Why Did God Leave?
Recently, the famous atheist Richard Dawkins was asked: “If you are wrong, what will you say to God when you meet Him at the judgment?” Dawkins said he would ask God: “Sir, why did you take such great pains to hide yourself.”
If you are a theist, perhaps you have already asked God that very question. Maybe you believe in a personal God because the evidence of His creative design is so overwhelmingly obvious. But still, you can’t figure out why He isn’t living with us here on earth. Why does God seem to be “hiding” from us? Why does God allow so much evil, suffering and death?
Other theists do not even think of such questions. They simply accept a world without God’s literal presence as if that were some natural thing. But a world without God’s physical presence was not part of His original design. It is very unnatural. In the beginning, God lived face-to-face with man on earth in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2-3). You could walk and talk with Him as you would a close friend; and there was no suffering, sickness or death. But God suddenly left the very planet He had created. Do you know what caused Him to leave?…or what will motivate Him to return?
Perhaps all you know about God was learned through a “wild” street preacher shouting: “You are all going to burn in hell because of your sins…Repent!” Such a one-sided message does more harm than good—making God out to be an evil bully ready to beat humans up for no good reason at all. Yes, it is true that God is angry and we do stand condemned (deserving the judgment of hell) before Him because of our sins. But the reason He is so angry is because “God is love” (Don’t miss the love connection or you’ll miss out on who God is and why He is not here in person! 1 John 4:16). And we cannot understand how God’s love and anger relate unless we realize what sin is. Sin is breaking God’s law. God’s laws are NOT a list of arbitrary do’s and don’ts that He made up because He had nothing else better to do. God’s laws—also called commandments in the Bible— are given “for your good” (Deut. 11:13) i.e., to protect us from the harm of sin. Sin is man’s worst enemy because it destroys relationships—our relationship with others, and, as we shall see, our relationship with God.
Take, for example, the sin of sex outside of the marriage bond between a husband and wife. In the Bible, fornication means sex before marriage and adultery means sex with someone else’s husband or wife. Today’s society is obsessed with many marriage-destroying evils like pornography, indecent T.V. and radio programs, immodest dress, godless, worldly music secular rock, country, rap, etc., romance novels and magazines. These produce millions of children who suffer deep emotional pain from divorce or out of wedlock births. Most of these children will subconsciously follow in the footsteps of their parents’ sin of lust and irresponsibility and create a new generation of hurting, single parent or orphaned children. God wants people to experience happy lives, not sad ones. For this reason He gave us the strict commandment that: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4 NIV).
God is “Crushed”
As much as sin hurts us, there is One it hurts even more—God Himself. God is a very emotional Being who made us with emotions just like His. While it is easier to see that God is much more powerful and intelligent than we are, it’s harder to understand that His emotional attributes are much greater than ours, too. This means God’s capacity to feel emotional pain and hurt when His love is rejected is greater than ours— infinitely greater! “How could the Creator of this giant, beautiful universe be hurt by us,” you ask? Because God views our relationship to Him like a marriage. To get a small glimpse into God’s heart, listen to what He said to those who rejected Him:
“Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols…” (Ezekiel 6:9 NKJV).
How is it possible for us mere humans to “crush” the heart of an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator? By sinning against Him—doing things contrary to His will written in the Bible, e.g., sexual sins, lusting, lying, stealing, hating, murdering, etc.
This brings us to the heart of the good news of the gospel. If someone hurts you emotionally, and you bang your hand on a table, that is venting your anger on something other than the wrong doer. This is exactly what God did two thousand years ago when He had Jesus crucified on a cross in fulfillment of the Bible prophecy (prediction) of the Prophet Isaiah, which was written 600 years before Christ’s birth [Go to ChristianProofs.net to see the astounding prophetic proofs that prove that only the Christian Bible is God’s Word!]:
“Yet it was the LORD‘s will to crush[Jesus] and cause him to suffer…” (Isaiah 53:10 NIV).
Instead of crushing us who deserved judgment, God took His anger and hurt out on Jesus so we wouldn’t have to suffer the judgment of hell.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Rom. 5:8, John 3:16).
Jesus, the Son of God, willingly died a tortuous, “crushing” death on the cross to provide us with a living demonstration of God’s hurt, pain and anger over our sinful rejection of Him.
God is Coming Back!
Yes, God left earth because of our sin and it’s no coincidence that His decision to return comes on the heals of the greatest revival in human history when a large remnant of mankind calls out to Him in love and repentance. (Zech. 12:10-14 cf. Rom. 11:26; Rev. 1:7, 7:14). After His return, He will restore things like they were in the Garden of Eden—“There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain”(Rev. 21:4).
If you want to be a part of God’s coming kingdom of love, joy and peace, you must obey the gospel. After Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose from the dead three days later, He sent Peter and the apostles to preach the gospel to the whole world. In his very first gospel sermon, Peter preached to a large crowd of lost people. Peter said:
“God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:36-38)
These lost people were “cut to the heart” when they realized that their sins had “crushed” God’s heart, causing Christ to be crucified. They accepted Christ’s gift of forgiveness, repented of their sins and, were baptized (immersed in water). But they didn’t stop there. They continued to meet together with other likeminded believers to encourage and help each other turn their backs on Satan’s kingdom of lust and hatred. (Acts. 2:41). Living to please God won’t be easy. So if you are really serious about going to heaven, you must meet with other Christians in a church who are devoted to obeying Jesus commands to: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”’ (Luke 10:27). Do you need help understanding what it means to accept and serve Christ, repent of your sins, or be baptized? If so, contact us: ChristianProofs@Yahoo.com.