A sinner's redress of grievances against God

“So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” (Gen. 3:24).

Adding salt to the wound. Was it necessary? First He brought the man to confession. But that wasn’t enough. Then He cursed the man’s world. But that wasn’t enough punishment. Then He forced him to slay one of his favorite pets for a sin offering. But that wasn’t enough. Then He drove him out of paradise. But that wasn’t even enough. He followed through with His original threat, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17).

“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” (Gen. 5:3-5).

And all during that 900 year life Adam died a thousand deaths. He saw one son die at the hands of his own brother, and then Adam saw that brother flee and begin a worldwide rebellion against the holy God that Adam still loved. Yet, to Jesus the question would remain, “Did Adam remain faithful to Jehovah to the very end?”

“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” (Rev. 2:10).

“[Christ’s] house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” (Heb. 3:6).

“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise....

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” (Heb. 10:36,38,39).

After all that we suffer, does Jehovah dog us with guilt and shame to the very end?

What kind of incentive do we have to be faithful all our life long if rejection, real rejection from Jehovah is all we get from Him? Rejection! Rejection! Silence from heaven all during our life. And on top of that the threat of Judgment Day if we reject Him after He has been rejecting us! We may find it hard to accept, but all His rejection and continuous accountability is for our good.

We need rejection to keep us straight. We are so weakened by the destroyer that we cannot stay sober and vigilant against his charms without prods from above. We need to be kept under the curse of His Law that we’ve all broken and keep rejecting. Even among our own we get rejection. It’s all over the place. It’s a reality that never goes away.

I had already spent a lot of money paying the publisher for changes I had made to my book on the subject of Revelation’s seven trumpets in relation to the investigative judgment. Yet when I submitted my last edit, I received this unexpected email in return:

___________________

RE: final edit

Tuesday, September 20, 2016 11:06 AM

From: "Bill N______" publisher@t________.com

To:      "David Burdick" b____________@yahoo.com

Cc:      "Timothy H_______" manager@t_________.com  

Hi, David.

We have gone over everything and have rejected your manuscript because of the following:

All design instructions included in the manuscript MUST BE REMOVED (Any remaining will be charged at $3.10 per change if you want us to do it for you)

The Appendices in TB6 MUST be added to the manuscript to be included (we can do this at an estimate of $200-300 additional)

If the above two above problems are resolved by you, the charges will remain as originally estimated at $818.45. (Based on 236,527 words)

There is an additional charge of $36.00 per 1,000 words for anything over 235,527 words.

Thank you,

Bill

___________________

I read, “rejected” and the capitalized demands; and then I felt victimized. What did I do to deserve such strong language? Why couldn’t they be polite? Why couldn’t they treat me like a human? Like a customer?

We need rejection if we’ve done wrong. I had done wrong to the publishing company by my many extensive edits. I had dragged out the publishing process until it had become costly to the publisher and probably confusing to the copy-editor. Even though I didn’t realize it I was causing them to be inefficient in the publishing process. Nevertheless, ignorance is no excuse. I needed to learn, and whether under terms spoken nicely or bluntly I needed to accept the communication. I wasn’t the only customer involved. I had a contract with the publisher; which made the company a customer to me. If I was dragging them around, even without knowing I was, then they needed to let me know to stop it. And it needed to be in black and white in case they needed to resort to the legal system to end this trespass against them.

We need Jehovah’s strong language. Our demon-controlled heart and blinded mind need to hear His blunt terms or we won’t end our trespasses against Him, even if our minds are blinded and we do it all ignorantly.  “Thou shalt not” needs to ring in our ears. Our damage done to Him must be made transparent to the angelic court and to us. It needs to be written in black and white, even in stone. Our mouths are open sepulchers and Satan’s abominable breath poisons our prayers that ascend, our ignorant, faithless demands to the King of heaven. We just don’t know how much we need His bold, blaring message of rejection.

“There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:

And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.

And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;

Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me….

And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?” (Luke 18:2-5,7).

Isn’t God represented by the unjust judge? Why does He bear so long with us before He helps us? The devil whispers into our mind, “Doesn’t He claim to love His children? Isn’t He the God of love? Look at how careless His words treat your sensitive, darling heart! Look at how carelessly He treated David publicly in his own court.”

“THOU ART THE MAN. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I ANOINTED THEE KING OVER ISRAEL, AND I DELIVERED THEE OUT OF THE HAND OF SAUL;

AND I GAVE THEE THY MASTER’S HOUSE, AND THY MASTER’S WIVES INTO THY BOSOM, AND GAVE THEE THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND OF JUDAH; AND IF THAT HAD BEEN TOO LITTLE, I WOULD MOREOVER HAVE GIVEN UNTO THEE SUCH AND SUCH THINGS.

WHEREFORE HAST THOU DESPISED THE COMMANDMENT OF THE LORD, TO DO EVIL IN HIS SIGHT? THOU HAST KILLED URIAH THE HITTITE WITH THE SWORD, AND HAST TAKEN HIS WIFE TO BE THY WIFE, AND HAST SLAIN HIM WITH THE SWORD OF THE CHILDREN OF AMMON.

NOW THEREFORE THE SWORD SHALL NEVER DEPART FROM THINE HOUSE; BECAUSE THOU HAST DESPISED ME, AND HAST TAKEN THE WIFE OF URIAH THE HITTITE TO BE THY WIFE.

Thus saith the LORD, BEHOLD, I WILL RAISE UP EVIL AGAINST THEE OUT OF THINE OWN HOUSE, AND I WILL TAKE THY WIVES BEFORE THINE EYES, AND GIVE THEM UNTO THY NEIGHBOUR, AND HE SHALL LIE WITH THY WIVES IN THE SIGHT OF THIS SUN.

FOR THOU DIDST IT SECRETLY: BUT I WILL DO THIS THING BEFORE ALL ISRAEL, AND BEFORE THE SUN.” (2Sam. 12:7-12).

A cloud hung over David for the rest of His life for his act of rape and premeditated murder. So did a sword, the curse of God. One of his sons raped David’s daughter. Her brother assassinated that half brother and then became an insurrectionist against the Lord’s holy kingdom. David’s life was imperiled, and his wives publicly ravaged, by his son. He lived the rest of his years unable to forget his great sin.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because that wildly popular question builds a satanic straw man, an anti-biblical notion. It feeds God’s people with the insinuations of Satan against God’s righteous rejections. The Bible says that our fallen nature is completely rotten, even the best of us, as Job thought he was. “Behold, He findeth occasions against me, He counteth me for His enemy, He putteth my feet in the stocks, He marketh all my paths.” (Job 33:10,11). God or the boogie man is just out to get me! The cause of my affliction is everyone else but me! Poor me!

“It is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Their feet are swift to shed blood:

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

And the way of peace have they not known:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:10-18).

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23).

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” (Jer. 17:9,10).

Will we submit to His judgment of our character as “exceeding sinful.” (Rom. 7:13). Will we surrender and say, “I have sinned against the LORD.” (2Sam. 12:13). “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.” (Luke 15:21).

If we will say these things, then the scourging Schoolmaster (see Heb. 12:6;Gal. 3:24) will bring us to the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world. There we will see the first glimpse of the love we’ve been waiting for. There we won’t see rejection. From God we hear palpably thundered, “THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED; HEAR YE HIM” (Matt. 17:5)! But from the Provision that He authorized we feel a gentle, merciful touch on our trembling, terrified body, and hear the blessed words, “Arise, and be not afraid.” (Vs. 7). In Him we aren’t treated as an abomination. We see and hear the voice of love that “[loves us] unto the end.” (John 13:1). Men a-dying aren’t men a-lying. Dying men don’t lie. Jesus’ testimony at His very end was “all that was in His heart.” (2Chron. 32:31). “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me.... I in them, and Thou in Me.... Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with with Me where I am.” (John 17:11,23,24).

Wonderful! What love! What acceptance! But, what about the Father’s love? Didn’t Jesus say, “the Father Himself loveth you” (John 16:27)? But He scourges us with His rejection! How is that love? Isn’t that what Baal does?

Where was the love in Nathan’s words to David? “The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.” (2Sam. 12:13). You mean, God was on the verge of killing David? A man who had been chasing after Jesus’ heart before he fell into sin?

If only the sinner could realize how arrogant and devilish he is, he would consent to being killed, forever blotted from existence. If only he could realize what would happen to the universe if sin and sinners had not been confined to this world and allowed to die! And David had to relearn that because he lost the understanding of it completely. But he did relearn it.

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Ps. 51:5). “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.” (Ps. 58:3). David had known the ever-present potential for sin in his heart. He had remained conscious of this truth before his great fall from innocence, but in his raging, violent self-indulgence he lost that great truth from his conscience. And he never would have got it back if God had not especially intervened to bring it back to His servant. Satan quickly turned David into a Nimrod and a Cain. All that David had done by inspired wisdom to build up “an holy nation” and to inspire his people to be “a kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6), he had demolished. He tore it down with his own hands. The kingdom would never again be the same. Forever the people would doubt that God can keep us from falling into sin, and that His righteousness can preserve a nation.

But will we surrender to divine judgment like David did? Or will we forever fight the intimation of rejection that resides in judgment? Will we fall on the Lamb and be broken, as Adam and Eve and Abel did over and over again? Or will we be malicious and insolent and stone cold toward Jehovah as was Cain? And then offer to Him a piece of His own medicine—mutual stonewalling and rejection, and an offering that could never be acceptable to God because it could never lead him to repentance. Will we admit our failure, tremble before our sin, and bow our pride, or will we shake our fist at God and resist accountability to the truth concerning our sinful nature? Will we become repentant or rebellious? Will we become an Abel or a Cain? Here is where the road divides between a dying life and a living death.

The Lord said that Abel’s “blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” (Gen. 4:10). Abel “being dead yet speaketh.” (Heb. 11:4). When it comes to Jehovah and His saints, “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him.” (Luke 20:38). Abel was crucified with Christ, yet he lived by the Spirit of Christ. In his dying life Abel mortified his body by the Spirit in order to mimic his Saviour, until his martyrdom. Then, he would sleep awaiting his resurrection to the God he love, who anxiously awaited that day.

But of Cain the Lord said, “Now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand…. And Cain said unto the LORD,… Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” (Gen. 4:11,14,15). You didn’t die, but your life will make you wish you did. “Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” (Deut. 28:66,67). Of his living death Cain said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” (Gen. 4:13).

Will we be “righteous in [our] own eyes” and “justif[y] [ourselves] rather than God” (Job 32:1,2)? Will we say, “We … were never in bondage” (John 8:33)? “I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.” (Job 33:9)? Will we stubbornly resist sorrow for sin with Babylon the Great, saying, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow” (Rev. 18:7)? Or will we accept the rejection of heaven and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18:13). Will we bow to God’s accountability and declare to the world with a great emperor who bowed and received a heart of gold, “Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” (Dan. 4:37).

All that the King of heaven has done by rejecting us He has done to our innocent Mediator since the beginning. “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” (Isa. 63:9). Jesus was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8). “God left Him, to try Him, that He might know all that was in His heart.” (2Chron. 32:31, cf John 5:39).

“Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.

And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me.

And He went a little further, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:36-39).

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).

“Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” (Heb. 2:17).

Grace is the end of divine rejection for everyone who surrenders up their weapon against the King. And grace Incarnate “is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 10:4). A friendship with Grace Incarnate, the only grace-encased human, is our reward for bowing to the King and being brought to His crucified Prince for our full humiliation, and for divine sorrow to repent and faith to be justified. He who has the Son has grace. He who has not the Son has rightful, divine rejection.

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36).

“Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.

Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.

For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Who knoweth the power of Thine anger? even according to Thy fear, so is Thy wrath.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Ps. 90:3-12).