There are things a person ought to know about God. In fact, we ought to know all we can about
God in view of the fact that, "The LORD, He is God; It is He who has made
us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture."
(Psalms 100:3 NKJV)
In many ways, life is a great mystery. There is only so much we can know about it
but the one thing that is certain is that we came from God. It is either that or the Bible is a lie. It is either that or life came from
non-living matter (which, I might add, brings another question—where did the
non-living matter come from).
Solomon, by inspiration, wrote, "Remember your Creator
before the silver cord is loosed…Then the dust will return to the earth as it
was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it." (Eccl. 12:6-7 NKJV) One day we must all give an account of our
lives before God. This is the fate God
has destined for us.
"For it is written:
'As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue
shall confess to God.' So then each of
us shall give account of himself to God." (Rom. 14:11-12 NKJV)
God is only going to make two divisions on the Day of
Judgment and all those who have ever lived will be placed in one division or
the other. "All the nations will be
gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd
divides his sheep from the goats. And He
will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." (Matt.
25:32-33 NKJV) Of the goats set on the
left hand Jesus says, "Then He will also say to those on the left hand,
'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels.'" (Matt. 25:41 NKJV)
He goes on and says, "These will go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt. 25:46 NKJV)
This brings me to Psalms 7:11, the subject of this piece. The entirety of Psalms 7:11 reads, "God
is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day." (NKJV) With God man is either justified (we might
say made righteous or forgiven) or else he must go into the category of the
wicked. Man is either a sheep or a goat
as God gives no other options.
Does this mean that by man's standards or yours or mine that
all the wicked are what we Americans normally think of as wicked men? Not at all!
Many are great guys or gals in that they are honest in their dealings,
kind to and thoughtful of others, friendly, do a lot of good deeds, and are
often very likable people and fun to be around. Often their only discernable fault is that
they have left God out of their lives but you see that is as big as it
gets. How does one leave his creator out
of his life and not give him any thought or honor or respect? How does one live his life as though God does
not matter?
What if we treated a mother or father, a son or daughter, a wife
or husband this way? What then? Could it be said we love them, that we
respect and honor them, and that we care about them?
When we treat God like he is nothing to us and he does not
matter how can we think we are going to be seen as sheep in his eyes? We have obviously shown we are not concerned
about him. We have treated him with
contempt whether we set out to do it intentionally or not. Is such a man wicked? Well, maybe not by man's measurements but how
about by God's?
When we treat God this way we deeply offend him and figuratively
kick sand in his face. Can we blame him
if he is angry with us? The Bible
teaches God has feelings as well as man does (Gen. 6:6). We hurt him when we do not care about
him. Have you ever had anyone you love
treat you that way? You love them but
they treat you in such a way so that you know by their actions they really do
not care about you. If so you know a
little about how God must feel when a man casts God from his life or will not
allow him to enter in.
Remember John 3:16?
God loves us and we treat him as though he was to be avoided at all
cost, as though he was evil. No, we may
not do these things intentionally but that does not change the reality of our
actions.
I memorized Psalms 7:11 because I felt it was something I
needed to keep in mind. God is
longsuffering with us not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9) but the
fact that my life or your life is seemingly going along well does not mean God
is well pleased with us. It may only be
that in God's goodness he is exercising forbearance and longsuffering in an
effort to lead you or me to repentance (Rom. 2:4 NKJV).
I don't care how much your friends think of you they do not
love you like God does and they are utterly powerless to save you. Neither are they going with you the day you die. We all
die alone. Even on D-Day when men were
dying all over the French beachheads during WW II each had to make the trip to
eternity alone whether a human hand held theirs or not. Many left for eternity that day but each went
alone. The only friend man has capable
of being with him through his darkest hour is God.
When that day comes, and it may sneak up on you unexpectedly
and early in life, and it will certainly come late in life if you escape it in
your youth and middle age years, do you want to face an angry God? Are you able to take on God and win? Do you want to be foolish enough to try that?
Psalms 7:11b is very short, just a few words. The message is powerful and ought to be life-changing. Is it going to change your
life? If your attitude toward God and
his word needs changing and you do not change then you are sure to face an angry
God.
Man has been given free will and gets to choose the road he/she will take with all the consequences that come with that. Put another way man gets to reap what he has sown (Gal. 6:7) and will indeed do so. "The way of the unfaithful is hard." (Prov. 13:15 NKJV) It is a way that is too hard for me to travel intentionally. I cannot take on God and win. It is my hope for you who read this that you come to the same conclusion for yourself. One has not known terror until he faces an angry God on the Day of Judgment.
[To download this article or print it out click here.]
No comments:
Post a Comment