Have You Ever Been Embarrassed for God?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We are often embarrassed for each other, and for our heroes. Even Abraham Lincoln had some warts; and of course our Bible heroes almost all had some faults, like David with his Bathsheba and Peter with his denial of Christ. But have you ever been embarrassed for God? Is there any skeleton in His history-closet that we are afraid to bring out in the open?

There are people who ask us solemnly, "How can you worship a God who destroyed the world in a flood? Who ordered genocide for the Canaanites? Who burned up Sodom and Gomorrah for what is common behavior of today? Who ordered stoning for a man who gathered firewood on Sabbath?"

I am nobody to try to defend God in a court case. But if He needs a character witness before the jury of modern man, I would want to offer my tiny effort in His defense:

(1) The antediluvians, fresh from the Garden of Eden, were "all ... corrupt" to the point of making any survival on planet earth impossible for all future generations (Gen. 6:12, 13). They became devils in human form which are always worse than devils in angelic form. God gave them an evangelistic campaign of 120 years; they rejected His grace. From love for you and me, God was forced to start again.

(2) Likewise, the Canaanites were a cancer on the human race that was spreading to the world's lymph nodes. God gave them four hundred years of constant Holy Spirit ministry, but they did despite to His Spirit of grace. From love for the human race, God was forced to dispossess them and allow a people to take their place through whom He purposed to send a Savior, who was to be a blessing "to all families of the earth."

(3) The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of almost incredible grace. God would have spared the city if only "ten righteous" people could have been found in it. No other God ("god") would have been so compassionate when life or death was involved, even though they were like anthrax to the world. They too did despite to the Spirit of grace.

(4) And the man gathering firewood? There's more to the story than the brief details tell us. Read it in Numbers 15:32-36, and see what you think.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 19, 1999.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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