Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good good morning, dear special people out there in cyber-land..

I will try to be brief. Becki and I have agreed to take on a walk/jog in less than 5 minutes. Wish you could join us.

I notice a phrase appearing twice in the reading for today. It bears a thought that is not very much regarded in our world…not even in the Christian community…”God’s wrath” (v. 1) and “wrath of God” (v. 7). I only suggest that as you hammer out your Biblical worldview…something we are called to do with “fear and trembling”…don’t overlook or ignore this important component.

Oh oh…I’m already over 5 minutes. Why does it take so long to think? My mental computer is extremely slow. I wish I could go down to the mental computer store and buy a faster upgrade. Oh well…I guess I’m stuck with what I’ve got.

Love, Dad/Ray

We earthlings sure live with a lot of temptation to critique The Almighty—to pass judgment on THE JUDGE. But our limited range of awareness, perspective, and capacity simply do not provide us with all the answers we crave. And the dangerous tendency is to conclude that The Almighty is not really as almighty as our traditional Bible theology declares. After all, this is not fair, and that’s not fair…etc. How could a good God allow such unfairness to exist?

This scene in Revelation 15 actually goes a long way in supporting my personal faith. For if I can believe that this setting is true, where faithful believers are gathered in a heavenly celebration having been killed by tribulation persecutions (which doesn’t seem very fair), then I have to also believe that what they are saying in song is true—that the Lord God Almighty is beyond fair in all His ways. I believe they are being endued with a special gift of revelation so as to be seeing things with a whole lot more clarity than I have right now. The end of their brief song declares that “your righteous acts have been revealed” (v. 4). The Almighty obviously withholds that full revelation for then—not now.

This is not a unique theme within heaven’s songs and testimonies. Looking ahead into chapter 16 I notice that a major angel affirms, “You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, the Holy One” (16:5). Even the altar in this heavenly drama is given a voice and states, “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (16:7).

I’m thinking that if I fail to bolster and maintain my faith foundations with this kind of information and reasoning, I can too easily yield to the kind of temptation I mention in my lead sentence. And that is both dangerous and not fair. Please agree—it’s not really fair for limited knowledge to think it can adequately contend with Infinite Knowledge.