FEBRUARY 15 2020
JUDGEMENT DAY
Believe it or not – and chances are you are not going to believe it – we are on the final countdown approaching JUDGEMENT DAY.
You may know that when the apostle Paul was in Athens, Greece that is, and made his way to the Areopagus, where the city’s intellectual elite gathered, of all the topics in a the Bible he could have talked about, such as creation, or the place of the Jewish people in history, or even the coming of Jesus, as Son of God, he chose JUDGEMENT DAY. Acts 17: 31-32 records his words, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to humans that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed.”
That really means that there will come a time – and I believe it is not far away – when the Lord will act. Up till now he has allowed Satan, the Evil One, to call the shots. “He will judge the world in righteousness”, which simply means that he will set the crooked straight.
My question, “Why would Paul, the most effective and experienced missionary the world has ever known, approach the then intellectual cream of the crop, with that particular topic?”
The
Greeks then, and the church today, really does not believe in a ‘physical,
living life’ hereafter. When Socrates, as recorded by Plato, drank the poison, he welcomed death. In “The Trials of Socrates”, Plato depicts
Socrates’ last moments before his death. Plato quotes Socrates: “I’ll no longer
stay put, but will take my leave of you and depart for certain happy conditions
of the blessed”.
Socrates is certain that he’s on the way to heaven, and even says a prayer to the gods after drinking the poison: “‘One is, I suppose, permitted to utter a prayer to the gods – and one should do so – that one’s journey from this world to the next will prove fortunate”. Socrates died to celebrate death.
Here’s what was the result: when Christianity was sweeping over the “Greek” world, a dualistic heresy emerged: GNOSTICISM. It taught, following Socrates’ example, that matter and spirit are separate and not reconcilable. Socrates and Gnosticism taught that the spiritual world was pure and eternal, while physical reality was transient and an irredeemable ‘evil!’. Yes, creation is seen as evil!
Based on Socrates’ example, the church invented the Heaven Escape, and has adhered to that heresy ever since. Paul, when he mentioned ‘resurrection’, the unification with body and spirit, was chased from that market place, with the result that the Gospel according to Socrates has prevailed until this day.
Paul found no hearing in Athens, the intellectual hub of the world 2,000 years ago. Today the Socrates doctrine still rules the church, so it is not surprising that CREATION is seen as sinful, either openly or by tolerating its abuse. We sing, “This is my Father’s World,” but we act as if Socrates and not God’s Spirit is to be obeyed. If there ever was a generation that is guilty of murder, theft, habitat destruction, and almost any other sin, it is ours.
The Bible tells us how God created the cosmos – making it holy – that we uncreated it – commonly called SIN – and that Jesus’ sacrifice restored creation: we call that ‘redemption’. The overwhelming interpretation of Jesus’ death is that he died to save sinners. Not quite true. He died to restore Paradise, the Garden of Eden, that truly perfect world, that humanity defiled.
GOOD: SEVEN TIMES.
In other words: Creation equaled Perfection.
When God looked back on what he had done, when his beautiful creation was completed, and everything was there to serve everything else, a perfect example of how we too should live, a life of total service, God called his masterpiece ‘good’ seven times.
A while ago a demented man defaced one of the world’s most famous paintings: he was arrested and judged. Of course, that makes sense. Now a demented humanity repeats this act: dement because we are destroying the very earth on which we depend for LIFE.
Do you really think that God will condone us polluting, poisoning, and rearranging the earth to suit OUR needs?
Well, in the thousands of years since creation was pristine, we have managed to do the seemingly impossible: we now are on the verge of total creational destruction caused by us humans. The church in Jesus’ days killed the Christ. We in our age are on the verge of killing God and his creation. That cannot go unpunished. Judgement day is the logical consequence.
Refiner’s Fire.
George Friedrich Handel, that great composer, a contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach, is best known for his oratorio THE MESSIAH, a perfect piece of music that is not only a symphonic masterpiece, but also a great exposition of the gospel. One of the most moving lines is a quote from the prophet Malachi, the last book in the Hebrew Bible, in Christian parlance known as The Old Testament.
Here is that haunting aria:
“But who shall endure the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he will be like a refiner’s fire.”
Malachi, Chapter 4, has as heading, The Day of the Lord. It too pulls no punches: “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.
Paul’s effort to bring the gospel to Athens, met with failure: Gnosticism proved stronger than The Good News. The sad truth is that ‘The Heaven Heresy’ prevailed. No wonder that Jesus is quite pessimistic in his assessment of The Last Days: “Many are called, few are chosen,” he laments (Matthew 22: 14). He’s even more emphatic when he wonders, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18: 8.)
All this makes me wonder whether churches today have become obstacles to the COMING OF THE KINGDOM, Christ’s re-entry into creation.