Friday, August 25, 2017

Five Things God Cannot Do: #4

[The following post is based on a sermon series presented in January-February 2006 while I served as pastor at Exeter Area Christian Fellowship in Newfields, NH.]

In this post we are going to consider yet another thing that God cannot do.  I have to warn you, however, that this will probably be the least enjoyable of the five areas we are covering.

God cannot let sin go unpunished

In the broader culture in which we all live, sin is a topic that is either watered down or avoided altogether.  Pop-psychology has done a good job at renaming sin.

Man calls it an accident; God calls it abomination. 
Man calls it a defect; God calls it a disease.
Man calls it an error; God calls it an enmity. 
Man calls it a liberty; God calls it lawlessness.
Man calls it a trifle; God calls it a tragedy.    
Man calls it a mistake; God calls it madness.
Man calls it a weakness; God calls it willfulness.      (Moody Monthly)

If I may add a final line…Man says it’s no big deal; God says it is deadly serious.

25 times in the OT God declares outright that He will punish sin.  Additionally we read that wicked will “not escape” punishment (cf. Job 15:25-30), that God will “inflict” His wrath (cf. Ezekiel 17:19); that He will “sweep” away the wicked (cf. Psalm 58).

Without doubt or exception, God takes sin seriously and will deal with it.

In the first chapter of the prophecy of Nahum we find two key truths.  First: God will punish sin in the harshest possible way.  Second: Through the mercy of God, there is a refuge from this punishment.

Sometime around 630bc, God called Nahum to declare His judgment against the city of Nineveh.  This city had been visited by the prophet Jonah, but the repentance we read of in Jonah 3 was short lived.

Genuine repentance is evidenced by a shift away from sinful behavior towards a life that honors and pleases God.  To say we are sorry for sin but continue in that same sin demonstrates that our sorrow is not authentic.

God is, at the core, a loving God; but this does not nullify His righteous anger.  God demonstrated His love and grace to the sinful people of Nineveh by sending Jonah.  They proved, however that their repentance was not genuine and so, through Nahum, God declares a message of His judgment on sin. 

“The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” (Nahum 1:2 ESV- and so throughout)

In this one verse we read three times of God’s vengeance.  God has the perfect right to exact due justice on those who oppose Him.  The literal Hebrew describes God as furiously storing up His wrath.  Although this is a picture of God which contemporary ‘pop-religion’ wants to wish away, we must see that God is no pushover!

Neither, however, is God just waiting to ‘drop the hammer’: “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power.” (Nahum 1:3a ESV)  God is patient, giving people time and opportunity to repent of sin; yet His patience is not limitless.  For those who refuse to repent, “the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.” (1:3b)

This is a critical verse.  Nahum’s generation watched in horror as the Assyrians rampaged through the ancient world with a brutality to rival the Third Reich or ISIS.  There was no way that God could allow such brutality to go unpunished!

Nahum’s assurance, then and now, is that God will not let evil have free reign.  Wickedness and sin will be punished…count on it.

Nahum goes on to describe the power of God in His judgment (1:3-5), and then asks a key question: “Who can stand before his indignation?  Who can endure the heat of his anger?” (1:6)

If the natural world (tall mountains, mighty seas, thick forests) cannot stand up before this raging storm of God’s anger, who can stand?

The answer, thankfully, is given: “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.” (1:7)

God provides a way to escape His wrath- and that is to take shelter under His mercy.  He is a ‘fortress’ into which people can run; a stronghold where the storm is stilled and the rage of God’s wrath becomes the light of His loving care.  How is this escape to be realized?

“Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace!” (1:15)  For the people of Nahum’s day, this was the news of Assyria’s downfall.  The Apostle Paul saw in this verse a foreshadowing of the preaching of the Gospel of God’s salvation through Jesus (see Romans 10:15).

Assyria is a literal historical example of a universal spiritual condition: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)  Therefore, because God cannot let sin go unpunished, all are under the sentence of God’s wrath (see Ephesians 2:3)

Our choice is plain: we either stand guilty before God’s wrath or run into the stronghold of His grace in Jesus where we are pardoned of all sin.

The most important thing we can do is to accept God’s offer of refuge in Christ.  To reject Christ is to invite disaster on ourselves.  Jesus Himself declared, “unless you believe that I am the Messiah, the Son of God, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24 TLB)

God will not rest until the enemy is defeated.  There is no cease-fire in the war on sin, no peace treaty.  Anything that sets itself up against God must, in the end, be broken down and cast away.  God will accept nothing less than sin’s unconditional and total surrender.

God cannot let sin go unpunished.  Let God’s love deal with your sin now and there will never be cause for you to fear, for “perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)


Be blessed.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Five Things God Cannot Do: #3

[The following post is based on a sermon series presented in January-February 2006 while I served as pastor at Exeter Area Christian Fellowship in Newfields, NH.]

Say Anything is a love story of two teenagers on opposite ends of the social spectrum.  Lloyd Dobler is your classic nice guy.  Everyone likes Lloyd.  He is one of those rare people who mixes with people from many different groups.  Diane Court is brilliant, beautiful and, it appears, unreachable.  Happily Lloyd finally succeeds in winning Diane’s heart.  Things get ugly when Diane’s father Jim, is convicted of embezzlement and the once tight-knit relationship between father and daughter is broken.  Visiting Jim in prison Lloyd gives him a letter from Diane,  As Jim brokenheartedly reads of his daughter’s shame and embarrassment, Lloyd says, “It gets better; it gets better if it’s the version that ends with ‘I still can’t help loving you.’”  Sadly it isn’t.  Lloyd says, “Just knowing that a version like that exists, that for a moment she wrote ‘I still can’t help loving you’, just knowing a letter like that exists…that has to count for something.”

Human love is fragile.  Even at its very best, human love can endure only so much pain and hardship before it reaches a breaking point.  Love is demanding, hard to maintain and likely to bring hurt and pain.  We long for a love that endures; a love that goes through thick and thin, bearing even the most extreme pain.  We long for a letter that ends, ‘no matter what happens, I still can’t help loving you.’

We have just such a letter.  The Bible is God’s ultimate love letter, telling how much He loves us, and all we have tried to do to throw that love away.  It is the record of what God has done to maintain that love relationship; and stamped from cover to cover are the words, ‘I can’t help loving you.’

No matter what happens, no matter what we do to run from Him God cannot help loving us.

The Bible tells us that God is love (see 1 John 4:8).  Philip Yancey writes that God cannot help loving us because love defines His nature. (Reaching For the Invisible God)  Love is an absolute essential quality of the character of God.  It is the “glue” that holds God together.  His mercy, justice, righteousness, wrath, and every other quality flows out of His love.

There is no specific verse that says, ‘God cannot help loving us’, but we realize this is true when we consider the way God treats His creation in general…

“You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly.  The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.  You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.  You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.” (Psalms 65:9-11 NIV see also Acts 14:17; Psalm 104:27-28; 145:9, 15-16)

…and His people in particular.

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3 NIV see also Isaiah 43:4; 54:10

It is in His relationship with His people that His radical love shows through.  Many of God’s promises to Israel, mentioned just above, can be drawn out to include His people throughout the ages.  His people can be sure that God’s love will never falter or fail.  

Friends, God is crazy about us!  He cannot help loving us!

However, it is one thing to say you love someone; another thing entirely to show it.  Christ is the great example of how much God cannot help loving us.  He didn’t just say it…He did something about it.  He is so passionate about us that He sought us out when we were running from Him; He came after us. 

“For thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out...I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick.’”  (Ezekiel 34:11, 16 NASU)

In the person of Jesus, God took on human flesh and, as the Scripture says, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them  to the end.” (John 13:1 NASU)  The word for ‘end’ is the Greek word telos which means ‘fullness’ and ‘completion’.  Jesus gave, and continues to give, every ounce of love He has because God cannot help loving us.

In a tavern, Ivan and Peter sat together, the warm happiness of too many drinks upon their faces.  Arms around one another, they were protesting how much each loved the other.  Suddenly Ivan said to his friend, “Peter, tell me, what hurts me?”  Stunned, Peter sat back into his chair and blurted out, “How do I know what hurts you?” Ivan's response cut through the drunken stupor:  “If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say that you love me?”

Because God cannot help loving us He knows all about us; our joys, our sorrows, our fears, our pains…and through it all, He keeps loving us.

Where have you been in your life?  Maybe you’ve been down roads that you wish you had never traveled?  Maybe you’ve done things that you are ashamed of…that you know God disapproved of.  Maybe you’ve thought, “There is no way God could ever love me.” 

God is crazy about you!  He cannot help Himself.

One of the hardest things to do, even for believers to do, is to just accept God’s passionate love.  Sure, we fail, but that doesn’t take God by surprise.  It’s not as if He watches us fall and says, “Well maybe they don’t deserve My love after all.”  No kidding we don’t deserve His love!  That’s the point!  He loves us anyway.  He can’t help it!


Take heart! Delight in His love; relish it and return it with as much passion as you can muster.  God Cannot Help Loving Us.  Thank God!

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Five Things God Cannot Do: #2

[The following post is based on a sermon series presented in January-February 2006 while I served as pastor at Exeter Area Christian Fellowship in Newfields, NH.]

Heaven: it is a place most everyone aspires to reach, but comparatively few will attain.  Why is that?  Why is it that of the numberless people that have ever lived, only a percentage will spend eternity in the presence of God?  The reason lies in another thing that God cannot do.

God cannot allow sin into heaven.

Let us allow Psalm 15 to instruct us in this (NIV text in italics throughout).

David begins with the key question: 1Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?

Rewording this for today, the question would ask, ‘How can a person get to heaven?’  The terms ‘sanctuary’ and ‘holy hill’ are literally the tabernacle and Mt. Zion (Jerusalem).  Symbolically they represent ‘heaven’ (refer to Psalm 2:6, 9:11; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 14:1).

David lived in the city of Jerusalem in the days in which the Ark of the Covenant sat in the Holy of Holies.  He had access to the literal objects, so his question delves much deeper.

No one actually lived in the Tabernacle or could permanently dwell in the sanctuary because it was where the Holy Presence of God was manifested.  David desires to know what it would take for someone to be worthy enough to actually and permanently live in the Presence of God.

He therefore begins to list what he understands to be the pathway to this desire.

~He whose walk is blameless- someone perfect; without defect or error.

~One who does what is righteous- one who is perfectly just.

~One who speaks the truth from his heart- a person with no double motives; integrity; what is said and done are in line with truth.

~One who has no slander on his tongue- one’s words are never evil or false.

~One who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman- one who lives in perfect harmony with all people.

~One who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord- a person who always perfectly discerns good from evil and responds correctly to them.

~One who keeps his oath even when it hurts- someone who perfectly keeps their promises.

~One who lends his money without usury- a person who is perfectly generous with no hint of greed; who gives with no thought of gain.

~One who does not accept a bribe against the innocent- someone who never acts unjustly.

He who does these things will never be shaken.  A person who can pull all this off will never have cause to worry about their place before God.  This is the person who can dwell on God’s Holy Hill.

Does this describe you?  No.  Nor does it describe me.  David’s question and answer is a glimpse at the harsh reality that no one is or can be perfect; no one is worthy to dwell in God’s sanctuary or live on His holy hill.

Well let’s be fair.  Won’t God applaud our efforts, even if we miss one or two of these?  How good do we have to be?  How close to perfection do we need to get?  Think on this: the Baseball Hall of Fame favors players who have a batting average of .300 or better, but that average represents a success rate of a mere 30%; basketball players and teams are happy if they shoot around 50%; the very best football quarterbacks complete around 65-70% of their passes.

So what if we reach 80% or 90% perfection?  Would 99.9% be good enough?  Let’s consider…If 99.9% is good enough, then it is okay that:  

~Two million documents will be lost by the IRS this year
~1,314 phone calls will be misplaced by telecommunication services every minute
~12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day
~268,500 defective tires will be shipped this year
~103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly this year
~2,488,200 books will be shipped in the next 12 months with the wrong cover
~Two plane landings daily at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago will be unsafe
~3,056 copies of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will be missing one of the three sections
~291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly this year
~20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next 12 months.

Would we say 99.9% is good enough in any of these worldly instances?  So by what right do we insist that a Perfect and Holy God should settle for less than perfection?!  It is 100% or it doesn’t count.  If we could be perfect, we would have no problems; God would be obligated to let us into His heaven.  But that will never happen. 

The Apostle Paul, quoting from the Psalms, wrote: 10There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12 NIV cf. Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3)

The fact of the matter is this: God cannot allow sin into heaven.  God is perfectly holy.  He cannot and will not coexist with sin (refer also to Psalm 5:4; Habakkuk 1:13).  Nowhere in the Bible do I read that this has changed.

The key, then, is to be sinless.  But we have already said that it is impossible!  Considering the qualifications of Psalm 15, is there any one of us who could ever live up to those standards? 

There is only One Who did meet all the standards that we read about in Psalm 15.  One for Whom that passage in Romans 3 does not apply.  His Name is Jesus Christ.  He is the perfect One.  He is the only One qualified to ascend the hill of the Lord, to dwell permanently in the presence of God.  In His mercy, God has graciously allowed Jesus to bring some friends along with Him.

Entrance to heaven is gained only through a person receiving God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.  Through faith, the perfection of Jesus is credited to our account (see Romans 5:12-19).  The essential qualities of Psalm 15 become ours by our association with Christ, the One who embodies those qualities.

God cannot allow sin into heaven.  We must seek entrance only through Jesus Christ.