"The Judgment Of The World"

John 12:31-33

31 “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” 33 But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.

The knowledge that the entire membership roll of the Nazi Party, containing some eight million names, was found soon after the collapse of the German army was no joyous news to those whose names were thereon. Once these people were proud to be numbered with the ruling party. Once it had meant power and prestige, and in many cases wealth. This master file had been the key to places of honor and authority for those whose names were listed, but now it was different. Now it meant sharp investigation, prison for many and death for others.

—G. Franklin Allee

Throughout the history of nations and cultures the tides of attitude toward God and His truth have ebbed and flowed between honoring Him, depending on Him, worshiping Him as a people, to drifting away, looking to worldly things for provision and support, questioning His truth and abandoning His precepts and falling finally into apostasy.

In those final stages one of the earmarks of abandonment of God and spiritual collapse is the increase in willingness to openly scoff at true believers and mock God’s written Word.

We’ve witnessed a couple examples of that very recently from television personalities and politicians who have brazenly derided Christianity and Christians as unable to think; as losers. But the ones in the public eye are not alone, they’re just the ones who have a large audience because of their name and position.

In the American society and indeed around the world we are now in a day that parallels the last days of many ancient societies, when on a grand scale people were turning their back on anything Godly, denying openly the claims of Christ and His people, and manifesting in their very words and actions the indictment of Romans chapter 3 when it says, “There is no fear of God before their eyes”.

Just like those days of the power of the Third Reich; men and women are so busy reveling in the comforts and pursuits of worldly and fleshly position and prestige that they have no time for thought as to what might come later. No ear for warning, no place for thoughts of accountability to any Authority above themselves, phoo-phoo-ing at the very mention of a judgment to come.

I think the state of the collective modern psyche is captured in the chorus of a song by rock group Megadeth, on an album curiously titled, “The World Needs a Hero”.

“What if I do get caught? What if there is no judgment?

If I’m right I lose nothing, if you’re right I lose it all

I ought to get caught because I’m doing something wicked

I’m guilty haunted by my fear and the only consequences

Are Dread and the Fugitive Mind.”

What’s the message? That there is no judgment forthcoming. Yes, I’m guilty. Yes, I’m wicked. Yes, I am haunted. But if the only consequence of my actions is this dread that I go to bed with every night, and the insistence of my mind to run away from any thought of retribution or judgment, hey, I can hang with that.

But I want you to listen to me today because I have news that flies in the face of every reference to future judgment that I was able to dig up in my research. Everything I found, every quote, every song, every mention of judgment put it in either the realm of future reality, future myth, or future never.

What have they missed? They’ve missed the declaration of Jesus Christ that judgment has come to this world.

What if there is no judgment? The question of the ignorant and fools. The horses are gone; forget the barn door. Forget piling good deeds on the scales, you’ve already been weighed and found wanting. Nevermind ‘IF’; judgment has come and you are judged already!

THE SON OF MAN HAS COME

I see something else of interest for us in these verses of John 12.

In verse 23 Jesus makes the statement that the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Now in the minds of His hearers, the term “Son of Man” was immediately recognizable from the seventh chapter of Daniel, verses 13 and 14; so let’s look at those first.

Daniel 7:13 (NASB95)

13 “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.