2011-03-25
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, I ended with RO 9: 22 being compared to RO 3: 26 in a discussion of God’s power, His patience and righteousness in using it. If we think about it, it was necessary at some point for God to use His power to draw the lines on what thoughts/behaviors are required to please Him and what doesn’t. Otherwise, the people would never know this, nor could they be held accountable for their sins. This leads us to the question: In a covenant relationship is God ever mean or evil? God was so unhappy just before the flood, that He got the idea that He wanted a chance to get rid the earth of mankind’s sinning and start again. That was His motivation for bringing the flood about and for getting what he thought would be a new start through the line that would come from Noah and his family. After the devastation that ensued, God entered into the Noahtic covenant or the rainbow promise in GN 8: 21; 9: 12-13. “As a sign of the everlasting covenant which I am making with you and with all living beings, I am putting My bow in the clouds. It will be the sign of My covenant with the world.” God had promised that he would never again destroy the world with a flood (11). Sadly, as we were to see, this didn’t solve the problem of mankind’s sinfulness, which they inherited through Adam and Eve and their original sin [GN 3: 1-6].
God was not naïve here. But was He mean and evil? He knew mankind was evil in spirit due to their inheritance. Things didn’t go well once the flood was over. We of great hindsight can claim, “no surprise here,” but Noah and his sons didn’t have the capacity to understand their own sinful nature. Still that was no excuse for their behavior. GN 9: 18-19, “The sons of Noah who went out of the ark where Shem, Ham , and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan). These three sons of Noah were the ancestors of all the people on earth.” The end of Noah’s story is decidedly disappointing for those of us who wish God had overcome sinfulness in His human creation. One night Noah drank too much wine and got drunk. He lay naked in his tent on his farm. His family had been the first to plant vineyards. Ham saw Noah that way and told his brothers. They covered their father with a robe. Ham, the father of Canaan did not. The other two kept their faces turned away. Noah awoke and put a curse on Canaan, saying “Canaan will be the slave of Shem. May God cause Japheth to increase! May his descendants live with the people of Shem! Canaan will be the slave of Japheth” [GN 9: 20-27]. Can we blame God for what happened, or can we count it the sinful disobedience and disrespect of God by mankind?
Our God is all-sufficient; He is our El Shaddai, the Lord Almighty. Lay your head on the shoulder of El Shaddai and hear His heart beat; deicide if He is mean or evil. Consider your opinion if God isn’t horribly disappointed that His effort to get a fresh start after the flood was failing miserably. Mankind was as sinful and separated from Him as ever. Can’t you imagine God thinking about another way to solve this problem? I believe Satan can thwart God’s plans for awhile, enough time to bring Him grievous disappointment, but he can’t stop God from exerting His will forever. IS 46: 9-10, “I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times to what is still to come. I say, ’My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” One might ask why spend so much time reading the Scriptures and in prayer? I must to answer, “so we can see the rest of the story, so God has the opportunity to reveal Himself to us.” Another reason is God’s superior wisdom and knowledge that He is making available to us. Placing Biblical truth in our lives can only be done by placing what we read in the context it was meant. That’s why faith systems that pick and choose certain Scriptures or which take Scripture out of the Bible, placing it in an artificial context, simply aren’t teaching the truth!
Is God being mean/evil by leaving some things out of the Bible? Think about it. If we knew when Christ would come again, would be feel the need to get our spiritual houses in order right away, or would be procrastinate? If we knew every detail, would we need to have faith? Trust in God? The truthful answers to these questions go right back to our understanding of mankind’s basically sinful nature. God wants to sanctify us; He doesn’t look to us as His puppets on a string or want us to go on, not knowing His will. And what about God’s agenda? Is it mean or evil? Just look at the two mission statements in JN 6: 39-40 and EPH 1: 4-5 to get an answer. Are these the words of a God Who is less that totally righteous? The answers that we come up, if truthful, lead us to understand our need to be faithful, loyal, and trusting of God. If they don’t, then I have not done my job in writing this devotion properly. Imagine what is must be like for God, Who makes decisions for only the best and most righteous of reasons, decisions that are often unpopular, garnering plenty of opposition and disobedience from mankind. Perhaps Isaiah or Jeremiah, who both had to deliver a very unpopular message to their disobedient fellow Israelites, might have an inkling of God’s disappointments over the history of mankind. Surely we don’t fully understand IS 55: 8-9 is God expounding on the differences between Himself and mankind. “’My thoughts,’ says the Lord, are not like yours, and My ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways and thoughts above yours.’” This is not a chest-beating braggadocio; this is our God trying to help us understand the reality of His mighty omniscience. And to think that this God, the One and Only God, loves us with all the power of His mighty and tender heart!
PRAYER: O Lord, there has been so much disobedience toward You from the beginning of mankind’s history that it is a miracle that You still love us the way You do. Your long patience and love for us can be seen throughout our history. 2 PET 3: 9, “The Lord is not slow to do what He has promised, as some think. Instead, He is patient with you, because He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.” PS 107: 43, “May those who are wise think about these things; may they acknowledge the Lord’s constant love.” We can picture Christ, Your second personality, scourged, mocked, beaten, crucified-all while He was totally innocent of wrongdoing. If we understand what an assault on the physical body crucifixion is, we know something of the extent of His suffering. IS 53: 4-6, 12b. “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord was laid on Him the iniquity of us all…For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors.” Are these the actions of an evil/mean-spirited God? We think not! So we thank and praise You and will do so forever. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: We will spend another week looking at this question: Is God mean or evil? There is more to say about that, because we need to know our Covenant Partner even better than we think we do. Each of the covenant promises He has made will be kept. How do I know this? My faith in His word tells me. PS 138: 8, “You will do everything You have promised; Lord, Your love is eternal. Complete the work that You have begun.” Will He complete it? I have to believe He will, in accordance with what we are given in His word. Our covenant relationship is a working, active relationship. It’s dynamic, because God is acting to sanctify [perfect] us, while we are at work giving Him the opportunity to reveal Himself to us in our lives. How is this done? God’s work is revealed in 2 COR 5: 17 and COL 3: 9-10, “When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come…Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self. This is the new creation which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in His own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of Himself.” This is on-going work God is doing. On the other hand, we are supposed to be living with piety, through study, prayer, and active obedience to God. That’s our work. To do it, there must be an on-going and active connection through faith in the Lord- openness, and honesty between ourselves and God. This is the stuff of a true covenant relationship with our God! Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15