Don’t grow cold

We have been talking about God our Judge. God is a righteous Judge. A good judge. Last week I asked two questions and said we would answer them this week. The questions were as follows:

1. if we are no longer under the law, does that mean that God being a Judge is a thing of the Old Testament; or
2. is He only a judge to unbelievers and not those who are in Christ?

These are important questions that we need to answer. Let’s start with the first question. Matthew 7:22-23 says, “On the day of judgment many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, don’t you remember us? Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we cast out demons and do many miracles in your name?’ But I will have to say to them, ‘Go away from me, you lawless rebels! I’ve never been joined to you!‘”

That is Jesus speaking, not to Old Testament people but to New Testament believers. His words start off with, “On the day of judgment…”. So from that alone, we know that there will be a day of judgment. Now let’s look at the people Jesus is talking about. These are people who prophesied and cast out demons in Jesus’ Name. Meaning, these are “believers” or “Christians”. I put this in quotes because of what Jesus calls them, “lawless rebels”.

We have a lot of people in the church today, who are gifted but who are ungoverned. That is, they do not want to submit to anyone. Noone tells them what to do. They heard from Jesus and that is all that matters no one can tell them otherwise. The word used for lawless is the Greek word G459 in the Strongs Concordance, being the word “anomia” which means the condition of being without law because of ignorance of the law or because of violating the law. It is the contempt and violation of law which leads to iniquity, wickedness.

We learnt that we are not under the law of Moses anymore. However, we have been called to a higher law which is to love God and to love people (Matthew 22:36-40). So, if one is lawless, it means that the love of God and for others has gone cold in their hearts. Matthew 24:12, and this is Jesus speaking of the end times, says this, “There will be such an increase of the sin of lawlessness that those whose hearts once burned with passion for God and others will grow cold.”

Another verse that tells us that there will be judgment is James 2:13 which says, “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.” Key word in that verse is the word “when”. So it is not a question of “if” we will be judged by God someday, it is a question of “when”, for it will happen at the set time.

Right now, we are living in the mercy and grace of God as He is giving us an opportunity to know Him, to get our hearts right and to step out of rebellion. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with his promise to return, as some measure lateness. But rather, his “delay” simply reveals his loving patience toward you, because he does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.”

God is still a Judge even today and we should all maintain a healthy fear of the Lord. The same God we read about in the Old Testament is still God today. He hasn’t changed. He cannot change; He is immutable.

To answer the second question we must look at Acts 5:1-11. I suggest you take a moment and go read it. In summary, 2 believers Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, sold their farm. A lot of the believers were selling their homes and giving everything to the Apostles to support the spread of the gospel at the time. Ananias and Sapphira had the FOMO, sold their farm but decided to keep some of the money and not give it all but instead lie and say they gave it all.

The Lord revealed the plan to the Apostle Peter. Long story short, Ananias and Sapphira died within 3 hours of each other and each within moments of lying to Peter about the money. Judgment was swift. God is still a Judge today. God didn’t care about the money, He cared about their hearts. They could do whatever they liked with their farm or the sale proceeds but lying to Holy Spirit was not one of those things.

Verse 11 says, “The entire church was seized with a powerful sense of the fear of God, which came over all who heard what had happened.” That is where we need to be. Ananias and Sapphira were New Testament believers. They lied to Holy Spirit, and they died for it. Judgment was quick. However, this means that just because God hasn’t done anything yet, it doesn’t mean you are getting away with your sin. A day will come when we must all face the consequences for our actions.

I’ll leave you with this, Galatians 6:7 which says, “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.”

We will continue next week.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.