ABOUT GOD
About Justice and Judgment #3
Illustrations! #2
GOD IS LOVE - IT IS WRITTEN. BUT GOD IS ALSO JUSTICE AND THE JUDGE OF THE UNIVERSE. JUDGMENT/JUSTICE - MORE ABOUT: From the book "Swindoll's Ultimate Book of Illustrations and Quotes" ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENT Bible illustrations of judgment has to do with Sodom and Gomorrah. Twenty-two times it is used in the Bible. ...... A POET, Friedrich Von Logau, said, "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small." William Wadsworth Longfellow elaborated and said, "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small. Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness He grinds all." John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations ...... HE WHO DOES NOT PUNISH EVIL, commands it to be done. Leonardo da Vinci ...... SURELY THIS PHRASE "the wrath of God" is greatly misunderstood. Many think, invariably, of some sort of peeved deity, a kind of cosmic, terrible-tempered Mr. Bang, who indulges in violent, uncontrolled displays of temper when human beings do not do what they ought to do. But such a concept only reveals the limitations of our understanding. The Bible never deals with the wrath of God that way. According to Scriptures, the wrath of God is God's moral integrity. When man refuses to yield himself to God, he creates certain conditions, not only for himself but for others as well, which God has ordained for harm. It is God who makes evil result in sorrow, heartache, injustice, and despair. It is God's way of saying to man, "Now look, you must face the truth. You were made for Me. If you decide that you don't want Me, then you will have to bear the consequences." The absence of God is destructive to human life. That absence is God's wrath. And God cannot withhold it. In His moral integrity, He insists that these things should occur as a result of our disobedience. He sets man's sin and His wrath in the same frame. Charles R. Swindoll, "Living Above the Level of Mediocrity" ...... MY SISTER brought a record home from college many years ago, when I was just an adolescent at home. It was called "God's Trombones." I think the narration was done by Harry Belafonte. "God's Trombones," by James Johnson, originally published in 1927, is seven sermons from the black culture of the twenties. If you have ever heard black preachers, you have heard vivid terms about whatever the subject may be - creation, life, death, or in this case, the judgment day. The Judgment Day In that great day, People, in that great day, God's a-going to rain down fire. God's a-going to sit in the middle of the air To judge the quick and the dead. Early one of these mornings, God's a-going to call for Gabriel, That tall, bright angel, Gabriel; And God's a-going to say to him: Gabriel, Blow your silver trumpet, And wake the living nations. And Gabriel's going to ask him: Lord, How loud must I blow it? And God's a-going to tell him: Gabriel, Blow it calm and easy..... ...... From the book "Stories, Illustrations and Quotes" JUDGMENT Someone Once Said ... * There are few things stressed more strongly in the Bible than the reality of God's work as Judge. J. I. Packer. * God's anger was seen to be not a passion, but a principle - the eternal hatred of wrong which corresponds with the eternal love of right, and which is only another aspect of love. The magnetic needle swings on its delicate axis; it attracts at one end; it repels at the other. A. T Pierson. * The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws every day nearer and the command to repent goes unheeded. A. W Tozer. * The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment, and by the problem thence arising: how may we sinners get right with God while there is yet time? J. I. Packer. * His wrath is not an impetuous and changeable passion, but an eternal and unchangeable principle. A. T Pierson Doomed The 1999 crash of golfer Payne Stewart's plane was a bizarre incident. He and five companions boarded a twin-engine, $2.4 million Learjet which left the runway at 9:19 A.M. There were two pilots, and all seemed fine when they checked in with air traffic controllers a few minutes later. But for unknown reasons, the pilots apparently lost consciousness shortly before they were to turn west toward Dallas, and when they couldn't be raised by air traffic controllers, two Air Force jets went aloft to investigate. No one was at the controls. There was no movement in the cockpit, and the windows were fogged, suggesting that the cabin had depressurized and become chilled with stratospheric air some 45,000 feet above the earth. One of the Air Force pilots said, "It's a very helpless feeling to pull alongside another aircraft and realize the people inside that aircraft potentially are unconscious or in some other way incapacitated. And there's nothing I can do physically from my aircraft even though I'm fifty to one hundred feet away, to help them at all." When one of its two engines finally ran out of fuel, the plane roller-coastered through the clouds, heading toward final, cataclysmic destruction. One air safety investigator said that airplane depressurization can be "very insidious." He explained that the problem could slowly deprive the crew of its ability to know what was happening. "It could be one of those things where you're feeling good, you're feeling happy, and you don't know what's going on." Picture humanity on a runaway airplane, on a collision course, with only moments of time remaining. Yet people are so caught up in their pleasures and pressures and pursuits that they don't realize the urgency of their plight. ...... IT IS SOBERING - JESUS DID SAY THERE SHALL BE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH WHEN SOME WILL BE LOOKING FROM THE OUTSIDE AT THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND CANNOT ENTER - Keith Hunt TWO Columns The Bible presents a God who is the absolute of perfection, who is a God of love, and yet who is simultaneously a God of wrath. A. T Pierson compares it to an arch. You have the love of God supporting one side and the wrath of God supporting the other side, and without either of them the entire thing would fall down. God would not be God if he didn't have the capacity of wrath. Why? I was reading the other day about a young, handsome, dapper fellow, a medical doctor, who always wore crisp and well-tailored clothing. He handled himself with polish and smoothness. He always bore the fragrance of expensive cologne. But his very demeanor made him all the more fiendish, for his name was Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz. With a flick of his well-washed and perfumed hand he personally selected 400,000 prisoners to die in the gas chamber. He conducted horrible experiments on people, hoping to produce a superior race. One observer said, "He would spend hours bent over his microscope while the air outside stank with the heavy odor of burning flesh from the chimney stacks of the crematoria." He had a special fascination for children who were twins. He would give them horrible injections, operate on their spine to paralyze them, then begin removing parts of their body one at a time for observation. Now, what would you think of a person - or, for that matter, a God - who could see that sort of indescribable evil without feeling any anger? If God could watch the hurt and the evil in this universe with no feelings of indignation and fury, he would be defective in his character. He wouldn't be God at all. So I submit that rather than apologizing for the doctrine of the wrath of God, or ignoring it, we should appreciate it as a vital and wonderful part of God's divine character. Robert J. Morgan ...... Spiders Over the Fire America's greatest theologian is often identified as Jonathan Edwards, a New England pastor of the 1700s. Edwards was brilliant. At age six he studied Latin. He entered Yale when not quite thirteen and graduated when barely fifteen. He was ordained at age nineteen, taught at Yale by twenty, and later became president of Princeton. Harvard granted him both a bachelor's and a master's degree on the same day. But he is best known for "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" - the most famous sermon in American history. He preached it on Sunday, July 8, 1741, while ministering in tiny Enfield, Connecticut. A group of women had spent the previous night praying for revival. When Edwards rose to speak, he quietly announced that his text was Deuteronomy 32:35, ". . . their foot shall slide in due time." This "hellfire and brimstone" approach was somewhat a departure for Edwards. Of his one thousand written sermons, less than a dozen are of this type. Edwards neither gestured nor raised his voice. He spoke softly and simply, warning the unconverted that they were dangling over hell like a spider over the fire. O sinner! consider the fearful danger. The unconverted are now walking over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that it will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. Edwards' voice was suddenly lost amid cries and commotion from the crowd. He paused, appealing for calm. Then he concluded: Let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom. Strong men held to pews and posts, feeling they were sliding into hell. Others shook uncontrollably and rolled on the floor. Throughout the night cries of men and women were heard throughout the village, begging God to save them. Five hundred were converted that evening, sparking a revival that swept thousands into the kingdom. The Great Awakening had come. ...... Jonathan Edwards was just a product of false Protestant Christianity. Not so great at all, as shocking as that may sound to so-called fundamental Christianity. While it is correct to preach REPENTANCE, most of those preachers back in Edwards' day did NOT know the plan of God regards salvation, neither the truth about hell and salvation and judgment.
BUT ***YOU***DEAR READER CAN KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT ALL SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND. Keith Hunt Judgment Day In the history of New England, May 19, 1780, has become known for its supposed foreshadowing of the judgment Day. At noon the skies were turned from blue to gray, and by mid-afternoon they had become so black that men fell on their knees and cried out to God for mercy ere they went to their doom. On that day the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. When darkness fell by day, some began to shout and plead for mercy. Others demanded an immediate adjournment. The speaker of the House, Colonel Abraham Davenport, called for silence. Then he spoke: "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles be brought." ...... THE SKIES AND WAYS OF NATURE HAVE BEEN MIGHTY SPECTACULAR MANY TIMES SINCE 1780. THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES AND THE END OF THIS AGE, IS THROUGH BIBLE PROPHECY. ONLY SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE ATOMIC BOMB CAN PROPHECY NOW BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD. I MAKE IT ALL PLAIN FOR YOU ON THIS WEBSITE. Keith Hunt The Times Are Waxing Late We have little information about the life of Bernard of Morlaix (or Cluny) who lived in the middle of the twelfth century, but he left behind a poem of three thousand lines, "De Contemptu Mundi." The theme of this huge composition is expressed in the opening lines of one of the stanzas: The world is very evil The times are waxing late Be sober and keep vigil The judge is at the gate. ...... TODAY AS NEVER BEFORE THOSE WORDS ARE TRUE - TIMES ARE EVIL - JESUS SAID THAT BEFORE HE COMES TO JUDGE THE WORLD, EVIL WOULD ABOUND AND THE LOVE OF MANY WILL WAX COLD. HE ALSO SAID DECEPTION WOULD BE SO GREAT THAT ***IF*** IT WAS POSSIBLE EVEN THE ELECT WOULD BE DECEIVED (MATT.24). THE ONLY WAY FOR YOU TO KNOW TRUTH FROM DECEPTION IS TO SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES AND SEE WHO IS TEACHING THE WORD OF GOD CORRECTLY, AND WHO ARE THE DECEIVERS. JESUS ALSO SAID MANY WOULD COME IN HIS NAME, SAYING HE WAS THE CHRIST - JESUS WAS THE CHRIST - BUT WOULD DECIEVE THE MANY, NOT THE FEW. JESUS ALSO SAID HIS FLOCK WOULD BE THE VERY LITTLE FLOCK (AS THE GREEK READS) - THE SALT OF THE EARTH - JUST HERE AND THERE - Keith Hunt. J. I. Packer on Judgment "Why," asks J. I. Packer, "do men fight shy of the thought of God as a judge? Why do they feel the thought to be unworthy of Him? The truth is that part of God's moral perfection is His perfection in judgment. Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hiders and Stalins (if we dare use names), and His own saints, be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection of God, not a perfection. But not to judge the world would be to show moral indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral being, not indifferent to questions of right and wrong, is the fact that He has committed Himself to judge the world." ...... Vesuvius When the Apostle Paul was being transported as a missionary prisoner to Rome, his ship docked to the south of Rome in the Italian port city of Puteoli. This was a holiday resort for fashionable Roman society, a spa with nearby hot sulfur springs. Many of the Roman emperors had villas there. Puteoli lay in the shadow of a great and rugged mountain - a volcano, though it hadn't erupted in a thousand years - Vesuvius. Shortly after Paul's time, Vesuvius exploded like an atomic bomb. It erupted for forty hours, and while Puteoli was spared, another nearby city was flooded by molten lava, buried before the inhabitants could escape. They were killed by the gasses and the ash, then preserved by the molten lava which rolled over them and hermetically sealed them in a gigantic tomb of pumice. That city was Pompeii, and for many years it remained buried under twenty feet of hardened lava. Excavations have given us a perfectly preserved Roman city, frozen in time, caught in the act of being itself. The twenty thousand people of Pompeii, it seems, worshipped two gods: Venus, the love goddess, and Mercury, the god of commerce. They worshipped, in other words, money and pleasure. Their worship of Mercury is evidenced by their economic prosperity. Pompeii was a thriving city, a neat grid-pattern of shop-lined streets wrapped in a gated wall. It pulsed with industry, many of its people working in a winery, Pompeii being world-famous for its wine. But they also loved pleasure. The city walls were filled with advertisements by prostitutes. Prices indicate that the average girl cost about the price of a modest dinner at a Pompeiian tavern. On one hotel, a sign said, "If you sit down here, read this first: If you're looking for a girl, ask for Attica - four bucks, high class." On the walls of brothels were testimonies by satisfied customers. Everywhere were models and carvings of the phallus - the male sexual organ - which in ancient Pompeii was considered the symbol of success. It was carved on sidewalks and houses, drawn on walls and posts. The statues and sculptures of Pompeii, excavated by archaeologists, were hidden for many years in the "off limits" rooms of Italian museums because they were so obscene. On one Pompeiian wall, someone with a knowledge of the Old Testament had written some graffiti just three words: Sodom and Gomorrah! And, like Sodom and Gomorrah, Pompeii perished suddenly by fire. Judgment came swiftly and without warning, and there was no escape. And, like Sodom and Gomorrah, our world today is awash in corruption and confusion, awaiting the judgment. We don't know when the volcano of judgment and retribution will erupt, but the Apostle Peter said, "The end of all things is near ... For the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. That day will bring about the destruction of the heaven by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat." ...... PETER IS TALKING ABOUT THE DAY OF THE LORD, NOT THE PERIOD CALLED THE "GREAT TRIBULATION" - WHICH COMES BEFORE THE DAY OF THE LORD. ALL THIS PROPHETIC PROPHECY I HAVE EXPOUNDED FOR YOU IN DETAIL, ON THIS WEBSITE - Keith Hunt. The Water Will Boil David Marks was one of the most powerful evangelists in early American history. He was born to godly Connecticut parents in 1805, and his awareness of God began early in life. The incident that started him thinking about the Savior was a day when he was watching some flax burn. He had heard of the fires of hell, and as he watched the flames, he thought how exceedingly dreadful even one moment in hell would be. "What would I do if the wrath of God fell on the earth?" he asked himself. After serious thought, he decided that should the Day ofJudgment come, he would descend into the well and hide there. Running to his mother, he shared his plan; but she replied, "Ah, my son, the water will boil and the earth will burn." He then told her that he would run to a spot he knew in the rocks where he could hide. She said, "But the rocks will melt." He was so overwhelmed with dread that he told her he would just die and escape the wrath of God in the grave. But she replied, "My child, your hope is in vain; for the dead will awake and come out of their graves." Young David went outside and walked through the fields, pondering at length the reality of that coming day and his being unprepared for it. Putting his hand over his heart, he looked toward heaven and said, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." ...... AH IT IS ALL TRUE WHAT HIS MOTHER TOLD HIM. THE WORD OF GOD DOES TEACH THAT INDEED ALL THOSE THING WILL HAPPEN ONE DAY - IT IS WRITTEN - IT WILL COME TO PASS. GOD IS CALLING SOME TODAY, TO SALVATION, IT IS VERY POSSIBLE ***YOU***ARE ONE OF THEM!!! Keith Hunt Where the Fire Has Been Many years ago, a father and his daughter were walking through the grass on the Canadian prairie. In the distance, they saw a prairie fire; eventually, they realized, it would engulf them. The father knew there was only one way of escape: they would quickly begin a fire right where they were and burn a large patch of grass. When the huge fire drew near, they then would stand on the section that had already burned. When the fire actually did approach them, the girl was terrified by the raging flames. But her father assured her, "The flames can't get to us. We are standing where the fire has already been." Are you afraid of God's judgment? If you have trusted Christ as Savior, you can never come under His wrath. When we depend on Him, we are secure; we are where the wrath of God has already been. ...... IT IS TRUE IN CHRIST THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION - SO IT IS WRITTEN! IF YOU ARE STUDYING FROM THIS WEBSITE, IT IS VERY POSSIBLE INDEED THAT GOD IS CALLING YOU TO HIS SALVATION AND THE FIRST RESURRECTION INTO HIS KINGDOM AT THE COMING OF CHRIST. TAKE WHAT YOU READ ON THIS WEBSITE SERIOUSLY FOR THE ETERNAL GOD IS CALLING TO FILL HIS KINGDOM. Keith Hunt The Dump Senior Pastor Joel Eidsness of Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel, Connecticut, once took his seven-year-old daughter on an unusual date. They visited the town dump. Backing his Oldsmobile up against the mound of refuse, he placed his daughter on the roof, and, with pencil and paper, they began listing all the items they could identify. There was a plastic swimming pool, a barbecue, and several old lawn chairs. There were Barbie dolls, bicycle frames, skateboards, play refrigerators and stoves, radios, televisions - everything that a young girl dreams of and more. Returning home, they pulled alongside a double trailer truck, piled high with hunks of scrap-cars that had been crushed. He leaned over to his daughter and reminded her that the beautiful car they were riding in would someday end up in a scrap heap like that. He later wrote, "That was a day Kristen and I will never forget. It was a powerful reminder that someday everything we own will be junk. In city dumps the things that have captivated our attention and dominated our lives will smolder beneath a simmering flame, amidst stinking mounds of rotting garbage. But the picture portrays not only the end of our lives and that of our children. It also portrays the ultimate collapse of human history as we now know it. History is not destined to grind on forever. It awaits - wittingly or unwittingly - the awesome and terrible judgment of God." ...... AND THAT IS ALSO TRUE MY FRIENDS. ALL THAT IS TODAY WILL ONE DAY BE NO MORE. THERE WILL COME A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH, WHEREIN DWELLS ONLY HOLY PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. SO IT IS WRITTEN IN REVELATION 21 AND 22. IF YOU WANT TO BE THERE, TO LIVE FOR ALL ETERNITY, YOU MUST ACCEPT THE CALLING OF GOD, CLAIM JESUS AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOR, REPENT OF SIN, AND DESIRE TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE TO THE WILL OF GOD - LIVING BY EVERY WORD OF GOD (MAT.4:4) AND I HAVE A STUDY ON THIS WEBSITE CALLED "LIVING BY EVERY WORD OF GOD - HOW?" Keith Hunt But Few Listened Winston Churchill, his wary eye fixed on Hitler, was a lone voice in the years preceding World War II. He continually warned his nation and the world of the impending disasters about to befall Europe, but few listened. In 1936, he embarked on a strenuous campaign to awaken England with his cries of alarm. In one article, published in the most prominent newspapers of fourteen countries, he warned that the peoples of Europe were chattering, busy, sporting, toiling, amused from day to day by headlines and from night to night by cinemas, slipping, sinking, rolling backward to the age when the earth was void and darkness moved upon the face of the waters. Surely, he argued, it is worth a supreme effort ... to control the hideous drift of events and arrest calamity on the threshold. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! NOW is the appointed time. But few listened. ...... OH YES WINSTON SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL - THE TIME OF EVIL AND CALAMITY TO COME ON THE EARTH. THE PROPHECIES OF YOUR BIBLE NOW PROCLAIM THE EVENTS THAT WILL LEAD UP TO THE END OF THIS AGE, THE GREATEST TRIBULATION THAT THE WORLD HAS EVER EXPERIENCED IN ITS ENTIRE HISTORY. YOU NEED TO STUDY ALL MY STUDIES ON BIBLE PROPHECY ON THIS WEBSITE. THE FUTURE IS MADE PLAIN FOR YOU. IT IS WRITTEN AND IT WILL COME TO PASS. THEN YOU NEED TO HEED THE CALLING OF THE LORD, YOU NEED TO REPENT AND FIND THE SALVATION HE OFFERS YOU, SO YOU CAN BE IN THE FIRST RESURRECTION AT THE COMING OF CHRIST TO JUDGE THE WORLD. Keith Hunt TWO Soldiers Walter B. Knight tells about two soldiers traveling by train at the end of World War II. One had spent more than three years in the South Pacific, and now was returning to his father, mother, friends, and sweetheart. All were waiting for him at the station in Chicago, and his eagerness could hardly be contained. "How fast are we traveling?" he asked the porter. "How far are we from Chicago? We can't get there too quickly for me." On the same train another serviceman sat in the same coach. His face looked like a blown-out lamp, a picture of gloom and dejection. He was in handcuffs and in the charge of military police. He was not eager to reach his destination, for nothing awaited him but judgment and punishment. Two men on the same train bound for the same destination - one eager for reunion, the other dreading judgment. ...... JESUS DID SAY THAT SOME ON THAT DAY WOULD BE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN AT THE KINGDOM, THERE WOULD BE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH FOR THOSE HEADING FOR THE JUDGMENT OF THE SECOND DEATH - REVELATION 20. Keith Hunt From Paul Harvey "For What It's Worth Department" hears of a great escape! Gary Tindle was in a California courtroom charged with robbery. He asked and got from judge Armando RodRiguez permission to go to the bathroom. While the bathroom door was guarded - Mr. Tindle climbed up onto the plumbing and opened a panel in the ceiling. Sure enough, a dropped ceiling with space between. He climbed up - and into the crawlspace - and headed south. He'd gone thirty-some feet when the ceiling panels broke from under him and dropped him to the floor ... Right back in judge Rodriguez's courtroom. Paul Harvey, "For What It's Worth," ed. By Paul Harvey, Jr. (New York: Bantam Books, 1991). ...... THERE IS A DAY OF JUDGMENT COMING FOR ALL NATIONS AND ALL PEOPLE. THERE CAN BE NO ESCAPING IT. NOW IS A DAY OF SALVATION. IF YOU ARE STUDYING FROM THIS WEBSITE, ***YOU*** MAY VERY WELL BE IN THE POSITION WHERE GOD IS CALLING YOU TO HIS SALVATION. IF YOU ACCEPT THAT CALLING, RECEIVE JESUS AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOR, REPENT OF SIN, LIVE ACCORDING TO GOD'S WORD OF TRUTH, THEN THERE IS NO FEAR OF JUDGMENT IN THE SECOND DEATH. I PRAY YOU WILL FIND THE LOVE AND SALVATION AND MERCY OF GOD, FOR HE REALLY DOES NOT WANT ANY TO PERISH, BUT TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. Keith Hunt To be continued |
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