Journeys of a Former Firebrand

13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”” (Genesis 15:13–16, NASB 95)

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“If God is so good, why does He allow so much suffering?” Have you ever heard someone ask that question before? It’s actually quite common.

What people don’t realize is that it has a common answer, at least a simple one, anyway. The answer is right in front of them, and they don’t even know it.

God doesn’t cause any suffering. We do. It’s our wrongdoing that causes so much strife on this earth.

And He isn’t obligated to stop anything we do.

This leads to another surprising fact. God does sometimes intervene. Even though we should reap the full consequences of our sin, He still stops certain actions. We all deserve hell, yet He still created heaven for some people through the death of His Son. He should have punished us. Instead, He sometimes rewards us.

What we have in this passage before us is an example of God showing His mercy.

Why?

Because…

^{God is extremely patient and merciful.}

The Canaanites weren’t nice people. They lived in atrocious sexual sin. Think Sodom and Gomorrah, and you probably have the right idea. God destroyed those and many other places around them.

However, there were a lot of other places God spared. In fact, He reserved judgment on the majority of Canaanite peoples living at the time of Abraham. Even though they committed heinous sin, even sacrificing their children to their gods, the one true God withheld His hand of judgment.

Why?

Because “the iniquity of the Amorite” wasn’t yet “complete.”

What does that mean? It means God was giving grace and mercy to people so that they would have time to repent and turn to Him. Now imagine that. Killers, murderers of their own children, sexually promiscuous people. God gave them all more time to turn to Him.

Why?

Because…

^{God in His mercy sometimes gives people second chances.}

This isn’t something people deserve. The sexually twisted, murderous Amorites should have been toasted like Sodom. Instead, God gave them time to repent of their odious sin and turn to Him.

In fact, He gave them a few centuries to turn from their wicked ways. Because they hadn’t yet fully wasted God’s grace and mercy, He would let them live until the right time came. They had time to turn before God would burn them as He did Sodom and Gomorrah.

Just as God predicted, that judgment came. When His time was just right, God brought a group of ragtag slaves out of Egypt, led them to the very land Abraham once trod and instructed them to destroy those wicked Amorites.

None of this happened until God gave those Canaanite people a few centuries to repent and turn to the one, true God. He didn’t have to give them any time. Instead, he mercifully gave them generations to think about it.

So What?

We are all vessels of wrath, sinners who deserve punishment. We should all burn forever in hell because we committed agregious acts against a holy God.

“I’m not a bad person,” you might say. “I’ve never murdered or stolen anything?”

But our sin isn’t a matter of degree. If we’ve committed one sin against a God who doesn’t know sin and won’t tolerate sin, we have fallen short of His perfect standard (Romans 3:23).

However, in His love, grace and mercy, God sent His perfect, sinless Son Jesus Christ to take on Himself our sin and its penalty so that we, the guilty, could go free. Our sin condemned us. God absolved us through His Son (Hebrews 9:28).

He didn’t have to do this. In fact, it would have been simpler for God to smash His creation into a large ball and start over. He had another plan, though (Ephesians 1:4).

That plan included the death of His Son so that those dead in their sins could have life (Ephesians 2). Christ died for you and me so that His mercy would envelop the human race and provide a way of escape from judgment.

In much the same way as the Amorites, we have time to turn and repent. But don’t squander that time. It may not be as long as you think it is. After all, the Amorites were probably quite surprised when a bunch of desert bedouins took their country and their lives away from them.

God is merciful, but He’s also just. He will require payment for your sins. Will you be ready with the payment Jesus provided? Or will you wait too long just as the Amorites did?

God is good. He is just. The time is short. The stakes are eternal. The choice is yours.