The Church, in these modern times seeks to expound upon the high priestly ministry of Jesus, the blessings and prosperity, healing and everything good. When anyone talks or expounds on judgment there is nervousness and a general dismissal of this concept because according to modern thinking all judgment was placed on Christ on Calvary.
There was something that is for me a guiding principle if we accept the balanced view that there is judgment today, that is:
Judgment in this life is redemptive, whilst judgment in eternity is permanent.
That is when calamity comes, trouble, commotion, systems of all types crumble, where affliction and tightness of heart comes, it is understood to be judgment from God, and He does send these things.
We can take 2 examples, one being the Captivity of 587BC and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.
One is OLD Testament, the other in New Testament times. The two examples include demolishing of Jerusalem and spreading of God’s people over the known world. However we must track down God’s nature in the run up to these events. We must verify what God was doing and saying before these events to see them as redemptive. We must see the processes being redemptive to understand WHY God judges mankind.
The Captivity Processes: 70 years
Before the Captivity, God sent many prophets to warn the government of Israel and the chief priests. He also warned the King concerning the covenant breaking. The warning was specific that God would use Babylon to execute the justice of the Lord. The King did not want to hear this message, but surrounded himself with “prophets” who would prophesy blessing and prosperity. Yet God was faithful to warn and to persuade. Jeremiah the chief of these voices from God was very much persecuted for the message.
Jeremiah 29 a letter from the prophet to the Captives in Babylon is explicit, the process of being displaced, being destitute of all the good things, was a necessary process which would last 70 years, in which prophets spoke in various places, Ezekiel by the River Chebar, and Daniel in the Palace of Babylonian kings and eventually Persian kings. God placed men of God to guide God’s people in this painful process.
This process is painful but redemptive, whilst being in a foreign land in accordance to the Word of the Lord, they would have favour and they would be positioned to return to the land restored to the Lord and His covenant. Judgment was to remove from their hearts the tendency for unfaithfulness. Ezekiel 36 tells us what process God undertook throughout the 70 year period. He would “write” the Law upon their hearts. It is evident that the generation that went into the Captivity would not return. A new generation would come up and bring them back. And it seems that God often does this, working in 2 generations. However unpleasant is the manifestation of judgment, if they understood the reasons for it, and worked with the Lord in and throughout, they would experience the outworking of restoration. There are many times when God comes to bring sudden changes and unpleasant ones, but they work to redeem and restore us, putting us on the right path. It was Cyrus, a King, who was stirred with God’s purpose for Jerusalem. So much so that the Captivity ended.
God cared for His people, and He led them along paths of correction, Ezekiel in his book gives insight from heaven’s perspective what was the reason for the Captivity. The leaders of the nation had departed from the covenant. Daniel also speaks from his perspective the processes that came within the Palace that culminated with Cyrus’ edict. We see God give us an overview of how He takes His people through Judgment to Mercy. Habbakkuk said “In times of wrath remember your mercy.”
God also reveals to the Prophet Zechariah how God would restore His people. We see not only prophetic words for that time, but for the last days.
The modern day Church I sense is also going the same way, forgetting the pursuit of Jesus and His Word. There will come “judgment” one which is the absence of God’s voice, the absence of His presence, and exposure to the changes and darkness of the world. Until His people perceive God is now requiring repentance and a change of theology and thinking. May God continually use His prophetic voices to warn. The work of God’s judgment is not to destroy but redeem.
70AD, the Roman demolishing and scattering.
When you consider that from the Birth of Christ, there was only about 70 years until the judgment of Israel came yet again. Yet Jesus came to warn, spoke in Matthew 24 concerning this demolishing. He spoke in Luke 19 weeping over Jerusalem, because He saw the destruction that was coming. He said “You knew not the hour of your visitation.” God did not fail to warn, through John the Baptist, about the “wrath to come” which must have this conviction of this judgment that was coming. Unfortunately the restoration Temple was now was overtaken by moneychangers.
The religious leaders were so taken up with Mammon that spiritual corruption had set in. So much so Paul terms it this way in Romans 10:3
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ro 10:3.
Being not submitted placed them in direct judgment which would come in 70AD. It did not come without warning, from both Jesus and the Church. And when it did come it was swift and long lasting, 2000 years and countless generations till the restoration of Israel in 1948. Yet in it all God prospered His people whereever they were scattered to. This shows that our idea of judgment is wrong, we see it as a cruel act of God, from a cruel God, but we fail to see the redemptive features of His ways.
When Jesus died on Calvary, the Temple veil rent from bottom to top, so the priests saw exposed the emptiness of the Temple, went about to reestablish what was empty as though it was full, and as though everything was normal. Many Churches today are in the same position, their exposure as being empty of His Glory. Yet the perpetuation of institutions is more expedient than face the fact that something changed with God. He no longer will allow His people to go on in their sins.
God is slow to anger, and He will send voices to warn. His judgments only fall when time has been exhausted and the warnings go unheeded. It seems very familiar to today. If we do live through judgment because of corrupt leaders, we can be assured of God’s unfailing love. As Habbakkuk says, in times of wrath, He will remember His Mercy.
Let us return to His Word, and study His ways in judgment, as we understand that He is slow to anger, may we position ourselves to inherit His restoration. His judgment in this life is ALWAYS to redeem us from the consequences of our iniquity. It is redemptive so that in the next we do not experience the ETERNAL CONSEQUENCE of PERMANENT judgment.
Hebrews 12 places God’s judgment as an aspect of parenting of God, to be a sign of sonship. If that is so, then His judgments toward us is as strong as His redemptive work toward us. He places us in Christ to experience continual redemption.
Maranatha!
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