Out of Zion

Guest (Male): Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of Israel. From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through the most exciting book on the planet. Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the Bible to life. And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

Dr. Susan Michael: Well, hey there. Welcome back. This is the 3D Bible Series Part 7 on the God of the Bible. Now, if you've been with me through this series, you know that previously we've spoken about a couple of what I call oversimplifications. And by oversimplifying things, sometimes we get into error. And today we're going to talk about another oversimplification. You know, when someone tries to debunk the Bible, they usually start with the Old Testament. And they will talk as though the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament, that the God of the Old Testament is is about war and judgment and and brutal.

But the God of the New Testament is all about love and grace. And I've heard many people say that, you know, the New Testament is about love and grace, whereas the Old Testament is about law and judgment. So this is what I call a gross oversimplification. And it's just not right. So I want to talk to you about the Old Testament first of all, um that it's not just about law and it's not just about judgment. It's full of grace and mercy. You know, first of all, we find grace and mercy in the law itself.

When God gave the law, he provided sacrifice for the atonement of their sins. He wanted to forgive his people and he told them exactly how to come to him and receive forgiveness. But you know, something that's really very touching in Exodus when the the Israelites are in the wilderness and God is giving them the law and the commandments and telling them how to live in fellowship with him. In Exodus 25, he tells them to build a mercy seat out of gold. And he tells them that that's where he wants to meet with his people. So this is what it says.

Says you shall build a mercy seat of pure gold. You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark. Now we're talking about the ark of the covenant that was in the tabernacle. So you put the mercy seat on top of the ark. And it says there, I will meet with you. And I will speak with you from above the mercy seat about everything which I give you in commandment. So God wanted to meet with his people not on the judgment seat, but on the mercy seat. That's beautiful. Now, I want to look at how God describes himself in the Old Testament.

And there's a famous scripture. It's right in the same passage actually. God's revealing himself to Moses so that Moses can then carry the commandments and carry the word to the people of Israel. And in Exodus 34, there's a passage here where God describes himself to Moses. I want you to listen to this. Says the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin. And by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Now you might be asking, what? Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children? And I will say that this is a very difficult passage. This is repeated several times in the Old Testament. And it's a little hard for us to understand in our 21st century world of individualism. But there is something here about families and about the passing on from generation to generation. And in another scripture where this is repeated, it says that for those that hate him. So he's contrasting that for those who hate me that this will be passed on into the generations.

But for those who love me and obey me, I have mercy and tenderness and graciousness. So yes, there's judgment for the guilty. But if there's no judgment, there's no mercy. You can't have mercy unless you're receiving mercy in place of something. And mercy comes in place of judgment. So yes, there's both. But what I'm the point I'm making is that it's not all judgment. God is very loving and he puts into place how his people can walk in fellowship with him and just experience his mercy and his forgiveness and his love and his goodness. Now you might be saying, okay, but how did the people of Israel see their God?

I mean, they suffered a lot. They went through wars, they went through exiles, they went through all kinds of experiences and calamities. And how did they see their God? So I want to give you a couple of examples. And one is kind of a comical one, I think. And that's the story of Jonah. Now we all know the story about Jonah, but we don't always know the details. How did Jonah end up in that fish? And it's because God told him to go preach to the Assyrians in Nineveh. And Jonah didn't want to go. So instead of going northeast towards Nineveh, he went west, got on a ship and was trying to go run in the completely opposite way.

And troubles come. He ends up being thrown overboard. He's swallowed by this fish and then he he survives, he repents, he comes out of the fish. And he goes to Nineveh. And he preaches to the Assyrians. Now keep in mind, the Assyrians, it's a big, mean, powerful kingdom. They're not necessarily friends. And he goes and he preaches to them and they repent and they fast and they are forgiven for their sins. And so Jonah goes and he leaves the city of Nineveh and he's sitting out and he this vine grows over him. It's really kind of a funny little story.

He is so angry. And so he says this to God. He says, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life from me. It's better for me that than to live. So I'm just telling you, Jonah knew how gracious and how forgiving God was. And that 's why he didn't want God to forgive his enemy.

And he went through this whole evasion of the calling until he just had to go. And this is his response. Lord, I knew this was going to happen cuz I know how forgiving you are. Um another example I'll give you. I mean, you know, there's so many examples I can give you, but there's a beautiful Psalm. It's Psalm 103. The whole Psalm is really beautiful, but I 'm just going to read to you a few verses here. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him. So that's how the people of Israel saw their God. The Old Testament is full of mercy and forgiveness because God is a merciful and forgiving God. Now the New Testament, yes, it's full of love and forgiveness, but there's also judgment in the New Testament. I mean, let's face it. The whole reason Jesus came to earth, the whole reason Jesus came was to die to pay the price for our judgment.

We were under judgment. We were supposed to die. And he took our place. So right there is judgment. Jesus had many sayings that pointed to judgment that was come. He said to them, fear he who has the authority to cast into hell. He had other sayings. The Apostle Paul said, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In another verse, he referred to God as a consuming fire. So the summation is this that all the authors of the Bible agree that God's love or forgiveness and God's judgment are two sides of the same coin.

You can't remove one from the other and you can't expect God to be all one or all the other. You know, it's like fire. Fire can destroy. Fire can also provide warmth. It can provide many things for us, but it just depends on where you stand in relation to that fire. So it all depends on on where we stand in relation to our God. But both testaments are depicting the same God full of love and mercy, but one who has promised judgment. You know, God's love and his judgment go together. I often think of this.

Um many of you are are parents. So you're a loving father or a loving mother. Just think about it. If your child if someone was um mistreating your child or um this child that you loved and you cared for, if you didn't get angry at the bully that was beating up your child every day at school, what kind of love is that? So we have to uh expect that if we're going to experience love and forgiveness, then that means that there is judgment on the other side of that coin. So um now God, let's talk about God for a minute.

God is we need to know God for who he is and not who we think he is. You know, we all tend to put God in a box. And that box is based on our culture, our lives, our personality, our likes and our dislikes. Cuz we want to like God, so we want him to be what we think is good and right so that we can like him. But we've got to get God out of the box. He is so much greater than our limited understanding. So take off your 21st century glasses, take him out of your 21st century American Society box that God has to be uh very kind all the time and well-mannered and loving and forgiving.

Um we don't like talk about judgment or about punishment or hell or even about war. We don't like these things. So we we try to keep them out of the box. But take God out of that box. And what about the box of your personal experiences and relationships in life? Cuz many of us we relate to God the way we relate to other authority figures in our life. And so if we had a really wonderful, loving father like I did, then you relate to God as a loving, wonderful father. And other people though that had a bad father or no father or had a terrible childhood, don't know how to relate to God because they don't already have that precedent in their life.

So they tend to put God in a box of what we relate to. Well, you got to take him out of that box. And sometimes we put God in a box based on how we see ourselves. So if we suffer from rejection, then a lot of times we are afraid of God because we're afraid he's going to reject us or or if we have insecurities or the opposite. We may have an ego that's as big as the room and it gets in the way of of us really relating to God in the right way. So all these things limit us.

We have got to come to know God for who he is and not based on all of our limited perceptions. Now also, you know, the God of the Bible is not like us humans. And sometimes we try to see him as human, meaning we have certain limitations. Uh one is time and space. I'm limited to being right here in one place at one time um in space in in I'm in, you know, the year 2020. I'm I'm here in this time and in this space and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now.

I can guess um but God is not limited to time or space. So God already saw the end in the beginning. He's not limited to time. He sees it all at once. He knows everything. He knows the beginning from the end and he sees it all at once. You and I just see today and then we can look back and we can see yesterday, but we can't see the whole picture. He also uh you know, he's not limited to anyone emotion. Think about it. We as humans, you know, I can really love someone and I can also be really angry at someone, but I can't really feel both at once.

Um God feels everything at once. His love and his judgment is all wrapped up together. It is actually out of his love that he judges. And it's out of his judgment that he loves. It's he's wrapped up. He is so much bigger and so much greater than how we perceive because our minds are limited. We are limited in understanding. He is not. So the God of the Bible is absolutely sovereign. We see a sovereignty in the execution of his eternal plan that I've taught about in previous episodes. That amazing plan to redeem mankind, that story that I said began in eternity and ends in eternity.

All through this story, he was using mankind in spite of his failures. He was using kingdoms in spite of them being evil. He used Egypt to save his people and feed them. He used Assyria to bring exile and Babylon. He used Persia to send his people back to the land to rebuild. He used Rome. Have you ever thought about it? He used the Roman censuses to get Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. Our God is so great. He is so sovereign. He is so above the affairs of the earth.

He is busy at work in all of us. He is not limited by anything that you or I may think or say or do. There is nothing that happens in this universe that is outside of God's authority. So I want to encourage you to seek the Lord for who he is because in Jeremiah, it promises, Jeremiah 29:13, the Lord says, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with your whole heart. If you really want to know who this God is, then just search for him from the bottom of your heart.

Say, God, show me who you are. And he will. He has promised that if you seek him, you will find him. My prayer for you is that you will come to know him as he is revealed in the Bible and through his names. You know, if you do a study just of the names of God in the Bible, you will find the richness of his attributes and his character and his great acts. So my prayer for you is that you will come to know that God, the God El Elyon, the most high God, El Shaddai, the Lord God Almighty, El Olam, the everlasting God, Jehovah Rapha, the Lord my shepherd, Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals, Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, and Jehovah Mekaddishkem, the Lord who sanctifies you, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who will provide for you, Jehovah Shalom, the Lord your peace, and Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts.

In the New Testament, he's known as the God of the fathers, the father of mercies, the father of glory, majesty on high, the Almighty, the creator. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. That is the God of the Bible. Join me here again next time. We're going to wrap up our 3D Bible Series and talk about what this all means for you. See you back here then. God bless.

Guest (Male): We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael. Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, pray.com, Salem OnePlace, Salem Life Audio. Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA. All rights reserved.