Event: Call to Prayer 2021
God is perfect and will judge
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15
Have you ever seen one of those pictures that are designed to look differently to different people? Looking at the same picture, one person can see an old man whilst another can see a beautiful young lady. They are clever, and they are also a great illustration of our society today. It seems that so many of us can look at the exact issue or event and see completely different things. Some can look at a particular law that is being driven through by government as dangerous and wrong, whilst others hail it as a progressive step. Some look at some comments written on Twitter as harmless banter, whilst others shake their heads in disbelief at the insulting undertones.
This can be more than a little scary for Christians who so often find themselves with opposing views to our secular culture. Our verse today and what is reveals about God, is both sobering and a comfort at the same time.
God is perfect and just. We can sometimes take this statement as saying that God is the most perfect and the most just being within the moral system as we understand it, but this sells God far too short. He is perfection and He is justice. It is by looking at God that we find justice – let me use an (imperfect) illustration that I hope will help… some people look at justice as a measuring tape. We hold that tape measure up to certain people or events and see that they don’t measure up, they are unjust and wrong. As Christians we can imagine holding that measuring tape to God and seeing that He would measure up perfectly – He is just and perfect. Although that is true, it misses one important fact, that God is the tape measure!
This is His world, it is from His character that we understand and see justice, and it makes no sense to look for justice outside of God. He sets the rules, and it is plain folly and a terrible sin to try and set our own rules and define justice on our own terms. I mentioned earlier this is both sobering and comforting at the same time.
It is a comfort because we know that God will one day make things right. At the end of the day, it does not matter how people see particular issues – taking our first illustration, it makes no difference what different people see in the picture – it is God who is the artist, and what He says goes. This is a comfort when we must stand up and face injustice ourselves, as we can trust it all to God. As Paul explains in Romans 12, we should not look to avenge ourselves, rather let us love and leave vengeance to the Lord. There is freedom from doing this.
Yet, although comforting, it is sobering because we realise how imperfect and unjust we are. As the Bible says, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s perfection and justice demands that all sin be punished and we therefore know what awaits each one of us naturally as our verse today explains – we will be thrown into the lake of fire. Hell is a terrible reality, and one that should drive us to our knees, as we realise the terrible wrath that God has against all injustice and evil.
But thanks be to God! He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Jesus was made sin for us and took the punishment that we deserved on the cross – we can never comprehend the pain He bore as He faced the terrible wrath of the Father. What love! What a Saviour! This is the amazing good news of the gospel, and we must share it with others. As Charles Wesley wrote –
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
We can hope in God because He is just and perfect.
Questions
- How does knowing that God is just give you hope for our country?
- How can an understanding of the justice of God deepen our love for Him?
Further reading
- Romans 1:18-32, Isaiah 53
Pray
- Spend time contemplating and responding to God’s justice.
- Pray that your faith and love for Christ would grow.
- Pray that the Spirit would convict the Church of righteousness and judgement.
- Pray that the Spirit would convict non-Christians of righteousness and judgement.