My text today is found in Genesis 18:25. The context of this text begins in verse one when three men approach Abraham as he is sitting outside his tent. Conservative theologians are virtually all agreed that two of the men are angelic beings. The third man is the pre-incarnate Christ. Such appearances are usually called ‘Christophanies” – from the Greek combination of two words: ‘Christos’ which means Christ and ‘phainein’ (FAY-nee-en) which means ‘to appear.’ We find Christophanies in Genesis 16:7-10 when the Lord meets Hagar, and again in Judges 6:11-14 when the Lord meets with Gideon, and in Daniel 3:24-25 where we find the fourth man in the blazing furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
So, back to the context
of chapter 18 and which moves seamlessly into chapter 19. God tells Abraham He
is about to destroy Sodom because of the evil He has seen of the city and its
environs. You might remember from reading the story yourself, that Lot and his
family were living in Sodom at this time. And so, these chapters have a lot to
tell us not only about God, but also the chapters hold application to our own
lives in 2024, and I might at some time later return to these two chapters. But
for today, I want to focus on verse 25.
God has just told
Abraham what He intends to do to the city, and Abraham – concerned perhaps not
only for the entire city, but especially for his nephew Lot and Lot’s family –
Abraham speaks to the Lord: (Genesis 18:25, NIV) “Far be it from you to do
such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and
the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do
right?”
Listen again to that
last sentence: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Another way of asking it might be, ‘Is God
good and right and just at all times, in all circumstances, and in all places?”
I want us to pause here
a while, because that’s the question all humanity has asked at some time in
their lives. And I suspect that there have been – and ARE today – many in
church pews and pulpits who ask the same question: Will not the Judge of all
the earth do right?”
First, let’s briefly
examine who IS the judge? This is so important a question that we dare
not gloss over it in my message now. The Judge to whom Abraham spoke and of
whom we ask the same question is no other than Almighty God, Creator of heaven
and earth. The one who with the breath of His mouth set planets in motion. Who
with the breath of His mouth instantaneously formed out of nothing all plants
and insects and air and sea and land creatures.
And why did He do all
that? Why did He create everything we see and can’t see? He did it because of
His great love and unsurpassed affection for all of humanity which is the crown
of His creation. And that includes you and me, by the way.
St John tells us, (1
John 4:8b, 10) “God is love . . . . [and] “In this is love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins.”
And what is it the
Psalmist cried out in the eight Psalm? “When I consider Your
heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You
have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, and the son
of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than
God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him
to rule over the works of Your hands.” (Psalm 8:3-6a)
Oh, we need the Holy
Spirit to plant this truth deeply in our souls: God IS love. And I
repeat it for emphasis: God is love.
Let me try to
illustrate that incomprehensible reality it this way: My body has somewhere
around 30 TRILLION cells. And every single one of them has an X and Y
chromosome. It is that X and Y combination that makes me a male. I can never in
ten million years be anything other than a male. My ‘maleness’ is written into
my genome.
Similarly, every woman
in this room and on this planet as two X chromosomes written into all 30
trillion of their cells. It is those two X chromosomes that make you a female.
You can never be any other gender than what God made you at your conception.
And so, when God tells
us He IS love, that means (to use human illustrations to try to explain the
Divine) that means ‘love’ is written – so to speak – into God’s very BEING. He
can never be anything other than Love. And therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE for Him
to DO anything or to PERMIT anything into our lives unless it is based in His love.
That includes His judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah as we find it in Genesis 19.
Yet, it many in history,
and even today in many pews and pulpits, have believed and believe something
quite different about God. Instead of a loving and merciful Father, they
perceive God as an austere inquisitor; A no-nonsense Being who always scans the
earth, waiting for someone to mess up so He can toss His lightning bolts
around.
Even the Twelve
Disciples had a perverted idea of God. You might remember their question of
Jesus when they encountered the man who’d been born blind. They asked Jesus: (John
9:2b-3) “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would
be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It
was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it
was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
It's the same corrupted
idea of God that Job’s three ‘counsellors’ had. Early in the story Eliphaz
accused the suffering Job: (Job 4:7-8) “Whoever perished being innocent? Or
where were the upright destroyed? According to what I have seen, those who
plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it.”
Now, let’s pause a
moment here to make some clarification. I am NOT saying God does not judge and
punish sin. I am NOT saying God will not discipline the sinner – even up to and
including death. We see that truth evidenced throughout Holy Scripture,
including the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 that I shared with us all last week
surrounding the receiving of Holy Communion in an unworthy manner. So, yes, God
WILL judge sin. God MUST judge sin. Otherwise, He would not be love itself, nor
would He be just. Nor holy.
But that might beg the
question: HOW does His judgment on sin – even to include death of the sinner –
demonstrate love? Well, perhaps I can
illustrate the answer to that question this way: Which of you would stand idly by
and let your child be murdered? Would you not do everything in your power –
including killing the one who was trying to destroy your child – would you not do
everything in your power to protect him or her?
Of course, you would. And why? Because you LOVE your child. And so, God
– who IS love – does whatever is necessary to protect His beloved – up to and
including the death of those who would destroy them.
The idea of God as an
inquisitor is as far from Biblical truth as east is from west. The truth of the
matter, if we are to fully believe His word, is that God is always, and under
all circumstances, compassionate, merciful, and . . . well, love itself.
And after our lives are
over, we will fully recognize what we cannot in this life fully understand: Nails
did not hold Jesus to that cross. Love did. Consider what would be our inescapable
fate if Jesus had become disillusioned by the mob at the foot of the cross.
Many of them, only days earlier during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, many
had hailed Him as the coming king. But now they were clamoring for his
torturous death.
But back to the
question: Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
I don’t think anyone
here knows what I am about to say because I rarely talk about it. But the theme
of my message today makes this a good time to talk about it:
I am in pain every
waking moment; From the time I get out of bed in the morning to the time I go
back to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep. I’ve had this terrible back pain
for many years. And sadly, I know many of you can identify with what I am
saying because you also live with constant and chronic pain. And you also know
how exhausting on the body and on the spirits constant pain can be.
My point? Last week
near dinner time, my pain level was hovering around seven out of ten, despite
having taken my prescription pain medication. I said to Nancy, “I am so very
tired of this pain. I can’t hardly stand it sometimes.”
Her face reflected
empathy, and she said what I immediately knew was the voice of God. She told me
to remember Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh.’ And then she added, “Thorns hurt.”
Even as she was
speaking, my mind took me to 2 Corinthians (12:8-10) where Paul confessed to
his readers: “Concerning this [thorn] I implored the Lord three
times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is
sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly,
therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power
of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with
weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions,
with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I
am strong.”
And from there, the
Holy Spirit reminded me of Paul’s comment to the Christians at Philippi.
Writing as a prisoner of Rome for the sake of the gospel, he wrote: “I will
not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness,
Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by
life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians
1:20b-21)
Shall not the Judge of
all the earth do right? Of COURSE, the God who IS love will do right – even
when we do not understand the ‘whys’ of what happens around us or to us.
By now, most of you
know Roger. I don’t think I will ever forget our introduction. Roger shook my hand and the first words out of
his mouth were these: I’m Roger, and I’m dying.”
As many of you know,
Roger has stage four cancer. He knows his time on earth is short. But because
he knows that he is dying, his spirit was open to questions of eternity. We
spoke later that afternoon, and I baptized him last month on September 1. And
while Roger knows his earthly life has been shortened by a disease spawned in
hell itself, he now knows his eternal life is ensured by the blood of
Jesus in whom he has placed his faith.
Certainly, he’s
fighting his cancer. Certainly, he pleads with all of us for our ongoing
prayers for strength and encouragement, and of course, healing – if that be
God's will for him in this time. But one might ask, did God give Roger cancer?
Did God give me chronic back pain? Did God give YOU whatever is the physical
trouble with which you suffer? Did God give the apostle Paul that thorn in his
flesh?
We know God is utterly
sovereign over all the affairs of nations and people AND individuals. But
whether our illnesses or injuries or whatever – whether such things are God's
PASSIVE will for us (as in the case of Job where He permitted Satan to afflict
the man), or whether He actively brings such things into our lives – we MUST
know, we MUST remember these two eternal and never changing truths:
1) God is love. It is impossible
for Him to act in any way other than with, in, and through love.
2), Our omnipotent and
utterly sovereign Father, who controls the end from the beginning, who never
blinks, who always acts in love – our God will ALWAYS cause ALL things that
come into the lives of those who belong to Him by their baptismal faith – He
will always cause all things to work together for good. Always. At all times, in all situations, and
in all circumstances.
Isn’t that what He
tells us in Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome: (Romans 8:28) “And we
know that God causes all things to work together for good to those
who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
And isn’t that what the
Psalmist alluded to when he wrote: (Psalm 119:67) “Before I
was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” And again in that same chapter (119:75) “I
know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness
You have afflicted me.
As I begin to bring
this message to a close, I want to remind us of something Paul wrote to the
Christians at Corinth as he began his second letter. This is the same letter in
which Paul told them of his thorn. Listen to what he said in chapter one of
this letter: (2 Corinthians 1:3ff)
“Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all
comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be
able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with
which we ourselves are comforted by God"
Listen also to what he
wrote to the Philippians: (Philippians 1:20-21) “I will not be put to shame
in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now,
as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to
me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
I do not know WHY my
back pain gets so bad sometimes I can hardly think of anything else. And yes, I
am so grateful to God that I have access to medication that helps mitigate
the pain. Nor do I know why YOU have such chronic pain or illnesses that
sometimes it’s all you can think about.
But will not the Judge
of all the earth always do right? And don’t we all want to proclaim as Paul
proclaimed: Whether by life or by death, Christ will be glorified in our body.
Whether suffering a painful thorn or a debilitating illness – Christ will be
exalted. Whether in prosperity or need, we want Christ to be exalted.
What is it again He
told Paul who asked Him THREE times to remove that thorn? “My grace is
sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
Oh! We have to get
that. Our strength in Christ, our fruitfulness for Christ, our FAITHFULNESS for
Christ is perfected by our weaknesses because – and ONLY because – of God's
grace.
Shall not the Judge of
all the earth do right? It was Job who said – the same Job who in one moment
lost his ten children and his fortune – and then shortly thereafter lost his
health to excruciating sores all over his body – it was Job who looked toward
heaven and shouted: (Job 13:15) “Though He slay me, I will trust
in Him.”
It was the same Job who
also looked at his three phony counsellors and said: “But it is still my
consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied
the words of the Holy One.” (Job 6:10)
That is a message for
me. And you. And for all in the pews and the pulpits who sometimes wonder,
“Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?”
Christian! Stay in the fight. Persevere through the ‘fog
of war’ as it is called. Keep seeking the Lord. Keep chasing after the Lord as
a child lost in a supermarket calls out for Mommy until she rushes to him,
picks him up and embraces him in her arms.
The Judge of all the
earth is Love itself. And He will always, always do right, at all times, in
every circumstance, and in every situation.
Hang in there. We WILL
understand it all ‘By and By.”
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