Why has God not brought these latest enemies to an end?

Question for us; How well do you understand God’s Love?

Reading Genesis and the story of Noah, we see the lifelong efforts of this holy man doing the will of God as he directed Noah’s task. What is interesting was “the moment that God saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.” (Gn 6: 5 - 6). The time spent in building the Ark is not certain, but during those years God was giving the people of the earth time to repent and turn to God.

Suppose when Adolf Hitler was using the corruption of the Third Reich to murder over six million Jews, God would have stopped the first man and woman from entering the gas chambers. THen he would have sent in legions of angels to release all of the prisoners, and brought Hitler to a point of death thus ending the World War in Europe. Where would we in America be now? Would the wars everywhere come to an end and the many perpetrators of WWII who died because of their atrocities would never have had an opportunity to turn back to God and save their souls. As it is, many leaders of the Third Reich faced the trials at Nuremberg and were hanged for their crimes. In either scenario they had an opportunity to change, but didn’t.

The deeper question asked in the heading falls back to what Jesus said when speaking about his Father’s mercy; “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. “ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?” (Mt 5: 43 -46).

Asking about God’s Love is not a metaphor but a theological premise of how deep this Love really is. When we speak of love as something that is erotic or romantically induced we talk of a human approach to someone or something that is earthly. But when placing that word in the essence of God, this Love is God himself. Abba Father is the perfect expression of God who IS. Point here is that the Love of God is so perfect that when he created a human being he opened the door for each one to return to him, in spite of the sins he commits. When tragedies of the world occur and anyone who has been at the center of their actions, God waits for all of his enemies to repent and turn back seeking his mercy.

So why hasn’t the final blow that will crush the enemies of righteousness happened? Our Loving God who is perfection personified is waiting for the last ones who might return and seek his forgiveness. Will all of them repent and return? No! But no one will ever be able to say God never gave them a chance. In the days of Noah the sinners of the world watched and said ho-hum, he’ll never destroy the earth. But he did.

Time is running short, yet we see how tolerant God’s love is with each one of us. Be thankful we have had that same tolerance that through Christ’s Passion/death/resurrection we are saved and on our way home.

Ralph B. Hathaway