Why Is God Sometimes “Violent”?

 

  My tiny young daughter looked pale and faint in the family photo.  She didn’t seem to have much energy at home.  She didn’t seem as happy as she should either.  I shared my concern.  Soon we were at the doctor’s office.  Tests and scans were scheduled and run.

  The results were concerning.  Serious cancer had grown and was spreading rapidly.  Aggressive action was needed immediately.  They would try to kill the cancer with chemicals, if they could.  They hoped it would at least shrink it to make it easier to cut out and kill.

  Of course we prayed for her.  Multiple chemo treatments to kill or shrink the cancer nearly killed my daughter.  She lost her will to fight.  She wouldn’t eat.  They told me that, “If she will eat anything, give it to her.”

  I had been pulling her in a little red wagon through the halls of the hospital from time-to-time, to try to keep up her spirits.  So I put her in the wagon, and began pulling her around.  We came to a vending machine.  One offering was colorful little M&Ms candies. Hmm.  Would these do the trick?  Thank God she started eating again!

  That was too close a call for me.  I told the doctors my concern that, if she went through any more chemo, it might kill her.  They decided it was time to cut her open.  Before she came out of the Operating Room, as the doctors came out, they told me what they found.

  The cancer was so bad that some of it had teeth, and some had hair!  They had done their best but, for important reasons, could not remove all the cancer.  So, she recovered somewhat, but needed ongoing chemo treatments at home.  She suffered hearing loss from all the chemo, and had to start using a special hearing aid in a box.

  Besides other complications, the cancer came back, and she’s had to violently fight cancer her whole life.  But, by the grace of God, she still lives to be a fine young woman.  She has been working, as well as encouraging others who are fighting cancer.  I am proud of her.

  Of course, I wish we had discovered the cancer earlier.  The doctors looked for cancer on her at her birth but, for legitimate reasons, did not see it.  That is the first problem with cancer.  Sometimes we just don’t see it.  Or, we see it but just don’t realize it for the cancer it is.  There can be dire consequences for letting it go!

  Cancer can spread and change forms, sometimes rapidly!  It might start out small, and that’s the time to aggressively, in fact “violently” if necessary, remove it!  Because the more it spreads, the harder it is to stop!  Chemo and cutting might seem “violent”, but they were, and are, sometimes necessary.  We didn’t want to fill our child with those drugs, but it became necessary.  We didn’t want to cut her open, remove, and kill the part of her that was cancerous, but it became necessary.

  —Just like sin!  The suffering, cancer, and death in our lives began with sin!  And sin can spread like cancer!  God doesn’t want to have to hurt or kill anyone.  He warned us in the Garden that if we sinned, the death process would begin.  But we went our own way.  Now, in love, He’s trying to kill, shrink, and cut out the sin, and what’s causing the sin.

  God is no more “violent” than we and the doctors were with our daughter.  The violence we see in the world, and what might appear to be “violence” on the part of God, is because of the moral and spiritual cancer we’re somehow being taught not to call “sin”.  Let’s see it and call it what it is, “sin”!  Let’s stop it as gently as possible, but let’s stop it!  It’s growing rapidly now!

  If you look honestly into The Word of God, The Bible, especially the Old Testament, and really open your eyes, you will see God using various means to remove the cancer of sin.  You will see God cutting out sin, and giving that space to others He warns not to sin.  —Those He loves who need that space for their use.

  Again and again you will see God warning them not to sin.  When He gives direction to cut out the sin, He sometimes tells them to cut it out entirely.  That was not “violent”, but necessary.  His instruction was not always followed.  That sin was not always cut out entirely, and we see the damage they did to themselves for not cutting it out of their lives entirely.  And the cancer of sin has grown much worse than it might have.  Sin is now growing aggressively.  We warn, and make a little progress, but only God and His Son Jesus can completely reverse sin.

  One of the bad things cancer can do is to trick the body into thinking the cancer is OK, so that the body doesn’t fight it.  Another is to actually get the body to support it.  We see sinners doing the same thing.  They’ve tricked many of us into thinking they’re OK.  Many of us are actually supporting their behavior.  This has been getting worse for such a long time that we’ve become accustomed to it, and don’t see it.

  But the story can have a happy ending for those who confess their sin, try to forsake it, and look to Jesus Christ to take the death penalty for their sin.  They obtain a right relationship with God and Christ.  They are bound for eternity in Paradise when Christ returns.  Meantime, lets see sin, confess it, forsake it, and do our best.  Let’s rely on the unmerited favor of God, also known as “grace”, to forgive our daily sins as we confess and forsake those too.  Again, let’s do our best to live sinless.  And, “May God Bless You!”