Word of Encouragement (02/15/2023)
“‘Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries? 35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.' 36 For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.” (Deut. 32:34-36)
In v. 35, God affirms that He is the Judge, who takes vengeance on the wicked and (by implication) rewards the righteous: “Vengeance is mine, and recompense....” (The word translated as “recompense,” which is to reward, can also mean “retribution,” which can mean doling out either punishment or reward. Here, I think it means “recompense” because, after talking about His vengeance on the wicked in v. 35b, He also talks about His vindication of His people in v. 36.) The Judgment Day will be a day of eternal condemnation to unrepentant sinners and a day of eternal salvation for God’s people.
This is what Jonathan Edwards said about this in his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”:
“...the reason why they are not fallen already, and do not fall now, is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost....
“It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case.”
He who has ears to hear should give heed to these words of warning and turn toward God in repentance and faith right away. Even believers should pay attention. We, too, don’t know when God will call us to our heavenly home. We don’t want to be caught off guard in a moment of idleness, backsliding, or rebellion. Let us renew our commitment to walk with the Lord in faithfulness!