Promised Relief

Good morning. We have been walking through 1st and 2nd Samuel. We find ourselves coming to a last section and a difficult section, as you just heard read. We're really going to only be looking at verses 1 to 14 this morning. We'll look at that last half in preparation for the psalm. This morning we're going to consider some tension. The Bible's constantly presenting to us some real tension. Three things about God are going to be in the front of what we think about and talk about today. One, God keeps his promises. God keeps his promises. Two, he upholds his justice. Three, ye bounds in mercy. Those are three truths we will consider about God. That is not your sermon outline for those of you who are really looking forward to that sermon outline. Those are just three truths that I hope we think about well today from our passage. Second Samuel 21 to 24 is a whole new unit. It's taken up out of the time frame. It's taken out of the chronological order. There's actually a structure to it. If you want a good structure for 21 to 24, sin, soldiers, psalm, psalm, soldiers, sin. You can look at it. It's bookended by sin, and it's actually interesting that there's a judgment for the king's actions in 21 and 24. That's how it ends. Next in is the story we just heard about the Giants being defeated and then we're gonna hear about the mighty men and then in between our two Psalms. Sin, soldiers, Psalm, Psalm, soldiers, sin. We're gonna do well just to think about the sin today. Throughout this story, as with every story in the Bible, God is the main character. He is the main agent of activity and declaration and truth. This is our passage this morning. I have not yet found it in any children's books. God, after David prays, tells David, there has been a famine for three years because of the blood guilt of the previous king. Now, generation or generations later, God is bringing punishment upon his nation for a previous king's action. Saul and his household tried to wipe out a people who had been given a promise to not be wiped out in the promised land. There's tension. David, after hearing the problem, there's blood guilt, that's why there's famine, he then goes and asks the Gibeonites. That seems kind of strange. Why not ask God what to do? But instead he asked the Gibeonites? The Gibeonites request seven sons of Saul to be hung before the Lord. That's twice. They asked for it in verse six. It is described that way in verse nine. The famine then continues while the bodies are on the ground, while the mother there in sackcloth is protecting those bodies. David then digs up the bones of Saul and Jonathan, puts the bones of the seven sons of Saul with them, buries them, and then we see that end declaration. After that, God responded to the plea for the land. You have an entire nation, Suffering consequence for the sins of one King the previous King a different regime You see human sacrifice being the atonement to bring blessing This is complicated. This is difficult And we with absolute assurance believe that this passage was spoken of by Paul when he told us in 2nd Timothy 3 16 and Every word of God is profitable for teaching, reproof, and correction, training, and righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped with every good word. Will you pray with me? Father, we pray as we dive into this text that challenges so many presuppositions and pre-understandings and things that are confusing and difficult give us eyes to see may your word enlighten illuminate may christ be exalted may we be equipped for every good work in the name of jesus we pray amen If you're looking for just one statement that I believe comes true in this passage, God's mercy abounds even when he punishes our evil. God's mercy abounds even when he punishes our evil. If you're looking for a sermon outline, there's three points. There's a problem discovered, verse one. Problem discovered, verse one. Solution delivered, verses two to nine. Problem discovered, verse one. Solution delivered, verses two to nine. Relief delayed, verses 10 to 14. The problem discovered. Chapter 21, verse one. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years. This is not in chronological order. Again, we're taking a whole new section. Kind of an appendix of events that highlight truths about David's reign and how it ends and what God is doing. We don't know when this happened. We know it had to have happened after 2 Samuel 9 because we're going to hear Mephibosheth being spoken of under the covenant. But there's a famine for three days. There's a problem. And after three years, David then seeks the face of the Lord. He pursues God. Okay, and maybe year one, all right, there's a famine, there's a problem, but we don't make much of it, just kind of a natural issue. Then there's year two, okay, this is getting difficult. Year three, too many people are dying. Lord, is there something that we should pursue you for? David seeks the face of the Lord, and notice how good God is. He tells them. When God is giving us consequences, when God is correcting, when God is pointing out sin, He gives us clarity. And the Lord said, there's blood guilt on the house of Saul and on his house. There's blood guilt on Saul and on his house because He put the Gibeonites to death. Okay, so we're gonna back out, we're gonna think about this. There's a famine. Okay, why is there a famine? Why is a famine the right consequence to Saul and blood guilt? And we'll get into that more later. Turn with me over to Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28. If you'll see there, the headings are actually helpful. There's blessings for obedience to the covenant of God. There's curses for disobedience. If you look at 28 one to six, those blessings are for obedience and they correspond to the curses for disobedience in 15 to 19. Look at the blessing. If Israel is obedient, 28 verse nine, the Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself and as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, You'll be blessed. Look at 28 verse 23. And the heavens over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you shall be iron. 24, the Lord will make rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed. That's speaking of a famine. Israel was saved from Egypt with plagues that devastated the land, that devastated the people. And what God said to Israel, if you are my people, I will remove these plagues from you, I will save you from these plagues, I will not visit these plagues upon you. It's a blessing. But if you disobey, the plagues will fall upon you. Now we need to understand something very important in what is happening here. God is not saying if you're obedient enough, you'll be my people. God is not saying, if you do everything I have said according to the law of Moses, then I will love you, I will cherish you, and I'll let you be with me. That's not what he's saying. He's already said, I am your God, and you are my people, and I want to put you in my land, I want to give you my blessings, And I cannot bless disobedience. I am your God. I want you in my land. I want to bless you, but know this, I cannot bless disobedience. And the way he corrects us out of disobedience is discipline. that this famine is a form of discipline. It is God's wrath being poured out against Israel so that they would not remain in that place but be called out. Let me make sure this is even very clear. Exodus 20, that's the 10 commandments. Have no other gods before me. Honor your mother and father. Do not murder. Exodus 19. I saved you out of Egypt. I made you a holy nation. You are my precious people. The declarations of God's affection and movement towards us precede his law. The very law begins. I am the Lord, your God, who delivered you from Egypt. The very Ten Commandments begins with a word of salvation, and then he tells us how to live. If you think about this famine, God is not saying, if you're good enough, I'll always love you and I'll give you all the blessings. No, he's saying, I love you. You are my people. Obey so that I can bless you as my people. David goes to God in the midst of this famine, which is a clear discipline. It's a clear consequence for sin. God is good and he tells him directly, this is What is blood guilt? We can actually go all the way back to Genesis 9-6 to see what blood guilt is. Genesis 9-6, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. You murder someone, you are to be killed. Why? This is actually, it breaks out, if you notice it, go to Genesis 9-6, it breaks out into a hymn, it's written in poetic language to highlight the power of this declaration. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. That blood is precious and sacred because it is image-bearing blood. This is a truth for all humans at all times. This is Genesis 9-6, this is before Abraham, this is before Moses. This is a truth for all time based upon the very declaration we saw in Genesis 1-26. All humans are all made in the image of God and to take a human life is blood guilt. What's amazing is that we did not lose the status of image bearer. when we rebelled against the God who gave us that status. There's blood guilt. Okay, what specific blood guilt is there? Well, there's blood guilt on Saul and on his house. Okay, Saul is king. We know he's the king because he was what appeared right before the eyes of the people of Israel. He was tall, he seemed strong. His house, he's at the house of Benjamin. He has children and grandchildren. There's blood guilt on Saul. Well, what did he do? Because he put the Gibeonites to death. Before we get there, we can see a little bit later here that Saul has a zeal for the house of Israel, so he tried to slaughter the entire people of the Gibeonites. Look at verse two. So the king called the Gibeonites to speak to them, and the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel. They were the remnant of Amorites. They are already inhabitants. We'll get there in a moment. But here God, he's punishing all of Israel, a king later, a different regime, a different generation, a different people, for the sins of Saul years before. Again, we don't know exactly what time frame we know this is, but David's king, that means Saul's been dead for at least seven years. How does this fit into God's work? If you look back at the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20, whenever it says, do not have a graven image, God says, I will visit your iniquity on your children for three to four generations. Visit there, there's punishment. When there's sin, when you worship another God, there will be, I will visit that iniquity for three to four generations. Your children will suffer in this covenant if you do not obey. Maybe the most startling ways in which we see this truth is Exodus 34. Exodus 34. This is after the Ten Commandments. This is after the golden calf. Moses says, I want to see your glory. Exodus 34, verse 6, is one of the clearest declarations we have in the Old Testament about who God is and what he's like. It's where he's telling us what his name is, Exodus 34. Hear what he says. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, Yahweh, Yahweh. He's telling him, this is who I am. My name is revealing who I am. Yahweh, Yahweh. What we've heard in Psalm 103, what we sing about him, bless the Lord. God merciful and gracious. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin But who will by no means clear the guilty Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation It's God merciful He's got justice. He's got just. Is God gonna keep this promise? Here's what's interesting, Exodus 34. While Moses is getting the commandments of God to not make a graven image, Israel is down the mountain doing what? Making a graven image. And the consequence for a graven image is to have your sin visited upon your generations for three to four generations. Here he says, I will visit your children three to four generations. There's a problem with God's justice. What generation entered the promised land? The second. He wasn't true. He wasn't just appearing so to let that next generation go. It appears there's a problem in God keeping his promise because he is so merciful, he's so slow to anger, he lets the next generation in. I wanna hold that tension, and I hope we come back to it. There's a slowness about God's judgment for the Gibeonites. Be clear here, vengeance is sure, but the good news, if you are suffering injustice, oppression, God sees you, God cares, He will avenge. That's sure. There's important news for the one who is inflicting injustice. God will bring judgment. Do not believe that avoiding immediate discipline means God is pleased. One of the greatest dangers is to think, well God is not disciplining me now, he must be pleased. No, if your life is not aligned with scripture, there's danger. God keeps his word for Israel. There will be famine if you're disobedient. God keeps his word to Israel. You are my people, I will discipline you. He is the promise maker and promise keeper. He abounds in grace. Let's see what Saul does. The blood guilt. Taking innocent life because Saul killed the Gibeonites. Joshua 9 is the backdrop for this. That second generation that goes into the promised land, they destroy Jericho, and the Gibeonites who are next in line, they're on down the line a little bit, but they're aware of what's going on. And they said to themselves, we just heard the people of Israel destroy Jericho. Jericho is a mighty fortress city. So they're afraid. So they decide to deceive Israel. They act like they've come from a far land. They say we've come from a far land and we have heard about what your God did to Egypt. We have heard about how your God has destroyed anybody who has stood in your way and we want to make an oath with you that you will not wipe us out. It's self-preservation, but there's also clearly a fear of the Lord. And Joshua and the elders, without consulting the Lord, they make an oath with the Gibeonites. They are now an oath people. They're not part of the covenant of God like Israel, but they're now part of it, they're with an oath. They made an oath in the name of the Lord, and Israel, whenever they hear about it, they grumble against the elders, but the elders say in chapter nine of Joshua, verse 20, We cannot touch them lest the wrath of God come upon us. God's name has been put on a promise to those people. These foreign nations now are under promised protection from God. And Saul, 400 plus years later, breaks that promise and hear this, God cares. God brings punishment. Conclusion so far before we go to the second point. God keeps his promises. There's some suspense about that merciful lady, that second generation going, I wanna hold that out, but I wanna be clear. God keeps his promises to the foreigner. And he didn't even make the promise. He's keeping a promise made in his name. Second, God cares about his name. Those who carry the name of Christ, He cares about us and He cares what kind of testimony we are. Third, we need to be careful about the kind of word we give and how it testifies to the Lord. Fourth, God is kind to discipline. God is kind to discipline. He disciplines not to put us to shame. He disciplines not to add injury. He disciplines to call us up to his blessing. Next, there's a reality. Plagues and pestilence might be judgments from God. Nations, peoples, sin together and suffer together. One last reflection before we move on. The real response is to be amazed that God is so slow to anger. Second point, verses two to nine. A solution delivered. This is where the story gets actually really complicated. God is a God of loving kindness, he's slow to anger, he will visit iniquity, he is just in all that he does. Now there's a solution delivered. God has told David what's wrong, and this is a curious part of the story that has caused me great problems in terms of how to wrestle with it. David doesn't ask God what to do, he goes and asks the Gibeonites what to do. Seems strange. So the king called the Gamianites and spoke to them. And it reminds us, the story tells us very clearly, they're not of Israel, they're the Amorites. They're the national peoples, the original inhabitants. Saul had sought to strike them down as zeal for the people. And notice there, Saul has zeal without obedience to God. There is something ironic there. Saul would not obey God in 1 Samuel 15. when God said, wipe out the Amalekites. He said, oh, I wanted to keep some of the sheep to give you an offering, Lord. But here he has a zeal for his own vengeance, his own bloodthirst to wipe out a people that God said not to wipe out. Saul is not obedient. Zeal is not an excuse. David said of the Gibeonites, Notice how he's posturing himself. He's humbling himself, submitting to them. What shall I do for you? How can I make atonement? Oh, what an important word when that comes up in text. How can I make atonement? We have the word expiation, removal of guilt, removal of wrath. Taking away the guilt Genesis 9 6 Requires wrath I fry tooth for tooth David is saying how can I make atonement? That you may bless the heritage of the Lord There's some illusion here to the Abrahamic Covenant. I believe God will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you and here Israel's become a curse to the nations and And this is bringing about a plague, a famine for Israel. They need satisfaction. They need wrath removed. And so he's asking the Gibbonites, what do you want? The Gibbonites are wise. They have been paying attention. They've been studying the law apparently. They realize that silver and gold cannot repair the problem. Silver and gold are not in bounds to repair this problem. Neither is a full-on trial of murder for murder, because most of the people are already dead. So David says again, what can I do for you? Verse four, what do we say I should do for you? And they have an answer. Verse five, the man who consumed us Planned to destroy us so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel Let seven of his sons be given to us So that we may hang them before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul. That's his hometown the chosen of the Lord David said I Will give them The solution that the Gibeonites give is seven sons. Not an entire people, not the whole tribe of Benjamin, as Israel actually sought to do when Jabesh-Gilead committed great atrocity. No, it's seven sons. Well, why? Maybe there's a symbolicness to seven being a perfect number in Scripture? The word oath has the same consonants in Hebrew as seven. Maybe there's a connection there that there's an oath broken, so seven is the right number to appease. David agrees, I will give them. Okay, there's lots of questions. One, should David have asked to give me nuts? Two, is this against God's law? Should these children, is this the way God would have them have Saul's sins visited upon them? And if so, how does this relate to Deuteronomy 24, 16 that says, a son will not die for his father's sin? Maybe New Testament Numbers 35, 33. It explains that for land, blood must be shed. when there is a, for expiation to be accomplished for the land. Is this just and good? There's lots of questions. Let's hold out. Keep holding on some tension. Notice verse seven. As David says, I will do this, the first thing he makes clear is Mephibosheth of Jonathan. Let's be clear, there's two Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth of Jonathan, he's out of the picture. Why? He's the closest relative. Well, because Mephibosheth is under a covenant. Remember David and Jonathan entered a covenant? Jonathan, David showed Mephibosheth kindness in the name of Jonathan. Mephibosheth has been sworn that he will eat at the king's table always. He was an enemy, he was under shame, and he has been exalted to a great place of honor in the kingdom of God. Dave is a covenant keeper, in contrast to Mephibosheth, or from Saul, who's a covenant breaker. Okay, so who does he find? Well, he took two sons of Rizpah, who's very important, a concubine. Her two sons are taken, and then five grandsons, through the daughter Merab, 1 Samuel 18. Merab was the first wife offered to David, who was then retracted, but five of her grandchildren are chosen. Verse nine, David gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them perished. They were put together, they were put to death. at the beginning of the barley harvest. That's just a time frame. It just gives us some kind of time frame of what's happening. That phrase before the Lord is important. It happens twice, verse six. The Gibeonites believe they are doing this before the Lord. That means according to the will of the Lord, according to his great purpose, according to what would actually satisfy him. Just as we would say I'm gonna do this before the Lord, it's something I'm gonna do for worship because it would be pleasing to the Lord. The Gibeonites are convinced this would be pleasing to the Lord. Notice verse nine, our author, our narrator, describes it as such. This was done before the Lord. This sacrifice is done before the Lord in a way that appears to be appropriate. Is this good? It appears to be yes because verse 14 tells us God responds. The end result is that the famine is lifted. Whatever the atonement is, wrath has been removed. Is this against God's law? No. I want to hold out some judgment here and some explanation because when we come to scripture and we come to a problem like this, there's a posture we must have. God has never broken a promise. God has upheld his law in every way to the point that he sent his own son to die. When we get suspicious, be suspicious of our own reasoning and understanding of what's going on here. God's word is always true. And God is always true to his word. This appears to be above our understanding. How does it not fit Deuteronomy 24 where it said a son shall not die for the fathers? There's plenty of people who've tried to come up with ways of explaining it. Maybe the sons and grandsons participated. Maybe there's a covenant connection that Saul as a head, they are responsible because they participated in the house of Saul. I'm just gonna lift it up and simply say this was before the Lord. This is described as what God responded to. He lifted the famine. God is true to his word. It seems odd because this is the one time apart from Christ that human sacrifice is made. It's not equitable, I wanna point that out. This is not eye for eye, tooth for tooth. This is seven in place of thousands. There's two issues here that I think we've gotta wrestle with. Today, we ask the question, is a God of wrath worthy of worship? Is a God of wrath worthy of worship? Is a God who would be satisfied with seven men and they're probably thrown off the mountain, is that kind of God worthy of worship? Let me turn that around. a God who endorses evil and overlooks sin, is he worthy of worship? When we look at a God who overlooks suffering, that overlooks evil, that overlooks murder, would he be worthy of worship? So we have this American God, a Western, tamed God, that's described as a God without wrath saves a people without sin through a Jesus without a cross. We want that to be the gospel. And it denies everything true of what scripture tells us. We are a people with sin that needed to be saved by a savior with a cross. Because God is just and he must punish sin. He does punish every sin. He is perfectly committed to justice. His justice, his good justice. Here's the thing, when we look at the Bible, it actually isn't, is he worthy of worship because he'll be just in his punishment? It's actually that Exodus 34 dilemma. He's so kind. He's so slow to anger. He doesn't pay back everybody quickly and immediately for every sin they've done. The Bible's tension isn't, is he a just God? The Bible's tension is, how can this God who is said he is just keep overlooking sin, keep passing over sin, keep forbearing sin? That's the tension of the Old Testament. How can he keep forbearing sin? The second thing we need to see is that there is a pattern of substitutionary death throughout scripture. Adam and Eve, our earliest ancestors, our first parents, those who created good and rejected God believed a lie, wanted something better than God, they were ashamed, and what did God do to help them? He cast them out of his presence, and he covered them. What did he cover them with? Skins. What had to happen in order for God to provide skins? Something innocent died. Something else died. Bloodshed had to take place to cover their sin. The whole point there is to see how serious sin is. Abraham, after being promised and promised and promised, is told, take your son, your only son, your beloved son, take him to the mountain and sacrifice him. What does God do? He provides a substitute. A ram dies in the place of Abraham's sin and Isaac's sin. weapons of the Passover. Every child of Egypt died. Every first born child of Egypt died. But for every house of Israel that had the blood over the mantle, that substitutionary blood of the lamb caused God to pass over in Forbearance of sin. So when is God going to be satisfied because one of the clear teachings of the Old Testament is that these do Have God pass over sin, but it doesn't really resolve sin Justice is waiting Until John the Baptist sees Jesus and says Behold the Lamb of God who doesn't cause God's justice to be passed over. He says, beholden of God who takes away the sin. He takes away the sin. Jesus was perfectly human and lived the life we have refused to live. He is help that comes from outside even though he is like us in every way because he is the God who has become man. to take the sin that we have committed so that he can receive the wrath we deserve. And so for thousands of years, we've been waiting to see, is God going to be just? Look to the cross. And the wrath of God for every sin passed over previously and every sin we committed afterwards is placed upon Jesus. And he proves he is just. And he proves he is the justifier. Because when we place our faith in Christ who died for our sin, he says to us who are incredibly guilty You're counted not guilty. He is the justifier who declares us righteous, and it's only because Christ died in our place to take the wrath, not away, but on Himself. If you wanna look more into that, that's Romans 3, 25 and 26. God is just and justifier. This passage presses in His justice. There's blood guilt. But these seven men, that's not a true satisfaction yet. It's not fully satisfied for the common grace of God to bring rain. It's Christ. This is the God worthy of worship. He's just. He's merciful. He kept his promise. Our last point of the sermon. Relief delayed. We see here Rizba, the daughter of two of the sons and an aunt to the five others. She shows up and she's a woman of faith. She's a woman of care. She's a model of just care for her children. She doesn't want the birds or the air or the beasts. And notice what it says about her. The end of verse 10, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heaven. She is going to be here until God relieves the famine. She didn't allow the birds to attack the sons, and when David hears of her, he takes action. The action seems to be completing the sacrifice, the atonement. He takes the bones of Saul. He brings them there. He puts the bones of his children and grandchildren with him. There seems to be a covenant connection. He buries them, and then God respawns. two generations removed, an entire nation under famine, this small symbolic sacrifice puts off the wrath of God and now the people are under the blessing. Let's be very clear, this does not make up the loss of life and prosperity. Silver and gold could not make reparations. More deaths could not have made reparations. This is irreparable. But God has made a way for his people to be blessed. Let's now think about how we can apply this today. First, we have to be sure that God is committed to his name and his promises. If he has united us with Christ, if he has put his son out to save us and sealed us with his spirit, he is committed to us and he's committed to keeping every promise he has made to us. I will never leave you or forsake you. I will give you every good and perfect gift. I will not withhold any good thing from you. I will wash you. I will sanctify you. I will always love you. I will not lose you. I see you. I care about you. I will discipline you because I love you. I will come back. and I will execute perfect judgment. Those are some of the few promises that we can know God is committed to. Secondly, God is committed to his people. God is the king of Israel, not David here. He is the good shepherd who's loving them and caring for them. And something important, if even we look back past the idea that there's a covenant broke, God cares about his image bearers. It drives us all the way back to Genesis 9-6 and Genesis 1-27. Every human being is made with honor, dignity, value, and worth. And yet we know there have been long, hard seasons where certain human beings are under attack and oppressed. Women being mistreated, treated as sexualized property. Babies being murdered before the chance to ever take their first breath with their own lungs. Certain nations abusing other peoples. If we're gonna take seriously the idea that there's an image Bearing. That every human being is made in the image. We need to take James' exhortation to us seriously. True and undefiled religion is caring for those image bearers who are helpless. Orphans. Widows. Notice there he isolates in his culture those who are under certain oppression or certain suffering or simply more vulnerable. We're all made in His image. And the church should be the one who's upholding that truth by pursuing those and caring for those who would be vulnerable as image bearers. And so we ask, what happens when one of our fellow image bearers feels the need to say, my life matters? My life matters. It's sad that someone would have to say that for themselves because the church might not be saying it. Okay, let's talk about this. I'm going to ask the question, have black citizens of this nation, have black image bearers of God suffered impartiality and oppression? America, legally purchased and sold black image bearers as property until 1863. America counted them as three-fifths of a human being from 1787 to 1868. That's legal. Those were legal declarations. Okay, that's long ago. As we just saw from our story, God's justice observes no statute of limitations. More recent, the Jim Crow laws that separated blacks and whites with impartiality, that didn't end until 1965. That's 55 years ago. The age of a grandparent. There are living grandparents telling real life stories of their own being treated with impartiality by people that may be our ancestors. Legally in 1965. I'm gonna stop there. Those are just three low points of our legal history. Maybe drive it home a little bit stronger. We're a Southern Baptist Church. Do you know what the Southern Baptist Convention started in 1845? A man from Alabama was not pleased that the National Baptist Convention would not send a slave owner as a missionary, and so he started the Southern Baptist Convention. We didn't apologize for that until 1995. That's public, legal truth. I understand the narratives the TV's telling you are twisted, upside down, sideways, backwards. That's our story. Partiality is less legal than it used to be, but is it gone? 1965, legally, did we just start declaring praises that we're all one, we're all make it in God's image, that we're all equal in dignity and honor? Did it go away that quickly? The story talks about reparations. This is the hard reality. Silver and gold cannot repair what has been taken away. Eye for eye, death for death cannot repair what has been taken away. But the God of Scripture, the God of restoration and reconciliation, He provides a story, the story, the truth, that we can proactively promote among one another, and maybe to our neighbors, that there is reconciliation. What the Bible calls the gospel of Jesus Christ, where he saves people who all sin against him, and are all guilty, and even have hostility against one another. Ephesians 2.14, he tears down the dividing walls of hostility. Christians, and I can only speak to Christians here, we have to get the right problem and the right solution. The enmity that should be driving our concerns is not an enmity of power or economic status. The enmity that we have to remember is the story of scripture, and that is that there is an enmity between Satan and his offspring who are raging against God's anointing and his people. The church has to stand together in Christ. Promoting the reconciling power of Jesus Christ. Promoting his death that brings forgiveness. Promoting his new life that brings restoration. Promoting bearing one another's burdens and loving one another the way Christ has called us to love. Don't be so angry with the noisy, different, confusing stories. Embrace the story of the gospel and make it your story. We have a better story. It's the only story that ends with peace. It's the only story that ends with victory. It is the only story that God has ordained as good and right. Second, I don't know what point we're on. The next application point. God is committed to justice. We see in the Old Testament This God who, it's amazing how so many people think He's a God of wrath in the Old Testament, a God of love in the New Testament. You don't get it. No, He's delaying wrath and delaying wrath and forbearing and forbearing and passing over and passing over. He is a good and righteous God and every judgment He makes is good and righteous. Here is the promise and the covenant He makes with us. I will have my vengeance. The Lord will have it. Now what that means is for our own sin, God has had that satisfied in Christ, but when we see those who are attacking us, those who are oppressing us, what God says in Romans 12 is so clear. He will have vengeance. and we are not to take God's place. He is the perfect and just judge. When we enter our own lives into trying to make justice happen, we're going to just add sin. So for those of you believers, and I can only speak to believers here, who feel as if you are under punishment, suffering, oppression, vulnerable, You're out to God. He sees you. He cares about you. He will have vengeance for you. That does not mean promoting some kind of getting walked over. It means looking to God's word and seeing what he prescribes, and the clear prescription is to continue to do good in holy conduct so that those who try to bring shame on you will be shamed. Look to the cross and let that be your better story. To branch out here and make a bigger picture, Christ has called us into covenant, and that means covenant obedience is required of us. It means we do not seek our own vengeance, that's Romans 12. It means we seek to help the helpless and oppressed, James 1. It means we try to have the same mind as Christ, Philippians 2. Consider others more important than yourself and others' interests more important than your own. Church Covenant keepers breakers Another application God returns iniquity for individuals and nations There's individual sin, and we will all have to stand before God for our own individual sin. We stand before God for what we have said, what we have done, what we have not said, and what we have not done. But there's clear corporate sin. There's clear national sin. Praise God, we're not only individuals. Praise God, Christ says, I am with you, you're united with me. We sin in Adam, we're alive in Christ. What happened to the Tower of Babel? Sinners got together, and when sinners get together, what do sinners do? They sin together. And God judges them together. And even judges those who are not participating, but are connected. This story reminds us that God is just, and a nation generations after, they have suffered for the sins that preceded them from another king. Okay, we're not Israel, America is not God's covenant nation. But God can do this. The question is, should we expect blessing as a nation? Should we expect blessing as a nation? Why do I ask that question? America, legally murdered, 862,000 babies in 2017, in the name of abortion. Write that out, all six digits. Don't just hear that number. Write it out. 86200. That number was down from 2010, where 1.3 million were murdered. Put that in perspective. Less than 420,000 American military and citizens died in World War II. It's less than half. More babies were murdered in America in 2017 than Gibeonites died at the hand of Saul. Here's a response. We should be amazed that God blesses us at all. We should be amazed that because of that national blood guilt that he blesses it all. And maybe he is cursing, maybe he is challenging, maybe he is disciplining. One thing we know for sure is he's a good God who cares about every image bearer and cares about his name and keeps his promises. So what to do? Here's the one application. Pray for revival. Pray that Christians, the church, would receive a true awakening of our sin. a true awakening of our need for Christ, our need to embrace His covenant, love His covenant, seek to obey His covenant. The nation's raging. The church needs to be a place where we are promoting peace, promoting grace, promoting the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. The one action. pray for the God who would awaken us so that we might be obedient as ambassadors of his reconciliation. Will you pray with me?