Sunday, 13 September 2009

• Discipline of God vs. the Wrath of God

  I have seen many posts questioning God's Wrath and his Discipline.  If possible, I'd like to look at the difference between the two.  To discover our natural ability to learn through disciplinary measures and understand the purpose of wrath.

  In a previous blog I mentioned the ability to learn based upon ‘mimicking’ example. For this blog I want to discover our ability to learn through being disciplined and distinguish that from an altogether different subject; wrath.

  See, one of the ways that our brains learn is by being instructed, and like many other things, there are many different methods that our brain is capable of being instructed by.

  There are positive and negative reinforcement conditions in which our brain learns to respond differently towards different stimuli. Through adding or subtracting certain desirable stimuli we can increase the frequency in which a certain behavior happens.  If you’re a psychology buff, you’ll recognize this as “operant conditioning” developed by B. F. Skinner.

  In a great act of love, and demonstrating his authority over his creation, we can see how God has used this principle to instruct us in the ways that we are to follow.  God, speaking to people with infinitely inferior understanding has taken every measure to make possible our understanding of what He would have for us to do.  

  God continually deals with us through means that we are capable of learning from.  As He deals in a Holy and Just manor with us, as our Creator, he does so in ways that he knows we will understand (for the most part).

  As we deal with the topic of Wrath vs. Discipline I want you to keep that in mind as I believe discipline is an act of love towards us, not punishment (that is the role of Wrath).
  

  DISCIPLINE

  Most of the time we want to avoid talking about Wrath—we don’t understand how a Loving God could administer this to his own creation; and as a result the topic gets ignored and a broken view of God begins to formulate in our heads. 

  One of my primary points of this blog is to say that Wrath and Discipline are two separate administrations and should not be viewed as one and the same. While similar, they are drastically different.

  Wrath carries with it the element of judgment being enacted out by God’s divine measure towards an unrepentant and obstinate people.  God’s wrath is not vindictive or bitter.  He is not filled with malice or unrighteous hatred towards his very own creation.  Wipe the image of an angry woman smashing the disgusting little cockroach scurrying across the floor with a shoe out of your mind; that is not our Holy, Just, Almighty, and Loving God.

  Neither is Wrath purposed to “instruct” us- Wrath is God’s Judgment.  Punishment for evil committed time and time again.

  John 3:36 tells us that Judgment and Wrath is poured out against those who do not believe in, and obey His Son, Jesus Christ.  We do not see God randomly picking people to destroy just for fun.

  Zephaniah 1:18 speaks of the LORD’S wrath as a time that our gold and silver will not be able to save us from… a time of devastation in which fire will devour the world.  It speaks of God’s “Day of Wrath” as a complete and terrifying end.  

  In reading this account we don’t get the picture of God causing you to “lose your job”.  We don’t even see a picture of God calling your spouse to come to be with him in an eternal life; while losing a spouse is a tremendously difficult trial to bear, this final calling of our loved one is not a punishment of God’s wrath.

  Still yet another picture of the Wrath of God is found in Revelation 16:1 in which a voice from the Temple cried out telling Seven Angels to pour out God’s Wrath upon the earth, upon the sea, upon the Sun, upon the Throne of the Beast, upon the mighty River Euphrates, and even upon the Air.

  This final day of Wrath speaks of great lament—something beyond our imagination, I’m sure.

  GOD’S WRATH IS NOT HIDDEN

  If you have to ask “Is God pouring out his wrath upon me?”, then he’s probably not…

  Romans 1:18-20 tells us that God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and against all the unrighteous men who suppress the truth.  Here we get the first glimpse of God’s Justice and Love in all this talk about Unrighteousness; it says in vv19-23 that God has made known to them his ways and that those who pretended to be wise rejected God’s truth taking upon themselves the wrath of God. 

  Bear with me a little longer and we will see just how long suffering God has been with all mankind before he pours out his Judgment upon them (if indeed you can suffer long enough to read through it ;).

  Continuing on in vv24-27 we see that God has “abandoned” them to their sinfulness.  He gave them over to the evil desires of their hearts.

  Against such wicked people God gave them over to their sexually depraved life-styles.  He watched as the men and women alike exchanged their natural relationships with one another for unnatural one’s; in so doing men committed sins with one another and in v27 God said they received in their bodies their due penalty. 

  Side note; I know Revelife has had its plethora of posts concerning homosexuality, and I don't wish to make this one of them, but perhaps this section of scripture should be examined in the next relevant post?

  Paul then forwarded the motion of God’s Wrath (In the final judgment since) as having been stored up against those who would presume to “ride out” God’s Grace and Mercy; Rm 2:5

  This brings up a very important point; does a lack of punishment (or wrath) in your life mean God approves of your life?  Or is it simply a testimony of God's patience as he allows time for His messengers to bring to you opportunity after opportunity to repent?   Perhaps his continual patience in your life does not mean he approves of it, but it simply means he is trying to bring you back before the amount of wrath you have stored up gets to great and overcomes you.

  Ready to see another example of God’s long-suffering patience and love? Me too!!!

  Recall the example of Jonah—He was commanded by God to take a message of repentance to Nineveh; Jonah, however, opted to hide from God’s will because his hatred for Nineveh and it’s people was so great that he was unwilling to see them spared.  Read Jonah 4:2 and you will see that Jonah ran, not because he was afraid of Nineveh, but because he knew that Nineveh would repent and in kindness God would grant to them forgiveness.

  Genesis 18-19- Again, in a city even worse than Nineveh, Abraham pleaded with God not to wipe the city out.  Remember which city this is that I speak of? 

  For the sake of 10 righteous people God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah, two of the worst cities of their time.  Their people were so bad that when God sent two angels to Lot to bring about God’s Wrath and Judgment upon the city the people tried to sodomize the visitors!!!

  In the time of Abraham this was particularly evil and debased because the proper behavior was to protect travelers at all costs.  You were to extend to them every hospitality that you had at your disposal.  That is why Inn-keepers, pirates, and muggers were considered to be the worst of the worst kind of people because they charged travelers, raided, and robbed them. 

  This is why Lot was willing to give to them his daughters instead.  Yet they threatened Lot and asked for his guests still!!! 

  When there was not a single righteous man to be found, then and ONLY then did God pour out his store-house of wrath upon the city!

  However, 1 Thess 5:9-10

  “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him.”

  DISCIPLINE

  Anyone of us who has accepted and obeyed our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has been rescued from this destiny of wrath.  Far and apart from our own working, Jesus became an object of wrath to be poured out for our sake, taking on our destiny for any one of us willing to accept the New covenant and be made new by God’s awesome power!  Those of us who have joined Christ in his Death and Resurrection are now Sons of God!  I hope this brings as GREAT a smile to your face as it does to mine…. made co-heirs with Jesus our Lord and Savior that we might have eternal life, which is to know our Father (Rm 8 and Jn 17)
  

  I believe that a great many of us are familiar with Discipline.

  Our parents or guardians have probably, at one point or another administered this (often) unpleasant task to us.

  To obtain our most obvious example of discipline vs wrath I want to help you recall 2 Samuel 11-12.

  Read it for the long version; the short version is that King David desired Bathsheba, more than all the many lavish gifts that God had already given to him.  He had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed in battle after he found out that Bathsheba conceived child from him.  Aside from laying with Her during her time of “purification” (her period) which was a REALLY big NO, NO, in David’s day, he continued his evil by having her husband killed!  This man did a lot of evil right here!

  However it is important to note that David is the same man who wrote “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” (Ps 51:17)

  King David admitted to his sin.  He did not defy, run from or Curse god, or otherwise shift the blame from himself to someone else.  He accepted that he transgressed the LORD.

  When Nathan confronted Him about his hypothetical situation to see what David’s judgment would be, David said “KILL HIM!!!” 

  King David was more wrathful in his punishment than our ALMIGHTY Father in heaven was!!!

  Yet When confronted that it was HE himself that Nathan spoke of in his story, David accepted his own ruling and basically said “Kill Me”.

  God was not so vindictive as we; he instructed Nathan to proclaim the discipline that he would put upon David, but to reassure him that he would not destroy him.

  Here is the principle that we see present;

  “But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”  1 Cor. 11: 32

  I hope by now we are seeing how God is patient- How he is kind and longsuffering; and how his discipline is designed for our benefit.

  This is where you and I can see one of God’s ways of interacting with us in a personal, and intimate “Father-Child” way that he is the one responsible for guiding us through disciplinary measures; once again, remove that image of a giant buff man with a iron-rod beating people into submission from your head.  That is not what discipline is.  Our corrupted world views discipline in such a light, but God does not.

  “1I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  2"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.  3" You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:1-3

  Read through Hebrews 12:3-11;

  Notice how God’s discipline brings about holiness which yields peaceful reighteousness?  The purpose of his discipline is not to torture us- to make us writhe in pain wondering if God is going to keep plucking our legs off one-by-one or finally put us out of our misery- it is to help us, to guide us into a Holy path that only HE can show us. 

  His discipline strengthens us. 

  When I think of discipline I think of a coach that lines his championship-defending team up on the baseline to have them run wind-sprints for the 1,000th time this season.  Never relenting because he knows the value of testing his team; of pushing them to their limits.  ONLY the athletes who accept his drills and are able to take the pressure will stay on his team; none-others can bear the pressure.

  Knowing this Eliphaz came to Job, a man who has just take on a trial that is far outside MOST of our comprehensions, and spoke these words to him; “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty!” (Job 5:17)

  With appreciation and Love for God’s Discipline the Psalmist wrote “Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law…” (PS 94:12)

  I encourage you not to despise the discipline of the Lord, but to instead embrace his discipline as proof of your son-ship to him!

  Just as you were to read in Hebrews 12: 7,8 “It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons.  For what son is there whom his Father does not discipline?  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

  Remember, when disciplined, you are receiving ONE of the many marks of your son-ship under God.  Love and cherish such discipline. 

  I can remember a day when my Father disciplined me, just as Hebrews says I did not enjoy it at that time, but to this day I value his instruction and look upon it as something with irreplaceable value in my life. 
  

  I sincerely hope that this has helped to answer the question “Why do bad things happen to good people” and that it in some measure helped clarify the difference between God’s Wrath and his Discipline in our lives.

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