September 22
September 22
There will be a day of final judgment, when God will punish evil and right all that has been wronged.
In the busyness of everyday life, it is tempting to live as though life will never change or end. I think many of us live as eternity amnesiacs. We live as though there will never be an end to our days on earth. But when you live with eternity and a final accounting in view, your approach to life radically changes. God is eternal, and we will live on into eternity, but this world and our lives are a march to a final conclusion. There will be a final day of reckoning, when the Lord, in holy and righteous judgment, will mete out his final justice. No one will escape his judgment.
The reality of God’s impending judgment is a theme that runs throughout all of the Prophets, but is especially prominent in the book of Zephaniah. The phrase Zephaniah repeatedly uses to speak of this day is “the day of the Lord”:
Be silent before the Lord God!
For the day of the Lord is near;
the Lord has prepared a sacrifice
and consecrated his guests.
And on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice—
“I will punish the officials and the king’s sons
and all who array themselves in foreign attire.
On that day I will punish
everyone who leaps over the threshold,
and those who fill their master’s house
with violence and fraud.” (Zeph. 1:7–9)
Think about what this warning means. We live in a moral world ruled by a holy God. This holy one has the power and authority to define for us what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, and what is wise and what is foolish. When you live in a moral world, ruled by a holy God, everything you do has moral meaning to it. What you desire, think, choose, speak, and do matters. You live obediently to God’s holy commands, or else you write your own rules and follow the desires of your own heart. What was true for the children of Israel is true for us: we will all face a day when we will give an account for how we have lived.
This means we should take life seriously and live with that final accounting in view. But we also should celebrate that Jesus lived a perfect life on our behalf and paid the penalty for all of our sin, so that in the final day of accounting we can stand before the Lord of lords—even though we have sinned—unafraid of his final condemnation. Jesus took our condemnation, so that, in the final reckoning, our sin will not eternally separate us from God.
So, as you celebrate justifying grace, take life seriously and live joyfully inside of God’s wise and holy moral boundaries.