AND THE LORD REGRETTED THAT HE MADE MAN
In my time with God this morning when I was all about me, suddenly God showed me what was on His mind. Grasping my attention and instead of going on and on about me, I was in awe of where He was at. All of a sudden I knew God was grieving, to say the least. He showed me He was troubled about what He had to do, the time coming where He will have to start over again.
Then Noah came to my mind and how God said He regretted making man on the earth.
Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved at heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy, blot out, and wipe away mankind, whom I have created from the face of the ground—not only man, [but] the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air—for it grieves Me and makes Me regretful that I have made them.
Wow, think of it, what a responsibility! Creating what you thought would be beautiful and make you happy only for it to fail. Well, God being God must have known that what He created would fail Him you would think. But what if He did and decided it would be worth all the pain and agony, kind of like us with our kids?
Anyway, I believe that is how it is with God, even though He knew we were going to be a pain that it would be all worth it. Even though some would betray Him, at least there would be some to love and care about Him.
In Genesis where He said He was grieved and He was going to blot out, wipe away mankind and the beasts... and although He knew He had to do it, although He knew it would come to this... He still had pain and we can see that from the word 'grieved'. He was suffering, distressed - He was upset to say the least!!! Also after the flood He put His bow in the sky promising never to flood the earth again.
Genesis 9:16 When the bow [rainbow] is in the clouds and I look upon it, I will [earnestly] remember the everlasting covenant or pledge between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said to Noah, This [rainbow] is the token or sign of the covenant or solemn pledge which I have established between Me and all flesh upon the earth.
I think we so often or at least I do, look to God as someone different than us and really He is the same as we are - we are like Him. In the middle of my complaining, when I realized He was having a worse day than I was, I realized He needed some compassion, some companionship from me, from us who call ourselves His. Maybe that is why He so adores us worshipping Him, it is the only time that we really focus on Him and might hear Him.
So God starts over and we go right back to the same place we were since the day of Noah. God comes up with yet with another plan. He sends His Son to show Himself to the world, to show His love. Jesus went about doing good, healing the sick, raising the dead all the while knowing He would be betrayed. What kind of love is that?
God knew everything that would happen ahead of time of course, but even though He thought it would be worth it because He had a plan to have more of His children come to know who He is. More pain, more sorrow for the Father, for Jesus, as Jesus bore our sickness or pain our sorrow so that we could be free just by believing in Him.
His plan as we all know was to put our sin upon Jesus, that He would take upon our sin, so that it would be as if we never sinned. So that even in our error we could turn, repent, and have things made new again in a second.
What a sacrifice not only for Jesus, but for the Father to watch your plan unfold only to for some, fail again. Aren’t we right back where we were once again? Even though God, even though Jesus, even though... we still haven’t acknowledge God for who He is.
Sure we think we are acknowledging Him and we do to a point, but some of God’s children don’t know Him because we think it is the prayer of salvation that brings us salvation and it is not the prayer itself but it is the action of the prayer that saves us, and that action - is in believing.
If we believe as an action we will have eternal life. If we rely, act and live as though His Word is truth that is believing. The problem is we say one thing and do another which makes our prayer void. We can't just say a prayer and then live in opposition to the Word, the opinion - the heart of God.
That is what is grieving Him now, even many who think they accepted Him but have not, will be turned away because they are really controlled by the enemy - they are self-willed (Matthew 7:21-23) .
I want to give you one example; I hear this all the time and it makes me cringe. Someone tells me they are a Christian and then in the next breath, they are telling me about someone they hate, or someone they are taking to court, etcetera. You get the point, if you say you love God but you hate your brother, God calls you a liar. He said if you hate your brother who you can see, you cannot love God whom you cannot see (1 John 4:20).
God’s return is soon and He is grieving most of all, because we can’t hear Him. Yes, we are listening but are we listening to the point of action, are we listening to the place where we are doing something about what we hear? Are we letting God re-create us by letting Him correct us so that He can prepare us for His return?
God has given us freewill to choose His good ways or to choose evil - love or hate. When we choose Him we choose to follow His laws which are based on love and then on that day when He returns we will be ready.
But, if we decide to choose the ways opposed to God’s law of love which God calls evil we have denied Him and then on that day, the day of His return as you have denied Him, He will you. He won't be rejoicing in that, but He will be hurting, distressed, grieved and in sorrow knowing not only has your heart been hardened toward Him, but that He has to count you as an unbeliever and hear your cries of agony in the place of eternal punishment.
God will do what He has to do again, but He will not enjoy it. God has to protect His children that have chosen Him and He will do what He has to do to keep that promise.
It is apparent that God will rejoice again when life will be made new again, when He creates the new heaven and the new earth and all is done. But meanwhile I believe God has shown me He is grieving at this place in His life and is working so that all we experience His love and be able to make a clear choice before He returns.
His heart is for all of us to live in His love, there is only love that will remain, everything else will pass away.