The flood that God brings upon the ancient world can be challenging for us to understand. The flood of God is an example to us of His judgment upon all sin, and to the natural mind, we can see God’s judgment as extreme, even cruel and evil, rather than just and right. So I want to talk in these chapters about some of these hindrances, as well as why sin is truly what God says that it is.

Godly Fruit

Our greatest concern in life is to know God, and within this, to know the depths of righteousness and to have a true understanding about all the ways of sin. This, along with truly walking in these things, is the entire work God has given to each of us individually in life.

Even if we do not perceive this, when we do not do this work, when we do not fully give our strength, hearts, minds, and lives to it, then we will be filled with the opposite of these things.

God created humanity to be a people that are filled with godliness and righteousness, to be a people in this world who walk in what is truly good, wise, just, loving, and pure. And the corruption in mankind is seen in every single way that we do not walk in this.

What we often do not understand is that when we forsake this work, we will be empty of the substance of it. Not only will we be empty of the substance of it, but we will be filled with other things.

God shows us in scripture that to be empty of wisdom and goodness is to be like a tree that doesn’t bear fruit. This illustration may not hit home for us when we live in a society that doesn't depend upon growing their own food at home in order to survive. But if we step into the picture Christ is painting for us, imagine that we did live like this. If we planted a tree at home, we are doing so in dependence upon it. We depend upon it for food, and we would rejoice in its fruit for the great pleasure and joy it would give us.

This is the image of God with all of us. We are all planted like a tree in the garden of God’s world. And God plants us with a purpose. The purpose is that we would bear the fruits of righteousness, truth, wisdom, and godliness.

And what God reveals to us is that when we do not, then we are like a tree that bears no fruit, or a tree that bears bad fruit. Just as we would reach out to a tree in hopes of enjoying its good fruit, so God desires the good fruits in us of godliness and righteousness.

God reveals to us that when we do not set about this work, then we will not produce this fruit. Just as a garden has to be cultivated, so righteousness and godliness have to be cultivated in us. So if we are idle in this, if we have contempt upon this work, then we fail the great purpose of God in our lives.

The hard truth that God reveals is that if we do not produce these fruits then we are corrupt trees, void of good fruit, and even producing poisonous fruit in God’s world. God desires that all of us would turn and see this great purpose of God, that we would begin to produce these fruits of godliness and righteousness. Yet if we refuse this chance, then God shows us that there is nothing left to do but to uproot these trees out of God’s world.

Luke 13:6-9, Matthew 3:10, 7:19, 12:33, 21:43, Hebrews 6:7-8, Mark 11:12-14.

“Not That Bad”

The natural mind in mankind wishes to believe that we can live by our desires and do as we think best, and that our ways will be “not that bad”. We resent the idea of God’s judgment because we don’t think our ways are as bad as God says. What we fail to appreciate is that what this really means is that we are content in a minimal morality, content without the full standard of good.

When we hear of God’s holiness and perfection we often imagine a miserable perfectionism that is impossible to please, a perfectionism that is basically pointless, and needlessly demanding. How this lie blinds our minds from the reasonableness of God!

When we talk about the holiness of God, and perfection, what we should understand is that goodness is like the organs of a body. Goodness requires the health and working of all these unique parts in order to sustain the life of true goodness.

If my heart doesn’t work, I die. If my lungs are sick, I struggle to breathe and am miserable. If my kidneys shut down, I become very ill and die. Every part of the body has a very important function, a unique function, and this is the same when it comes to righteousness. If I do not walk in all it takes for real goodness, then these vital missing pieces result in the loss of the whole.

The trouble for us is how we are satisfied in such a limited and minimal morality. That we scratch the surface of justice, truth, wisdom, humility, service, honor, and purity, but we do not seek the full depths of these, or all of them.

Instead, we set up pillars of philosophy and very limited morals, and we heedlessly live by these.

What this reveals of us is that not only do we not do what it takes for true good, full good, but we are content without these things. That we are self-content without God, without His judgments, without His wisdom, without His justice, without truth, without true religion and godliness, and without holiness.

Additionally, we are filled with self-righteousness: satisfied in our very limited morality and refusing to seek anything higher than this. How can we really be good if this is the case?

We make ourselves the measuring line, and do not allow God the right place of being the true weigher of all human hearts. Discerning the true substance of our ways, and allowing Him to direct us into what is truly good.

Many in humanity feel a desire for what is noble, wise, and virtuous, the problem is that they do not see how small this still is when it is not taken root in God—they do not recognize the God of these very things.

It is not just the desire of these things that counts, but what we do with them. What is often the case is that we actually use these things in rebellion against God, in this self righteousness that doesn’t listen to God telling us what true righteousness entails, and we use these things to cast God off, rather than turn to Him and see that He is the Home for these things.

Our nature cries out for these things to lead us to God, who is the foundation of them. Yet we often abuse these things for pride, contempt of others, and in order to oppose God. To use these things like weapons against an enemy, working against God rather than with Him. In fact, we often actually use these things to neglect the true work of righteousness, by being self-satisfied and judging ourselves not having to do this work. Therefore these things of light in us can turn into sin and darkness.

The sad truth is that we would rather play at morality, play at intellect and philosophy, play at debate and strife, to play with the swelling music of nobility and self sacrifice, rather than do the true humble works of godliness, and pay the real cost of what it takes to walk in righteousness.

We think our sins are not that bad when we don’t murder or physically harm, when we are filled with contempt of others, self righteousness, pride, and neglecting the work it really takes for truth and righteousness in this world. There is a very high cost to our ways.

Law of Self

We also do not see that much of what we live by, instead of the law of God’s Spirit, is the law of self.

The law of God is something we have to work to unearth to get back to the true meaning of it. It is not this hateful nonsense so many preach from the church, but it is the law of Light: “For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:9) We have to hold onto this meaning of God’s law as we continue talking about this.

Instead of living from the law of God, setting our lives by the course of what is truly good and godly, we instead live our lives by what we desire. And instead of judging by the law of God, we judge by this law of self.

The law of self is self-prejudice. It is to see the world around us from the view of ourselves, and not from the view of God. We judge everything from what we want, we even deal out justice and “reality” from this place of what is to our advantage.

We do have a small law in the midst of this that we shouldn’t do wrong to others in our pursuit of self, yet we don’t see how our pursuit of self is harmful to others.

Self-prejudice always spins the world in the colors of what we want to be true and justifiable. That is why we spend so much of our efforts trying to prove we are “allowed” to do something, rather than trying to just do what is good. We are often very busy trying to justify ourselves and this is why we cannot quiet ourselves to just listen to the true standard of God.

Self-prejudice does so much greater harm than we ever imagine. It is the very reason the entire world is as it is. All sin is bound up in this. It is the problem of where we see the world only from the view of self, and we do not see the world from God first, and our neighbor as equal to ourself. That is why the Lord shows us that the two greatest commandments speak to the entire core of sin:

“'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Because this corrects the issue of self in us, judging everything purely by self. As much as we might claim that this self in us is “tame”, it is far more unjust, cruel, and selfish than we ever care to know or admit.

Self takes what it wants, hoping to not be seen as having done wrong in doing so, justifying ourselves to death when we are called out for any degree of selfishness, because such a great part of self-love is our image of ourselves that we are very devoted to.

Self can be more extreme in others, it is true that the wickedness in murderers and abusers is very different from the self love in others. What we need to see though is the way of self is still the law in both people. The murderer is a good example of the working of self because of the evident example of it, you prize your life and yet you are willing to snuff out the life of another. Yet this is how self works under the surface in all of us. We may not murder others with our hands, but we murder people in our hearts every day in our elevation of ourselves and contempt upon the lives and values of other people.

Self is that which seeks our own end, even at the cost of another. More so, self is actually served most by the elevation of ourselves and the putting down of others. We feel worth and importance that depends upon the inferiority of other people. And self is very busy building our version of this.

All of this leads to the corruption we have in our world. Some examples of this are: People chasing ambition with no regard to the cost impact they make in the world. People taking others all to serve their sinful desires, people seeking fame and popularity to elevate themselves, people busy with their little worlds and building it however they want. People twisting reality to hide the truth of the effect of their ways. People spending all their energy to justify their doings. People using others then discarding them. Or think of all the ways people, when guilty of crimes or wrongdoing, vehemently defend themselves and only focus upon escaping justice.

From the great evils of slavery, sexism, and oppression, to the great greed of the rich, yet down to the ways we go about dating others to serve our desires, or how we go about our jobs… This self is sinful, even in the “mild” ways we go about it.

Paying the Cost for Good

As touched on before, all of this is where we can begin to understand sin, because the issue is when we do not pay the cost to do what it truly takes for doing what is godly and righteous. When this is not the law before us, our ways are corrupted.

We know, from the conviction in our hearts, that we should regard the welfare of others the same as our own. We know that we answer to some law of what is good, but we don’t fully listen to the true standard of these things, nor do we make these things our first concern in life.

We expect good to be, perhaps, a byproduct in life, but we do not make these our first and foremost concern. In fact, we often believe that God, and presidents, government, and cops should be those who do what is right, but we do not equally concern ourselves with doing what is right.

And this is the beginning of the conviction of God upon mankind. That we are proven sinful because we do not make God and righteousness the first concern of our lives, we often don’t make these a real concern at all. We do not pay the cost for these, and do not bear the cross of what it truly takes for a real godliness and righteousness in our lives. We do not live by the law of God, but by the law of self.

This shows us that however we might see our ways, our ways cannot be good when we don’t even make our greatest concern in life that of doing true goodness. Goodness has to be chosen, put first as the guiding principle in our lives, and it has to be worked and done if we are to have real goodness in our lives.

The Lord summarizes this in teaching us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” (Mt 6:33) Because this is essential to purify the life and make it truly good. The neglect of this is not “benign”, it produces the opposite in us.

When we put off this work, whether as people who reject God outright or as a Christian, the life doing so will be the opposite of sanctified and pure, we just don’t see the true nature/spirit and outcome of our ways.

Other Prejudices

Some of the other things that hinder us in seeing the truth God reveals about sin is our prejudices and assumptions around sin.

Part of this begins with our prejudices around the very word “sin”. This word carries certain ideas within our minds, and often we fail to realize that the things in life that we hate: injustice, cruelty, selfishness, and so on, are the very things God is pointing to under the name of sin. Sin is everything in this world that is harmful and wrong. We fail to appreciate God’s judgment on our behalf, just how much He is on our side, standing against all that evil and wrong in this world. The issue for us is that in order for us to truly stand with God, we have to be willing to do the full work of godliness and righteousness.

Another prejudice that blinds us is in our limited understanding of what we think sin to be. We often think of sin only in extremes, such as murder or abuse, greed, etc, and do not see the far greater depths of what sin really is. Additionally, we think virtue is “cheap”, and as stated before, we are content in our minimal virtues and philosophies.

In thinking of sins only as extremes we miss the great variety and nature to sin, and often do not connect the miseries we see and experience as being the very evils God is talking about.

It has become greater and greater knowledge that much of the abuse that goes on in this world is often far more than physical, but is also psychological, mental, and emotional, as well as spiritual abuse. And this is a good wisdom we can follow into a broader view of sin. Sin is not just “the physical” or the extreme, but it is in the spirit, attitudes, and intentions of our hearts.

Some examples of this:

• The sin of pride. We might not think much of this sin, yet there’s no greater hatred of our neighbor nor selfishness in such a sin. Pride is rooted in elevating ourselves at the cost of our neighbor. It depends upon the “inferiority” of others to elevate its false “worth”. Not only that, but it is not a real worth (which is found in living righteously before God), but serves a false worth.
• The sin of unreality. How much harm is done to others through this sin. Where people twist things in order to present a false “reality” that suits them. All of this is driven entirely from self-seeking ends. Where people present false narratives that completely erase the reality around them, and the legitimate needs/pain of others.
• The sin of easy answers. How small we think this sin to be, yet those who have been on the receiving end of this sin know just how bitter and harmful it is. It is the sin of serving a narrow “understanding” in ourselves whereby we paint the work in oversimplifications, half truths, and easy answers to feel we understand and are “above the masses”. There’s no greater lovelessness towards our neighbor than this. And no greater neglect of the real work of understanding truth rightly!

What have we tasted of the pride, selfishness, betrayal, contempt, neglect, unreality, and misuse of others? These are some of the examples of what sin is really like.

And this is exactly what the Lord would have us to see, that sin does far more harm than we imagine, and is far more than mere extremes. Our sins have far greater costs than we want to be true, yet it is true. And if we don’t really deal with these sins, then we insist upon poisoning the world around us and expecting others to pay the cost of tolerating our corruption, rather than expecting ourselves to pay the cost for righteousness.

Sin in the Church

“Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” (1 Jn 3:7)

As we talk about the hindrances of the world understanding the judgment of God and the issues of sin, we come to one of the greatest hindrances to this, and that is the sin of the church.

The church is meant to be a people who fully display the light of this knowledge of God and righteousness. We are meant to be those who produce the fruits of righteousness, who pay the cost for true godliness and righteousness, and who have a real and deep understanding of God, sin, and righteousness.

Yet is is the sad case that the church is often found to be the opposite of these, and even an example of these very sins: of not producing good fruit, of thinking our ways are “good enough” (self righteousness), of living from the law of self, of not paying the cost for good, as well as many others sins, such as prejudices we serve, as well as displaying a deep ignorance and unreality, a vanity and worthlessness, and even being brought into a greater darkness, rather than light.

It is very important for us to understand how these things can happen in the church. And part of the reason it is the case is because the church doesn’t believe such things are possible for believers. We do not understand how sin operates, and that sin will work the same vanity, worthlessness, darkness, and evils in religion the same as it will in any worldly sphere of life.

The great issue of all this sin in the church springs up from a wrong belief about God and His salvation. When we do not know and believe in the right purpose of God’s salvation, to do His cleansing work in all we’ve talked about here. To bring us into a real and living righteousness, to make us a people who truly repent of all the ways of self, and begin to live as just and good. To be a people who truly come to know and understand God, and to walk in His light.

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9)

Walking with God should be that which works light into us. It is to be the power of God in our lives to teach us all these things, to lead us in a right knowledge or godliness and righteousness, to expose the workings of sin, and lead us truly out of these things.

And much of the hindrance that exists today is that there are a great many people who believe themselves to be light in the Lord whose ways are still very full of self, pride, ignorance, superstition, and prejudices. They’ve not been truly cleansed of these things, nor even see them as the sins they are.

I do not mean the lie and “easy answer” that so many say, that such people simply just aren’t Christians at all. What cruel thoughts against such people. Much of the issue is found in what Christians are being taught as Gospel, and living amongst people who do not understand these things themselves, slowly being eroded into the very same sins and vanity. They certainly are responsible to choose the right path, but to say the simple answer is they are not Christians at all is very foolish and cruel.

Much of this issue springs from a rejection of a real and living righteousness as being vital to the salvation of God.

If we look at the example of Noah, which God clearly tells us is an example of His judgment to come, and of His salvation (1 Peter 3:20, Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5, 3:5-6, Matthew 24:37-39), then we see the very clear distinction that God makes about Noah living righteously before God.

The church today has rejected the very simple and essential truth of the necessity of a real righteousness before God in order to be saved. They say that this opposes grace, that it denies the Gospel, that it rejects the righteousness of Christ and is self righteous, but all of this is a lie.

And the problem amongst Christians is that they obey these ideas about the Gospel, and don’t honestly examine the Scriptures for themselves.

What they fail to admit, or see, is that they believe these ideas about the Gospel because it agrees with their own thoughts about God, that are no different from the world’s. They think of God’s judgement and of sin in the same way as the world; that it is extreme, that their sins aren’t as bad as He says, and so on.

And so they agree with a gospel that says that actually agrees with their carnal hearts. This is a gospel that doesn’t judge them according to what they have done in this life, when in reality, there is no greater self love we can have than to believe ourselves exempt from judgment. This is the heart in a worldly and sinful person, who does as they wish, and is only concerned to escape accountability for it, not to own up to it.

Was this the salvation that the Lord said came to Zacchaeus? “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house…’” (Luke 19:8-9)

God clearly demonstrates to us in Noah, in Zacchaeus, in all the saints of God, a real and living godliness and righteousness.

We fail to understand how carnal and worldly our very beliefs about God have become. How they are lawless and rooted in believing that God frees us from the law rather than frees us from sin! That it thinks hard thoughts about God, the same as the world. That it is rooted in a denial of justice, the denial of God’s judgment upon all people equally for what they do in this life, good or evil, and sinful prejudice for ourselves, believing this is what Christ grants us: “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil…” (Romans 2:6-9)

Because we do not deal honestly with ourselves, our ways are corrupted in our religion. The church is so busy trying to preach to others, when their preaching is filled with this wicked self-love, exempting themselves from any real accountability and responsibility, saying GOD grants this to them in Christ, all while preaching to the world in a very limited understanding of sin at best, and at worse, preaching deep seated prejudices and world views that they take to be of God, when they are far from Him.

What we fail to appreciate is that when we are not fighting the right war for righteousness, then we will fill our hands with a wrong war. When we reject the work that God has given us to do, because we are afraid of it, because we shrink back from the weight of truly believing we too will be judged purely by what we do in this life, and endeavoring with all our strength after true righteousness, then we are very idle and will find things to busy ourselves with that we will say are of God, but are far from what is truly of His Spirit and work.

The greatest evil Christians do today is act as if Jesus grants them some magic shield from judgement and reality. This works a deep blindness and hardness of heart in them. And there’s no real room to show them their sins. This is because they believe a very dangerous idea, that being a Christian practically means we can’t be wrong. Oh, they would say they can be wrong in small ways, but they don’t think they can be wrong in large ways. Therefore they do not see that they can believe in God in a great many wrong ways, and won’t then allow God in to correct them. And part of the problem with this is because they believe that if they get anything wrong in their beliefs about God this somehow means they never really believed in Christ at all—maybe now we see in part how evil and costly such a belief has been.

Many in the church today display these sins mentioned before far greater than any unbeliever. They display this terrible self contentment in their sins; walking in self righteousness (which is to believe their ways are good enough and to not seek a greater righteousness of life than their own morality). They live from the law of self, secretly keeping their own desires in their religion. They are blind to the real cost of their sins and the poisonous effects it has around them. They delight in the lie that God won’t hold them to account. They seek to serve this self prejudice, loving the lie of some “favoritism” with God. And they put off the real work of God of holiness, loving the lie that God’s grace is for this end.

In reality, God has allowed the church to work her ways to show us the truth of our hearts. How we go about religion is not simply good and right at first, in fact, it most often reveals the sinful hearts in us, in order to expose them so that we can find that depth of repentance that Christ calls us to. “These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” (Psalm 50:21)

In addition, we preach to the world, so convinced of our wisdom and light, when we are ourselves still so full of foolishness and sin, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22)

"But if you call yourself a [Christian] and rely on the [Word of God] and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent… and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children…” (Romans 2:17–20)

We have fallen into this very same idea about ourselves as Christian as the Jews fell into because they were Jews. We think we are simply in the light, failing to see that we are only in the light as much as we labor for it.

The outcome of our “wisdom” is actually very often foolish, unrealistic, full of self and worldliness, and even very harmful. Oh, but we never can see this because we are far too convinced that what we believe and teach is of God.

And it is the sad case that we’ve turned the very Word of God into a great evil. We preach about “obeying God”, and what this has come to mean, instead of walking in what is truly righteous, just, and good—“for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (Ephesians 5:9)—instead it means a great darkness and harm upon people. Calling them to oppression and misery. Calling them to foolish and naive “precepts” that work no real good in their lives.

And within this, so many people believe they are those who “keep the law of God”, who obey Him, when how can you believe you keep God’s law when you have rejected the standard of true righteousness as essential to acceptance with God?

“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have [Christ] as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for [Christ]. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:8–10)

If these words were true of the Jewish church before us, who were guilty of not producing godly fruit because of the very same presumption, then it is certainly just as true for the church of Christ today.

We fail to understand what the great warning of Noah and the flood, the great warning the apostle Paul pointed us to in 1 Corinthians 10, speaking to how, though God saved many people out of Egypt, most of that generation died in the wilderness because they rejected God’s purpose in His salvation. And if God so judged the people of Israel, who were the natural branch, then the very same warning is given to us: “So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” (Romans 11:20–2)

It is because we reject the true purpose of God in His salvation of us—to make us a truly holy people, that the world is blinded to the true Gospel of God. It is because we profess to regard God’s law all while never keeping the true purpose of it: “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the [unbelievers] because of you.” (Romans 2:23-24)

The great truth we must understand about sin is that it makes everything vain and poisonous, and this is just as true inside or religion as without. Just as the worldly person can waste their lives in the pursuit of vain things, so the Christian can waste their lives in sinful ideas about God, making their lives vain. All of this stems from what we believe about God, what we value and live by, and if we allow God to actually come in and renew the spirit of our minds, or not (Eph 4:23).

Many are not unwilling for this work, the issue is that in trying to pursue God and obey God, they are getting caught on these very wrong ideas about God, and being brought into obedience to these rather than to the true Spirit of God. For the sake of our own selves, for the sake of the Gospel in the world, for the sake of God’s Kingdom and righteousness, we must begin to recognize these things that come in the name of “right doctrine”, that come in the name of “obeying God”, that come in the name of “Christian world view”, and be very much on our guard to only truly follow Christ Himself, led by the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

And we must be very careful to guard against a secret spirit of unrighteousness, the lie of this being granted by God, but learn to identify it in what people profess to be of God and His grace.

"Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32)

We need to understand that a large reason why the world isn’t responding to the Gospel is because the Gospel isn’t actually being taught. The righteousness of God is written upon the law of our hearts by God, and a person is meant to see this righteousness of God through the Gospel, calling them into all true righteousness and truth.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14)

The True Light of God's Salvation

“Then the LORD said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.” (Genesis 7:1)

God presents Noah to us an example of putting our hope in God through living righteously and walking with God. This is the center message of the Gospel, that God has given us a real path of righteousness through Jesus. This is the significance of His death and life, that He has a real power over sin that we can live in through Him.

God is calling out to all of humanity to take courage to live righteously before Him, no matter how other people live. To truly pay the cost and bear the cross of godliness and holiness.

One of the greatest challenges to this call is the sins of others. To live according to the call of God, even if everyone else refuses to. And this is just as true in the church. Many in the church are not really obeying the call, and this great sin of them has worked great discouragement to others following God (Luke 11:52).

We also have to recognize that what others do will never be justification for us in neglecting this call of God ourselves. If Noah had done so, then he would have been judged the same as the rest of the world. Yet it was because Noah regarded God and righteousness that he was instructed by God to construct the ark. And so God speaks to all people who desire a real righteousness and yearn for justice and truth, to seek them in Him, and to walk in them through the life of His Son.

“So Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’” (Acts 11:34-35)

“The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.” (Psalm 18:20-24)

Our hope in God is that He will justly judge all people, and “will render to each one according to his works”. That those “by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” But to those “who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” (Romans 2:6-9)

Our great concern in life is to truly know God and to walk blamelessly before Him. This is true religion. And God would have us bear up, and not be pulled away from this by what others do/or don’t do. All of us will be judged by how we live. That is why, even with how the church has behaved, we are without excuse if we, ourselves, do not choose the true ways of God and walk in them.

The great concern of our lives is to be a people who walk rightly before God in what is good, waiting for the redemption of all things (Titus 2:11-14). This is the hope we have in God, the ark through the storm.

The devil is hard at work discouraging people from this great Light of God, this great work of righteousness and godliness. He works tirelessly to blind the minds of man through prejudices against God, through the sins of the church eclipsing the light of true godliness. Yet we should humble ourselves to learn of Christ, to patiently endure these storms with Him—rather than turn against Him, for that is the very desire of the devil—that we would take God as our enemy, rather than sin, the sin of others, and the works of the enemy of our souls.

When we look out into the world and we see great evils, do we not desire the judgement of God upon these things? We may not understand the full judgement of God yet, but can we not see it is partly here in these places? Do we not want wicked people held to account for the horrible things they’ve done? We rejoice in a judgement and long for it.

And God speaks to all longing souls to put their hope in Him for these very things, but the means of doing so is to turn into the full Light of godliness and righteousness itself.

When we are angry and afflicted by the sins of others, such as the many sins from the church, are we satisfied with their efforts? Are their ways good enough, or have they harmed us? God is helping us to see the real outcome of sin, the real ways our ways are not benign or “good enough”. To see just how very poisonous sin is. Let us humble ourselves to God in this, taking His examples and lessons in people and use them to turn to God in truth. He will teach the humble and help them to see that just as the church’s sins are very costly, so our sins are costly. They may not be the same, or the same degree, but that isn’t the point. The point is to see the ways of sin, that they are in fact much worse than we understood. This can help us if we will let it.

God shows us that if we are truly a people who do what is good and right, then we will be a people who will regard God and the true law of God. While there might be a great lack of goodness in those who profess these things, still there is no true goodness apart from God. Without God we cannot find the pure light of Goodness and Truth. Our goodness will not be done from a right principle, to a right end, and in a right spirit. These things are essential in order to walk in a real righteousness and truth.

“But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)

God created all people to be righteous people. The cry of our hearts is for righteousness and goodness, and against all that is contrary to these. Yet we must see that when we do not work this righteousness ourselves then we ourselves are sinful. To long for a righteous world is only truly matched by laboring to prepare ourselves to be worthy of such a world, all else is presumption and arrogance.

May the Lord help us all to run this race, and to do the works worthy of the Lord and the crown of glory.