There was a man who always found fault with his wife – this frustrated her and one day she decided that she would try her hardest to please him, starting with breakfast. She prepared his favourite breakfast – toast, bacon and two eggs, one fried and one poached. “Is it to your liking?” she asked. “Well, if you didn’t go and fry the wrong egg”, was his reply.
We all know people who are impossible to please. Jesus described some elements of His generation that way in Matt. 11:16,17. Other things in life are never satisfied: the grave, the barren womb, dry earth and fire (Prov. 30:15,16). Eccles. 1:8 says that the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
It’s not unusual to find people who think that God cannot be satisfied. It would be easy to make a case for that, after all, He is perfect and has exacting standards. What could mere mortals do to satisfy Him? Anything we might do is going to fall so far short of the perfection that characterises everything He does. Whatever I do God could always find fault with it. There’s an element of truth to that and there is an element of falsehood to that. That’s the nature of all false concepts isn’t it? The fact is, God is perfect but He is able to be pleased by mere mortals. He remembers “we are but flesh” (Ps. 78:39).
Many times we are not satisfied with what we do. For example, when we get an ‘unsatisfactory’ on an exam paper (and we shouldn’t be satisfied if we have been lazy). Beyond that we are often not satisfied with our best (like a blacksmith who couldn’t get a horseshoe to assume the right shape and ultimately gave up, plunging the red-hot piece of metal into a tub of water, saying “Well at least I made a fizzle!”.
But we should be satisfied with what satisfies God. The Bible does say it is impossible to please God, but one time – Heb. 11:6. The implication, though, is that with faith (that is, a living active faith) it is possible to please Him. If we read the previous verse we see that Enoch had indeed, pleased God. We know that Jesus pleased Him: on a number of occasions the Father was willing to confess that with His beloved Son He was “well-pleased”. Can we satisfy God – can he be well-pleased with us? Listen to these following verses:
When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him (Prov. 16:7).
We beseech you and exhort you brethren…to walk and please God (1 Thess. 4:1)
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams…He has shown you what is good..to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God Mic. 6:7,8)
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord Col. 3:20)
But to do good and share do not forget, for God is well-pleased with such sacrifices. (Heb. 13:6).
God is satisfied with a one-talent man using his one talent. Why was the one-talent man afraid? He was afraid of accountability and afraid of doing something wrong: many churches and individuals are in that same predicament: afraid to do things for fear they might violate some principle or biblical pattern. The fear of the 10 spies convinced Israel not to trust the Lord for victory. We ought to be more afraid of a lack of fruitfulness and return on the Lord’s investment is us, whether it be one talent or ten. What sort of Lord do we think Jesus is? Is he interested in pettiness and arbitrary rules, or fruitfulness?
In Matt. 25:24 we have the rationale of the one-talent man as he explains his laziness. “It’s really your fault, God”. It’s easy to invent a god in our image (you thought I was altogether one as yourself – Ps. 50:21). Sometimes I use this line with an atheist, “Tell me about this God you don’t believe in, maybe I don’t believe in Him either?” What does it mean, reaping where you haven’t sown and gathering where you haven’t strawed? This is a proverbial expression meaning a desire to obtain results without sufficient means: ie. unreasonable expectation. It’s all very well to be “waiting for my ship to come in”, but have we sent it out? Because he painted that picture of the Lord, he acted as if the Lord was that way – ie. impossible to please. It’s important our concepts are right. A man cannot rise any higher than his god, so how we envisage God is important.
Ps. 94:19 encourages us to have good thoughts about God (Prov. 23:7). What thoughts about God should we entertain? What about John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 1 John 3:1ff etc? Does Matt. 25:26 indicate that the Lord is that way? Less-than-ideal characters are used to speak of God in Luke 11:5-8 and 18:2-5, but these teach by contrast and irony. The Lord is saying, well if that is what you think of me, that I’m a rapacious capitalist more interested in money than servants, then you could have at least got some interest for me. You didn’t even comply with what you thought I expected.
There’s always been debate over Rom. 12:1,2: – is all we do worship? No, but can we please god outside worship? Yes. He is as pleased with us living as Christians ought to, whether at work or play, not just when we are in worship. What satisfies God? A quick perusal of the scriptures will reveal that He’s satisfied with a cup of cold water, a meal, a coat, a place to stay – simple, yet necessary things of life. Prov. 11:1 – A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. In one of Jim McGuiggan’s books he had a chapter entitled “Lizzie Eaton’s Scales”. He tells of a woman named Lizzie Eaton who ran a corner store when he was a boy. She had a reputation for having accurate scales and not short-changing anyone. I can remember in my boyhood being sent to Jameison’s butchery in West Rocky to get meat for Mum. He would put the grease-proof paper on the dish on one side of the scales and pile the mince on till the balance was level and then he’d always toss an extra bit of meat on so that the weight of the mince was always greater than what you asked for. (Some butchers were not that way: my mother said they also “weighed their thumb”) The same sort of thing happened at Dinsdales, the local hardware store when they weighed out produce that nowadays is already prepackaged. The interesting thing is that God delights in that! A.B. Davidson said that the most difficult challenge we have in life is to do well the ordinary things of life. Perhaps it’s difficult for us to fathom but a shopkeeper who has made a decision to always give a fair deal to his customers, and does so routinely day after day so that he never consciously thinks about it, is doing something that God delights in. He’s more than satisfied, He’s well pleased.
Consider the following:
Prov. 11:20 Those of a perverse heart are an abomination to the Lord, but such as are upright in their way are His delight.
Prov. 12:22: Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are His delight.
Prov. 15:8: The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is His delight. The costly and elaborate sacrifice of the wicked is contrasted with the simple prayer of the righteous.
1 Sam 15:22: ..He delights in obedience, not sacrifice. Jonah’s story has been described as : running away from God; running with God; and running ahead of God. It’s an easy thing to run ahead of God and pretend that we know better than Him as to what pleases Him. Some years ago James Baird wrote the following:
In my judgement, there are many faithful Christians who secretly doubt the pattern concept of the church and question the validity of the restoration movement because they believe this puts the Christian in a role of divided allegiance. That is, in insisting that our denominational friends be attentive to God’s revelation about the church, we are, as one person expressed it, “spiritual schizophrenics” who are not really letting Christ mean as much as He should. The solution to the problem, in their judgement, is to forsake any attention to the church and to concentrate on Christ. However, if God has a will for man regarding the church and we ignore it, this will be to our detriment. We must conclude, then, that whatever God wants regarding the church is an integral part of submitting to the will of the Lord and another means that we have of expressing our love and devotion to our Redeemer.
God must be terribly disgusted with the sin of the world. It’s a far cry from the Garden of Eden isn’t it? What could assuage such a disappointment? Isa. 53:10,11 tells us that God is satisfied with Christ’s dealing with the sin problem. He accepts what Christ has done as payment in full (He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied).
Sin is of such a damning nature there is nothing we can do to satisfy justice other than spend eternity in Hell. All the good that I may do will not compensate for my sin, for the good I do is only what is my duty anyway. Nothing less than eternal separation from God is sufficient to cover the price or wages of sin. But what if Someone was to pay the price for me? (a man said to me a little while ago that if we deserve to go to Hell we should go to Hell and we shouldn’t want to escape our just desserts – I can’t remember anyone else ever saying that to me!). But if someone were to p[ay a price for me would God be satisfied with that? O yes! And what a price – 1 Pet. 1:18,19. Christ stands ready to wash you clean with His blood: will you repent? Will you confess Him? Will you be baptised into Him for the remission of your sins? Today is the day of salvation.