A Vending Machine?

Image credit

The difference between our generation and those of Biblical times is that Israel recognized (after suffering) the cause and effect relationship between their actions…their worship of God or lack thereof…and the consequences experienced in their lives.

They forgot and relearned this lesson over and over.

It would be likely that if you asked the average person on the street, as is done sometimes, if the problems of modern society go back to its relationship to God and his laws, or the lack thereof, that very few would trace the problems of today back to lifestyles and worship contrary to God.

There is a presumption of modern society that anything can be done against the laws of God and then all you have to do (metaphorically) is to just flip a quarter in the God vending machine and presume that the blessings will still come out.

While there are various similar meanings of presumption in various online dictionaries, here is a good one…behavior that is rude or shows that you expect too much.

As someone said about the prodigal son, his father was not sending fried chicken to his son in the hog pen.

Here are a few scriptures along these lines; there are more.

Luke 15:11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:

12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

 

Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

 

Matthew 4:5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

 

Judges 10:6 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served not him.

7 And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.

8 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

9 Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.

10 And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.

11 And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?

12 The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand.

13 Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.

14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.