The Day of Judgment is coming

Malachi 4:1 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. ² But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.

The courtroom is packed. This is the day that they have been looking forward to for three years.  And one man has dreaded it for just as long. Three years earlier, their daughter had been murdered. They went for weeks, months, years, without knowing who had destroyed their lives like this. Then, after two years, someone was arrested and charged with the murder, and now they would find out the verdict. They looked at the man across the courtroom. He had been dreading this day. He knew he had done it, and for two years thought he had gotten away with it. Then they tracked him down, and now here he was, charged with murder. In just a few minutes, he would find out if he had actually gotten away with it, or if he would spend the rest of his life in prison. The jury foreman stood up to read the verdict, and for everyone on the courtroom, three years of waiting was about to come to an end.

For one it would be a day of relief and satisfaction, for the other, a day of sorrow and agony. But for both of them, the day that they knew was coming was finally here. 

Just like your child ripping open her present on Christmas morning, so our Savior will rend or rip open the heavens for His coming on the Day of Judgment.

Malachi was dealing with a complaint of the Jewish people that God wasn’t fair. It appeared that wicked unbelievers always got ahead, while the righteous believers always got left behind. So what was the point in serving God faithfully?

Look at Bible history. How could a God of fairness let His servant Naboth be stoned to death and robbed of his field by the wicked queen Jezebel? Yet it happened. How could a righteous God allow evil men to triumph over His Son Jesus and nail Him to a cross? Yet it happened.

Do you ever feel that way? How often does it seem like evildoers prosper? Or that the politician caught in adultery and lies becomes more popular, while the staunch Christian politician is looked upon with disdain for his beliefs and morality? Or that the business CEOs are padding their pocketbooks while the poor factory workers are being laid off?

Sometimes we may be tempted to ask ourselves, is it worth it to serve God? We see other people get ahead because they’re ruthless and dishonest, and we Christians are stuck lagging behind because we feel we have to be loving and honest. We could very easily say along with the Israelites of Malachi’s time, “the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape” (Malachi 3:15).

But God reminds us through Malachi that they’re not getting away with anything. He sees everything that they do, and He will judge them.

“Surely the day is coming,” the Lord Almighty says. “It will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire.” That’s what those who disobey God have waiting for them. They will be stubble in God’s furnace. That day will set them on fire.

God says, “Sinners, you’re living on borrowed time! The Day of Judgment will come!” And on that day, God’s anger will burn hot, not like the crackling flames of a campfire, but like the iron-melting heat of a blast furnace. No unbelieving evildoer will escape that day. 

God tells His Old Testament people that He has not forgotten them. He will come in judgment on these evildoers.

One day, the ages of earth will end. It will be a day of wild extremes. There will be a final judgment when God separates the evildoers from those who call on His name in faith. The wicked will be like chaff, swept away in engulfing flames. When the fire is past, nothing remains but ashes, their place before God will be no more. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.”

The idea of a final Judgment Day followed by an eternal heaven or hell seems alien to our permissive culture. Ours is a “three strikes and you’re out” culture, and if you whine a bit, we will give you four or five strikes. We even curve the grades on the SAT’s so that the outcome will look better. Many schools have many valedictorians rather than one because we don’t like to have winners and losers. In such a society, it sounds strange to hear about a final Judgment Day and eternal punishment and burning and pain.

Some might argue that a loving God wouldn’t send people to hell. But that’s missing the point. A loving God must send people to hell. In punishing the wicked, He is demonstrating His love for the righteous. He is showing that there are consequences to actions. The Bible says that God wants all people to be saved. (2 Timothy 2:4) The problem isn’t God. The problem is people.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Billy Graham, was interviewed on CBS’s “The Early Show.” Jane Clayson, the interviewer, asked Lotz, “I've heard people say … if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?”

Lotz replied, “I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection.”

Over the years we have listened to the ACLU and removed prayers and Bibles from public schools. We have listened to Dr. Spock and Oprah and Dr. Phil and now parents are afraid of disciplining their children, but instead wish to be their friends. We have taught a “survival of the fittest” evolution for generations. We have allowed our video games to become more violent, music to become more graphic, television and movies to become more vulgar.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience; why they don’t know right from wrong; why they don’t respect those in authority; why we have generations of people who don’t value life.

Perhaps it is because without the threat of judgment and punishment, without the insistence that there is a right and a wrong, without the fear of God put into our children, they have no love and respect for that same God who wishes to save them.

Hell is the ultimate expression of a fair and just Creator. He is God who is punishes evil. He is also God who has been patient for several millennia. But like the father who counts to three before the spanking and grounding in order to teach his son a lesson, so our Heavenly Father has been counting for thousands of years, but there will come a time when His patience will run out and the unbelieving world will receive more than a tanned behind and a timeout. When Judgment Day comes, it will be a day of ultimate terror and misery for those who removed God from their lives here on earth. For God is a gentleman and He will then honor their choice and remove Himself from their eternity.

Hell is scary. You don’t want to go there. So you want to listen to Paul’s instructions on how to live waiting for the Lord, so that “your whole spirit, soul and body are kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24).

Even though, on the Day of the Lord, the evildoers will burn like stubble, on that same day, the righteous will shine like the warming sun (and we could also spell that S-O-N if we wanted to). “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.” The day of the Lord will not mean disaster of everyone. For those who revere God’s name, it will be a great day!

Imagine having the two weeks of Christmas vacation all rainy and gloomy. You’re depressed because the weather is depressing. The kids are driving you crazy because they’ve been cooped up inside for two straight weeks. The inside of the house definitely looks “lived in.” You feel all achy and icky because you haven’t been outside to exercise in days. And then the sun comes out! It is glorious and shining and bright and warm. It brings healing to your aching bones. You aren’t ashamed to run outside with your kids to play. All of you are so excited to finally be outside that you are running and jumping like calves released from their stalls after being penned up all winter. You finally feel good. You want to run and jump just for the sheer joy of it.

That is the way it is with us who accept God’s love and believe in His Son, Jesus, as our Savior. When we get to heaven, we won’t be sick with our sin any more. Our spirit feels good. We want to kick and frolic in God’s Sonshine forever!

A family had recently lost their 7-year-old son to death. They experienced all the dynamics of grief as they dealt with the different stages, listening to the counselors and the experts, trying to do everything exactly as it is supposed to be done. And they felt that they were dealing with their grief in a fairly successful way – until Christmas came and it was time to put up the Christmas tree. When the family gathered to put up the tree and start hanging ornaments on its limbs, the mother realized that some of the ornaments had been made by their son who was now gone. As she was putting up those ornaments, her tears began to flow. Their older son, Jim, all of 10 years-old, came to her, put his arm around her and said, “Mom, you miss Dougie, don’t you?” She answered, “Oh yes, I miss him more than you’ll ever know.”

He said, “Well, Mom, Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, isn’t it? And Dougie has gone to be with Jesus, hasn’t he? Then that must mean, that Dougie is having more fun than we are.”

Isn’t that exactly right? Heaven is more fun than this earth. And it is certainly better than even one moment in hell. And it is all because of Jesus. In God’s fairness and justice, we deserved for our sins to be punished. But Jesus was willing to stand in our place and receive our punishment. The Bible says, “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:28) The cross is the only ladder tall enough to reach heaven.

That is what is truly not fair. It isn’t fair that we are forgiven. It isn’t fair that Jesus’ brings salvation. It isn’t fair that we are loved so much. It isn’t fair that we receive heaven because of Jesus’ cross. But that is the way it is. And aren’t you grateful that it is?

The people who go to hell deserve to go there. The people who go to heaven don’t deserve to go there. How wonderful is that?

And that means that we can look at the day of the Lord much, much differently. For us who accept Jesus’ sacrifice and believe in Him as our Savior from hell, the day of the Lord won’t be a day that burns like a furnace. It will be a day that brings life. That day will be the first day of our new life, our life free from sin, free from pain and trouble and sorrow and death. Look forward to this Day. Amen.