Blog 173 What is the Judgement of God?
He leads me …
To understand God’s judgment in a Christians life, we should look first at how an unbeliever thinks.
A natural person thinks that they can make right choices, but they do not realize that they do not have all truth. They judge their neighbour according to outward signs like how they have been treated, wealth, social behavior, health, intellect, influence, style, background, and beauty. As a result, the natural minded person criticizes others without realizing that they are guilty of the same things that they judge others of.[1]
But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
There is a big difference between our judgment and God’s judgment. When we judge others, we use our judgment as a reason to dislike them or have nothing to do with them. But God does an amazing thing that we do not do after we’ve judged someone. He takes it on Himself to redeem that person by rescuing them from being a sinner. God uses judgment to show us why we need redemption. Consider Paul’s words:
It was the law that showed me my sin. (Romans 7:7 NLT)
The judgment we learn of as a result of the law is not God telling us that He does not want anything to do with us (What? You’ve got it wrong – again?), but that He wants to rescue us from our past and set us apart for His glory. However, we must first accept that we are sinners before God can do this.
Not only does God redeem the guilty, but when they are successfully redeemed, they are permanently in His Kingdom. Those who have with the Lord’s help corrected themselves by faith from the judgments in the law, are then welcomed as the Lord’s sons and daughters (Romans 8:15).
For those of us who have experienced a conversion experience when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, the Father knew all about our previous rebellion and sinfulness. In love, He adopted us along with rebels, foreigners, and strangers into His Kingdom through Jesus’s blood (Ephesians 1:5, 7-8; 2:12-13, 18-19). He chose us in Christ to make us holy and blameless before Him. (Ephesians 1:4). Now, we are citizens of His Kingdom.[2]
God sees people’s heart and calls those who the rest of us would judge as either insignificant or a waste of time, like -
· Saul of Tarsus, who spent much of the first half of his life persecuting the new Christian movement.
· David, the young shepherd boy who did the general jobs for his family.
· Gideon, who was a timid man and hid in a winepress.
· Rahab, who was a prostitute.
· Luke, a tax collector who was hated by the other Jews.
· The Samaritan woman at the well who had previously had five husbands.
Personal Sin vs. Judgement
A lot of problems that we see in people’s lives, are natural consequences of sin, not the judgement of God. For example, if someone regularly gets drunk or is addicted to gambling, there are some natural consequences of that. We could expect health problems, relationship problems, and financial problems as a result.
Clearly each outcome results from the person’s behavior. They are not the judgement of God on that person’s life.
The problems start when we agree with and believe any of countless lies that we get conditioned to. Like, what do we say when we are offered ‘just one more’ drink? Or, we got so close to winning that money, what if we just place some more for the next hand of cards or the next race so that we can win?
In the end, we end up where we never wanted to go. If we are honest with ourselves, we see that our downfall is our own making, not the judgement of God.[3]
Natural Disasters
The obvious question is, ‘What about natural disasters?’ Surely, they are the judgement of God on communities in various parts of the world for their sin?
If we have a look at what the Bible says we see that there are instances when this occurred. For example, there was the global flood (Genesis 5-7), the fire and brimstone God sent upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:23-29), the ten plagues God punished the Egyptians with (Exodus 7:14-11:10), and God’s opening of the earth to swallow the sons of Korah (Numbers 16:28-35).[4]
If we look back at the history of the world we see that climate change, earthquakes, floods and volcanic activity have occurred throughout the life of the planet as the mantles that the continents are on change and move. This is a natural phenomenon.
However, there are actions carried out by people who are more interested in profit than they are in ecology. For example, global warming has occurred as a result of the atmosphere being polluted from mankind’s industrialization. We should also consider how we got nuclear contamination, tropical deforestation, the destruction of coral reefs, oil spills, overfishing, expanding landfills, toxic wastes, the poisonous effects of insecticides and herbicides, and the depletion of nonrenewable resources.[5]
Determining what is or is not God’s judgment is not easy. So let us humbly admit that we cannot understand all God’s ways.
Judgment Day
There is final judgement coming for all mankind. Basically, it is in two parts.
Charles Stanley says that Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ will judge everyone (Acts 10:42). Those who have rejected His offer of salvation face the white throne judgment before being removed away from God’s presence for eternity. Believers will also stand before Jesus, but they will finally come to a full understanding of His extravagant grace.
In 1 Corinthians 4:5, Paul says that Jesus will disclose the motives hidden in believers’ hearts. Some Christians think that all their sins will be exposed for all to see, but the Bible in no way supports that idea.
Jesus will expose the true nature of a believer’s heart to them – good and bad. As we stand in the Lord Jesus’ presence, saddened by how unworthy we are of His sacrifice, the Bible says that Jesus will wipe the tears from our eyes (Isaiah 25:8).
Believers need not tremble or hang our heads during the judgment. Nor are we to repent—the time for that is past. We will stand before Jesus, clothed in His righteousness and forgiven of every single sin. And we will, at last, truly understand how great our God’s love is for us.[6]
Dear Reader – If you have found some value in this blog, please feel free to send a copy on to your family and friends. Kind regards, John
[1] The Benefits of God's Judgment, Ernie and Mary Kroeger, TheGoodSeed.org
https://www.thegoodseed.org/insights/judgment.html
[2] God’s Judgment Is Not Like Our Judgment, Kyle Golden, Open the Bible, Barrington, Illinois;
https://openthebible.org/article/gods-judgment-not-our-judgment/
[3] What You Need to Know About the Judgement of God, Chris & Lisa Cree, NewCREEations Ministries;
https://newcreeations.org/judgement-of-god/
[4] Are Natural Disasters the Judgment of God? James Jeffery, The Gospel Coalition Australia;
https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/about/foundation-documents/
[5] The Ecology of Destruction, John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review;
https://monthlyreview.org/2007/02/01/the-ecology-of-destruction/
[6] What Is the Final Judgment of God? What Happens on Judgment Day? Christianity.com;
