All right, all right, join the Journey family, friends, and guests. You're listening to

join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma Daughter. Thanks for joining. This week, we are reading

Acts 12 and we're answering the question, is God harsh? Have you ever noticed how uncomfortable modern culture can be with the idea of judgment

or justice? We don't mind hearing that God is loving, patient, compassionate, or forgiving,

but the moment we encounter a passage where God judges someone severely, many of us instinctively recoil. We start

asking questions like, isn't that extreme? Or why would God respond that way? And honestly,

we don't just react that way in the spiritual sense. We can do it everywhere. If a referee ejects a

player like Wembe, fans argue that the punishment

was too harsh or not harsh enough. If a company fires a public figure, people debate whether

the consequence fits the offense, or if a judge hands down a sentence, the comment section

immediately fills with opinions about

whether justice was too severe or too lenient.

We constantly evaluate authority and judgment through the lens of what feels fair to us.

And that's part of why Acts 1223 can feel jarring. Herod accepts worship from the crowd,

and then Luke tells us, instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with sickness,

because he accepted the people's worship instead of giving the glory to God. And then as we continue reading, we learn that

he dies. And so the question is, for many readers immediately, was that harsh? Now, if we never

wrestle honestly with passages about God's justice, we can unintentionally create a version of God

who's loving but not holy,

compassionate but unconcerned with evil, patient, but indifferent toward pride, oppression, or rebellion.

And while that version of God may feel more comfortable to modern readers,

it ultimately falls apart in the real world. Because if God

...