Never Easy to Write

Yesterday I wrote about sin as cheating on God and now I move on to part two of that post. This is going to be a hard and unpopular post to write, it’s easier to write about God’s love than the reasons for His judgment. Yet at the same time this post, I hope, is a good answer to a question I’ve had and many others do to. The question is: Is God harsh? You can’t read the Bible without coming across that question in your mind, and many people who do not like the Bible use it out of context. I’ve been doing some thinking and here is my conclusion. God is infinitely good (as said many times), and infinitely just (as said many times) and His actions toward His people are reasonable so no He is not harsh and actually less harsh than many people I know. The purpose of writing “Cheating on God” before this is to draw a parallel to God and a married couple. Now, imagine a married couple where one is cheating on the other, what happens when the other finds out? Well, generally things don’t go well, they can but it is hard for them to. But with God, He gave Israel so much and forgave them for so much that eventually He said “Enough! I can see that you do not love me. I can see that you will not come back to me. If that is how you want it, if you don’t want to save this relationship then fine, I’m leaving” As much as God is described with great might and power He is also described with great emotion (I mean He made it so He has to be) Jeremiah 5:7 says “Why should I forgive you?...I supplied all your needs, yet they all committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.” Now, when a sinner comes to God in honest repentance of course he will be forgiven, God loves us and will take us back, but what happened here is the people of Israel were unrepentant. They would pray for deliverance, promise to change, but revert back to idolatry. It’s the same when a husband says to the wife “Honey I know I’ve cheated on you six times, but I still love you more than those other girls.” So, what does God do? He steps back a bit and let’s things take their course. He let the Assyrian army take over Israel and allowed Hezekiah to invite Babylonian envoys to see his palace. He let the Babylonians take over Judah after seeing its wealth and later allowed the Greeks to take over, then the Romans… God saved Israel countless times, He had them triumph over the Egyptians, those living in the promised land, the Philistines… but for all that Israel still cheated on Him and left Him for something else. It’s a hard post to write because it requires taking a look at ourselves and thinking what have I done and where do I stand? It’s a necessary post  though because this is an issue and a question that needs to be addressed, is God harsh, in respect to what was done to Him the answer is no and actually as history unfolded He showed the people Israel that He still loves them and has a grander plan than they ever could have imagined.