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IS GOD OUT

TO GET YOU

Let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. 10 My shield is with God, Who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. Psalms 7:9-11 (NASB)

Sometimes as we read the Bible and contemplate the idea of “GOD”, we are prone to think of HIM in the most unpleasant and negative terms. I think that we most often think of God in the same ways we did our Fathers when we were children. It is hard for some of us to think of HIM as a kind and loving GOD because that was or is not the way we think of our own Father. We earthly fathers sometimes cause our children to develop false concepts about GOD. If a Father is crude, mean and overbearing, often their children find it difficult to think of their heavenly Father in any other terms than crude, mean and overbearing. This is probably why Paul instructed Fathers:

 

  • Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 So that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Eph 6:2-4 (NASB)
What happens during our “formative years” has such a bearing on how we react to our husband, children, friends, neighbors, yes and even God as we get older. The phrase “being an innocent child” is first of all probably not a correct assessment of childhood and is certainly not an easy task for a child. When you are physically and emotionally abused as a child, it is not easy to turn that around as an adult and become a kind, considerate, and compassionate person. But with God’s help we can.

HIDE YOUR FACE

  • Do not hide Your face from me, Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation! 10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the Lord will take me up. Psalms 27:9-10 (NASB)
What caused David to feel forsaken by his father and mother? Could it have been the way he was treated as a kid? We don’t know, but it does make us wonder. What is it that diminishes our sense of self worth as an adult? Often times it is because we felt as a child that we were in some physical or emotional sense forsaken by our dads and moms. Why were they always so angry? And yet we don’t know what they were harboring in the deep recesses of their hearts, do we? What were they subjected to as children? Was granddad and grandma there for them while growing up? Were they always being yelled at for something and often for everything? We are all such broken people aren’t we? We need to feel whole and complete. We had hoped that by accepting GOD as our heavenly Father; while praying “OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN”; we could gain that parental acceptance we didn’t get as a child.

A child who is physically or even sexually abused by one of their parents, or by another family member, feels forsaken by both because the passive parent allowed the abuse to occur and didn’t do anything about it. “WHY DIDN’T THEY SEE? WHY DIDN’T THEY KNOW? WHY DIDN’T THEY DO SOMETHING?” They must not have cared. Often times because of these and other feelings held over from those formative years we have the wrong attitude toward our heavenly Father.

PRODIGAL SON

People come to church to find that loving Father found in the story of the Prodigal Son:

The story is about a man who had two sons. The younger wanted his share of the estate and he wanted it now. His father proceeded to divide his wealth between them. The younger son gathered all his possessions and moved to another country. There he squandered his share of the estate with undisciplined living. After having squandered his wealth, a severe famine occurred in that country and he had run out of means to support himself. He took a job and was sent into the field to feed pigs. He was so hungry that he thought seriously about eating what he was feeding to the pigs. No one around the area would give him a bite to eat.

As he came to his senses he thought about his father’s employees. They were fairing much better than he. He was so hungry. He thought about what he might say to his father. Surely, he thought: “I must swallow my pride and go to my father and throw myself on his mercy.” Perhaps he would take me on as one of his employees, he reasoned. His father had been worried about his son and was overjoyed when he saw him coming. His son humbled himself before him. His dad accepted him back with open arms. So he could show his happiness that his son had returned, he decided to throw him a party. Everyone joined in the celebration for the returning son except the older brother. Jesus told the story so much better in Luke 15: 11-24.
  • Often at church we are confronted with an angry God:
  • One similar to the Father we knew as a child;
  • One who is frequently angry with his children;
  • One who is out-to-get-me;
  • If I don’t do what he says he’s going to be very, very angry.
"The preacher said God would see that we are cast into a burning place where people scream in agony and pain for ever and ever. After a hundred years of pain and suffering there will be one hundred more years of the same ahead; and a hundred more; and another hundred and on and on." Not a very pleasant picture.

BURN THEM UP

  • Malachi 4: 1 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch."  (NASB)
  • Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death.
The first thing is that there is a day of retribution coming; a day that will burn like an oven. Sinners on that day will be set ablaze. Sin is a miserable thing. The idea of living forever in sin is repulsive. Let me put it as simply as I can. If you don’t want to be saved, God is not going to force you. He is too a loving Father. He wants you to be happy.

 		 When our children misbehave we feel it our obligation to do something. A child who is having a tantrum is a miserable child. We must not allow them to wallow in their misery. Proper action must be taken. God does not want us to live forever in our misery. He will not allow us to live forever in our misery. But he wants it to be our choice.
  • John 3:16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life.
If you don’t want to live forever and be happy forever, God is not going to force you. It is up to you. Realize the two choices: to perish or to live forever.

LIFE AND DEATH

  • "But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,18 I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it.19 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants ,20 by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them." Deut 30:17-20 (NASB)
God is not out to get you. Don’t be paranoid. GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD. God does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  2 Peter 3:9 (NASB) God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  I Timothy 2:4 (NASB)

Yes, unrepentant and unbelieving human beings will ultimately be completely put out of their misery. After all, the wages of sin is death, not eternal life in hell. It is death. There will come a time when these words of David will find fulfillment:
  • Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.  Psalms 37:10 (NASB)
Can it get any plainer than that? Is that simple enough? One day, God has promised that a privileged few will be given the distinct privilege of: “treading down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing," says the LORD of hosts.  Malachi 4:2 (NASB) 
  • That’s the day that will burn as an oven.
  • That’s the day sinners will be set ablaze.
  • That’s the day will that will reduce those who do not fear God’s name to ashes.

NO MORE PAIN

God has promised a day when he will wipe away tears. He has promised a new heaven and a new earth. The Holy City New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven. God will dwell with his people in the New Heaven and New Earth. There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain.  All of those things will be no more. God will dwell among his people. No more room in all of God’s creation for death, sorrow, crying, or pain. Revelation 21:1-4. Do you really think: all that having been said, that God will allow a little corner of his universe to abound with the screams, death, crying or pain? These are enemies of mankind. The last enemy to be abolished is death. I Corinthians 15:26. How loving is the picture given in verse 4 of Revelation 21; a picture of a loving creator wiping tears away from the eyes of his creation.

Look at the fatherly way God dealt with Adam and Eve’s sin. It must have been so disappointing to God. His beautiful creation chose to do exactly opposite of what He had told them to do.
  • "Where are you?"
  • "Who told you that you were naked?”
  • “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
  • "What is this you have done?" he said to the woman.
  • Ever so sad words were spoken to Eve:
  • "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Genesis 3:16

CURSED GROUND

To Adam, these words, have plagued mankind for all time since then:

 

  • Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return." Gen 3:17-19 (NASB)
Sin entered into the world and death because of sin. Romans 5:12. For human beings to live forever in a burning never ending hell, they would have to be given eternal life. You can’t live forever without it. God gave his Son so we could believe on him and have everlasting life. If we do not believe on him we are going to perish. Some of the definitive words for perish are: die, pass away, become extinct, cease to exist. We need to put the true meaning; which has been taken out, back into John 3:16. What part of “Thou shalt surely die” did Adam and Eve not understand? We can see what a mess they got us into by eating of the forbidden fruit. Now; what part of John 3:16 do we not get? “That whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life.” Remember this: “the wages of sin is death; eternal life is the gift of God.”  If God doesn’t give us eternal life, and we for sure were not born with eternal life where are we going to get it? If we already have eternal life, how can he give us something we already have? Quite a conundrum wouldn’t you say? Paul’s words seem appropriate to end these thoughts:
  • But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 (NASB)
We are mortal and we are perishable. But God so loved the world that whosoever believes in his son will not perish but have eternal life, immortality.