Lesson 6: The Hour of His Judgment

Memory Text: "And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand" (Romans 13:11, 12, NKJV).

Several years ago, National Geographic magazine described a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. After it ended, forest rangers trekked up a mountain to assess the National Geographic magazine described damage. One ranger found a bird literally burned to ashes at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick.

Three tiny baby birds scurried from under their dead mother's wings when he struck it. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings. She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies. What a picture of the believer who is safe in Christ!

The fires of God's judgment burned themselves out on Him at Calvary, and all who are in Christ are safe forever beneath His wings. At the cross, Christ was judged as a condemned sinner so that we could be judged as righteous citizens of the heavenly kingdom. He was judged as a criminal so that we could be set free from the destructive fires of eternal loss, both figuratively and literally.

Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves [Reflecting Christ, p. 45]. Unfortunately, in individual families, the church, and the world all over, people are in a steep and deep spiritual stupor, and lurgy, moral, and social decline is becoming unprecedented, surpassing the Antediluvians and People in penta-cities in the plain. Our post-modern-day influencers primarily aligned with the Age of Reason or Rationalism, which Reneily Dicart of France started, and false religious practices [of Satan worship].