(187) – THE TWO JUDGMENTS – II

187 – THE TWO JUDGMENTS 2

 

Noah had three children: Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gen. 5:32). Noah and his family were rescued from dying in the flood. They were eight persons in all: Noah and his wife, with their three children and their respective wives. A year after the flood, Noah and the family left the ark. Ham is the father of Canaan(Gen. 9:18; 10:6). “And Noah began farming, and planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers’” (Gen. 9:20-25).

The curse of Noah was so strong, that the Canaanites, Ham’s descendants, were all sodomites. “And the territory of the Canaanite extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Adamah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha” (Gen. 10:19). In these five cities, called the Pentapolis of Sin, they practiced all kinds of sodomy, an abominable thing to Jehovah. What we cannot understand is that Jehovah approved the curse of Noah against his son, even as he was against sodomy (Deut. 23:17). Later, these sodomites lodged in the temple (2 kings 23:7).

Jehovah considered such practices so abominable, that he sent fire from heaven to destroy those cities.“Then Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities” (Gen. 19:24-25).

Another difficult thing to understand is that Jehovah would choose the land of the sodomite Canaanites to bring his people in. It is true that Jehovah declared that he was going to uproot the Canaanites“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion. Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have visited its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants” (Lev. 18:22-25). “For I will drive out nations before you” (Ex. 34:24).

The third thing that is difficult to understand is that Jehovah declared that he was going to uproot the sodomite Canaanites in order to preserve his people Israel from these abominations, but he did not do it, so that the people of Israel lived together with the sodomites. “Now these are the nations which Jehovah left, to test Israel by them (that is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan; only in order the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly). These nations are: THE FIVE LORDS OF THE PHILISTINES AND ALL THE CANAANITES AND THE SIDONEANS AND THE HIVITES” (Judg. 3:1-3).

The fourth thing is perfectly understandable: “And the sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebuzites; and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and forgot Jehovah their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth” (Judg. 3:5-7).

The fifth thing is also perfectly understandable, and it is that, by the synchronism, that is, by the combining of two systems of government, whatever is worse always prevails. Therefore, the dear people of Jehovah, the chosen people, the people sanctified of Jehovah, adopted sodomy. And the very Jehovah called his people Sodom and Gomorrah. It is evident that Jehovah divided the kingdom of Israel in two kingdoms because of the sin of Solomon, the man who received the divine wisdom of Jehovah (1 Kings 3:11-12; 11:1-13). Isaiah, the great prophet, spoke from Jehovah: “From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil. Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your fields—strangers are devouring them in your presence; it is desolation, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. Unless Jehovah of hosts had left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah. HEAR THE WORD OF JEHOVAH, YOU RULERS OF SODOM; GIVE YEAR TO THE INSTRUCTION OF OUR GOD, YOU PEOPLE OF GOMORRAH” (Is. 1:6-10). Jehovah declares, also, that the prophets of Jerusalem practiced the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah (Jer. 23:14).And there is more: Jehovah reveals that the wickedness and the sin of Israel and Judah were greater than the sin of Sodom (Lam. 4:6). Jehovah pronounced, then, judgment against Israel and the execution of his people, saying, “Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which Jehovah has afflicted it, will say, ‘All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Jehovah overthrew in His anger and in His wrath’” (Deut. 29:22-23).

The apostle Peter makes it clear that Jehovah condemned the sodomites. “And if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men” (2 Pet. 2:6-12).

John, the apostle, declares that whoever believes in Christ is not condemned, but whoever does not believe, is condemned, already (John 3:18). Who condemned all men? Jehovah condemned them all. What about Jesus Christ? “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

As we read the pages of the New Testament, we find that Jesus will judge again those whom Jehovah condemned, “And you Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You shall descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you” (Matt. 11:23-24). That first judgment and that first condemnation had either no value, or they will be judged and condemned twice, for the same crime. Concerning Israel, Jesus said to the apostles: “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28). It is very clear that all of those whom Jehovah condemned and killed will be judged again by Jesus Christ, through his disciples. At the judgment of Christ, many whom Jehovah has saved will be condemned, and many whom he condemned will be saved, for Jehovah destroyed the blind and deaf whom he himself had made (Is. 1:10). “Bring out the people who are blind, even though they have eyes, and the deaf, even though they have ears” (Is. 43:8). Jesus, nevertheless, came to give sight to the blind, and to open the ears of the deaf (Matt. 11:5).

The question we have is this: Is it possible that Jehovah ignored the fact that, with the intercrossing of the races with different costumes, these costumes would also intercross? We can say that the good that Jehovah wished to do, by the prohibitions of the law, he did not do; and the evil that Jehovah did not wish to do, he did, by the premeditated intercrossing of the races (Rom. 7:19-20).

 

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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