These two themes are running in and out of each other,

and you get horrendous words of judgment

and strong statements of God's righteousness in the Old Testament,

and you get incredible words of patience,

and kindness and mercy in the Old Testament.

And you wonder, what in the world?

How can he be like this?

Where does it all come together?

What's the common thing?

How does it?

And suddenly the music comes together in the cross.

If you've ever read the Old Testament and thought, how can God be this merciful here

and that severe there?

You're not alone.

I'm Dan Kroover.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper takes us to the one place where God's justice and mercy meet

and the music of the Old Testament finally makes sense. This teaching was originally delivered

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on February 26, 1992.

Tonight, we begin chapter 6, we won't finish chapter 6, and then next time we'll, we'll probably not spend the whole time next week on chapter 6.

So let's begin with question number one.

What is a skew out of kilter in the picture of God and his ways that has emerged so far in our study?

Or another way to ask this is to say, what's the apparent schizophrenia in God that we are confronted with in the Bible?

...