davidbu@loowit.wr.tek.com (David E. Buxton) (05/19/91)
How Dare You Judge Us, God! Disclaimer - The thoughts I express here and the texts I have selected are not necessarily those of the book I site - even though it appears that this is a book report. What I write is not intended to be a prophecy of what the judgement will be like. This is intended to provoke some thought, intended to illuminate some facets of the plan of salvation that you may not have considered. Recently I read a book titled "How dare You judge Us, God". It draws many of its themes from the book of Job. It draws many of its illustrations from the holocausts inflicted on the Jews and other horrors of history. The author is a former atheist who hated a God who would allow the agony we see around us. But from the book of Job he found that it is not God but Satan who deserves the credit for the miseries of this earth. In the future is the judgement when all will be judged: God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. (Eccl 3:17) ". . . For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. "-- Rom 14:10 (NKJ) ". . . . Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:" -- 2 Tim 4:1 (NKJ) "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judg- ment . . "For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil. " -- Eccl 12:14 (NKJ) And on that day we all stand before the judgement. Many are angry - "How dare you judge me God" - they snarl and they curse. "Sure I stole, but You know how hungry I was." "Yes, he died, but he deserved it." "What do you know about lust, God?" "What do you know about temptations, God." "Sure its easy to be good up there in heaven with all your holy angels, but its a very real world of temptation down here." "God, you are wired for perfec- tion, how do you know what its like down here." "God, you are utterly unfair, you are out of your mind, you have no business judging me." "HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME GOD". Quoting from the book "Amid the madness, each one defies God's right to judge them. A Jew shows the burns on his face from the Zyklon B in a Nazi gas chamber. A Black exposes the scars on his wrists from weeks in chains on a slave ship. Others, rejected by their own society, question whether God, who never knew the pain of rejection, has the right to judge those who have. Political prisoners, who had spoken out for freedom, for truth, and who stood up against tyranny at the cost of their lives, deny God the prerogative to judge them. Though each complaint is different, the consistent cry of this macabre chorus is: "HOW DARE YOU JUDGE US, GO!" And now it looks like the millions standing before God have made their point, and certainly now God must agree and save most of them, if not all of them - surely heavens gates must stand aside for them all. The gates have not opened yet, but surely God must concede. They start to push and shove to be the first ones in. Satan quickly steps forward, adamant that if God is going to save any one of them, then God must save him too. And some of the worst of the crowd now fear that they will be cast out along with Satan, if God rejects Satan's claim. But Satan now shakes his fist at God - "Why did you cast me out of heaven - I was not a thief, nor a murderer, sure I had my ambitions, but I'd done no one any harm." And then Satan points out those around him - "God, if you let him in, oh yes and that saint over there, such a hypocrite, save her and you must save me." And the crowd falls back in silence, for a minute. To save any one of them, goes the logic, then Satan can force his way in too. But then there collective anger surges to the surface - "HOW DARE YOU JUDGE US, GOD!" They are eager that the gates open up, they are sure that God cannot keep them out - not if there is any shred of logic in the mind of God. Satan steps closer to the gates, his angels right behind him. Everyone is eager push the gates down if necessary. They are sure that God has no right to deny them entrance. Near the end of the book: How dare You judge us, God?" the mob, stretched across the horizon, screams. "How dare You? What do You know about pain, what do You know about suffering, what do You know about death? And You, You are going to judge us?" A flash of light explodes over them. All shadows, colors, everything for a blinding moment are bleached white. The billions freeze, their accusations locked inside open jaws. They stare upward. They see the figure of Jesus, whose poverty, hunger, toil, temptation, suffering, and humiliation is graphically portrayed across the sky. They watch Him, a human being, fiercely tempted, yet not overcome. They see Him preach truth, and stand for righteousness, as no man had ever done, and they see Him, rejected, hated, and arrested for it. They see Him, the only sinless, innocent man, beaten, tortured, humiliated and killed in the prime of His life -- and all because of their sins. A hollow silence settles over the crowd. No more fingers point, no more feet stomp, no more accusations ring out, and no more is the ques- tion, How dare You judge us, God? hurled toward heaven. They now know. As the Bible says: Tempted in the wilderness. (Matt 4, Mark 1, Luke 4) "For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. "-- Heb 2:18 (NKJ) "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. "-- Heb 4:15 (NKJ) Perhaps you argue that those who have rejected God can be turned into saints - heaven need not be a re-run of this earth and still we can ALL be saved: " "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. " -- Rev 22:12 (NKJ) "Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. " -- Isa 26:10 (NKJ) No, there is no Biblical basis for the many notions about how all or most will, in the end, be saved. Now is the time to welcome Jesus into your heart and allow Him to cleanse you clean. What about the theory that Jesus was 'wired' for perfection, that He could not have sinned, that there was no chance that He could fail. Speaking of Lucifer before his fall into sin: "You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till ini- quity was found in you. "-- Ezek 28:15 (NKJ) If Lucifer was 'perfect' as it says and yet could sin in a perfect heaven but Jesus could not sin on this earth - if Jesus was 'wired' with the instincts for perfection, having advantages that we do not have - then Satan would have every right to step forward and declair a fraud - hold God hos- tage - insist that we are either all doomed along with him, or that if God saves any of us sinners, that God must return Satan to his place in heaven. Only because of the genuine life of Jesus as a human can He stand as our High Priest and mediator and stand up before Satan and turn asside his argu- ments against our salvation. Certainly He brought divinity down to this earth with Him. But it was not perfect divinity, but rather perfect human- ity that He presents at the throne of judgement, as He stands as our advo- cate against that prosecuting attorney named Satan. Without the humble, tempted, sinless genuine life and death of Jesus - Satan could hold God hostage and prosecute each case against us. Either everyone would have to be saved for a re-run of this earth re-played in heaven. Or, to leave Satan behind, God would have to leave us all behind. Thank God for Jesus who came to live as a human, and yet without sin and to die the ulti- mate rejection of the cross for us. Satan and his following must stand aside and let us in. We can reach out and take Him by the hand. Dave (David E. Buxton)
jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) (05/22/91)
In article <May.18.22.41.36.1991.13956@athos.rutgers.edu> davidbu@loowit.wr.tek.com (David E. Buxton) writes:
+How Dare You Judge Us, God!
+
+Recently I read a book titled "How dare You judge Us, God". It draws many
+of its themes from the book of Job. It draws many of its illustrations from
Personally I like the story of Jonah and after he preaches to
Nineveh he is disappointed that God did not blast the city. It seems
many Christians have the same disappointment.
--
John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu