Then she appeared before the national television news broadcasters and lied, saying a black man jumped into her car, made her get out, and drove off with her two sons.
Later, when they found the car with the little boys in it, she confessed that she had done this horrendous thing herself. When it was revealed that she had done this horrible thing, people all over the nation were shocked. People were asking themselves, "How could a mother do such a thing?"
If you were to ask the PSYCHOLOGISTS, they would probably explain that she did it because of a deep emotional problem that stemmed back to her childhood.
If you asked some of the LIBERAL POLITICIANS in this country, they would probably tell you she did this terrible thing because society let her down.
If you asked her FRIENDS and FAMILY, they would tell you they are simply mystified that she would do what she did.
Illus: In fact, a neighbor lady said she used to watch her play with her children in the yard and she always thought she was a good mother.
But, if you really want to know WHY that mother did that dreadful deed, you have to turn to the WORD OF GOD. The Bible makes it clear why she did what she did. Look at Jeremiah 17:9 where we read, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
This is true of my heart and your heart. We can not only surprise our family and friends with the wicked deeds we can do, we can even surprise ourselves.
-We have men and women who are in prison today because certain conditions arose and the evil in their hearts prevailed and they killed someone. It was not something they had premeditated months in advance, but the conditions were such that the evil in their hearts drove them to do such an evil thing as to commit murder.
-We have men who are in prison today because of certain conditions that prevailed and they raped a woman. Again, it was not something that was planned months in advance, but the conditions were right and the evil in their hearts drove them to rape a helpless woman.
-We have married couples today who are having a sexual affair with someone other than their married partner. It is not something they woke up one morning and decided, "I think I will have an affair," but it happened because the evil was in their hearts and the conditions were conducive to causing them to fall into the sin of committing adultery.
We can make all kinds of explanations for why we do what we do, but the Bible makes it clear that we do whatever evil we do because we have hearts that are "desperately wicked." The Bible tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" It does not matter what kind of "Spin" we place on sinful deeds, God says they come from wicked hearts.
That is why when the Lord saves us, He gives us a new heart. God does not want shame brought upon His name. In Ezekiel 36:26-27 we read, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."
Notice, it is after God's Word says we shall receive a new heart that we will "...walk in..." His "...statutes and...keep (His) judgments, and do them." For example...
Illus: We Christians know how hard it is to get lost people to attend church. Why is it so hard? Because the gods they worship and serve are the gods of this world. Every week they have time only for their gods. But if they become born again no longer will people have to beg or plead with them to attend church. Why the difference? Because when they have been born again they have a desire to worship the true and living God because He has given them a new heart.
We mortals do what we do because:
(1) We have GODLY HEARTS within us that want to please God. Or, because we have
(2) EVIL HEARTS that want to please the devil.
The Bible makes it clear WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!
I WANT TO ASK YOU SOMETHING; Why does GOD DO WHAT HE DOES?
GOD IS MOTIVATED TO DO WHAT HE DOES BY HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. God is a...
-Loving God.
-Merciful God.
-Patient God.
-Holy God.
-Omniscient God - knows all.
-Omnipresent God - is everywhere.
-Omnipotent God - has all power.
And also, God is a God of righteousness. Throughout the scriptures we are told that God is RIGHTEOUS. Look at...
-Psalm 116:5, "Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful."
-Ezra 9:15, "O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous..."
-Jeremiah 12:1, "Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee..."
In almost every book in the Bible we see that God is a God of RIGHTEOUSNESS. We can all be thankful that God is such a God.
Let us look into the scriptures and see why it is important that God be a God of RIGHTEOUSNESS. The scriptures has a lot to say about the righteousness of God for TWO REASONS. First...
I. BECAUSE OF REWARDS.
We have two basic kinds of people in society when it comes to the material world.
-We have some who work hard PHYSICALLY. Every day of their lives they work hard and they have a lot to show for it. They work hard and they spend their money wisely.
-We have some who do not work hard and they spend their money foolishly and they have very little as a result.
That is the way it is in the PHYSICAL WORLD. That is fair!
Illus: One of the things that many liberals are trying to do in this nation is REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH. That is, those who have taken advantage of opportunities and have profited from them are being told that they need to share with those who have not taken advantage of opportunities that have come their way. In other words, if you become wealthy you should be penalized and have to share with those who have not applied themselves.
That is not the way America became the great nation it has become. IT WAS BUILT ON FAIRNESS! That is, generally if a person sacrificed and applied himself, he would be the one to prosper from his work, not the ones who would not work. America has become one of the greatest nations on earth because of the American dream of FAIRNESS - "If I work hard and spend wisely, I can have what I worked for."
Through the years men and women have worked hard and and we, as a nation, have become a nation that all the world envies because JUSTICE demands this is the way it should be.
That is the PHYSICAL WORLD, but the same thing applies in the SPIRITUAL WORLD. God is a God of RIGHTEOUSNESS and He has promised that when He returns He will come with His rewards in His hands for those WHO HAVE SERVED HIM FAITHFULLY. Look at what the Word of God says about this. We read...
-Heb. 6:10, "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name..."
-II Tim. 4:8, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
Every child of God who has been faithful in serving the Lord can be thankful that God is RIGHTEOUS and it would only be JUST for Him to reward the ones who have diligently served Him!
At the same time, those who have not been faithful in serving the Lord need to understand that the God of the Bible, Who is RIGHTEOUS, cannot reward good to them for spiritual laziness. Why? Because, if He did He could not be a RIGHTEOUS GOD.
In 1 Cor. 3:13-14 we read these words that every Christian needs to ponder, "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, HE SHALL RECEIVE A REWARD." What does this mean? It means that the same principle applies in the SPIRITUAL WORLD as in the PHYSICAL WORLD; you do not get anything by just wishing for it.
A lot of Christians cannot comprehend this. Their being allowed to be in Heaven because of their accepting Christ's work on Calvary has nothing to do with eternal rewards. Once we have been saved by His marvelous grace, if we expect to have any eternal rewards WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, SPIRITUALLY, WITH OUR LIVES.
The God of the Bible is RIGHTEOUS and He will reward every child of God according to what is FAIR! We can all be thankful that the God of the Bible is RIGHTEOUS. Why? Because He is going to do what is right when He rewards those who have faithfully served Him.
The very nature of God, being RIGHTEOUS, will motivate Him to REWARD the saints who have been faithful to Him.
Also, being a RIGHTEOUS God will motivate Him...
II. BECAUSE OF RETRIBUTION.
People treat God all kinds of ways and actually think they are getting away with it. Listen, God could not be the God of the Bible and allow anyone to do good and not REWARD THEM, and He cannot allow anyone to do evil and not send retribution upon them.
Illus: We all feel like the saints of Rev. 6:10, "And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" We all have had some bad things happen to us and all we could do about it was stand like a billy goat in a hail storm. We just had to sit there and take it, but one day the God of RIGHTEOUSNESS will make sure we have our "day in court."
The righteous God will make sure every evil deed will be given account of. Why? When a man sins, he commits sin against more than just himself.
A. When a man sins, he sins against the SOCIETY in which he lives. This is why we, as a nation, have jails and prisons. We recognize that criminals must not run loose to continue breaking laws against the society in which they live. RIGHTEOUSNESS demands that criminals pay for the crimes they have committed against society. Why? Because their crime has affected society in TWO ways.
1. Their sins affect our nation morally. Proverb 14:34 says, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." Every time a criminal commits sin he is making the society in which he lives an unfit society to live in.
There are places in the United States that are not safe to live in because evil men and women commit so many crimes that decent people in those communities cannot even exercise their constitutional right to pursue happiness and walk on the street without being robbed, raped, or killed.
What a reproach it is to any nation when people allow justice to be thrown out the window. In America we have done this and then made society pay by loosing certain freedoms they once had.
Sin not only costs a nation MORALLY...
2. When a man sins, his sins affect the national economy. Every year it costs the tax payers of this country billions of dollars to provide lodging, food, and clothes for incarcerated criminals, just to keep them in jail so they will not be able to commit more evil deeds.
Another reason we have to pay so much for some of the merchandise we buy every day is because we have to pay for merchandise others have stolen.
One of the reasons we have to pay such high insurance premiums is because so many CHEAT the insurance companies with false claims.
Medical treatment is so expensive to get because of outrageous lawsuits by trifling people who are too lazy to work and want to live off of the money that we pay insurance companies.
Every day, all across this nation, we citizens are paying a tremendous price MORALLY and ECONOMICALLY, for the SINS that are committed by ungodly men and women.
Many criminals are never INDICTED or INCARCERATED, but we have to remember that when a man sins, whether he is punished or not, he sins against SOCIETY. Also...
B. When a man sins, he sins against God, Who created him. ONE DAY, all the evil people who have ever committed an evil deed and gotten away with it here will find out they cannot get away from God! Ultimately all sin is against God, the Creator.
Illus: We can see this so clearly in the life of Joseph. In Gen. 39:7-10 we read, "And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath into my hand; There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and SIN AGAINST GOD? And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that HE HEARKENED NOT UNTO HER, to lie by her, or go to be with her."
The Bible shows us ULTIMATELY all sin is against God. Notice, Joseph did not say he could not do the sin against her husband, but that he could not do it because he would have been sinning against God.
Illus: You see, he could have committed that sinful act and perhaps her husband would never have known about it, but Joseph recognized that he could not do it and not have God know about it. Joseph recognized that God was a RIGHTEOUS God and that He could not be that kind of God and allow Him to do such a thing without punishing him.
Conclusion: God's being a God of RIGHTEOUSNESS and JUDGMENT places us all in a precarious place. This God of RIGHTEOUSNESS tells us that we have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death.
However, He gives us good news. This God of RIGHTEOUSNESS sent His only Son to earth to pay the price for our sins on Calvary. JESUS TOOK OUR SINS and the judgment of God fell on Him and we TOOK HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS and the blessings of God now fall on us.
God can still maintain His righteousness to allow us to enter heaven, if we have accepted His Son as our Savior, because Christ paid the price for our sins!
I. BECAUSE OF REWARDS
II. BECAUSE OF RETRIBUTION
