The Problem of Judgment: The World’s Response to God’s Love

John 3:16-21 The Problem of Judgment (The World’s Response to God’s Love) Introduction: Although there might not be a more compelling set of verses on God’s love in all of Scripture, this section also introduces to us the fact of God’s judgment, also called eternal judgment or hell. This passage makes it clear that the Divine labour to redeem the world cannot be certain of succeeding as regards every individual soul. Some will not be redeemed. Some will refuse God’s salvation. Judgment is not something we necessarily like to talk about, and it’s not something that we talk about happily or flippantly. But it is something that is true, and if we are to be true to the testimony of Scripture we must talk about. A few weeks ago we discussed how most people agree that something is wrong with the world, the world is not the way it should be, that there is real evil in the world and that evil must be dealt with in some way. There must be some sort of judgment upon evil, there must be true justice. The Scripture presents us with a God who is both perfect love and perfect justice. who has done something about the evil in the world. God in his love sent Christ to save the world- by suffering on the cross the full justice of God’s wrath against sin - yet for those who will not believe in Christ, who will not receive God’s offer of love, there remains condemnation, wrath, and eternal judgment. “[The doctrine of Hell] .... has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord's own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully "All will be saved." But my reason retorts, "Without their will, or with it?" If I say "Without their will" I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary If I say "With their will," my reason replies "How if they will not give in?” -C.S. Lewis 1. Wrath, Condemnation, and Perishing (or Eternal Judgment) 1. Although we might want to ignore it, this passage is clear: You and I and everyone will perish if we don't trust Christ. We are all perishing, already under judgment,—apart from Christ. 1. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” 2. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” 3. Man is by nature under the righteous wrath of God. 1. Scripture is clear, Christ did not come into a neutral world in order to save some and condemn others; he came to a lost/ dark world, that was already under God’s judgment, in order to save some. That not all will be saved is made obvious by the text, But God’s purpose in the mission of Jesus was to bring salvation to the world. 2. The biblical teaching is that the whole world is under the wrath of God; not only because of sins of omission (failure to live up to God’s standard; our lack of righteousness) but also sins of commission (our actions of sin, our rebellious acts). 3. When the Bible speaks of God’s wrath, we aren’t saying that God get’s mad like human’s do. God doesn’t have a bad temper, God doesn’t fly off the handle or lose His cool. It is not spite, malice, animosity or revenge that drives God’s wrath. It is his divine reaction to evil. Therefore it is entirely predictable, and is never subject to mood, or whim. 4. Wrath is God’s personal, righteous, constant hostility to evil, his unsettled refusal to compromise with it, and his resolve instead to condemn it. 5. And finally it must also be remembered that God’s wrath is not incompatible with his other attributes, love, mercy, justice, and holiness. 1. Therefore there is the necessity of escaping an already existing condemnation. 2. God So Loved the World that… 1. Last week we looked at how great God’s love truly is. God loves this pitiful world and he sent Jesus, not to condemn the world, (the world is already condemned) but to save it. Over and over again the Bible tells us of God’s desire to save men. 2. Jesus said, “the Son of Man came not to destroy people’s lives but to save them”. - Luke 9:56 3. Paul said, “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. -1 Timothy 2:4 4. Peter said, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. - 2 Peter 3:9 1. God clearly desires that Mankind would not perish, but have eternal life. Not only is man’s salvation God’s desire, he has also done everything possible, short of violating man’s free will, to keep him from perishing and give him eternal life. 1. He gave his Law to show his holiness, the sinfulness of our hearts and our need for a Savior. 2. He sent Jesus as Savior to pay the penalty of sin. 3. He sent the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and to persuade us to turn to God. 4. He blesses our lives and orchestrates events in our lives to try and get our attention. (Paul the Apostle; Martin Luther - struck by lightning; John Newton -near death experiences; shipwreck, shotgun) 1. God subjected the creation to vanity…for hope. 2. “having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.He exercises unimaginable patience with us in the hope that we would come to our senses and turn to him.” -Acts 17 5. It is amazing, the lengths God has gone to to get a hold of people. But with all of this, people will end up in hell, a place never intended for man. 2. “The problem is not simply that of a God who consigns some of His creatures to final ruin. .... Christianity, true, as always, to the complexity of the real, presents us with something knottier and more ambiguous—a God so full of mercy that He becomes man and dies by torture to avert that final ruin from His creatures, and who yet, where that heroic remedy fails, seems unwilling, or even unable, to arrest the ruin by an act of mere power. I said glibly a moment ago that I would pay "any price" to remove this doctrine. I lied. I could not pay one-thousandth part of the price that God has already paid to remove the fact. And here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is Hell.” -C.S. Lewis 1. WHY? 3. People Loved the Darkness. 1. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” 1. In an astonishing act of self destruction, multitudes refuse the light and continue to embrace darkness. They will not come to the light lest their deeds be exposed. 2. Often in our discussions about hell and judgment we are somehow tempted to think that we are more, generous, gracious, and loving than God. I think if we are honest with ourselves it is passages like this that show us that we human beings are more wicked and blind than we would like to admit. Scripture makes it clear people are not saved because of a lack of effort on God’s part, but because of a lack of desire on their part. John says, they HATE the light, not that they are indifferent. They resist, they oppose the light of God. 1. We might object, “maybe they never heard of Jesus?!”. But we just talked about the lengths that God goes to reach people. Also, we have plenty of examples in scripture of those who were seeking truth and God met them where they were and the gospel was preached to them. -(Cornelius, the Ethiopian Eunuch) 2. “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ” -C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce) 3. “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man "wishes" to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved ….” - C.S. Lewis 3. Maybe there are still some of us, who think this idea of Judgment is unfair, it’s harsh, and we think that people should have a second chance 1. “In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a Question: "What are you asking God to do?" To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them! They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does... They have their wish—to live wholly in the self and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is Hell.” - C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain) Conclusion: This is the truth of this passage: There is no life outside of God, and to reject God’s offer of life (in Jesus) is to reject the only offer of Life! And how amazing the love of God, that though mankind would reject his offer, and continues to reject his offer God continues to pursue man to the end…OH the goodness, grace, and generosity of our God! 1. “When years of time time shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall. When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so sure, shall still endure, All measureless and strong; Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—The saints’ and angels’ song.” 2.