Separation Between God and Man

The following is part of a discussion between myself and a fifteen year old boy. This started a few days ago over the subject of Obama and worked into a discussion regarding slavery. While this insert has nothing to do with slavery it is laying the basis for punishment of sin. Until we recognize the gravity of sin it is hard to accept the punishment for it, so here is the installment that was recently sent. I might come back later with more of the conversation.

Ok, I am going to take a step back as we are beginning to attempt to cover too many subjects at once and while I will answer each of them I think we first need to start at the very beginning as it is the only way to understand what God has done, is doing, and what He intends to do in the future. In order to understand this, there must be an understanding of the thing that separates us from God.

From the very beginning man was created to have close personal relationship with God. This was not the relationship that we now have but one in which God’s presence was visible and audible. We know that by the words recorded by Moses that no man could look upon God and live, while on Mount Sinai God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock so that he could see His glory after He had passed. Later the children of Israel were afraid to even look at Moses because he shone from the countenance of God. Now let’s go back to the relationship with God; because it is what we have to look forward to in the future. At this time in the garden there was no sin. Man was still in his perfect state which is why he could enjoy that relationship with God, however once Satan deceived man and man sinned there was a separation between God and man. The relationship that he enjoyed with God was no more because God cannot be in the presence of sin.

At this time God could have destroyed His creation right then and there but His love for His creation kept Him from doing so; instead He allowed man to make their own choice as whether to glorify Him or not but because all of the angels who rebelled against God with Satan were present on the earth that by the time of Noah mans thoughts were completely evil. You see God’s standards are so far above our standards that looking at a woman to lust after her, or to fantasize about her is the same as actually committing the act of adultery; to tell one lie is to be a liar, and to take something that does not belong to you makes you a thief. The problem was during this time is that the thoughts of man became their actions. They did these things with out hiding the deeds. They committed adultery in the broad daylight, they killed without being accountable for their deeds, they committed acts against children and no body saw anything wrong with their actions. However God was still loving and did not want to just wipe them off the face of the earth so He gave them another 120 years to repent of their sins. All they had to do was to turn from their actions and turn towards God. All the evidence they needed for the judgment to come was Noah building the ark during this period. He told them it was going to rain but because it had never rained previous to this point, no one believed that it would. He told them God was going to judge them for their actions, but because they had not been judged previously, no one believed him. They had committed these same heinous acts for all these years and there had not been any repercussions before because God’s love suffered long. He could not bring Himself to destroy His handiwork because He loved them beyond our own comprehension. In fact when someone wrongs us we can’t wait to get back at them and yet here was His creation, destroying each other. Then as the rain began to fall they suddenly began to realize that perhaps what Noah had been saying was true but their opportunity had passed because God had already shut the door of the ark. They were not repentant towards their acts but the fact that they were going to have to face the punishment for their acts. Up until this point they were not concerned about the judgment to come because they had continued with the same things that they were doing up until the time that the judgment actually came.

This judgment from God was just. Not just because they deserved the punishment but because they denied that He had any control over them, they refused to recognize Him as God and because their sins were so gross that they no longer resembled the creation that they once were. The thing that really makes you wonder is how bad it must have been if seeing the condition of mans heart today, He has not yet determined to return yet. This very act against His creation grieved Him so much that He made a promise to never destroy the earth in this manner again and yet man’s relationship with Him quickly slipped into another great low. By this time however the most wicked of the fallen angels were bound so as not to be able to sway the hearts of man in such a manner, yet man did not need their help to sway their hearts against Him. All they needed was a little push. Just a little nudge in the area of pride to get them to think themselves above God and attempt to build a tower that would reach into the heavens so that the gods would come down to worship with them.

Through out this entire period God continued to make His presence known and yet they denied Him in both word and deed and yet His love was such that He could not exact judgment upon them in the manner that He had done before. He therefore decided to set Himself apart a people who would be called by His name that would honor and glorify His name that other nations might look at them and recognize that they were the children of the most high God and would repent of their sins and turn to Him.

Now from the flood forward we saw a continuance of sin. Sin will never stop on the earth until Christ sets up His kingdom but God cannot allow it to get as bad as it had done prior to the flood, yet His love for us is such that He will not destroy as He did with the flood. It is that love that generates punishment towards people that hopefully results in repentance, however if repentance does not come then a stricter punishment or possibly death might come upon them. Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of God’s longsuffering and love for as long as Lot chose to live in the city God had His hand upon them in order that they might repent of their sins and turn towards Him. A neighboring king attacked them and took the people as slaves. Abraham went at God’s request and rescued them, yet the people would not repent, finally God determined to destroy the cities and Abraham pleaded for God to consider not doing so if he could find 50 righteous people and then it was 20 and so on until it was obvious that the only righteous people was Lot. The example of the hearts of Sodom and Gomorrah was when God sent His angels to lead Lot and his family out of the city and the men of the city came to literally attempt to drag these angels out into the streets that they might know them in a sexual sense.

The city of Nineveh is an example of a city that faced the same ending as Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of Nineveh were hated by the Israelites because of their wickedness and when God called Jonah to go to the city to preach, he ran from God. I am sure you have heard the story of Jonah before. The ending of course is what is important because when the entire city repented and turned to God the city was spared from destruction much to Jonahs dismay. He felt that it was unfair to that they were allowed to escape certain judgment. This example of God’s love is extended to us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

The problem is that we have made the word sin seem as if it is really no big deal. We downplay the seriousness of it because we don’t want to feel as if we are so bad. We don’t want to think that the acts that we commit against others are worthy of any type of punishment. The problem is that our actions directly affect others and encourages them to go even further that we had gone. This is obvious from one generation to another, with each one pushing the boundaries even further away from God. The land that God gave to Abraham was the land of Canaan, and from the time that he first stepped foot on the land until the time that the children of Israel actually took over the land these people had the opportunity to turn to God yet never did. Even after everything that they saw God doing for His people in Egypt and after their departure from Egypt. You might ask why would God want to destroy a whole group of people and the answer is that when a people becomes so evil that their acts possibly run the risk of affecting others that it becomes urgent to God to eliminate that evil that others might turn to Him. The people of Canaan had gone so far that they would sacrifice their own children to their false gods and since God loved them so much that He could not exact judgment upon them without providing enough time for them to repent, other people groups had begun doing the same thing.

Today almost every people group who had deteriorated to the point of human sacrifice has either been subdued or eliminated so that God could continue to be longsuffering toward us because of His love for us. Europeans, Asians, Africans, The Mayans, The Incas, The Aztecs, certain tribes of the American Indians, and on and on it goes. The question then becomes does He now see abortion as human sacrifice to the god of pleasure or selfishness and do we then run the risk of His judgment upon us because of the sheer numbers that have been aborted? You see sin is not just a three letter word but it is enmity between us and God. It is a gross act against the One that gave us life, against the One who loved us enough that He was willing to take on the form of man and to sacrifice Himself on the cross that we might be covered in His blood to be seen as righteous before God. You see sin requires a blood sacrifice because nothing shows sacrifice as much as blood. Without the shedding of blood repentance does not carry the same weight because you are basically saying that I am sorry about what I did but I am not willing to turn from it. Think about it for a moment. When animal sacrifice was introduced for repentance of sins, what was required? If a person only had to take an animal in for sacrifice, what we he take? Most of us would do what we do today. Provide the least that we can. We would take the weakest and poorest excuse for an animal to offer as a sacrifice and leave the best for ourselves; therefore God requested that it would be the first born without spot or blemish. It was to be the best of the best because that is what true sacrifice is. The best of the best because anything less says that He is just not that important to us and when we give Him the leftovers and keep the best for ourselves we are saying the exact same thing. When we focus our energies on the things that we want instead of what He wants we are telling Him that it doesn’t matter that you have loved us enough to be patient with us nor does it matter that you created us, what matters is that I am happy doing the things I want to do in the manner in which I want to do them. You see until we actually can see sin as exceedingly sinful then we do not see the need for judgment for sin, nor do we see the need for a Savior.

Consider for a moment that you are arrested and taken before the judge and the judge says that you owe fines over $100,000 dollars. Of course your response is that that is ridiculous. You have never done anything that would cause you to even get a ticket. (Pretend you have your driver’s license) The judge says to you as a matter of fact you did and begins to explain that on your way to school they had a special handicap area that had 10 mile an hour speed zones and your car was filmed going 35 through each one of those ten zones to which the total cost of the fines totaled the $100,000 dollars and if you did not pay it in full you would have to go to jail. Suddenly you remember that day of the handicap conference and you realize that yes you were guilty and you admit to the judge that you are guilty but you don’t have that kind of money. You ask for leniency because you have never been in trouble before. He tells you that taking that into consideration he still must enforce the law because of the injuries that could have incurred if there had been an accident. As you stand there dreading the outcome you plead one more time crying out “I learned my lesson judge it will never happen again,” but the judge calmly ask you if you have the money to pay the fine and when you reply no, he orders the bailiff to take you into custody when some stranger walks in and tells the judge that he will pay the fine for you. This is how it is with God’s judgment. It doesn’t matter if you think it is right or not because He loves you and because He loves you He must be just, not only with you but with everyone and because He is just His sentencing is just and we are deserving the penalty. Yet because of His love He provided the ultimate payment for the penalty in the form of Jesus Christ and while we might not deserve it, He still died for us, He still shed His blood for us that we might not have to pay the penalty ourselves because that would require total separation from our Creator. The one who has waited patiently for us to turn to Him, the one who had loving persevered while we blatantly and willfully sinned against Him, who could have taken our lives at any moment but allowed us to live in the hopes that we would recognize Him for who He is, that we would finally understand that regardless of all the good that we had done, we still needed a Savior and just like the human judge cannot let someone who has broken the law go free because He is a good judge neither can a Holy God allow us to go free, without a penalty being paid.

When asked what the greatest commandment was Jesus answered, “To love God with all your heart, soul and spirit and the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as your self. Upon these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.” When we refuse to obey these two then we are open to whatever thoughts that may go through our heads. When we refuse to love God with all we have we take no consideration of His love for us or others and this is what causes man to act the way that he does towards others. This lack of love for Him is what causes people to rape, murder, and steal. It is what causes people to commit terrible acts against children. It is what is responsible for all the atrocities that have happened throughout history and until we can admit to it and acknowledge it there is no way that we can understand the things that He has written in His word because as He tells us they are foolishness to those who do not believe.

You see I don’t have all the answers for you. Only He does and while I may be responding to your questions it is only through Him that you can truly receive the truth. I really appreciate all that you are doing right now because it drives me to find the explanations for you and pushes me into His Word even more, so right now you are being His instrument to draw me even closer to Him. He will use it later with others that might have the same questions. I pray that this has helped you in some way and that through it you might come to recognize that, that which separates us from God carries a punishment that must be exacted and that His love for us keeps Him from exacting that punishment immediately in hopes that we might repent and turn to Him.

I will send you some research regarding your questions about slavery in the bible. I found many things that I did not realize at first but after rereading many of the scriptures I saw it in a different light, but please be prepared because they are quite intense and very long, not that this is short. Anyways I hope that you have had a great weekend and wish you an even better week.

Stephen

PS: More on the other points later.