Everybody thinks that God ought to be like Justice Pao (包青天), rewarding the good and punishing the evil. This is because that everybody thinks that he is good and his neighbour evil. But "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23 KJV)". And God, being merciful and patient, "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45 KJV)". "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. (Psalm 130:3-4 KJV)"
Now that confuses sinners and Christians, especially those who hardly read God's Word. Sinners find that bad may be rewarded and good punished. Christians find that prayers according to God's will are not always answered because our "iniquities have separated between you and your God (Isaiah 59:2 KJV)," but God, who is "kind unto the unthankful and to the evil (Luke 6:35 KJV)", will sometimes answer our prayers, even though we do not fully confess and repent of our sins.
"The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. (Isaiah 57:1 KJV)"
Then all the women present and all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to idols—a great crowd of all the Judeans living in northern Egypt and southern Egypt—answered Jeremiah, "We will not listen to your messages from the Lord! We will do whatever we want. We will burn incense and pour out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven just as much as we like—just as we, and our ancestors, and our kings and officials have always done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and had no troubles! But ever since we quit burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped worshiping her with liquid offerings, we have been in great trouble and have been dying from war and famine."
"Besides," the women added, "do you suppose that we were burning incense and pouring out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven, and making cakes marked with her image, without our husbands knowing it and helping us? Of course not!"
Jeremiah 44:15-19 NLT
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