Is God Different in the Old Testament? My Answer to Rick Rubin

0:06 You know, I remember the first time that I shared my faith. I was so young and I was challenged by an atheist. I did not have a clue as to what I should say. And I wish I'd had a copy of this book by Frank Turek and Norman Geiser. And the title of it is, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And we want to send you this book for your gift of any size. Available at harvest.org. In the Old Testament, God seems judgmental, and in the New Testament, not so much. What changed? I don't think anything changed. I think he's the same God in the Old and New Testament. As an example, God called Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites. The Ninevites, they're really wicked people. They were known for their atrocities. They wouldn't just kill their enemies. They would skin them alive. They would stack skulls as tributes to what they had done, really evil people.

1:00 So God comes to Jonah the prophet and says, go preach to Nineveh. Jonah's like, no way. And he gets in a boat going in the opposite direction. He disobeys God. Why? Because Jonah himself says, I know you're gracious and willing to forgive, and I don't want to go to them. Because his thinking was, if I go and preach to these people, God will forgive them. And I don't want him to forgive them. I want him to destroy them. A great storm comes. He's swallowed by a great fish. Everyone makes a big deal about Jonah and the whale. The Bible never says whale. It says a sea monster. We don't know what swallowed him. Some creature swallowed him. He repents and God brings him right back to Nineveh and he preaches to them. And sure enough, when he tells them 40 days and you'll be overthrown, they all repent and God doesn't judge them. So yes, God judges people in the Old Testament, but he forgives them as well.

1:56 And God doesn't want to judge people. He says, I take no delight in the death of the wicked. I mean, take hell as an example. I did a teaching last time I spoke on what Jesus taught about hell. I called it, what happens one minute after you die? And I tried to explain to people the fact that the last thing God wants is for anyone to go to hell. I do believe hell is real because Jesus talked about it more than all the other preachers in the Bible put together. but God doesn't want people to go there. It wasn't prepared for people. Jesus said it was made for the devil and his angels. God wants us to join him in heaven. That is why he sent Jesus. But as C.S. Lewis said, the gates of hell are locked from the inside. In other words, say there's a building on fire and I'm standing in front of the building and people are walking in.

2:49 No, don't go in this building. Don't go in this building, you'll die. Go over here, we have a banquet, What a feast prepared for you. Come on over here. No, everybody's in line for the building. We're going there. We're going to party in hell with our friends. No, you aren't. It's judgment. You don't want to do that. If I'm stopping people even standing in their way and they push me aside, well, I did what I could. You have to climb over Jesus to get there. He doesn't want you to go there, but you have a choice in life. If you don't want God in this life, I don't want God. well, then you don't have to have him in the afterlife either, because hell is separation from God. So I think the nature of God is to forgive and to pardon and give second chances. I think you see that in the Old and New Testament. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest.

3:45 You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this. We want to know God and we want to make him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the Great Commission, you can support us with whatever you can give at harvest.org slash donate. Again, that's harvest.org slash donate.