What God Has Set

As we survey life around us it becomes most evident that God has set a natural law upon mankind. And that law is that mankind must meet death in their life. But what transpires when death takes place in one’s life? What has God revealed to us in His Holy Word concerning this event? We first find that upon death the soul and body of an individual are separated. We find recorded in Ecclesiastes 12:7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was”. Man was formed out of the dust of the ground in the creating of this mortal body as declared by God in Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground”.

We also find that God has set a physical law of death upon man. The physical body must decay and God has set a limitation upon the life of man’s body as recorded in Genesis 3:19 “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”. Our body will decay and return back unto the dust of the ground of which we were formed out of. But what happens to the soul? We also find recorded in Ecclesiastes 12:7 “and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it”. We know from Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”. We find in God creating us that there is a part of us that will return unto God for the purpose of which He has designed it.

Revealed in the word of God is a principle which runs throughout its pages and that is the principle of blessings and curses. One could refer to this as being “rewarded” from God as to how we live in this life. This also has been set by God. Blessings and curses have always been contingent upon obedience to God’s words or commands. In regards to Adam and Eve we find blessings or curses dependent upon obedience or disobedience. In Deuteronomy chapters 27 and 28 we find blessings or curses for the children of Israel dependent upon their obedience or disobedience to God’s commands. And it is no different for us today. There are blessings or curses pronounced upon us in regards to how we handle the commands of God. Daniel makes this remark concerning the resurrection of the dead in Daniel 12:2 “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”. God has set that those in the graves shall awake to either everlasting life or everlasting shame and contempt. And this judgment will be based upon our obedience or disobedience to God and His word.

We all like the idea of coming before God and receiving everlasting life but have you ever thought about coming before God to receive everlasting shame and contempt. Shame means reproach and reproach denotes the state in which one finds himself in the presence of Almighty God. Have you ever thought about being an object of reproach in the eyes of God? We will stand before God being exposed and clothed in humiliation just as God had declared upon Babylon in Isaiah 47:3 “Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man”. Nothing will escape the eyes of God as recorded in 1 Corinthians 4:5 “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God”.

Can you imagine God holding you in contempt for an eternity? Contempt means to repulse, be abhorred, an object of aversion or an object of abhorrence. Can you fathom being the object of everlasting abhorrence from Almighty God? Yes—God is love, but only to them who obey Him, for God will abhor those who disobey. We cannot fully understand in our intellect of what it means to be abhorred by the Almighty; the creator of the universe; the all powerful; the all knowing, for if we did then we would succumb to the awesome fear of being found in that condition before God Himself.

The thought of being abhorred by God Himself should cause us to tremble to the very core of our essence. It would cause us to grasp and lay hold of any hope of being removed from that most terrible condition. Daniel’s statement is reinforced by John’s gospel in John 5:28-29 “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation”. Matthew puts it in the concept of blessings and curses. Matthew 25:34 “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”. The ones that have done good; those who have obeyed God’s command’s, will be blessed by receiving eternal life. But in Matthew 25:41 he states the curse “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”. To be cursed of God means to execrate which is simply to put under a curse; to denounce as evil or detestable; to doom; to imprecate (curse) evil on; to pray against as to wish evil against a person or thing.

My friend, consider the implications of this: living my life in such a way as to be cursed by the Almighty God! We can’t fathom the torment which we will receive from being denounced as evil or detestable by God Himself. How have you been living your life…in obedience or disobedience to God’s word? Will you receive a blessing or will you receive a curse when you stand before God? Does the coming back of Jesus comfort you or does the coming back of Jesus offer no comfort to you? “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18.

Larry Bumgardner