God Means What He Says-II

God said what He meant and meant what He said! Here are some examples of people who learned that point the hard way.

1. Adam and Eve. The denial of this principle begins with the very first sin committed by humans. God plainly told Adam and Eve—there was nothing difficult to understand about His command—that they could eat of any tree of the Garden of Eden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that the day they ate of that tree “thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Well, Satan is usually more indirect than he was in chapter 3, but if he can directly contradict God’s word and get away it, he will. He came to Eve and persuaded her that if she did, indeed, eat of the fruit of that tree “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Eve, of course, believed Satan. But who was right, God or Satan? Jehovah told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the forbidden fruit they would die and that’s exactly what happened because God said what He meant and He meant what He said! Mankind has been suffering ever since because Adam and Eve didn’t believe that.

2. The people of Noah’s day. By Genesis 6, the world had become exceedingly wicked and God decided to destroy it with a flood. One man, Noah, “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (v. 8). Jehovah told Noah what He was going to do and instructed Noah to build an ark to save his family. Noah obeyed (v. 22). But Noah also warned the world of the impending destruction; II Peter 2:5 calls him a “preacher of righteousness.” Did anybody believe him? Just his own family. Did the fact that nobody believed him change what God said? Did God conclude, “Well, since nobody believes I’m going to do this, I guess I better not…”? What did happen? God sent the flood, just as He promised, and only Noah and his family were saved. You see, folks, God said what He meant and He meant what He said, and the fact that nobody believed Him didn’t change a thing. And it won’t change a thing today, either.

3. A man picking up sticks. Here is an interesting story found in Numbers 15:32-36. We find a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. We don’t know his name, we don’t know why he was gathering sticks, we don’t know how many sticks he gathered—we know nothing but that he was picking up wood on the day of rest. He was apprehended, taken before God, and the verdict was “stone him.” The Lord orders that the man be executed. Why? Because in Exodus 31:14, Jehovah had said “You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.” And God said what He meant and meant what He said! And this may sound harsh to us—“well, all the guy was doing was gathering sticks”—but God’s command was clear, He said what He meant, He meant what He said, and Israel, and you and I, need to learn that lesson. If God had let that man get away with defiling the Sabbath, then every one of us would think that we can get away with disobeying God, too. Mankind had to know, as early as possible, that God’s word is absolutely not to be trifled with or presumed upon.

4. Uzzah and the ark of the covenant. David and the people had recaptured the ark of the covenant from the Philistines and were returning it to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 6 tells us they placed it on an ox cart (which wasn’t the way it was supposed to be transported, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment). The oxen stumbled on the way and the ark was about to fall off the cart and possibly be smashed. A man named Uzzah reached out his hand to keep the ark from tumbling. Verse 7 reads “Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.” Why? Again, this seems so ruthless to us—to kill a man because he was trying to keep a holy item of God from possibly be destroyed. Surely he wanted to help God. Very possibly he acted instinctively, stretching out his hand to keep something from falling. No doubt he was sincere in his actions. Why did God kill him? Isn’t this cruel? No, because God had said in Numbers 4:15 “you don’t touch the holy things of God and if you do, you die.” And God said what He meant and meant what He said! And, reader, there are no loopholes in God’s law. Sincerity, instinctive reactions, trying to help God out—it doesn’t matter. Uzzah disobeyed God by touching something holy and the penalty was death.

Because God said what He meant. And He meant exactly what He said. And it really doesn’t matter if we like it or not.

In my next article in this series, I will provide my favorite example of this principle, and then look at some applications for our own lives.