Does God take pleasure in sending people to hell?

Provocative title, I know. But I have actually heard people conclude that. Since God is all powerful and can do anything He wants, if He chooses to reject a soul and send it to hell then it must please Him. It must be something He wants to do, right?

I don't think so. First realize that God is pure and holy. He is so pure that anything that is not pure doesn't stand a chance in His presence. So not allowing something impure to come near to Him is actually mercy. Second realize that God is just. That's part of His pure character. He won't do anything wrong or unfair.

Now look at this little verse out of Ezekiel 18:32 "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn and live."

Far from wanting to reject people, God is not pleased when anyone dies. So what is God pleased with?

1 Timothy 2:3-4 "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

What is that truth? That Jesus, God's Son, gave His life-His purity-so that He could give it away to you, if you will repent, which means to change your mind about the evil in you, and grasp on to Him.

That puts a smile on God's face.

Pastor Tom

The Problem of the Familiar

I noticed this verse in Ezekiel:

3:5 "For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel ... Surely, If I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me."

Sometimes it seems that those closest to us are the hardest to reach for the gospel. I think it may be because there is so much of us that they see and hear instead of seeing and hearing God.

Often it is easier to travel thousands of miles to preach to people who don't speak our language than it is to share God's truth with our family and friends.

It was tough for Ezekiel too. I think perhaps our prayer should be "Lord, when I speak for you to those I know, don't let them think about me, but about Your truth."

Pastor Tom

New Every Morning

Do you ever look back at the end of the day and think "man, I blew it today. "I wish I hadn't..." or "I wish I would have..."? I do. Sometimes I feel the weight of my day on my shoulders as I try to go to sleep at night. I feel as if God must know my failings too. He must look down on me with disappointment; shaking His head and saying "if he'd only trusted Me on that."

When those times come remember the morning is coming.

The Israelies had one of those nights of regret. After centuries of going after other gods, Yahweh had finally had enough and He sent them into exile. The reality of that setting in was just too much for them. You read much of the anguish in the book of Lamentations. Most of it is good stuff to get you royally depressed. But there's this little nugget that I just love in chapter 3:

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

No matter how much you feel you have blown it and God has turned His back on you and given up - remember the morning is coming.

If you belong to God He NEVER gives up on you. The word "steadfast" is the idea of God's convenant love. He made a covenant with you if you have Jesus Christ as your Lord that will never end. His steadfast love brings with mercy - meaning you don't get what you deserve but get what you don't deserve, and that's a new start!

I'd encourage you to read Lamentations 3. There is a lot of hard stuff but a lot of wonderful stuff too. Search your soul and ask God's help, and whatever you find there:

Remember that the morning is coming.

Pastor Tom

Be Careful What You Ask For

In Jeremiah 42 the people came to the prophet and said "pray to the Lord your God for us ... that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing we should do...we will obey the voice of the Lord our God."

It seemed they had had a change of heart and really wanted to repent of their evil and turn again to the Lord. But a funny thing happened. Jeremiah did as they asked and 10 days later the word from God came. That word was to not go down to Egypt.

This wasn't exactly what the people wanted to hear since they had actually already set their hearts toward going there to escape the forces from Babylon. But when Jeremiah told them that the Lord had answered their prayer and that they were not to go they responded this way:

Jeremiah 43:2 "You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to live there.'"

So their response was to attack the messenger. Do you sometimes run into situations where you really ask the Lord for wisdom but have already made up your mind to do something you suspect is wrong? But when you consult God in prayer or seek Him in His Word and that word comes back against what you have in your heart to do - what is your response? Do you think "I guess I was wrong?" or do you say "God can't be speaking because He doesn't agree with me."

Pray and ask for wisdom from God, but be ready for it - knowing it may not be the answer you wished for, though it will be the right answer.

Pastor Tom

Returning From Discipline

The last couple of posts I've talked about discipline: the importance of not being stubborn when the Lord reveals that there is something in your life that He needs to touch and heal, then resting in that discipline to let Him do the work.

This time I want to share some verses in Jeremiah 31 that show what happens when the discipline has done its work.

4 "Again I will build you, and you shall be built O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines."

Israel was promised that God would bring them back to the land after 70 years of discipline in Babylon. Notice how they come back:

:9 "With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water; in a straight path in which they shall not stumble."

Repentance and discipline brings with it sorrow for walking away from God. I also brings with it cries for God's mercy because we realize how inadequate we are on our own. But returning from that discipline brings with it the refreshment of once again having a close relationship with God-all that crud has been dealth with and done away with.

It also brings a "straight path" which to me indicates that what was stumbling us has been removed, so now our walk with God is much more sure and stable and we less likely to fall into the same thing again.

Pastor Tom

Stubborn or Surrender Part 2

Last time I talked about surrendering to the Lord wanting to bring discipline in your life, rather than stubbornly refusing to admit that its needed.

Today I want to share a little tid bit more about discipline.

Jeremiah 29:4-7 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." NIV

God wanted Israel to settle into the discipline. We should too. We should pray for the place the Lord puts us in, even if that is a difficult place. Pray that we will do well in that discipline until the time the Lord takes us out of it.

For if we are patient while the Lord does surgery on us, as difficult as it is, we reap many benefits.

Just after that section in Jeremiah is a very famous verse:

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. NIV

Notice that the plans, hope, future, and prosperity come through discipline.

Pastor Tom

Stubborn or Surrender

Jeremiah 21:8 "Behold I set before you the way of life and the way of death."

When Jeremiah spoke these words, God was telling Israel to surrender to the Babylonians. The reason was that His people had gone into idolatry and had forsaken God, so now God was forsaking them. He was sending them to Babylon as discipline - a discipline that worked. Israel never again served foreign gods like they had prior.

It raises an interesting thought for Christians today. Sometimes we find ourselves serving foreign gods - gods of money or fame or pleasure or many other things that turn our focus away from serving the One True God. So sometimes God brings discipline into our lives. What is our reaction to that discipline? Do we buck up against it, fighting God tooth and nail to avoid repenting or dealing with the sin in our lives?

I think we can learn from Jeremiah's word. The way of surrender to God's discipline is the way of life. It is the way of letting God burn the crud out of you and bringing His life into you afresh. It hurts for a while, but it's worth it.

Pastor Tom

The Unknowable Heart

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

I think the prevailing wisdom among humans today is that the heart is good by and large. We do good when we can or it doesn't violate our self interest. And when we do bad then we should be punished.

The problem with that line of thinking is that we are deluded. Our hearts - and I'm thinking of the "who we are as a person" kind of heart - have fooled us greatly. Instead of good deep down, we are really evil.

I have an apple tree in my backyard. I must confess I didn't do anything for it other than prune this year. Some apples fell off, and others looked really good. I picked one of those great looking apples and took a big bite. Inside it was all eaten away and the worm that had gotten in was still there wiggling around.

For us our hearts are much the same. We surround outselves with a good looking shell of good works and warm feelings. But inside we have a worm - its called "sin." Sin is doing anything outside the character of God. If we look closely at ourselves we do not measure up to God's purity. One example: if you have ever lied then the worm of sin has infected you.

The worm of sin has made our hearts terminal. We have congestive heart failure in our spirits. The only way to save us is to turn to the One - the Great Physician - God Himself - Jesus Christ.

Our hearts are like a really good con man. You think you are good when you really are not. Don't blame God, it is our fault. Look to His Word to find out what we are really supposed to be like, then rely on Him to give you that life and rightness, starting with having a relationship with Him.

Oh - and read the section of Jeremiah just before the verse I shared at the top. It shows what a person is like who trusts in the Lord. No bad apples there!

Pastor Tom

A Bandaid on Cancer

Jeremiah 8:11-12 They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace.
12 Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. NIV

Our culture today fails to realize the serious of the illness of sin. It's not a minor thing, this rebellion against God that we inherited from Adam. It isn't something you can just put a Bandaid on think it will go away. The illness is too deep for that. We need chemotherapy spiritually and that only comes by the deep cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Our culture says we should strive for peace on earth when when we are at war with God who is a far more potent foe than we can imagine. Why are we at war? Because our sins have separated us from God and He obliterates anything evil by His mere presence.

Finally our culture has fallen to the point that we are no longer capable of understanding what sin even is. We no longer blush when confronted with evil, we simply accept it and if not then we are "narrow minded."

There is an absolute good and an absolute evil. God is good and we as humans are evil. The only way out of the terminal condition of humanity is to repent, blush if you will, and turn to the Great Physician for our healing, which only comes through Christ.

Pastor Tom

What Will You Do in the End?

I was struck by this little verse in Jeremiah 5. The prophet has been sent by God to deliver some harsh words to Judah because they had fallen into the same idolatry as the northern tribes. God was about to make them serve foreigners in a land not their own just as they served foreign gods in their own land.

Then here comes this verse:

Jeremiah 5:30 "An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their own direction"

So men are speaking from God words they make up and ruling for God by their authority, not God's. So here comes the next zinger:

"... my people love to have it so..."

I'm not castigating Israel at this time - because we all love to have it our way instead of God's. It's a sad thing about human nature but it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve decided to follow thier own wits instead of trusting what God said about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

So then the kicker: "...but what will you do when the end comes?"

Just as for Judah there was an end where God had them carted off to Babylon, so too there is an end for us: death. We love to carry on as if we are the kings of our universe and masters of our destiny. But what about when the end comes? Have you ever given serious thought to it?

What if Jesus was right when He said "no man comes to the Father but by Me."? After all, He is the only one who has died and come back to life - resurrected - a fact witnessed by over 500 people at one time (1 Corinthians 15).

Don't let the end come before you are ready for it.

Pastor Tom

Be Glad

Isaiah 61:3b "The oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit."

Maybe today you are mourning a loss. Perhaps a loved one is sick, or died. Perhaps you lost your job or a relationship is broken. You feel faint and heavy and laden down instead of lifted up.

You aren't a bad person because you mourn. In fact, we should mourn our sin and our fallen nature. Then we should turn to God. His promise of new life gives us what Isaiah calls a "garment of praise."

Today my simple encouragement to you is to have a change of clothes. In the midst of your mourning, rejoice in the Lord by telling Him how wonderful He is, by lifting up songs of praise so that they cover you like a garment. You can do that because God also says that He will cause all things to work together for the good for those that love him and are called according to His purposes.

Pastor Tom

9/11 How Secure Can You Really Be?

It's been five years. We've spent billions, inconvenienced hundreds of thousands, and sent thousands of others to their deaths. Yet school kids present with President Bush when he found out about the 9/11 attacks say they don't feel safer five years later. Do you?

Some say we have avoided attacks and are safer. Some say it is a losing battle and that terrorists will continue to probe until they find a weakness they can exploit. It is only a matter of time, they say, before terror comes once again to our shores.

I'm not saying we stop trying or that we stop the war. I think that this anniversary of 9/11 and our feeling of continual insecurity should remind us of another war and a feeling of safety we have that we shouldn't. First, Jesus Christ told us not to fear terrorists and their ilk:

Luke 12:4-7 "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do."

No, don't fear physical death. Instead we have a much greater peril facing us: spiritual death.

"5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!"

Why do we feel anxious about a terror attack when the evil resident within all of us threatens to destroy us forever? Why would God do such a thing you ask? It's not God's fault. He is pure and anything that tries to exist in His presence that is not pure will be destroyed. Yet someone so powerful is also powerfully loving.

"6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows." ESV

Jesus made the way for eternal security with God. He did it by facing the ultimate terrorist head on and coming out victorious over him, and his servant: death.

We may feel a little trepidation stepping on an airplane this September 11th, but we should not fear the ultimate trip we take when we die, if we have secured a seat in the plane going to God's kingdom - a ticket purchased for us by the death of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Tom

Jesus Was Unimpressive

Quick - think about a visual picture of what Jesus looked like when He walked the earth. You probably pictured a man in his early thirties with flowing brown locks, a long, gently-featured face and a winning smile with flashing blue eyes.

Even if you can't picture what Jesus looked like you probably have the idea that He was kind of a super human - the best and pinnacle of human nature in all characteristics. I'm not really sure that's true actually.

Isaiah gives us a look forward to what Jesus was like in an amazing chapter 53.

"He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him."

If you had seen Jesus in a crowd you would not have noticed Him (unless He did a miracle of course). If you were choosing teams you wouldn't have even wanted Him on yours. In fact, when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus they were so surprised when He revealed Himself that they fell backwards.

Isaiah goes on: "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces."

Don't get me wrong - Jesus is God and in His glory He is the most incredible being ever. But rather than thinking of Jesus on earth as looking like a movie star, think of Him as the Joe Everyone. Not only that but He was one to be pitied.

"Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities."

Everyone can approach Jesus. He has chosen to place Himself in the lowest place and to take upon Himself all that is evil and should be despised in you so that you can have eternal peace and joy.

Isaiah 51:6 ...but my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will never be dismayed."

Pastor Tom

Gods That Cannot Save

Isaiah 45:20 Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. NIV

People may not literally bow down to idols of wood and stone like in ancient days (though more and more in the U.S. are literally doing that with shrines built in their own homes), but we do have gods none the less. Our gods are currency and power, fame and good looks, business prowess and intellect.

Think about what the most important thing in your life is. Think about how you would feel if that were ripped away. Most of us probably think our families and loved ones are the most important, but our actions speak louder than our hearts deception. How much time do you spend at the office trying to squeeze the last dollar; how much time do you spend cultivating relationships that will more you up or bring you position; how much effort do you put into learning more, without learning real truth?

Sad to say that our ignorance is killing us. We keep praying (hoping, wishing, focusing on) things that can bring us nothing lasting. When you die, the Bible says you brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out. God's Word tells us that we cannot exist in God's presence if there is anything, even the smallest amount, of wickedness in us.

The only way to find a real savior is to turn to God Himself. God provided a way of salvation through Jesus Christ. It's really through ignorance that we keep looking for salvation everywhere else. Don't be ignorant any more.

Pastor Tom

Mistaken Identity

There's a great story in Isaiah, chapters 36-39 about the Assyrians coming against Jerusalem. A guy named Rabshakeh, from the Assyrian army, says to the people:

"But if you say to me, 'We trust in the Lord our God,' is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed...?" (Isaiah 36:7)

King Hezekiah had removed high places devoted to worshipping idols. But the Assyrians apparently didn't know the difference between Yahweh and an idol, and so they assumed that the people would be afraid that they had angered God by removing his altars of worship.

That, of course, was not true, but it brings up a good point. Those who do not know the Lord will often be confused about what is worship of God and what is not, and they will not understand what God is doing in your life.

For the Israelies, removing the high places brought them back into fellowship with Yahweh. For you, God may pull down an idol in your life; a sin, a habit pattern, a little "g" god that has stood in the way of a close relationship. The world looks at that and thinks you are crazy to give that up - especially if it is something that appears religious, but is really not.

It's easy for Christians to fall into legalism - creating arbitrary rules for things that have a spiritual appearance but are simply ways to use our strength to please God; things like a dress code that has more to do with style than modesty, and restricting activities based on opinion rather than on the character of God.

So don't be surprised when the world can't figure out why you are trusting God and taking down idol temples at the same time. Just do what Hezekiah did - throw yourself on God's mercy.

Pastor Tom

Steve Erwin is Dead

Let me say first that I didn't know Steve personally, though his wife grew up near here. I also don't know Steve's spiritual condition. You may have heard that the world famous naturalist was killed by a sting ray off of the Great Barrier Reef. Nothing in this message is meant to say anything one way or another about Steve.

But just as Jesus used the story of workers killed in a construction accident to talk about sin and our relationship to God, I want to use the story of Steve's death to illustrate that same principal.

In a lot of ways, we are like Steve, swimming along with the sting rays, thinking that we are okay, but we are actually in grave danger. Sin is like that. Sin and the sin nature appears to us as very benign. When we do something that is wrong we are not struck by lightning from heaven, nor do we feel the heat of the fires of hell lap at our feet. So we think that sin really isn't fatal after all.

But at a moments notice sin will kill us, like the poisonous barb of a string ray, it can pierce our heart and instantly kill us. The Bible says the "wages of sin is death." Sin is fatal 100% of the time. I have gone swimming as Steve did with sting rays. They seem very friendly and curious. They ride up on you looking for food and use their vacuum cleaning mouths to suck food off of your hands. To be honest it was a little creepy, but a lot of people love it.

The one thing they tell you is not to box the ray in, or it will sting you. We don't realize that the longer we live in sin, the more chances there are that it will bring about death and corruption in our lives. Paul said that if you "sow to the flesh you will reap from the flesh corruption."

There is only one cure for sin and only one way to escape the inevitable sting - and that is through Jesus Christ, who led a perfect and sinless life (sin is doing anything out of the character of God), then gave that life to you so you could have new life. All you need to do is rely on that death and resurrection, and make Him your Savior and Lord.

Then this verse is your verse:

1 Corinthians 15:54-57 "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55 "O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting ?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ESV

The law gives us the knowledge that we are swimming with dangerous creatures. Heed the warning and give your life to Jesus today. Then that barb will be of no effect and you can swim truly free.

Pastor Tom

Putting Reigns on the Mind

Isaiah 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
ESV

How many times does your mind take you into worry and anxiety? Do you have times when you simply can't turn your mind off as it races to the next day or that difficult meeting or a broken relationship and to the "if only I'd..."

Here is a word of encouragement for you. There is peace, shalom in Hebrew, waiting for those who will "stay" their minds on the Lord. The Hebrew word means "to prop" or "to lean upon or take hold."

The next time you feel anxious and your thoughts control you, take those thoughts and turn them towards the Lord; think about how wonderful He is, how gracious, how powerful, how loving, how pure, how much He is in charge. Perhaps read a Psalm or the story of the Exodus or of how He rescued Paul from shipwreck, or the resurrection.

You may well find yourself "trusting" in Him, which means to have confidence. If you belong to Jesus then God is in control of every aspect of your life. There is nothing that can happen to you outside of His will. Even bad things are turned to good; tragedy to rejoicing. Yes, there are trials ahead and relationships that are broken and times when you won't know where to turn.

The point isn't to figure all that out for yourself, but to train your mind to remain steadfast on the Lord and confident in His power to do what's best for you even if that means going through pain because in the end He is doing a great thing in you - making you like Him. Now that's something to think about.

Pastor Tom