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Instruments of Judgment
The perfect marriage of relentless, passionate, jealous love with holy, fathomless, intense anger--such is the judgment of Almighty God. This is an aspect of the Living God which many would like to ignore, forget, or outright deny. How could we, as wretched as we are, fully embrace this characteristic, this side, if you will, of the Lord we so long to see and know? But we will never truly know Him until this aspect of the nature of God is made a part of the fabric of our intimate relationship with Him. We cannot know God as Love if we do not know Him as Judge.
In the Cross of Jesus Christ the judgment of God is brought to the fore forevermore. In the words of Oswald Chambers, the Cross of Christ is the center of all of time and eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both. In His Cross the Son of God suffered the full magnitude of God's judgement for sin in His own fully human body, without in the least degree diminishing His divine nature. But why the crooked confines of a Roman cross? Why did God choose this instrument to be the means by which He would judge the sins of the world and provide redemption to the entire human race? How significant are the instruments of God's judgement in considering the execution of His wrath?
From the very inception of Israel as a nation belonging specially to God we see His judgments executed upon the nation of Egypt in order to redeem His people from the iron furnace of slavery. But why the specific ten plagues, such as water turned into blood, or frogs, or darkness? You see, if we look carefully at the manner in which God poured out these plagues, we will notice a very intriguing point. They were not merely capricious or fanciful ways of bringing a nation to its knees. No, the instruments of God's judgment on Egypt, in reference to the plagues, served an integral purpose in the deliverance God wrought for His people.
"For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I [am] the LORD" (Exodus 12:12). Look carefully and it becomes quite clear that a good number of the plagues are directed in some measure toward the false gods of Egypt. The first plague Yahweh brought upon Egypt was the turning of the nation's water into blood, as Aaron struck the water of the Nile River with the rod of God (Ex. 7:20). Egyptians had deified the Nile as the god Hopi, because of the the nation's dependence on its waters. The next plague involved God bringing upon the land masses of frogs, which animal the Egyptians had deified in the goddess Heqt, who was believed to assist women in childbirth. And the plague of darkness was directed unswervingly toward a chief Egyptian deity, the sun-god Ra. In each instance, the false gods of Egypt were exposed for the frauds that they were, and the God of Israel was revealed as the only true and Living God, Who was calling forth a people unto Himself.
Later in the history of Israel there rises a prophet by the name of Jonah. God called this man to prophesy the impending destruction of the pagan city Ninevah. However, Jonah knew the mercy of God and had no interest in Yahweh's sparing of this wicked city. Thus, when Jonah fled the call of God, the Lord first sent a storm to rage against him and his fellow travellers, then prepared a large fish to swallow him for three days and nights, in order to change the prophet's mind. When Jonah finally turns to God for salvation the fish spits him out and God reiterates His call to the stubborn man. Just a side note, but don't you find it humorous that God uses His servant's disobedience to become a sign for the burial and resurrection of Christ (Matthew 12:40)? Jonah acquiesces and preaches the judgement of God upon the city and its inhabitants, and they repent. The Lord forbears the pouring out of His wrath, and the pagan city of Ninevah narrowly escapes the judgment of the God of Israel.
Before the same century (700's B.C.) the northern tribes of Israel had already degenerated into a nation virtually indistinguishable from its idol-worshipping neighbors, save that they attempted to include Yahweh in their idolatry. The syncretistic worship of the God of Israel alongside false gods was insufferable. Day and night God sent His prophets calling for repentance if the nation wished to avert God's punishment for her sin. But the nation of Israel only fell further into idolatry, giving herself wholly over to the abominations of the nations around her. The instrument of judgment this time would be none other than the same pagan nation whose great city had repented at the preaching of God's prophet Jonah. Ninevah was a major city in Assyria, the nation that became a rod in Yahweh's hand to punish an unrepentant people who were literally hell-bent on wickedness and idolatry. In the final estimation ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were ruthlessly led into captivity at the hands of Assyrian soldiers because of the nation's obstinence and refusal to turn back to the Living God. Ninevah repented at the preaching of one foreign prophet serving the God of Israel. And this city's nation became an instrument of chastisement and wrath upon a people who persecuted, rejected, and murdered a multitude of Yahweh's messengers, whose only desire was that Israel would love and serve the true God exclusively.
The prophet Habakkuk learned this lesson when he presented his interrogative questions to the Almighty regarding the pervasive evil he witnessed in the land of Judah. God responded, "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and and hasty nation..." (Habakkuk 1:5-6). God used a nation admittedly more wicked than Judah itself to judge His own people and lead them into captivity, far away from the promised land. The nation of Israel had become so vitiated in its idolatry and perversion of justice that Yahweh referred to her as Sodom's sister through His prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16). As a result, He raised up a heathen nation to punish His purchased possession for her sin in perfect fulfillment of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 & 32.
Now onto more recent calamities--why did God use an enormous wave to sweep away over 200,000 people in the tsunami of December 26, 2004? There is no more perfect instrument than the very created waters of the Eternal Creator to demonstrate His sovereignty over the earth and its inhabitants. The nations stricken in this disaster are largely given over to the worship of idols, including Allah of Islam, Buddha of Buddhism, and the ubiquitous Brahman of Hinduism, three of the major world religions. Whereas these idols, along with all others, are a doctrine of vanities and the work of errors, "the LORD [is] the true God, he [is] the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation" (Jeremiah 10:1-16). This killer wave was an urgent warning to the people of these nations that "the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).
Consider also the purpose of God in using a religiously zealous group of Islamic terrorists to strike the heart of American prosperity and power at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A nation that has known to a great degree the marvellous blessing of God, including tremendous revivals poured out from heaven in the times of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and the group at Azusa Street. Time and again the Lord Jesus Christ has called unto Himself multitudes in the short history of the United States of America. However, the church in this nation has prostituted herself with the filth of the world, sold herself to increase in the financial wealth of the country at the cost of forsaking God, and for all practical purposes become content with Christianity in name only. Consequently, America is suffering for the sins of the church. For this purpose God has discovered the shame of a dead church in the United States by judging the country as a whole with a group of people more devoted to a false god than the body of Christ is to the Living Lord. How many who flocked to churches immediately after 9/11 truly repented and yielded themselves to God? When they entered our churches did they meet with God? Could they? Tragically, so very few actually did. America has given herself over to unrighteousness of an indescribable kind, and for this she has faced the chastisement of the Living God. "Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD...Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit" (Jeremiah 2:9-11).
When the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself over to be beaten, scourged, and nailed to a cross He was fulfilling that which had been foreordained by the Eternal Godhead from the foundations of the world (1Peter 1:18-21, Revelation 13:8). His atoning death provided the only means of salvation from sin for humankind. The cross became the instrument of judgment in the hands of God the Father, and it pleased the LORD to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10). "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). In His death Christ took upon Himself the punishment for sin in its unmitigated fullness, ultimately expressed in His ostensible estrangement to some mysterious degree from the felt presence of the Father (Matthew 27:46). The overflowing wrath of God was brought to bear upon God as Man in order that man might be redeemed from sin. And it all took place upon a thoroughly commonplace Roman cross, which was nothing more than a tool of execution for various criminals of the day. While He could have opted for a more peaceful or less painful death in the primordial plan of redemption, Christ would have none of it. God's fury would therefore be experienced in ineffable torment by His Son in the place of those for whom He died. The Judge took upon Himself the necessary judgement for sin in order that He might be just and the Justifier of those who come unto God by Him (1Peter 3:18, Romans 3:26).
We cannot rightly interpret an event of judgment if we do not understand God's purpose for the particular instrument used in chastisement. It is imperative that we understand in deep communion with God Himself His intention in such circumstances, lest the calamity pass in vain upon those who are affected; or lest the message of God be missed by those for whom it is intended as a warning. As Art Katz says in reference to the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler, "The only thing that can be more tragic for us Jews is to have suffered ultimately, and still not to have properly understood what that suffering meant in the intention of God, simply because we could not bring ourselves to believe that God could be its author" (The Holocaust: Where Was God?, Introduction). Oswald Chambers captures this verity with striking accuracy, "There is a connection between the strange providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know Him" (My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th).
While much more could be said, suffice it to say that the concise and less than exhaustive explanations given above typify the significance of the tools of wrath in the hands of the Living God. God uses whatever rods He wills in executing His judgement, but they are never arbitrary or without purpose. Whenever God chastises or judges a people His purpose is always redemptive. As the Lord declared to me regarding the Tsunami, "This is no accident. It is not happenstance. I am purposeful in all My ways. From the beginning to the end I am the Ancient of Days" (see Waters of God's Justice post). "And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD [is] a God of judgment: blessed [are] all they that wait for him" (Isaiah 30:18).
When the end of the world has come, initiated by the return of Jesus Christ, hell itself will be the eternal experience of all who have not intimately known God in life. The Word of God refers to the final judgement of God as the second death, in which a lake of fire and brimstone burn and the torment of hell's inhabitants rises day and night forever (Revelation 14:10-11, 20:11-15, Matthew 25:41). Deuteronomy 4:24 states, "For the LORD thy God [is] a consuming fire, [even] a jealous God," which is reiterated in Hebrews 12:29. It is therefore no mere coincidence that the instrument of the last judgement determined upon all the ungodly is described as an unquenchable and furious flame, as it is the final and ultimate picture of the Almighty God in both unfailing love and perfect justice. We can see then why it is an unspeakable tragedy anytime someone would dare to suggest that He is merely a God of love while failing to recognize that His justice requires accountability to His holiness, "without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). God's judgement is one of the greatest expressions of His love. What a longsuffering Lover and Judge God truly is.
Originally posted 9/3/2005 at 2:53 AM
In the Cross of Jesus Christ the judgment of God is brought to the fore forevermore. In the words of Oswald Chambers, the Cross of Christ is the center of all of time and eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both. In His Cross the Son of God suffered the full magnitude of God's judgement for sin in His own fully human body, without in the least degree diminishing His divine nature. But why the crooked confines of a Roman cross? Why did God choose this instrument to be the means by which He would judge the sins of the world and provide redemption to the entire human race? How significant are the instruments of God's judgement in considering the execution of His wrath?
From the very inception of Israel as a nation belonging specially to God we see His judgments executed upon the nation of Egypt in order to redeem His people from the iron furnace of slavery. But why the specific ten plagues, such as water turned into blood, or frogs, or darkness? You see, if we look carefully at the manner in which God poured out these plagues, we will notice a very intriguing point. They were not merely capricious or fanciful ways of bringing a nation to its knees. No, the instruments of God's judgment on Egypt, in reference to the plagues, served an integral purpose in the deliverance God wrought for His people.
"For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I [am] the LORD" (Exodus 12:12). Look carefully and it becomes quite clear that a good number of the plagues are directed in some measure toward the false gods of Egypt. The first plague Yahweh brought upon Egypt was the turning of the nation's water into blood, as Aaron struck the water of the Nile River with the rod of God (Ex. 7:20). Egyptians had deified the Nile as the god Hopi, because of the the nation's dependence on its waters. The next plague involved God bringing upon the land masses of frogs, which animal the Egyptians had deified in the goddess Heqt, who was believed to assist women in childbirth. And the plague of darkness was directed unswervingly toward a chief Egyptian deity, the sun-god Ra. In each instance, the false gods of Egypt were exposed for the frauds that they were, and the God of Israel was revealed as the only true and Living God, Who was calling forth a people unto Himself.
Later in the history of Israel there rises a prophet by the name of Jonah. God called this man to prophesy the impending destruction of the pagan city Ninevah. However, Jonah knew the mercy of God and had no interest in Yahweh's sparing of this wicked city. Thus, when Jonah fled the call of God, the Lord first sent a storm to rage against him and his fellow travellers, then prepared a large fish to swallow him for three days and nights, in order to change the prophet's mind. When Jonah finally turns to God for salvation the fish spits him out and God reiterates His call to the stubborn man. Just a side note, but don't you find it humorous that God uses His servant's disobedience to become a sign for the burial and resurrection of Christ (Matthew 12:40)? Jonah acquiesces and preaches the judgement of God upon the city and its inhabitants, and they repent. The Lord forbears the pouring out of His wrath, and the pagan city of Ninevah narrowly escapes the judgment of the God of Israel.
Before the same century (700's B.C.) the northern tribes of Israel had already degenerated into a nation virtually indistinguishable from its idol-worshipping neighbors, save that they attempted to include Yahweh in their idolatry. The syncretistic worship of the God of Israel alongside false gods was insufferable. Day and night God sent His prophets calling for repentance if the nation wished to avert God's punishment for her sin. But the nation of Israel only fell further into idolatry, giving herself wholly over to the abominations of the nations around her. The instrument of judgment this time would be none other than the same pagan nation whose great city had repented at the preaching of God's prophet Jonah. Ninevah was a major city in Assyria, the nation that became a rod in Yahweh's hand to punish an unrepentant people who were literally hell-bent on wickedness and idolatry. In the final estimation ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were ruthlessly led into captivity at the hands of Assyrian soldiers because of the nation's obstinence and refusal to turn back to the Living God. Ninevah repented at the preaching of one foreign prophet serving the God of Israel. And this city's nation became an instrument of chastisement and wrath upon a people who persecuted, rejected, and murdered a multitude of Yahweh's messengers, whose only desire was that Israel would love and serve the true God exclusively.
The prophet Habakkuk learned this lesson when he presented his interrogative questions to the Almighty regarding the pervasive evil he witnessed in the land of Judah. God responded, "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and and hasty nation..." (Habakkuk 1:5-6). God used a nation admittedly more wicked than Judah itself to judge His own people and lead them into captivity, far away from the promised land. The nation of Israel had become so vitiated in its idolatry and perversion of justice that Yahweh referred to her as Sodom's sister through His prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16). As a result, He raised up a heathen nation to punish His purchased possession for her sin in perfect fulfillment of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 & 32.
Now onto more recent calamities--why did God use an enormous wave to sweep away over 200,000 people in the tsunami of December 26, 2004? There is no more perfect instrument than the very created waters of the Eternal Creator to demonstrate His sovereignty over the earth and its inhabitants. The nations stricken in this disaster are largely given over to the worship of idols, including Allah of Islam, Buddha of Buddhism, and the ubiquitous Brahman of Hinduism, three of the major world religions. Whereas these idols, along with all others, are a doctrine of vanities and the work of errors, "the LORD [is] the true God, he [is] the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation" (Jeremiah 10:1-16). This killer wave was an urgent warning to the people of these nations that "the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).
Consider also the purpose of God in using a religiously zealous group of Islamic terrorists to strike the heart of American prosperity and power at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A nation that has known to a great degree the marvellous blessing of God, including tremendous revivals poured out from heaven in the times of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and the group at Azusa Street. Time and again the Lord Jesus Christ has called unto Himself multitudes in the short history of the United States of America. However, the church in this nation has prostituted herself with the filth of the world, sold herself to increase in the financial wealth of the country at the cost of forsaking God, and for all practical purposes become content with Christianity in name only. Consequently, America is suffering for the sins of the church. For this purpose God has discovered the shame of a dead church in the United States by judging the country as a whole with a group of people more devoted to a false god than the body of Christ is to the Living Lord. How many who flocked to churches immediately after 9/11 truly repented and yielded themselves to God? When they entered our churches did they meet with God? Could they? Tragically, so very few actually did. America has given herself over to unrighteousness of an indescribable kind, and for this she has faced the chastisement of the Living God. "Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD...Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit" (Jeremiah 2:9-11).
When the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself over to be beaten, scourged, and nailed to a cross He was fulfilling that which had been foreordained by the Eternal Godhead from the foundations of the world (1Peter 1:18-21, Revelation 13:8). His atoning death provided the only means of salvation from sin for humankind. The cross became the instrument of judgment in the hands of God the Father, and it pleased the LORD to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10). "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). In His death Christ took upon Himself the punishment for sin in its unmitigated fullness, ultimately expressed in His ostensible estrangement to some mysterious degree from the felt presence of the Father (Matthew 27:46). The overflowing wrath of God was brought to bear upon God as Man in order that man might be redeemed from sin. And it all took place upon a thoroughly commonplace Roman cross, which was nothing more than a tool of execution for various criminals of the day. While He could have opted for a more peaceful or less painful death in the primordial plan of redemption, Christ would have none of it. God's fury would therefore be experienced in ineffable torment by His Son in the place of those for whom He died. The Judge took upon Himself the necessary judgement for sin in order that He might be just and the Justifier of those who come unto God by Him (1Peter 3:18, Romans 3:26).
We cannot rightly interpret an event of judgment if we do not understand God's purpose for the particular instrument used in chastisement. It is imperative that we understand in deep communion with God Himself His intention in such circumstances, lest the calamity pass in vain upon those who are affected; or lest the message of God be missed by those for whom it is intended as a warning. As Art Katz says in reference to the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler, "The only thing that can be more tragic for us Jews is to have suffered ultimately, and still not to have properly understood what that suffering meant in the intention of God, simply because we could not bring ourselves to believe that God could be its author" (The Holocaust: Where Was God?, Introduction). Oswald Chambers captures this verity with striking accuracy, "There is a connection between the strange providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know Him" (My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th).
While much more could be said, suffice it to say that the concise and less than exhaustive explanations given above typify the significance of the tools of wrath in the hands of the Living God. God uses whatever rods He wills in executing His judgement, but they are never arbitrary or without purpose. Whenever God chastises or judges a people His purpose is always redemptive. As the Lord declared to me regarding the Tsunami, "This is no accident. It is not happenstance. I am purposeful in all My ways. From the beginning to the end I am the Ancient of Days" (see Waters of God's Justice post). "And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD [is] a God of judgment: blessed [are] all they that wait for him" (Isaiah 30:18).
When the end of the world has come, initiated by the return of Jesus Christ, hell itself will be the eternal experience of all who have not intimately known God in life. The Word of God refers to the final judgement of God as the second death, in which a lake of fire and brimstone burn and the torment of hell's inhabitants rises day and night forever (Revelation 14:10-11, 20:11-15, Matthew 25:41). Deuteronomy 4:24 states, "For the LORD thy God [is] a consuming fire, [even] a jealous God," which is reiterated in Hebrews 12:29. It is therefore no mere coincidence that the instrument of the last judgement determined upon all the ungodly is described as an unquenchable and furious flame, as it is the final and ultimate picture of the Almighty God in both unfailing love and perfect justice. We can see then why it is an unspeakable tragedy anytime someone would dare to suggest that He is merely a God of love while failing to recognize that His justice requires accountability to His holiness, "without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). God's judgement is one of the greatest expressions of His love. What a longsuffering Lover and Judge God truly is.
Originally posted 9/3/2005 at 2:53 AM
posted by Bryan | 2:53 AM
1 Comments:
"From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that [is] the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened." (Jeremiah 25:3).
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