Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God
Often times I hear pastors or people say “God is good”. And where I would in the main agree with that
statement, the question is “Is he anything else?” Sometimes it would appear that there is this
one-dimensional view of God that undergirds the church when our society and
history suggest there is a multi-dimensional aspect to his character. In the last article Prophetic Particularity,
I talked about God’s affinity for detail with illustration of how he selected
Shem out of Noah’s three sons in which to redeem a people for himself. Out of Shem he selected Abraham to be the one
he would bless by making him into a great nation and once this nation came to
fruition he made a covenant with them. A
covenant is defined as a written agreement or promise
usually under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance
of some action.
The
covenant God made with Israel is found in the book of Deuteronomy. It once again reveals how particular and
specific God was with those issues that concerned him especially as it relates
to the crafting of images for the worship of false gods. If the people kept the covenant he made with
them, God would bless them tremendously, but if they disregarded the covenant
he would curse them with all sorts of afflictions.
Deuteronomy
28: 15 lists these curses which one should take the time to read. The curses portend awful things for the
Israelites, but they nonetheless as time would go on find themselves invoking
those parts of the agreement.
I want to
take a look at the book of Jeremiah the prophet. As I have done before I will focus on
particular passages but provide the general background. When the Lord calls the prophet Jeremiah,
Israel specifically Judah is in a state of spiritual delusion and decline so
that they are on the cusp of being destroyed by a foreign power. The delusion is that they did not believe
disaster would come upon them and is exhibited by the words, “Peace, peace”
when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 7:11.
But why is disaster coming upon them? It is a familiar story and same
song expressed by the Lord when he says, “What injustice have your fathers
found in Me that they have gone far from Me, and have followed idols, and have
become idolaters? (Jeremiah 2: 5). In
verse 13, it states, “For my people have committed two evils: They have
forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns-broken
cisterns that can hold no water.”
Men are
amazing to contemplate sometimes. How do
you forsake the fountain of living waters, for basically dead stagnate waters? God set before Israel a beautiful deal that
if they could only follow he would have awesomely blessed them. But alas, they did not and Jeremiah cites
many offenses committed by Judah and one in particular was done by Manasseh the
son of Hezekiah the king of Judah.
Manasseh during his reign rebuilt high places to Baal, made wooden
images, worshipped the hosts of heaven, built altars in the house of the Lord,
caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom;
practiced soothsaying, witchcraft and sorcery and consulted mediums and
spiritists. (2 Chronicles 33: 3-6). All
of these things provoked the Lord to anger and activated the judgment of God
for the breaking of the covenant.
So who is
the foreign power God is going to use to punish Judah? It is no other than Nebuchadnezzar the king
of Babylon. What I want to draw
attention to is Jeremiah 27:6 where the Lord states, “And now I have given all
these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My
servant; and the beasts of the field I have also given him to serve
him. Notice that God calls the king of
Babylon his servant. He is making clear
that in his sovereignty and power he controls what the nations are allowed to
do especially in regard to Israel.
He makes
it evident that Israel is the fulcrum upon which history turns and it was
within his purview to raise up a nation to execute judgment upon Israel. Jeremiah in his many words to the people of
Judah reveal an aspect of God that is far from soft and buttery. He is unsparing in what he declares will
happen to the people of Judah such as the statement in Jeremiah 15:3 “And I
will appoint over them four forms of destruction, says the Lord. “the sword to
slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to
devour and destroy.”
Because of
Jesus sacrifice for the sin of mankind and God’s grace and mercy, the church of
a more gentile character has lost the judgment aspect of God’s character along
with in some quarters the holy aspect of his character. It has caused the scales to be weighed too
heavily to one side that does not deal with the hard words and more severe
facets of God’s nature. When one is
considering topics of prophetic significance, the hard things must be
considered and the prophetic judgment of the people of Israel fall within this
category.
As the
Apostle Paul stated in Romans 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and
severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if
thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Here Paul is letting a gentile church know that they are not above being cut
off if they do not continue in God letting them become a part of the good olive
tree of Israel. He has balanced the
scales with both the goodness and the severity of God and let us know that
these attributes of God have not been dissolved with the passage of time.
God cannot lie. What God has said will happen, will happen. You can take what God says to the bank. Unfortunately, the church and this satanic society we live in today has done everything possible to water down the Word of God, but in the end, it will come true. Shalom.
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