BLOG
The Justice of God
The Justice of God
Civil justice is sometimes served in this life, but sometimes it is not. However, no matter how much perceived justice a person receives in this life for their sins or crimes, God’s justice can never be satisfied by such measures.
For example, a man commits murder and gets a punishment of 60 years in prison, serves his time, and eventually is set free. At the end of the 60 years is he now right with God because civil justice has been served? He might have served the amount of time demanded by a court or judge to supposedly pay the price for his crime, but did the 60 years of time in prison do anything to satisfy Divine justice? Did it somehow erase his sin before God?
Of course not.
No amount of prison time or punitive punishment can ever pay for even one single sin. Truly, sixty years of prison time could not even pay for one single “little white lie.”
Mankind is helpless when it comes to satisfying God’s judgment and subsequent punishment for our sinfulness.
Let’s consider another situation. What about guilty criminals who escape justice completely? Many people get away with horrible heinous crimes. Even murders sometimes go unsolved. Does this mean that someone has escaped justice?
What if a person committed horrible crimes and went on to live a life of health, wealth, and apparent happiness then died. Did he escape justice?
No. It is impossible to escape justice. Though a person might appear to have escaped punishment, ultimately, he will not.
A civil government can punish evil doers, however neither prison nor the death penalty should sinners fear the most.
Unrepentant sinners should fear the One they will encounter after death. It is then that they will stand before the Supreme Judge and face perfect justice.
This is what Jesus is talking about when He said, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4-5).
Fear God? Why should someone fear God?
Because God is the absolute perfect judge who is holy, righteous, just, omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful).
Those who think this life is all there is are greatly mistaken. Those who think they can escape justice by avoiding it in this life make a horrific assumption of what happens at death. They have not escaped justice. They have entered the courtroom of God and will face Him with every single sin that they have ever committed.
As the Apostle Paul says,
“Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:3-5).
People wrongly assume that just because they are not immediately receiving punishment for their sin that they are escaping justice. Paul says that God’s slowness to punish does not prove that they someone has escaped justice but that it is meant to lead them to repent of their sin. However, instead of repenting, many people continue to store up their sins and by doing so, they are storing up the wrath that they will receive from God’s righteous judgment. Not one single sin will escape God’s perfect judgment because He is perfectly just.
For unrepentant sinners, death is not an escape of from punishment but the beginning of eternal punishment. Death does not free them. Rather, their death seals them in their state of sinfulness, guilt, punishment with no chance of repentance, and no possibility of paying off their sin.
We also must be careful to assume that God only punishes certain sins like kidnapping or murder. It is very easy to think of certain horrible sins as deserving of justice but think that God should not punish all sinners.
Who is not a sinner? The Apostle Paul tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Every single sin from all of humanity must and will be punished because God is perfectly just.
Knowing that we are guilty of sin, that we will face God, and that justice will be served, is there any hope?
How can a man get rid of his own sin, make himself sinless in the eyes of God, or pay the price for even one of his sins?
He can’t. That’s why the solution must come from outside of ourselves. We need a righteousness that is humanly impossible for us to acquire. That is why we need a Savior from God. We find this Savior in the person and work of Jesus.
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).
Read more...
The Church at Pecan Creek’s Catechism for Children
The Church at Pecan Creek’s Catechism for Children
Read more...
As a Society Thinks, So Will it Behave
A society that has removed God from their thinking should expect a people who behave as if there is no God.
Over the years, every effort has been in the public education system to reject God as the Creator, the Rule Maker, and the Ultimate Judge of every human. To add fuel to fire, parents have failed to counter this teaching in the home. As a result, the Biblical worldview has been replaced with one that teaches that everything, including humans and all life, has come about by accident and has no meaning.
This society begins to believe that there are no rules to live by much less a final Judge. The only law that remains is pure relativism. Each person gets to decide how they want to live and no one has the right to tell them otherwise.
The greatest proponent and educator of evolution and atheism was the largest mass murderer in history, Adolf Hitler. In a few short years, he was able to convince millions of people that whoever had the most power had the right to make the rules. As a result of his atheistic evolutionary worldview, over 13 million people were murdered.
The point is if God is intentionally removed from a society, then we should not be surprised by a population who is immoral and ungodly. Since the God of the Bible has been rejected, our society will increasingly suffer the consequences of a population who has been taught that there is no God.
Think about this, if God and His rules for living are intentionally removed, then what makes lying, cheating, stealing, pornography, rape, or even murder wrong?
We often think that a society that rejects God is a new thing but it is common throughout human history, and the results are always the same.
Take for instance the people of Israel who followed Moses and then Joshua. Upon the death of Moses, God reminded them of who He is and their obligation to obey Him, along with what they could expect if they obeyed Him.
Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:7-8)
However, the generation of people that knew God died without teaching the next generation. While they themselves knew God, God’s rules, and the consequence of obedience or disobedience, they did not teach these principles to their children. Instead, they assumed that the next generation would somehow just know, but they did not.
And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers (Judges 2:10-12a).
Within one generation the Israelites went from honoring and obeying God, to a generation who did not know Him or obey him. The result? Ungodly behavior.
The cure for a society plagued with immorality that is rooted in atheism and evolutionary teaching must begin by returning to Bible basics, such as, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” (Gen. 1:1).
Belief and/or unbelief guides a person’s behavior. If we want our children to love God, obey God, and strive to live godly lives, then let us intentionally teach them about Him.
Read more...
