Another Side of God

As I've been spending more time in the Word I've been seeing different sides of God that I haven't seen before.  It's not that they weren't there all along for me to see, it's that I wasn't ready to see them.  For me that is one of the coolest things about the Bible.  No matter how many times you have read it you still pick up new things each time through.

One of the things that has been interesting to me is I have been seeing a lot of verses that challenge one of my commonly held beliefs which is that while God allows bad things to happen He doesn't actively move against us with bad things to teach us a lesson.

Now as I look at the list of scriptures that I have accumulated that challenge this belief I am struck by the fact that all but one come from either Jeremiah or Lamentations which were both written by Jeremiah.  The other reference I have comes from Revelation.  So one thing I have to consider is that this is just  a rhetorical device used by Jeremiah and not to give it more emphasis than necessary.  But maybe not.

I'm not going to list all of the references.  I'll list just a few so you get a feel for what I mean. 

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Jeremiah 22:6-7(NKJV)

For thus says the Lord to the house of the king of Judah:      “You are Gilead to Me,     The head of Lebanon;     Yet I surely will make you a wilderness,     Cities which are not inhabited.

    I will prepare destroyers against you,     Everyone with his weapons;     They shall cut down your choice cedars      And cast them into the fire.

Revelation 9:15(NKJV)

15So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. 

God prepared angels to kill a third of mankind?

Lamentations 1:12(NKJV)

12    “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?      Behold and see     If there is any sorrow like my sorrow,     Which has been brought on me,     Which the Lord has inflicted     In the day of His fierce anger.

Lamentations 2:2-6(NKJV)

2    The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied      All the dwelling places of Jacob.     He has thrown down in His wrath     The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;     He has brought them down to the ground;     He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

3    He has cut off in fierce anger      Every horn of Israel;     He has drawn back His right hand     From before the enemy.     He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire     Devouring all around.

4    Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;      With His right hand, like an adversary,     He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;     On the tent of the daughter of Zion,     He has poured out His fury like fire.

5    The Lord was like an enemy.      He has swallowed up Israel,     He has swallowed up all her palaces;     He has destroyed her strongholds,     And has increased mourning and lamentation     In the daughter of Judah.

6    He has done violence to His tabernacle,      As if it were a garden;     He has destroyed His place of assembly;     The Lord has caused     The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.     In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.

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The thing that these verses have in common is that they all show God taking an active role, not just allowing it to happen.  He prepared a destroyer.  He prepared angels to kill.  He inflicted.  He went against Judah "like an enemy".  

Now I'm not bothered by this.  I'm not suggesting that God is wrong or unfair in any way for doing this.  In all of these cases the people brought it on themselves.  The reason I am pointing it out is that it caused me to just view God a little differently.  As I've mentioned before, my favorite or dominant view of God is as God the father. 

What's comforting about that view is that we know are fathers are pretty forgiving.  We may mess up and our father might get a bit ticked off from time to time but when push comes to shove, you can pretty much always work it out.  Dad's not going to kill you or wipe out your whole family or anything like that.

Apparently with God there is a limit to the God the father paradigm.  There is a point where you can push God to far and he goes from God the father to God the punisher.  And from what I read, when that happens you don't want to be around!

So how do you avoid pushing God to far?  Well the prophet Jeremiah provided some direction.  Let's see what he says.

Jeremiah 25:6(NKJV)

Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ 

Seems simple enough!