The Merciful Judgment of God

I know these words seem like they contradict one another--mercy and judgment, but let me show you why I do not believe that they ultimately do. We know our God is a God who loves mercy, but mercy is always tied in with judgment. In Micah 6:8, it says, "He has showed you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Later in Micah 7:18b it says, "You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy." Once again we see God's mercy in light of His anger, and His anger is ALWAYS just. I'll start with what may be slightly controversial example to make my points.



1. Hurricane Katrina

Before you click off and say, "that's it, Dennis has gone too far this time," let me start by saying, this is not an argument that I have some revelation that God judged New Orleans. You do not need to believe that to get the point I'm going to make out of this so just bear with me. I personally am not in the least upset at someone who suggests that Katrina may have been a judgment of God. Who could argue that New Orleans is known worldwide by many, many people as "sin city"? Not only Christians, but people who probably don't even know what the term sin means associate this city with its yearly flesh fest. However, my point is this. Let's say you just pretend to believe that this was the judgment of God if you don't. Consider how that judgment could have been carried out as opposed to how it was carried out. Hundreds of thousands of people could have been killed, but 99.99% of the population had evacuated the city before the hurricane even hit, and the guestimations about how many were dead after the fact proved to be gross overestimations. This was a merciful judgment of God. He accomplished ruining the city with minimal human loss of life in comparison to how it could have played out. An example of how another natural disaster(judgment) could have played out is my second example of a merciful judgment.



2. The tsunami

DUDE! You have lost it! Meriful Judgment? Okie doke, here we go. Why do I consider this a merciful judgment when it seems in contrast to Katrina to have been the ultimate judgment. I haven't kept up with the death tolls most recent corrections, but I know at one point they were estimating that it was well over 200,000 people. I suppose I should start by making sure I'm not misunderstood. In referring to these actions as judgments, I am in NO WAY stating that we don't have a responsibility to reach out to these people in any way possible to help them financially, physically, with our time and energy, and of course, with our prayers. An interesting report came out around the same time that the tsunami hit that was a yearly report about the worst countries for Christian martyrdom, and the three top offenders on the list matched perfectly with the three top death tolls from the tsunami. I know this sounds vindictive, but let me explain where I'm going with this. When a civilization is so far gone that they have essentially rejected the many cries from God to repent and only continue further down their path, the only way for Him to salvage ANY of the people is to judge the overall society in a way that shouts, "I am the One, True God." This at least provides a way of escape for those who have not completely hardened their hearts within this society. Essentially, this is an extreme option that God may reserve for salvaging as many as possible from eternal damnation.

3. Hell

Yes, I will even refer to hell as a merciful judgment because as with the preceding judgments, I consider the alternative. What is the alternative to ultimate judgment? It is God winking at sin. The alternative would be to corrupt the God of the universe. Without Him being who He is, we would not even know what justice is. Neither would we know what mercy is. He is the source of these and all things that are truly good, beautiful, and true. If He chose to corrupt Himself, this would be a terrible thing not only for Himself, but for all of His creation as well.

Again to be clear, I am not claiming to have revelation knowledge about any of these issues, but I am simply reasoning from the revelation we have been given from the Scriptures. Also, please let me reiterate that Christ came not to the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, and it is in this spirit we as Christians should be interacting with all those around us regardless of who they are or what their circumstances are.