or representative of the Father. All the works done by Christ were done by the Father through His earthly ambassador Jesus. �Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation� (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).
It was and has always been the Father who is represented as God in the scriptures. Christ is the Father�s gift to us so that we can have the opportunity to be cleansed and thus acceptable to the Father. The Father is and always has been seeking a family, like the hen and chick family that abided together and were protected from all evil, especially condemnation. God the Father is tired of being separated from us. We likewise should be tired of living separate from him. He, the Father, will pursue us throughout all eternity until He gets what He wants-His very own family of Sons.
Everything is going to end up with the Father anyway. Paul said: ��then comes the end, when He [Christ] hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power� (1 Corinthians 15:24). Christ�s purpose as well as ours is to abolish all false powers and turn the Kingdom over to God the Father.
Christ has been our mediator between us and the Father. The time has come that we relate directly to the Father, as Christ the Son does. If we are to be Sons like Christ our intercession is directly to the Father, as is His. The time comes when the Sons reach maturity and it is no longer necessary to have an intermediary. As the writer of Hebrews said in 8:10-11: �FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD [FATHER], AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. �AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, �KNOW THE LORD,� FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM�. They will all call God Father.
