Articles
Judging God’s Judgment
Judging God’s Judgment
By Paul R. Blake
I recently received the following question from a seeker: “Will persons who don't know any better than to follow a denomination can go to heaven if they did their best to follow Christ as far their understanding allowed? It seems unfair of God to judge the uneducated peasants in the Dark Ages because they followed the Catholic Church.”
My reply: Good question! At first, it seems reasonable to most of us to think this way, but there are a few things we overlook when we do so. First, God is the Judge and will certainly handle the cases of persons in your question according to His Divine wisdom. Remember what Abraham asked when God told him that He planned to destroy Sodom: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25).
It is not possible for us to know to whom God will or will not show mercy in the Judgment. That is His prerogative, and we have no right to make assumptions about the decisions of Almighty God. It is not possible for us to know what He will choose in the judgment of others. Since we cannot know, it is unwise in the extreme to make assumptions about it, then to believe and teach others that God will judge us based on what we assumed. That will be purely subjective at best. It is actually presumptuous and irreverent. However, what God has said about His judgment in His Word, the Bible, is completely objective. We can read it and know what God wants us to do before we face Him in the Judgment (Eph. 3:2-4).
Second, it is scripturally accurate to conclude that God will apply the same standards to everyone in the Judgment, for He will not exercise a double standard or favoritism between human beings. “For there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11). Since everyone is required by God to obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ, everyone will be judged based upon this Divinely mandated criterion. “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained” (Acts 17:30-31). Whether or not it offends our limited and flawed sense of fairness, we can only teach what the word of God says about God’s judgment: “In flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2Thes. 1:8).
And third, the only person we are authorized to make a judgment about is ourselves; we are not allowed to take an interest in how God will judge another or with what mercy or severity He will judge him. Consider Jesus’ rebuke of Peter when he showed too much interest in how John’s life would end: “Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, ‘But Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me” (John 21:21-22). The point is that we must do what He commanded us in His Word, and then trust Him to judge us and all others according to His wisdom and His will tempered by His Divine choices to exercise mercy or severity. No one, not you nor me, will ever be able to make those judgments nearly as well or better than God. God is God, and we are not. Let God be God, and don’t try to whittle on His end of the stick, by judging Him by our uninformed and fallible sense of what is fair.
When tempted to judge God’s judgment, learn to think, say, and do what Job said to God: “Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said: ‘Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.’ Then Job answered the LORD and said: ‘Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I will lay my hand over my mouth’” (Job 40:1-4).
Remember Thy Creator
By Maurice Dyson
“Remember now thy Creator
in the days of thy youth.”
Ecclesiastes 12:1
Remember thy Creator,
Before the evil days;
While life is still a challenge,
And passions are ablaze;
Before the light gets misty,
And sight is getting dim;
And all desire for living
Is spiritless and slim.
Remember thy Creator,
Before the cord is loosed;
The thread of life is broken;
The staff no longer used;
When sound of grinding ceases;
With industry complete;
And caskets bearing loved ones
Are carried down the street.
Remember thy Creator,
While memories remain;
Before the shadows deepen,
And life becomes a bane;
Before the soul is yielded,
And flesh returns to dust;
Remember thy Creator,
And make the Lord thy trust.
Bible Trivia: Test Your Prophet Knowledge
He was thrown in a lion’s den? ________________
The prophet who was thrown in a cistern? ________________
The prophet who was thrown overboard? ________________
They were farmers before they were prophets? ________________
He only wrote a one chapter book? ________________
He wore camel’s hair and leather? _________________
