The Day of Judgment is coming. Let the mocking movie, the scoff­ing co-worker, the doubtful religious man, and the ambitious politi­cal lead­er con­tinue to walk in darkness; the day of coming judgment is dra­wing nearer as we draw each breath. God has prom­ised that His only Son will return with armies of saints from heav­en to purge the earth of cor­rup­tion, injustice, and sin.

We who know and believe the words of the Bible take to heart this passage which Peter wrote telling fel­low Christians not to be igno­rant.

“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judg­ment and perdi­tion of ungodly men.
   But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,  and a thou­sand years as one day.
   The Lord is not slack concern­ing his prom­ise, as some men count slack­ness; but is longsuffe­ring to us‑ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
   But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:7-10

The Holy Ghost has taught The Church in these past 40 years and con­tinues to bear witness in our hearts that the judgment of the world is necessary if God’s promise of a righteous rule of Christ on earth is to be fulfilled. If heaven and earth are not purged then the new heaven and new earth prom­ised in the last two chapters of the Bible would have no chance to exist. The Scriptures are explicit, the world is going to be burned up in fiery judg­ment. Revela­tion tells the story. Peter prophesied in His second epistle:

 “… that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
   And saying, Where is the prom­ise of his coming? for since the fa­thers fell asleep, all things con­tinue as they were from the beginning of the cre­ation.
   For this they willingly are igno­rant of, that by the word of God the heav­ens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
   Whereby the world that then was, being over­flowed with water, perished:
   But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:3-7

The world and its faithful followers believe that their governments, institu­tions and glorious ideas will all last forever. And though there is no recon­cil­ing the Spirit of God with the spir­it of the world, many Christians have fig­ured that God wants to save the “world”. But James declares: “… know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Who­soever there­fore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” James 4:4

And John exhorted the Church in this fashion.

“Love not the world, nei­ther the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
   For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Fa­ther, but is of the world,
   And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that do­eth the will of God abideth forever.” 1 Jn 2:15-17

We can be sure that if the world is going to pass away then they who love the things of the world will also pass away.

A fiery judgment is coming on the Earth
Christ first came in meekness, low­ly, riding a colt, not a warhorse, and gave Himself into the hands of the world so that some would re­ceive salvation, but that will not be His mission at His second com­ing. He will return with fire in His eyes and a sword of judg­ment in His mouth. An unusual way to ex­press His appear­ance if it were not so spiritually per­fect. Christ will burn every­thing that cannot stand up to the gaze of God and will cut to ribbons any­thing that does not measure up to His word.  The world will melt and tremble at His pres­ence. According to the prophecies written in Revelation, Christ and His saints (all true and faithful believers) will begin a thousand year reign, ruling with a rod of iron.

As the day of God’s terrible judgment draws clos­er and closer; God’s warnings echo louder and loud­er. Crime, cor­ruption, sexual perversion, hypocrisy in govern­ment and religion, and lusts of all sorts are rampant, false prophets are seducing the Church; lying spirits are working every kind of deceit inside and outside the confines of believers. Not even judgment like AIDS, war, or financial ruin can con­vince people to do the right thing. The cup of iniquity is filling and the signs of the time are shining bright­er and bright­er in every news­pa­per head­line and on every 7 o’clock news bro­ad­cast. As prophe­sied in 1 & 2 Tim, seducing spir­its are sell­ing the doc­trines of devils. Sin is said to be good; doing your own thing is righ­teous – indeed we live in the peril­ous times of the last days. Everything points to the soon re­turn of Jesus.

Two thousand years, or just two days on the Lord’s heavenly cal­en­dar, have passed since Jesus departed to be with the Father and it is very, very likely that Je­sus will reappear on the dawn of the “third day”, just as he reap­peared on the dawn of the third day after His crucifix­ion. To escape the judg­ment that is coming upon all the earth, mem­bers of the Body of Christ must be willing and ready to receive judg­ment now, in their personal lives and in their hearts, as well.

There is no escape from God’s judgment, neither should there be. Sac­raments, tithing, good wo­rks; none of these can deliver us from our ulti­mate destiny. We must all face our maker. Either we can sub­mit to His merciful and deliv­ering judg­ment and let it pro­duce love and free­dom in us, or we can stub­born­ly hold out and fall vic­tim to His terri­ble judg­ment. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God­.”, as it says in Heb 10:31. Instead, we are taught by the Bible that, “if we judge ourselves we shall not be judged, but when we are chas­tened we are chas­tened of the Lord that we should not be judged with the world.” 1 Cor 11:3­1-32

Many aspects of our walk in­volve a process of being deliv­ered from evil into goodness, of being brought from darkness into light; departing and fleeing and being changed into His likeness. If those things are to happen to us we must invite the judg­ment of the Holy Ghost. His judg­ment must win out over ours. Without ac­cepting God’s judgment in our walk we will remain in the world no matter how godly or pious we appear to be.

“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy con­versation and godliness,
   Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wher­ein the heavens being on fire shall be dis­solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
   Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwel­leth righteousness.
   Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” 2 Pet 3:11-14

This is the only way to be spared the fiery judgment coming on the earth. If we live spotless and blame­less lives for Christ, a spiritual per­fection before Christ, then we can look forward to the judgment of the world and the second coming. We can hope in the rapture, which will likely come before the great tribulation that is to come on all the world ac­cording to Revelation. (Rev 3:10 )To use the words of Peter, we can make our calling and election sure. (2 Peter 1:10) This perfection spoken of is not a carnal or intellectual perfection. It does not mean we will never make a wrong judgment or a mistake. It is a perfection achieved by obedience of faith. It can be detected by the faith­ful eyes of other disci­ples of Christ because the fruit of our actions is the evidence of our obe­di­ence. Our per­fection hinges entirely on hearing the Word of God and doing it. It is important here to realize, how­ever, that God does not want us to fear His judgment; in fact He wants us to invite it. Beautifully, this passage of Peter’s which exhorts us to not be igno­rant, this pillar of kno­wledge in the Church, is the only one of the seven pillars which is ad­dress­ed to the “be­loved” instead of simply, the “breth­ren”. Being addressed to the beloved reas­sures the faithful that God’s love is with them always – even in judgment. For it is for our sake that the world will be judged.

#7 The Rapture: The Bride Waits