Tag Sin

The Cross and the Fury of God

Todd R 2 Comments

Shortly after the death of King David, the kingdom was split into two: 10 of the twelve tribes becoming Israel, and the remaining 2 (Judah and Benjamin) becoming Judah.  Much of the OT history and prophets tells the story of how these 2 kingdoms – first Israel and then Judah – fell away from worship of the true God into idolatry.  But the prophets also emphasize that idolatry resulted in social sins – God’s people not treating others the way He wanted them to treat them.  In both nations, religious observance became an exercise in trying to buy God’s favor so people could live however they wanted to, but God condemned this empty religion, saying instead that:

“He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

God wanted His people to love people the way He loved people.  But our God is also a God of justice, who cannot overlook any violation of His commands to love Him and others.  When Israel and Judah failed to live as they should, God’s wrath and anger was poured out on them, in sometimes shocking ways.  The book of Ezekiel is full of alarming images and revelations about the sins of God’s people and His vengeance on them, and in Ezekiel 5:10-12, the people are told what the consequences of their sin would be:

“Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds.  Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.  A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.”

God’s people would suffer siege conditions so severe under their enemies that cannibalism would be the only way to survive!  And most who survive the siege will be struck down: a third by pestilence and famine, a third by the sword, and the last third would be scattered, torn away from the Promised Land God had given to them.  God’s people would go into exile: Israel to Assyria and Judah to Babylon.  These nations would be instruments in God’s hands, executing His judgement on His people Israel and Judah.  As Hebrews 10:31 says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and the Old Testament does not shy away from how horrible this can be.

The next verse in Ezekiel (5:13) says: “Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the LORD—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them.”  Through conquest and exile, the LORD was determined to show His people that His justice and His fury are real, and He is not to be trifled with.  When He commands His people to do something, He means it.

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Which brings us to Jesus and the cross.  The New Testament tells us that the fury and wrath of God toward all of mankind – not just the ancient tribes of Israel and Judah – was spent upon Jesus on the cross.  God the Father poured out all of His fury on God the Son, on our behalf.  The anguish Jesus must have felt comes into a bit more focus when we consider the venting and satisfying of God’s anger in the Old Testament relative to what Jesus had to endure on the cross.  His suffering had to be enough to fulfill the justice necessary in God’s eternal, unchanging character.  Instead of our sin leading to our own suffering, He took our suffering upon Himself.

Jesus went to the cross and died that we may be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with God, but did God pour His wrath on Jesus so we could just continue living as we choose to live?  Certainly not!  God still wants from His church what He wanted from His people in ancient times:

“He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?”

Consider how much God hates sin and consider why.  It’s because sin is the opposite of people doing justice, being kind, and being humble toward the God who loves them and commands them to love others.  Sin harms us and harms other human beings.  Sin repeats Adam and Eve’s determination to live their own way, no matter what God has to say about it.  Sin tarnishes God’s reputation and glory.  Sin even damages our world and environment.  Sin deserves wrath for these reasons, but God has always preserved a remnant of people who would be sinless in eternity.  People who would live the way they were intended to live.  People who would not deserve wrath because they would be sinless.  People who would glorify Him.  These people are His church.

Are we willing to accept Jesus’ sacrifice for us so that we may live this life?

Pray that we will. Amen.

The Snares of Death

Todd R 2 Comments

Sometimes a particular Psalm, or part of a Psalm can be hard to identify with.  Often the writers were going through circumstances unlike anything we have faced or ever will face.  The author of Psalm 116 mentions such a situation in verse 3.  Here are the first 4 verses:

“I love the LORD, because he has heard
            my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
            therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
            the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
            I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
            “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!””

Have you ever felt like this: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me”?  The Reformation Study Bible notes on this that “It was as if ropes came out of a grave, pulling the psalmist into the ground.”  Has death ever felt this imminent?  I can imagine someone who has experienced war or terminal disease can relate to this, but many of us can’t fully understand it.

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But even if we have never felt this way, there’s an important part of the image for all of us: evil is not passive.  The “snares of death” do things.  They come after us.  There are forces of evil that actively seek to derail us from following Jesus.  If we’re not actively fighting these forces, we will lose ground.  These battles may take place within ourselves, as we war against the flesh, or the battles may be with external influences in the world around us.

My pastor once referenced a similar idea when during a sermon he said: “the culture is trying to kill you.”  When Proverbs 16:25 tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death,” it suggests that most people believe things that they think are fine, but that actually lead to death.  And when most people in a group believe something, it becomes part of the culture.  Every culture endorses thoughts and actions that should be condemned by Christians, because they aren’t putting us on the path of life, but on the path to death.

But there’s more to it.  Part of American culture that’s trying to kill us is the part that tells us we’re in a war against other people, instead of in a war against sin.  Many aspects of our culture assume that we should love people who are like us and hate people who aren’t.  Maybe we hate those who have a different ethnic background, religion/denomination, or a different political party.  Maybe they have a different economic status, color of their skin, or sexual orientation.  Sometimes all it takes is that someone likes a different sports team.  This hate is a “way that seems right to a man.”  Should we war against the culture, or against sin?  Are those different goals?

In the book of Joshua (1:7b) we are told about the law of God: “Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.”  Why point out the left and the right?  I believe this is like Scylla and Charybdis from Greek mythology.  Scylla and Charybdis were two very dangerous monsters that lurked on either side of a narrow water passage.  Therefore, if you drifted too far left you were killed by one of them, if you drifted too far right, you’d be killed by the other.  And also, trying too hard to avoid one would inevitably put you in the path of the other one.

Sometimes in life we end up too far from the correct path because we define our path as being against the other path.  We go right because we are avoiding going left, and vice versa.  We define ourselves by what we are against rather than by what we are for and end up hating the other side.  And then, either Scylla or Charybdis have devoured us!  The “snares of death” and the “pangs of Sheol” are upon us and we might not even know it.

How to avoid this path?  By defining right behavior and attitudes by Christ’s standard, which includes commands to love our enemies.  Once we think someone is our enemy, we need to reject the instinct to hate them and accept Christ’s grace which enables us to love them.  We define the Christian life by what it is for, not by what it is against.  We love God and love our neighbor, regardless of who they are.  To do otherwise may put us on “the way to death,” where “the snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me.”

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8

Freeing Ourselves from the Man in the Mirror

Todd R Leave a comment

In Deuteronomy Moses reviews the giving of the Ten Commandments and reminds us that he didn’t just come down from the mountain with the Commandments written on tablets as we sometimes imagine, but that the “LORD spoke with you [Israel] face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire”[1]  Terrified of this manifestation of God, the people responded “we will hear and do it.”[2]

God was pleased that the people pledged their obedience, but lamented to Moses in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!”  In this statement, our Holy, all-knowing God makes 2 points: that obeying Him is in Israel’s best interest, and also that they don’t always do it.  Not only did they not always obey Him, but they often didn’t have “such a heart” for it.  They didn’t even intend to obey Him, whether neglectfully or intentionally.  Like ancient Israel, we often hear the Ten Commandments and the rest of God’s Word and instead of saying “we will hear and do it,” we continue along our own path.

James describes a similar scenario in a New Testament context:

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” – James 1:23-25

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James compares hearing God’s law to seeing in a mirror what we really look like: we look like sinners who fall short of perfect obedience and need God’s grace.  God didn’t give us His “perfect law” to condemn us, although because we aren’t perfect His law does condemn us.  He didn’t give the law to make us feel bad, although any of us can struggle with a guilty conscience.  He gave His commands because they’re what’s best for us, and along with them He gave His Son so we could find our way back to Him.  We are blessed when we do what He wants because God gave His commands so “that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever.”  For those with faith in Christ, God’s “perfect law” is a “law of liberty” that frees us to be blessed by acting on God’s will for us.  We have liberty not to sin.

But when we spend too much time looking in the mirror at ourselves, we risk feeling condemned and guilty.  We risk seeing God’s law and our failure to keep it as the end of the story.  Therefore, we must instead focus on our God of grace, who through Christ gives us liberty and freedom from condemnation and guilt.  As Paul wrote in Romans 8:1-2, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

When we don’t feel we have “such a heart” as to follow God always (which is probably often), let it drive us to dwell on the character of our God, who revealed Himself to Moses as “the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”[3]

Don’t start with the man in the mirror.  Start with Him.

“When the outlook is grim, try the uplook!” – Warren Wiersbe

[1] Deuteronomy 5:4
[2] Deuteronomy 5:27
[3] Deuteronomy 34:6b

Confession: The Blessing Nobody Expects

Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

What comes to mind when you think of confession?  Think about it for a moment.

For some, the thought might be a simple private prayer, or for some a confessional booth.  For others, no specific images might come to mind, but just a feeling of someone “out to get you.”  I expect some of you thought of the Spanish Inquisition, or at least the Monty Python skit making fun of it[1].  Where do these ideas come from?

The blame belongs in many places: secular culture, bad experiences with church, an emphasis on external over internal religion, and even Monty Python comedy skits.  My fantasy baseball league even has a team named “Spanish Inquisition” because the manager of that team thinks no one expects him to win – not even himself.

The mocking of secular culture aside, confession is an uncomfortable topic even for sincere Christians.  In Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, he shares the tension over confession between Tolkien and his then-fiancée Edith.  Tolkien was a practicing Catholic, while Edith was a member of the Church of England.  They had agreed as a couple to be Catholic, but Edith “began to dislike making her confession.  It was therefore all too easy when she was worried about her health (which was often) to postpone going to mass. She reported to Ronald [Tolkien] that getting up to go to church early in the morning and fasting until she had made her communion did not agree with her.”  She insisted “my health won’t stand it.”[2]  In my own Protestant church, we have a weekly prayer of confession, which the pastor regularly defends the importance of.  Few of us probably look forward to confession, whatever form we practice it in.

Photo by Shalone Cason on Unsplash

This discomfort with confession seems to be a shared part of mankind’s fallen nature, but if we look at well-known Bible verses on confession, we find that it is really about restoration, a rebirth of man’s relationship with God and a renewal of man to his ideal nature.  It is as different from God being “out to get you” as it could be.  1 John 1:9 encourages confession, because: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  God wants to give us forgiveness and cleansing, not condemnation and guilt.  Isaiah 1:18 explains this cleansing more poetically:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
            they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
            they shall become like wool.”

Confession doesn’t need to be a dirty word.  The word “confess” means loosely to say the same thing about something, so confession means we agree with God (say the same thing he does) about sin – that it is bad.  But confession also applies to the rest of 1 John 1:9, that God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Full confession includes agreeing about the steadfast and dependable character of God, His faithfulness and justice, as well as His desire to forgive and cleanse.  If we doubt this desire, consider what He voluntarily suffered on the cross to provide for this forgiveness, and to demonstrate His enduring love.

By adding confession about the good things of God to our confession of our sin, our confession does not make us miserable about our own condition but shows us how different we are from what God wants for us, how deeply our sin needs to be corrected, and how wonderfully God has provided for the removal of sin.

But this does not come easily.  Referencing Hebrews 4:16, which says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need,” Puritan preacher Thomas Watson wrote that “Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.”

Why is this?  Could it be that we have trouble whole-heartedly confessing that “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”?  Monty Python joke that “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” but do we fully expect God’s throne to be one of grace when we come to confess?

[1] If you’re not familiar with the skit, here’s a 4-minute example: https://youtu.be/Cj8n4MfhjUc
[2] Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography.  (1977).  P. 68-69.

God Loves His Unfaithful People

Todd R Leave a comment

The story of the prophet Hosea can be a controversial subject.  In only the second verse of the book, we learn that: “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom’” (Hosea 1:2a).

A common interpretation of the “wife of whoredom” is “prostitute,” but it doesn’t necessarily mean that.  However, it certainly means a wife who is not faithful to her husband.  An adulteress, as Hosea’s wife Gomer is described in Hosea 3:1.  Gomer has 3 children in the story, and the last 2 may have been illegitimate.

Is it scandalous, is it even believable, that God would command His own prophet Hosea to marry this way?  The God who demands that we be holy.  Could He ask one of His spokespeople to “become one flesh” with a woman like this?  What kind of lesson can we take from this?

It only really makes sense when you realize why God did it.  The full verse of Hosea 1:2 says, “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.’”

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Because of the word “for,” there’s a connection between the unfaithful wife and the people of the land: God’s people Israel.  It’s as if God commanded this marriage because Israel was unfaithful.  God had something to say about that.  While Hosea’s marriage was real, it was also a symbol meant to give a message: that, like Hosea marrying Gomer, God is willing to love unfaithful people.  After all, there is no other kind of person.  We all fit the description, yet He is willing to love us so much that the church is called the bride of Christ, like Gomer was the bride of Hosea.

While some think God’s command to Hosea is too scandalous to have really happened, it is no more scandalous than God choosing sinners to be His bride in Christ, which He did.  From the beginning of time God knew that His people would be unfaithful to Him, yet He designed and implemented a plan to bring those same people back into a right, intimate relationship with Him.  This plan meant taking on human flesh, being abused, and dying horribly for His people, but then being raised from the dead and taken back up into heaven.  This was the cost of restoring sinners to fellowship with their Maker who loves them.  And He thought it was worth it.

So, what is the lesson of God’s command to Hosea?  That there is no limit to who or how God can love.  Nobody deserves God’s love because all are unfaithful, but in spite of that, God loves His unfaithful people.  Why?  Because in His love He chooses to.

Praise God that He does!

Amen.

“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” – Revelation 22:17