God's Justice and Wrath Various Texts

About two months ago, I was at a gathering where a gentleman who is an attorney was describing a case of a repeat offender that came across his courthouse. He was describing a case of a predator who had taken advantage of children.

What the attorney said about this man and this case has stuck with me. He said, if there is any justice in this world, this man will go to jail for a long time. I found this interesting because the attorney saying this is not a believer.

I'm not sure if he believes there is a God, but he definitely makes no profession of faith in God. When people cry out for justice, do you know what that shows? It demonstrates that there is a God who has set a moral standard in the universe.

And when that standard is violated in a heinous way, people want justice. We see this all the time. People say, I want justice. Typically small things like someone stealing a piece of candy from a convenience store, people don't say we want justice.

But it's big things. Now if we're all accidents, people would have no desire to cry out for this. Because in an accidental world, there are no standards. Anything goes. And so no right and wrong ingrained in us.

This desire for justice is so deeply in us that we should be constantly reminded that this desire was not produced by man, but it was placed in us by the one who sets the standard of morality. That, of course, is God.

God's Justice and the Moral Standard of the Universe

As we continue our sermon series, The Ultimate Pursuit of Knowing God, as we look at the attributes of God, we're going to look at two attributes that we don't hear a lot about in our culture. And it's very sad because the Bible is crystal clear on these attributes.

And that is God's justice and his wrath. And so this is what we're going to look at today. And our big idea this morning is that one certain fact about our world is that God will right every wrong. One certain fact about our world is that God will right every wrong.

And there are two reasons that we know this. The first is that God is just. And you'll see this in your outlines in your bulletin. God is just. In the Old and New Testaments, there is only one word for righteousness and justice.

So these are related concepts. So when we are talking about justice, we're talking about righteousness. Within God's justice, he is upholding his righteous character. One author gives this definition of justice.

He says, Justice means that God always does what is right, and he himself is the final standard of what is right. We can be confident that every act that God does is right because he is fully righteous.

Moses said this of God in Deuteronomy 32 .4. He said, The rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Abraham also knew that God is always right in his judgments.

This is what Abraham said in Genesis 18 .25. He says, Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? God says this of himself in Isaiah 45 .19. He says, I, the Lord, speak the truth. I declare what is right.

God always does what is right, and he expects his people, us, to do what is right also. Psalm 19 .8, The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

One question we should ask is why does God punish sin? Why does he? Why does he need to punish sin? Can't God just forgive sin and let it slide without punishing it? Well, the answer is no. That would violate his holy character.

He must do what is right, and the right thing to do when someone commits a sinful act is to punish it. God's justice demands that he do this. In the history of the world, there have been countless sins committed from all the people who have lived.

Every sin is paid for either in hell or at the cross of Jesus Christ. No other place. Either in hell or at the cross of Jesus Christ. And I will explain hell in our second point, but I will explain God's justice and the cross.

Right here.

The passage of scripture that addresses God's justice concerning sin is Romans 3 .25 and 26. And these two verses, I don't think I'm saying this in overstatement here. I think these are the two most important verses in the whole Bible.

Romans 3 .25 and 26. I'm going to read them right now. Whom God put forward, okay Jesus, God put Jesus forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So at the cross, God is able to forgive sins and to maintain his righteousness.

Okay, because God's justice is poured out on Christ at the cross and he is able to forgive sins and maintain his holy character. Now, a number of years ago, I used to do street evangelism with Somali Muslims.

And these were people who I really liked a lot because they had a zeal for God, even though it was a misplaced zeal for God. They wanted to talk about God as they understood it and it was kind of refreshing in some ways because when I would talk to an American, they usually wanted to talk about the weather or sports or politics and they didn't want to talk about deep matters, but Muslims were always willing to do that.

And some of the conversations I had with them, this story came up a couple of times where they were describing Allah, the God of Islam. And this is how the story goes. There was a man who killed 100 people in his lifetime.

He murdered 100 people in his lifetime and he got to the end of his life. And he was talking to a Muslim leader. And as he was talking to this Muslim leader, he said to him, can my sins be forgiven? Can I go to heaven?

Can your God forgive my sins and receive me into his kingdom? And the Muslim leader said, he can do that if you believe in him. And I heard this story from a few different people. So this is a story that they talk about a lot, apparently.

Now what's the problem with that? Now Islam, they believe in hell. They believe that Allah judges people in hell. But they don't believe that there needs to be a payment for people who go to heaven. Because we all know this.

Everybody who goes to heaven sins. We're only saved by the grace of God.

That is it.

So the problem with the God of Islam is that he's not a God of justice. Because the God of the Bible is a righteous God. The God of Islam is a false God. And the way the Quran describes him as a God who is unjust, because he does not punish the sins that he forgives.

So anybody who goes to heaven, their sins are not forgiven. I hope that makes sense. Christianity is much different. Yes, there's hell where God judges sin, but there's also the cross. Everyone's sins need to be paid for in one of two places.

Now, we live in a world full of right and wrong. You can't go a day without facing moral dilemmas. Parents teach their children to do right and not wrong. Many of you parents, you deal with this on a daily basis.

So how do we measure what is right and what is wrong? As I already mentioned, God sets the standard. Whatever God says is right, is right. What we have seen over the last several weeks is that God is perfect in all of his attributes.

God is the source of all reality, and so what he says goes. Since God is the standard, there can be no standard outside of him. Now, this sermon is focused on righteousness, but righteousness and truth are related concepts.

People ask the question, what is truth? In fact, when Jesus stood on trial before Pontius Pilate, remember what Pontius Pilate said? He said, what is truth? Earlier on in the Gospel of John, Jesus explained what truth was.

In John 17, 17, he said, as Jesus was praying to his father, he says, your word is truth. Notice that Jesus did not say your word is true. That's a very important distinction to make here. As if it affirms true facts about the universe.

The Bible doesn't just affirm true facts about the universe. Jesus deliberately uses the word truth because he's making a standard here. That everything in the world must be measured by this truth. This is significant because lots of things are true, but are not a standard to measure things by.

For example, 2 plus 2 equals 4. That's true. That is a true statement. But something that is true is not a standard. I hope that makes sense. Now, when we say the word truth, we are talking about a standard where everything is measured by it.

So when Jesus says your word is truth, he's saying everything must be measured by that. So anytime something contradicts the Bible, we have to say it is false. Because it doesn't measure up with what the Bible says.

And there's a lot of error in the world. And so we need to recognize it when something is false. The Bible is the source of all truth because God is the standard of truth. And this is his word. The 66 books of the Bible set the standard for what truth is.

And there are implications to this. People cannot determine what is right by their own standard. And this is so because there is a standard outside of them, and that's God's standard. Sometimes people will say, how could God have let this happen?

I'm sure you've heard that in your life. And sometimes we need to confess, we ourselves have said that. How could God let this happen? Now as people, as creatures who are created by God, we cannot determine what is right by our own standard.

We are not in the place to say this to God. What we saw last week is that God is holy and we are not. Romans 3 .23 says that for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The creature cannot say to the creator, what you did is wrong.

A sinner cannot say to a holy God, what you did is wrong. Think about how prideful that is. When we put God under our own microscope. We have no right to say that God should meet our standards about what is right when he himself sets that standard.

And this is what the Apostle Paul says to those who question what God does. In Romans 9 .20 and 21 he says, But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, what does molded say to its molder? Okay, so Paul is saying here, we have no right to answer back to God.

As we address the topic of God's righteousness, one person in the Bible comes to mind and that's Job. Some of you are very familiar with the story about the tremendous suffering that Job endured and God oversaw all of it.

We at this church, we affirm that God is over everything. It's not as though he's small and couldn't get there in time to stop something. He is over everything that happens, including the suffering that Job endured.

Now, Job questions whether God has been righteous in his dealings with him. As Job is enduring all of the suffering, he's wondering, Did God do right in his dealings with me? And this was God's response to Job in Job chapter 40, verses 1 through 8.

He who argues with God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once and I will not answer.

Twice, but I will proceed no further. Then the Lord answered Job out of the worldward and said, Dress for action like a man. I will question you and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong?

Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? So you see here, What's interesting here is that God does not tell Job why he is right in what he has done with his life. You notice that? He doesn't tell him why.

He doesn't say, Okay, here's ten reasons why I'm right in what I did. Rather, he answers, I am the creator and you are not. And you have no right to say what is right. Only I do, because I set the standard.

God does not have to explain to us why he does what he does in the world. And these are questions that we always have. But he doesn't have to, because he's the creator. He does it by his own perfect standard.

And we can always be sure that whatever God does is right. And we ought to be very grateful for this. A number of weeks ago, we looked at how God is all-powerful. He's unlimited in his power. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be to have an all-powerful God who does what is wrong?

But he doesn't. God is good. Everything God does is right. He uses his unlimited power to do what is right in everything that he does. So this is the first reason why we can be certain that one certain fact about our world is that God will right every wrong, and that is that he is just.

God's Holiness and Wrath Against Sin

The second reason why we can be certain that one certain fact about our world is that God will right every wrong is that God's holiness generates wrath against every sin. God's holiness generates wrath against every sin.

Last week, we looked at God's holiness, that he is set apart from sin. God cannot even look at evil. I was talking to Elvin before the service, and he noticed that Habakkuk was one of the verses in your outline, which is a rarity because we don't go to Habakkuk a lot.

But Habakkuk 1 .13 says, You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong. God is so holy that he cannot even look at evil. So what does a holy God do with sin? The answer is he punishes it.

Now, justice and wrath are not the same thing, but they are related. As we saw, justice means that God does what is right, and God's wrath is the response to wrongs in our world. Namely, sin. God will right every wrong.

God approves that all that conforms to his holy character. And if he approves of all that conforms to his ways, it only follows that he hates all that is opposed to him. God's wrath is directed against sin because he hates all sin.

And if God did not hate sin, he would not be worthy of our worship. So this is something we need to rejoice in, that God hates sin. And we should hate sin as he hates sin. An important emphasis to make is that God's wrath comes from his holiness.

When we think of wrath, we have a negative connotation because we don't like it when someone gets super angry. And we're right to have that reaction. We feel this way because wrath is typically rooted in sin.

The sin at the root of wrath is anger. When we are talking about this kind of wrath, we are right to have these negative feelings because we see this happen in our life. That being said, people do have righteous anger, and we need to acknowledge that.

Not all human anger is sinful. Like, for example, if someone were to break into your house, what would be the appropriate reaction to protect you and your family? You should be angry at the person. You should grab a baseball bat.

In this area, it would probably be a gun, right? And you should go after the person.

Okay?

By the way, my dad purchased us the Pelican, so that's what we use. But anyway, we need to respond with anger towards this person. It wouldn't be appropriate to be nice to the thief, the intruder, when they come in.

That wouldn't be an appropriate response at all. And so there is righteous anger that we can have. So people do have righteous anger. Now, with God, his anger is always righteous.

Always.

He always maintains his holiness. God is right to be angry toward sin. In Scripture, God's wrath comes out when people sin against him. And here are a few examples that I'll share with you. Exodus 32, verses 9 and 10.

Okay?

So in that account, Israel was disobedient. They sinned against him. They repented. And so God did not have to pour his wrath out on them. But he would have if they didn't repent. Another one is Deuteronomy, chapter 9, verses 7 and 8.

This is Moses again. He says,. And the Lord was angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. Now, God's wrath is not only shown in the Old Testament when God is angry at sin, but it's also shown in the New Testament.

God is not different. We looked at it several weeks ago. God does not change. He's always the same. And he's the same in this way, too. I mentioned in the first point that God's justice was shown at the cross.

God's justice was shown when God the Father poured out his holy wrath upon Jesus. In Romans 3, 23 through 26, says, Okay. I need to define that word, propitiation. It's probably a word you've never seen.

But it's an extremely important word in the Bible. It shows up four times. It shows up twice in 1 John, once in Hebrews, and once here in Romans. And what it means is that God's wrath was poured out on Jesus when he was on the cross.

And so the wrath that he had towards us for our sin was turned towards Jesus. And now his attitude towards us turns to favor.

Okay?

So it turns from wrath to favor. That's what propitiation means. So Jesus was put forward as a propitiation to bear the wrath that we deserve. And so these little words are so important as we look at the Bible.

Jesus bore the wrath that we deserve when he took our sins upon himself. In the songs that Brianna was leading today, they were right in the words. I hope you were listening to the words. He bore the wrath that we deserve.

Now, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. This is a wonderful verse. It says, Okay, so all of our sins were placed on Jesus on the cross. And when God poured out his holy wrath upon him, God's wrath was satisfied. In Isaiah, we looked at this earlier.

Isaiah 53, 5, and 6 says this,. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Okay, so all of our sins are placed on Jesus. And then in verse 10, it actually says, It was the will of the Lord to crush him. All of our sins were placed on Jesus.

And he was punished as we deserve to be punished by a holy God. Now, the psalmist says, in Psalm 103, 10, that God does not treat us as our sins deserve. It's a beautiful verse. God does not treat us as our sins deserve.

And why does God not treat us as our sins deserve? Because he treated Jesus as our sins deserve. This is the gospel, the good news. That's what the gospel means, the good news. Why do we call it good news?

We call it this because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so that we don't have to. This is the greatest truth that there is. Jesus died for us so that we don't have to face that penalty. God's wrath was exhausted upon Jesus so that those who believe in him do not have to face it.

So not only are you not sentenced to hell when you believe in Jesus, but you are also given eternal life. And you will reign with God on a new restored earth forever. Think about how incredible that is.

Imagine with me here that you are a prisoner who was just sentenced to life in prison. And so the rest of your life is all mapped out. You're going to spend it in confinement. And before you serve one day in jail, the judge says to you,.

You know what?

I'm going to let you off. I'm going to forgive you here of this crime. And not only are you not given the sentence in prison, but also he says, you know what? I'm going to send you back to the place that you want to live and you can spend the rest of your life with your family, with the ones you love the most, and you can do whatever you want with the rest of your life.

So not only are you not sentenced to hell, but also you're given the greatest possible scenario. You're given eternal life. You're able to dwell with God forever. The one for whom you were created. Everyone who belongs to Jesus in this room, we need to get this out.

This is the gospel. That Jesus died in our place. He suffered in our place. And there are people in this community who do not know Jesus. And the wrath of God is awaiting them. And we need to recognize that.

The Bible is crystal clear on this. The eternal sentence to hell because people are still in their sin. And hell, it's not something we like to talk about. It really isn't. But at this church, we don't dodge things like this.

We want, 1 Corinthians 13, this is right at the wedding yesterday, love rejoices with the truth.

Okay?

If I were not to talk to you about hell, I would not be loving you. But as your pastor, I'm loving you by telling you about hell. Hell is a real place where real people go. And I warn you, as God commands us to warn about this place.

Hell is a place where God's holy wrath is poured out. Romans chapter 2, verses 5 through 7. He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Romans 5, 8, and 9 says, So what are we saved from? Yes, we are saved from our sins. But we're also saved from the wrath of God. We must understand that. We do not want anyone to face God's fury. When we invite people to believe in Jesus, we are rescuing them.

My old pastor used to give this illustration. It's like a semi coming down a road,.

Full speed,.

And someone is standing right in the middle of the road. And you're on the side of the road. And you have enough time to push that person away from this oncoming truck. That is evangelism right there.

You are in that position. To push that person away from the wrath that is to come. One of the most important things we can do in our life is to tell people about Jesus. To tell them that he died in our place and bore the wrath of God so that we don't have to.

Now as I talk about the wrath of God, which, by the way, is the least popular attribute talked about today of God. But it's something we need to talk about. We need to address. There is another attribute of God that we haven't covered yet.

And that is God's patience. And I'm going to insert it here because it's very appropriate. God's patience toward unbelievers. God could end someone's life at any moment and bring judgment upon them. Or Jesus could come back today.

He could and he would not be wrong to do so. He would be perfectly right to do so. But because of God's patience, he enables many people to live in unbelief for a long time. And also, in addition to that, Jesus said he would return soon.

But it's been 2 ,000 years and he hasn't come yet. He's patient in his return also. So the question is, why does God let people live long lives and yet they still do not believe in him? And why has Jesus not yet returned yet?

And the answer is God is patient. Psalm 103, verses 8 and 9. In 2 Peter 3, 9 and 10. The way of the Lord will come like a thief. And then the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved. And the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Another beautiful verse in Scripture is 1 Timothy 2, 3, and 4 where it says God desires all people to be saved. God does not rejoice in judging the wicked. It's not as though he's throwing a party and he enjoys it.

In sorrow, he judges the wicked. He wants everybody to be saved. And so we need to be people who follow God's heart and have a hunger to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ. God gives people longer lives on earth, people who are in unbelief, not so that they can enjoy their lives but so that they would repent and put their trust in Christ.

And he doesn't leave us here, all here today who belong to Jesus, he doesn't leave us here to enjoy our lives and just disregard the fact that we need to get this news out to people. So this is the second reason why one certain fact about our world is that God will right every wrong because God's holiness generates wrath against every sin.

So the two reasons that God will right every wrong are God is just and the point I just said, God's holiness generates wrath against every sin. So as we close today, if you have been wronged, God will right it.

You know what Romans 12, 19 says? It says, do not avenge because God says, I will avenge every wrong that has been done. And this goes both ways. Of course, we are in the wrong too. We are all sinners.

And God will right that wrong too. The question is, where will he right it? It is in one of two places, either in hell or at the cross of Jesus Christ. So be sure that you have taken refuge in Christ by believing in him.

In the case of every human, we can rejoice that the God of all the earth will do right in his judgment and we can rejoice in that. Now, this was a weighty topic today and I recognize that. I don't want to minimize that.

Next week, we're going to look at a topic that's much more popular and very encouraging to all of us, and that's God's grace and mercy. So next week, we're going to look at God's grace and mercy. And then the following week, we're going to look at God's love.

So we're covering all of the attributes of God this summer. So let's pray here as we close. Father in heaven, we worship you for your greatness, Lord. You are just and we should rejoice in that, Lord.

As I mentioned earlier, you would not be worthy of our worship if you did not punish sin. But thankfully, Lord, we praise you that you do. You do punish sin. Lord, all the senseless acts that happen in our world, every wrong will be righted.

And Lord, we need to look at ourselves too and realize, Lord, that it's not as though we are not in the wrong. In fact, we come into this world in the wrong. We are all sinners before a holy God. And so, Lord, I pray that everyone in this room, if they haven't already done this, that they would take refuge in Jesus Christ.

Thank you that Jesus bore the wrath that we deserve. So, Father, we praise you for your justice this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.