Thursday: The Hour of His Judgment
“Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known”(Matt. 10:26).1
Looking around at the world, we shouldn’t have a problem understanding the idea of judgment and condemnation. One doesn’t have to be a believing Christian to realize that something is radically wrong with humanity. Who can’t see what a royal mess, even disaster, we’ve made of things? Maybe we cry so hard at birth because, instinctively, we know what’s coming. “I cried when I was born and every day shows why,” a poet wrote. Who can’t relate? Who hasn’t himself or herself been the victim of just how greedy, selfish, and mean people can be? Or who hasn’t at some point been the greedy, selfish, and mean one?
Thus, if God is just, and if justice were His only major attribute, who among us would stand before Him? If the Lord knows even our secret things, our secret deeds (Eccles. 12:14) (much less what we have done in public), what chance would even the godliest among us have on the day of judgment, when all these things will be revealed?
Fortunately, though, our God is also a God of grace. The whole plan of salvation was established so that every human being could, ideally, be spared the condemnation that God’s justice would demand. Without grace, we’d all be consumed by God’s justice. Our only hope, then, standing before a just God, is grace.
Read the first angel’s message in Revelation 14:6, 7. How do these verses reveal the link between God’s justice and His grace? How do they also parallel what we saw in Genesis 3 and how it showed the relationship between grace and judgment?
How interesting that before the warning that the “hour of His judgment has come” (NKJV), the angel is proclaiming the “everlasting gospel.” It has to be that way, otherwise the judgment would condemn all humanity. No one would have a chance because all have sinned, all have violated God’s law. Here, among the last warning message to the world, God’s grace is proclaimed. Otherwise, judgment would condemn everyone, without exception. Without grace, what message would we have for the world other than that God is going to destroy us all and there’s no hope of escape? Fortunately, the message we have has the “everlasting gospel” as its foundation.
What role are you playing in helping spread this message of judgment and grace to others? What more could you do to help spread it because, most likely, you could be doing more, right? Right?
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I understand that our lesson this week tells us that grace came after the fall of sin and judgement follows as a consequence of sin. Therefore, if we sinned we are judge accordingly and grace is the provision in which we have time to change or repent.
Thanks God for the grace, that I could not suffer much with the sin I committed and have a chance to live.
If we sin, we're judged accordingly. Yes. But grace is not the provision in which we have time to change or repent.
Think of it.
Nebuchadnezzer was on the throne. Then he messed up. Then God sent him into the wild for 7yrs. Then repented. Then God sat him on the throne again.
Was Nebuchadnezzer given judged accordingly? He most certainly was. But when did grace come in? When he was sent away and given time to repent? When he was re-seated on the throne? Or...
Going by the atrocities he had wrought,there would be no amount of repentance he could posses to make him merit the sitting on the throne anymore. Therefore, his sitting back on the throne was the "unmerited favour" from God,while his leaving the wild was due to his repentance.
For repenting while we have time, God forgives us,and on His on account,restores us back to our rightful position. This is grace.
Greetings from Nigeria.