FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 8, number 44, October 29, 2009
So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years and he died, Genesis 5:27.
Since 1787 the United States government has made seven hundred and fifty treaties with American Indians. We have broken every one of them.[1] Since 1973 we have murdered fifty million of our children through abortion.[2] I love my country and would not want to live anywhere else, but surely we must admit that injustice, murder, perversion, and ungodliness abound. Why then are we not consumed? Why hasn’t God utterly wiped us off the face of the globe? The answer to that question is found in the text mentioned above. In the genealogy of the line of Seth we find that Methuselah lived to nine hundred and sixty-nine years, the oldest person recorded in Scripture. He died in the year of the great flood 2348 B.C.. It is important that we realize the meaning of his Hebrew name—“At death, it will come.” [3] In other words, in giving him the name Methuselah, his father Enoch, a godly man (Genesis 5:24) was proclaiming to the world the steadfast patience of God toward sinners. Yahweh gave the line of Cain nearly two thousand years to repent of their ever increasing debauchery. A time would come, however, when the measure of their sins would be filled up, and the wrath of God would come upon them. We see this theme of God’s patience and eventual wrath reported several times in Scripture. When Israel was delivered from Egyptian bondage, the Amalekites attached the weak ones in the rear—the sick, aged, infirmed, and little ones (Exodus 17:8). We read in 1 Samuel 15 of God commanding Saul to destroy them utterly. At least three hundred years went by between these two events. Scripture also says that when the sins of the Amorites is complete, then God would judge them (Genesis 15:16). In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 we read of Paul comforting the Thessalonian believers by reminding them that the persecution of the Jews would eventually fill up the measure of their sins and the wrath of God would come upon them to the utmost. And in Romans 2:5-6 Paul says that they are storing up wrath for themselves in the day of the wrath and revelation of God who will render to every man according to his deeds.
So we see in Methuselah’s name that God is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. He is patient with sinners, but there is an end to His patience. We are not yet consumed in our country for the simple reason that the measure of our sins is not yet filled to the brim. When that happens God’s wrath will pour over our nation. When will that be? Only God knows.
This statement in the preceding paragraph, drawn from 2 Peter 3:9, raises several questions. First, what does Peter mean by perish? He does not mean mere physical death, as though when one dies it is all over. The Bible makes clear that life after death exists in one of two places (John 5:24-29). Nor does Peter mean annihilation. Some evangelical scholars [4] have taught this in recent years, saying that at some point the souls of the damned in hell, due to God’s mercy, will eventually be annihilated, meaning souls will not suffer torment forever, that God will limit their suffering. I wish that were true, but Scripture does not teach it. In Matthew 25:41 Jesus says that He will separate the sheep from the goats and the latter will hear these awful words, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” To perish then, Biblically speaking, means to suffer eternal conscious torment away from the presence of the Lord (Mark 9:47-48, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, Revelation 20:12-15). Some may ask, “Isn’t God going too far in His punishment?” If we say that He is, then this surely proves we do not understand two things—the holy, holy, holy holiness of God and the utter depravity and sinfulness of man. God’s justice and righteousness requires punishment for sin. Either we pay for it ourselves or we trust what Jesus did at Calvary as our payment for sin.
Perhaps most of you know that the Bible teaches the foreordaining, predestinating grace of God, that He chose a certain people before the creation of the world to be His forever, not based on anything they would do, according to His sheer mercy and benevolence (Romans 8:29-30, 9:18, Ephesians 1:4-5). Does this contradict the statement of Peter, that God is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance? No, not at all! Actually Peter says this, “God is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing that any would perish but that all would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). The context clearly is one of impending judgment. God is slow in bringing His judgment and the consequent new heaven and new earth. But He is not slow as people are, who often forget what they promised, who are sidetracked by other projects, who lose their resolve. The stated reason for this delay is His patience toward His hearers. And who are they? According to 2 Peter 1:1 they are those called by Jesus Christ, true believers. So the promise of God to delay impending judgment is to gather in all the elect. God is not willing for any of His elect to perish, but will wait until all of them are in the kingdom. Why, then, are we not consumed due to the wickedness, injustice, and perversion in our nation? Only because God has not gathered in all His elect in our country. When that happens, then we can expect the fullness of His wrath to come upon us.
Paul lays down the doctrine of election in Romans 9, especially in the statement—what if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:22-23). In the very next chapter Paul says, “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:13-15). The profound truth is that the Bible teaches both the sovereignty of God’s electing grace as well as the responsibility of every person to run to Christ to be saved. We find here another complementarity of truth. The Bible teaches both election and human responsibility. These cannot both fit in the mind, but only in the heart.
This means practically that no one must go to hell. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus said that all the Father gives to Him will come to Him and those who come to Him He will in no way cast out (John 6:37-40). Why then do people perish in their sins? In pride they continue to eat from the tree of knowing good and evil (Genesis 2:15), believing they can look outside of God’s special revelation, the Bible, for truth. They are too smart, too smug to submit their minds to the words of a book written by the hand of God. In consequent ignorance they do not understand their perilous condition. They are under the wrath of God, running headlong into perdition with their eyes open.
Our job is to warn them to flee from the wrath of God which is to come and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have not the freedom to remain silent. Our hearts ought to ache for their souls. We ought to shed tears, both literally and figuratively, for our friends and those around the world who reject the overtures of God’s grace.
Are you burdened
for them or do you allow hardness of heart to set in, choosing to turn away
from them in disgust because of their lifestyles or values? How can you regain
a burden for them? Remember from whence you have come. Most of us, unless we
lived terribly ungodly lives prior to regeneration, really don’t think we are
all that bad. No matter what your lifestyle or actions, you were heinous in
God’s sight. He hated you because you were people of bloodshed and deceit,
because you did iniquity (Psalm 5:5-6). You were like the sinful woman in Luke
7:36ff. You had nothing to commend yourself to God. You deserved hell and you
were going there except for God’s sheer mercy. Get a taste, a smell, as it
were, of the sulfur of hell fire, bowing your head in utter amazement that God
would save you by the blood of Jesus. Go daily, in your mind and
heart, to hell, hearing the anguished cries of the damned. And then face the
world around you with renewed compassion and zeal for the salvation of their
souls.
[1] Trail of Broken Treaties: Twenty Point Position Paper, An Indian Manifesto.
[2] www.nrlpac.org National Right to Life Political Action Committee.
[3] For a fascinating study consult James Boice’s commentary on Genesis.
[4] John Stott in Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal Evangelical Dialogue, by Stott and David L.Edwards page 315ff and Phillip Hughes as reported in “Is Hell Forever?” website www.tektonics.org
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.
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