Must we All Appear before God in Judgment?

Several verses teach that we must all face judgment:

• So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Cor. 5:9-10; Rom. 14:10; Mat. 31-32)

Such verses are troubling. While we have been taught that our sins are all behind us, verses like these suggest that our sins are still upon us! Therefore, instead of worshiping Christ with joy and thanksgiving, these verses thrust our attention back upon us, replacing joy with morbid self-obsession.

Meanwhile, other verses suggest that God’s judgment does not ignore the things of the heart:

• “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” (Jer. 17:10)

But this doesn’t give much consolation. If God judges my deeds by my heart and mind, and not by Christ, my status doesn’t seem to be much improved, or does it? The letter to the Church at Thyatira is revealing:

• Behold, I will throw her [the false teacher Jezebel] onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. (Rev. 2:22-23)

While it is distressing to once again read that God will judge us “according to [our] works,” we mustn’t miss another integer in this equation. Jezebel and her followers will avoid judgment if “they repent!”

Turning from the old (repentance), while turning to the new (faith in Christ), is the axle upon which all Scripture turns. This is the evident interpretation of “He who searches mind and heart.” He asks, “Is there true repentance here?” (Luke 18:9-14). Repentance chases away judgment like the opening of eyes from a bad dream.

God had been angry at Job’s three friends:

• The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7) 

This is perplexing. It seems that Job had spoken far more wrongly about God than had his three friends. He had even made many accusations against God. For this, God had indicted Job:

• “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)

Clearly, Job had spoken wrongly about God, even charging Him with wrongdoing. However, Job had repented in “dust and ashes.” As a result, he was now washed of all his sins (1 John 1:9). In God’s eyes, Job was not only forgiven, but also cleansed from all of his sins. His repentant words now trumped everything else he had said. God had judged his deeds by his heart and mind – a heart overflowing with repentance for his ill-conceived words and attitudes.

Similarly, the Book of Hebrews presents us with this troubling verse:

• Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews12:14)

This verse might also be a doubt-producer:

• How holy must I be? It doesn’t seem that any of my thoughts, motives or deeds are entirely holy. They are all sin-infested.

• Is there a certain level of holiness that I must attain before I can be saved? This verse seems to say that holiness is about me and my performance and not God’s gift to me. That’s why it says “make every effort!”

• Isn’t the Bible therefore a collection of contradictions?

Can we truly be confident of the grace of God when these questions remain unanswered? Not entirely!

Fortunately, the Book of Hebrews illustrates what it means to pursue holiness. Yes indeed, it is a matter of making Jesus our role model. However, Hebrews illustrates what failing to pursue “holiness” means through the example of Esau:

• [See to it] lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it [the blessing] diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:16-17; NKJV)

Esau wasn’t rejected because of his sins – we are all sinners. He was rejected because he was unwilling to repent of the fact that he had sold his birthright for a bowl of soup, demonstrating that he did not esteem the things of God. Although he wept over losing his father’s blessing, the things of God remained mere foolishness to him. While he wanted the blessing, he had little regard for the Blesser!

Esau and many others illustrate God’s guarantee that if we confess our sins, He will forgive and cleanse us (1 John 1:9), like washing clean a messy blackboard.

Besides, even though we will all appear before God in “judgment,” our glorious destiny is already a done-deal:

• Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

When He returns, we will be transformed into His very image, rendering His “judgment” into an eternal celebration.

Debating the Atheist

 

The debater tries to give his opponent the smallest target possible. This is why the militant atheist [MA] will claim that his belief is JUST a matter of rejecting the sufficiency of the evidence for God.

His tiny target frees him up to attack you. How? Christian revelation is not complete. There are many areas of perplexity. In fact, God warned us that certain knowledge has not yet been given to us. This allows the MA to find many targets:

• How can your God of love send people to hell? Couldn’t an omnipotent God have created his “good” creation without so much suffering? You believe in myths like talking snakes and virgin births.

There are many things that we don’t know, but this does not invalidate our faith, no more than the gaps in science invalidate science. Science cannot even define the basics – light, matter, space, and time – with any satisfaction.

However, we believe in science, not because of what we don’t know about it, but because of what we do know. Likewise, we do not believe in Christ because of what we don’t understand about the faith but because of what we do understand.

Meanwhile, MAs have their own RELIGIOUS beliefs – secular humanism, moral relativism, materialism, and naturalism. But just say that to an MA, and you’ve got a fight.

Pope Francis and Faithfulness: When have we Gone too Far

We have a lot of freedom in Christ. We can work as we want, eat and dress as we want. However, truth belongs to God. Therefore, we are not free to manipulate with it for political reasons, even good ones.

Understandably, Pope Francis is deeply disturbed by the treatment of Christians throughout the Islamic world. He therefore laudably proclaimed:

• "It is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the same rights and respect the same duties."

However, he followed this with a pandering, pragmatic statement:

• "They will then find it easier [once they enjoy the same rights] to see each other as brothers and sisters who are travelling the same path, seeking always to reject misunderstandings while promoting cooperation and concord. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression, when truly guaranteed to each person, will help friendship to flourish and thus become an eloquent sign of peace."

There is little doubt that if citizens share the same rights on the law, this “will help friendship to flourish.” However, equality is found nowhere in the Islamic world, even in Islamic nations having “secular” constitutions. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since Sharia and Koran provide absolutely no basis for equality. Here is one example from the Koran:

• [Surah 3:27] Let not the believers take the disbelievers for friends rather than believers. And whoever does this has no connection with Allah unless it is done [deceptively] to guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully.

What are the “misunderstandings” to which the Pope alludes? The Daily Mail reports:

• Pope Francis said last night that equating Islam with violence was wrong and called on Muslim leaders to issue a global condemnation of terrorism to help dispel the stereotype.

• He told reporters aboard his plane returning from a visit to Turkey that he understood why Muslims were offended by many in the West who automatically equated their religion with terrorism.

How many jihadic verses does the Pope need before he will connect Islam and violence? There are already many hundreds, even thousands when we also consider the Hadiths! How many more Islamic terroristic groups, all claiming to find their inspiration from the Koran and Hadiths, will it take before he will connect the dots?

I appreciate the Pope’s desire for peace, but will such political maneuvering achieve it? All of our Western leaders have long hastened to call Islam the “religion of peace.” However, Islamic terror has gladly proliferated alongside of these political proclamations. It seems as if the Islamic world interprets such affirmations as weakness and a green-light to escalate the terror at the expense of millions of lives.

However, the Pope’s words raise another question. Do Christians have the freedom to distort the truth for potential political gains? The Pope stated that we “are travelling the same path, seeking always to reject misunderstandings while promoting cooperation and concord.”

Instead, we clearly have different aims. The Koran envisions a world dominated by Islam, whether through peaceful or violent means:

• [Surah 8:37] Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion (Islam) reigns supreme.

• [Surah 4:5] When the Sacred Months are over, kill those who ascribe partners [like Jesus] to God wheresoever ye find them; seize them, encompass them, and ambush them; then if they repent and observe prayer and pay the alms, let them go their way’.”

• “…kill the disbelievers wherever we find them” (Surah 2:191) and “murder them and treat them harshly” (9:123), and “Strike off the heads of the disbelievers” (8:12, cp. 8:60).

These are standing orders, as the many terrorist organizations and their supporters confidently understand. Are Christians free to misrepresent these central tenants of Islam in hope of political gain – cooperation, for example? An adjacent question is this – “Are we free to disown our faith if our lives depend on it?”

I don’t think that we have such freedom. Jesus explained to a Samaritan woman that truth is a inviolable element in a marriage to God. The woman was a multiculturalist and thought that religion was merely a geographical issue – Samaritans worshipped on Mt. Gerazim who the Jews worshipped on Mt. Zion. Jesus wouldn’t allow her religious pluralism to stand:

• Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from [the revelation given to] the Jews. (John 4:21-22)

We cannot relate to God in any manner we so choose. We are mandated to relate to Him in truth with our entire being:

• Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24)

Truth belongs to God. We are not free to distort it according to our own purposes. “We must worship in spirit and truth” – no wiggle-room there.

God illustrates this point in His denunciation of Job’s three friends:

• "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)

The three friends had been very sacrificial. They had spent days with the ailing Job in a vain hope of correcting him of his putative errant ways. Yes, they had misrepresented God in their denunciations of Job. However, it seems that they had been speaking in this manner for Job’s own good. Nevertheless, this didn’t make up for the fact that they had not “spoken of me what is right.”

We are not free to worship God in any manner we choose. Our worship must also reflect truth. We cannot bow down with knees or even words before the god of expediency. Mordechai understood this:

• And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you transgress the king's command?” And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. (Esther 3:2-4)

Mordechai was no one’s fool. He understood the price he would have to pay for his faithfulness to his God. However, he also understood that faithfulness to God’s truth was more important than political gain.

The three faithful Israelite young men also understood this. All Babylon had been commanded to bow down before the golden image of the King. However, they would not. Even after King Nebuchadnezzar gave them a second chance to bow down and worship, they still would not, even at the threat of a most horrible and fiery death (Daniel 3).

Faithfulness trumps pragmatic gain. Paul had charged that Peter’s behavior had denied the truth of the Gospel:

• But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned [before God]. For before certain [Jewish believing] men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. (Galatians 2:11-14) 

We are not our own. We belong to God and must never betray the truth of the Gospel, whether in word or in deed, as Peter had done. How did Peter betray the Gospel? He acted in a way which said, “We are not all equal in Christ.”

We also belong to our brethren. When we betray the Gospel, we also lead others to do so! After all, if Peter could bend the truth of the Gospel, so can we, right?

The Pope has acted in a way that says, “We can manipulate the truth for political gain.” If he can, why can’t we! If playing fast-and-easy with the truth “works,” what can be wrong with it? Just ask Paul!

I wish instead that the Pope would stand for truth and go to the UN and denounce the horrors committed by Islam against non-Muslims and continue to denounce them with all of his strength and authority.

“Junk” DNA and its Impact on ID

Evolutionists applauded the “discovery” of “junk” DNA, which they thought represented leftover and now non-functioning DNA from our evolutionary ancestors. After all, why would an Intelligent Designer pack our genes with worthless DNA? No, a Designer would never have done such a thing! Only the undirected processes of evolution could explain this.

However, the Encore project (2012), a consortium of 400 international scientists, found little evidence for junk or leftover DNA:

• “These data [of their research conducted over the year] enabled us to assign biochemical functions to 80 percent of the genome, in particular outside of the well-studied protein-coding regions [and into what had once been regarded as ‘junk’].” Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analyst, explained in Discover Magazine that since ENCODE studied 147 types of cells, and the human body has a few thousand cell types, “it’s likely that 80 percent will go to 100 percent. Another senior ENCODE researcher noted that “almost every nucleotide is associated with a function.” A headline in Science declared, “ENCODE project writes eulogy for junk DNA.” (Casey Luskin, Salvo Magazine, Winter 2014, 52-53)
  

What is the significance of their findings? It’s a major blow to the theory of evolution and support for Design (ID)!

However, it is not just IDers who regard these findings as vindication. Atheist and biologist Dan Graur also admits their profound impact:

• If the human genome is indeed devoid of junk DNA as implied by the ENCORE project, then a long, undirected evolutionary process cannot explain the human genome. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, then all DNA, or as much as possible, is expected to exhibit function. If ENCODE is right, then Evolution is wrong. (54)

Graur understands that the stakes are high, but is hoping – perhaps even praying - that ENCODE will eventually be proved wrong.

We Need to Know that We Have Eternal Life

We need to know that nothing can separate us from our Savior Jesus:

• Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

Paul argued that if we truly know that we are eternally safe in our Savior, we can be bold, ever “more than conquerors!” Why? Because we know that nothing can separate us from our Savior Jesus.

This is what gave King David confidence:

• I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol [the grave], or let your holy one [the Messiah] see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:7-11)

David proclaimed that “my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” What had produced such gladness and rejoicing? He confessed that it was “the Lord who gives me counsel.” What instruction did the Lord give him that made the difference? The Lord revealed to him that he would outlive the grave.

However, David’s joy wasn’t simply a matter of knowing that he was guaranteed eternal life. He was guaranteed a glorious eternal life, one where there would be “fullness of joy… pleasures forevermore.”

Even more, these joys and pleasures were to be based on the most incredible love relationship in “your presence.” It will not be impersonal, as if joy and pleasure can be impersonal. This joy cannot be embedded within a relation-less universal consciousness where there is no other. No! These joys will be relational, based in love, in an eternal marriage that far surpasses any earthly marriage.

What is the “presence” of the Lord? Our God is cryptic in this regard. However, elsewhere, God distinguishes Himself from His Presence:

• I will send an angel before you [Israel], and I will drive out the Canaanites… but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people… And he [God] said [to Moses], “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:2-3, 14; also 23:20-21)

Mysteriously, God would be present through His Presence (His Angel, His “Holy One) so that He would “give you [Israel] rest.” This is the very rest we find in His Messiah, the Holy One.

The Book of Hebrews instructs us to “Run with endurance the race [with its struggles] that is set before us.” But from where does this endurance - this confidence in eternal life - come? How can we have endurance if we are not confident that our Savior will never leave us? We can’t! However, Scripture equates the hope and expectation of Jesus with our guaranteed hope:

• Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2) 

Jesus is to be our example. We need to confidently look to Him and know that Jesus’ unshakable hope, which had enabled Him to endure, is also our hope and expectation! Only with this assurance can we look to Him!

We will be with Him forevermore. This was the very hope that the Lord had revealed to David. The Holy One would not remain in the grave. Neither would David!