Let them be accursed

I recently picked up a book at a thrift store that, in my opinion, I would have to say is the most heretical thing I’ve ever read, not that I read much of it. You see this book wasn’t any ordinary book but a perversion of Scripture that was masquerading as the Bible. And bad as anything else out there might be…it would seem to me that a straight out perversion of the Scriptures has to top the list. If there is anything worse, I haven’t seen it.

The morning after I got that book I sat down to look a bit more at a website I had come across the night before while researching that book. This particular website may belong to a reformed man and I wanted to read more of what he had to say, to see if I could better figure out what his beliefs were. As I read the titles on his blog I came across one that was about 2 Timothy 2:15.

This particular verse reminded me of a conversation I had with someone I briefly knew several years ago. The person I was talking to at that time believed that this verse, which says ‘rightly divide’ (KJV) the Scriptures, was the culprit behind something of a Bible study with the person I knew at that time and it was the culprit behind this man writing this particular blog post. And I guess you could say that, in a way, it is the culprit behind me writing this.

If I remember correctly, and I may not, the person I knew several years ago based a whole lot of their understanding of Scripture off 2 Timothy 2:15 as it is written in the King James Version. And what this person believed was that to ‘rightly divide’ the word of God we must separate Scripture. We must understand it based off the old covenant and the new covenant. This person had studied this to the point that they had pinpointed the exact moment the new covenant went into effect. At least they had pinpointed the exact moment they believed that happened and to them that was THE moment it happened.

I have no intention of going into just what moment they believed that happened or whether or not I think they were right or wrong. Instead I want to take the idea of ‘rightly dividing’ the truth and focus on it.

First of all most versions of the Scriptures do not even use that term. The NASB for example says ‘accurately handling’ the word. I don’t know about you but I see a big difference in ‘rightly dividing’ and ‘accurately handling’.

What are we supposed to do with Scripture if we are dividing it? Why would we be dividing it? For what purpose? And where would we make the division?

If that isn’t enough to make us wonder about dividing the word of God, 2 Timothy 2 goes on to tell us that ALL of Scripture is ‘inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training’. Why then would we need to ‘divide’ the word of God? How would we divide it? And again…

Why?

Would it be divided based on covenants like the person I knew believed? Would we divide it based on what gender we are? Would we divide it based on…what?

But if we look to the greek the word translated into ‘rightly divide’ doesn’t mean rightly divide. It translates as ‘to cut straight’, ‘to make straight and smooth’, or ‘to handle aright.’

And there, I believe is where we get a much better understanding of 2 Timothy 2:15, one that fits with the rest of 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy is written by Paul. I am currently in the process of mentally walking with Paul. I am following his journeys through Acts, reading his letters as he wrote them, mentally trying to place myself there with him, to see what he saw, to hear what he heard, to understand what he experienced. I can’t. I know I can’t. But I can imagine. And I am learning much in the imagining and in the researching. Not because I am making anything up but because I read what Paul was doing and then I research what that place was like in that time. I look it up. I find it on a map. And I remember who Paul was at that time, who he had been, what he had just been doing, what he is doing at that point.

And as I look at the meanings of the greek for the word that was translated into ‘rightly divide’ and I think of ‘to handle aright’. I remember also that Paul was a tentmaker. He cut and sewed material.

I have been sewing longer than I can remember. My grandmother held me on her knee when I was a toddler and we sewed. I can’t remember that but I’ve seen the pictures, heard the stories. As I got older I did more and more sewing with my grandmother. So much so that she and I eventually traded places. When I was a toddler I couldn’t do the sewing, I simply ‘helped’ my grandmother while she held my hand or looked on with a smile, encouraging me. In my grandmothers later years, when arthritis numbed her fingers and age dulled her sight, I became the one doing the sewing, looking on while my grandmother ‘helped’, smiling and encouraging her, thanking her for her contributions.

Paul made tents. He would have had to cut material, requiring straight lines and precision, or close to it. He would have sewn seams together, requiring straight seams and an understanding of which part of the material must be sewn to exactly which other part.

Those pieces of material, most likely very large, would have had to be handled a certain way. They would have had to be handled ‘aright’. But Paul would have known something else…his work as a tent maker would have taught him what it meant to ‘cut straight’ why a straight cut was vital. He would have learned that he had to ‘make straight and smooth’ the material before cutting or sewing it.

By looking to Paul, by understanding who and what he was, we gain valuable insight. We can’t know exactly what Paul meant when he wrote 2 Timothy 2. All we can do is read the whole of it, even the whole of 2 Timothy. Paul wrote it while imprisoned. Whether his imprisonment had any bearing on the words used here, I don’t know. What I do know was that by the time Paul wrote 2 Timothy he had spent many years making tents. And he had spent many years devoting his life to sharing the gospel. By his own admission Paul had chosen to ‘know nothing but Christ and him crucified.’

It seems to me that when a person knows only one thing…even if they are choosing to know only that thing while ignoring or disregarding everything else they know…then that one thing would permeate their entire lives. If Paul knew only Christ…then Christ was a part of his tent making. If Paul lived for Christ…then Christ was his focus even as he worked.

Paul was the man that told us what the fruits of the Spirit are and that those fruits will be in the believers. Wouldn’t those fruits have been in him?

And so we have an idea of the kind of man Paul was.

Now we have him telling us that we need to handle Scripture ‘aright’. I think of him telling us to ‘make it straight and smooth’, to ‘cut it straight’. And I think of Paul, as he was making a tent, turning the material this way and that, cutting the lines straight, smoothing the material until there are no wrinkles in it. Have you ever tried to cut a straight line in a piece of wrinkled material? It pretty much impossible.

In Galatians 1 Paul writes that if anyone ‘should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.’ Again, I can’t know exactly what Paul meant when he was writing 2 Timothy 2 but I can gain an understanding of what he was talking about and can make a guess at what he most likely meant. Is my guess right? I don’t know.

But what I gain from this is Paul is saying, to the effect of… ‘here is the gospel. Don’t change it, don’t make it what you want it to be, leave it as it is. Handle it the right way.’

Have you ever seen a sword? A real sword? Have you handled it up close? Run your finger over the blade? Felt the sharpness of the metal? I have not but I can…again…imagine. Swords were used in battle, they were used at a time when a man’s survival may well have depended on his sword. Chances are they were sharp and well cared for.

How much good would a dull, rusty, or broken sword have done someone?

Scripture tells us that Scripture is sharper than any sword (Hebrews 4:12). The sword of Scripture, we are told, pierces ‘to the division of soul and of spirit’ and that it can discern ‘the thoughts and intentions of the heart.’ The use of the word any…it is sharper than any two edged sword…tells us we aren’t talking about the old rusty, ill cared for swords only but that Scripture is sharper than the sharpest two edged, most well cared for, sharpest sword there is. Scripture is a sword that not only pierces flesh and bone but pierces the very soul and spirit and discerns our thoughts and intentions.

In a post I wrote some time ago I asked what you would do if you were handed a box that was very explosive, a box that if mishandled, jiggled the wrong way, dropped, allowed to reach the wrong temperature, would explode.

Look again at what Scripture is. About what it does. Here is the strongest of weapons. Men use weapons that can kill the body. They use swords, guns, and explosives in war…but they don’t use spiritual weapons. Scripture is a spiritual weapon that can pierce to the very soul, that can divide the spirit and the soul.

Scripture is what Paul is saying… ‘cut it straight’, ‘make it straight and smooth’, handle this ‘aright’. This was a spiritual weapon. This had the power to reach the soul and the spirit. This…is eternal in nature. This will turn the world upside down. This…I put into your hands.

Handle it ‘aright’.

Years ago I saw one of those street circus type performers juggling flaming torches. Have you ever tried to juggle? Whether you succeeded or not…you quickly learned that you must handle what you were juggling a certain way or you would drop it. Now imagine what you were juggling was a flaming torch. Not only will you drop it if you don’t handle it just so but you must catch each one in a certain spot or it will burn you or those around you. The juggler must handle those flaming torches ‘aright’. He must treat them a certain way.

This is what Paul was saying. Here is the Scripture. Treat it this way.

There is a ‘church’ building that I used to go to. We went there regularly for less than a year and in that time we made friends and I very much enjoyed our time there. Then the Lord took me away from that ‘church’ and the people in it. At first I was able to keep up a long distance correspondence with a few of the friends we had made there but in time even that faded away. Now I visit that ‘church’ maybe a few times a year and only do that to see the friends that…aren’t really friends anymore.

It’s been several months since I last visited that ‘church’. On that last visit I didn’t even stay for the sermon. There were family reasons why I could not stay for the sermon that day but I was in the area so I stopped in before the service to say hello to the friends we had there. In less than an hour, and without hearing any part of any service, I quickly learned that this ‘church’ has begun to teach and encourage many people in the ‘Christian’ writing and movie industries that are quite well known to be heretics. One of these people comes up as an immediate heretic if you do an internet search on their name. And yet this ‘church’ teaches from this persons books.

I left there that day sad and unsure if I could ever sit through another service there. I wasn’t sad for myself, I have long known that I no longer share much of their beliefs, but sad for them and the fact that those ‘in charge’ of leading and making choices for so many are leading them astray.

And that is where I come back to the book I got at the thrift store. The book I got was a paraphrase of the Scriptures and it is a bad one that I saw referred to online as a perversion instead of a version. And that is exactly what it is. As I write this that not-bible is sitting on the back of my couch. I can see it from where I sit. I could reach out and touch it. It is here only because I wanted the chance to look at it. I knew when I bought it that I would destroy it after I had looked at it.

I needed less than 15 minutes with that not-bible to know I had seen enough.

This not-bible is being sold as a Bible. You could walk into a ‘Christian’ bookstore and buy it as a Bible. If you went in telling the clerk you were looking for an easy to understand, modern version of the Bible they might even take you straight to this not-bible.

In the little bit of reading I did about this not-bible I read that a ‘church’ run ‘Christian’ school had bought copies of this not-bible and given them out as gifts to all their graduating seniors.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the man that wrote this not-bible, and by the way…no true Bible was ever translated by a single person, mistranslated or outright decided to mistranslate so much of Scripture and then label it as Scripture or allow others to label it as Scripture but bad as that is it gets worse, way worse. People…preachers, leaders, teachers…are actually using this not-bible as if it were Scripture, treating it as if it were Scripture, encouraging others to use and treat it as if it were Scripture. And they are buying it and handing it out to young people, young people that will think this is a reliable translation because their teacher or preacher gave it to them.

People in ‘Christian’ bookstores, stores that many ‘believers’ go to believing that everything inside its doors is safe because it’s all ‘Christian’, sell it to people looking to buy a Bible.

Paul told us to handle Scripture ‘aright’. Scripture is sharper than a two edge sword, able to separate our very souls from our spirits. Does this perversion of the Scriptures handle Scripture ‘aright’? Do the teacher and preachers that use and encourage this not-bible handle Scripture ‘aright’? Scripture is a weapon whether it is in the hand, on the tongue, or in the heart…but the weapon being used in this not-bible has a twisted, dirty, rusted, dull and broken blade.

This is not the Scripture of the Bible. This is not the Scripture of the original manuscripts. This is a ‘scripture’ that will lead you straight to hell. And all the while you could be studying it diligently, applying it to your life, learning it, memorizing it, living it. But…it is not the Scripture of the Lord and it is not the word of God that can save. Nor is it good for teaching, correcting or anything other than kindling.

This not-bible does not teach the Christ of Scripture. It does not give us His words. The man walking the pages of this not-bible is not the Christ of salvation but the jesus that wants to bless you with every material blessing your evil heart desires. The jesus in this not-bible did not come to be the propitiation for the sins of the elect, chosen before the foundation of the earth, dragged to Christ, and granted salvation (Ephesians 1, John 6:44). This jesus has focused his ‘love’ on ‘us’ and took ‘pleasure in planning’ this. This jesus or god wants us to enter the celebration of his ‘lavish gift-giving’ (Ephesians 1 in the not-bible).

That isn’t Christ. That isn’t God. That isn’t the Lord of Scripture. That isn’t even Scripture. That is some perverted, let-me-make-the-Bible-what-I-want-it-to-be-so-that-I-can-live-as-the-world-lives,-so-that-I-can-enjoy-the-evils-of-this-world,-so-that-I-can-encourage-others-in-their-evil-persuits. This is evil on paper, sandwiched between the covers of a book and called the bible.

This is not the Scripture that Paul wrote. It is not the Scripture that he read. It is not the gospel that he taught. It is not the gospel that he lived and died for.

Paul, in 2 Timothy 2, said that if anyone teaches a different gospel than the one he gave…

Let them be accursed.












For anyone wanting to know...the name of this not-bible, this perversion of Scripture being sold as the holy Scriptures, is The Message Bible.

The not-bible

I recently found myself in a thrift store, asked to go there by someone else to pick something up for them. The something they wanted was an old book on the history of England. I got that book and because I was already there I looked through the other books, looking for nothing in particular, just scanning the spines of books, glancing at titles.

For myself I got two books that day. One, a ‘bible’ that I picked up only because I had heard a few things about it and it had recently been recommended to me, I got it knowing I did not want this book that held the description of being a Bible but in reality is far from being the Holy Scriptures. This not-Bible that I got found its way into my hands and home for the simple purpose of giving me the chance to glance through it, to be able to say that I have seen it.

And I have now looked through it.

I have seen it.

And I can honestly say that I won’t be reading it much more than the approximately fifteen minutes I have now put into skimming it. I can also say that I will not be passing this not-bible on to anyone else.

It’s really a shame that this particular copy holds heresy instead of Scripture because it’s a very nice copy. It has what appears to be a leather cover that feels nice in the hands. It’s just the right size to rest nicely in your hands as you read it…not that I did much of that. Upon close inspection I was surprised to discover that what feels like a nicely made not-bible actually has glued in pages rather than sewed in. Not that that matters for this particular copy. Because this particular copy will never be put to use by anyone. At least it won’t be past what little looking at it I might do.

You see this not-bible is soon to meet its destruction. I cannot in good conscience allow this book of heresies to fall into anyone else’s hands. I may or may not look at it a bit further than I have already but if so it will only be for research purposes.

As I looked through this not-bible for the sole purpose of forming my own opinion, or rather, for seeing why this not-bible is loved by many professing believers while being described as a heresy. A quick internet search on this not-bible returned numerous results that gave more wrongs in the text than I cared to count.

In doing a very quick, maybe fifteen minutes, search on this not-bible, bringing my total time spent on exploring it to thirty minutes at most, I discovered that this particular not-bible is linked to a very popular fiction book that holds the title of being ‘Christian’. A book that is also heresy.

That book is endorsed by the author of this not-bible. The book was recommended to me, time and again, years ago. I did finally start to read it but did not get all that far into it before setting it aside. At the time I didn’t know why, exactly, that I set that book aside, all I knew was that it just felt wrong. Now I understand. It was pure heresy.

And today I held a book in my hand that many call the bible. I flipped the pages in it. I read verses here and there. I remembered hearing this not-bible referred to as Scripture.

This is not Scripture.

This is some sort of twisted writing that took Scripture and perverted it.

But in those few minutes that I put into looking through this not-bible I begin to think hard about something. You see, I could clearly see how someone that didn’t know the truth about this book, and worse didn’t know the Truth of Scripture, could be misled into thinking that this was just another version of the Bible.

From time to time I go into ‘Christian’ bookstores. Most of those times I simply walk the aisle, looking at what’s there. Generally I leave feeling much the way I do when I visit a physical ‘church’ building. Feeling as if they come so close but miss the mark by so much. How can all the books, movies, music, and everything else in those stores come so close, quoting Scripture, making stories or whatever from it, but be so very, very, wrong?

That is how I felt as I held this not-bible in my hand. I even found myself liking one ‘verse’ in it. It read good, it made a good point. There was nothing wrong with that verse. That is, there is nothing wrong with it if it didn’t hold the label of being Scripture. If it was simply something that the author wrote as he wrote of Scripture, that particular few sentences would have actually been very good. If I had written those sentences here, in my writings, as a description of a certain part of Scripture or to make a certain point, it would have been good. It would have read good and would have been fine.

But because it is in a book that is sold as a Bible but isn’t one…it’s very, very wrong.

I’m going to guess that there are other parts of this book that might…might…read the same way. But because this not-bible takes a man’s thoughts and labels them as Scripture…there is nothing right about this book. It’s heresy pure and simple. And that’s long before we even get to the fact that this particular book also changes and perverts Scripture.

I saw somewhere that someone says this book….labeled as a Bible…mocks Scripture. Whatever it does…it does not share the Truth of Scripture. And it is a book that should never have been labeled as Bible.

And as I flipped through it, scanning here and there, I began to think of all the people that hold this not-bible in their hands, believing that they are holding Scripture. I thought of the times I have gone into those ‘Christian’ bookstores and looked at the Bibles for sale, the times I have bought Bibles from those same stores. I thought of how I perused the different versions available. Which version did I want? The King James? The NASB? The ESV? Those are about the only versions I would consider but there are many more available to choose from. The NIV? The NKJV? The… well, you get the idea.

It’s like walking through one of those candy stores portrayed in movies or children’s books, the shelves lined with glass jars filled with bright colored treats. Jelly beans or gum balls? Lemon drops or peppermint sticks? All you have to do is choose your preferred flavor.

The flavor in this case isn’t candy but Bibles. And there are plenty to choose from. A person really needs to be well informed to pick out a Bible today. I remember watching a show as a kid. The kids in the show wanted to buy a Bible for their preacher as a gift, maybe for his birthday. Whatever the occasion they settled on a Bible. This show was set in the 1800’s and the kids shopped for that Bible much differently than we would shop today. They perused a catalog. I don’t recall how many options they had available but I do recall that as they discussed options they never once discussed versions. All their options were limited to size, cover, color, and little else. And there were precious few of those.

I have a relative that owns a couple of reprints of 1800’s catalogs. In writing this I was able to look through those catalogs. One of them had a single page offering different Bibles. The other had maybe three pages. These catalog reprints were roughly 8.5x11 inches in size, each page had multiple options in them. But even at that…there were precious few options available at that time.

I imagine a person in the time of those catalogs would have made their choice based off price first, then, possibly, version, and last size and extras. But that is what I imagine they might have based their choice on. In reality it would have been fairly hard to choose, or so it would seem, because many of the Bibles listed had no pictures and the one’s that did were black and white drawings that, I’m sure, didn’t come close to what the Bibles truly were. How can you know what a Bible…what anything…will feel like in your hand if you can’t touch it? How can you know if the type is big enough for you to read if you can’t look at it?

Today if we wish to buy a brand new Bible we have so many options that they are confusing. Not only must we pick the overall size of the Bible but we must pick the type set. We must choose between paperback and hardcover, leather, bonded leather, vinyl, or any number of other options. I have even seen Bibles made of wool and what appears to be plastic blocks. And once we have narrowed down the size and style of cover we want on our Bible we must decide between color options. Want leather? Okay…which leather? Calfskin? Goatskin? Red? Brown? Black? Want paperback? What picture do you want on it?

The options are made either harder or easier depending on whether or not you understand the different versions or care about which version you own. For those that will only use the King James version…there decisions just got easier. Same with someone looking for an ESV or an NIV.

I recently ordered two different Bibles for two different people. I knew before I placed the orders exactly what I wanted. Price was a factor as was the style of Bible each one needed in their particular circumstances. Because of my reasons for buying the Bibles my options were narrowed to about three. I wanted a particular version…the ESV…and I wanted a particular style of that version. That particular style was the only reason I was buying those Bibles. That left me to choose between hardcover and imitation leather. The situations of the people I was buying them for had me ordering one of each. My options were easy but only because I well knew what I was looking for.

But what if someone walked into a ‘Christian’ bookstore without knowing what they wanted? How confusing would Bible shopping be? What if they didn’t understand the different versions?

One must know the different versions to know which one they want to buy. I can’t imagine buying a Bible without understanding the differences in versions. Can you imagine being a new ‘Christian’ and trying to buy your very first Bible? Which version would you pick? What would your criteria be? What if you were barely proficient in reading English? Or what if you had a learning disability that made reading difficult? What if you were buying for a child or an elderly person?

I can well imagine how overwhelming it would be to buy a Bible without understanding the differences in versions. But even if you do know and understand all the different versions, even if you walked in, like I did when I bought those two Bibles…admittedly I ordered them online but the concept is the same…and knew what version you were looking for, knew what kind of cover you wanted, but nothing else.

If we buy a Bible with any commentary at all we must either buy one blindly or we must know and understand the beliefs of the person or people writing the comments. What about illustrations? Bible maps? Concordance? Student Bible? Study Bible?

The list is endless.

I once knew someone that lived overseas. This college educated American spoke often of the limited options in products where they lived and said that walking into a store in America to buy toothpaste was overwhelming. They said that where they lived when you went to buy toothpaste, there might be two or three tubes on the shelf and all of them would be the same brand and flavor. So there was only one option for toothpaste. There was no choosing.

In America, choosing toothpaste is done among multiple brands, each brand having many flavors and textures. Not to mention things like whitening agents and formulas for sensitive teeth.

Bibles are the same way.

I think of the uninformed person walking into a store…or website…and trying to buy a Bible. They may well think that all versions are the same. They pick them up or read the description. They choose one based off whatever catches their fancy.

If they come home with an accurate version…any reading they do in that Bible will be edifying and educating.

But what if they go home with the not-bible? What if the book they hold in their hands was sold to them as a Bible but is nothing more than a twisted perversion of the Scriptures? What if they read that book, cover to cover, study it, learn from it? What if they base everything they understand about the Lord off a book that instead of speaking of eternal life says they can have a whole life? What if they learn from the pages of that book, while believing it to be Scripture, the things that book teaches. When that book changes everlasting life to whole life? When that book makes the eternal sound like it is nothing but life here on earth…what are they gaining from that not-bible?

What if they put their full faith, their full understanding of Scripture into that twisted perversion of Scripture and base everything on that book?

A book that could lead them straight to hell.

There is a movie where an older man is instructing boys on the Bible. In that movie this man takes those boys to a cemetery and has them get very close to the headstones. The man then whispers things to the boys as if he is the person in the grave. The things he whispers to them are questions about why they weren’t told about hell.

What if a person puts their full faith in this not-bible, fully believing it to be the Scriptures, and they never know otherwise? When these scriptures are heresy, filled with lies and changes…can the ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ of this not-bible even be called the God and Christ of the Scriptures? Does that person stand a chance at salvation when the not-bible they are putting their entire faith in isn’t the Scriptures?

If they are deluded about the Bible, or not-bible, that they use…are they deluded about their salvation?

The spiritual realm

As I write this Christmas is behind us. Our world has moved into a new year. Only a few days ago I saw a house that still had Christmas lights up. As I think of those lights now I remember a visit I had with family just after Christmas. They still had Christmas decorations up even though we had moved into a new year. There remained the last vestiges of Christmas in their home, still being enjoyed for a few last days before being packed away for another year.

This year, for the first time in several years, we had a Christmas tree. We shopped for a new tree and dug out the old ornaments. Christmas came and went. The tree brightened the house and gave joy. It brought smiles to the faces of family and friends. It served its purpose through the holiday but as with all Christmas trees, its time to grace our home came and went and it had to be packed away.

I finally managed to get it and the Christmas decorations packed away but traces of them remained a bit longer in the Christmas cards it took a while to take care of and in the handful of things that lingered out of sight waiting to be discovered for a while longer. Among those missed items were a couple of angel ornaments that managed to find their way into a place where they were missed in the packing away of Christmas.

Those ornaments are a remnant not only of Christmas but of the days, long past, when I collected angels. At one time I had an entire collection of angel figurines, most of them received as gifts. Today those Christmas ornaments are the only things left of that collection. Those gifts were what created my angel collection. At that time I liked angels and one gift at a time, I began to collect angels.

Today, that angel interest and the collection that resulted from that interest is long gone but as with so many other things in life, the remains of that collection still linger. I am reminded of that each time the Christmas decorations are brought out. Each time I looked at those angel ornaments through the Christmas holiday I wondered if I should keep them or part with them. They no longer hold any significance for me beyond the fact that they’ve been on every Christmas tree I’ve had since I’ve been grown. In that time there have been Christmases without a tree but the angel ornaments have remained, with or without a tree.

A few years back I wound up in the possession of a book on angels. I don’t remember how I came to have it but there it was. I never read it but it resided in my house anyway. Where it came from I can’t remember, why it was here I don’t know, but there it was.

I remember a song I used to enjoy many years ago, a song about angels surrounding us. I remember another song about an angel that saved a man from a car accident.

It seems that there are no end to the things that angels show up in. They are very prominent in movies. I recall a book I read in my teens where a little girl showed up in a couple’s yard and they took her in. The implication in that book was that the little girl was an angel. I can’t remember if the book wound up making the girl be an angel or if they only implied that she was but either way the suggestion was there.

And so…there they are…angels in everything.

Only these angels aren’t the angels of Scripture. They’re the sweet faced little girls with wings, the fat faced babies with halos, and the beautiful women guarding children in dangerous situations. They are an ideal, an idol even, but they are not the messengers of the Lord that Scripture speaks of.

Not too far from my house there is a ‘church’ building that has a sign out front, it’s one of those signs where they write the little sayings. This sign regularly gives little bits of insight into life through the words it displays. Right now those words tell of how God is Spirit and must be worshipped in the spirit.

Today that sign is right.

Our Lord is Spirit and it is in the spirit that we connect with him. For those that belong to Him we no longer live dead in human bodies, serving sin and the god of sin, but alive in spirit serving the Lord. That’s a pretty amazing concept that is almost staggering if looked at through nothing more than our human minds. And yet…so much of life is spiritual. It’s an entire…world…that is in and around us that we can’t see, touch, or hear. It is an invisible world to us but it is very much there, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Years and years ago my sister and I used to watch a television program about people that traveled between alternate worlds. These worlds existed all at the same time, there was no time travel, only travel between different places that existed at the exact same time. One existed, invisibly, out of sight, of the other, and there was an unending number of different worlds. The people in this show traveled from one of these worlds to another, each was different, some were of a different era-because time hadn’t passed the same in those worlds, but all coexisted at the same time, out of sight of one another.

It was a strange, yet somehow fascinating, idea. And for a time, I enjoyed watching those shows, seeing where the people would go in each episode, what never before seen dimension they would find.

But it was all for fun. It was a made up show that held no basis in real life. Today we live in a world where most people live as if the earthly life they lead is the only reality, or world, that exists. But there is something more, something deeper, something unseen. Something…paranormal. At least it’s paranormal if put into earthly words or descriptions. It is, however, very normal if looked at through Scripture. Scripture tells us of heavenly realms and of spiritual things. There is no paranormal involved unless looked at strictly through human eyes that see things as either of this world or other worldly. But however we choose to look at it, provided we acknowledge it at all, it is there.

It’s almost enough to make anyone stop in their tracks if they truly think about it. And what it means.

We are surrounded by unseen spirits. We can’t see, hear, or touch these spirits. We can’t feel them. We go about our lives living as if they are not there and yet they very much impact our lives and the earthly world we live in. And most people, even the born again, regenerated, Christians, rarely give them much thought as we go about our daily lives.

When was the last time you stopped to think about the fact that there are unseen spirits around you?

The fact is that very few of us ever give such a concept a second thought and if we do think of it, it’s either a passing thought or it consumes the mind and leads others to believe the person speaking of such things is crazy.

Our modern, enlightened, twentieth century, minds can’t believe that spirits can be real, we, as a whole, can’t grasp the idea that there really could be more to this world than what we see before us.

But Scripture tells us that there is more to this world, and to our lives, than what we see before us. There is a spiritual side of life, an invisible realm of spirits, around us each and every day as we go through living in this earthly world.

But it gets even harder to grasp. That is, if looked at only through our earthly eyes, minds, and hearts.

Because the spiritual realm is of much more importance than the earthly world.

Even as I write this, I think of the many, MANY, people that would disagree with every word I’m writing. I think of the many ‘Church’ services I have sat through, taught and led by professing ‘Christians’, and how many of those calling themselves ‘Christian’ would most likely disagree with me.

But Scripture tells us that this spiritual realm does exist and that it surrounds us.

As I write this there is much disagreement and evil floating in the news and media of our world. There will be a presidential election this year and with that comes the never ending politics that fill every news outlet. States are passing laws that the government does not agree with, they are passing laws that groups of people, businesses, and individuals do not agree with, laws that many others do agree with. These laws are creating strife between people who are taking sides and speaking out for the side they support. There are businesses threatening these states because they do not agree with the laws that are passed. There are businesses that are implementing their own ‘laws’. And people are up in arms over all of it.

These are earthly battles that in an earthly sense are very important. Each of these things has the potential to make America a better or worse place to live. And so the battles rage. Further out there are wars and threats of wars, there are groups of people that are terrorizing other countries, there are attacks on individuals, groups, cities, states, countries…you name it, it’s probably going on somewhere in the world right now. Some kind of battle rages.

And yet Scripture tells us that those aren’t the battles that Christians must fight.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12 ESV

As big as those earthly battles may seem and feel at any given time, there is something much bigger, something much more…sinister…at work that we cannot see with human eyes. And we (Christians) must battle that not in the flesh but in the spirit.

Before I go further I would like to look just a bit deeper at Ephesians 6:12. A slow, close reading of that verse shows us such words as ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’. Those are terms that could easily be used in some Hollywood produced movie about the forces of good and evil. I don’t know about you, but if I read such words in a movie review I would be thinking about some sort of evil…aliens, maybe…against humans. And Hollywood has produced many movies of that very thing. But who applies ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ to our modern earthly lives? Those sort of things simply don’t exist in real life.

But Scripture tells us that they do.

As with so many things we must first erase from our thoughts those things we have been preconditioned to think. Which means we must erase from our minds the things that mainstream media and entertainment have brain washed us into thinking when we see ‘cosmic powers’ (forget about superheroes and aliens) and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ (forget about the bad guy trying to take over the universe).

Only…

There is a bad guy that did want to take over the universe. And he and his henchmen are wrecking as much havoc as they can, restrained only by the hand of God.

Quite a few months back I came across a website that did reviews on popular movies. They compared those movies to Scripture. I only watched a couple of their reviews but found them enlightening. Especially one of them. This particular review was for a movie that I had actually seen a number of years ago. I remembered well the key points that this review pointed out but back when I saw that movie I didn’t know Scripture like I do now and I’m not sure it would have occurred to me even now to compare this movie to Scripture quite the way they did but once I saw the comparison there was no missing it. You see, in this movie there was a bad guy, only this ‘guy’ was something of an alien. He was all powerful and ruled the world. And the side that had possession of this ‘guy’ ruled the universe. There was very definitely a good side and a bad side, there was a ‘cosmic power’ involved, a ‘spiritual forces of evil’ and a good side.

Now this particular review showed that the all-powerful ‘guy’ of this movie, the bad guy, the evil force, had the qualities of God. So in a twisted, evil, sinful way, the makers of this very popular movie actually turned Scripture, twisted it, until God-in the form of this all powerful thing- was evil and the evil (according to Scripture) humans were good and must fight against this evil force that controlled all.

That was a Hollywood movie. This is life. But can you see the comparison? Can you see the evil forces in movies? Can you see the ‘cosmic powers’ in movies? Do you see them in your everyday earthy life? Do you realize that they are there?

We easily relate ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ to movies or books but can we relate those same things to life? Scripture was written in a time when there were no movies, although the Lord was well aware of the fact that there would one day be movies.  The Lord was talking about what would take place in our lives, in our world. These ‘cosmic powers’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil’ are very real.

But how often do most people think of these things? And more than that…how many people even realize that these spiritual forces exist?

Back when I watched that show with my sister we had many discussions about that show. We would sometimes talk of what life would be like if those alternate worlds really did exist and whether or not we would give up the world we lived in for another one if given the chance. There are many people today that imagine life with spiritual forces around them, they imagine what life would be like if ‘this’ or ‘that’ happened from whatever movie or book but how many of them understand that there really is a spiritual battle raging around them. A spiritual battle where the prize isn’t ruling the earth, going to some far off place, or winning the game, the battle is for life. There is an evil battle waging in the spirit, a battle between evil and Good, a battle between Light and darkness.

But how many people think of that? And how many people even realize that it’s happening?

I grew up going to ‘church’ and I can’t recall a single person ever teaching that there is a spiritual world surrounding our earthly one. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I missed those teachings. Or maybe they never happened. I remember hearing of ‘guardian angels’, I remember hearing of how people are in heaven when they die, despite the fact that they very likely were not, I remember hearing of how a person can simply secure their place in heaven by saying the magical prayer of salvation and then need never wonder if they will go to heaven again…no matter what they do or how they live their life. But I don’t remember being taught that there is a spiritual realm around us.

A while back I read something-I don’t remember where- that spoke of how people in times past were aware of this spiritual side of life, that they understood that spirits surround us. I don’t recall exactly what that article spoke of but I do recall it saying that our ancestors better understood that there is a spiritual side of life, spirits that surround us every day.

What is the difference? Why did they understand something that has all but been lost in our modern world?

A few days ago my husband and I were watching something online where someone went out and asked evolutionists a question. It was a simple question and yet it was one that the evolutionists could not answer. If evolution is real, give me one example that I can actually see evolution happening. Now, I’m not going to get into that, or how the video turned out, other than to say the evolutionists could not give a single example.

But as I think back on that I think of how science has taught people to believe in evolution. The evolutionists that were questioned in the video mostly believed in evolution simply because it was taught to them by the ‘experts’. One even said that the theory of evolution had been proven. I asked my husband if that person hadn’t just contradicted themselves. Doesn’t theory mean…an idea…an understanding? And if something is proven isn’t it more than and idea or theory? I didn’t bother to look up the answer, and I’m not going to do so now, because I simply am not that interested, but…if the theory of evolution had been proven, would it be a theory?

But what I did clearly see in that video, beyond the fact that the evolutionists could give no examples of evolution actually happening, was that science had ‘taught’ the evolutionists the belief that they held.

Science has taught us many other things also. I was once fascinated with the nineteenth century, and still enjoy that era, as a result I often look at life and see it in a way that pits our modern world against the nineteenth century. I see the improvements…how would I manage without my washing machine…and the problems…where have the morals gone?

Through an understanding of what life was like during the nineteenth century I can compare my modern life to the lives of people in those days.

Science has given us many things today that simply did not exist in the nineteenth century. Today we understand all the finer points of human conception, so much so that babies are now made in little glass dishes in laboratories and put into a woman at just the right moment so the baby will implant and begin to grow. Science gave us that. Science also gave us the ability to remove a baby from its mothers body long before it can live on its own. Science is a mixed blessing. Because of science my daughter had heart surgery that would not have been available in the nineteenth century. Because of science people are electrocuted in their own homes by their modern conviences.

Yes, all of those things, and much more, are controlled and used by the Lord. I’m not debating that. What I’m saying is that science has brought us much but it has also taken much from us. Because of science we now know how to preserve food so that it can be kept of shelves for years. As a result we have grocery stores filled with foods that are shelf stable and easy to prepare. The flip side of that is that few people today preserve food the way our ancestors did and so food preservation in the home is becoming a lost art.

There is an up side to science and a down side.

Science has taught us that everything in life is measurable. We can see it. We can test it. We can come up with a theory and prove it or disprove it. We can ‘know’ if something exists by using science to prove it. If it can’t be measured, or proven, than science says it isn’t real. Science says if you can see it, smell it, taste it, study it, than it is real and if you can’t, then it’s not real.

And so science has essentially disproven the belief in anything spiritual.

In our modern world we have the knowledge to prove whether or not God exists. We can ‘prove’ there is no spiritual realm because science cannot see, taste, hear, touch, study, observe, measure, or anything else, that spiritual world. And since science can’t prove the spiritual is real…it must not be real. Those that believe in the Lord on faith are ridiculed and seen as ignorant.

I remember hearing something years back about college professors teaching their students that God is something that poor people need because their lives are without hope of anything better, therefore the poor people put their hope in a God and something better once their lives are no more. Apparently those same professors also teach that the educated (college) and therefore the not poor people do not need God because they have education and money.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools… Romans 1:22 ESV

This is what science has done to us. I don’t know what the statistics are for those with a college education today but I’m guessing that if you compared the number of college educated individuals today to those of the nineteenth century, you would find that there are many more college educated people today than in the 1800’s. I also assume that the further back in time you go the lower the percentage of college educated people you would find.

Not only that but I’m guessing that if you compared those with high school diplomas today to those with high school diplomas in past times, say prior to the mid 1900’s, you would find that the numbers drop off drastically. And if you were to go far enough back in time you would find that there were no high school diplomas or college educations.

With education man learns to lean more on his own understanding and less on the Lord and His teachings.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.… Proverbs 3:5-6

And with education man become wiser to the ideas of the world and becomes fools to the ways of the Lord (Romans 1:22). In our scientifically enlightened world there is no room for spiritual realms, at least not outside of Hollywood and the book market. It’s funny though, how people will accept the idea of ghosts but not of demons. And still, most of science would disregard even the ghosts that people will accept.

A couple of years ago someone I know visited some historic site that they found out after they visited was rumored to be haunted. This person sent me pictures of this supposedly haunted place. I was supposed to see ghosts in the pictures. Eventually that same person asked me what I believe about ghosts and whether or not ghosts are real.

I was on a medical trip/vacation one year and found myself in a town that offered ‘ghost tours’. There were busses offering, for a fee, to take people around to the haunted places. Tourists of types were taking those tours. I wonder how many people would have believed that the Lord has surrounded us by a spiritual world?

But that thought process isn’t restricted to those that enjoy ‘ghost’ hunting. There are preachers, supposedly ‘Christians’, by their admissions anyway, that can’t explain, or don’t believe in, demons or angels. And there are others that promote the worship of angels more than they promote the worship of Christ. I can remember being told, in a ‘church’, that we should pray for angels to guide and guard us, to protect us from all harm.

I can’t help thinking that the teaching of praying to angels, that is, to my way of thinking, worshipping angels, is no more Scriptural than the belief that angels and demons do not exist. Scripture tells us of angels and demons. They have a place in Scripture. And they have a place in the Lords creation, in our world. The Lord uses these beings for His purposes just as He uses all other things for His purposes.

There was a time when people understood that there was more going on than just what we can see with our eyes, and prove with science. Scripture tells us Christ and the apostles casting demons out of people before witnesses. It tells us of people that were brought back to life after they had died. We are even told of magicians that performed wonders before witnesses. These witnesses, whether they could…tap into…the spiritual themselves had to understand that there was more happening than just what they could see and touch. They may not have understood it but they knew it was there.

Now, I’ll admit that those people actually saw things of a spiritual nature. How could you deny the existence of demons after you saw one cast out of someone? So it might be said that in biblical times demons were scientifically proven.

But if that’s the case when did the proof disappear? With the last apostle? I don’t know the answers to those questions. I also don’t know how to explain the people that strongly believe in demons and angels today and believe they can cast out demons in our modern world. I do know they are under a delusion.

But when did people go from understanding that there is more to life than what they see to what we have today? And even that may not be a fair question because so many different people believe so many different things.

I do know that when I look at any given circumstance through my human eyes it may not make much sense but when I look at the same circumstance through Scripture, and my understanding of Scripture, then it makes so much more sense. Life when looked at through Scripture, without the addition of human ideas, makes much more sense. It’s like having a written script for they why’s and whatfore’s of life.

But those same Scriptures teach us that there is a spiritual side to life that we cannot see, touch, taste, feel, or measure. Science cannot observe it. Human eyes cannot see it. It exists around us, and in us, without us being able to see it.

In this spiritual world demons and angels are very real. Good verses evil isn’t something that exists only in movies and books. ‘Cosmic powers’ do exist. But how many people today realize that? How many people realize that there is a spiritual battle raging inside them? That there is a battle between light and darkness, between evil and good, within them.

Supposedly there are those that are ‘enlightened’ or educated enough to ‘know’ that demons and angels do not exist. They have learned that these are myths left over from past times when people did not know any better. But now we have science to teach us differently. Or so some would have us to believe.

I recently read something that spoke of how people today want to be ‘Christians’ but they want to be ‘Christians’ their way. They want their sinning to be condoned so they change Scripture to support the things they believe in. There is a book being sold as I write this, a book being used in ‘church’ services, that promotes the worshipping of the creation rather than the creator, and it condones sexual sin. And that book is being sold as a Bible.

A number of months ago someone said that Christians should buy up Bibles now because in the future the unadulterated Scriptures will no longer be available. The only Bibles being sold will eventually be those that promote the thoughts and beliefs of those in our country that do not follow the true Scriptures. At the time I brushed the thought aside. It could happen I supposed but I didn’t see it happening any time soon.

Since then I have come across more and more things that makes what that woman said sound more and more plausible. There are versions of the Bible that are even changing their wording to more accurately match the beliefs of modern people.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want Scripture being changed to match modern people. Scripture is unchangeable. Scripture is the word of God and should be kept that way. I don’t want the word of men. I get that every day just living in this fallen world.

But as I write this I think of what that woman said, of how she believed we should buy up Bibles today because someday we may not be able to get unadulterated versions, and I think of the spiritual world that surrounds us.

Was there a time when people, even the unregenerate and reprobates, did not doubt that there was a spiritual world? Was there a time when people in general understood that there was more going on than what was before them?

That’s another question that I do not know the answer too. I read somewhere that people did, at one time, understand that there was a spiritual world surrounding them, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.

I do recall having read that one day people will consider believing in a Spiritual world as nothing but baggage from times past, that our youth will see it as holdovers from beliefs no longer relevant, and with those thoughts the belief in spiritual things will be no more.

I would have to look at that much the way I look at the thought that we might one day have no access to Scripture as it was written. The Lord will preserve His word and He will preserve His people. It may be that there will come a day that we can’t simply walk into a store and buy an unadulterated Bible. There may also come a day when we can’t find true believers in Christ-and I must admit that it’s already very hard to find those believers-but I don’t believe that there will ever come a day when either the Scriptures or the believers do not exist.

About a year ago a friend questioned me on the reformed believers in the past. I was asked where those believers were prior to Martin Luther. I studied on that, wrote about it, and eventually gained a deeper and better understanding of where those believers were. I can well imagine a day when true believers, truly born again, regenerated believers, might be out of sight of the rest of the world. But I do not believe that they will ever not be there. And so long as there are truly born again, regenerated, believers there will always be people that believe in a spiritual world.

But as I write this I think of the youth that will supposedly give up a belief in spiritual things, that will see them as baggage from times past, and I think of all the spiritual things they do believe in. I know someone whose nine year old asked for a Ojai board for Christmas. This little girl’s mother refused to let her have one but her grandmother got her one anyway. To this child, it was a game. To others it is a dip into the occult.

I’ve heard of others that are into things like witchcraft. Movies about witches and spells can easily be found. The New Age Movement supposedly is filled with all sorts of things that dip into spiritual…or demonic…things. My mother once had a doctor whose office was filled with rocks. I only accompanied my mother to see this doctor once. It was after hours so my mother was the only patient in the office. I had a baby at the time and my baby became fussy while we were there. To keep the baby happy I walked up and down the halls of the doctor’s office, getting a good look at areas I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. I saw into the exam rooms, into the lab room, into the doctor’s private office area. And what I saw was rooms filled with rocks of all shapes and sizes. But it wasn’t the rocks that were disturbing but the posters and charts for how those rocks held magical healing powers.

There was, it would seem, some sort of spiritual life to these rocks.

And so we have people, college educated doctor’s even, believing that rocks have healing powers, powers that must be tapped into and channeled, and we have people going on ghost hunts all in a time when many people would say there is no spiritual world. Or maybe they wouldn’t say that. Maybe many of them would simply say there is not Christ and therefore nothing spiritual where He is concerned but maybe they believe in rock spirits.

It’s enough to make my head spin. Ghosts are okay, even socially acceptable, but Christ is not. Rock spirits can be used in modern medicine but prayer to the Lord is useless. Or something like that.

This past winter I found myself in a home with people that hold no belief in the Lord. I deeply love these people. I understand their lack of belief and they understand that I believe. I have never before felt the spiritual battle that takes place between those that belong to Christ and those that are unregenerate. I felt it in those days with people that I love and that I know love me. And yet, despite that love, there was a battle raging between us. It wasn’t so much with us but between us. They seemed to attack everything that was Christ without actually attacking it. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it was. There was just this underlying tension that I don’t think they were ever aware of but I felt keenly.

It was an invisible battle between my spirit and theirs. It was their love of this fallen earth and the sins it offers and my love of Christ. It was there. It was tangible. And yet, I’m not at all sure that they ever felt it.

My husband speaks often of how the Lord seems to use parents to restrain sin in children until those children reach a certain age and then the sin in them takes over and they go the way of their sin.

Those children are a joy to their parents but they can become what creates and unseen spiritual battle in the home, or elsewhere, to the born again, regenerated, parent. Christ told us that He would divide families, that our enemies would be those of our own homes.

They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:53 ESV

In its own way that very battle that crops up between parents and children is an example of the unseen spiritual battle. At least it is when the parents are born again. At some point their children begin to chaff and pull against the very beliefs that the parents hold. I was once told that it is the non-Christian parents that raise Christian kids, and the Christian parents that raise non-Christian kids. Now I was told this by a non-Christian but I understood the point that they were making. My mother used to talk of how it’s always the preachers kids that go wild. I understand that thinking too.

But I have to admit that I understand something else too. It isn’t the parent’s faith or their lack of faith that draws a child to Christ or pushes them away, it’s the Lord (John 6:44). Scripture tells us that they either belong to Christ or they don’t and that their salvation was determined before the foundation of the earth.

Scripture also tells us that children are set against parents. So a child that chaffs against what their parents believe are only doing what the Lord had planned for them to do.

But still…it creates an unseen battle. I would assume those grown, or close to it, children wish their parents could understand them, could accept and support their interests, and I know the born again parents wish their children could believe exactly the way they do.

Love between the parent and child creates that longing and their internal spirits create the battles that keep them apart even when they are together.

And that was what I experienced last winter while staying with family. There, while in the midst of people I love, raged an unseen battle between their spirits and mine. They could not be interested in the things that matter most to me and I could not be interested in the things that matter most to them. I understood that. I understood that they stand for one thing while I stand for another but I knew that they did not understand. And so the battle raged. An unseen, spiritual battle.

It was a battle that existed in a realm that they did not understand and would probably have denied existed.

As I think back on that visit, I think of those people in times past. Did they, even the lost, understand that there was more happening around them than what they could see? Did they somehow, without all our modern day indoctrination, know and understand that there was a spiritual realm to life even if they couldn’t see it, couldn’t understand it?

Or did they simply not believe it was there?

I don’t know the answers to those questions either.

What I do know is that there is a spiritual realm and that there is a battle that rages in that realm. Angels are real and so are demons but the Lord controls them all. That spiritual realm is there to set those belonging to Christ free and to imprison those that don’t belong to him.

It is a real thing that exists all around us, and even inside of us, every single day. Our Lord works in that spiritual place because He is spirit. He works in our spirits because it is our spirits that will live in eternity and it is eternity that the Lord is concerned with.

 

 

A change in plans

We suffer many afflictions in our earthly lives. We ache. We hurt. We get sick. We experience ailments and injuries. We despair. Few people can experience all those things or even a few of them without having some human thoughts of displeasure at what they are experiencing.

Scripture tells us to persevere through the trials that come our way. It tells us to give thanks for them.  That is a struggle in this life, no matter how deep our faith is, we still feel all the human…earthly…emotions of the flesh. It’s hard to give thanks for the misery we are suffering when we are too sick to lift our head off the pillow.

But give thanks we should. Because the Lord has allowed and even handed out the afflictions that we suffer from. He sends them our way so that we might grow in Him or for some other purpose that we can know nothing of.

Years ago I would become easily frustrated and upset at delays in my plans. If I knew I needed to go somewhere I would get upset at anything that slowed down my plans for getting there.

One night I was driving in a very large city, headed home after spending a day at a theme park with my family. I was tired and the hours were wearing on me. But I had made that same drive many, many times and could just about make my road changes without thought.

I was driving along when I realized that nothing around me seemed familiar. I drew the attention of those with me to that fact and they all agreed that nothing looked familiar. I had missed the road I needed to be on to get home. I couldn’t believe I had missed that road. I had driven that same path many times, had driven it in the dark. I knew where I was and where I was going. Even tired I shouldn’t have missed that road change. But I had.

Frustrated I pulled into a gas station…this was before GPS…and asked for directions. I was directed to continue on the road I was going as it would intersect with the road I needed to be on. Still frustrated I got back on the road and continued toward home, now in an area I was unfamiliar with.

The road I was on did eventually take me to the road I needed to be on. I hadn’t been on the right road for very long when traffic slowed to a standstill. As I inched along, stuck in traffic, my frustration grew. I was tired. I wanted to be at home. I wanted to sleep.

Slowly I made my way down the road until I came upon a very bad car accident. Traffic was being routed onto the shoulder where we had to squeeze past the accident.

All of a sudden my frustration disappeared. I was still tired. Still wanted to be at home. My day had still been long and it was early morning hours but…I understood what I hadn’t before. The accident I had been slowly inching my way around had most likely happened right about the time I would have been in that same area had I not missed my road change.

The missed road that had so frustrated me…the road I should not have missed…the road change I had made too many times to count in the past…quite likely kept us out of that accident.

It was then that I began to learn to take delays in my plans as being something that the Lord uses to keep us safe.

One weekend I had plans that I did not want to miss but family illness kept us home when I would have chosen something else. I don’t know the reasons but I can speculate that that may well have been the weekend we could have had a car accident or some other calamity. And illness may have been what kept us safe.

I don’t know that that is why we had the illness in our home that weekend, all I know is that there was a reason for it.

Just this past Thanksgiving we had plans to be with family, again an illness changed those plans. This time the illness wasn’t in our home but with the family we were going to spend the holiday with. But because of that illness our plans were changed.

I don’t know what the reasons were for the illness or the plans that needed to be changed. It doesn’t matter what the reasons were. All I need to know is that…

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9  ESV

I made plans but the Lord directed my steps. That is all I need to know about the reasons for the changes in my plans.

But I wasn’t always able to look at life like that. There was a time I would have been frustrated with those changed plans. Now I understand that the Lord is directing my life, He is working it out as He wants it to be and though I don’t always like the things He sends my way I know that He has a reason for it.

And because I understand that, I know that all of my afflictions come at the hand of my Lord.  I may not always be able to find happiness in the midst of trials. I may not rejoice at the troubles that come my way. I may not even be able to remember to give thanks for those things which cause me discomfort, misery, or pain, but I do know that those afflictions are given to me by my Lord and that in His great mercy those afflictions will be worked for my good. No matter how much I don’t like experiencing them.

So many times in life we want to cry out to be rescued from our afflictions…so many times we do that very thing. But for those that understand the Lord controls all…those afflictions take on a new meaning.

It is in that understanding that a believer gains strength amidst the afflictions and the sufferings they endure. The believer in Christ suffers in this earthly life, falters from time to time, but it is in their understanding of the Lord’s sovereign control of all that they are able to triumph through the many afflictions that come their way.
            Sooner or later, the child of Christ will remember that their beloved Lord controls all that that He is working all out for their good. They will remember that their affliction was planned by their Lord for a purpose that they can’t know but they can know that that affliction will be used for their good to the glory of their Lord.

That is a hard lesson to learn and takes growing much in Christ to understand and embrace.

It is much like the change in plans that kept my family home when we wanted to spend the holiday with family. It is also much like the missed road that quite possibly kept my family out of an accident.

We had plans that made perfect sense and shouldn’t have had any reason to need to be changed. But the Lord saw things differently and He changed those plans according to His will and plans. He took control of our earthly plans and changed them in keeping with His eternal plans.

We don’t always see the reasons for the change. Sometimes it may be to keep us from a car accident or any other experience that isn’t in the Lord’s plan. Or may be to put us somewhere we wouldn’t have been if our plans had succeeded. Even an illness is generally a change in our plans because few people ever plan to become sick.

And so, hard as it is, we should always try to embrace the changes in our lives because a change in our plans is the Lord directing our steps and keeping us within His eternal plans.

God hates you

I have a relative that once told me ‘God just wants to love us.’ I believe that I said nothing when this relative shared that bit of insight with me. I knew better than to say anything. Because I understood a very different God and He isn’t the all loving God that sits patiently by, overlooking all the sinful things that people do, just waiting to throw His arms wide and thank that sin filled person for coming back to Him the moment that person gets a mind to decide to.

There is a whole other side to God…one that is all too often overlooked by the majority of professing ‘Christians’ today. That is the wrath of God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  Romans 1:18

Where is the loving God in that verse? And how can the ‘Christians’ that believe God is only love fail to see the many, many verses that speak of His wrath?

It would even be fairly safe to say that the Gospel is incomplete without the wrath of God. And I know that that single statement very much goes against the commonly held belief that God is love but…if God is love, and only love, why, then, would Christ have needed to die on the cross to pay the payment for sin? If God were only love there would have been no need for any payment.

And so…the Gospel is the story of Christ and we could say that that story starts with the wrath of God. Christ was sent to the world for one purpose only…to save the elect. He came to save those that were chosen out of all time to belong to the Lord. He came to save His people.

And what did they need to be saved from?

Sin.

For the wages of sin is death… Romans 6:23

There it is straight from the Scriptures. The cost of sin is death. Why? Why would death be the outcome…the price we pay…for sin? If God were only love…wouldn’t He simply brush our sins aside and gently tell us not to sin again? Why would we need to pay for our sins with our very lives…and I say we in the sense of all mankind?

If God only wanted to love us…if He was only love…would there ever need to be any payment for sin? He would be an all loving God, and all forgiving God. He would…in no way need or require any sort of payment for our sins.

But…

There is another side to God. He is a holy God. A jealous God. A vengeful God. He is a God of wrath.

This God that supposedly only wants to love everyone…is the same God that destroyed all but eight people in the entire world because of their evil, wicked…sinful…ways. This is the God that destroyed entire cities. He is a God that took children. He is a God that demanded payment be made for the evil deeds of the people He claimed as His own.

And so…we might say that the Gospel began with the wrath of God. It was because of His wrath and the payment He demanded that Christ needed to die to cover those evil sins.

Growing up in ‘church’ I don’t think I ever heard about God’s wrath. I was taught that ‘Jesus loves you.’ That may, in fact, be the single underlying lesson to everything I ever learned in ‘church’. God’s wrath, like hell, seems to be a topic that most ‘churches’ avoid. It is a topic that makes people uncomfortable. It is a topic that makes people have to face their sins. It is a bitter pill to swallow and most preachers and teachers avoid administering the dose.

Those same preachers and teachers will tell a person how much God or Jesus loves them but they won’t tell them that He hates them.

Not all that long ago my husband teasingly told me that I could sit at the side of the road and hold up a sign telling everyone that passed by that Jesus loves them. I don’t remember what prompted my husband to say that but I do remember telling my husband that if I did that I would be lying to the people that read that sign and that I should instead hold up a sign that says God hates you.

And there is the difference in the messages being taught by the professing ‘Christian’ world and the message that should be taught. If preachers based all their messages off of ‘God hates you’ instead of ‘Jesus loves you’, what might they teach as they stand before their audiences?

But they don’t base their messages off of ‘God hates you’, instead they base them off ‘God loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ and so they teach and talk of love and happiness. They might give a sermon on forgiveness, using the oft cited Jesus forgave you message. But where in there do they teach that God hates sin and He hates the sinner?

The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Psalm 11:5ESV

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. Psalm 5:4-5 ESV

Just in case anyone wants to dispute those verses…anyone that sins (breaks God’s commandments) is wicked, they are evildoers. It would seem that all ‘Christians’ should know that but one would think that they should also know about the wrath of God too. But just as our modern day preachers and teachers shy away from teaching the wrath of God, if they even know about it, they also shy away from teaching their congregation that they are wicked evildoers.

I don’t suppose it would go over well if a preacher got up before his congregation, a group of people that have joined to hear how much their god loves them, and told them that they are wicked evildoers. I would guess that the majority of those in the congregation believe themselves to be good people. I have heard, more than once, the justification of someone being a good person based off the fact that they have never been to prison. Wrong justification. I’ve heard them say they are a good person because they’ve never harmed another person. Again…wrong justification. They’ve said they are a good person because they are kind to children and animals. Once again…wrong justification.

Most people would say they are a good person, no matter what they have or have not done in their life. People rarely see their own wickedness and even less rarely see the evil of their souls based off Scripture. I have met ‘Christians’ that do not believe in sin. I have met others that do not believe that people are inherently evil. And still more that do not know that Scripture says that all people are evil.

This is very much a by-product of our modern day ‘Christianity’, our have it your way ‘Christianity’. These professing ‘Christians’ are fed a weekly diet of watered down Scripture that has been changed and twisted to not offend anyone. It has resulted in a loss of the fear of God, loss of a hatred for sin, an acceptance of sin and sinners as they are without the need to show them their sins, and building after building filled with people that believe they are saved despite the fact that they live no differently than the unsaved world.

My husband has recently begun to refer to the professing ‘Christians’ as ‘the many’.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  Matthew 7:13-14

There are many that find the broad way. It’s easy to claim to be a ‘Christian’ but how many of those professing ‘Christians’ show any signs of true conversion? How many pass the test of 1 John? How many find the narrow gate?

My husband and I have discussed ‘the many’ numerous times. There is a popular television show that glorifies evil, people flock to it week after week. Professing ‘Christians’ watch it. I find myself often wondering how anyone that watches such can even begin to think that they are a ‘Christian’. And yet scores of professing ‘Christians’ watch this show every week. They profess to be a ‘Christian’ while using foul language, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and watching movies and shows that openly promote the things that God hates. How is that living differently than the world? How are they any different than those they would label as the unsaved?

And yet few, if any, preachers touch on this. They just go right on teaching the many that they are saved and that God loves them. That very thought process, and teaching, has led ‘the many’ into believing that their sins either aren’t sin at all or that their sins aren’t that bad. It’s led them to believe that God will simply overlook their sins and will forgive them, even if they don’t repent of those sins. God is often given the personality of a doting grandpa, patting a misbehaving child on the head and telling them it’s okay, or sitting idly by while the child misbehaves, waiting for them to come running back to collect the hundred dollars ‘grandpa’ is holding out before they run off to misbehave again.

Wrong!

That is the God of love. That is the God that loves everyone regardless of their sin. That is not the God of Scripture.

Sin separates us from God.

…but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2 ESV

  Sin was the reason Christ was crucified. God’s punishment for sin was the DEATH PENALTY. God’s sentence to all who sin is death. There is no loophole. There is no escaping the sentence. And there is no verdict of not guilty. Scripture tells us that we are born into sin.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… Romans 5:12 ESV

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners…Romans 5:19 ESV

The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. Psalm 58:3 ESV

Sin fills our hearts from birth, from before birth. It’s hard to see how a newborn baby can be wicked, hard to see how they can be considered a sinner, or to understand how they can sin when they can do little more than cry and eat, but Scripture says that they are born sinners and our human eyes can begin to see that sin manifest in only a few short months after they are born.

With every person ever born, except for Christ, being born into sin, there is no denying that we are all sinners.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23ESV

At least there should be no denying it. And there can be no denying it if we are basing our understanding and beliefs off of Scripture and not off our own human understanding. I’ll go ahead and admit here that the way I see newborn babies is in direct contrast to Scripture. My human eyes, mind, and heart cannot see, or understand, how sweet, innocent, newborns can possibly sin. I fully understand how they can grow a bit older and then sin but I do not understand how those tiny babies can sin….or be sinners. But Scripture says they are sinners, it says they are born into sin so whether than base my understanding on my own human emotions and thoughts I will base them on Scripture and know that newborns being sinners is only one of many things in Scripture that my human heart and mind cannot understand. I must then look to Scripture and set my own thoughts aside.

And so…as I turn my understanding not to my own thoughts and feelings but to Scripture, I must admit that Scripture is clear on teaching that everyone is born a sinner. Therefore, there is no escaping the death penalty. Death is demanded in payment for the sin that we are all born into. We are sinners at birth. We come into this world as sinners. We, therefore, are required to pay the penalty for our crimes, even long before we can comprehend that we have committed any kind of crime. We were found guilty of the crime of sin before we were born. That sentence was waiting for us as we came into the world. It’s as if a newborn baby, all red skin and wails, sweet and snuggly, makes its debut into the world and the moment it draws its first breath shackles are placed upon it’s ankles. The penalty was there, waiting for every one of us ever born. It was there, waiting for every one of us ever conceived.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5 ESV

We were sentenced long before there was ever any hope of us understanding the crime. We were sentenced long before we ever were. Adam committed the crime that placed a punishment on every person to come after Him. There is no escaping that punishment. We were born into the crime. We are all guilty of committing it. And we must pay the price for it. That price is the death penalty. God…our righteous, holy…LOVING…God…demands the payment of death from all sinners. There is no escaping that demand. There is no getting out of it. There is no hope of being let off the hook. Sin is the crime and death is the punishment.

And our all loving God is the judge that is demanding that punishment. No one escapes the punishment. Every person ever born must pay the price for the sin they inherited simply by being conceived. In a way…I guess we might say that sin is the price we pay for living. Because we are born into sin, tiny babies that no human mind can imagine ever being evil, yet hiding sin within our tiny hearts until the day that we are able to let it loose in our lives, and because we do have that sin within us, even long before it manifests itself to others, the sentence is pronounced. We lived, therefore, we must pay the price for the sin we held within us. And the price we must pay is death.

For the elect, though, there is an escape. God…lovingly…made a propitiation for their sins (1 John 4:10). He sent Christ to be a savior of His people. Christ came to earth to save the elect from the sentence of death that was demanded from them because they were born sinners. Someone had to pay the price for their sins. Someone had to die because the sentence had already been demanded. That sentence is demanded of all people. There is no escaping that someone must die to atone for the sins that drew the wrath of God…the same God that people today claim is a God of love. That God of love demanded…in His wrath…that everyone that commits sin must die. And because He demanded that there had to be someone to die for each sinner. It is a payment that each individual person must make for themselves.

Only…

God…the all loving…all vengeful…full of wrath…God that demanded death in payment for sin, out of His love for the elect, for the born again, regenerated, SAVED, Christians, sent Christ to pay the price for those sinners. Christ came to earth to be a savior for the elect, to save them from the payment that they must pay. Christ took the sins of the elect on Himself. He paid the price for the sins that we should have paid. He stood in our place and experienced the wrath of God in our place. Christ paid that penalty for those that are His but the penalty still remains for those that are not His.

God is not simply love.

There are many verses in Scripture about God’s wrath.

the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.  Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:35-36

Put to death what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which are idolatry. On the account of these God's wrath is coming." Colossians 3:5-6

Those are just two examples of God’s wrath, neither of which is in the Old Testament. I’ve heard many say that the God of the Old Testament was an angry, wrathful God but that the God of the New Testament is love. Not so. All we need do is look to the New Testament to see that The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are one and the same God, and that He pours His wrath onto the unbelievers. We all live under God’s wrath unless He chooses to pour His mercy onto us and save us from our sins and from His wrath.

So many times I have heard that ‘God hates sin but loves the sinner’. Really? Can you show me that in Scripture? If God loves the sinner despite his sin then why were sinners destroyed in the flood? If God loves the sinner but hates the sin than why were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed along with the towns? Why weren’t the people in those cities, as well as those in the flood, not saved out of that destruction and had their sins forgiven? It is sinners that God sends to hell not their sins. It’s entirely possible that God could wipe the sins from a person and cast those sins into hell but that is not what He does, instead He sends the sinner to hell.

But that message is rarely, if ever, taught by teachers and preachers in today’s ‘church’ buildings. How can a person possibly understand the Gospel if they don’t understand God’s wrath? Why do we need to be saved if God already loves us? Why would Christ need to die for our sins if our sins are so easily overlooked that God can love us even while we sin?

From a simply human perspective I find it hard to believe that anyone ‘saving souls’ would avoid God’s wrath, that they would avoid telling people that they are sinners destined for hell unless they ‘get saved’. Wouldn’t you ‘catch’ more converts by telling them that their sins…their lying, love of money, love of things, love of sexual sin, love of sin in general….are going to doom them to hell unless they say a five minute magical spell, labeled as prayer, and save their soul from hell? It seems to me that more people would want to avoid God’s wrath by saying that prayer than those that would want to say it to assure themselves the love of God, which they believe they already have, to attain forgiveness that logic says they would have either way, since God loves them so much, and to attain a peace that surely they must already experience considering there is no wrath upon them for their sins.

That’s kind of like trying to lure a child out of an all you can eat ice cream parlor by waving a popsicle at them. Why would the kid want to give up the huge selection of ice cream for a single popsicle?

If, on the other hand, the person dispensing ice cream was yelling angrily, their face dark red, and coating every scoop of ice cream in fire ants and poisonous spiders that child just might think that popsicle looked mighty appealing.

But maybe that’s just me. I remember reading once that every six year old child wants to be ‘saved’ when they are told that they will go to hell if they aren’t ‘saved’. What six year old wants to go to hell? They’ve experienced very little of life and in their young and impressionable minds being burned up by fire sounds like about the worst thing they’ve heard. Sure they want to go to heaven where they get to sit on clouds and walk streets of gold, where there is no hunger, no thirst, no pain. Sure does sound like an easy choice to me, especially if you take into consideration that that same child has probably been told that Mommy and Daddy (or Grandma and Grandpa) will be in heaven. And for sure Fido and sweet kitty are in heaven. Doesn’t sound like a hard decision to make. Heaven it is.

That six year old child has no idea of what they’re really doing. They don’t begin to understand the Lord and His ways. And they certainly haven’t been saved by the Lord. They are simply repeating the magic spell…er, prayer…that will give them a false sense of security for the rest of their earthly lives. After all…they said ‘the prayer’.

And there is your candy coated version of the gospel, the version that starts with ‘God loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ and ends with the saying of a very short magic spell…er, prayer…and BOOM! Salvation attained.

And just in case you missed your chance to say your magic spell…er, prayer…at the age of six, the offer still stands. You never grow too old to say your magic spell…er, prayer. If you’re lying on your death bed having lived a life of sin, so far gone that you can no longer count the number of people that you’ve killed and abused…no problem. Simply say the magic spell…er, prayer…and BOOM! Instant salvation. You can even say it with your very final breath and be assured that you will awake in heaven.

It’s like holding a life insurance policy.

And it all started with love. God’s love for you. Christ’s love for you. But why did we even need a Gospel. Do you know that Gospel means ‘good news’? How can it be good news when God already loves all sinners? How can it be good news when their sins are smiled at and forgiven without the sinner ever needing to stop what they are doing or repent? How can it be good news if Christ paid the price for sins where there was no payment demanded?

But wait. I grew up in ‘church’. I know this story well. The God of the Old Testament was filled with wrath. He demanded a payment for sin but that payment was paid by Christ on the cross and now all sinners are covered because…

God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son so whoesoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 KJV

And that changed everything…which it did…because Christ paid the price for sin…which He did…and now God simply loves us…He does not…and all we have to do is ‘ask Him into our hearts’ so that we can be ‘saved’…not attainable unless the Lord grants us salvation.

Why did the world need a savior? If God loved the whole world…why does it need to be saved? Who or what was He saving it from? If God loves the sinners…why do they need to be saved? Who or what are they being saved from?

If the gospel begins and ends with love where is the need for a savior? Where is the need for salvation? Why would a God that loves us so much send us to hell? If He loves even the most heinous sinner than why would that sinner need to be saved? What danger does their sin pose to them or the love that God has for them?

If, on the other hand, the gospel doesn’t begin with love but with wrath…we have a whole different story. All the way back to just after creation, when Adam and Eve sinned the very first time, God displayed His wrath against sin. He punished the sinner with spiritual death and cast them out of the Garden of Eden, causing them to struggle in their earthly life. From there…God just kept on pouring His wrath not onto sin but onto sinners. And it wasn’t just any wrath but a righteous, holy, wrath that cannot stand to look upon sin. It is from that wrath, from the sin that draws that wrath upon us, that we must be saved.

And there is where we find ourselves in the position of needing, of wanting, of embracing, the good news of the Gospel. Because God isn’t love but wrath. Yes, I know that God is love too but we must first understand that God is wrath or what is the need for good news? Can we have good news unless we first have bad news?

Recently our dryer went out. I gave my husband that bad news by phone when he called me one morning. I wasn’t even sure yet that our dryer had gone out. All I knew was that it wasn’t working correctly. The good news came when we had a replacement dryer. If I had called my husband on the phone and told him, ‘good news, honey, our new dryer is here and it works good’, while our old dryer was still working perfectly fine, I don’t imagine that would have been good news. It might have been confusing news. He might have asked me how it was good news when our old dryer worked fine, but I doubt it would have been good news.

For something to be good news we must first have the bad news. We must be in a situation where we believe and understand that there is something better than what is happening now. The people in Scripture understood that, at least some of them did. When the good news was declared they were in need of a savior, they had been putting their faith in a savior that was to come…a deliverer. Mosses was the deliverer of the Israelites because he delivered them from the bondage of slavery. When Christ came He was the good news because He was the deliverer of the people. He was the savior they anticipated. He was there to save them from the bondage of sin and the wrath of God that sin brought upon them.

Our modern world barely understands the concept of sin. Lying is no longer considered a sin, after all everyone lies. Coveting isn’t sin, in fact most people don’t even know what covetousness is. Adultery isn’t considered sin. Stealing isn’t sin. In fact, I’m not sure anything is considered sin in our modern world or at least in our modern American culture.

How then can a savior be good news when we live in a world that we don’t feel as if we need to be saved from? To be saved we must first be in a situation where we need to be saved. Shipwreck survivors only need to be saved if the ship actually wrecks. Lost hikers only need to be saved if they are truly lost. And sinners only need to be saved if they are indeed sinners.

But where there is no perceived sin…can there be any understanding of being a sinner?

And where there is no wrath…

I don’t even know how to finish that. Because where there is no wrath from God…there is no God. The God of Scripture is wrath, just as much, if not more, than he is love. We see His love in Scripture but we also see His wrath. His love is reserved for the regenerated, born again, believers that He has saved from His own wrath by giving them mercy and granting them salvation. And so…everyone lives under God’s wrath at some point in their lives but only those that God chooses to save ever live under His love.

He does not love everyone as ‘the many’ professing ‘Christians’ would have us to believe. He loves a select few that find the narrow gate, the few that He has chosen to draw to himself (John 6:44) and pour His mercy onto by giving them salvation.

But you won’t hear that in one of the many ‘church’ buildings filling America today. You won’t hear that from the mouths of preachers standing before the congregations, caring for their ‘flocks’ seeing to the needs of their souls.

You won’t hear it because to hear it you must first be told that God is wrath and He does not love you unless He has drawn you to Him and granted you salvation, thereby washing you clean of your sins, and removing the sin that separates you from Him. Then and only then can you be told that God loves you.

Because God does not love the sinner. Instead of pouring his love onto the unrepentant sinner God pours his wrath onto them.

But somewhere in our modern American version of ‘Christianity’ God’s wrath has gotten lost. There is no wrath, only love. And yet…how can anyone understand the love that saves the born again…the regenerated…when they do not understand what those that are granted salvation are being saved from? If hell is not taught, how can they understand heaven? If the wrath of God is not taught, how can they understand the salvation that is given? And if the payment for sin…death, an eternity in hell…is not taught, how can they understand the great gift of salvation, an eternity in heaven?

And yet it goes deeper than even that. How can one understand God’s grace if they do not understand His law? That’s like expecting a child to understand escaping punishment when they never understood that there was a rule that they broke. Only…that is much too small of a comparison. Maybe it would be better said to ask how someone facing execution for a crime could understand the enormity of being given their freedom, with no punishment, when they never realized they had committed a crime or that they were on trial. If God’s law…and the sins that are committed by breaking that law…is not understood then how can a person understand the grace that is granted to the one that breaks the law?

And if they do not understand the nature of God, that He is wrath to the sinner, wrath to the one that breaks His laws, then how can they understand the huge import of the grace that is poured out on the sinner when they are given salvation by God? A holy God that is so far removed from the sinner that they can’t even be compared. In our world people as a whole tend to see God as something they can touch and almost command to do their bidding. They often demand things from Him expecting to get everything they want, exactly when they want it.

 When people see God in such a way can they ever begin to grasp the magnitude of His grace and forgiveness? I grew up with the belief that I gained salvation at the age of six. I can’t remember what prompted me to say the magic ‘prayer’ but I can remember my own feelings at having done so. I was proud of myself. Somehow I had done the right thing. Everyone was so happy with me and I was puffed up with that and my own decision to do what I was told was the right thing. I said the prayer for reasons that I can’t remember now but I am absolutely certain that whatever those reasons were they had little to do with the Lord and everything to do with myself and those around me. I certainly didn’t say ‘the prayer’ because I understood that the Lord’s wrath was on me. I didn’t say it because I understood that the Lord was giving me salvation from His wrath.

Not that that prayer actually gained me salvation but at the time I thought it ‘saved’ me. But I have no doubt that I did not understand what it was I was supposedly being saved from. How could I? I highly doubt I had ever been told much more than the most basic levels of the Gospel. I’m sure I understood, in the abstract way that six year olds can, that Jesus died on the cross for me and that by saying ‘the prayer’ I was saving myself from hell and gaining a spot in heaven.

For a six year old I don’t suppose that was too bad of an understanding, except for the fact that the prayer I was taught was a lie and so was the belief that I could save myself from anything. Beyond those things though, understanding that Christ died for us and that salvation…eternity in heaven…is given through his death. I suppose is a pretty good beginning for a six year old to understand.

Only thing is, so many of the professing ‘Christians’ of today never advance beyond that understanding. For a six year old it’s a pretty good beginning, if you could but erase the lies that I was taught, but for someone that claims to have been a ‘Christian’ for months or, worse, for years, should have advanced well beyond that point.

God is not love. Christ is not love. Jesus is not love. Yes, they are love but they are not only love and we do not receive their love without also first having lived under God’s wrath.

But where are most people to learn that?

In our modern society, the visible ‘church’ is what people understand to be ‘Christians’. If they go looking for answers about the Lord, more often than not they are going to walk into some ‘church’ building and get those answers from the preacher and leaders of that ‘church’. They will take what the preacher says to be true. They will gain their understanding of Scripture from the teachers within that ‘church’.

With that ‘church’ indoctrination fully planted in their minds when…if…they study Scripture on their own, they will approach it with the understanding that they gained while being taught in the ‘church’ building.

A while back I did something of a Bible study with someone I know, although I’m not sure Bible study would be the proper word for what we did. It might be more of an iron sharpens iron sort of thing. I believed one thing, this person believed another. We were both firmly planted in what we believe. Through that conversation we never did come to an agreement on our beliefs. We both came out of that conversation clinging just as firmly to what we believe as when we went into it. But I gained something invaluable from that discussion. I learned that when a person approaches Scripture with a belief in mind, it is possible to gain from Scripture everything one needs to know to support that belief. At least it was on the topic I was discussing with this person.

I had never thought about it before that conversation but during the course of that discussion I clearly saw, and understood, that the other person had studied, at length, the Scriptures while looking for stories and verses that supported a certain belief. Or at least they studied them while looking for examples of certain things, things that supported what they believed. In doing so this person read things into Scripture that simply wasn’t there.

But just to make for certain I wasn’t doing exactly the same thing, I read and re-read the passages of Scripture we were discussing. I read it simply for what was written in the text. I read it with others. I discussed it with others. I asked others to read it and tell me what they got out of it. I asked non-believers to read it and tell me, from their perspective of holding nothing of any more importance that just any other book, what they gained from those passages. And guess what…Scripture was simply what was written on the page. I wasn’t missing something that the other person was getting out of it.

From that I learned that people can approach Scripture with a certain idea in their heads and read Scripture but gain way more from it than what is actually there, and in the process gain way less than what is there.

And so if a person, indoctrinated to a certain belief, approaches Scripture with that belief in their minds and hearts, they will get from Scripture things that support those beliefs.

What I’m trying to get at here is that if a person is taught to believe that God is love, that Jesus is love, then if they try to read Scripture on their own, they won’t get from Scripture what is written within its text but will, instead, get from it the same things they have been taught to see in it. In other words…they can read the Bible cover to cover and still walk away with the complete belief that God holds no wrath toward man, that He simply loves them.

They cannot see the truth in Scripture because they are blinded to that truth. The Lord has blinded them to it through the teachings of those that have instructed them in the things of Scripture.

Did those teachers, those instructors, those preachers, teach that God is love because they believe that and nothing else or did they teach it for other, less noble, less understandable, reasons? I do not know the answer to that question. Years ago I had a doctor tell me that doctor’s often know things about their patients that they don’t tell their patients. I understood that at the time but I also understood how fundamentally wrong that is.

I can fully understand a doctor keeping something from a patient that might worry or upset the patient but I also believe that the patient has every right to know everything the doctor knows about them. If that information worries or upsets them then it is their health to worry or be upset over.

I can understand a preacher or teacher trying to gauge whether or not a person is ready to learn more of the truths of Scripture. I’m not even close to being a teacher or preacher of Scripture and yet I have found myself weighing my words when talking to others about Scripture. There have been times when I have told someone, even professing ‘Christians’, less about certain parts of Scripture than I knew. I deliberately held back information, understanding, even held back certain parts of Scripture, because I knew they were not ready for those deeper things.

But I don’t believe that is what most preachers are doing, and even if they were, God’s wrath against sinners isn’t a deeper truth. It is a very basic truth. It should be at the root of everything being taught about Christ and salvation. Scripture tells us that the Gospel is basic. Repent and believe in Christ. That is the Gospel. It doesn’t get much more basic than that. But…what are we to repent of? Why do we need to repent? God is holy. He is just. He has laws. Man (all of mankind) is born into sin and has evil in their hearts. We break God’s laws before we can even begin to understand them. Then we break them because we see no evil in doing it. And in the breaking of those laws, every single time we broke them no matter our age at the time, we gained…and deserved…God’s wrath. We must therefore repent of the sins we committed by breaking those laws. And there is the reason we must repent.

How can the Gospel be given without also teaching of God’s wrath? How can people understand the savior without understanding why they need a savior? And so, I can’t see that God’s wrath is anything but the basics of the Gospel. Repent and believe. Repenting, though, requires an understanding of what one must repent of.

I watched a video online not all that long ago where two men questioned atheists on their beliefs. These men pointed out that an atheist can be gotten to by simply taking them back to the law. Ask them if they have lied. Ask them if they have ever stolen anything. Ask them if they have ever looked at someone with lust. The Ten Commandments, these men claimed, are the place to gain ground with an atheist. I have no idea if that’s true or not, I’ve never tried it, but what I do know is that someone must first understand what the law is, they must understand the laws, to understand that they have, indeed, broken those laws. Then and only then can they be shown that they are living outside the law and possibly be shown that they deserve punishment, in the form of God’s wrath, for what they have done.

What is salvation when you are being saved from…nothing?

But back to preachers and teachers. Do they preach and teach that God is love, that Jesus is love, and not teach that God is wrath, because they don’t understand that themselves? Or do they teach it because it is a difficult topic? Because it will make people squirm in their seats? Because it will shake the foundation of the security the professing ‘Christians’ have in their salvation…a salvation built on God’s love for them and not on their total depravity before a holy God? Do they teach that God is love because it would send people running from their padded pews and out of their air conditioned buildings? Do they teach that God is love because they believe it or because it will remove people from their congregations and with every person that walks out their door they lose money in their, often well-padded, pockets?

Do they teach that God is love because they truly do not understand themselves that God is a God of wrath, a God of fury, or do they teach that God is a God of love despite the fact that they understand Him to be a God of wrath, because a God of wrath does not pull in the people, He does not pack the pews on Sunday morning, He does not fill the offering plate, and He does not fill their own pockets?

But God is love, some might say. Yes, He is. He is a God of great love. A God of perfect love, a God of such profound love that he gives mercy where no mercy is deserved, he grants grace to those that do not deserve it, He gives salvation to those that could never earn it on their own. God’s love is so great as to be the most perfect love there is but His hate is equally great. He loves but He also hates. He gives grace but he also pours out His wrath. He gives salvation but He also demands punishment for those that break His laws.

God is love but He is also wrath. God is wrath but He is also love. It’s balanced. It is all a part of God. You cannot separate the two. You can’t simply pick and choose what He is to make Him into what you want Him to be. God is love. But He is also wrath.

Scripture tells us…Jacob I loved but Esau I hated (Romans 9:13). In that single sentence we get both sides of God. Jacob I loved. Esau I hated. Love. Hate. God held both love and hate at the same time. To one brother He gave love. To the other…hate. One got love. One got wrath. There wasn’t a God of love that loved Jacob and Esau. There was but one God, the same God that loved one brother and hated the other.

Scripture also tells us…

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity. Hebrews 1:9

And there we see in Scripture, once again, both love and hate from the same God. It is a balance. There is a flip side, you might say. There is love and there is hate. There is no having one without the other. God is love. God is hate. To separate the two would be like trying to have only one side of a quarter. You can’t have the front of the quarter without having the back side. You also can’t have God’s love without having His wrath.

Today’s preachers and teachers either miss that or they deliberately overlook it. What a horrible thing they do if they knowingly choose to overlook that God is wrath. What atrocity are they committing if they teach that God is love and ignore the knowledge that God is wrath when they teach those before them?

The New Testament teaches us, Paul teaches us, what qualifications a leader should have. Anyone that does not fully understand Scripture fails the test in Scripture for a leader (or what is now called a preacher). Whether or not a preacher or teacher understands the wrath of God…if they don’t teach it…by Scriptures standards they cannot be a leader.

I’m not sure there is even a word to describe what takes place when a person that fails the test of Scripture, teaches Scripture anyway. Only…they aren’t truly teaching Scripture. They’re teaching some watered down version of Scripture that is, more often than not, designed not to offend anyone.

I read something recently about why and how margarine was invented. I don’t remember the details but I do recall that it said chemically, margarine is only one…molecule, I believe it said…off from plastic. Not only that but margarine is white in color and must be dyed yellow to have any semblance to butter. Margarine is an impostor. It is an imitation that must be changed or enhanced to come close to resembling the real thing. Years ago I had a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. It made the best chocolate chip cookies I had ever tasted, or at least it made the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I ever had. That recipe called for a certain type of margarine. A margarine that was made to look like sticks of butter. I don’t know what the difference was in that margarine and regular margarine but it sure made some very good cookies.

I’m not getting into the health issues involved in margarine or butter. I’m not promoting either one here. I’m simply pointing out that in the world of butter, margarine is an imposter. And to compete with butter, margarine must be changed, adulterated from its original form to resemble butter. But even in its changed form margarine is still not butter. It will never be butter. Butter is the real thing. Margarine is the imposter.

Margarine may make some very good cookies, those cookies might taste, smell, and feel like cookies made with butter, they may even have an outward appearance or taste that exceeds that of a cookie made with butter, but inside, if that cookie were tested, it would show that margarine is what is in the cookie and not butter.

Margarine may look and act like butter but it will never be butter. It can never be butter. And if put to a test that distinguished real butter from any other stand-ins, margarine would never show to be the real thing.

And that is what we have when anyone is given a gospel of God is love but never given the gospel that He is also wrath. When both are put together we have the real gospel. The gospel of Scripture. But when they are separated, when God is picked apart, when Scripture is changed or altered to create what the teacher or preacher wants it to be…it is adulterated. The listener, or student, then gets an adulterated imposter for the real thing. They get margarine and not butter. It may look, act, and even smell like the real Scriptures but it is nothing but an imposter that is misleading those that don’t realize the difference.

And most people don’t realize there is a difference. Today’s ‘Christianity’ is so far removed from Scripture that it is a ‘Christianity’ based on human emotion and not on Christ. It is a ‘Christianity’ that starts with man and invites Jesus in so long as Jesus loves them and accepts them as they are, more or less. Some do tolerate Jesus requiring them to change a bit. But still…this ‘Christianity’ is so watered down and adulterated that we have margarine instead of butter. There is an imposter being sold to the masses that gives them the illusion that God is simply love. This imposter completely ignores that God is wrath. This imposter shouts that it is butter from the rooftops while being margarine.

In the world of food, unless one is concerned with the health consequences of butter verses margarine, or is allergic to one or the other, then it doesn’t much matter if butter or margarine is used. If you put butter into chocolate chip cookie batter you get…chocolate chip cookies. If you put margarine into chocolate chip cookie batter you get…chocolate chip cookies. Same thing if you use butter for grilled cheeses sandwiches. With butter you get grilled cheese. If you use margarine instead of butter you get…grilled cheese.

But what is a simple substitution in food, becomes an eternal consequence in Scripture. If Scripture is butter, and butter gets us eternal salvation, then margarine gets us…eternal damnation. That’s a huge difference.

I recently held in my hands a book that is being sold and labeled as a Bible. This book is an interpretation of the Scriptures and not a very good one. Scripture is so changed in some of the verses in that book as to be not recognizable as Scripture in any form. That book removes from its passages certain warnings against sin and instead justifies the same sin that Scripture calls an abomination.

That book is like margarine. It’s is an imposter that lies on its very cover and continues to lie throughout its pages. Only unlike margarine, that book, and the man that wrote it, is playing with the words of the Lord and with the eternity of people’s souls. Which is the exact same thing that preachers and teachers are doing when they twist Scripture in any way. And to leave out the wrath of God as they teach that ‘God is love’ is to do exactly that. There is no love in God that isn’t balance with a hate in God.

Supposedly old time hymns, dating back to the 1800’s, were filled with the wrath of God. I haven’t personally seen a hymn book from that time so I can’t verify that. I’ve heard that hymns from that era were filled with God’s wrath, His anger, judgement, and even His vengeance. I can’t personally account for that but it makes sense to me. I do know that sermons of that time were often referred to as ‘fire and brimestone’ sermons. There was supposedly much about hell and sinners in the sermons of that time so it makes sense to me that their hymns would have been filled with the same thing.

A few months back I read a review on a Bible. In the back of that Bible it had the Psalms for singing. Until I read that Bible review I had no idea that there was such a thing as Psalms for singing. Apparently ‘churches’ used to sing the Psalms. I find that very interesting and as I read that Bible review I found myself wishing I could look at that version of the Psalms. I’m not musically inclined so hymn books do me no good unless I already know the hymn, but I did wonder what the Psalms written for singing would look like.

As I write this now I find myself thinking of those Psalms for singing. Many of the Psalms are about God destroying the wicked. Can you see ‘churches’ today singing about God destroying anyone? I can’t. To sing about Him destroying the wicked, His wrath would have to be acknowledged, His hate would have to be admitted to.

And modern day ‘Christians’ do not want to hear about or admit that God hates anything. They happily, eagerly even, accept and embrace His love but they don’t want to hear about His hate.

Several months back I watched a movie about a young woman that was raped. I wrote about that in a post I titled ‘How far can forgiveness go’. The woman in that movie forgave her attacker to the point that she took their infant son to meet him and then continued to take their son to see him. In the process of all of that she and the man that attacked her formed a friendship. It sounds unlikely. It goes against everything our society teaches us. Today, our world, would tell that woman that she has every right to hate that man and that she should NEVER tell him about their son.

In fact many ‘Christians’ would tell that woman the very same thing. Oh, they might say that she should forgive him but they would also be the first ones to question why she would ever consider telling him they had a son.

That was a fictional movie. The storyline was made up and the forgiveness offered to the attacker was nothing more than the figment of someone’s imagination. But the reaction that most people would have if that situation were to happen in life is very much real. I remember years back when there was a shooting in an Amish school, the victims’ families forgave the shooter. What stands out in my mind about that isn’t the forgiveness but the response of the American people to that forgiveness. It was a foreign concept to most people. They couldn’t believe that those parents could, or would, forgive the shooter.

That is very much the American mindset today. If someone wrongs you, hold onto the blame. It seems that people, even professing ‘Christians’, are allowed to be bitter, angry, and to hold onto their wrath and their grudges, but those same professing ‘Christians’ do not want to hear about the wrath of God. Why is it that people can hold wrath for wrongs and perceived wrongs but it’s wrong for God, the God that created the entire universe, to hold any wrath at all?

They want the love of God but they do not want the hate. They want the smiles God shows them but they do not want His anger. They will take the blessings but they don’t want to take the punishment. Just as they want the status of being a ‘Christian’, the salvation they think they have by being ‘saved’ but they do not want the commandments that mark the life of a Christian.

And because they only want the love of God, they never understand that he is also a God of hate. This all-encompassing love they believe He holds for them pales so far in comparison to His real love that they will never know or understand just how great that real love is.  They’ll never understand, that is, unless the Lord saves them, unless He draws them to Him and gives them true salvation. Then and only then will they begin to understand just how great that love they’ve claimed for so long is. Because unless they understand how great his hate is, how strong his wrath is, then they can never understand just how huge His love is.

Reading through Scripture we can see that they understood God’s wrath, they knew he held deep hate, they saw and gave credit for his vengeance.

… Thou, even thou, art to be feared:  and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?  Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment. Psalm 76:6

Who can stand in thy (God’s) sight when He is angry? What a deep question. How much does that say for the anger of God? He gets so angry that no one can stand in his sight yet today professing ‘Christians’ wave away their sins, claiming that God loves them. They may, or may not, admit that God hates their sin but they believe that they are living in God’s love. Just that single sentence out of the many, many sentences in Scripture tell us that no one can stand in sight of God’s anger.

This, though, would not be believed by the majority of people packing the ‘church’ buildings on Sundays. It wouldn’t be believed by ‘the many’ that profess to be a ‘Christian’. God is love. God loves them. He looks on them like a doting parent or grandparent, all smiles and happiness no matter what they do.

There is a very popular thing today. Parents (and grandparents) flood social media with pictures of their children. These children have everything they do captured by camera and quickly uploaded to social media. These children are referred to as princes and princesses. We get to see everything from their first moments on earth to them learning to use the toilet. Their little faces are plastered on the internet smeared with cake and spaghetti. We see their first bite of food, their first foray into the world of sugar, their first step, their first potty chair, and their first skinned knee. There is nothing sacred, nothing held back. And what these parents don’t capture with a camera, they capture in words. Somehow we managed to miss getting a picture of the little prince sleeping for a solid four hours so it’s written into social media minus the accompanying picture. Opps…Mommy and Daddy didn’t have the camera ready when little Princess made her first spit bubble…words will tell the world that she accomplished it. And to fill in the gaps we get videos of their first time in the swimming pool, them riding in their new stroller, and opening their birthday presents.

These babies are like little play things whose parents are so far beyond proud of them that there is nothing outside of what little prince or princess is doing next. I’ve often wondered if the parents ever stop to realize that everyone connected to their social media does not want to see every little thing their child does. And even more than that I’ve wondered if they ever to stop to think about how little Johnny and Susie may not want every single private detail of their life shared on the internet for all to see. These kids get more ‘media’ attention than most famous kids do. And all because their doting parents think they are the greatest think since air was created and that everyone else should think so too.

I won’t go any further into what I think about that and, lest anyone should ask, yes, I love my children. I always have. I always will. But no, I don’t believe everyone else should be totally fascinated with them, I don’t believe that every single thing they do is just oh so amazing and I firmly believe that children should not have their lives plastered before the world, be that in television or in social media.

But here’s the thing…people today kind of see God like those doting parents. There He is, all His love for us plastered on His face, His camera at the ready, smiling and snapping pictures as we throw a tantrum on the living room floor, laughing as we enjoy that television program filled with filth that defies every one of the Ten Commandments, chuckling in understanding as we use His name in vain, He snaps another picture as we buy yet another video game, adding to the hundreds already owned, while complaining about not having enough of something.

This is the image that people seem to have in mind of God. He is so enamored with every last human being that He just ‘loves them to pieces’ as the saying goes. He wants so much to love on us, to pull us into a big bear hug and just love us. I can easily picture the God of love standing up in heaven somewhere grinning and snapping pictures of every person while quickly uploading them to some heavenly social media while writing captions about how wonderful that person is. I can picture it but I know that it is no more real than the God of love the world wants to believe in.

But in a way I can understand people wanting to believe in that God. What child wouldn’t rather stand before a parent that laughs at their misbehavior and snaps picture after picture of it, essentially encouraging them to keep misbehaving, than to stand in front of a stern faced parent, knowing full well that what they did was wrong and they are in trouble?

And what sinner wouldn’t rather stand before the God of love while he smiles indulgently and snaps pictures of them in their sin rather than stand before a God that is so filled with hate and wrath that He pours it upon them? A God like this one…

He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.  He made a way to His anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham. Psalm 78:49 

That God is not filled with love. That God did not stand back, smiling indulgently, laughing at the sins of people. That God was angry.  That God was so angry who could stand before Him? That God poured such wrath onto those people that it would make anyone shake in their shoes and run to try and escape that anger. Who wouldn’t want to run as far from that punishment as they could get.

And who wouldn’t rather imagine a God of love than a God like that?

 But Scripture gives us and even more troubling view of that wrath. Isaiah 9:19 says…

Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire.

And the people shall be as the fuel of the fire. Have you ever fed a fire, kept one going? Do you know what happens to wood, the fuel of the fire, when you feed it into the flames? It is consumed by the flames, slowly, fiercely. In the above verse we see that it is through the wrath of the Lord that the people will be as the fuel of the fire.

Ummm….

Where is there a God of love in that verse? Do you throw those that you love into the fire to use them as fuel? And who would you rather imagine you’re standing before…a God that love you and smiles indulgently while you defy His every word…or a God so filled with anger that he uses you as the fuel to keep the fire going? It’s not hard to see why people prefer their imaginary ‘God of love’ over the real God of Scripture. Trouble is…that God of love does not exist. He is a figment of their imagination.

‘The fear of God’ used to be a fairly popular saying, or so I understand. How many people today truly fear God? How many people see Him as anything to be feared? Who fears the parent laughs at the child while they throw a fit in the middle of the store because they want a cookie or a toy? What child fears the parent who tells them to do that again so they can capture a picture of it…even though what the child just did was in direct defiance of what the parent had just told them to do? People today, as a whole, have no fear of God.

Do you suppose Noah, his wife, his sons or his sons wives, feared God after the flood. Yes, they were the chosen people. They were the ones that God saved out of all the world. But they were also the only witnesses of His great wrath. Do you suppose they were careful to try and follow God’s rules once they came off that ark? Do you suppose they simply laughed and said that God was a God of love and went right ahead doing exactly what they wanted to do without giving a thought to God and His wrath? Do you suppose they would have said that God just wants to love people?

What about Lot? Do you suppose He thought God was only love? He was there when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. His wife was destroyed for disobeying God. He was there. Do you suppose He ever believed that God was just love? Did He ever doubt the wrath of God?

Those are just a handful of people that witnessed God’s wrath. And those are just a few verses that speak of His wrath. We don’t need to see His wrath to know it’s there. I would almost be interested in doing a study on God’s wrath. To look up exactly where and how God’s wrath was poured out on man. One of these days I might just do that.

I can’t help wondering if that isn’t what those fire and brimstone sermons were filled with. Could a person escape the understanding that God is wrath if they sat through sermon after sermon hearing about how God’s wrath is poured out upon the earth? Can they miss His wrath if they do an indepth study on God’s anger and He unleashed a world wide flood’s worth of water? Could they miss His hate when they imagine the people, men, women, children, BABIES, that died in that flood. God did not love those people or He would have plucked them out of that water and saved them.

Today we don’t hear of studies on God’s wrath, we aren’t told that He hates sinners, we don’t hear sermons on how angry God is. Instead we are told how much he loves us and just wants us to come to Him. Again…that puts me in the mind of a toddler who angrily screams at their parent than takes off running in the opposite direction. Does the parent stand by and wait for the child to come running back to them? In this God is love version, I suppose the parent laughs at the ‘cute’ antics of the child, grabs their phone to get a video of the screaming, arm waving, stomping toddler now running down the driveway and into the path of an oncoming car.

That, after all, must be what the God of love does when people break His commandments and live in defiance of Him.

But that isn’t the image I have in mind of God. I simply can’t see the God that sent the flood, calling the hearts of all men wicked, the God that destroyed sin-filled cities, the God that sent plagues on the Egyptians, the God that even unleashed His anger on the Israelites, the very people He saved…I can’t see THAT God smiling idly while people live in sin, flaunting the very things that He hates.

But that’s the God of the Old Testament.

Yes, I’ve heard that many times. I guess I grew up hearing that. The common belief there is that the God of the Old Testament isn’t the God of the New Testament, nor is He the God of today. What? Did we get a new God?  I can’t recall ever seeing that in Scripture. Maybe because it isn’t there. God doesn’t change.  The God of today is the God of the New Testament, He is the God of the Old Testament.

Many New Testament books speak of God’s wrath. Romans comes to mind, so does the book of John, chapter 3...

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.

The wrath of God aides on those that do not believe in Christ. This isn’t a passing belief in Christ, but a saving belief. This is salvation, true salvation given by the Lord. Ephesians 5 (verse 6) speaks of the wrath of God coming in the sons of disobedience.

All those verse are in the new testament. Those are not the God of the Old Testament but the God of the New Testament. And if that isn’t enough, how about this one…

…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸ in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8esv

There’s the ‘Jesus loves you’ of Scripture. Does that sound much like, ‘Jesus loves you’? God isn’t just a God of love, Jesus isn’t a Jesus of love. Before we can get to the love of the Lord we must first get through His wrath. And He is most definitely a God of wrath. I can’t see how anyone that truly studied the Scriptures as they are written, without reading what they want to into them, could ever say that God is not filled with wrath.

I think again of the conversation with my husband when he teasingly told me I could sit by the road holding a sign that says ‘Jesus loves you.’ And I think of the sign I offered to hold instead…God hates you.

What good does it do to tell people that Jesus loves them when that is about as far from the truth as we can get? We do them no good to walk up to them, knowing that they are living a life of sin, and say to them, ‘Jesus loves you.’ Well…if Jesus loves them where can you go from there? But imagine you walked up and told them, ‘God hates you.’ Oh boy, the can of worms that would open. Truthfully, I think you would immediately lose your audience because so many people have been indoctrinated to the idea that Jesus loves them. But if they didn’t walk away…oh, the starting point that would give.

It is the entrance into the Gospel. The real Gospel. The Gospel that starts with a God that laid down His law and said anyone breaking it is a sinner, a God that demands the death penalty for breaking that sin, a God that sent His son to be the Good News of a Savior for those that are given salvation. Then, and only then, does that same God become love to those that He gives salvation to.

Good news only means something once you receive the bad news. What good does it do to tell someone that you can repair their vehicle if they haven’t first been told that a hundred foot tree fell on top of it? What good does it do a doctor to tell a patient that they can heal their broken leg if the patient is walking up and down the hall unaware that they are a patient? We must first understand the bad news before we can appreciate the good news.

And the bad news is…

 God hates sinners.