Does God hurt when I hurt? In part 2 we look at God’s experience in the great controversy and hear His side of the story. We primarily use Old Testament texts where God Himself is speaking to show that the God of the Old Testament is love, just like Jesus in the New Testament. By the conclusion of the message it should be clear that God hurts the most in the great controversy.

<p>Does God hurt when I hurt? In part 2 we look at God’s experience in the great controversy and hear His side of the story. We primarily use Old Testament texts where God Himself is speaking to show that the God of the Old Testament is love, just like Jesus in the New Testament. By the conclusion of the message it should be clear that God hurts the most in the great controversy.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Livingston SDA Church

Dee Casper

Does God Care?- Part 2

Father, thank you that I can come into your presence.

Thank you that you delight to speak to us today, to share your side of the story in the midst of the great controversy.

And I'm just praying that you would do something that none of us would soon forget.

For your holy name's sake, Abide here a while, we pray.

The first part, for those who were not here, we dealt with the origin of evil and what God is doing to eventually eliminate evil from this world and the process He's going through, not only physically and otherwise, but also what God is going through emotionally in the midst of this great controversy.

And so, anyway, I'm very, very excited to share this last part with you.

Again, the idea of the Old Testament God that there are some that we view it as 2 different entities that you've got the God of the Old Testament that may seem like a fire of wrath and war and judgment.

And then you see this lovely Jesus in the New Testament.

And for some, there's a seeming dissonance, a seeming disharmony.

But what I'd like to show you today is that the Old Testament passages of God himself speaking will be painting a different picture to us.

And I hope that it can be of a great help to you in your view of who God is, how He's working.

And the specific question we've been asking is, does God care?

Does God know anything about what I'm going through in the midst of the great controversy and why is hardship taking place.

So the first text I want to use to pick up from this morning is from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 18.

And this text was shared with me right after I preached.

By the way, while you're turning there, for those who have mentioned family members and children that they love with all of their hearts and wish would come to the Lord, I wanna give a Bible promise to you.

It's Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 16 and 17.

For those who are praying for lost wayward children, lost wayward friends, Jeremiah 31, 16 and 17.

Thus says the Lord, refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your children shall come back to their own borders." Jeremiah 31, 16 and 17.

Yeah, I've got people I love that Jesus doesn't know.

Ezekiel 18 is what I'd like to start with.

Now we're going to be giving God's side of the story in the midst of the great controversy.

Ezekiel 18, verse 23, God says, "'Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, ' says the Lord, and not that he should turn from his ways and live.

Say to them, as I live, says the Lord God, which is from everlasting to everlasting, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked Turn from his way and live.

Turn, turn from your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel?" So God is making it abundantly clear here today that He has no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked.

As we talked about this morning in Matthew 25, 41, God says that the destruction was only intended for the devil and his angels.

Your lost family member's names is not on that list.

And the worst tyrants the world has ever known, Their names are not on that list.

He never intended for any humans to be there.

And yet God is going to have to lose people in the process.

And it's bad enough for God to lose Lucifer and a third of the angels, but it's even worse now.

But I just wanna make it abundantly clear, He's not taking delight in this.

In 2 Peter 3, 9, it says, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise.

He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Most of these will be from the Old Testament and God Himself speaking, And that was intentional.

But again, God does not rejoice over the death of anyone.

No 1 creates something out of love and then takes enjoyment in destroying it.

It's just, it's a contradiction in terms, right?

He doesn't take enjoyment in these things.

Isaiah chapter 5, and I'll begin in verse 1.

Isaiah chapter 5, and beginning in verse 1.

And all the references are also up on the screen here too if you don't quite catch them.

Now, Isaiah 5 verse 1, ìNow let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard.

My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.

He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with what type of vine?

The choicest vine, the nicest that you can find.

He built a tower in its midst, and he also made a winepress in it.

So he expected, obviously, it to bring forth good grapes.

But what type of grapes did it bring forth?

1 translation refers to this as actually a poisonous fruit.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between me and my vineyard.

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

And now let me, please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.

I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned, and shall break down its wall, and it shall be trampled." God here has, and he's using the illustration for the nation of Israel, he removed all the obstructions that he could.

He placed them in an ideal situation, even put them on a recovery diet, right?

Getting them out of Egypt, clearing their minds and their bodies.

He gets them out, he teaches them how to worship him again because they've completely lost sight of this and 400 plus years of paganism and an appeasement based religion.

So God has done all that He can to ensure that these people thrive in their experience with Him, and yet when He's expecting it to bring forth good fruit, it brings forth poisonous fruit.

And the question that God asks is, What more could I have done?

Like I removed the difficulties, I removed the obstructions, but the choice they made led to what we see.

Now, some would say to the question that God has, or the question He's asking is, what more could I have done?

Some would say that He should stop it from happening.

He should manhandle these people and keep them from being fools.

And the thing we closed with at the end of this morning was the fact that God, an all-powerful, all-sovereign God is going to be stuck with the decisions that other inferior beings made.

Because He's so loving, He only always ever does what's in your good, but He's still going to leave the choice with you.

And what you do with that choice is up to you, but He's going to inform that choice as best as He can and as frequently as He can so that you can make an intelligent choice.

So He doesn't just leave you and hope you make a good decision, and that's where I want to go here.

So Genesis 2, beginning in verse 15, we alluded to this this morning.

Someone should have told me to turn my Bible.

Genesis 2, beginning in verse 15, we alluded to this in this morning.

Genesis 2, 15, then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, "'but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "'you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it, "'you will surely die.'" We made the point this morning that God does not say, in the day you eat of it, I will kill you.

He tells him there are consequences to this decision if you make it.

The choice is yours, but I want it to be abundantly clear to you.

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Does God Care?- Part 2

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