Participants:
Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS025005S
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00:00 [uplifting music]
00:11 [uplifting music] 00:14 >>Eric Flickinger: Welcome to "Sabbath School," 00:15 brought to you by It Is Written. 00:17 Glad that you could join us today. 00:19 We are taking a look at God's love and justice, 00:22 and today we're looking at lesson number 5 of 13. 00:26 We are trying to understand the wrath of divine love. 00:29 How can you have a God of love with the wrath of God? 00:34 We're gonna bring those two ideas together here 00:36 and hopefully find an answer. 00:37 Let's begin with prayer. 00:39 Father, we ask that You will bless us as we look once again 00:42 at Your Word, at the attributes 00:44 of Your character, at who You truly are. 00:47 We ask that as we do so, You would reveal Yourself to us. 00:51 We thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. 00:55 We're happy to have with us, once again, 00:57 the author of this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson, 00:59 John Peckham. He is an associate editor 01:01 of the "Adventist Review," 01:03 and he is also serving as a research professor 01:05 at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. 01:08 John, thanks for being with us once again. 01:10 >>John Peckham: My pleasure. 01:11 >>Eric: All right, "The Wrath of Divine Love," 01:14 we have this idea that God is love, but we also have 01:17 the wrath of God, and we're trying to reconcile these ideas. 01:22 Where do we get started in pulling this together? 01:24 >>John: Yeah, so I wanna start with an illustration 01:27 to kind of spark our intuitions, right? 01:29 So, if we were to imagine a young child, 01:32 let's say it's your daughter or your son or some young child 01:35 that you love, and they're playing on a playground, 01:37 and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere comes 01:40 an adult man who knocks them off the swing set 01:42 and begins kicking and punching them. 01:44 Would you be angry? 01:46 Of course you would be angry, right? 01:48 And we call that righteous indignation. 01:51 Now, how you respond after that may or may not be appropriate, 01:54 but righteous indignation is the proper 01:57 and appropriate response of love against evil. 02:01 And the reason why the God of the Bible gets angry at times 02:05 and becomes wrathful at times is because God's anger 02:09 is always directed at evil or sin, and sin always hurts 02:13 at least one of God's children, 02:15 even when it is merely self-inflicted. 02:19 And so, it is actually the response of love. 02:22 Righteous indignation is the appropriate and righteous 02:26 response of love against evil. 02:28 And when God disciplines His people, 02:30 He disciplines them for good, for a blessing that He intends, 02:35 and we can see that actually in Deuteronomy,. 02:38 >>Eric: So, let's look at Deuteronomy, chapter 8. 02:41 In Deuteronomy, chapter 8, starting in verse number 5, 02:45 we're going to look at verses 5 and 16. 02:47 Verse 5 says, "You should know in your heart 02:49 "that as a man chastens his son, 02:52 so the Lord your God chastens you." 02:55 And then down in verse 16 it says, "Who fed you in 02:58 "the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, 03:01 "that He might humble you and that He might test you, 03:04 to do you good in the end." 03:07 >>John: Yeah, so God's discipline is always intended 03:10 for the good of His people. This is redemptive discipline. 03:12 We find this commonly throughout Scripture. 03:15 >>Eric: All right, so this is not just God being wrathful, 03:18 vengeful, there's a redemptive quality to it, and 03:22 righteous indignation, I think, is a good way to describe that. 03:28 Let's talk a little bit about this cycle of rebellion and 03:31 deliverance that we see over and over again in the Old Testament. 03:35 And I mean, if we want to be honest about it, 03:38 we probably see it in our own lives as well, 03:40 so it's not something that is just relegated 03:42 to Old Testament times. 03:44 So, explain the dynamics between human actions 03:47 and divine responses. 03:49 >>John: Yeah, so you have this pattern that develops throughout 03:53 the biblical stories where God's people rebel, they fall away 03:57 from Him, and they reject God, God withdraws because 04:01 that's the appropriate response when they push Him away. 04:03 He withdraws, then often they get into trouble, 04:07 maybe the surrounding nations around them 04:09 are persecuting them, and they cry out to God, 04:12 and God responds, and He comes and He rescues them, 04:14 and then sadly they fall, often worse than the last time. 04:18 And this continues in a cycle, often a downward spiral 04:22 where God keeps trying to work with the people, 04:24 and over and over again this cycle continues. 04:29 One of the reasons it's important to see this-- 04:31 and I would encourage anyone viewing this: 04:33 Sometime sit down and read 04:34 Psalm, chapter 78 and Nehemiah 9, 04:37 and you'll see this cycle kind of summarized 04:39 in a couple of different places in Scripture. 04:42 But many people when they read the Bible or they read 04:46 just parts of the Bible or maybe they only hear about 04:48 the God of the Bible, they think that the so-called 04:51 God of the Old Testament is this God of wrath 04:53 who's perpetually wrathful; He's always angry; 04:55 He's always executing judgment. 04:57 In fact, we'll see the wrath of the Old Testament God 05:00 is the same as the wrath of the New Testament. 05:02 It's divine love, it's the same God, 05:03 but also God is not wrathful or executing judgment all the time. 05:07 If you read these stories chronologically, 05:10 there's often a very long time period between 05:13 the actual instances of judgment that appear 05:16 in the text; if you read them chronologically, 05:17 God bears long with His people, He rescues them over and over 05:22 and over again, and when judgment finally comes, 05:25 God has offered a way of escape, a warning, 05:29 and it only comes when there's finally no other remedy. 05:32 It's a last resort, and we see that, for instance, 05:35 in 2 Chronicles 36, which talks about the situation 05:37 just before the destruction of Jerusalem. 05:40 >>Eric: So, God is constantly trying to help, 05:43 trying to guide, trying to direct. 05:46 Second Chronicles, chapter 36, verse number 16 says this: 05:52 "But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, 05:56 "and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord 05:59 arose against His people, till there was no remedy." 06:03 >>John: "Until there was no remedy," that language, right? 06:06 They had pushed God away so far that 06:08 there was no other alternate route available to Him. 06:12 But you see consistently, when judgment finally comes, 06:15 sometimes it's an act of judgment, sometimes it's God 06:17 withdrawing--in this case, God withdraws His protection, and 06:20 the nation of Babylon comes in and destroys Jerusalem, which 06:25 God was preventing previously, but that doesn't take place 06:28 until God provides a warning, a way of escape, 06:30 and it's a last resort, and it's not something 06:32 that God ever wants. 06:34 >>Eric: And so, these are individuals who have-- 06:36 God's not arbitrarily doing this; 06:39 He's not vengefully doing this. 06:41 He's saying, "Okay, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried. 06:43 "I'm gonna let something happen, and maybe, 06:46 hopefully, this will get you headed in the right direction." 06:49 >>John: Yes. 06:50 >>Eric: Another Old Testament story that probably 06:53 bears a little bit of looking at is the story of Jonah. 06:57 Now, Jonah had some character flaws--I guess that's one way 07:03 that we could say it--and he didn't react to God's mercy 07:08 in the way that maybe we might hope he would have or a way 07:12 that we might hope we would. 07:14 Help us understand what's going on here. 07:17 >>John: Yeah, in the story of Jonah, Jonah is kind of 07:20 a reluctant prophet, and some people have pointed 07:22 to the story of Jonah and said this is really a message 07:26 for God's people who maybe aren't doing what we should do 07:29 to reach people with God's love and God's compassion. 07:31 So, God calls him to go to Nineveh, 07:33 he doesn't want to go to Nineveh. 07:35 Nineveh, a city of Assyria, he doesn't like the Assyrians 07:37 because of what they had done to God's people in the past, 07:40 and he doesn't want them to be saved, he doesn't want to preach 07:42 this message, so he goes the opposite direction. 07:44 God, through miraculous means, turns him around, 07:48 and he ends up and goes and preaches to Nineveh 07:52 that, 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed. 07:55 And even with that simple message-- 07:58 without even, at least, recorded in the text, a call for them 08:02 to turn around and maybe be spared--they recognize-- 08:04 like, the king of Babylon is like, "Wait, 08:07 maybe if we repent, this won't happen." 08:09 And so, they repent, and God responds with compassion 08:12 and grace, which is part of His nature and His character, 08:16 and you would think, like, if you're going to preach 08:19 an evangelistic series or you're going to preach to a city 08:22 and the whole city repents, your reaction would be what? 08:25 >>Eric: It would be, "Hallelujah!" 08:26 >>John: This is fantastic, but that is not Jonah's reaction. 08:29 We see Jonah's reaction in Jonah, chapter 4, 08:32 which is the opposite reaction, a shocking reaction. 08:34 >>Eric: So, let's look at that; that's in Jonah, chapter 4. 08:37 We're going to look at verses 1 through 4. 08:39 "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, 08:41 "and he became angry. 08:43 "So he prayed to the Lord, and said, 'Ah, Lord, 08:45 "'was not this what I said when I was still in my country? 08:49 "'Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; 08:51 "'for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, 08:54 "'slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, 08:57 "'One who relents from doing harm. 09:00 "'Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, 09:03 "for it is better for me to die than to live!' 09:05 Then the Lord said, 'Is it right for you to be angry?'" 09:09 >>John: Yeah. What an amazing response. 09:13 Jonah is not pleased with the results of these efforts, 09:16 that this whole city has been spared, 09:18 he is angry, and he actually chastises God 09:22 for being too compassionate and too gracious. 09:25 He says, "God, I knew you were going to do this because 09:27 I know this is Your character of compassion and grace." 09:30 And you see the juxtaposition between a God who is just-- 09:34 His very nature is compassion and grace, and that's why Jonah 09:36 didn't want to go, he knew He was going to do this, 09:38 and Jonah's reaction, which is he doesn't want these people 09:42 to be saved, he doesn't want them to be forgiven, 09:44 and sometimes we can fall this way, too. 09:47 We can think, "Oh, those people 09:49 "maybe aren't worth the trouble 09:51 or they aren't worth the effort." 09:52 Hopefully that's not the way we think of anyone 09:53 because everyone is a precious child for whom Christ has died. 09:58 And it's just an amazing reaction that Jonah gives that 10:02 not only shows us some things about Jonah, and maybe 10:04 about ourselves, but also shows that God is so compassionate 10:09 and gracious that Jonah thought 10:10 He was too compassionate and gracious. 10:13 >>Eric: And this, you know, smack in the heart 10:15 of the Old Testament, and again, 10:17 we've got this idea, or we hear-- 10:19 maybe that's the better way of saying it-- 10:20 we hear that God is this wrathful, 10:23 vengeful God of anger and hate in the Old Testament, 10:27 and Jonah is saying, "I knew this, I knew this, 10:31 and everybody else should have known it, too." 10:34 >>John: And these are Assyrians. 10:35 These are Assyrians; these are the enemies of God's people 10:37 who had destroyed the northern kingdom. 10:40 I mean, they've ravaged them, and these are the people 10:44 that God goes and saves. 10:45 And so, you can see how an Israelite 10:48 might have difficulty with that, but this just shows 10:52 how extravagant God's compassion is. 10:53 >>Eric: And we're probably not going to go into great detail 10:56 here, but this people group was not known 10:59 for treating their enemies with kindness. 11:02 >>John: Not at all. 11:04 >>Eric: You do just a brief search and you'll find 11:06 some of the stuff that they did to their enemies, and it'll 11:09 make your stomach churn, but God even forgave them. 11:15 So, we're looking here at the wrath of divine love. 11:19 We're dipping into it in the quarterly, 11:22 but we're not delving into it as deeply 11:24 as perhaps we could or have the ability to. 11:27 Share with us a little bit about that companion book 11:30 and what someone might get from this week's lesson 11:34 if they picked up the companion book. 11:36 >>John: Yeah, so in the companion book I can 11:38 go more deeply into the nature of divine anger, specifically 11:42 in the companion book I lay out four myths about divine wrath, 11:45 common myths like the Old Testament God 11:47 and the New Testament God are different, 11:49 that love and wrath are incompatible, et cetera, 11:52 and I break those down, and I show how the Bible paints 11:54 a different picture of God's wrath 11:56 and how it relates to God's love and how it shows 11:59 just a deeper picture of the character of our great God. 12:03 >>Eric: So, if you are interested in that, 12:04 and I would hope that you are, 12:06 make sure that you pick up that companion book. 12:09 It's easy to find. 12:10 Just go to itiswritten.shop. 12:13 Again, itiswritten.shop 12:15 and look for the companion book 12:17 to this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson. 12:19 We are really looking at a significant subject 12:22 during this quarter. 12:24 Throughout this quarter, we're looking at how we can understand 12:27 a God of love and a God of justice in the same Being. 12:33 Because a lot of times we have difficulty kind of reconciling 12:36 those ideas, but the Bible does a beautiful job on it, 12:40 and throughout this quarter 12:42 we are delving into it to get a better picture, 12:44 a deeper picture, a deeper understanding 12:46 of what that God of love and justice looks like. 12:50 Now, we're on lesson number five right now. 12:53 If you happen to have missed any of the previous lessons, 12:56 you can go back and watch them again; 12:58 they are archived in several different places. 13:01 You will find them on the It Is Written 13:03 YouTube channel, and you will also find them 13:05 on itiswritten.tv. 13:08 So, itiswritten.tv 13:10 or the It Is Written YouTube channel, 13:12 you can go back and look at previous lessons, 13:15 and please do share with others. 13:18 If you are appreciating this lesson, 13:20 if you're getting something out of it and you think that others 13:23 would as well, please make sure to let them know about it. 13:26 So, just because an episode happens to have already aired 13:29 doesn't mean that it is gone forever. 13:32 We're going to continue our look now 13:34 at "The Wrath of Divine Love" 13:37 in just a moment when we come back. 13:39 We'll be right back with more "Sabbath School" 13:42 from It Is Written. 13:44 [uplifting music] 13:47 >>John Bradshaw: There's something I want to tell you 13:49 about that is so important; it's My Place With Jesus, 13:53 It Is Written's ministry to children. 13:57 Take the children you care about to myplacewithjesus.com. 14:02 At My Place With Jesus, you'll find so much 14:05 that will bless your children or grandchildren 14:07 or great-grandchildren or the children at church. 14:11 There are the My Place With Jesus Bible Guides, 21 studies 14:16 that will take the children you care about into the Word of God. 14:20 They'll learn the important things, especially the love 14:24 of God and the sacrifice Jesus made for them. 14:28 As well, take your children to Journey Through the Bible. 14:31 It's there at myplacewithjesus.com. 14:33 It's a special Bible reading program that will get children 14:37 into the habit of reading their Bible daily 14:40 and connecting with God regularly. 14:42 So, don't forget: myplacewithjesus.com 14:45 from It Is Written. 14:47 [uplifting music] 14:52 >>Eric: Welcome back to "Sabbath School," 14:54 brought to you by It Is Written. 14:56 We are taking a look at lesson number five 14:58 of our study on the love of God and the justice of God. 15:03 We're continuing our look into the wrath of divine love. 15:07 John, there's an interesting story in the New Testament 15:10 involving Jesus, and He's there in the temple and experiencing 15:17 something we might call righteous indignation. 15:20 This story is recounted-- nothing in the Bible is there 15:23 just because; there's a lesson for us to learn from this story. 15:26 Walk us through this story. 15:28 >>John: Yeah, this story shows us a number of things 15:31 about the righteous indignation of God. 15:34 First of all, many people think that a God of love 15:40 should not get angry in the first place, and they say 15:43 the God of the Old Testament is different 15:46 from the God of the New Testament. 15:47 "The God of the Old Testament gets angry." 15:49 Perhaps you've heard this: "The God of the Old Testament 15:51 is a God of wrath." 15:52 But actually when you look at the New Testament, 15:54 you see that Jesus also gets angry, but He gets angry only 15:59 with the appropriate response of righteous indignation. 16:03 And we see that--we can see that in Matthew 21, 16:05 Matthew 21, verses 12 through 13. 16:09 >>Eric: "Then Jesus went into the temple of God 16:11 "and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, 16:14 "and overturned the tables of the money changers 16:17 "and the seats of those who sold doves. 16:19 "And He said to them, 'It is written, 16:21 "'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' 16:24 but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" 16:27 >>John: So, it's important to recognize here 16:30 what is making Christ so angry. 16:33 Obviously they're misusing God's house for financial gain, 16:36 but even more than that is going on. 16:39 There's a reason why He says, "You have made 16:40 my Father's house a den of thieves." 16:42 Because you have people that are coming to the temple 16:45 to reconcile their relationship with God. 16:47 They're bringing offerings as part of the system 16:49 that is supposed to make atonement for their sins 16:52 and reconcile them to God. 16:55 And so, they come with an offering, 16:57 and the offering needs to be unblemished. 16:59 So, it wasn't uncommon where those who were at the temple, 17:03 they would find a blemish in the offering, 17:06 even if there wasn't really one there, 17:09 and then you have to buy a new offering at the temple. 17:12 But, oh, wait, you can't use your regular money here, 17:15 you have to use temple money, so you have to exchange your coins 17:19 for temple money, and there's just a small exchange rate. 17:22 So, you can see what was happening at this time, 17:25 where God's house was being used in a way that was actually 17:28 taking advantage of people, widows and orphans and the poor. 17:31 They're coming to have their relationship with God restored, 17:34 and they're being misused and swindled by the very ones 17:38 that should be the conduit of their relationship with God. 17:41 And so, Jesus is angry about this. 17:43 This is righteous indignation. 17:45 This is why He turns over the tables, 17:46 and He's rightfully angry, again, 17:48 because this is harming His people. 17:51 And as I said before, God gets angry at evil 17:54 because evil always harms at least one of God's children. 17:57 It's the appropriate response of love against evil and injustice. 18:01 And Jesus displays the same reaction 18:03 that you find of the so-called Old Testament God 18:05 because Jesus just is the same God. 18:09 This is why He could say, "If you have seen me, 18:11 you have seen the Father." 18:12 >>Eric: So, He has a reason, a purpose, an appropriate 18:15 reason for this righteous indignation that He experiences. 18:19 Now, what about God-- 18:22 how does the idea that God does not afflict willingly and 18:26 that His judgment or His anger is always in response to harm-- 18:29 how does that help us understand His character a little bit more? 18:33 >>John: Yeah, I want to look directly at Lamentations 3 18:36 and see the wording that God Himself uses there. 18:39 Actually, in Lamentations 3, verses 31 through 33, 18:43 if you look through the chapter, you'll see 18:45 this is just about 10 verses after the section, which is 18:49 where we get the song "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," 18:51 and it's just right there in Lamentations 3: 18:53 "Great is Thy faithfulness." 18:54 And then we come to verses 31 through 33, and it says, 18:58 "For the Lord will not cast off forever. 19:03 "Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion 19:06 "according to the multitude of His mercies. 19:09 "For He does not afflict willingly, 19:11 nor grieve the children of men." 19:15 So, in this passage we see that God does sometimes 19:20 bring judgment, again, only after warning, 19:23 only after there's an opportunity for response, 19:26 only as a last resort, and often as a matter 19:28 of redemptive discipline to do good in the end. 19:30 But even when He does bring judgment, it says, 19:33 "He does not afflict willingly." 19:36 And literally the Hebrew construction there 19:38 that's translated "willingly," it can literally be translated 19:41 "from His heart." He does not afflict from His heart. 19:45 He doesn't want to bring judgment. 19:46 He doesn't want to discipline. 19:48 Just like any good parent that has to discipline 19:50 their children, this is not the desire of His heart, 19:53 it's not something that He enjoys, 19:55 and it's unlike sometimes in human relationships 19:57 where we overreact, His is always a reaction of love, 20:01 but it's for the good of the relationship. 20:05 It's for the good of the people. 20:07 And sometimes it's the last resort that God uses 20:09 to keep the people from going over a cliff, if you will. 20:14 Like, if you think of an illustration, 20:16 imagine that you saw a young child, 20:18 or maybe it's your own child, and they're running 20:21 toward a cliff, but they don't know it, right? 20:23 You're playing at the park, there's a precipice 20:26 they could fall over, and they're just running gleefully, 20:28 they don't know it's there, and they're getting too close to it, 20:31 that shouting and expecting them to stop is not going to work, 20:35 so your only chance to keep them from falling over the cliff 20:38 is to run as fast as you can and tackle them so that the friction 20:43 will stop both of your momentum and they will be saved. 20:45 Of course, the problem is they're unfortunately probably 20:48 going to be hurt by you tackling them, but will you do it? 20:51 >>Eric: Absolutely. 20:52 >>John: You will do it because it's the only way to save them. 20:55 And sometimes some of the instances of 20:57 divine discipline in the Bible, they are like that, right? 21:00 God is trying to get their attention in a way 21:02 that keeps them from going over the cliff, as it were. 21:05 It's really redemptive mercy and compassion. 21:07 >>Eric: So again, we're seeing this same thing. 21:09 It's redemptive in nature. God tries other things. 21:13 He doesn't want to go this route, 21:14 but in love He does end up going this route from time to time. 21:19 The Bible also describes God as being slow to anger. 21:23 That's part of His nature. 21:25 He doesn't leap that direction instantly; He's slow to anger. 21:30 What about us? 21:32 How does that--how should that impact us 21:34 as we interact with others? 21:37 Sometimes just the thought of having to interact with 21:41 somebody else kind of gets our-- we tense up, and we just-- 21:44 we know there's going to be conflict and so forth. 21:47 How should knowing that God is slow to anger impact our lives? 21:52 >>John: Yeah, often many of us, we're quick to anger, right? 21:55 We have no problem with indignation. 21:58 Sometimes we have trouble with the righteous part, 22:00 or sometimes we have self-righteous indignation, 22:03 which isn't really righteous at all. 22:06 And I think what we learn from this is, 22:09 whereas our default mode is often to be offended 22:12 or to respond in anger or to look for justice for ourselves, 22:14 God's default mode is compassion 22:17 and how to bring justice for others, how to bring-- 22:20 in order to restore relationship or restore the good. 22:23 And here I think this is just the modus operandi of God. 22:27 This is what we find about God's character. 22:29 In fact, the major passage that describes God's character 22:32 in the Old Testament is Exodus 34, verses 6 through 7. 22:35 This is actually what Jonah was almost quoting earlier when 22:39 he was chastising God for being too compassionate and gracious. 22:42 He was pointing to this text, 22:43 and I want us to just see it together, 22:44 Exodus 34, verses 6 through 7. 22:47 >>Eric: "And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 22:49 "'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 22:52 "'longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 22:55 "'keeping mercy for thousands, 22:57 "'forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, 23:00 "'by no means clearing the guilty, 23:02 "'visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children 23:05 "'and the children's children 23:07 to the third and... fourth generation.'" 23:09 >>John: First, I want us to see in this text that 23:11 God's compassion and His grace and His mercy 23:13 is juxtaposed with His justice, right? 23:15 So, He doesn't bestow compassion and grace 23:16 in a way that actually undermines justice in the end. 23:20 He will not forgive iniquity and transgression, 23:23 except through a way of justice, but He does provide forgiveness. 23:27 He does provide a way forward. 23:29 And some people stumble over that last part of the text 23:32 that talks about visiting iniquity 23:33 to the third and the fourth generation. 23:36 There I think we need to recognize 23:38 that often the consequences of sin are going to fall 23:41 on multiple generations. 23:42 If you have a father or a mother who falls, it's going to affect 23:45 their children, and if their grandchildren are still alive, 23:49 it's going to have those generational consequences there. 23:51 But actually in the passage, that's juxtaposed 23:54 with where it says He shows mercy or lovingkindness. 23:57 It's an extremely rich word there, "hesed," 24:00 which some commentators say it's so rich it cannot be translated 24:04 except by a whole paragraph because it's this covenant love 24:08 and mercy, and it also has the idea of justice in it. 24:11 But it says He shows lovingkindness 24:13 or mercy to thousands, and actually that should probably 24:16 be translated that He shows this lovingkindness 24:18 and mercy to the "thousandth" generation. 24:20 So, you have the consequences of sin that fall maybe to the third 24:23 and the fourth generation, but His mercy, His lovingkindness 24:26 far exceeds that, exponentially, to the thousandth generation. 24:30 Then if you look at that language of being slow to anger, 24:33 there is a beautiful metaphor here. 24:36 Literally the language, "slow to anger," the literal Hebrew term 24:42 that is translated, that means "long of nose," 24:45 [laughing] "long of nose." 24:46 Now, if you think of "long of nose"--maybe some people 24:49 think of Pinocchio; it has nothing to do with that. 24:51 It's not that; it's a different kind of idea. 24:55 So, when you begin--and this is common in Hebrew language 24:58 where you have abstract concepts are built on concrete things. 25:04 And actually the word for "nos" in Hebrew 25:07 is the same as the word for "anger." Why? 25:09 Because when you get angry, your nose might become hot, 25:13 or maybe it will turn red when you get angry. 25:16 And so, the idea of God being "long of nose" 25:18 is that it takes a very long time for His nose to get hot, 25:23 for His nose to become angry, to become red 25:28 because it takes Him a long time to become angry. 25:31 Whereas we are quick to anger, He is slow to anger, 25:35 and this is wonderful news for us. 25:37 In fact, 2 Peter 3:9, one of my favorite texts, 25:41 it just says God is longsuffering toward us, right? 25:45 It's not that God is slow to bring about His promises, 25:47 but He is longsuffering toward us, 25:49 not willing that any should perish. 25:52 And it's because He's so longsuffering that He does 25:54 everything He can to make a way to save as many as possible. 25:57 >>Eric: If somebody's watching this program and they've heard 26:00 that God is an angry, vengeful, hurtful God, 26:05 we've seen some evidence here that that's not the case. 26:08 What would you tell them to encourage them 26:10 that God is patient, that He is longsuffering, 26:15 and that He wants the best? >>John: I would say two things. 26:18 I would say, first of all, if you look at everything that God 26:20 is doing, throughout the biblical stories you will see 26:24 that He is bearing long withHis people all the time. 26:27 His mercy is much deeper and wider than most of us realize. 26:30 That shouldn't be an excuse for us to test the limits 26:34 and see how close to the side of the cliff can I get 26:36 without falling over? 26:38 But God, actually, His mercy throughout Scripture 26:41 is far beyond any reasonable expectations, 26:46 so much so that Jonah's reaction isn't all that uncommon. 26:49 Often the question that people raise in the Old Testament 26:53 is not, "God, why did You bring judgment?" 26:56 But, "God, why haven't You brought judgment 26:58 more quickly or sooner?" 27:00 And it's because He is so longsuffering. 27:02 And so, we can trust the God who wants what is best for us 27:06 and the God who's willing to come and identify 27:08 with us in Christ and suffer with us. 27:10 >>Eric: That gives us a beautiful picture of God, 27:12 and I think one that we're going to be continuing to unravel 27:15 as we go through the remainder of this quarter's lesson. 27:18 We're glad that you are joining us on this journey. 27:20 It's an exciting journey. It's a journey that helps us 27:22 to understand more clearly the character of God. 27:27 He brought us into existence in order to love us, 27:30 to have someone to love, and for us to return that love. 27:33 It is reciprocal, it goes both ways, and we're seeing that 27:37 when He does become angry, it's not a misplaced-- 27:41 it's an appropriately-leveled anger that is redemptive 27:45 in nature, and God wants His people to be saved. 27:50 We're going to continue learning more about Him as we continue 27:52 looking at God's love and judgment here 27:55 on "Sabbath School," brought to you by It Is Written. 27:58 [uplifting music] 28:22 [uplifting music] 28:25 [Captions provided by Aberdeen Captioning www.abercap.com] |
Revised 2025-01-23