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We spent the last 5 lessons looking at the basics of judgment and coming to understand it a bit better. Now I would like to look at three common misunderstandings (or misconceptions) about God's judgment. They are:
Let's look briefly at each one.
Misconception: God Is Looking For An Excuse To Pour Out His Wrath
I mentioned to a friend that I was writing a teaching series about God's judgment, and his reply was, "Yea, God is really angry and He is just looking for an excuse to pour out His wrath."
What my friend said is a common misunderstanding about God, but it is not correct. God is not looking for excuses to pour wrath out. In fact, it is just the opposite--He is looking for excuses not to do that.
God would much rather see the wicked repent and turn to Him so that He doesn't have to destroy them. In fact, 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that God is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." That would be His first choice in each and every case.
In fact, God feels so strongly about this that He actively seeks out intercessors and workers to pray for people and to help them change, in order to hold back the execution of His judgment a bit longer. Look at what He said in Ezekiel 22:29-31: "29 'The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31 Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,' says the Lord God."
In this passage, God was looking for an excuse not to stretch forth His hand of correction and judgment. He was looking for someone who would stand in the gap to bring restoration. But He could not find anyone willing do that, so God was left with no choice but to act in response to the wickedness that He found when He examined them.
We see another example of this in the case of Nineveh. Nineveh was such a wicked place that God simply could not tolerate their evil any longer. So He appointed a very reluctant Jonah to stand in the gap for Nineveh, hoping that He would not have to destroy it. But Jonah wanted no part of this role--he hated Nineveh and wanted to see it destroyed. So he took off in the other direction, doing everything humanly possible to avoid standing in the gap for Nineveh. But God wanted to spare Nineveh so badly that He pursued Jonah, taught him a lesson in obedience, and then sent him back to stand in the gap.
In Jonah's case, he wasn't interceding (praying) for these people. If anything, he was probably praying against them, something along the lines of "God, please don't let them repent so You can destroy them!" But regardless of his attitude, God forced Jonah to stand in the gap for them; He forced Jonah to do something to help them change their ways. In this case, that "something" was to proclaim God's upcoming judgment. And the people of that city responded to Jonah's proclamation with repentance, giving God the excuse that He was looking for to spare the city.
Does Nineveh's story sound like a wrathful and vengeful God who is just looking for excuses to destroy people? Of course not. It doesn't sound that way because that is not what God is like.
God's heart (and His first choice) is not to pour out His wrath. And when He has to do that, it does not bring Him pleasure. In fact, Genesis 6:5-7 gives us insight into what God thought and felt when He released a destruction judgment (the great flood). We don't see anger or rage here, and we don't see wrath. What we see is sadness and sorrow. God felt sad at how wicked man had become and He was grieved that they hardened their hearts to Him and His ways:
5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."
Misconception: Some Sins Are More Likely To be Judged Than Other Sins
As humans, we have a tendency to rank sin, to see some sins as worse than others. This type of thinking sees some sins as "not bad" and other sins as "really terrible." For instance, if someone tells a fib about why they are late to an appointment, many would see that as a "little sin," one that they say is "not all that bad." Cheating on a test is worse than telling a "white lie," but it is still "minor" compared to things that seriously harm other people, such as stealing or killing.
And so people came up with a whole ranking system for sin, based on their perception of God's values.
But God doesn't think that way, and He doesn't buy into that rating system. He sees all sin as rebellion against Himself, and He doesn't like any of it. He explained it this way in 1 Samuel 15:23: "for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry."
The bible says that the "wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). All sin gets the same maximum penalty in God's eyes. This passage doesn't say that some sins are worthy of death, while other sins are worthy of a beating and still other sins are worthy of a slap on the wrist or being sent to bed without dinner. It shows that God doesn't see some sins as worse than others, or as more worthy of punishment than others. God hates all sin, and the punishment for all sin is eternal separation from God-unless, of course, you have received forgiveness for your sins through the what Jesus did for you on Calvary.
So where did we come up with the notion that some sins are (abortion and homosexuality for example) are worthy of judgment and destruction, while other sins (premarital sex, lying, cheating, oppressing the poor, etc) are not?
I don't know where that idea came form, but it did not come from the bible or from God.
Misconception: God Only Judges The Wicked
We already looked at this in our earlier lessons. But let me touch on it again here for completeness. People make the mistake of equating "judgment" with "punishment" or "destruction."
Judgment is when God evaluates someone (an individual or a people group). He looks at both their outward actions/behaviors and at the attitudes of their heart. He comes up with a plan of action based on what He finds, and then He executes that plan.
The goal of His action is to encourage people to walk close to Him. If the person already has a heart after Him and is living a lifestyle pleasing to Him, then that action will be some type of reward. Why? Because God likes what He sees, and He wants to encourage the person to keep on doing things that please Him and draw them close to Him.
If the person has a heart after God but is behaving in a way that displeases God, then God will usually use some type of gentle correction to get them back on course. It may be as simple as Him speaking to them and saying, "I don't like it when you do this, so change your behavior." Or it might be an attitude that God asks us to change. Either way, He usually starts very gently, because the person He is dealing with has a heart after Him.
If that person responds right away and changes their behavior, then God will stop correcting him. In fact, He will usually re-evaluate the person so that He can give them some type of small reward for changing in their behavior to please Him. But if the person resists God, then the Lord will begin applying more and more pressure until they give in to God and make the required change. Once God starts the correction process, He won't back down until He has accomplished what He wants to accomplish.
When God finds sin in an unsaved person, He looks at how receptive that person is to receiving Jesus. If the person's heart is open to the gospel, then God will put more emphasis on saving that person that He does on addressing their specific sins. In short, God will be more interested in showing His love to win their heart than worrying about their lack of holiness. He will ask them to come to Him before He asks them to change their behavior. That is because God knows that once the person receives Jesus, then the Holy Spirit will come into them and begin to transform them from the inside out. Their sinful behavior will start to change as they grow in Him.
(Don't get me wrong...God is not OK with their sin, but He knows that they will be changed/transformed after they are saved, so He is more interested in getting them saved and covered by the blood of Jesus before He tackles their problem behaviors.) But once they do receive Jesus, then eventually need to change the sin behaviors, or they will end up getting corrected by God however strongly He needs to do it to get them to change.
If He is dealing with sinners who are not ready to believe in Jesus, then He will deal more directly with their sinful behaviors. If they repent and change the behavior, then they receive some measure of grace and forgiveness...but God won't be satisfied with just a change in their behavior. He will also want to see a change in their heart, where they embrace Him as their God and master, and come to love Him with all of their heart. So while He may stop punishing them for a sin, He won't stop working on their heart and trying to draw them to Himself.
If they are stubborn and don't repent, then God's action will be some type of harsh correction. In fact it will usually be a series of corrections where each one is a bit harsher than the last until the person finally repents.
Finally, if we are looking at depravity and a reprobate heart, then God's corrective action will probably end up being destruction or total annihilation.
In short, God judges (evaluates) everyone, and the action He takes in response to each judgment depends on what He finds during His evaluation.