Judgment

WTW 2022
29 August
Jeremiah 29

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. Jeremiah 29:17

What is punishment?

When we look at the big picture, all the details begin to appear less significant in their own tiny ways and all become more a matter of the whole.

As individuals, we people become enraptured by creature comforts and consistency, stability and what we are used to as well as health, our homes, freedom, possessions, independence, luxuries, apparent control, order and worst of all the proud and selfish claim to rights and ultimately greed which is Idolatry under the new covenant. (E55)

What then is punishment?
What is judgment?
And what is discipline?

What are these 3? What constitutes these things? What distinguishes them? Fattened and luxuriant cows consider anything less than spoon fed living to be a horrific plight. Arrogant prosperity preachers and adherents consider anything other than grand possessions at their beck and call to be a torturous travesty, if not unspeakable demonic attack. While the righteous saints of God count all as loss compared with the glories to be revealed.

Where, then do the bludgeonings fall?
Where, the stripes and flogging?
The experiences of disciplines and punishments and judgements are determined and known by God and only in seeing through God’s eternal eyes, only in understanding as He knows can any recognize truly and see things as they are, face to face.

…

I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and an object of horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. For they have not listened to my words,” declares the Lord, “words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 29:18-19