Pastor’s Blog 3.5.19

Goodness and Severity

I am alarmed today at the unbalanced presentation of the Kingdom of God to our culture by the mainstream church. Is a half truth the truth or not? There is a gift inside my heart that the Lord gave me that feels like spiritual equilibrium. It is like an internal gyroscope that causes me to discern when the truth is not being presented in the balanced nature of God. I say it is a gift because it was not so much learned as felt. I can’t always put my finger on what I am feeling, but I know when the church is unbalanced. I personally believe this is part of the gift of an Apostle (from the Lord) and I know I have that gift by the fruit of what has been done through me by the Lord for the last 35 years.

In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul is trying to explain to the Gentile church how they were included in the Kingdom by being grafted in by faith and basically not to get a big head toward Israel who for a time was cut off.

Romans 11:19-23

19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”

20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.

22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity ; but toward you, goodness , if you continue in His goodness . Otherwise you also will be cut off.

23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. NKJV

The message of eternal security is challenged in this passage as well as many others. “If you don’t continue, you also will be cut off.” It wouldn’t be just of God to say Israel could be saved then lost, and not the Gentiles would it? They were saved by faith just as we are and was revealed by Abraham, as his “faith was accounted as righteousness.” The Passion translation calls the severity of God the “strict justice of God.”

When the Kingdom message is presented with only the goodness and not the severity of God, it is no longer the accurate portrayal of the nature of the Kingdom.

The fear of the Lord is still the fear of the Lord in the New Covenant. When you remove the strict justice of God’s nature and make it all goodness and mercy the results are always the same, people will continue to live in the pleasure of sin. Here is what the Apostle Paul warned about this presumptive attitude:

Romans 5:20-6:7

20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,
21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6

6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. NKJV

God has a balanced nature and we should imitate Him.

Psalm 85:10

10 Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed. NKJV

Our God is a loving Father and we need to see Him in the light of the truth, we will dig deeper into this next week!

Be Blessed!