Theodicy and the Justice of God

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, and I have received many emails in these last days.

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In the last days. Well, we are in the last days.

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And again, I would say probably 95 % of them are very nice. Some disagree. Some disagree kindly.

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Some disagree not so kindly. But anyway, glad to get your feedback. Glad to get your update. Instead of asking for money here,

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I guess, of course, you could always send money if you wanted, but we've tried over the years to have more of a

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George Mueller approach and S. Lewis Johnson approach. And so instead of asking for money, we'd ask you to tell your friends, if you like the show.

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Even if you listen to it at 1 .5 speed, like James White or other people, you can tell others about the show.

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24 and a half minutes goes by quickly. I try to pick topics that are interesting. More than that, of course, biblical and you know, you read the

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Bible and you think, could there be a more interesting subject than God himself? And we know what the answer is to that very question.

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So you can pick us up at the No Compromise channel on YouTube. You can also watch us at Worldview Weekend on No Compromise TV.

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Anyway, noco90 .com would also help you. Well, there are critics of the

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Christian faith. I was reading online, 31 questions

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Christians can't answer by Larry Simons, S -I -M -O -N -S, back in 2011.

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Let me give you the top four and you can tell me if there's a theme.

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What's the theme of these four questions that Christians supposedly, allegedly can't answer?

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Number one, why hasn't God intervened on the tyrants throughout history to prevent far worse atrocities than in the

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Old Testament days in which he did intervene? Maybe one of the questions we can't answer is bad grammar, but that aside, number two, if God, I didn't write that,

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I mean, I speak poorly and with bad grammar regularly, and I can also identify it in others.

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It's like self -righteousness, isn't it? So easy to see in other people, but hard to see in ourselves.

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Number two, if God were all -powerful, why wouldn't he create humans who could appreciate good without having evil to compare it with?

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Again, I refer back to grammar. See page one. Number three, if God were all -perfect and all -powerful, why would he do such a poor job and create such an imperfect world with its deadly earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, et cetera?

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Number four, I'm not going to answer, or I'm not going to read all 31, but I will read the first four, and they seem to have a theme, do you notice it?

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If God is all -perfect, how could he, and why would he create such extremely imperfect human beings to occupy this world?

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And so if I had to boil down the residue of these four questions, it would be, why evil?

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This is the question of theodicy, right? Theodicy. A theodicy is a defense of God's goodness and his power in light of, in view of evil and its existence.

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So, theodicy could ask questions like, why does God permit evil, knowing the

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Bible teaches he's good, he's powerful, and he knows all things.

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I mean, how can we have that triad of attributes, of perfections, and still let there be evil?

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I mean, he controls everything. How can there be evil? He's all good. How can there be evil? He's all knowing.

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How can he be allowing evil? And so it would not take you long for you to compile a list of inequities in the world.

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Look around in different realms, the sports realm, the economic realm, the soccer realm, the church realm, the home realm.

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There are inequities everywhere in every realm.

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And maybe the incessant refrain is, where is the

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God of justice? Where's the God of justice? If all this stuff goes on out there, and by the way, this was written, of course, just prior to 9 -11, where's the

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God of justice? When you look out and around, it doesn't seem like God is just, but maybe his arm is just weak or in a sling.

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Maybe his arm's too short. Maybe he doesn't have any arms.

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Where's the God of justice? And so I think if you're a thinking person, if you're a human, you probably have asked the question sometime in your life, where's the

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God of justice? Now maybe you've caught yourself, and then maybe you've answered the question with Scripture.

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Where's the God of justice? And then you answer. But if we're not careful, I think we could probably enter into this chorus of dissatisfaction.

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And I would say that if we do, it is a wearying thing, not just to us, but to God.

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It makes God weary for us to have that refrain over and over and over.

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So, if you have a Bible, the Bible talks about this very issue in many places.

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One is in the book of Malachi. In the book of Malachi, Malachi chapter 2 is going to ask that question.

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Bad chapter breaks, by the way, because 2 .17 and 3 .1 should all be in one.

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To use the technical term, clump. Is that what we call pericopes?

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When I first saw that, I mean, when do you ever see the word pericope? I mean, I thought it was a periscope or something.

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Of course, it's not called that. It's called a pericope, just this unit of thought, kind of a little paragraph.

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And you could use it outside of the Bible, but I tend to just use it inside the Bible because I study the

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Bible. That's what I do, is study the Bible. And so, the question is, where's the

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God of justice? And Malachi is going to answer it this way. And I'll use some

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New Testament language and insert it back into our conversation today.

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That's what we're having today, right? It's just a conversation. It's just you and me. And one thing that's kind of scary about radio, especially if you listen to radio every day, is you feel like you know the guy who's talking.

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I don't know who you are. Maybe some of you, I know. But you feel like you know me.

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And in a sense, that's really true, because if you talk long enough, there's a window to my soul here through these words that I speak.

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And so, glad to get to know you. I'm especially glad for the Pete Coffey senders. See how that works.

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Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.

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And all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, amen. I am the

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Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the

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Almighty. Does God care? Is God just? How can he be all -powerful and let these things in the world go on?

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Doesn't he love us? If there is a God who's good, how can he allow so much evil?

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Why is there so much suffering in the world? And the list goes on. Compile your own list.

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And Malachi answers with, Jesus is coming back.

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There's going to be a forerunner to the Messiah. And we know his name, of course, is John the

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Baptist. And Jesus himself is going to come back. So here's what happens.

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In the book of Malachi, just like in our day today, we get so concerned about everyone else.

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We get so concerned about our own selves that we forget to look up, that we forget to think to ourselves.

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We are to walk by faith and not by sight. And let's not look around at everybody else and perceive the world through the lens of our emotions, our feelings, our experiences, our friends, our enemies.

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We need to analyze the world through the lens of Scripture and Scripture alone.

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And so where's the God of justice? Malachi, in a series of disputations, in a series of disputes, arguments, contentions, really packs a wallop and answers the question, well,

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Jesus is going to come back and make all wrongs right. God is a

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God of justice, but he's also a God of patience. And you recipients of the book of Malachi are very similar to people today.

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We are self -righteous church -going folks and what's going on in the world? Excuse me, here's,

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I need a cough button is what I need. I don't know what's happening. I think it must be like, I need some

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Claritin. I'm not asking you to send Claritin, but I need some Claritin. I should have taken some today.

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Where's the God of justice? Look at how evil people are prospering.

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Look at these other people. Let's just use the church language. Look at these other churches that are nasty, that are teaching bad doctrine, that have awful philosophies of ministry, seeker -sensitive, governmental views of the atonement.

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I mean, whatever we want to say. And look at them prosper. Look at how the wicked prosper. Can't you see that refrain?

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You can read Psalm 73 and see that very refrain as well. And so Malachi, he gives this exhortation, a series of exhortation to spiritual sleepwalkers who are self -righteous and they keep looking at everyone else.

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Where's the God of justice? Where's the God of justice? Look at them when the whole time they should have been looking to themselves as well, because how much injustice was done by them and through them.

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And so isn't that just like us? Aren't we like the recipients of the book of Malachi? My messenger, to make it precise there in the

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Hebrew. Hey, look at everybody else. Hey, let's just conflate everything.

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Jesus, please come back and get all these bad people. Well, what about us?

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Oh, I mean, how can we compare ourselves to these other people?

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Well, we can, because that makes us feel so much better, doesn't it? You think about self -righteousness and you think about, all right, everybody knows we need to have some righteousness so we would realize we're sinners and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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And there's no one who does good. No one's righteous. So most people would agree.

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Yes, they're sinful, especially good church folk like those who listen to No Compromise Radio. But what we end up doing is saying, yes,

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I need righteousness because I'm unrighteous, but I am not as unrighteous as the them.

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Those other people are more unrighteous than I am. And we get into this awful spiral of self, self, self.

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And so let's just talk technically. Jesus Christ is the righteous one. You can look at 1

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John 2, verses 1 and 2. Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he perfectly obeys the law.

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He's born of a woman, born under law, perfectly obeys as a representative. And so because he's infinite in his righteousness as God, he can bestow it on all those who would believe.

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And so we have a righteousness that is outside of us. Reformers would call that an alien righteousness.

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And we have a righteousness that is given to us, credited to us, imputed to us through the non -saving instrument of faith.

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We believe that he does this and faith says I don't contribute anything. You know, fall into that trap, well, faith has to stick out its hand and receive the gift and don't do any of that.

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Faith says it's nothing in me, it's all of God. And even the way I receive it has nothing to do with me. So don't make your theology through a dopey illustration.

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Get your theology from Romans and other books of the Bible. And so I need this righteousness that's outside of me.

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And I need 100 % righteousness because I realize I have none. But if we're not thinking correctly, even no -compromise radio listeners, we say to ourselves, yeah, but my neighbors need more righteousness than I do.

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See, because if it's intrinsic righteousness, that's the leveler. If it's inherent righteousness that we're looking at, then

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I need less than you do because I'm probably better than you are. And so instead of saying to ourselves, we all need the same, we all need

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Christ's, we all need 100%, if I've got a little more righteousness than you do, then that makes me better than you.

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And so what was going on in the book of Malachi? Where's the God of justice? Where is the God of justice?

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God, you're not getting other people. You're not whacking them. You're not judging them. These are pagan people.

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They deserve it. And by the way, everybody deserves it. That's true. But what about God's people?

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We can look at Israel in the case of Malachi or we could look at the church today. What about us?

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Where's the God of justice? And so the warning today on No Compromise Radio is this. With Malachi 2 .17,

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where's the God of justice? When that starts going through your mind, you ought to think of yourself again and say, you know,

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God was patient with me. And one of the reasons why Jesus is delaying his return, you know, from our perspective, it seems delayed, is because he's saving the unregenerate elect.

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He's patiently waiting to use the anthropomorphic language as the

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Holy Spirit regenerates people and takes them out of death and takes them into light.

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He saves them. He makes them born again. And so where's the God of justice? Well, he's coming back. That's for certain.

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But let's make sure in light of that refrain, we never say, like the readers of Malachi, you know what, everybody else is bad and we're not so bad.

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God come back and get them when really he's going to get us then as well. Can't you feel this self -righteous refrain that comes through in the book of Malachi that is very similar to how we think and feel?

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And so you say to yourself, well, Romans chapter one, as I steal a page from my friend

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Byron Young's playbook, you can feel the self -righteousness in chapter one when you read it like angry fundamentalists, when you read it like, you know what, these people

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God's going to get and they deserve it. You know, we have righteousness revealed and we have wrath revealed and this wrath that's going to be revealed and is revealed currently against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

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You know, these people that know about God, but don't give him thanks, they don't honor him as God and God gives them up and they're futile in their thinking.

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And so before long, you can get in the refrain of Romans chapter one and then you think, okay, homosexuality,

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God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among men, among themselves rather because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.

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Now, Paul uses that amen there as a, yes, amen. He begins to talk about who the

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Lord is and he just can't help but say doxologically, amen. But we can take that same amen and turn it into the angry rant of the fundamentalist who's self -righteous.

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And yeah, God, you go get them. Where's the God of justice? God, sick them. For this reason,

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God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Yeah, that's right. They deserve it.

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Women exchange natural relations for those who are contrary to nature.

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Men likewise, they did the same thing. Shameful acts, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

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That's right, amen. Go get them. They didn't see fit to acknowledge

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God so God gives them up. That's right. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.

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They were evil. They were covetous. They were malice filled.

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They're full of other things like envy. Yeah, murder. Yeah, strife. Look at them. Deceit, maliciousness.

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Oh man, they gossip. They slander. They hate God. They're insolent. They're haughty.

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They're boastful. Yeah, amen. Get them. Veners of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

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They know God's decree, but they practice it anyway and they clap for people that do.

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Now that's how I read Romans 1, at least for a lot of years. Yeah, look at them.

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I'm not like them anymore. Well, here's the problem.

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Romans 2, verse 1. Therefore. Now, okay. I know you probably already know what's in Romans 2, but let's pretend you don't.

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Therefore. Okay, God's wrath. There's an end times wrath, right? In the lake of fire, great white throne judgment, but there's a wrath that's going on now as well.

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And that's the wrath that Paul talks about in chapter 1 of Romans. Not an eschatological future wrath, but a current wrath.

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And so we see all this sin and we see people who aren't worshiping

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Jesus descended from David, son of God, raised from the dead.

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And we say chapter 2, verse 1. Therefore, get them. Damn them.

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Where's the God of justice? Slay them. Let's just end it now.

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They deserve it. And you know, the thing is, they do. They do deserve it.

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But here it says, therefore, Romans 2, 1. Therefore, you have no excuse. Oh, man.

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Every one of you who judges. Now, did you just judge all those people?

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Did you just say, you know, according to the righteous judgment even of God, they deserve what they get? Yeah, they are bad.

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They do deserve it. Well, then you know enough. Right? Then you know enough that he says, hey, why are you passing judgment on them?

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Because when you do, you condemn yourself because you practice the very same things. Chapter 2, verse 1 of Romans.

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Hey, what do you mean? I'm not gay. I'm not homosexual. I'm not like those people.

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Do the exact same thing. Where's the God of justice? See, self -righteousness is always saying, look at them.

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It always brings things to the level of comparison between people instead of looking at the holiness of God.

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Everyone, homosexuals, church folks, Protestants, fundamentalists,

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Reformed, they all need the righteousness of Christ because God's justice and His holiness demand it.

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Inflexible righteousness of God, inflexible justice, inflexible holiness. You can't say, well,

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I've got a little more righteous standing than these people. No, I am one of those.

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Just think about your thought life and your conduct and your life.

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I mean, we stand leveled because of sin. Adam sin, our sin, consequently sin nature.

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Go through the whole theological construct if you like. That's fine. Where's the God of justice?

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The people in Malachi's day said, God, go get those other people. When the whole time they should have been thinking, well, the sin that we have as well before you needs to be repented of.

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Where's the God of justice? So I want to make sure you, the no compromise listener, don't go around thinking to yourself, well, why doesn't

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God go get all these people? Don't we have sin in our own lives? Doesn't this bring us back to thankfulness that Jesus Christ would pay for our sins and He would love us in spite of all that?

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I mean, can you imagine loving the self righteous loving the prideful, loving the arrogant?

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I mean, don't you see yourself in that list in Romans chapter one? Paul is trying in Romans chapter one to make sure that whether you're a

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Gentile or whether you're religious as a Jew or anybody else that you realize there's a need.

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There's a need for external righteousness from Jesus Christ. You need the gospel.

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You need Jesus to pay for your sins and then you need Jesus, His righteousness.

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And so God judges righteously and you're not going to escape. It says, do you not know the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things?

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Do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them themselves that you will escape the judgment of God?

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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.

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But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves on the day of wrath when

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God's righteous judgment will be revealed. There's an eschatological wrath as well as the current wrath.

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He will render to each one according to His works. What have your works been like?

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Well, this makes you say, I need the works of Jesus. If God is so holy and so righteous and so just,

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I need Jesus to save me. And that's what's going on. Where's the God of justice? Oh, He's coming back.

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But don't you want other people who are in that list of Romans 1 to receive the mercy and grace and sovereign generosity that's distinguishing?

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I do. Yes, I'd love to have Jesus come back. But what does that mean for all the pagans then? So anyway, my name is

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Mike Abenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Where's the God of justice? We ask the question and the scriptures answer it.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.