To Encourage You

Exodus 34:6-7 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.’”

I recently read a book entitled, “Gentle and Lowly,” by Dane Ortland. It’s a wonderful book that talks about the heart of Christ.  The central theme of the book is the incredible kindness, gentleness, mercy, and love of God expressed to us most clearly in the life of His Son.

One of the thoughts that came to me while reading this book is how greatly sin has impaired our thinking about our own natures as well as the nature of God.  In our natural condition, we typically have a much higher view of ourselves than we should, and a much lower view of God.  It’s such a travesty.  We have fallen to the temptation of Satan who suggested to Eve, “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5), and in the same breath suggested that God was not really good, for He was keeping her from what was best for her with His command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Ever since the fall, man has continued to believe such lies and so he puffs himself up with pride and resists the God who loves him. To think that many of the people who walked the earth in Jesus’ day actually hated Him! They hated the one who demonstrated the very heart of the God Who so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son to die for them on the cross.  Men hated Him because He exposed their sin and hatred by contrasting it to the sinlessness and godly love that marked His life. 

In the passage above from Exodus 34 we are given an incredible description of our loving God.  So many see God as a killjoy.  They see the Bible and the God of the Bible as nothing more than a hindrance to their personal freedom and happiness.  This resistance surely grieves the heart of God – and He will eventually deal with such sin.  He will make sure that there is justice, for He is the perfect Judge. Yet, in the passage above, we see that God’s judgment on sin is, as Ortland points out, what the Puritans called “God’s strange work.”  With these words they were pointing to the asymmetry that we find in such passages as Exodus 34 above.

It is in this passage that God is describing Himself to Moses. It is a wonderful passage that shows God’s heart.  In these verses, God talks about not clearing the guilty and “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” I’ve heard much said about these particular words over the years and the generational effects of sin.  Interestingly, it is these words, which speak of God’s judgment, that so many people seem to emphasize, while they so often completely neglect the words that come before.  The contrast is incredible. For you see, while God does and will judge sin, the emphasis of God’s description about Himself is not on this but on His mercy and grace. He is telling us that He is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” It’s His natural propensity. It is these things that so readily pour from His heart.  He contrasts this with the fact that although He will, and indeed, must, reluctantly judge sin (for elsewhere He has told us that He “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9) and that He takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked . . . rather that he should turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 18:23)”) the greatest desire of His heart is to “(keep) steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”  It’s the heart of the father of the prodigal son who eventually turns to his father, just hoping against hope to be treated as only a servant. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:20-24).

You see, that’s Who God is. But is that how we see Him?  Do we realize how wonderful is His heart?