This book arose from the author's sense of urgency. The Protestant church that we know and love has grown silent about the judgment of God. It seems that our church is bent upon living up to H. Richard Niebuhr's caricature of liberal Protestantism: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." The book is meant to remedy this silence regarding God's judgment. It demonstrates the pervasiveness of the judgment of God in both Old and New Testaments. Not only do we find the act of judgment in every era, but judgment is a necessary stage in God's saving work. Moreover, the illuminating power of the concept is confirmed by common human experience.