GOD A RIGHTEOUS JUDGES

IOI CHRISTIAN MORNING MEAL

TOPIC: GOD A RIGHTEOUS JUDGES

PSALM 5

When you’re under attack, appeal to God as the righteous Judge (5:4-6).

David’s reasoning here is that since his enemies are so evil, surely God, who is righteous, will act on his behalf. So David rehearses God’s righteousness to encourage himself with the truth that God will right all wrongs.

A. GOD IS SEPARATE FROM ALL EVIL AND WILL JUDGE ALL EVILDOERS.

When David says that God does not take pleasure in wickedness (5:4) it is a figure of speech that means, He hates it! Far from winking at sin or chuckling about it, God stands apart from it and His Word warns us repeatedly that He will condemn all unrepentant sinners to the Lake of Fire forever. If you think that your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds and get you into heaven, you’re going to be terribly shocked! Just a single sin will bar you from heaven, unless you trust in Jesus as your Savior.

You often hear the cliché that God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. But here David says that God not only hates the sin, He also hates “all who do iniquity” (5:5). “The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit” (5:6).
Jonathan Edwards no doubt had texts like this in mind when he preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” There Edwards warned (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 2:10), “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire….”

That doesn’t quite sound like, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”! So, does God love the sinner or hate him? Doesn’t the Bible say that He loves the whole world?

Calvin (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John McNeill [Westminster Press], 2.16.2-4) explains the apparent contradiction by saying that we need the verses about God’s hatred of sinners so that we will be overwhelmed with how terrible and offensive our sin is to an absolutely holy God. Only then will we properly appreciate what He did for us in Christ.
He cites Augustine who explains that in a sense, God loved us even when He hated us. He hated us for our sin and rebellion, but He loved us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

In my judgment, we err if we are quick to tell arrogant, unrepentant sinners that God loves them. They need to hear that they are objects of His terrible wrath.

If a person is broken by his sin and guilt, then yes, tell him of God’s love in Christ. But otherwise, he needs to hear of the terrors of the coming judgment.

But in Psalm 5, David rehearses God’s hatred of the unrepentant wicked to encourage himself with the fact that God will bring justice for His people. But there is also an inherent warning for believers here:

LET US PRAY
In Jesus Name, you will not see the wroth of God

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Good morning friends