Claw Marks On The Outside Of Noah’s Ark…

Judgment…

Why are Christians so afraid of admitting that God is a righteous, holy and just God of judgment? Probably because it contradicts the image of the god we’ve fashioned in our own hearts of how we want him to be.

[That’s it—I might as well end this post here, because that sums up my thoughts!]

This going to be a reflective entry, not a Bible study, so forgive me if I don’t quote left and right where I’m gleaning specific Biblical ideas from. If you read your own Bible thoroughly, nothing I say should strike you as made up by myself about God.

As we–the Body of Christ in the Netherlands–enter our Esther year of preparation for the national day of prayer and fasting on 08.08.08, I’ve noticed a common reaction when I describe this to many young people: many are almost embarrassed or ashamed or offended of admitting a quality of God that is true of His character, but isn’t politically correct to acknowledge in any form.

In order to acknowledge the need to pray and fast for a nation, one must acknowledge the reasons why it’s necessary to do so. At the time I shied away from making a public opinion about if things like tsunamis or Hurricane Katrina were acts of God (judgment) since it’s too easy to assume they are. BUT when I read the Bible, I see different catastrophes and calamities as being a way God wakes up or punishes a society, usually out of an attempt to provoke a people to repentance.

So why are most Christians so afraid of admitting it, and a few pious people WAY too excited to zero in on this attribute of God?

Most are scared sinners will turn away from an angry God so we present Him as only loving uncle or grand-dad, and shy away from talking about hell, and from talking about the consequences of sinful lifestyle, and shy away from allowing people to make the connection for themselves that God does things/allows things to happen as an act of mercy—knowing that sometimes the hard smack of hitting rock bottom is the only way some people will turn from their wicked ways and lift their hands up to Him.

Judgment is oftentimes the most merciful thing God could do, like a “last ditch” effort to get someone’s attention. He would rather have a whole nation turn to Him voluntarily, instead of as a reaction when they’ve lost everything and have nowhere to turn to except to Him. He’s not some police officer in the sky seeking attention in order to fulfill some personal insecurity. He loves us, and cares too deeply about His people to allow them to spend eternity in hell.

One of the most common ways judgment is inflicted is through sowing and reaping. This actually is a spiritual law set in motion by our actions or inaction–God leaves it totally up to us in many respects, if you will. This is obvious in matters like if you smoke 5 packs of cigarettes a day, you will “reap” all sorts of things in due time, lung cancer, diseases, premature heart attacks and all sorts of things. This is not an instance of God “inflicting” anything upon someone because He’s mad at them for smoking cigarettes, but the law of sowing and reaping tobacco to his lungs, necessitates that he will reap something, and in this case, deteriorating health if not death itself ultimately.

But sometimes, sowing and reaping is demonstrated in nations and lands, in that the community as a whole has committed so many acts of wickedness and sin, that over time, the land as a whole will ‘reap’ also. For a tremendous Biblical teaching that goes into this even deeper than I will, I strongly suggest the teaching “Healing the Land” by Tommi Femrite on our Fire On Your Head podcast

But I say this to say that we cannot ignore certain aspects of God’s character just because it doesn’t fit the package of who God is in our minds and in our presentation of Him to the culture around us. Leave God as He is and not package Him in whatever way works best for bringing in the crowds.

Preach The Truth. The way some Christians speak and write on their blogs, you’d figure He has an image problem and needs a PR manager like them to help Him with His image!

God is not politically correct, despite some seeker-sensitive Christians’ desire to present Him as a nice Tooth-fairy Santa Claus that is sad nobody listens to Him and just wants to love people, and condemns nobody. Sometimes the threat of judgment in Scripture lured a whole nation to repentance and lives were spared (Nineveh in the book of Jonah comes to mind). Other times, judgment was threatened out of God’s desire to lure his Bride Israel back to Himself from whoring after other lovers. If God were a TRUE and righteous God, He HAS to make good on His promises, including the curses, not just the blessings. In fact, many times in Scripture like Deuteronomy 28, more detail is given to describing curses that would come for disobedience than is spent giving time to describing blessings that come from obedience. God does not just promise “your best life now” like some mega-church pastors preach and write, and then go on Larry King and can’t answer a simple straightforward question like “is Jesus Christ really the only way to heaven“. We’re too afraid of implying or saying anyone is on their way to hell, but that is precisely the reason we must proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ and the coming day of judgment.

I’ve heard it said desire for change alone is not enough to motivate many people to change. But desire to change and unbearable pain combined usually does the trick. Let’s face it: many people learn lessons in life the hard way!

I was describing recently to a group of Christian college students how desperate of a situation this nation of Holland is in, and WHY a national day of prayer and fasting is of utmost importance and necessary, and that God is birthing this in the hearts of many church leaders across the nation. They know, that this nation has fulfilled more than it’s share of the ‘wrath cup’, and given that we are below sea level, a Katrina-like disaster is not far-fetched…

…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Many Christians can quote this verse and even know where it is in the Bible, but how many of us take the time to realize it is the second part of a sentence, and bother to read the paragraphs leading up to it, or keep reading afterward? Let’s look at the whole thing:

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’

“But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’” 2 Chronicles 7:13-22 E.S.V., emphasis mine

Funny how this WHOLE thing is not a popular passage of Scripture to preach on every Sunday morning. Whenever a natural disaster happens in a city known for blatant and public sin, if a minister of the Gospel got up and quoted this verse without citing the reference, he’d be (and has been) condemned by most of the modern evangelical and charismatic community, and almost all of society. But deep down inside we all know better, but don’t want to admit it.

We all know that if it weren’t for the grace God and the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ, God would leave us to the consequences of our sin, in an eternal punishment of hellfire. How come this truth is not as popular as preaching on tithing or sowing to receive your hundredfold return?

Be very aware–God will hold the Church accountable for all she allowed to happen in her nation of influence. The watchmen who see the sword coming on the land but do not warn its inhabitants, the Lord requires their blood at the watchman’s hand (Ezekiel 33:6)

When people are spending their eternity in hell, they won’t be so happy with you in that day for not offending them in their lifetime, and not ruffling any of their feathers. People appreciate warnings to avoid crossing a street if they don’t notice a truck is about to hit them–you don’t gently say “sweetheart get off the road.” Better to have people offended with you now and rattled a little bit but have heard the truth that has power to saved them from the wrath of God and set them free from the bondage of their sin, and forgive them and empower them to live this life free from it. Better that than to have them live how they want but thought that praying a prayer and going through ’4 spiritual laws’ and checking yes to all the right questions but going on living the same way as before and “really believing in their heart” was all it took to be a Christian, void of any demonstration of repentance. At least when the people of Noah’s day drowned in the flood and tried one last time to claw their way into the ark, they KNEW already what they were facing because they’d been warned many times for many years.

Let’s not have the blood of a nation on our hands, no matter how much against the grain such a message may be.