Things Don’t Make Sense Any More — What Do You Do When Things Stop Making Sense?
Someone emailed me something that was forwarded to him by someone else, and asked for my comments.
“I’ve been a deep believer my whole life. 18 years as a Southern Baptist. More than 40 years as a mainline Protestant. I’m an ordained pastor. But it’s just stopped making sense to me. You see people doing terrible things in the name of religion, and you think: ‘Those people believe just as strongly as I do. They’re just as convinced as I am.’ And it just doesn’t make sense anymore. It doesn’t make sense to believe in a God that dabbles in people’s lives. If a plane crashes, and one person survives, everyone thanks God. They say: ‘God had a purpose for that person. God saved her for a reason!’ Do we not realize how cruel that is? Do we not realize how cruel it is to say that if God had a purpose for that person, he also had a purpose in killing everyone else on that plane? And a purpose in starving millions of children? A purpose in slavery and genocide? For every time you say that there’s a purpose behind one person’s success, you invalidate billions of people. You say there is a purpose to their suffering. And that’s just cruel.’
My reply:
“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.” —Charles Caleb Colton (from Lacon, 2, No 66)
You can walk into a living room and “trash it” in 5 minutes. It may take days to repair the damage and clean up the mess.
Thus, a simple “train wreck” of a question / declaration like this will take far longer, like a fishing snarl, to unravel, separate, and put in its proper place.
I haven’t been to a movie or turned on the tv in over a decade. However, most movies in my life, I went to after seeing the advertisements on tv, so I basically had an idea of the movie plot and characters... except on 2 occasions.
1. I went (1989 or so) to see the first modern Batman movie starring Michael Keaton (who was superb)... however, I had not seen any of the advertisements... and, since I had never seen Michael Keaton in anything but a comedy role... I thought HE was going to be the Joker. As I was watching in the beginning of the movie... I was saying to myself, “THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE”—until it dawned on me... “OH... HE’s Batman...!”
2. I went to see Terminator 2 (1989 or so?), again, without seeing any of the previews. Since Schwarzenegger was the bad guy in Terminator 1, I just assumed he was the bad guy in the sequel also. Again, in the beginning of the movie I was thinking, “THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE”... until it dawned on me... “OH... he’s the GOOD GUY in this one...!”
If you misunderstand the characters in a movie / novel YOU WILL BE CONFUSED.
If you misunderstand the plot in a movie / novel YOU WILL BE CONFUSED.
If you think God’s people are His enemies and His enemies are His people, if you think God said “yes” when He said “NO!” if you think God changes, if you think God is supposed to conform to sinful, damaged-minded man’s notions... things WILL stop making sense... and they actually NEVER made sense to you: You simply superimposed your fantasy over reality, and at some point, the disparity became so great that you could no longer “play along” and believe it.
If you storm out in the middle of a movie in disgust, or stop reading a novel in the middle of it and throw it away—because you don’t like how it is playing out... that will NOT change the movie or the novel.
Not liking reality does not change reality. Misperceiving reality does not change reality. Wanting reality to be your personal fantasy (in which you think that YOU are God, and that God and the rest of the world ought to salute you and accept and agree with you that reality should be as you want it, as you demand it to be) will not change reality. It only sets you up for a harder fall once you must submit to reality.
“The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1)
“Behold, all souls are Mine.” (Ezekiel 18:4)
“20Woe unto them that call evil ‘good’, and good ‘evil’; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5)
“...the curse causeless shall not come...” (Proverbs 26:2)
Hating God or refusing to believe He exists because He does not conform to the irrational notions in your mind concerning how you think God should be, will not work out very well for you in the end any more than a scared 4-year old can close his eyes and pretend that nothing can hurt him because his eyes are closed and therefore, the bad things cannot see him either, or they cease to exist.
If a person thinks that God is evil or even refuses to believe in God because God does not operate His universe the way that sinful, foolish man wants Him to run it... then God has sent such a person STRONG DELUSION to believe a lie so that such person EARNS the Judgment that God will give that person.
Such a person never believed in God... he believed in a humanistic fairy tale of his own imagination... and he does not even understand the CONCEPT of GOD. God is Sovereign, Boss, Master, LORD, RULER, OWNER. Our job is to study and learn—and if things stopped making sense it is because you put down GOD’S BOOK and started reading some other book and anti-intellectually expect God’s Book to conform with that other book written by sinful men.
It is God’s Universe. God is Immutable, Perfect, Holy, True, Just, Right. Man’s duty is to learn of God and understand and submit... not demand God to submit to man’s polluted notions of “fairness”, or conform to sinful man’s ever-changing concept of “morality”. True morality, established solely by the Decree of God, in His Word / Law never changes. Sinful man, in essence, throws a Halloween costume at God’s Feet and demands, “Here, put this on!”
If sinful man thinks that morality is based upon the wicked modern world’s self-declared notions of “morality” (which change continually)... and if he thinks that God will bless sinful man’s violation of all that God commanded—yes, things will stop making sense... in reality, they never made sense. In reality, you deludedly thought that God was supposed to conform to you, to be your puppy dog on your leash, Who is supposed to obey and perform when you give Him commands.
This person says,
“I’ve been a deep believer my whole life. 18 years as a Southern Baptist. More than 40 years as a mainline Protestant. I’m an ordained pastor. But it’s just stopped making sense to me.”
You have no doubt been a “deep believer” in “something”... but it has not been in the Word of God or you would not think that things don’t make sense and you would not think evil thoughts about God, and you would not have turned from the Bible, had you actually believed sound Doctrine, true Christianity. You have been part of the Apostate Church, the Great Whore of Revelation; the question is: Will you Come out as God commanded?
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, Will of God.” (Romans 12:2)
It is God’s Will for you to eschew humanism and submit to God and accept sound doctrine, and not be a friend of the world which makes you the enemy of God.
“21These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove [rebuke] thee, and set them [truth] in order before thine eyes. 22Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” (Psalm 50)
You may have been “ordained”—but not by God. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. You have been the blind leading the blind into the pit, and now that you have fallen into it you claim that things don’t make sense, and you accuse God of evil, and now like a pouting 5-year old who was disciplined because his hand was caught in the cookie jar, you refuse to believe God even exists.
“a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again” (Proverbs 24:16)
... will YOU...? What you do will demonstrate what type of man you are. Even more tragically, as a trusted shepherd of souls (regardless of whether you were ordained of God, you functioned in that role) you led your whole flock astray! It is one thing to commit suicide. It is another thing entirely to take a busload of women and children with you!
This person says,
“You see people doing terrible things in the name of religion, and you think: ‘Those people believe just as strongly as I do. They’re just as convinced as I am.’”
This itself is a delusion. All “religions” are not the same. There is only one true religion. All the rest are superstitions, delusions, doctrines of demons, immorality, perversion, humanism, paganism. To even use the word “religion” in that context, inferring they are just as valid as Christianity (or rather, your corrupt understanding of it) shows that you do not even know what religion is.
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)
[Note, this does NOT mean that merely giving indiscriminate alms to widows and orphans is all there is. Furthermore, acts alone are not indicators of godliness: the nature makes the act, and the motive legitimizes the act; not vice versa. Doing things pleasing to God does not make one righteous in God’s Sight. If one has truly been regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit, and is therefore clothed in the Righteousness of Christ—if walks in the Spirit—he will then live as God commanded. Trees don’t become apple trees by bearing apples; apple trees bear apples because that is what their Creator designed them to bear. Good water does not come from a polluted spring. Finally, keeping oneself unspotted from the world refers to obeying all that God commanded (and two of those things that God commanded are being kind to orphans and widows of ones own people—if they meet the qualifications laid down by God in other passages). Thus, pure religion / piety—that is, the outflowing, the demonstration of that faith, will be exhibited in how a person lives; not merely because he entertains “inspirational thoughts” or has “warm fuzzies” when he focuses on and chants his “feel-good” humanistic mantra. “Love” does not replace the Law of God. True love is demonstrated in your obedience to all that God commanded: If you truly love God you will not worship other gods (including the false humanistic one you crafted in your mind’s eye), you will not bow down to graven images, you will not take Yahweh’s Name in vain, you will not violate the Sabbath; if you truly love God and your kinsmen, you will not steal from him, commit adultery with his wife, rape his daughter, murder his son, etc. Some nondescript, subjective warm-fuzzy does not replace the Law. Obedience is love. If you love Me keep My Commandments.” “If you keep My Commandments ye shall abide in My Love even as I have kept My Father’s Commandments [the very same Commandments] and abide in His Love. Keeping the Law of God does not save—it is an evidence that you were regenerated; a sign of real life—bearing fruit; not man’s humanistic fruit, but all that God commanded. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) “...This is the Way, walk ye in it...” (Isaiah 30:21) “Ye shall walk in all the Ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.” (Deuteronomy 5:33) The New Testament does not replace the Old—the New Testament is understood in terms of all that the Old established, which is the template that never changes. If you think that the Old and New Testaments are entirely different, in disharmony, you are following a humanistic false religion masquerading as Christianity.]
If someone put on a Halloween mask of Charlton Heston and used it to rob a bank, and you saw it, imagine how silly you would be if you said to yourself, “Things just don’t make any sense any more... I just saw Charlton Heston rob a bank!” Imagine how even more foolish you would be if you then thought evil of Charlton Heston and his family because you thought he robbed a bank. If you think “People A” are God’s people, when in fact they are His declared enemies, the people of His Eternal Curse, and you think that “People B” (who are God’s actual people) are God’s enemies... yes you are going to be terribly confused... things will indeed stop making sense. If you think that the modern apostate “Christian” church is Christianity, you are terribly deceived. If you think that all peoples are the same and all religions are the same... you will be terribly confused. There is only one true religion, and God commanded us His people to be separate from other peoples and commanded us not to cast bread unto the dogs or pearls before swine—or they will turn, trample, and tear us! Scripture informed us that in a discussion Christ had, that it is not proper to take the children’s Bread and give it to the dogs and that the dogs’ place is under the table. Instead, the modern “Christian” Church thinks the Master will be so happy when He returns to find the dogs on top of the table breeding with His children; while those of His children who refused to abominate themselves so, have been forced under the table and the dogs are seated in their places at the table. God forbade us to help the ungodly or do good unto them that hate the Lord (even our own kinsmen), and God forbade us to seek the peace or prosperity forever of those whom He cursed; and God forbids us to even bid “God speed” (any simple blessing, such as “Good bye”, which means “God be wi’ ye”, or “I wish you well” or “take care”, etc.) to our kinsmen who reject Christ, that we share in their evil deeds! Those who deny that Jesus is God are antichrist! Those who love and help those who hate Christ Jesus incur the Wrath of God. If your “god” is the “Touched by an Angel” type god, who like a doting old grandfather who smiles fondly at his grandchildren, no matter what they do, and that “there is no need to change a thing, God loves you just the way you are”—then of course nothing is going to make sense and you are going to be confused and disillusioned. When you attach dynamite to a building and blow it up, and are then confused and scratching your head in bewilderment wondering why it did not make the building stronger and prettier—the problem is YOU. When God sends JUDGMENT instead of blessing... yes, those who completely misunderstand the plot and the characters and what God commanded will be terribly confused and things will stop making sense.
All false “religions” are evil; therefore, proponents of those false religions who commit atrocities don’t do it in the name of religion, but in the name of evil. You just confusedly think it is religion—and since you do, clearly you do not understand true Christian doctrine or reality. If you think evil of Charlton Heston because you were fooled seeing someone rob a bank wearing a Halloween mask with his face on it—you have a problem with reality! If you have adopted the Apostate Church’s humanistic doctrine, yes, you will think ill of Christianity—but not because of Christianity, but because of the false religion masquerading as Christianity because IT results in the DESTRUCTION of Christendom, turning that which was God’s city set on a hill and corrupting it into Babylon (“confusion by mixing”) and you seem to think that Babylon is WONDERFUL and God is the bad guy, because you are unregenerate and your perverted mind has never been renewed... and like disillusioned communists, once “the honeymoon is over” and you see what you really signed up for... you realize that the Apostate Church does NOT have the answer—but you reject the TRUE and ONLY ANSWER, the true doctrine of the Word of God, because you are a humanist and not a Christian.
You actually think that because “those people” (whoever they are, basically, anyone in the world no matter what they believe) “believe just as strongly as you do” and that those people “are just as convinced as you are” MEANS ANYTHING? It shows that you don’t even know what you are talking about. It is completely irrelevant if someone else thinks that cyanide is just as wonderful tasting as milk chocolate. It is completely irrelevant if someone thinks 3 + 3 = 33. Just because they believe as strongly in falsehood as you presumably do in truth IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and you are very easily confused and no wonder things “stopped making sense to you”. But no, in reality, those people ARE MORE convinced and believe EVEN MORE STRONGLY in what they believe than you do—because you GAVE UP on what you claim to have believed... which is evidence that you never actually believed.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (I John 2:19)
Furthermore, YOU don’t determine what is good and what is evil. GOD does. What may be right for one person or people to do IS NOT necessarily right for other individuals or peoples to do. For example, you having intimate relations with your wife (presuming she is your wife, meeting the qualifications that God established) is not a sin—but anyone else having such relations with your wife WOULD BE SIN. An act in some cases itself is neither good nor evil, but is dependent on the nature and the motive of the doer, and the situation and context. A god-fearing man who puts money, a tithe of his income in the collection plate of a godly church is indeed something that God commanded and something that God will bless. But do you think that a mobster who robs and murders and then gives $10,000 (of his ill gained millions) to the equally corrupt Catholic church is recognized by God as a “good work”...?
God instructed certain individuals in the Bible to do things, at times, that would have been wrong for anyone else to take upon himself to do. God commanded His people to exterminate (not “convert”) the unreformably wicked Canaanites (who now masquerade as His people) to the very last, man, woman, child, and suckling infant. Those who think that God is “evil” for so commanding, are themselves evil, but think that they are good (not even knowing what Goodness is) and they think that they are more-moral than God! God commanded Joshua and his armies, when many Canaanite nations confederated and came against God’s true people, God commanded them to kill every single one to the very last, man, woman, and child, until there was none left with breath—and also to hough / hamstring (slice open the back thigh muscle) of all their horses (possibly tens of thousands), which meant a slow, agonizing death. When Solomon dedicated the Temple, God commanded, and Solomon had the priests offer up 20,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Humanists, tree-huggers, and deranged animal lovers (those who think that animals are more important than humans or more important than God Himself) most likely judge God and cry, “HOW CRUEL!” Sinful humans, mere maggots, have no moral or legal standing or even intellectual capacity to judge the Holy God of the universe. All of the universe is God’s. He made it. He owns it. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the hills too—He owns all the earth and the entire universe and He is 100% Moral and Right and Just in whatever He does because that is His Nature and He can do not otherwise—despite sinful, confused humanistic minds that disagree. THEIR MINDS ARE PERVERSE because they call evil ‘good’ and good ‘evil’, and they expect a Holy, Perfect God to conform to their sinful, perverse notions.
“Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker? ” (Job 4:17)
“9Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd [broken, useless bits of pottery] strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, ‘What makest Thou? or [shall] thy work [produced from the clay say of his Potter], ‘He hath no hands?’ [That is, He is an inept, unskilled Potter] 10Woe unto him that saith unto his father, ‘What begettest thou?’ or to the woman [his father’s wife], ‘What hast thou brought forth?’” (Isaiah 45)
“20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, ‘Why hast Thou made me thus?’ 21Hath not the Potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22What if God, willing to show His Wrath, and to make His Power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to [created for] destruction: 23And that He might make known the riches of His Glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory.” (Romans 9)
God would not let Moses enter the Promised Land, despite all his service, because of one sinful mistake. God had one obscure prophet be killed by a lion for not obeying God’s Command to speak to no one after delivering the message that God had him to give and commanded him to leave following a specific path and to do nothing else; even though another prophet that God had formerly used, lied to him and told him that God wanted him to come and have lunch with him. For only one sin (after being only a few hours old with no experience) Adam and Eve and all of us descended from them were cursed. God decreed for the Israelites to wander for 40 years when they believed the pessimistic evil report of the 10 faithless men sent to spy out the land—even after they repented and declared they would go fight as God had commanded; but God withdrew the opportunity to repent and obey when He declared His Judgment upon them. In that instance, their attempted “obedience” was rebellion itself. Had they truly repented of their faithlessness (a synonym in Scripture for disobedience) they would not have violated the new command given them; they would have fallen on their faces and begged for mercy until it was granted them, or honorably accepted His Judgment and persevered through it in true repentance; in which case, most probably God would have drawn it short.
Reality is not established by our false perception, emotions, or whim. God does not conform to what we think is right. Our duty is to conform to Him, not judge Him. All of our problems are the result of the Law of the Harvest: You reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, you reap more than you sow, you continue to reap year after year what you sowed; and even what your ancestors or neighbor’s sowed—if you don’t dig up the invasive, aggressive crops that you don’t want, which your ancestors or neighbors planted or allowed to grow up and neglected eradicating. You can’t plant poison ivy and then blame God that strawberries did not come up. All of the evil in our nations, the things that “don’t make sense any more”... to you MAKES PERFECT SENSE. It is called JUDGMENT FROM A HOLY GOD. If it does not make any sense, you have been worshipping a false god and following a false christ, and believing in false doctrine.
A chemistry experiment will only work one way. If you do it wrong it may blow up in your face. All chemicals are not the same; all chemical combinations and reactions are not the same. If you use inferior materials, materials with flaws, and assemble those materials in violation of sound laws of engineering... whether a bridge, tunnel, car, plane, ship, or space shuttle—the results will not merely be confusing, but disastrous.
If you invite a grizzly bear and a male African lion into your living room and place a lamb between them, you will be very confused if you think the scene will be pretty and harmonious... and if you get in the middle of it, you will have destroyed yourself and your entire family as well as your living room. And yet, in violation of the Commands of God, that is what the peoples of Christendom have done, to our own destruction.
This person says,
“It doesn’t make sense to believe in a God that dabbles in people’s lives. If a plane crashes, and one person survives, everyone thanks God. They say: ‘God had a purpose for that person. God saved her for a reason!’ Do we not realize how cruel that is? Do we not realize how cruel it is to say that if God had a purpose for that person, he also had a purpose in killing everyone else on that plane? And a purpose in starving millions of children? A purpose in slavery and genocide? For every time you say that there’s a purpose behind one person’s success, you invalidate billions of people. You say there is a purpose to their suffering. And that’s just cruel’.”
Your problem is that you have believed in a mythical humanistic god and not the God of the Bible; and, of course, you will be delusioned when the real and only true God who controls reality does not perform according to the make-believe, humanistic fantasy-god you have invented in your mind (or the false god that your corrupt denomination invented and then taught to you). God does not merely dabble in people’s lives. God is not a mere spectator or a mad scientist carrying out half-baked experiments. God ordains all. All that happens God has ordained; it is His Will; it is His Plan—for HIS GLORY. It is completely irrelevant if you don’t like it, agree with it, or if it does not make sense to you and it is blasphemy of you to declare God to be cruel and it shows that you are none of His. You don’t even know the difference between good and evil, your heart and mind are themselves evil, your mind does not understand but a thimbleful of all that the vast universe contains, and you think that you have the right and the wisdom to declare God to be cruel / evil.
You’re right, it doesn’t make humanistic sense in fallen, sinful, damaged-minded man’s eyes. Might I suggest another “religion”...? such as Hinduism, in which there are billions of gods—the sky’s the limit*—in which each person invents his god or gods in his own image, how he thinks his god is or should be... and if his god “does not work for him”, he simply discards him and invents a new one.
[* But it will go no farther than that false imagination and one day you will have a collision course with reality and Eternal Judgment when you stand naked before the true God whom you rejected. But what the hell... it’s just eternity, right...? so what’s there to lose if you’re wrong...? Are you a high stakes gambler...? One soul and eternity. Spin the wheel.]
“1Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against His anointed, saying, 3‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ 4He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5Then shall He speak unto them in His Wrath, and vex them in His Sore displeasure.” (Psalm 2)
You have not believed in the true God because you either have not read Scripture—or you reject it:
“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” (Isaiah 40:15)
“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His Will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His Hand, or say [authoritatively] unto Him, ‘What doest Thou?’” (Daniel 4:35)
“8Remember this, and show yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. 9Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My Counsel shall stand, and I will do all My Pleasure: 11... yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. 12Hearken unto Me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness.” (Isaiah 46)
“...Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” (Isaiah 14)
And since you probably are ignorant of the Old Testament, and ignorantly think it “passed away” (despite your being “ordained” and “deep” in something), are you unfamiliar with these verses in the New Testament?
“27For of a truth against Thy Holy Child Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles [nations], and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28For to do whatsoever Thy Hand and Thy Counsel determined before to be done.” (Acts 4)
“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His Good Pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)
“19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (I Corinthians 6)
[See again the passage from Romans 9 a few pages back. To learn true Bible Doctrine and True Theology, order my book, Does God Repent...? — Can God Change His Mind...?, 506pp., 25.00 + P&H; and my annotated edition of Arthur Pink’s, The Attributes of God, “Critical Edition” with detailed Preface, Biography, and Annotations, 199pp., pb., 17.50 + P&H.]
It is also quite telling that in your little temper tantrum against God and reality, you did not quote a single Bible verse. How “deep” then is the “faith” from which you claim to have drawn all those years? Do you now quote Biden and the Camel instead of God? You simply looked at “circumstances”—NOT even understanding them, because you do not know God and you do not know true theology or doctrine; and you subjectively imagine that reality is as you misperceive it (not understanding “cause” and “effect”), and because you subjectively, anti-intellectually believe that reality should be as you want it to be. If your notion of morality is different than that of God’s of course you will be confused. If you do not understand that God has His Own Time-table that operates according to His Plan (have you ever even read Psalm 37?) then of course you will be confused. There are cycles of Judgment and Blessing and God does not bless the nation during times of Judgment and God does not judge us because He is “happy” with us...! The only way out of Judgment is true repentance—not accusing God of being evil and then refusing to believe that he doesn’t even exist. How long will you hold your breath because the world is not the way that you want it to be...? that is, because YOU are NOT God...?
If you hate God because He is GOD and not the panty-waisted caricature of honey-dripping love and nothing else... then it may be because He first hated you and sent you strong delusion to believe such blasphemies and lies. God is not double-minded. God does not love whom He hates. He does not merely “hate the sin and love the sinner”. He hates the SOUL that sinneth, and it is not merely “the sin” that He will damn in Hell—and He does not damn whom He loves! Even though you don’t believe in God any more, He wrote about YOU in His Word:
“1The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2The LORD looked down from Heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up My people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.” (Psalm 14)
“4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. .... 12These [evil people] are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water [devoid of the Holy Spirit], arried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. 14And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, 15To execute Judgment upon all, and to convince [convict, punish] all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. 16These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. 17But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Christ Jesus; 18How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.” (Jude)
“21For it had been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them. 22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, ‘The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire’.” (II Peter 2) and again...
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (I John 2:19)
But hopefully, God will grant you Grace to repent (in man there originates no good thing—even repentance is a gift of God) and your faith will be real and strong once you learn true Doctrine and learn of the true God, and confess your wickedness and rebellion and lack of faith and ask forgiveness. Martin Luther (not the modern communist agitator who renamed himself, stealing Martin Luther’s name and polluting it) himself—founder of the Protestant Reformation, who lived from 1483 to 1546, said:
“The hardest work of all—a labour above all labours, since he who prays must wage almighty warfare against the doubt and murmuring excited by the faint-heartedness and unworthiness we feel within us... that unutterable and powerful groaning with which the godly rouse themselves against despair, the struggle in which they call mightily upon their faith. .... Audacious prayer, which perseveres unflinchingly and ceases not through fear, is well pleasing unto God. .... As a shoe maker makes a shoe, or a tailor makes a coat, so ought a Christian to pray. Prayer is the daily business of a Christian.”
However, true prayer, like true faith, does not originate in man, but in God, and is a gift of God’s Holy Spirit whereby we believe unto salvation, and whereby we understand true doctrine, and whereby we obey. Prayer is not anti-intellectual. Prayer begins with faith and faith is based upon the facts, the doctrine of the Word of God. Those who don’t understand true doctrine do not have faith and cannot truly pray. Prayer must be according to the rules that God established—and He does not hear faithless prayers, prayers in violation of His Word, and He does not hear the prayers of those who have unconfessed sin or who continue in sin. To truly pray you must understand God’s Word—Doctrine. God indeed gives a “Grace period” for those in ignorance, and He “winks” (overlooks) our ignorance and faults in some limited areas; but He expects us to mature and learn and obey what we learn; not continue in sinful ignorential bliss.
When things stop making sense, God has brought you to a crossroads. You will either cross over into His Marvellous Light, into submission and obedience as you trust Him and draw closer to Him and truly learn of Him (discarding all your humanistic notions of how you thought God and the world were supposed to be); or you will continue on in darkness and pass blindly into Judgment.
Wake up!
Choose Life!
“I call Heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you Life and Death, Blessing and Cursing: therefore choose Life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Christ, the Personification of Wisdom declares:
“But he that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate Me love death.” (Proverbs 8:36)
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25)
“Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for He is raised up out of His Holy Habitation.” (Zechariah 2:13)
“God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that Power belongeth unto God.” (Psalm 62:11)
“But the LORD is in His Holy Temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Habakkuk 2:20)
When you are driving along at night and come to the realization that you don’t recognize anything... YOU ARE LOST. STOP. Turn around. Retrace your steps. Consult the directions and get back on the right road!
Though at times we may sabotage our own faith and invalidate our receiving the fulfilment of God’s Promises this does not change God’s Faithfulness. God always keeps His Promises—and when we are faithful and abide in Christ, walk in the Spirit, and do that which is pleasing in His Sight, we place ourselves in a position in which we can receive His Faithfulness and all that for which we have asked. Arthur Pink, in his, The Attributes of God, wrote:
“God is true. His Word of Promise is sure. In all His relations with His people God is faithful. He may be safely relied upon. No one ever yet really trusted Him in vain. We find this precious truth expressed almost everywhere in the Scriptures, for His people need to know that faithfulness is an essential part of the Divine character. This is the basis of our confidence in Him. But it is one thing to accept the faithfulness of God as a Divine truth, it is quite another to act upon it. God has given us many ‘exceeding great and precious promises,’ but are we really counting on His fulfillment of them? Are we actually expecting Him to do for us all that He has said? Are we resting with implicit assurance on these words, ‘He is faithful that promised’ (Heb. 10:23)?
“There are seasons in the lives of all when it is not easy, no not even for Christians, to believe that God is faithful. Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes bedimmed with tears, and we can no longer trace the outworkings of His love. Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world, harassed by the atheistic whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of His still small voice. Cherished plans have been thwarted, friends on whom we relied have failed us, a profest brother or sister in Christ has betrayed us. We are staggered. We sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud hides Him from us. We find it difficult, yea, impossible, for carnal reason to harmonize His frowning providence with His gracious promises. Ah, faltering soul, severely tried fellow-pilgrim, seek grace to heed Isaiah 50:10, ‘Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.’
“When you are tempted to doubt the faithfulness of God, cry out, ‘Get thee hence, Satan.’*1 Though you cannot now harmonize God’s mysterious dealings with the avowals of His love, wait on Him for more light. In His own good time He will make it plain to you. ‘What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter’ (John 13:7). The sequel will yet demonstrate that God has neither forsaken nor deceived His child. ‘And therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment:*2 blessed are all they that wait for Him’ (Isa. 30:18). ....
[*1 When Christ spoke to Satan, He spoke in His Own Authority and in the Father’s. When we rebuke Satan, we must rebuke and expel Him by the Authority and Name of Yahweh and Yehoshua, in whose Authority and Name we are invested and established.
*2 i.e., “Justice”: judgment on the wicked; reward for the righteous in Christ. Notes mine. R.A.B.]
“The apprehension of this blessed truth will check our murmurings. The Lord knows what is best for each of us, and one effect of resting on this truth will be the silencing of our petulant complainings. God is greatly honored when, under trial and chastening, we have good thoughts of Him, vindicate His wisdom and justice, and recognize His love in His very rebukes.
“The apprehension of this blessed truth will beget increasing confidence in God. ‘Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator’ (1 Pet. 4:19). When we trustfully resign ourselves, and all our affairs into God’s hands, fully persuaded of His love and faithfulness, the sooner shall we be satisfied with his providence and realize that ‘He doeth all things well.’ ” (Chapter 10, “The Faithfulness of God;” pp. 53-54, 56)
In closing, consider...
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is [that He is exactly as He said that He is and that everything that He said is True], and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
“6Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: 7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have Mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. 8‘For My Thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My Ways’, saith the LORD. 9‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My Ways higher than your ways, and My Thoughts than your thoughts’.” (Isaiah 55)
“And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever.” (I Chronicles 28:9)
“13‘And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart. 14And I will be found of you’, saith the LORD: ‘and I will turn away your captivity’...” (Jeremiah 29)
“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit [‘man-up’, ‘behave manly’] you like men, be strong.” (I Corinthians 16:13)
“...ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 1:3)
“10Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the Power of His Might. 11Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. 12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6)
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so Great Salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him.” (Hebrews 2:3)
“6Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; 7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8In Flaming Fire taking Vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Christ Jesus: 9Who shall be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord, and from the Glory of His Power; 10When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” (II Thessalonians 1)
If this allegedly “ordained” pastor had spent the 6 hours that it took me to write this, instead of the moment or two it took him to scribble out his petty, anti-intellectual accusation against the God he no longer believes in, maybe he would have come to the knowledge of the truth by confessing his sin of disbelief to God, asking forgiveness, meditating upon God’s Word, and asked God to teach Him, maybe then he would not have blasphemed God and possibly undermined the faith of countless others like him, who were “close” to being converted, but lingered on the threshold without entering, because they never had true faith, and they turned their backs on God and walked out into a hopeless Eternity... unless God, by His Grace, forgives them and calls them to truly enter in by regenerating them and administering to them true faith, in place of “playing church” and attending a pseudo-spiritual humanistic country club that focuses on man and “good feelings” instead of focusing on, worshipping, learning of, and obeying the true God.
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