Tag Archives: the wrath of God

REFLECTIONS ON THE OLYMPIC “EXPOSURE”

Christian Life, ,

The opening ceremony of the Paris Summer Olympic Games has produced a volume of outrage and condemnation from Christians and others around the world. Despite protests from organisers, it was obviously based on the image of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”, with people impersonating pagan substitutes for Jesus and His disciples. The similaries were too obvious to miss.

Apparently, all the reminders have been removed from the mass media as a result of the protest. Is this an acknowledgement of guilt?

The gay agenda is a hot potato in today’s world. The whole movement with its many arms is being forced into every section of society including brainwashing the very young.

So, how are believers in Jesus supposed to react to this latest global thrust?

Do I detect in God’s Word a pattern that might have been set in motion or passed on in Paul’s day? Was his diagnosis of human wickedness in Romans 1 based on similar opening ceremonies of “Olympic Games” held in the coliseum in Rome?

The whole scenario in Paris is eerily similar to Paul’s expressed outrage against the gay agenda of his day. He sees the so-called “sexual revolution” as the epitome and culmination of a violent hatred of God. Those, who practise the “alternative lifestyle” believe and do everything opposite to what is right and good in defiance of God and try to push their rebellious actions on the rest of the world. If Christians protest and resist, they are wrong.

How must we respond?

Christians around the world respond in various ways. Some condemn and judge those who practice their “alternative” lifestyle with hatred and loathing. Others believe in “Loving the sinner but hating their sin.” Still others ignore the situation altogether and look the other way.

The question is, does God hate the gay agenda more than any other sin? Will He send gays to hell because they are gay, or lesbian, or queer, or transvestite, or cross dressers, or any of these variations?

The answer is an emphatic “No!” These forms of behaviour, as outrageous as they are to us, are all symptoms of one universal disease, as is every other symptom of unbelief.

People go to hell for only one reason.

John 3:18-21 NLT
[18] “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has ALREADY BEEN JUDGED FOR NOT BELIEVING in God’s one and only Son. [19] And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. [20] All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. [21] But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”

Jesus put the matter in perspective once and for all. What we believe about HIM makes all the difference. Paul understood what Jesus said.

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 NLT
[7] And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, [8] in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who DON’T KNOW GOD and on those who REFUSE TO OBEY THE GOOD NEWS OF OUR LORD JESUS. [9] They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.

No matter what form sin takes, no matter how serious is seems to us or not, the outcome for all unbelievers is the same. God will not need to ask, on judgement day, why people did this or that. He won’t need to cross question anyone to determine guilt. In the end, all sin whether big or small, points to the only sin that matters – rejection of Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour of sinners.

Believers display their attitude by their reaction. It sees to me that the bigger the outrage, the greater the possibility of hypocrisy. If we forget that all have sinned, all are guilty before God, and only because of His grace and mercy are we are no longer caught up in the sins of others, we will take up the role of judge.

Jesus urged us to pray for our enemies. His attitude in His darkest hour, was compassion. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”

Let’s not match the arrogance of the unbeliever with our own arrogant attitude. Let’s ask God for mercy for those who know but don’t care about the consequences of what they do.

Romans 1:32 NLT
[32]”They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”

Let’s put ourselves in their place and shudder at the thought of eternal hell. Jesus showed His compassion by warning His enemies of the consequences of their unbelief. Outrage is not the answer. Compassion is!

IT BEGINS WITH INGRATITUDE

Bible Study, ,

IT BEGINS WITH INGRATITUDE

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:18-21.

Well, at least Paul was not afraid to call a spade a spade!

If he wrote this letter to explain to the Roman believers the righteousness of God in providing salvation, why did he start by painting such a bleak picture of human behaviour? Who is he talking about?

Paul spent half of chapter one, the whole of chapter two and half of chapter three taking pains to show his readers that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is guilty before God. There is not a single righteous person who can escape God’s wrath against sin because of their good behaviour.

What did Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have to say?

First of all, there is a whole group of people who ignore or deny the clear evidence of a Creator, which is written on every leaf and blade of grass and on every star in the sky. They choose to live as though He does not exist; they never give Him the time of the day let alone acknowledge His goodness by thanking Him for the very breath they breathe.

The road to ruin begins with ingratitude. Anyone who fails to acknowledge God by being ungrateful for what they are and have is in danger of taking the road to perverted values and a perverse lifestyle. Ingratitude makes God angry. Ungrateful people are self-centred and discontented. Ingratitude kept the children of Israel who were delivered from slavery in Egypt, out of the Promised Land.

Ingratitude is the first step towards muddle-headed thinking and mental “darkness”. What is darkness? Darkness is the absence of light, and in this case, the light of understanding. When people throw God out of their lives by refusing to acknowledge Him or His goodness, they lose their ability to think straight.

The light of understanding has only one source – God. David knew that, and he wrote about it in the Psalms.

“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130.

God is the source of light, truth and understanding. Without Him, we are left to make sense of our lives on our own and, unfortunately for us, we cannot make sense of anything because we have thrown out the “glue” that holds it all together. All we can do is think up nonsense which has not connection with reality. How pathetic we are to think that if we believe what we made up, that makes it true!

There is a terrible downward path to destruction for people who choose to disregard God and go their own way. Unfortunately for them, they do not know that it is not God who chooses their end; they do because their empty and futile lives are only fit for one thing — the rubbish dump. God did not plan their lives to be useless and worthless, and it makes Him angry to see wasted potential when He had so many good things in store for them.

The problem with denying God’s existence is that we have to replace Him with someone or something because we all feel incomplete in ourselves. We all need someone bigger than ourselves on which to depend. When God is no longer there, and we have muddled brains, who or what are we going to put in His place?

Acknowledgement

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