Non-believers accuse God of being silent on addressing the brokenness in the world today. While this brokenness is caused by sin, they feel that God’s silence is, in fact, ignoring sinful behavior. This daily devotional looks at how that is the furthest from the truth.
Nuggets
- Non-believers are quick to point out that a loving God would not allow this brokenness to go on.
- Satan tells us a whole variety of things to get us to ignore God and His Word.
- Satan manipulated words and God’s meaning to trick Eve into sinning, but Adam didn’t need any coercion at all.
- After the flood, people could no longer say that God was tolerating mankind’s sinful nature.
- Jesus substituted Himself for us and shed His blood to pay the price for our sins.
- Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
- Jesus is going to come back as He said.
It is obvious to many that this world is broken. Non-believers are quick to point out that a loving God would not allow this brokenness to go on. He would step in and fix things, making their lives much easier and better.
They believe that, by God’s “silence” in eliminating and/or punishing sins to their standard, He is saying there really isn’t anything wrong with people’s behaviors. Non-believers are wrong.
God has not changed His mind about what constitutes a sin. It will not happen in the future.
God does not change. Numbers 23: 19 says, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (ESV).
So, just because there has been a long time between milestones, that doesn’t mean God has given up on what sin is.
Let's Put It into Context
Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
God has these laws and commandments sprinkled all through His Word.
Paul tells us what sins are in Galatians 5: 19-21, Ephesians 5: 3-6, and I Corinthians 6: 9-10. This is just a partial list. He included sexual immorality, impurity, homosexuality, idolatry/covetousness, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, greed, drunkenness, filthiness, and all impurity.
Satan tells us a whole variety of things to get us to ignore God and His Word. Instead, Satan wants us to listen to Him and do the exact opposite of what God wants.
By telling us that God no longer cares about the sin because He has abandoned us is a lie. Let’s look at some time periods based on some milestones.
Ignoring from Garden to Manger
The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom, 3: 22-26 CSB)
We’ve talked about Adam and Eve’s original sin a couple of times. In his conversation with Eve, Satan enlarged the don’t eat restriction to every tree in the garden to point out the restriction.
Satan manipulated words and God’s meaning to trick Eve into sinning. Adam didn’t need any coercion at all.
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Each of the three received punishment. The serpent was going to be a ground crawler and have a really bland diet of dust (Gen. 3: 14). Eve’s consequences were pain in childbearing and strife in her marriage (Gen. 3: 16). Adam was going to have to work hard — do tough, physical labor to eat. But the ultimate punishment was that mankind would experience physical as well as spiritual death (Gen. 3: 19).
I wonder how long it took mankind to forget about the original sin and the consequences of getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. We know that Satan was totally in control of this world.
We know that because of the account of the world is Noah’s time. “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created — and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground — for I regret that I have made them’” (Gen. 6: 5-7 NIV).
God looked down on the sin in this world, judged and convicted it, and established the punishment that would be exacted. Almost everyone was executed by water.
The only ones spared were Noah and his family. Why? “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6: 8 NIV).
This time when God sentenced mankind, it was more than just an eviction and separation. People could no longer say that God was tolerating mankind’s sinful nature. He lowered the boom.
The problem was that the perfect Sacrifice had not been given yet. Yes, they had all the animals that were being sacrificed. Head over to Leviticus 1-7 to get the full description.
But those sacrifices were temporary. Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, occurred on the tenth day of this seventh month (Lev. 23: 26-27).
The high priest offered “… young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering” (Lev. 16: 3 NIV). He was also to take “… two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering” (Lev. 16: 5 NIV). The bull was to atone for the sins of he and his family (Lev. 16: 6, 11).
Only one of the goats was to be sacrificed as a sin offering (Lev. 16:15-16). The other was released as a scapegoat (Lev. 16: 7-10).
Yes, the Day of Atonement occurred once a year (Heb. 7: 9). It was just a band aid.
The world needed the Savior that came to be born in a manger.
Enter Jesus
That Savior was Jesus. I
Jesus substituted Himself — became the propitiation — for us so He could do the hard stuff, the stuff we would never be able to do. Jesus knew God’s wrath had to be appeased so He shed His blood to pay the price for our sins.
Jesus did that to become our Redeemer. Redemption allows us to receive forgiveness for our sins. Redemption is where something is used in exchange for something else to gain or regain something.
Jesus is our Redeemer because He was born of a virgin, making Him 100% God and 100% man; gave His life on the cross for us so that His blood could pay the price for our sins; and because of God’s great might and power, rose from the grave, conquering death and showing He is truly God.
Jesus had to shed His blood because the blood of the animals was not sufficient to pay the price once and for all. This was possible only because He never sinned.
Glossary
Jesus’ blood sacrifice allowed God to forgive us of our sins. Forgiveness is, when we ask, the act of God pardoning us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments, which allows us to become holy as He is.
We accept the pardon by letting go of the guilt and remorse that we feel because we have done something wrong. It is a conscious decision to accept His forgiveness.
All of this only happened because of God’s great grace. Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Because of God’s infinite grace, He devised the Plan of Salvation that made Jesus our Redeemer in order to forgive us of our sins.
But think of it this way. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[a] and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3: 15 ESV). The promise was made a long time ago.
Why is this important? “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly” (Deut. 32: 35 ESV).
In God’s perfect timing, He sent Jesus to be the substitute. He bruised Satan’s head because He signed the warrant for his demise.
No, Jesus did not abolish sin at that time. What He did was make a way so that our relationship could be restored. God could now deal with the sin.
Ignoring from Cloud Flyer to Cloud Rider
Yes, Jesus died on the cross. Yes, Jesus was buried. No, Jesus didn’t stay there. God raised Jesus back to life.
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Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. “When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Mk. 16: 19 NLT).
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But over 2000 years has gone by since that happened. It is easy for non-believers to say it either didn’t happen or that was a done deal. End of story. There is nothing more to say.
Disciples know that is not the end of the story.
Making the Connections
You see, we know how this is going to end. Jesus is going to come back as He said.
Satan will be judged. “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20: 10 ESV).
We will also be judged. We will be judged as to whether we have admitted our sins, believed on Jesus as Redeemer, confessed God as Sovereign Lord, and and demonstrated that commitment by following our job description.
It won’t be on how often we are in church when the doors were open. It won’t be based on how kind we were to others. It will be based on our relationship with God.
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We are going to have to be ready. How do we do that?
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Father. At times, we can be so selfish. Like Adam and Eve, we want to have control over what we say and do — and the consequences. While we do control our choices, You control the consequences. Help us to see Your gift of grace as the choice we should make. Help us resist Satan’s temptation. Help us to live for You. Amen.
What do you think?
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