We are a rebellious people. We rebel against both good things and bad things. It seems like when things are going well, we’re happy. However, the moment that things go awry, we are up at arms.
Some times, it is a good thing and at other times, it is not.
The country I live in righteously rebelled against tyranny and was born out of that rebellion. There are other countries where this type of rebellion is still playing out. Those countries don’t seem to be having the same result that we did more than two hundred years ago.
I’m not really sure why. Perhaps evil has grown ever more powerful. Maybe it is because the tyrants have an easier time in quashing rebellion in this day and age. They don’t have to spend months transporting troops to a hostile climate with no supply chain right behind them.
There are rebellions that go the other way. Ones in which people are fighting to be allowed to become enslaved by their government. They are willing to trade their freedom for a sense of security. They don’t want the blessing that they have because of the sacrifices of their ancestors. They would rather have what they consider an easy life.
The problem, of course, is that life is never ever easy. We are all born. We all live through a life of strife. We all die.
What’s more, after our physical bodies die, we will all face the judgement of God.
He is the one that mankind first rebelled against. Every generation since that first one has continued to rebel again God.
No matter how present he is in people’s lives, when hardship comes, he is almost always the first to be blamed. He is also the one that people cry out to for him to save them.
I am reminded of the Israelites, who rebelled against God almost immediately after he saved them from slavery in Egypt. Every single time something came up, whether it be Moses going off to commune with God for a time or a desire for meat to eat, people cried out and wished they had never left Egypt. They wished they were back in the bonds of an increasingly cruel tyranny.
God forgave them many times over. However, when he finally led them to the land that he had promised their ancestors, their lack of faith pushed them over the edge.
He had promised that they would easily take the land. However, they allowed their fears to increase and, even though two of their number who had spied on the land and said it would be easy to move into, they cried out against God.
They wished that they had died in Egypt, they wished they had died in the wilderness rather than enter the promised land and die there.
They got their wish. Because of their rebellion and disbelief, God condemned them to wander in the wilderness for forty years until all those adults who had spoke against the promise of God had died.
Their sin had a price even though he forgave them. He came close to wiping them out and starting over with Moses but Moses asked him to forgive them and to work through them. He did so, but the price of their sin lasted their entire life.
We have to be careful what causes we embrace and who our rebellion is really against. If we are embracing God and following his guidance, then our rebellion is just and good. If we are looking for an easy life or are trying to force a cause on others, it is something to look at over and over again before acting.
All sin was forgiven at the cross, the pardon for your sin is there for you to ask for. God can and will forgive you if you believe in the sacrifice made by his beloved son, Jesus.
However, with forgiveness, you may still continue to suffer from the choices you made and that is good and right and just. The suffering will last no longer than this lifetime and perhaps less time; however, forgiveness is for eternity.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.