I like the applause before the message. It means that if I preach a stinker I at least got some acknowledgement for all the hard work. Scott Brown believes in participation trophies. You heard it here first. The title of my message is, learning the lessons of the judgments.

Most of the conference has been geared towards being in a land of judgment, in a time of judgment, and how God's people can and should function in that environment. And that's right on, that's good. My time, however, is for asking and answering the questions, why were they under judgment, And what lessons can and should we learn from those judgments? Now one thing I think I should say before I get started, there are a couple of distinctions that exist. For instance, the differences between judgment and discipline.

They're the same in some ways, different in other ways. So there's a distinction there between judgment and discipline. And also nuances surrounding God's dealings with a corporate body and God's dealings with an individual. So there's some distinctions there. So I wanna acknowledge those and then say, I'm not going to deal with those distinctions at all.

If I was writing a book, I would. If I had a 40-minute time slot for a message, I wouldn't. But I think the points that I'm making will be generally sound even without unraveling those two distinctions. I just wanted to put it on your radar. I'm aware that those distinctions exist, But I don't think I need to untangle them in order to make these points.

Let's ask for God's help. Our God, please set your spirit working, helping. We acknowledge our great need, our slowness to pick up truth, But we want all the punches to land and we want to be moved and helped. We want to make progress. I pray that your spirit would be here doing that work in Jesus name.

Amen I want to begin by reading a little bit from the first Chapter of Isaiah This is Isaiah chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos which he saw concerning Judah in Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah Hear O heavens and give ear O earth For the Lord has spoken I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not consider. A last sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.

They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward. Skipping down to verses 13 and 14, bring no more feudal sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me, the new moons, the Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates.

They are a trouble to me. I am weary of bearing them." He's essentially saying, stop coming to the temple and even doing the things that I've told you to do in worship. You're full of iniquity. It's inconsistent with my worship, so just don't worship that way if you won't abandon your iniquity. Now these things were written more than 100 years before the Babylonian captivity.

When God brought the judgments of the Babylonian captivity, it was following centuries of sending prophets to warn the people. Isaiah wasn't the first, Isaiah wasn't the last, he's sort of in the middle of a string of prophets that God has sent to warn the people to repent and turn or else he will bring these judgments which means that those judgments also followed centuries of stubborn disobedience. Centuries of stubborn disobedience. So there is a lot to learn here about God and about ourselves and about times of judgments. And I want to consider eight.

I'm going to give you eight lessons from the judgments. For each of those eight, I'll give you the lesson and a passage of Scripture, and a brief explanation, and I'll conclude with the summary. Are you ready? Lesson number one. God is perfectly good, and that means that he hates sin.

Those two things have to be true together. That God is perfectly good must mean that he hates sin. The key text for this lesson is Jeremiah 9 verses 23 and 24. Listen to Jeremiah 9 verses 23 and 24. The rich man glory in his riches but let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord exercising loving kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth for in these I delight says the Lord I fear the modern church has put a period after loving-kindness am the Lord exercising loving kindness, period, as if loving kindness is the only expression of who God is.

Of course, loving kindness is an expression of who God is, a precious expression. We love that expression of who God is, but no, He is the Lord and as God, acting out of His perfect goodness, He exercises loving-kindness, He exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, period. Because he delights in all of those. He exercises all of those because he delights in all of those. He exercises all of those because he delights in all of those.

He loves all of those. No one can expect this God who has revealed Himself in Scripture to do nothing in the face of stubborn obedience. It is utterly inconsistent with who he is to do nothing in the face of stubborn disobedience. He can't do nothing because of who he is. So we shouldn't be amazed to see catastrophic judgment, to see the destruction of Jerusalem and the inhabitants taken into captivity.

We should be amazed at the long suffering of God, that it took centuries to get there. We should be amazed at the grace of God. That should amaze us, knowing how much he delights in righteousness. He delights in righteousness. In summary, It is God's perfect goodness which initiates judgment.

Because God delights in righteousness. He hates unrighteousness and responds against it. And it must be that way because of who he is. Lesson number two, the Judgments are a history of people who will not hear. When you find the judgments in the Scriptures, you find the people who will not hear God.

The key text is 2 Chronicles 36 verses 15 through 21. Listen as I read 2 Chronicles 36 verses 15 through 21. And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending them, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or on the weak.

He gave them all into his hand and all the articles from the house of God great and small, the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her Sabbath. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. God did his part times a million.

He sent prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet. What did the people do? They mocked and despised His messengers. They scoffed. Listen to what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 25 verse 3.

In Jeremiah 25 verse 3, Jeremiah says, this is the 23rd year in which the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened. You have not listened. It was the 23rd year that God had been sending warnings to the people through Jeremiah. After 23 years, Jeremiah says, it's been 23 years and you have not listened. Then just a few verses later, Jeremiah says, for God, because you haven't listened, I'm sending Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon and he'll take you to Babylon for 70 years.

He named the kingdom, he named the king, and they still didn't listen and they still didn't repent. The judgments of God are not out of the blue. They sometimes seem out of the blue to people who ever refuse to listen. If the judgments of God ever catch up with you, it's not because they've come out of the blue. They seem like it they came out of the blue because you wouldn't listen.

You haven't been listening. In summary, God is a God who speaks. God is a God who speaks, and He sends preachers to preach this word. And you have 10 Bibles in your house, 20, 30. We must be a people who listen.

God is a God who speaks. We must be a people who listen. God is a God who speaks. We must be a people who listen. God speak.

We're listening. We'll act on what you say. Lesson number three. David or whoever, I don't have a time that I can see, So if you can fix that, and I didn't bring a time piece with me, so I'm gonna go and assume that that'll come up at some point. Lesson number three.

God keeps every promise And sometimes that is a fearful thing. The key text for this is Deuteronomy 30 verses 15 through 18. Listen to Deuteronomy 30 verses 15 through 18. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish.

You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. If you will not love the Lord your God and walk in his ways, if you choose death and evil, you shall surely perish. That too is a promise. Deuteronomy 28 is a full chapter dedicated to blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. And it's as if the second part of that chapter didn't exist, as if the promise-keeping of God only extends to the exceedingly great and precious promises." That's what Peter calls them in 2 Peter 1 verse 4.

He calls the promises of God that we love and cherish and call upon God to fulfill the exceedingly great and precious promises, as if there are only those in Scripture that's not true. There are exceedingly terrifying promises in Scripture, too. And we should know this, God's going to keep them all. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." Galatians 6 verses 7 and 8. Which is it? Can we mock God or not? Can we persistently sow to the flesh and yet still expect to continue to reap God's blessing?

The answer is obvious, no, of course not. In summary, some of the promises of God, some of the promises God will keep are the consequences for stubborn disobedience. Some of the promises God will keep are the consequences, are the judgments for stubborn obedience. Lesson number four. The long-suffering of God is easily misinterpreted.

The patience of God is so easily misunderstood, so easily misinterpreted. The key text is Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11. Listen to Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11, because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Because the sentence against an evil work judgments for evil is not executed speedily. It doesn't always follow right on the heels of the act, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Devastatingly wrong conclusion to draw from the data. What is the data?

I sin, nothing happens. I sin again, nothing happens again. I go deeper into sin, nothing happens. I draw a conclusion. Either God doesn't know or God doesn't care or both.

Devastatingly wrong conclusion. Actually God is long-suffering. He's patient. The wages of sin is death. We should be glad He doesn't pay death right on the heels of every sin.

He's long-suffering. He's patient. He's long-suffering, he's patient. And your abuse of his patience actually aggravates the eventual outcome. So there is the sin and then the sin and then the sins always going deeper and your abuse of His patience is it compounds it.

It aggravates the eventual outcome. It makes it worse. In 2nd Peter 3, Peter speaks of scoffers who say, where is the promise of Jesus's coming? It was all this talk about Jesus is coming. Where is the promise of it?

All things continue as they've always been. What Peter says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness but is long suffering toward us not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance this is second Peter 3 9 The lessons of the judgments teach us that any delay without repentance is nothing more than a temporary reprieve to allow time for repentance. The delay is to allow time for repentance. It is the long suffering of God. It is the patience of God.

It is the mercy of God, not the inattentiveness or the apathy of God. So it was the mercy of God, but you thought it was the inattentiveness. He's not paying attention or the apathy. He doesn't care. You drew the wrong conclusion, a devastatingly wrong conclusion.

In summary, it is an abuse of the grace of God to presume that his patience will continue forever. It is an abuse of God's grace to presume that his patience will never end. It is sinful presumption. Lesson number five. Two key areas of stubborn disobedience were thanklessness and trading God for unworthy things.

Two key areas of stubborn disobedience, it was these areas of stubborn disobedience that sent them into captivity, the two key areas were thanklessness and trading God for unworthy things. The key text is Jeremiah 2, verse 7 and verse 13. So the publisher's uninspired heading over the chapter, this chapter in my Bible is this, God's case against Israel. So this is early in the book of Jeremiah. This is right at the time of the judgments and the captivity around the time.

And in chapter 2, God's making His case against Israel. The whole chapter would be a profitable study for us. We'd learn many lessons about the judgments, but for the sake of time, I've plucked out two verses that get right to the crux of God's case against Israel. Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 7. God says, I brought you into a bountiful country to eat its fruit and its goodness, but when you entered you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination." God brought an enslaved people out of slavery.

And then a homeless people into a home of plenty it's known over and over again in the Old Testament as the land of milk and honey And then they defiled it with their stubborn disobedience. God gave them houses they didn't build, wells they didn't dig, Vineyards they didn't plant, cities they didn't establish. And they treated it like that was nothing. You gave us nothing. Such ingratitude.

Such thanklessness. Such ingratitude, such thanklessness. Now leave God out of it for a minute. This is the kind of thing that makes all people furious. You give something that's precious and it just gets cast aside like it was nothing.

This kind of treatment makes anyone furious. Any one of us would be furious. Now imagine God being treated that way. It makes me say, how did God wait for one second? He waited for centuries.

How did he wait for a second? Verse 13, still in Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." So a trade gets made in this verse. God, the fountain of living waters, He was forsaken, and in His place were the man-made replacements which in the final analysis are worthless. They traded the fountain of living waters for nothing.

These were the two great evils. I'm just drawing the exact words out of this verse. These were the two great evils. I'm just drawing the exact words out of this verse. These were the two great evils.

Setting aside the infinitely valuable God. What is the worth of God? Nobody knows because there's not that much. Setting aside the infinitely valuable God who had put His own name on them, who had brought them out of slavery and given the homeless a homeland of milk and honey, of abundance, and taking up in his place worthless things. Now, What kind of an idiot would do that?

I am that kind of idiot. You are that kind of idiot. There is a sense in which every compromise meets that description. So many of our schedule choices, Our money choices, our time choices meet that description. Trading the God of living waters for broken cisterns, a cistern is a receptacle for water, only it's broken so it holds no water.

It's nothing. It's nothing. In summary, thankfulness to God and treasuring God above all other things keeps us under the shadow of His wing. Sort of the flip side of the coin. In gratitude and trading him for nothing brings judgments, but thankfulness to God and treasuring him above every other thing keeps us under the shadow of his wing.

That's where we need to be. That's where we want to be. His judgment is not for those who are thankful for those who treasure Him above all other things. Lesson number six. God doesn't hold people guiltless who bring reproach on His name.

God doesn't hold people guiltless, or you could say He holds them guilty, who bring reproach on His name. The key text is Exodus 20 verse 7 Exodus 20 verse 7 you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain With this the third commandment cussing is the least of our problems. Adding God's name to a cuss word to make it a cuss phrase is certainly a problem, But the crux of the third commandment isn't that. It is taking the name of God upon yourself. The God of Scripture is my God and I belong to Him.

I am a Christian. I take the name of Christ upon myself and then not showing evidence of transformation. I have the name, but I have no evidence of any transformation, of transformation. No. You're a Christian, many of you, you know Christians, is the transformation incomplete?

Yes, sadly. Is the transformation slow? Yes, sometimes agonizingly. Is there a gospel that doesn't transform? Not in the Bible.

You've got to find another book for that. You've got to go to another book for a gospel that doesn't transform. The Bible only knows of a gospel that transforms. I knew I'd get an amen from that one. When the God of Scripture is your God on the basis of faith in Jesus and you belong to Him, the Holy Spirit indwells you and makes you holy too.

He's a Holy Spirit. He comes and He lives inside you and He makes you holy too by degrees. Incomplete now will be complete in heaven. Slowly now sometimes, but he makes you holy too by degrees. If that's not happening, keep God's name out of it.

If that's not happening, leave God out of it. Listen to 2 Chronicles 7 verses 19 through 22. 2 Chronicles 7 verses 19 through 22. But if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot them from my land which I have given them. And this house which I have sanctified for my name I will cast out of my sight and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And as for this house which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, why has the Lord done this to his land and his house? Then they will answer, because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt and embraced other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore, he has brought all this calamity on them. That's what they did. They took up other gods, embraced other gods, and worshiped these other gods and served these other gods.

And that's what God did. He brought all the promised calamity upon them. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. In summary, if you don't intend to obey him, if you don't intend to follow him, keep God's name off of your life. When you take His name upon yourself, there is a sense in which you put yourself in the crosshairs.

Take His name upon you by trusting in His Son Jesus Christ, but then follow Him. Lesson number seven. God doesn't hold people guiltless who cheat His day. God doesn't hold people guiltless who cheat his day. God doesn't hold people guiltless who cheat his day.

The key text is Nehemiah 13 verses 17 and 18. Nehemiah 13 verses 17 and 18. Nehemiah 13 verses 17 and 18. Now here the people have already gone into captivity and served their time in captivity and God has brought back a remnant to Jerusalem. They've been released, set at liberty to come back.

We read this. Here, Nehemiah is governing in Jerusalem, and we read this in Nehemiah 13 verses 17 and 18. Nehemiah says, then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, what evil thing is this that you do by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do thus and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.

Nehemiah attributes the Babylonian captivity, at least in part, to cheating God's day. God had laid claim to a day, rested on that day Himself in creation week, declared it to belong to Himself, and commanded His people to keep it and observe it in the Ten Commandments. It was to be part of their weekly rhythm of life, rest for their bodies and minds, and a time to feed their souls as they honored God. But they knew better than God. And they cheated the day, and that was a key reason for them being taken into captivity, at least according to Nehemiah.

Let me say this, New Testament saints. Everyone must do something with the phrase, the Lord's Day. Everybody's got to do something with that phrase. In Revelation 1 verse 10, the apostle John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. So decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, deep into the apostolic age, in the final deposit of written revelation, the Lord Jesus has a day.

And no one can convince me that it isn't to be part of our weekly rhythm of life, rest for our bodies and minds, and a time to feed our souls as we honor the Lord. In summary, to cheat the Lord's day is to cheat the Lord, is to cheat yourself. Your body and your mind need it. Your soul needs it. And to invite the discipline of God into your life, yes, I really believe that.

But that's the minority report. That's not the majority report anymore. I can't help that. I just know that whether it's true or not true is not determined when we count noses. What does the Bible say?

Lesson number eight, the judgment of God is rarely the final word. The judgment of God is rarely the final word. The judgment of God is rarely the final word. The key text, 2 Chronicles 7 verses 12 through 16. This is the second time God appeared to Solomon and just after the temple was completed and Solomon had dedicated it.

We read in 2 Chronicles 7 12 through 16. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land Now my eyes will be open in my ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house that my name may be there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually." God never intended the Babylonian captivity to be the final word, even to the point that He gave instructions long beforehand for what to do when such a judgment came upon them. He told them exactly what to do when such a judgment came upon them.

He told them exactly what to do when such a judgment came upon them. Centuries before, what should they do? Humble themselves. What should they do? Pray and seek God's face.

What should they do? Turn from their wicked ways and true repentance. Then God expresses His willingness to hear, forgive, heal. God wants to hear and forgive and heal. God is eager to hear and forgive and heal.

In the book of Habakkuk, God reveals His plans for judgment to the prophet Habakkuk. And in Habakkuk 3 verse 2, Habakkuk cries out, In wrath, remember mercy. In the exercise of your anger, don't forget mercy, O God. And God does. Even in His wrath, He remembers mercy.

In summary, God engages in judgment, but He delights in mercy. That's the exact phrase from Micah 7, 18. Micah 7, 18, you find this phrase, he delights in mercy. So he engages in judgment, he delights in mercy. How do we know?

Jeremiah 29, We've been studying it all weekend. It's a letter to the captives to tell them how to prosper in their captivity. He's still caring for them, even in their captivity. That's what the whole letter is for, to care for them. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are about the people when the time was up for the judgment that the judgment was over and he brought them back.

It was never the last word. What is an even more convincing proof? The cross. The cross. The cross.

If you want to know if God hates sin, Look to the cross. If you want to know if God is utterly unable in His perfect goodness to overlook your sins, look at the cross where He pours out His fury against our rebellion on that man. Simultaneously, if you want to know if God remembers mercy in judgment because He delights in mercy, look to the cross. You're not on that cross. Why not me?

Because God remembers mercy in judgment because He delights in mercy. And so He offers an innocent one to stand and take the full fury of God against my rebellion. He can't overlook my sins, so he pours out his fury against my sins on that man. You see, all of the judgments in The Bibles are types. The flood is a type.

The Babylonian captivity is a type. Sodom and Gomorrah is a type. What is a type? A type is something that points forward to and teaches about a greater reality to come. It points forward to, look at this greater reality to come and it teaches us about it.

And in the case of the judgments, The greater reality is the return of Jesus Christ. He came in humility to save. He's coming again in power to judge. The cross is the only remedy for that judgment. The cross is the only remedy for that judgment.

The cross is the only remedy for any judgment. God never turns away a single one who comes to him for mercy. Maybe that is the great lesson of the judgments. Oh God you did not spare your only son, you didn't hold back Jesus. How will you not with him Give those who trust in Him all things.

Thank you for the judgments for the sake of what they teach us to flee to you for mercy. I pray that there would be some in this room who would flee to you for mercy today. I pray it in Jesus name, amen.