God's Timing and
Judgment |
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Elder
Phillip Conley |
Genesis
15:16, "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither
again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full."
This
morning, people today tend to put God "in a box" with their
notions. Truth be told, we have all fallen prey to this
thinking from time to time. God is so infinitely wonderful
that mere mortals cannot fathom any of His attributes or
actions in their fullness. Plumbing the depths of His grace,
under standing the breadth of His righteousness, or climbing
the peaks of His majesty is beyond our abilities to
discover. (Isaiah 55:8-9) When we encounter something in the
Scripture that seems to run counter to the God that we love
and adore, the problem is not on the page but in the foggy
recesses of our own minds. He declares the end from the
beginning; we do not. There is nothing that is hidden from
His eyes; ours are consistently clouded. Therefore, we
should approach the Scriptures in attempts to learn and
understand things about Him that we can learn and know to
help us worship Him better and adore Him all the more.
Our
study verse is in the midst of God's declaration to Abraham
about His promises to him. God loved Abraham and made him a
father of many nations, that in him would all the nations of
the earth be blessed. God' s covenant to him on this
occasion also brought a prescient history of what Abraham's
heirs would encounter. God foretold of their Egyptian
captivity and eventual dwelling in Canaan. The ground that
Abraham now stood on would be inhabited many centuries later
by his descendants from the Almighty's declaration. God
lists as a reason they would be so long in inhabiting the
land was due to the decorum of thecurrent inhabitants.
Canaan was inhabited by a number of "ites," and God said
that the Amorites were sinners. However, their sin/iniquity
was not yet full.
God
deals with nations in different ways, and sometimes the
answers are beyond us to understand why God does some of the
things that He does. For example, why would He call a
wicked, pagan king (Nebuchadnezzar) His servant? (Jeremiah
27:6) This wicked man ruling a pagan kingdom would be used
by God to mete out judgment against the land of Judah and
hold them captive for 70 years. Were the inhabitants of
Judah wicked? Surely. But why use a wicked king to punish
wickedness? The Bible does not specifically say, but we bow
in the knowledge that the King of all the earth always does
that which is right. Jeremiah 18 gives a declaration of how
God repents of His purposed judgment or blessing upon a
nation. Years and years of wickedness can be overturned by
displays of righteousness while years and years of
righteousness can be overturned by displays of wickedness.
The Amorites were going to be dealt with by God in the days
of Abraham's descendants. Yet, it did not happen exactly
like it should have, due to Abraham's descendants own
wickedness
Fast for
ward to Numbers 13 and 14, and we read a sorrowful tale of
doubt and disbelief. Abraham's descendants were being led at
this time by Moses and Aaron, and they sent 12 spies to look
into this very land that God promised Abraham in Genesis 15.
The purpose for the spies was to see how good a land God had
promised them. Yet, they came back and 10 gave a woeful tale
of how big the Amorites and other "ites" were. They failed
to see that the One who promised them this land was bigger
than any "ite" before them. The report of the 10 not only
overwhelmed the good report of Caleb and Joshua, but it
turned the heart of the congregation in fear. They accused
Moses of bringing them out to die in the wilderness and that
their children would die untimely deaths. God thundered from
heaven and declared that the current generation of the
congregation (20 yrs and above) would perish in the
wilderness with the exception of Caleb and Joshua. Their chi
ldren - whose fates they lamented - would go in without
them.
Simple
question. Had the spies not turned the heart of the people
into doubt, would they have gone into the land right then?
Just a
mere handful of days after leaving Egypt, would they have
entered into Canaan's Land the same year they came out of
Egypt? Caleb and Joshua plainly said (and God smiled on
their actions), "if the Lord delight in us, then he will
bring us into this land" (Numbers 14:8a). God was pleased
with these two men, and they attributed God's pleasure in
them going into this land promised unto their patriarch
Abraham. What does this mean? Had the nation of Israel
obeyed the Lord and gone in, they would have discomfited the
Amorites, Amalekites, Jebusites, and the other "ites" of the
land. This is precisely what they did in the book of Joshua
40 years later. The implication is that the Amorites
iniquities had reached the "full" by this time. God was
pleased to remove them. I do not know when the "full" is
reached and God's longsuffering reaches an end. But there is
a full and an end of His longsuffering. Yet, the Amorites
dwelt in the land 40 full years more past the full mark due
to the doubts and disbeliefs of His own nation.
Today,
we do not have clear declaration of how God will deal in the
future with the nation of our dwelling. God does not have a
chosen nation today like He did then. Rather, as Peter
understood in Acts 10, God is not a respecter of persons but
men from all nations are accepted with Him when they fear
Him and work righteousness. (Acts 10:34) Yet, God still
blesses nations and judges nations at times and in ways as
is pleasing to Him. There is no doubt in my mind that the
country of my dwelling has been blessed for many years now
according to His kind protection and providence. The fact
that I have lived my entire life with religious liberty and
freedom is priceless. My forebears also lived with this
blessing, and doubtless, God's hand has been kind to us even
in the midst of our waywardness. How does Israel's action
then coupled with God's prophecy to Abraham correlate today?
Nations
rise and fall. Kingdoms come and go. Only one King and
kingdom is everlasting. If we find ourselves in a land
smiled upon by the Almighty, we need to strive to live as
salt and light so that His presence would go continually
before us. If we find ourselves in a land being judged by
the Almighty, we need to strive to bear it patiently and
pray fervently that He would relieve us if He sees fit.
Consider the centuries of sins that the Amorites committed
from Abraham's day to Moses' day. All those remembrances
being filled up before the Almighty. Yet, He suffered it
till the day it became full and the time had arrived for His
nation to enter in and overthrow them. However, at the 11th
hour, He suffered it some more, due to the waywardness of
His own people.
Later
during the times of the kings of Israel and Judah, we see a
litany of names and reigns. Some were good; most were bad.
At times, the reign of a good king was undone by his wicked
son - see king Manasseh following king Hezekiah. At other
times, a good king staved off judgment by his righteousness
- see God's prolonged and delayed judgment because of king
Josiah. Mere mortals do not see what God sees, nor do we
operate and think like He does. Today, we see a litany of
rulers and magistrates. Some are good; most are bad.
Sometimes the righteous actions/edicts of an administration
or generation are undone by the wickedness of the next
generation. Sometimes judgment is prolonged or staved off by
righteous people at the right time. Surely the 20th century
of this country serves as a guidepost of the former, while
the early 19th century is a good marker of the latter.
Over the
last several years, I have heard many express anxiousness
about what God thinks about all the wickedness going on in
this country. Good is declared evil, while evil is
celebrated. How long will God's judgment abide or suffer?
The short answer is that I do not really know. Is there a
"full" mark? Yes there is. When full is reached is it the
end? Perhaps. If God suffered the Amorites to continue
another 40 years in their iniquity due to the slackness of
His people, I do not doubt that God can suffer us to
continue on for a time due to the righteousness of His
kindred. Jonah discovered that fact in Nineveh, and we can
experience that same goodness today. While God should not be
tempted or put to the test, we can rejoice today knowing
that He has been so very good to us. If I could see what He
sees all the time, I would likely say, "I've had it with
you!" Yet, He abides with us in this sin-cursed sod and
smiles upon us even though we deserve none of it. May we
pray to Him that our sins do not come full, and if they do
that He will find enough salt to preserve the blessings and
freedoms that we enjoy so that our children will enjoy them
as well. The children of Israel declared their children a
"prey" when God's longsuffering for that generation ended.
The children ended up better off than the parents. May we
not limit God during our time or our children's time. He is
still just as infinitely powerful and majestic now as ever.
Let us trust Him all our days for all things and at all
times.
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