Holiness and Justice

You remember the Old Testament account of the ark of God being returned to Israel.

It was being carried on the oxcart and the oxen stumbled voluntarily as a stretched forth his hand to study the ark than what happened. The heavens opened and a voice came inside the IQ is now as soon as possible touched the holy Ark of God. God strike him dead with that.

We welcome you to the illusion of Renewing Your Mind. Remember the first time I read that account and second Samuel, my first inclination was that's not fair. Certainly, as I had good intentions didn't mean to offend God. In fact, he was trying to help. This story seems to be an instance of the punishment outweighing the offense today. Dr. RC Sproul helps us see that when we understand God's character we can avoid the very real danger of taking his grace. If we look at the 18th century in the American frontier.

We notice that there was a recurring motif during the great awakening in the preaching that was found at that time and there was a sort of a do well emphasis on the one hand, that the message of the preachers was the man is very bad and that God is very very mad words, there were such an emphasis on the sinfulness of man and the wrath of God that almost what some of colic scare theology that dominated that. And then in the 19th century we saw a dramatic reaction against that kind of accident in preaching so that now the message was well me is not quite so bad and because not really quite so mad and there. The emphasis was upon the love of God and that the goodness of man while at the turn-of-the-century the beginning of the 20th century there was a response to that reaction on the continent in the world. Theology with the advent of a theology called crisis theology was called crisis theology because it borrowed the term from the Greek word Croesus which means judgment in these theologians on the continent said that if we're going to take seriously the biblical portrait of God.

We must once again take seriously what the Bible says about the wrath of God. Now there were some extremists in that group who said that what we see in the Scriptures, particularly in the Old Testament at certain times and places is an expression of something that is irrational in the character of God himself never say said this. Yes, we do see unavoidably and unmistakably a manifestation of the anger of God in the pages of the Old Testament, but that anger is not so much a manifestation of God's righteousness, or of his holiness as it is a manifestation of a defect within God's own character. We were not. I have read some theologians that speak about the shadow side of the off way saying that there resides within God. The element of the demonic, and this demonic aspect of God shows itself displays itself by sudden unprovoked manifestations of a whimsical, capricious, arbitrary anger, some of the passages that are in view would include a narrative that we read in the book of Leviticus which are read briefly for you at the beginning of the 10th chapter of Leviticus we read this account now Aaron's sons named Avina by who took their sensors and put fire in them and added incense and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord. Contrary to his command so far came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord on this understated curse description of the death of the sons of Aaron, it seems to indicate for us.

An example of this swift and capricious manifestation of God's wrath. When I read this I try to read between the lines and I asked myself, how did Aaron react to all of this, imagine it, you remember earlier in the Scriptures. The elaborate ceremony that God ordained when he consecrated Aaron as the high priest of his God ordered the minute details of the design of the garments that were to be worn by the high priest that were designed for glory and for beauty and then we can imagine how Aaron felt when he saw his own sons consecrated to the priest and hear these young priests who they do something they were not exactly sure what it was but somehow they came to the altar and they did is young clergy will often do try little experimentation, innovation play little almost adolescent type pranks is there fooling around in their job and in that sense of immaturity and without warning and without rebuke, as they offer this strange fire in the audit Wam God strikes them dead instant can you hear Aaron he goes to Moses and he says what's going on here. What kind of a god is it that we serve by devoting my entire life to the ministry and to the service of Yahweh, and one of the thanks that I get like that he takes my son for a small transgression. What kind of a god is this list to what Moses said. Moses then said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke of when he said among those who approach me. I will be regarded as holy and in the sight of all the people by will be honored and then we read these words and Aaron held his peace, you better believe Aaron held his face when the Almighty Said Look Aaron I Know That This Is Crushing to You That I Have Taken the Lives of Your Sons, but Do You Remember When I Establish the Priesthood. Do You Remember the Day I Set You Apart and Consecrated You for That Holy Task That I Said That There Are Certain Principles. I Will Not Negotiate with My Priests. I Will Be Regarded As Holy by Anyone Who Dares to Presume to Minister and Monday and before the People I Will Be Treated with Reference and When God Spoke, Aaron Shot There Other Cases like That.

Arthur, One of the Most Bloodcurdling Stories in the Old Testament Is the Story of Us the Coincides We All Know the Story of Isa Utility Fuzzy.

As of Now That's That's about a Very It's the Story of the Transfer of the Ark of the Covenant. Remember the Ark of the Covenant Was the Throne of God. It Was the Most Sacred Vessel in the Holy of Holies and It Had Fallen into the Hands of the Philistines, and Then through a Series of Amazing Incidences Is Been Returned to the Jewish People.

Then Capt. Safekeeping for A While until at the Appropriate Time Had Come.

The past for the Ark of the Covenant to Be Restored to Its Place in the Sanctuary and David Ordered a Celebration and Called for the Ark of the Covenant to Be Transferred into the City and the People Lined the Streets and They Dance and They Signed As They Moved and Saw the Procession of God's Throne before and We Are Told That the Ark of the Covenant Was Transported by Virtue of Being Placed in an Ox Cart in the Bible Tells Us That As the Card Was Moving down the Road.

The Coincides Were Walking along beside It, Protecting It Watching over One Whose Name Was As a Shed in the Midst of the Procession.

Suddenly One of the Oxen Stumbled Shot in the Car and Began to Teeter and to Tilt and It Looked As If This Holy Vessel of Israel Was about to Slide from the Oxcart and Fall into the Mud and Be Desecrated so Instinctively, Involuntarily, Isa Stretched Forth His Hand to Steady the Ark to Make Sure That This Throne of God Would Not Fall into the Mud and What Happened. The Heavens Opened the Voice Came down Say Thank You. Isa Now As Soon As Possible Touched the Only Ark of God.

God Stricken Dead. I Remember Reading a Sunday School Curriculum. One of the Denominations I Used To Work with, Came from Our Headquarters and I Look at Passages like This and He Said No. We Understand That These Kinds of Stories That We Read in the Old Testament like Us and They Do Have like Gods Destroying the Whole World with the Flood Men, Women and Children of God's Ordering of Marine Telling the Jewish People to Go into the Land of Canaan and to Slaughter All of the Inhabitants of Canaan Men Women and Children That This Can't Possibly Be a Manifestation of the Real Character of God, We Have To Understand These Stories in the Old Testament Simply As Ancient Primitive Pretty Scientific Semi-Nomadic Jewish People Who Interpreted the Events That They Saw in Light of Their Own Peculiar Theology. Probably What Happened Was That Isaiah Had a Heart Attack and He Died in the Jewish Writer Attributed the Cause of His Death, to an Unmerciful Expression of This Vicious Wrath of God Millers. It Was Unthinkable to the Authors of This Curriculum That God Himself Could Actually Have Anything to Do with the Death of Isa. If We Look Carefully at the Old Testament and See the History of the Coincides. I Think the Answer Is Made Apparent to Us to Remember That in the Old Testament That the 12 Tribes of Israel Were Given Certain Tasks and Certain Allotments of the Land and the Tribe of Levi Was Set Apart from God As the Family That Would Be Responsible for the Priesthood in the Matters of the Temple and of Education and so on and Levi Was the Tribe and within That Tribe of Levi. There Were Certain Other Major Families in Each Family Was Given a Particular Path.

Now, Last Was One of the Sons of Levi and the Family of Cohasset Were Separated by God for a Specific Task Their Job. Their Whole Reason for Being There. Life's Vocation Was to Take Care Of the Sacred Vessel and They Were Trained and Discipline from Children with All of the Prescriptions and the Meticulous Details of the Law of God about How the Sacred Objects and Vessels Were to Be Treated and the One Absolute Nonnegotiable Principle That Every Cockfight That Drummed into Them from the Time He Was a Child. Was This Never, Never, Never, Never, Never, Ever Touch the Throne of God and God Said If You Touch It, You Die First Place. We Wonder Why in the World. The Ark Was Being Transported in Oxcart It Was to Be Transported on Foot. There Were Loops the Edge of the Throne to Which Days Were Inserted to Make Sure That No Human Hand Touch That Throne, but Instead They Were in a Hurry and They Put in the Oxcart and Their Going down and Others That Did the Unthinkable Touched the Throne of God Was a Stairway Diminished.

Why Did He Do His Motive Was Pure He Was Trying to Preserve the Throne of God from Being Desecrated by the Mud, but the Presumptuous Cinnabon As It Was This, Ladies and Gentlemen Is so That It Is Hands Were Less Polluted Than the Dirt. There Is Nothing about the Earth That Would Desecrate the Throne of God. The Earth Was Lying There on the Ground Doing What God Is Called Earth to Do. Being Dirt Turning to Dust When It's Dry and Turning to Mud When It's Mixed with Water and Obeys the Laws of God, Day in and Day out Doing Exactly What Dirt Is Supposed There's Nothing Defiling about the Earth. It Was the Hand of Man That God Said I Don't Want on This in a Word, Isa Broke the Law of God, and God Killed. I've Had Help in Dealing with This from the Writings of a Very Important Theologian Whose Very Controversy When the Roman Catholic Church's Name Is Hans Kuhn and One of His Earlier and Most Important Writings Written in German. None of the Title Wreck for the Going Translate English on the Title Justification. Dr. Cohen Deals with This Very Question of the Seeming Injustice of God's Wrath That We Find in Scripture, Particularly in the Old Testament. Penny Makes This Point.

He Said You Know the Real Mystery of Iniquity. The Real Puzzle Is Not That a Holy and Righteous God Should Exercise Justice. What Is Mysterious about Holy Creator Punishing Willfully Disobedient Creature. He Said the Real Mystery Is Why God through Generation after Generation after Generation Tolerates Rebellious Creatures Who Commits Cosmic Treason against His Authority to Think of It like That.

And Cohen Goes on to Say This. He Sent.

Remember That Even Though There Are 30 Some Capital Offenses in the Old Testament That Doesn't Represent Cruel and Unusual Form of Justice at the Hands of God, It Already Represents a Massive Reduction in the Number of Capital, He Said, Remember the Rules That Were Set Forth at Creation. When God the Omnipotent Ruler of Heaven and Earth Breezed into the Dirt. The Breath of Life and Shape the Creature in His Own Image and Gave That Creature, the Highest Status in This Planet and the Greatest Blessing and Gift That He Owned Them. Not All the Very Gift of Life and Stamped His Calling Image on That Piece of Dirt Gave Them Life, He Said the Sole That Sins Shall Die All Sin Was Viewed in Creation As a Capital Offense and Not That That Punishment Would Be Death Sometime after You Had Your Threescore and 10.

But What Are the Terms of Creation, the Day That You Eat of It You Shall Surely Die. Now I Know People Look at That and They Say That What the Text Is Saying There Is, Is That the Day the Transgression Takes Place. We Suffer Spiritual Death. That's Not What God Said. That May Be True That Man Suffered Spiritual Death. The Day He Transgress the Law of God, but the Terms of Creation Were the Day That You Eat, You Die Logically, It's over. I Was There Anyone Who Could Convict a Holy Perfectly Righteous Creator Who, Out Of Sheer Mercy Creates a Creature Gives Him All This Blessing Is Anything Wrong with That God Extinguishing a Creature Who Has the Audacity to Challenge God's Authority to Rule His Creation.

Have You Ever Stopped to Consider What Is Involved in the Slightest Sin in the Slightest Sin.

Beloved, I Am Saying That My Will Has a Right That Is Higher Than the Rights of God. It Terrifies Me in Our Culture. The People Do Things like Abortion and Say They Have the Moral Right to Do It If I Know Anything about God. I Know God Never Has Given Anyone the Moral Right to Do Something like, and I Shudder to Think of What Will Happen When a Person Stands before God and Send. I Had the Right to Do That. Where Did You Get That Right Slightest Sin, Nevermind a Heinous Sin like Abortion in the Slightest Sin.

What We Would Call a Peccadillo and That Think I Defy the Authority of God. I Insult the Majesty of God.

I Challenge the Justice of God. But We Are so Accustomed to Doing That and so Careful to Justify Our Disobedience That We Have Become Recalcitrant in Our Hearts, Our Consciences Have Been Seared and We Think It No Serious Matter to Disobey the King of the Universe. I Call It Cosmic Treason That What God Did Was This Is Dr. Cohen Points out, He Says That Instead of Destroying Mankind in the Moment of That Act of Revolt and Rebellion against God's Authority.

God Reached Forth an Extended His Mercy, Instead of Justice. He Poured out His Grace in the History of the Old Testament Beloved Is the History of Repeated Episodes of the Manifestations of God's Gracious Forbearance and Merciful Forgiveness Towards a People Who Disobey Him Day in and Day out, and Cohen Speculates He Said I Granted I Don't Know the Secret Counsel of God. I Can't Read the Deities Mind Space. I Wonder If What Is That Why We Find Periodically in Scripture. This Swift and Sudden Exercise of Just Perhaps, God Finds It Necessary to Interrupt His Normal, of Long-Suffering Forbearing Grace and Mercy to Remind Us of His Justice Himself, Complains That His Forbearing Mercy Is Designed to Give Us Time to Repent. But Instead of Repenting We Exploit It. The Minute You Think That God Owes You Mercy.

A Bell Should Go off in Your Brain That Warns You and Tells You That You're No Longer Thinking about Mercy, for by Definition Mercy Is Voluntary.

God Is Never Obligated to Be Merciful to a Rebellious Creature He Doesn't Owe You Mercy As He Has Said, I Will Have Mercy upon Whom I Will Have Mercy, and I'll Close with This, a Holy God Is Both Just and Merciful Never Unjust. There Is Never an Occasion in Any Page of Sacred Scripture Were God Ever Ever Punishes an Innocent Person. God Simply Doesn't Know How to Be Unjust. I Thank Him Every Night That He Does Know How to Be on Just Because Mercy Is Non-Justice, but It Is Not Injustice, and so Will Leave You with This. When You Say Your Prayers. Don't Ever Ask God to Give You Justice. He Might Do It. And If God Were to Deal with Us According to Justice We Would Perish As Swiftly As Made Have an Abiding, and Isaiah, and Ananias and Safar in the New Test but We Live Beloved by Grace by His Mercy Was Never Forgotten. God Is Never Unjust and so Helpful When We Understand That Our Own Limited Definition of Justice Doesn't Come Close to God's Perfect Justice When We Begin to Lose Perspective on This. It's Important to Return to These Great Truths That We Been Listening to a Message from Dr. RC Sproul Series the Holiness of God Today on Renewing Your Mind. This Is a Thread That Ran throughout Marcy's Many Years of Ministry Units. Why Were Were so Eager to Get Today's Resources into Your Hands When You Contact Us Today with a Donation of Any Amount. We Will Send You the Hardbound Edition of RC's Book the Holiness of God. You Also Receive the Two DVD Set of the Teaching Series by the Same Title Plus a Digital Download of the Study Guide for the Series, You Can Make Your Request and Give Your Gift online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us. Our number is 800-435-4343 studying God's holiness gives us a clear picture of who we are, in light of God's perfection and helps us more fully appreciate his unmerited favor towards us.

I hope you'll take advantage of this resource offer. We won't be making it available after today so call us and request the Holiness of God. Both the book and the teaching series or number again is 800-435-4343 in her web address is Renewing Your Mind.org will all around us we see efforts to suppress the truth about God, I hope you'll be with us tomorrow for a message that debunks the most common and forceful arguments against God and his word join us Thursday for Dr. scroll series silencing the devil here on Renewing Your Mind