“When your dad gets here….”
Those were chilling words my mom would say to me when I would not quit misbehaving. It was a last resort to straighten me up. Upon hearing that statement I knew that when dad got home I was going to have to pay for what I had done. Dad got home, mom told him what I had done, and I paid the price for my actions. Dad took me into the bedroom and would say; “This hurts me more than it does you.” He would then take off his belt and administer the punishment I needed for the thing that I had done wrong. I must admit I did not understand how it hurt him more than it hurt me, but now I know what dad was talking about.
There are those people that might think think that getting a whipping with a belt was too harsh of a punishment. The truth is that I never really looked at it that way because when I was acting up, I knew there would be consequences for my bad behavior. Mom would have handled it herself if I would have straightened up. All I had to do was do what she said and there would have been no painful consequences. In testing the water to see how far I could push mom, I would keep going until I ended up getting in over my head.
Under the old covenant God did personally punish His people when thy turned from His commands.
Ezekiel 23:35; “Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, therefore you shall bear the penalty of your lewdness and your harlotry.’”
There were many instances when God directly punished His children in the Old Testament but we are now under a new covenant. We still suffer when we go against the commands of God because sin has its own consequences, but we now have an intercessor to plead our case. His name is Jesus.
Hebrews 10:12; But this Man Jesus after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.
When we accept and get to know our intercessor, He will represent us to our Heavenly Father. We are, by nature, in over our head and we need to be saved by our intercessor and not have to fear the time “when our dad gets here.”
Mark 16:16; “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
Come and learn more about these things at the Gathering Place every Wednesday evening at 7 and Sunday morning at 9:30 and 10:30. We have youth group and recovery class at 6 on Sunday evening.
