Monday, October 2, 2017

The Curse of Love with NO Balance II

God is love but God is also Just…

“...For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He will judge everyone according to what they have done. 7 He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. 8 But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness. " - Romans 2:5-8 NLT

In the last article about "The Curse of Love with NO Balance", we talked about how God is love, but He is also Truth. Well, another characteristic we must understand about Yahweh-God is that He is love but also Just. Remember, within Him there is balance. To be a loving God, He must also be willing to reward holiness as well as punish wickedness. Now, because He is loving AND just/fair, He gives warning and time for people to turn from wickedness and a choice to live a life He finds to be pleasing. Check out how long-suffering He is:

"Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?" - Romans 2:4

So, let's talk about how through His patience He is just. God will always give a warning before destruction. He is not the "maniacal god" Richard Dawkins claims Him to be. He is not out for blood and a reckless homicidal god. He gives people chance after chance to turn away from wickedness. Remember the flood of Noah's day? Let's look at that story in greater detail just to see how just God is...

"5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.” 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord." - Gen. 6:5-8

Here we see God's anger because of the wickedness of the people. The bible tells us that everything people thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. Can you imagine that? We live in a time where we ask ourselves, "how can someone DO that?"...yet, back then, everything people did was evil. And as King Solomon once said, "there is nothing new under the sun". Christ also tells us, that "When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day." We ask ourselves daily, how do these bad things happen, well we are closer to Christ's return than one thinks.

So what was God's solution? He wanted to wipe the human race (save Noah because he was righteous) off of the face of the earth. How? We later discover that He would bring calamity through a world wide flood. Now here is His patience:

"Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth." - Genesis 7:6  

Why is that significant? Well, you don't see God's patience until you look at the account given of Noah's lineage in Genesis Chapter 5.

"After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth." - Gen. 5:32

We know that Shem, Ham, and Japeth were grown men with wives by the time the flood came. And we know that they were born when Noah was about 500 years old. That means, that there was a period of at least 100 years that people had a chance to turn away from sin, including the time that Noah warned about the flood and God's wrath. ONE HUNDRED YEARS God gave people chances to get themselves right. When we really think about it, it was longer. If we look back further into Noah's lineage, you will see that Enoch was his great-grandfather. Enoch was known to be so righteous in God's eyes that he didn't even die (God's wage for sin)...God "took him". If we do the math, it is important to note that Enoch was taken only sixty-nine years before Noah was born. This means there's no doubt that Enoch, a man that walked closely in righteousness with God, spent at least THREE HUNDRED YEARS teaching God's righteousness to the wicked world. That gives people at least FOUR HUNDRED YEARS total of warning, barring there was warning from the time of Noah's birth until he was 500 years old - then there would have been more!

Remember, God always gives warnings before His judgement because He is just and fair. Another example,

"Once again a message came to me from the Lord: 2 “Son of man, give your people this message: ‘When I bring an army against a country, the people of that land choose one of their own to be a watchman. 3 When the watchman sees the enemy coming, he sounds the alarm to warn the people. 4 Then if those who hear the alarm refuse to take action, it is their own fault if they die. 5 They heard the alarm but ignored it, so the responsibility is theirs. If they had listened to the warning, they could have saved their lives. 6 But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths.’
7 “Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. 8 If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. 9 But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself." - Ezekiel 33:1-9

Because God delights in justice and is fair, He sends people to warn the wicked before He exacts His judgement on them. Through His love, He charges those who know Him to tell the truth to those who are in danger of His wrath. Jonah experienced this with the people of Nineveh. They were a wicked people, and he was told by God to warn them. He thought it would be a waste of time and refused. Well, we know how that ended up - he got swallowed by a big fish and God gave him three days to stew over the mistake he made. Jonah repented and God carried out the plan for him to warn the people of Nineveh. Then an amazing thing happened - the people listened and repented! They took God's warning seriously and saved themselves from destruction by turning away from their wickedness and pleasing God. He does the same for us today through His people that know Him. Do you hear them? Are you listening?

See, love is not ignoring fault and sin, then getting mad when that sin is judged harshly. Love is to point out the fault/sin then be patient, warn, and give people a chance to change -  just as He does. So, we must not mistake His supposed "silence" for a weakness - He is being patient. And we must not accuse Him of being harsh when He exacts justice on those who are wicked for He has given chance after chance for them to get right with Him.

"Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created....8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment." - 2 Peter 3:3-4,8-10

We serve the loving yet just God, Yahweh. Despite what people say or think about Him, He does not take pleasure in destruction. He wants us all to no longer be His enemy, but choose right living in accordance to how He sees fit. He is giving us a chance daily to choose right. I highly suggest that you take a little time to read Romans Chapter 2. Think about those words of yesteryear and apply them to today. I read this to my children for bible study today as it is written, then again using the words "believer/Christian" for Jew and "unbeliever" for Gentiles. The message is clear. We are in a time of warning before destruction. Will you take God up on His just and loving nature and turn from evil and do what is right?

Monday, September 25, 2017

The Curse of Love with NO Balance


“God is Love”...But God is also Truth…..

Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgement: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

I watched a series on YouTube last week entitled "War on Truth" by The Fuel Project. The series was a complete confirmation for me in many areas that I see brewing in our modern society. It sparked me to want to start blogging again and so, here I am.

Have you noticed lately how things are really spiraling out of control? In this day and time, people have exalted love over truth when they are meant to balance each other out. No one wants anyone to be uncomfortable or have their feelings hurt - which sometimes telling the truth does. As the video says, people are more apt to side with the "underdog" even if they are wrong because no one wants anyone to feel marginalized. Some call it having grace and mercy or being “nice” and “kind”. On the other spectrum, you have others who feel you have to fight for love, and stand strong for those long time held traditions of what love is. But without truth to balance it, all love becomes... is an idol.

Society is willingly bypassing what it knows to be intrinsically true to let other people do, feel, believe and fight for what they want - even if what they want goes completely against truth and reason. This leads them to turn on others who do not agree even if they point out true logic, hypocrisies and dangers. This is why grown men are allowed to believe they can be a non-uterus having, non-milk-making, non-XX chromosome baring woman and women can be a non-testicle having, non-semen-making, non-XY chromosome baring man. And in some cases neither man or woman, but animals  or a man who believes he's a woman who believes he's furniture  for that matter! As an aside, I find it very odd that people are not batting an eye at the fact this man thinks he's a woman, but they are trying to get him help because he also think he's furniture. But, I digress...This is also why people will argue with, discredit, disconnect from, and in some cases out right assault and kill those who do not "love their country/flag/anthem" the way they do. And let's not just limit the examples to these few - there are several other examples where love presides high above truth - we see it in churches as members protect their pastors, families, relationships, and friendships. Oh yes, people are willing to turn a blind eye because of the idol worship of the god “love”. This becomes a curse.

Exodus 20:3-5King James Version (KJV)
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

The truth is we have replaced Yahweh-God for one of His attributes. We have gone from "God is love" taken from 1 John 4 beginning at verse 7, to "OUR god is Love", taken from people's twisted meaning of that scripture. Here is how you can tell something is someone's idol - if you take it away, they become volatile, combative, depressed, unwilling to reason, restless, hurt....you get the picture.

See, Yahweh-God is not just "love", because in His love, He is the God of truth. He hates lies (Proverbs 6:16-17 , Proverbs 12:22 , Ephesians 4:22-25 ). It is not loving to lie to someone to make them feel better. Lies are meant to control. If you can control the information the person receives (or doesn’t) you can then control the outcomes skewed in your favor. Because in His love He requires truth, He is the perfect example of what balance looks like. He loves us enough to tell us the truth. Are you an adulterer? He loves you enough to tell you the truth: through His Son He tells you to leave that behind, and SIN no more, or face the consequences of eternal separation from Him. And if you don’t “believe”, that doesn’t make what He says any less true. He doesn’t want you to be comfortable and therefore ignore unrighteousness (wrong-doing). No! He wants you to have life abundantly. He wants you to be whole. He wants you to be holy. He wants you to have all of the information so that you can make an informed decision with no pieces missing.

So yes, God is love…..but He also demands that there be truth. We can unite through truth which leads to perfect love and balance. Without them both we will continue to create an unbalanced world where things that are wrong (unrighteous), relative morals, confusion, and chaos will abound. This will be the inheritance of our children.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-13
....because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.