Our word for today is the contrast to our word from yesterday. It is used for the first time in the Bible to describe the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. רָשָׁע guilty, wicked person, the wicked, criminal. It is used 263 times in the Old Testament. Throughout the Bible God makes it clear that the end of the road for the wicked is destruction. Psalm 1:6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the רָשָׁע wicked will perish. Psalm 9:5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the רָשָׁע wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever. Psalm 9:17 The רָשָׁע wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God. Psalm 37:10 A little while, and the רָשָׁע wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. Psalm 37:20 But the רָשָׁע wicked will perish: Though the Lord’s enemies are like the flowers of the field, they will be consumed, they will go up in smoke. Psalm 92:7 Though the רָשָׁע wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
As we saw yesterday God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but would rather that everyone turn away from their sin and put their faith in God to save them. Hebrews 3:12, 19; 4:1-2 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God … So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.
We are talking about trust not just knowing something to be true. James 2:19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. The demons believe in God and they tremble because they know God will bring judgment on them because they only know that God is real but they don’t trust in him and follow him. So not just knowing something to be true but putting our trust in a person and that person is Jesus Christ who saves us by our faith because like Abraham who was not righteous in an absolute sense God considered righteous because of his faith in God. 2 Corinthians 5:19, 21 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them … God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Romans 3:22-24 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
