3 posts tagged “judgment”

98:4 Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth!

Break out in a joyful shout and sing!

98:5 Sing to the Lord accompanied by a harp,

accompanied by a harp and the sound of music!

98:6 With trumpets and the blaring of the ram’s horn,

shout out praises before the king, the Lord!

98:7 Let the sea and everything in it shout,

along with the world and those who live in it!

98:8 Let the rivers clap their hands!

Let the mountains sing in unison

98:9 before the Lord!

For he comes to judge the earth!

He judges the world fairly,

and the nations in a just manner.

I love how the Psalmist is calling out to all of creation to shout out praises to God, to sing with everything we have, using music, being LOUD (shouting + "blaring" horns). The psalmist keeps telling us and all of creation to do this and then gives the answer why we should do this: Because God is coming to judge the earth, and because he judges the earth justly!

I was talking yesterday with someone who asked whether it really is all that important that there's an afterlife. I said that I acknowledge that often Christians have overemphasized the afterlife: I mean by that that Christianity has had phases where all attention was in the distant future...and knowing Jesus was simply a way to escape this world, nothing more. Christianity is so much more than that: Jesus helps us to truly live "in the moment", and to be an agent of change in this world right here, right now!

BUT, these doesn't minimize the fact that Jesus' return to judge the earth is a vital, necessary ingredient: If there was no afterlife, then according to Paul himself, our faith is useless and we are the most pitiful people ever. No life after death means no meaning for this life. No final judgment means people like Hitler or Stalin won't ever be truly held accountable for their deeds...

And this is why verse 9 is such a reason for loud, joyous praise: We can trust that God

1. is currently judging the earth fairly (that verb is in present tense in verse 9!) as Sovereign Lord
   
2. will one day come to judge the earth fully

We see God's justice and power in both the current life and the afterlife. And that's so encouraging.

I was struck today in my daily reading how bluntly the various tribes of Israel basically get their "report card" on how they did in conquering the land, sorted by success. Judah and Simeon (especially Judah) pass with flying colors (verses 1-31). Then comes Benjamin, Joseph, and Manasseh who didn't completely conquer everybody, but did an "OK" job, then everybody else gets the resounding and repetitive "...did not conquer", one after the other. The worst of the lot is Dan who not only doesn't conquer the land, but in fact is forced to live in the hill country. Ouch!

What set apart Judah and Simeon from the rest, why were they different? A couple thoughts off the top of my head:

• They worked together - Judah basically said "Simeon, you help me, we'll help you." Unity begets success. (Genesis 11:5)
  
• They sought God's help and guidance right from the start (verse 1): Note that this is one of the very few times we see Israel asking the LORD anything in the whole book of Judges (other than at the end of the book).
• They were passionate - conquering a city in order to marry Caleb's daughter sounds like 1. Caleb's daughter must have been quite a girl ;) and 2. Caleb passionately valued the agreement with God to take the land, as we already heard in the book of Joshua.

On Saturday, our Unplugged service was about James 2, where James talks about favoritism and judgmentalism and how it shows itself in the church and in our lives. We had a great discussion with tons of people sharing out of their own lives how easy it is to keep too much of a distance from people you don't get along with or who are difficult.

I realized that seemingly everyone has tough relationships like that in their lives. It seems like those relationships are specifically the ones where we should pay most attention to what God is doing there, because they create the most emotional friction and heat in our lives, and therefore can be used greatly by God to mold and shape us. Those relationships are really often the heart of where God is trying to work on my heart.

For me, a challenge is dealing with a couple of guys at work, since we're worlds apart when it comes to our interests, our values and ethics, our politics (or in my case, lack thereof), and our way of thinking. But God challenges me in James 2 to not love or value them any less than myself - to be merciful rather than to judge them. When I say "merciful" I don't mean it in the sense of an almost prideful mercy, but more as a humble attitude and way of thinking - that is, not being self-righteous, not focusing on what I dislike or disagree with, rather being loving, accepting, and focusing on what I appreciate.

Another thought I was reminded of during the time was how Jesus' Golden Rule is pro-active rather than prohibitive. All other major world religions have the Golden Rule in a negative form "Don't do to others what you don't what them to do to you." And that's the way most people take Jesus' version of it. But let's never forget Jesus is not telling us what not to do, but rather actually challenging us to initiate and to take action: "Do to others what you'd have them do to you."