Category Archives: Blog

GOD IS GOOD…

Ok, so this whole echo thing does not work so well over the internet, but I hope that somewhere in the world you are screaming, “ALL THE TIME!”

Before every session at Revival X, we said, “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.”  Now that is very easy to say at Revival!  It is the best week of the year!  You get to spend the whole week with your friends playing crazy games like extreme steal the bacon (by the way, how about T-Payne’s fairy skillz), worshipping with the Revival Band, and hearing great sermons from your pastors.  Basically, it’s easy to say that God is good when life is good.

But the whole point of the phrase is that God is good ALL the time, even when life straight up stinks.  This is also the main point of the book of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk is having a pretty bad day.  He looks around the kingdom of Judah and sees injustice and sin everywhere, so he cries out and asks God to do something about it.  God says that he is going to send the Babylonians to judge the people.  This completely blows Habakkuk’s mind!  The Babylonians were even worse than the Israelites!  How could a good God use such an evil people to accomplish his will?

Throughout this short book, Habakkuk learns that he can trust God no matter what the circumstances.  Even if life makes no sense to him at all, God is good all the time.  He says at the end of the book in chapter 3:17-18,

17 Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Here are a few miscellaneous tips for reading Habakkuk:

- Remember that it is a conversation.  Habakkuk asks a question (1:2-4).  God responds (1:5-11).  Habakkuk asks another question (1:12-2:1).  God responds again (2:2-20).  Habakkuk now responds to what he has heard from God (ch. 3).

-Learn to enjoy the imagery in the words.  The prophets were very poetic in their language.  For example, chapter 1:4 says, “The law is paralyzed.”  Habakkuk paints a beautiful word picture here of what is happening; the law is there but it does not do anything.  It has no power, and people ignore it.  Images like this one are all over this short book.  Do not let them confuse you, let them give you a better understanding of God’s Word!

-Come to Beach Night!  We are going to discuss this book even more, especially how it applies to our lives!

To have a high view of God, we must realize he is not like us.

If someone does something wrong to us, we are supposed to forgive.  We are not in the position to judge them as we have done wrong things ourselves.  It is not our place to get revenge. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord (Romans 12:19).”

But God is completely different from us.  He is the one in the position to judge and according to Psalm 50:21 we can be confident he will do so.  Think about this: It is appropriate for God to take revenge.  He is the one who must punish people according to what they have done.

And this is what the book of Nahum is all about:

Nahum 1:2 – The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.

In this book we will read about God’s coming judgment of Nineveh.  Previously in Jonah we read about God’s compassion on those people in giving them an opportunity to repent.  But this is a century or so later and now God is ready to judge them because they have returned to their wicked ways.

Believe it or not, this is actually good news to God’s people in Judah that this prophecy is given to.  Nineveh was their enemy who was oppressing them in evil and so it would come as an encouragement to them.  In Revelation 19, it is clear that all who are in heaven rejoice at the judgment of God on the wickedness of the world.  They see it is right for God to be the one who punishes people for their sins.  This is something we will better understand in heaven and praise God for in eternity.  He is the only one who should be in the vengeance business.  And he will do a good job.

If you thought the burn pictures in Pastor Lucas’ power point at Revival X were intense, you will find many similar word pictures here in this book.  The wrath of God is compared to fire and he is breaking rocks into pieces in anger (Nahum 1:6).

There are still verses about God’s goodness (like Nahum 1:7 which is on the Double-Double wrapper) and there are verses about Judah responding to their evil enemy.  But the main theme of this book is the vengeance of God.  Let us raise our view of him to see that when God takes revenge on someone it is not a bad thing.

It is exactly what God should do.

Is God loving?  Is he compassionate, merciful, and willing to forgive sins?

Or is God just?  Is he holy, righteous, and going to punish sins?

Yes, he is.  God is loving AND just, and Micah shows this very clearly.  For instance, Micah 2:3 speaks stern words of judgment,

“Therefore thus says the Lord:
behold, against this family I am devising disaster,
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you shall not walk haughtily,

for it will be a time of disaster.”

Yikes!  But Micah 7:19 says these amazingly comforting words,

“He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.”

Too many people want God to be in a box.  They want to slap the label of “wrath” or “grace” on him and move on.  They think he must be one or the other because perfect love and perfect justice cannot coexist in one person.

Once again, God blows the human mind.  He is perfectly just, and he will judge sin with a righteous fury.  Yet at the same time, he is gracious and compassionate, and he wants to forgive people for their sins.

How do these seemingly contrasting character traits work together?  Is God some cosmic schizophrenic?  Absolutely not!  In fact, the most perfect expression of God’s love and justice is found in somebody that Micah talks about…someone that Micah prophesied would be born in the town of Bethlehem.  We know that someone is Jesus Christ, and God is so righteous that he had to punish sin by pouring out his wrath on his Son, but God is also so gracious that he punished sin by pouring out his wrath on his Son instead of those who believe.

So as we begin to read Micah, prepare for your own mind to be blown by our just and loving God.  Micah is made up of three main sections: Chapters 1-2, 3-5, and 6-7.  (That’s how we will break it up as we read!) Each one begins with harsh words of impending judgment but ends with soft promises of future grace.  God did judge his people through the Assyrians and the Babylonians, but he also had a plan for future restoration.  This plan centers on Jesus Christ, who already came as a baby in Bethlehem but will return again as a King in the clouds.

Buckle your seatbelts, everyone! We’re reading the first section of Micah today!

The whale.  Or was it a big fish.  This is what people think of from the book of Jonah.  (The ESV translates it as a great fish by the way.) But let me assure you the book of Jonah is about more than an underwater sea creature.

This last year I took one of the hardest classes I have ever taken in education: Hebrew.  It is the language the Old Testament was originally written in.  And even though it was difficult to learn, at the end of the year I was able to do something very exciting.  I translated the book of Jonah from Hebrew to English.   And I learned that there was a bigger character in the book than the whale.  Or fish.

The book of Jonah is about God.  It is about his compassion, wanting to save a people that everyone considers evil.  It is about people seeing him for who he is, and repenting before it is too late.  It is about a God who saves.

Translating line by line, I learned to look at the book more closely than I had in the past.  And I noticed a new group of characters I had read right past before.  It was the sailors on the boat.  (Or the mariners as the ESV translates it).

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he gets on a boat going the other way.  And the sailors are afraid in chapter 1 verse 6 when the storm comes up.  They are exceedingly afraid when they find out the storm is a judgment from God on Jonah’s disobedience in verse 10.  But by verse 16 they have learned a different kind of fear.  After these sailors throw Jonah into the water, the storm calms down and they get the point of the book: Fear God.

While I was translating, I began to wonder: Did God have Jonah go the wrong way just so these sailors would come to know him?  This is the kind of God we have.  He is looking for the people far off, people his own prophet doesn’t want to go to.  But God wants them to know him for who he is.

In this book God saves a large, evil city and a small ship of sailors.  It is a great story to learn about his compassion, how he would even save a group of people much further away: you and me.

I’m excited to read Jonah together over the next four days.  May we all come to see God for how big he is and for how much he cares for small people like us!