Punished by God

Have you ever been punished by God? I have. It is not fun at all! In fact, it is terrifying to realize you have disobeyed and disappointed the God of the universe, the One who has complete power over not only your present but your future as well.

My “come-to-God” moment happened in the summer of 2005 when I was working really hard on a big CD project for a major ministry organization. I was writing original music, putting together the program, and spending long hours producing the music tracks in my home studio. I was working on the project day in and day out.

It bears mentioning that when you are a Sabbath-keeper who is involved in doing church work or religious work of any kind, the line often gets blurred about whether you are “working on the Sabbath” or not. The rationalization generally ends up being, “But this is the Lord’s work, and it’s religious. I can work on it 24/7 if I want because it’s okay to do Sabbath things on Sabbath!” The tendency is to set aside the whole “rest” aspect of Sabbath and just do whatever one has to do to get the job done.

One Friday night I was in the thick of the production process, diligently mixing down some music tracks. It was very late, and I was really tired… but I had SO much to do! Who could afford to waste a single minute in sleep? The Voice Of My Conscience softly mentioned that I should put my work away, but I kept putting it off. “I’m just going to do one more run through… mix down one more track…” I kept telling myself.

TVOMC became a little more insistent, but I didn’t want to stop what I was doing so I continued to ignore it. Ignoring the Voice started to make me a little twitchy and nervous, just a bit on edge, but still, I continued working.

It doesn’t take a prophet to figure out what happened next. All of a sudden my very complex music program completely and totally crashed. Restarting the computer multiple times didn’t help. Praying didn’t help! The program wouldn’t even boot up, and all of the songs I had worked so hard on were suddenly unavailable.

I didn’t need to hear TVOMC anymore to realize that I had done a very, very foolish thing by disobeying the Voice of Almighty God. My Father wanted me to get some rest, but using Him as an excuse, I had blown off His instruction. I knew deep in my heart without a single doubt that the program crash was entirely my fault! I just didn’t know how I was going to deal with the ramifications of what I had done, or even what those ramifications would be.

Practically sobbing, I ran downstairs, woke Beau up, and confessed what had happened. Being a wise, discerning man, he immediately put two and two together. “Don’t even go near your computer for the rest of the Sabbath!” my computer whiz husband admonished me. “I’ll take a look at if after Sabbath is over.”

All day long, I sat around glumly. My heavenly Father had chastised me and I knew it. I felt embarrassed, angry, and afraid. I scowled as songs like “Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way…” ran in annoying circles through my head. “Easy for other people to sing,” I thought darkly. “They’re not sitting here after just being punished by God! They wouldn’t be so happy about singing that song if they were in my shoes. They really don’t mean what they are saying at all!”

Along with my anger was a great deal of sorrow. I felt truly ashamed that I had disobeyed my Creator, and I desperately wanted to know that He had forgiven me. From a practical viewpoint I was also worried about my program and data. Would my punishment be the loss of the project? At the very least, would I have to repeat my work?

The story thankfully had a happy ending. After the Sabbath ended and we had prayed for God’s forgiveness and blessing, my brainy computer geek husband was able to finally get the program to work again, although it took even him quite some time. I was able to salvage my songs and my project came in on time. But a valuable lesson had been learned – for the rest of the project I was very careful to completely stop working on the project during Sabbath hours in order to rest.

Although we don’t generally like to consider the issue of Heavenly discipline, there are multiple occasions listed in Scripture where God brings down punishment on believers who disobey Him. One such person He chastised and punished was the apostle Paul. Paul openly admits that it was God who punished him with a “thorn in the flesh” for being, of all things, too “boastful”.

Indeed, if you consider the sum of Paul’s writings, you will find a lot of boasting. Paul boasts about the flock he is shepherding, he boasts about his successes in the ministry, he boasts about the grand visions and revelations he sees that no one else does—and all of these boastful statements point back to himself. In the end, he, Paul, is really the only one being elevated in his boasts; not God and not the others Paul is leading.

As Christians, we often attempt to reframe Paul’s boastful comments by insisting that Paul was, of course, “humble”, but that he just liked to “boast” about his “spiritual successes” in the ministry. Upon closer scrutiny, such a thought does not  make any logical sense. Truly humble people do not boast, especially about themselves! Furthermore, our Father would have no reason to mete out punishment for being humble and acting with humility!

Jesus said,

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”[1]

Paul’s religious boasting is what the Pharisees had been doing, and it was exactly what Jesus had taught his own disciples not to do. In many ways the goal is not “how big the personal ministry is getting”, but rather “how we are personally upholding what God taught us to be and to do” within His Law.  The Eternal One tells us quite clearly what He thinks about hubris in the hearts and minds of His people and what such arrogance is like from His perspective. Samuel wrote, speaking of King Saul:

“For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.”[2]

God equates arrogance with the sin of idolatry, self-worship, and self-idolization. In other words, such idolatry is a form of worshiping one’s self; a putting of one’s self even before Almighty God! This kind of idolatry, self-idolization and self-worship—especially within a religious context—violates the First Commandment. We are, in essence, ceasing to put God first and have now put ourselves first; we  elevate the creation above the Creator.

From the data we are given, we can extrapolate quite a number of characteristics about Paul and his ministry. It is most likely safe to say that Paul didn’t just bring up this issue of his boasting and his “surpassingly great revelations” in his letter to the Corinthian church out of thin air. For some very compelling reason, Paul indeed felt the need to write about this issue, and what it was that God had done to him! As such, Paul addresses the issue head on, and with all of the flair he is capable of.

Paul begins by giving us his version of the story. First, he offers that he likes to boast about his successes in the ministry. He boasts about the surpassingly great revelations that he has been receiving from God; indeed he asserts that God has taken him either bodily or in the spirit into the “third Heaven”. Paul is convinced that it is God who has been “blessing him” in the extreme.  He concludes that because of his boasting about his blessings and revelations and successes, our loving Father has given him “a thorn in the flesh” to keep him humble.

Paul says,

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”[3]

Before we get too focused on what this “thorn” actually was, let’s at least try to be as objective as possible for a moment about what Paul says and then does about this “thorn in the flesh” punishment from God.

In Paul’s own words, God is chastising Paul for his boasting—his conceit. Paul is being punished, chastised, and disciplined by his Creator for his hubris. Rather than address his own sin and repent of the issue of hubris, Paul comes up with a uniquely odd and even appalling response to what God has done. After acknowledging that God has indeed disciplined him, Paul’s response to God’s chastisement is to make an excuse and blame it on God. Paul says that God said to him:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

This is a ridiculous justification. Every Christian on the planet should realize and understand that God calls his people to repentance for our “weaknesses”, our sins. God does not call on us to keep sinning so that we should use his grace, his willingness to forgive, as some kind of license to keep on sinning! This was the admonishment of the book of Jude—not to respect anyone who used God’s grace as a license to continue sinning! [4]

God says,

“… Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!”[5]

 

The other very glaring issue here with regard to God’s Character and His response to Paul—and it is one that Christendom completely misses—is that God will always forgive the truly repentant heart.

Always.

I spoke earlier of my very dear friend who was raised in Satanism. Because of her background of brutal abuse and ritualistic sacrificial events, Shelly has had some severe and ongoing problems with “demonic attachments”, or what you and I would call demons. One literally does not want to look into her eyes when a demon is manifesting because the demon’s countenance is so visibly repulsive and evil.

One thing I have discovered while working with Shelly is that these demons will not leave if she is not ready to give up the sin that opened the door to the demon in the first place. It is not a matter of “ordering the demon out in the Name of God” as one sees in popular movies or reads in popular books; it is rather a matter of encouraging the afflicted person to submit to God, and give up the particular sin they are holding on to in order to gain their freedom from the devil. It all comes down to personal choice. God will not force anything on His children; not even freedom from spiritual darkness!

It is truly amazing how quickly God will kick a demon out if the afflicted person submits their will to His, renounces and repents of the evil deeds that brought the demon in, and truly humbles  him or herself before God, asking for freedom and mercy. Watching our Father reward a formerly oppressed individual with life-changing freedom is an amazing thing!

God says of Himself,

“AHEYEH, AHEYEH God, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”[6]

There are a multitude of other verses in the Bible that all describe God’s willingness to forgive a repentant heart. Yet, for some reason, Paul says that God refused to remove the punishment—refused to forgive him—of his boasting and hubris. Paul says that he pleaded with God three times to take “it” (the punishment/thorn) away, but God flatly refused.

Now remember, Paul has clearly stated that it was God who punished him for his boasting. In response, Paul says that that God told him that, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Unfortunately, Paul has no intention of repenting here; in fact he says, “I will keep on boasting”! This is not just sheer folly in light of God’s Word and Commandments, but it is also soundly and eternally dangerous!

At some point, if we continually refuse to acknowledge our sin and repent, God will indeed turn us over to our own sin. [7] He also declares that He will place a “stumbling block” before all those who fail to follow His Law and Commandments and remain unrepentant in their sin.[8]

Solomon wrote of God’s Character:  

(God’s wisdom is speaking)

“How long will you simple ones [evil ones]

love your simple [evil] ways?

How long will mockers delight in mockery

and fools hate knowledge?

If you had responded to my rebuke,

I would have poured out my heart to you

 and made my thoughts known to you.

But since you rejected me when I called

and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,

since you ignored all my advice

and would not accept my rebuke,

I in turn will laugh at your disaster;

I will mock when calamity overtakes you—

when calamity overtakes you like a storm,

when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,

when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

Then they will call to me but I will not answer;

they will look for me but will not find me.

Since they hated knowledge

and did not choose to fear [respect] AHYH,…”[9]

Paul, unfortunately, lands himself smack in the middle of this dire warning from Almighty God. But just what was Paul’s “thorn”, his punishment, that God gave him and then refused to remove?