Pro 16:4  The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.
Pro 16:5  Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Though they join forces, none will go unpunished.
Pro 16:6  In mercy and truth Atonement is provided for iniquity; And by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil.
Pro 16:7  When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

The God of the bible is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. One of my friends calls this the fast food of God, the Triple O’s. I guess as long as it helps you remember it, run with it.

• Omnipotent means to have unlimited power. The ability to do anything, like creating everything by simply speaking it into existence.
• Omniscient means to know everything. The ability to see the course of the universe at the same time as knowing every hair on your head, or in my case, the lack thereof.
• Omnipresent means to be everywhere at the same time. The ability to be in everything to everyone, in that tragic event across the world, and also right beside you at the same time.

God, being the creator of everything, has no limit of power, wisdom, or time. He is not confined to the creation; he supersedes it. He created it all for Himself, in that He would get the glory for His creation.

And this is where it gets hard for us to understand. He even created the wicked for the day of doom.

Wait, how is that loving? Does this not point to an evil God? Doesn’t this show us that He just wants to make us suffer for His enjoyment?

No, it just means that He created us to be free. True love does not constrain. True love does not suffocate. True love does not enslave. It gives you free will to choose.

He has created you in His image, knowing you before you were in your mother’s womb, and you get to choose the path of righteousness or wickedness. AND whatever you choose, He will use it for Himself.

It’s because of sin that we have wickedness, and He used that very same wickedness to crucify His only begotten Son on that cross so that He could raise Him again in three days, giving us hope and understanding for the wickedness of the world.

When we see the events that led to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, we can see one thing in the hearts of men: the pride of sin.

It is our pride that put Him on that cross. It is our price that mocked Jesus as He carried His cross. It is our pride that spat on a man who was suffering. I know, if you’re here reading this right now, you’re thinking, I don’t have that kind of pride. I assure you, you do. Every sin starts as a seed and grows into the kind of hatred for things that are pure and righteous because of pride. It only takes the right circumstances, the right timing, and the right demons to provoke us, and we would be those people who took pleasure in experiencing the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour. I believe you cannot come to Christ and receive His gift without that realization of the power sin has over us. The more we live in sin, the more pride leads our steps, the more we are an abomination to the Lord. AND He still died for you so that He could be with you and transform you from that sin.

It is those who deny Him. Those to take pleasure in their sin. Those that mock Him. Those who join forces in an attempt to rule this world, believing they can remove God from His throne, will be punished. We must understand, it is not that God wants them to be punished; He did EVERYTHING to keep them from being punished. He holds that door open. He keeps knocking, saying, If you let Me in, I will save you. But they choose to deny Him, they choose to go to the path that leads to Hell by telling Him that He is not welcome in their lives. You see, Hell, the righteous punishment for sin, is simply a place without God. A God that uses wickedness for good. A God that redeems evil. A God that saves. In the end, the prideful chose their punishment by hiding themselves from the presence of the Lord. Yet another lie told by the serpent, that you can hide yourself from an omnipresent God. But in the end, in the life after this one, God will honor your pride and deliver you to the place where He is not present. A place where the wicked are not redeemed. A place where there is no hope. A place where love no longer convicts the heart of man. A place where no man will ever get to hear the most precious words that every believer can’t wait to hear one day…Well done, good and faithful servant.

Those of us who know God. Those of us who received His mercy and His truth. Those of us who FEAR the Lord our God, depart from evil. Allow me to clarify that word fear, as many take it out of context. This word, fear, is morally reverent. It’s the understanding that God is perfect and we are not. God is truth, grace, merciful, loving, and forgiving in absolute. And we cannot understand that in its fullness, as we can only experience His traits in this realm in a relative manner because of our sin. Our fear of God comes from a place of knowing; we cannot understand the fullness of God in this realm, and yet, we walk in faith, departing from evil. Not because we fear a punishment from God, but because we don’t want a single second in a place that is void of Him. Not because we fear He will send us to hell because we disobeyed Him in our sin, but because we were marching our way to hell in song and dance together in unison of our pride parade.

Ah, pride parades. Is there not a better visual of what these verses are talking about than pride parades? These people think they’re all about love and acceptance. They sing and dance and wear the colors of the rainbow that lack one color…but that’s for a different message. They accept the views of all people…except those who fear God because we warn them of their path. We tell them of their doom. We have the wisdom of God that they lack because we fear God. And, I must ask, in our departing from evil, did we forget to express grace, mercy, love, or forgiveness? You know, the very thing God showed us that we did not deserve. Did we treat the least of His, as the most? Despite the abomination, despite the mockery, despite sin, I can’t help but understand the message of the Gospel where God is knocking. God wants to redeem. God wants to heal. God wants us not to suffer. To that I ask, when it comes to the things God calls an abomination, are we acting in accordance with His image? Are we presenting condemnation to those in sin, or walking in the love of the Holy Spirit that desires to convict?

Now to that last point. When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Luk 2:52  And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

We are to mirror our Lord and Saviour. We are to be His light in this wicked and fallen world. We are to increase in the wisdom, which begins with the fear of the Lord, we are to increase in stature, being of respect, and gain the favor of God, and man.

Now hold on, Jesus said that the world would hate us because they hated Him first. Yes, that is also true. But that is not our finale. That is not our resting place. That is not where we take our boots off and settle that the world would hate us because we love Him. There was a point when I was an enemy of God. There was a life where all I served was my pleasure. A time where I worked 5 days a week to live for the weekend. A time when I lived to get high. A time when I worshipped the influence of the devil’s music and entertainment. A time when I paraded in my sin, and I laughed and mocked those who lived by the word of God. They were missing out on all the fun. A life full of hangovers, teenage unplanned pregnancy, molestation, mind alteration, and drug overdoses. You believers had it all wrong, according to my logic.

And, it was because of the increased stature of those who walked in the wisdom of the Lord, in favor of both God and men, that I got to know what the gospel truly was. It was those who walked in the community and in my life with humility who showed me better ways. As I look back, it was those who didn’t show me condemnation, those who didn’t focus on my ways, who didn’t tell me that I was going to hell for my actions, that instead, focused on the love, mercy, and grace of God that I heard. The fear of the Lord, the reality that I was headed to hell in a one-way VIP bus with no stops on the way, was their driving factor to help point me to God.

Ok, while I have used myself as an example, this isn’t about me. The point is this. Something I think many have forgotten. The gospel saves. Jesus saves. We do not. Any by that we must be ready to present the gospel clearly and with the authority the Word of God has. However, while growing in favor with God, are we growing in favor of mankind? Or are we just shaping our lives and using our tongues in ways that mankind will hate us because that is what Jesus said would happen? This is another one of those great Christian paradoxes. We seek the favor of man, knowing that man very well might hate us because of the light of Christ we shine. We cannot present the gospel in a way that will be received, without the favor of man. We go out to disciple the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded us.

Pay attention to the order of that paraphrased verse. Teach them, baptise them, teach them to obey. What does it take to teach people so that we can bring them to Christ? We must have their favor. They must want to learn from us. We must become more like Christ, who gained the favor of God and man by pleasing God so that our enemies will be at peace with us.