The problem seems amplified when we look at each other and
our relationships and realize how often in fact we DO get mad at each other (no
matter how much we really love each other underneath). Could it be that way with God? I hope not.
The idea that God sits around mad, just waiting for us to screw up so He
can rightly punish us, has its origins in the evil one. This was the concept of God he tried to sell
the rest of the Universe upon being cast out of heaven. Fortunately no-one was buying it, except us
of course. God being perpetually angry
is different though from God getting angry from time to time.
Does God ever get mad?
Yes. Christ’s ‘tirade’ in the
temple was an excellent example of what really gets under God’s skin. Here we had a situation of supposedly
righteous religious leaders who were systemically abusing the poor,
overcharging them for sacrifices they had to make in order to fulfill their
religious commitments. The priests also
sold the meat from these sacrifices at the local butchery, so you might say
they made money coming and going with the enterprise. Add to this, cheating on the exchange rate
for currency, and the temple of God had become a den of thieves. The perverting of a religious system designed
to teach the mercy of God, by making only greed and an apparent
payment-for-forgiveness-system visible was more than Christ could take. He was filled with righteous anger, and as
his eyes met those of the guilty, they realized His divinity for a brief second
and fled in terror. As Christ moved
through the temple he overturned the tables and spilled the ill-gotten-gains
out on the floor. He makes His point
clear to all who remain watching – my house shall be a house of prayer, not
commerce. God’s mercy cannot be
purchased.
It is also interesting to note that immediately after this
so called ‘loss of temper’ Christ begins teaching the children and the poor,
and those who remained behind. Now think
about this for a second. Have you ever
seen someone burst into a room, screaming, yelling, and cracking a whip around
– if so, you can imagine the first people to exit the scene would be the
children in terror stricken mode. Why
did they not run? The poor who already
feel condemned by their lack of funds to make an appropriate sacrifice also
remained – why? Could it be that the
blazing eyes, and whip cracking we attribute to Christ might be
over-exaggerated? Could it be that as he
gazed into the eyes of the guilty they ‘knew’ their own guilt, they recognized
‘who’ was looking into the deepest recesses of their souls, and ‘who’ was
condemning their actions – and they fled from His presence. The poor, and the children only witnessed
Christ ‘cleaning’ His own house. They
saw the benevolence of what He did for them, on their behalf, and they met no
divinely condemning gaze, but one of only love and forgiveness – the very
things they sought at this special place.
Which means, if Christ was never really out-of-control angry
when He cleansed the temple, was He really that mad during the flood. The Bible says when He looked at the
wickedness in the world He was sorry (i.e. He repented) that He had made man in
the first place. Ouch! Our forefathers were so evil in mind and
deed, they actually made God sorry He created us. And we seem doomed to repeat these exact same
mistakes. However sorry is not angry. But for Noah who found grace in the eyes of
the Lord, we might well be a footnote in the annuls of heavenly history. Was God venting his anger with sin at us
during the flood, or was He making a statement to the witnessing Universe, and
captive Satan (bound here during this entire incident), of how much He hates
what evil does, and where it results.
If God had truly ‘lost his temper’ with man, why preserve
Noah (the drunk), and his family with all three sons and their wives. One of those sons would immediately pursue
evil upon exiting the ark after the flood.
God knew this in advance. Why
save them all? Why preserve the son who
would pursue evil? Was it merely for
Noah’s sake? No, God was not out of
control, He knew what He was doing, and maintained this little craft while the
entire rest of the world was completely and utterly destroyed. But for God’s mercy this boat would have
quickly been broken and sunk. The
inhabitants of the ark never really saw the level of destruction that was
occurring outside their boat. They knew
it was bad, but only really saw the changes afterwards. So even if you believe God was angry, the
lesson of the level of violence in the earth would have been lost on the people
inside the ark. The lesson was for the
witnessing Universe.
Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, twin cities
in the time of Abraham that were completely obliterated by God. The imagery of fire descending from heaven
conjured up in the mind, don’t lend themselves to feelings of comfort and
love. Was this another ‘anger’
episode? Actually No. In fact before any destruction was planned,
Christ Himself with 2 other angels came to this earth to inspect the level of
wickedness personally. Abraham stopped
them along the way and tried to bargain for sparing these cities on the basis
of only 10 current followers of God and not of evil, but could not come up with
that number. Had he been able to, 10
followers of God, would have been responsible for saving hundreds or even
thousands of others who were purely devoted to evil.
In our present times we seem more than willing to sacrifice
the lives of 10 innocent people just to get one guilty one (think Saddam
Hussein, or Osama Bin Laden). But our
God values life the other way around. He
would spare 2 cities full of evil doers for the sake of 10 followers of
His. And we all know those 10 people
would not have been perfect, just 10 who chose to serve God like you and
me. My question is why bother? Couldn’t they simply move to another town and
let God go ahead and destroy the evil people they left behind? If God was in a hurry to wipe us all out when
we do bad, why not just ask the 10 followers to move out? But God is not in a hurry to see anyone
die. And perhaps the witness of just 10
people who follow God might have been enough to turn back the tide of evil that
plagued those 2 cities. Perhaps 10
followers of God could have made such an impact on Sodom, that the entire city
might have repented and found our God.
But alas there was not 10 to be found among them.
Remember that the story of the destruction of these cities
includes the sparing of Lot and his family despite there not being enough other
righteous people to spare the entire place.
The single family who followed our God was spared just like Noah when he
was fully surrounded by those bent on doing evil. Lot and his family too were not to witness
the destruction God had in mind, they were to flee without looking back. Lot’s wife could not resist just taking a
brief glance backwards to the place of sin while it was being destroyed and as
result was immediately transformed into a pillar of salt. While Lot and his family may have seen what
happened to their wife and mother, they did not witness the destruction on the
plains. And there were no survivors
there, so who was the intended audience for this act of judgment against sin –
Satan, his fallen comrades, and the remaining Universe. We are only witnesses to the after-effects of
His judgment, not to a real-time feed of how lethal it may be.
There is a just side to God, and it can tolerate only so
much evil that man inflicts on each other, before action must be taken. Sometimes it is to make a statement regarding
the true nature of worship (like the cleansing of the Temple); sometimes it is
to eliminate the abusive crimes of sexual rape against innocents (Sodom &
Gomorrah); sometimes it is to stop man from playing God and creating new life
from mixing DNA up between the species (the Flood); sometimes it was to get
Israel to stop sacrificing children born of idolatry and orgies by throwing
them into the fires of Molech (a heathen bloodthirsty idol); and someday it
will be to end the reign of time evil has been granted to demonstrate its
natural course. And for those who
believe that evil will reign forever, just take a quick gander at these
examples of God taking selective action to terminate evil. They are a fore-warning that evil itself is
scheduled for termination. It will not
last.
To believe God never gets angry is probably doing Him a
disservice. But to believe He is
vindictive, or just waiting to punish us, is completely misguided. Sometimes the actions of my child may make me
angry, but my anger tends to be short-lived, and my feelings seem more to
center on love than on any kind of disappointment. I believe it is more the same with God. My evil actions and choices may sometimes
cause Him anger, as He considers the pain I cause others in this way, but I
have found His forgiveness complete, His patience eternal, and His love
overwhelming. I do not serve an angry
God. And I thank Him for this as well …
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