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Pentecost 91 Judgment Day; Dread or Joy?
Pentecost 91 Judgment Day; Dread or Joy?
On the heels of the Word’s revelation of God’s wrath comes judgment, the final universal Day of Judgment. God has concluded and stated ahead of time, for our sake, there will be a day of judgment (Matt.12:36) when He will judge men’s secrets (1Cor.2:16). Jesus makes this very clear in Matt.25:31-46 where He uses the Parable of the Sheep and Goats to picture the event.
Four things will happen at the judgment:
First, all humanity will be gathered before the Lord’s throne.
Second, they will be separated into two groups, those that are righteous and those who are unrighteous. In their lifetimes the righteous were sensitive to the needs of others and the unrighteous were self-indulgent.
Third, the righteous will not necessarily have been deed conscious. They will have been heart conscious to God and therefore others. The unrighteous will be defensive claiming their allegiance to Him but in essence, they were heartless toward God and others.
Fourth, the righteous will go into the Kingdom prepared for them since Creation. The unrighteous will end up in an eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
What we have then is a picture of judgment being first spiritual, secondly, akin to the Lord’s heart and thirdly, eternally final. There is no in between place where we can hide, no city of refuge, no neutral site. There is Heaven and there is hell. Already consigned to hell are the devil, his spirits and demons and his kingdom of darkness. All that is sin and evil has its finality in the eternal kingdom of lonely darkness.
In glorious contrast the righteous will be in their eternal home with the Lord forever. It will be in a Kingdom of light, love and relational oneness where growing in the Lord will be ongoing.
But we need to look more closely at judgment. It is built into Creation. Everything has a beginning and an end. It is the in between that comes under scrutiny. No matter what human activity is involved judgment is part of its process. Take a job for instance. There is always an evaluation of performance that comes under the judgment of a supervisor. Good job, you get paid. Bad job, you get fired. In education grades determine your academic worth. Do the work and you get good grades. The opposite for bad work. The reward for good work is graduation and a diploma. Not so for bad work. In business customers’ purchases determine success or failure. In social interaction there is constant evaluation taking place. Judgment is understood in terms of acceptance or rejection. Even in travel judgment is levied in terms of moving from one nation to another. The passport is your in and its lack means you’re denied. Getting into yourself; your mind and heart, you may be your own worst judge since only you know through self-examination of past and present where you stand in terms of right and wrong, good and evil, sin and righteousness.
Then of course, there is that final judgment that death brings. Death is final and what survives that has a destiny. That destiny is either being at one with God or eternally separated from Him.
Now having said all that perhaps we can see the critical mass of the spiritual condition and motivation in our hearts. We will be spiritually evaluated and judged. This is why God came in Jesus Christ, to bear the judgment for our sinful separation from God. Just as He bore the wrath of God, He also bore its judgment and bore them on the Cross in our place. How freeing it is to know that when we come before Him in faith, accepting Him as our Savior and Lord in repentance, He writes our name in the Book of Life. His judgment for each of us is acceptance into His Kingdom. Jesus, God the Son, saved us from the devil, hell, sin and evil. Instead of dreading the judgment we look forward to meeting Him face to face and come out of the cold into the warming hut of His grace and love, forever.
So we don’t try to be good, to earn our way into Heaven. Jesus did all that work for us on the Cross. Because of the Cross of Christ our desire is to please Him and lift Him up before the world. We don’t avoid the world. We get right into its face and love the people in it through ministry and mission. The mission? To bring as many as possible to consider Jesus. The ministry? To meet their needs, one heart at a time. What a blessing!
Stay tuned………
On the heels of the Word’s revelation of God’s wrath comes judgment, the final universal Day of Judgment. God has concluded and stated ahead of time, for our sake, there will be a day of judgment (Matt.12:36) when He will judge men’s secrets (1Cor.2:16). Jesus makes this very clear in Matt.25:31-46 where He uses the Parable of the Sheep and Goats to picture the event.
Four things will happen at the judgment:
First, all humanity will be gathered before the Lord’s throne.
Second, they will be separated into two groups, those that are righteous and those who are unrighteous. In their lifetimes the righteous were sensitive to the needs of others and the unrighteous were self-indulgent.
Third, the righteous will not necessarily have been deed conscious. They will have been heart conscious to God and therefore others. The unrighteous will be defensive claiming their allegiance to Him but in essence, they were heartless toward God and others.
Fourth, the righteous will go into the Kingdom prepared for them since Creation. The unrighteous will end up in an eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
What we have then is a picture of judgment being first spiritual, secondly, akin to the Lord’s heart and thirdly, eternally final. There is no in between place where we can hide, no city of refuge, no neutral site. There is Heaven and there is hell. Already consigned to hell are the devil, his spirits and demons and his kingdom of darkness. All that is sin and evil has its finality in the eternal kingdom of lonely darkness.
In glorious contrast the righteous will be in their eternal home with the Lord forever. It will be in a Kingdom of light, love and relational oneness where growing in the Lord will be ongoing.
But we need to look more closely at judgment. It is built into Creation. Everything has a beginning and an end. It is the in between that comes under scrutiny. No matter what human activity is involved judgment is part of its process. Take a job for instance. There is always an evaluation of performance that comes under the judgment of a supervisor. Good job, you get paid. Bad job, you get fired. In education grades determine your academic worth. Do the work and you get good grades. The opposite for bad work. The reward for good work is graduation and a diploma. Not so for bad work. In business customers’ purchases determine success or failure. In social interaction there is constant evaluation taking place. Judgment is understood in terms of acceptance or rejection. Even in travel judgment is levied in terms of moving from one nation to another. The passport is your in and its lack means you’re denied. Getting into yourself; your mind and heart, you may be your own worst judge since only you know through self-examination of past and present where you stand in terms of right and wrong, good and evil, sin and righteousness.
Then of course, there is that final judgment that death brings. Death is final and what survives that has a destiny. That destiny is either being at one with God or eternally separated from Him.
Now having said all that perhaps we can see the critical mass of the spiritual condition and motivation in our hearts. We will be spiritually evaluated and judged. This is why God came in Jesus Christ, to bear the judgment for our sinful separation from God. Just as He bore the wrath of God, He also bore its judgment and bore them on the Cross in our place. How freeing it is to know that when we come before Him in faith, accepting Him as our Savior and Lord in repentance, He writes our name in the Book of Life. His judgment for each of us is acceptance into His Kingdom. Jesus, God the Son, saved us from the devil, hell, sin and evil. Instead of dreading the judgment we look forward to meeting Him face to face and come out of the cold into the warming hut of His grace and love, forever.
So we don’t try to be good, to earn our way into Heaven. Jesus did all that work for us on the Cross. Because of the Cross of Christ our desire is to please Him and lift Him up before the world. We don’t avoid the world. We get right into its face and love the people in it through ministry and mission. The mission? To bring as many as possible to consider Jesus. The ministry? To meet their needs, one heart at a time. What a blessing!
Stay tuned………
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