How Ticked Is God?

Contemplation of the missed rapture and letters from listeners move Brad and Wayne into a discussion about the true nature of God and whether or not he is as angry or hateful as many would have us think. Is it helpful to think in terms of a home team God loves and a lost world God hates? What do we do when Scriptures seem to be in conflict about God's nature? Seeing Scripture as a story that culminates in the person of Jesus is the only way to make sense of the Bible and come out with a consistent view of God. Also, they get into a side discussion about the assurance of our salvation and why we sometimes fall for the Satanic deception that his way is better than God's.

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10 Comments

  1. There are some places in Romans and Galatians where Paul talked about being “fleshly”. And for so long I heard that as a description of certain behaviors – like lust and gluttony – those were “fleshly” things. But a closer reading of it seems like he is saying that trying to follow the law is “fleshly”. Grace is spiritual, law is fleshly If I “struggle” against lust and gluttony, that is fleshly..

    It’s funny – when you start to “get” the gospel of grace, suddenly everything Paul wrote starts to take on a different meaning than what is normally said about it from pulpits. In my experience, resting in grace has given me much more actual victory over temptation than struggling against sin ever did. Assurance is that thing that provides the rest -thanks for another great podcast.

  2. I find it interesting that the devil quoted a bible verse when he was trying to tempt Jesus to test God ,and Jesus rebuked the devil with other words from the bible [matt.4].I know who I will be asking for help when trying to understand the bible.

  3. @Merry – did mr. satan quote the godly King James version (black leather of course), or did he use one of those new liberal paraphrases like the Message … just kidding!

  4. This was a hilarious podcast with also some very good points. Thank you, guys.

    My thoughts on assurance:

    Everyone in the Bible who wanted to know God came to know Him. No one who had a desire to know Him didn’t see that desire fulfilled. Both in the New and Old Testament, everyone who wanted to know God came to know Him, even if these individuals appeared to be outside of those whom He was directly working with in that particular narrative. God promises that everyone who seeks Him will find Him. I can prove this with book, chapter, and verse 😉 Matt. 7:7-9; Luke 11:10.

    We can rest in this. Salvation is His initiative and one that He promises to persevere in. He loses not any of those who want Him (even if it seems like we stop wanting). He is greater than even our faith or lack of it.

    It’s very simple, no one who wants God will not get Him. And those who want Him become born of Him, and once born of Him becoming unborn of Him is an impossibility. It would be like my child taking my seed out her. Can’t happen.

  5. Hey – wanted to say thanks to you blokes for what youre doing. The Father is doing something weird and good in the world right now it seems; letting scales fall from peoples’ eyes that have been stuck there with legalism and the pursuit of self righteousness. He’s reawakening many of us to the enormity of His Grace an Love and it’s astounded me completely out of my Us and Them mentality and into Peace. Bless you both – youre a pair of champs 🙂

  6. I have often thought about God’s anger and whether it is applied to me as His child. There are numerous scriptures where the tone seems to be one of anger. Then one day I was reading Matthew and ran across chapter 23 where Jesus has lit into the scribes and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites, white-washed tombs, serpents and a brood of vipers. There is no question this is not sweet Jesus, meek and mild.

    And yet, the passage ends with him revealing his truest, deepest heart for them. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”

    Even toward the scribes and Pharisees, his passion was for their redemption. The deep longing of his heart was to gather them as a hen gathers her brood.

  7. one comment in the podcast has stuck like glue in my mind, it was regarding “wicked people”, if God told the nation of isreal that they would be a light unto the nations, that would mean God loved those other nations too? would that mean that some of the horrendous stuff done in the name of God, such as killing of certain peoples “because God told us” in the old testament, is just the view point of the ones writing it down? as an example, in the netherlands here many christians say, because we were christian and we built all these churches GOD blessed us with much wealth such as the trading companies of the 18th centuries, however in the mean time we were putting people in slavery, stealing wealth from whole nations … another story down in south africa, told of the boeren (from holland) being attacked by the zulus, and because they had prayed to god defeated them 100 to 1, (they had guns), this lead to the conclusion God hated the zulus because they had won.

  8. Hi VJN: The following is just my opinion and I don’t know if others agree. The Bible as is, presents some difficult sections (especially OT) that no amount of gymnastics seems to resolve. Added to this is the sola scriptura concept: i.e. the Bible was written by authors who would become possessed by the Spirit. Their eyes would roll up so that you could only see their sclera (glowing aqua of course) while the Spirit forced their hands to record every “thee and thou”. Unfortunately pumping sola scriptura has led us to conclude that the God of the OT was different from the one in the NT (or maybe He took a lot of Prozac in the inter-testament period).

    But there are difficulties associated with reading the Bible including the possibility of translation errors along with major culture differences between us (now) and them (then). Also there is the possibility, as alluded to in this podcast – the chance that some of the writings incorporated an author’s own emotions and viewpoint – broken, nationalistic and sometimes even dark. Then there is the line that God is God and He can do whatever the gehenna He likes. Finally, even though I am an old phart, I wasn’t there so I will never know what really happened just based on a few verses.

    I guess for us the Holy Spirit is our mentor (John 14:26) and we look to the Word (Jesus) not to the word (Bible) as our primary guide. Jesus showed us the character of the Father and we have faith in that vision of God. Maybe sometime in the future life we will be debriefed on the whole story of what really happened back then, but for now we trust in the fact that He is love and that’s the real story behind what happened.

    Still, the OT continues to confuse me too.

  9. it just seems that history is written by those who win not by those who need not be remembered until the end of the ages. whoever wins gets to write down whatever he wants and years, centuries, millenia later who is going to remember.
    why do people think that when christian nations become wealthy that it is directly linked to what they did for God? and when non-christian nations become wealthy this is directly linked to what they did for the devil?
    I mean most “christian” nations built a lot of their wealth on the backs of slaves, the manipulation of nations to trade, plain old war …

  10. I’m not sure Christian nations are/were the only ones with the equation; we win = God is on our team, you win = your god is satan. In times past, winners have attributed victories to their pocket god(s) who is/was basically a good luck charm. The Greeks and Romans held religious ceremonies to their gods after their victories. It just seems to be a human thing. Somehow Christ followers were supposed to have a different (servant leadership) approach.

    I suppose that you can call a nation whatever you want (i.e. Christian), but actions generally tell the real story. Also, it may be presumptuous and even arrogant to think human actions have God’s seal of approval stamped all over them. I suppose certain situations may require drastic actions (i.e. WWII), but this is more of a case of dealing with evil any way you can, rather than thinking God is behind every action you take. Just my thoughts.

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