The Amazing Resurrection of the Dead预览

Judgement Day

Many people mock the idea of a Judgement Day.

These days there is a widespread belief that when we die we simply ‘pass’ to a better place where everything is pleasant and genial and no one suffers anymore.

This sounds all very nice but it ignores any concept of judgment for sin. And if such a belief is true, we must conclude that Julius Caesar, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, terrorists, rapists, pedophiles, and murderers all go to the same place as Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Billy Graham and a multitude of martyrs, missionaries and ministers of the gospel.

If there is any justice in the universe, any integrity and fairness, such an outcome is unthinkable. As Abraham cried out to God over his intention to destroy the cities of the plain, ‘You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of the whole earth do what is just?’ (Genesis 18:25, CSB).

There is a day of vindication coming that the Bible calls simply the Day of the Lord (Amos 5:20; 2 Thessalonians 2:2). If there is not such a day of reckoning, then life is meaningless. If at the end of the age, goodness is ignored and evil overlooked, what is the point of living? Why bother to be loving, honest, unselfish, or sacrificial if ultimately it all counts for nothing?

This present world is an unfair place where the good often suffer and the wicked often prosper. A god who doesn’t fix this may be powerful, but he would be neither good nor loving nor just. Nor would there be any hope of a heaven where all wrongs are put right and all rights rewarded.

To say there will be a day of judgment is not just a way of scaring people into heaven. To preach about it is not to preach ‘fire and brimstone’. It is to declare the integrity and fairness of God (Amos 5:24).

This is why Jesus often warned about a coming judgment day (e.g. Matthew 10:15; 11:22; 12:36; Luke 11:31-32). It is an essential part of the gospel. The apostles also frequently incorporated it into their preaching and teaching (e.g. Romans 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Hebrews 6:2; 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7). We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10).

The good news is that God himself has provided a verdict of ‘not guilty’ for everyone who looks to the cross of Jesus for redemption. In Christ, we are pronounced innocent even before the trial begins! The sentence has already been applied and the penalty paid. For those who believe, the Day of the Lord is not so much a Judgement Day as a Resurrection Day. And this determines our destiny.

What next?

Imagine someone who is genuinely suffering and who says, ‘It’s not fair!’ Jot down a brief response showing how telling them about the Day of the Lord might be helpful.

Read (aloud), record, repeat, and recall the second part of 2 Timothy 1:12.