God's Judgment Versus God's Kindness Series

INTRO.- Judgment versus kindness? Whether we like to admit it or not, it appears there are two sides to God. He has times when He becomes angry at mankind and times when He demonstrates extreme kindness.

Genesis 6:5-8 5 The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth —men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them. ” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And we know the rest of this story. God did what He said He was going to do! His anger was kindled because of the sinfulness of mankind. And it wasn’t too long after this time that His anger rose again.

Genesis 18:20-21 “Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” What was so bad about Sodom and Gomorrah?

Genesis 19:1-5 1The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” 3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom —both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

Wow! More like whoa! The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with what they thought were men. No wonder God was angry! And doesn’t this make you wonder about our day and time?!

I realize that we’re living in a world where it’s socially acceptable to come out and proclaim that a person is gay, but this doesn’t make it right in God’s eyes. There are people who try to water down the Bible says, and the subject of homosexuality is one of them.

Romans 1:26-27 “God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

What is this “due penalty?” Could it be AIDS? That’s what Rock Hudson and Liberace received. God loves passionately but He also hates strongly. Romans 12:9 “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Love good and hate evil. I heard it said many years ago that if we don’t have any hatred for evil then we won’t have any love or passion for that which is good.

Jude 1:22-23 “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

Be merciful to doubters and there are plenty in this world. Be patient with them. Keep loving them. Keep witnessing to them with the hope that some day they will see the truth of Christ and respond to Him. Snatch others from the fire. What’s the idea? Could it be that some people already have one foot in the fire, so to speak?

ILL.- I know of a man who has two daughters and both of them are meth addicts. They’ve both been in and out of jail and in and out of rehab. One of them lost her two children. Also, this man’s stepdaughter is now serving a prison sentence for breaking her parole over her meth addiction. She, too, lost her child.

These young women sound like they need to be “snatched from the fire!” How so? Lots of love. Prayer. Hopefully, some Christian counseling and maybe even more.

ILL.- One preacher friend from nearly 40 years ago told me about something that happened in his church. An elderly lady in his church called him one night and asked him if he would go get her husband who was at some gambling joint. I don’t think it was a casino. I think it was a group of men who got together to gamble but there was also booze involved.