In Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul expresses the heart of our ministry when he says, Welcome to Proclaiming Christ. Proclaiming Christ is a ministry of Providence Presbyterian Church, OPC. We are a church that believes in the power of God's Word and we strive to preach the gospel every week. We meet just south of the Beltline in Fitchburg and we would love to have you worship with us. For more information about Providence please visit us online at ProclaimingChrist.net that's ProclaimingChrist.net Welcome to another edition of Proclaiming Christ. This is a roundtable edition of Proclaiming Christ, which means that some pastors have gotten together, three of us, to talk about the things of the faith, to discuss the teaching of Scripture on a given topic. I'm Pastor Mark Jenkins. I pastor Providence Presbyterian Church here in Madison, Wisconsin. And Providence is an OPC church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church. That basically means we're a Bible-believing church. We love the Word of God and we're striving to submit ourselves to it. We are wicked sinners but we're saved by the grace of Christ and our desire is to exalt Him. And joining me are two other OPC pastors from Wisconsin, Pastor Christian McShaffery and David King. You notice I mentioned you first this time. Oh, thank you for that, Mark. I wasn't going to say anything about it. Where are you ministering, gentlemen? Christian, you can go first. Well, Reedsburg, Wisconsin. It's a smaller town south of the Wisconsin Bells. Our church is called Grace Reform Church, and we're a mission work of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And I'm David King. I pastor Christ Presbyterian Church in Janesville. In Janesville, Wisconsin. So good to have you gentlemen with us. Thanks for being here. We are in the middle of a series on Proclaiming Christ Roundtable talking about the greatness of God. We're going through thinking about the attributes of God and trying to sink our teeth into how great and wonderful our God truly is. This is something that we don't naturally submit to because we are wicked sinners. And the heart of sin is to exalt man over God, to worship the creature rather than the creator who is forever praised. And so we're seeking by the power of the Holy Spirit working through His Word to correct our thinking and to reveal to us through the Word how great and wonderful our God actually is. We're talking this week, as we talked last time, about the justice of God, how great and perfect God's justice is. And this is something that really, we really need to be corrected on. We, particularly perhaps in our cultural context, really struggle with embracing true justice. As I began the last program on this topic, the justice of God, I'll begin this one. It's important for us to think about our interaction with the justice of God by considering a couple questions. Which statement is more shocking? Jesus loves the little children, or God is a killer. Jesus loves the little children or God is a killer. Which one is more shocking to us? And of course, the latter. God is a killer. If we said that in church, a lot of people might be shocked to hear that. But in fact, both of those statements are true. Yeah, I know, Pastor King, you wouldn't be shocked. You would be the one screaming it. A lot of people in your church might be a little surprised at the boldness at which we are able to confess that. Both of those are true though. Jesus loves the little children and God is a killer. And both express facts about the attributes of God. Both exalt how great God is. The one exalts his love, the other exalts his justice. And his justice is something that's good to exalt. Last time we also wrestled with the fact that we're not exactly comfortable with the justice of God by looking at examples in the Bible where God does in fact kill people. And we noted a few examples where God kills people for reasons that we would sort of question. We would look at these examples and say, does the punishment really fit the crime there? He kills people when they violate his law. And it's not always when they violate his law in an extreme manner, but we have examples in scripture where they simply disobeyed a commandment, but they've done so out of quote-unquote good intentions. They've done so confessing. Well, we presume that. We presume that. Right. We don't know for sure. But it looks that way. Their acts have been done in a context where it looks like they're seeking to please God, but yet their actions were a violation of his law and God struck them dead. We saw that in Leviticus 10, First Chronicles 13. We see it in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. The Holy Spirit strikes them dead and we wrestle with that. We say, does the punishment really fit the crime there? Is God really being just? Well, in fact, the Bible does reveal very clearly that God is always perfectly, perfectly just. And the shock that should come to us as we read the scriptures is not all the killing, but all the mercy that's shown, all the killing that is withheld. We are more shocked when God kills, but the shock of the Bible is really all the times he chooses not to kill, all the times he chooses to show mercy. Now let's talk today then about why we confuse why we're so upset about examples of justice in the Bible. Let's dig more into the heart of our mistake, the heart of our sinful shock at seeing God exercise his perfect and righteous and holy justice. I think the main reason or a main reason that we're shocked by these examples of justice is because we confuse justice and grace. We confuse justice and mercy. And the reason we do this, I think, is because we are used to examples of mercy. We are used to demonstrations of grace. And so we end up mixing these things up. We think that God is just when he shows us mercy. And if he chooses not to show us mercy, God is not being just. In other words, we think we deserve grace. Right? We think we deserve it. In fact, we don't even properly define grace. The problem might be that we don't distinguish and define justice and grace properly. But I might suspect that we don't even attempt to define and understand justice, period. We immediately, because we prefer it, skip immediately to the concept of grace and mercy and love because that is something with which we're more comfortable. Something we want. Something we want, yeah. When's the last time, for instance, you've heard a sermon series on the justice and wrath of God against sin? We don't do that for a variety of reasons. But one is this deficient definition of grace. What is grace? Have we defined it? Right, exactly. And in skipping to grace and skipping over God's justice because we don't want to dwell on that, skipping to grace because that's what we want, we end up not really seeing what grace is. And we mix those things up and we have a perverted view of both justice and grace. We have a perverted view of both. Grace has meaning only when we understand what we deserve because of God's justice. Right. The only way to understand mercy is to first understand justice. Then we're able to define how it was merciful. So we have We're shocked at justice, we're shocked at examples of justice. The statement, God is a killer, evokes anger and surprise in many. How could you even say that? Because we've confused justice and grace, thinking that we deserve grace, we deserve mercy, therefore God is not being just if he withholds that. But the reality is, we deserve wrath. That's what we really deserve, isn't it? The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. We've all sinned. It's an easy formula. We've all sinned. Therefore, we all deserve death. a problem, I think, in handling examples of justice because we have a problem in handling examples of mercy. We think that if God shows five people mercy, he needs to show everyone mercy or he's not being just. He's not being fair. Fair, that's what our children would say. It's not fair. It's not fair. So if God chooses to show one person grace, suddenly for us, that becomes the standard of justice. Suddenly, grace becomes the standard of justice. But that's completely wrong thinking, isn't it? Grace needs to be the exception if it's really going to be grace. It has to presuppose justice and wrath and no hope. Here, some people define it as, you know, getting something you don't deserve. It's like a gift. That's fine and dandy, but we could modify it and say it's getting the exact opposite of what you deserve. We speak of it as unmerited favor, but how about de-merited favor? That all we've done is provoke the living God deserving of his wrath, no hope under heaven but God in his mercy." Favor despite the fact that we deserve damnation. Merit in spite of demerit. Not just something we haven't earned, but the opposite of what we've earned, the opposite of what we deserve. So this is a wrong way for us to approach the grace of God, thinking that if He shows one person mercy, He's required to show everyone mercy. When in fact, if we look in Scripture, it's clearly revealed that if we are shown grace and mercy, the question should be, why me? Why was I shown mercy? We should be able to understand how everyone is shown damnation, is shown condemnation, because that is justice. And if grace is shown to anybody, we should say, why and how? Well, you know, what's going on here? There's a passage in scripture that addresses this. I think a passage would be good for us to chew on a little bit. Pastor King, could you read for us Luke 13 verses 1 through 5? Yes, I'd be glad to. Luke 13, beginning at verse 1. Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to him, that is to Jesus, about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, Do you suppose that those Galileans were greater sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you also repent you will all likewise perish." I added an also there, I shouldn't have. He gives his own example then in verse four. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Amazing. Now, what's the basic point that Christ is driving home there? What is he having us wrestle with in that passage? Well, I think in the first place he shares with his questioners the assumption that these events, catastrophes and disasters, these events occur as an outworking of the providence of God under the rule of God. They aren't accidents. in the minds of his questioners, the thinking is, well, terrible things happen to God because he's singling people out because their sins are so bad. And our Lord's response is, no. We all, not we, he doesn't, Jesus doesn't, but you all, all of you, deserve to have towers fall on you. All of you deserve to have Pilate spill your blood. All of you deserve the wrath and judgment of God. It fell on these people. and it hasn't fallen on you, but unless you repent, someday it will. It will. The judgment of God will be executed. We'll get back to the message shortly, but first I'd like to remind you that Proclaiming Christ is brought to you by Providence, a Bible-believing, Christ-centered church here in the Madison area. I'd also like to invite you to a Bible study we've just started in DeForest. We're holding it on Sundays at 5 o'clock. Our theme is the greatness of God in salvation. Whether you are simply curious about the claims of Christianity or are a mature believer wanting to grow in your faith, we would love to have you join us. Again, it's held Sundays at 5 o'clock in DeForest. For more information, please visit our website proclaimingchrist.net. That's proclaimingchrist.net. But I wonder if we've already gone too far. The presupposition behind this whole discourse is that God's providence delivers judgment through natural means. Do people really believe that nowadays? After something happens, whether it be natural disaster, war, famine, disease, do they really credit God and God's hand as the one who brought that into their life? Well, I think we need to make some distinctions. We definitely need to correct a mistake that says that God had nothing to do with any of this and it's completely outside of his control when, in fact, everything is under his control. We also, though, need to recognize that particularly where sinful man is involved, if someone is murdered by someone, the murderer deserves the condemnation for that wicked act. But yet, death all around us is a product of our sin. It's a product of the curse that God is executing. So we would say that God was not picking them out. We can't claim God was picking them out because they were more wicked than us. But when death occurs, we are to, when any death occurs, we are to look at it and recognize that's what all of our sins deserve. I deserve being condemned by God and I deserve to have his justice executed against me. In a sense these events are merciful demonstrations of God's judgment and wrath because he may use them to awaken people to the fact that they're going to have to answer to him. Right. And that there is a day of judgment coming upon all men. Right. You look around in the world, you look around in creation, and it's pretty clear that God is angry. We are not living in the garden paradise of Eden. We are not living pre-fall. The sentence of death that Adam, evoked by his sin, is active in the world, and we need to stop playing down the horror that we see around us. We need to look at it, not try to sterilize it away, not try to ignore it. We need to look at it, look it in the eye, and recognize what it means. it means that we are wicked sinners deserving death. It doesn't mean, as this passage makes clear, that the person that died is a worse sinner than us. That's not the right reaction. The right reaction is to see that and say, wow, that's what I deserve. Unless I repent, I will likewise perish. And so the response should be one of noting that the justice of God is the norm. The justice of God is the norm. So when he exercises his mercy, we should be shocked and amazed and impressed and thankful that he has withheld his justice. We want God to be nice. Yeah. But God is not nice. God is holy and God is just. Right. Now, we're not saying, are we, that in talking about the justice of God and the fact that it's the norm, we're certainly not saying that he executes his justice against all people. But we wouldn't be here. Right, exactly. God is not only a God of perfect justice. He is also a God of great mercy. But in order to understand the mercy, the point we're trying to get at, in order to really rejoice and delight in the perfection of the mercy, is to first recognize the reality of justice and God's right to execute justice. But God doesn't only execute justice, he also executes mercy. He withholds his justice. And here in our passage, we see the mercy of God in warning these people, that unless they repent, they're going to suffer the same fate as these people who were persecuted. And then that warning is a promise of mercy that if you do repent, God will have mercy. Right. But I don't know if we like that version of the gospel. We like to be approached and told that God has a wonderful plan for your life, brother. Receive it by faith. But what if Jesus came up to us and said, you know that terrible thing that happened over there? I know you think you're better than those people. And I'm not here to tell you that they weren't so bad, that they were really nice folk. I'm telling you that you are just as depraved as they are, and you deserve the same judgment. You need to thank God that it didn't happen to you, and you need to thank God that you have a chance to return from your sins and to be saved from this perverse generation. Right. In other words, we need to look at the fact that we haven't already died, that we haven't already entered eternity, so to speak, and recognize that is an example of mercy. That is an example of God withholding his justice from us. And as you said, the call to repentance, unless you repent, it's put in a demand form. But within this particular demand is that promise, as Pastor King said, is a proclamation that God is not only promising justice, He also promises to pour out mercy. And that's the good news of the gospel. That's the great news. Yeah, the good news of the gospel. Now, to chew more on how this good news is so good and how examples of mercy really should be so incredibly shocking to us. It should not only shock us because they're the exception to the norm of justice. It shouldn't only shock us because of that. it should also shock us because it should draw our attention to what God did in order to show us mercy. What I'm getting at is the fact that when God shows mercy to people, when he shows mercy to anyone, he is not ignoring his justice, is he? He's not ignoring the requirements of his holiness and his justice when he withholds the sentence, the just sentence from people and shows them mercy. His justice is always, always satisfied. How is it then that he's able to show us mercy? It's because his justice was executed against Christ for our sin. God stepped in and bore his own wrath. God stepped in and became the object of his own justice in order to satisfy it so that he could show us great mercy. And who does that? That is an incredible, incredible thing. That's what should make us shocked at the idea of mercy. People dying around us shouldn't shock us. The one death, though, that should shock us is the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, because he didn't deserve it. But he died for people who did. And he's the only one who did not deserve it. He's the only one that has ever not deserved it. I'm going to read a passage from Romans chapter 5 where the Apostle Paul marvels at this grace of God. And listen to the assumptions here. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still sinners, while we were without strength, while we were the enemies of God, we've been reconciled to this substitutionary atonement of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The Father made his own Son, who never sinned, to be sinned for us, that we in him might be made the righteousness of God." That's 2 Corinthians 5.21. Galatians 3, another example. How have we been delivered from the curse of the law, the curse that we deserve under God's justice? Christ became a curse for us. He was hung on a tree. Wonderful. So, thinking about the justice of God, thinking about the reality, coming to grips with the reality and the fact that death all around us is not a demonstration that God is absent. It's a demonstration that he is present in his justice, causes us to really be amazed at his demonstration of mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we don't dwell on the justice of God because we're obsessed with death. We need to dwell on the justice of God in order to be obsessed with the life that we've been given amazingly in Christ Jesus, by Christ Jesus' death, by him undergoing the justice that we deserve. And also to be absorbed with the wonder of the justice of God, just because that's who He is. He is to be worshipped in His justice. Absolutely. My point is simply that to focus on that in its fullness and greatness, we must do it through the cross. We are unable to understand the cross and the mercy of God without understanding His justice. And we as wicked sinners won't embrace His justice apart from clinging to His great, wonderful mercy. Now, for those of us who have experienced this wonderful grace of God, the love of God poured out for us through the sacrifice of Christ, just in closing, how is this to affect how we interact with unbelieving people? If they face a horror or a tragedy in their life, You know, we who are submitting to the reality that we all deserve horror, you know, we all deserve tragedy and judgment. If they face a tragedy, are we to say, well, you're just getting what came to you. react in a pompous, obnoxious way and just blast them and not give them any comfort? Or how should we respond? The right answer to that question is yes. How should we respond? How should we interact with people regarding the issue of justice and regarding the issue of facing hardship and people that are even blaming God instead of recognizing that they deserve all the blame. God is always right and perfect. How do we interact with those people? Well, as a starting point, we are to weep with those who weep. Yes. Even non-Christians. Absolutely. Even non-Christians. And perhaps as a matter of first priority, we should just make sure our heart is right with God. And maybe we shouldn't be so quick to pay attention to what's going on to other people and God's dealings with other people because that's what was happening in Luke 13. The disciples were talking about all the terrible things that happened to people over there and over there, and Jesus puts it right back to them. And perhaps we need to do that right here and right now. Do you know, listener, that God is also angry with you? Do you know that apart from His grace, you would shrivel up and die right now? Do you know that your sins are worthy of death and judgment and hell? And what are you going to do about it? Who are you going to look to? We were talking about grace, but we marvel at it. But do you also receive it? That I want this substitute. I want my sins to be laid on Jesus Christ because I realize they will be paid for. I don't want to pay for them myself. And then trust confidently in him without question, knowing that that he is sufficient to take care of that. And that exactly. And you're right, Christian, in dealing with it regarding ourselves and coming to grips with our our own faith and confession of Jesus Christ, that's then the message that we are to carry to hurting people. Weeping with those who weep, we don't go to them and say, well, this is, yep, I'm not surprised that you faced this hardship at all. You're a wicked, wicked person. We don't approach them acting like they deserved it more than we. Rather, we say, this is what we all deserve because of our sin, but look at the mercy of God in Christ. And can I explain the details of why this happened? No, this wasn't right. If someone attacked you, that was their sin, and that's wicked, and that's a sin against God. And that person does deserve judgment. We all, though, deserve judgment, but He's paid for us in Christ, if we are ones who accept that. And called them to come to Christ with us. Right. Amen. So we need to focus on the greatness of God's justice because it helps us to properly understand his mercy. And then in his mercy, we are also able to fully embrace his justice and then go into a hurting world, a world that is facing the consequences of sin all around, a world that is facing the curse of death and bring them the good news that God is not only just, He is also merciful, and if you have any doubts about that, note the fact that he killed his own son to save people who deserved death. We hope you've benefited from this message from Proclaiming Christ, a ministry of Providence Presbyterian Church, OPC. For more information about Providence, please visit us on the web at proclaimingchrist.net.