Blog » The Pain of God
Many of us have heard messages on the grace and goodness of God and many churches in western society have presented seminars on his love and power. There's nothing wrong with that. Of all people we should be talking about God’s love, power, kindness, mercy and grace. But could our diet of spiritual truth be a little unbalanced? When was the last time you heard from the pulpit a message on God’s wrath, judgment and anger? Are we sometimes like children who want only ice cream instead of healthy, nutritious food?
Mind you, who could blame us for focusing on only one side of God's character? With all the wars and calamities bombarding our senses day after day, who wouldn’t want to hear an upbeat message from the pulpit to ease the soreness of living in our fractured world? But we must take care not to become like the people Paul warned Timothy about:
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Tim2:3)
Everyone wants to hear something pleasant. It's the way we're wired. When I go to the doctor with chronic stomach pain I want him to tell me my ache is simply indigestion which will vanish with a glass of fizzy medicine. I don't want to be told I have stomach cancer or ulcers and need to go under the knife.
That's why, when the gospel of Jesus calls us to suffer, we'd rather sing. There's the imbalance. How might God feel about it when he beckons us to receive his burden and we cry for more blessing? In Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5 the angels sang "Holy holy holy" to the Lord God Almighty. Alas, some of us would rather sing "Happy happy happy" instead.
“We Christians have given Calvary to the communists," wrote George Failing. "They accept deprivation and death for their gospel, while we Christians reject any gospel that does not major on healing and happiness."
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting we glorify God by becoming morbid. Our evangelism is effective and powerful when delight in the Lord (see Psalm67:4-6). We also know the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh 8:10), and that God gives us "an oil of joy for mourning" (Isaiah 61:3). But many of us also want to know more of the heart of God. And are we really ready to hear what he has to say?
The story of Noah and his ark and animals is popular with children. But Noah's story is for adults too. The Bible teaches that during the days of Noah the earth was hugely wicked (Gen 6:5). In fact the prophet Ezekiel tells us the people of that day had an easy lifestyle that led to apathy towards the oppressed and the poor. (Ezek 16:49). As God saw all this he was "grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain." (Gen 6:6).
God actually grieves! What a concept for our self-obsessed generation. Paul warned the early believers not to quench the Spirit (1 Thess5:19) but also not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph 7:30 cf. Ps78:40). Hosea the prophet warned the people God would withdraw (like a hurt husband?) because of their arrogance (Hos 5:6). He even describes God’s heart as turning over because of the judgment he is bringing to his people. The Message puts it this way:
"But how can I give up on you, Ephraim? How can I turn you loose, Israel? How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah, devastated like luckless Zeboim? I can’t bear even to think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest." (Hosea 11:8 MSG)
God also expresses his disappointment over the backsliding of King Saul:
"I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night. (1 Sam15:11)
So God was grieved and the prophet was troubled. The NKJV says God was regretful and Samuel was grieved. Either way God was sad over the condition of Saul.
The prophet Ezekiel, who saw incredible visions in the early chapters of his book, ends up among the people of God. He writes: "I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—overwhelmed." (Ezek3:15).
Other versions tells us he was appalled and astonished.
Jeremiah was probably a teenager when God called him to be a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5). His book is the longest in the Bible, and his ministry spanned some 40 years. Clearly Jeremiah was given something to say, and God saw fit to preserve it for us in Scripture. But look at the young prophet's reaction after receiving one message from the Lord:
"Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry." (Jer 4:19)
Elsewhere he writes: "The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people." (Jer 8:20 – 9:1)
Imagine weeping day and night because people were not saved! Paul said he had "unceasing anguish" in his heart because of such people. (Rom 9:1). So connection with God means connection, in some measure, with his anguish. The Psalmist cried out that tears had been his food day and night as he hungered and thirsted for God (Psalm 42:3). Even his bed was wet from his crying. As a modern paraphrase puts it:
"I’m tired of all this—so tired. My bed has been floating forty days and nights on the flood of my tears. My mattress is soaked, soggy with tears." (Psalm 6:6 The Message.)
These men were not nut cases. They were connecting with a weeping God, touching a part of the divine nature in which we too participate (2 Peter 1:4). It's one thing for us to be irritated at the ungodly laws being passed in our day and to take part in a march or two, but another to be in tears because God’s law is not obeyed. (Psalm 119:136)
Jeremiah grieved much over the words of false prophets: "…My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and his holy words." (Jer 23:9)
Are we closer to God than Jeremiah? God’s holy words caused Jeremiah to stagger. But a broken heart is the very condition God is looking for. It is, in fact, the place where he wants to dwell. Look at Isaiah 57:15:
"For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'
So God seems to dwell simultaneously "up there" in total holiness and "down here" in a broken heart. James Stewart, a man from the last generation, has written:
"In revival, in a real work of God, there is a burden. The prophets of old called their messages burdens. In old–fashioned evangelism God’s people had an agony over lost souls. One could feel it in the very atmosphere…..Oh that God would give us weeping prophets again!"
With all of the historical extremities of our day, the perversion and pollution flooding our generation, and the overemphasis on pursuing a happy life for the Lord, isn't it time for the weepers to arise? For the poets to penetrate? For the preachers to pierce the very conscience of society? Isn’t it time for worship leaders to retreat for days alone with God? To write songs that wake up a sleeping church from compromise and confront a sinning world? Isn’t it time for the fifteen-year-old prophet to arise in the school cafeteria and bring a broken-hearted message of reconciliation? Isn’t it time for God to plead through us? (2 Cor 5:20). Isn't it time for someone to touch the very heart of God and through this heart bring healing to a hurting world?
I think it is. The hour is already late and I'm jumping in whatever it costs. How about you?