162 - The Goodness of God [B]

The Goodness of God. Rev. 6:15-17

Review

Revelation 6:15-17 ^NASB "Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'"

Whenever God is dealing with man in grace that also involves His justice and His righteousness. These aspects of God's character and essence and the way he relates to His creatures are sometimes thought by some people to be somewhat contradictory. Sometimes people focus on one aspect to the exclusion of another, or on the other to the exclusion of the first, and the result is a distorted view of God. And it always has consequences in the individual's life because when we go through difficult times, adversity and suffering, if we have a demeaning view of God and have not properly understood His essence, His character, how he deals with man and things in human history, then it causes believers at times to waffle in their faith, have various doubts, it causes believers to become sceptical and to use this as a fulcrum which they think gives them leverage against the truth of God's Word. So as we go through our studies we stop and focus upon these aspects, these important doctrines, because they are the focal point in these texts.

In Revelation 6:17 there is a question asked. This question really sets up the content and provides a transition into the next chapter. There is a very important question that underlies this question, a question that we all have asked at one time or another. They say, "the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" So the question is, in light of these massive judgments and unprecedented horror that is taking place, who can live, who can survive? That question is going to be answered by God in the next vision that John sees, described in chapter seven. The first part of the chapter addresses one group of people who are able to stand and survive these judgments of God, and those are the 144,000 mentioned in vv. 4-8. Then there is a second group that is described in vv. 9-17, and this pictures a multitude of those who have been martyred and are in heaven before the throne of God and before the presence of the Lamb. So these are two groups who are able to stand in the midst of this horrific judgment.

Who are these people who are able to stand and who have been living in the midst of that judgment? They are believers. The martyrs do not survive the judgments but they participate, they are as much a recipient of these judgments as unbelievers. The question that this raises focuses on the whole topic of the grace of God and the goodness of God, for as we understand the extremities of these disasters the question will be how can a good and loving God allow His creatures, especially creatures who have trusted in Christ as their saviour and who have been part of His family, believers in Jesus Christ, go through this kind of tremendous suffering? It just doesn't seem to fit with the idea of al loving, benevolent, caring God. This is often expressed by those who wish the challenge the idea that there is a caring God according to the standards of Christianity. So, several questions are raised as we think about this. Is God really good, just and fair? We also need to answer questions related to the issue of suffering. Why do good people suffer?

We have to recognise that there are four things involved in this question; it is not a simple question: first, the nature of God; second, the nature of suffering; third, the nature of evil; fourth, the plan of God. To answer the question we have to have a good understanding of those four things. People who have a somewhat limited or anaemic view of the nature of God are going to come away thinking that somehow God must be out of control or he can't control things, or He is just wringing His hands up there in heaven, looking down on the earth thinking, What am I going to do about all of this suffering? That shows a rather weak view of God. When there is a weak view of God there is a tendency also to have a weal view of evil and of sin. When we have a biblical view of sin and evil we realise that it is more than just telling a white lie or committing some social faux pas, or thinking in terms of whatever the socially defined sins are of the day, such as racism or sexism or some of the other things that are politically incorrect in our culture. Sin at its very root is a rejection of the authority and person of God. Because of the nature of reality, the way God is and the way His creation is, when that authority relationship is breeched it has consequences which reverberate through all of His creation in ways that we can't even imagine. So that things that we consider to be "white sins" or little white lies and are somewhat inconsequential have consequences far beyond what we can imagine.

When we look at this we have to look at the nature of God and who God is, and this brings to bear the essence of God: that God is sovereign, which means He is in control of His creation; He is absolute righteousness and perfect justice. This is at the core of our whole understanding. As a righteousness God everything that He does performs to absolute perfection, and justice is the application of that perfect standard to His creatures. Holiness means that God is unique; He is one of a kind; He is totally set apart. This is stated very clearly in Exodus 15:11 ^NASB "Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?" He is also a God of love. These three attributes are not in juxtaposition to one another but they all work together in perfect harmony. We have to understand what these terms mean. In Genesis 18;25 Abraham is talking to God just before the Lord goes to judge Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual perversion: ^NASB "Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are {treated} alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?" That is the point. God, because He is not only righteous and just and love, but because He is also omniscient and knows all the facts. Because He knows all the facts He can always make the right and just decisions in the outworking of history. So we can always trust Him. Jeremiah 9:24 ^NASB "…'I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,' declares the LORD."

God is not somehow distant and uninvolved and uncaring about human suffering or the things that are going on within human history but His justice has also provided the perfect solution to the problem, and only when we understand the extent of this problem of sin and evil can we appreciate what the solution is which began at the cross with Jesus Christ. It was on the cross that the sin penalty was paid, and that sin penalty had to be paid so that the justice and righteousness of God could be satisfied. Once His justice is satisfied, then His love and His mercy is free to flow to mankind on the conditions that He set within His plan—which was on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone, trusting in Jesus Christ as saviour. But God allows human history to run its course because He is demonstrating certain things within human history to demonstrate that any action, no matter how innocuous it may seem, that is independent of God is going to have consequences that are horrendous and that reverberate throughout history. So He is demonstrating something throughout history and in His omniscience and His omnipotence He is able to bring that to a conclusion. In this end-time history what God is doing is resolving these issues in judgments—the issues of sin and evil—so that He can then bring redemption to man, the earth, and resolve this whole problem of sin and evil. In the course of that there are those who are dear to Him who will go through suffering and adversity, but this is not without purpose and not without reason. At the end God wipes away every tear and we see that caring concern that God has in bringing that to resolution when we are face to face with Him, and there will be a time when we no longer remember any of the things that have occurred in this life.

Illustrations