Vol. 3, No. 3—2/5/04

You Call This Love?!

Written by

Christopher Mentzer

 

            At the close of the 20th Century and the start of the 21st, we find people straying more towards emotionalism in worship than actual doctrine.  Sermons are watered down to the point of fluff and preaching the Love of God and how it’s impossible for Him to send anyone to Hell.  A matter of, “He was tough in the Old Testament but not so today.” 

But suppose God did not love the world as stated in John 3: 16?  Did you ever think that God might have a breaking point?  If God didn’t love the world, we’d have no hope and no reason to go on living.  Let’s look at some passages.  Our first example is from Gen. 7:4, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground.”  Here God destroys the planet in a flood.  Is this love? 

Let’s look at another.  In Gen. 11: 5-9, “5. And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6. And Jehovah said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.  7. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.  8. So Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city.  9. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because Jehovah did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did Jehovah scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”  Now God confused everyone’s language.  Would you call this love?

One final example in Gen. 19: 24-25, “Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; 25. and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.”  Not only that but one chapter prior, God made this statement, “Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do;” (Gen. 18:17)

I realize I’m only telling half of the story in each of the examples but, as you can see, isolated on their own makes them perfect examples of God not loving the world.  In the story of the flood, Noah and his family were saved with animals aboard an ark.  The tower of Babel story was brought about because the people want to reach God from a physical aspect.  And the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham intervenes for the sake of the righteous. 

These are examples of tough love.  If God really didn’t love the world, he would have let both Noah and Abraham perish and started over.  However, the reason He didn’t is very clear.  Noah found favor in the eyes of God and God established His covenant with him (Gen. 6: 8, 18-22).  The same was with Abraham in Gen. 12: 1-3.  Both times God made a promise to them to continue the lineage through them.  To go back on His word would make God a liar.  Here’s three verses to the contrary, “in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal” (Titus 1:2); “that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us” (Heb. 6: 18); “God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and will he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and will he not make it good?” (Num. 23:19).  We know that God loves us and one of the ways He showed this was by sending His Son.  And the reason He sent his Son is found in John 3: 17, “For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.”  This is also confirmed in Matt. 1: 21, “And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name JESUS; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.”  God does love us and His scriptures confirm this in many ways.