God's Design for Justice

The title for today's lesson is God's Design for Justice, and you can tell that we're trying to keep this word design in every title that we have. But remember at the very beginning I said we're going to go through Genesis sort of rung by rung, rung people by people. And so what we want to do is back up this morning and catch up a few people that we sort of skimmed over. We want to catch up with Lot and his wife, and then with Hagar and Ishmael. And coincidentally, these two groups, I think, display for us both sides of God's justice. Justice against the great iniquity at Sodom and Gomorrah, while yet God preserved the righteous. And justice toward the oppressed with Hagar, the marginalized, the one with no voice. So what I'd like you to do is find two passages in your Bible. Open your Bibles to Luke 17, and then also Genesis 18. I think it's easier if we find them here at the beginning, and then when we're ready we don't have to turn. So just put little fingers or bookmarks in those while we talk a little bit about what does God's justice mean. God's justice is not a one-size-fits-all response to evil. His judgments take into account circumstances involved in each situation. And so his justice works in perfect tandem with his mercy. Here's what I mean. At retreat we were talking about Nineveh. God sent a prophet to Nineveh for them to repent. God did not send a prophet to Sodom. God brought decisive judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts, yet he seemed to gift Hezekiah with 15 more years. And so we remember that God's judgments and his justice are true. His ways are truly beyond finding out. Isaiah said that in Isaiah 55, 8. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. However, there are some things that we do know to be true about the Lord. One characteristic we can determine is that nothing is outside the scope of his notice. God has a perfect knowledge of us. Another thing we know is that he is a loving heavenly father. But that doesn't mean that we can make flimsy excuses for disobedience. We can't deceive God, but we can depend on him. And I think those two words help us define his justice. We cannot deceive God, but we can depend on him. And this week's passage with these two women create for us a great contrast and comparison. God will bring justice on Lot's wife as she longs for and is connected to the iniquity in her world. And God will extend his justice and hope to Hagar as she responds to the Lord. So I think that this will be interesting. Two women, two instances of God's judgment, both for and against. And I like that worship chorus that we sing, You are perfect in all of your ways. Okay, so let's dive into the account of Lot and his wife. You familiarized yourself with the story of Lot. You know he was Abraham's nephew. He came with Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans. They split after their time in Egypt. They had too much stuff. Abraham gave him the choice. Lot chose the plains toward Sodom. He eventually pitched a tent, moved into town. We end up at our story today finding he's living in a house there. And we think that he probably got his wife somewhere on the plains of Sodom or in the town of Sodom because she was never spoken of before this time. That's what Bible scholars think. But one question is, as we talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, how do we know that these events really happened? Well, for one thing is, Jesus talked about them. And so when Jesus tells something as a historic event, then we're going to have to embrace it. Otherwise, we have much bigger problems, right? And so now we've already studied through the days of Noah, and now we're studying the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I want to point out to you that those two events of God's judgment are very often grouped together in scriptures. And we're going to turn in just a minute to the Luke 17 that I had you turn to. But first, I want to refresh your memory on what Peter said, 2 Peter 2, 5-9. And I'll just read it to you. But we studied this just a year ago in our study of 1 and 2 Peter. And Peter linked these two together. He said, if God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly if he saved and he rescued Lot, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and keep the righteous under punishment until the day of judgment. That's how Peter talked about it. Now open to your Luke 17 passage, and let's review something that we had in our study when we did talk about Noah. We'll start in verse 26, Luke 17, 26. And Jesus is telling the people there,

So our study today on Lot's wife helps give us glasses to read that phrase with, to understand it better, because it always helps us when we have a drama, a person through which to see that. So Jesus said that we should remember Lot's wife. She becomes, for us, an example to take to heart the danger of one who is entangled in the culture, to one who looks back, who is in love with the world, the danger of losing even her own life because of what she loves, what she tolerates. So Lot and his wife can symbolize for us, if we can put a New Testament term on an Old Testament couple, they symbolize for us the compromising Christian. And compromising Christians are fairly comfortable with wickedness until the godly show up. Then they're not so comfortable anymore. And compromising Christians make little impact on the world around them, the lost are still lost. So let's start in on Genesis 18. And this interesting idea that we've said multiple times here is that God doesn't keep secrets from those who seek him. And we're going to read here how God begins to share with Abraham what his plan is. So Genesis 18, 17, God said,

And this chapter goes on with Abraham and the Lord having this frank conversation about God's justice. And Abraham had said to him, Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you sweep away that place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it? And they go on and on. You read the passage all the way down to 10. Suppose 10 are found there. For the sake of 10, I will not destroy it, is what the Lord told Abraham. Abraham knew God was a God of justice, and he would not permit the righteous the same fate as the wicked. And Abraham had said in the midst of that in verse 25, Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? So Abraham had a good handle on who God was, whose character was, what he was like. Now, the ESV study notes tell us what I already said and what we read two times, that the flood, the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, and the later destruction of the Canaanites when Israel comes into the Promised Land all vividly demonstrate for us God's righteous wrath against sin. And, His mercy in rescuing the godly from destruction, because God's justice and his mercy operate beautifully together, and the certainty of a final judgment to come. So we too, in our day, we can be sure that God will deal justly with us. God couldn't send the flood upon the earth until Noah and his family got into the ark and were kept safely. God could not rain brimstone upon Sodom until the angels had retrieved Lot and his family from the city and taken them out. And 1 Thessalonians 5 9 tells us that God has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ. So we also will be separated from the destruction that will come upon the whole earth, because this is God's character and this is what he has shown us in his design in the earliest days at the beginning of the Bible. Now because I knew we were talking about God's justice, I reached into my bookcase and pulled out A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy, and I just wanted to read this quote for you because it's firm and it's always nice to read someone else saying those things rather than me coming up with it. So he says, A.W. Tozer, the vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly and has become a has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws every day nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. It's firm, isn't it? It's a good way of putting it. All right, we need to keep going here if we're going to get through our time. Chapter 19 in Genesis. So let's read how this event happened. It says,

Okay, stop. We find out things about Lot and therefore his wife. Our focus is on his wife but let's look at the man. We find out that he has a position of prominence in the city because he's found in the city gate where business is transacted and typically the elders of the city are there in the gate. We find that Lot recognizes godliness when he sees it because he sees these two men, these two angels approaching and he bowed down with his face to the earth. We know that Lot still has a fear of God because he persuaded them, Turn aside to your servants house. But we also realize that he wants to get rid of them as quickly as possible because he said, Then you can rise up early in the morning and go. So this gives us insight to his character. But once they're inside his home in verse four, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. And the NIV speaks it more plainly so that we can have sex with them. And the culture of Sodom we see here had become so completely and so uniformly depraved. It was a completely integrated sin because it says all the people to the last man surrounded the house. Now you may be interested in going back to reviewing Romans chapter one that Paul taught a few years ago. And it's interesting that the apostle Paul, as he begins to lay out his letter to the Romans, explains what happens in a culture. And he explains in Romans chapter one that the first step is a suppression of the truth. In particular, a suppression about the truth that there is a creator God to whom we owe our allegiance. Then the culture goes on to, once the truth is suppressed, the next step is a natural iniquity. In other words, tearing apart God's divine design for relationships between a man and a woman. And so there's this natural iniquity that happens, lust of their hearts to impurity, dishonoring of their bodies, which then gives way to unnatural impurity. And Paul says, contrary to nature, gave up natural relations, consumed with passion for one another, committing shameless acts, which leads to a depraved mind. The apostle Paul said God gave them up to a debased mind. Now, the culture in Sodom gives us a picture of a culture that has progressed through all of those stages. And so there was seemingly no one around to slow the decay process. Did you know that you, Christians, slow the decay process in your culture? You are the ones that keep it at bay. But this culture here had gone all the way through because there was no one to slow that decay process. So we're in verse 6 now. Lot went out to talk to the man. He said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. I have two daughters. And you read what he had offered up. And offering his daughters was a shocking and cowardly and inexcusable act. You know, don't you, that just because the Bible narrates something that happened doesn't mean it says it condones it. Some people don't know that. But this was not an acceptable thing. And who knows what was in Lot's mind. We can't even begin to imagine. Maybe in some twisted way he was trying to back up the train from unnatural iniquity back to just natural iniquity. I don't know. That doesn't make sense either. But that is what happened. And the angels had to come to the rescue. And they pulled Lot back into the house. They struck the men with blindness so that they spent the night groping for the door and couldn't even find Lot's house. But did you notice how the sodomites responded to Lot? First of all, he called them brothers, which is a little disturbing to us that he felt that identity with them. But they said to Lot in verse 9, this fellow has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with him than with them. And that gives us insight as well that a culture laden with natural iniquity becomes a culture that demands complete affirmation. It's not just a live and let live kind of a thing. And so anyone standing in the way will mockingly be called the judge. And they will say we'll deal with you worse than the outsiders. Well, so the angels encouraged Lot to gather up anybody in his family who was willing to come. Read verse 13, for we're about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become great. This isn't what God created people for. The outcry had become so great, the perversion so great. This was not God's intention. And the Lord has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, up, get out of this place for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. Now, what do you do when someone is jesting or joking? Let's use the word, what do you do when someone tells a joke? You laugh. You laugh at a joke. Interestingly enough, the word here for jesting is the same Hebrew root that we have in Isaac's name, laugh, laughter. Do you remember our sub-theme of laughter that we started last week? Well, the sons-in-law were mocking him. They were laughing at him, like this place won't be destroyed. It's never happened before. We have all kinds of things in Genesis that have never happened before. And they were mocking, they were laughing. And remember when the angels first arrived, Lot was saying to them that he wanted them to like, stay in my place and then get up and get out of here early in the morning. Well, now the angels are the ones that are turning around and saying, Lot, get up and get out of here early in the morning because you need to leave this place. Verse 15, as morning dawned, the angels urged Lot saying, up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away. And in verse 24, the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. In verse 26, but Lot's wife behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. All right, so let's talk about Lot's wife. Maybe some of you, like me, heard that story initially in Sunday school days. And you, so you had an initial picture because all you knew when you were seven years old was table salt and so you had a picture in your mind of this body shape in the form you know of table salt you know she was assaulted did you get that thank you I was worried you weren't gonna get it and and also as a child you might think like wow that's a big punishment for just casually like glancing back to see what's happening but of course we look at this story and we see that's not what's happening at all this wasn't a casual glance back first of all it said she was behind him she was already lagging behind she was connected to the culture she was connected to her friends she was having a hard time leaving this place that she felt very connected to there was an umbilical cord tethering her to the culture of Sodom and she could not did not really want to move any further and she lagged so far so connected to the culture that as the brimstone rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah she was attached she became part of that and so she became sulfurized or a pillar of salt so this isn't just a historical story it's something obviously for us to take to heart it's a sobering story for us to take to heart but Jesus said remember lots wife so what he said after that was whoever seeks to preserve his life to connect their life so closely to the culture that they're in will lose it but whoever willingly severs that will save his life gives us a whole new picture on that phrase doesn't it so we ask ourselves the question how entangled am I in the sin the people the media the godlessness of the culture it's a good time for us to ask those questions how much do I make excuses for it how much am I tethered to my culture lots wife captures in a single picture the fate of those who refuse to detach from the world remember it's not a glance back there's a refusal to detach and come away from the world and the unrighteousness of the world for which God's justice will reign we can be certain there will come God's justice on the ungodly even in our time but God sees God hears and we are not without an advocate no matter how entrenched we feel it's always possible for us to turn to repent in the small ways and in the largest of ways so now let's go back to Genesis 16 and let's pick up now another woman for whom God's justice reigned over as he saw the injustice of her situation and she responded in a very different way all right just refresh your memory you've been here you know Hagar Sarah I took Hagar gave her to Abram she conceived then she looked with contempt upon her mistress and Sarah I wanted to get rid of Hagar we pick it up in verse 6 and so Abram said well behold your servant is in your power due to her as you please and then Sarah I dealt harshly with her and she fled from her so what we have here in Hagar is we have a poor marginalized woman in a crisis pregnancy badly treated by people who should have known better Abraham was blessed by God to be a blessing this is not a blessing they should have known better but you know I get it I get it that life happens and sometimes people are victims of domestic issues and they get caught in the crosshairs and they become they they end up in difficult situations this is Hagar but God is just and God knows and he sees and God's justice now goes to great lengths to extend mercy upon the people who are caught in the crosshairs let's read in verse 7 the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness the spring on the way to shore and he said Hagar servant of Sarah I where have you come from and where are you going she said well I'm fleeing from my mistress Sarah and the angel the Lord said to her return to your mistress and submit to her now that would be harsh if we stop the story right there but listen what happens in verse 10 the angel the Lord also said to her I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude behold you are pregnant and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name God hears that's what Ishmael means you shall call his name God hears I think he got the better end of the deal between Ishmael and Isaac I think he got the better name because that Lord said because the Lord has listened to your affliction he shall be a wild donkey of a man and his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him and he shall dwell over against all of his kinsmen so we find out what is going to happen in his future but the Lord has listened to your affliction this is part of God's justice the Lord hears the Lord is reaching out we had in our study guide Psalm 34 17 when the righteous cry for help the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles verse 13 says so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her Elroy you are a God of seeing that's what Elroy means you are a God of seeing for she said truly here I have seen him who looks after me Hagar had a wonderful experience with the Lord much like Abraham had in our last lesson but she identifies it correctly she names it God reached out to her we always say don't we God chooses you you have to choose him back God reached out to her and said call your son God hears and she responded and said I have seen him who looks after me it's beautiful so what do we glean from the story of Hagar one God cares about people regardless of they are conceived or how inconvenient they have become both Ishmael and Hagar became inconvenient to Abraham and Sarai and the way they treated them shows what comes naturally to us as sinful human beings what comes naturally to us is get rid of the inconvenience that's what's in our nature but God is a champion of the fatherless the widow and the orphans God champions those who are inconvenient and since we possess his spirit we also are enabled to champion the same neglected people but we should hold in mind that what comes naturally to us that it doesn't come naturally what comes naturally to us is to act as Abraham and Sarai well okay we have before we completely wrap this up we have another almost repeated incident with Sarai and Hagar so now turn forward to Genesis 21 and let's read this happen kind of all over again Genesis 21 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him and in verse 6 Sarah said God has made laughter for me everyone who hears will laugh over me and Isaac grew and was weaned in verse 8 and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned but Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham laughing okay let's finish up the sub theme of laughter here I don't think that Ishmael was over you know just kind of like oh I'm so happy for you laughter that's not the context that we have here it was a mocking he was over laughing mocking similar to lots sons-in-law and so here's a Bible truth that we can see in all of this laughter in Genesis that people tend to react to God in general and his family Christians and Jews specifically in one of two laughter's either delight or mocking people are rarely neutral when it comes to God they're either going to delight and laugh over God's plan of redemption like I can't believe this is too good to be true or they will laugh and mock like silly people that think they have to be saved from some made up coming judgment and so that's what we find in these in in these views of laughing here but Ishmael's laughter stirred up some familiar emotions in Sarah and so in verse 10 she said to her husband cast out that slave woman with her son for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac so in verse 14 Abraham rose early in the morning and he sent her away and she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba and when the water in the skin was gone she put the child under one of the bushes and then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bow shot for she said let me not look on the death of the child He wasn't really a child, you know, and as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, because his name is God hears, and the angel of the Lord called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Lift up the boy, hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. And then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin of water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up, and he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. So let's tie together this lesson on God's justice. God has a plan, and it is unfolding in his way and his time. When God appeared to her the first time, all those years back at a well, she named the well Beer Laharoy, meaning, this is what she named the well, have I really seen him here who sees me? That's the name of the well. She even named a place, because God had said to her that first time, when she hadn't even given birth yet to God hears, God had said to her, I will multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. God meant it. God made a promise. God meant the promise that he spoke to her. God doesn't forget. God fulfills his promises. And yet we find this time that she says, well, I don't even want to watch him die, because that's what's gonna happen. He's gonna die. I don't want to watch. What happened to that promise? We leak, don't we? We leak God's promises. We forget his promises. And so God had to come back to him, her again and reinstate his promise and say, no, no, no, no. I already told you once that I'm gonna make a great nation out of him. So here, I'll come back and I'll remind you. And God's mercy comes back and remind us what we know to be true. We know the promises of God, that God, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And yet can we not turn around and say, I just don't feel like God really forgave me. I don't feel like I paid penance or did something for it. That doesn't matter, because God said already, I forgave you. As far as the East is from the West. So we get it. We get it, just like Hagar, that we can kind of fall into a puddle of not remembering God's promises. But God's justice reaches out to us. He hears, he sees, he knows, and he doesn't give up on us, just like he didn't give up on Hagar. So I just want to close with two things to remember about God's justice. One is that we cannot deceive God, but we can depend on him. Okay? The other thing to remind us of, this is a good time, is that God chose Abraham and blessed him, God said, so that you will be a blessing. Okay? God has chosen us and blessed us. Why? To be a blessing. We are saved to serve. Same thing happens for us. I'll let you discuss all the rest. Father God, thank you for these images. The warnings, Lord, with Lot's wife, and the comfort that comes with looking at Hagar and knowing that you are a God who sees, you are a God who hears, and Lord, you will not cast away those who reach out to you. And I thank you this morning. I pray, Lord God, if there's any of my sisters here who feel in that place, hopeless, marginalized, in a difficult place, Lord, that you would give them the strength to lift up their eyes and reach out to you and see and feel in their heart and their spirit that you do notice, you do care, you do see, and your plan is marching forward in your time and in your way. We rejoice in that, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.