Elijah and Ahab hurled “troubler of Israel” insults at each other in their pre-Mt. Carmel confrontation. Ahab referring to the famine that Elijah’s 3 ½ year drought caused; Elijah to Ahab’s apostasy from Jehovah to serve Jezebel’s obscene Baals. (To see Ahab’s continuing depravity, he also called Elisha his enemy II Kings 6:31.) As the last Part of this blog illustrated, those who live by God’s word benefit community and country. Those who forsake God to worship other deities, including themselves, burden, harm and eventually destroy community and country.
To this day, our view of God determines whether we’re benefactors or troublers of America. The troublers always begin with the suffering humanity of God. The benefactors begin with the suffering God of humanity. Unbelievers blame God, not their sins, for all our adversity. Why does he allow innocent people to endure poverty, illiteracy and disease? And are we not all innocent? Are we not all like C.S. Lewis’ farmer, who wondered what he had ever done to make God angry? After all, he’d tried never to impose on him. He called for his help only in emergencies. The benefactors of society—spiritually-enlightened believers—indict the entire human race as godless infidels for shielding themselves from believing in and serving God despite his innumerable gifts: the very air we breathe, the very ground we walk on, the very space into which we look without seeing the glories of his colossal Presence! And we hypocritically consider ourselves innocent when every wrong afflicting humanity has come from humanity’s rejection of God! Unbelievers always see the result of humanity’s troubles, never the source. And they refuse to be educated. Instead they find God a convenient whipping boy. That keeps the attention diverted from us to him. Which surfaces the fact of sin. For some reason even Bible-believing people see sin as a mystery we can’t resolve. Amazing inconsistency! Indeed, sin is a PROBLEM, but it is NO MYSTERY! For we know how, when and why it entered human experience. We had two innocent humans as the very beginning of our creation. Yet, even they exalted their OPINION above God’s TRUTH. At the instigation of the serpent-satan, it’s true. For when God told Adam he would surely die if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, satan’s lying, conniving, wickedness turned the threat into a misunderstanding. Instead of Adam hearing God’s, “You will surely die”, Eve listened to satan’s, “You will not surely die.” A colossal difference. The first, God’s word a threat not to be denied; the second satan’s insinuation that Adam and Eve must have misunderstood the Creator. Our parents, leading all unbelievers into sin, wanted their own opinion and choice, making themselves the deity in charge of life, without being sinful. To this day, the unsaved refuse to see satan’s presence in human lives as the REASON humanity suffers—and has since God DROVE Adam and Eve—they didn’t go willingly—from the Garden. Like us, they wanted to make their own rules and exemption from the consequences. Concluding this part, understand that obedience to God begins when we have a difference with God: whether with what he says, or does, or wants; whether in judging our own life, or someone’s we love as much. We can say that obedience to God comes whenever we obey him. Not true. If we obey when we agree with his demand, it’s merely accommodation. We begin obedient discipleship when we differ, disagree, wish he hadn’t said it, wish he said, etc., etc., but still OBEY because he said it and has the right to make all the rules, and exercises that right, and never surrenders it to any of us. With that in mind, dear Benefactors, always teach that God’s Rules rule, not our opinions. Not even if ignorantly stated, definitely not when we arrogate our opinions against his truth. For God cannot be mocked. Not…should not be mocked. That is, to turn your nose up at God Galatians 6:7. Or…will not be mocked. But CANNOT BE…as in NEVER…IMPOSSIBLE…WON’T EVER HAPPEN…DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! We will quicker fly by flapping our arms than mock God. Or dive safely into the Marianas Trench wearing only scuba gear than mock God. Or thrust our index finger through the concrete at Hoover Dam than mock God. End Part XII
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