God’s Justice - Esther 7:7-10 - Sunday Service

prayer request cards and we do pray

every single Wednesday morning for

those. I guess I'll give a little plug

for Wednesday morning as well. We pray

at 7:00 a.m. You can either show up on

Zoom by going to Wednesday prayer on uh

under the resources tab on our website.

And even if you can't show up till 7:30

or anything like that, you join. Just

join us in prayer. What we're doing is

we're reading through Esther about a

chapter at a time and then praying

according to the inspiration of the

word. It's a powerful way to pray, but

we also include prayer requests in that.

You can also just show up at person in

uh at 7 a.m. on Wednesdays. If you're

wanting to embed prayer in your life in

a more uh maybe significant way, joining

the prayer team would be a great way to

do that. Um other than that, my only

announcement is that we are having we

just had a a great women's event uh this

just yesterday. And then our men's

meeting, our men's ministry is this

coming Saturday, the 30th at 9:00 here

at church. uh we'll be serving like a

continental breakfast and studying God's

word together. So uh if you're a guy,

you haven't been to that. We've had uh

lots of men show up and we had a really

deep time last time. So I'm looking

forward to that. Other than that, I

don't think I have any announcements, so

I'm going to get right into it. We are

in Esther chapter 7

Esther 7 · chapter mention

uh 7-10. Just four verses, but powerful

stuff. And uh I'd like to pray before we

get into it. Heavenly Father, there are

times when your word is deeply

encouraging, even consoling to our

hearts. There are times where it's

really challenging. Other times where

it's just deeply convicting. Um, I see

this passage as a as a place of

challenge and conviction. And so, I pray

that you would prepare our hearts as we

get into it that we would uh feel

personally instructed

um in a way that we know exactly how you

want to apply this word to our lives.

even if it requires uh a change of

attitude, a change of heart, um and even

a change of lifestyle. And so we invite

you into this. We know that it's your

Holy Spirit that's teaching us. And so I

pray that you would just help me get out

of the way of that and that people would

hear your word um more than mine. I pray

these things in Jesus name. Amen. I

don't do show of hands that often, but I

want one here. It's helpful for me to

know how much detail should go into in

regarding a movie uh a theme that I want

to talk to you guys about. How many of

you guys have seen Avengers Endgame?

Pretty famous movie. Yeah, quite quite a

good amount. But there's about half of

you that haven't seen it. Um, at just

I'm not going to go into it much. I just

want to illustrate a point from it. I

enjoy superhero movies, although they

seem to be kind of the only movie that

makes it these days. It's a little

little too much at this point. Um, but I

uh a guy that was discipling me when I

was really young and kind of became like

an older brother to me. um one of the

sons of my father's close colleague in

uh his theological work um got me into

comics mostly DC comics Batman and

Superman but he loved X-Men and he loved

the Avengers and so he would tell me

about comic book story lines all the

movies made about comic book uh heroes

already have their stories written and

they might change them or modify them or

do different things to adapt them to

screen but if you're a comic book fan

you kind of already know what the movie

is going to be about that's true also

for Avengers Endgame. In Avengers

Endgame, the main evil guy's name is

Thanos. Uh you might not know this, but

Thanotas in or Thanotas in Greek means

death. And Thanos means either immortal

or death. It can mean both. And so

pretty cool name for the main villain.

And uh he identifies the main problem

with the world as being overpopulation

because he had a negative experience

with overpopulation on his home planet,

I think, if I remember correctly. And

what he wants to do is get these five I

think it's five infinity stones that

once he six infinity stones when he puts

them on a gauntlet. So someone's really

watched it. Uh

um he puts them on his arm create this

gauntlet of power the infinity gauntlet

and if he gets all of these infinity

stones which represent different powers

uh he can snap his fingers and half of

the population of the universe will go

out of existence and therefore he has

solved the population problem. Okay. So,

very evil. Uh, and you kind of think,

well, that's such an epic almost

comicbooky kind of evil, and it

obviously is. Uh, but you might not

realize that Thanos is based off a of a

person uh that actually exists. And he

actually died uh this year on um May

13th, so very recently. And his name is

Paul Erlick, if you want to say it the

German way, but Erlick if you say it the

the American English way. Um, and this

guy is he he wrote a book called The

Population Bomb in 1968.

And non-coincidentally, I think uh

Thanos was created by a comic book

writer in 1973.

And you know what uh Paul said in this

in this book population bomb? He said

that the that overpopulation would reach

such great heights that it would create

famine and just devastate the world. And

in that book, he suggests multiple uh

ways to deal with population overgrowth.

One of them is increased access to

abortion, which is already really evil.

So what you're saying is kill more

babies so that there's less population.

Um, another one is cut off foreign food

aid to to the third world countries.

They're going to die anyway, so let's

just cut it off and then they'll be the

the population. So, kill the poor

people. Help help them die already. And

and more things like that. I won't even

go into this, but uh you can look this

up on Wikipedia. You can look it up at

different sources. These are things he

really said. You can just read the book

um population bomb. Um, so very very

evil. The that's where the idea almost

assuredly came from for a super villain

named Thanos who is going to solve the

population crisis in the same way. In

fact, the Greek god Thanotas, which

clearly has a relationship to the name

Thanos, uh, was a god of nonviolent

death. That's what he's known as, a god

of nonviolent death. And the way that

Thanos kills people is relatively

nonviolent. if you can call killing half

the population of the universe

nonviolent. Snaps his finger, they turn

into ash. They don't seem to be

experiencing pain. They just go out of

existence. Um, now at the end of the

movie,

raise your hand if you don't want me to

spoil a movie for you.

Okay. You haven't you haven't seen it

yet. Okay. So, I just won't say that. I

had a great joke prepared, but now I

can't use it. Ask me after the service.

I'll tell you. Um

uh so yeah, I'll just transition away

from that. Uh my point though is that

the evil in a comic book that you

thought is just so overblown, surely no

one's that evil. Paul Erlick really was.

Okay? And he has disciples. He has

people. So his main point too wasn't

just that overpopulation will harm

people. His point was also that it will

harm the ecology of the earth. So for

the sake of vegetation on earth

basically and the ecosystem, we need to

kill off and help kill off more people.

And those disciples are now aiming

similar ideas. And some of them they

won't say publicly, but they what they

do say publicly, you can see was uh um

influenced by Paul because they're using

the same tactics. So one of the theories

of uh things that are devastating our

planet is basically cow uh farming. And

so what we need to do is reduce cow

farming and we need to in order to do

that reduce meat eating. Meat eaters are

the problem basically. Um and my my

point is not here anti-vearian

or anti-vegan or pro-meat eating. I do

enjoy eating meat. But it's the solution

to the problem. One suggestion by one of

these types of disciples of Paul Erlick

is that there's this tick that will if

you get infected by the tick will make

you basically allergic to meat. So we

need to infect the population with we

need to release this tick. Right? This

is Thanos type of thinking. Really evil

thing. We need to give people a disease

so they stop eating meat so we can save

the world. It's always we got to save

the world by killing people, right? By

harming people because you know ticks

also will give you other terrible

diseases like Lyme disease. So it would

it just the the solutions are almost

comically bad but they're real. People

like that actually exist.

And so the reason why I bring this up is

because we're going into a passage here

where a guy with with an evil scheme to

kill off a huge amount of the population

in the Persian Empire, the Jews in this

case, um gets what he deserves.

And

I I I would I my sermon is written with

a spoiler in it, so I'm having to edit

it out there just for Roman here because

I don't want to spoil it. Um, so that's

if you want like, well, did you just

glitch? Yeah, I did. I I literally just

glitched. Um, but my my point here is

evil like Hmon exists in the world

today. People who think they're doing

the right thing by killing off the

population.

I know that I believe that Hitler knew

that what he was doing was wrong, but he

acted and spoke and probably somewhere

to some degree convinced himself that

the Holocaust was the right solution for

Germany to kill off the Jews. Um, so

it's not as though the most genuine evil

people in the world actually think what

they're doing is evil. The most evil

people think that what they're doing is

good. If you consider Paul Erlick too, I

like to simplify things and distill them

down to the simplest. Why would someone

do that? Is it really that they think

that they care so much about the

population? Clearly, they don't care

about the population cuz one of their

solutions is to kill the population. So,

obviously, there's something really

evily, crookedly wrong there. But if I

were to distill it down, I haven't

gotten any deeper than this. I think

it's as simple as that. God said, "Be

fruitful and multiply." So, Satan says,

"Do the opposite. kill people and make

sure we kill their babies and make sure

that we we force the population down.

Here's another part of the arrogance of

Paul Eric and his disciples. Their their

prediction that there would just be this

population explosion that we can't stop

and there will create terrible famine

and hardship and pain for everyone never

came true. The population has been

declining steadily because people aren't

having as many children. And that will

almost assuredly, I'm not predicting it

because who knows what God will do. But

if that continues, that will devastate

economies. I'm not an economist, but it

doesn't take an economist to know that

if you dramatically erode the consumers,

then the economy starts crashing, right?

It's going to be a huge problem in

China. It's starting to be a problem in

Europe, and it's going to be a problem

in America eventually if the birth rate

doesn't go up. So God's plan, uh, he

knows there isn't actually the same type

of scarcity that everyone says on the

earth. He knows how to feed the

populations. And actually, the lack of

resources isn't really the problem with

the poor. There are other sins involved.

And I'm not just talking about the sin

of of uh poor people. It's it's wicked

leaders often times that are hoarding

resources for themselves in some of

these uh um uh in some of these third

world countries that doesn't allow for

people to eat. Jesus said, "You will

always have the poor among you." He

knows how sinful our world is and that

it's not going to care for the poor the

way it ought to. And so that problem

doesn't get solved in the way the world

thinks it gets solved. But so I like to

look it's like if God commanded

something is somewhat solution the exact

opposite of that then I think I don't

see a demon under every rock but I think

that's probably demonic when you're

talking about saving the world by

killing people. So it's not just comic

books it happens in real life. And we

know that Hmon uh really believed he was

doing the right thing. He felt that the

Jews deserved to die. So let me read

here the passage and then summarize with

the main point what's really going on.

What can we learn from it? Um already

we're realizing that human solutions to

global problems are not the solution and

they end up being unbelievably wicked.

Not that Hmon was trying to reduce the

population. That's not my point. My

point is that men and women just as evil

him as him exist today and not just in

comic books. This is Esther 7 starting

in verse 7.

It's kind of a climactic

uh plot arc finish here because Hmon

gets what he deserves. And the king

arose in his wrath from wine drinking.

I'll back up a little bit because if you

haven't been following along with us and

haven't recently read Esther, Esther has

had her second is in the middle of her

second feast with uh King Aasaweras,

also historically known as Xerxes, the

king Xerxes of the movies. And um Esther

is trying to expose expose Hmon's plot

not only to murder uh uh Morai, but also

that the proclamation he kind of tricked

the king into making uh to kill all the

Jews, which the king didn't know was the

Jews. He just thought it was a

population of rebellious people who were

harming his kingdom. Um, and this would

have been millions of Jews across the

known world because Persia was basically

the empire of the known world at that

time. So, it's really an epic uh evil

plot that Hmon has would have wiped out

the Jewish people. And Esther took her

own life into her hands to expose this

evil plot. And then she tells the king

about it. And what she said is in verse

4 of chapter 7, "For we have been sold,

I and my people, to be destroyed, to be

killed, and to be annihilated. If we had

been sold merely as slaves, men and

women, I would have been silent, for our

affliction is not to be compared with a

loss to the king." Then King Aasser said

to Queen Esther, "Who is he and where is

he and who has dared to do this?" And

Esther said, "A foe and an enemy, this

wicked Hmon." Then Hmon was terrified

before the king and queen. Now we're at

verse 7. And the king arose in his wrath

from the wine drinking and went into the

palace garden. But Hmon stayed to beg

for his life from the queen, from Queen

Esther. For he saw that harm was

determined against him by the king. He

saw it in his eyes. He knows how this

king responds. He was a close adviser,

second in the kingdom basically in terms

of power. He knows how this king

responds to betrayal like this. Um, and

so part why was King Ahasurus so angry?

Let's put ourselves in the story. And we

don't have to read much between the

lines. Any man would be angry angry if

he found out one of his uh or at least

he thought one of his most loyal

adviserss and officials had actually

come up with a plot that put his queen's

life in danger. Right? Hmon seems to not

have known that Esther was Jewish. So

it's not like he knew that he was

plotting against Esther, but he still

was. And ignorance is no excuse because

the plan was just so evil. So one of the

reasons why King Ahasawaris is so angry

is that Hmon instead of uh helping

protect the kingdom has actually put the

queen's life who has loves uh and is

very dear to him has put that in severe

danger because the laws of the Persians

and me are irrevocable. part of their

constitution was that once a law is

written, it cannot be revoked.

So even the king who is like the supreme

emperor has his hands tied to some

degree and Hmon's the betrayer. Betrayal

in general makes people angry. I don't

know if you've been ever been betrayed,

but when you get betrayed, one of other

than sadness and grief, one of the uh

emotions that's very common and

relatable is just deep anger at the

person who betrayed you. And the closer

they were to you, the more you thought

they cared about you, the deeper that

anger is. Um, I also wonder if one of

the reasons that he was so angry is that

uh all King Hassorus really seems to

care about is his own vain glory. Right?

We've established that. Well, what would

happen if you actually unjustly put an

entire huge population of people that

are well integrated into the society,

right? They're uh undoubtedly in all the

different trades. You know, they may

have been physicians. They may have been

involved in the food trade. They may

have even even been officials or married

to officials. When this proclamation

went out to kill all the Jews, including

men and women and children, on a certain

date, uh uh about a year from the time

that the proclamation went out, um when

that proclamation went out, the city of

Souza, the capital city, was thrown into

confusion. They didn't understand why.

Another piece of evidence that the Jews

weren't actually what Hmon had had

called them to be a rebellious people.

They were actually law-abiding citizens.

Morai being a great example of that.

What had Morai done? Morai had thwarted

a plot to assassinate the king by these

two Unix. We went over that earlier. Uh

so the king has a special spot in his

heart for Morai too, who's also Jewish.

And now this irrevocable

uh genocidal command and proclamation is

levied against Mori as well who saved

the king's life. I mean it would it

could lead to a violent revolt of the

entire all of the 127 provinces in

Persia to just wipe out a population

that there was no evidence deserved to

be wiped out in that way. Right? So, a

lot going into that anger. And

sometimes, you know, comic books will

make sort of a caricature of evil and

they make it look like the person

doesn't really have any depth to their

uh person and zero wisdom. Even though I

think Asarus was not a great king, vain,

glorious, womanizer, all these bad

things, he seems to have some wisdom

here to go and cool down a little bit

before making a judgment. At least

that's the way I read that he goes out

in the palace garden. Why does he leave

the scene? Right? Well, sometimes that

is a very wise thing to do. I don't know

if you have historically had anger

issues where you respond in ways. The

Bible says, "Be angry, but do not sin."

I think it's absolutely wonderful for

God to give us permission to feel our

emotions deeply, but then he puts a

boundary on it. Just because you're

angry does not make it justified to sin.

And sometimes you're so angry that

you're feeling like the edges of your

surrender to the Holy Spirit to have

self-control over your angry are being

pressed. Those times it's sometimes just

wise to walk away before you say

something you cannot take back. In fact,

I wish I had

u more discipline in that area. I I have

been getting better at that recently.

And you know, with six kids, um there

there are plenty of pro uh pro

provocations to frustration and anger,

right? I I you know, so so there's times

where you're you're already kind of worn

thin on your emotions and then maybe

your wife says something that really

bothers you. We know how to push each

other's buttons. I do too. And I've been

just walking away. And and sometimes,

not always, sometimes I realize it

doesn't need to be talked about. It

does. It just needs to be cover. A love

covers over a multitude of sins. It's to

a man's glory to overlook an offense and

you just don't even bring it up and by

the time you come back to the situation,

it's kind of blown away and you just

realize, you know what, that wasn't that

big of a deal. Or you can say something

aggressive right back, escalate the

conflict, and ruins the whole day. Okay.

I think part of what he's doing here is

gathering his thoughts because he is

absolutely shocked at the second in

command in his kingdom, who he'd

continue to advance. So he likes him. He

wants him as closest to the throne in

this way has betrayed him to the point

of endangering his beloved queen Esther.

He walks out. Okay. In the meantime and

the king uh and the king returned. He's

returning but in the meantime something

was happening and he witnesses it

happening. The the king returned from

the palace garden to the place where

they were drinking wine as Hmon was

falling on the couch where Esther was.

And the king said, "Will he even assault

the queen in my presence? In my own

house." As the word left the mouth of

the king, they covered Hmon's face to go

take him to be executed. Okay. However,

we shouldn't just overlook this detail.

Part of the the problem. Did I actually

share the main point in summary? I can't

remember whether I did. Let me share it

right now because I'm about to reference

it. All right. The the whole thing that

I hope you get out of this and that I

think God wants us to learn from

passages like this is that God's

punishment of the wicked should be

received as a warning and opportunity

for thankfulness to the redeemed. If

you're really aligned with God's mercy

and his justice,

if you're aligned with God's mercy and

justice, then you will feel warned when

you hear about God punishing the wicked.

But you will also see it as an

opportunity of thankfulness as a

redeemed person. And we're going to

we're going to get more deeply into

that.

So here we we realize that God's

sovereign punishment against Hmon, who

God calls the enemy of the Jews, is

about to be meed out. There's just one

problem.

Part of what the king thinks Hmon is

doing wrong. He completely

mispersceives.

Right? And someone might say, "Oh,

you're going to defend Hmon." I am not

defending Hmon. And you'll hear that in

just a moment. Hmon was not doing

anything even close to assaulting the

queen. That's not true. Right? He was

begging for his life. That's what he was

doing.

And yet, the king looks at it and he

thinks it's assault. And I can't help

but wonder, have you noticed how many

times the author of Esther, we don't

know exactly who he was, could be Morai,

whoever he is, he keeps highlighting all

the wine drinking, doesn't he? Right?

What happens right before his original

queen Vashi refuses to be paraded around

like some kind of object of other men's

pleasure? They were drinking for days on

end. And then he gets so angry, right?

There's so many places where wine

drinking just keeps being brought up.

Not even just in these two feasts. Right

after the king and Hmon decide together,

Hmon offers the king a bribe. The the

king's like, "No, I don't even need your

money. Just go ahead and kill them all."

And then they sit down to drink. It just

keeps being highlighted as a normative

practice for the king. So, let's go see

what the Bible actually says about

getting drunk on wine. And it does not

say he was drunk, right? We're supposed

to rightly divide the word. It just says

that they were drinking wine. So, we

need to be careful. I'm not necessarily

in uh accusing him of having gotten

drunk. I would say at minimum he's

influenced by wine in this case. Okay,

here's what Ephesians says about getting

drunk, which is worse than being

influenced by wine. Ephesians 5:18, if

Ephesians 5:18

you guys could put up the verse.

Ephesians 5:18 says this. I'll go ahead

Ephesians 5:18

and turn to it. It looks like we're

having a problem with the uh

with the uh slides. So, Ephesians 5

says, "Do not be drunk on wine, but be

filled with the Holy Spirit for do not

be drunk on with wine, for that is

debauchery, but be filled with the

spirit." So, it's actually interesting

if you think about it. A physical

substance if you take it can interrupt

you being surrendered to the spirit in

such a way that you can experience his

power for obedience. That's what that

means. That's significant.

It is always a sin to get drunk.

And as a Christian who is indwelt by the

spirit and he never leaves you, it's not

the point. We also are filled with the

spirit and then he gives us the power to

continue to obey. Have you ever woken up

with just a foul attitude and then ask

God, "God, forgive me for this bad

attitude. Fill me with the spirit." And

he just washes it away. Have you ever

woke up with a foul attitude, not dealt

with it with the Lord, and all of a

sudden the rest of your day becomes foul

because of your attitude? I've done

both. Right? So, if there's a substance,

and I think you could probably

extrapolate this principally to getting

high on other drugs, too. There's

substances that because of their effect

on our body, and because God calls them

sin, they grieve the Holy Spirit. He

never leaves you relationally, but

because you've taken Christ off the

throne of your life and decide, I'm

going to do what I want. Uh his power is

not diminished in reality, but it's

diminished in your life. Okay. It also

says in Proverbs 3:14, if we can go

Proverbs 3:14

there, Proverbs 3:14

Proverbs 3:14

says this, "It is not for kings, O

Lemule. It is not for kings to drink

wine or for rulers to take strong

drink." Okay. So there are certain

positions and certain places of

authority where it becomes exceedingly

unwise uh to be drinking especially

strong strong drink is way put. Um why?

Well, you just never know when you're

going to have to rule as a king. King

Asawarees is feasting. He's having a

glass of wine. Let's say he wasn't

anywhere close to drink. We drunk. We

don't know. You think, well, what's the

problem with that? You're the king and

you never know when you're going to have

to make a ruling. And if you're on the

edge of drunk and you're having to

decide what to do whilst also fighting

extreme feelings such as anger,

betrayal, just, you know, confusion as

to what's even going on.

You can see why it's unwise to be

affected by alcohol. And in this case, I

would say it's at least my guess or

maybe interpretive intuition

that part of the reason why he comes

back seeming not really having to dealt

with his anger and then has have anger

goggles ever made you mispersceive a

situation

in particular. What anger will do to me

when I've let it go to a sinful place is

it will convince me that I'm right about

the motivations of the person that I'm

angry with.

I would say nine times out of 10, the

the anger that I'm experienced has

severely warped my understanding of what

their motivation actually was. And if

you actually cool down and then speak to

them about the issue, you realize they

may have had a completely different

motive for why they did what they did.

With Christine, sometimes the motive is

something really endearing.

Oh, that's why you said that cuz you

were thinking this, which was actually

like she's very servant-hearted. So, she

was trying to serve me in a way. You

know what? If I just had blasted through

that with anger. Well, alcohol and anger

problems do not mix well. I would I'm

not going to go beyond scripture and be

legalistic and saying that scripture

says just commands all no drinking of

alcohol. That's not true. That's

legalism that says Christians can't

drink. And I wouldn't even get close to

that where basically we say it's like

well it's like most spiritual not to. I

think we need to maintain Christian

freedoms on that. Uh but getting drunk

is definitely a sin. But if anger is a

severe issue, you know Jesus said we

ought to take a ruthless approach to

cutting out sin. If your eye causes you

to sin, gouge it out. He doesn't mean

mutilate yourself. He mean takes a

ruthless approach to the thing that's

causing you to sin. Well, if alcohol

mixed with your anger issues is part of

what's destructive of your life, maybe

it is best for you to just say no to it

altogether.

Aasa would have been a better king if he

had said it no altogether. Uh because

and why am I making such a big deal

about this? Well, let me illustrate this

with a modern example. And I may get

some details right wrong here. I studied

it recently. I think I might even have a

little uh reminder here of of what's

going on. But have you guys been

following the Alex Murdo trial?

Um he was convicted of I think at least

double homicide, murdering family

members. I think it was his son and

wife. Uh but those details are not

actually what is important about my

point. My point is that there was a

court clerk Becky Hill

who basically had made some uh felonious

mistakes uh that evidently affected the

jury and because of that a mistrial or

something like that was declared and now

he gets another trial. He's already been

convicted of murder, almost certainly

did it from the evidence that's out

there, but because one person

misperceived or wrongly, I think she

wrote a book that affected the juror,

something like that. I don't understand

the law very very well, but it seems

like the ruling is right according to

law that the trial has to be thrown out,

but only because she did something

illegal, right? And she got convicted of

it, too. So, Becky Hill by doing that

obstructed justice. Well, misperceiving

what Hmon is actually doing could have

obstructed justice, too. He wasn't

actually assaulting her. Yes, he had uh

had, you know, a uh genocidal plan that

put her life in danger and the life of

all the Jews uh who in this case were

legally innocent, and that's what he uh

actually deserves a consequence for. But

so, in this case, it it could have been

probably not an empire where the king

has such such authority over life and

death. But one of the reasons why we

don't want to have anything affecting

our sense of discernment and judgment is

that we will make wrong judgment calls

sometimes even just on technicalities

and go way beyond it. And that's not how

God works.

That's not how God works. Okay? And so I

just want to say before we continue

moving on here that uh it's a it's a

good thing when God brings up drinking

and bad things that are happening over

and over again to reconsider your

relationship to alcohol. Uh maybe you

need to limit it more than you have

been. Maybe the frequency is a problem.

Uh maybe it's just drunkenness actually

that's a problem and you kind of been

hiding that. This will not go well for

you. um it it it severely affected King

Asus's life and the kingdom as well.

However, in this case, God's plan to

accomplish justice is so certain that it

didn't. But that's to no credit of King

Asaweras in this case. So verse 9, then

Harbona, one of the Unix in attendance

on the king said, "Moreover, the

gallows, when you hear gallows, do not

think, you know, half box with a noose."

that uh form of execution wasn't

invented till at least 100 years later.

Okay. What it actually means, and some

of your translations will say this, and

I showed you a picture of this of like a

relief on pottery. I'm not going to show

it again. It's just so violent. But it

was being impaled on a sharp stake.

Okay.

So, the gallows that Hmon had prepared,

I'll just keep reading. That Hmon had

prepared for Mori, whose word saved the

king, is standing at Hmon's house, 50

cubits high. I think that's uh that's

like 75 feet high. So he put it way up

there. He was going to impale Mori in

front of everyone. Make it high enough

for everyone to see. I impaled my enemy.

Right? Moriah did nothing wrong. He just

refused to worship Hmon and tremble

before him. Megalomaniac Hmon was.

Probably one of the reasons why

Aasaweras couldn't tell how evil Hmon

was is that was also a megalomaniac.

Right? You tend not to take the sins of

others seriously if your sins are alike.

But there were clearly signs. And so

here's what happens. Whose word saved

the king is standing at Hmon's house 50

cubits high. And the king said, "Hang

him on that. Hang him on that." Hanging

in this case means impaling him on it.

Okay. almost certainly that was the uh

primary and and and a lot of uh times in

Persian history like the almost

exclusive form of this kind of

especially for like political enemies

and assassins like that. So they hanged

Hmon on the gallows that he had prepared

for Mori. Then the wrath of the king was

abaded. And you might think, "Wow, we're

already through all the verses." Well,

we have a lot to consider here. Did

Haymon, for example, deserve what he

got?

And you got to think, well, we're coming

from like a modern legal mindset where

there's no such thing as allowable,

cruel, and unusual punishment, right?

So, uh we tried to make even capital

punishment of any kind as um

uh as painless as possible.

Although that seems to be changing. I

don't know if you heard about this uh

but I just read a story about uh Idaho

reinstating shooting squads and one of

the crimes that you commit if you

I think this is okay to say even in

front of you know uh younger kids but if

you if you rape a child you'll get the

firing squad okay that's being

reinstituted in Idaho so we still have

the death penalty to this day uh and

even it's obviously not considered cruel

and unusual. Uh but hanging in someone

on a steak like that would be I mean it

would be excruciating especially if he

didn't die immediately absolutely

torturous. I would consider actually a

cruel form of execution. So when I ask

did Hmon get what he deserved I'm saying

did he deserve a cruel form of

execution. That's what we need to think

about right let's not diminish it at

all. Let's actually talk about if he

deserved that. Um, I talked to the youth

group about this, the youth group and

and I I'm I'm right now kind of the

interim youth director and I realized

the the kids love talking about deep

issues. And uh I almost wish I could

show you like a video. We didn't film it

of their wisdom. Uh their conclusion was

uh that Hmon got exactly what he

deserved. He was going to do this not to

only to Mori, but he was basically a

genocidal maniac and he would have just

continued doing it anyway. I said, '

Okay, so you're basing the fact that um

I told him I agree. I I think he got the

justice even with the cruelty of it was

exactly what he deserved. Um and I'm not

saying was a particular just king. I'm

talking about in terms of God's

sovereignty. God worked this out that

the enemy of the Jews, this this

murderous liar, would get this this

punishment. Um so I proposed another

problem uh that's similar but different

is in Texas there's a woman she had

premeditated murder committed double

homicide it was on death row and then

she came to faith uh and the faith

seemed genuine so she was repentant and

many evangelicals in Texas um were

lobbying to the governor that he should

commute their sentence now now put

yourself in the governor's shoes I'm

asking the youth to do this I asked my

our Bible study called the disciple ship

communities. Uh this as well and and I

might have brought this up in a past

sermon, but I'm asking you now too. If

you're the governor and you're a

Christian and you know that this woman

is now a sister in Christ, would you

commute her sentence? Would that be

just? The answer of of everyone in the

youth group was no, it would not be just

to commute the sentence because she

still killed those two people. And and I

think it was another kid that said I

forget who it was, but um I'd love to

give them credit cuz I thought it was a

great comment, but it's if you commute

the sentence just because someone became

a Christian, aren't you encouraging

Christians to murder people?

Like, hey, all you have to do is say,

"Well, now I'm a Christian." You get off

on death row. Uh now, you guys may be

wondering, it's like, "Oh, is the death

penalty even biblical?" Different

sermon. I believe it is. and not because

of Mosaic law, but was because

considered nitic law, premosaic law,

kill by the sword, die by the sword kind

of thing. Um, I think that that the eye

for an eye kind of rule there is still

in place and it's not connected to

theocracy of Israel. It's connected to

creation order that God instituted. You

may disagree with that, but that's not

the point here. You could just take the

death penalty out of it and say she got

life in prison without parole, maybe

multiple life sentences. Does she

deserve? Is it right for her because she

became a Christian to have her multiple

life sentence commuted? And the youth

group, our disciplehip community, and I

think the right Christian answer is

still no. That would be favoritism. It'd

be wrong to do that. And so, you got to

think, well,

I I if I were the governor, I'd want to

visit her because I would genuinely

consider a sister in Christ. I would

believe that she'll be in eternity with

me and it would sadden me that she still

needs to get the consequence. Um, so

there would be I understand that there

would be love from me to her just as a

result of her having become a sister in

Christ. And there ought to be love from

the governor to people even with

criminals just because they're made in

the image of God, right? Doesn't mean

they're not guilty, but you shouldn't

just hate people. There's there would be

a pride in that because it's like, well,

you're not perfect either. Maybe if

you'd lived their life, you would have

been committing crimes, too. So, it's

not a but but but that's that emotion of

empathy. It can get warped. It can get

twisted, right? I've heard people call

that toxic empathy. And man, does that

seem to be at like an epidemic

proportion in our nation today? What is

toxic empathy? Toxic empathy, I would

define in Christian terms, is showing

mercy when God would have you show

justice.

basically you think you're more merciful

than God. And we see this kind of false

toxic empathy constantly being promoted

these days um towards people that are

crim criminal. Where's the empathy for

the victims?

What about the the the family members of

the people that this woman murdered?

Oh, well, I guess it's just okay because

she became a Christian.

Well, you say, "Well, God's forgiven

her." Absolutely. he has and he'll spend

eternity with her in heaven. She'll

spend eternity with him in heaven. And

so you have to realize in rightly

dividing the word here uh that as as

human rulers, if we're given a position

like that, we have to do justice and

sometimes we have to bring an earthly

consequence and yet God's uh ultimate

eternal plan is for that person to be

saved. In other words, the way that I

look at this and the way that I'd be

distru instructed from it, you know,

we're according to the word, we're to

have our powers of discernment trained

to distinguish uh constantly trained to

distinguish good from evil. Okay, it's a

paraphrase of verse, but it's pretty

close. So, constantly training. So, I'm

trained by this as I study this, and I

hope that you are as well to realize

sometimes

uh it's it's not God's just plan to

alleviate consequences on earth for sin.

even though he will forgive you for them

eternally.

Okay?

And that that happens all the time. Uh

if you um

end up getting drunk as a Christian

and you drive and you kill someone, I

think we call that manslaughter. Maybe

there's some reckless endangerment in

there, too. But the point is, you may go

to prison for that.

And just because you're a Christian and

are deeply repentant and genuinely so

does not mean that God's just going to

take away your prison sentence. So

sometimes earthly consequences

uh God does not restrain them and

sometimes he does. That's his decision

though. But in terms of an earthly

judge, we just have to do what's

revealed and what's legal in that

country as long as the legal the the

legal thing isn't against God's ultimate

law. So I think about that. So deepen it

even more. If Hmon had repented, should

he still

have gotten executed?

And someone might say, and I did hear

someone say this, and we discussed it

deeply, and well, he didn't actually

kill anybody.

You guys seen the movie Minority Report?

It's basically like these uh three twins

who have the ability to predict the

future accurately over and over again.

And when they predict that someone is

going to commit some crime, the laws are

changed to the point where they can

arrest the person before they even

commit the crime. I call that minority

report justice, right? Is that what's

happening here? Is he is he getting

unfairly executed even though he didn't

actually kill anybody? Well, my argument

there is that I believe that what Hmon

has done amounts to high treason.

And we already have an example of what

the laws are about uh a treasonous uh

attempt on the king's life by the Unix

assassinating him. They're going to get

uh uh executed for that and they did.

And although uh Hmon most likely did not

know that Esther was Jewish, it seems

like it was a total surprise to him.

There's no evidence that he already did.

Um

what he did still amounts to an

assassination plot against the queen.

Also, and I think it was Ben Jansen that

made this argument, if just entering the

the king's throne room without

permission can get you the death

penalty, lying to him about something

important or anything presumably gets

you the death penalty as well. And so

then you have to ask yourself, by the

way, I'm just processing out loud in a

way that I've thought through carefully

uh what I think justice actually looks

like in this as an example to you for

your convictions about discerning good

from evil. And as always, I'll give you

a disclaimer. Don't build your

convictions on mine. If I can show you

in scripture the need to uh align

ourselves with God's justice and his

mercy and you're convicted, then build a

conviction. So that means that you have

an opportunity here even if what I'm

saying is offensive to you. You can say

well I disagree with that. You don't

have to be like oh you know overreact to

the whole thing because there's no

there's no coercion here. No intended

coercion that that would be worthless

because then it's you being forced to

believe something rather than you truly

believing something. So that's what I'm

doing here. We consider this and look at

it. It's like well

I think of it like this from from God

down. If God sees that a nation's law is

that if you commit treason it you get

the death penalty. Would he say that

that law is wrong? Because you know we

still have that law.

England had a law uh for a time called

corruption of blood. If your father's a

traitor

he gets put to death and his family's

blood is corrupted and they can no

longer own land and other things.

Constitution forbids the punishment and

that's far more biblical that you forbid

the punishment. It's only the person who

who does the deed that should get the

consequence. So we still have I think

it's the only crime listed in the

constitution. Maybe wrong about that but

I think it is. And it's treason and it

still can get the death penalty

depending on the severity and the

ability to prove it. It's got to be like

two witnesses and some other criteria

too. It's pretty high standard of pro

evidentiary proof for that. You still

have the death penalty for that. Okay.

Does God disagree with the idea that a

nation would put somebody treasonous to

death to death? I think treasonous like

you have to aid in a bets an enemy that

we're at war with. That's another one.

Okay. In some way against the interest

of the United States. My answer to that

is no. I don't think it's an ungodly law

to say treason gets a severe penalty

like that. And there's also lesser

penalties for for treasonous acts when

they're proven. Okay. I think it needs

to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Yes, that's the best justice system I

think we can come up with in a non-

theocratic nation. And we're not

supposed to be a theocratic nation. I

don't believe so. We still should get

our morality from the Bible. I don't

think God had any problem with Persia as

a nation, even though it was a godless

nation, having a law that says if you

commit treachery against the empire, you

get the death penalty. You know what I'd

tell you if I was a pastor then? Don't

walk into the king unannounced and don't

commit high treason because if you do,

you can't expect God to rescue you.

Those laws don't require you to sin

against God to keep them. You don't have

to commit treason.

You don't have to walk into the king

unannounced. So, I think Hmon, even if

he had repented, it's just like the

situation in Texas where he still needed

to die. Except that in this case, I

believe God would have forgiven Hmon

eternally. Okay. Now, if you want to

talk about that more deeply, if you

disagree, let's have a spiritual

argument about that. That means not

accusing each other, things like that.

But I'm just giving you an opportunity

to think through as a student of the

Bible, just like you. I'm not more

special than you. I've just been tasked

by God to be the preacher of this

church. I think I do know what I'm

talking about. I've studied these things

well. I've thought through them

carefully. I think this is right

biblically. I wouldn't tell you if I

didn't. Uh but I think that's aligning

ourselves with God God's justice. Let me

start showing you what happens if you do

not align yourself with God's justice.

It has generationally devastating

impacts when fathers do not align

themselves with God justice. God's

justice in terms of disciplining their

children. What's one of the most famous

stories in all the Bible regarding um a

father who was not evil, who seems

genuinely right with God, did some great

things but refused to discipline his

children. Eli. Okay, let's go to uh

first before we go there, let's go to

Proverbs 6:16-19

Proverbs 6:16–19

to see what God says about people like

Hmon. How does he feel like about people

like Hmon? Okay, here's Proverbs

Proverbs 6:16–19

6:16-19.

There are six There's six things that

the Lord hates. I think I can make a

strong amen uh argument that Hmon

represents every single one of these six

things that are an abomination to him.

Worst of the worst. Hotty eyes. Did he

have hotty eyes? He wanted to be

worshiped. Yes, he had hotty eyes. A

lying tongue, definitely. Hands that

shed innocent blood.

A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet

that make haste to run to evil. And

there's one more. a false witness who

breathes out lies and one who sws sws

discord among brothers. Hmon had swn

discord between uh a hassaweris and mori

and hassaweras and uh Esther and

Hassaweras and an entire population

group of Jews in his nation. Let's go

back to the first verse here. Proverbs

Proverbs 6:16

6:16.

You're not going to hear this all that

often these days. There are six things

that the Lord hates. Let's just stop

right there. Did you know that there's

things that the Lord hates? Hates them.

Hates them. Okay. And you think, "Oh,

well, Jesus is meek and mild. He doesn't

hate things." Wrong. Jesus' character is

exactly like the character of the Lord

because he is the Lord. So God the

Father and Jesus are exactly alike.

Let's go to Hebrews chapter 9 or chapter

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

1:9.

Hebrews 1:9 says this, "You have loved

Hebrews 1:9

righteousness." This is God speaking

about his son Jesus. You have loved

righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God, one of the

greatest verses about Christ's full

divinity. Therefore, God the Father,

your actually therefore God, Jesus, your

God, God the Father, has anointed you

with the oil of gladness beyond your

companions.

Part of the reason that Jesus was

exalted by God the Father is that he

loved righteousness and hated wickedness

and he did those things perfectly. So

Jesus is our example of being perfectly

aligned with God's mercy and God's truth

with his mercy and his justice with his

grace and truth. He's full of both

without interruption of sin. So now I

want to walk you through a sequence of

events that you can see the deep

spiritual connections and the

devastation of not aligning yourself

with God's justice. That's the first one

we'll do. Okay. We're going to start in

Deuteronomy 25. And these are all

connected to Hmon ultimately. It's

really interesting. Deuteronomy

25-19.

Um I'll go ahead and go there. Give you

time to go there.

Remember

what Amalecch did? Who's Amalecch? Well,

ultimately, uh, Amalecch has a

descendant. His name is Aag. And Aag was

an evil king and famously one that Saul

did not put to death even though God

commanded him to. Fast forward. Who is

Hmon? He's an Agite. Okay, that's an

important detail. So, Amalecch, Agite,

kind of same thing in relationship to

God. Here's what it says. Remember what

Amalecch did to you on the way as you

came out of Egypt. How he attacked you

on the way when you were faint and weary

and cut off your tail, those who were

lagging behind you and did not fear God.

Who is the ones that lagging behind?

Older people and children. So how evil

is Amalecch? He just went and wiped out

the weakest people in in the rear.

Therefore, when the Lord your God has

given you rest from all your enemies

around you in the land that the Lord

your God has given you for an

inheritance to possess, you shall blot

out the memory of Amalecch from under

heaven. You shall not forget.

Okay? It means exactly what it says.

It's considered holy war, right? God's

judgment enacted through his people. And

in this case, it means that Amalecch

needs to be and his descendants need to

be wiped off the face of the earth.

They're the enemies of God and the

enemies of God's people. I can't tell

you how many students of the Bible

refuse to align themselves with God

justice, saying this is okay. It's not

just okay, it's just. When God decides

that a people group needs to be wiped

out, that's just. Otherwise, you're

saying God is wrong. And many people do

say that or they kind of limp along,

unwilling to admit that the problem with

with the the injustice that they're

seeing is their own sin, not God's.

Whenever you're not aligned with God's

justice or God's mercy, it's your sin

that's causing that. You don't hate

wickedness as deeply as you should and

you do not love righteousness as deeply

as you should. And we'll talk about why

that happens to people. That's the

origin of toxic empathy, by the way.

Okay, let's continue. 1st Samuel 2 uh

29-30.

And you're going to see how these are

connected.

So, um, just want to make sure I have

these in order. Yeah, I do. This is

about Eli. When, uh, why do you scorn my

sacrifices? This is, uh, God speak

speaking about, um, Eli. Why do you

scorn my sacrifices and my offerings

that I commanded you by for my dwelling?

And honor your sons above me by

fattening yourselves on the choicest

parts of every offering of my people.

Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel,

declares, "I promise that your house and

the house of your fathers should go in

and out before me forever." But now the

Lord declares, "Far be it from me, for

those who honor me, I will honor, and

those who despise me shall be lightly

esteemed." Okay, so he's saying, "Eli's

done." And why? Well, there's two things

that Eli's uh children would be doing,

and I'll just fasttrack the details

here. They had been uh taking of the

meat and the fat in a way that they

shouldn't of these sacrifices, helping

themselves to a barbecue while they're

supposed to be facilitating worship of

the Lord and sacrifices. And it seems

like Eli had actually been participating

that even if he wasn't, he at least was

indirectly participating in it by being

in charge and not disciplining his sons,

not restraining them. God says on top of

it, they were seducing women in the

temple courts, right?

So we know from the story of Aaron's

sons not of Ahu when they blatantly and

unrepentantly

um offered false fire before the Lord.

The instructions were very clear and

they went in and did it the wrong way.

There's burnt up. God executed them all

by himself. No human intervention. In

this case, that's what they're already

doing. And on top of it, they're

committing adultery. So what do they

deserve? A father's worst nightmare.

They deserve the capital punishment

according to God. And you can see why

Eli wasn't really willing to do that.

What father would

even if the consequence for his sons was

just restraining them by removing them

from any temple service wasn't willing

to do that to them either. However, he

does rebuke them in the story. He tells

them what they're doing is wrong and

that people and reports of them are

right and that the doing is evil. But he

refuses to do anything about it. Okay,

we don't want to talk too bad about Eli

because he actually raised a major judge

and prophet named Samuel. So, in the

way, he's still a godly man, which I

think is why God showed this. You can be

a relatively godly man, fail to do

justice in relationship to your family,

and have a horrible result happen. Okay,

so let's continue in the story. Let's go

to Samuel 8 1-8

because you're going to see a detail

about how uh you remember what

ultimately happens. Uh uh a man, I think

it was a Benjamite comes reporting from

the war. Both of uh Eli's sons have been

put to death. Well, had died in the war

as a respon uh consequence of God's

judgment. And when Eli hears it, and by

this time he's obese and overweight and

can't, he's so shocked by hearing that

and about the ark being captured, he

falls over backward and breaks his neck.

If that's not a cautionary tale about

fathers not being too merciful to their

children and actually dealing with their

issues when like if your son or children

are sinning, what are you teaching them

about God if you do nothing about it? If

your standard of what needs to happen,

if they're being disobedient, if they're

lying, if they're stealing, if they're

doing something wrong to others, and you

as a father do nothing about it, or as a

mother doing nothing about it, you're

teaching your children that God will do

nothing about it cuz you're their best

example of what God is like when they're

just being formed. And those formative

years, the concrete's wet, lot can be

molded out of it. Then it sets and that

that formation has happened. And then

they'll be so shocked when they find out

how severe God is with sin because you

have not shown them to consider both the

kindness and the severity of the Lord.

So what happens? Well, Eli, having not

changed as a father, raised Samuel.

Samuel has Eli as his example as a

father and of course does the exact same

thing with his sons. Samuel's also a

righteous man, but he was not a

disciplinary father. Listen to this. 1st

Samuel 8:1. When Samuel became old, he

made his sons judges over Israel.

Terrible mistake. They were not high

character men. They the name of the

firstborn was Joel. Name of the second

was Abijah. They were judges in

Bashibba. Yet his sons did not walk in

his ways, but turned aside after gain.

They bribed they took bribes and

providentally

didn't do anything about it. Then all

the elders of Israel gathered together

and came to Samuel at Rama and said to

him, "Behold, you're old and your sons

do not walk in your ways. Now appoint

for us a king to judge us like all the

nations." But the thing displeased

Samuel when he said, "Give us a king to

judge us." And Samuel prayed to God,

right? Of course, it displeased him. It

would be unbelievably embarrassing to

have the people totally reject your

children, which you raised, who are

clearly crooked. And also, they weren't

supposed to have a king. God was

supposed to be directly their king. And

so Samuel's displeased. And then the

Lord says something interesting. Verse

7. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Obey

the voice of the people and all they say

to you. For they have not rejected you,

but they have rejected me from being

king over them." According to all the

deeds that they have done from the day I

brought them up out of Egypt, even to

this day, forsaking me and serving other

gods, so they are also doing to you. Now

then, obey their voice. only you shall

solemnly warn them and show them the

ways of the king who shall reign over

them.

What if

Eli had disciplined his sons properly?

Disciplined Samuel properly. Samuel had

disciplined his sons properly uh

properly and they at least some of them

were righteous judges. You could make a

relatively reasonable argument that the

king that the Israelites at this time

would not have rejected a judge who

mediates between God's will and the

people, a righteous prophet and judge,

and had not at this time chosen a king.

Except they did. His name was Saul. And

what does he do? And here's kind of the

aha moment. Um Saul has two sins that he

commits. And we're not going to go to

the scriptures because they're so spread

out. One is he offers sacrifices and and

is impatient and doesn't wait for

Samuel. And the sacrifices are only

either done by a priest or a prophet and

it's Samuel's place to do the

sacrifices. So he takes another role

before God on as a king that he ought

not to hard boundary. That's one reason.

Another reason is God says put AAG and

his entire city and devote them to

destruction. Kill them all. He refuses

to do that and keeps AAG alive. Toxic

empathy. Aag was unbelievably wicked.

Think of the most wicked person you

think. Hard to say that Ag wasn't in

that exact same category. Okay. And if

you're wondering, this isn't like a

rivalry between Lake Asiggo and Jesuit

where it's like, oh, you say we're going

to kill him, but you just mean beat him

on the football field. Samuel hacks a to

pieces to enact God's will with a sword.

That if that shocks you as like, oh my

gosh, that's so violent. It's like,

well, that's what God's saying AG

deserved for all the evil he did. And by

the way, all AAG would have to do is

kill your children and then you'd want

them hacked to pieces, too. If you have

the toxic empathy, you go off, no mercy,

scorch earth on the other side. You

know, we're just crooked when it comes

to our sense of what is just and God

says so. He's just and we need to align

himself with our we do not naturally

align ourselves with his justice. Okay.

So

Saul

refuses to kill Aag and enact God's

justice. And you can see the lineage all

the way through. Now they have a king

who won't even put evil men to death.

And had Saul done that, there would have

been no Hmon, no epic global threat to

God's people.

That's how epic it actually is. When

fathers refuse to align themselves with

God's justice and mothers, too.

and husbands and wives and bosses who

are managing people, treating one person

with favoritism. And when you see

governors and jud and judges and all of

a sudden crime rises, the murder rate

raises, it happens. It's happening right

now with our judges because

so many of them not actually in any way

surrendered to the Lord or even affected

by Judeo-Christian culture forming.

It's it's the kind of thing that can

erode the very legal infrastructure of

America to the point where it may be

within our lifetimes that we start

seeing uh judges like anarchy, wild,

wild west of justice.

You do not want that. Even if you think

aspects of our justice system are

crooked, which they are, you don't want

a wholesale anarchy. Nobody's safe in

that. Everyone just does what they think

is right in their own eyes, which is

about the most evil a culture can get.

So, we ought to be warned. We ought to

be warned to not refuse to align

ourselves with God's justice. And I'll

I'll say this, and I'm not singling

anybody out here. I'm singling a group

of people out in this case. A group that

is very near and dear to my heart. Uh

people and Christians who have the gift

of mercy. I don't know if you ever been

down and out uh and then had someone

who's who's supernaturally gifted to be

empathetic and their personality is also

very empathetic and how special it is to

someone to show compassion on you when

you're down. Very special. I don't have

that gift and but I rever that gift and

wish I did. But I have noticed that when

it comes to aligning yourself with God's

justice that people who have this gift

of mercy, they'll feel the empathy so

much deeper than anybody else. feel it

in their boughels. That's Christlike.

Christ saw the people of Israel and they

were like sheep without a shepherd and

harassed and he felt it's kind of a

funny word in Greek my deep compassion

in his bowels.

So it's Christlike to feel that

compassion but because of sin our

compassion needs to be tempered by the

word. You know what tempered is f heated

up folded and pounded. It's not

comfortable. It doesn't feel good to

have God temper your sense of justice or

mercy. Vice versa, let me not just pick

on people with gift of mercy. If you

have other types of gifts, uh like gifts

that tend to be you to be fiery on the

truth, those tend to be my gift set. I

feel fiery about the truth. Um you're

likely to be a little bit more like

Jonah, aren't you?

Why did Jonah not go to Nineveh? Sunday

school version, he was afraid of them

because they were so evil. actual

version. He knew how gracious God was

and if he went and preached repentance,

God would likely forgive them. And that

was a hard no for Jonah. You can't

forgive those people. If it it would

it's almost inappropriate with this

mixed audience to talk about how evil

the Ninevites were. So, I'm just not

going to. They invented new forms of

evil in the way they treated men and

women and pregnant women and their

babies. That's as far as I'll go.

If you had been an Israelite who had

lost family and friends to the

Ninevites, you would have hated them

too. The reason he, hey, go to Ninevite,

he flees the exact opposite direction is

because he does not want their sin to be

forgiven. Okay? So then God brings a

storm, hurls the storms at them, has him

and and this is a historical story. The

Bible doesn't write it as a legend or

myth. Has him swallowed by a fish, a big

fish. And yeah, that's supernatural.

that doesn't happen and you don't

survive for 3 days. That ends up, by the

way, being a sign of the resurrection,

which is also historical. You diminish

that historicity, you're diminishing the

sign that Jesus says is the only sign

the Pharisees will get for Christ's word

being true about the resurrection. So,

he then has this amazing I think it's in

either two or three of of the book of

Jonah where Jonah has this repentance

experience. He gets spit out on the

shore and he's willing to go to to

Nineveh. I kind of read it like he does

the absolute bare minimum. It's like

seven words. Ever the prophet has like a

book of all the repentance speeches they

have. He just says uh a sevenword I I I

don't have it memorized but you can go

there. And Nineveh repents and Jonah is

angry about it. Okay. So on the one hand

you have maybe an Eli

um who is not going to enact justice

because of family ties is showing

favoritism. Every father and mother I

think can understand the tension in

that. You'd love your children. It's

hard. Uh, but he's not willing to align

himself with God's justice when it gets

hard. And over here, Jonah is not

willing to align himself with God's

mercy. What other reason is God giving

us these stories other than showing him

that when you don't align yourself with

his justice or his mercy? He experiences

that as you rejecting him, rejecting

him, rejecting his actual character.

And so, we don't want to do that.

He experienced a perfect love from his

own son who is also God because Jesus

refused to compromise on righteousness

and refused to compromise on wickedness

on justice. He he loved righteousness

and hated wickedness.

Okay. So I think a a

a passage like this requires us to

really consider are we aligning

ourselves with God's justice and mercy.

And I told you personally, I think that

um phariseism is alive and well today,

too. People think they're better than

other people, so they judge them. So,

they get harsh about God's mercy.

They're like Jonah. I don't want to be

too hard on Jonah, either. Uh he

ultimately does seem to have repented.

He still had a stinky attitude. So, you

can be a genuine Christian and get a

stinky legalistic attitude, think you're

better than people, and start judging

them harshly and be misaligned with

God's mercy. Find it outrageous that he

forgive people cuz you're just so much

better than them, right? or on this side

think you're better than God in terms of

mercy and though therefore his justice

just seems too harsh and you're like no

no no no no let's just pretend that God

didn't command all those really harsh

and dreadful commands and they are

dreadful.

We're to consider kindness and severity

of God. He is severe when it comes to

the way that he treats evil.

I think the far deeper problem in this

partic the German state site like the

the spirit of our times is toxic empathy

where we do not align ourselves with

God's justice because uh of of the ways

that the culture and world has

influenced us and so that's the one I

want to talk about more where toxic

empathy ultimate originally originate

come originally comes from is the pride

of people thinking they don't deserve

God's condemnation

If you don't take your sin seriously, if

you don't see your sin as exceedingly

sinful, then you will also think that

when you see other people with similar

sin or any kind of sin like that getting

God's consequences in their lives, you

think that's not fair. Nobody deserves

that cuz your anthropology is so off.

You don't think people are really that

sinful and it's not that great of an

offense to God's holiness. Okay, here's

what the cross is actually about and

what it requires us to believe in

accepting that. You know how it said

Aasaweris's wrath was abated after Hmon

got impaled? Listen to this. Um this is

uh Romans 59-10. And we're so near the

conclusion here. So Romans 5 9-10. Since

therefore we have now been justified by

his blood, much more shall we be saved

by him from the wrath of God. Why do we

need to be saved from the wrath of God?

Because in our sin, we are hostile and

alienated from him. Hostile and

alienated and enemies of God. That's

what Colossians says. That's what Paul

says in Colossians. Go read this.

Colossians 1.

So, do you actually believe that what

was necessary for God to forgive you was

for someone else to take on his

justified outrage against your sin? Do

you feel that in your heart? If you were

the only person that existed or if I was

the only person that existed, the only

way God can justly forgive you is to

punish Jesus for what you have done and

not done that was not aligned with God's

justice and mercy.

That is the truth straight from God's

word.

More than that, we also rejoice in God

through our Lord Jesus Christ through

whom we have now been reconciled. One

more verse on this topic. One of the

topic that's get these days is getting

contradicted from the pulpit more and

more trying to diminish the fact that

God is wrathful. He is. It's part of his

character. He hates sin. That's just the

way it is. So, this is 1 Thessalonians 1

9-10.

Uh, and we're jumping right into the

context here, but I'll just read it. For

they themselves report concerning us the

kind of reception we had among you and

how you turned to God from idols to

serve the living and true God. Verse 10.

And to wait for his son from heaven,

whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who

delivers us from the wrath to come.

A lot of people basically wrongly think

that what God is saving us from is our

sin. What God is really saving us from

is his own wrath against our sin. He's

saving us from condemnation.

And thanks be to God for there is now no

condemnation for those who are in Christ

Jesus. And why? Because God condemned

him instead.

So if you want to be aligned with God's

justice and mercy, you have to align

yourself with the cross which says I am

so sinful that the son of God who is

perfect and deserved nothing but glory

had to be put to death for me and

actually had to bear the wrath of God

that I deserved instead of him. And then

you'll be warned about how severe his

justice actually is and how you deserve

it yourself. But you'll also see it as

an opportunity for thankfulness. Truly

the greatest thankfulness that can ever

be in heart. The joy of salvation. I do

not have to face the wrath of God to

come because Jesus did for me. And that

is the only way out. There is no other.

So really, if you align yourself with

the cross of Jesus Christ, then you'll

know what's good, you'll know what's

evil, and you'll have the conviction to

lead and influence others in that

direction, and you can avoid

generationally devastating consequences

for that. It's how powerful the cross

is. And so, never a better opportunity,

let's put the main point back up, to

come to the table, which represents the

cross in a spiritually real way.

um to come to the table and align oursel

with God's justice and mercy. If you're

finding yourself recoiling at God's

justice, there's something wrong in your

heart that that is related to sin that

you need to repent. Oh, God, I'm sorry

that I find your justice somehow wrong.

I know it's me that's wrong cuz you

can't be wrong. I want to be aligned. or

if you find yourself being judgmental of

other people. If you're having a real

tough time forgiving someone, what Jesus

says about that, I mean, it's that

parable of the uh unforgiving servant

where he's forgiven such a huge debt and

then he turns around and won't forgive

the small debt of the other person's,

right? Like Jesus condemns that

severely. And so when you refuse to

forgive someone, you're kind of in the

category of not really accepting God's

mercy. You're not aligned there.

And you you need to be aligned. You

don't want to be like Jonah acted. You

don't want to be like Eli. There's a

reason God gives us these cautionary

tales. Again, God's punishment of the

wicked should be received as a warning

and an opportunity for thankfulness to

the redeemed. I have no idea exactly

what the Holy Spirit said to you

regarding how you need to be aligned. I

would just advocate for you listening to

him, no matter how painful it is, and

bringing those things to the communion

table. What if today you aligned

yourself because the spirit helps you

and convicts you and is drawing you to

the forgiveness for not being aligned at

the table. What if you aligned yourself

with God's justice and mercy today?

Imagine the peaceful fruit of

righteousness that could come from that.

Let me pray. Father, thank you for the

opportunity to realign ourselves with

your justice and your mercy.

I'm sorry for the ways that I haven't

been, that I don't take my own sin as

seriously as ought to, and too often

take other people's sin way more

seriously than than my own. And this is

prideful and wrong. And I I repent of

that, and I I want to come to your

table, and I want to be like Jesus. I

want to love righteousness, and I want

to hate wickedness, and I want to start

hating wickedness in my own life first.

Please align us as a church with your

justice and mercy in Jesus name. Amen.