Don’t Blame God
We hate the smugness of someone telling us, “I told you so,” when we’ve messed up, because we must admit we were wrong. There won’t be any smugness from God, only sadness, when He utters those final words at our trial at the door to eternity. “The Lord is…patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
For over 2,000 years,
we’ve known the truth of God’s plan to judge sin and His solution to avoid judgment. From the 1950s to the late 1980s, a zany game show ran on TV called “Truth Or Consequences.” If the contestant couldn’t answer an off-the-wall trivia question, they had to perform some crazy stunt as their consequence. It was very popular with fans and usually worth a good laugh.
Consequences and their warnings permeate Scripture.
And they’re no laughing matter because they’re permanent. No Mulligans, do-overs, or 2nd chances. When God says, “I told you so,” it’s too late. As an example of God’s thoroughness in explaining why He’s about to pronounce judgment, look at a section in 2 Thess. 2:8-12, “Then the lawless one (Antichrist) will be revealed…with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish…because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness.”
If you saw these four highlighted words
in any given document, you’d conclude that the author wanted no misunderstanding of his intent. God is no different in that sense. We’re also given further explanation of God’s justification for judgment in Romans 1:19, 20b“…because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them…so that they are without excuse.” And more from Romans 2: 5,6: “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to each person according to his deeds.”
As you can see,
God’s strategy for making His plan clear is to explain man’s responsibility to repent, do it over and over through His prophets and Son, and lavish on the world His mercy and grace; all of which is undeserved by us sinners. And He keeps doing it…until He doesn’t. There is an expiration date on His mercy and grace which is unique to each of us. When is that and what threshold must we cross to force His hand? I don’t know. It could be the moment we die having not embraced God’s love and forgiveness. Or it could be sooner due to our hard heart. So while it’s still available, “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). “For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears attend to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (1 Pet. 3:2).
The good news is
that as long as we have breath, we can turn to Jesus and fall to our knees in humble repentance asking for forgiveness, which God supplies abundantly (Isa. 55:7). Don’t wait and don’t blame God. He has done everything including paying for your sin with His own Son’s blood, so that He could offer you salvation free of charge. If you’re still on the fence, click here Steps To Salvation elsewhere on this site, which details your choices. Thanks for reading. Hope to see you on the other side.