Eliminating Wrongs

God is Love  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  40:55
0 ratings
· 12 views

There are many pitfalls to avoid in both asking and answering hard questions about God’s love. We must reject unbiblical answers and maintain a holy, righteous perspective of God; with these things in mind we can delve into what God Himself reveals in His Word.

Files
Notes
Transcript
Handout

Introduction

From childhood, most of us have heard that God loves us. The Bible tells us that love is at the very heart of who God is. This truth is so wonderful that they are always among the first things we focus on when teaching our children about God. And we should.
But don’t let this give you the idea that God’s love is only a child’s subject. As we have already learned, this subject is definitely not child’s play; God’s love raises some very complex questions. These questions need to be thought through carefully and answered biblically.
At the beginning of this series, I told you we would discuss the difficult questions about God’s love; even after all we’ve learned so far and the foundation of balance we’ve laid, I still admit that these questions are going to pose some hard dilemmas.
If God is the loving Father of humanity, why does He allow His creatures to make choices that result in their destruction when He could prevent it?
If God is a loving God, why did He allow sin in the first place, and why is there death?
If God is love, why isn’t everyone saved? Why would a loving God devise a plan that has so many people going to hell for all eternity?
What kind of love is it that can control the world but allows it to suffer the way it does? How are we to understand that kind of love?

Rejecting Wrong Answers

Unbiblical views on the reality of hell and judgment from a loving God.
There’s no point in pretending these questions should not pose problems for Christians.
In fact, history reveals that the ones who typically make a twisted mess of Christian faith and those who take these questions lightly. Usually, they will cite Scripture selectively and ignore half of important biblical truth on the subject, thus taking their beliefs to unbiblical extremes.
Universalism: Everyone will be saved. A loving God cannot condemn.
For example, Universalism teaches that everyone will be saved on the Day of Judgement. Universalists believe that because God is love, He cannot eternally condemn anyone.
In fact, they believe hell does not even exist.
Some even teach that Satan and his demons will be redeemed. However, in order to hold these beliefs, they must completely ignore Revelation 20:10 :
Revelation 20:10
Revelation 20:10 ESV
and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Annihilationism: There is no eternal punishment at Judgement Day. God just wipes condemned souls from existence.
Another heretical theory is known as Annihilationism. Under this belief, God takes believers to heaven and simply wipes out the rest from existence. The condemned experience no conscious punishment or suffering; they are judges and their existence is simply terminated.
Similar to Universalism, there is no such place as eternal hell.
Many contemporary cults embrace this thinking as it takes away the sting of judgment.
Conditional Immortality: The human soul dies and dissolves to oblivion at the body’s death unless God grants it immortality.
A third closely related doctrine is that of Conditional Immortality. This belief system suggests that the human soul is not inherently immortal and only exists after death if God bestows immortality upon it.
Since eternal life, immortality, is given only to believers, all other souls simply pass into oblivion when their bodies die.
This view is gaining traction in many Christian sects these days, but it also severely contradicts Scripture.
Matthew 25:46
Revelation 14:11
Matthew 25:46 ESV
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Revelation 14:11 ESV
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
These views may serve to remedy human emotions about God’s wrath to some degree, but they ignore the truth of what Scripture teaches in order to come to their conclusions.
Therefore, they are the wrong answers.
Furthermore, I would state that they are very dangerous answers as they make insignificant one of the main motivations for sincere repentance: fear of God’s wrath and judgment.
Jesus Himself confirms the reality of hell.
Contrary to these verses, Jesus Himself had more to say about hell than anyone else in Scripture.
Matthew 13:41-42
Mark 9:43
Matthew 13:41–42 ESV
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mark 9:43 ESV
And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
We must be careful not to lose our balance by stating that God must hate anyone He condemns.
But we must be careful not to error in the opposite direction also;
such as professing there’s no reason to wonder how God can love people whom He ultimately condemns because you simply conclude that whoever He condemns He hates.
That view doesn’t do justice to Scripture either. It restricts God’s love to only a relative few and pictures Him hating the vast majority of humanity. In terms of sheer numbers, it suggests that God’s hatred for humanity overwhelms His love.
We lose all the balance of love and wrath we have spent so much time understanding. Therefore, it isn’t consistent with the God of Scripture.
Psalm 145:8-9
Psalm 145:8–9 ESV
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Hatred and love are not mutually exclusive. God still shows a measure of love and compassion to those whom He hates.
Romans 9:13
So what are we to do with a verse like Romans 9:13?
Romans 9:13 ESV
As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
The passage Paul is quoting is Malachi 1:2-3. God is speaking of two nations, Israel and Edom, God is simply identifying these two groups of people by the names of their founding ancestors.
Thus, the words “Esau I hated” hold a meaning that goes beyond Esau himself and encompasses the entire evil nation of Edom.
The hatred this describes is not an emotional response of petty spite, but a holy revulsion of a people who were thoroughly and absolutely corrupt. But God’s hatred for the nation of Edom does not prove that He had no love, no compassion, and no charity at all for them.
In fact, we know from Scripture that God was kind to this despicable nation. When the Israelites left Egypt on their way to Canaan, they passed through the land of Edom. In Deuteronomy 2:5, God gives Moses a strict command regarding the people of Edom:
Deuteronomy 2:5
Deuteronomy 2:5 ESV
Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
Though He hated them, God still gave the Edomites a reserved place to live out their lives on earth.
This holy hatred combined with loving-kindness does not imply that God is inconsistent or mincing words.
It demonstrates that both love and wrath are reflections of His nature: He is loving, yet holy. He is compassionate, yet furious over evil.
Hatred and love are not mutually exclusive, even in the range of human emotions, such simultaneous feelings are quite common. Any parent knows that wrath and love do not rule each other out.
We know that God is often angry with those who are the objects of His everlasting love. After all, before salvation, even true believers were enemies of God:
Romans 5:10
Romans 5:10 ESV
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Conversely, God genuinely and sincerely loves those who are the objects of His eternal wrath.
We must ultimately trust in God’s righteousness, love, mercy, and justice; for some of the unanswered questions.
We simply cannot resolve the difficult questions about divine love by concluding that God actually withholds His lovingkindness, compassion, mercy, and goodwill to all but those who receive salvation.
Therefore we must reject Universalism, Annihilationism, and Conditional Immorality.
But we must also refuse the idea that God’s hatred for the wicked rules out any love for them. This leads us to another solution that is not necessarily unbiblical, but is too often taken to an extreme. It is to point to Romans 9:20-21 and tell those who ask hard questions that they have no right to question God:
Romans 9:20-21
Romans 9:20–21 ESV
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Obviously, everything in this verse is very true. God is God; we cannot comprehend His ways. Many of the questions we ask have answers we could never comprehend in this life.
Certainly, we know it is true that we have no right to challenge God. We are not entitled to interrogate God as if He were accountable to us. Thus we will be left with many unanswered questions.
However, before we get to that point, there are many things that we do need to understand; for the truth-seeker sincerely wanting to understand God and His love, there is much in the Bible to help come to grips with the hard questions.
That is not to say that we can clearly find all the answers to every question; we can’t. Take, for example, the very difficult question of why a loving God does not redeem everyone.
If God is love, why does he send some people to an endless torment in hell?
We simply do not know. Scripture doesn’t say. God does not reveal to us the answer to this question.
Anyone who pretends to know what God Himself has not revealed is foolish. Ultimately we reach the place where we must lay down our questions before God and trust His righteousness, His love, His mercy, and His justice.

Preventing Wrong Perspective

In addition, as we wrestle with our questions, it is crucial to bear in mind the human tendency to see things from the wrong perspective.
We must not measure God as we measure humans.
We must submit to the truth that we cannot comprehend an infinite God with our finite minds.
If we attempt to measure God from a human perspective, all our thinking about Him will be out of whack.
Psalm 50:21
In Psalm 50:21, God Himself rebukes those who underestimate Him by thinking of Him in human terms:
Psalm 50:21 ESV
These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
The book of Job is an excellent example of the wrong perspective. After all Job’s suffering and his friend’s counsel that actually added to his suffering, God not only rebuked Job’s friends but also Job himself for entertaining thoughts about God that were not sufficiently high.
Both Job and his friends were trying to make sense of what Job was going through by explaining God in human terms, but their failure to see God as far above His creatures skewed their view of what was happening.
We must not attempt to justify ourselves by blaming God.
This led to Job asking the wrong questions and his friends giving the wrong answers.
Job 40:8-9
Then God asked Job in Job 40:8-9:
Job 40:8–9 ESV
Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
Job’s questions, valid as they may have seemed for someone who had suffered all Job had suffered, actually defamed God’s character.
Job stepped over the line thinking he could justify himself at God’s expense.
Job, by God’s own testimony in Job 1:8, was a blameless and upright man. Yet he suffered, probably more than anyone else had ever suffered. Job was not as deserving of such suffering as many others were.
But the moment his questions reflected misgivings about God - His wisdom, His love, His goodness, and His justice - Job had crossed the line.
Job and his friends were appraising God by human standards. They forgot that He is the Potter and we are merely the clay.
We must keep in mind that God’s ways and thoughts are beyond our understanding.
Job 42:3
Job immediately saw is sin, he confesses in Job 42:3:
Job 42:3 ESV
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
We need to always bear in mind as we ponder the love and wrath of God that in many ways these things touch on knowledge and ways that are “too wonderful” for us.
We must take great care not to develop scornful attitudes toward God’s wisdom.
Therefore, we must take great care not to think inadequate or inappropriate thoughts about God or develop scornful attitudes toward His love and wisdom.

Avoiding Wrong Conclusions

Prosperity is not a definitive sign of God’s blessing and approval.
By this I mean we cannot assume we can know the meaning or purpose of every fortune or disaster that we, or others experience. Often the unrighteous seem to prosper and experience God’s goodness:
Psalm 73:12
Psalm 73:12 ESV
Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
So what often seems like divine blessing is no proof of God’s favor. Don’t think for a moment that prosperity is proof of divine approval.
When believers suffer, we must hold confidence in God’s good plan.
Philippians 1:29
On the other hand, the righteous frequently suffer:
Philippians 1:29 ESV
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
Romans 8:28
But we must acknowledge that God uses our suffering to accomplish much good:
Romans 8:28 ESV
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
In other words, the very thing that seems good will end in evil for the unrepentant and unbelieving, but for God’s own children even troubles and discipline is intended for good.
It is important that we move forward accepting that we cannot fully understand the mind of God.
Clearly we cannot know the mind of God. Therefore, there are many pitfalls to avoid in both asking and answering hard questions about God’s love.
We must reject unbiblical answers and maintain a holy, righteous perspective of God; with these things in mind, we can delve into what God Himself reveals in His Word.
In our coming discussions, we are going to begin to deeply examine the love of God to answer the hard questions.
We’ll attempt to keep a balanced perspective of God’s universal love for all humanity and His particular love for His chosen children, those who receive His gift of salvation.
We are going to be bringing up many threads of thought, but I ask you to avoid jumping to conclusions. Once we have a full picture of all that Scripture has to say about the love of God, all of these truths will weave together and we will be able to take a step back and see the breathtaking full picture of God’s love.

PRAYER

Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more