Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name be the glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Our God is in the heavens. He does what He pleases. (Verses 1-3)
"For My name's sake I defer My anger, for the sake of My praise I restrain it from you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." God. Isaiah 48
I know. I know. There are many who would read these verses and think what a haughty God we have. All He wants is glory for Himself. Richard Dawkins, the noted atheist, describes our God this way: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." Whew! That's quite a vendetta on a "fictional" God. Seems to me Dawkins is pretty mad at the God of a fairy tale. But is that really the God of the Bible?
Of course, as the psalm today spells out quite clearly, God can do whatever He wants, if He's the God of all. Were God to present Himself to be exactly as Dawkins's paints Him, He'd have every right to all the actions of which the atheist accuses Him. The irony is, according to the psalmist, God allows Dawkins to rail against Him. Doesn't strike him down mid-sentence...or mid-book. Were God the master of malevolence Dawkins claims Him to be, there would be no Dawkins to complain. The reason we are to give God glory is that He doesn't destroy us!
So what is God doing to please Himself? According to His steadfast love and faithfulness? The God of heaven and earth has to stomach our genocides, infanticides, murders, lies, adulteries, addictions, wars, and injustices. Maybe our question should be, "Why has He put up with our degenerate hearts for so long?" We should be looking up in wonder at God's grace toward a world spinning totally out of control. Dawkins looks at the God of the Old Testament with one eye shut. The one that should be looking at us. It would be just for God to take the sphere on which we dwell into His hands and shake us off it like so many ants on an orange. Throw us all into oblivion and start over with humans who understand Him to be full of lovingkindness and compassion. It is those Godly traits that keep our feet glued to the gravity of our planet. In fact, we might ask the opposite question, "How long will evil reign before God just has enough of it?"
God loves Richard Dawkins. The man can run away in protest, but he's allowed to spew against God because God's anger hasn't killed him. God defers His anger in the hope that His character will not be profaned. God's patience to bring us to repentance is awe inspiring. Sometimes that involves an affliction that presents us with our need for God. All the foxholes where we've prayed because it's our only alternative become the yellow brick roads that lead us to our God. Affliction for the sake of affliction isn't God's motive. If we're stuck, it's so He can be lauded for rescuing us. God loves us! But He's also just. Completely holy. The definition of love and the Only Righteous Judge. Deserving of our flat out worship regardless of whether or not we like Him. God restrains Himself when it comes to our judgment in order to prove He is loving and faithful. So that we can look at Him and acknowledge that, yes, He justifies what He says about Himself. We are not destroyed in His anger. Not yet.
Here is God's heart: Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone," declares the Lord God. "So turn and live." Ezekiel 18
Compared to His great grace, we are puny and insignificant in our petty forgivenesses or in our ridiculous hubris. We will never be able to forgive others their wrongs against us to the degree that God has erased and forgotten ours against Him. We can't take pride and congratulate ourselves that we do so much less than God has done for us through Christ Jesus, His Son. Not to us, but to Him, be the glory. And while many of us shake our bony index fingers in God's radiant face and accuse Him of atrocities He is too holy to endure, He listens to our silly hearts, waiting. While we have breath, we still have a chance to choose. With His breath, God could blow us into oblivion. But His name restrains Him: Wonderful Counselor, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, Mighty God. Our God is in the heavens and He does what pleases Him: Love us.
"For My name's sake I defer My anger, for the sake of My praise I restrain it from you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." God. Isaiah 48
I know. I know. There are many who would read these verses and think what a haughty God we have. All He wants is glory for Himself. Richard Dawkins, the noted atheist, describes our God this way: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." Whew! That's quite a vendetta on a "fictional" God. Seems to me Dawkins is pretty mad at the God of a fairy tale. But is that really the God of the Bible?
Of course, as the psalm today spells out quite clearly, God can do whatever He wants, if He's the God of all. Were God to present Himself to be exactly as Dawkins's paints Him, He'd have every right to all the actions of which the atheist accuses Him. The irony is, according to the psalmist, God allows Dawkins to rail against Him. Doesn't strike him down mid-sentence...or mid-book. Were God the master of malevolence Dawkins claims Him to be, there would be no Dawkins to complain. The reason we are to give God glory is that He doesn't destroy us!
So what is God doing to please Himself? According to His steadfast love and faithfulness? The God of heaven and earth has to stomach our genocides, infanticides, murders, lies, adulteries, addictions, wars, and injustices. Maybe our question should be, "Why has He put up with our degenerate hearts for so long?" We should be looking up in wonder at God's grace toward a world spinning totally out of control. Dawkins looks at the God of the Old Testament with one eye shut. The one that should be looking at us. It would be just for God to take the sphere on which we dwell into His hands and shake us off it like so many ants on an orange. Throw us all into oblivion and start over with humans who understand Him to be full of lovingkindness and compassion. It is those Godly traits that keep our feet glued to the gravity of our planet. In fact, we might ask the opposite question, "How long will evil reign before God just has enough of it?"
God loves Richard Dawkins. The man can run away in protest, but he's allowed to spew against God because God's anger hasn't killed him. God defers His anger in the hope that His character will not be profaned. God's patience to bring us to repentance is awe inspiring. Sometimes that involves an affliction that presents us with our need for God. All the foxholes where we've prayed because it's our only alternative become the yellow brick roads that lead us to our God. Affliction for the sake of affliction isn't God's motive. If we're stuck, it's so He can be lauded for rescuing us. God loves us! But He's also just. Completely holy. The definition of love and the Only Righteous Judge. Deserving of our flat out worship regardless of whether or not we like Him. God restrains Himself when it comes to our judgment in order to prove He is loving and faithful. So that we can look at Him and acknowledge that, yes, He justifies what He says about Himself. We are not destroyed in His anger. Not yet.
Here is God's heart: Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone," declares the Lord God. "So turn and live." Ezekiel 18
Compared to His great grace, we are puny and insignificant in our petty forgivenesses or in our ridiculous hubris. We will never be able to forgive others their wrongs against us to the degree that God has erased and forgotten ours against Him. We can't take pride and congratulate ourselves that we do so much less than God has done for us through Christ Jesus, His Son. Not to us, but to Him, be the glory. And while many of us shake our bony index fingers in God's radiant face and accuse Him of atrocities He is too holy to endure, He listens to our silly hearts, waiting. While we have breath, we still have a chance to choose. With His breath, God could blow us into oblivion. But His name restrains Him: Wonderful Counselor, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, Mighty God. Our God is in the heavens and He does what pleases Him: Love us.
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