Musings

For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:30-31).

This passage of scripture reminds me of a sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that was delivered by Jonathan Edwards back in the 18th century. While many of us who believe in the living God are experiencing the joy of withheld judgment from God, many of these believers are more confident in and dependent upon their own goodness and works than they are grateful for the magnificent mercy of God. Thus is the nature of the blessing of God, it seems, upon the United States of America.

While many of the leaders of the United States stand as judges over what they perceive to be heathen nations around our world, they fail to see their own shortcomings. Many church leaders are confident that the grace of God is sufficient to save the worst of sinners from the judgment of God, they stand as blind leaders of the blind, unable to see their own erroneous ways and continually leading a blind cohort of followers who have listened to and put their trust in the voice of sinful men and women rather than follow the voice of the one God whose love and judgment were demonstrated upon the hill of Calvary.

It is clear that God allowed Jesus to die for the sins of humankind; however, there is no license for humanity to continue in sin while we wait for the final judgment to appear. We must recall the the words of God that indicate that He will judge His people. It is possible for people to delude themselves into being overconfident because God has not released the hand of the enemy against us. The lack of immediacy of God’s execution of the sentence for sin creates a false security and bold, yet unwise, actions based in beliefs that are contrary to the will of God. The failure to experience God’s final condemnation does not negate the need to love and obey the will of God.

The same God that gives us grace, whose mercies are made new each morning, also waits patiently for the day when His wrath shall be revealed against a sinful, unloving, and merciless humankind. Just as forgiving, loving, and merciful as God is, so is the extent of His wrath. This is the revelation made to the writer of Hebrews. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of an angry, living God. It is wiser to judge ourselves and our actions than to wait for the wrath of God to be revealed against us. If we can find even the hint of sin in our hearts, we would do well to extricate it from our souls and turn toward God with brokenness and contrition rather than haughtiness and pride. Again, recall, “God gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud.”