Why doesn’t God do something about the evil in the world?” How many times have you heard that question asked? But when you respond to that question by saying, “God will do something about the evil in the world; there will be a judgment when God will reward righteousness and punish evil,” people don’t want to hear about it. They want God to do something about the evil in the world, but they do not want to think about a judgment! The Bible explains that God will do something about the injustice and suffering in the world, and that there is a day of reckoning. The good news is that no one is going to get by with anything.
The first point is: The judgment means that justice will be done. I believe in the judgment! I believe, as the Apostle’s Creed states, that Jesus Christ, who has ascended to the Father will soon come to judge the living and the dead. The Bible tells us that God is a God of justice and that we are ultimately responsible to Him. In the Old Testament, the prophet Daniel tells about the vision God gave him of the final judgment. It is a vision so awesome and terrible that Daniel was in shock. He writes: “As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened” (Daniel 7:9-10).
To you and I will come the day when we see with our own eyes what Daniel saw, only it will not be in a vision, but solemn reality, and we will tremble before the awesome Judge. For the Bible says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). We read in the book of Romans: “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living... For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’” (Romans 14:9-11). You and I will stand in naked honesty to give an account of our lives before the One on the burning throne. The Bible tells us that not only will every deed and word be recorded, but every idle thought, and they will all be weighed in the balances of God’s justice.
God, in his goodness and patience, will give us every opportunity before that time to repent and turn to Him. He will provide opportunities for us to find him, live for him and turn our lives around so that we live out our days in the joy of obedience. He is patient with us, wanting each person to have every possible opportunity to face the judgment with confidence. But after God has given us every opportunity, and we still refuse his offer of love and grace, then we alone will have to answer for our decision. The Bible says, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God” (Hebrews 10:26). But also hear the pleading of God as he spoke through the prophet Ezekiel: “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die...?’” (Ezekiel 33:11).
Perhaps you will say: “But I believe in a God of love!” The Bible says, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God....” (Romans 11:22). Yes, God is a God of love, and because he is a God of love he must judge sin. Because he loves you and cares for you he will bring into judgment all that has been done against you. He will right all the wrongs of the world. That is why the Bible can say, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). If there is no judgment then the atrocities of the world will go unnoticed, unchallenged and unpunished.
In order for God to love righteousness, he has to hate sin. If he tolerated evil, he could not truly love righteousness. Because he is a holy God and passionately loves righteousness, he also fiercely hates evil, and he will most certainly bring all those who practice evil into judgment. He is indeed a God of love, but he is also a God of justice.
I believe in the judgment. I believe that God is serious about his hatred of sin, and the necessity of obeying his commandments, because they are the words of life. He is not indifferent to our disobedience. The Bible says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Somehow we have come to think of God as a big Santa Claus who brings us presents whether we have been naughty or nice. We have come to think that he doesn’t really get angry; that would be unbecoming of him.
A grandmother once told me she was trying to get her granddaughter to discipline and correct her children who had become so out of control that they were totally obnoxious. The granddaughter’s response was: “Well, I plan on it, but by the time I get around to it I just think of how adorable they are, and what they did just seems cute instead of bad.” We have come to think that God is like that young mother. He will pretend he is mad, he may even threaten, but he will never carry it out. I believe in the judgment. The Lord says in the book of Isaiah: “Yet I will look with pity on the man who has a humble and a contrite heart, who trembles at my word. But those who choose their own ways, delighting in their sins, are cursed. God will not accept their offerings... I will send great troubles upon them — all the things they feared, for when I called them, they refused to answer, and when I spoke to them, they would not hear. Instead, they did wrong before my eyes, and chose what they knew I despised” (Isaiah 66:2-4 LB). The frightening thing about free will — freedom of choice — is that we can choose life, or we can choose what destroys us for all eternity. C. S. Lewis says: “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’”
The day of judgment will come as surely as we have come to this hour. And when it does, as Daniel says, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:2-3). Listen as we read in the New Testament of Christ’s return: “This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power...” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).
Interestingly, the person that talks the most about judgment in the Bible is Jesus Christ. We are often misled to believe that Jesus only talked about love, which is not the case. Almost all that we know about hell comes from the lips of Jesus. The majority of all that we are told in the Bible about the coming judgment is taught to us by Jesus Christ. It is not one of the prophets raving in the desert in his camel hair garment who speaks most of judgment. Neither is it Paul, as he is chained in an underground prison cell. No, it was Jesus who began his ministry with the words: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” and ended his ministry talking about his second coming and the impending judgment of the world.
The second point is: The judgment means that all sentences will be final. Somehow we have assumed that those who have not come to God will simply not exist after this life (a theory called annihilationism), or that eventually God will let everyone into heaven (universalism). Listen to the words of Jesus: “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42). It is a place where God gives us the freedom to live away from him and his blessings for all eternity if we so choose. You may ask, “Why would anyone choose that?” But the real question is, “Why do they choose that existence now?” Many live in the ruins and pain of a life away from God, yet have no intention of changing. The way we live on earth, and the decisions we have made, will affect us eternally. Again it is Jesus who makes this clear. He says, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” (Matthew 25:41).
God’s judgment comes because of the lawlessness and disobedience of the world. The world has ignored the laws of God as though they did not exist. We have gone so far that we cannot even recognize when we have done something that is wrong. In our culture, we have lost our moral sanity. We are proud of what we should be ashamed of. Our TV reality shows are filled with people who smilingly describe things which are to their shame for all the world to see. The prophet Jeremiah talked about those who have forgotten how to blush. (Jeremiah 6:15, 8:12). Somehow we think that we can make up our own minds about what is right and wrong and God has to get over it. But the Standard has already been set. When did we start thinking that the morality of the Bible is outdated and unimportant? When did we begin to believe that God has changed his mind since we do not agree with his laws? We, as a nation, are in the process of losing our collective conscience and moral intelligence.
We have gone so far that we are not shamed or convinced we are wrong even when we have committed the most perverse sins. We are not convinced we are wrong, and neither would we have done it any differently if we had it to do over again. We cannot imagine God not letting us have our way, let alone punishing us. We are determined to do what we want whether it is right or wrong, whether it pleases God, or whether it helps or hurts anyone else or not. The problem is that God does let us have our way — now and forever.
I believe in the judgment. I believe that the judgment of God will fall on all ungodliness whether we claim to be Christian or not. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). The judgment is a reality. We will not be able to dazzle our way out of it with our charming personality. We will not be able to explain our way out of it with excuses. There will be no con-artists who make it through the judgment — only those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, those who lived in love and faithfulness to God.
If there is not a judgment, then God is not just. It means he was not serious about his laws. It means that Christ died for no reason. It means he will not take vengeance for the sins and terrible things committed against you and the rest of mankind. He will do nothing to those who have brought suffering and violence into the world. The judgment is never defended or explained in the Bible, it is simply stated as a matter of fact. The Bible never tries to convince us through logical arguments that there is a judgment. It is simply presented as a reality to be taken seriously.
The third point is: We can face the judgment with confidence. The Good News is that we do not have to fear the condemnation of the judgment. There is forgiveness. We can change. Jesus Christ came to earth out of love for us; he died and rose again that we might have eternal life and escape the condemnation of the judgment. That is what the Gospel is all about.
J. I. Packer, in his book Knowing God says, “Run from him now, and you will meet him as Judge then — and without hope. Seek him now, and you will find him (for he that seeks finds) and you will then discover that you are looking forward to that future meeting with joy, knowing that there is now ‘no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’”
No condemnation! What good news! The God of heaven, who has it in his power to condemn us, wants to forgive us and bring us rejoicing into his kingdom. The Bible says, “Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear... To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy... to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord....” (Jude 1:21-25).
Max Lucado, in his wonderful book The Applause of Heaven, tells the story of a man who had lived for God and loved Christ for many years: “A few days before he died, a priest went to visit him in the hospital. As the priest entered the room, he noticed an empty chair beside the man’s bed. The priest asked him if someone had been by to visit. The old man smiled, ‘I place Jesus on that chair, and I talk to him.’ The priest was puzzled, so the man explained. ‘Years ago a friend told me that prayer was as simple as talking to a good friend. So every day I pull up a chair, invite Jesus to sit, and we have a good talk.’ Some days later, the daughter of this man came to the parish house to inform the priest that her father had just died. ‘Because he seemed so content,’ she said, ‘I left him in his room alone for couple of hours. When I got back to the room, I found him dead. I noticed a strange thing, though: His head was resting, not on the pillow, but on an empty chair that was beside his bed.’”
There are two ways we can leave this world. We can leave it in terror of meeting the One we have resisted and rebelled against all our lives, knowing we are about to meet our Judge, or we can leave this world leaning on the Savior we have loved and lived for.
Rodney J. Buchanan
May 27, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
