The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Dawkins, “The God Delusion”

Dawkins is obviously not a fan. So, let’s have a look at this.

It is all over the old testament, less so in the new testament. God does something hurtful or destructive. I’m not talking about a parking ticket here. I’m talking about a catastrophe: famine, pandemic, flood, invasion, exile, banishment…..you get the point. God intentionally does something that causes us great pain, even death. And we really don’t like it. Some of us, like Dawkins, declare God to be an enemy. But, if you look closer, the hurtful things that God does clearly come in two flavors:

The bad things God does to his “people”, both Jew and Gentile.

The bad things that God does to those who are harming his people.

In each case, the bad thing is about the same. The difference is in what follows the plague, flood, invasion, famine, etc. When God harms those who are hurting his people, he walks away and leaves the wreckage behind……forever. The countries that abused Israel in the old testament have never fully recovered…..even to this day. On the other hand, when God does something painful to his people, the harm has an end and is followed by a blessing. This is a key distinction.

The disasters that God visits on the enemies of his people are a punishment. There is no healing. There is no redemption. The disasters that God visits on his people are always followed by rapproachment…….healing and renewal of the relationship. This, I think, is the lesson of the book of Job.

The point here is this: “how should we react when tragedy strikes?”

And, as usual, the answer is: “it depends”. It depends on where you stand in your relationship with your creator.

If you have no relationship, if you are God’s enemy, if you are not one of his people…….then you have several options:

Go to war with God….like Dawkins. It’s a heady experience. You may even become rich and famous. But, you will lose. Just ask the Egyptians or the Assyrians or the Babylonians.

Reassess your allegiances. Consider the possibility…….that you are on the wrong side of the fence. Unlike football, when it’s late in the 4th quarter and you’re down by 49 points, you can switch teams. This is the essence of the gospel……God’s greatest gift.

If you are one of God’s people, it is a bit more complicated. Sometimes bad things just happen and God is not behind them……..but sometimes he is. So when disaster strikes, you need to consider the possibility that God is trying to steer you away from something that you are doing or that he is trying to steer you toward something that is better for you and for him.
Just like a good parent, God wants happiness and success for you……in the long run. This is the essence of parental discipline and love. This is the essence of God’s discipline and love.

I have seen my share of disasters. Was God behind them? I don’t know……..and I don’t care. What I do know is that there is a prize waiting for me. So I will use the tragedies that come my way to grow my relationship with my creator. Someday, we will meet. And then I will understand. Meanwhile……..I will trust.

I punished them, and hid my face in anger,
   yet they kept on in their willful ways.
I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
   I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners, creating praise on their lips.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,”

God in Isaiah 57: 17-19

Most cars have a blind spot……actually two of them. They are located in the lane beside you just behind your field of vision as you look down the road and just in front of what you can see in your mirrors. These blind spots aren’t very big……..just big enough to fit a semi tractor into. Furthermore, when you change lanes you move your car right into that blind spot. If you don’t turn your head and visually check your blind spot…….and if there is a car ….or a semi…..there……you are probably going to have an accident…….an accident that was entirely preventable.

The problem is that many, perhaps most, drivers either don’t believe in the blind spot or are too lazy to check it. You know this. How many times have you been driving down a lane and had to jam on your brakes when the driver in the next lane pulled into your lane? It’s not that he was being a jerk. He did it because he didn’t see you…….because he didn’t look. He didn’t check his blind spot.

So….what is the point?

The point is that if you don’t believe in something and it is true……you do not escape the consequences. The fact that you don’t believe in the blind spot…….or that you don’t care enough about it to check it……..will not save you from the collision.

But driving tips are probably not what you came here for.

You may have guessed…….this blog is about hell.

You see, hell is the moral equivalent to your blind spot. It is a hazard that is right beside you. You encounter hell as the result of a conscious decision that you have made about how you are going to run your life. You can easily avoid hell if you plan ahead.

But.

If you deny its existence.
If you ignore it.
If you don’t give it any thought.
If you don’t plan ahead and take precautions.

Sooner or later you will encounter it…….probably not today. Just as when you drive, everything will be fine for thousands of lane changes. Everything will be fine….until it isn’t. And then it will be too late.

The lesson:

Ignoring or denying a reality does not save you from the consequences of that reality.

Hell is not real, you say?

No problem……keep changing lanes without checking that blind spot. Everything will be fine.

Until it isn’t.

The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Jesus describing hell, Luke 16: 24-25, ESV

How many stars are there?
20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

How many planets?
Probably more.

How many chemical bonds are there in the genomes of all of the life forms on earth?
6,000,000,000,000,000,000

When was the big bang?
13,800,000,000 years ago

How big is the federal debt……today?
$30,000,000,000,000

Really big numbers. But in practical terms…..in terms of their application to our lives……..what do they mean?

The simple truth is that these numbers are so big that, from a practical perspective………we cannot comprehend them. In other words, we haven’t a clue as to how to react to them……how to use them to make decisions on a day to day basis in our lives. That is why the federal debt doesn’t seem to get any traction in terms of what we should do about it.

I call these numbers God numbers. The ultimate God number?……infinity. Infinity is such a large number that it doesn’t actually exist. Infinity, when you get down to it, is not real. It is a theoretical construct.

If you take an infinite number of monkeys, word processors, time, and paper………they will type the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This is a true statement……theoretically. But we both know that it will never happen…….that it is impossible. This is the problem when we use very large numbers……God numbers…….and try to build practical applications using them……..when we try to make practical daily decisions based on them.

And yet, very smart people try to do this every day. They draw conclusions from very big numbers and tell us how we should live:

With all of those stars and planets, there must be extraterrestrial life out there somewhere.

The federal debt hasn’t hurt us yet…….so we can let it grow.

With billions upon billions of years, there was enough time for the earth and all of its genomes to accumulate………purely by random accident.

With all of that time, life could begin out of non living material, begin to reproduce, and then morph onto Angelia Jolie.

With all of that time, we can explain our existence and the existence of the amazing ecosystem that we call earth on the basis of random accidents.

But how many accidents did it take?

1 with how many zeros? 100……1,000…..1 million

Remember, the accidents must be cumulative, they must be consecutive, and they must spread over the entire earth and run off their competitors. Furthermore, accidents that don’t improve the species don’t count.

This is the “science” that our teachers teach our children as fact. We accept it because we cannot comprehend the really big numbers that it is based on. We accept it because the scientists say it is so…….and they are much smarter than we are.

The problem is that we have allowed this “science” to push creation……and with it, the creator……out of the conversation. But, the entire scientific “house of cards” is built on numbers that are so big that we cannot comprehend them. Our eyes get glassy and we just accept it……..because the people selling it are much smarter than we are.

The trouble is that the scientists have no better practical understanding of these numbers than we do. In point of fact, the basic theory that this science is based on….Darwinian evolution…….was formulated before we even knew just how big these numbers are.

If you bet your future…….your eternity…….on the accident theory, you are gambling on an explanation that is built on numbers that none of us truly understand.

God numbers.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1, ESV

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.”

Genesis 1:11, ESV

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

Genesis 1:20, ESV

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.”

Genesis 1:24, ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26, ESV

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

Genesis 1:31, ESV

Stuff

We all accumulate it. Cindy and I are worse than most. We have interests, hobbies, and……worst of all…….collections. Stuff, in and of itself, is not bad. It can be useful, satisfying, even fun. I look through my piles of stuff and compare it to one of my best friends. He lives the “less is more” lifestyle. He is moving this week and can probably put all of his and his wife’s stuff in a small trailer. It would take me a moving van……..or two…….and a forklift. I once told my son, “you gave me a pretty hard time in your teens and twenties……..my revenge is that I will die……..and you will have to clean up this mess.” It was a joke…….but I noticed that he didn’t laugh.

Here’s the problem for me. I’m in my 70’s. Fairly soon, all of my stuff will belong to someone else. Even worse, most of it will belong to people I don’t even know and have never met. All of the stuff that I have spent a lifetime of work accumulating and caring for will no longer be connected……to me.

And then it occurred to me. In a deeper sense, my stuff never was truly connected to me. I have simply been a custodian…..no more…..no less. Much of it was here before I was born and will be here long after I am gone.

And so I am shifting gears. I no longer browse antique malls and tool shops looking for new and better stuff. I am even disposing of my collections. I will never get to the point of my friend……..but I will leave a smaller mess for my executor.

The lesson of the Bible……in regards to stuff…….is simple. Stuff is neither good nor bad. The secret to stuff is that we shouldn’t hold on to it too tightly. We should not let it define us. We should not allow it to dictate our value. Because our value is defined by something else.

Our value is defined exclusively by our relationship with our creator.

In a few short years, that will be the only metric that will count. So, if you are young…..if you are still in the “accumulation” phase of your life…….if you are still in the “empire building” phase…….my lesson is this:

Use your stuff, enjoy it…..but don’t hold on to it too tightly. Don’t make stuff the focus of your life, your efforts. And above all, don’t allow your stuff to define your value…..because you are worth far more than that.

Your relationship worth is far greater than your net worth.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus, Mathew 6:19-21

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Jesus,Matthew 6:25-26