What is going to happen on that
day that God has promised? What will that day be like for
believers? What will that day be like for
unbelievers? The scriptures make it clear
that it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. And in 2 Corinthians that we
were looking at last week, Paul says, the Holy Spirit says, knowing
therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. And so we live
in a world where there are multitudes around us, family, friends, people
that we love and care for, who are rushing headlong to hell,
ignoring every word of warning, ignoring the warnings that come
to their consciences. And all the while, these same
people are building passionately, fervently building and maintaining
their refuge of lies, the rotten fig leaves of their own morality
and goodness. And so we live in a world that's
been ravaged recently by tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes
and wars and strife. on all sorts of levels, but we
live in a world where something much, much more significant is
happening and something much, much more serious than all of
those things is befalling people as we speak here. We live on
Milbank Road and it's the route that one of the funeral parlours
in town takes on their way to the cemetery. We have sanitised
death as much as we possibly can in this world. The graveyards
used to be in the front of the churches and you walked by them
and walked through them into church in the old days. Now we
hide them as far away as we can in the bush and it's all sanitised. But there is a reality about
death. a sad reality about death. It
is the reality that faces all of us and the reality of the
scriptures is that God Almighty will judge sin. Soon people that
we know in the not too distant future, really in historic terms,
most of us here will meet God. The scriptures are saying, be
prepared to meet your God. Hebrews 9.27 says, it's appointed
for men to die once, but after this, the judgment. and mercifully
we come in the name of the Lord Jesus, because you'll call His
name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. So what will be the judgment?
It will be on the basis of God's strict, unbending justice and
righteousness. No account will be taken of age,
no account will be taken of weakness, no respect will be shown to people
who are rich or poor or from whatever background they come
from, whether they've been brought up in shocking circumstances
or brought up in deep love and care. Righteousness or evil. Nothing else. Holiness or sin,
nothing else. Perfection or iniquity, nothing
else. Men, says Romans 1, are without
excuse. Death is certain, judgment is
certain, eternity is long. Eternity is very, very long. And there are only two destinations,
either everlasting holiness and bliss with the Lord and His people
in the new creation, or everlasting and increasing abomination and
wickedness with the damned, as they are punished in utter darkness,
punished for their sins. So we live in this age after
the resurrection, the Holy Spirit has come and been poured out
on God's people. The church was baptized into
the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is our comforter, our
advocate, and the guarantor of our inheritance. And for us to
know what happens on the Day of Judgment, we need to go to
what God says about judgment, not what men say, what God says. And in John 16, verse 8, the
Lord Jesus makes a promise to His disciples. He makes a promise
that when the Spirit has come, He will convict or convince the
world, the world of God's elect, of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. And so it's a good place to start,
isn't it, to see what the Holy Spirit says about what is the
conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The conviction
of sin that God brings into his people's lives is the same conviction
that David had in that Psalm 51 that we read. It's sin is
what we are. Sin is what we have done. To
be convicted of sin is to be convicted and convinced that
I can't do anything without sin being present. In my flesh, says
Paul, dwells no good thing. I can't think a thought without
sin being present. Even my righteous deeds, according
to God, are filthy rags. As Job 35, 7 says, if you are
righteous, what do you give to him? Our righteousness doesn't
extend to God. We are convicted of sin. God's
people are wounded because of their conviction that sin is
what they are and sin is a matter of their hearts. The activities
of sin that we do on the outside are just a reflection that in
us dwells a heart that just produces sin all the time. The next thing
that the Holy Spirit has promised to bring to his people is conviction
of righteousness, convinced of righteousness, convinced God's
children are convinced that righteousness is fully established as God demands
and is achieved before all to see. He came, the Lord Jesus,
to bring in everlasting righteousness. And after His death on the cross,
He said, it is finished. Everlasting righteousness has
been brought in. So God's children are convinced,
they are convicted of their righteousness in the Lord Jesus just as much
as they are convicted of their sin. I'm convinced that looking
to the Lord Jesus who has borne my sin to the full satisfaction
of the justice of God, that God now reckons me righteous. In fact the verse we looked at
last week in 2 Corinthians 5 21 says that we are the righteousness
of God and God calls on his people to reckon themselves the way
God reckons them. In John chapter 16 verse 14,
he will glorify me, the Holy Spirit will glorify the Lord
Jesus because he'll take that which is mine." He will take
of the things the Lord Jesus has done and He will declare
it, He will reveal it, He will make it plain to you. So it's
a wonderful redemption. Only the Holy Spirit can do this,
this is His work to do. It's not the work of men and
it's for Him to do and for Him to make as a living reality in
our souls. We are convicted that we are
nothing but sin. We are convicted that there is
righteousness, perfect righteousness, wonderful righteousness in the
Lord Jesus. The third thing and for the topic
of our sermon today is the conviction or being convinced of judgment. And here the Holy Spirit is bringing
the conviction to God's children that because our sin has been
taken away in the Lord Jesus, and completely taken away, and
because God's children are robed in the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus, we are convicted, we are convinced that judgment has been
completed. The prince of this world, Satan,
has been cast out by the Lord Jesus being triumphant on the
cross. We're convinced that God will
in no way judge me or hold me accountable for my sin. Not my
past sins, not my present sins, not my future sins. As our As
our Psalmist David said, and quoted in Romans 4.8, blessed,
blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins
are covered. Blessed, blessed is the man to
whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Why will the Lord not impute
sin to these blessed men? The answer is simple, isn't it?
Because those sins were imputed and became the Lord Jesus, and
He died for them, and God promises that He will remember them no
more. And so, my friends, right now,
if you believe on the Son of God, right now, if you trust
the Lord Jesus, God Almighty will never lay any sin to your
account. God Almighty will never punish
you for any sin. God Almighty will never be any
less gracious to you because of your sin. God's children,
and I pray it's our experience, God's children have real, absolute,
unconditional, unwavering, unchanging free forgiveness, complete forgiveness. When God forgives sin, He blots
it out. He removes it as far as the east
is from the west. He hides it, as someone said,
in the sea of forgetfulness. He takes it out of the way. He
covers it. He will not impute it to you. God's children are convicted
that judgment is done. but God will judge sin as he
cast Satan out of heaven binding him by the cross sentencing him
to everlasting destruction in hell so he shall judge the sins
of all men and women in the last day none outside of Christ shall escape
the wrath and justice of Almighty God. The soul that sins, it shall
die, no exception. So God's judgment of sin is both
righteous and just. It is right for God to send people
to hell. If anyone goes to hell, it is
right. And the great day of judgment
will prove to all creation that it is right. People might say,
how can a good God send men to hell? A good God must send men
to hell. A holy God must punish sin. A God who loves righteousness
and hates lawlessness must punish lawless deeds. The Lord tests
the righteous, says Psalm 11 verse 5. But the wicked and the
one who loves violence, his soul hates. We should grieve. for those we
know and love. Grieve for those whose religion
is a religion that looks to the works of men. If God sends people
and sends these people that we know and love to hell, He is
right. We should grieve as Christians
because we know what sin is. We don't know fully what it is,
but we know how sinful sin is. We've seen the Lord God Almighty
in holy justice and in holy wrath pour out upon His Son all of
those things that happened on that cross. for those who live
as enemies of the Lord Jesus. They have reason to live in this
world as fearful people of what will come before them. And no
wonder they spend so much time working out ways where God will
not punish them, but they make up these silly stories about
people who have died outside of Christ looking down now and
smiling on the circumstances that go on in this world. It
is not the case. Just read Luke 16 and read what
happened to the rich man. that God will and God must punish
sin, either in you or in your substitute. And the question
that is before us is what about the judgment for God's children? For God's children, for the elect,
for God's dearly loved, God's eternally loved, God's infinitely
loved children, judgment is over. The Lord God Almighty has judged
the sins of His children in the Lord Jesus, and He made His Son,
His dearly beloved Son, to be sin for us. We were punished
in the Lord Jesus infinitely until holy justice, the holy
justice of God cried out, enough, it is finished. Jesus died in
our place. In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18,
now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself
through Jesus Christ. Reconciliation is done. It is finished. It's not something
to be done in the future. It has been done. When God the
Holy Spirit comes to His people in mercy and reconciles you to
God in your mind and understanding, He reveals that reconciliation
of God's children happened when the Lord Jesus finished His work. Colossians 1.12 says that we
are qualified, we are worthy. The Lord Jesus has taken responsibility
to present His children holy, blameless and beyond reproach. And how is this done? 2 Corinthians
5.19 says, He was reconciling the world of His elect to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them. He imputed their trespasses
to His Son, and punished His Son for them, and He cannot impute
them to you ever again. The proof that judgment is over
for God's children is now seated on the throne in heaven, in heaven's
glories. God declares by the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus that sin is gone, judgment is over, justice
is satisfied. He was put to death because of
our sins and He was raised because of our justification. Romans
5.1 goes on to say, Therefore, being justified by faith, we
have peace with God. Those very same words that the
Lord Jesus used to those 11 frightened, bewildered apostles on that great
resurrection day. Peace be with you, he says. It is finished. Why peace? because by His stripes we are
healed. Christ suffered the just for
the unjust to bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh
but made alive in the Spirit. And so God's children are called
upon again and again, look to the risen Saviour, trust the
Son of God and know that justice is satisfied, judgment is over. For those who believe on the
Son of God, you have nothing to fear from God's holy law. It has been satisfied and honored. If you trust the Son of God,
you have nothing to fear from God's holiness. If you believe
on the Son of God, you have nothing to fear from God's justice. In fact, the justice of God demands
that God's children must go free and must enter heaven's glories. Your sins, the sins of all of
God's people are forgiven forever. You have been made perfectly
righteous. You are the righteousness of
God. You are complete in Him. In fact,
you can enter heaven's glories because now you are seated with
Him in heavenly places. And this is the full assurance
of faith. Faith looks away from ourselves
and looks to the Lord Jesus. We have peace with God by faith. And so what about this great
day of judgment? Romans 8 reminds us that now,
right now, There is now no condemnation. And the word judgment and condemnation
are the same Greek word. There is now no condemnation,
no judgment for those who are in Christ Jesus. Verse 3 of Romans
8 tells us why. Because He condemned sin in the
flesh. And then we have that marvelous
section in Romans 8, verse 33 and following. Who is the question
that God asks of all creation? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? Many wish to bring charges against
God's children. Satan does it all the time. Our
flesh does it to us all the time. Who is the question God asks? The answer is no one will bring
any charge. Satan can't bring any charge.
He's been defeated by the Lord Jesus on the cross. The world
can't bring any charge. It's been condemned. The law
of God can't bring any charge. It's been fully satisfied and
it's been shown by the Lord Jesus to be a holy law, to be a just
law, to be a spiritual law, to be a good law. and justice cannot
bring any charge because justice is satisfied. So God continually
reminds his children of who we are in the Lord Jesus. The blessed
comforter reminds God's children that our husband, our saviour
lives to intercede for us continually. His wounds are seen now in heaven
and God smiles with love on His Son and with delight on His dearly
loved children. But while we live in this body
of flesh, sin is there present with us all the time. 1 John 2 says, My little children,
I write these things so that you may not sin. And then there's
a wonderful word, not that you will not sin, and if anyone sins,
and when anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. and when I sin, sin all the time,
and we return like David did, and we say, here I am again,
my father, I'm fickle and failing, I'm wicked and I'm willfully
wicked, and I'm despairing of myself, and I come again to the
mercy seat, And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins. They're covered and they're taken
away. And not only for ours, but also
for the whole world. So in the court of our conscience,
we take the words of God's promise from our Savior, and we're reminded
that the robe of the Lord's righteousness is ever new. And who is he that
condemns, Romans 8.34 goes on. He was He that judges. It is
Christ who died and furthermore is risen, who is even at the
right hand of God and makes intercession for us. And God the Father says,
peace. Be still troubled soul, look
afresh to your husband. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. And then we have that great promise
in Romans 8.35. Who shall separate us from the
love of God? nothing on earth, nothing in
heaven, nothing in hell, nothing in you, and nothing in those
who accuse you, nothing will separate you from the love of
God, absolutely nothing. And the thing that's remarkable
is that the Scriptures are just so full of these remarkable declarations
of the love of God for His children. Psalm 16, 3 says that we are
all His delight. The Lord Jesus delights in His
bride. In Zephaniah 3.17 it says, The
Lord your God is in your midst. The Mighty One will save. And then listen to how He feels
about His children. Listen to how He feels about
His bride. He will rejoice over you with
gladness. He rejoices over His children. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with
singing. This is how our God looks upon
His bride. He rejoices over you with singing. So there is no one to condemn.
There's no one to bring any charge. Everything has been done by the
Lord Jesus. And so what about the so-called
future judgment of Christians? So often the threat of future
judgment is used as a means to encourage God's children to live
with greater devotion, to live with greater morality, to evangelize
more. How many times have you heard
on the last day that all your sins will be paraded before the
whole world for all to see and you will be made aware to your
shame of your wicked deeds. You'll be made ashamed of your
sins yet again. How often have you heard that
you can change the verdict or the severity of it on the day
of judgment by the things that you do now. How often have you
heard that your good deeds will merit you extra crowns or more
jewels in your crown on that day? All these ideas. of meritorious rewards and demerits
for disobedience are nothing but the Roman Catholic doctrine
of purgatory dressed in fashionable clothes of this day. And why
has this become such commonly accepted teaching? One of the
reasons is that God's children are wounded children. They have circumcised hearts
and so they grieve over their sins and they want to please
God. They want to live to honour God. And so people come along and
give them some law to live by so that they can please God by
their obedience. And they want to witness to God. And so their desire is turned
into a call to be obedient because of what's going to happen to
you on the Day of Judgement so that you might evangelise more.
And God's children are wounded because they know their sin. They know what's in them, and
it's nothing but sin. And so judgment is to be feared. When these teachers bring this
sort of teaching along, they cause God's children to look
again into themselves and look to their activities And the false
teachers get glory for themselves and can boast in how they've
managed to coerce God's people into doing things. And God's
people are brought again to a place of burden rather than a place
of freedom. They're brought to a jail rather
than to a banquet. their joy according to Galatians
is taken away from them. So God's children are vulnerable
people. God's children need to be comforted
by the gospel of who the Lord Jesus is. They need to be comforted
by the proclamation of the eternal covenant that the Lord Jesus
made in eternity, promising to take all of his children to heaven. The promise of eternal justification,
that we were justified when that covenant was made. the promise
of our eternal union with the Lord Jesus, that we are flesh
of His flesh, we are bone of His bones, He is the head and
we are His body, He is our bridegroom and we are His bride. All of
these things just remind us that God draws His people to Himself
with bonds of infinitely powerful love and grace and He continues
to draw His people and the bruised reeds of God's children. He will not break the smouldering
flaxes of God's children. He will not snuff out. He'll
heal them and He'll fan them into flame. And all this centres
on who the Lord Jesus Christ really is. Is He really the Saviour
who is the absolute substitute for all of His children? Is He
really the One who is now satisfied and sits in Heaven? Is He the
successful Saviour? Is He God in human flesh? Or
is He just trying to do things as long as human beings will
pretty please help Him to achieve His end? So the little bit of
yeast of these sorts of things works through the whole batch
of dough. A little bit of yeast of law-keeping
works through all of our lives. The thing that's been remarkable
studying this topic this week is just like when we years ago
believed that the Bible says God loves everyone and you actually
look for the verses in the scripture that say that God loves everyone
and you find that there are incredibly few. You look for the verses
in scripture that say that Jesus died for everyone and you find
that there are few if they're taken out of context will support
that and you end up with this idea that the Holy Spirit is
in the business of feverishly trying to save everyone in this
world and you look for the evidence in the scriptures and you find
that all of these things that are commonly held in the religious
world are propped up on a very, very few flimsy verses and mostly
verses that are taken out of context altogether. In fact,
one of them is in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, where it says that
we will all stand We must all appear, it says,
before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the
things done in the body according to what he has done, whether
good or bad. The context of 2 Corinthians
5 is that God's children walk by faith, in verse 7, and not
by sight. We are confident, verse 8, we
are absent from the body and present with the Lord. And we
make every effort, make it our aim, whether present or absent,
to be well pleasing to Him. And over is those verses we read
earlier that the Lord Jesus in verse 18 has reconciled His people
to Himself. In verse 19, He has not imputed
their trespasses to them. In verse 21, He was made sin
and we are the righteousness of God. And so when God's children
appear before that seat, before that judgment seat of Christ,
it's not going to be on the basis of their sin because their sin
has been taken away, says God. And they will receive. It's a
place of receiving, not a place of punishment for God's children. But God's children, we must move
on, God's children serve God because they love to. They delight
in the opportunities He brings into their lives to care for
His children and to care for other people. They delight when
He brings opportunities to share the gospel that is their peace,
that is their life. Like the Lord Jesus beside the
well in Samaria, they find their food is to do the will of God. And in that particular situation,
it's look out and the fields are white under harvest. And so he who reaps receive wages
and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and
he who reaps rejoice together. And so we have these few verses
in scripture that talk about the judgment and Christians standing
in the judgment and standing with the Lord Jesus in the judgment.
And they're taken to be a rod that punishes God's children
here And yet the Scriptures are just full of this fact, that
we rejoice together. God's children rejoice when they
see the Lord Jesus working. God's children serve with a willing
heart, not because they're afraid of losing something or getting
something. They're compelled by love. Jesus
is their crown. Jesus is their righteousness.
Jesus, in relationship with Him, is their exceeding great reward. It's just not true from the Scriptures
that on that last day, there'll be a great big movie screen and
all of the sins of Bethday will be displayed before all the world
to see. God says in Colossians 3, you
have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. That great day of judgment is
the day when the marriage is consummated, when the bride is
seen in her husband's glory, and there'll be no place on that
day where God, the Lord Jesus, our husband, is going to strip
his bride of the righteousness that she's had, to strip his
bride of all the joy that she's had for all of these years. Think how long Abel has been
worshipping God and Enoch and Elijah. Think of our friends
who have died in the Lord Jesus and are rejoicing in heaven.
Is he going to take them from that place of rejoicing and wearing
that robe of Christ's righteousness and strip them and bring them
to shame again when he says that he's put away their sins already?
The day of judgment is a day that God's children in the scriptures
long for and look forward to. In fact, 1 John 4, 17 says that
we have boldness. The word is confidence on that
day. And it means free and fearless
confidence and cheerful courage. God's children look forward to
the day of judgment. And God will be shown to have
loved His children with everlasting, unchanging, unconditional love. and He will not dig up their
sins. He's promised to remember them no more. He punished them
in His dear Son, that day when the sun could not shine on our
crucified Saviour, the Lamb of God, when the earth groaned as
its Creator and Sustainer was made to be sin and was punished
by a holy God. Why would he want to remember
sins that he's promised to forget? Why would he want to dig up sins
that he's hidden in the depths of the sea? Why would he want
to bring things to his sight that he's placed behind his back? But what does happen on that
dreadful day? A day of rejoicing for God's
children, according to the scriptures, but it's a dreadful day for those
who do not know our Lord and our Saviour. If you turn in your
Bibles to Revelation 20, we'll just look at some verses there. In chapter 20 verse 11 we have
a description of this great throne. It's called a great white throne. Great because of he who sits
on it. White because judgment will be
done with absolute purity. And it's a throne. It's the place
where God Almighty dwells. Revelation 20 verse 11. And then
in verse 12, And John saw the dead, small and great, standing
before God, and the books were opened. What are these books? In Romans 1, it's the book of
creation, which renders men without excuse. The book of providence,
as God has shown his providential care of people in so many things
in their lives. The book of the gospel of the
Lord Jesus, which has been proclaimed to all creation. It's the book
of their conscience, according to Romans 2, when all of the
thoughts and the deeds of men will be seen to be what they
really are. This book is opened. And the dead were judged according
to their works. by the things that were written
in the books. There is absolutely nothing in
God's creation which God does not know with absolute, intimate
knowledge, infinite knowledge. And the books and the dead were
judged according to their works. and they will be exposed on that
day. The dead will be judged by the
books and they will be exposed for what they really are. We
think of people as nice, but the judgment and the standard
is who the Lord Jesus is. Holiness and perfection is the
standard. And these people, according to
Revelation, when they see themselves and they see God in His glory,
they'll call on the rocks and the mountains to fall on them,
to hide them from the wrath of God. But there will be no mercy
for them. There will be no pity. Justice
and truth will demand their punishment. This is the second death, says
verse 14. Unbelievers have good reason
to fear God. The wrath of God abides on them. No wonder they invent their myriad
ways to ease their screaming consciences. But thank God on
that day there is another book. In verse 12, another book is
opened and it's the book of life. the Lamb's Book of Life from
the foundation of the world. In verse 21, we have a description
of what happens. In chapter 21, verse 1 and 2,
we have a description. Now I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away. Then I, John, saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem, all of the elect children of God coming
down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. This is what's going to happen
on that great day. The book of life will reveal that all of
God's children are perfectly complete in the Lord Jesus. This, for God's people in the
scriptures, is a day where they look forward with eager anticipation,
and they look forward to it and they hasten this coming day of
the Lord, says 2 Peter 3.12. They can't wait for it to happen
in 1 Corinthians to that group of believers who horrify us so
often, but they were God's children. And so they were eagerly, eagerly
in verse 7 awaiting the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who
will confirm you to the end that you may be blameless on the day
of our Lord Jesus Christ? God is faithful, by whom you
are called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus our Lord. God
in that great day will show all the universe, angels, demons,
Satan, and all the reprobate and others who go, reprobate
and demons and Satan who go to hell, that all the elect members
of God's church, His bride, His body, are worthy to enter into
His glory. and he'll hold them up and say,
look at them, look at this bride washed in the blood of the lamb. Look at this bride in their holiness,
their spotlessness, their blamelessness. Here stands one undefiled, trophies
of God's grace. a triumphal procession of the
victory of the Lord Jesus for all to see, and they'll go from
that wedding into a feast that goes on forever and ever. We long for that day. We look
for that day. Our Saviour has done everything.
It is ready. It'll come soon. Let's pray.