Justice and Mercy
Notes
Transcript
Growing up in Houston, we were no stranger to floods. It rained all the time, and it felt like we either got hit with a hurricane every year or were threatened by one every year. In August of 2005, hurricane Katrina rocked Louisiana and devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area. Just three weeks later, hurricane Rita made landfall between Texas and Louisiana. The devastation of Katrina prompted the largest evacuation in US history from Galveston up through Houston. I remember those days. I-45 was a parking lot. What should have taken two hours to drive took twelve.
The crazy thing is, there were people who refused to leave. Where I lived, it wasn’t mandatory. But people remained on Galveston island. They had the choice to leave, but they stayed. A cynic might say that those who refused the warnings should be left to their own fate. But as victims were trapped, rescue was sent.
Justice says you get what you deserve. But mercy says I’m not going to give you what you deserve. Believe it or not, there are people who see victims stranded on flooded rooftops and say they should rescue themselves. After all, they chose not to leave. But mercy says we’re sending the boats anyway.
Genesis 19 is a famous chapter as God dispenses justice on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleads on their behalf in the previous chapter, but this chapter brings up the tension between God’s justice and his mercy. For God to be just, he must act against sin. But if he acted against sin the way he should, no one would be saved. But if he chooses mercy, then justice is not carried out.
As we look into this tension, I want to highlight three things we can learn about God’s character, and how we can understand the point where his justice and mercy meet.
God preserves the righteous even in wicked times.
God preserves the righteous even in wicked times.
The story goes that after God and his angels left Abraham, the angels arrive in Sodom and Lot (Abraham’s nephew, greets them while he is sitting at the city gate. It was at the city gate that important business was carried out. Business transactions, legal matters, even court decisions were carried out. Anybody at the city gate has business to attend to. This wasn’t the watercooler of town. So Lot is not by himself, and it shows that Lot was an active part in his community. But it also means that others already knew about the two angels that showed up and went home with him.
This is important because we need to understand Lot is surrounded by the corruption of Sodom, yet God still distinguishes him as righteous. Is lot perfect? Not even close. Did he make a wise choice in moving to Sodom? Definitely not. But look at what 2 Peter 2:7-8 says about Lot.
and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)
There are lots of problems with Lot’s character. He is not innocent, but the Bible tells us that though he chose to live in Sodom, he stood against the lawlessness that he experienced.
I would imagine the closest you are to the Vegas strip, the harder it is to start a church. Las Vegas has a reputation for amazing entertainment venues, but it is nicknamed Sin City for a reason. It got its name from its tolerance of gambling, prostitution, and other vices. Unless you have traveled there, you might assume that a place like Vegas, who has the nickname Sin City, is a godless place. But a survey in 2011 revealed there are about 500 churches in Las Vegas. So even in a place like Vegas, there is still a godly presence pushing back against the darkness and depravity of the culture. This is Lot.
Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;
and they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.”
But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
“Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
But they said, “Stand aside.” Furthermore, they said, “This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door.
But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.
Remember in the last chapter Abraham was asking God if he found 50 righteous, 45, 30, 20, or 10 righteous, would he destroy them along with the whole city? His real concern was for his nephew. Yes, he wanted to understand God’s justice, but he also wanted assurance that Lot wouldn’t be destroyed along with the rest of them.
Remember why God was going to Sodom in the first place. The outcry against them had become so great. There were people crying out to God about the injustices they faced. Was it just Lot? Was it others in and around the city crying out for justice? We don’t know. But even if it was just Lot and his wife, God took notice of the outcry. And as imperfect as Lot was, he had not succumbed to the pressures of living in a sinful society.
When things seem their darkest, we must remember that no matter what, God will always preserve a righteous remnant on the earth. All of the prophets of the Old Testament promise this. Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Even if we find ourselves living amongst a wicked and perverse generation, never underestimate the preserving power of God’s grace. The greater the darkness, the brighter the light shines. You may live among evil people, but through your abiding in Christ, righteousness will be preserved.
God not only preserves His people in the midst of evil; He also provides rescue before judgment falls.
God shows mercy before He executes judgment.
God shows mercy before He executes judgment.
Lot and his family are the only ones to make it out of the city before judgment falls. The angels literally take Lot by the hand and lead him to safety.
When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.”
But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city.
Like Noah, Lot’s family is the only one offered redemption. This is God’s compassion on him. But then judgment falls. In the world we live in, God gets criticized when he doesn’t seemingly show up when catastrophe strikes, and then when he does show up to judge evil, he is criticized for being too harsh. Ardent atheists describe the God of the Old Testament as bloodthirsty, vindictive, intolerant, and evil. But we ought to be reminded that God is patient. He is fair to judge the wicked, and his judgment never comes absent of repeated warning.
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
This can be seen throughout the biblical narrative. God gave the people of Noah’s day about 120 years. Noah was called a preacher of righteousness as he was building the ark. When God makes his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, he tells Abraham that his descendants will be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years, but in verse 14, he declares he will judge that nation, but also the duration of the slavery in Egypt is in part to provide time for the Amorite people to turn to him, because in verse 16 he says:
“Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
Iniquity is another name for sin. God intends to give the Amorites centuries to respond to his offer of grace and mercy before judgment falls on them.
Israel is not immune to this either just because they are the covenant people of God. Deuteronomy lays out the conditions for which covenant blessings can be enjoyed. If they are disobedient, blessings are revoked, though the promises remain. The book of Joshua chronicles the story of God enacting judgment on the Canaanite nations where Israel becomes the vehicle for carrying out that judgment. But then as Israel disobeys, you have a cycle in the book of Judges where Israel is faithful, they fall away, are captured, then God raises up a rescuer known as a judge, they return to faithfulness, then start all over again. That lasted for several hundred years. After the kingdom split, God used the Assyrians and Babylonians to carry out judgment against Israel, but the time between the split of the nation and the final exile was hundreds of years. All the while, God sent numerous prophets to call Israel back to faithfulness, which they largely ignored.
God is a very patient God. His judgment can seem harsh, but it never comes in the absence of mercy. The destruction of Sodom is severe, but it’s preceded by repeated mercy: Abraham’s pleading on their behalf, the angelic warning, and the divine rescue of Lot and his family all show that God is merciful, offering chance after chance before judgment falls. God’s mercy always comes before His justice, But he is not eager to destroy, but eager to save.
We don’t see everything God does. But we can see that his mercy always preceded his justice. Because this is true, we can trust that His timing is never off balance.
God can be trusted to do what is right at the proper time.
God can be trusted to do what is right at the proper time.
For God to be just, he has to hold people accountable for their actions. Yet we also see that he is merciful in that he grants us time to turn to him and receive pardon for our sins. But if we don’t he still has to do the hard thing and enact justice.
The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven,
and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
Lot escapes with his life and his two daughters. The men they were meant to marry didn’t leave, and Lot’s wife, though warned not to look back as they fled, did so and turned to a pillar of salt.
Abraham wakes up the next morning and returns to the spot where he and God had the talk to see smoke coming from the valley where Sodom and Gomorrah used to be to see smoke rising up like from a furnace.
Why does God seem to take so long to act when so many injustices are being done? As said earlier, this is one of the main points of contention for nonbelievers. How could a God who is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, and loving seem to be so slow to act? These are tough questions to answer. God does not give us a reason all of the time. What we can know and trust is that just as the Amorites had 400 years to turn to God, Just as Pharaoh was given opportunity to let Israel go, just as the Canaanites were given the chance to turn to God, and just as Israel was given the chance to abandon their false god worship and return, every person has the opportunity to respond to the gospel, receive forgiveness of their sins, and receive pardon from their sins.
If you choose not to respond to the gospel, you choose to be judged before God according to his standards. This judgment day is still in the future. The trouble is God’s standards are perfect.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
If you are here today, and you have never made a personal decision to trust in Jesus for your salvation and commit to following him, now is your chance. If you have fallen away, now is your chance to return. Every day you and I inch closer to judgment day. You cannot be good enough to get into heaven. You have to trust that Jesus took your place as God poured out justice or risk facing the justice of God when you stand before him one day.
For those of us that are saved, who are walking with Christ, the judgment that is coming for us is not whether we will belong in the family or not. For that has already been decided. What will be asked is how faithfully did you carry out the work he had laid out for you to do. Time is short. And we ought to be intentional about sharing our faith with others. Who needs to hear the gospel in your life?
While we wait for final judgment, we hear about and experience all sorts of injustices. And it can leave us wondering why God doesn’t act sooner. But we can trust God’s timing and purpose. He knows when to act. He desires that all would come to repentance, and every day is another opportunity for that.
How will you respond to what you have heard today?
