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Jude recorded, And Enoch also, the
seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten
thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that
are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken
against him (Jude 14-15). James M. Boice wrote: “The more Enoch was
aware of the judgment, the more sensitive he was to sin. The more sensitive he
was to sin, the closer he wanted to walk with God. The closer he walked with
God, the more necessary he saw that judgment was.”1
Within
my short lifetime I have seen attitudes change from when fundamental and
evangelical preachers preached about judgment and hell even to teenagers at
youth camps, to these days when the churches are so religiously correct that
judgment is too negative to mention, especially to young people. Besides just
being a negative doctrine, the coming judgment is questioned altogether as to
its very truthfulness. One can now be an “evangelical” and deny that hell even
exists! Many simply believe that it is unprofitable to teach such an
undesirable doctrine to a generation looking for a positive experience from
attending church.
I
would not deny, of course, that the great majority of fundamental brethren and
most evangelicals still believe in a literal hell and a coming judgment. We
have, however, let this doctrine fade away in our preaching, writing, and
general vocabulary. A quick search on Google
with the entry “The Biblical doctrine of judgment” was telling. The
first entry was a Leon Morris article from 1960. The second entry was a review
of that article by a Seventh Day Adventist (who denies a literal hell). The
third entry was an article by T.B. Thayer in 1855 which denies a literal hell.
The fourth entry was from a universalist in 1844. The fifth entry is a reprint
of a 1908 journal from the University of Chicago. The sixth entry was another
Seventh Day Adventist article. Although there were pages upon pages of other
entries, one had to look diligently for a current, clear-cut message about God’s
coming judgment.
I have
five volumes that record the first five Fundamental Baptist Congresses of North
America that fell between 1963 and 1974. In every congress there was a message
on the coming judgment of God and the literal punishment God would mete out.
Two of them were by my pastor, John Rawlings, whom I heard preach on the subject
not a few times in my boyhood. In the first edition from 1963, John Holliday
preached “Final Judgment and Eternal Hell.” In that message he said, “This
challenging, convicting Bible doctrine is of immense significance. It belongs
not to the fringe but to the warp and woof of Christianity. The modern tendency
to exclude it altogether, or at best to relegate it to the inconsequential
suburbs of the city of Truth, is an evidence of today’s doctrinal
deterioration.”2 What an indictment that is for our day when the
situation has worsened tenfold!
No
doubt Enoch, who walked with God, was moved by that walk to preach about God’s
coming judgment. Noah also walked with God
and found grace in God’s eyes
(Gen. 6:8-9) and became a preacher of
righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5) who warned the world of God’s impending
judgment. But backslidden Lot vexed his righteous soul with the filthy
conversation of the wicked (2 Pet. 2:7-8) and could not bring himself to warn
Sodom of God’s displeasure and wrath. Such will be preaching at the end of the
age.
Judgment has become the forgotten prophecy because we have neglected certain
truths which dictate that judgment is necessary.
God is Holy
Though
all believers profess this belief, it obviously does not permeate the hearts and
minds of many. It is hard for us to comprehend the depth of a statement such
as, God is light, and in him is no darkness at
all (1 John 1:5) or Be ye holy; for I am
holy (1 Pet 1:16). Do we take seriously God’s requirements for entering
into His presence? Who shall ascend into the
hill of the LORD? Or who shall stand in his holy place (Psa 24:3)? And
even with our knowledge of justification by faith, do we realize how blood
bought believers ought to serve Him? Wherefore
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming
fire (Heb 12:28-29).
God
cannot violate His own holy character. He will not overlook sin nor simply
dismiss one’s sins in the judgment as if one attribute of His can override
another. Holiness demands payment for sin. If the sinner will not come to God
by Christ, then he will pay himself for his sin in hell, a payment which must
endure as long as God’s holiness endures.
Sin is Serious
Sin
cannot be treated as a virus which may be contracted by accident and may be
cured by diligent care. Rather, There is none
righteous, no not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that
seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one (Rom 3:10-12).
Nor can we, by wishing and pleading, close the moral gap between ourselves and
God. Rather, Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will
not hear (Isa 59:2).
Both
Peter and Jude plead for people in the end of the world to remember that God
cannot overlook sin. He has severely judged it in the past and He will do so in
the future. If He eternally punished fallen angels; if He violently destroyed a
world of people in the flood; if He instantly burned the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah; if He drowned the blaspheming Egyptians in the sea; then He will not
fail to treat mankind’s sin with equal severity at the end of the age.
God is Vengeful
Vengeance by a sinful creature is sin in itself, but vengeance by a holy God is
right and necessary. For we know him that hath
said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And
again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God (Heb 10:30-31). The writer was alluding to the
Psalmist who wrote, O LORD God, to whom
vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. Lift up
thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud (Psa 94:1-2).
God spoke to Moses of all of Israel’s sins that would be recompensed in the last
days, Is not this laid up in store with me, and
sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their
foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the
things that shall come upon them make haste (Deut 32:34-35).
Perhaps some think that such attitudes belong only to a God of past ages, that
God has now become pacified toward sin because He is also a God of love and
grace. Yet in the coming Tribulation when God brings all nations to the valley
of Megiddo, the Lord will fight them with the sword of His mouth for
he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and
wrath of Almighty God (Rev 19:15).
Hell is Terrible
The
doctrine of hell surpasses all human comprehension in its awfulness and
vastness. While it ought to make the hardest sinner pause before performing his
deeds in God’s sight, it at least makes the believer thankful for grace, awed
before God, and even urgent in evangelism. As much as some strain to remove the
awful doctrine from scripture, they face one insurmountable problem—it is
plainly there!
John’s
vantage point while writing the book of Revelation was manifold. He looked back
and saw all of earth’s history; he looked down at great tribulation on the
earth; he looked forward into endless eternity. There he saw both heaven and
hell: both were real, both were eternal, and both were filled with human souls
whose destiny is fixed forever. Of those who die without salvation in Christ he
wrote, The same shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his
indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence
of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their
torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night (Rev
14:10-11). This and many more passages clearly show hell is real, hot,
and eternal.
Grace is Proffered
We are
saved by grace and that grace is made available to all. But grace must be
applied if it is to free the sinner from God’s judgment. Many seem to think
that because God loved the world, and because Jesus died for the sins of the
whole world, that the whole world has been removed as objects of God’s wrath.
Yet these prophecies of future wrath and eternal judgment concern a time more
than two thousand years after the cross of Calvary. Grace is proffered to the
world which God loved, but it must be applied if it is to save.
It is
wonderfully true that God’s wrath has been removed through the sacrifice of
Christ. He is the propitiation for our sins:
and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
The payment has been made; the substitution has occurred.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God (1 Pet 3:17). But
Isaiah said, in the great fifty-third chapter,
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he
shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand (Isa
53:10). Paul also made it clear that the gift of grace must be received,
For if by one man’s offense death reigned by
one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:17).
The
same chapter that says that God so loved the world that He gave his only
begotten Son, also says, He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life; but the wrath of God abideth on him (John 3:35). Although God
loves the world of people and Jesus died for them, they must be born again if
they would enter the Kingdom of God.
Judgment is Future
It is
striking to read the Old Testament prophecies of the judgment of God and to
realize that you are reading something that is yet in our future.
The great day of the LORD is near, it is near,
and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall
cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress,
a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
clouds and thick darkness (Joel 1:14-15). But even more sobering is to
read the book of Revelation describe those at the White Throne judgment being
“cast” into the lake of fire because their names are not in the book of life
(Rev 20:11-15). The Psalmist said, The wicked
shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God (Psa 9:17).
That dreadful day is coming for all lost people, small and great. They will be
“cast” and “turned” into hell, shunned by their very Creator.
And So . . . .
We are
reminded that judgment, the forgotten prophecy, must be remembered again. It is
nearer than when we first believed (Rom 13:11); we are the ones upon whom the
end of the world is come (1 Cor 10:11); we are to be admonishing one another
even more as we see the day approaching (Heb 10:25); God is being longsuffering
because He is not willing that any should perish but instead come to repentance
(2 Pet 3:9). Let us be steadfast and unmovable because such labor is not in
vain in the Lord (1 Cor 15:58).
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who
shall be able to stand (Rev 6:17)?
Notes:
1. B.F. Westcott, The
Gospel According to St. John (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964) 11.
2. Charles Ryrie, Basic
Theology (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1987) 245.
3. Arthur W. Pink,
Exposition of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971) 32.
4. Quoted by E.W. Hengstenberg,
The Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Klock
& Klock, 1980) 46.
5. E.W. Henstenberg, Ibid., 47.
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