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All right, so we're looking at
the attributes of God, going through a acronym that is attempting
to kind of, it's a mnemonic device to help you remember each of
the incommunicable attributes, Sergei Louis. Now, what does
incommunicable mean? Big fancy word. Okay, yeah, incommunicable
disease, it doesn't transfer, right? So communicable attributes,
incommunicable attributes, incommunicable means it doesn't transfer. Although what I wanna start to
see as we look through this, and I didn't really do a great
job highlighting this with sovereignty and righteousness, but even though
they're incommunicable attributes, I will still say that they do
communicate on some level, but it's a, Finite level so capital
Q is infinite. This is God's attribute of sovereignty
righteousness justice love etc Lowercase Q is man sovereign
To some degree, yeah, we were given dominion, but it's not
on an infinite level, right? God has given us certain realms
of sovereignty. Like if you're a man, for example,
you are sovereign to an extent over your house. The marriage
unit is sovereign over the household. And human government has certain
sovereignty aspects attached to it. But again, it's lowercase
q, finite, not infinite. And what that communicates, no
pun intended, to me, is that we're made in God's image. So
wouldn't there be similar demonstrations of these qualities in us because
we're made in God's image? Now again, similarity doesn't
mean sameness, right? So there is distinction there.
We're creature, God is creator. And we have to keep that in mind.
So we're working through Sir J. Louie, and we're on J. What does J stand for? Just. Now what does justice mean? Kind
of a preliminary pop quiz. What is justice? The execution
of righteousness. I like that a lot. We could stop
there. But any other thoughts on that?
Execution of righteousness. What is just? I was mistaken
back in the 60s. We would be protesting over at
a venue who was going to Alcatraz. And they were talking about justice
and our saying was, just us. In other words, they were persecuting
us. But anyway, that's just, I thought
I'd say that. But I think that's kind of the
backside of what Bernie said. When there's unrighteousness
being committed or perceived unrighteousness, that could lead
to someone crying out for justice, right? There's been a wrong and
I want justice. Now, what does the Bible say
about achieving justice? Yes. Well, we're going to look
at some passages that deal with the complexity of this, but ultimate
justice, vengeance, his mind does say at the Lord, right?
So we're not to take matters into our own hands, but while we are
here, we should pursue justice, right? And we should honor God's
love and desire for justice within his creation. Any other thoughts? Yeah, Jameson. I think the other
side of that, too, is reward when it's deserved. Sure, yeah. It's not always just about punishment,
but it's also about reward when it's deserved. Yeah, and that's
encouraging to us, right? It's on a small level, if you
have a job and you work hard at that job, what do you expect
at the end of the week? Wages, right, to be paid, that's
justice. But if you worked that job and
you worked hard and maybe even worked overtime, and then at
the end of the week they said, yeah, I don't feel like paying
you this week, that would be unjust, right? So there's a judgment
aspect but also a reward aspect that we'll highlight. Now go
to Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter three. And I don't have any verses there
because I think this passage is familiar, but we could look
at some verses. But as you look at or think about
Genesis chapter three, how do we see God's justice in this
text? Where does God's justice show
up in the fall of man? Yeah. I think when he's talking
about. Like when he's talking about
the head of the snake being crushed by the heel. Sure. He's talking
about Christ's death and the justice that'll bring. Yeah.
He's already foreshadowing something that's going to happen however
many thousands of years in the future. Right. Do you know the
fancy word for that passage? Starts with a P. Prophecy? Roll of Gamma. Or no pro no,
I was thinking of a conversation proto evangelium So but you're
on to that because that it's first gospel or a prototypical
gospel good news God Foretold of good news that this wrong
that just happened will be made, right? It may not be in their
lifetime, but there's there's a perceived wrong there. So good
observation. Yeah, John I see that particular chapter, all I see
is grace. You know, deservingly, like all
of us, they deserve spiritual and physical death for what they
did. But I see God's grace stepping in, and boy, they didn't get
justice for things deserved, I see grace right there. Sure.
And grace. So I'm taking the Bible framework
this semester with Charlie Clough. And I've talked about these principles
before with you. For example, grace precedes judgment.
And he shared something about grace isn't necessarily an attribute
of God. It's a product or an outflow
of his attribute of love, which means God doesn't have to be
gracious. And so I think you're spot on. If we miss the grace
of God in Genesis three, I think we're missing something. And
that's why I love the order of these because we have holiness, sovereignty,
and righteousness. If we're deficient in the understanding
of those attributes, then we can miss the point of chapter
three. Why does God act that way? Why does he seem to, why
does he make pregnancy and child laboring difficult? Why does
he make a man's labor difficult? Why that seems harsh? Well, if
you understand those things, you understand why. Yeah, Karen. Well, he made them harsh because
they are exactly what each gender, each person needs. The woman needs to be thinking
about who's in charge and not fighting with him. And the man
needs to have responsibility and be aware of his responsibility. And not only that, but even the
serpent Sure Yeah, and that so there's
little observations like that that are so crucial because and
we talked about this But how often do we play this weird gender
game of oh, it was Eve's fault or always at Adam's fault It
was both of their they're both responsible, but I would say
I would point the finger at Adam because he was a the head of
his wife, Eve, and they participated together. Adam more so than even
that, what happened with Eve, she was deceived by the serpent.
I think the word's very important. Was Adam deceived? No. Adam chose to eat that fruit. He knew exactly what God said.
He made a conscious choice. She was deceived. He was not. He chose that, so. And that's
a great observation because, so why, so we have God speaking
and implementing judgment on man, woman, and serpent. But if Eve was just deceived,
why not just Adam? Why does Eve also get judgment?
Doesn't mean that what she didn't do, what she did wasn't wrong. But she didn't know better. She
was just deceived, right? It doesn't make any difference. Why doesn't
it make any difference? It doesn't make a difference. Because God's righteous. And
so she still ate it. Right. But she was deceived.
Yes. But she chose to eat it. And so there's that. But Adam
consciously chose to eat it. Exactly. Yep. big difference,
right? Sure, absolutely. Amanda? As
a parent, I feel like the concept of justice is pretty foreshadowed
on my mind on the daily and dealing with my boys. Because it doesn't
mean fairness. It definitely doesn't mean treating
equally. It's a just consequence a lot
of times for what happened. And a lot of times that's natural
consequences. you know, what we see in Genesis
3 is, like Karen said, there's a natural consequence of like,
okay, we're going to reestablish what this order is, and you're
going to feel it a lot more heavily now. And, you know, for me, like,
justice means, hey, my kids got in trouble, Titus was the instigator,
but everybody else was involved, we're all getting a spanking.
It's just an across the board, you're involved, this is the
justice, and we're correcting the issue, Sure. I've been told... Like, so Adam was like the head
of humanity. He was the first human being.
So he holds like a position in humanity as the head of humanity.
Would his position, did that make the punishment worse? And
that's why it affected Eve as well, more as well? Or is that
kind of something? I think that plays into it, but
I think that while the judgment on Adam and Eve was personal,
it was also corporate in that that was transferred, right?
It wasn't just Eve has pain in childbirth and then the next
generation it's over. This is now a consequence embedded
into creation until the problem of evil and suffering is dealt
with. Same thing with Adam. So I think you see that but yeah,
it's ultimately because they Adam in particular was head of
man John Yeah Essentially they're both guilty but as you look at
it If you're getting really technical,
Adam was the responsible head. But they both sinned, to Dan's
point, right? And so it doesn't cheapen or
lessen what Eve did. She was, deceived or not, she
still violated the righteousness of God, and that demands justice
act, right? If God was not just, okay, yeah,
it's okay, Eve, just don't let it happen again, right? But God
is just. And righteousness was violated,
something must be done. Even if it's uncomfortable, even
if we don't understand it, even if we don't Like it, Willa and
then Trevor. But it was both of them made
an individual choice. Sure. It wasn't forced upon them. Yeah, they made that choice.
And yeah, you could read between the lines or speculate a little
bit like maybe Eve should have said, Hey, Adam, I just was talking
to the serpent the other day. and he was saying this, is this
true? That didn't happen, right? Maybe if it did, Adam would say,
wait, what? Who was talking to you? Serpents can talk. And that's
a whole nother research question. Yeah, Trevor. I think you also
get some, perhaps some good insight from an applicational standpoint
into the uppercase Q to lowercase Q in our application perhaps
of justice. And, you know, you see justice
being applied for a knowledgeable, responsible party in Adam, but
you also see the ignorance or misunderstanding deception as
an excuse to avoid justice. You know, that's something we
see a lot these days, insanity plea, this plea, that plea, means
whatever they did didn't really matter, all of that. Another
factor in it as well, though, is I think you also see with
great mercy, tempering justice, because in my mind, when we think
about grace as getting what you don't deserve, mercy as not getting
what you do deserve, I really see mercy being displayed here
through this, because what they deserve, ultimately, we're done,
we're starting over, it's all, you know, God shows mercy, God
shows, doesn't give them what they deserve, he lets them continue
on, He creates a new way for them to interact. You know, spiritual
death happens. He even provides a way out of
the spiritual death. Physical death happens eventually. You
know, so there's a lot of mercy tempering the justice that is
being doled out and distributed. Well, I appreciate you saying
that because again, you have to keep this in mind. God is
all of these things all of the time. So the reason we see that
tempering is because He's loving. But the reason we see him dealing
with it is because he's just, and because he's righteous, and
because he's sovereign. And so we have to keep that in mind.
And that's why a lot of Bible teachers, and I would agree with
them, see a doctrine, not a doctrine of judgment and a doctrine of
salvation, but a doctrine of judgment salvation, because they're
both. God does judge, but because he's
also loving, he provides salvation. And that's what Trevor's saying.
Rather than saying, in the day you eat of it, you shall surely
die. And they ate of it and they're dead. He was true to his word,
they did die spiritually, they were dying physically, but he
provides the deliverance, the salvation from that. Karen. We also have to remember that
God knew before he ever created Adam and Eve that this was gonna
happen. Sure. That somebody would do it somewhere. But Adam is the... Right, which... And we're going to talk about
this upstairs because there's some things that happened long
before we ever existed, right? Even as creation, but God, you
know, the lamb was slain before the foundation of the earth,
which means God knew it's not like God had a backup plan. Okay, I'm going to do this. And
just in case it doesn't work out, I'll go ahead and do this.
It was a plan. And I think it all demonstrates
his glory. And to your point, God, That's a part of his program,
his eternal program. And we see it working out in
Genesis. And that should be tremendously comforting to you because every
step of the way, when you come across a narrative where it seems
like all is potentially lost, right? Babylon is surrounded
the city and the forces of evil are going to triumph over God,
right? No. God has a plan, He has a program,
and it cannot be destroyed or defeated. John? I agree with
her totally. It was Adam's, you know, just
like later in Scripture, I think it's in Romans, as one man sinned
and another man sowed. It was man's only. And, you know,
we can sugarcoat it and try to blame ye, but it was Adam who
said, you know, don't take of that tree, because God didn't
tell, it's specifically here, you know, it says here, have
you taken, have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you,
singular, not to eat? He didn't tell both, both he,
both you's. He said, you Adam, I told you
not to eat of that. So it was up to Adam to say,
no, don't take that tree. But he did not. Which by the
way, what strategy did Satan use to lead to their sin? He went after the woman. Went
after the woman, but how did he go after her? Appeal to her
vanity. Questioning truth? What'd you
say? Appeal to her vanity. Yeah, appeal to vanity, but...
He got her alone. Got her alone? And what Amanda
said, truth, right? The Word of God. Causing doubt
in what God said or says, we'll make it a general statement.
Causing doubt to what God has said leads to error. Whether it's sin, the error of
sin, or error of thinking, error of philosophy. That's why we
stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E, right? God says
it. Now, I'm not saying that we just
turn off our thinking and God says that that settles it. There's
a degree of truth in that, by the way. But we should be able
to give a defense as to why is God's word verified here, here,
and here? And that's why I appreciated
Bill's work with the Genesis flood. If we didn't have that
evidence, does that mean the flood didn't happen? The great
deluge, the great flood. No, but you know what? Because
it happened, you think there's going to be some evidence of
it? Again, when it comes to stuff like that, we all have the same
data. It's not like we're working with
different data than the secular scientist is working with. We
all have the same data, but it's how we read it. And we read it
and we see this perfectly correlates with God's revelation of what
happened. And theirs, frankly, does not.
I was gonna say, you know, John mentioned something, but if you'll
notice in verse two, Satan started off by asking her a question. He says, has God been good to
you? So that means, oh, we gotta, but notice her response. God
has said, you shall not eat, nor shall you touch it, lest
you die. So that tells me that Adam clearly
has communicated to her what God has said. Sure. So there's no question. Now,
when you go into the next verse, well, then he begins to undercut
that a little bit. Right. And she saw more. And
then she, this is when she's getting that little pride. Right.
She knew what God had said. Yep. Because she quoted exactly
what God had said. Yep. And so Adam has communicated
to her at this point that this is what God said. Now he's, She's
being deceived now because she's going to, it's going to be undercut.
It's always a question of what God said. So she's questioning
God's goodness. Sure. Because you know, he wants
you to do this. And I would agree. She, I think
was very aware of what God has said, but she added to what God
had said. Right. But she understood. But
understood and understand right now. But she did know what he
said. But even that, I think we learned something about homardiology,
sin, in other words, in that the very same thing the rabbinical
theology was doing in the first century, building fences around
the law, happened right in the beginning. It's all recycled,
right? And humorly, you know, I can
envision maybe Adam says, woman, don't even touch it, right? But
maybe that was a conclusion she came to. Regardless, that's a
conclusion. But what is that? That's in our
pride saying, We can contribute something to keep ourselves from
sinning. And we have to learn the lesson the hard way if I
do that. Karen? By adding that extra little bit to it, if she
went over and touched the fruit, then she was like, well, maybe
it's not true. Well, that and sinning against conscience, right?
Because then we play into that. And so there's a whole lot there. It's not just kind of a fluffy
children's story. There is so much detail there. And not sinning against conscience,
because at that point, it wasn't there, but it's an illustration
of that Romans 14, right? If this is
impure for you to eat, and you eat it, well, you've sinned,
not because that thing truly is impure, but because you've
violated your conscience. If we see that in our children,
I mean... Never. If you say no for a good
reason, maybe explain it, you know, but that little finger...
Well, what's the most, if you had like a lexicon of words that
a child uses before they're five, how many usages of the question
why would there be? Why? Why? Bill? On John's comment, in chapter
two is when the Lord specifically told Adam, don't eat. That's
right. Then he made Eve. Then they went
ahead and went through the process. And I always like verse 17 in
chapter 3. Basically, the first statement
to Adam was, you listen to your wife. And we can, I think I've
made this, mentioned this before, and we'd make a joke out of it. But I think the really serious
thing is, is very practically all of us in this room, Who are
we listening to? That is the key. And so, if you want to manipulate
what God says, you know, people will read something and they
say, I know what it says, I just don't believe it. And you're
in trouble. And that just starts right in
Chapter 3. We simply don't listen to the
right voice. Very good. Well, let's move on
to chapter six and eight. What happens there? What major
event happens and how does God's justice show up? The flood narrative. How is the flood just? What about
those good, hardworking, innocent people that also perished? But what about the children? See, at a glance, and I know
you guys are better prepared, but your average Christian can't
answer that question. Well, why did God destroy the
children? And we get a heightened emotional response to that because
we don't understand, but do you think God knows what would have
happened had things continued? If all the adults in that, just
think logically for a minute, if all the adults were wicked,
what's going to happen with the children? So we are not perfectly
righteous. So are we capable of executing
perfect justice? So we have to be very careful
pointing the finger at God and saying, God, I think you were
wrong here. I think I had a better idea.
I think I would have handled that much better. God is perfectly
righteous. He's also perfectly loving. So
let us not forget that when we're thinking when judgment is being
demonstrated. It's not like he turned off his love. In fact,
I would make the argument to you, if God did not love humanity. Hold on, I gotta be careful not
to do a double negative. If God didn't love humanity. Because God loves humanity, he
flooded the earth. Now that sounds crazy, right?
That's lunatic talk. But how does that work out? Well,
no one gets saved. If sin wasn't dealt with there,
there is no Noah. There is no Shem and his descendants,
Abraham, his descendants, Jesus. So God's love is demonstrated.
Bernie and then Amanda. And to the extent that there
were babies under the age of accountability that were still
human. Yes. Yes. Part of that generation. Yes. Yes, and that's a great
point. I don't know where all of you
individually stand on this, but I believe I don't think there's
a hard and fast line of accountability, meaning, you know, like the Mormons,
for example, say 12 if you're below 12. Well, I've known a
lot of terribly wicked kids under the age of 12, and they knew
what they were doing, and they understood the gospel. So there
is that aspect that Children who are incapable of understanding
and believing, I believe, the basis of the cross. But if I'm
wrong, will not the God of all the earth do what is right? Hold
on. What's that? Well, I think there's evidence in David's prayer,
but it's not an age given. under 20, 20 and under. They were not held accountable
for what went before. You turn and tell me that a 19-year-old,
well, wait a minute, God said that they're going to go into
the land. I'm not saying that that's the age of accountability.
I'm saying you have a pretty clear something that God's not
going to punish anyone who's 20 and under by allowing them
to die in the wilderness, because there's a chance for that. And
so they're going on. Does everybody in the flood,
does everybody, because they died in a flood, does that mean
that they were guilty? Exactly, right. And how many of the other
descendants, Noah's cousins, maybe they were carnal Christians. Obviously they weren't Christians.
But when we think of those children, Trevor, and then Amanda. I was
just going to say real quick, Second Kings, I think it's Second
Kings, I always forget the chapter. One of the kings of Israel later
on when they've gone wicked, he had all these sons. He had
one son that was taken as an infant. And the specific reason
given is because God saw that there was goodness in him. Sure. And so when you have that idea
of age of accountability, children dying, et cetera, perhaps there
is even love and justice in that. Like, I don't know, you know,
that same principle applied back then. Well, and also think about,
you know, we're stacking doctrines on doctrines, but I believe there
is biblical evidence of degrees of judgment for those at the,
or not the Bemis, but the great white throne and hell. So a child... well, we won't go down that.
Someone perishing before their time, so to speak, wouldn't they
have less opportunity to sin and pile on that doctrine? So
all that to be said, the reason this is an error is because we
get these things twisted and we start reading the judgments
that God executes through the filter of our own personal righteousness
rather than God's. And we have to reach the point
that even if I don't understand it, even if I don't like it,
having the heart and understanding of Abraham will not the God of
all the earth do what is right? Because even Abraham, right?
He's struggling with this very concept. I know enough about
your righteousness, God, I know about your judgment, and I know
your intent on destroying this city, but what about the righteous?
As if it had never occurred to God, wow, Abraham, you're right,
there might be some in there. And yet, even Abraham's argument,
his degree of righteousness didn't pass God's, right? God's was
superior. Amanda, I'm sorry. No, back to
Noah, though. It wasn't until God said, hey,
I'm gonna destroy the earth with a flood, and then did it the
next day. Noah preached for a long time. I mean, these people had
lots of chances. And so, you know, there's that
aspect, too, is God had grace ready, had the ark ready to go
for people to, and no one, no one chose that. They thought
he was crazy. And that's how it worked. Commentators
say that there was probably room left over on the ark for lots
of people to be on their head they chose. But you think, you
know, from Noah's perspective, he's already on this massive
project. God, why am I wasting my time with this? But God is
demonstrating his grace there, even if it never, which maybe
perhaps illustrates something with the atonement doctrine,
right? Did Christ die for all or just
a certain group that would receive it. Is his death sufficient for
all or just for those who it's applied? And I obviously would
take the position that his death is sufficient for all, even those
who reject it. Um, we might have time to get
to Proverbs. So let's go ahead and turn to
Proverbs 11. Proverbs chapter 11 and verse
1. Dishonest scales are an abomination
to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight. What do we learn
about the doctrine of righteousness, the doctrine of justice, and
how it relates to God and man in this text? What are dishonest
scales? Let's start there. Okay, so it's not the scale in
our bathroom that shows us a number we don't like. It's being dishonest
to us, right? No, but in the ancient world,
how would they measure, did they have money counters? Yes, but
it was also in weight, right? You're dealing with gold and
silver. Yeah, a coin is a coin, but what if that coin's been
used a lot and some flakes and chips are off of it? And or yeah, trimming it. So
what would they do? They would weigh it out. Well,
if you wanted to take a little off the top, what would you do
if you were a dishonest business person? Dishonest scales. Is that justice? Did they get very wealthy off
those things? Did God know all the while that
it was going on? And this is his response. It's
an abomination to him. Now, I think this also becomes
a metaphor for man's judgment on any given case where there
are dishonest scales, so to speak, in the situation where there's
less than perfect righteousness, and they're skewing the facts
or the evidence, and they are making judgments or determinations
that aren't truly just. Did that ever happen in the ancient
world? Does it ever happen today? God hates that. Why does God
hate it? Because he is just. He knows
the right thing in every situation. And it's an affront to his very
attribute of justice when we act in that way. Now that, again, this should
be comforting, especially if you're in Christ, God sees all,
right? Everything you do, the things
that, you know, if you're struggling with not getting the attention,
maybe you're working so hard and you just wish someone would
acknowledge, someone would notice. God sees, and He's just, so He
will repay. But on the flip side, if you're
walking in darkness and sinning or whatever, God sees, right? And there's justice. Bill? For
the first two, you're not listening. On this one here, you are actually
lying. And he really hates lying. Yes. Right. Which is interesting,
because whose language, native language, is lying? Yeah. Yeah. I look at that, you know,
I see not only race, But it's a metaphor for dishonesty in
everything in life. If you're not telling the whole
truth, you're leaving parts out, that's an abomination to the
Lord. For instance, you could tell somebody something to leave
something out so you look better or so they would be deceived. Yeah. It's just how weightless it is.
It has to do with a lot of things I like. Yep. Well, and another
quick thing before we go to prayer and close, an illustration from
the pastor's conference, the parable of the talents. Is God's
justice equity? Meaning, does God even it out
for all, everyone gets the same share? Think of the parable of
the talents, right? You've got a guy who gets ten
talents, a guy who gets five talents, a guy who gets one talent.
The guy with one buries it, the guy with five doubles it, the
guy with ten doubles it. So when the guy who buried it
is judged, what does God do with the talent? Gives it to the guy
with five because he has less and he's trying to create that
equity. gives it to the guy with 10. Hold on, doesn't he have
enough? So I think there's an illustration
there that it's not evening the playing field because we are
all individually responsible for the works that we do in this
life. And God's perfect justice applies in that situation to
either judge or reward in a perfectly just way. way. And that's a good
point and this was tremendously encouraging to me at the conference.
Andy Woods shared from this passage and I'll close with this.
God is Just pt. 1
Series The Attributes of God
| Sermon ID | 101424182613722 |
| Duration | 35:53 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
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