REJECTED BY A FORGIVING GOD
But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf. Neh. 9:17, 18, N.I.V.
We often hear the phrase "Whatever works!" If what you are doing doesn't work, try something else. Is this God's approach? For six thousand years He has patiently worked through forgiveness to bring the reign of sin to an end. He has been patient and forgiving. Maybe He ought to switch to wrath.
Consider ancient Israel. God rescued them from Egypt. He kept them from being hungry or thirsty. Their experience with Him was in some ways far more tangible that any other community of believers has experienced since. Yet they murmured, complained, and doubted everything about Him they possibly could. They accused Him of contemplating their murder; they said they were better off as slaves then they were as free men under His guidance. At the borders of Canaan they wanted to choose another leader who would take them back to Egypt! Yet He consistently forgave them.
Recounting Israel's flagrantly disloyal attitudes, Nehemiah said, "They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles [God] performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery" (Neh. 9:17, N.I.V.). But God still did not desert them. "For forty years [He] sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen" (verse 21, N.I.V.).
For another fifteen hundred years He pleaded with them to accept His will for their lives. Yet history reveals that God had no lasting success in bringing them to their senses. In the end He finally did reject Israel as the nation through which He would reveal Himself to the world, though individually anyone still may accept Him as his Redeemer.
Did God switch to rejection because acceptance and forgiveness didn't work? May I suggest that God has never ceased being "a forgiving God" to Israel. He did, however, finally set them free from their calling as His chosen people--a privilege most of them considered an unpleasant burden. His rejection of them was only in acknowledgment of their final rejection of Him in the person of His Son--His Son, whose dying words were of forgiveness.
But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf. Neh. 9:17, 18, N.I.V.
We often hear the phrase "Whatever works!" If what you are doing doesn't work, try something else. Is this God's approach? For six thousand years He has patiently worked through forgiveness to bring the reign of sin to an end. He has been patient and forgiving. Maybe He ought to switch to wrath.
Consider ancient Israel. God rescued them from Egypt. He kept them from being hungry or thirsty. Their experience with Him was in some ways far more tangible that any other community of believers has experienced since. Yet they murmured, complained, and doubted everything about Him they possibly could. They accused Him of contemplating their murder; they said they were better off as slaves then they were as free men under His guidance. At the borders of Canaan they wanted to choose another leader who would take them back to Egypt! Yet He consistently forgave them.
Recounting Israel's flagrantly disloyal attitudes, Nehemiah said, "They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles [God] performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery" (Neh. 9:17, N.I.V.). But God still did not desert them. "For forty years [He] sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen" (verse 21, N.I.V.).
For another fifteen hundred years He pleaded with them to accept His will for their lives. Yet history reveals that God had no lasting success in bringing them to their senses. In the end He finally did reject Israel as the nation through which He would reveal Himself to the world, though individually anyone still may accept Him as his Redeemer.
Did God switch to rejection because acceptance and forgiveness didn't work? May I suggest that God has never ceased being "a forgiving God" to Israel. He did, however, finally set them free from their calling as His chosen people--a privilege most of them considered an unpleasant burden. His rejection of them was only in acknowledgment of their final rejection of Him in the person of His Son--His Son, whose dying words were of forgiveness.
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