February 26, 2002
Our friend, a doctor, says he loves working with people who have addictions because “treating them is a game.” He explains that an addict will eventually agree to treatment, but only because he secretly thinks he can get out of it. This doctor likes to “out-manipulate” addicts and “put them in a position of giving up their will.”
Does this treatment succeed? Perhaps some people are freed from addictions, but I’m not sure anyone actually gives up their will. God gave us freedom to make choices and unless physically forced or chemically induced, our will is too strong to easily take from us. Perhaps some would say this doctor is doing a bit of “god-playing” with his treatment. He backs the addict into a corner leaving only one clear option. The patient sees he must choose cooperation and abandon his addiction. Or is “god-playing” an appropriate term? Does God work like that?
In the New Testament book of Romans, the Apostle Paul talks about some who commit gross kinds of sin. He explains in chapter one how “God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts” and “to a depraved mind.” He explains how consequences are a “due penalty for their perversion.”
In other words, if a person wants to persist in doing wrong, God will not necessarily interfere. In fact, He might pull back all help and let that person become totally addicted to their sin. This is one opportunity He gives us to change our minds about doing things His way. He lets us find out that our way does not work.
Why would God do let anyone become addicted? The passage gives some answers. First, letting people go into deep sin is a revelation of His wrath. If people reject God and the dangers of sin and “suppresses the truth by their wickedness,” God reveals the results of their rejection: they become slaves to the very thing they wanted the freedom to do.
A second reason is that God makes Himself known to everyone through creation. The passage says, “ . . . what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
It goes on to explain that some, “although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Rejection of God’s revelation brings blindness to spiritual truth. In that darkness, people succumb to habits and substances that become their gods. These sins bind them like slaves.
How does God release people from that bondage? In this case, those who are enslaved by an addiction can start loosening their chains by acknowledging God as Creator. As they do, they must also admit that He has a claim on their lives.
Another thing an addict can do is be thankful, not only for life and its good things but also for their problems. Even though they used an addiction to escape from them, these problems can be a driving force in a better direction — to God instead of to their habit.
God does not play mind-games. We cannot accuse Him of manipulation. He knows how to pull desperate people out of the clutches of an addiction. The human side is to recognize and admit helplessness, even admit being out of control and not wanting to stop. Then can call to God for help. God’s part is not backing people into a corner — we get there ourselves. Instead, He hears our cry for help and gladly works in us — making us to not only want His will but also setting us free so we can do it.
Showing posts with label wrath of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wrath of God. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Monday, July 13, 2015
A New Thing .............. Parables 299
January 7, 1992
A farmer in the Moose Jaw area has invented a new type of rod weeder. He says it will do in three days what once took sixteen with older equipment. Whether or not his boast is accurate, he won’t go back to outmoded methods. He spent half his life doing things that maybe worked but now he has discovered a better way and no one is going to convince him to change and go back.
Human beings are inventive sorts. Some say necessity is inventions’s mother but sometimes new things are given birth by our desire to work quicker, easier, or cheaper. Perhaps a longing for beauty tugs at our coattails and we paint pictures, embroider pillows and write poetry. Whatever the reasons behind our inventions, much of that creative ability was built in when the Creator God invented male and female in His own image.
Genesis was not the end of God’s invention of new things, however. When a few Israelite men rebelled against Him, “...the LORD created a new thing — the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up... they went down alive into the pit...” While onlookers gaped in terror, God used the first earthquake to demonstrate the seriousness of sin. Did this new invention do the trick?
No. While the earthquake judgment did rid the nation of some rebels, it did not bring the children of God into submission. It was set aside for another method, an inventive idea also called a new thing, a “road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). This was figurative language for a promise of a way out of their difficulties, a promise of mercy.
Like children who are first spanked, then hugged, the Israelites enjoyed the hugs far more than the earthquakes, but they still rebelled against their Father. One would wonder why God did not go back to the former plan and just open the earth and swallow them up, but mercy won over judgment. He unfolded still another plan, another new thing.
Earthquakes nor even God’s promise had no effect on sinful people so He fashioned a saving device whereby rebellious hearts could be changed. He knew we ourselves could not change, even if we wanted to. But He could make us new. Coming in a cradle, culminating in a Cross, this new thing — God in human flesh — was the invention par excellence, God’s coup de grace. What the law could not do, what judgment and wrath could not do, what promises of mercy could not do — the Son of God did. All who desire a new thing may put their faith in Him and, by the power of God, “old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (Corinthians 5:17).
Like the farmer and his new weeder, there is no reverting back. Those who are under grace never need to fear the wrath of God because all the condemnation we deserved was taken at the Cross. Jesus bore the penalty of sin for us. He warns us “not turn back to folly,” but the same verse promises He “will speak peace To His people and to His saints.”
There is danger for those who think that because God is not opening the ground and swallowing up sinners they can continue in sin and never face His wrath. However, John 3:36 says those “... who do not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Certainly the expression of His full wrath is withheld for now — He is not willing that any should perish. But someday His wrath will be revealed from heaven (Romans 1) and be poured out upon the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 5:6) who will be “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
It will come when people are so accustomed to the mercy of God that they will think wrath is a “new thing”... really it is not — it is simply what a Holy God should have done about our sin all along.
A farmer in the Moose Jaw area has invented a new type of rod weeder. He says it will do in three days what once took sixteen with older equipment. Whether or not his boast is accurate, he won’t go back to outmoded methods. He spent half his life doing things that maybe worked but now he has discovered a better way and no one is going to convince him to change and go back.
Human beings are inventive sorts. Some say necessity is inventions’s mother but sometimes new things are given birth by our desire to work quicker, easier, or cheaper. Perhaps a longing for beauty tugs at our coattails and we paint pictures, embroider pillows and write poetry. Whatever the reasons behind our inventions, much of that creative ability was built in when the Creator God invented male and female in His own image.
Genesis was not the end of God’s invention of new things, however. When a few Israelite men rebelled against Him, “...the LORD created a new thing — the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up... they went down alive into the pit...” While onlookers gaped in terror, God used the first earthquake to demonstrate the seriousness of sin. Did this new invention do the trick?
No. While the earthquake judgment did rid the nation of some rebels, it did not bring the children of God into submission. It was set aside for another method, an inventive idea also called a new thing, a “road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). This was figurative language for a promise of a way out of their difficulties, a promise of mercy.
Like children who are first spanked, then hugged, the Israelites enjoyed the hugs far more than the earthquakes, but they still rebelled against their Father. One would wonder why God did not go back to the former plan and just open the earth and swallow them up, but mercy won over judgment. He unfolded still another plan, another new thing.
Earthquakes nor even God’s promise had no effect on sinful people so He fashioned a saving device whereby rebellious hearts could be changed. He knew we ourselves could not change, even if we wanted to. But He could make us new. Coming in a cradle, culminating in a Cross, this new thing — God in human flesh — was the invention par excellence, God’s coup de grace. What the law could not do, what judgment and wrath could not do, what promises of mercy could not do — the Son of God did. All who desire a new thing may put their faith in Him and, by the power of God, “old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (Corinthians 5:17).
Like the farmer and his new weeder, there is no reverting back. Those who are under grace never need to fear the wrath of God because all the condemnation we deserved was taken at the Cross. Jesus bore the penalty of sin for us. He warns us “not turn back to folly,” but the same verse promises He “will speak peace To His people and to His saints.”
There is danger for those who think that because God is not opening the ground and swallowing up sinners they can continue in sin and never face His wrath. However, John 3:36 says those “... who do not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Certainly the expression of His full wrath is withheld for now — He is not willing that any should perish. But someday His wrath will be revealed from heaven (Romans 1) and be poured out upon the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 5:6) who will be “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
It will come when people are so accustomed to the mercy of God that they will think wrath is a “new thing”... really it is not — it is simply what a Holy God should have done about our sin all along.
Friday, April 24, 2015
My anger and God’s anger .............. Parables 265
May 1, 1991
It requires a great deal of energy to stay angry and, my family agrees, it’s a good thing I get tired easily!
I used to pat myself on the back for being such an easy person to get along with, to admit my wrongs and make peace, but something happened to make me realize I’m really not that easy-going. I increased my stamina through an exercise program and could shovel 4-6" of snow off the driveway without stopping for a breather or feeling tired when I was finished. But then I also noticed I could stay angry much longer!
Seriously, anger is often a mechanism of self-defense related to hurts, disappointments and thwarted expectations. Anyone who can’t handle a hurt may deal with that pain by getting angry, and the deeper the hurt, the greater the anger and the longer it lasts.
As I learn how to deal with anger by dealing with hurts, I’ve thought about God’s anger and wondered if it is anything like mine. Surely sin makes Him angry and Psalms 7:11 says “...God is angry with the wicked every day.”
Yet that doesn’t mean His anger is like ours. For one thing, I’m sure He doesn’t react to our sin with emotional outburst because we have hurt His feelings. He is not selfishly concerned about what we do to Him. More than likely, He hates sin because of its destructive power to hurt us.
Also, basic to His anger against sin is His nature. He is holy, pure and sinless. His outrage toward sin is something like a cat’s response to water; sin is simply contrary to everything that He is.
His demonstration against anger is not a mere slap on the wrist, either. When Jesus discovered money changers in the temple charging exorbitant prices to Jewish travelers for sacrificial animals, He was outraged. He braided a whip and drove them out, turning over their tables and denouncing them for making His Father’s house into a marketplace.
This tells me something else about His anger. I braided a halter shank once and have a good idea how long it took Jesus to braid a whip. From that, I conclude Jesus’ anger was not a temporary flare-up but a deep indignation that stayed with Him until the whip was finished and the situation was corrected. John 3:36 indicates God’s wrath is even eternal — because it “abides forever” on those who do not believe in His Son.
Serious as it is to have God angry at our sin, the good news of the Bible is that His anger has been appeased. However, He didn’t calm down because He got tired of being angry. What did happen was that His Son was willing to receive the wrath we deserved. Jesus appeased God’s anger.
The word used is “propitiation.” “God... loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is what satisfies anger. It is not retaliation, but the way God vindicated His holy character through the sacrifice of Christ. He put our sins on His Son, making it possible for Him to punish sin and still offer mercy and forgiveness to us.
In that, I’ve discovered the answer to both hurts and anger. It is the same for me as it is for God: I must offer mercy and forgiveness. When I get angry at someone who sins against me, God reminds me to put away wrath and anger, and “be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Other may not deserve forgiveness, and sometimes never ask for it, but Christ died so His Father didn’t have to stay angry... and He died so we don’t have to stay angry either.
It requires a great deal of energy to stay angry and, my family agrees, it’s a good thing I get tired easily!
I used to pat myself on the back for being such an easy person to get along with, to admit my wrongs and make peace, but something happened to make me realize I’m really not that easy-going. I increased my stamina through an exercise program and could shovel 4-6" of snow off the driveway without stopping for a breather or feeling tired when I was finished. But then I also noticed I could stay angry much longer!
Seriously, anger is often a mechanism of self-defense related to hurts, disappointments and thwarted expectations. Anyone who can’t handle a hurt may deal with that pain by getting angry, and the deeper the hurt, the greater the anger and the longer it lasts.
As I learn how to deal with anger by dealing with hurts, I’ve thought about God’s anger and wondered if it is anything like mine. Surely sin makes Him angry and Psalms 7:11 says “...God is angry with the wicked every day.”
Yet that doesn’t mean His anger is like ours. For one thing, I’m sure He doesn’t react to our sin with emotional outburst because we have hurt His feelings. He is not selfishly concerned about what we do to Him. More than likely, He hates sin because of its destructive power to hurt us.
Also, basic to His anger against sin is His nature. He is holy, pure and sinless. His outrage toward sin is something like a cat’s response to water; sin is simply contrary to everything that He is.
His demonstration against anger is not a mere slap on the wrist, either. When Jesus discovered money changers in the temple charging exorbitant prices to Jewish travelers for sacrificial animals, He was outraged. He braided a whip and drove them out, turning over their tables and denouncing them for making His Father’s house into a marketplace.
This tells me something else about His anger. I braided a halter shank once and have a good idea how long it took Jesus to braid a whip. From that, I conclude Jesus’ anger was not a temporary flare-up but a deep indignation that stayed with Him until the whip was finished and the situation was corrected. John 3:36 indicates God’s wrath is even eternal — because it “abides forever” on those who do not believe in His Son.
Serious as it is to have God angry at our sin, the good news of the Bible is that His anger has been appeased. However, He didn’t calm down because He got tired of being angry. What did happen was that His Son was willing to receive the wrath we deserved. Jesus appeased God’s anger.
The word used is “propitiation.” “God... loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is what satisfies anger. It is not retaliation, but the way God vindicated His holy character through the sacrifice of Christ. He put our sins on His Son, making it possible for Him to punish sin and still offer mercy and forgiveness to us.
In that, I’ve discovered the answer to both hurts and anger. It is the same for me as it is for God: I must offer mercy and forgiveness. When I get angry at someone who sins against me, God reminds me to put away wrath and anger, and “be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Other may not deserve forgiveness, and sometimes never ask for it, but Christ died so His Father didn’t have to stay angry... and He died so we don’t have to stay angry either.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Will God “get you” for that? ................... Parables 149
Remember the TV show “Maude?” The lead character was loud, bossy, domineering and sometimes funny. Whenever someone crossed her, she almost always retorted, “God’s going to get you for that!
In November, someone stole a tropical bird from an Edmonton pet store. Last week the thief telephoned the store to let them know the bird was safely in a box at the door of the pet shop. He returned it because he was afraid “God would get him” for what he had done.
I’m not well acquainted with many thieves, but what I know about criminals indicates most don’t plan on getting caught nor do they consider before the crime just what the penalty might be. Neither does it occur to them (or to very many other people for that matter) what God might do. This thief seems an exception rather than the rule. No wonder his confession made headlines.
Maybe he was a paranoid fanatic who had watched too many episodes of Maude. I would like to think better. Perhaps a faithful parent taught him something about consequences. Maybe a Christian Sunday school teacher explained how unjust people may go through life without getting caught and even enter the grave unpunished, but there is one more check stop after that one. At least this thief paid heed to his conscience.
Some ‘holier-than-thou’ types might suggest if he was so spiritually minded, why did he take the bird in the first place? While he can’t plead “everyone gives in to temptation now and then” before a court of law, the fact of the matter is that everyone does give into temptation at times.
No one can point a finger in utter innocence at anyone else. Perhaps all of us have taken something that didn’t belong to us at one time or another. The difference between this fellow and a “common” thief is that he let the fear of God motivate a turn-around after his sin was committed.
The fear of God is a rare commodity. Atheists, agnostics, and skeptics claim God is dead or never was, or God doesn’t care. A vast majority simply form their opinion through personal experience without checking what He says about Himself in His Word.
When personal experience becomes the Bible, then if bolts of lightning don’t fall from the sky after every sin is committed, “judgment” is dismissed as an imaginary iron fist that religious people hold over poor souls.
Others argue that God is much too loving to punish anyone, and guilt is simply a human quirk that needs to be ignored. But what does God say about His judgment?
First, Romans 9:22 says God may withhold punishment so we will know that His character includes both anger at sin and great patience with sinners. Some think God is a vindictive tyrant without compassion, while others think He is loving and kind, looking the other way when we disobey Him.
Neither are true. This verse asks, “What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath. . . what if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy?”
Because we tend to ‘make God in our own image,’ our view of God is often more like we are than He is. Our common reaction when offended is instant retaliation. Since God does not take immediate vengeance, we tend to think He just isn’t looking, or caring what happens because “if I were God, my reaction would be instant . . . I’d get him for that!”
But the Bible says God is patient, merciful, and long suffering. Simply put, that means He does not deal with us according to what our sins deserve. He has put His wrath on hold, as it were, waiting for responses to His mercy. “God is not slow in keeping His promise, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
When Maude said, “God is going to get your for that,” she got a laugh. When God said it, He hoped to get repentance and faith — so He can forgive whatever ‘it’ is and give the offender eternal life.
In November, someone stole a tropical bird from an Edmonton pet store. Last week the thief telephoned the store to let them know the bird was safely in a box at the door of the pet shop. He returned it because he was afraid “God would get him” for what he had done.
I’m not well acquainted with many thieves, but what I know about criminals indicates most don’t plan on getting caught nor do they consider before the crime just what the penalty might be. Neither does it occur to them (or to very many other people for that matter) what God might do. This thief seems an exception rather than the rule. No wonder his confession made headlines.
Maybe he was a paranoid fanatic who had watched too many episodes of Maude. I would like to think better. Perhaps a faithful parent taught him something about consequences. Maybe a Christian Sunday school teacher explained how unjust people may go through life without getting caught and even enter the grave unpunished, but there is one more check stop after that one. At least this thief paid heed to his conscience.
Some ‘holier-than-thou’ types might suggest if he was so spiritually minded, why did he take the bird in the first place? While he can’t plead “everyone gives in to temptation now and then” before a court of law, the fact of the matter is that everyone does give into temptation at times.
No one can point a finger in utter innocence at anyone else. Perhaps all of us have taken something that didn’t belong to us at one time or another. The difference between this fellow and a “common” thief is that he let the fear of God motivate a turn-around after his sin was committed.
The fear of God is a rare commodity. Atheists, agnostics, and skeptics claim God is dead or never was, or God doesn’t care. A vast majority simply form their opinion through personal experience without checking what He says about Himself in His Word.
When personal experience becomes the Bible, then if bolts of lightning don’t fall from the sky after every sin is committed, “judgment” is dismissed as an imaginary iron fist that religious people hold over poor souls.
Others argue that God is much too loving to punish anyone, and guilt is simply a human quirk that needs to be ignored. But what does God say about His judgment?
First, Romans 9:22 says God may withhold punishment so we will know that His character includes both anger at sin and great patience with sinners. Some think God is a vindictive tyrant without compassion, while others think He is loving and kind, looking the other way when we disobey Him.
Neither are true. This verse asks, “What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath. . . what if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy?”
Because we tend to ‘make God in our own image,’ our view of God is often more like we are than He is. Our common reaction when offended is instant retaliation. Since God does not take immediate vengeance, we tend to think He just isn’t looking, or caring what happens because “if I were God, my reaction would be instant . . . I’d get him for that!”
But the Bible says God is patient, merciful, and long suffering. Simply put, that means He does not deal with us according to what our sins deserve. He has put His wrath on hold, as it were, waiting for responses to His mercy. “God is not slow in keeping His promise, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
When Maude said, “God is going to get your for that,” she got a laugh. When God said it, He hoped to get repentance and faith — so He can forgive whatever ‘it’ is and give the offender eternal life.
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