Truth Oriented Judgment is really Unpopular

When Osama Bin Laden died it was interesting to see how many Christians blogged about how people should react to his death. Alright, I'm 4 months late but I started this thought in the summer and just recently finished it. My brother in law, Nate, had some very similar thoughts to mine so if you've read his blog you can delete mine. Does the Scripture give us direction concerning how to respond to the death of those who live unjust lives? I think it does. I think we might be surprised at God's response.

God does not delight in the death of the wicked. There's no place for exuberant celebration when the enemies of Christ or His Church die. God gave Ezekiel a message to proclaim to the Israelites. It was a message of repentance. It was a call to turn from evil and in Ezekiel 33:11, Ezekiel spoke for God and He said "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live." God himself will not take delight in the physical or spiritual death of people who hate Him. He takes delight in repentance.

God is not overwhelmed with sorrow at the death of the wicked. So many, in our day, want to fashion God in our likeness and image. How would God react? We tend to think he would react similar to the way we would react. God is incredibly different than us. The Numbers 14 tells us that God is "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." This is true, yet when Jesus Christ finally judges the "nations" of the earth to eternal punishment He will do it in a holy way. Matthew 7 says that He will say to the unbelievers "I never knew you." In Matthew 7 Jesus is speaking to a group of people who have done many good things on earth but under the microscope of God's righteousness it will be proven that their works were incredibly self serving and rather than bringing glory to God they lived a life of "lawlessness" that glorified themselves. The interesting thing about this passage is that the Righteous Judge will display no overwhelming sorrow at the justice He executes.

God calls for proper judgment based on truth. "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things." (Romans 2:2) In this context the Apostle Paul is speaking about Osama Bin Laden. He is speaking in the context of unbelievers who have wantonly forsaken the authority of God and have lived life their own way...to the point of sexual sin, murder, strife, haughtiness, boastfulness, foolishness, arrogance etc. What will be their end? How will God judge the lawless? He will judge based on His unchanging truth. Unlike us, he will levy an truth oriented judgment without delight and without sorrow. God's judgments are always right.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Functional Hypocrites

The other day I had a friend exclaim to a group of peers that they cried when they heard that Steve Jobs had died. I think he was expressing something that many of our generation felt. Technology is such a part of our daily lives (especially the I Phone, Pad, Pod, Touch, MacBook, Mini, Air, Thini, I Visible, I Verson, I Razor etc) that there was a weird void left for people when they realized that the man who had brought them these products would no longer be delivering the goods. We love our neat technology that makes life as convenient and simple as possible. The internet is at our fingertips, constantly, because of Steve Jobs. Now, Apple products aren't cheap. In fact their much more expensive than comparable products made by other companies. Other products may not be as sleek or well designed as Apple products but my laptop cost about 1/2 of what a comparable Apple laptop might cost. And Steve Jobs was incredibly rich because of this. He was a multi billionaire capitalist who gave relatively little to charity...but we don't care because 'I love my I Phone and my I Pad.' 'I couldn't live without it.'

I'm not critiquing Steve Jobs. Capitalism is not wrong. There is great good that comes from free market capitalism. Consumerism, can become idolatry, but the idea of people buying and enjoying products is not necessarily bad. Here's the issue. We are a generation of people who are celebrating their I Phone, their MacBook Pro and Steve Jobs, who are also attempting to Occupy Wall Street. We believe that "Capital Finance Ruins Lives" and "A Job is a Right, Capitalism Doesn't Work." We're functional hypocrites. We believe that capitalism is bad but we use the products of capitalism (Facebook, Computers, Phones etc) to organize our anti-capitalistic marches. We buy up a bunch of technology, cry about the death of Steve Jobs, and then attempt to lambaste everyone about how they don't give enough to charity. We decry our parents American dream but we've built a new American dream. We may not have the finances to own two homes (nothing wrong with it) but we'll spend the rest of our lives crawling further into the comfort of our "Netflix world"(John Piper).

As Christians, is it possible for us to be a generation who grows to use the products without worshiping the products? Can we be thankful for Apple Computers? Can we enjoy the free market as a blessing from God and within that live a simple life that gives glory to God by giving of our finances regularly to our local church? Can we own things and not let them own us? I'd love to hear your thoughts.