I hear it said often that people grow weary of hearing churchmen speak about sin. I understand that people don’t like to think about their difficiencies and areas of weakness. It can make one feel awfully low. It is clear to me that more and more people only want grace from the gospel. We want to know how much love God has for us, how much potential he sees in us, but we don’t want to know what he demands of us and how we utterly fail to please him. We really don’t like it, in our heart of hearts, that God is pleased with us only because he sees in us the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not our own righteousness, which is as filthy rags.
I am sensitive to this pervasvie feeling of wanting the Church to only provide the perceived positive side of the gospel, after all who wants to bring a person low in their spirit? Indeed, our society reinforces this mentality as it focuses on positive reinforcement techniques for raising children, managing employees and interacting with others. Those who would dare talk to you about your weaknesses as a neighbor, an employee, a son or a daughter are labeled intolerant, unkind and miserly. This is unfortunate.
There are many good reasons for the Church to restrain from its tendency to follow this model, which is so appealing to the those who hold an incomplete view of pastoral care. I want to give you but one today. It comes from the lips of our Lord, Jesus. In speaking about the end times, in which we live, he said, “because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” Matthew 24:7.
You see, this tendency to concentrate solely on grace and ignore sin, the law and judgment, while it may make us feel better in the moment, is damaging to our souls. As we ignore our sin and its vileness, as we set aside the law and its requirements, as we sideline judgment as something only for the wicked, we are robing our very souls of the fuel that the gospel designs to increase our love for God and one another. In doing so, we do great harm to ourselves all the while thinking that we are helping ourselves. The mind is deceitful.
So, let us consider with sober minds what it means to be a sinner, to be under judgment and therby come to healthy and life giving appreciation of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
The following fact brings both a strange relief and dreadful concern to me. For some it ought to awaken you. It ought to enliven you to seek answers and ultimately salvation. The fact is, The Lord will one day “execute judgment among the nations” and the result of this judgement will be that the land will be filled with the corpses of the mighty and the weak alike. (Psalm 110:6)
There are some things that we really ought to consider in this light:
- The day for this judgement is set already and is more certain than the rising of the sun in the morning – We cannot escape it. (Psalm 110:5)
- The only escape from the judgement is to offer yourself freely to God through Christ prior to this day (Psalm 110:3)
- Those who belong to God must not fail to give proper warning to those who are lost.
- Those who do not follow Christ must seriously consider their danger and whether they will trust Christ to rescue them from it.
I don’t write these things to be an alarmist. I don’t even know when that day will come (no one does). I simply write these things because they are true, and when we know that another is in danger we are compelled to warn him or her as best we are able and seek to draw them away from that danger. I write to encourage the lost to repent and believe in Christ and to exhort Christ’s followers to not ignore the burning house that your neighbor is now living in unawares. Will you listen and take heed?
Recently, I was reading in Exodus 28:30 and saw a great picture of the work of Christ on our behalf. This passage tells how the High Priest took the Urim and Thummim and wore them around his neck so that they rested over his heart. As he entered into the presence of God with these two stones, which someone enabled him to know the will of God, he presented his own heart as the proper place for the judgment of God concerning the people. If the judgment of God was in favor of the people, then the High Priest received God’s favor for the people. If the judgment of God was against the people, then the High Priest received the judgment of God on their behalf.
What a weight these two stones must have been around the High Priest’s neck. To stand before God representing the people knowing that God would judge them in him; that God’s judgment of the people would rest on his own heart. How he must have longed for the people of God to live according the law of God.
Like the High Priests of old, Christ bore the judgment of God toward His people. He stood before God with the weight of our sin around his shoulders and over his heart, and as no other High Priest before him could, he took the full judgment; he felt the full righteous wrath of God.
The result of this act of mercy and love is that those who put their faith in that work of Christ now stand before God to accept God’s judgment of His Son upon them. They stand before God to receive the Son’s due as a perfect and holy Son, who never sinned and always loved the Father perfectly. They stand before God to receive a reward.
What a wondrous thought it is that, because Christ bore my judgment on his heart and took my penalty, I bear his judgment on my heart and willingly receive his reward. What a glorious God He is who, before the foundations of the earth were laid, determined that the Son would suffer so that the fallen creation could rejoice.
Who are you willing your judgment upon, yourself or the one who can satisfy it wholly and win you a reward that is eternal and glorious?
