SOUNDING OUT:
God Is Always Good (Part 1 of 2)

  What we think about God is very important. James 1:8 assures us that “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Therefore when we vacillate in what we think about Him we can only be unstable. Is He loving or is He mean? Is He vengeful or is He forgiving? Can we ever be really sure?

  One thing is sure: if we are double minded we will be unstable. We will be easily upset, unbalanced, unreliable, fickle, and lack the stability that a firm foundation would supply. That is because we too often just do not convince ourselves that what God has said in His Word He means — absolutely and unequivocally.

  We know the verses that say that God is love (I John 4:8), that He “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16) that He “is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5), that He does not tempt anyone with evil (James 1:13). However we too quickly let loose of those great truths when we read verses that may on the surface seem to paint a different picture of Whom God is.

  We read in II Samuel 24:1 that God moved David to do evil! In Exodus 4:21 we read that He hardened the heart of Pharaoh to not to let His own people go! Jeremiah 4:10 and Ezekiel 14:9 say that God deceived His people. How can these verses be reconciled with the ones we mentioned before? Is God all good or not?

  The basic key to understanding and rightly dividing the Word of God is knowing that the scriptures do not and cannot contradict one another. In Part II of LIGP I state it as clearly as I can, just like it was taught to me. There cannot be any discrepancy or deficiency in God’s Word. The truthfulness and faithfulness of God guarantees that He would not set forth any passage in His Word that would contradict any other passage. Therefore we ought not consider that any Scripture is incongruous with, repugnant to, inconsistent with, or contradictory to any other Scripture. Neither should we ever expound, explain, or interpret it to be so.

  The Word of God assures us that with God “there is no variableness or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Malachi 3:6 also assures us that the LORD changes not. He is not fickle wanting good for us one moment and evil the next. He cannot be tempted to do evil; He never even considers it. It is not in the realm of possibility. It can never happen. God would never do anything to hurt you.

  Indeed the Word of God specifically teaches that the devil is the author of evil (Ezekiel 28:15). He is a liar (John 10:44); he is a murderer (John 10:44); he came to steal and to kill and to destroy (John 10:10). He is the tempter (Matthew 4:3) and the accuser of God’s people (Revelation 12:10). He has the power of death (Hebrews 2:14). Although many times it may appear in the Old Testament as if God causes many negative, hurtful things, we can rest assured that He does not. It is not part of His nature. God is ALL GOOD and the devil is ALL BAD.

  Equally absurd is how people want to play around with the devil. Folklore abounds with people who make deals with the devil. People still think they can out smart him and get him to do things for them that God will not. They want to play around with drugs and sex. They want the good feeling, and think there is no price to pay. They want to see how far they can go with the world and still maintain fellowship with God. They want to use the devil to provide things they do not think God will.

  The Devil never does anything ultimately good for anyone. Because of his parasitic nature and how closely he counterfeits the truth of God at times he may appear that way. The Word in II Corinthians 11:14 says that Satan presents himself as an angel of light; HE IS NOT. God is not part good and part evil and neither is the devil. God is entirely good and the devil is entirely bad.
Some people do not trust God; they do not believe that God always has their best interests in mind. Because they have reservations about God’s goodness, they often question His will. God’s integrity is suspect in their minds. It shouldn’t be. He is good always, and His will is always good, acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:2).

  Again in Part II of LIGP I do my best to explain the Hebrew idiom of permission as a biblical figure of speech. As such, it is used with precision and can be documented and understood with clarity. When we recognize that figure we can maintain our clarity of thought and rest knowing that God is good always. There are two major factors that contribute to the frequency of the idiom of permission in God’s Word, especially the Old Testament.

  First, the adversary and his activities were not fully exposed until Jesus Christ made a show of them openly. Second, man’s freedom of will to accept or reject the law of God allows him to both accept God’s Word and appropriate the blessings or to reject God’s Word and receive the consequences. Seeing these two factors in the context we are reading further broadens our understanding of the use of this Hebrew idiom.

  Though the apparent discrepancies should have attracted the attention of Bible students and therefore been the subject of careful study, for the most part it has not happened. This partially explains the idea of the half-good, half-evil God that many accept, and it is also responsible for the ignorance of the adversary and his devices that many people have.

  The Old Testament was written for the Hebrew people. They understood this idiom just fine. They generally didn’t have the trouble with it that we do. But if the idiom is confusing why use it? One of the reasons the Bible uses this Hebrew idiom of permission is to emphasize the sacred trust of free will that God has given us.

  When it says God does evil, it emphasizes that God has given man the opportunity to choose between right and wrong. Man can choose to do good or evil because God has given him free will, and God will never violate our free will. He so loves our freewill choice to believe Him. He so cherishes our loving obedience to His will that He emphasizes it time after time with this figure of speech, the idiom of permission.
God has put into our hands the awesome privilege of choosing.

  Joshua also demanded that the people choose. After reminding them of everything God had done for them, he says:

  That’s a choice we all must make. The Psalmist says in Psalm 119:173, “Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts.” When we choose the Word we will always be blessed ultimately. (Even if we do not see it or understand it at the moment.)

  As we all know, each language has its own idioms. In fact, many dialects of the same language frequently use words idiomatically. The comment, “That girl is phat!” may be understood in two very opposite manners by people whose speak the same language but are unfamiliar with the idiom.

  Indeed, idiomatic expressions that in one language may be perfectly understood may make little or no sense in another. If we, because of ignorance of the idiom, take as literal what is said only figuratively, we will most definitely have problems understanding what is meant.

  Have any of you ever given someone a piece of your mind? After how many times of doing so are you in danger of not having enough remaining? Of course, my English dictionary says that the phrase “to give someone a piece of one’s mind” is an idiom that means “to rebuke sharply.” Now, if I were to use that idiom last week with our French house guests it may not have communicated very well.

  If I ignore the idioms you use when you speak to me, I’m going to have terrible problems understanding you, since the literal understanding of what you say will not make much sense to me. But if I recognize the idiom you are using, I will not have such a problem since I understand its figurative meaning.

  The same is also true with the idioms of the Hebrew language that are used in the Bible. If we ignore these idioms and take as literal what is said by them only figuratively, then we are bound to have terrible problems in understanding what the Word wants to tell us. One of the most frequently used Hebrew idioms is “the usage of active verbs to express, not the doing of the thing but THE PERMISSION of the thing which the agent is said to do.” In other words, I may say that I did something when I’m not actually the one that has done it. It is the ignorance of this very important and frequently used Hebrew idiom that has caused all this confusion about the way that God appears to act in the Old Testament.

  God is love and light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. However, if we ignore the before mentioned Hebrew idiom we may conclude that He is not always like that. He has bad moods, and you better not catch Him in one. When He gets angry He’s not nice.

  Next week we will look at four examples of the usage of this Hebrew idiom in the Bible, and we will see how God emphasizes man’s freewill choice. We can choose to obey or not obey. We will look at David numbering Israel, the smiting of the firstborn of Egypt, God deceiving His people, and being led into temptation.