God is Witness!

A Shepherd’s Musings: Week 26 – God is Witness

Since God knows everything and is everywhere He is a witness to everything we think, say, and do. The Old Testament poetical books point out that God is watching us all with the following testimony:

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry (Psalm 34:15),

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths (Proverbs 5:21),

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).

We cannot hide what we are, what we do, or what we say from God. He knows!  He is witness!  So why do we try?  Is not our natural response to our own wrongdoing to hide and cover our sin?  That is what Adam and Eve did in the garden.  That is what David did with his adultery with Bathsheba.  And that is what you and I do, until God intervenes like He did with Adam, David, and myriads of other examples throughout history to our present day.  When we sin against God, He is witness. We should quickly follow David’s right example in repentance:

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:3 -5; cf. Ps.51)

Can you think of some situations in your life where the thought of God being a witness sobered you into obedience?  Let’s be mindful this week of God’s watchfulness and be quick to acknowledge our need for God’s help to do right.  Call upon Him for help in your time of temptation, turning from the sin to God.

God is also witness when we do right even though others may misjudge our motives and even malign us with false witness.  In such situations the truth that God is a just and true witness can bring much comfort.  Various characters in the Old Testament appealed to others for various reasons with a reference to the fact that God is witness:  Laban to Jacob to secure that he treat his daughters right (Gen.31:50), the elders of Gilead to Jephthah in a pledge that they would keep their commitment to him (Judges 11:10), Samuel to the children of Israel to emphasis that he had never wronged them (1 Samuel 12:5-6), children of Israel to Jeremiah as a pledge of their future obedience (Jeremiah 42:5), and Micah to the people to stress their accountability to God (Micah 1:2). In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul appealed to the fact that God is witness to attest to the truth of his conduct concerning his prayer life (Romans 1:8-10), his itinerary (2 Corinthians 1:23-24), his relationship with other believers (Philippians 1:8), and his motives in ministry (1 Thessalonians 2:5).

Are there some situations in the past where you should have called someone’s attention to the fact that God is witness?  Can you foresee some situation in the future where you may need to point out that God is witness to get someone’s attention and remind them that God knows?

That fact that God is witness can be both convicting and comforting depending on how you are living!

With Prayer, Mark

© June, 2011  Scripture quoted: ESV – Emphasis added

Verses for your meditation:  God Is Witness

Genesis 31:50, If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, God is witness between you and me.

Judges 11:10, And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The LORD will be witness between us, if we do not do as you say.”

1 Samuel 12:5-6, And he said to them, “The LORD is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” And they said, “He is witness.” And Samuel said to the people, “The LORD is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

1 Samuel 20:12, And Jonathan said to David, “The LORD, the God of Israel, be witness! When I have sounded out my father, about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you?

Jeremiah 29:23, because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the LORD.'”

Jeremiah 42:5, Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to us.

Micah 1:2,  Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

Malachi 2:13-14, And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Romans 1:8-10, First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

2 Corinthians 1:23-24, But I call God to witness against me–it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

Philippians 1:8, For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 2:5, For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed–God is witness.

Hebews 4:13, And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

1 Peter 3:12, For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”