Why God Sends Punishment
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God loves His children. He is not suddenly going to change and hate mankind. But He does hate sin—because of the misery, pain and unnecessary suffering it brings to His children. Like any wise human parent, we saw God uses physical punishment to discipline His children. Proverbs 3:11-12 states, “…despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: for whom the Lord lovesHe corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights.” Quoting this proverb, the apostle Paul in the New Testament adds that God “chastens, and scourges [to afflict with severe punishment and pain] every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6).
A fair and just God must punish all nations for longstanding disobedience—first modern Israel, and then the rest of the world. Mankind has bitter lessons to learn, and it is our generation—the last generation—who must bear the brunt of God’s anger.
When Christ came announcing God’s kingdom, He was tortured and crucified. Every one of the apostles, except John, was put to death by awful means, often after imprisonment, sometimes including torture. And the prophets of old who warned nations, kings and peoples to repent and acknowledge God as sovereign over their lives were placed in dungeons, forced to flee for their lives, stoned, sawn in two, or otherwise killed in most cruel fashion. Invariably, they were rejected and ignored. Noah preached for perhaps 100 years and only a few of his own family heeded.
The stiff-necked, rebellious, pleasure-seeking, self-willed, God-hating nations of the world have never heeded the true servants of God. Except for a few, my words here—in fact, God’s words—will not change many. I fully recognize they will make some people very angry!
Punishment is coming for a reason. Six thousand years of ignoring God’s commands have come to the full—and God is filled with fury!
Human beings, having human nature, will not enjoy the correction, possibly initially thinking it is unfair—that the masses do not really deserve it. This is because people want to be thought of as good, but do not want to do good—do what is right! Most will deceive themselves about what have been their ways. But powerful correction will soon soften stubbornness.
This correction will get people’s attention in the only way left for God to do this. The world will come to recognize what sin brought—that they did these things to themselves. Their spirit of rebellion and disobedience will be shattered. They will learn that spiritual happiness greatly exceeds the value of physical, material prosperity.
God sees everything: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth” (II Chron. 16:9). God has seen every act of violence and cold-blooded murder, every vile rape, every calculated theft, every act of self-serving adultery, every covetous thought, every lie and deception—EVERY SIN!
Imagine witnessing every lawless act of mankind all over the world for just one day. What human being could cope with this? Yet God has witnessed 6,000 YEARS OF SIN!
No wonder Psalm 7:1-17 records, “...God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psa 7:11).
But Proverbs states, “He that is soon angry deals foolishly” (Prov 14:17). God has not been soon angry. He allotted six millennia for men and nations to heed Him and cease from sin. Man has refused, and his time of self-rule has almost expired.
Wrong Foundation from the Beginning
The world has always been devoid of right values—true values—which would have brought it to enjoy every wonderful and good thing that a loving God could give to His Creation. Like human parents with their children, God has wanted His children to enjoy all the good things that He could provide for them.
The problem is that God’s children have ingested false values, having wandered out of the “house” and into the “neighbourhood,” where they absorbed the thinking of different “parents.” For generations, humanity has sought the wrong goals, it has had the wrong purposes in mind. Even though it has reaped a host of wrong results, and pain of every imaginable sort, it has not sought to examine the faulty foundation upon which it stands—wrong values!
This comes at a price.
Children of Disobedience
Here is exactly what brings God’s wrath. Let’s read His words. This first passage was quoted in a previous chapter, but bears repeating here in context: “…fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience” (Col. 3:5-6).
DISOBEDIENCE draws God’s anger.
Now another passage, from Ephesians: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness…filthiness…For this you know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom…Let no man deceive you with vain words [false ministers today]: for because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph 5:3-6). The next verse in Ephesians shows what Christians are instructed not to do with those who practice what Paul describes: “Be not you therefore partakers with them” (Eph 5:7).
Those who “partake” of this conduct, or who fraternize “with them” (the world and its ways), will partake of God’s plagues on a whole world of rebellious nations.
The prophet Zephaniah we saw speaks most bluntly of this terrible day when God’s wrath is poured out. Notice again: “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hastens greatly [once it begins], even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord : and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung” (Zeph 1:14-17). The cause of God’s wrath—why world punishment—is here made plain—“they have sinned against the Lord.”
It becomes “Behold...the...severity of God” (Rom. 11:22). Humanity will behold, during the Day of the Lord, God’s greatest severity!
Human Nature “Desperately Wicked”
Writers, philosophers and scientists cannot agree on what is human nature. To understand the truth of human nature (also called carnal nature), we must again permit God’s Word to answer.
God declares, “The heart [the seat of man’s thoughts, motives and feelings] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). The latter phrase is equivalent to “who could believe this?” And of course most cannot. Nor can they believe this inspired statement. Recall: “…the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).
The carnal mind naturally hates God, the Supreme Lawgiver, and therefore abhors His laws, as well as the laws of men. No wonder riots and rampant lawlessness abound when law and order collapse!
Romans 3:23 states, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Every human being has sinned on his own account! All are responsible for and guilty of their own sins!
Let’s examine more of what is occurring today for which God is angry, and why He will punish all mankind. The picture is not pretty.
The worldwide panorama of sin is why world punishment!