Recap of Part 1
God Makes the Rules
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
God Knows Us
“O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely” (Psalm 139:1-4).
I’ve Lived a Good Life
It’s not unusual for a person, when asked about their relationship with God, to state that they don’t think they’ll be condemned by God. They maintain that they have lived a good life—they don’t kick puppies, their faithful to their spouse, they love their children, they haven’t committed any major crimes (just the odd speeding ticket, maybe).
And now, Part 2 continues “I’ve Lived a Good Life”
In Romans 1:18-3:21, Paul states the futility of assuming we’re “good enough.” He looks at people who are immoral (1:18-32), people who are moral (2:1-16) and people who are religious (2:17-29) and comes to the same conclusion: No one can stand up to God’s judgment. In fact, Paul spends the first part of Romans 3 telling us how we look in God’s eyes: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. . . there is no fear of God before their eyes’” (Romans 3:10-18). Paul is quoting from several passages in the Old Testament as he writes this, but his point is made: no one can stand before God’s judgment.
Paul’s point is that we can all say we’re good, but that’s not the question. The question is, “Are we where God wants us to be?” And it is here that we fall short.
Take, for example, the Ten Commandments. Most everyone agrees that the Ten Commandments are a good standard for measuring a person’s goodness. The first Commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Check that one off, right? We’ve been good at that one. But have we? Most people who deny the validity of the Gospel message still proclaim a belief in God. But the God in which they believe is a generic, ambiguous, ill-defined God. For some, He’s the “Man upstairs.” For others, He’s someone we call to in the time of a personal or national crisis (remember how church attendance skyrocketed after 9/11?), but otherwise, He’s not the first one we think of or pay attention to.
Most of us have other gods—our job, our spouse, our children, our sports team, our hobby, even ourselves. There are other things we look to for inspiration, for validation, for instruction. We devote ourselves to that person or thing and find ourselves focusing on that particular thing almost to the exclusion of everything else. That’s even true of religion. When we put our religion at the top of our devotion, then our religion has replaced God. The first Commandment is broken.
The third Commandment states that we are not to misuse the name of the Lord our God. He even says, “. . . for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name” (Exodus 20:7). OMG! Is that true? OMG!
But wait a second—OMG is not using God’s name in vain or misusing God’s name. For one thing, it’s an acronym that could easily mean “Oh, my goodness.” Sure, that’s true. But . . . Second, doesn’t it say somewhere else in Exodus that God does have a name, and it’s not God? God’s name is found in Exodus 3:14. So, since His name isn’t really “God,” then I can’t be misusing His name, right?
Well, yes and no. I pastored a church on the Texas coast, and a woman at the church always called me, “Pastor.” She never referred to me as Glynn or any other name, just Pastor. At one time, she had decorated numerous seashells. They were very pretty. Her daughter asked her where mine was, and her mother said, “It’s got the pastor’s name on it.” I looked at the shell, and, sure enough, there in plain print was the word, “Pastor.” To her, that was my name, not my title. That’s how she identified me. And that was fine with me.
We’ve all had people in our lives that were called by titles instead of names. When I was in elementary school, the only thing I knew to call my PE coach was “Coach.” He had a name, but I never knew it. I learned his last name several years later, but to me, he was always “Coach.”
So, yes, God does have a name, and most of us don’t misuse His name. But more than enough of us have misused His title, and I think that we can all agree that the third Commandment has been beaten about and broken far more than it’s been kept.
There are other Commandments we could look at, but I think we’re getting the picture. As many times as we’ve broken the Ten Commandments, and most of us agree that they are a pretty good standard of God’s expectations for us, then do we really think we can stand before God and tell Him, “I’ve been pretty good and don’t deserve judgment”? The Bible says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker” (James 2:10-11).
Whew! I’ve never committed murder. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not commit murder,’ and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22a).
God Wants Everyone to be Saved
There are those who insist that it makes no sense that God would condemn anyone to eternal punishment and separation from Him. They point to such verses in the Bible as “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:10). “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
See? The Bible says God wants everyone to be saved, so that means He is going to save everyone, right?
Think again.
It’s true the Bible express God’s desire to save all, but the Bible also teaches very clearly that everyone will be saved. Going back to 2 Peter, the next verse states, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief” (2 Peter 3:10a). In other words, there will be a day of judgment, when God will sort the saved from the unsaved.
Revelation is very clear: “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. . . And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. . . If anyone’s name was not found in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-12, 15).
John 3:17-18 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because He has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
So, yes, it’s true that God does not want to condemn anyone, but His judgment awaits those who, for whatever reason, refuses to acknowledge Jesus as Savior.
God is a Loving God
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16b).
“If God really loves us, how can He condemn us? Why would He condemn us?” Maybe you’ve heard someone say this before. Maybe you’ve said it and believe it. Does it really make sense that a loving God would condemn someone to an eternity in Hell and separated from God?
The answer can be found in the way we treat those we love. For parents, this is easier to understand, but it works for anyone who loves someone else.
Love doesn’t mean we let someone get away with something that we know is harmful to them. If a parent has a child who shows a propensity to tell lies when it seems to benefit him or her, a loving parent will take steps to let the child know that there are consequences for such actions. There will be timeouts and other consequences, even corporal punishment if the parent believes the lie warrants it. Why does a parent do that to a child they love? They do it because they love the child. They want the child to be well-adjusted and socially agreeable to those around him. If a child is allowed to go through life lying and living a lie, eventually it will catch up to the child. No one will trust him or her, and the child will soon feel isolated and alienated from those he or she wishes to be friends with.
When I first got married and we’d be getting ready to go somewhere, I would almost always hear the phrase, “Are you going to wear that?” The question was less a question than a statement that was telling me I needed to find something else to wear. Usually, I would be able to decided what I really wanted to wear only if my wife was standing with me at my closet and “guiding” me in my selection.
Why would my wife want to do that to me? Surely, a woman who loves me would overlook my sartorial splendor, or lack thereof. But no. It is precisely because she loved me that she wouldn’t let me go out looking like I still didn’t know how to dress myself. It was and is her love that leads her to want me to always look my best and give the strongest impression of me in public.
In other words, love doesn’t mean we let people do whatever they may please without any consequences. In fact, love often acts to intervene and prevent worse consequences.
The same is true of God. The Bible is right—God is love. We see His love from Genesis 1 through the last word of the Revelation. God’s love is evident in all His transactions with us. Part of His love for us is to let us know He has expectations for us. That’s why He gave the Law to Moses. In the giving of the Law, God knew we would fall short. Hence, God included the Day of Atonement as a means to seek forgiveness for when we inevitably fell short.
But God also understood that a Day of Atonement is a stop gap event. As we grew in our understanding of Him, and as we evolved as people, we would begin to walk further away from Him. That’s why God sent the prophets to His people. They stopped obeying the Law and were using the Day of Atonement as a means of saying, “King’s X, God. Sure, we ignore Your Law, but at least we do that atonement thing, so You have to forgive us.”
But God never has to do anything for us. He cannot and will not be controlled simply because we follow certain rituals and practices designed to appease God. Remember, He knows us too well.
God’s ultimate show of love is the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ. His love is beyond measure, hence the phrase “God so loved the world” in John 3:16. In that gift of Christ, God provides the once and for all forgiveness of sins, the atonement we need, the release from sin. In Christ and Christ alone we find reconciliation with God.
But many of us choose to ignore God’s free gift of atonement. We disagree with Him. We discount that validity of Jesus as the Only Way. We insist that we can find atonement on our own, and If God does not agree with us, how can anyone really say He loves us?
Sort of like the child sitting in the corner questions his or her parents’ love. If we as children chose to ignore Mom or Dad’s instructions, we suffered the consequences. Not because they didn’t love us, but precisely because they loved us.
God has given us His instructions. He has seen we choose to ignore them—we sin. He has given us an out—Jesus Christ. If we choose to ignore the out, then we must prepare to suffer the consequences. Because as much as God is love, God is also a consuming fire, a Righteous Judge, and His patience is not boundless.
Conclusion
“’You have wearied the Lord with your words. ‘How have we wearied Him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and He is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”
‘See, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ say the Lord Almighty.
But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. . . So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the aliens of justice, but do not fear Me’, says the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 2:17-3:5).
God is faithful, being true to Himself and to His word. The Day of Judgment will come, and it will be a most unpleasant time.
“For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
© 2018 Glynn Beaty