ALARM-God Judges ALL NATIONS!

In the church's hustle to become "all things to all men," she seems to have overlooked the all-pervasive judgments so prominent in the Bible. That "the earth is Lord's" (Ps. 24:1) implies far more than comfort to those who love God! It implies more significantly that those who persistently and unfailingly resist Yahweh as King will one day find him to be their Judge! The church needs to voice this awesome concern again instead of cowering behind institutionalized walls. The LORD God will not deny his absolute Sovereignty just because many today want to present him as the "softer side" of the universe!

One example of such judgment is recorded in Ezekiel 35 regarding the land of Edom, a people just south of Israel. They had a history of resistance against Israel, not even allowing them on one occasion to use their land as a passageway when fleeing after their 400 year bondage in Egypt, even though they promised not to use any of their natural resources! (Num. 20:14-21) God pronounces judgment against them saying, "I will lay your cities waste, and you shall become a desolation, and you shall know that I am the LORD. Because you cherished perpetual enmity and gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity." Because of their wholesale disregard for God's people, He says, "I will fill its mountains with the slain. . . . I will make you a perpetual desolation" (vv. 4-5, 8-9). Do you see the obvious parallelism? "Because you cherished PERPETUAL ENMITY, I will make you a PERPETUAL DESOLATION." Dread was their lot, because they did not fear God enough to respect His people. God hasn't changed today. Though judgment may issue slowly by our count, it will most certainly come.

How are we to see this? What attitude should fill the Christian?

First, DELIGHT. Not delight that other countries will suffer destruction, but delight that God is NOT the weak, effete, pitiable personage so many make Him out to be; delight that our God reigns, that, in fact, "the earth IS the LORD's and the fullness thereof" no matter what our culture would have us believe.

Second, FEAR. Fear because God is a God to be feared. Over and over again throughout Ezekiel's prophecy we read these words, "Then you will know that I am the LORD." This phrase is repeated four times alone in the fifteen verses of chapter 35! Don't be duped by God's patience into imagining Him to be anything less than awesome and thorough in His judgment! He waits for men to repent, but a day will come--that failing--that He will require all mankind to own Him as the Sovereign of the Universe. Indeed, "every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:11).

Third, MISSIONIZE. Yes, if these things are true, then we must go public. Jesus did not come to condemn the world--NOT because He was a 'softy' but because THEY WERE ALREADY CONDEMNED! We need to get the word out so that we may, as Jude says, "save others by snatching them out of the fire" (v. 23). 

AMEN!