16 Nov Paris, God, and the Garbage Disposal
Like many people, I spent my week checking news updates on Paris, praying for the loved ones of victims, and hoping that there would not be any more attacks. Seeing the traumatized citizens and weeping survivors was devastating.
As I was praying for everyone involved this week, something hit me. Evil is constantly occurring, but we just don’t see it all, and when we do we are rightly angry and horrified. Have you ever sat down and really thought about what it must be like to be the holy and good God who sees all evil continually?
I seriously cannot fathom how God endures humanity.
While the earth’s combined population census total remained at a whopping two people, Satan (lead demon) shows up to recruit them for his terrorist attack on God. Just a short conversation later between the woman and the Enemy, while her husband just stood there motionless and speechless like a piece of furniture, and the pact was signed, deal was done, and all of humanity was in league with the Dragon unleashing hell on a planet that was supposed to be a heaven.
Every day since that deadly, devastating, destructive, dark, damnable day, God has only and always gotten attacked by everyone. Everything and everyone God made was “very good” according to Genesis 1:31, but we quickly made it all very bad.
Only a few pages into our Bible after sin enters the world, we read this about God in Genesis 6:5-6, “The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.”
You may have heard that sin is the breaking of God’s laws. Great theologians trained as lawyers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who were focused on the laws of Moses rightly saw sin as the breaking of God’s laws. However, we tragically learn that sin is also the breaking of God’s heart.
Did you know that we and our lives have broken God’s heart?
As I pondered the terrorist attacks this week, I kept trying to consider what it must be like to be God. Then, something got stuck in our garbage disposal in our sink.
Have you ever turned the garbage disposal on at your house with a spoon stuck in it? Remember that awful grinding sound it makes as the blades are ravaging the spoon over and over and over and over? Being God seems a lot like being that spoon and the disposal never gets turned off. You and I and everyone else are just blades spinning around slashing the broken heart of God, “consistently and totally evil.”
Think about that.
God is the victim of our attacks.
How hurt are you right now? Who broke your heart? If you were God and could do anything you wanted right now, what would you do to your enemies?
One of the reasons we know that the Bible is not a collection of fables and fairy tales invented by men is the way the story is told. No one of their own imagination would tell the story in such a way that we all looked so bad and that God looked so good. Not only does God see all evil, He saw the greatest evil which was the murder of his innocent Son. And He used that greatest evil for the greatest good – the forgiveness of sin and elimination of death in eternity.
As we shed our tears and wage our wars, it is good to remember that our Father is shedding His tears with us. Furthermore, His Son is sharpening His Sword and saddling His white horse. Make no mistake, he will bring justice to everyone forever, and establish a peaceable kingdom that is never ending. In the meantime, he patiently waits for sinners to repent. Those who do not repent, are not getting away with anything, but will be eternally punished for everything.
Make no mistake, Jesus is coming!
Pastor Mark
Meaningless Life? Part 14, “Butter Knife Logging: Ecclesiastes 10:8-11:6“, is available today. Check out all of Pastor Mark’s new series here.
