The Judgments of God

We started to look at the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah in our last lesson, and we were in Genesis 18. We got up to verse 21, which said, "I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know."

When we looked at that verse, we learned that there is a big difference between the word "judgment" and the words "punishment" or "destruction." Many people think they are all three words mean the same thing because they don't really understand what judgment is. They think that the word "judgment" means the punishment of God against sin. But "judgment" is not the punishment itself, it is the evaluation process that God uses to determine what type of action He will take. And God doesn't limit His judgment just to the wicked, He evaluates everyone's hearts and behavior. The action that He takes with each person depends on what He finds when He evaluates them.

We will look at that more in this lesson. Let's go back to Genesis 18, where God made His visit to Abraham. This might surprise you, but Sodom and Gomorrah were not the only ones that God evaluated on that trip, He also judged (or evaluated) both Abraham and Sarah.

Let me remind you of what happened at the beginning of the chapter, and put it in the context of the normal lifestyle of that period. Abraham was sitting on his porch, relaxing in the shade of his tent on a hot day, which was the usual practice in that part of the world. Suddenly God and his angels appeared out of thin air--one moment no one was there and the next moment Abraham saw them standing there, not far from his tent. He realized they were supernatural, and he immediately ran out to meet them (e.g., he pursued God). He asked them to come to his home and enjoy his hospitality. Then he hustled to get a meal started, which took hours to prepare in those days. Finally, the meal is ready and Abraham had them sit down to eat in the most comfortable place he could find--in the shade under a nearby tree, where they were protected from the hot sun.

Abraham knew his visitors were divine. So instead of sitting down to eat with them, and having his servants serve the meal like they usually do, Abraham choose to serve God himself. By doing that, Abraham was honoring God, demonstrating how important he felt God was. In other words, Abraham was showing God great respect. And, as was the culture at that time (and still is the culture in some parts of the world today), the one serving the food does not sit down to eat with the others. The server stands beside them, ready to serve them with whatever they want until they are completely done eating and fully satisfied.

Now this was significant and probably raised a few eyebrows, because Abraham was considered a very important man. He was master of his house, and it was a very large house because he was very wealthy. He was the kind of person that was used to being treated with a huge amount of honor and respect. In his culture, it was probably unheard of for someone with Abraham's status to behave like a servant instead of like the master. It probably made everyone in the household very curious about his guests.

Meal time in that culture was also a social time. So God probably talked and fellowshipped with Abraham as he stood there under the tree to serve them. At one point, God turned His attention to Sarah, who had not been invited to join them for the meal. (If you don't know mid-eastern culture, that may sound unfair to Sarah, but that was the normal way that they did things back then.) Sarah was nearby, listening at the tent door, and she could easily hear the conversation as they ate under the nearby shade tree. In fact, she was probably only 8 or 10 feet away from where they ate, and she was listening to everything they said through the tent door.

Let's look at God's interaction with Sarah in verses 9 to 15:

9 Then they said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" So he said, "Here, in the tent." 10 And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.)

11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, 'After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"

13 And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?' 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son."

15 But Sarah denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh,' for she was afraid. And He said, "No, but you did laugh!"

Basically, Sarah head God's promise that she would bare a son, and she scoffed at the idea. Her heart was filled with disbelief and ridicule, and she did not receive what God was saying.

[By the way, Abraham had that same reaction a year earlier, when God appeared to him in Genesis 17 to change their names from Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah. In that same visit, God told Abraham that Sarah (who had already menopaused) would soon bare him a son. Abraham's reaction, in verses 17 and 18 was disbelief: "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, 'Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?' And Abraham said to God, 'Oh, that Ishmael might live before You [instead]!" Abraham didn't believe God either, and he even suggested an alternative plan.]

Apparently Abraham hadn't told Sarah about that, because she had the same initial reaction when she heard God promise her a son. She was probably a believer in that she worshipped the same God her husband did, but she did not know Him nearly as well as Abraham did. So when she overheard God's promise to her, she scoffed at it. Then she was dismayed to discover that God was aware of her reaction, and He called her on it.

God knew that she could hear Him when He made that promise to her. He had already asked where she was just before He said it, so she knew that He was aware that she could hear what He was saying. God had had not called her to come out of the tent so He could talk to her because that wasn't how they did things back them. But He wanted her to hear what He was saying.

God wasn't just talking to Sarah, He was also judging her, or examining her heart in regard response to what He said...He did not like what He found--disbelief--so He came up with a plan to address with that. He wanted Sarah to have a right heart attitude when she had the child, because she was part of a very important plan that He had for mankind and for the nation of Israel. God knew that she had to have faith in order to fulfill her role in God's important plan for His future people, and He wanted to foster that faith.

So God selected a "plan" to address Sarah's lack of faith. First, He called her on her reaction, e.g., He gently rebuked her for not believing that He said. Then he reminded her that nothing is too hard for Him to do.

Sarah became very frightened when God did that. It wasn't normal for male visitors in that culture to interact directly with the females in the family, so it caught her a bit off guard. Also, was also probably afraid that her husband would be angry with her for upsetting his important guests. So she denied that she laughed. The passage says that Sarah laughed "within herself" rather than out loud. So she probably did not make a loud enough noise for Abraham and his guests to hear. But God was examining her heart, and He saw (or "heard") her reaction.

We know she denied laughing, but we don't know if she did so by calling out to God from behind the tent door, or if she actually came outside of the tent. But she lied to God, and He called her on it.

God's confrontation forced Sarah to rethink her faith. At that point, something happened in Sarah's heart. She began to realize that He really is God (Who knows all things), and He really can do that. She had a change of attitude. Her faith grow to the point where she was able to miraculously conceive and bare a child, years after her body had already menopaused. E.g., it wasn't possible in the natural, but it happened when she responded in faith to God's promise, and His supernatural power was released in her life.

In that interaction, God judged her and He found her faith inadequate. Then He choose a course of action to deal with her disbelief, in order to convert it to faith. If Sarah had not undergone God's judgment, she would not have been able to have this child.

But even though God judged her, He never punished her. Some people might argue that she deserved to be punished because she lied to God. In her case, judgment and punishment were not the same thing. Yes, God did evaluate her heart and found her lacking. So He came up with a plan to deal with the disbelief that He found, and then executed His plan. But the action/strategy that He choose was to confront her disbelief and help her see Him as all-knowing and all powerful. It was to help her begin to develop the faith she needed.

God also judged (or evaluated) Abraham in this visit. I don't have time to develop this in detail, but God did pronounce his findings about Abraham in Genesis 18:17-20:

17 And the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.

If the part about how God evaluated Abraham doesn't jump out at you, then take a closer look at verse 18. "For I have know him, in order that he might" [be able to fulfill My plans for him]. In this case, God examined Abraham's heart and actions, and found that they lined up with what God wanted from him. Therefore, the result of His judgment was to reward Abraham. That reward included making him a great and mighty nation, and giving him a key leadership role in establishing God's ways on this earth.

So, what can we learn from all this?

If our hearts are after God, we don't have to be afraid of His judgment. He may need to correct us if we have gotten off base, but His corrections will be as gentle as possible. They will be designed to move us forward in our relationship with Him, to better empower us to walk out His will for our life. And if God likes what He finds when He judges us, then His judgment will yield rewards and the release of good things in our lives. Either way, we don't need to be afraid of when He evaluates (or judges) us.