Will the Judge of the Earth do Right?

My text today is found in Genesis 18:25. The context of this text begins in verse one when three men approach Abraham as he is sitting outside his tent. Conservative theologians are virtually all agreed that two of the men are angelic beings. The third man is the pre-incarnate Christ. Such appearances are usually called ‘Christophanies” – from the Greek combination of two words: ‘Christos’ which means Christ and ‘phainein’ (FAY-nee-en) which means ‘to appear.’ We find Christophanies in Genesis 16:7-10 when the Lord meets Hagar, and again in Judges 6:11-14 when the Lord meets with Gideon, and in Daniel 3:24-25 where we find the fourth man in the blazing furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

So, back to the context of chapter 18 and which moves seamlessly into chapter 19. God tells Abraham He is about to destroy Sodom because of the evil He has seen of the city and its environs. You might remember from reading the story yourself, that Lot and his family were living in Sodom at this time. And so, these chapters have a lot to tell us not only about God, but also the chapters hold application to our own lives in 2024, and I might at some time later return to these two chapters. But for today, I want to focus on verse 25.

God has just told Abraham what He intends to do to the city, and Abraham – concerned perhaps not only for the entire city, but especially for his nephew Lot and Lot’s family – Abraham speaks to the Lord: (Genesis 18:25, NIV) “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

Listen again to that last sentence: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  Another way of asking it might be, ‘Is God good and right and just at all times, in all circumstances, and in all places?” I want us to pause here a while, because that’s the question all humanity has asked at some time in their lives. And I suspect that there have been – and ARE today – many in church pews and pulpits who ask the same question: Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

First, who IS the Judge? This is so important a question that we dare not gloss over it in my message now. The Judge to whom Abraham spoke and of whom we ask the same question is no other than Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth. The one who with the breath of His mouth set planets in motion. Who with the breath of His mouth instantaneously formed out of nothing all plants and insects and air and sea and land creatures.

And why did He do all that? Why did He create everything we see and can’t see? He did it because of His great love and unsurpassed affection for all of humanity which is the crown of His creation. And that includes you and me, by the way. St John tells us, (1 John 4:8b, 10) “God is love . . . . [and] “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 

And what is it the Psalmist cried out in the eight Psalm? “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands.” (Psalm 8:3-6a)

Oh, we need the Holy Spirit to plant this truth deeply in our souls: God IS love. And I repeat it for emphasis: God is love. Let me try to illustrate that incomprehensible reality it this way: My body has somewhere around 30 TRILLION cells. And every single one of them has an X and Y chromosome. It is that X and Y combination that makes me a male. I can never in ten million years be anything other than a male. My ‘maleness’ is written into my genome. And similarly, every woman in this room and on this planet as two X chromosomes written into all 30 trillion of their cells. It is those two X chromosomes that make you a female. You can never be any other gender than what God made you at your conception.

And so, when God tells us He IS love, that means (to use human illustrations to try to explain the Divine) that means ‘love’ is written – so to speak – into God’s very BEING. He can never be anything other than Love. And therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE for Him to DO anything or to PERMIT anything into our lives unless it is based in His love. That includes His judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah as we find it in Genesis 19. Yet, it many in history, and even today in many pews and pulpits, have believed and believe something quite different about God. Instead of a loving and merciful Father, they perceive God as an austere inquisitor; A no-nonsense Being who always scans the earth, waiting for someone to mess up so He can toss His lightning bolts around. Even the Twelve Disciples had a perverted idea of God. You might remember their question of Jesus when they encountered the man who’d been born blind. They asked Jesus: (John 9:2b-3) “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

It's the same corrupted idea of God that Job’s three ‘counsellors’ had. Early in the story Eliphaz accused the suffering Job: (Job 4:7-8) “Whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed? According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it.”

Now, let’s pause a moment here to make some clarification. I am NOT saying God does not judge and punish sin. I am NOT saying God will not discipline the sinner – even up to and including death. We see that truth evidenced throughout Holy Scripture, including the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 that I shared with us all last week surrounding the receiving of Holy Communion in an unworthy manner. So, yes, God WILL judge sin. God MUST judge sin. Otherwise, He would not be love itself, nor would He be just. Nor holy.

But that might beg the question: HOW does His judgment on sin – even to include death of the sinner – demonstrate love?  Well, perhaps I can illustrate the answer to that question this way: Which of you would stand idly by and let your child be murdered? Would you not do everything in your power – including killing the one who was trying to destroy your child – would you not do everything in your power to protect him or her?  Of course, you would. And why? Because you LOVE your child. And so, God – who IS love – does whatever is necessary to protect His beloved – up to and including the death of those who would destroy them. The idea of God as an inquisitor is as far from Biblical truth as east is from west. The truth of the matter, if we are to fully believe His word, is that God is always, and under all circumstances, compassionate, merciful, and . . .  well, love itself.

And after our lives are over, we will fully recognize what we cannot in this life fully understand: Nails did not hold Jesus to that cross. Love did. Consider what would be our inescapable fate if Jesus had become disillusioned by the mob at the foot of the cross. Many of them, only days earlier during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, many had hailed Him as the coming king. But now they were clamoring for his torturous death.

But back to the question: Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? 

I don’t think anyone here knows what I am about to say because I rarely talk about it. But the theme of my message today makes this a good time to talk about it: I am in pain every waking moment; From the time I get out of bed in the morning to the time I go back to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep. I’ve had this terrible back pain for many years. And sadly, I know many of you can identify with what I am saying because you also live with constant and chronic pain. And you also know how exhausting on the body and on the spirits constant pain can be.

My point? Last week near dinner time, my pain level was hovering around seven out of ten, despite having taken my prescription pain medication. I said to Nancy, “I am so very tired of this pain. I can’t hardly stand it sometimes.”

Her face reflected empathy, and she said what I immediately knew was the voice of God. She told me to remember Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh.’ And then she added, “Thorns hurt.” But even as she was speaking, my mind took me to 2 Corinthians (12:8-10) where Paul confessed to his readers: “Concerning this [thorn] I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And from there, the Holy Spirit reminded me of Paul’s comment to the Christians at Philippi. Writing as a prisoner of Rome for the sake of the gospel, he wrote: “I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20b-21)

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Of COURSE, the God who IS love will do right – even when we do not understand the ‘whys’ of what happens around us or to us.

By now, most of you know Roger. I don’t think I will ever forget our introduction. I was making my rounds in the dining room when I came to his table. I believe it was Nell who introduced him to me. Roger shook my hand and the first words out of his mouth were these: I’m Roger, and I’m dying.” As many of you know, Roger has stage four cancer. He knows his time on earth is short. But because he knows that he is dying, his spirit was open to questions of eternity. We spoke later that afternoon, and he was baptized into Christ last month on September 1. And while Roger knows his earthly life has been shortened by a disease spawned in hell itself, he now knows his eternal life is ensured by the blood of Jesus in whom he has placed his baptismal faith.

But one might ask, did God give Roger cancer? Did God give me chronic back pain? Did God give YOU whatever is the physical trouble with which you suffer? Did God give the apostle Paul that thorn in his flesh? We know God is utterly sovereign over all the affairs of nations and people AND individuals. But whether our illnesses or injuries or whatever – whether such things are God's PASSIVE will for us (as in the case of Job where He permitted Satan to afflict the man), or whether He actively brings such things into our lives – we MUST know, we MUST remember these two eternal and never changing truths:

 1) God is love. It is impossible for Him to act in any way other than with, in, and through love. And 2), Our omnipotent and utterly sovereign Father, who controls the end from the beginning, who never blinks, who always acts in love – our God will ALWAYS cause ALL things that come into the lives of those who belong to Him by their baptismal faith – He will always cause all things to work together for good.  Always. At all times, in all situations, and in all circumstances.

Isn’t that what He tells us in Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome: (Romans 8:28) “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

And isn’t that what the Psalmist alluded to when he wrote: (Psalm 119:67) “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word.”  And again in that same chapter (119:75) “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

As I begin to bring this message to a close, I want to remind us of something Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth as he began his second letter. This is the same letter in which Paul told them of his thorn. Listen to what he said in chapter one of this letter: (2 Corinthians 1:3ff)  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” And listen also to what he wrote to the Philippians: (Philippians 1:20-21) “I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

I do not know WHY my back pain gets so bad sometimes I can hardly think of anything else. Nor do I know why YOU have such chronic pain or illnesses that sometimes it’s all you can think about. But will not the Judge of all the earth always do right? And don’t we all want to proclaim as Paul proclaimed: Whether by life or by death, Christ will be glorified in our body. Whether suffering a painful thorn or a debilitating illness – Christ will be exalted. Whether in prosperity or need, we want Christ to be exalted. What is it again He told Paul who asked Him THREE times to remove that thorn? “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Oh! We have to get that. Our strength in Christ, our fruitfulness for Christ, our FAITHFULNESS for Christ is perfected by our weaknesses because – and ONLY because – of God's grace.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? It was Job who said – the same Job who in one moment lost his ten children and his fortune – and then shortly thereafter lost his health to excruciating sores all over his body – it was Job who looked toward heaven and shouted: (Job 13:15) “Though He slay me, I will trust in Him.” It was the same Job who also looked at his three phony counsellors and said: “But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” (Job 6:10)

THAT is a message for me. And you. And for all in the pews and the pulpits who sometimes wonder, “Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?”

Christian!  Stay in the fight. Persevere through the ‘fog of war’ as it is called. Keep seeking the Lord. Keep chasing after the Lord as a child lost in a supermarket calls out for Mommy until she rushes to him, picks him up and embraces him in her arms. The Judge of all the earth is Love itself. And He will always, always do right, at all times, in every circumstance, and in every situation.

Hang in there. We WILL understand it all 'on the other side.'