Today we're gonna show how God's presence can either curse you or bless you. We will also show why a loving God could send unsaved Christians who profess Jesus as "Lord" in their lips but not in their hearts to hell or outer darkness. We'll demonstrate that God doesn't send people to hell, as much as they also send themselves there based on their heart.
Remember the Ark of the Covenant in Samuel and David's time? The Philistines once captured the Ark from the Israelites and took it back with them. In 1 Samuel 5 are some pretty hilarious accounts of what the Ark, the container of God's presence (or Shekinah glory), did to the Philistines who by being enemies of Israel made themselves enemies of God.
After the Philistines took the ark back to their homeland, it became a curse wherever it was. Statues of their false gods were falling flat on their faces, tumors broke out [some other translations say hemorrhoids broke out -- if you don't think God has a playful sense of humor, you may need to read the bible more carefully
if you don't believe me, read the end of Jonah) it was causing so much havoc that the Philistines eventually wanted to have *NOTHING* to do with God's presence and glory and they sent it away.God's presence and glory brings curses among his enemies, but among those who are his children, it brings blessing!
We all know what happened to the ark after it resided in Obed-Edom.
2 Samuel 6:12
"And it was told King David, “The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.”
It was this very blessing that made David jealous, so he went to retrieve it because no one loved God's presence like David did!
So it seems like when we are in God's presence, how his presence affects us depends on whether we are his enemies or his children (whereby we have his life and thereby the righteousness of Christ in us). Since God's presence is so overwhelmingly powerful, being an enemy of God is really a bad thing!-- and you also really don't want to be God's enemy when he comes back because in Revelation 19 it says Jesus' robes are dipped in the blood of his enemies! Is there anywhere in the bible where it says that self professed Christians could be God's enemies - or not have God living in them?
1 John 2:15
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
If God is living in you-- you have to have the love of the Father because God is love! So if you love the world, it's likely he aint' in ya! Where else is this hinted?
James 4:4
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Is it becoming clear yet? God doesn't just want part of our hearts-- he wants all of it! Giving even part of our hearts away is like doing what the Israelites did by mixing Idol worship with worship of the one true God, Jehovah which is clearly not acceptable to him. Remember the first commandment that Jesus said we should follow above all else? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind!
Does the bible say God comes to live in us if we make a simple profession?
John 14:23
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Tying it all together we see that God comes to live in us only after we whole-heartedly love him and by doing so obey him by keeping his word. This means following what Jesus said! And he said some pretty hard things like love and forgive your enemies!
I've studied some interesting NDE accounts where people who nearly died and ended up in hell asked God to give them a chance and take him to heaven. In these cases, God actually complied with their request-- and when they got there-- the manifest glory and presence of God blasted them away! They couldn't handle it because they didn't have Christ's righteousness and holiness abiding in them! Their hearts which were defiled with bitterness, strife, envy and un-forgiveness couldn't handle God's manifest holiness and they shriveled and pleaded with God to cast them into hell instead. The presence of God in heaven is so heavy that they'd rather go to hell than enter into heaven, because by living worldly lives and thereby serving Satan even unknowingly, they are enemies of God and become incompatible with his holiness.
(If you'd like to learn more about near death experiences, visit my other website at http://eternityinourheart.com)
There's a verse in Psalms 37:4 that says God will give you the desires of your heart. I believe God does this even to the extent when people desire things other than him. If people give their lives to the world, God gives them up to what they want (sound familiar? In Romans 1 it says 'and God gave them up to their lusts') and gives them to share the same fate as the master that they chose to serve in their life-- false idols whose end is destruction. The world is passing away with is desires but he who does the will of God abides forever! 1 John 2:17.
God is merciful and loving but he can't help who he is - he is a holy God! Because he wants so much for us not to end up there-- he sent his Son to die for us and he sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in us. But we have to play according to the rules of who he is.
It would be unmerciful and unloving if he told us that getting to heaven only required a simply profession of faith with our lips but not our whole heart-- only to find out that all of us are incompatible with heaven once we get there. Instead he told us narrow is the way to life. This way is Jesus and the words that he spoke telling us how to walk the narrow way. This includes things contrary to our human wisdom like loving our enemies and forgiving our brothers and sisters who have dearly hurt us. It's hard to do but when you actually follow what Jesus says out of love, you will experience his presence and grow in intimacy with him.
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