Kennystix's podcast
Look at the Kindness and the Severity of God
The following resources from DesiringGod.org. The scripture text for today's sermon is Romans 11 verses 17 through 24. But if some of the branches were broken off and you, although a wild olive chute, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in, that is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and severity of God, severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you provided you continue in kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in. For God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these the natural branches be grafted back in to their own olive tree? Just father I thank you so much for Christ. I thank you for His word which is sharper than a two-edged sword piercing to the division of bone and marrow, soul and spirit, laying bare the secret things of the heart, convicting, diverting, comforting. Where would we be without your word? So now help me to be faithful to it, to render it understandable and powerful by your spirit for the opening of hearts that you might do a work in every person in this room. Some work they know they need and others they're not even aware of what you plan to do. Humble us, make us to properly tremble at the Word of God, at the severity and the kindness of the Lord. Angle fear and faith in biblical measure. Help us to see you to that end up right in Jesus' name, amen. Three times in Romans 11 Paul calls us to be rid of pride verse 18, do not be arrogant toward the branches, that is the broken off Jewish unbelievers, do not be arrogant. Verse 20, middle of the verse, do not become proud but stand in awe or fear. Verse 25, lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery. The three times, don't be proud, don't be arrogant, don't be conceited and we've seen over the last three weeks, three reasons that he gives for why pride should be out of our lives and with it all anti-Semitism, all boasting over other ethnic groups, all racism should go with pride and we've seen the reasons. The root supports you, you don't support the root. Number one, you too will be cut off if you continue in pride and boasting and anti-Semitism. Number two, and you stand only by faith, not works or any distinctive in you. Those are the three reasons. We spend three weeks on them and last week we dealt with the origin of faith, the nature of faith and I promised this week we would move on to the maintenance of faith. We saw how the origin as a gift and the nature as trust in a treasure takes boasting out of our lives. Now, today the issue is how do you keep on believing to the end? The reason I deal with this in a message and devote a whole message to it is first because it feels real urgent to me. 58 years old, I have no idea how long I might have but I know after walking with the Lord now for about 52 years, it's not a given that I will last. Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love is not just a song. This text is written for us Gentile branches who've been grafted in and the warning, you can be broken off. That was a sermon two weeks ago, is not a vain warning to professing Christians even preachers. So my first issue is Mark 13, 13, he who endures to the end will be saved, tremble at the prospect of not making it and let the trembling keep you in the tree. That's the first reason I think I need to dwell on this and the second reason is because it's woven right through the fabric of this text and that's the most important reason and I invite you to follow me through this weaving, verse 20. You stand fast through faith. No other way do you stand in the tree of its promise and life and hope and joy and covenant everlasting life. You're in this tree by one thing you stand fast through faith. Keep reading. Do not then so do not become proud, that's the opposite of faith, so do not become proud but stand in awe or fear, literally fear, in other words there's a role that fear has to play in the maintenance of faith. That's mainly what I want to wrestle with this morning. What is the proper function of fear in the maintenance to the end of faith? Verse 21, "For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you, so we have reason to fear if we start to give evidence that we're not real, namely by boasting and pride and arrogance and anti-Semitism and racism." I just read this parable this morning in Matthew 20 and my devotions about the guy who worked all day and the guy who worked half day and the guy who worked one hour and they all got the same money and the guy who worked all day got all been out of shape and I felt oh God don't ever let me be like that. That's so arrogant. I worked all day and you don't pay me more. I mean a Christian that has that attitude towards those who are being treated graciously and they're not Christians. So we should fear when that happens because we're going to be cut off Philippians 2.12, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What I want to do this morning is try to help you know what the world that is because I think there's a lot of evangelical Christianity that has no place for fear and trembling. That's the name of a book by Soren Kierkegaard. He thought it was so important he didn't even book fear and trembling. Verse 22 gives the strategy now for how to do this. Note then, that word note means look then, look at something, look at something, look at the kindness and the severity of God. See towards those who have fallen but kindness to you provided that you continue in his kindness. In other words, the perseverance of faith which keeps us in the kindness of God requires that we look at his severity and his kindness. After seeing his severity has a role to play in the maintaining of our faith. We are to look at something here, two things, kindness and severity, not just one and not just the other but both. If you want to last in the Christian life, you need to look at two things over and over, severity from God and kindness from God. If you choose the one over here, you'll despair and if you choose this one over here, you'll become presumptuous. We must look at both of them. In other words, if you like, look at his mercy and his wrath, look at his tenderness or his toughness, look at his salvation and his judgment, look at his assistance and his opposition, look at his friendship and his fierceness. So that's the point of the message, look, really look at the kindness and the severity of God. Don't look at just one, continually look at both, fight the fight of faith by noting and looking at the severity and the kindness of God. So I have two questions now that I want to ask with regard to this main point, look at the kindness of God and look at the severity of God. The first is to ask what it means, how do you do it? And the second is how does kindness and severity, how do they work together to keep us in faith? Number one, how do you do this? Let's read verse 22 again. Note, literally look, then, at the kindness and severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, kindness to you. It's amazing to me how many times the word look as a command occurs in the Bible. There's a biblical word for it. It's called Behold. You have the idea how many times the word Behold occurs in the King James Bible, 1,275 times. In the ESV version which we're using, 1,061 times, that's more than there are pages. That's an important word. Name one other word that you can think of besides and and D that occurs a thousand times in the Bible. Look, it's an amazingly important word. God must have the impression we don't see well. You know what? We don't see well. Behold, behold, behold, behold, behold, behold, behold, behold, behold, look, look, look, and He says it again here because we're so blind. How many of you read the Bible and saw nothing this morning, beautiful? So the question becomes then, where do you look? If you're going to tell us to look at severity and look at kindness, where do we look? Now, there are two answers to that question. One is the book called Creation in History and the other is the book called Scripture. God's written two books. The heavens are telling the glory of God. That's one book. The heaven and the earth, that's a book. Go there and learn. And the other book is the Bible. You look at the book of creation, history, and you'll see severity. You'll see how God handed over this world to judgment when Adam and Eve fell. You'll see every manner of horrific disease that breaks your heart. This world lies under a universal curse, and it lands on little babies, and it lands on adults, and it lands on Christians, and it lands on unbelievers. We are all living under the misery of the severity of God's attitude towards a fallen world. Cyclones, and volcanoes, and hurricanes, and floods, and pestilence, wiping out thousands of people, I mean, it's not hard to see the severity of God in the world, then it's not hard to see the kindness either. You're breathing, you're not in hell yet. You have eyes in your head, ears, hands that move, thumbs that can button shirts. Kindness is everywhere given what we deserve. The sun came up this morning on the just and the unjust. The sodas deal grows a lot of corn, and it hasn't killed people. It's amazing the kindness of God on this world that's in rebellion against Him. You see it everywhere. The problem with looking at the book of the world, however, is that it's ambiguous, really ambiguous. It's really ambiguous. You think you see something severe? You don't know. That might be absolute kindness. Some sudden death of a 56-year-old woman, God knows she had a terrible disease and would have spent months in writhing agony and died slowly and he took her in a car wreck. He knows what's going on in the world, but God, you think you see a mercy and a kindness might be the worst severity you ever saw like winning the lottery. That's a mercy, pay all my bills, and every family member torn to shreds, marriage is in and it became a curse. This is a very ambiguous book, this thing called Providence, so I'm not going to send you there mainly. I'm going to send you to the Bible. The difference between the book of Scripture and the book of nature is that God gives his own interpretations of his actions in the Bible. He doesn't tell you his interpretation of what's happened in Iraq or Israel or whatever hospital you have been to recently. He doesn't tell you out loud the details of the meaning of that and leaves us very perplexed at times to trust that somehow, some way, he's in this for good. But in the Bible, we have his word interpreting his action. And so I want to send you to the Bible, which gives me a good opportunity right now to say how you're doing in your New Year's resolution to read the Bible. How are you doing? I want to pump you up again seven weeks into the year to say, "Come on, this is crucial. This is really crucial that we read our Bibles beginning to end both the severe parts and the kind parts." George Mueller, his whole life was a testimony to the power of immersing himself in the Bible. Here's something he wrote when he was 71. For the first four years after my conversion at age 20, I made no progress because I neglected the Bible, but when I regularly read on through the whole, and I'm putting princes here, the severe parts as well as the kind parts, with reference to my own heart. And so I directly made progress. Then my peace and joy continued more and more. Now I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read the Bible through, from beginning to end, 100 times. And I always find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my peace and joy have increased more and more. He was 71 when he said that, and he lived another 21 years. And when he died, a very healthy man at 92, they just found him dead one morning beside his bed. He'd let a prayer meeting the night before. He had read his Bible, A.T. Pearson, his biographer, said 200 times, which means, do the math. He picked up his pace and read the Bible five times a year in the last 20 years of his life. I wonder what secrets are, to power and purity and faith, and leaving a mark on the world that is significant for people's eternal good, it's being a Bible person. Being immersed in the Bible, having your brain drenched with scripture because evidently from Romans 11, what happens when you look at severity and kindness is you get shaped into a kind of person that's useful in the world. What are you looking at all day, all night in your moments of freedom? What are you looking at? This text says, look at the kindness and severity of God. And what will happen? Pride will die, you will keep yourself in the kindness of God, the branch will stay in the tree, you will endure to the end, you will bear fruit for God, and when your death moment comes, you will lay down in peace. That's what will happen. But if you give the Bible a minute here, a minute there, treat it more lightly than the newspaper, what do you expect? You're going to be carnal, worldly, and maybe not even a Christian, powerless in your life. So let me give you some examples of what you will see with regard to kindness and severity as you read. You will see severity and kindness juxtaposed over and over again. For example, Exodus 34-6 where God reveals His name on Mount Sinai to Moses, it goes like this, "The Lord, the Lord, Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, sin, but who, by no means, clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." It doesn't get any worse and it doesn't get any better than Mount Sinai, merciful, gracious, abounding in steadfast love, slow to anger, forgiving iniquity, forgiving transgression, forgiving sin, it just doesn't get any better, but I will not hold guiltless or innocent of the guilty and I will pass down the sins from generation to generation of those who hate me. That's severe. That's what you see all over the Bible. As if just when you're starting to like Him, He says something that gives you trouble. There's a reason for this, I'll get to it in a minute, let me give you another example. Matthew 10, 28, this is Jesus, don't think all the severe stuff is in the Old Testament. Do not fear those who kill the body, Matthew 10, 28, do not fear those who kill the body but can't kill the soul. Fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Aren't two sparrows sold for a pity? Not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. The hairs of your head are all numbered, fear not, you're of more value than many sparrows. Fear the one who can cast soul and body into hell. You're more value than many sparrows. I love you so much. I won't let anything happen to you. Let's take note how to be a dad. Romans 2, 4, "Do you presume upon the kindness and forbearance and patience of God not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance but you by your hard and unrepentant heart are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when the righteous judgment of God will be revealed." Over and over again in the Bible, the sweetest, most precious, most kind words from the Almighty you will ever hear juxtaposed to the firm, deep, hard, severe wrathful warnings against not living in that kindness. Keep yourself in the kindness of God by looking at both His severity and His kindness. Now my last question is how does this work? How does severity and kindness come together? How do they come together to help my faith? How do fear and faith relate to each other? The first thing I want to observe on this last point is that in verse 22, severity and kindness do not serve faith in the same way. Note then the kindness and severity of God, severity toward those who have fallen, but kindness to you provided you continue in His kindness. He does not say provided you continue in His severity. See, that means that severity and kindness as you look at them in God are meant to get you to kindness and keep you there. They're not exactly parallel in other words. Yes, look at the severity and yes, look at the kindness and all of it's leading you to continue in kindness. That's really important to see because I think a lot of us think, well, yeah, I agree, we're supposed to live in the kindness of God and thus avoid thinking about looking at the severity parts and that's exactly the opposite of what this text is teaching. Clarify something here that might be a misunderstanding in the word severity. Some of us have read Sheldon Van Auchen's book of severe mercy and cried our eyes out. I recommend the book Sheldon Van Auchen, a severe mercy, it's 30 years old. The severe mercy is the death of his wife by cancer. The mercy is he gets saved in the process. That use of the word severity is not what this text is talking about. The fighter verse for this week, my son, do not despise the discipline, you can stick in the word severity, severe discipline of the Lord, do not be weary of his severe reproofs. That's not what this text is talking about. This text is talking about judgment and hell. The branches that are broken off are not being disciplined. They are being sentenced to judgment. So what this text is calling us to look at is not the kind severity of God. There is such a thing as a kind severity. This text is saying look at judgment, look at hell, look at wrath, look at fearlessness in the Almighty and look at kindness, both the tender kind and the tough kind. Okay, need to clarify that because I think somebody might take this text and take it only to mean, well sure, God's severe like a father is severe toward one he loves, well he is indeed. That's not what this text is talking about. This text is trying to get us to see the severe parts that cause us to fly now to the tender God and live in his kindness. Does that mean, does the fact that we are to not continue in severity, but to continue in kindness mean that we should not continue in fear, but continue in faith? That's the closing question. How does fear prompted by severity relate to faith? And I have three answers to that question as we close. Number one, fear of God's severity is proper and fitting for the Christian and should send us flying to his kindness. To be the kindness manifest on the cross where all the severity was poured on Jesus so that we could enjoy the kindness. I know the text, there's John 4 18, perfect love casts out fear. In that context, it's not talking about the love of God. For us, it's talking about our love, for him and for each other. And when you get there, all fear will be gone, and you aren't there and you won't get there in this life. Nobody in this room has perfect love for God, and nobody in this room has perfect love for each other, and that's what will cast out fear finally. Therefore, until you get there, fear has a place in your life. It's a very redemptive place, and it should send you flying to the love of God, the kindness of God, the sweetness of God, the tenderness of God, and the cross of Christ where it was all purchased for you. So my first answer to the question, how does fear relate to faith is that it sends you flying to the kindness of God to strengthen your faith in the cross and in mercy. It sends you flying from all faults and deceptive hopes into the arms of God. Here's answer number two. Fear deepens, fear of God deepens and makes serious the joy of our faith in God's kindness and keeps it from being trivial and superficial. When I spoke at the NRB on Tuesday, that was one of my main points. In the media today, the Christian media, there's too much trifling with God. There's too much slapstick. There's too much triviality. There aren't enough tears. There isn't enough seriousness. The joy has a light, silly flavor to it, not the kind of flavor that ought to be there when you have suffered and died with Jesus. We ought to be calling the world to a kind of joy that has tears on its face and can walk through dark valleys instead of trying to sound like the silly banter and slapstick of prime, time, drive, time, world. That was one of the things I said. In one way that we become the kind of people whose joy is not trifling and not silly and not slapstick kind of joyful face is by looking at the severity of God every day thinking about hell, thinking about death, thinking about wrath, thinking about fiercestess, thinking about judgment, thinking about power. It gives a weight and a ballast to our boat. A little boat with no ballast just kind of bouncing on the waves. Christianity is a bouncy religion. It's going to capsize, I promise you. But if you put ballast in your boat of weight and suffering, dealing with the deep, weighty, heavy, fierce things of God, then you've got a keel that goes down about 80 feet. And when you get blown on at the top, at the way keels work, don't let it tip. So I just plead with you on this second, let fear provide a weightiness, a seriousness and a ballast in the boat of your joyful faith. I tell you, you can party on this boat, but it'll have a different flavor. Last point, this is the most peculiar. Fear relates to your faith in that fear of God being afraid of the fiercestess and severity of God is in and of itself a sweetness in your faith. It's a sweetness. The experience of being afraid of God is in itself part of the joy of faith. Why in the world would I say such a thing? Because of texts like these, Nehemiah 1, 11, "O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name." Delight to fear or Isaiah 11, 3, "The coming servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord." So I take that word delight and I say, "There is a sweetness to fear in God. It tastes sweet to the soul of the saint to fear the Lord." Now how can that be? And here's my answer. When the totality of fear, when the element of condemnation is removed, everything left for the Christian is sweet and there's a lot left to fear. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why do you think it is that nobody wants to jump out of an airplane, but people will pay ten bucks for the same sensation at Valley Fair? Why do you think it is that people are filmed in New Israel's fleeing from a huge explosion that has blown seven Israelis to pieces, injured twelve others? And they will pay money to go to movies to create the same sensations of fear. The reason is, first, that at Valley Fair they're not going to hit bottom and die. And in the theater, the fire won't reach them, they're safe, they're safe. I know what I think that's a witness to, dimly, God made human beings to be safely afraid of him and everybody knows it and wants it. God made human beings to be safely afraid of him. No condemnation, no judgment, no punishment, but oh, the power, the dreadful power. The best I've been able to do by way of imagining is the eye of a hurricane, because we walked through one together as a family one time. Green air in 1995, Pensacola, Florida, first half of the hurricane comes over, winds blowing 80,000, 80, 90 miles an hour, big pine tree, severs off the little corner of the bedroom. Twenty minutes later, toes stillness, we walk out in, blue sky, trees down, chimneys down, cars crushed, beautiful, radio says, you've got 20 minutes, the back side will be harder than the worst side. So go back to the basement, here comes again. To live in the eye of the hurricane, of the holiness of God, is a glorious thing. I picture myself climbing a rock face in some alpine ridge, and a storm is coming across. And I know that this wind could blow me off the cliff, and I'm terrified that I'm going to fall thousand feet to my death. And everywhere I look, I see massive mountain ranges and deep ravines and crags, and there is mingled a sense of awe and absolute stark fear. And I suddenly find a little crevice, and I'm in it, and there's no wind, and I'm totally safe, and the perspective changes totally. Only one thing has changed, I'm safe, and now I can enjoy it won't kill me. God wants you in to the hurricane, and he wants you in to the storm, and he wants you in to the fire with your asbestos on, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking in the fire. This is fire, this is magnificent, I've never been in fire before, but a kind of trembling awe and wonder and fear that it is the asbestos alone, it's grace alone, it's God alone, it's mercy alone, and you keep yourself therefore in the mercy of God. The main point of the message is, look, look at the severity and the kindness of God, don't ever stop looking at the Bible. Read your Bible from end to end, read it every day. Some of you say, "If I read my Bible through five times in one year, I wouldn't get anything done." You're right, you get a lot less done, but you know what? You just might become the kind of person who in the very few things that you do would make an everlasting difference in the world. Now read your Bibles and as you read and see the severity of God, let it send you flying to the cross where all your sins can be forgiven and all condemnation can be removed and you can have rest and safety, let it be ballast in your boat so that you're not a trifling chipper, superficial, slapstick Christian and let it become the very sweetness itself so that you can say with Jesus and with the saints in Nehemiah, "I delight to be safely afraid of my God." It tastes really good, let's pray. Father in Heaven, I so long to have my heart delighting in your Word in all of it, Lord. And so would you work in me and in all of us here, a hunger for the Scriptures? It'll be a superficial, weak, carnal, disunited church where people are playing fast and loose with their Bibles, reading their newspapers, watching their television, looking, looking, looking at what the world is commending and giving a minute here and a minute there to look at your Word. Let us be that kind of church, please, oh, how we need to be in the Word, how we need to be in prayer, how we need the mind of our severe and kind God. We need you really badly so that we fears we ought to fear and enjoy as we ought to enjoy our fellowship with you. Thank you for listening to this resource from desiringGod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles and more, available free of charge. DesiringGod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
God’s fury at sin reminds us of the great pardon we don’t deserve. Gaze at his goodness with gratitude.