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When to judge or not to judge |
Signs of the times | False
Prophets
"Hear this now, O foolish
people, without understanding,
Who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not:
Do you not fear Me?’ says the Lord. ‘Will you not tremble at My presence...?
But this people has a defiant and rebellious heart;
They have revolted and departed.
They do not say in their heart, 'let us now
fear the Lord our God,
Who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season...
our iniquities have turned these things away,
And your sins have withheld good from you." Jeremiah
5:18-25
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!"
Isaiah 5:20-21
"There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes...
He does not abhor evil."
Psalm 36:1-2, 4
"...unless you repent you will
all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell
and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other
men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you
will all likewise perish." Luke 13:3-5
"In those days there was no king in
Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
Judges 17:6,
21:25
"'From the least of them even to the
greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness;
And from the prophet even to the priest,
everyone
deals falsely.
They
have also healed the hurt of My people slightly,
Saying,
‘Peace, peace!’ When
there is no peace.
Were
they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
No!
They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those
who fall;
At the time I punish them,
they shall be cast down,' says the Lord."
“Stand in the ways and see,
And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’... We will not listen.’
Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation...
Behold,
I will certainly bring calamity on this people— the fruit of their thoughts,
Because they have not heeded My words...."
Jeremiah
6:13-19
"And as it
was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days
of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married
wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah
entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate,
they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;
but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire
and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will
it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."
Luke
17:26-30
...thus says the Lord... 'They shall die gruesome deaths; they
shall not be lamented nor shall they be buried, but they shall
be like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed
by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall
be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the
earth.' For thus says the Lord: 'Do not enter
the house of mourning, nor go to lament or bemoan them; for I
have taken away My peace from this people....
"For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
'Behold, I will cause to cease from this place, before your eyes and
in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. And it shall be, when you show this people all these
words, and they say to you, 'Why has the Lord pronounced all
this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what
is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’
then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have
forsaken Me,’ says the Lord; ‘they have walked after other gods
and have served them and worshiped them, and have forsaken Me
and not kept My law.
"And you have done worse than your
fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his
own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me. Therefore
I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not
know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve
other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor.’"
Jeremiah 16:1-5,
9-13
"...the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness.... Professing to be wise, they became fools....
Therefore God also gave them
up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their
bodies among themselves....
"God gave them up to
vile
passions. ...
"And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased
[depraved] mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being
filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, evil-mindedness."
Romans 1:18-32
"....there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly
bring in destructive heresies,
even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves
swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways,
because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By
covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a
long time their judgment has not been idle, and their
destruction does not slumber. For if God did not spare
the angels who sinned... and did not spare the ancient
world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the
ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an
example to those who afterward would live ungodly...then the Lord
knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve
the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and
especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust
of uncleanness and despise authority."
2 Peter
2:1-10
"But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the
Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as
some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should
come to repentance.
"...the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the
night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great
noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the
earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.... You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand,
beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being
led away with the error of the wicked...."
2 Peter 3:8-10,
17
"They are foolish; for
they do not know the way of the Lord,
The judgment of their God.
I will go to the great men and speak to them,
For they have known the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God.'
But these have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds.
Therefore a
lion from the forest shall slay them,
A wolf of the deserts shall destroy them;
A leopard will watch over their cities."
[Interesting
reminders at a time when leopards are "restored" to Florida and
wolves and bears to other parts of our country -- and people are
being slaughtered] Jeremiah 5:4-6
"Beware that you do not forget the Lord
your God by not keeping His commandments... lest—when you have eaten and are
full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them... your heart is
lifted up ....then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand
have gained me this wealth.’...
"...you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you
power to get wealth....Then it shall be, if you by any means forget
the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship
them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.
As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall
perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord
your God."
Deuteronomy
8:10-20
"For thus says the Lord God: 'How much more it shall be when
I send My four severe judgments on Jerusalem -- the
sword
and famine and wild beasts and pestilence' to cut off man and
beast from it? Yet behold, there shall be left in it a remnant
who will be brought out..."
Ezekiel 14:21-22
"He who believes in the Son
has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
John 3:35
"Cursed is the man
who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the LORD.
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see
when good comes....
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and
whose hope is the LORD.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads
out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green...
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked; who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the
fruit of his doings."
Jeremiah
17:5-10
"I will utter My judgments
against them concerning all their wickedness,
Because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other gods,
And worshiped the works of their own hands.
Therefore prepare yourself and arise, and speak to them all that I command you.
Do not be dismayed before their faces, lest I dismay you before them.
For behold, I have made you this day a fortified city and an iron pillar,
And bronze walls against the whole land...
They will fight against you,
but they shall not prevail against you.
For I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.'"
Jeremiah
1:16-19
"Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by those that are not gods.
When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery
And assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
They were like well-fed lusty stallions;
Every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife.
Shall I not punish them for these things?' says the Lord.
'And shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?" Jeremiah
5:7-9
"...if you do not
obey Me, then I will punish you... I will break the pride of
your power.... And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees
of the land yield their fruit. ‘Then, if you walk contrary to
Me, and are not willing to obey Me... I will also send
wild
beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children,
destroy your livestock, and make you few in number..."
Leviticus 26:18-21
"And the Lord
God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers...
because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling
place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised
His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of
the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
"Therefore He brought against them the
king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the
sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on
young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them
all into his hand."
2 Chronicles
36:15-17
"God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send
His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved.
"He who believes in Him is
not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son
of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil
hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the
light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been
done in God." John 3:16-21
"...many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because
lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures
to the end shall be saved."
Matthew
24:10-13
"My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would
have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn
heart, to walk in their own counsels. Oh, that My people
would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would
soon subdue their enemies...."
Psalm 81:11-14
"...with most of them
[the people following Moses from Egypt to the Promised Land] God was not well pleased,
for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these
things became our examples, to the intent that we should not
lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become
idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, 'The people
sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'
"Nor let us commit sexual immorality,
as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were
destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also
complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
"Now all these things happened to them as
examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom
the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he
stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you
except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not
allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the
temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to
bear it."
1 Corinthians 10:5-13
"And when He has come, He will
convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of
sin, because they do not believe in Me..."
John 16:8-9
"...to
execute judgment on all,
to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they
have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly
sinners have spoken against Him. These are grumblers, complainers,
walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words,
flattering people to gain advantage.
"But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers
in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.
These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit." Jude 15-19
"When your
terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a
whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the
Lord,
They would have none of my counsel and despised my
every rebuke.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way,
And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them;
But whoever listens to me will dwell safely,
And will be secure, without fear of evil."
Proverbs
1:27-33
"Therefore we make it our aim,
whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the
things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are
well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences."
2 Corinthians 5:9-11
"I charge you therefore before God
and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His
appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of
season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
"For the time
will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own
desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves
teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside
to fables.
"But you
be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,
fulfill your ministry."
2 Timothy 4:1-5
"Thus says the
Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the
nations and the countries all around her. She has rebelled
against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations,
and against My statutes more than the countries that are all
around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have
not walked in My statutes.’
"Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have multiplied
disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have
not walked in My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done
according to the judgments of the nations that are all around
you’— therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am
against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the
sight of the nations.
"And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of
which I will never do again, because of all your
abominations....
"....because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your
detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I
will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have
any pity. One-third of you shall die of the
pestilence, and be
consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by
the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to
all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
"Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest
upon them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I,
the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury
upon them. ... So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson,
and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when
I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in
furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken.
"When I send against them the terrible
arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will
send to destroy you, I will increase the
famine upon you and cut
off your supply of bread. So I will send against you
famine and
wild beasts, and they will bereave you.
Pestilence and blood
shall pass through you, and I will bring the
sword against you." Ezekiel 5:5-17
"'As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his
way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O
house of Israel?’"
Ezekiel 33:11
The "wine cup" of God's
wrath and judgment
“'O house of Israel, can I not
do with you as this potter?' says the Lord. 'Look, as the
clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand... 'The
instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a
kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it,
if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil,
I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.
And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a
kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight
so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning
the good with which I said I would benefit it.
"'Now therefore, speak to the men of
Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says
the Lord: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a
plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way,
and make your ways and your doings good.’
"And they said, 'That is
hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and
we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.'...
"...Will the cold flowing waters
be forsaken for strange waters? Because My people have
forgotten Me... and they have caused themselves to stumble in
their ways from the ancient paths... I will scatter them as
with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back
and not the face in the day of their calamity.”
Jeremiah 18:6-17
Jeremiah the prophet:
"... this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has
come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened. And the Lord has sent to you all
His servants the prophets... but you have not listened nor
inclined your ear to hear.
"They said, ‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil
doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and
your fathers forever and ever. Do not go after other gods to serve
them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works
of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ 'Yet you have not
listened to Me,' says the Lord, 'that you might provoke Me
to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.
"Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:
‘Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take
all the families of the north [powerful pagan enemies]... and will
bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against
these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and
make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice
of gladness.... And this whole land shall be a desolation
and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of
Babylon seventy years.
"For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me:
'Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all
the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. 'And they will
drink and stagger and go mad because of the
sword that I will send
among them.' ...
"Therefore you shall say to them, 'Thus
says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Drink, be drunk, and
vomit! Fall and rise no more, because of the
sword which I will send
among you.' And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from
your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord
of hosts: 'You shall certainly drink! For behold, I begin to
bring calamity on the city which is called by My name
[Jerusalem], and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be
unpunished...."
Jeremiah 25:1-29
God's saving grace for
those who hear and believe His Word
"...he who
hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has
everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. ...
"Do not
marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will
hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the
resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the
resurrection of condemnation."
John 5:24-29
"He
then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but
now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but
after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of
many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a
second time, apart from sin, for salvation."
Hebrews
9:26-28
See also
What it means to be a Christian
and God's Warnings for our Times