The Judgment of God

When speaking about the judgment of God, it is always a touchy subject.  Many people, including many Christians, will tend to look at you a bit sideways.  You will be accused of being a lunatic.  You will be accused of being hateful.  Some will use it as an excuse to say the God is wicked.  Be that as it may, the judgment of God is something that is biblical.

Now, most people consider the judgment of God to be a bad thing; that an angry God is set out to destroy people for disobedience.  That really is not the goal of God’s judgment.  What God is trying to do in judgment is to correct; to make people aware the God is God, and it’s usually His followers that He is reminding.

Proverbs 3: ¹¹ My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:¹² For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

One type of judgment that we can face is really one of our own doing.  When we disobey the word of God, one of His commands, there are consequences to our actions.   Many times the consequences are even spelled out.  An easy example is proverbs 10: ⁴ He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.  God tells us that hard work leads to success, and that laziness leads to poverty. 

Now I know most people do not relate consequences with judgment, but indeed it is a type of judgment.  We see this played out again in the story of the prodigal son who took his riches and was not diligent in working but was rather slack and partied his inheritance away and found himself poor and starving.  But, that judgment of consequence woke him up, and he returned to his fathers house.  That is, after all, the real goal in judgment; not punishment, but rather correction.

The kind of judgment most people think of is that of natural disasters and plagues, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and the like.  Yes, God uses these as judgments as well.  These examples are obvious to us as we look through scripture.  The Exodus is probably the supreme example of judgment we find in scripture, or the Flood, or Sodom.  Large scale judgment and destruction of entire populations is what judgment is in many minds.

Another thing about judgment is this, it never comes out of nowhere.  When we get to major judgment, it always comes after a progression and warning.  It starts with the Word.  God says do this and be blessed.  The people do that.  Preachers and prophets say the word says do this or that will happen. The people do that. Consequences happen.  The people continue to ignore the word.  The consequences multiply, and the people still don’t listen.  God lowers His protection and other bad things begin happening, the people don’t listen.  God brings small disaster, the people don’t listen.  Larger disaster, same thing; until finally enough is enough.  All along the way God sent people to proclaim his word.

We see this principle encapsulated in the Exodus where ever increasing judgments were brought every time God’s word from Moses was rejected.  We see it played out in Israeli history where ,more than once the nation defeated and the people enslaved for ignoring God’s word.  Are we seeing this principle being played out today in America?

Since 1963 (and really before) we have rejected God, and His ways that we once embraced.  We have usurped gender roles, embraced child sacrifice, rejected gender identification, embraced materialism, rejected chastity, embraced fornication, rejected truth and exchanged it for lies.  In the 70s we were brought to our knees and turned back to God some, and blessing returned for a short time, but in our prosperity forgot that and returned once again to our wicked ways.  

Since 2000, we have had protection removed.  We were attacked on our soils and been at war.  We have seen major disasters like never before with hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms, drought.  Despite all of this, our people are waxing worse.  We have out of control debt and spending that drag on the economy causing misery among the people.  Our borders are being invaded, and our freedoms are being lost, yet we still don’t listen.  We now call evil good and good evil as we further embrace those things that go against God and His word.  All the while, people of God are sent out telling people to repent, change their ways, and return unto the Lord.  When will it be enough and God allows our collapse?