RPG Adults
GOD’S ANGER WAS JUSTIFIED
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22
Deuteronomy 32:15-43
2 Peter 2:4-9
“The Lord knoweth how to deliver
the godly out of temptations…”
GOD’S ANGER WAS JUSTIFIED
Man provokes God in his vanities as he becomes rebellious and is unceasing in his sin against his Creator. God referred to Israel in such a condition as a foolish nation. God responded to their continued sin with endless punishment. The earth would burn with fire and He would fight them with the power of an arrow. Hunger and devouring heat would come upon them with bitter destruction. The teeth of the beasts and poison of serpents (Deut 32:24) would be part of their punishment. They would fall in war by the sword without and there would be terror within. Young men, virgins, sucklings and old men would be scattered and ceased from being remembered (Deut 32:25-26).
The Lord, however, would not allow the enemies of Israel to behave strangely and say that their hand was higher than the Lord’s and that it was not the Lord who had done this to Israel (Deut 32:27). He asserted that Israel was a nation void of counsel and had no understanding (Deut 32:28). The Lord asserted His power through this rhetorical question: “How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?” (Deut 32:30). These expressions were to inform Israel that their defeat was because God had delivered them to their enemies. They had no alternative but to follow the Lord as they had been commanded. If they sought their own ways and rebelled against the Lord, they would face His wrath.
Israel did not know God. Their pattern was as that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Deut 32:32). This comparison brought to mind the narrative in Genesis 19 of the wickedness of those cities. Their sin was so great that they deserved nothing less than complete extinction. The Lord caused fire to rain upon them and every living thing died in that place. The location of those cities has been identified as the Dead Sea and, to this day, nothing can grow in that place. It is contaminated with substances that cannot sustain life.
THOUGHT: Where God’s name is honoured, there is joy and blessing; and where He is blasphemed, there are curses and misery.
PRAYER: Father, may Thy name be honoured within my dwelling.