To Choose to Love

“And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done.”  Revelation 16:17

In the book of Revelation, we find that in the final days of earth as we know it, there will be seven vials of plagues poured out upon the earth by angels.  These plagues all represent various kinds of suffering and death which will come upon mankind because of sin.  Their descriptions are very gruesome, and anyone who reads about them would be forced to consider the possibility that he or she could be one of the ones who will experience this horrible and devastating event.  However, many folks do not believe or have no clue what the word of God says and foretells and thus, they ignore it.  They apparently also ignore the great love with which God bestowed upon His creation in providing the way to escape His wrath.

The seventh vial contains the last plagues to consume the earth before Christ returns.  As the angel pours the plagues out (even a Hollywood spectacular filled with special effects could not create such a sight), a voice, presumably of God, speaks out saying, “It is done”.  God planned from the beginning to call out a people to Himself and knowing that man would become disobedient because He had given man free will, provided the way of reconciliation back to Him through His own Son, Jesus Christ, and then, drawing His plan into full circle, will send Christ back to earth to destroy evil and set up God’s kingdom as God originally intended.

As many have wondered, why would God make man since He knew beforehand that man would rebel against Him?  The only other alternatives were to never create man or to create man without free will, one who would honor and obey God because he was programmed to do so and not as one who would choose to love and honor Him from the heart.  In some foreign countries and in ancient times, a bride was chosen for a man, an arranged marriage.  As Tina Turner would say, “What’s love got to do with it?”  Apparently, nothing.  In my opinion, television shows like “The Bachelor”, The Bachelorette”, and “Married at First Sight” make a mockery of marriage.  In an arranged marriage, to become the wife of a man whom she doesn’t love seems unthinkable to me.  Those television shows surely leave a lot to be desired about romance, dating, getting to really know another person, and committing one’s life to be with that person until death do they part.  I think the purpose for those shows is merely for ratings and not to help someone find true love.  It certainly seems like love has nothing to do with the uniting of the contestants for life.

God desires that we choose to love Him.  Back to the question asked above, God created man for companionship and to honor, serve, and worship Him.  He knew that man would sin, thus He made the way to be forgiven and accepted by Him.  Since He is omniscient, He knew that there would be many who would not love Him, nor worship, serve, and honor Him, but He also knew that there would be many who would.  He laid the plan out clearly.  We have no say so about our physical birth.  We come into this world as a sinner.  It is hard to think about a little tiny infant that is so cute and sweet being a sinner but wait until he or she reaches the terrible twos!  We are filled with pride early in life.  We make choices based on our pride which are not always good choices.  Pride doesn’t lead us to love God, rather it is a humble and contrite spirit, one that causes us to see ourselves as God sees us, which brings repentance.  A person can’t conjure up humility and contrition on his or her own.  Those traits are given by God Himself through the Holy Spirit.  It is then the convicted sinner who chooses the way of righteousness to love and serve God or the way of continued sin and darkness.  We know that God chooses us (Ephesians 1:4; John 6:44), and we choose Him (John 3:16; 6:29).  This is probably the greatest mystery in scripture and can’t be explained by human reason.  Maybe the Lord will explain it to us in heaven, but it won’t matter then.  What does matter is that we choose to love God for who He is, the righteous, sovereign, holy, and faithful Savior.