Wednesday: God Does Not Afflict Willingly

Daily Lesson for Wednesday 29th of January 2025

Throughout the Bible, God repeatedly displays His passion in favor of the downtrodden and the oppressed and His corresponding righteous indignation against the victimizers and oppressors. If there were no evil, God would not be angry. His anger is only and always against that which harms His creation.

According to Lamentations 3:32-33, God does not afflict willingly (literally, God does not afflict “from His heart”). He does not want to bring judgment against evildoers, but love finally requires justice.

This truth is exemplified in how long God continued to forgive His people and repeatedly grant them opportunities to repent and be reconciled to Him. Again and again, through the prophets, God called out to His people, but they refused to listen (see Jeremiah 35:14-17, Psalms 81:11-14).

Read Ezra 5:12 and compare it with Jeremiah 51:24-25,44. What does this explain about the judgment that came upon Jerusalem via the Babylonians? (See also 2 Chronicles 36:16.)

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According to Ezra 5:1-17, after the people persistently and unrepentantly provoked God to anger, He eventually withdrew and “gave” the people “ ‘into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon’ ” (Ezra 5:12, NKJV). But God did so only after there was “no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:16), and God later judged Babylon for the excessive devastation it inflicted upon Judah (Jeremiah 51:24-25,44; compare with Zechariah 1:15).

Many other judgments that Scripture describes as brought about by God are explained as instances in which God “gives” the people over to their enemies (Judges 2:13-14; Psalms 106:41-42), in accordance with the people’s decisions to forsake the Lord and serve the “gods” of the nations (Judges 10:6-16, Deuteronomy 29:24-26). God’s anger against evil, which will finally culminate in the eradication of all evil once and for all, stems from His love for all and from His desire for the final good of the universe, which itself has a stake in the whole question of sin and rebellion and evil.

How does the fact that God does not want to bring judgment against anyone affect your understanding of divine anger and wrath? If God is slow to anger, should we not be more patient and long-suffering with those around us? How can we do so while also protecting and caring for the victims of wrongdoing?

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