Mercy Over Judgment – God’s View of Judgment

You know, the sheer volume of content required to produce this site is simply staggering.  Jennifer and I have taken point on this task, and I do have to say the Father has been utterly faithful.  He has infused our beings with each and every message that comes from His heart, and has given unction and Life flow to the writing.  Thank you, Daddy!

Today, I am still on the subject of my last post. My heart and spirit is emboldened with this word: “Do you feel you will escape from the judgment you so willingly pronounce?”

Prophets Proclaiming Judgment

I’ve looked back at every true prophet, from Jeremiah to Isaiah, and Hosea to John the Baptist—they all came with a fiery message of love and judgment.  The messages were entwined with God’s passionate heart for His whoring children. With tears and nakedness, they came strongly proclaiming God’s passion as friends of the Bridegroom. The prophets’ word was threefold: an invitation to come to God, a call to leave your wicked ways, and finally, the proclamation of consequences for your resistance to God’s plea.

Each of these men lived splayed by the very heart of God.  Their insides were turned out with God’s own lovesickness.  Their hearts, lives, and spirits were wracked with God’s own emotion. When they said yes to God’s call, they were assigned the weight of His passion and force of His words.  Aloofness was not possible with the burning.

The Prophet’s Own Judgment

But there is one man in the Scriptures who stood counter to being a demonstration of God’s actual heart.  That man was Jonah.  Jonah stood firm with his opinions and in his personal vengeful wrath.  He resisted a call to bear the marks of God’s love.  Jonah stands for the prophet who hates, believing his own judgment against a wicked people. Kind of like today’s prophets who resist God’s heart while proclaiming the obvious signs of judgment.

I can imagine Jonah sitting at the table and talking about how those filthy Ninevites were going to burn. How God’s judgment was going to level them for their sins.  How deserving they were of burning—this Great Babylon! I bet he even had a bit of joy that they were gonna get theirs.  It didn’t cost him anything, he wasn’t living there, and they had done so much wrong.  But God put a stop to this.  Jonah would bear his own judgment.  He would sit in the dark abyss while being ingested by a whale.  He wasn’t exempt from his own judgment while he stood for theirs.  No, he would have to deliver God’s word with God’s heart.

Our Own Judgment

So how does this relate to our time? Again, anyone with any spiritual discernment can see the writing on the United States’ wall. But just because I have a Costa Rican getaway or a Belize bungalow to hide in and speak my wrathful words of judgment doesn’t mean I will be spared.  If God has airlifted me out of the States, wonderful. But like Jonah, don’t think we’ll remain untouched just because we walked the other way.  If the Lord is calling us to speak words of warning, make sure they are spoken with God’s passionate cry.

He isn’t joyful to bring His judgment. You have to look at the source of His passion, see that His heart is broken, and that this is His reason to strike.  It is LOVE! There is a sick fascination in some to see America burn—this great harlot who is making the world drunk with her filthy wine. These people lick their lips, while each moment passes, just waiting for an apocalypse! But has God been sitting darkly in the corner just chomping at the bit to rain fire down on us? Or has He been mercifully calling to our sin-deafened ears? Mercy holds hands with judgment, and sometimes the most merciful thing is judgment, but God help those who inwardly yearn to see God’s wrathful hand.  You never know, it might strike them as He swings.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy;
mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:12, 13