THE STUPDITY OF GETTING ANGRY AT GOD

When I was recently converted, I met a few folk who told me they were angry at God. Although I didn't really know how to respond to them, I couldn't help thinking that it was a rather stupid strategy to adopt. Why get angry at God? What has He done wrong?

Today I just want to take the phrase “I am angry at God” and show why it’s such folly…

1.- I AM

The first part of the phrase is “I am”. But if it were not for God’s act of creation, there would be no “I am” to begin with. Descartes said I think therefore I am. However, the Bible shows that God is therefore I am. How could any of God’s creatures ever get mad at Him and retain his (or her) sanity? Is that not the folly of follies? How can we get angry at someone upon whom our very existence depends?

2.- ANGRY

The second part of the phrase is “angry”. “I am angry”. And yet again we must realize that our emotions stem from God. They were made for His glory to be exhibited through us. So how is it that we use these God-given emotions against the One who made us? Does that make any sense? We can only get angry because God allows us to. So why- oh why- would we ever think of raging against Him? Maybe we foolishly think He owes us something or that He has done us wrong. But let’s not forget that God Himself is the absolute standard of justice, correctness and rightness. Our human justice fades into the distance when God’s righteousness comes into view.

3.- AT GOD

The third part of the phrase is “at God.” “I am angry at God”. Of all the people and things we could get angry at on this earth, why would we ever get angry at the Lord who is working out all things for the good of His people? The very fact that we hate injustice is the fruit of the moral conscience that God has granted to each one of us. God is not our enemy. We are supposed to be fighting for His cause on this earth; not for the advancement of our own human kingdoms. But too often we get too big for our boots and start to think that the world doesn't revolve around Jesus, but around little old us. That’s a mighty big mistake!

CONCLUSION

I hope this quick reflection should show the manifest stupidity of ever getting angry at God. And if we ever find ourselves boiling up at God, the best thing to do would be to get angry with ourselves for being so selfish, self-centred and sinful. God owes us nothing. We owe Him everything. If anyone gets angry, it should be Him getting angry at us. That would make a whole lot more sense…

By  Will Graham

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Success is our life

Success is our life; we live it day and night. It is our food. It is our drink. We sing to it, we dance with it. We sleep in it and wake up to it. We are inseparable from it and it from us. It is us and we are it. When you are married into it or have children in it, only death can break the chord.

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Badly Burnt Skin Restored By Jesus

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AS SICK AS A PARROT

Solid things are worthy of confidence. We walk on solid bridges, fly in solid planes and build upon solid foundations. Solidity gives assurance and protection. But unstable elements correlate with a sensation of uncertainty and ill-feeling. Something unsound leaves us uneasy within.

This same scenario applies to all spheres of all life, including the preaching of the Gospel. A straight and solid biblical message is of much more use than a wishy-washy, sinner-friendly mess that refuses to mention sin or coming judgment. A watered-down sermon brings dishonour to the name of the Lord and reproach to the church as a whole. Rather than edifying the saints, such nonsense erodes a solid faith. Hell laughs wherever Christ is not proclaimed in all of His sufficient fullness.

We see this general distancing from the solid teaching of the Word of God in many Christian circles. For example, salvation itself has been reduced to a mere ‘repeat-after-me’ formula. If all you have to do to receive eternal life is repeat a ‘sinner’s prayer’ then every parrot in the jungle is soon to be an heir of eternal life. Knowing how to repeat something doesn’t mean you are participant of the glory of its truths. Saying “I am a fish” doesn’t make you one. The sinner’s prayer was something the modern minister invented.

Likewise, if all you have to do to enter the kingdom of heaven is to raise your hand in the air, then I can assure you that every monkey that lives on this planet is soundly born again! The whole contemporary process of salvation stinks of falsehood and superficiality; it all smells like an unclean circus. We’ve expelled the Holy Ghost from Christianity. That explains why we’ve so many dogs and venomous vermin running about in our places of worship; we tricked them into believing that they belong to God, and now, all they do is sow discord, carnality, sensuality, strife and problems wherever they go. They don’t know God!

A solid and substantial conversion is marked by two clear factors: repentance and faith. Simply put, repentance is fleeing from our sins and faith is fleeing to Christ. We run from ourselves to find refuge in the Lord. Now, here is the all-important question: how can a sinner do that? First of all, the sinner has to be shown his desperate plight. He must know that he is damned and weighed down under the wrath of an Almighty and thrice holy God. There is no hope for any child of wrath. How, then, can the sinner know that? By the preaching of God’s Law!

The Law shuts every mouth before God and reveals to us our sin in all of its gross and abominable depth. The Apostle Paul was well conscious of that eternal truth. Only when the full force of the Law is applied will the sinners cry out under conviction gnawing their tongues in unbearable agony. That is the very moment when the balm of the Gospel is to be displayed. The Gospel is only Good News for those who know that their current estate is one of Bad News. That fact alone shows us why so many nominal Christians live lives that deny the Lord. They were taught the Gospel of love before they saw the horridness of their sin. They never repented, so they continue to wallow in their sin. But that is not the biblical pattern. All of the Protestant Reformers preached the Law of God, and when they saw the Holy Spirit bring conviction of sin then (and only then) they spoke of the work of Jesus Christ. The Law always paths the way for Jesus to be revealed as Saviour and King.

The wholesale rejection of any type of Law preaching today has done more harm to the church than any other secular philosophy that has been taken onboard. This is the one unmistakeable sign of evangelical unsoundness. Spokesmen that do not condemn sin, in no uncertain terms, are missionaries of Gomorrah. A man too afraid to warn sinners of their desperate and hopeless lot will have to give an account for their blood on Judgment Day. Every man of God that has ever graced a pulpit has been crystal clear regarding the grace and the wrath of the Most High. The Word of God speaks to us of the goodness and the severity of God, and any message that says otherwise is a lie sent from the pit of hell. Paul called down a curse upon any person (or angel) that announced a message foreign to the pure Gospel.

Getting back to the solidity of the Scriptures is the only way out of this sad predicament. Some may call us bigots for our stance, but if that be so, then the Bible is the biggest bigot of all. The Bible makes it plain that salvation from the wrath of God is found in Christ alone. Christ is the Saviour of those who know the wretchedness of their sin. It's the sick that need a doctor, not the well.

I, for one, am fed up with parrot-type religion. It has left too many children of God nauseated and confused. I want the real. God hasn’t called us to entertain goats, but to feed His sheep. If you too are fed up with this unstable circus, then I invite you too on this journey to get back to the solid, sound and stable Gospel that has prevailed in the world in spite of thousands of years of the lies and distorsions of man. May Christ, and Christ alone, continue to be the solid Rock on which we stand!

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FALLING IN LOVE

Falling in love is one of the most precious gifts that God has granted to humanity. There is nothing anti-spiritual or inherently sinful about it provided it is subordinated to the higher pursuit of glorifying God. At the end of the day emotions (in and of themselves) are not evil.

In the beginning, God made Eve for Adam. He instituted marriage. The Lord took a rib from Adam’s side to make the woman. God did it whilst the man was asleep, and ever since, falling in love always has this dreamy and other-worldly feeling about it. In the Genesis account, there are a few useful gleanings which I have jotted down that will help you know the biblical standard for truly falling in love and finding a mate. Perhaps we have overlooked some of these vital truths.

1.- “God created man” (Genesis 1:27).

“God created man.” It seems
like a rather strange verse to quote when dealing with falling in love, but we cannot fail to miss the value and depth of this insight. God created a “man”. Before God gave Eve to Adam, Adam was a “man” and not a “boy”. I preached at a convention in Madrid alongside a servant of God back in April 2010 who had just arrived from teaching in Italy.  He informed me that two out of every three marriages over there end up in shipwreck. Why so many break ups? Because men no longer marry women; boys marry girls. When trouble strikes, these so-called men walk out! They cave in as quickly as a pack of cards. They never grew up; they have infantile attitudes and can’t stand the pressure when the heat is on. They have no principles and no convictions; so command no respect. A man that has to use violence to gain the respect of his wife is worse than an animal. He is no man; he’s a beastly coward and a slug. God made a “man” in Eden; one who was mature and trusted in God. Falling in love the biblical way is a thing of spiritual adults, not of novices. Make sure your partner is a grown-up and not a cry baby.

2.- "God put the man in the garden" (Genesis 2:8).

Why did God put man in the Garden? The Bible answers us in Genesis 2:15, “To dress it and to keep it.” In other words, Adam was involved in the work of the Lord before he met Eve. He wasn’t out-and-about in pagan-style Christian nightclubs and single bars looking for a partner. He faithfully served God where the Lord had put him, and then the Lord took care of the rest. It says, “And God brought Eve unto the man” (Genesis 2:22). God put the woman in the right place at the right time. Adam didn’t have to go about trying to chat up half the available females, bombarding them with endless text-messages, phone calls and e-mails on into the early hours of the morning. There is nothing attractive about a person who just throws themselves at another with no self-respect. You wipe your feet with door-mats; you don't fall in love with them. Adam just had to occupy himself with serving God. If you seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then all these other things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). Obedience was the grand virtue that characterized Adam’s pre-Fall existence; and that obedience is always met with the divine blessing. God gave Adam the perfect woman who would complement the work unto which God had called him. They were not two heads going in two different directions; but one body, one unit, one flesh headed God’s way.

Let me be very bold for a moment. You young men reading this that are called to ministry: never ever settle for a girl that has no interest in spiritual matters; you need someone who is at your level, and who will encourage you and strengthen you in the things of God. Don’t throw your whole life away for a plate of lentils. If you marry a girl that doesn’t share the calling that is upon your life, then your whole existence will be one of constant affliction and frustration. You can share your life with a “good” girl, but that doesn’t mean she’s God’s best. You will not be able to go when God calls you to; you will not be able to do what God tells you to. Don’t sell yourself out to the first one that comes along; pray through to God and He will show you what to do. Many times we speak of not being unequally yoked with unbelievers; that is true. But the same rule applies to Christian marriage. You cannot marry someone that you will be a constant drag downwards in spiritual matters. The fire that God has put in your belly can become smothered by marrying the wrong person. So, beware! Cry out to God and He will answer.

3.- “God commanded the man, saying…” (Genesis 2:16).

God had a verbal relationship with man; He spoke with him. There was God-man communication. A man of God, before ever thinking about marriage, must first enjoy intimacy with the Lord. Then from his relationship with God he will sow forth blessing and peace into his marriage. Men of God are faithful. They are not like today’s brand of rebels that marry a girl one day and then sleep with another one the next day. If there is no fruit in your prospective partner’s life, get out of the thing! Cut it off! I once heard the testimony about a young twenty-something year old in the States. She was living with her boyfriend, and one of her friends invited her to church. She came under conviction in the service, realizing that she was knee-deep in sin. She cried out to God for forgiveness. When she got home she told the lad what had happened and she asked him if he too wanted to follow Jesus. He laughed her words off and said no. She replied, “If you don’t want to go to heaven with me, then I sure don’t want to go to hell with you!” She packed her bags and left! She left her life of sin behind. A woman of God has godly convictions and does whatever the Lord says, no matter what the price may be.

4.- Concluding

To fall in love, your mate must be an adult, and not a child; they must be a servant of God and have an intimate relationship with the Lord. Anything less falls short of the biblical standard. Ask God to guide you in these matters. These may be spiritual principles, but something I would like to add is that it is not a sin to be physically attracted to your mate. God will stir up a love in your heart for her. God hasn't called you to marry a monkey!

Furthermore: avoid long relationships like the plague! Pre-marital relationships that go on for years are not wise; you are only inviting temptation to fornicate. You are flesh and blood; you have desires. And that is irrespective of the number of sermons you've listened to or preached.

And one last observation, lads that date one girl and then another and then another are practicing for divorce in the future. “If it doesn't work out with this one, I’ll try another!” Girls are not sweets to be tasted and spat out! Be a man! Be mature! Be an adult! Seek God’s guidance in all of these matters, and He will show you the way forward. That way, you can rest in peace and enjoy the bliss of falling in love the way God ordained it.

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