A Consuming Fire

 

This blog pays high respect to Dr. R.C. Sproul, who was not only a master of the spoken word, but whose words still give us enlightenment of God that I have not heard anywhere else. I’ll try more than most to use only his words.

The text that he is speaking on is on the holiness, justice, and wrath of God.

These are things that we must examine over and over again. 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. If, peradventure, they acknowledge that He is holy, they do not 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 agree that 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.

The assumption in the world and in the church today, is that the love of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God, either swallow up the justice and wrath of God, or certainly trump it. At funerals we may hear people or bagpipes play “Amazing Grace,” but nobody believes that grace is amazing. It is something we assume. The assumption means that God is not holy, or a God of wrath.

I’d like to read from I Chronicles 13:2ff:

And David said to all the assembly of Israel…” let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we have not inquired at it since the days of Saul.” ⁴ Then all the assembly said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.

⁵ So David gathered all Israel together, from Shihor in Egypt to as far as the entrance of Hamath, to bring the ark of God… who dwells between the cherubim, where His name is proclaimed. 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; therefore that place is called Perez-Uzza to this day. ¹² David was afraid of God that day, saying, “How can I bring the ark of God to me?”

When I was in Seminary, I was taught that these Biblical passages that refer to the sudden explosion and paroxysms of rage that God manifested in the Old Testament such as this episode of the sudden killing of poor innocent Uzzah with no significant warning, manifested the truth that the Old Testament is not the inspired Word of God, but is simply an example of popular religion of a tribal deity from a semi-nomadic group of people who were pre-scientific and unsophisticated. They would say that these episodes recorded in the Old Testament are 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, with an attempt to expurgate from the Bible all references to this Old Testament angry Deity. I thought that, since it was recorded in pages of Scripture, it at least deserved a second glance. So let’s do so.

David brings the whole nation together for a celebration of transporting the most sacred vessel of their religion to the holy place.  It had been in storage, and now David will bring it back to the life of the people in its proper place. He had a brand-new cart made to carry this precious cargo, the Ark of the Covenant. But when, in the midst of their jubilant procession, an ox stumbles, and the Ark begins to slide, Uzzah instinctively, out of a sense of respect for this sacred object, held up his hand to stop it from sliding into the dirt, where it would be desecrated.

And what happens? As soon as he does that, the heavens opened, and a deep voice shouts out, “Thank you, Uzzah!” Not so. 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. “Well, that’s the way it seemed to these simple Hebrews who were watching this incident. Surely the man just dropped dead of a heart attack, generated by his terror that he would venture to touch the sacred object.” Or they would say “This is evidence that the Old Testament depicts God’s wrath as being arbitrary, whimsical, or capricious.” And it was an example of what one professor called “the dark side of Yahweh, the demonic element within the nature of God Himself.” (Caution: This professor does not believe that about God, but he is saying that the people believed it, and wrote their thoughts in the Old Testament.)

Evidently these modern philosophers have never read the fourth chapter of Numbers. God had assigned the responsibility of caring for sacred vessels of the tabernacle to the family of Kohath in the tribe of Levi. For transporting the sacred vessels, they had rings on each side, so by putting rods through, the men could carry it on their soldiers, and, importantly, on foot. This was more stable than oxen, so it hopefully fulfills God’s purpose that human beings would never, ever, come into contact with the holy throne of God. So David had it wrong, assigning it to a cart and oxen. It says explicitly in Numbers 4 that he who touches the holy throne of God, must die. Uzzah knew all this. But he touched it anyway.

Jonathan Edwards has a sermon about this: He says the sin of Uzzah was the sin of arrogance. But it looks to the reader as a heroic act of humility—he risked his own life to make sure the Ark would not be in contact with the mud. Edwards says Uzzah assumed that contact with the mud would be a greater sacrilege than contact with the hands of a sinful human being. But really, what is mud, but the earth mixed with water? There is nothing innately sinful about dirt. If it touches the ground, there is no sacred damage. What desecrates the throne of God is not the touch of the earth; it is the touch of Man. So God executed Uzzah for profaning the most holy object in Israel.

A similar event happened in Leviticus 10, with Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offering “profane fire” in their incense before the Lord. God sent His fire and devoured them. Moses was not sympathetic. He repeated a Biblical passage to Aaron, a passage when Aaron was first consecrated:

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. Moses additionally did not let anyone mourn their deaths, lest the wrath of God come upon all the people. He simply urged that men remove their bodies out of the camp. God is in effect saying to Moses, “I don’t even want their bodies in the camp! And I don’t want anybody lamenting in dust and ashes—I don’t want a wake for these guys! They are polluting my sanctuary. I want their bodies outside because they have profaned Me with their false worshipping.”

 These young Kohathite men were possibly eager to change liturgy that God had ordained in such a way that 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. The most “successful” worship service in the Old Testament broke all attendance records. The singing was so full of gusto that it was heard miles away on a mountain; and one of the men who heard it thought that a war had broken out, and the loud noise that he was hearing was the tumult that accompanies battle. When they investigated it, it was not a war; it was a worship service with a golden calf.

Nothing attracts greater crowds than the practices of idolatry.

Dr. Sproul imagined Aaron’s thoughts, seeing his sons killed by God. “God, what are You doing? These are my sons.  All they did was tinker a little bit.” Even David had trouble with the wrath of God. You read in I Chronicles 13:12, “David was afraid of God that day,” and he put the Ark back in storage for awhile. (Later he was educated in Numbers 4 and did it right.)

 In reference to modern worship, I think of the beginning of the song service is being treated as “Ok, it’s time to break up the chitchat in the foyer, time to go in and sing.” Dr. Sproul was more serious. He says, “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 as displaying before the whole congregation the glory of God?” 

He goes on: The most famous sermon ever preached was by Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” I was required to read that sermon in college as an example of “sadistic preaching.” I thought, if Jonathan Edwards was sadistic, which he wasn’t, and if he believed in hell, which he did--a sadistic preacher would do everything in his power to tell his congregation that there was no such place as hell --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. (Ed. What does that say about how most pastors today never speak in detail of sin, never speak of hell?) The text for that Edwards sermon is based on the following, in Deuteronomy 32:35:

Their feet shall slip in due time.

Edwards’ sermon has also been used in modern Seminary classrooms because of its graphic imagery of the wrath of God. While most people who hear these images that Edwards expounded had no idea that the vast majority of them, describing the perilous situation of impenitent people, are images drawn from the Scripture itself. For the text “their feet shall slip..” he draws the picture of a man crossing a deep chasm on a rope bridge where the planks that are swinging to and fro in the breeze are rotten, covered with moss, slippery, where you can’t even see which planks have rotted through, so that every step you take on the bridge may be your last one before you slip and fall into the abyss. Thus their fall was not simply probable, it was inevitable. For God warned sinners, that if they did not repent, their feet would slip in due time.

Note Paul’s teaching that we are storing up, heaping up, treasuring up, wrath, against the Day of Wrath (Romans 2:5). For that, he gives the image of the accumulation of torrential rain that a dam is trying to hold back, but destined to break, and engulf the people with water. But the unsuspecting person goes to bed at ease, with no fear that a dam will ever burst.

Edwards then uses the image of a spider and his web. He said to the people, “Sinner, you hang over the pit of hell by one slender thread; not a whole web, but one thread.  And every second, the flames of divine wrath are burning all around that single thread, ready to singe it and burn it at any second. And the second that that thread is burned, you will fall into the pit of hell. The only thing that keeps you from falling is the hand of God.”

While the sermon is on the wrath of God, I think that it is a sermon on the grace of God, too; the hand that is longsuffering and temporarily keeps us out of hell (I Timothy 2:4).

That sermon wouldn’t scare anybody in our culture, because nobody believes in hell anymore—or that they are headed there. The most brazen lie 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. Your God is an idol, and no God at all.” (So they say).

Apart from the Gospel, there is no reason why any of us is alive, and not in hell.

My favorite illustration of how callous we have become with respect to the mercy, the love, and the grace of God, goes back to the second year of my teaching career, when I was assigned to teach 250 college freshmen an Intro to the Old testament course. On the first day of class, I gave them their syllabus, and told them, particularly, that they have three 5-page term papers to do. The first is due September 30, the second and third ones due October and November 30. I told them they have to turn them in on that day, unless they are physically confined, or there is a death in the immediate family. Or else they would get an ‘F’ on that assignment.

When September 30 came, 225 turned them in, but there were 25 terrified freshmen, who came in the back of the room trembling: “Oh, professor Sproul, we didn’t budget our time properly, etc”. (I wish I could give you his expressions on this; very funny). “Please don’t flunk us.” Dr. Sproul said, “OK, this once I will give you a break. You can have three more days to get your papers in, but don’t you let this happen again.” “Oh, no, no, no. Thank you so much.”

Then came October 30. This time 200 students had their papers, but 50 students didn’t have them. They said, “Well, you know how it is, prof. It’s midterms, and we had all kinds of assignments etc. Please give us one more chance.” I said, “It’s the last time, I’ll give you three days.” And you know what really happened? 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 100 papers were done, but 150 did not have them. And I watched them walk in as cool, and as casual, as they could be. And to one of them, a Marine veteran, I said, “ Johnson, where’s your paper?” And he said, “Heyy“ (like Happy Days). “Don’t worry about it prof, I’ll have it for you in a couple of days.” I picked up my little black book and said, “Johnson? No paper? ‘F.’ Nicholson? Pratt? No? ‘F.’ Then, out of the midst of this crowd, somebody shouted, as you know they would, That’s….Not….FAIR. I said, “Fitzgerald, was that you who said that?” He said “yeh. It’s not fair.” I said “Right. Weren’t you late last month with your paper?”  “Yeah.” I said “Fitzgerald, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. If it’s justice you want, justice is what you will get.” So I changed his grade in October to an ‘F.’ And there is this gasp in the room. And I said “Who else wants justice?” I didn’t get any takers. It was like a song similar like one out of My Fair Lady. “I’ve grown accustomed to His grace.”

What had happened, was that the first time they were late, they were amazed by grace; the second time, they were no longer surprised; they basically assumed it. By the third time, they demanded it, and believed that grace was an inalienable right, an entitlement to which they all deserved. I took that occasion to explain to my class. I said, “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 that reminds you that you are no longer thinking about grace, because grace, by definition, is something that you don’t deserve, something that you can’t possibly deserve. You 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 slide, in due time.”

 Now Dr. Sproul looks at the group he is talking to. “I know that in a group this size, there are people in this room, who are that (fingers close together) far away from hell, and they are assuming that they are not going to go there. But if there is a God, and there is, and if He is holy, 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 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.

That was the end of his message, but not the end of the Gospel. As James 2:14 says:

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can (that) faith save him?

The answer to the rhetorical question is, NO. Despite how the Reformers despised the word “works,” it is a necessity. It is often spoken by the word “fruit.” As Jesus says in John 15:5-6:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

Jesus is clearly saying, if we don’t abide in Him, it will so happen, in Judgment Day, that we aren’t saved. What is “abiding in Him?” Obeying His commands; He bought us and is Lord of our lives.

One command that He gave was, we must forgive one another. An example of one who did not obey that command, is the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35. It begins with Jesus’ command to forgive to the uttermost:

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

The parable then begins with a Master (Jesus) who forgives (saves from hell) his servant (us) a great debt (our sins). But the servant then turns around and will not forgive his fellow servant for a smaller debt. What does the Master do? He retracts his forgiveness, restoring to the evil servant the debt, and gives him to the torturers (hell). Here’s the end of the sad tale, and the warning for us, vv 32-35:

 ³² Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. ³³ Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ ³⁴ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

³⁵ “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

These verses are a few of many that prove that a God of holiness can have wrath, even against an adopted child, for perennial disobedience. You can lose your salvation. For further study, read my blogs on this, or, better yet, read Jesus’ Words in the Gospels with an open mind to learn something new.

May God bless you all.