Old Testament Grace, New Testament Wrath

Father, Lord, I want to talk about the misrepresentation of how people seemingly view the Bible as two different stories: Your wrath, Your grace. Of course in Hebrews it is made very clear in chapter 13, ”8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” In John 1, You tell us, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.” In Philippians 2, Jesus is equal with the Father who humbled Himself in submission to You, and that everyone will bow and confess that Jesus, being name above all names, will be called Lord to the glory of the Father. Establishing the history of what Jesus has done and through old testament in prophecies of how You were going to call us to salvation, we know from the very beginning that Your heart desires for us to worship You and You alone, that You desire to have us love You because You first loved us, that You don’t force Your way into our free will, respecting the choice to put our faith in You and repent of our past. And through the entirety of the Bible, we see how You pursued us and gave grace through so many worldly circumstances, but we’ve forgotten the price that’s due. I’m not saying anyone has forgotten what Christ has done for the payment of sins, but rather the rejection of that necessary sacrifice. We live in a world right now that actions no longer have consequences especially to the more “recognized” in society. The poor are judged as evil and a plague instead of as Your children who need love. Your design for the foundation of what will be Your church in the institution of marriage has been upended, trampled on, and cast off where not only can we not commit to a spouse when one party is inconvenienced superficially, but that carries over into the way we approach our relationship with You.

Abraham pleaded down to 10 righteous people in sodom and gomorrah and You still destroyed them for their wickedness. People don’t see Your grace there. You were willing to spare them in their entirety if there were just 10 people who were righteous. This is coming from numbers of the estimated population of the thousands to hundreds of thousands. You gave humanity a second shot with Noah. You gave Nineva a chance to repent by sending Jonah. Rahab was spared when she put faith to action in Jericho and became part of the genealogy of Christ. You were constantly showing Your grace and mercy to Israel when they would turn away from You to do things their way and when it got unbearable they would return to You and You accepted their return. That’s a complete view of grace throughout the old testament and there are so many more examples. Within those were also the answers to sin; wrath and destruction. For some who grew up in a “hellfire and brimstone” church, that’s the part that literally scared the hell out of us and created a sense of fear that wasn’t a healthy, Godly fear, it was just a fear of Your judgment about everything within our lives. In other words, a terrorized and frightened child will show affection and obedience as long as they know the worst punishment will come if they don’t. That’s not love. We model healthy fears as parents the way You have told us to fear the Lord your God. With my kid, I give them boundless love, completely un-reserved, but if they are disobedient or disrespectful, punishment is inevitable. It’s also not for exasperation or for the feeling of a dominant power, but rather the opposite. If they listen to corrections now and if they grow in that healthy fear of their father, discernment becomes easier, lawful and unlawful borders are drawn clearer. Our healthy fear of the Lord is complemented with the fear of good earthly fathers. Your correction draws us closer to You, it provides clear boundaries, and it gives us Your moral compass on which laws are established. 

However, if we live without those healthy fears and start embracing our own morality, again, punishment is inevitable. Your Son railed against sin while He walked among us and became angry in the temple where people were mistreating Your house. When Jesus saw the man with a shriveled hand and his opposers asked if He would heal on the sabbath, Jesus became angry because of the stubbornness in their hearts. He came as the Great Physician because the world is sick and dying from the soul stripping evil that is sin. What’s crazy to me, and it shouldn’t be based on humanity's history, but so much effort is put into deciding how incorrect or far-fetched the Gospel message is, but so many have come to You because they researched the answers. Atheists, agnostics, hindu, muslim, those who have truly seeked for truth outside of their personal bias have come to the realization that You alone, God Almighty, The Great I AM, Yahweh, Jehovah, are the only real and present Lord of all. You stand outside of time and interject Yourself creating time itself to create something so wonderful filled with a desire to love us that not only should we worship and love You for everything You have given us, but through our humility and reverence we should be desperate to communicate this with a lost and dying world. That’s been Your consistency throughout Your inspired word and nothing has changed. You are perfect in Your love and in Your justice and You always have been. Lord, may I grow more in Your grace and mercy and boldly proclaim that You are the same yesterday, today, and forever and that it’s not You who adapts to us, but we must repent and put our faith in that which You have committed to us, Your payment of sins through Your son, Jesus Christ. Guard my heart and mind Lord that I may not wander or consider Your message in two parts. It’s all been for Your love for us that we don’t deserve, thank you for being the  incredible Father You have been to me, Amen.