What Triggers God’s Judgment?

What triggers God's judgment? That is the topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Real View Radio program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians, and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thank you for joining us for another edition of the Christian Real View today. What triggers God's judgment?

That is our topic. In our age, God is mainly portrayed as a God of love, of mercy, of compassion and forgiveness, who, quote, desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. I Timothy 2.4, and this is absolutely true about God, but it's not the full truth of the actual God of the Bible. It doesn't require a much more thorough reading of Scripture to discover that this same God of love is also a God of wrath and just judgment toward those who are willfully and persistently, those who reject Him and His word. Now, consider how God orchestrated the global flood that destroyed all flesh on the earth, except for Noah and his family, or how the Jews, God's own chosen people, were frequently and terrifyingly punished.

They were killed, they were exiled by God for disobedience to Him. Or how about how the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the nations surrounding Israel were plagued or killed or just outright annihilated by God. The same God of love is also the same God of judgment.

It's the same God. So then, why is the judgment of God de-emphasized? What triggers God's judgment? And how does this relate to America and the church today? So that's the topic we're going to discuss, what triggers God's judgment.

Now, why this topic, first of all? It's the middle of summer, why bring up a topic on the judgment of God? Well, I think I've mentioned recently in the program that I've been reading through the Old Testament prophetic books, and have been reading through Jeremiah right now, and I have just been struck by the repeating theme in all of these books, that basically these prophets are saying to the nation of Israel, to anyone who will listen, and not many were, that you need to repent and you need to return to be obedient to God, otherwise God's judgment is going to come. Disobedience brings judgment and calamity. You're going to be exiled, there's going to be problems, there's going to be consequences.

You need to repent and return. All those books, you know, oftentimes we as Christians don't get too deep into those books, they're sometimes prophetic and just have the meanings, have a near meaning and a far meaning in the future, and sometimes they can be hard to understand, but what's not hard to understand is just the overarching theme of these books. It's repent and return from your sin, your idolatry, your wickedness, or else God's judgment and wrath is coming on you. That's the theme of so many of these Old Testament prophetic books. And the interesting thing is that God used the wicked nations around Israel to actually pour out his judgment and wrath on Israel. But then he would cause judgment on those wicked nations as well, so that's always an irony. If you think God's chosen people, he's not going to use nations even more wicked than they are to judge them.

Well, he absolutely does. He uses those wicked nations to judge his own people and then he judges those wicked nations. And Israel was just characterized in the Old Testament as worshiping false gods, imitating the idol worship of the nations around them. They were sacrificing their own children.

Does that sound familiar today, in 2019? They had wicked leadership. They were just outright rebelling against God. So that's why we're doing this topic, because as you look into the Bible, there's so much about the judgment of God that I think we need to hear some balance once in a while from not just the love and compassion of God, which is absolutely true and absolutely something we love. But we need to have a balanced and accurate understanding of God. It's been said the most important aspect of a person is their view of God and whether that view is accurate.

So that's what we want to strive to do on this program, is to give an accurate portrayal depiction of who God depicts himself as in his word. So what is God's judgment, first of all? Well, I think you could simply define that as saying it's the outpouring of his anger or wrath, whether in current temporal ways, you know, Israel being exiled into Babylon or even the global flood and so forth, or it's the eternal judgment of God. We see this in Revelation and elsewhere, where those who reject God's offer of forgiveness, reject his son, basically, are judged for eternity. There's an eternal judgment in hell.

So it's a very, very serious judgment, a very serious topic. And interestingly, the judgment of God starts right away in the earliest chapters of the Bible. In Genesis chapter three, we see after Adam and Eve sin, immediately comes the wrath and judgment of God on Satan, on Adam, on Eve and on the rest of mankind.

From then on, there's a judgment right away for sin. And this judgment goes all the way through scripture and ends in the last pages of the Bible, where we see the final great white throne judgment. We'll get into that a little bit with some of the verses today. Other examples, of course, I've mentioned the global flood where he judged the whole earth. And you can read just a couple of these things that says in Genesis six, now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. So what's the next verse? Is it God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life or that's OK, you'll do better?

No. Then God said to Noah, the end of all things has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. And as you read through a little more into the Old Testament, Israel during the exodus, they were constantly disobeying God and they were God was sending plagues. And none of the generation who left Egypt made it except for Joshua and Caleb into the promised land. They all died along the way because of their disobedience to God.

They suffered military defeats as they entered the land and so forth because of their disobedience. The kings of Israel, where most of them were wicked, very sinful, idol worshipping kings of Israel, they were divided and then exiled to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. All kinds of this runs throughout the Old Testament. Of course, the Old Testament prophets talk about this.

That's what the focus of their book is for their books are for Israel to repent and return. You get into the New Testament and Jesus Christ himself talks about the coming judgment of God and he's the judge of this world. In John 3.36, he who believes in the Son has life, but he who does not believe the Son does not have life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

How much do you hear that very binary presentation of receiving or rejecting Christ come up today? But there it is right in the Word of God. Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts.

I'm just giving a few examples. There's so many you could give, but Ananias and Sapphira in the early church, they lied about how much money they made in selling a piece of land and giving it to the church and God killed them, judged them on the spot. And then fast-forwarding all the way to the end of Scripture, it says in the book of Revelation, we'll read this passage. It says, Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away. This is the great white throne judgment at the very end of time and no place was found for them.

This is the unbelieving. And I saw the dead, the great and the small standing before the throne and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life.

God has these two different books, the book of life, which believers names are in and other books are open, which record all the wicked deeds of those who rejected Christ. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and the death and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire. And this verse is so chilling. Revelation 20-15, and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. If that doesn't cause you to pause and ponder whether that's true or not, and what you're going to do with that passage, it really should.

That's either a true statement or a false statement. Right there, that if you reject Christ, you'd be thrown, not just sent in, you're going to be thrown in to the lake of fire. We need to understand not just the love of God, but the wrath of God. We need to love God and we need to fear God. And that is just so important because it's all throughout scripture.

So why isn't God's judgment discussed today? My son this week was in Vacation Bible School. So many kids go to Vacation Bible School and I'm actually in favor of Vacation Bible School.

Mostly I think it's quite good, but it just gives a typical little story here. One of the verses, little pages he came home with, it was a little thing they draw on and so forth. It had a verse on it. Now which verse do you think it was? It was Jeremiah 29-11, the most misinterpreted and overused verse in the entire Bible. For I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. And again, that verse is totally true and it's a wonderful, beautiful verse. But it's for those who are, it was really intended for Israel for blessing the nation for obedience. But there's a contrary, there's a converse to that as well. No, if you don't follow the Lord, if you disobey him, you don't expect that God has plans for your good welfare to give you a future and a great hope.

It's going to be the opposite. Obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings judgment. Another verse is so commonly used.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Again, so, so true, a beautiful promise from God. But there's a little clause in there to those who love God. You know, this doesn't apply to those who don't honor and love and revere and obey God. You often hear people say today, oh, God loves everyone with an unconditional love.

Really? Where is that verse in the Bible? That is a completely untrue verse. God's love is completely conditional. He loves us enough to send his son to offer salvation.

But if you reject, here's the condition. But if you reject his offer of reconciliation, you can go back to Revelation 2015 about being thrown into the lake of fire. You're rejecting the king who created you and his willingness to forgive you. Now, people just don't like to hear about God's anger and his wrath and his judgment. You think about a child, what child wants to hear that he or she is going to be punished for doing something wrong?

They don't want to hear it. We want to live our lives the way we want to live our lives without consequences, right? You know, when you talk about the judgment of God, it clears out churches. You get labeled as, quote, unloving or harsh or legalistic. People want to be made to feel good. That's part of human nature.

It's part of my nature. Keep it positive, they say. Focus on the good side of God. The problem with all that, though, is when you do that, you're not portraying, you're not preaching the true God. And so that's what we're trying to do today on The Christian Real View is to consider both sides of God, the love of God, but also the judgment and wrath of God. They're both the same God and they're both perfectly righteous and holy and right.

You lose friends over talking about this kind of topic. The prophets were killed about talking about the coming judgment of God, but it absolutely needs to be discussed. We have much more coming up today here on The Christian Real View radio program, including a lot of sound bites, perhaps some listener phone calls. So stay tuned as we continue about what triggers God's judgment. I'm David Wheaton. You're listening to The Christian Real View. David Wheaton here to announce two events this coming September 1st on Sunday, September 15th at 7 p.m. at Grace Church Eden Prairie is The Christian Real View Speaker Series event on how social justice is impacting the church and the gospel. Featuring Daryl Harrison, an insightful and biblical teacher and writer on this important to understand topic.

No cost, no registration. Then the next day on Monday, September 16th is The Christian Real View Golf and Dinner event at Woodhill Country Club in Waseta, Minnesota. You can register for golf, which includes dinner, or register for the dinner event only.

This is always a special day and evening. Again, the Speaker Series event is Sunday, September 15th, and the Golf and Dinner event is Monday, September 16th. To find out more, call us at 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. The best way to stay connected to The Christian World View is to sign up for our free weekly email and annual print letter. The weekly email is delivered to your inbox each Friday and contains the preview for the weekend radio program, along with links and resources associated with it. Upcoming events on the previous week's program are also included. The annual print letter is delivered to your mailbox in November and contains a column on a current topic and our catalog of resources. Both of these free resources will keep you up to date and sharpen your world view. To receive the weekly email or the annual print letter, go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free 1-888-646-2233.

Your email and mailing addresses will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. Again, the number is 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Alright, back on the Christian World View radio program today, trying to think biblically and live accordingly in terms of what triggers God's judgment. So in the first segment we went over why we're doing this topic and what is God's judgment, some examples of it and why it isn't discussed very often today. It's discussed some of course, but just not very often. I mean, read the Old Testament prophets, they're constantly railing on God's coming judgment and repent and return.

You don't hear too many people running around and doing that today. So why does God judge? Why does he exhibit his wrath and his anger and his violence upon mankind? I mean, after all, he doesn't have to. Why does he do that?

Why can't he just relent and just let things go? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple. He's the king of the universe. He rules over all. He sets the standards and the rules and they're perfect and righteous laws that ultimately bring glory back to him. When we sin, we are saying, I know what you say, God, but I'm going to go my own way. Sin is treason against the king.

It's trying to overthrow God. And so God has every right, every righteous right to judge and to pour out his anger and his judgment. And when we don't think he should judge, we have a much lower view of God than who he really is. So what triggers God's judgment?

Well, sin is the accurate answer, but I think it needs a little more development than that, just to say sin. It seems like there are certain things and a certain degree of sin that brings on God's judgment. You know, God is patient towards sinners, but it's the kind of sin that is persistent and willful. In other words, the kind of sin by a people or a person that I know the right way that what God wants me to do, but I'm going to go the other way. That kind of persistent and willful sin that brings his judgment eventually on. It's knowing better and sinning anyway, because Israel, for instance, they knew better.

They were given the laws of God, but they sinned anyway. And particularly in terms of idolatry, worshipping other gods, God just hates idolatry. He's the one true God and he cannot stand. He's a jealous God, the Bible says.

He can't stand when another God, some other made up God, there's no other God but the true God, some other made up God gets any sort of worship or glory by those whom he has created. So idolatry is a big one. Sexual immorality is another big one, which is really just a form of idolatry. If you think about it, it's worshipping yourself, the creature rather than the creator.

That's what sexual immorality is. You know, Sodom and Gomorrah, there was a great worship of themselves and pleasure. It's another form of idolatry or just general wickedness. I think is another thing is you read through the Old Testament and see why the judgment of God comes. When just the nation gets to the point of just being so wicked, they just won't have it anymore. At the time of before the global flood, it was this way as wickedness all over the earth, the heart of man only sought to do wickedness. So as you read those things in Scripture, it leads, it led me to think, well, where does this leave our country today?

Are we actually in danger of God's judgment in America today? Even with our Christian founding and so many churches and so much gospel influence around the world for so many decades. Where is America today and how would America compare to the nations that God was judging back in the Old Testament? I think the first thing you have to think is that no empire has lasted more than a few hundred years in history. Of the great empires over time, none of them have lasted more than let's say three or four hundred years. And so America is probably how many years in now?

Maybe 250 years or so into our history. So empires rise and fall and they either crumble from within or they get taken over because they don't follow God's laws. Maybe they crumble from within because they become so bad economically. They get in great debt. They get too spread out. They get taken over because they're militarily not strong enough anymore.

They get fat and happy, whatever it is, or there's just such a general wickedness. They don't have the moral clarity, the wisdom to be able to do what they have to do anymore to survive. And so you look at our country today and I just got some sound bites of what are the worldview of 50% of our electorate. What they vote for. 50% of our electorate votes for these kinds of things. That killing a baby at any point of pregnancy is a woman's right to health care, even after it's born. They're cheering for these things as these laws get passed now. I believe in Indiana and where was the other one?

I think it was in Connecticut or something, or New York. People were cheering for the right to kill babies. That's where 50% of our electorate will vote for someone who stands for that today. Promoting all kinds of sexual perversion and punishing those who don't affirm it. That is rife throughout our land today. The movement of the homosexual movement and transgender movement is an all out onslaught.

That's the only way you can describe it is being pushed at a hundred miles an hour in every corner of our society today. 50% of our electorate will vote for the legalization of mind altering drugs so people can be kept in a stupor whenever they want. They'll vote for the redefining of the God instituted family of man and woman raising children. They'll vote against that to redefine that. They'll vote to reward those who won't work, who just want to be dependent on government.

As the Bible says, if you won't work, man won't work and neither let him eat. They will vote against that. They will vote for those who are working and producing to be taken from and given to those who aren't even willing to work. They'll vote for not punishing those who have provenly committed capital murder. In other words, they'll vote for someone to have a lesser sentence on those who actually deserve to die for having taken another person's life full of proof for doing so.

Not just light proof of doing so. They will vote for doing away with the nation state that God designed. Pursuing a globalistic end times world government scenario. They will vote for the worship of the creation of environmentalism over the worship of the creator. They will vote for someone who tries to divide the state of Israel. When the political leadership and when spiritual religious leadership especially promote all those things I just mentioned, those are the kinds of things that especially triggers God's judgment.

If you look back again in the Old Testament prophets when it was the kings and the false prophets were in control and that's what they were promoting, that's what brought on God's judgment. So just a couple sound bites to give you an example that I'm just listing these examples off the top of my head. Let's start out first with the one on abortion. Feminist Sophie Lewis said, I think one of the most honest but just chilling commentaries on what really abortionists ultimately believe in their heart but won't say so transparently.

Feminist Sophie Lewis listened to the sound bite. We're facing a really terrifying attack on abortion in the U.S. where I live in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. In the past the strategies that our side has tended to use have included a kind of seeding of ground to our enemies. We tend to say that abortion is indeed very bad but or we say luckily it's not killing, luckily it's just a healthcare right. We have very little to lose at the moment when it comes to abortion and I'm interested in winning radically and I wonder if we could think about defending abortion as a right to stop doing gestational work. Abortion is, in my opinion, and I recognize how controversial this is, a form of killing. It is a form of killing that we need to be able to defend. I am not interested in where a human life starts to exist. I see the forms of making and unmaking each other as continuous processes.

The other end of the spectrum is the process of learning how to die well and hold each other and let each other go at the end of our lives as well as at the beginning. But looking at the biology of this kind of hemochorial placentation helps me think about the violence that innocently a fetus meets out vis-a-vis a gestator. And that violence is an unacceptable violence for someone who doesn't want to do gestational work.

The violence that that gestator meets out to essentially go on strike or exit that workplace is an acceptable violence. When I heard that, and if you're trying to figure out what she was saying there, it was a lot of euphemisms and so forth, but you probably didn't miss the fact that she said we have to be comfortable with killing. And then she says that the fetus or the baby is a kind of producing violence in the mother's womb, and that needs to stop.

See, this is the worldview. Now, she said it very plainly and transparently, but that's exactly the worldview right there that the whole abortion industry that is pushing so hard in this country is so petrified right now because there's been some pushback against just what Sophie Lewis just said. When a country gets to that point, and she, I believe, lives in America, that is a point where you just wonder, and again, one thing I won't make the mistake on is making the claim that God is going to judge someone and this is when he's going to do it. I don't think we should ever do that. But at that point, when you see a baby, a creation of God that way, that will eventually bring on God's judgment.

We'll come back. We have many more sound bites coming after listening to the Christian worldview as we discuss what triggers God's judgment. That sound bite was one of them. I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being, practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things, just mocked when they're born. That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

We ought to never become indifferent to the slaughter of the innocents taking place in our country. This is why we are offering a DVD series entitled Life Is Best that will equip you to stand for life and against this injustice. In this two DVD set are 13 episodes that address all the facets of abortion, from the worldview battle to what you can do. For a limited time, you can order the Life Is Best DVD series for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. Thank you for joining us today here on the Christian worldview radio program. David Wheaton, the host, website is thechristianworldview.org. Just want to make sure that you are aware of two events we have coming up on back to back dates in September. First on September 15th, that's Sunday, the Christian worldview speaker series event. The next one is on September 15th, 7pm at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. We'll stream it live on Facebook again. Darryl Harrison is going to be joining us talking about how the pursuit of social justice is impacting the church and the gospel.

This is going to be a really much looking forward to this event. I really like Darryl a lot. He's the director of social media for Grace to You, an former pastor. He's a writer, a blogger. He's excellent on that topic.

That is such an important topic to understand. That's a free event. No registration, no cost, just come. The next day is our annual golf and dinner event, Monday, September 16th at Woodhill Country Club in Wise Ed in Minnesota. Always a very enjoyable event. If you're not even a golfer, you can just come for the dinner event. And also Darryl will be at that event. We'll be doing a special interview with him that evening. So two big events coming up in September.

Hope you can join us for one or both of them. Back to what triggers God's judgment. Before the break, we heard this soundbite by feminist Sophie Lewis about how we need to get comfortable with killing.

A baby does violence during pregnancy. At the end of life, you need to get comfortable letting people go. Basically saying, let people kill themselves at the end of life. It's complete just rejection of God and the creation He makes and so forth. And the killing of the unborn today, 60 million so far in America since Roe v. Wade, is way beyond actually what was taking place in Israel back in the time when God was pouring out His wrath and anger upon them for sacrificing their children to Molech.

Yes, that was a horrible thing to do, but it's no more horrible, certainly, than what is being sacrificed in the abortion clinics around our country today. Second soundbite we get to comes from Pete Buttigieg, who is running for president on the Democrat side of things. And he is, quote unquote, married to a man. And he was asked about starting a family and what that would look like to be the president, be starting a family in the White House.

Your first wedding anniversary. Congratulations to you and Chasten also coming at the same day as Father's Day. You said you hope to have children in the future, but that your presidential bid has slowed that down a bit. Do you think if you're elected president, hypothetically, that you will plan to start a family in the White House?

I don't see why not. I think it wouldn't be the first time that the children have arrived to a first couple. But obviously, that's a conversation I'd better have with Chasten before I go into it too much on television.

Mm hmm. It's also normal. It's also normal. That's the other thing that brings God's judgment is completely perverting his moral standards, which he prescribes in scripture for sexual morality and also for marriage right there and family. Just the fact that he can gain so much traction at this point in our country, that 50 percent of the electorate will vote for someone like that. And I'm sure there's many Republicans as well who have no problem with what he just said right there in that soundbite, making it so normal.

What is perverse before God, what God in his word calls perverse and an abomination is just let out slip so naturally. That's not a good place for the country to be. Now we go down to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Congresswoman from New York, talking about the border situation.

And here's her perception of what is going on at the border. The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps. If that doesn't bother you, I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that we should not, that never again means something. And that the fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing. Yeah, it's extraordinarily disturbing that she can see something about an immigration policy to retain people from just charging into our country illegally as being comparing that to the concentration camps where Jews and others were gassed to death over in Germany. When you have elected officials that people will elect into places of power who have that worldview, who see things exactly the opposite way, that's a bad, really bad place for people to be, that they would vote for someone who holds that kind of viewpoint and would be able to see something that completely in an inverted way.

Well, it doesn't stop there. Bernie Sanders had something interesting to say about, again, about inverting something. Well, maybe there's, there's, you know, Donald Trump, the president is no perfect man, but to view the president and to rail against the elected president of this country like this? You have a president who, despite what one of his supporters mentioned a moment ago, is in fact the pathological liar.

He is a racist, he's a sexist, he's a homophobe, and he is a religious bigot. Okay, so there are the pejoratives that will be used and are used against Christians right now if you don't follow the socialistic humanistic worldview of some of the folks I've just played soundbites of on the program today. And so when you get into political leadership like that, and then it bleeds over into the religious leadership of the country, that's, I believe, what triggers God's judgment. In other words, not saying it's going to happen today or tomorrow, maybe it's already, we've already been given over as I've heard one pastor talk about that is God's judgment being given over to your own desires.

But those are the kinds of things that I see when I read scripture that when the political and religious leaders are completely corrupted, that triggers God's judgment. I've been noticing around where I live in Minnesota that some of the Methodist church in this area have these displays out in front of their churches on the lawns of their churches. And they have about what's about six or seven doors and they have a word on each door and each of the doors is colored a different color of the rainbow. So it's a homosexual reference on these doors sticking in the ground on front of these churches. And it says, God's doors are open to all. So one word on each door, God's door doors are open to all.

And of course, that is true. The door to God, the door to salvation is open to all, but they're omitting a very, very important part of it for all those who repent of their sin and forsake their sin and put their faith in Christ. So that kind of universalistic, another gospel, false gospel message promoting the perversion of homosexuality and transgenderism, that's where the religious leadership is. Not everywhere in this country, but certainly bold enough, confident enough to put it on the front lawn of at least two churches in the area where I live. So I don't think there's any doubt, at least in my own time, that God will judge America. Looking at the current landscape, there is a widespread idolatry and rejection of God across our land, widespread sexual morality, widespread wickedness. How often do you hear Romans 1, 18 through 32 get preached? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. When was the last time you heard that passage preached in church?

Probably not very recently or very frequently. But that is the state of America today. And it makes me wonder whether the Babylon of the Revelation talks about this Babylon that all the earth was dependent upon and they received the luxuries of this Babylon and so forth. Many people think that's maybe a literal Babylon over in Iraq.

I think that's unlikely. Maybe it's a revived Roman Empire. Maybe it's Europe. It's made me question through reading the Old Testament prophets whether that's actually America. Because America is nowhere mentioned in scripture, nowhere mentioned in end times prophecy. You just wonder whether the Babylon of the world is maybe this, maybe it's metaphorical for just the empire of America and how great this country has been. Because this country has been great. There's no question about it. It's been probably the most powerful, wealthy nation in the history of mankind.

Even proportionally, probably the most powerful nation and most wealthy and economically powerhouse nation in the history of mankind. But that doesn't affect God. And that doesn't mean that we can't be judged.

And that doesn't mean that God can't turn just a couple levers and turn over everything in our society. But what do you think? Let's take some phone calls in the last segment here today. 1-877-655-6755.

And my question is, what do you think? Is America at a point that would trigger God's judgment? Is America at a point, and if so, why, that would trigger God's judgment? 1-877-655-6755.

Bobby will get you up on the call screening board over the break and we'll try to take some calls in this last next segment. But before we do, I want to make sure we don't make some common mistakes about God's judgment. The common mistakes about God's judgment, this topic, are we think that God won't judge, that he's a God of love and forgiveness forever. That's a common mistake. That's not the God that's portrayed in Scripture. God is a God of love and he's a God of wrath.

He's both. Or the other mistake we make is, well, if we just don't talk about it, maybe it won't happen. Just ignore it. And so much of the evangelical church does that today.

Just kind of keep it positive. But the third mistake, I think, is trying to predict when and who God will judge. Even in the old times, God is incredibly patient. And he sometimes delayed his judgment to successive generations many times after he pronounced his judgment. And yet those generations that were judged were still culpable for their own sin. So it's a mistake to sit here and say, well, look at America today. God will judge us tomorrow. And this is who he's going to judge.

Mistake. We don't have the mind of God. I can see that the conditions in this country are very, not very, very similar to the wickedness that was in existence at different times in history. And those nations, God judged. But to say when and who, I won't go that far. This is David Wheaton.

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David Wheaton, your host. Our website, thechristianworldview.org. Our topic today, what triggers God's judgment, and before we get to our callers, just to make sure I get this in and don't get too rushed right at the end, is how to avoid God's judgment. That's sort of the key question after we've talked about the wrath and anger and judgment of God today.

How do we avoid it? Well, let's go to 2 Peter 3, where Peter says, Know this first of all, that in the last days, and we're in the last days now, it's a period of time. We don't know whether Christ is coming today or tomorrow, maybe a hundred years from now, we just don't know that, but this is the last days. Mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers' fallacy of the Old Testament fathers, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.

For when they maintain this, it escapes our notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

There's a perfect passage that describes the love of God and the wrath of God in the very same passage. There it is. Don't think judgment's not coming.

All continues as it always has been in America. Don't think that. Things can change. God will judge. But there it says, you can count on the fact that he is patient toward you, he doesn't wish for you to perish, but he wants you to come to repentance and faith in his Son.

There's the good news. There's the gospel. God sometimes relents. Look at Nineveh.

God was going to destroy Nineveh through Jonah, and he relented when they repented. That's the answer for America. That's the answer for you personally. If you've lived your life in rebellion against God, repent, turn from your wicked ways, put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and follow him as Lord. That's how you can avoid God's judgment.

Let's go to the first call. Mark in Ohio, welcome to the Christian Rovio. What are your thoughts on God's judgment?

In regards to abortion, a lot of people don't know it, but six months after Roe v. Wade was enacted, TBN came on the air. And I believe that is a form of judgment, that God allows heretics and other false teachers to rise up and infest a country as a form of judgment, because it's basically a way of getting people to give over to their desires, their lusts. I mean, you look at the rise of the seeker-sensitive movement with Bill Hybels, who has fallen recently, or James McDonald, who has fallen recently. I mean, all of these heresies just keep blooming and blooming and blooming. We never put up a fight back in the early 60s when prayer and Bible reading was kicked out of school.

There was no mass resistance, so to speak, for that. And I believe God is judging us by sending us and allowing these heretics to flourish and run over. I mean, it's to the point where people are so dumbed down. A little church here in Marysville, when it started up, the most common question the founding pastor had 10 years ago was, what's the dress code going to be?

People weren't worried about the teaching or anything else. It's like, if I were the pastor, I would have said, well, for 10 weeks we're going to have evangelistic services, because obviously there's a lot of salvation that needs to take place. You know, we have been given over and overrun by heresy. And I would love to see if there's a follow-up study to Josh McDowell's study on pornography in the church, because I would bet that it's just only getting worse.

Yeah. Mark, I appreciate your call. Thanks for calling the Christian Real View today. And I think your point goes to what we were discussing today, that when not only the leadership, let's say the political leadership of the country gets corrupted, does judgment come, but when the spiritual leadership becomes corrupted, then you have sort of the two sides there. The two sides of the leadership get corrupted and you start getting false gospel, false teaching, false doctrine, everything. That's at a point that you see what triggers God's judgment. That's what happens in the Old Testament. Read through Jeremiah. You see the kings were corrupt, but also the spiritual, the religious leadership of the nation was corrupted as well. You said, Jeremiah, tell them judgment's coming.

Tell them to repent or else this is going to happen. My judgment's going to come. And I think in many ways, that's where we are in America today. Again, does that mean that I think God's judgment is going to come today?

I just don't know. But His judgment will come. God is incredibly equitable and fair in meeting out His judgment. And it will come unless we repent. And then He might relent, but He might not. Let's go next to Robert in Mississippi. Thanks for calling the Christian Real View today, Robert.

What are your thoughts on God's judgment? Good morning. Thank you for the call.

So, using the analogy of the midnight hour, I made the argument to the screener that I think we're about five minutes away. I don't think that we've lost the political class yet. We have some very, very strong political leaders that are on the pro-life Christian movement. Our VP, for example, even though we don't have the White House as a full Christian devotee, we've got very strong. We have a very strong political underclass, which I consider the judges, most recently Supreme Court, with their rulings protecting religious liberty.

A lot of states are doing that. As far as the spiritual leadership goes, the one thing that I've always admired about the United States is we don't really have like one massive spiritual leader, a la the pope. And so, there's a ton of grassroots movements.

Movies, like, for example, the unplanned movie, are unexpectedly, and I think God has a reason behind that, are unexpectedly popular or, you know, surprisingly, you know, bestsellers, whatever, books and stuff. So, I think there's an undertow, an undercurrent in a grassroots level. So, I think we're about five minutes away. Unfortunately, though, to the larger point of what I've heard from you in the previous caller, I think we're losing probably, you know, keeping with the same analogy, 30 seconds every, I don't know, two, three years. Because, yes, there is a massive upswelling of people who don't know God, don't know the Lord, the rebellion, the heresy, the humanist society. So, and I think the grassroots movements, if we could somehow figure out a way to stay united, and that's what worries me about what I heard you say about the church up there in… Hey, Robert, we've come up against the end of the show here.

Just got to let you go, but thank you for your call. And I agree with that assessment that there's no question that there is a solid element of this country that wants to honor God and is working hard to preach the gospel, and that's the only solution here. The solution here is not just being united kind of on political issues, the solution is being very united on what the gospel is, accurately proclaiming God's word. And when those things happen, that's what changes people, ultimately changes them, and that's what changes a country. And that's what we need to be praying for, for our spiritual leadership, our church leadership, and for our families as well.

It starts with us too. We can't just look elsewhere and look at the rot in this country. We need to look at the rot within too, repent of it and turn from it, turn to obedience to God, because He may relent and may not judge, or may relent for a time, we just don't know. But God is a God of love, but He's also a God of judgment. Thank you for listening to the Christian Real View today. We do live in a challenging and changing America, but there is one thing we can always trust and count on, Jesus Christ and His Word.

They are the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Christian World View is a weekly one-hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian World View. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.