Bible Wonders - How Does God Repent?

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall? Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? Enough. Fascinatingly, God kind of showed me how that works today.

I'm so excited to share it with you. I guess it gets down to, you know, the very word repent and understanding that word. And so there is a relationship that I had never seen before between the word grace, the word Noah, and the word repent that I would say all just will connect so many dots for you.

I think it certainly connects a lot of dots for me. So the word repent in Hebrew, it's kind of interesting to note that it is synonymous with the word comfort. And so many places you'll find the word comfort with the exact same word. So the word is actually nakam, and it's spelled with a nun and a het and a mem, and we're going to spend a lot of time with that eventually. But right now, I just want to mention that the word Noah starts out exactly the same way with the same prefix.

It's a nun and a het. And so here's part of the connection is in the beginning of the story of Noah, when you look at it in chapter five, chapter six of the Bible, you'll notice he was named Noah because he would comfort his people. And that word nakam, you're going to find that when Isaac lost his mother, when Rebekah came, it comforted him. That's the same word as repent. And so, in the story of Noah, the Bible teaches that God repented that he made it man. And it grieved him in his heart, which like, whoa. So how does this word repent also mean comfort becomes all of a sudden this big, huge puzzle? And just to add to the equation for you, something absolutely beautiful is when David is in the 23rd Psalm, it says his rod and his staff, they nakam me, they comfort me. Again, the word could be translated either repent or comfort.

So you may have heard the age old discussion does repent mean to turn from sin? Or does it mean to have faith in Christ? And I think that when you really this study, this word nakam, you can see why it definitely means comfort. And it definitely does mean faith in Christ, because if we just take these letters individually and say, okay, what does this package tell us? Well, the first letter being a nun means faith. It's synonymous with the word faith. It can mean seed, but in this case, it definitely means faith. And the second letter, which is a het, which is synonymous with the word life. And the third letter we talked about in several episodes, including yesterday's is a meme, which is, again, synonymous with Jesus synonymous with water, because obviously he's the living water.

It's also synonymous with Torah or the Bible itself. And so when we put those three synonyms together, it's faith in the living water. Okay, so when God all of a sudden was upset that he had made man think about it, oh, wait a minute, I have faith that Jesus is going to get this straight. He had faith in the living water or the living word, right?

Because it's synonymous that the living Torah and Jesus. In other words, again, you'll find it in the story of Exodus when, you know, God got all upset about the golden calf. And you might remember that Moses goes into that famous discussion in Exodus 32 where, you know, he begs God and it says that God repented, which would kind of mean God was comforted.

Well, once again, God was upset at man. God came back to the point with I have faith in my son. I have faith that Jesus is going to fix this, just like David realizes that the rod in the staff sometimes says rod is used on you. Well, it's used on you so that once again, you will have faith in Jesus.

You'll have faith in the mitzvahs or the commands of the Torah, right? That these things will work out for Jesus coming to rule and reign. That is the word that we're talking about today for repent. But again, I told you that Noah's name itself is a nun and a het, which when you hear Noah, that's the way that is. Well, the Jews have taught for years that grace spelled backwards is Noah. And Noah was the first one that found grace in his father's eyes, right? If you look in the passage again, in Genesis 6, I believe, where this is going on, you'll see that the word grace is spelled a het and then a nun, meaning life faith, where the word Noah is spelled nun and then het. Well, interestingly, if you take the word repent and you turn it backwards, you get this concept of faith in life of the men of Jesus, right? And so think about in how many ways comfort and grace are connected, that when you know that you're God's favorite, it's extremely comforting and it's extremely faith building in that you believe that God has this plan for not only your salvation, but also that things were going to be made right in the world. And so with, you know, in John chapter one, where it kept on saying, and he was the light and his light was the light of men, well, that light that's of life, it's in the word grace and it's in the word comfort.

And doesn't it just flip your switch? When you experience Jesus's grace, just like the prodigal son, it says he came back to his senses. And when he turned to go back to his father, he put his faith, right, back in the living water, which he knew his father represented.

And it was steak dinner for him and it'll be steak dinner for you when you repent, when you take comfort in God's plan. Think about the classic difference between Peter and Judas, right? Like where's the question that both said that they both were very grieved over their sin, but why did one of them be, why was one of them redeemed and one of them committed suicide? Because one of them turned and put his faith, right? He put his faith in the living water, while the other one was just disappointed in where he thought life was coming from his decisions. The ultimate comfort from our sin is once again to believe that Jesus has got you covered. He just does. And he did it through his word and as he is truly the living water. So how did God repent as we wonder today? Well, I believe now that God just simply renewed his faith in Jesus's living water.