God's Concept Of Justice

What is justice? You hear justice a lot, talked about, I mean it's the point of movies, it's the point of discussions, it's the point of politics, and there's actually a lot of different definitions that people use to define justice. Justice, as far as just the English language, has a very simple meaning. And basically it means a system of law that is fair to everyone. It's a system of law that is fair to everyone. And justice hasn't always been in any law system. The United States law system was based on that concept. But it always hasn't been just, right? I mean, rich people sometimes can buy their way through things. Sometimes people get privileges for different reasons in terms of the court. There's, you know, it's not always just. It's not always fair. Sometimes two people can commit the same crime, and the person who stole a little bit gets a huge sentence, and the person who stole a lot gets a small sentence. Actually, in the Proverbs, Solomon talks about that some. How do we apply the law so that there is justice? Today we're going to look at God's concept of justice, not ours. God's concept of justice in the micro part of it, in other words, how we're supposed to be just. And the macro about God and his judgments. I mean, when we start talking about God's justice, we have immediate questions. Like, why would God kill the babies in Sodom? What have the babies done? Right? And if you're, if you're a, from some Protestant churches, you believe all those babies went to hell. So what about that? What about the lake of fire? Is that just for God to take people and destroy their eternity? Where does God's justice come from? I gave a sermon a while back where I showed a slide, which I've shown now a couple times in the series of Bible studies we're doing on the book of Romans. Where I showed that to understand God's righteousness and what that means. He's always right. He's never wrong. We have to understand that he is perfect goodness, perfect justice, and perfect love. And every time I've used that in the Bible study, since we've gone through different parts of Romans, and the one time I gave the sermon on God's righteousness, you realize we can't even totally comprehend that. It is impossible for a human being to be perfect goodness, perfect justice, and perfect love. It's not possible. And yet, God is all three of those at the same time. There's never conflict between his goodness, his justice, and his love. So how then do we put that together? And you know, there is, you'll find a lot of discussion in today's Christianity that a loving God would never punish anybody. Because he's perfect love, he would never punish anybody. Is that what that means? Let's go to Micah, chapter 6. Jesus quotes this in the New Testament. So it's an Old Testament prophet, Micah, one of the minor prophets, Micah 6. And in this, these couple verses we're going to read, it sort of summarizes the questions that we all bring to God. I mean, this is the questions that human beings bring to God, and that it's his answer to those questions. Verse 6, Micah 6, 6. With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? He said, how many sacrifices do I make? Physical sacrifices, so that God says, yes, I accept you. Yes, you are just. You are not guilty anymore.

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul? He says, what is it that we can do? And he gets into absurdity here. I mean, Micah knew that God would not accept human sacrifice. The absurdity is, what do we bring to receive justice from God when we're all unjust? That's the point he is making. In other words, we're all guilty. He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? In other words, if we're going to be moving towards God, and God is going to be working with us and bringing us to him, this is what we must do. To do justly, you could just as easily have translated that, to do justice. To do justice. To love mercy. And to walk humbly with your God. These three things work together to create the kind of attitude that God will work with. A desire to do justice. Now, we have to be real careful here, because we can interpret that as just looking at everybody else's sins and telling them they're condemned. That's what we're doing. That's justice. Well, it is true that justice does have to do with condemnation of crimes. That is part of justice. It has to be. And that's the whole concept in the Old Testament and the New Testament. So God's concept of justice is, yes, there are penalties for crimes. That's part of justice. But notice the second part is, is to love mercy. Justice and mercy aren't opposites. They seem opposite to us, but they're not. Once again, in the mind of God, because he's perfect justice, perfect goodness, perfect love. And to walk humbly before your God. There is no way to understand justice without humility. Before God. There isn't. We have our own ideas of justice. Like, well, you know, these criminals have a bad background, so they can't be held responsible for their actions. Or the other, everybody, you know, should receive the harshest penalty that there is. And nobody should ever get mercy. And he's saying here, if we want to approach God, and remember, Jesus quotes this, we have to walk in justice. We have to know it. We have to live by justice. We have to love mercy. And we have to be humble before God. To do justly. The word there, the Hebrew word mishpat, is a legal term. So he's talking about the law here. He says mishpat. We have to do it. Now, he's not just meaning you have to obey it. It's the concept of justice. What happens when someone disobeys it? How are people dealt with when they disobey it? How are people dealt with if they're accused of it?

One Greek dictionary puts it this way. It literally is a verdict. Whether they're favorable or unfavorable. In other words, justice doesn't always mean punishment. Justice sometimes means you're acquitted. There's a justice that takes place in which maybe you're not guilty. Or someone pays your fine. And you're acquitted before the law. You are just.

Which was pronounced by a judge. The noun was used to describe, still reading from the dictionary, any aspect of civil or religious government in the Old Testament. More than 200 cases in the Old Testament. This word appears throughout the Old Testament. Because it's translated justice, justly, and judgment. More than 200 cases deal with the act of dealing with a case of litigation brought before civil court. The concept of justice calculates the full range of meaning in English. In other words, we use the word justice to mean a lot of things. And it meant a lot of things in Hebrew. It's a whole concept of how we deal with God and how God deals with us in terms of the law and how we deal with each other in terms of the law. So the application of mishpat means judgments and decisions made on people who are accused of something. But it involves something else because it involves the intent of the law. What we would call the spirit of the law. And in fact, mishpat deals with the due process of law. Now we obviously don't, we don't think of that very often. We think of the law. But mishpat dealt with the due process of law. In other words, if you have the law, but no way to properly administer the law, the law will become misused. So the due process of law is part of the concept. I'll show you what I mean. Let's go to Deuteronomy 1. There has to be a way in which people are brought before the law and judged fairly. Deuteronomy 1. And you will find this throughout Deuteronomy, well throughout the whole Torah, but especially Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 1.16.

And this is very important. Deuteronomy 1.16 says, then I command your judges. Okay, so now he's looking at the judicial system. So this is what was required of the judicial system at that time saying here are the cases between your brother and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. Now righteousness and justice are tied together. You can't have one without the other. To be right means you're looking at the law, doing it right and judging it rightly.

What's interesting here is not just the brother, but the stranger. Ancient Israel was told that when someone came into their land that wasn't an Israelite and they were accused of a crime, you couldn't just say you're a stranger, you get a penalty. They had to appear before the court and receive the same justice as an Israelite would. In other words, if they committed murder, they were going to be stoned to death. But if they were not guilty, they were going to be acquitted.

That everybody that came into Israel received the same sentencing and the same, if you will, due process. They had to come before the elders at the gates. They had to have witnesses. If there were no witnesses, you could not condemn somebody. In other words, they had to have proof of what had happened. He goes on and he says, you shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid in any man's presence for the judgment of his gods. The case that is too hard for you, bring it to me, Moses says, and I will hear it.

Judgment here is mishpot. It's justice. There has to be justice. I find it fascinating the due process of justice. You don't find out much in the ancient world a due process of justice. What's really interesting is it's only, I can't say I've never studied all the ancient law systems, but I've never found one in the few that I've looked at that had the concept of what we call second degree murder. In Deuteronomy, if someone killed somebody and it wasn't their intention to kill them, they didn't receive the death penalty. They just went to prison. They went to the city of refuge. Second degree murder, it wasn't your intent. So the intent was important in justice. So a person could be upset with somebody and give them a shove, and they fall and hit their head on a rock, and they're like, I didn't mean to do that. They are to be tried, and they have to go to the city of refuge because it wasn't their intent to kill them. Now, they intend to kill them. Guess what? It was death penalty. That's what was required. That's a whole new concept in the ancient world, that the intent of the law is important, not just the letter, but the intent, and that everybody gets a fair trial. Exodus 23. We'll go back to Exodus.

Because you will see this problem in our judicial system today. Verse 1. You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

To witness against somebody was a capital crime. To accuse somebody of something they didn't do so that they would be punished was a capital crime. There weren't that many capital crimes. We think of the Old Testament. I know there was maybe seven or eight, maybe.

Kidnapping, first degree murder, right? Capital crimes. Going to court and lying against somebody was a capital crime because it totally perverted mishpot. You could not have a judgment. You could not have justice based on lies. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. Nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. Just because it's a viewpoint of the majority doesn't matter to God. The viewpoint of the majority doesn't matter in justice. What justice is is there's due process based on the law. That's what matters to God. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. Now that's interesting. Now you will find lots of places where it says, do not show partiality to a rich man. Here he says, okay, same thing. Whether you're poor or rich does not matter in mishpot. It was what you did, the intent of what you did, and how that is to be judged by the law. Go down to verse 6. You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. He says the exact opposite now. Just because someone poor, you know, they can't, oh, well, you're a poor person, you know, the rich people, they get privileges before the law. He said that's not true. A poor person receives the exact same due process as anybody else. But he also doesn't get any special privileges because he's poor.

This is mishpot. This is how God wants us to administer justice.

He says, keep yourself far from a false matter. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. He said you have to be very careful about your, pronunciations, how you pronounce judgment. Very careful. Because if you kill an innocent person, God says I take that to heart. Or if you over punish a wicked person, I take that to heart.

And this is what Micah means by to do justly, and this is what Jesus means when he says that we're to do judgment, mercy, and faith. Even Gazzani says, you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous. And you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Once again, if someone comes in, and Israel at that time, it was on the trade routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia. And so it was nothing but caravans of people going across their land. It's one of the reasons why they became such a rich nation once they combined. Once David came along and had a combined kingdom, they became incredibly wealthy because they realized we can control these things. We're the middlemen. Always said Israel was the greatest middleman in history, as people crossed Israel. So there were always strangers there. And once again, you can't just say, well, you're a Babylonian, therefore we don't have to put you on trial, we just have to punish you. No, if he's a Babylonian or he's an Egyptian, he has to also receive due process. That's at the core of what God taught ancient Israel. Everybody has to have the same fair trial. Mishpat is used to say, justice is that person dies, or justice is that person is punished. Justice is if you stole, perfect example, if you stole, you have to pay back four times. Another case he says, if you stole, you have to pay back seven times. Why was there two judgments? Because it's case law. You go through Deuteronomy, much of it's case law. You're going to pay back four times. You're going to pay back seven times. In other words, this person stole for a different reason. That's why Solomon said there's a difference between someone who steals because they're hungry and someone steals because they're greedy. He said, but they both have to appear before the law. They both have to account for their sin. But you may judge those a little differently because of the intent. This is all part of Mishpat. So that's how God looks at it for us. When Jesus comes back to set up God's kingdom on earth, He will actually enforce both these kinds. Punishment on the person who's broken the law, on the wicked, and fairness to others before the law. We're not talking about your...we're into this idea of sort of this Marxist idea that everybody's equal and everybody gets the same. That's not life. Never has been, never will be. We all have different talents. We all have different abilities. We all come from different backgrounds. And there's nothing fair about life. My kids got tired of me saying, but that's not fair. And I would say, who told you life was fair? Until finally someone would say, that's not fair. And then they look at me and say, I know who told me life was fair. I mean, I would have to say it. If we live thinking everything has to be fair. You never grow up. It's not fair. But then there's no two...we all can't compare. I mean, I'm not a rocket scientist. Never can be. I'm not very good at complex math. I know, simple arithmetic, I can do. I took a calculus class in college. I got a D. Yeah. And I still have no idea even what the word means.

Isaiah, we're not the same. We all have different abilities. Different things happen to us. And in Satan's world, there isn't a lot of mishpot, by the way. There just isn't. There isn't a lot of justice. Isaiah 11. Here's one of the most commonly quoted messianic prophecies about Christ's second coming.

Isaiah 11 verse 1. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse. In other words, there's going to come a king from that family. And a branch shall grow out of its roots. We know that this is quoted in the New Testament as a reference to Jesus Christ. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes. In other words, he's going to analyze all cases. Nor decide by the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness right before God. In other words, he understands mishpot. Righteousness there isn't mishpot. But you can't separate righteousness from justice. Justice is part of righteousness. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity from the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. So here we have being fair to those who need fairness and punishing those who need punishment. That's justice.

Okay, that's justice.

Now that leads us with a problem. Because how do we receive justice from God? Is this just a matter if you and I keep enough of the commandments right, and you've heard me say this before, this was the whole idea of the Phariseeism. God was keeping a balance sheet. And if your keeping of the law was way above your breaking of the law, you got into eternal life. It was just a balance sheet. And if it was like, oh no, you have two more wicked deeds than good deeds, sorry, you don't make it. So that's why they were so strict to the point of absurdity. Because you've got to make it. You've got to have enough checks in your balance book, right?

So is that what this is?

Well, if you've kept the law perfectly, you're probably okay.

But nobody's done that, right? But it's worse than that. It's not just our behavior that God judges.

Justice, Mishpat, he judges who we are in the inner person. Who we are right down to the core of who we are. He looks at that and he passes judgment on it. Pass a judgment on it.

Paul was a Pharisee. Paul said that in relationship to the law, he kept it perfectly. As a Pharisee in their understanding of the law, he did. Paul never murdered anybody, but actually he did. He murdered people who were Christians. But as a Pharisee, that was a murder. That was doing God's work of keeping Israel clean. They were doing justice by killing the blasphemers. You see what I mean? So in his mind, that was perfect Mishpat. And then he realized it wasn't. But as a Pharisee, he could say, I did it all right. I kept the Sabbath my whole life. I never committed adultery. I was careful not to use God's name in vain.

I did it all right. And then he realized, no, there's a bigger problem.

Let's go to Romans 7.

And here's the problem we have. And this is why, yes, if we don't obey the law of God, we can't have a relationship with him. And yes, you give up the law of God and you could lose your salvation. But is keeping the law of God proof of my God's got to accept me because my balance sheet is in my favor? No. I don't understand justice then.

He says here in Romans 7, and let's start at verse 13. Let me see where I want to start because I had... No, let's go to verse 19 because it didn't take me too long to go through all this. He says, for the good... because he starts here with the law. He says the law is good and wonderful and just and I love the law. In fact, that's what he says in verse 12. Therefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. This is Mishvat. This is good. Now he's not using Mishvat through it. This is in Greek, but it's the same concept. This is good before God. It's His goodness that shows us what it is. But His justice is, you don't do this and there are penalties for breaking my goodness. Remember, He's perfect goodness. And there's penalties for that. So verse 19, He says, but then I look at myself. Now He's not a Pharisee anymore. He's a Christian. He loves the law of God. He tries to keep the law of God. He eventually say, but I can't do it without God's Spirit. Only God in me can help me keep the law. So He still wanted to keep the law. Chapter 8 says He did. It's just, I can't do it myself. And here's why. For the good that I will do, will to do, I do not do. And the evil, but I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not will to do, if I will not to do, in other words, it's His will. He's what He wants to do. It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Sadly, He realized sin wasn't just an external thing determined by the law. I did not steal today, so therefore God marks me down as, oh man, this person's going to go get eternal life because they didn't steal today. Now if you go out and steal today, you may lose your eternal life. The thing you have to realize is we don't earn our salvation by not stealing. That stealing is the result of what God is doing in our lives. And this is where He now struggled. This man, the Apostle Paul, has been converted to this point for many years.

He's not some fledgling Christian struggling. He's wrestling with God. When we understand Mishpat and we understand what he's saying here, you struggle with God all the time. We wrestle with God all the time because we understand what Paul now gets.

Later in his life, thinking for decades that he was one of the most righteous men on earth, and to come to grips with, I looked at sin as external and then realized, it's in me. Now how does God judge that? See, it was easy to judge, don't lie. I don't lie. And He didn't. Don't commit adultery. I am committed adultery. Check that one off. I'm righteous. But the realization, it's in me. It's the way I feel. It's the way I think. He says, then I find a law, verse 21, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. He says, all I want to do is do good. And it seems like I'm never quite making it.

There's the problem. Now he goes on and makes this very positive because through chapter seven and chapter eight, he says, but God in me can make this work. Because God can change who I am. And in the resurrection, I will be totally changed. In other words, we're in the process of being changed. Not ever so we totally changed to that point. But that's why we're justified. We're allowed to come before God. We're right with God, His righteousness. We're right with God because He allows us to come because His goodness, His justice, and His love is at work within us.

God does temporary judgments.

Let me say this first about sin. Sin produces bad results no matter what. You and I suffer because of every sin we do. Even if it's in our mind, our lack of peace, our insecurities, our anxieties. A lot of that comes from thoughts that are not what God wants us to do, have. It's internal. We keep trying to make it external. If I could solve this, I wouldn't have this problem. Well, yes and no.

Because there'll always be something externally attacking us. Internally something happens. Oh, yes, sin's inside of me. A lack of faith. Sometimes just the smallness of being human. We're always going to have some anxiety. You're always going to struggle with God. Some health issue, some problem at work, some marriage problem. You're always going to be struggling with God because of this. That's what it means to be a Christian. If you're not struggling with God, either you're perfect or you're missing something.

Now, I don't mean you're struggling with every moment. There's times when it's like, oh, thank you, God. There's some peace. There's joy. There's all this. You have those times. And when you get them, you say, I want to be like this all the time. And then off we go. Okay, that's sin takes us all over the place. But God keeps bringing us back, keeps working with us, keeps changing us.

But there's also death. Our sin has produced death in us. Every person dies.

The only one you can see, people you say, well, that's not really death. It's when Christ comes back, they die and they're changed immediately. But they still die, right? They're not physical anymore. They become something else. But everybody dies. Why do we all die? We've been forgiven. We know that, right? Every Passover reminded that we're forgiven. Why do we die? Because that's what sin does to us. It kills us. But then God sometimes comes along and does temporary judgments. When the flood, which we believe was true at Noah's time, God killed those people. He killed them and considered it justice.

God destroyed Son of Gomorrah and that was God's justice.

Now there's also, remember God's justice, God's mercy. Remember what Micah said? We have to be humble before God and understand how this works together. Why would God do that? Why would God do temporary judgments? He does temporary judgments on people all the time. Jeremiah 32.

Okay. We keep going back to Mishpat. There's certain things that have to happen and we also have to understand God's goodness. We don't fully grasp God's goodness because we're not fully good. We are a mixture of good and evil at the very core of who we are. We're just like Paul after decades of being converted saying, oh what wretched, in chapter 7 there he says, oh what a wretched man I am. Now he didn't say I'm worthless. He knew God was, he had God's spirit. He knew God was working with him. He saw miracles. Yet he also understood, oh I just want to be good like God and I can't.

I want to have love like God and I can't but I will keep being developed and growing towards that point. We're always moving towards that point. This is very interesting because in Jeremiah 32 he's giving a, this part of it, he is actually giving a judgment on Jerusalem.

And because, now remember this is Jerusalem, this is Judah, these are the people of God at that time. He says in verse 32, well verse 31, for this city has been a provocation of my anger and my fury from the day that they build it, even to this day. So I will remove it from before my face. He says I will not look on this evil any longer.

What does it mean to be perfect goodness? We have no idea the grief God experiences because of every sin of every human being.

We have no idea. We were created in his image as his children and here we are, billions of us sinning all the time. And he's perfect goodness.

He goes on, he says, they have turned and they have turned to me, the back and not the face. Though I taught them, rising up early and teach them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to defile it. Abomination means something that is just absolutely disgusting to you. God looks at what human beings do and he says that is absolutely disgusting to me.

Because he's good. We will find ways to justify almost anything. But that's because we're not absolute goodness. And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Himun, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech. They're sacrificing their own children and here's what God says, which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, thus says the Lord. You know, does God have limitations? No, but there is something that he can't do. He doesn't go around thinking evil.

If you're perfect goodness, you don't go around thinking evil. He does what evil is. This is good, this is bad, this is evil. But he says, how could they even do this? It didn't even ever in my mind that they sacrificed their own children. How does God feel about abortion as just, you know, because I want to be able to do what I want?

How does God feel about that? Abortion is birth control. How can they do that? That's somebody made in my image. How can they do that? It's hard for us to understand the self-control God has. That goodness is controlled by His love for us in spite of what we do. But in the middle of that, if you remember the chart, is justice. And here God says, I'm going to destroy Jerusalem because of this. Now, that was a temporary judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah is a temporary judgment.

Jesus talks about when they'll be resurrected. Noah's flood was a temporary judgment. They are not in hell right now. That's not where they are because there are different resurrections. God will not abide with evil forever. Understand that.

It's not in His nature to do so. He will not spend eternity in a cosmic battle with evil. There's a point where evil will be eradicated, and that's what He's going to do. That's who He is, and that's justice. But He's looking at human beings now and saying, eternal judgment is going to happen, but that's not what you're going through now. What happens in the first resurrection? We know that in the first resurrection, justice takes place for those called of God.

Oh no. Me? That means God's going to kill me. No, no, no. Jesus Christ is your justice. You either die, I either die, or the Son of God comes and dies for me. That's justice in God's mind. That is so... Would you die for your enemies? That's what it said He did.

No, it doesn't say we have to die for our enemies, by the way. It's what God did. Right? In Romans it says, while we were yet enemies, He died for us. In other words, you have received justice. When you say, I accept this covenant, and you take that wine and that bread, and you say, yes, forgive me, I enter into this covenant, give me your spirit, which happens in baptism, give me your spirit, and then you enter into that covenant and Christ is in you, His justice is for you.

God paid the price of what you and I deserve. That's justice. He could have said, I just forgive you, but that's not His justice. You understand that? His justice just isn't, I forgive you. No, you deserve this because I'm absolutely good, but because I absolutely love you, I will suffer, or my son will suffer, your justice for you.

That's why to deny Jesus Christ after He's been revealed to you is a point where it reaches the unpardonable sin. Because you have to now go before the court and receive justice. If we deny Jesus Christ, we end up before the court of God and we receive justice, which is our deaths. It's our deaths. That's justice. That's not justice according to the law. No, it's according to God. That's justice. That's how good He is. And yet He gives us a substitute to show His love. I don't fully understand that. I try.

But I do understand. I used to think there had to be a better way. There had to be a different way. After years, for decades. Why did God do it this way? And I finally realized it is His nature to do so. His nature is, you, I require justice because I am absolute good and you're not. And you have disobeyed me and you have sinned and it's in your nature and justice is you die. And He determines that. And then He says, but I'll save you. And He saves us in the most difficult way imaginable. To show us who He really is.

This is a revelation of who God is. This is why Mishpat is so important to Him. He's applying it to us and He's applying it for us. He's taking our judgment upon Christ and then saying, come to me, my children. The second resurrection is one of the most profound teachings that we understand. I can find in the Protestant world just about every teaching we have someplace.

There are those who don't believe in the immortal soul. There's those who keep the Sabbath. There's those who, you know, most of our teachings you can find bits and pieces someplace.

You don't find this one. This one is totally unique. The idea that justice requires the person can tell the difference between good and evil. Even in our system today in the United States, if someone has a mental disability, say a damaged brain, they don't receive the same penalty as someone who makes a conscious, willing decision to do the crime. Right? We don't judge them the same. That's actually Mishpat. God doesn't judge us until our minds are healed. And then God passes judgment.

Then you actually have a real choice. Once He heals the human mind and gives them His Spirit, to reject Him is to end up receiving your justice instead of letting Christ take your justice. All human beings sin, right? We are naturally by nature sinners. Because of God's goodness, we are condemned. He couldn't do otherwise or He wouldn't be God. Because of His justice, we could receive an everlasting penalty. Because of His love, He gives an opportunity to keep us from it.

That's why in the second resurrection we understand those people are resurrected and we just go to Ezekiel where all of Israel is resurrected and, you know, the whole world is going to be resurrected at that time. And what happens to them? They're exposed to God and they are offered the Holy Spirit. In other words, they're offered to be healed. And then they have the open door to have eternal life. But you can't receive eternal life until justice has happened. And their deaths was a result of their sin, but it doesn't solve the eternal penalty. So when they are resurrected, they will also have to accept Christ as their justice. The death of Jesus Christ as their justice. And when they do, God now, because of who He is, His love starts to create them into being good like Him. You know, that's what He's doing right now. With you He's helping you become good like Him. We'll never do it in this life. But we're moving. We're moving towards there. That's what He's doing.

And that means that God does require an eternal penalty on those who reject Him after being healed. There is no universal salvation. Sometimes it's easy to think. I've heard people say, well, nobody is going to reject God once He heals their mind. It's not what the Scripture says. Well, okay, maybe Hitler. Maybe Hitler won't be able to be converted. I don't know what's going to happen to Hitler. I mean, some people can be so far gone they can't change. But only God knows that, right? Only God can judge that. People will come up in the second resurrection and God will work with them.

And they will understand His goodness and His justice, and they will understand His love. And if they reject that, they will go to the lake of fire. If you and I today with God's Spirit reject God and give up His Spirit, we will be resurrected to go into the lake of fire.

Because we will have given up God's justice, God's way of justice, and now we have to supply our own justice. And our own justice is eternal death. That's the way God thinks. We can't water that down. But at the same time, it's amazing that He's offering all of us, every human being, a chance. You don't have to go through this. Even though you are sinners, even though you deserve this eternal death, you don't have to have it. Because I can save you.

I can keep you from going there if you'll just let me because He won't take away our free will. We can decide. And then we will stand before the court of Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ makes the judgments. And He will say, you are guilty. You won't accept my justice for you. So you will receive the penalty of justice. And there will be a lake of fire. Matthew 10, 28.

And this is what the end of Revelation 20 is all about. Matthew 10, verse 28.

What's amazing is here, you also see a due process in this. Every human being will have the opportunity to know God. Every human being will have the opportunity to make their own decision. There's a due process.

It is amazing to me that God's goodness is such that He gives every one of us due process. Why would He do that? It's because it's who He is. Justice requires due process and you and I get due process.

It's just weird. We appear before the court of God and we have an advocate, a lawyer, right? That's Jesus called our advocate, our lawyer. And God says, are you guilty or innocent? And our lawyer says, oh, He's guilty. Guilty as sin. And God says, well, penalty is death. And our lawyer says, apply my death for Him or her. That's God's justice. But there's still due process, isn't there?

There's still due process. There's still due process.

Matthew 10, verse 28, Jesus says, do not fear those who kill the body, but not kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Gehenna isn't used by Paul. It uses Hades because Gehenna wouldn't mean anything to the Roman world. Gehenna meant something to them because they knew what it was. It was a garbage dump right outside of Jerusalem where they were burning garbage all the time.

So He says, that is a, right there, that's an allegory, if you will, of the lake of fire. That burning garbage dump, that's where you end up. And a burning garbage dump. Fear Him who can do that because that is God's eternal judgment on those who will not accept His judgment, repent, and accept Jesus Christ as His, their judgment, as their justice. It's amazing that we've been offered all this. Remember, judgment too doesn't always mean negative. God promises all of us that if we allow Him to work in our lives, the judgment is already made. Now we can leave that judgment because why He promises us eternal life. It's a promise. He says, I've already made the judgment unless you go out and become a criminal again. You stay on this path and this is what's going to happen. And you will be changed at the resurrection when Christ comes back. That's the promise. If it's a promise, it means it's a promise. Only you and I can decide not to be there. God's already said, I want you there. You can decide, I can decide not to be there, but He's already said, no, no, that's the judgment I've made on you. If you want to go out and do something else, that judgment changes, but that's the judgment. There's a positive judgment, a good judgment. Justice isn't always negative. The justice of God is, yep, your penalty has been paid. Yes, you have received my Spirit. Yes, you've been changed and now I can give you eternal life and you're going to be really happy now. You're not going to be that same way you were before.

Let's conclude in 2 Peter 3. Once again, just a reminder, there isn't universal salvation. I don't know how many people are in the lake of fire. I tend to think, not a big number, but I don't know because I don't know how people will decide.

It's hard to believe, especially after being resurrected, having died and come alive again has got to have a major impact on you, right? And the knowing crisis on earth, it seems like for a lot of those people repentance is going to be fairly easy, but I don't know because it says some will not. It's the free will we have. It's the hardening that we can become. 2 Peter 3, verse 7, But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for the fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Perdition just really means destruction. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. He says, okay, unless you get discouraged because there's going to be a lot of evil between now and this time, right? Remember, God sees time different than us. God sees time totally different than us.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but His long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God won't make us, but you know what He wants? He wants every person ever born to repent. That's what He wants. It's not what's going to happen. He just said, right? He just told us there's going to fire and the sons of perdition or the perdition of ungodly men are going to be killed then in this fire. But He says, that's not what God wants, and God will be very patient to try to work with every person, every person. So there's two kinds of judgments, temporary judgment. God may punish you and I every once in a while too, just to get our attention, or moving too far away. So God's going to come into our lives sometimes and give us temporary punishment, but there's eternal punishment and eternal judgments, and that doesn't happen until Christ comes back, and then there's eternal judgments that take place. It is God's will to give everyone salvation. But it is not His will to force us or have to literally take away our free will for us to be able to be that way. Understand something. When you look at this bigger picture, God killing the people in Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't an act of hatred because they're going to be resurrected and given an opportunity. Their lives were so horrible that God said, this has got to stop. Judah had become so horrible that He said, this has got to stop. Israel had become so horrible that God said, this has got to stop. And Israel was destroyed as a nation and scattered, and Judah was destroyed and then brought back because He promised He would. He will only abide with sin, with evil for so long. And if a person is incorrigibly evil and they deny His mercy, to do justly, to love mercy, and to be humble before God. Justices God's nature, mercy is God's nature. If we're not humble before God, we won't understand either. And so you have been called for salvation. God has already called you for salvation. God is in your life for salvation. God says, I've made a judgment. This is where you're going to be. But you've got to go there. He's already said to us, this is where you're going to be. He's saying, I can't be. I'm such a flawed person. He says, of course you are. That's why there's justice for you and Jesus Christ. But you're going to be there if you go there. That's a promise. And the only one who can keep that promise from happening is you and me.