Justice and Mercy [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

As Jesus hung on the cross and as he bled, the Scripture says that he who knew no sin became our sin so that whoever would trust in him would be given, imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Balance, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this resource, today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. What's taking place in Hosea chapter 11 is in a mysterious way. God is talking to Himself. When Israel was a child, I loved Him. He's now shifted the image out of a father for a love for a child. Any parent knows what He's talking about.

I called my son, and the more they were called, He said, the more they went away. He said, verse 3, but yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up in the arms. It was a picture of a father taking his toddler's arms, who's learning to walk, and walking by holding his little arms up because he knows that without him, he would fall. I taught them how to walk. I taught my people what it is like to be free. I showed them love. I showed them grace. I just wanted them to be able to grow up at the end of verse 3, but they did not know that I healed them. They didn't know what I'd done for them. They didn't know all the mercy.

It's almost like, God, I understand that. They're people. They're human. They can't have the mind to be able to understand in the same way that a father is not too disappointed that his little toddler doesn't understand what daddy did that day to go out and make a living so that little one could have some food.

It's all right, but I do not want you to reject my love. They didn't know what I had done for them. I led them, verse 4, with cords of kindness. What is interesting about this is that this literally says, I led them with a human. It's an unusual thing, and so most of the translations don't render it exactly that way, but some would say that maybe it's referencing Moses, who was a human mediator, and maybe it's just prophetic that he's saying, this is the only way that I could lead them is that I must become flesh. With the bands of love, I led them.

God leads from his love. It's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, and I became to the one who eases the yoke on their jaws. I lifted the bird. I'm not a burden giver. I'm a burden lifter, and I bent down to feed them.

I stooped. I came to their level in order to be able to feed them, and then you just see it just turns at verse 5. He said, they're not going to go back to Egypt. They probably ought to just have to go back to Egypt, but instead, there'll be another nation that'll come up. There will be another exile. There's going to be punishment for this because they refuse to turn to me, and the sword shall rage against their cities.

The justice of God, the righteousness of God is speaking out here, and then at verse 8, it just shifts back again, but how can I give you abo ephraim? How can I hand you over Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboim? See, Admah and Zeboim were the other smaller cities alongside of Sodom and Gomorrah that were destroyed over their wickedness.

How could I do that to you? The end of verse 8, my heart recoils within me. The word for recoil is actually a Hebrew word that means to overthrow, and what is interesting about this is that another place where the word is used, Admah and Zeboim are also referenced, and it's Deuteronomy 29 23, where we read, the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout and overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath. That word overthrow, in his anger and wrath, all the nations will say, why has the Lord done thus to the land?

What caused this heat of this great anger? So Admah and Zeboim were overthrown in the God's righteous wrath, but here at the end of verse 8, God says my heart is overthrown within me. Evidently, when there's wickedness, something, someone is going to be overthrown, and it's either going to be us or it's going to be God himself.

My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not, I cannot execute my burning anger. I'll not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not a man. The Holy One in your midst, I will not come in wrath, probably a more literal translation is better here, I will not come into the city like I did Sodom and Gomorrah and Zeboim and Admah, where if the Holy One comes in close to the sin, the sin and those who commit it could not survive. God is saying, I am in inward conflict because I am righteous, and I have declared my righteousness, and I cannot let wickedness go unpunished, and yet I am loving, I love this people, and I can't let them go.

What can be done? And you must understand this tension, if you're going to understand the gospel. The nature of God is infinite. If you have ever seen a great offense or contemplated a great wickedness, the enslavement of girls for prostitution, the abuse and neglect of children intentionally by great wickedness, whatever you might conceive of that you in your heart know this cannot be, that instinct towards righteousness is in the heart of God to an infinite degree. And if you've ever had someone in your life, a child, a spouse, a friend, that you could say, I think I love this person enough to lay down my life.

Everything in my life bends towards wanting the well-being of this other. If you've ever tasted of a love that keeps no record of wrong, a love that is patient and kind, a love that is everlasting, if you've ever tasted of that, even a glimpse of it, please try to measure it out in your mind to an infinite degree, and you will know the heart of God. All the attributes of God are always God. There's not a time in which God is just, but He's not loving.

There's not a time in which He's loving, but He's not just. Instead, every attribute of God is totally God at every point in God's life. And He who pre-existed creation and has made all things is therefore outside of time, and so there was never a time in which God was one but not the other. So there's absolutely no sense in being able to say the Old Testament God was a God of judgment, but the New Testament God is a God of grace. He's the same God, and He has always been the same God, and He always will be the same God. He is at all times, in all places, in all eternity, both holy and loving, both just and merciful.

It is His nature, and He is infinitely so. Abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the Spirit. The answer is both Word and Spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying Scripture, and some traditions emphasize the Spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both Word and Spirit. As someone once said, all word, no Spirit, you dry up. All Spirit, no Word, you blow up. Both Word and Spirit, you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download, titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and His Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. The love of God is not somehow distinct from the justice of God, but is connected to the justice of God. I wish the whole world could understand this. There's great confusion because in the spirit of the age, people who have seen judgmentalism in the church label the church as a place of judgmentalism. And in the spirit of the age, there are many who would notoriously say that they are exceedingly bothered by the fact that the Bible calls God a jealous God. Because in human terms, jealousy is something that points to insecurity or immaturity. But jealousy in its purest sense is actually demonstration of love. If it didn't bother Hosea that Gomer ran after others, if he didn't have any jealousy for her, you would question his love. If a husband had a wife of unfaithfulness and he learned of it and he said, oh, that's fine.

I don't mind sharing you with just anybody. That doesn't matter. You wouldn't say that that was noble.

You'd say there was something that was badly wrong. That's the sort of jealousy that is in the heart of God, is that his love for you is so intense. His love is so pure. His love is so powerful that he cannot be content to share you and I and his children with others. You don't want a God who's not a jealous God, because if you had a God who's not a jealous God, you'd have a God who didn't know how to love. He's jealous for you to know the abundance of life.

He's jealous for you to know that he is the only true God, because every other lesser love will lead you into destruction. And so it is that there is a dilemma. How can God be both just and merciful? In human terms, if you've ever had a conflict with someone, let's say it's a husband and a wife, and one has committed some sort of offense. Thankfully, in most of our marriages, we just work our way through these things and we find a way to know how to forgive.

To know how to forgive. But the forgiveness that you grant is not easy, and it's not free. In the transaction of forgiveness, somebody pays. You could think of it this way. If you had your car parked at the restaurant after church today, and you saw somebody back up, and they just ran right into your car and scraped down the whole side of it and halfway demolished part of your car.

Well, you've got pretty much two choices. You could say, you're going to need to pay for the repair of my car, or you could say, I forgive you, just go on your way. But if you say, I forgive you, you're going to pay for the repair of your car. But somebody's going to pay for the repair of the car. The Bible says there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood.

It's just something in the design, the fabric of the cosmos. Sin has to be paid for. It has to be paid for.

That's the dilemma. It's human sin. Human sin must be punished. The most fascinating part of the story of Hosea is what happens in chapter 3. Because Gomer has run off, maybe, the text implies, sold herself back into slavery.

Or maybe it's just having her life controlled by some pimp, somebody's taken over her business. And God, and maybe Hosea in chapter 2, are wrestling. What shall I do? God says about Israel. She should be punished. Gomer should be punished. You know what you do with a woman of adultery in that day? You could take her and just publicly shame her.

The law would even allow for publicly stoning her. What should you do? In Hosea chapter 2, God is just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until finally God says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take her out into the wilderness and I'm going to lure her and speak tenderly to her. And I'm going to woo her back.

So he comes to Hosea and he says, Hosea, now that you have felt what it's like to be committed to someone who's not committed to you, here's what I want you to do. I don't want you to shame her. I want you to go love her. Go find her and take her back.

And that's what he does. How he finds her, I don't know. But at verse 2 of chapter 3, Hosea said, so I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lithak of barley. And I said to her, you must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore or belong to another man.

So will I also be to you. I guess he went and he found her and her boss said, you can't have her. She works for me. She belongs to me.

If you're going to take her, it's going to cost you. And so Hosea had to reach deep in his own pocket and take out his treasure and buy back the wife that was already his. And in so doing, the Holy Spirit must have whispered in the prophet's ear and said, now you can preach the gospel. For in the fullness of time, beloved, God, the one who had been betrayed, revealed his redemptive plan. A plan so marvelous and beautiful that the angels had stooped to look into it and no one had been able to fully see it.

And those who did were surprised and shocked by it. God indeed came to lead them by a human whose name was Jesus and he was God himself. The church, Jesus said, is like the bride and he is our groom. And God came in this God-man Jesus with this express purpose that in Jesus God had an answer for the dilemma of how can one God be both just and justifier, be both righteous and merciful. And as Jesus hung on the cross and as he bled, the scripture says that he who knew no sin became our sin so that whoever would trust in him would be given imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So that God would not be made out to be a liar, but instead his word would have its integrity and human sin would be punished in a wrath being poured out upon a human being. And Jesus himself, he took the punishment that you and I deserved. And in that cross you see therefore demonstrated the unspeakable infinite justice of God and the marvelous never-ending abounding mercy of God in the cross of Jesus Christ.

You see both his holiness and his love, his wrath and his mercy met at the cross of Calvary and Jesus paid it all. And we who are in Christ have therefore been utterly set free forever and ever wed unto him his beloved betrothed married for eternity never to be rejected. He is our beloved and we are his.

He is our husband and we are the bride. He is the Lord and we love him and we worship him and we honor him because he's done for us what we could have never imagined that any God would do. No other religion in the world has anything like this. This is our God. He is holy, holy, holy and he will not equip the wickedness of this world but he is loving, loving, loving so much so that he laid down his life so that at one moment in history he could demonstrate to all he is both just and justifier and everyone who accepts him is his forever and ever and ever and that's the gospel. Alan Wright you have heard the good news and live in that light today.

It's our teaching as we're wrapping up this particular moment of justice and mercy but continuing on in the series the beauty of balance in our next broadcast and Alan Wright will be back here in the studio with us in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's word and God's spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and spirit always belong together.

The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible. The secret isn't being filled with the spirit. The answer is both word and spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying scripture and some traditions emphasize the spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both word and spirit. As someone once said, all word no spirit you dry up. All spirit no word you blow up. Both word and spirit you grow up. When you make a gift of support this month we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's word and his spirit and grow like never before. With word and spirit you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well and remember when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website PastorAlan.org. Alan somebody's listening right now and and boy this seems to just really hit home this is a celebration moment they could hear in that worship service and boy they want to celebrate but they're just having trouble figuring out that this good news also applies to them too. Yes yes yes I think that many many people Daniel including some Christians are so aware of the demand for justice that runs throughout all of the cosmos that we have an understanding deep down within us that there must be justice right just have somebody pull out in traffic in front of you right or break in line or steal your pocketbook and you'll know there's something inside all of us like that's not fair that's not right yeah and knowing that things somehow need to be just or else we have nothing but chaos we yearn for it and we tend to condemn ourselves because we know that we have erred and fallen short on the other hand there's the mercy of God and we speak of God in tender terms and loving and people find themselves in conflict within their own hearts how can God be both and thus the gospel is such joyous news because in Christ God is just and justifier he is executing justice and pouring out mercy through the cross of Jesus Christ and that's what makes the gospel so wonderful today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries