God - With a Broken Heart

 

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Genesis 6:5-8

The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth.  It broke his heart.  And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth.  Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky.  I am sorry I ever made them.”  But Noah found favor with the Lord.

Whenever I hear about Noah, the talk usually is about the ark, which, by the way, was a little smaller than the WalMart Supercenter in town, tripple-decker, with stalls and lots of food to last a year.  Or the talk is about how the animals even fit in that floating WalMart.  Or it might start to get theologically antagonistic, laughing over the idea of a 500 year old man without even a backhoe, or nail-gun, building a boat bigger than a football field, or complaining that God is always too harsh with that judgment thing.

It’s odd how we always want the discussion to either not take place at all, or focus on some nitpicking details that miss, or blur, the main point altogether.  Which begs the question:  what’s the main point of Noah’s building project?

That IS the main point – it wasn’t Noah’s project; it was God’s project, and it came out of a broken heart.  There are two main thought threads that wind through every Bible passage:  God’s love, and humanity’s inability to grasp, or accept God’s love.

From the beginning of Scripture we see that God created humans, gave them the gifts of a perfect environment, and the presence of God as friend, the purpose of which was that God’s love always wants to bless.  God’s greatest desire is fellowship with His creation…us! 

When sin entered the picture God forgave the human children, but we see the hideous side of sin, in that, a perfect God, loving perfectly, will not un-ring our bell of treachery.  When we betray the trust of living God’s way there are consequences.  From this page of Scripture there’s no mistaking that the consequences begin with God’s broken heart. 

Another question begs answering: 

If God’s heart is broken, why does he default to judgment and destroying all the animals and every human, except Noah’s family?

You might as well ask “what is the meaning of life…in 25 words or less, please”. 

The short answer has to do (as everything else in Scripture) with the love of God.  The answer is the same we see in a loving mother or father wanting to save his child from a mistake that will cripple his future.  When I was a teenage boy I knew who to ask for permission.  Dad was stern; Mom was soft…I always chose Mom when the activity I wanted was questionable.  I knew if I asked long enough, and with enough whine in my voice, she would ultimately get frustrated and say:  do what you want!  Mom knew I was setting myself up for disappointment with my wrong choices, but there is that free will thing.  And there is no teacher like experience.

God’s flood was more than a display of His sovereign will and power; it was the reaffirmation of the nature and character of God, Who is holy…way beyond our comprehension.  Humankind’s downward spiral, into the kind of moral pit we see in our day, demanded response.  And, despite the pain of holy God’s broken heart, his judgment fell.  It fell all around that WalMart-sized boat, but the love of God kept the storm’s fury outside, redeeming the servants of God inside.

For You Today

God always prefers blessing rather than judgment.  But His gift of free will comes with the reality that choices have consequences.  Really bad choices have really bad consequences, even though it breaks God’s heart. 

In just the same, but opposite way, the really good choice of obeying God has consequence as well; you participate in the gladdening of Father God’s heart. 

And what true child doesn’t want that?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Genesis 6 see Noah's Sermon

The Promise Over the Power

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Tuesday, July 2, 2019

We thank you, O God!  We give thanks because you are near.  People everywhere tell of your wonderful deeds.  God says, “At the time I have planned, I will bring justice against the wicked.  When the earth quakes and its people live in turmoil, I am the one who keeps its foundations firm.    Interlude 

“I warned the proud, ‘Stop your boasting!’  I told the wicked, ‘Don’t raise your fists!  Don’t raise your fists in defiance at the heavens or speak with such arrogance.’”  For no one on earth—from east or west, or even from the wilderness—should raise a defiant fist.  It is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall.  For the Lord holds a cup in his hand that is full of foaming wine mixed with spices.  He pours out the wine in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs.  But as for me, I will always proclaim what God has done; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.  For God says, “I will break the strength of the wicked, but I will increase the power of the godly.”  Psalm 75:1-10

Twice in my life I have stood near the great Niagara and Horseshoe Falls at the New York/Canada border.  The first time, as a young boy, when Mom and Dad took my brother and me to see this fantastic place, the sense of overwhelming power, enforced by the roaring river crashing over the precipice, thundering its way to the rocks below just shut my mouth altogether.  It is stunning to take-in the ominous – almost eerie – sight and sounds.  There is something quite holy about that kind of brute dynamism. 

The second time, as a young family man, I took my children to see what I had seen.  This time I was more prepared to take it in; I could see more.  I could take-in the facts of man harnessing the awesome power God placed in the movement of his water over the falls.  I could understand the caution of the captain of the Maid-of-the-Mist on the river below, carrying her passengers draped in raincoats close (but not too close) to where that water crashed to the earth after a 167-foot drop from above.  And I could see the gentle misty spray rising from the rocks below, with the sun shining through that haze to form a perfect rainbow above and alongside the falls.  I could make the connection of that rainbow with God’s promise to Noah, that God’s judgment would never-again come by a worldwide flood. 

The fact that the Creator of all we see holds such places of incomparable strength and power as one of us might hold a feather, sparks the imagination to places unknown when it comes to the depth and breadth of His powerful will.  If JHWH created the universe with just the words let there be…what more has he done? (And what, if it pleased Him, might He undo?).   

Dare we even say it?  Reverence for Almighty God, and attention to His word and will, are more than the constraint of His law on our lives, it is the only sensible thing we created creatures can do.  And yet some people, (perhaps more people than not these days) find it fashionable, cool, or just arrogantly independent to raise a fist towards the heavens and, in their self-proclaimed wisdom defy what they assume does not exist; in the all-too-familiar contradictory nature of atheism they rail against their assumption of an absence of anything greater than themselves.

For You Today

With all the forces that rock the earth and culture in which we live, each of us who lives as children of God, friends of Jesus, indwelt by the Comforter, must keep that second look at the promises of the rainbow.  We must be ready to proclaim as did the Psalmist the words of He whom we serve:

When the earth quakes and its people live in turmoil, I am the one who keeps its foundations firm.    

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com     Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

"Mother" Nature

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Our overnight “guest”, a little bird, was huddling beneath the umbrella on our deck.  As the night summer storm’s thunder crashed, and lightning streaked through the sky in frightful displays of unleashed power, the little guy was covered, safe. 

I immediately thought of Psalms 17:8:  Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings. 

People who confuse God with "Mother Nature" don't know either.  Nature is cruel.  Nature causes planes and buses to crash with dozens of students dying.  Nature causes forest fires to rage out of control and make people homeless.  Nature encourages things like cancer and sinkholes that both swallow up things. 

People talk about “natural” with a smile.  “Natural” is good when you’re talking fiber and chicken parts without GMO’s.  Nature is harsh and mostly unforgiving in real time.

I have to shake my head in amazement when people talk about the “natural” order of life in terms of a calm resignation about death.  

Don't talk to me of "natural".  Death is natural for this world.  And it isn’t pretty!  

“Nature” is nobody’s mother!

Rather, speak to me of the protection of Almighty wings, where, even in the face of nature's most drastic attempts otherwise, I can live, move and have being. 

Speak to me of the God who created nature, but remember:  what is “natural” is not now what God created it to be.  We still live in a fallen world with natural forces that are impacted by sin and upheaval.

Nature is harsh and unfeeling.  God is so different than that!

Today

When you speak of nature and natural, remember the proper perspective of the One who could speak words like Peace, be still ^{(Mark 4:39b)} and nature obeys!

Title Photo:  http://www.deepintolove.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/bird-in-the-rain1.jpg