Now the World will be Judged by the Lord God

He will judge the world in righteousness.
He will administer judgment to the peoples in uprightness.
Psa 9:8 WEB

The Hebrew word here is tebel, the inhabited world. It cannot be avoided, and God is the judge of not only His own people, but also of the nations.

“ The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness;
The world, and those who dwell therein.”
Psa 24:1 WEB

Here is eretz earth and tebel the inhabited world. Further, not all judgment is future. Our sins can also bring judgment on us within history, and this is taught in both the Old and New Testaments. The Lord speaks of sending ancient Assyria to punish wicked nations.

“5 Ho Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! … 7 … it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.”
Isa 10:5 WEB

Then when God is through using Assyria, He will then deal with their sins, Isaiah 10.

God rules the nations

This idea doesn’t just begins in the New Testament. God is pictured as ruling, and desiring to draw a sinful world to Himself.

“… the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whoever he will.”
Dan 5:21 WEB

And this God who rules over heaven and earth, how does He interface with men? Paul gives us part of the answer in a speech he to the philosophers in Athens.

“He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,”
Acts 17:26 WEB

Where do the nations live? According to this verse God determines where they live, the boundaries of the nations, and how long they will live there. To what purpose does God work in raising up nations, or then again by His will, bringing them down?

“27 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’”
Acts 17:27-28 WEB

Then to finally bring men to reunite with their God,

“God was in Christ reconciling the WORLD to himself,

“not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.” 2Cor 5:19 WEB

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” 1Tim 1:15 WEB

Jesus said,

“I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness”. Jn 12:46 WEB

In one way, it is not that rejecting Jesus means we will be lost forever.

“One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobey the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Jn 3:36 WEB

We were already lost. Our only hope of recovery is through Jesus.

WEB is the World English Bible, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901