Quote from Forum Archives on March 10, 2008, 1:34 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

 

SERIES: THE WAY OUT OF THE MESS #5/7

 

WE DO IT TO OURSELVES

March 9, 2008

 

 

Text: 2 Chronicles 36:11-23

 

 

One of the challenges I have dealt with frequently as a pastor is what I simply call the “unfair God” argument.  It typically goes along the lines that since God is all powerful, then why do bad things happen, especially to good people?  You know the routine.  A Christian family, for instance, driving on vacation is struck by a drunk driver.  Part or all of the family perishes in the wreck, but the drunk driver escapes with barely a scratch.  And so the skeptic uses something like this to challenge the believer: how can you believe in God?

 

The ultimate trick that such skeptics try to play is to shift the blame for catastrophe away from the person and onto God.  It is a fool’s game.  The longer that I study the Bible, walk with God, and, hopefully, learn His ways, the more I am convinced that almost all the time that something bad happens, we have done it to ourselves.  In fact, maybe all the time that something bad happens, we do it to ourselves.

 

We can think, “But the family on vacation didn’t do anything wrong.”  True, but nevertheless, an accident like that was preventable if all parties had been making correct choices.  Even natural disasters can sometimes be traced to wrong choices.  For instance, we know that removing too much vegetation from some areas creates an environment for mudslides and more flooding.

 

I don’t want to get too far off base here; the point I am making is that in spite of our human tendency to try to shift blame for disasters, catastrophes, and other bad things onto God, the truth is that more often than not, we do it to ourselves.  Proof of this is found in the up and down history of Israel.  Having been led into and given the land promised them by God, the Israelites flourished.  Everything went their way because God gave them specific blessings.  In turn, the Israelites were to give God their devoted worship.  Quite a simple arrangement, really.  Except, of course, the people of Israel would turn around and mess it up.  The books of Kings and Chronicles are filled with accounts of Israel’s disasters and prophesied disasters.  They are filled with the accounts of Israel’s kings.  Unfortunately, they are filled with accounts of most of those kings rejecting God and disobeying His righteous will.

 

“Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years.  He did evil in the eyes of the LORD his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the LORD.  He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God’s name.  He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the LORD, the God of Israel.  Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the LORD, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.” (2 Chronicles 36:11-14)  Not only was King Zedekiah openly rebellious to God, so were the other leaders in the kingdom.  Nothing in Scripture indicates that their disobedience was anything but their choice.  No one was forcing them to turn against God.  There was no one in higher authority that would punish them for praising God.  They defiled the temple and the worship of God because they made the conscious decision to do so.

 

Their actions are as incomprehensible as the Israelites who fled from Egypt by God’s miraculous hand only to turn against Him every time they faced a challenge.  Israel’s kings and leaders new full well the bounty of God’s blessings and the sad consequences of rejecting the will of God.  The choice, we believe, would be a no-brainer.  Let’s see; follow God and be once more blessed, or reject God and suffer grave consequences.  Yep.  I think I’ll reject God.

 

What was it in their makeup to cause them to so readily reject God’s righteous will?  What is it in our makeup that causes us to so readily reject God’s righteous will in our own time, too?  That pesky old original sin once again.  The deceptive desire forever placed in our hearts to replace God’s will with out will.  That belief that we can run our lives and the lives of others better than God.  That sad song that calls out to us that if we just get God out of the way, then we can really accomplish good things and enjoy life.  Even though there are those who reject the notion of original sin – that we are born in sin that must be washed away by a Savior – each time we see necks stiffened and hearts hardened against the Lord, is it not just a replay of the Garden scene?  “’You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman.  ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (Genesis 3:4-5)  Just get God out of the way; then you’ll really know how to live.  We do it to ourselves.

 

The Bible tells us that God is just, which means that He will judge sin.  His righteousness will prevail.  The Bible also tells us that God is patient.  He gives us chances to be redeemed and to make life-giving choices.  He did so with King Zedekiah and the other leaders of Israel.  “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.” (2 Chronicles 36:15)  God loves us so much that He refuses to just judge us with no opportunity for deliverance.

 

Sadly, our response is not always positive.  “But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.” (2 Chronicles 36:16)  In spite of God’s loving patience, He was still rejected.  Against this, He had no other choice: ^”He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged.  God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar.” (2 Chronicles 36:17)

 

No doubt, not everyone in Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  His messengers lived in the land.  There were no doubt others, too, who lived their lives in manners pleasing to the Lord.  Sadly, though, they received the judgment of God just as surely as did King Zedekiah.  There is a nature of sin that we must recognize and accept: the consequences of sin do not observe boundaries.  Just because it is not me who breaks in to steal does not mean that I will not be the one shot.  Just because it is not me who drives while intoxicated does not mean that I will not be the one mortally wounded in an accident.  You get the picture.  Whenever God is disobeyed and rejected, there is always the possibility that someone else will also suffer the consequences of the sin.  We do it to ourselves.

 

The consequences of doing evil in the eyes of the Lord can hardly be any clearer than in a newspaper column I read last week.  Columnist Robyn Blumner was going on about how increasing population growth is going to devastate us.  These types of predictions have been going on since the 1700s, and the alarmists who accept such predictions typically call for policies that contradict the righteous will of God.  Robyn Blumner is one such alarmist armed with a typical ungodly solution: “Humans can either survive this the hard way or the easy way. The hard way is to do virtually nothing and come to equilibrium through massive population devastation. The easy way is to return to sustainability through planned parenthood - making one-child households a cultural imperative everywhere, with birth control universally accessible. But, as we all know, religious extremism and its followers in officialdom stand in the way of such rational public policy. The world's major religions continue to encourage reckless reproduction levels with many condemning birth control and abortion. So, instead, we're on track for the hard way." (www.sptimes.com/2008/03/02/Opinion/One_planet__one_child.shtml)  If her suggestions are ever implemented as official policy, there will be many who will be suffering under the totalitarian regimes set up to “save humanity.” 

 

The good news is that even in His judgment, God is righteous.  God never does anything without a purpose, and His purpose is redemption.  His purpose is to welcome humble men and women to His kingdom.  The books of the Chronicles ends with Israel being taken into captivity by the Babylonians.  This, indeed, is a sad turn of events for the people who were so blessed by the mighty arm of God.  But God does not let it end there.  So often in our day, men and women speak as if God is defeated and no longer has any influence in the world.  What such skeptics refuse to recognize is that God’s will is seen during times of trial as much as during periods of prosperity.  During the establishment of Israel, God set forth the provision of a Sabbath rest for the land.  The Israelites never implemented God’s provisions because doing so required an act of absolute faith.  For a people that could not even refrain from worshiping idols, this provision was too far beyond them.  However, during captivity, God’s will was made real.  “The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.”  Is that not amazing?

 

Additionally, God prepared the way for the return of His people to the land.  This represents redemptive deliverance from God.  “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it into writing: This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.  Anyone of his people among you – may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.’”  (2 Chronicles 36:22-23)  It was still their Promised Land, and the exiles were returning to it as the hand of God directed.

 

No matter what kind of mess we get into, God provides the way out.  This does not mean that we do not suffer consequences for sin.  The Israelites suffered the consequences of their sins.  But they were redeemed.  Likewise, we are redeemed.  In fact, we have a Redeemer who leads us out of our mess.  We just have to practice our A, B, C.  Admit to God that you are a sinner and repent, meaning turn away from sin.  Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and accept God’s gift of forgiveness and removal of sin.  Confess your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  We do it to ourselves, but the Lord gives us the way out.

 

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

 

 

 

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