02-Setting the Scene

God is a God of judgment. No question about it. But what does this mean? What is judgment? Above all, what is God‟s judgment? Is it something for believers to rejoice in, or is it something for them to fear? And when preaching the gospel, is God‟s judgment something they should keep quiet about, or, at least, play down?1 And it surely makes a difference when we talk of God‟s judgment of evil in the abstract – as it were, outside of ourselves – and God‟s judgment of us individually and personally. You remember how David reacted when he was confronted by Nathan: the king was righteously angry with the rich man over his evil treatment of the poor man and his only ewe (2 Sam. 12:5-6), but the moment the sin – which he was rightly condemning in the other – was brought home to himself, to his conscience – when Nathan exclaimed: „You are the man!‟ (2 Sam. 12:7) – David was mortified and repentant (2 Sam. 12:13; Ps. 51).