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Is God More Tolerant Than He Used To Be? – Part 2 of 2

Running to Win / Erwin Lutzer
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October 18, 2024 1:00 am

Is God More Tolerant Than He Used To Be? – Part 2 of 2

Running to Win / Erwin Lutzer

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October 18, 2024 1:00 am

In the Old Testament, God required serious punishments for certain sins. It might seem safer to sin under grace than under the Old Testament law. In this message from Revelation 19, Pastor Lutzer exalts Jesus as both the Lamb and the Lion. Pastor Lutzer observes, “Greater grace means there will be greater judgment.”

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Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In the Old Testament, God required serious punishments for certain sins. It seems these are no longer in force.

Why? Stay with us for the reason for the change, all wrapped up in the New Covenant we see in the New Testament, in a moment more of is God more tolerant than He used to be? From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor, your series is The Eclipse of God. Today, you're explaining the changes between the Testaments, as seen in Hebrews chapter 12. But at the same time, Dave, what I'm emphasizing is that it is indeed the same God. He may punish people differently, but in the end, we see the very same justice, we see the very same need for righteousness, and of course, the need for redemption. As a matter of fact, the title, Is God More Tolerant Than He Used to Be, that's one of the chapters of my new book entitled The Eclipse of God. It's one of the longest chapters where I deal with the Old Testament and the New, showing the consistency of God. For a gift of any amount, we're making this book available for you. Here's what you do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let us listen carefully. Old Testament, stand away. When God came on Sinai, the people were terrified and God says, get out of the way. Don't you dare come close to the mountain. And the mountain shook and there was fire. Sinai was God coming without a mediator, without someone who had placated his wrath. Could you imagine a progressive Christian standing at the base of Mount Sinai and saying, you know, I'd like to come to God on my own terms.

Thank you very much. I don't think so. That's the way Sinai was. Stay away. Moses, I tremble with fear. Rather, now things change. And what you have is we come to the heavenly Zion, Old Testament mountain, Sinai, New Testament mountain, Mount Calvary, Zion, a poetic word for Jerusalem. And of course it's there in the outskirts where Jesus Christ was crucified and died. Now we come, he says, to Mount Zion, to heavenly city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, probably the church and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of righteous made perfect, possibly the Old Testament saints. So Old Testament, stay away. New Testament says it's okay now to approach God because we have a mediator because Jesus came from heaven to redeem us. And so we can actually enter into the presence of God boldly by the throne of grace because Jesus has come. So we say to people today, don't stay away. You come to Christ, you come to God, but come making sure that you understand you need a mediator because we cannot come to God directly on our own.

We need someone to stand in for us and to be our mediator. So one of the differences that we notice is simply this. There's a difference between the earthly and the heavenly. There is a second difference and that has to do with the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. Notice it says we come to the new covenant. I read it in verse 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

We come to a new covenant. What he's saying is this is think through in the old Testament, you had a theocracy. God spoke directly to the children of Israel and he ruled through the prophets, even through Kings and it was a theocracy. And in the old Testament, there was no such thing as freedom of religion.

Absolutely not. I mean, if you were a heretic, you were to be put to death because God was ruling directly. That's the old covenant, but that's not the way it is in the new covenant. There is no theocracy today. Even when Israel was taken into Babylon, God didn't say to them, now you're in Babylon.

Try to establish a theocracy. No, you are now to be a witness in the midst of this pagan civilization and represent me well and pray for the city that you are in, that the city may be blessed. And as the city is blessed, you will be blessed. You represent me in Babylon.

That's the way it is. This was an image in the old Testament of the new covenant. When Jesus said, render unto Caesar, what belongs to Caesar to God? What is God's? It was really a break with the idea that there was such a thing as a theocracy. From now on, there isn't going to be a nation that's going to be a theocracy. Rather, God is going to have people who are a transcendent people in every single country of the world.

There are going to be believers and they are going to be asked to represent God as the church, no matter where they are in, no matter the pagan society in which they live, they are to be an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism. But there is no such thing now as one nation that is under God as a theocracy. And when it comes to the difference between the church and the state, I have to throw this in. There's so much unclear thinking regarding the role of the state and the role of the church. I heard one pastor say, and I'm sure he had a wonderful heart, but he was very naive and he didn't understand. He said, you know, the gospel says whosoever will may come. We should have open borders in America so that whoever wills should come to America. Many years ago in the 1990s, a Democratic Senator whose name escapes me said that one way you can destroy America is to invite people here who do not have your values, who do not accept Western values and who maintain their loyalties to some other ideology. And I think we have seen that recently as we see demonstrations in favor of what is happening in Israel, in Hamas, where you have people with loyalties that are different than our loyalties of freedom and our understanding of Western values.

Now, here's what I want you to write down. The symbol of the church is the cross. When the good Samaritan met the man along the road, he didn't say, now are you here legally and what group do you belong to and all that?

No. Wherever you find needs, you meet them. Wherever you meet people, you represent Christ to them no matter where they're from, no matter their background. But the symbol of the state is the sword. And it's the responsibility of the state to maintain order, to keep borders, to know who it is that is among us. That's the responsibility of the state. And just like we would like to know who comes into our home and we just don't invite anybody into our home until we know who they are.

We should, as a nation, know who people are who come into America. Now, what I'd like to do is to give you a third distinction and this will get to the heart of the question. The first distinction is the earthly to the heavenly, the old to the new covenant. As far as the new covenant is concerned, and now the difference is this immediate physical punishment versus eternal punishment. In the old testament, punishment was immediate. Somebody breaks a law.

Aiken commits a sin. He's put to death in the new testament. There is punishment, but it is always primarily future.

It is also physical. It is also temporal, but ultimately it is really future where God is going to judge the world and where we will see that and the difference is very evident. Let's read, for example, just turn the book of Hebrews a couple of pages back to chapter 10 verse 28. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace for we know him who said, vengeance is mine. I will repay and the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If you forget everything I've said today, I want you to write this down. The greater the grace, the more severe the punishment in order to nail that home. I'm going back to chapter 12 where we began at the book of Hebrews and now I want to begin at verse 25. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warrants from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken.

That is things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. What we discover is this, that the greater the grace and the new testament has much more grace. We know much more than they did in old testament times, of course, and the greater the grace, the greater the judgment. And as I indicated, it is so easy for us to think that people are getting by today, but biblically in the new testament judgment primarily comes in the future. Now there was also future judgment, of course, for those who died as wicked people in the old testament, but I have to say that was really not the emphasis. The emphasis was on present physical judgment and to some extent that was very gracious because people knew you were in trouble if you sinned and the trouble would be very evident and you would possibly be punished right on the spot. If you sinned today, there is no punishment on the spot. I mean, there's some, but not a whole lot. You know, the Bible says this in the book of Ecclesiastes, it says because the sentence against a sin is not carried out immediately.

I'm paraphrasing. People think it's okay to do wrong. And so people today do wrong thinking, you know, either God isn't watching, I'm not being punished, though of course in some sense they are.

Sometimes people ask me, do you think that America will someday be judged? And my answer is that all sin has immediate judgments. All sin has immediate judgments. And so to some extent, of course we're being judged. The very fact that about 30 million children will go to bed tonight with only one parent in the home is part of the judgment of God. And they take their issues into their marriages. And so you see the ongoing effects of sin. But at the same time, people think that they are getting by and they think to themselves that everything is going to be in the future, even as it is today.

They do not know that their day is coming. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Our God is a consuming fire. So we asked the question, is God more tolerant than he used to be?

Is it safe to sin? You remember in C.S. Lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia, and I am just pulling this out of my mind. Isn't it Lucy who asks about the lion Aslan who represents Christ? Is he safe? And the answer is no, he isn't safe.

He is good and he is gracious, but he isn't safe. And then the kids go and they see the softness of the lion's paws. And they they rub his paws and they think, wow, what a nice lion.

But there's another side to the lion, and that is his claws. You have Jesus as the lamb. And then you have Jesus as the lion. And we all want Jesus as the lamb, you know, the meek and the mild. But we forget there's another side to Jesus. By the way, in the new book I've written, the last chapter is entitled Returning to the God of Wrath and Grace, not the God of unconditional love. God loves everyone.

But unconditional love does not mean unconditional acceptance by any means. And we need to revise our view of God. Here is the lamb. Then I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it is faithful and true. And in his righteousness, he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire on his head or many diadems. And he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen.

That's us folks, white and pure. We're following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God, the almighty on his robe and on his thigh.

He has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I'm not even going to read the rest of the chapter. You can read it on your own, but it is so heart rending when you see the description of the judgment of God. There's nothing that I know of in the Old Testament as judgmental and as scary as this. Our God is a consuming fire.

Fire should be respected. Fire is something that reminds us of judgment. It reminds us of the fact that there is an eternal fire coming and all of that is clarified in the New Testament. Not so clear in the Old Testament where you have the emphasis on the physical judgment, but now you have the eternal judgments sobering. In fact, let me, let me see if I can quote for you something that shows up in chapter 20 of the book of revelation and I beheld a great white throne and him who sat on it before whose face the earth and the heavens fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead, small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened. One is a book of the life and the dead were judged out of those books.

The sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and Hades gave up those that were in them. They were judged each man according to their works and he who has not written in the Lamb's book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Many years ago when America was being developed across the prairies, many farmers, many homesteaders really feared that their homestead would burn up if there was a prairie fire. So I'm told that what they did is they took and they had what was called a controlled burn when the wind was favorable and so forth.

They would burn a large area all around the homestead because they know that when the fire would come, they'd be safe because they would be where the fire has already been. If you think that God is soft on sin and he's becoming more like us, look at the cross of Jesus Christ. Where is the love of God most clearly seen? It's seen on the cross. Where is the judgment of God most clearly seen? It is seen on the cross when Jesus Christ took all the torments of Sinai upon himself on our behalf and it is because of that we urge people to run to Jesus as a refuge from the wrath of God.

In fact, another passage comes to mind. I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal and lo, there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of air and the moon became his blood and the stars of the heavens fell onto the earth. Even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind and the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together and every mountain and island were moved out of their places and the great men and the rich men and the bond men and the free men, they hid themselves in the rocks and in the mountains and they cried and said, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and the wrath of the lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to stand? I don't know of anything in the Old Testament that terrifying.

Why? More grace, more responsibility, more judgment. Jehovah bade his sword awake. Oh Christ, it woke against thee. Thy open bosom was its ward.

It braved the storm for me. Death and the curse were in our cup. Oh Christ was full for thee. Thou has drained the last dark drop.

Tis empty. Now for me. I am the Lord. I changed not. My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. If you have never trusted Jesus Christ, he is the only one who can keep you from the wrath to come.

I urge you to believe on him, to repent and to turn to him at this moment. Let me ask you a bit of a different question. Have you ever been asked this by someone who wonders about the relationship between the Old Testament and the New? The question may go something like this. Why do we look to the book of Leviticus for our sexual ethic? For example, same sex relationships. And yet we don't look to Leviticus for whether or not we should eat shellfish or whether or not we are wearing clothing that has mixed fabrics.

All that is in the book of Leviticus also. In my new book, I answer those kinds of questions. The title of the book, The Eclipse of God, our nation's disastrous search for a more inclusive deity. Hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Very quickly, once again, that contact info, go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us because your gifts enable us to get the gospel of Jesus Christ to millions around the world.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 24. Ever heard of truthiness? It was Webster's Word of the Year in 2006, meaning something might be true, sort of true, sometimes true. That's what passes for truth in a culture gone mad. Next time, irrationality, more evidence of what Erwin Lutzer calls the eclipse of God. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-18 02:14:10 / 2024-10-18 02:22:05 / 8

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