A God of Mercy and Justice - session 2 - David Pawson - Divine Mercy Conference 2012

David passed and he was born in 1930 David began his career with a BSc in agricultural agriculture at Durham University in England with a newly acquired farm and Scotland's David was surprised when God intervened and led him to become a Christian minister after completing his MA in theology at Cambridge University David became a chaplain in the Royal Air Force for three years David moved on to Pastor a number of churches in England including the mill meat centre in Guildford were under David's caring leadership the church became a model for many UK church pastors in 1979 David was released from Guildford to fulfil a wider ministry to the nation of England and beyond David now has had now has had an itinerant ministry predominantly true seminars for church leaders worldwide millions of copies of his audio Bible teachings have been distributed to over 120 countries he's a writer and speaker of origin see clarity and uncompromising faithfulness to the scriptures he is widely considered to be one of the world's finest biblical expositors David and his wife Enid currently reside in the county of Hampshire in the UK so please put your hands together for mr. David Paz and we just say a prayer oh yes I have yes yeah yes I mentioned David spoke already unlocking the Bible it's only 10 euros by the way which is very good value so it's on sale outside of the stall so well worth getting so we just say a prayer now before he starts so Heavenly Father Lord Jesus we ask you to send your Holy Spirit on David know through the intercession of all the angels and saints and the communion of saints we ask you now to put your words on his heart and on his lips that you wish him to speak to us and open our hearts to receive those words in the spirit you want them received and we pray this now as a prayer of agreement to Christ our Lord amen amen good morning I have a more serious word for you today which I believe the Lord has laid on my heart may not be quite so many jokes and not quite so many stories but I've only been given 30 minutes so we've got a lot to put in let me read from the book of Exodus and God passed by the front of Moses proclaiming the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger abounding in love and faithfulness maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished he punishes the children and their children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation what an extraordinary statement it seems like a contradiction a God is loving and compassionate and gracious who punishes children and grandchildren for their father's sins it's all part of a great puzzle when you read the whole Bible and I hope you do when you read the whole Bible you get two pictures of the Lord which seemed to be contradictory sometimes he's blessing people at other times he's cursing people sometimes he's healing people other times he's killing them sometimes he pardons sin and sometimes he punishes it and right the way through the Bible these two things seemed to go by side and it raises a big question about the Lord which is he is he kind or cruel well that's the question I want to answer this morning because the real answer is he's both and if we don't keep them in balance we shall get unbalanced in our view of God and that's a very dangerous thing to do the real truth is that God is a God of justice and mercy and since Jesus his son is made in his exact image Jesus himself is this combination of justice and mercy but our little minds are too small to hold them together and we think they're not complementary but contradictory and we say which is God and in particular which will he be to me just or merciful will he punish me or pardon me will he bless me or curse me will he heal me or kill me which will he do and many people have wrestled with the answer to that problem and come up with a wrong answer to it some have read the Bible and say well I've come to the conclusion that God is a good god and a bad god and he does good things and bad things and I'll just have to accept God as he is and hope for the best that's not the answer to the problem many centuries ago there was a man called Marcion and he decided that there were two gods in the Bible one who was cruel and the other who was kind one who was just and the other who was merciful and he came to the conclusion that the God of the Old Testament is different from the god of the New Testament and he advised Christians not to read the Old Testament he said the Old Testament God kills people the Old Testament God is cruel and we believe in the god of the New Testament if that is so then why is the Old Testament in your Bible it would have been better to cut it out altogether wouldn't it that's how Marcion taught but having virtually cut out all the Old Testament he found he had to start cutting out bits of the new as well especially the book of Revelation because that has a lot of God's justice in it it tells us about a Jesus before whom people pray that the mountains will cover them up and hide them from the angry face of Jesus so he began to cut out bits of the New Testament and before it finished there wasn't much of the battle left the fact is that you read about the justice and the mercy of the Lord in both the Old Testament and the new but for a profound reason there is rather more justice than mercy in the Old Testament and rather more mercy than justice in the new because it is a new era that we've entered in the New Testament so that's not the solution either and the church condemned Marcion as a heretic and kept the Old Testament in our Bible and kept the whole Bible together and I'm a Bible teacher I've loved the Word of God and explained it to people for years now every part of it I love teaching to people it's the truth that sets people free so what is the answer of the Bible to this tension between the two and the answer is that God is both just and merciful and that we must keep them together and tell people that God is just hallelujah and God is merciful hallelujah both together in perfect harmony well now how can you put them together some people are still choosing to believe one or the other and that's dangerous and I want to say that if you only emphasize divine mercy then that is dangerous because it's only half the truth and without even thinking about it we can choose the bits of the Bible that we like and reject the bits that we don't like and that isn't fair to God I want to tell you about an alarming development in the Protestant churches of England which we are having to fight very hard in the name of the Lord and it's the feminizing of Christianity I know there are more women here than men and I hope you'll understand what I'm going to say but it began when preachers began to use a strange phrase they talked about the unconditional love of God I hope that phrase hasn't reached here has it come to Ireland yet have your head that's right put your hand up if you've heard it now put your hand up if you found that phrase in the Bible because the fact is nobody dead did the Bible doesn't talk about God's unconditional love the Bible says God loves those who fear Him and God loves those who keep his Commandments that's not unconditional loan but that phrase was the beginning of what I call the feminizing of Christianity it moved on to the ordination of women in most of the churches of Britain and this very week the Church of England has been discussing having women bishops it's gone on from there and the feminist pressure on the church I could take you to a Church of England Cathedral where hanging above the altar is a life-size crucifix and the figure of Christ on that cross is totally naked and totally female and it's hanging up above the altar in a Cathedral and it was sculpted by the granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill isn't that amazing and it's gone on from there we now have a new Bible it's called the inclusive aspersion and it was produced in America by the main Protestant denominations and in it God is both father and mother and in it Jesus is no longer the son of men he is the child of human being it's a new Bible and it's changed the Word of God to fit in with feminist theology there was a very clever journalist in the New York Times in America who reviewed this new Bible and he gave the most witty comment that I've ever heard he said the devil must be laughing her head off and that was quite brilliant because in that Bible the only person who is still male is the devil which gives the whole game away but this is a very serious development and we are fighting it I've written a little book called leadership Ismail I've been in terrible trouble for writing that there are copies of it in the other room but my you wouldn't believe they were there was a feminist protest outside a Christian bookshop that had that in the window and they were selling it in England from under the counter in brown paper bags in Christian book shops to people would you believe it but what is the serious side of all this I'm only talking about the Protestant churches I don't done I can't speak for the Catholic churches but this whole feminizing is simply this to women bless you mercy comes naturally you are the merciful sex the merciful gender and therefore when women are influencing the church in the teaching and doctrine invariably there's an overemphasis on mercy and an under emphasis on the justice of God and the righteousness of the Lord I'm going to quote now an anglican priest called John Henry Newman who transferred to the Church of Rome many years ago and was a cardinal in Rome and was actually beatified by the Pope on his last visit to England and he said this and I'm want to quote him exactly he said a heresy is the overemphasis on one truth at the expense of the elders now that's a profound and understanding remark to make if you take one aspect of God and overemphasize it at the expense of other aspects of God you become a heretic now I say this lovingly and advising Lee divine mercy can become a heresy if it's so emphasized at the expense of God's justice God is both and he wants us to know that he's both and he wants us to hold those two things together all the time so that we don't get unbalanced and so my question is how do we hold them together I think the best way to explain to you is to begin with our greatest human need what do we need more than anything else from the Lord well you might say food and we certainly need food and I need it every day to live but man shall not live by bread alone so food is not our greatest need though it can become that freedom is what many people are saying that's more important to human life than anything else food second freedom first but I want to tell you that the greatest need of every human being and everybody in this room is for forgiveness that's what we need and that's available to us through the Justice of God now you'd have thought that forgiveness was the supreme expression of his mercy but let me quote the Word of God if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness how can it be just for God because to let people off their sins is not just it's not right just to say well they're there we'll forgive and forget that's not right in fact let me say this it would be wrong of God immoral of God unjust of God if he let herself our sins and didn't punish them but there's a wonderful qualification I was speaking on television in England and I just said God is so good that he cannot forgive sins and there was a hush and one viewer said she was going to write to me and protest until I completed the sentence I said it would be wrong of God to forgive sins unless they'd been paid for and that makes all the difference God cannot forgive a single sin until it's been paid for until it's been punished and the truth of the gospel is very simple jesus paid it all and therefore God can now be just and forgive us because it's been paid for every act of forgiveness is written in Jesus blood how can anybody take forgiveness lightly when they realize that it's a very expensive thing forgiveness and someone has to pay and praise the Lord Jesus he has paid and you know where he paid it that means that there's one place and one place only where justice and mercy meet and that's at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ there was a hymn that I used to sing as a boy that I loved it began with the line beneath the cross of Jesus but one of the verses said this Oh safe and happy shelter Oh refuge tried and sweet where Heaven's love and heaven's justice meet what a wonderful song you see when you ask the Lord to forgive you you should be thinking of the cross every time and saying thank you Jesus for paying for it otherwise I couldn't be forgiven otherwise God wouldn't be just the only way he can be both is to punish someone else for our sins and that's the truth of the good news we have to tell a world somebody's paid for it all and therefore we can be forgiven that's what's needed on God's side somebody had to make atonement as we say somebody had to make amendment for all we had done and he did just that therefore God is just and the cross proves that he is and that when he forgives us he is being absolutely just because it's already been dealt with but the something that is needed on our side if it's to be a just thing for us to be forgiven and that's a word called repentance and many Christians I talked to don't seem to understand that word you cannot be forgiven without Jesus death and without your repentance you can't forgive someone if they haven't repented I've had a lot of people say on television after they have suffered terribly through the crime of someone else I forgive them but you can't do that you can be sure that there's no bitterness or resentment in your own heart but that's not forgiveness forgiveness is a restored reconciled relationship with the one who wronged you and you can only do that with someone who is repenting jesus said in answer to the question how often shall I forgive my brother he said seven times a day forgive your brother if he repents and you know many people have not noticed those three little words in that statement forgive your brother seven times a day if he repentance because only those who repent and truly repent of doing wrong can be reconciled and restored into a proper relationship you can cut bitterness out and I hope you do because it'll only damage you to be bitter after somebody has done you wrong but there isn't forgiveness of reconciliation until they say I repent and God cannot forgive us unless we truly repent so we've got to ask what is repentance it's different from regret a lot of people I think go to confession because they regret what they've done they're sorry that they did it but really regret is simply regretting that you've let yourself down and repentance is not remorse remorse is what you feel when you realize what you've done to someone else to your loved one to your children and then remorse kicks in which is a deep feeling of sorrow about what you've done to other people but repentance is the feeling that kicks in when you realize what you've done to God himself when you realize that you've thrown his love back in his face that you've broken his Commandments that you've lived the way he didn't want you to live when you realize what you've done to God not to yourself not to other people but to God you begin then to repent truly and repentance is something that begins in your mind with the way you think it then moves into what you say and then finally repentance reaches its climax in something you do repentance is an act of thought word and deed the repentance of thought is conviction when you are convinced that God's Way was the best way and that you chose the wrong one it's when you realize how far you've fallen short you see God knows what I could have been at my age God knows if I had responded to him as I should have done what endless difficulty I'd have avoided that I would reach today with no regrets that I would look back over life and feel that I'd done it right I can't do that I've got regrets choices I made that were not his choice that's the beginning of repentance when you think his way and realize what he thinks bad for example our wonder if you have ever realized how seriously God regards debt I've been asking Protestant congregations in Britain how many of you are in debt and two-thirds of the congregations are putting their hands up I'm in debt and the Bible says debt is stealing you can steal in two different ways one is by withholding by taking money from someone else that's stealing but the other is by withholding money from someone to whom it's Jew it's their money and you are holding it from them you are in debt now let me make it quite clear you're not in debt with the mortgage on your house you're only in debt if you get behind with payments that's all and yet many many people who took a house that they really couldn't afford when days were good now find themselves in debt with no negative equity and the New Testament tells us where to get out of debt as quickly as we can because money belongs to that person we owe it to an amazing and then the sin of worry I'm worried because of God's worried about my worrying and yet that is a major sin that Jesus said it shows you're not trusting your Heavenly Father if you're worried about something then you're not trusting it's as simple as that and so I could go on when you start thinking God's Way and that comes from reading your Bible and really understanding how he sees your life that's the beginning of repentance but it's only the beginning and the second step of true repentance is to put it into words and confess your sins now in the Bible confession is always of sins plural it's not to say I'm a sinner it's to say I have sinned in this way I was once counseling a girl in Canada and she wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit and we prayed and nothing happened the Holy Spirit didn't come and I said we'll have to pray a different prayer and I said Lord will you please show this dear young lady what's holding her up what the blockage is and she opened her eyes and looked at me she said I know what it is I said what she said I'm not telling you and off she went to a big department store in Vancouver where she had once worked as the secretary to the big boss and one day she'd been on her way out of the office through the big shop to the street to go home and she saw a necklace a rather attractive not very expensive necklace it was maybe ten dollars and she just quietly slipped it into her pocket and went away and forgot all about it and enjoyed wearing it and as we were praying for the Holy Spirit to fill her this came into her mind and she went out and got in a car and went down to the big store which she hadn't worked in for some years and she the big boss was still in his office upstairs and she went to him and she put ten dollars on the desk and he said what's that for she said years ago I stole a necklace from this shop and she said that's to pay for it and the boss said oh you it doesn't really matter it's just ten dollars forget it you worked here and she said no it's it's stopping me being filled with the Holy Spirit well he didn't understand what all that was about so and he looked as if he'd been lifting things from the shelf as well but she said no I've got to pay for it and she put the $10 on the desk and she walked out of the office and she got into a car to come back to where I was and she switched the ignition on and switched herself on and was filled up to overflowing with the Holy Spirit and then she came back and told me you see she discovered the third step of repentance which is to do something about it John the Baptist said if you're repenting I'll baptize you but you must prove that you've repented and they said well how do we prove that he said if you've got too many clothes go and give some away to people who haven't gone 'tony and if you're extorting taking more money from people than you should go and pay them back he said bring forth fruits worthy of repentance and sin Paul when he was cold of the Lord he said I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision and you know what he said next wonder if anybody could tell me put your hand up if you could know well he said I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision so I preached repentance to the Gentiles that they should turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds that's a very interesting phrase and God calls us to do that to prove our repentance by our deeds I'm thinking now of a young man who was a bit of a Hells Angel do you have Hells Angels over here he always dressed in black leather with brass studs all over and he had a big motorbike with handlebars out here and lots of mirrors and things and he came to my door one day burn I heard him coming a long way and he rang the bell and I said hello Paul what can I do for you he said I want to talk right I said come on in and he came in with his brass studs and he squirmed into our armchair in the lounge it still bears the marks of the breast tones and I said what you want to talk about Paul he said I want to be baptized I'd have said Paul do you know how we baptize people here he said yeah you do come in the water I've seen you and you want me to duck you in the water yes I said Paul do you know what the word repent means no I said well listen go home and ask Jesus this question is there anything in my life that you don't like and when he tells you cut it out and come back and I didn't see him or hear him for three weeks and then bernburg there he was I said come on in Paul what is it he said there I said what do you mean there of stop biting my nails and so I said Paul I will now baptize you and I did and he's never looked back of one other story to tell can I tell it I was in Aberdeen in Oil City where all the oil from the North Sea comes ashore and I was preaching three nights in a theater and on the second night a girl came up to me and she was shaking she was blotchy face she was crying she was in a dreadful state nothing what it was the matter she said Oh mr. Paulson you frustrate me and I said why she said you've made me want to be a Christian and I said what's wrong with that that's why I came but she said I've tried she said I've responded at so many meetings I've gone to the front when the preachers had come out of the front I've been counseled she said I've gone through everything and nothing has changed and she said I came to the conclusion there's nothing in it and then she said my friend persuaded me to come and listen to you tonight and it's all happening again I want to be a Christian so I looked her in the eye and I said who are you living with and she said a young man I said are you married to him No are you living as if you were married yes why aren't you married because he doesn't believe in it he says it's just a bit of paper well then I said I'm sorry I can't make this decision for you but you can't go on living with the young man and Jesus he doesn't join in an arrangement like that then she got really cross with me she said nobody else told me that and I said nobody else has been able to help you and I'm trying to help you but turned around and she ran out of the theater sobbing her heart out I've prayed for that girl I've been back to Aberdeen I've never seen her again I wonder where she is now the simple truth is she hadn't repented and therefore God couldn't forgive that's my message to you don't ever let divine mercy become a heresy by overemphasizing it at the cost of his justice he is both and my very last word is this you will get it in balance if you remember that Jesus is coming back that he's visiting our planet Earth twice he came the first time to bring God's mercy to us he is coming the second time to bringing God's justice to the whole world and if we live between those two comings and keep our eyes on both we'll keep the Lord's great justice and mercy in perfect Bible balance thank you for listening

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Length: 37min 53sec (2273 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2016