E16 - Hope’s Harbor Gritty Bible Devotions - The Character of GOD - Is GOD Good? - Part 1 of 3
Hope’s Harbor
Gritty Bible Devotions
Episode #16
Title: The Character of GOD - Is GOD good? – Part 1 of 3
Date: 7/19/2021
Contact: info@hopesharbor.net
Key verse: Luke 18:19 – ‘So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, GOD.”’
Intro: If you read in the concordances of your Bibles the definitions of the words good/goodness/ Lord is good, good works, etc. you’ll see in the listings of those words:
GOD is good – all the time.
Our devotion in this episode is more for answering those who question where is GOD’s goodness in a world of so much suffering and pain.
Sin-stained minds logically ask “Why did a good GOD allow such as this: death, accident, disease, etc.?
Is He angry?
Skeptics of GOD being a good and loving GOD will point to Old Testament accounts of GOD instructing His people to utterly destroy their enemies, including putting to death every man, woman, child, and animal in a given area, or group of people.
Why would a good and loving GOD do such a thing?
Is He biased?
On another front, is there a problem with a sincere Christian standing in front of a congregation and making this statement: “GOD was good to me and healed me of my cancer?”
I ask this because how do we answer the pain of a parent whose 2-year-old child died of leukemia in light of the fact GOD does sometimes heal miraculously?
Does He hate us?
And last, in the Summary of episode 18, I look at ways we can call down the goodness of GOD for our lives and those we love, and for those who are on their way to hell.
And the worse description of hell I can think of is eternal separation from GOD.
Devotion focus:
· Is GOD angry? (Duet. 7:1-5)
Yes, GOD is angry. What is He angry about? With sin and the wickedness it produces.
There is an aspect of GOD’s nature we call His justice. Only a good GOD would care enough about the right thing always being done.
To ensure good is accomplished, His justice is brought to bear.
Listen carefully to these verses I’m going to read. GOD had a reason for His reactions to the evil infecting nations of those days to the point they were beyond recovery.
Deuteronomy 7:1 - "When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you,
Deu 7:2 – “and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.
Deu 7:3 – “Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son.
Deu 7:4 – “For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.
Deu 7:5 – “But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.”
These verses, as hard as they are to comprehend in our civilized times, reveal that GOD’s instructions to obliterate Israel’s enemies were protective in nature.
Deu 9:5 - Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy GOD doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
· In this passage, GOD explains it is for the wickedness of the inhabitants that all influence of them is to be wiped out. This is done in order to protect His people.
Deu 20:18 – ‘That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their GODs; so should ye sin against the LORD your GOD.’
· Reading several online sources revealed a common explanation of why GOD had the Israelites kill completely every inhabitant of certain cities during their conquest of the Promised Land.
(Again, these verses, as hard as they are to comprehend in our civilized times, reveal that GOD’s instructions to obliterate Israel’s enemies were protective in nature)
An online source under: But the Children - (http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952781)
First, after generations of the sort of moral degeneracy that characterized these peoples, it may be that even the smallest children were beyond civilizing. Apparently even they were abused and forced to participate in obscene conduct, such that they would have grown up psychologically and spiritually scarred-and perhaps threatened to perpetuate the cycle.
Second, the STDs and other infectious diseases that must have pervaded those cities may well have been carried by the smallest children, and if so, they may have posed a grave danger to the physical health of the Israelites. Imagine some of the nations today most ravaged by AIDS, but living more than three thousand years ago, with no access to even the most basic medical resources. It may be that infectious diseases were also ravaging the domestic animals in these cities, which would also explain why they were destroyed.
It's horrible to contemplate that things were so bad that it was actually necessary for even the youngest members of that society to be killed in order to stop the generational cycle of degeneracy and disease. But something along these lines seems likely to be the reason for GOD's order to leave alive nothing that breathed.
We have it explained here that it is probable GOD had certain inhabitants annihilated to prevent the ravages of diseases, which if left unchecked, could have wiped out the small Jewish nation.
Summary: So we see, yes, GOD is angry, but sin is at the heart of His anger. He is angered when people, whether an individual or nation, choose sin over His love shown to us when His Son died on that Roman cross. All time and eternity revolve around that one event.
GOD gives us the freedom to choose Him and His love offering to us, or refuse that offer. We have that freedom.
Action to consider: To see examples of GOD’s goodness at work read the 4th chapter of 1st John – if not then at least read these verses:
1John 4:8 – ‘He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’
1John 4:16 – ‘And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.’
Now, compare this description of love in action, found in 1st Corinthians 13, and decide for yourself if GOD is good, for we know only good comes from love.
1Cor 13:4 - Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
1Cor - 13:5 - does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
1Cor - 13:6 - does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
1Cor - 13:7 - bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1Cor - 13:8 - Love never fails.
Next week’s devotion: Part 2 - Is God racist? (Key verse: Matthew 15:21-28)