End Time Q & A: #5

Q: Is God Judging America?
 
A: If by judging you mean is He causing earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and any other kind of evil to happen, the answer is certainly not. If by judging you mean is He deciding between situations in which He has the right to intervene and exercise His saving power on our behalf, the answer is decidedly yes. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those ho heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).
 
If we do not understand the concept of judgment, a foundational element of end-time doctrine, then we will give people the wrong impression of God. We will misrepresent Him to be a cruel disciplinarian, and be found preaching “another gospel.” There is only one Gospel, and it is literally the good news that Jesus died and rose again to save mankind from sin. It is the grace and truth of the New Covenant.
 
“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
 
Scripturally speaking, God is not imputing the world’s trespasses against them, even though people often make it sound like He is. They make it appear that God is angry with the world. Did Jesus display any anger when He hung on the cross? No, instead He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
 
Why, then, does God send people to Hell? He doesn’t; the Devil does. Or more accurately, people do by their own choice in rejecting Christ as their Savior. God is not a spiritual kidnapper. He is just, so He cannot take that which does not belong to Him. So if you do not belong to His family through Christ at the end of your life, God cannot bring you to Heaven any more than you have the authority to go into your neighbor’s house and steal their kids, no matter how cruel the parents may be to their children.
 
I can assure you that it breaks Jesus’ heart to lose people. He did everything within His just power to get them to Heaven. The saddest part is that anyone can avoid an eternity in the Devil’s Lake of Fire by voicing a simple heart-felt prayer to invite Jesus into their heart.
 
Jesus came full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The Apostle Paul gave both elements of that singular phrase in Romans 3:23-24. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”—that is the truth part. Too often we stop there when talking to unbelievers. The sentence continues though. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”—that is the balance of grace.
 
It is the goodness of God that draws people to Him (Romans 2:4). What are people hearing from Christ’s witnesses, His Body, the Church? Are they seeing His goodness? That is the power of the New Covenant.