Does God Threaten?

Photo by: Bernard Gagnon

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bgag

I notice when I read comments on articles about religion that many non-believers bring up the subject of threats from God. They say, "Why should I love a God who threatens people with death if they don't believe in him?"

I believe God is warning people, not threatening them. In Ezekiel chapter 33, God likens his warnings to that of a soldier guarding a city. If a soldier on the wall sees the enemy coming and does nothing then the death of the people is on his shoulders. But, if the soldier warns the people an enemy is coming he has done his duty. It is now up to the people to get ready to fight or not. What they then do will be on their shoulders.

God says, "Say to them, 'As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die..." Ezekiel 33:11

When Israel joined with the other nations, sacrificing their children to the pagan god Baal and doing many wicked deeds, God said,"Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah or demolish you like Zeboiim? My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows." God loves people and wants them to have eternal life but if they choose to stay away from God he has to let them go.

The reason God says you will die if you don't come to him for life is because it is a simple fact. Not because he wants you to die - you just will. God is the source of all life. If you don't belong to him; if you don't want him in your life, he respects your decision. Therefore, when God raises the dead he will not take you to heaven. God knows you would not be happy in heaven anyway because in order to enjoy heaven you must be born again, as Jesus said in John 3:16.

People also seem to think that if a person is a "good person" then God will take them to heaven and he should take them to heaven. Well, first of all "good" is relative.  Jesus said, "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone." Luke 18:19 You may think a person is good, and perhaps by the world's standards they are, but without God in their hearts they are not truly good. Someone I knew very well told me, "I think I'm a good person and will go to heaven." But everyone knew what kind of person he was. He had said and done some terrible things. He loved himself above all others.

Also, will people who don't know God enjoy worshiping him in heaven? Will they love to sing of his saving power? Will they love to hear his commands? No. If they think their goodness has gotten them to heaven, what is there to thank God for?

The reason true Christians love to praise God and sing about him is that they know where they have come from. They know they were definitely not good. They know they were saved from a life of giving in to their compulsions and passions. They know they were like a ship without a rudder drifting through life at the mercy of wind and wave. They know the joy living for God has given them. They know the peace God can give when a loved one dies, they become sick or don't have the rent. God is a person to go to in trouble and eventually a Christian learns that every time something bad happens; God brings good out of that something.

That's why we never tire of thinking about God, talking about God and praising God. He is our family, our Father. We will be at home with him in heaven. This earth, with all its violence, rebellion, and evil is not our home. It is not your home. We were created for a perfect home and none of us will ever feel at home here.

Jesus said about his followers, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17:16

With the shape this world is in right now, I am glad I belong to a better world.

A Life.

They came to the funeral. Kids who had known Craig in elementary school. They posted on Facebook about all the times Craig had helped them with homework or lifted them up when they were down.

The teens and twenty-year-old's that Craig had hung around with told the same story. How great Craig was and how he had helped them. This was a surprise to us adults because we had spent years trying to help Craig.

His father left the family when Craig was 18 months old. One day soon after his father left, a friend of ours bent down and asked Craig how he was. He lifted his little arms and said, "Daddy? Daddy?" He missed his dad then and missed him all his life.

Craig had a step-father who was cold and self-involved. I guess he did his best, but he didn't understand children and what they needed.

When he was a teen, he started getting into trouble. First came drinking and then drugs. He became addicted to ecstasy and then cocaine. He would get jobs and quit jobs. He would get into fights and have to go to emergency. He was nice when he was sober but angry when he was drunk or on drugs. He got into trouble with bad people and the police.

But he believed there was a God. He told me he prayed. He tried to stop drugs. He said when he was clean he wanted to go to schools and warn kids about drugs. The last year of his life he got a good job and was doing well but then he fell back into the old ways. When he died he had drank a lot of alcohol that night. He lay down to sleep on the sofa and never woke up. He drank too much. The sofa was soft and his head was face down. He was too deeply asleep to turn over and he was smothered.

I felt God wanted me to share with everyone about Craig's life and death. I'm not sure why. When his mother was crying alone in her bedroom the day after Craig died she said she felt God touch her left shoulder. She said she smiled and said, "Hello, God." Then, to her surprise, she felt Craig touch her right shoulder and say, "I'm happy, Mom."

I think God took Craig that night because he was headed for more terrible trouble; also, as I said in my last post, "God loved him." His was a life. A life God touched but couldn't help, so he took it to Himself.

Why God?

I took my mother and her friend to Walmart today. Over lunch we started talking about death. I told Mom's friend that I missed my grandson. She told me she missed her sister, who died in 2001, and still asks God, "Why did you have to take her?"

This lovely lady works in a nursing home. Along with other residents, she takes care of a woman who is 101 years old. The woman is sickly and is now losing her mental abilities. My mother's friends says she asks God, "Why don't you take her? Her life is awful."

I've asked these questions myself. My daughter says if we knew the answers to these questions we would be God. Very true. Besides, I know we have to learn to trust God in this world of sorrow.

Psalm 31:15  says, "My times are in your hands..." I like the explanation of this verse by Barnes Notes on the Bible:

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My times are in thy hand - That is, I said this in my trouble; when my friends forsook me, and when my enemies came around me and threatened my life. The meaning is, that all that pertained to him was under the control and at the disposal of God. He would "live" as long as God should please. It was His to give life; His to preserve it; His to take it away. All in relation to life - its origin - its continuance - its changes - its seasons - childhood, youth, middle age, old age - all was in the hand of God. No one, therefore, could take his life before the time that had been appointed by God, and he might calmly commit the whole to him. This we may feel in all seasons of life and in all times of danger; of sickness; of feebleness. We shall live as long as God has appointed; we shall pass through such changes as he directs; we shall die when and where and how he chooses. In the faithful discharge of our duty, therefore, we may commit all these things to him, and leave all at his disposal.