Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does God love everybody? If you believe what John 3:16 says, you have to answer Yes.
But does God admire and respect everybody for what he or she is? Is it possible for God to love someone and at the same time "abhor" him or her? Yes! If God "abhors" someone it doesn't mean He doesn't love that person, but only that He is disgusted with the pride, arrogance, selfishness, willful rebellion, of that person. Yes, God loves and pities a fool, but according to very clear teaching in the Bible He must have a very hard time respecting a fool. And there is nothing in the Bible that even faintly suggests that even though He is "longsuffering," that God's patience with fools is everlasting.
For example: "The great God that formed all things ... rewardeth the fool" (Prov. 26:10). How? "Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of fools" (19:29).
The Bible does not picture God as delighting in hurling lightning bolts at fools: those who "hated knowledge" and "despised" all of God's reproof shall simply "eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" (1:29-32).
And there is this insightful gem of divine wisdom: "The mouth of [an immoral woman] is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein" (22:14). In the eyes of heaven such a person does not have any respect. But let's not forget: God still loves a fool. David was one--he walked right into the "pit" with his eyes wide open. But oh, how he repented! In dust and ashes forever after!
It's a great prayer to pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" but maybe it's an even greater one to pray, "God be merciful to me a fool!" The Good News? God hears that prayer.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 8, 1999.
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