Behold the Kindness and Severity of God

Scripture Texts: Romans 11:19-24

Introduction.

If you want to know how muddled people’s thinking about God is these days, just ask them who is God and what is He like?  How do they think about God?  It will stagger the imagination.  Everyone has their own pre-conceived ideas of what God is like.

Their ideas are shaped by individual experiences, personal struggles, cultural influences.  Satan works overtime to cloud our minds with lies about God.

Most of modern culture rejects any notion of God as a God of divine wrath and judgment.  Some imagine Him to be a great, wise old grandfatherly type figure.  Others go with a Charlton Heston type man.  I am sure you have noticed the modern God is a God of love, peace, tolerance and forgiveness.  He is completely benevolent and indulgent.  A celestial Santa Claus.

Santa Claus theology says sin is no big deal and atonement is unnecessary.  God’s kindness extends just as much to those who completely ignore Him and disregard His commands as to those who love and obey Him.

People will say, “The God I worship is a God of love, He would never send anyone to hell.  I believe in a God who is loving, merciful, forgiving.  I don’t like to think of God as Judge but more as a Father.”

Most of the time when someone starts talking about the kind of God they believe in or worship, they are at the same time denying something else the Bible says about God.  We are not free to think of God however we like or imagine.

At the very best these images or thoughts are only of a man, maybe the ideal man, but a man nevertheless.  God is not like any man.  We are made in His image, He is not made in our image.

It is the duty of everyone to know God, and to know God only as God has revealed Himself.  We can’t cherry pick attributes and characteristics of God.  It is pride, arrogance and presumptuous to say what we think God is like without turning to His Word.