Judgment may be the foremost theological concept in all of Scripture. Perhaps this is why the devil is pulling out all the stops these days to draw attention away from it, or portray judgment as something negative. Discover why God judges in this message.

<p>Judgment may be the foremost theological concept in all of Scripture. Perhaps this is why the devil is pulling out all the stops these days to draw attention away from it, or portray judgment as something negative. Discover why God judges in this message.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Pagosa Springs SDA

God’s Plan for Society

Skip Dodson

01 Conceived in Liberty

02 Divine Nation Building

Why Does God Judge?

Father in heaven, we are grateful for the opportunity that you give us today to come before you to sing and to return tithes and offerings and to pray And Lord now we pray that you would open our eyes to your word Lord give us keen discernment the discernment that is needed at this hour of earth's history.

And Father, we are all, I think, sensing our need of deeper understanding of scripture and deeper levels of discernment.

Father, the issues of the last days are more subtle than we imagined.

And we ask that you would help us to understand what we should be thinking and what we should be doing.

Help us to understand what hour we live in as we look into your word this morning.

Former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg opened the gate to enter his property and enjoy a nice evening with his family, his wife and children.

But the moment he opened his gate, something happened that he never would have imagined.

A bomb detonated, the blast of which was heard 16 miles away.

Steunenberg, of course, as you might imagine, was killed by the explosion.

The man who planted the bomb, who's 1 of his aliases was Harry Orchard, he was originally born Albert E.

After some initial resistance, he was, I should say, he was arrested and charged with murder.

And after some initial resistance, he confessed to Steunenberg's murder as well as others.

However, he swore that he did not act of his own accord but was hired by the Western Federation of Miners to assassinate Steunenberg as payback for his actions against the Miners Union while he had been governor.

William Haywood and 2 other high-ranking leaders in the Western Federation of Miners were subsequently arrested and tried.

Haywood's trial in 1907 was 1 of the first to gain national media attention.

Of course, that term has been applied to other trials since that time, some even in the same century.

But Haywood's trial nonetheless was the first or perhaps 1 of the first at least to gain this kind of attention.

His legal team included Clarence Darrow of Chicago who would later figure prominently in a couple of other big media trials, including 1 in which he defended a science teacher by the name of John Thomas Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925.

Some of you have heard of that famous Scopes trial, also called the Monkey Trial.

It was definitely some monkey shines happening in that trial, for sure.

Newspapers across the country gave daily reports on the progress of the Haywood trial.

In the end, Darrow's wily strategy and 11-hour closing argument was enough to convince the jury to acquit even the likes of Big Bill Haywood.

As fascinating as these media trials are, an even bigger trial is underway right now, friends, and the ironic thing is that None of the networks are covering it.

You won't read much about it on Facebook or Instagram.

If you ask the average person on the street about it, chances are you will get nothing more than a blank stare.

I'm talking, of course, about the heavenly judgment that is in progress right now as we live, breathe, and speak.

The defense attorney for the accused has never lost a case.

Every unfallen being in the universe is intensely focused on this courtroom.

It is the talk of the town, so to speak, at least in other places everywhere else except here on earth where it matters the most.

You and I are or will be on the witness stand.

We learn about this in our scripture reading which Wayne read a few moments ago.

Thank you Wayne for reading it so well and clearly, but let's take 1 more look at it.

Now, we will not stay here as is our custom.

Usually we'll be looking at some other passages today, but I do want to start off with this 1.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

I'll let that thought sink in for a moment.

All, in fact, Paul is writing this to those that believe, which is quite interesting, because you go to many churches today and you will hear nothing about the judgment of believers.

And yet Paul writes very clearly and plainly here about it.

We, he says, must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each 1 may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or what?

Now, friends, if you knew you were going to stand trial in an earthly court, let me ask you this question.

Would you hire an attorney or would you think yourself capable to go in and stand as your own legal counsel.

I think most of us would hire an attorney, wouldn't we?

But how many today are preparing for the most auspicious but eternally important judgment scene in human history?

Most are completely unaware of their impending day in court.

A few others have only a vague idea of the heavenly judgment and its significance.

To gain a thorough understanding of these things would take us significant time, more time than we have here this morning.

I pray that you will take the time with God to understand these things more fully.

But for our purposes here on this Sabbath morning, I want to examine only 1 significant question relating to the heavenly judgment, and that is Why does God judge?

And to answer the question why let me suggest 2 reasons from scripture.

Reason number 1, God judges because it is his nature and his character to judge.

Now that might strike you as a little bit odd because so often we hear from Christian pulpits these days that judging is something that is negative.

Judging is something that is un-Christlike.

After all, didn't Jesus say, judge not lest you be judged?

And they hone in on, people hone in on that 1 text and without really understanding what Jesus meant by that, of course we should not pronounce condemnation upon others.

We are not the judge." But does that mean that judgment is a negative thing?

God judges because it is His nature to judge.

I want to prove that to you just by looking at Genesis chapter 1.

So please turn there, it should be easy to find.

It's right at the beginning of the Bible.

Genesis chapter 1, I want to read a few verses of this And I'm gonna select them, I'll tell you which ones to follow me on, but we're gonna see a very distinct pattern here.

Genesis chapter 1, let's begin with verse 4.

And God divided the light from the darkness God saw the light and that it was good what kind of a word is good by the way It's a word that pertains to judgment, right?

If something is good, you juxtapose that with something that is what?

And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas and God saw that it was what good are you picking up the pattern here let's look at verse 12 and the earth brought forth grass the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind.

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.

This is talking about the sun and the moon that he made, and God saw that it was good.

Now, the Next time I'm gonna ask you to repeat the phrase, okay?

So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind.

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Series

God’s Plan for Society

Why Does God Judge?

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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Secrets from the Ancient Sanctuary

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The Conflict

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The Gospel Will Prevail

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The Gift of Remorse

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The Cross and the Sanctuary

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