The Other Side of God

I would like to give you, pretty much word for word, a great sermon by Dr. R.C. Sproul, preached just before he entered the hospital for respiratory treatment that eventually killed him.

We live in a culture, and, sadly, in a church, that, if they believe in the existence of God, do not consider God to be holy.  But if, peradventure, some may acknowledge that He is holy, they don’t add to that holiness any idea of divine Justice.  And if, with the lamp of Diogenes, we are able to find a handful of people who believe God is both holy and just, it is next to impossible to find someone who will add to these elements the idea that God is a God of wrath.  Because the assumption in the world and the church today is that the love of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God either swallows up the justice and wrath of God, or certainly trumps it. Even on national occasions, where noted people are buried out of the National Cathedral in Washington, it is commonplace to hear choirs sing or bagpipers play “Amazing Grace”--but nobody believes that His grace is amazing. It’s something we assume.  Because again the assumption is, God is not holy, God is not just, and God is not a God of wrath. 

Reading I Chronicles 13:1-6, David called all spiritual leaders in the land to form a grand procession and celebration to bring the ark of the covenant from storage back to his capital city.  Let’s pick it up from verse 7:

So they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart. ⁸ Then David and all Israel played music before God with all their might, with singing, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cymbals, and with trumpets. ⁹ And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. ¹⁰ Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God. ¹¹ And David became angry because of the Lord’s outbreak against Uzza…

David was afraid of God that day.  When I was in seminary, I was taught that the Biblical passages that refer to the sudden explosion and paroxysm of rage that God manifested in the Old Testament, showed that the Old Testament is not the inspired Word of God, but is simply an example of a popular religion of a tribal deity from a semi-nomadic group of people who were pre-scientific and unsophisticated.  And they would say that these episodes recorded in the Old Testament were totally incompatible with the New Testament portrait of the love of God revealed in Jesus.  So what I experienced in seminary was a revival of the Marcionite heresy (Ed. Note:  around 144 A.D.); with an attempt to expurgate from the Bible all references to this Old Testament angry deity.  But I thought that this episode, and others like it, since they were recorded in the pages of sacred Scriptures, would at least deserve the philosophy of a second glance.  So, David is going to bring the most sacred vessel of their religion to the holy place; he is going to restore the Glory to Israel to a brand new place.  So he has a new cart made; and in the middle of a jubilant procession, the ox stumbles, and tilts the cart, and the sacred ark is in immediate danger of falling into the dirt, or mud, where it would be surely desecrated.  Instinctively, out of a sense of respect for this sacred object, lest it become marred in the dirt, Uzzah stretches forth his hand.  As soon as he did, the heavens opened, and a deep voice shouted to him from heaven, “Thank you, Uzzah!”  Well…not how it happened.  As soon as he touched the ark, instantly, he was stricken.  God executed him. 

Oh! The gymnastics my Old Testament professors went through in seminary, saying, “Well, that’s the way it seemed to these unsophisticated Hebrews who were watching this. Surely the man dropped dead of a heart attack, generated by his terror that he would venture to touch that sacred object.”  Or they would say, “This is evidence of whatever portrayal we have of the wrath of God in the Old Testament; it portrays God’s as being arbitrary, whimsical, capricious…” One professor even called this “the dark side of Yahweh…the demonic element within the nature of God Himself.”

Evidently these people never read Numbers 4.  That’s when God gave the responsibility of the priesthood and the teaching to the tribe of Levi; within which the sole responsibility of the clan of the Kohathites was to look after the sacred vessels for the tabernacle.  But the ark was designed by God Himself to have rings on the sides; then they used long poles, or staves, inserted them through the rings, and carried the ark, on foot, balancing the staves on their shoulders on either side of the ark. The idea was that they, as human beings, would never come in contact with the throne of God. Keep in mind that the ark was designed to manifest God’s holiness. Numbers 4:15 explicitly says:

…the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them; but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die.

Jonathan Edwards has a sermon about this; he says “the sin of Uzzah was the sin of arrogance.”  It looked to me like a heroic act of humility.  But herein was the arrogance; Uzzah assumed that contact with the mud would be a greater sacrilege than contact with the hand of a human being.  What is mud?  Earth and water.  There is nothing innately sinful about dirt. If the ark touches the ground, it’s not going to do any damage.  What desecrates the throne of God is not the touch of earth; it’s the touch of man.  There is sin in the hand of Uzzah.  So he was executed for profaning the most holy object in Israel. 

Now please turn to Leviticus 10:1-2:

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. ² So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.  

 Whatever made it profane, it did not please God. These young priests were simply involved in experimental worship.  Maybe to try to change the liturgy that God had ordained, in such a way that it would be more appealing to the congregation. They missed the fundamental principle of worship: worship is to be determined not by what is pleasing to us, but what is pleasing to God.  (Ed. Note:  There was applause for Dr. Sproule here; if they’re thinking like me, they’re thinking about contemporary music, always a sore spot lately). 

God never counts noses in the Old Testament, to decide what was the “best” form of worship; convenience to the crowd is not necessary. 

The most successful worship service ever recorded, which drew more people in attendance, with singing with so much gusto that when their voices were heard miles away, on a mountain, one of the men who heard the noise of this thought a war had broken out.  He thought the noise that he heard was the tumult that accompanies battle. But when they took time to investigate it, it was not a war, it was a worship service--for the golden calf!

Nothing attracts greater crowds than the practices of idolatry.

But these young fellows were just trying to improve on the worship of Israel; they offered a new way of sacrifice. And as soon as they did it, a fire came out and consumed them to a crisp. 

I want to ask you this question: What do you suppose Aaron’s response to this was?  I mean, he’s a father; “God, what are You doing? These are my sons.  All they did was tinker a little bit.”  And he speaks to Moses.  Moses said to him, as it were: “Do you remember what the Lord said at your consecration?” We can find it in Lev. 10:3:

By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified.

But instead of regarding God as holy, Nadab and Abihu came in profanity. Do you realize how the Lord God Omnipotent considers our profane worship?  When we dare to come into His presence without considering Him as holy?  And without seeing our primary responsibility in our celebration of worship is displaying before the whole congregation, the glory of God.

What does it say that Aaron did when Moses gave him this reminder?  In typical masterful Biblical understatement; the verse says, “So Aaron held his peace.”  There was nothing else for Aaron to do, no room for debate. “I am the Lord, there is none other; and I will be regarded as holy by anyone who comes near to Me.”    The story goes on and Moses calls others to:

…come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.

This seems that God is being gracious now, and we assume they will get a proper burial.  No, uh-uh.  Verses 5-7:

So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.  ⁶ And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads nor rend your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. ⁷ You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.

You see what He is saying through Moses?  “I don’t even want their bodies in the camp.  And I don’t want anybody rending their garments and lamenting in dust and ashes.  I don’t want a wake for these guys. They’re polluting My sanctuary. I want their bodies, and anything associated with them, carried outside the camp—because they have profaned Me with their false worship.”

You know, the most famous sermon ever preached in America, was preached in the 18^th century in Connecticut by Jonathan Edwards.  You all know the name of that sermon:  Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  I had to read that for the first time in college, where it was required reading as an example of “sadistic preaching.”  And I thought, even then, if Jonathan Edwards were sadistic, which he wasn’t, and if he believed in hell, which he did, a sadistic preacher would do everything in his power, gleefully, to tell his congregation that there was no such place.  And secretly enjoy the inevitability of their being plunged into it.  Edwards was no sadist; he loved God, and he loved His people—and he cared about their ultimate destination. Almost everybody in America has heard the title of the sermon; almost no one is aware of the text for that sermon—from Deuteronomy 32:35:

….their foot shall slip in due time

Edwards’ sermon has also been used in classrooms because of its graphic imagery of the wrath of God.  God is poised as a dam building up water until it is ready to break, to pour forth upon mankind; as a man with a bow drawn, aimed and ready to let go and pierce the heart of a sinner, all in discomforting detail.  But the only thing that keeps you from falling into hell is the hand of God.  So the sermon is on the wrath of God, but also on His grace of His stayed hand. 

That sermon wouldn’t scare anybody in our culture or in our churches, because nobody believes in hell anymore.  And the greatest lie, the most monstrous lie, the most brazen lie of all, is the lie that people tell themselves, “I have nothing to worry about from the wrath of God.  My god is a god of love.”  Well, your god is an idol—and no God at all.

Edwards challenged his congregation, and said, “Can you give me any reason, since you got out bed this morning, why you haven’t fallen into hell?”  Apart from the Gospel, dear friends, I couldn’t answer that question.  I couldn’t give any reason why I’m alive this afternoon, and not in hell—apart from Christ. 

My favorite illustration of how calloused we typically become, goes back to the second year of my teaching career, when I was given the assignment of teaching 250 college freshmen a course in the introduction to the Old Testament.  They were given three short term papers, due September 30, October 30, and November 30.  On September 30, 25 of them fearfully admitted to not having their paper.  They timidly added their excuse.  I graciously gave them 3 extra days, and they were most appreciative.  On October 30, 50 of them did not have their papers.  They explained calmly that it was mid-term, homecoming games, etc.  I graciously again gave them 3 extra days.  They started to sing, spontaneously, 250 voices, “We love you Prof Sproul, oh yes we do…” And I was the most popular professor on that campus—until November 30. This time, 150 students came in without their papers.  And I watched them walk in as cool and as casual as they could be, and I saw one of them, a Marine veteran, and I said, “Johnson—where’s your paper?”  He said, “Hey, HEY.” (Happy Days TV.) “Don’t worry about it, prof, I’ll have it for you in a couple days.”  I picked up the most dreadful object in a freshman’s memory, a little black book, opened it up, and said, “Johnson, you don’t have your term paper?”  He said, “No.”  I said “F.” “Nicholson, where’s your term paper?”  “Don’t have it.”  “F.”  And then, out of the midst of this crowd, somebody shouted what you know they would shout, “THAT’S NOT FAIR.”  I turned around, “Fitzgerald, was that you who said that?”  He said, “Yeah. Not fair.  Right.”  “Weren’t you late last month with your paper?”  He said “yeah.”  I said “Fitzgerald, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. If it’s justice you want, it’s justice you will get.”  And I went back, and changed his grade from October to an F. There was this gasp in the room.  And I said, “Who else wants justice?” I didn’t get any takers. It reminded me of a song similar to My Fair Lady: “I’ve grown accustomed to his grace.” What had happened was, the first time they were late, they were amazed by grace.  The second time, they were no longer surprised, they assumed it.  By the third time, they Demanded it.  They believed grace was an inalienable right, an entitlement to which they all deserved.

I took that occasion to explain to my class, “You know what you have done when you said “that’s not fair?”  You have confused justice and grace. The minute you think that anybody owes you grace, a bell should go off in your head to remind you that you’re no longer thinking about grace—because grace, by definition, is something you don’t deserve, it’s something you can’t possibly deserve. 

You, my friends, have no merit before God—except demerit. And if God should ever, ever, treat you justly, outside of Christ, you will perish. And your foot will slip in due time. 

Any time there is a group this large, assembled, I don’t care for what reason, even a church service, I know that there are people in this room, right now, who are that far from hell (holding his fingers close together). And they’re assuming they’re not going to go there. But if there is a God, and there is, and if He is holy, and He is, and if He is just, and He is, He could not possibly be without wrath. And if you have not been reconciled through the blood of His Son, the only thing you have to look forward to—is His wrath.  Which is a divine wrath. Which is a furious wrath. And it is an eternal wrath. Because God must be regarded as holy by anyone who comes near Him. 

So, my beloved, if you would come into the presence of God, consider the nature of the God you are approaching—that you may come covered by the righteousness of Christ.