Systematic Theology – Eschatology

The Judgment as Crisis

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 23 of 32

Track: #23

Year:

Dictation Name: 23 The Judgment as Crisis.

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

Oh Lord our God who art the author of all things, and who of Thy grace and mercy has given unto us salvation, hast given unto us such glorious promises, and hast assured us that Thou wilt never leave us, nor forsake us. We come to Thee fed by Thee, to be strengthened by Thy Spirit, to be made more than conquerors as we face the warfares of this world. We pray our Father for the embattled churches and Christian Schools, for the persecuted ones in this country and the world over. That by Thy grace they may be delivered from the hands of the enemy; that Humanistic Statism may be put down and destroyed; that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Grant us this we beseech Thee, and bless us in our part in the battle. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is first of all from Amos 5:18-27, from the prophet Amos first of all, the fifth chapter, eighteen through twenty-seven; and our subject Judgment as Crisis. Amos 5:18-27.

“18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20 Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.”

And now from Hebrews 9, the last two verses, 27 and 28, Hebrews 9:27 & 28.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

The sad fact is that in our day the last judgment is of central importance, either to contemporary theology or to contemporary Christian life, because neither law nor justice are given their due place in Christian thinking. Antinomianism militates against the judgments of God’s law in time, and therefore erodes the last judgment as well. If you deny God’s law and the judgment of law in time, how much are you going to leave of God’s law and judgment at the end? And so the last judgment was not important today as it once was in theology

Moreover a very critical fact is overlooked and neglected, namely that the last judgment is inseparable from the doctrine of atonement. In Hebrews 9 verse 27 & 28 this relationship between judgment and atonement is very plainly and irrevocably stated. What does it say? That all men must faith death, and after death in this life all these men will face judgment, the last judgment. “And Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall he appear the second time without sin, unto salvation.” We have a parallelism here. On the one hand, speaking of those who are unregenerate, who are not covered by the atoning sacrifice of the great high priest, Jesus Christ, of whom the chapter is speaking up to this point. Those men face death in this life, and judgment in the world to come, but those whose sins are atoned for by Jesus Christ, when He comes, it shall be unto the fullness of their salvation.

So that death and the judgment constitute a double judgment on the ungodly; whereas our atonement delivers us from the judgment of God, which is death upon all sin. So that death is the entrance for us into eternal life, and the end brings us Jesus Christ our Lord in person unto the fullness of salvation.

Now it is interesting that the word “judgment” in Hebrews 9:27 is in the Greek the same as our English word “crisis”, except that it is spelled with a “k”. K-r-i-s-i-s. And the simple fact is that our English word crisis brings over an important part of the meaning of the Greek word judgment. What is an examination, a test? Whether it’s in a grade school or a graduate school it’s a crisis. [Laughter from audience]. What is judgment when a person is confronted with the consequences of their sins? Whether it is a child facing an angry father or mother and about to have something applied to the seat of learning, or a criminal in court; it’s a crisis. So that we can understand the Biblical meaning of the word judgment if we see that it is very closely related to our English word “crisis” which comes from the Greek word.

Crisis is a judgment, it is separating in terms of justice, it is a decision or a judgment rendered by God. In judgment, in crisis, a man comes face to face with the consequences of his sins. But men dislike crisis, do they not? And people will do anything to avoid a crisis or a judgment. They reject the necessity of an either-or situation in life. They prefer a lukewarm stand, and our Lord speaks of the Laodicean church as given to lukewarmness, neither hot nor cold, wanting no crisis; not wanting to have to make a stand anywhere, and so he says the net result of this shall be judgment. Crisis is inescapable no matter how much men try to avoid it.

You know our economy has been, since World War II, avoiding the crisis created by World War I and it’s depression. We’ve inflated to get away from the depression, and inflation is a repressed depression. But the crisis has only been postponed, it has not been evaded, and the net result is that sooner or later that crisis, that judgment will come, and will be all the more overwhelming because it has been evaded.

In John 16 verse 8 & 11 our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit convicting and reproving men of sin. Now the word’s translated into the English as convicting and reproving are again in the Greek the same word, krisis. The Holy Spirit brings crisis to men, the word of God brings Crisis. That’s why Bible reading and Bible study is not popular, it brings crisis to our thinking. It gives us the alternatives and says “this is the way, walk ye in it” and people don’t like a crisis; and so they’re always too busy to read the Bible. But crisis, or decision, cannot be avoided. A crisis is a necessary separation; sometimes to judgment, or to prison, or to hell. When men will not separate themselves to Christ and His covenant, to the covenant law and the life of the covenant, God comes to them, Christ comes to them at the last with crisis, with judgment. The unatoned will be separated for judgment.

In John 3:16 we read “he that believeth on Him is not condemned, but He that believeth not is condemned already not is condemned already because He hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” In other words, Christ confronts us and we face a crisis. We either except the judgment upon Christ as our atonement, or we face His judgment. The parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25 verses 31- 46 presents us with the fact of crisis in the church, because the parable of judgment has to do with the church, all those who call themselves by the name of Christ, all call Him Lord, but Christ makes the decision. “In as much as ye dideth not unto one of the least of these, ye dideth not unto me; but inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me.” The crisis there is a judgment, a separation. Not only to everlasting punishment, but also our Lord says to life eternal. In other words the crisis for the elect is a blessing, but the crisis of judgment does not always wait until the last judgment. It comes day by day, for the wages of sin have always been and will always be, death. So that life faces us with crisis, which bring either continual condemnation or blessings.

One of the most common words or terms for judgment in the Bible is “The day of the Lord.” We encounter it throughout the Old Testament as well as in the New. In Amos 5 verses 18-27 we have a great statement of judgment, of judgment as crisis. Because the people were hypocritical believers they were speaking about the day of the Lord as though it were going to be the answer to all their problems, as though because they went through the outward forms they were going to be blessed. And so Amos says unto them “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? For you the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.” And then we have, in verse 19, one of the most powerful verse in all of the Bible describing the certainty of God’s judgment. “As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him;” well that’s a crisis, isn’t it? You’re running from a lion and a bear meets you. You just barely get away from him, or went into the house, shut the door, “thank God I escaped the bear and the lion” and he leaned against the wall, and a serpent bit him. What is Amos saying here? There is no escaping the judgment of God. You might get away from the lion and the bear, and get into the safety of your house, but the serpent shall get you there.

“Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, even very dark, and no brightness in it?” Why? Now God speaks in the rest of this passage: ‘ I hate, (He says) I despise your feast days, I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.” And goes on to say He will not accept there sacrifices nor their songs of praise, their music, but let judgment run downs as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. “Justice is what I require, not the outward forms of worship.” “Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?” What good did it do the generation in the wilderness that they offered up sacrifices? They perished in the wilderness because they were a rebellious and unbelieving people.

“What have you done?” God says “you’ve borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.” You’ve carried astrological symbols in your sacred possessions; you’ve worshipped Moloch, which is the king.” State worship, which is what marks the state of Nebraska today, and the federal government, and a great many other states which seek to govern and to control the church of Christ. And the other God mentioned was a god of the Assyrians, and they worship the power of Assyria. In other words, political power was what they sought, and therefore they were given to worship of Moloch and of an Assyrian God, and God’s judgment is crisis “ Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.”

The day of the Lord, judgment. It is an interesting fact that in Hebrew and in ancient Arabic the word “the day” with the emphasis on The Day referred to battle, the day of battle. And over and over again it appears in the literature of Semitic languages as setting forth, a crisis, a day of battle a day of confrontation. And the day of the Lord is the day of confrontation with the Lord God of hosts, it is crisis. And the prophets tell us that the day of the Lord comes again and again in history, as men seek to live their lives apart from the Lord, and find that it cannot be done because God will not let them.

The day of the Lord is the day of crisis; judgment, condemnation on the one hand, and a blessings and restoration and restitution on the other hand. We are told for example that the Babylonian captivity came as a judgment upon the people of the Land, upon Judah and Jerusalem, and upon Samaria and Israel. But it also came as a blessing to the land. It came, we are told in II Chronicles 36:21, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbath, for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath. Fulfill three score and ten years. God restored the land, He took away the people. At the same time God promised to the faithful a restitution and restoration from the pagans. In Isaiah 43:6 we read “‘I will say to the North, give up! And to the South, ‘keep not back, bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.’” Zachariah 14:4 and many, many other passages tell us that the wealth of the pagans is to be given to the Lord’s people. All God’s blessings shall be poured out upon His people, so says also Amos chapter 9:11-15.

Thus Crisis comes, judgment comes. It comes as the condemnation of the ungodly but it comes also as the restoration of the Godly. It includes, finally, as a part of that restoration process, the destruction of death. Isaiah 25 verses 8 and 9 declare in words echoed in Revelation “He will swallow up death and victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall be taken away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day “lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him and He will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”

For the individual believer the final crisis means that the resurrection body becomes his life forevermore, and he serves God eternally. For him the crisis of life culminate in the great and final victory of Christ, and in His eternal blessedness and happiness in and with his Lord. Let us pray.

Great and marvelous are Thy ways oh Lord, and we thank Thee that we live in a time of crisis when there shall be a separating. When Thou oh Lord shall purge the nations, and shall cleanse the earth; and bless those of Thy suffering saints who have been faithful to deliver them from the hands of the enemy, from the hands of the Molochs of our day, and to prosper them in Thy service. Oh Lord our God give us grace so to walk day by day that in the time of crisis they may know Thy blessing and Thy protecting, Thy prospering hand. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] What was that?

[Audience member] In verse 26, 5:26 “star of your god”.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it refers there first of all to two kinds of religious worship, Moloch, state worship, Chiun, the god of the Assyrians representing the power of Assyria; “the star of your gods,” astrological symbols that were carried in processions. In other words their attitude was “we will worship at the temple of God, but on our feast days we’ll also carry symbols, royal symbols, astrological symbols, we might as well hedge our bets, as it were. In other words it was a reference to syncretism. Syncretism means attempting to combine two alien things, two different religions, in order, supposedly, to get the benefits of all.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, exactly. This was common then and is common now. Syncretistic religion today is predominately Christianity that is ostensibly Biblical, and is at the same time Humanistic. That’s the great syncretism of our day. Parents who put their children in public schools, when they know better, are guilty of syncretism. They are in effect carrying the symbols of two God’s, the cross of Christ, and the symbols of Humanism.”

Yes?

[Audience member] Concerning the recent trial that you attended in Nebraska; well actually no, the one that you attended prior to that. Where was that? In Arkansas?

[Rushdoony] No, Oklahoma.

[Audience member] Oklahoma. Well maybe I’m thinking of the one where judge Hand {?}..

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, Alabama.

[Audience member] Alabama, that’s the one I’m thinking of.

[Rushdoony] Yes, Judge Hand presided and ruled in favor of our side.

[Audience member] Yes, now the thing that I’m interested in is why are we concerned particularly with that case when it deals with the right of prayer in a public school? Why should we care about that anyway?

[Rushdoony] Yes, good question. Why were we concerned about the right of prayer in a public school in the Alabama case? There was an issue involved because what in effect has been said in the Supreme Court is, that anything can exist in the public schools, except Christianity. In other words, the study of witchcraft and occultist subjects can readily be studied; Humanism can be openly taught, anything goes (including pornography) but not Christianity. And in that case a teacher, a black women, who had begun the class with prayer, was arrested and if she lost was going to have to pay heavy damages as well. So it was a case of defending a Christian who was being persecuted.

[Audience member] Well then in other cases that you’ve been involved there have been groups that we would not hold to their theological perspective by any stretch of the imagination, but you’ve obviously been involved with these groups who have been persecuted by the state, for some very good reasons. I wonder if you could mention…?

[Rushdoony] Yes I have been involved in the defense, as a witness of many groups, some of whom are more than a little leery of me. This was not true of the Pentecostals, they were most appreciative and gracious, in some instances I go to a trial and testify and I’m not even thanked. But the point is it’s still a cause of Christ. Paul thanked God for men who were working against him because he said at least they were preaching Christ after a fashion. I think it’s even more in this case. When they pick on any religious group it is to establish a legal precedent against us, thus I would be ready to go to court for cults that I think are very, very wrong; such as the Mooney’s, for example; because I know that when they get a precedent against the Mooney’s, it’s to use it against us.

But especially where Christian groups are, while I may disagree very strongly with them, and they may not like me at all, still they’re fighting on our side and I think it’s a peculiar soldier, and one to be wary of, who starts shooting at his own side. And unhappily there are too many in this battle who are busy loading their weapons and shooting only at their side, and I can cite you a number of periodicals which devote all their attention and a number of men, to sniping at Christians who are in the battle. To me that tells you about something about where there real loyalties are, they’re not with Christ. It would do them good to read the parable of judgment, and hear the Lord say “in as much as you did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me.”

Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God whose word is truth, we thank Thee that Thou hast spoken, and Thy word is a blessing unto us, a light upon our way and a joy to our hearts, and we thank Thee. Dismiss us now with Thy blessing, watch over us in the days ahead, and prosper us in Thy service. In Jesus name, amen.