INTERPRETING THE LANGUAGE OF WRATH The same principle is to be applied in both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. Here is a Biblical comparison: In Ezekiel, God sees that they have rejected Him and His ways so He gives them child sacrifice instead: Eze. 20:24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers idols. 20:25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes [that were] not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; 20:26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through [the fire] all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I [am] the LORD. Yet we find that the Bible tells us that such a thing never entered His mind: Jer. 7:30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it. 7:31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which [is] in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded [them] not, neither came it into my heart. To reconcile these things we must understand that the concept of Divine wrath is such that God is represented as doing that which the wicked have chosen for themselves, as a hiding of His face or turning away, in honor of the free choice of people to turn away from Him. The principle is very clearly stated early in Scripture: Deut. 31:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go [to be] among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. 31:17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God [is] not among us? 31:18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. Verse 19 says that this principle was to be taught as a fundamental, passed down through song, as was a customary way to preserve teaching and knowledge in those times: 31:19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. 31:20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant. 31:21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. 31:22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel. In the Spirit of Prophecy, we can find statements like this one, which unabashedly make use of the same style of Biblical language: “The judgments of God are in the land. He is sending them upon men by land and by sea” (ST April 25, 1900). But we then find statements which appear to contradict, but they are not contradictions; they are simply qualifications or interpretative keys for the radical language (which, if such language is taken as literal, verbal, according to its surface meaning, in keeping with modern dictionary usages, will make a miserable mess of Scriptures and of our understanding of God, in which case we would have no viable arguments for the Richard Dawkins of our time): “I was shown that the judgments of God would not directly out from the Lord upon them, but in this way: They place themselves beyond His protection. He warns, corrects, reproves, and points out the only path of safety; then, if those who have been the objects of His special care will follow their own course independent of the Spirit of God, after repeated warnings, if they choose their own way, then He does not commission His angels to prevent Satan’s decided attacks upon them. It is Satan’s power that is at work at sea and on land, bringing calamity and distress and sweeping off multitudes to make sure of his prey” (14 MR 3 [1883]; LDE 242). CHRISTIANS! Are we ready to grow up and speak well of God?
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 06:21:54 +0000
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