These studies are designed for believers in Jesus Christ only. If you have exercised faith in Christ, then you are in the right place. If you have not, then you need to heed the words of our Lord, Who said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten [or, uniquely-born] Son, so that every [one] believing [or, trusting] in Him shall not perish, but shall be have eternal life! For God did not send His Son into the world so that He should judge the world, but so that the world shall be saved through Him. The one believing [or, trusting] in Him is not judged, but the one not believing has already been judged, because he has not believed in the Name of the only-begotten [or, uniquely-born] Son of God.” (John 3:16–18). “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life! No one comes to the Father except through [or, by means of] Me!” (John 14:6).
Every study of the Word of God ought to be preceded by a naming of your sins to God. This restores you to fellowship with God (1John 1:8–10). If there are people around, you would name these sins silently. If there is no one around, then it does not matter if you name them silently or whether you speak aloud.
Preface: Before God judges a particular geographical area, He gives them fair warning. This warning may come in the form of teaching from the Word of God or this warning might be smaller judgments which build up to a massive judgment. We often refer to this as grace before judgment.
1. No sin is too great for the grace of God. Any believer at any time can turn his life around (unless he is in the final stages of the sin unto death). Any geographical area can turn itself around. No matter how far down a path a sin a nation has gone, it can be turned around.
2. All believers sin. All nations, geographical areas, organizations, companies, platoons, classrooms, etc. are infected with sin. So, when a corporate institution is judged, there is more involved here than sin.
3. We have two examples early on in the book of Genesis: the flood and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
4. In Gen. 6, all mankind had become tainted with angel blood, so to speak. True humanity had nearly disappeared from this earth due to inter-species sexual unions, between angels and the daughters of men. It had come to a point where only those in Noah’s family were true humanity.
5. For 120 years, Noah built the ark, and this was a witness to those who lived on the earth. God provided Noah with great protection during this time, as the earth was filled with violence, and the half-breeds were far more powerful than normal humans.
6. These half-breeds were also men, and they, therefore, could have chosen to believe in Noah’s God, but they chose not to.
1) At this point, we must differentiate between what is possible and what is actual.
2) We all have free will and we can choose to use this free will in a variety of ways.
3) God already knows how we will use our free will; but He has not programmed us to make certain choices nor does He reach into our volition and turn it from positive to negative or vice versa.
4) So, even though none of these half-breeds will choose to believe in Yehowah Elohim, that does not mean that they lack the ability to do so.
7. This gives us the key to God’s cataclysmic judgment on a corporate institution: when we come to a point where no one produced by birth will believe in Jesus Christ; and where those who have believed in Jesus Christ have either left, died, been slaughtered or are about to be slaughtered. Under these circumstances, there is no need for God to allow this population to continue. Therefore, God would destroy all that was on the earth in the time of Noah, except for Noah and his family.
8. However, for 120 years, Noah built the ark and was likely collecting and housing animals as well. During all of this time, anyone could have chosen to believe in Yehowah Elohim (Jesus Christ in the Old Testament). That is grace before judgment. The fact that none of them believed does not negate the principle.
9. Sodom (and Gomorrah and the other 3 cities) had faced judgments already: they were under the thumb of an eastern rulership, where they paid tribute (think of it as taxes) to a foreign government. That is essentially the 4th stage of national discipline. When they tried to throw off the yoke of bondage, the kings from the east came to put down their rebellion and take the survivors into slavery (which would be a lesson to the other nations which they ruled over and collected tribute from). Abraham came in with a small Delta Force and defeated the Eastern armies, freeing those who were taken as captives from Sodom. This is grace before judgment. Gen. 14
10. Sodom could have recognized that they were in a precarious situation; that they had turned away from God, and that Abraham, who saved, them, was the key to their understanding Who and What God is. However, they chose not to.
11. In fact, after a couple decades pass, the men of Sodom have become so perverse that they would use strangers as sexual playthings, rape them, while hundreds of the city males would watch and be stimulated by the sex and violence. Their perversion reached a point where no one else from their seed would be saved. They were too far gone. They were too degenerate. Only Lot, his wife and 2 daughters were clearly righteous by faith in Yehowah Elohim. However, it is clear in the narrative of Gen. 19 that these were weak believers, who knew little doctrine. Even though Lot’s daughters were betrothed to be married and were still virgins, their fiancees did not believe Lot when he warned them of the judgment to come. They thought that Lot would use his Lord’s name in order to play a joke on them. It is very possible that these men were not saved. We do not know about the rest of Lot’s family, who are intimated in the context of Gen. 19, but never actually become a part of the narrative.
12. The people of Sodom had reached a point where God had to remove them like a cancer. However, grace before judgment means, they received ample warning of this, going back to Gen. 14.
13. In principle, God still protects the disobedient believer even when he is out of fellowship and living in the pig-pen. God is still watching over the prodigal son because he is in the family, but eventually it becomes time for the sin unto death.
14. There is always forgiveness. If you are still alive God has a plan for your life. You can use 1John 1:9 to get back into fellowship, but the issue then is to stay in fellowship, to grow, to mature, to start applying doctrine and get out of the pig-pen. What happens so often is people get out, take a shower and then jump right back in, and they spend most of their Christian life in this cycle where they confess and get cleansed and jump right back into the pig-pen of the world's system, and they never advance because they are really not positive.
15. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily erase the consequences of an impoverished and perverted soul. If there is no change through doctrine then the soul remains impoverished and perverted and there is no happiness and there is no capacity for life.
16. We observe the truth of this in the latter half of Gen. 19, where the daughters of Lot decide to have children by means of their father.
17. Israel as a nation will be given grace before judgment. Although God eventually put Israel through the 4th and 5th stages of national discipline, He sent prophets to speak to the people and to the leaders of the nation, to give them the opportunity to turn things around. That is what the entire prophetic tradition was about. In the case of Isaiah, the people changed their minds, they turned around, and God destroyed the Assyrian army that would have destroyed them. However, a century later, in the time of Jeremiah, the people had turned away form God and Jeremiah did not change their minds. However, the ministry of Jeremiah (and the other prophets) was God giving grace before judgment. The entire system of prophets from God is God giving grace before judgment.
18. Not every time does grace before judgment result in a cataclysmic outcome. David sinned greatly when he took Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, to his bed; and then later had this soldier killed. The prophet Nathan came to David and presented him with a court case, and David was incensed by acts of the rich man and pronounced judgment upon him. Then Nathan said, “You are that man!” Nathan pronounced judgments that would come upon David, and David endured these judgments (many of which were simply natural results of the things which he had done), and came out the other end as still being king over a united Israel, establishing a dynasty for Israel, and being a type of Christ. So, even though David faced grace before judgment, the judgment was also grace from God, and David was able to recover.
19. The parable of the prodigal son is grace before judgment. The prodigal son was in such a sorry state, that he realized, he could put himself at the mercy of his own father. The painful state that he was in (which was the natural consequences of his actions) was grace that brought him back to his father. Although this is a parable, it is illustrative of the state of many believers along the road of life.
20. For all of us who face such judgment from God, we come out of it by using 1John 1:9 (naming our sins to God) and then growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
