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WEEKLY
Volume 3 Number 38
15 February 2009
Except Ye Repent
(Message delivered by Rev Hien
Nguyen at the Worship Service, 2:00 pm, Feb 15, 09)
Text: Luke 13:1-9
We are so sorry to hear of the
recent deadliest bushfires in Australian history. The fires were
devastating, taking the lives of more than 180 people and destroying
over 700 houses and over 360,000 acres of forest. The firefighters are
still trying to put out the uncontrolled bushfires in Victoria. Many
victims are suffering the painful loss of their loved ones and their
property. One suspected arsonist has been arrested. Many are so angry
with him for his very wicked crime. What do you and I think about this
world, especially, about the evils, crimes, immorality, cults and occult
groups, wars, famines, pestilences (mad cows, SARS, bird flu, etc), and
natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes,
tornadoes, cyclones, typhoons, etc? Someone asked me whether it was a
punishment from God upon those who were killed by the earthquake in
China recently. How about your answer? Let us search the Scriptures to
find the answers to all the evils and disasters in this world and then
have our proper attitudes toward them.
God’s Righteous Sovereignty
and Men’s Responsibility
Many blame God for all the
evils and sufferings in this world. They argue that if God is truly
loving, good and powerful, why does He allow all these evils and
sufferings in this world? Many are angry with God when they lost their
loved ones in accidents or disasters. They fail to see human
responsibility and God’s righteous sovereignty.
Good parents never want nor
teach their children to tell lies, to hate others, to covet others’
things, to harm others or to fight one another. They want their children
to be good, to behave well, to study well, and to keep the law. However,
if the children go against their parents, deny the existence and the
authority of their parents, dishonour and disobey their parents, reject
their parents’ teachings, and do wicked things as they like, they must
be accountable for what they have done. Likewise, God is good, loving,
holy and righteous, and He has full authority to demand human beings,
His creature, to worship Him and obey Him, to live a holy life, to live
in peace and to love one another, but they fail to honour God and keep
His commandments. They question God and His existence. They even deny
God and reject His love and salvation in God’s only begotten Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. They do not want to be under the guidance or the
authority of God and His Word. They only want to do what they like
regardless of God’s holy and righteous commandments. Then, they cannot
blame God for anything. They must be accountable for what they have done
and suffer all the consequences of their sins.
Everything God made was very
good (Gen 1:31). Sadly, due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, sin,
curse and death entered into this world (Gen 3; Rom 5:12). That is not
God’s fault, but men’s. As God is holy and righteous, He cannot ignore
sins. God must exercise His righteous judgment. Looking at the Biblical
records and human history, we can see God’s righteous judgment upon
wicked people as well as the consequences of sins. All people, except
Noah and his family, were destroyed by the Global Flood due to their
wickedness, “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually…And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the
creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I
have made them” (Gen 6:5,7). Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by
fire from heaven due to human wickedness (Gen 19). David suffered the
consequences of his sins with the death of his four sons The people of
Israel and Judah were chastised and taken in captivity by the Assyrians
and the Babylonians due to their idolatry and wickedness although God
had sent His prophets to teach them and warn them, but they did not
listen to the prophets. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were
scattered all over the world in 70 AD due to their wickedness, rejecting
and crucifying God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and at
Word War II, more than six million Jews were killed under a short
rule of the wicked Hitler, and so forth.
If human beings acknowledge
that they have failed to do their duty toward God, their Creator,
“Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man”
(Eccl 12: 13), failed to keep God’s commandments, failed to love God
with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind and with
all their strength, and failed love their neighbours as themselves, and
if they acknowledge God’s righteous judgment against sins, then they
will see that they deserve to be punished and condemned to Hell and will
thank and praise God for His great mercy, love, and longsuffering
because they are still alive and hear the message of God’s salvation for
them in Christ Jesus. Truly, “It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are
not consumed, because his compassions fail not” (Lament 3:22). May
God help you and me to thank Him and praise Him for His grace and mercy
as long as we still have our breath of life.
See God’s Righteous Wrath
and Fear Him
We like to think about God’s
love and grace so that we may be comforted and trust in Him more with
thanksgiving. However, we do need to see God’s righteous wrath/anger so
that we may fear Him and depart from sins and evil. God’s Word says,
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness”
(Rom 1:18) because they have failed to glorify Him, be thankful to Him,
and worship Him (vv 21-25). Therefore, God has given them up to their
sinful lusts and corrupt minds to do wicked and evil things, e.g.
homosexuality, “all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without
understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful” (vv 26-31). God has even given them up to their own
deceit to believe a lie because they have rejected His love and His
truth (2 Thess 2:10-11). When human beings, with their totally corrupt
and sinful nature, reject God and His salvation in Christ, and if God
gives them up to their sinful nature, they will be slaves of sins and of
the Wicked One, even Satan, and what are the consequences? Dear friends,
we must see God’s wrath when we see all the evils, lies, crimes,
idolatry, cults, occult groups, wars, and wicked things in this world.
Many fail to see their sins and God’s wrath, and they fail to fear God
and come back to Him in repentance.
God created human beings to
have dominion over His creatures (Gen 1:28) and put Adam in the Garden
of Eden “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15). God has put
human beings on this earth so that they may keep it, but sadly they have
been destroying it with nuclear tests and nuclear weapons, wars,
chemical wastes, deforestation, smokes from factories and vehicles, etc.
Then they must face and suffer the consequences of what they have done:
holes in the ozone layer, changes of climates, heat waves, floods,
earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, etc. under the permission
and righteous judgment of God. Then, we must see God’s wrath in these
disasters as well so that we may fear Him, repent and depart from all
evil.
Except Ye Repent
In Jesus’ days, some people
reported to Him of the Galileans killed by Pilate, who had mingled their
blood with their sacrifices. They assumed that those Galileans suffered
such things because they were more wicked than all other Galileans. Our
Lord Jesus corrected them, saying, “Suppose ye that these Galilaeans
were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such
things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish” (Luke 13:2-3). They failed to see that they had escaped the
disaster not because they were better than others but because of God’s
grace and mercy alone. They only saw others’ sins and quickly passed
their judgment, but failed to see their own sins and God’s wrath in
order to fear Him and come back to Him in repentance.
Our Lord Jesus confirmed His
truth by telling another disaster, “Or those eighteen, upon whom the
tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in
Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay:
but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
(vv 4-5). Dear friends, the
message God wants you and me to understand and receive in disasters is,
“except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” May God help
you and me not to judge others in their trials (like Job) or in their
disasters but to see God’s wrath, fear Him, examine ourselves and come
back to Him in repentance.
Conclusion
Dear friends, we are living in
a cursed, sinful and wicked world, and in the last days, God will pour
out His wrath (Rev 16:1) and judgments upon this earth due to the
wickedness of human beings, and His judgments are “true and
righteous” (v 7) and serious, but sadly, the people do not see God’s
wrath and come back to Him in repentance, but “men were scorched with
great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these
plagues: and they repented not to give him glory… and they gnawed
their tongues for pain, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of
their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds” (vv
9-11), and this world is “reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7). God is always
good and merciful but He is holy and righteous. Human beings are
accountable for what they have done, and they cannot blame God for all
the evils in this world. They must suffer the consequences of their
sins, ungodliness and unrighteousness. May God help you and me see His
wrath when we see all the disasters, crimes, immorality, idolatry,
cults, wicked people and wicked things so that we may fear Him, examine
ourselves and come back to Him in repentance. Many are deceived by Satan
by thinking that this world is getting better and better. Satan showed
Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them”
(Matt 4:8-9) and tempted Him to worship him to get all the glory of the
world, but Jesus was not deceived by him as He saw the world full of
darkness of sins, wickedness and curse, and it would be consumed by fire
some day. May the Lord help you and me have His same view of this world
so that we shall wisely spend our short time on earth to worship Him,
serve Him, and share the Gospel to others so that they may escape God’s
coming righteous judgment soon. Amen.
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