But the Lord is in his holy Temple;
the Lord still rules from heaven.
He watches everyone closely,
examining every person on earth.
The Lord examines both
the righteous and the wicked.
He hates those who love violence.
He will rain down blazing coals
and burning sulfur on the wicked,
punishing them with scorching winds.
For the righteous Lord loves justice.
The virtuous will see his face.    –  Psalm 11:4-7 (NLT)

The difference in receiving God judgement vs His discipline is based on your relationship with God.  If you are a unbeliever then God deals with you according to His righteous judgement which can result in both physical death and Spiritual death, eternal separation from God.  If you are a believer then God deals with you according to His righteous discipline which can result in physical death but not Spiritual death (1 Corinthians 5:5), a believer can never be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).  Physical death is God’s final act of judgement or discipline upon someone for disobeying His will.  However, in most cases physical death for the believer is not a result of discipline from God but a blessing of Grace that is granted as a reward for a life of faith well lived.

The Holy Spirit convicts a believer to righteousness toward Sanctification and the Holy Spirit convicts the unbeliever of sin toward Salvation.

The main thing to keep in mind about God concerning His judgement or discipline is that God is long suffering and patient toward us.  God’s grace and mercy are on display as He patiently knocks on the door of our heart and longs to come and dine with us.  God is not absent from duty when He allows us to sin and yet we don’t feel effects of His judgment or discipline upon us.  God’s judgment and discipline is always being made but often the punishment is delayed so we will confess our sin and seek His forgiveness.  God is the perfect prodigal Father.  He longs to lavish us with His grace and His love but first an unbeliever must repent and “enter” His Kingdom by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 10:13, John 3:16), so God doesn’t have to judge them (John 3:18).

John 3: 16“ For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17“ For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18“ He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Most people are familiar with God’s love for the world when they quote John 3:16 but God does not love the fact that the world is under the “curse of sin”.  God does not love the fact that a person is born with a sin nature that he inherited from Adam.  God does not love the fact that man is born under a sentence of Spiritual and physical death and eternal separation from God.  God does not love sin which masquerades as humanism, the delusion that man is basically good and he doesn’t need to repent of sin and be “born again”.  God does not love what man has done with this world, building monuments to honor human reasoning.  But God loves the world the way He created it to be and the way it He will redeem it to be … a world that honors Godly righteousness for His glory.  God hates this world of sin but God loves the fact that man can be saved from sin by believing in His Son, Jesus Christ.  God loves the fact that man can be reconciled and united with God for all eternity by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9).  A person is not born with a neutral or submissive disposition toward God but with a rebel heart that thinks he knows best.

 God doesn’t want an unbeliever to perish and remain eternally separated from Him but He desires for all to come to repentance and be saved, Spiritually connected and reconciled to Him (2 Peter 3:9).  And God is also long suffering toward believers.  God desires for a believer to “confess their sin and return to Him”.  When a believer has “fallen away” from their marriage vow to God, to make Him “first” in their life, the believer will experience “grief”, Spiritual pain, as they grieve the Holy Spirit that is abiding within them.  This grief is meant to draw them back to fellowship with God by following – 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.“   However, if the believer doesn’t confesses their sin, they come under the discipline of God.  

Note, a believer can not lose his Salvation.  Salvation is based on “birth” in Jesus, not behavior.  Salvation is not a “doing” of works or a “speaking” of words but it is a “receiving” of new life in Christ.  Moreover, Salvation is receiving of a “revelation” from God that causes a Spiritual awakening and sealing of the Holy Spirit in the person … the cross from death to life … from an unbeliever to a believer.  Once Saved, Always Saved is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Salvation is a good work that Jesus begins in the person and He has promised to complete it (Philippians 1:6).  When a person is saved they get a new Spiritual nature that fights against the old sin nature.  The believer is to deny his old sin nature and follow his new Spiritual nature in Christ. 

This is what it means to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6  Confessing our sins daily (1 John 1:9) it not something a believer does in fear as though they could lose their Salvation but it is an acknowledgement of who you are in Christ “a sinner saved by Grace”.  It is the way to keep your conscience clear so you don’t take credit for God’s work and allow pride to come between you and God.  Confession of sin is not a repentance of sin (a change of mind toward sin) … this happened at Salvation but it’s an acknowledgement that you are repentant and dependent upon God, so you can hear Him and follow Him.  Through humility toward self and praise toward Christ in you (Die2Live), in this way you share in the joy of what God is doing in you and you share in the rewards of His accomplishments through you.

The unbeliever is not a child of God but a child of Satan … God judges Satan’s children.

 

The believer is a child of God … God disciplines His children.

We have talked about judgement and discipline of God in general but how does it work specifically in detail.  It works very well, you can count on that.  What you can’t count on is being able to figure out exactly how God’s judgment and discipline work.  God sometimes directly causes the storms of judgment or discipline but He also can simply remove His hand of protection from us and allows the world or the Devil to bring a storm upon us.  God can allow us to have our own stubborn way which results in pride that can lead to a “big” fall or becoming mentally unstable.  For us it is usually impossible to tell if God is directly or indirectly causing the storm, just as it is often impossible for us to know if a person is a believer or unbeliever.  And to further muddy the water, God also allows trial and troubles to come upon the life of a “faithful” believer, to test and strengthen a believers faith.  

Actually to a certain extent, this world is just one big trial and test for the believer and each day the believer must ask … am I trusting Jesus or am I trusting self?  The difference of whether the trail is “discipline from God” upon the believer or a “way to draw closer to God” is determined by the response of the believer to the trail.  Through the troubles of this world God is perfecting the faithful believer, drawing that believer closer to Himself in love and dependence upon Him to get him through the trail but the unfaithful believer ties to overcome the trail under his own ability and strength, in essence running from God instead of running to God.  God has given a promise to “complete the good work He began in a believer” (Philippians 1:6) … therefore a believer “will be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ” when he is in the presence of Jesus Christ with a resurrected body on the “day of Christ Jesus” … the rapture/resurrection!  However, this “perfection process” or this transformation process into the image of Jesus Christ that began at salvation and is completed at the rapture/resurrection is also an “ongoing process” in the life of the believer while he is on earth called “sanctification“.  A believer who cooperates with this transformation process, by denying his sin nature and abiding in his new Christ nature (the leading of the Holy Spirit to depend upon God’s promises) will reap rewards in Heaven for his faithfulness and will not come under the discipline of God on earth. 

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  – Philippians 1:6

Discipline for the believer will make that person feel miserable and tormented by guilt as he grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit that is within him.  And the believer will also be well aware of the specific sin that God is disciplining him for.  The believer who doesn’t respond to discipline and return to fellowship with God will eventually be so miserable that physical manifestations of his misery will start to overcome him, which can even result in death, if the believer does not confess his sin to God (1 John 1:9).  The believer will go to heaven and be reconciled to God but he will have wasted an opportunity to earn rewards for being an obedient servant of the Lord while on earth.  When the dead in Christ rise to get their resurrected body, they will appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ, not to be judged for their sin, these were paid by Jesus on the cross, but to be judged for the good works of faith they did in Jesus name after they were saved.  God is going to grant believers rewards and privileges in Heaven based on their faithful service to God on earth but God will not withhold an entrance to Heaven for a unfaithful carnal believer.  All believers at the time of salvation in Jesus Christ have the assurance of eternal security and receive a new resurrected body and a robe of linen.  For whom ever believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior is an “overcomers”!

1 John 5:4-5 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 

The judgment of God upon the unbeliever can look similar to the discipline of the believer.  A perfect storm of problems or sickness can beset the unbeliever in order to make the person fell miserable as he tries to cope under his own strength and reasoning to overcome the problems.  Sickness may bring the person close to death where the person has to face the reality that he is unable to control death and his fear of life after death.  Judgment upon the unbeliever is meant to bring Godly sorry that leads to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 7:10).  The real danger of judgment from God is not the troubles and sickness that comes upon the person in order to make that person see that he needs God, the danger is when God removes His hand of judgment from the unbeliever because the unbeliever has hardened his heart beyond repentance.  When the unbeliever is living a charmed life, getting what he wants and rejoicing in his pride (I did it my way) then God has lifted His hand of judgment because the unbeliever has hardened his heart beyond reach of the convicting Spirit of God.  When a person is proud of their sinful lifestyle and denies God’s word then most likely the next judgment he will face will be after his death, when he comes before the White Throne of Judgment where he will be thrown in the lake of fire to be eternally tormented.  The White Throne of Judgement is not a trial to determine if the person is innocence or guilty of sin, for we are all born guilty of sin and dead in our trespasses, but it is the final sentencing of punishment for refusing to repent of your sin and be saved by Jesus Christ.

A big mistake people make is that they look at a trial that has come upon someone and they try to figure out what sin that person has committed.  This was the mistake Job’s sorry comforters made and the mistake the people made who asked Jesus about the boy that was born blind.  It wasn’t the sin of the parents that caused the blindness but the blindness was present to reveal God glory by either the boy living a life of faith or in this case the glory was that the boy was miraculously healed and able to see.  I have learned that everyone is going through some kind of trial or working through some difficulty in their life.  And the manifestations of sickness is sometimes the result of trial that is drawing the believer closer to God and sometimes the sickness is the result of discipline upon a believer that is caused by his disobedience toward God and sometimes the sickness is a judgment upon an unbeliever that is meant to cause sorry that leads to repentance and salvation and sometimes it is just sickness that comes upon us because we live in a sin sick world.  We usually can’t tell what is causing the sickness and this was the case of the disabled man that was brought to Jesus on a stretcher by his friends.  The friends saw the man’s need to be physically healed so he could walk but Jesus saw into his heart and saw his real need, his need to be forgiven of his sins (Luke 5:17-26).  This is also proof positive that Jesus was the Son of God (God in the flesh), because who else can forgive a man sin except God, or the One who is equal to God.

This world is a battle ground of sin and the judgment of God that comes upon the father for his disobedience toward God effects the whole household.  In the same sense, when a nation strays from God the effects of God’s judgment are even broader, they fall on the entire nation.  Furthermore, earth itself groans and is wearing out because of the effects of sin which manifest as violent storms, floods, lightening, earthquakes, droughts, erosion, pollution, weeds, insect infestations and volcanoes.  But these disasters are just the tip of the iceberg compared to the devastation that will come upon the world when God judges the world during the seven years of tribulation.  It will be a time of judgement and tribulation beyond any disaster that has ever occurred or ever will occur.

If a plan crashes in the ocean, who’s at fault?  Most of the time we just don’t know why the bad things keep coming at us and we probably won’t know until we are in Heaven, safe in the arms of Jesus (if we have been born again His child).  The truth is that we are physically born onto a Spiritual battlefield, where a battle is being fought between the god of this world, Satan, and the God in Heaven for the souls of men and women.  We are born slaves to sin, into the camp of Satan.  And Satan wants to keep us busy pursuing our self indulgent nature (sin) so we don’t ask critical question like “why am I here?” and “what happens to me after my body dies?”.   Satan’s wants to keep us occupied with the struggle to get material things, so he makes up religions of “good works”, so man thinks takes pride in what he has “earned” and is satisfied that he lived a good life and will be rewarded for it.

But beware!  This is the pernicious lie … that man is basically good and can live a good enough life before God.  Man’s good works as filthy rags to God.  Man is born Spiritually bankrupt and can not please God.  This is the truth of the gospel message.  We must repent of our sin and be Spiritual “born again”, by grace through faith in belief of the work Jesus Christ did on the cross, not our work.  Once we become believers we can trust that God will reward us if we are faithful to trust Him in the storm.  The good news is that Jesus is always with the believer, dwelling in the believer, in both the good times and in the trials of life.  God will deliver the believer either from the trial and give him the reward of victory on earth or He may deliver the believer through the trial and take him home to Heaven, where his final victory and better reward is waiting.

Don’t pull back in doubt of fear
Or hide because the end is near
But trust God for the very best
His grace and love will meet the test

– Rogersings

Here is a good video about 7 Judgments of God:

This article does a good job explaining the rewards a believer may receive at the Judgement Seat of Christ based on his faithful service after salvation.  Remember, a Christian status of salvation is not judged and can not be taken away but “rewards” that could have been won may be burned up if the works of faith were done for selfish reasons (sin of commission) or the reward may be “burned up” if the works of faith God prepared were never attempted by the believer (the sin of omission).

https://www.raptureready.com/abc/Judgment_Seat_of_Christ.html

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