The Judgment of God

Isaiah 5:25 “Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.”

The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “Judgment” in Scripture as (1) the spirit of wisdom and prudence, enabling a person to discern right and wrong, good and evil. (2) A remarkable punishment; an extraordinary calamity inflicted by God on sinners. (3) The spiritual government of the world. (4) The righteous statutes and commandments of God are called his judgments. (5) The doctrines of the gospel, or God's word. (6) The final trial of the human race, when God will decide the fate of every individual, and award sentence according to justice. Hebrews 9:27 “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”

A study on Isaiah 5:25 explains that judgment was coming to Judah because the people had rejected the law of God. They refused to keep His precepts as their fathers had done, and they threw the law away from them as if it were nothing more than a piece of trash. Isaiah said that two things roused God’s wrath against His chosen people: their rejection of His law and their disdain for His Word. These are one and the same, the latter just being one step further down the path of apostasy than the other. The Jewish people had rejected the law as the standard for their conduct, but they didn’t stop there. They even despised it to the point that they mocked and ridiculed it, and hence derided the holiness of God.

The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 12:35-36 “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.”

Protestant Reformer John Calvin says of Judah’s treatment of God’s law that “it was not through ignorance or mistake, but through inveterate malice, that they shook off the yoke of God, and abandoned themselves to every kind of licentiousness; which was nothing else than to reject so kind a Father, and to give themselves up to be the slaves of the devil.” This being the state of Judah, God’s wrath was kindled against them. They already had suffered some chastisement in the past, but they hadn’t learned from it. And now, in the days of repose and prosperity, they were being warned that God’s hand was still stretched forth; a more severe punishment than they could ever imagine was coming.

Romans 2:12 “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.”

Isaiah said that punishment would come in the form of war. An enemy from “far off” would attack them. This would have made the Jews scoff, because they were currently at peace with their neighbors. But when God chooses to bring judgment on a people, He often does it by unexpected and unlikely means. Though the kingdom of Israel had faced God’s wrath, the kingdom of Judah was not yet overturned. The people thought themselves safe from the calamities of their brethren. But Isaiah warned them that God would command foreign nations to rise up against them, and in this case it was the Assyrians.

Isaiah 26:9 “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

The lesson concludes that if God decides to bring judgment on a nation that has rejected His law and held His holiness in contempt, He will use any means necessary to that end. Judgment might come through pestilence, famine, war, or some other form. We don’t know. But one thing we can be sure of: if we no longer honor God’s law, judgment will come from the least expected place, and with it will come death and destruction.

May righteousness with God prevail.