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An unattractive God

Friday, 13 June, 2003

Sometimes I think that we emphasise God's love, God's mercy and God's grace so much that we forget that God is not always warm and fluffy like we think he is. Consider the following verses:

Is a trumpet blown in a city,
  and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster come to a city,
  unless the Lord has done it?
(Amos 3:6)

Behold, I am watching over them for disaster and not for good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end of them.
(Jeremiah 44:27)

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
(Ecclesiastes 7:14)

It's an unpleasant thought but a true one: God brings disaster. God sends flood and famine as well as fortune. God instigates war and disease. Nothing happens apart from God for if it did, he wouldn't be sovereign.

We mustn't fall into the trap of Job's wife (“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” [Job 2:10]). We must not forget that the Lord is just and upright and does not act unfairly in his rage the way we do. In the Old Testament, every instance of calamity was deserved. Consider the following verses:

You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror. And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them. Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.
(Jeremiah 32:21-24)

Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
  and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
  in whose ways they would not walk,
  and whose law they would not obey?
(Isaiah 42:24)

Disaster pursues sinners,
  but the righteous are rewarded with good.
(Proverbs 13:21)

The Lord is just and reasonable in all his ways and we do not have the right to tell him how to be God.

“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’”
(Jeremiah 18:6-11)

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