Latest / The Extra Mile Podcast / #11 - Why Is God So Angry? (with Pastor Austin Young)

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#11 - Why Is God So Angry? (with Pastor Austin Young) · The Extra Mile Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: God's again saying, hey, like, I don't have any favorites here.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want all of humanity to be, so I hate everybody's sin, but and I'm gonna judge it, but I love all of humanity, I want to save it.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the tension between those two things, the tension between the righteousness of God and the wickedness of man, and God's patience and kindness and God's judgment and wrath, all those are so tense.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think we're ever gonna come to this place where like, oh yeah, I get it, it makes perfect sense.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna continue to probably judge God's harshness in a way that's not deserving because we're gonna overlook the kindness that He's continued to give all of us.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome everybody again to the Extra Mile Podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're here having a very interesting conversation, and uh I want to start off instead of jumping into the message and jumping into some content by asking you, Pastor Austin, like uh, hey, what makes you angry?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: What what sets you off?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: What cranks your tractor?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm trying to I'm trying to think of something either really funny or really meaningful, and I don't know that I have one of either since I I was not an angry person until I had kids.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or like I was only an I was only angry when I had a little brother and then once I had kids.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: In between then, I was not an angry person.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think um I don't know with my kids, a lot of times I think it turns out when they're like acting like me is when I get the most mad.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's like that's what I always joke with people.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, the things that you hate about yourself and your spouse the most is exactly what your kids are gonna do to you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're like these little mirrors that just make you mad because they're acting like you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I thought you meant imitating you, and I thought no, no.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I just mean like when they behave how I behave, it makes me mad because I don't like how I behave.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's my meaningful one.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: My um, I don't know.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, driving, like the way people drive, I know that that is a big thing for you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like that frustrates me.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I that's why I just got a Tesla so I don't drive anymore.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just like I get just do that, and then you don't have to drive anymore.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then you just get mad at your car for how it drives, and then it's that's right.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just get mad at a machine.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So mine is definitely driving.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just um I just want to go.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go my speed, I want to go my direction, and when someone else is in my way, um, man, it really, it really does because again, you know, you don't you can do your own thing, but if you see somebody behind you, be polite enough to slide over.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's why it's called the passing lane.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not going somewhere, you know, allow them to pass.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I realized, and I think you'll realize too, is most of our anger is kind of silly.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Most of it, and this is the way James would say it, not to get biblical out of the gate, but he would say it's selfish.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, how why do you have wars?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's because, man, we're self.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, I get frustrated on the road because it's not, I already said it's not my way.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're not driving my speed.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so most of the things that I think people get angry about are very selfish, petty things.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're not good things to get angry about, they're not justified anger, you know, you know, anger issues.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I bring that up is because we're in a conversation at Faith Church talking about this question does God have anger issues?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I wanted to tackle this is because there are a lot of people who, when they read the Old Testament, that's their assumption.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is like, hey, God is He's a maniacal, immoral maniac.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's just slaughtering herds of people, he's genocidal.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh have you ever heard that argument before?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that new to you?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I've definitely heard that, and it's I mean, it's been something that I've had to navigate.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up in church, you're like familiar with it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And growing up, I would say the tradition I grew up in, um, it like to lean into that about God of like you're gonna be judged.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's mad.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I interpreted that as a child and teenager, he's mad at me.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was I I think that was a part of how I kind of grew up was like celebrating the anger of God and like, and you better not make him mad.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like the fear of God literally being like a fear of like, don't make your dad mad, don't make God mad.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do whatever you can to not make him mad.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then trying to navigate that as I grew up and got to know God better and looked more at the person of Jesus who had more of a meekness and and more of like that other side that you're like, well, this is the God that it's supposed to be like.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's been a part of my journey is navigating what seems like two different uh revelations of who God is, and and thinking these can't both be true, or they they can't work together.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It coexists kind of.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of conflict.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: People will say that, like, hey, the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament, that there are two separate gods, which again, so people are deconstructing, they bump into the stories of the Old Testament, they bump into what God commanded Israel to do to other nations, kill them, drive them out.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, so people are deconstructing and walking away from faith, or they hear the stories of God and they never come to faith.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the reason I wanted to tackle this because I'm gonna be honest, there are some things written in the Old Testament that are from a surface level, like, wow, man, the it's answering the rhetorical question.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Does God have anger issues?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It appears he does.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what we find is, and this is what I talked about week one, is there are some reasons, at least from a visual perspective, like when you just glance at the story, God has anger issues.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to justify it or be like, hey, just get over it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that there are things throughout the Bible, God's anger issues, etc., that just leaning in and trying to get God's perspective rather than our human perspective helps us at least embrace what feels unembraceable or accept what seems like unacceptable.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so my goal is not to get anybody like, oh, I'm I'm okay with God having anger issues, but just hey, let's talk about why he's upset and is it valid?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, where we started, some of our anger is invalid, but God's what is what we call righteous anger.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard the term righteous anger?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, for sure.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Especially um in like the story of Jesus flipping over the tables in the temple is one that people love to go to to like kind of show Jesus' passion and and his frustration and that, you know, he did that obviously without sin because he was completely without sin.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I've heard it used in that, and then um, you know, in some of the illustrations you've even talked about over the last couple weeks of like um hating evil and and being upset about injustices, especially when it comes to sex trafficking and child abuse, and like those things that everyone almost anyone with any kind of moral compass is definitely against.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think we we learn we're okay with that righteous anger.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's the context I've heard it in is like things that I'm angry about are pretty righteous.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we're okay with us being angry, we're just not okay with God being angry.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you mentioned I I told Gave some illustrations of judges making some really bad calls, in my estimation, letting people get away with things that they should have, I think, suffered some consequences.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another story I just read yesterday.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: They found a tunnel in Los Angeles and they found 70 children.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't give the ages but used the term children, they were basically hidden this tunnel because they were being sex trafficked.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now you hear stories like that, and if you have any kind of heart or consciousness, like or conscience, you should hear that and say, whoever's behind that, they deserve some kind of punishment.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: They deserve to go to prison.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll be honest, from where I'm at, they deserve worse.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this idea of God getting angry for us is is unacceptable because we don't like how angry he gets.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We we feel like we should be the judge of how how high or how hot his anger gets, and we should be the deciding factor on where he points it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if he points it the wrong direction or he's too angry, like we're like, whoa, whoa, God has anger issues.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I think just for us to understand everybody gets angry at something, what should we get angry at?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we shouldn't get angry at somebody not driving the speed that we think they should drive, but there are some things that God's word defines as really unrighteous or evil or wicked, and that's really where we dug in.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, I said this last week that probably to help us get arms around this conversation, the reason we have a problem with God's anger issues is because we misunderstand uh who God is and we really don't understand the significance of evil, how severe evil is.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Which one of those out of maybe not understanding God's nature or misunderstanding evil, is there one of those that kind of stands out more to you why we don't?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I mean I definitely think it's rooted in an understanding of God.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I mean that's why we have the Bible is to have a understanding of who God is and his character, and he revealed himself through his word.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we try to read the Bible sometimes so quickly, and so you know, it it obviously isn't an exhaustive history of the Hittites and Amorites, and so we're like, Well, how could God do this?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what you get into is kind of getting into the context and the history and the timelines, because obviously this is, you know, as much as the the Bible is inspired by God, it was also written by people who didn't want the story to be boring, and it would be boring to give 200 years of context to this command of God and the follow-through.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is kind of a a quick history, not a comprehensive history.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I think our understanding of God's decisions, sometimes we allow it to be surface level.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: We don't look into the context, we don't look into um the timeline of it.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: We just think God woke up one day and was like, wipe out this people group.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, well, that's that's not the whole story of how it happened.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would encourage people to go back and listen to the entire message.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So again, where God calls people to be wiped out, really that's not what he means.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there I give plenty of reasons biblically and historically why that's true.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: But again, this this idea of either we just misunderstand God or underestimate evil, I think we just misunderstand God that again, his his anger is righteous, it's it's long game, he sees the end.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of the day, anytime God judges somebody, and this is what I want people to hear, it's it's not this two-year-old toddler losing his temper.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is God who's shown plenty of mercy and tried to draw people.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we lose sight of is man, really how patient God is.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So people are getting upset because God gets angry.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's only after a long historical period of patience and grace and mercy.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I watched a uh a short clip of Bill Maher.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know who Bill Maher is?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know the n I'm He's a political commentator, hasn't he?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I actually kind of dig him.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's pretty far left, but the far left has gotten so far left he seems center.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, I I enjoy to hear some of his points.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he went on a rant on exactly this that God is this, you know, temper tantum toddler, and he points to Noah's Ark, and he's like, How could a God wipe out the entire creation that he created and how ridiculous the whole story is?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I use that to say, yes, God was going to judge sin because again it says that they were it was everyone everywhere was wicked all the time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But God sent Noah not just to build an ark, but use him to preach for 120 years.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, God gets angry, and yes, he's righteously angry.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's he's angry at the right things at the right measure, but it's only after a long period of grace.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the way the New Testament says is it says it is this way, is it's kindness that leads us to repentance.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, God gets mad, but man, he is we deserve worse sooner.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would never make it on another car trip home with the things I've thought, the things I've said out of my mouth about other drivers, if God judged sin immediately, man, I wouldn't be sitting here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that I'm still sitting here is a demonstration of his patience, not his anger.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, and that's part of it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my favorite um passages that you referenced was in Exodus 34, where God comes before Moses and like describes his own character to Moses.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the first time in the Bible where God tells us who he is.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he lays out, he goes, I'm full of unfailing love and compassion and slow to anger and all those things.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, But I will not let the guilty go unpunished.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, at the end of the day, we do crave the justice that comes from a God who's not willing to overlook, you know, evil forever.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think exactly with what you're saying, like we want him to overlook our evil until we're deciding we're done with the evil.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we want him to stop overlooking other people's after one day.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where the tension comes and the double standard comes with how we view God's anger and justice and all of that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So this past week we talked about, man, we are we are contributing to the very um anger that we criticize.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so we want God to get even with these people.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: We want him to, like, whoever's responsible for the 70 girls or 70 kids in that tunnel, whoever's responsible for the wickedness that we read about and the hatred and the racism and the rape, and I mean all these things that we read about and see in our culture that we're like, where are you at, God?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we see God show up and judge, we're like, whoa, you know, God slowed out.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, we want people to judge their sin, just not our sin.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, does God have anger issues?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to say he does.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say issue, it's a play on words.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is it wrong?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, but he is going to judge sin.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that judgment of sin is an expression of his holiness.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So our again, anger is unrighteous, his is righteous, he is perfect because he's a perfect judge.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is again, not just misunderstanding God, but underestimating evil.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like we talk about sin or evil, and even when I use the word evil, I I don't think of myself as evil.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think of people that, you know, that that feels like like a narrow.1% or something.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the person who put the 70 kids in the top.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hitler's evil and that guy's evil.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody else is just like they're just making some mistakes.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unfortunately for us, God does not categorize that way.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're either righteous or unrighteous.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're either wicked or you're, you know, you're not.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the whole Bible kind of spends some different times in different ways helping us to understand that we shouldn't underestimate evil, that it is pervasive.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the Old Testament and in the new, one of the words that used is um it's leaven.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't bake bread, I go buy it on the wonder bread.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I go to the shelf and get it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But in the baking process, I understand they use something called leaven, and it just takes a little bit of leaven in a lump of in a lump of dough to leaven the whole lump.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul used that to say, hey, just just a little bit of evil, just a little bit of sin in your life.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't stay there, it spreads, it expands, it gets worse.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so while we look at the the judgment of God as like, why would he do that?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's because God understands if he doesn't stop evil, it's gonna spread and get worse and magnify and multiply.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so his judgment is not an expression of his wrath, it's really an expression of his mercy to keep sin from spreading.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I definitely think we we do that is we think I think one of the best lies that Satan uses is that we can handle our sin.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, no, no, I'm not I it doesn't have control of me.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not spreading.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just this one thing that happens if I stay up past midnight on weekends.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like otherwise, I'm like, I'm good.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I don't have a bad week at work, like I'm not going to the bottle.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't have a problem.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have full I I can stop it when I want.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is like a small part of me.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the difference, is we think we can kind of keep these things categorized and compartmentalized, but it's like you said, God knows that it will infect everything about us.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's either let the infection spread or he has to do something to to stop it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: This radical, you know, we talked, I think, before the podcast about, you know, somebody getting a a limb amputated because of gangrene.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if all you knew was, hey, this surgeon cut off one of your friends' the limbs, you'd think, what kind of wicked doctor?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute, why would they decide to do that?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, they had gangrene, the limb was rotting and spreading that rot, spreading that infection, and so they had to cut off the limb to save the life.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, all of a sudden, what first appeared like a crazy maniac doctor uh who should be sued, this is a doctor that knows knows what he's doing.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to save the life of his patient.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So lose a limb to save a life is really what God does in his judgment.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is he was willing to be radical in the Old Testament and be judgmental because he was trying to save humanity.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: If he did not judge sin, we would have lost all humanity.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's the story of Noah's Ark.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the story of the nation of Israel going into the promise saying, God needed a holy people.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's it's just coming back and saying, hey, I'm not asking anybody who hears these messages to be like, hey, I'm okay with it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: In our natural limited mind, we're gonna struggle.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there's reasons God does what he does.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's not immoral, he's righteous, he's holy, and he's gonna judge sin that while we underestimate it, he knows its impact and he's gonna be aggressive to cut it off.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um you know, I want to just have a little bit of conversation about week two, maybe some more like this idea again.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're we contribute to we contribute to it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, we don't feel like it.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Again, Paul, if you read Romans 1 and Romans 2, I love his setup.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Especially for church people and especially for LGBTQ issues, because that is the go-to.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's wrong to be gay.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said so in Romans 1, and the church cheers.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not Paul's point at all.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why he does basically say, hey, it's wrong to live this lifestyle, it's counter to who Christ is and counter to who we are being made in the image of God.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Man, he does this.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: This cat is fishing.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: He is so good at what he does and kind of lures you in.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute, it's not just LGBTQ issues.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: He gives this big long list, and we're still cheering as a church, yes, gossip is wrong and murder is wrong.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's chapter two, verse one, he's like, and you do the very same things.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's man, I I know that I've read that so many times, but getting ready for this message, it was just like a dagger to my heart because I am still I want people judged.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want me judged, and I don't think I should be because I'm I've become a pretty good guy, I'm a pastor, and I lead a church and I read my Bible now, but you know what?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: In my heart, I do some of the very same things.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I love the I love the fishing of the Apostle Paul, man, to pull people into this self-awareness of, you know, I made the statement, quit looking out the window and look in the mirror, and uh, we get a different focus of what we're seeing.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as someone that grew up in church and, you know, as a pastor, like I fall into the very thing that Jesus spent most of his ministry preaching against was the Pharisees and their self-righteousness and their following of the law, basically being like, we don't do those bad sins.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't do the egregious sins, we don't do the really bad stuff, we're not dealing with this homosexual stuff.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not doing, we're not murdering.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've never even gotten close to murdering.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I like hog tied my brother once and put him in a closet, but I didn't kill him, you know?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm like, yeah, that's me.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I'm doing really solid.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole thing Jesus was doing and what Paul's doing is like, but your heart's still really rotten.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like your behavior might be okay for this world and might meet the law and the moral standard of the world, but like your heart is disgusting, and like that's what I've come to heal, that's what I've come to fix.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what Paul's doing is he's doing the same thing Jesus did, he's just doing it to a group of people through writing instead of through the in-person parable.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's the same thing Jesus would do.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: He'd tell a story and make you think you were going to be the good guy, and then you find out you were the bad guy in the story.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what Paul's doing.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Yeah, you think you're the good guy, because look at all these bad things you don't do.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you're doing the same stuff.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's not a difference between murder and an anger in your heart towards someone that you wish them ill, even if you don't wish them dead, and you you have this bitterness towards them.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's the same sickness with just a different behavior.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I uh one of the terms that Jesus uses is um whitewash tombs, which you know isn't doesn't have a lot of uh cultural, you know, meaning to it.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: But basically they would put people in tombs back then.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now we bear dig a hole and put them in the ground.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, we put them in this six thousand dollar mahogany box with beautiful brass rails and you know, stitch pillows, and you know what?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's still a dead body in the box.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus' point is.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can dress up with religion and you can put on your best clothes, and you can brush your hair and brush your teeth, and sit on the front row with a big Bible and take great notes, and all the external stuff looks better, but if you don't address your heart, you're st God is gonna judge sin.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna bypass this phony facade that we put on, and he's gonna come to the issue, and the issue is our heart.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um so judgment didn't just come in the old testament, it's coming at the end of the New Testament.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus comes back, one of the reasons he comes back, according to Second Thessalonians, he's coming back in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know the gospel nor obey it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just this group of people like, hey, they just weren't Christian, it's no people that knew the gospel.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: They grew up in church.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: They knew the word, but they decided, hey, I can live a righteous or I can live a religious lifestyle without living a righteous lifestyle.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the more you put we put God on trial, at least for me through this series, I'm putting God on trial.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how God, how dare you?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, somehow God has put me on trial because he wants me to realize that, hey, I'm subject to judgment too.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm subject to the anger of God too, as long as I continue in a lifestyle that doesn't honor him or obey his word.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then you start to get that picture of like, oh yeah, you are pretty patient, aren't you?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like he is pretty patient with me, actually.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's not as angry as I thought, because now that I have a clearer picture of me, I realize that he's been pretty patient.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've made lots of promises to God that I would never I would never do what I said I would never do again lots of times.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just like, okay, bud.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the again, and the fact that the fact that God has not sent an Israelite to do to me what God allowed the nation of Israel to do to judge the Amorites and the Jebuzites and all those people.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then again, I mentioned this uh I think last week, or that was week one.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: The same way God used the nation of Israel to judge the sins of the Canaanites, God then used other wicked nations to judge the sin of the Israelites.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's again saying, hey, like, I don't have any favorites here.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want all of humanity.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I hate everybody's sin, but and I'm gonna judge it, but I love all of humanity, I want to save it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the tension between those two things, the tension between the righteousness of God and the wickedness of man, and God's patience and kindness and God's judgment and wrath, the all those are so tense.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think we're ever gonna come to this place where like, oh yeah, I get it, it makes perfect sense.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna continue to probably judge God's harshness in a way that's not deserving because we're gonna overlook the kindness that He's continued to give all of us.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you mentioned this, I want to I want to go back and maybe talk about Jesus because again, the picture is hey, God is so mean and evil and mad in the Old Testament, and Jesus is so kind.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we want hippie Jesus.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: We want the free-flowing robes and long hair, and he's out handing out flowers.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you really read the Bible, that's not the picture at all.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the stories you mentioned that Jesus is known for, that he not only does in the beginning of his ministry, but also he repeats this action at the end of his ministry, and that is cleansing the temple.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not familiar with the story, Jesus goes in and he flips the money changers' tables.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And people read that, and I I man, I hate it because we have merchandise here at Faith Church, like, hey, you can buy a sweatshirt with our name on it, you can get a cup of coffee.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And people come into our church or churches like ours, like, you know, they're they're you know, making it a den of thieves, or you know, if Jesus was here, he would flip the tables.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that story has nothing to do with selling sweatshirts or cups of coffee.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: What was happening and the reason Jesus responds the way he does is it was kind of a threefold um kind of bait and switch.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So at that time there were still sacrifices made in the temple so people could find forgiveness for their sins.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So someone would bring a sacrifice like a dove, and the responsibility of the priest was to examine it and make sure it was acceptable.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this threefold scam is the priest would reject it, even if it was an acceptable sacrifice according to the law.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: The priest would say, No, we won't accept it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now you have somebody that has sinned that needs a sacrifice and no longer has one.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd say, Hey, your sacrifice is no good, but guess what?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: We got some in the back for sale.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so they would take one of their sacrifices and sell it to the person who needed a sacrifice at a jacked up rate.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I don't know what the going rate of a dove was back then, but let's say it was a dollar, they would sell it for$10.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So your sacrifice is no good, even though it really is.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: They would reject it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then they would sell you on at a jacked up price, but then when the person would go to buy the sacrifice that they needed at an elevated price, they'd say, Well, here's here's ten denari, here's ten Roman coins.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we don't take Roman coins here, we only take temple coins.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they would take their conversion rate and rob you there.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Jesus was upset at is here's everyday people that just want to have access to God.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he made a way through the Old Testament law, through a sacrifice, and the religious people was making it impossible for everyday people to get to God.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And man, Jesus, what it looks like is he looks like he loses his mind.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: We know this because there's a detail in the story where Jesus goes and the Bible says he goes and makes a whip of cords.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how long does it take to make a whip of cords?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm sure you can wiki it.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You got to go find what you need, then sit down and tie it together, and then make a rope.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, Jesus was reflecting on what how he was going to respond to what he saw.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he takes this whip and he goes in and he gets angry, man.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: He flips over the money changers' tables, he drives them out.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, with this, so he's probably swinging the cords.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's God's anger expressed through Jesus.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he does it again at the Old Testament.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus hates sin as much as the Father does, and Jesus is going to judge sin as much as the Father did.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so the only escape is not to be offended by his anger, it's to lean into his mercy that's offered through the blood of Jesus.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, my hope is that again, I can help people navigate, and I myself can navigate past this unfair judgment of God's anger and come to a place where to say, Man, I I've misjudged God's anger and I've I've overestimated my righteousness.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: God is a righteous judge, and we're sinners.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, he's patient, and we want to turn before he judges us to the cross of Christ.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think another angle that's helped me with that thing with Jesus and the Father, and and how they get put at odds, is that um the word meek and how Jesus describes himself as meek, which I've kind of the best description I've heard of it that I've that's helped me is like um controlled power.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or and and that's really what it is, is it's this controlled divinity and power, and he's not expressing his anger at all the time.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, another part of that story is he was at the temple all the time.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't like he saw it for the first time, he's like, this is crazy, and he like flipped out.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like for however long he was going to the temple, he was seeing this happen over the course of time, and eventually the injustice that was happening was enough.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes out and he contemplates and he goes, I have to do something about this evil and this injustice that's happening in my father's house.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes in and he takes care of it, and then you you know, it's like that's what it was, it was over time, the injustice and the patience and the time that he took to react, it wasn't reactionary, it was methodical and it was it was righteous, and it was a small display of the power that he had because he could have done that all the time, he could have just been whipping people all the time.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: But he had, and that's exactly what God is that unfailing love, that long-suffering, that patience.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's the same thing.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is the perfect revelation of God.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's just Jesus was only here for 33 years.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, God put up with people for decades and decades and centuries.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, it is a it is still the exact same picture of who God is, is his default is mercy, but he will not let injustice go unpunished.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's also a hope that we can know that even in this world with all of the evil, eventually he will come and make it right through Jesus coming in the flame, like we crave him to make it right.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then he will.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mentioned Jesus does that exact same thing at the end of his ministry.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So John 2 is recorded the first time he goes into the temple and does it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then in Matthew, well, actually, all three of the uh synoptic gospels record Jesus at the end of his ministry.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to think, so Jesus, that was really a display of his mercy.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to let them know this is unacceptable how you're treating my people.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, some people went right back to it because he had to go back to it three and a half years and do it later.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if there was someone who was there the first time that learned his lesson and said, hey, this dishonors God and wasn't there the second time, because that's what God judgment is about.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's about when we experience it, God's trying to change our hearts to make us the people he's called us to be.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So do we get angry?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what we find is our anger is oftentimes misplaced, misunderstood, misjudged.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when you read the word of God and you understand the nature of God, that he is righteous and holy, God does get angry, but it's the right measure at the right people at the right time.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in between there, he is giving unfailing love and mercy.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful for it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: We need it.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So closing words?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, I think I think that's it, is as you face these moments of just like being clear and honest with yourself, and then understanding the patience that God has and that he desires to I would much rather have his judgment than like in Romans, being handed over to what I want.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because those seasons are much worse than when his kindness and mercy and love lead me to repentance.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't want to be abandoned to my wickedness.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be rescued by his wrath.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounds counterintuitive, but that's the gospel truth.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never I've not done this yet, but man, I just want to take a minute and pray for people watching this and hearing this because I think everybody finds themselves in a season of sin that they justify.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because nothing bad has happened yet, we tend to think, well, God must be okay with it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I want people to understand that God's patience is them, is God working on them to repentance.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, we're thankful that you're a God that uh is just.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Lord, we would expect a God that hates sin, including ours, to judge it.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we don't tolerate it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to tolerate it, and God, you're gonna judge it.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But Father, you want mercy for your people.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, I pray God, any person living or caught in a lifestyle of sin that they've chosen, God, while we're thankful for your mercy, Holy Spirit, we pray that God you would draw every single one of us, God, to repent of our sin and God to find mercy at the cross of Christ.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we thank you for it in Jesus' name.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you, go check out this message on the Does God Have Anger Issues?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's two.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a third one coming.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it at IGOTOFaith.com.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can find us on YouTube.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, lean in and continue to learn, and we'll see you next week at For the Extra Mile.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Pastor Austin.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.