The Biggest Lie

Lying is second nature to Satan.  More so here in the U.S. than overseas, Satan has implanted a lie that so many in the evangelical community have bought into.

What is Satan’s biggest lie?  He has convinced us that God is a cosmic vending machine.  The world is a playground and the goal in life is to be happy.

We’re taught that the way to be happy is to love Jesus. The way you love Jesus is to read your Bible, pray, attend church, stay in fellowship with other Christians, love your neighbor, be holy, and tithe ten percent of your income to the Lord through your local church.

We’re told that if you push all the right buttons, you will have a happy and healthy life, awesome marriage, be financially sound, have lots of good friends, and your kids will all turn out right.  Hard times, bad health, broken down marriages, well, all that is for other people.

We have been told in so many words that God is a cosmic vending machine.  All you have to do is to figure out His formula, and He’ll come through for you.  God wants you to experience your own personal fulfillment, love and happiness.

I was reading the other day about a lady who had called a Christian radio show with a comment and question. She was honest in what she believed. She said, “How can I get out of this marriage I’m in? You know, it's really hard, and I'm really unfulfilled,” and on and on and on.   And then she said, "I know one thing for sure.  God wants me to be happy, and I'm not happy with my husband.  And I know the Bible says God hates divorce, but I know He'll forgive me, because He wants me happy.  So, I’ll divorced him and seek God’s forgiveness later."  I believe close to fifty percent of the evangelical community is believing and doing the same thing – buying into this happiness cult.

And here’s the real kicker.  When God does not apparently come through to their liking and understanding, they become sour at God. "Hey, God, how could this happen to my son, if You really love me?  I've been serving You with all my life, and he was in a car wreck."  Or, "I got cancer!  I’ve been serving you faithfully and tithing to my church and this is the way you pay me back!”

Translation:  “I'm really mad at God, because I'm supposed to be in a playground that God created for me to experience happiness and fulfillment. God is suppose to be my self-help genie to cause my life to work out and make me prosperous, happy and in good health.  What did I do to God to deserve this?”

Here’s the dirty little secret – that is all a Satanic lie.  

Indeed, God does want to bless His people.  The Bible says “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).  Jesus spelled out how to be happy in Matthew 5.

But Jesus also said, and this is the part we are not told about as often as “God wants us to be happy,” – that “in the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).  Jesus went on to say that if you want to be His disciple, then you will have to “take up your cross” (Luke 14:27). The cross was used as a symbol of suffering.  Peter wrote, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (1 Peter 4:16).

In other words, God does not guarantee you a happy life if you follow Him. How many godless people you know who obviously do not follow God and who are better off than you are?

You see, Satan tells you such things or at least gets you to believe such things in order for you to see life as merely a playground with you in it standing with your hand out expecting more good things to be given to you.

That’s not how it is.  Life is a battlefield in which you will be shot at, possibly wounded and hurt, and become spiritually, emotionally and perhaps physically crippled.   Do you still want to follow Jesus?  Folks, we’re in a war and the problem is thinking that we’re living in a playground. But the problem with the playground mentalithy is that in a playground no one is fighting battles or holding weapons of warfare. But nevertheless, we’re all being shot at!

Can you imagine a young man over in Iraq, with an M16, a helmet on, a 60- or 70-pound backpack, walking through a battlefield, finally takes a break, sits down, opens some terrible C-Rations, takes a couple of bites and goes, "Oh, this just isn't good and tasty, at all"?  Do people complain about the food, when the issues are life and death?  When you're dragging your buddy, when there's fire coming down all around you, and you're dragging your buddy, and you go, "You know, I don't feel very fulfilled right now."

You know what?  We're here for a very short time, and there's an invisible war going on.  It is a battle, and the bullets are real, and the impact and the implications are eternal.  And we have bought the lie that God promises us to be healthy, wealthy and happy.

When it does not turn out this say, we become mad at God and take matters into our own hands and seek our own happiness our way. Our foe is formidable.  Don’t buy into Satan’s biggest lie. 

Yes, you can have the joy of the Lord despite any bad circumstances.  But don’t ever think for one moment, that everything in life must go your perceived way.

It is time to dust off your cross and once again identify with Jesus in His suffering and rejoice that you are called and chosen to follow Him in such a way. 

Remember, sufferings and trials in life are merely temporal in this life. There are eternal promises to come. Keep eternity fixated in your mind. 

The Sovereignty of God and the Non-Elect, Part 7

In part 6, we zeroed in on Romans 9, specifically dealing with Pharaoh.   God had hardened his heart.  We’re told in Romans 9:17, God says, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth (a quote taken from Exod. 9:16). 

Some interpreters by seeing this as being too strong favoring predestination of the non-elect, try their best to soften the interpretation. But we must avoid such attempts and let the Scriptures reveal plainly the mind of God.

The phrase, “I have raised you up,” in the Hebrew is, “I have appointed,” by which it appears, that God, designing to show that the contumacy of Pharaoh would not prevent Him from delivering His people, not only affirms that his fury had been foreseen by Him, and that He had prepared means for restraining it, but that He had also designedly ordained it for this end,—that He might exhibit a more illustrious evidence of His own power.

Therefore, it is clear that God raised up Pharaoh for this very end—to “destroy” him.  When God said, “I have raised you up,”

He means that He allowed Pharaoh to live for a specified purpose.

You see, God never does anything without a previous plan and design. In giving Pharaoh life, in preserving him through infancy and childhood, in raising him to the throne of Egypt, God had one end in view. That such was God’s purpose is clear from His words to Moses before he went down to Egypt, to demand of Pharaoh that Jehovah’s people should be allowed to go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to worship Him— “And the Lord said unto Moses, When you go to return into Egypt, see that you do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let my people go” ( Exodus 4:21).

God’s design and purpose was declared long before this.

Four hundred years previously God had said to Abraham, “Know for certain that your seed shall be a stranger in a land (Egypt) that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they (Egyptians) shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge ” ( Genesis 15:13,14).

From these words it is evident that God’s purpose was formed long before He gave Pharaoh life.  Therefore, the non-elect are chosen to be non-elect by God in fulfillment of His great and awesome design.

End of Part 7

Does God Have Emotions? Part 4

Can man make God angry or make him joyful?  This matter becomes more complex when we take into consideration that God knows all thoughts and actions of His creatures in all history simultaneously.  How is it possible for Him to be angry, let’s say with four billion people in a sense like man’s anger and at the same time pleased with five million people, also in a human sense, at the same time?

You say, “Remember, Pastor Rich, God’s mind is totally immense, so that He is not subject to human limitations.”  You are so right.  There is no warrant to conclude that God is extremely similar to man in some ways, while bound by many of man’s limitations, but that He is completely similar to man in other ways, as if he has none of man’s limitations. 

Therefore, we have to say that some form of divine impassibility is necessary. If God is angered by our sins, it is only because He wills to be angered by them, and not because His mental state is subject to our will or beyond His control.   Yes, even if we do affirm that God has emotions, they are all under His control, and they will never compromise His divine attributes.   Since God’s emotions are fully under His control, He does not have them in a way that is similar to man.

Because of the modern influenced by psychology to defend believing in a God with emotions, they are eager to acknowledge the biblical passages that make references to God with a physical body as instances of anthropopathism.   But when they come to passages that suggest emotional feelings in God, they are not eager to suggest anthropopatheism.  They can get along with a God not having a physical body, but not a God that is void of emotions.  There appears to be a shady form of hypocrisy that is often overlooked.

End of Part 4

Does God Have Emotions? Part 3

Since God is eternal (timeless), everything that happens, past, present and future, occurs simultaneously in the now. So that insults and offenses that are directed toward Him are happening “now.” God does not necessarily have to wait 2000 years in the future for an event to occur while having the time to think about it, or reflect 2000 years in the past to get over an offense. To an eternal God, all events are happening to Him in the “now.”

But even here we need to be careful. We do not want to imply that God would be angry about one particular insult throughout eternity, and not just when it happens. The crucifixion of Jesus was an insult to God, but it occurred at a particular moment in time (Gal. 4:4).

The Bible says that God is angry with the wicked every day and displays His wrath (Psalm 7:11). Yet, while we were once enemies of God (Rom. 5:10), Jesus died for such people (v. 6). Therefore, those who have received God’s wonderful gift of His Son, God has turned His anger away from them (Rom. 8:1). So, while it may be nice to think of an eternal God who experiences all events in the here and now, it is confusing to suggest that God is both angry and pleased with Christians. It is either one or the other. You see, since God knows His Son’s sacrifice as well as the sins of people before coming to Jesus, we would not know whether God is angry or not at us if all events and things to God are happening in the eternal now. God is not like man. So we cannot attribute Him our characteristics of thinking and reasoning without some biblical guidelines.

Okay, let me put it this way. If an action of mine can cause anger in God in a similar way that I can cause anger in man, then this means that I can cause anger in God by my power. To the degree that God lacks power and self-discipline, He is helpless against my efforts to cause anger in Him.

Similarly, if an action of mine can produce joy in God in a similar way that I can produce joy in a man, then this means that I have the ability to produce joy in God at will. So then, I would exercise a significant measure of control over God. But such thoughts would surely contradict God’s sovereignty and immutability.

End of Part 3

Does God Have Emotions? Part 2

We must be careful when ascribing emotions to God in the same way we think of our own emotions. A man may become angry against his will in the sense that he does not to choose to become angry, and he does not choose to experience whatever causes the anger, but that the “trigger” incites this emotion in him against his preference.  This implies to other human emotional experiences such as joy, fear, grief, and so on.  Although we may develop a certain level of self-control in these emotional expressions by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, it still remains that a person’s emotions can well up with us against our desire even if we do not express it through our volition.  The perfect harmony between emotion and volition is not something we possess. 

How many times have you “lost” your temper? Or, controlled your feelings for someone? Often our feelings well up within us and we might show a level of control in terms of not expressing it, but zero control in terms of experiencing it. 

This cannot be true of God.   Even if He were to experience emotions, because of such lack of self-control would contradict His sovereignty, omniscience, and immutability. 

For example, since God is omniscience (all knowing), He cannot be surprised, and this would at least eliminate certain ways of experiencing emotions in the similar way to do. 

For example, suppose I become angry because a person insults me at this very moment.  It would be unlikely that I would still be angry two thousand years into the future. And if I had known two thousand years in the past that I would be insulted by a particular person, it would be unlikely that I would be insulted by the time he does it. In fact, if I had two thousand years to consider his insult, by the time he actually does it, I might not react at all.

Therefore, does God have emotions? 

End of Part 2

Does God Have Emotions? Part 1

I have been thinking about this for a while, searching the Scriptures, contemplating when I am out on the ocean, and I would like to ramble if I may about this.  Feel free to add your comments. The Bible teaches that we ought to get to know God (John 17:3). There is no more worthy topic in all of Scripture than the topic of knowing God.  We spend so much of our time hearing messages about us – How To Be Happy? How To Be Financially Blessed?  Three Steps To Add Love To Your Marriage.  How To Raise Your Kids To Respect You?  How To Forgive?  How To Overcome Depression, ad infinitum.  This is why a topic on just knowing God seems so boring and useless. Yet, knowing God is the epitome of success and wholesome living.

The Bible teaches that God is a Spirit (John 4:24).  Therefore, God has no form.  But then there are passages that talks about the eyes and ears of God (Ps. 34:15).  The Bible mentions the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). It also mentions the arms of God (Isa. 53:1).  And there are many others. When the Bible uses physical characteristics about God, it is called anthropomorphisms.  Anthropos = man or human; morphe = form.  Thus, descriptions such as hands, eyes, ears, mouth, etc., are merely human forms attributed to God in order to help us understand and relate to Him better.  But remember, God’s true form is that He is a spirit. He has no form.  

When the Bible speaks of God as being a spirit, it is emphasizing WHO HE IS; when the Bible speaks of God using anthropomorphism, it is emphasizing WHAT HE DOES. Again, this is to help us to relate and understand Him better.

So then, it is heretical to teach that God has a body as some do. God does not have a body.

Now likewise, given what the Bible tells us about the being of God (i.e. He is a spirit), it would also be heretical to say that He has emotions that resembles human feelings and fluctuations.

To view that God experiences emotions like men appear to entail a number of contradictions. 

I will share some of these in Part 2