God Justly Punishes People We Know and Love - Nathan Rages

The third thing we get from these Psalms

is they remind us that God

punishes individuals.

Individuals.

The main reason I think Psalm 109

bugs us so much is that David

is going after one particular guy.

Right? He's saying, God,

do all this to him - this guy right here.

Whatever his name was.

David had one guy in mind clearly.

He starts out talking
about multiple enemies,

but then he kind of
focuses on this one guy.

Do all this to him.

See, if David had just kind of kept it

general and generic,

it wouldn't bother us so much.

If he'd just say, "Oh God,

deal with all the bad people out there

wherever they are, whatever..."

We'd have said, okay, great.

That makes sense.

But instead he focuses in on one guy.

And that just really bothers us.

Oh man, can that be right?

But what struck me this week

are that this list of things

that David asked to happen to this one guy

and we read that and just cringe

and recoil at it.

God is going to do a
million times worse things

to every person that's outside of Christ

in eternity.

Individuals.

People who's names and faces we know.

People that we dearly love

are under the wrath of God.

I know we all believe
in hell as far as I know.

We all believe in hell
theoretically at least.

We know that it's in the Bible.

It's in our systematic theology
book somewhere.

But I think we desperately need hell

to become a more practical,

practical reality to us.

That it become a part of our worldview -

the way we see life around us,

that looming in the background

is this ominous cloud of eternal hell

hanging over everyone
that's outside of Christ.

Hell is for a bunch of people

that you know and love.

It's not just this generic
category out here.

It's individuals.

And that really bothers us.

So your great aunt -

your Great Aunt Beatrice we'll say -

your Great Aunt Beatrice

passes away at the age of 84.

And your family goes to her funeral.

On the way back from the funeral

your thoughtful six-year-old
in the back seat

pipes up:

"Hey mom and dad,

did Aunt Beatrice go to Heaven?"

The kid's asking the right
question isn't it?

It's like it doesn't matter what else

was said at her funeral,

the question is did she go to heaven.

It's the right question.

What are mom and dad going to say?

How are you going to answer that question?

Are you going to tell your kid the truth?

Because see, Aunt Beatrice,

she was a nice lady,

but she didn't really go to church.

She would say some kind of
vaguely spiritual things at times,

but she wouldn't talk about Jesus.

When you'd try to
bring up spiritual things,

she'd shut it down.

You've always thought of her as lost.

Are you going to give your kids

some weaselly answer of:

"Well, you know, you can't really know

what's in somebody's heart deep down."

Are you going to tell your kid that?

Are you going to say, well, you know,

we don't know what happened

those last two minutes
she was in the hospital bed

halfway conscious.

Maybe, maybe she got saved in the end."

Or are you going to tell
your kid the truth?

Oh kids, Aunt Beatrice is in hell.

She's in hell.

As far as we know, she's in hell.

And she's been in hell ever since

the minute she died.

She's been in torment
under the wrath of God.

She's been suffering the
most horrible things

anybody can imagine suffering.

And it's going to go on

for a million billion years -

as long as you can imagine in her future.

And God is right to do that to her

because she loved her
sin and loved herself

and hated God

and despised the Lord Jesus Christ.

Are we going to tell our kids the truth?

Are we going to make
hell real and practical?

Oh kids, Aunt Beatrice
was a very nice lady.

We appreciated all the nice
things she did for us.

We appreciated the cookies she made us

and all the playing with us.

But you know kids,

being a nice person is not
how you get to Heaven.

The nicest person in the world

can't get to Heaven on that.

There's only one way to Heaven,

it's through the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's the only way to the Father.

If you reject Christ,

there's no hope for you.

One time people asked Jesus

about why God's punishments happened

to certain people.

Why did God let these bad
things happen to folks?

Was it because these folks were super bad?

They brought up these Galileans

that got murdered over here,

and then these other people
that this tower fell on.

And expecting to get this
philosophical answer from Jesus,

instead what Jesus did
is He made hell practical.

He said, "Unless you repent,

you will all likewise perish."

He said don't you worry about them.

You worry about yourself,

your standing before God.

He makes it practical.

He points it back to the individual.

People are frightening by
lots of silly little things,

but the fear of God -

the fear of God is a good thing.

It is a healthy thing.

It says in Psalm 19,

"the fear of the Lord is clean."

It's pure. It's right.

It's to be encouraged.

God is a consuming fire.

And God's hell is a really good thing

to be scared about.

When I was a kid,

my parents loved me enough

to tell me these things.

My parents told me about sin

and judgment and hell and stuff like that.

I was scared of hell for years.

You know?

When I was Ruby's age,

when I was James' age,

I was scared of hell.

You say what a horrible thing

to make this poor kid be scared of hell!

No.

It was a great blessing

because my fear of hell made me

concerned for my soul

and that made me want to seek the Lord

and be saved.

And God used it.

My conversion - I came to know

the Lord Jesus Christ
when I was 10 years old

by His mercy.

Flee from the wrath to come.

That's in the Bible, you know.

You've got to know about the wrath

in order to run from it, right?

Every lost person we witness to -

I had a wonderful time witnessing

in the jail last night to this guy.

We talked for two hours.

He wants to be a Christian.

I got to pour out the Gospel.

It is so intense to look
into somebody's eye

and to plead with them
to become a Christian.

And to know that this is an immortal soul.

That these are the most important words

this guy's ever going to hear.

And if he doesn't come through to Christ,

it's not just that he's
missing out on some joy.

Or that he's going to
have an unfulfilled life

or he's going to have this
God-shaped hole in his heart

that's never going to get filled.

No, the problem is that he's going to be

under the wrath of God.

He's going to go to hell forever.

He's a heartbeat away from that.

God punishes individuals
that we know and love.

So we see it in Psalm 109
and it bothers us.

I mean, the things I just said bother us.

You think about that.