I know, I know...I am walking on dangerously thin ice. How could I ever say that God is the devil? Give me a chance to explain myself: the first time I came across this idea I was reading the writings of Martin Luther, and I too thought it was a rather blasphemous statement. The mere thought that God and the Devil could be equated sounded totally ridiculous and idolatrous. But after chewing on his arguments awhile, they began to make profound sense. As I related Martin's explanation with my own personal experience, it completely clicked! God wants to provoke us, even anger us! He does this by directly confronting the dirt and disease of our life; so he can then shine his light and show us the dark state of our soul. In order for us to have him, he must first clean us out completely. When we begin to understand this, our fallen nature will actually hate him for this -- he will seem like a devil to us. Here is Martin Luther's quote: "There are none nearer to God than these haters and blasphemers of him, nor any sons more pleasing to him and beloved by him! And you can in this state make more satisfaction for sin in one moment than ever you could by repenting for many years together under a diet of bread and water. The 'blasphemer' at least does God the honor of acknowledging God as God. Perhaps we can imagine God saying, 'Ah, at last! I got you to talk with me! You finally spoke the truth about who I am and what I want.'" Huh? Let's break this down: (1) "There are none nearer to God than a hater..." How can this be true? Very simple, look at it from the perspective of going to the dentist or the doctor. When the dentist says you have a cavity, it is at that moment you begin to hate the dentist. His job at first is to expose your rottenness. If the dentist ignored your cavities, and let you get by on just applying teeth whitener, you would probably really like the dentist. "Hey, what a great guy!" However, he wouldn't be doing his job. So...the dentist first sits you down and says, "Open Wide." He is looking for cavities. Like a good dentist, God's first goal is to expose your sin, your pride, your self-righteousness; and your flesh hates him for it. At this moment, God becomes a devil. (2) "In this state you can bring satisfaction in a moment." This is what is so surprising and wonderfully true about salvation: it only takes a moment to gain entrance into eternity. But in this moment, your life is balancing on the edge of a knife and God is fighting the Devil for it. You can either surrender your life completely to God; or put on a religious mask to hide behind and run away from him. Most people choose the mask. And when they do, apathy, lethargy, carelessness take you over and it starts clouding and blinding your mind to the truth. This is the devil's best trick. However, the person who is standing there hating is "actually" understanding how serious the stakes are at this crucial moment. Anger is the sure sign they get what God is saying. He wants them...TO DIE TO SIN. They know he wants them to give up, surrender and admit defeat...but it is the last thing they want to do in their sinful flesh. If you are honest, you have been there! C.S. Lewis says this moment is like being backed into a corner by God himself. The scriptures paint Paul during this moment as a wild animal being pricked and prodded by God. Peter was so mad in his moment of exposure, that he swore a blue streak in a courtyard while Jesus was on trial. (3) "Repenting for many years under a diet of bread and water won't help you." This is like the person who thinks only using "teeth whitener" is enough to make for healthy teeth and keep the dentist away. In other words, doing religious deeds and being faithful to long held traditions,duties and obligations should be enough to keep God happy. But God doesn't want you doing nice things, he wants you dead! Just as a dentist wants the cavity removed, God wants your old man crucified. Constant virtuous activity doesn't cut it with a holy God; but we think it does because it makes us feel good about ourselves. All showy religion does is fuel the illusion that we have somehow appeased God's anger; we believe our good show has actually calmed God down! Through hard work and sincere efforts we have tamed and declawed the once ferocious lion. Please listen up....God cannot be tamed, because he is still full of hot fire towards our sin. (4) "The 'blasphemer' is acknowledging God as God!" When you get mad at God you finally are treating him as God. On the other hand, when you are playing church, being religious, thinking you can be good enough; you are not treating God as God -- you are treating him as a gullible little teenager. "See God, I went to church and sang really loud; I even gave some money in the offering plate... what a good boy am I? Right?" C'mon, you think you can fool an all-knowing God with such a childish charade? A lot of church people these days are trying to pull the wool over God's eyes by putting on a splendid outward show for all to see -- while their hearts are still blacker than the blackest coal. Haters of God know he can see everything. Haters of God know he can not be bought off simply by wearing a tie on Sunday and saying 2 minutes of prayer before dinner. He is much more dangerous than that. (5) "You finally spoke the truth about who I am." You may be wondering: how can calling God a devil be the truth? Think about it, when you are a son or daughter of the devil and you call God a devil, you are paying him a compliment. God has come to smash in the gates of hell, so to a demon, God is a demon. He hasn't come to play nicey nice to sin, but to kill and destroy it once and for all. God has come to do the devil's very own work to the devil. He has come to wage war. He has come to conquer. He is taking us back. Oh how the devil hates him for this. I wonder, do you hate him too? If the answer is yes, you may be finally getting it? But if you yawn and go back to your couch of apathy, than I can assure you...you really don't know God as God. And...you don't know how much danger you are still in!
1 Comment
TJD
8/3/2014 03:17:36 pm
HmmmGrrrrrAhhhhhOuchhhhhh!!!!!!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
August 2018
|