In this thought-provoking episode, host Rick Hughes examines the intricate concepts of God’s justice and righteousness, using scriptures from Jeremiah and other biblical references. Through a profound analysis, he challenges listeners to understand God’s expectations and the importance of aligning oneself with divine principles rather than human emotions. Rick dives deep into historical contexts, highlighting the timeless essence of God’s love and justice and their relevance in today’s turbulent times.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, please stick around. It’s going to be a lot of fun, some motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And, of course, you know we don’t do any manipulation. We’re not trying to con you. We’re not trying to solicit money. We’re not asking you to join anything. We’re not asking you to give up anything. We’re just asking you to listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify the Word of God for your life. And if I can do that, you’re free to orient and adjust to the plan. That’s always up to you. But at Rick Hughes Evangelistic Ministries, we’ve been doing this show now 15 plus years, over 100 cities across America, every Sunday morning. And we are very honored and appreciate you giving us your time to listen to us today. Let me remind you of a couple of things that all of our shows are indeed podcasted. On the podcast venues like Apple iPod or Spotify, Breaker, Anchor, you can always go type in The Flot Line, F-L-O-T, and find the show and listen anywhere, anytime, any day across the world. We have a lot of printed material that we’ve printed for you and make available for you. The latest one is Crash Course in Christianity. And this is so you can understand what God expects out of us, how we grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have a lot of transcript books where we’ve taken our 2019 shows, our 2020 shows, put them all in transcripts so you can read them yourself from a book one at a time if you’d like to have that. All of this is free upon request along with other books as well you can find on our website. rickhughesministries.org. So thank you for praying for us. Thank you for tuning in and for being faithful. I love getting letters. I love hearing from you. We always have to decide what stations we’re going to stay and maintain on. And if we’re going to purchase time, we’d like to know we’re being effective in that. So if you’re listening somewhere, let us know that you’re part of the program. We always appreciate that. We want to talk today about a subject that may be boring to some people, but to others, it might be quite interesting. As we see things happening in the world today, sometimes we wonder if God even pays attention. You know, there was a big thing going on a few years ago about God is dead, and that was a joke. God is not dead. God is never dead. So if you think God is dead, you’ve lost your morals. But God is aware of what’s going on in this country, and nobody’s going to get away with anything. Sometimes we wonder why the Lord doesn’t step in and stop some of this foolishness that we see going on. So we’re going to talk today about the justice of God, God’s justice. We’ll start out a little bit in Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24, where Jeremiah wrote these words after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC under Nebuchadnezzar. But the Jews, unfortunately, were not in the mood to listen to Jeremiah, so they fled to Egypt and probably where Jeremiah died in Egypt, but God’s seeking those who know him. God’s seeking those who understand him. And here’s the key to this. He wants those who know him to understand his justice and his righteousness. Now, we understand that God is love. The Bible tells us that in 1 John 4, 8. God is love. And we know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. We know God loves you, and I know God loves me. Isn’t that wonderful? God has a sense of humor. He can love a jerk like us, but he loves us. There’s no doubt about that. Even when we fail, he loves us because it’s called the unfailing love of God. So God says in Jeremiah, he wants us to understand his love, his justice, and his righteousness. And his love, you gotta remember now, that God’s love is not emotional like our love. We get turned on by certain things, but God is not manipulated by emotions. And we have to learn not to live by our emotions as well, because emotions always react to situations. And when you have the right kind of mentality, which is the mind of Christ, you can respond to situations with faith rest, with using personal and impersonal love for God, things like this that we teach on The Flatline. So God is love, but he’s not emotional love like ours, since it’s part of his unchangeable essence. Because God is sovereign and God is immutable, that’s the key word, immutable, he doesn’t change. He loves us as much today as he did 100 years ago and as he will in the future. But you have to recognize this, that justice is like a guard. Justice stands guard over God’s righteousness. And I will explain that to you. But if you put in your mind that justice is a guard standing there watching over the righteousness of God, then you’ll understand what Jeremiah writes here because God knows everything. He sees everything and no one’s going to escape his justice. I repeat, no one will escape his justice. He sees everything. 2 Chronicles 16, 9, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him. And that’s all God’s looking for is fidelity in your part, for you to be faithful, for you to be loyal. The question is, loyal and faithful about what? Well, number one, to represent the Lord Jesus Christ through your life as you grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. as you become a mature believer, as you go through all the various tests, momentum testing that we face, you come to the place where you glorify Jesus Christ to the maximum in your life. So listen now as I read to you what Jeremiah said about the justice of God. It’s very important that you understand this. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. This is what the Lord says. “‘Don’t let the wise man boast in his wisdom,’ and don’t let the strong man boast of his strength, and don’t let the rich man boast of his riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this, that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, and I exercise kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. It’s in these things that I delight, declares the Lord. Did you hear that? If you want to brag about something, don’t brag about how much money you have, Don’t brag about how much you can bench press or how strong you can curl some weights. Don’t brag about how smart you are. Brag about you understand God. What do you need to understand? You need to understand his loving kindness. You need to understand his justice. And you need to understand his righteousness to those that are on this earth. Because he said here, these are the things I delight in, declares the Lord. My former pastor before he went to be with the Lord, R.B. Thiem, Jr., said these words. The justice of God is the guardian of the righteousness of God. And what the righteousness of God rejects or says no to, then the justice of God judges. You have to remember that. So if you think you’re going to go to heaven because you’re good and you don’t smoke and you don’t drink and you don’t cuss and you don’t dance and you don’t do whatever, the righteousness of God will not be impressed because there’s none that are righteous, no, not one, the Bible says. And if the righteousness of God is not impressed, then the justice of God will judge you. So here’s an important principle to remember. It is impossible for God’s justice to make a mistake. He can’t do it. He’s omniscient. Big words now. Omniscient, he’s all-knowing. Omnipotent means he’s all-powerful. And omnipresent means he’s always present. That means that God can be in the Ukraine and God can be in America at the same time. And I’m sure a lot of people are praying in those two countries right now. He has the power to change anything, and he’s smart enough to know what took place in eternity past. He’s omniscient, and God knows what’s going to take place in eternity future. He wrote it in the Bible for us. We just don’t believe it. We kind of come to our own conclusion about what’s going to happen in the future. Oh, the earth’s going to be destroyed by green gas, and we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do that. You will never destroy this earth. Only God can do that. He told us in the Bible how it’ll end. And he’s in charge. He’s omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. He does not make a mistake. So here, listen carefully. I believe that this country, the United States of America, is under judgment from the justice of God. I think you probably would agree with me. I think as a whole, not everybody, but as a whole, this client nation, aka the United States of America, has rejected God’s righteous standards. And we have allowed sin and evil to be normal and an accepted practice in our land. By George, we actually sanction and we actually endorse certain sinful practices instead of standing firm against them and saying no. It appears that we allow in this country sin to flourish And we don’t think for one minute God is, don’t you think for one minute God is overlooking this? He’s not overlooking our immorality. He’s not overlooking our deviant behavior. And the justice of God will judge us for what we do as a whole, as a client nation. Now why, why are we going to face national discipline? If I go to quote an Old Testament passage where God gives Ezekiel the reason for judgment on that nation, the nation that fell upon Jerusalem, the southern kingdom of Israel, who would later be defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. Listen what the reason for judgment was and see if it sounds familiar to you. Here’s why God judged that nation, Ezekiel 33, 31. They come to you as people do. They sit before you as my people. They hear your words, but they do not do them, for with their mouth they show a lot of love, but with their heart they pursue their own gain. hypocrites, what we talked about recently in one of our studies, two-sided individuals. You go to church and you sit there all pious looking, all holy looking, got on your best Sunday go to meeting clothes and you’re trying to smile, but you got the cell phone in your pocket waiting on some kind of text or checking out something on the social media graph. You hear the words of the pastor. But you don’t do them. You don’t apply them. You didn’t even write them down. How can you remember what he said? You might remember one or two percent of what he taught you, but you were just too busy wondering what time lunch was going to be served. With your mouth, you sing, oh, I love the Lord. Yes, yes, I love the Lord. But your heart says something else. You go after what you want to go after. So listen again. This is a condemnation of our nation today and in most of our local churches. They come, they sit, they listen, but they don’t obey. It’s the same pattern in Christianity today. Come to church, hear what the preacher says, leave and forget it. Divine justice will not tolerate that. Divine justice will judge us because of that. We’ve had every opportunity to glorify God to the maximum, and the more prosperity we get, the deeper we slide into sin and degradation. This pattern in Christianity today is a bad pattern. People are going to be judged. This nation is going to be judged. Divine justice is going to be administered on this nation by means of the essence of God, his sovereignty, his righteousness, his justice, and his love. Does he love us? Yes. Does he forgive us in Christ Jesus? Yes. Can he forgive you as a Christian when you commit personal sin? Yes. If you rebound, if you do exactly what the Bible says, confess your sin to God, he’ll be faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That’s how we stay in fellowship with God on a daily basis. That doesn’t have anything to do with our relationship. Our relationship never changes when we’re in Christ Jesus. We’re in the royal family of God. You don’t lose the relationship, but you can break fellowship by sinning and not confessing the sin or not rebounding the sin. so ultimately any blessing any discipline any cursing to god has to come through his justice because it guards the righteousness of god and so as goes god’s justice so goes god’s blessing he approves or god’s cursing he disapproves and i’m sure many pastors today would agree with exactly what I’m talking about here in this Old Testament lesson. They would agree that there’s a lot of negative volition. They would agree that many believers are playing games with God. And we have a term for this. We call it the nod to God crowd. Hello, God. Good to see you this Sunday morning, God. See you next Sunday morning, God. Nod to God crowd. That doesn’t cut it. That’s not the spiritual life. You may be saved, you may be going to heaven, you may have eternal life guaranteed to you because of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, but this is not going to deliver your life and your nation in times of judgment. The nod to God crowd doesn’t cut it. We need people like you, individuals who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who can grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and become effective representers of Christ to the community, to your friends, to the world, so that when people see you, they see Christ. So again, as goes God’s justice, so goes either he blesses us or he curses us. So it’s up to him. But the Bible does tell us these words in Luke 12, 48, for unto whom much is given, much will be expected. I don’t know about you, but I think God might have given America a lot. He might have blessed us in many wonderful ways, more than we deserve. The prosperity that we’ve enjoyed over the past couple of centuries is phenomenal. We’ve been through hard times, yes. But if you look at the rest of the world and look at what we have, we’ve been blessed out of our boots. And what have we done with it? We’ve turned our back on him. We’ve kicked him out of the public arena. Oh, no, we can’t have the nativity scene at the courthouse. That violates somebody’s rights. Oh, no, you can’t go into school and mention God. That’s violating somebody’s rights. We are crazy. The very God that’s blessed us, the very God that sustained us, the very God that holds the future for us, we’ve ignored him and in our own arrogance consumed that we know better than he knows. As a client nation for God, that’s us, in our generation, me and you, we’ve received a lot of blessings. We’ve received deliverance in some great world wars that we faced. However, you know this as well as I know this, we’ve begun to fracture internally. There appears that there’s a great divide in America today, great divide. If you look at it like a jigsaw puzzle, you can see how we’re fractured. We’re fractured into various groups, various sects. You know, it can be a fracturing from racial prejudice, it can be a fracturing from political prejudice, a lot of different things that I can get into. I don’t want to go into those illustrations, but there is a divide in America, and you can see it. And I can tell you what it’s caused by. I can tell you that. It is created by neglect of God’s design. Neglect of God’s design. And as well as neglect or failure to submit to what the world, to what God teaches about divine viewpoint thinking. So this divide is created by neglect of God’s design, and then you or me or someone else submitting to human viewpoint thinking. Remember the difference between human viewpoint and divine viewpoint. Divine viewpoint is the mind of Christ. It’s what the Bible says. Human viewpoint is what some political activist would say or what some sports writer would say or some social pontificator might say. Human viewpoint thinking, if I want to get my marriage right, what should I do? And here’s what old dear so-and-so says. What does the Bible say? What does the Bible say about your life? What does the Bible say about sin? Human viewpoint thinking justifies sin. Human viewpoint thinking says you’re evil and you’re mean if you don’t like these people for what they do. You’re cruel, and that’s not true. As believers, we love people, but we hate the sin. So evil runs rampant across America today, especially in religion, especially in the family, and especially in politics. It’s everywhere. Judges wrote about it in the last verse of Judges chapter 21, 25, where it says, in those days, in those days, there was no king in Israel and everybody did what was right in his own eyes. That’s America today. No one wants to submit to the laws of establishment, freedom, marriage, family, nationalism. Listen, even if a person is not a believer, if they live by those four concepts, freedom, God designed you to be free, not enslaved. Marriage, God designed marriage before a right man and a right woman, not man and man, woman and woman, right man, right woman. And family, God sets up the family to teach authority orientation. To evangelize the children. I mean, this is what the family’s all about. God ordains the family. And then nationalism, not internationalism, not the Tower of Babel where all the worlds come together to one religion, one thought. Internationalism is wrong. Nationalism is God ordaining one nation. And he put the Chinese over here, the Japanese over here, the Americans over here, the Indians over here, the Germans over there. Nationalism is one nation. God gives different languages, different locations. So we neglect all of that. And we do what’s right in our own eyes. We do what we want to do. We justify with our arrogance why what I’m doing is right. I know the Bible says it’s wrong, people say. I know the Bible says I shouldn’t do that, but I don’t believe the Bible, they say. They say this is right because I’m not hurting anybody. Well, that’s not true. Whenever a client nation such as us, whenever we reject or they reject the righteous standards of God and begin to adopt and support satanic evil thinking, then national discipline from the justice of God is absolutely 100% sure to follow. You must understand the justice of God will not sit by and let us self-destruct. God will discipline us for the purpose of waking us up God will discipline your family for the purpose of waking you up. He will discipline you for the purpose of pulling you out of your hell-bent sin and self-destructive trend because that’s what arrogance does. Arrogance is self-deception, self-absorption, self-destruction. And if you don’t wake up, you will destroy your life because you have the ability to make decisions every day. And sooner or later, bad decisions are going to limit your future options. So if you reject the righteous standards of God’s word, if you begin to adopt and support satanic evil thinking, then you are going to be guaranteed the justice of God will judge you if you’re a Christian. If you’re not a Christian, well, I can tell you where the justice of God judges you at the great white throne of judgment. There you will be cast into the lake of fire, not because God’s mad at you, not because God doesn’t like you, but because you rejected God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Now, why would God judge a nation? Because of all these bad things I’m talking about? Well, partially, but here’s the real truth about it. Listen to Hosea 4, 6. This is the condemnation on Israel. My people are destroyed, that’s judgment, for lack of knowledge, lack of knowledge. It’s the same thing about the sins they committed, the lack of knowledge. Because you rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being a priest for me because you forgot the laws of your God. I will forget your children. What did that passage say that God is looking for? He’s looking for those who understand him and know him, that he is the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness. That’s the knowledge that you’re rejecting. That’s the knowledge we don’t want in America today. We don’t want to know God. Why? Because he’s going to tell us that’s not right. You can’t do that. You’re killing yourself. You’re destroying your nation. And we are determined to wipe out and destroy this nation. And it all comes from satanic thoughts, satanic opposition. We’re a client nation. We send out missionaries to the world. We’re a client nation. We’re a haven for the Jews. We’re a client nation. We’re the guardian of the word of God and reteach the word of God. You think Satan likes that? You think Satan wants that to go on? No. And so Hosea said, warned the Israelites, my people are destroyed. because they lack knowledge, knowledge of what? Knowledge of God’s loving kindness, knowledge of God’s justice, and knowledge of God’s righteousness. Whatever the justice of God judges, it’s because the righteousness of God rejects it. And if someone goes to hell and winds up in the lake of fire, it’s not because God’s mad at them, it’s because they rejected the righteousness of Christ. and they tried to establish their own righteousness. And since that didn’t work, the justice of God has to judge them. So either, you gotta get this right, either you’re going to adjust to the standards of God’s justice or you’re going to force the justice of God to adjust to you. It’s your choice. Either you adjust to God’s justice or God’s justice will adjust to you. You have to adjust to the justice of God in salvation That’s true. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, our sins were poured out on him and judged by the justice of God on his own son. Listen to 1 Peter 2.24. Who himself bore our sin in his own body on the tree that we, having died to sin, might live for righteousness, that’s the righteousness of God, by whose stripes you are healed. Christ was judged by the justice of God. and took your place so that you can have the righteousness of God. Where did I get that? 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we can become the righteousness of God by means of him. So our righteousness is provided by means of God’s judgment on his only anointed son, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you try to earn God’s favor by equaling his perfect righteousness, you’re gonna die in your trespasses and sins because no one can produce perfect righteousness with the exception of only the Lamb of God. Isaiah 64, six says, all we like sheep, we’re all an unclean thing. All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. You cannot manufacture your own righteousness. If you try, you will force the justice of God to judge you. Now, also, when you use problem-solving device number one, which we call rebound, 1 John 1, 9, then we are using God’s provision provided by his justice for our cleansing. But if you try to make up your sin to God in your own power, if you try to promise God you’re never gonna do it again, you’re going to only offend his righteous standards. You can’t do that. The only way you can be forgiven is to use rebound in time. That’s provided by God’s justice through Christ. So you can reinstate the filling of the Holy Spirit and escape the control of your flesh if you do what the Bible says, 1 John 1, 9. If you don’t, then you’re going to go into subsequent carnality. The righteous standard of God is equally offended when we seek to live the Christian life under a system of religion. And if that’s your lifestyle, the justice of God will kick out all of your good works at the judgment seat of Christ. Not going to work. The Supreme Court of Heaven tells us that. It won’t work. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 16. All of your good deeds, if they’re done in the energy of the flesh, will be kicked out. There is a Supreme Court in Heaven, so relax. And we don’t vote on who’s going to be on that court. God does it himself. The Lord Jesus Christ is the judge. It’s the last court of appeals in history, as well as the court of personal justice for individual believers. It’s a court which administers both personal and collective justice. And this court, the Supreme Court of Heaven, has the highest jurisdiction ever. and overrules anything that Satan tries to do as an authority and the ruler of this own world, Satan himself is subject to this court. You may face this court. You will if you’re a believer. It’s called the judgment seat of Christ. And if you’re unbeliever, it’s the great white throne of judgment. The Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. We always say that. If you have an iniquity and an injustice that you’ve been treated to, go to the Supreme Court of Heaven, lay it at the feet of God, and step back and let God’s justice handle it. He knows what’s going on, and he will deal with it. Maybe not in your time, maybe not when you want it dealt with, but it will be dealt with. Does this make sense? I sure hope so. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. On text next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
