The Opioid Epidemic

Just as we are experiencing an opioid crisis in the natural, we are also witnessing an opioid epidemic in the spiritual.

We love that God is good, but we should never neglect that God is also just.

A.W. Tozer warns, “God’s justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is ‘too kind’ to punish the ungodly has become deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws everyday nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.”

“God’s compassion flows out of His goodness, and goodness without justice is not goodness. God spares us because he is good, but He could not be good if He were not just. When God punishes the wicked…it is just because it is consistent with their deserts; and when He spares the wicked it is just because it is compatible with His goodness; so, God does what becomes Him as the supremely good God,” Tozer noted.

We love the love of God, and we should. But we must not neglect nor deny God’s wrath. God is patient and merciful, but his compassion has its limit.

Proverbs 29:1 says, “Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.”

There is a time when those who continuously refuse to listen, whether individuals, cities, or entire nations, will suddenly be broken, and there is no remedy. Such was the case with Sodom and Gomorrah, Herod Agrippa I, Ahab and Jezebel, Belshazzar, and Judah.

“If you are a child of God, He will not cast you out of His family. But if you are stubbornly refusing to obey Him, continuing to walk your own way, He will bring severe discipline upon you. He loves you too much to ignore your actions. God can quickly remove you from this earth or take from you the joy of your life,” writes Chuck Swindoll.

“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:22)

Don’t indulge in the deadly opiate of our time.