Alright brethren, let's turn
to 1 Corinthians 4. 1 Corinthians 4, we'll pick up
where we left off last time, but I want to read the first
two verses again. 1 Corinthians 4. Let a man so account of us as
of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. Now here's where our text begins.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged
of you. or of man's judgment. Yea, I
judge not mine own self, for I know nothing by myself, yet
am I not hereby justified. But he that judgeth me is the
Lord, and therefore judge nothing before the time. until the Lord
come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts. And then shall
every man have praise of God." Now, every preacher sent of God,
not every preacher, but every preacher sent of God, And every
believer saved by God's free and sovereign grace is a steward. We're all stewards. We're the
ministers of Christ. We're the stewards of the mysteries
of God. Stewards of the gospel of God.
And he says there in verse 2, Moreover it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. Faithful to who? Be found faithful to God. Be
found faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful doing what? First of all, faithful to be
found in the righteousness of Christ, robed in His righteousness
alone, not having any righteousness of our own. not even attempting
to work out a righteousness of our own at all. And then secondly,
faithful to spend our lives hearing Christ speak in His gospel. Come
in here together and hearing Christ speak in His gospel and
make it effectual in our heart and believing Him and waiting
on Him and heeding His Word. That's faithfulness. and then
faithfully together supporting and sending this gospel forth
into the world. That's what's necessary. I received
something recently that said it had a bunch of ways, so many
ways to be a healthy church. There's only one way. There's
only one. Christ said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. Christ is the great physician.
He's the one who makes his church healthy. He makes all his brethren
healthy. He's the only one who can do
it. He's the one who redeemed his people from all iniquity.
We didn't have any part in that. He's the one who called and equipped
His apostles. We didn't have any role in that.
He sent them forth and He blessed the Word and prayed the Father
and sent the Holy Spirit who created life and dead sinners
in you and me too. We didn't have any role in that.
And He's the one who continues to preserve His people and to
make us to be constrained by His love. And that's His work. He does that. This is why God
the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,
hear ye Him. He is the way. He is the way. So we are to preach Him. Christ
and Him crucified all the time. The preacher is to give himself
to the study of God's Word, to prayer, and to preaching. And every believer is to take
care of all other daily cares so that the preacher can do that.
And together, if we'd be faithful stewards of God, we're to hear,
believe, preach, support, and send forth this gospel of Christ,
and all the while asking Him to bless it. Now let me ask this
question as this pertains to our text. Now, as we do this
together, who judges whether or not I or any of my fellow
brethren, you or any of your fellow brethren, have been faithful. Who judges that? Here's our main
point tonight. The Lord Jesus is the only judge
who knows the heart. The only one who knows all the
deeds of men. So He's the only one who can
give a true judgment. The only one. He's the only one. So we're to wait on Him all the
time to make it known, to make things clear. Now first of all,
believers are not to judge our brethren in a rash and harsh
and haughty judgment. Looking down your nose on others.
We never do that. Ever. Look here at verse 2. He said, It is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. But then he says this, But with
me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you
or of man's judgment. He's saying, of you who are the
believers here at Coriath, or of any man out in the world,
the judgment seats of men. It's very little thing to me
that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment. You see,
some in the church at Coriath were questioning Paul's faithfulness. And they were questioning it
to the point that they were saying Paul was not even an apostle.
He wasn't even an apostle. He wasn't faithful to preach
the gospel. And then others were just the other extreme. They
were overly exalting Paul. And Paul says to both of them,
it's a very small thing to me that I'm judged of you or of
man's judgment. Now didn't it matter to Paul
what other people thought of him? Didn't it matter what his
brethren thought of him and what the world thought of him? Of
course it did. He states that plainly in other
scriptures that we're never to do anything that dishonors the
gospel, dishonors our God, our Savior. When a believer does
that, it breaks your heart when you do that. It breaks the hearts
of other believers when that happens. If we become haughty
and arrogant and self-righteous judging one another when something
like that happens, That's not of God, it's our flesh doing
it. That's our flesh. But we are to judge. He's not
saying here, do not judge. That's not what he's saying.
We are to judge. You judge every day. And I judge
every day. And if we don't judge, we're
going to be beguiled, deceived, and compromise the gospel. We
have to judge. If you hear somebody preaching
and they're not preaching the gospel, you have to make a discernment,
a judgment that that's not the gospel. It's giving a bad note.
That's not the truth. So you wouldn't take your family
and your spouse and everybody there to hear that because that's
not the gospel. You have to make a judgment on
that. Look over at Matthew chapter 7. The Lord said in Matthew 7, verse
1, He said what Paul is saying to us here in our text. He said, Judge not that you be
not judged. And He is meaning just what Paul
is meaning. Be not hasty to judge somebody. Don't look for a word
or a deed to condemn them. Don't be overly severe. and never,
ever, under any circumstances, judge a man's eternal future. Never. But then look down the
page in verse 6. It says, Judge not that you be
not judged. And then he turns around and
says, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. Neither cast
ye your pearls before swine. lest they trample them under
their feet and turn again and wring you." He's saying there,
you're going to have to make a judgment. You're going to have
to make a judgment. What does he mean? If a man is
blatantly opposing the gospel of Christ, and he's clear to
you he wants nothing to do with the gospel, then you're to make
a judgment that it's useless at that point to try to force
that man to hear the gospel or to rebuke him or anything like
that. It's useless. And you have to make a judgment
concerning that. Now, I'm not to judge such a
man as to whether or not he's an elect child of God. He might
be. He might be. And I'm not to judge
such a man as being forever lost. God may have a point at a time
when He's going to call that man to life and faith in Christ.
I don't know that. But I am to judge righteous judgment
until God opens the door and gives that man a heart to receive
the gospel. No point in casting the pearls
of this gospel before Him. He's just going to turn and wring
you. That's all. And then also this is true of
judgment. In rare cases, in rare cases,
this is not the norm. Now be sure to understand that.
But in rare cases, the church is to judge believers. If they're distracting from Christ,
and causing division in the church, that has to be done. Because
there is nothing as important as hearing Christ preached and
exalted in our midst and the brethren being together in unity. Anything that jeopardizes that
has to be stopped. And we are going to see that
when we get to chapter 5. And when we get over there to chapter
5, Paul said, I have judged already concerning the man who has done
this deed. He judged. He made a judgment
about that. But whenever we do judge, we're
not to judge by the letter of the law. We're always to judge
spiritual discernment. Judge righteous judgment. Look
at John 7. John chapter 7. Christ healed a man on the Sabbath
day. He healed this man on the Sabbath
day. And when he did that, the Pharisees got angry with him.
And they began to judge him harshly, speedily, rashly. They were looking
down their nose at Christ. And listen to what he said in
verse 23. If a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision, that
the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry at me? Because I've made a man every
whit hole on the Sabbath day? Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment. You see, circumcision in the
flesh, that was given by God to Abraham 430 years before the
law of Moses was ever given. And it was given to picture the
spiritual circumcision that God had already performed on Abraham's
heart. That's of God. That's by God.
That's how we're brought into the covenant relationship spiritually
with God. It's because, in our experience
of that relationship, because He circumcises your heart. And
the Sabbath day in the law was a picture of Christ our rest.
But you see, these men weren't judging righteous judgment. They were judging by the letter
of the law. All they saw was the outward ceremony of circumcision
and this day that they ought to keep. And it caused them to
look down on Christ and judge Christ, who's standing right
there, who is our Sabbath rest, and who is the one who circumcises
the heart. And he had just made this man
every whit hole. They rejected the law of Christ,
which is the law of love and mercy, for the law of Moses. That's not righteous judgment,
is it? That's looking at things just in the letter and with the
carnal eye. And the Lord said, Judge righteous
judgment. Judge righteous judgment. Don't
judge according to the appearance. Now that was the problem at Corinth.
And this is what Paul's talking about. The problem at Corinth
was they were judging according to the appearance. That was the
problem. They were harshly judging, professing
believers, and calling them unfaithful. Making their judgment that they're
unfaithful. And they're justifying others
as being faithful. But it wasn't righteous judgment.
They were doing it based on the appearance. It's based on where
they stood over this division among preachers. Sadly, and this
is heartbreaking, I've seen this happen in my lifetime. Men that were used to preach
the gospel to me, divided. Houses, families, people that
you never would have thought would be divided, divided. And
here's what needs to be emphasized. This is what needs to be emphasized. You know, a man's going to have
to preach whatever God's given him an understanding of. And
he can't go against his conscience. He's got to preach what he believes
in good conscience. He should preach. That's what
he has to preach. But here's what needs to be understood. If you have been worshiping with
a believer, a fellow believer, brother or sister for a long
time, they've been proven faithful, they rejoice in the sovereign
grace of God just like you do, If time comes along and time
goes by and you discover, both of you discover, that you differ
on a particular doctrine, that doesn't mean all of a sudden
you both are unbelievers or that either of you are unbelievers.
It just does not mean that. And that's what had happened
here at Corinth. This division had come about between these
preachers, over these preachers, And so they were judging now
that some were faithful and some weren't. Some were believers,
some weren't because of this division. They were judging simply
by carnal appearance. We don't know the motive of the
heart. You don't know that and I don't
know that. And we don't even know all the deeds that go on. We don't even know everything
involved. We just don't. How do we judge? Do we judge differently than
the Lord judges? Do we see things differently
than the Lord sees things? Scripture says, The Lord seeth
not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. You know, Hannah,
she was sitting at this table. And she got up from this table
and she walked outside. And they were probably, they'd
been eating and drinking at that table. There was, more than likely,
there was wine at that table. And she got up and she walked
out on the porch. And she's out there moving her
lips. But she's not making a sound.
She's just moving her lips. And Eli's standing there by the
door. And he looked over there at her. And he judged she's drunk. And she wasn't drunk at all.
She was praying out of her heart, praying to God and asking God
if He'd bless her to give her a child. You see, we don't judge
righteous judgment. We're very apt to judge by the
appearance. And that's what Paul is saying.
If you judge me by the appearance, it's a very small thing to me. That's very small to me or any
other man. And so, what he's telling us
here, brethren, is you don't want to be harsh judging somebody
and swift judging somebody because if they are Christ's master,
or if they are Christ, Christ is their master, and not you
and not me. And Paul said this, you receive
your brethren, but don't doubt them, receive them, not doubting
them and disputing with them, receive them. And he said this,
He said this, Who art thou that judges another man's servant? To his own master he standeth
or falleth. To his own master. Yea, he shall
be holding up because God is able to make him stand. Now understand me, I'm talking
about somebody that's been proven faithful. You know them. You
know, you trust them. that they rejoice in the gospel
the same as you. If you have a difference, it
doesn't mean they're all of a sudden unbelievers. Now, if there's
a man who's obviously dividing people and he's rejoicing to
divide people and he's preaching a false gospel and he's promoting
a false gospel, you have to make a judgment that that's false. It just is. But never judge anybody
rashly and harshly according to the flesh. Judge righteous
judgment always. Now look at this, Paul even said
this same thing about judging his own self. And this is true
of judging our own self. At the end of verse 3, he said,
yeah, I judge not mine own self. He's talking about his own person.
He said, I don't even judge my own heart. Now again, be sure
to understand what Paul's not saying. He's not saying that
we should not go to God's Word and judge ourselves according
to God's Word. That's not what He's saying.
We should do that. Look over at 1 Corinthians 11. And look at verse 31. 1 Corinthians
11, 31. He says, for if we would judge
ourselves, He's talking about our own person, our own personal
selves. If we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we're
chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with
the world. You know, this is the fact. When
our actions are obviously against the Word of God, just obviously
against the Word of God, you know it is and I know it is too.
We can't make an excuse and say, I didn't know it. Yes, you do
and I do too. We know it. And God says if we
would judge ourselves according to God's Word and correct it,
We wouldn't have to worry about being corrected. But, he says,
if we are corrected, if we are judged, and sometimes the Lord
uses our brethren, sometimes He uses strangers. That's a terrible
thing to be rebuked by a stranger. They don't even know the Lord.
Sometimes we're rebuked by His providence. But however the Lord
does it, He says, it's the Lord that's doing it. It's the Lord
that's chasing you. And he's doing it because he won't ever
allow one of his blood-bought children to perish in this world. He won't do that. He will not
do that. He'll never do that. God's going to keep his people. You know, we're not always faithful
to chasing our children. And sometimes we do it, and we
do it wrongly, hastily, in that rash, harsh judgment that Paul's
forbidding here. God never. God always judges
His child, and He always chastens His child, and He does it right.
He always does it right. So He's not saying we're not
to judge ourselves. We are to judge ourselves. My first point is that it's a
little thing if we're judged of our brethren, a little thing
if we're judged of men, and we're not to judge our own selves overly,
harshly, and rashly. But now look at what He's saying
here, verse 4. The Lord's the only true and just judge. That's
the point he's making here. This is our second point. The
Lord's the only true and just judge. Now look at verse 4. He
says, For I know nothing by myself. And what that means is, Paul
is saying, I'm not aware of being unfaithful to God in my stewardship,
I'm not currently aware of being unfaithful to God in anything."
That's what he's saying. I don't know of anything about
myself that's unfaithful that I can say right now is unfaithful. He said in another place in Acts,
he said, I have lived in all good conscience before God until
this day. That's what he's saying right
there. Now that required Paul to make a judgment of himself,
didn't it? So he's not saying that we ought to judge ourselves.
We are. But here's what he's saying, verse 4. Yet am I not. And here's what that means. Yet
I am not. I am not hereby justified. But he that judges me is the
Lord. Believers don't justify ourselves
in any way. We just don't. We don't. Not
from the curse and condemnation of the law. And we don't justify
ourselves as our faithfulness to God being the genuine work
of God. We don't justify that either.
From the curse and condemnation of the law, it's the Lord that
judges. I mean, the Lord that justifies
His people. And He declares that that judgment's settled. They
are justified. Listen to Romans 8.33. You don't
have to turn there, but you're familiar with it. But He said,
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies it. Who's he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. Yea, rather that's risen again,
who's living at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. God justified His people from
the curse and condemnation of the law. He chose who He would
justify, He chose who would justify us, and He sent His Son with
us in His Son, represented by His Son as our head, and Christ
went to the cross. And Christ, God was in Christ
justifying His people. Settling His justice and justifying
His people. And Christ finished that work
for every one of God's chosen people. For everybody for whom
Christ died, He justified them. He finished the work. And He's
going to call every one of them, and teach every one of them,
and through faith, He's going to make them to know, you've
been justified. He's going to do it. And when
He does that, He says to us, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. That's of God, brethren. We don't
have a thing to do with that. And by the same token, it's the
Lord who justifies His child as being faithful. Paul said,
my faithfulness is not justified as being true faithfulness by
my judgment. That's what he's saying. I don't
see anything right now, in all good conscience, I can't say
that I see anything where I've been unfaithful as a preacher
and as a faithful steward of the gospel. That's what Paul's
saying. He said, but that's not going to justify me as being
faithful. This is not going to justify my faith as being the
genuine God-given gift from God. It won't do it. But, he said,
he that judges me is the Lord. That's who's going to do the
judging. Now notice the four judges that are contained in
this passage. There's the judgment of brethren.
There's the judge of the world. There's my own judge, being my
own judge, and then there's the Lord's judgment. And of these
four, who's the true and just judge? The Lord Jesus Christ. Look at John 5.22. John 5.22. John 5.22, For the Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all
men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He
that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent
him. He's the judge. He's the judge,
brethren. You know, when it comes to this
thing of judging ourselves, we're just as bad about this as we
are about judging our brethren. We go to one of two extremes
when we judge ourselves. We're either overly biased and
we justify ourselves as being faithful in a thing when we're
not. You think about it. You get into
a little spat with somebody. They go away and you go away.
Don't you just think of a million ways you justified for what you
did, what you said. and how they're unjust. Don't
you just do it? It's just natural, isn't it?
Because we've still got that flesh with us that's just that
sinful old rebel against God. And we're apt to do that, to
go overly to one extreme and justify ourselves. Or we're apt
to do this, to go overboard to extremes at examining our faithfulness
and not seeing any faithfulness in ourselves and condemning ourselves
to the point to feel like I'm lost. I've never even been a
child of God. And Paul says here, remember
this, you're not the final judge. You're not the final judge. He
that judges me is the Lord. He that judges me is the Lord. Now lastly, here's the instruction
then. Let's put it all together now,
verse 5. Therefore, he says, Judge nothing
before the time until the Lord come. Now, we saw that the Lord
is the righteous and true judge. And He said, now don't be hasty,
don't be rash in judgment, and judge nothing before the time.
Wait, because the Lord Jesus Christ shall come. He's the true
and just judge and He shall come. He comes now in season, when
it's the right season, He comes now. And He comes forth and He
instructs and He corrects His children. He does that to you
and He does that to me. Wait on Him. He comes now to
put down our enemies and protect His church. Paul said that back
up there. If any man defiles this church
and tries to divide his church, God will destroy that man. God
knows it. He's going to protect His church
from His people. So when you see something going
on, and you want to get torn up over the world and the way
things are right now, I know it's a mess. I look at the church
right now and think, that's the biggest mess there is right now,
is the visible church. But we don't have to get all
beside ourselves and start making these haste judgments again,
because the Lord knows it. He knows everything. He's working
everything, just like Art said, right on time, right according
to His will and His purpose. And He's coming again to judge
this whole world. He's coming now to correct His
child. He's coming to protect us from
our enemies. And He's coming to judge this whole world. And
therefore, Paul says, never judge. No, that's not what he said.
He said, therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord
comes. Is it just me, or do you see
that there is a time when a judgment can be made, but not until the
Lord comes? And rest in this too, that when
you just rest knowing Christ, trusting Christ, believing Christ,
when He comes, He knows everything that is happening. When He comes,
be it in this trial, if somebody is in a trial, or be it against
an enemy or be it when He comes again. Our Lord knows everything
that's happening. It's all happening right on by
His sovereign hand. And when He comes forth, this
true and this just judge is going to do this right here. Verse
5, He will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness. Those things that were concealed.
He is going to bring those things to life. And He will make manifest
the counsels of the hearts. He even knows that, brethren. Now for the unbeliever, for the
man who is outside of Christ, who doesn't believe on Christ,
who doesn't see that Christ is indeed the just The just Savior
and the justifier who fully, totally justified His people
from our sins so that there's nothing else to be done by us.
We can rest in Christ. The man won't rest in Him. He
won't believe Him. He don't trust Him. He's going
after this world, whatever. Christ will judge even His very
best deeds as utter wickedness. The very best righteousnesses
that man can bring forth, the Lord's going to judge them as
utter wickedness, as the basest, worst wickedness just like everybody
else. And He's going to bring to light
the hidden things of darkness. Everything that an unbeliever,
that a rebel against God tried to hide and conceal, He's going
to bring all those things to light against him. And he'll
even make manifest all the hidden things of his heart. He'll show
him and he'll show everybody. He'll show God that everything
this man ever did was from a selfish, self-centered, unholy, God-hating
motive. Everything. And then He'll cast
them out into outer darkness where there'll be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. The whole time He's doing this,
they're going to be saying, when did we do this? When did we not
do good and do what we're supposed to? You know, defending themselves. Didn't we do wonderful works?
But He knows every hidden thing and He knows the heart. And He'll
bring it forth. And there'll be no fighting against
His judgment. No, no. There won't be any appeals
to be made. There won't be any retrials or
hung juries or anything like that. He's the judge. He's the
jury. And He's going to do it just and true. But now for the
believer, there's something here too. There's something here for
the believer. Christ is going to bring to light
before you, to you. He's going to make it known to
you who are believers. He's going to bring light to
you and to everyone else, the truth, that you stand clothed
in the perfect righteousness of Christ, holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in His sight. That's right. That's exactly
what He's going to make known in the Day of Judgment. And He's
going to bring to light all the time that you mourned over your
sins, and that you tried to put away your sins so that you could
honor Christ, because you just wanted to honor Him for what
He's done for you. He'll make it known, every faithful
prayer that you ever pray, and show it all to be perfect righteousness. No spot, no blemish in any of
it. He'll bring to light, He'll make
known all things that you did for others that nobody else knew
about. Things that you weren't seeking
praise in or you weren't seeking acknowledgement in, nobody knew
about it but you. And there'll be a lot of those
things that you didn't even know about. Probably a lot of the things
that we think is a good work is not. Mainly because we think
it is. But the ones we don't even know
are the ones Christ is going to say, that was a good work. And He is going to reveal that
the perfect holy motive of our heart was that we were constrained
only by the love of Christ in our hearts. He's going to make
that known. Now, I'm saying this is going
to be so of every believer. I know without a shadow of a
doubt it's going to be so of every believer. I know it is. You and I are going to stand
amazed because the only way that you and I do any good work, and
this is how I know this is certain, brethren, the only way you and
I do any good work, period, is because everything we are is
of God's grace. Everything that we do that's
a good work, that God defines as a good work, God ordained
it beforehand that we should do it. And Christ works it in
us so that we do it. It's God working in you both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. And everything that
you do when you do these works, they're full of sin because sin's
mixed with everything we do. But they come up to God, whether
it's your preaching, whether it's praying, whether it's helping
your fellow brethren or helping somebody out at work or wherever,
whatever it is that God's ordained for you to walk in, that Christ
brings about, when it comes up to God, He washes it in His blood
and presents it to the Father, holy and righteous and unreprovable
in God's sight. And now when that's so, brethren,
we're robed in His righteousness and everything that a believer
ever does is by God's grace alone, by Christ working in us. And
you just imagine when you stand in glory, And He's making these
things. He's bringing things out of the
darkness that were in darkness to you. And making them light. He's revealing your heart that
you didn't even know about. That's what Paul said. I don't
see anything, but I'm not the judge of it. And He'll bring
forth things in truth and show you things that are righteous
things in His righteousness that you didn't even know was righteous.
And look at this, Matthew 25, verse 34. Here's where we'll
be on that day. Look at this. Matthew 25 and
look at verse 34. Here's where the believer will
be. Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father. Inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was a hungred, and you
gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me
drink. I was a stranger, and you took
me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited
me. I was in prison, and you came unto me." Would you be surprised if Christ
said that to you? I would. I would expect Him to
say, you've been unfaithful. That wouldn't surprise me. Because
that's true. This right here will just amaze
me. Look at this. Then shall the
righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hunger,
and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and
clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or
in prison, and came unto thee? And the king shall answer and
say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it
unto me. Now go back to our text. I want
you to see this. If that wasn't amazing enough,
this right here is going to be the most amazing thing of all
right here. Look at the end of verse 5. And then shall every
Saved, glorified believer, have praise, look at those last two
words, of God. You mean God's going to praise
me? God's going to say, well done, my good and faithful servant. How so? We're so one with Christ. He's
made us so one. Christ prayed, thou and me, and
I in them, that they may be made perfect in one. And we're so
one with Christ, that for the sake of Christ and in Christ,
God's going to say to us, well done, my good and faithful servant. So Paul says, don't be hasty
to judge anything, and don't do any rash, harsh, condemning
judgment against your brethren at all. Don't even judge your
own self that way. But he says this, wait until the Lord come and He'll bring it to light and then follow the Lord and
judge righteous judgment. And in that day you can trust
He will judge righteous judgment. I don't want the judgment day
to be a frightening thing to God's people because it won't
be. It just won't be. Christ has done everything. When
you read in Ephesians that we're going to be unapprovable in His
sight, there won't be a thing that can be brought up against
you. That's going to be so of every one of them, equally so
of every one of His people because we're all in Christ. All of us. All right. Let's stand together,
brethren. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. Pray, Lord, that You'd apply it and that You'd bless
us to really judge ourselves and correct ourselves in Your
time by Your Word, not hastily and not overly one way or the
other, but according to the righteous judgment that You produce in
our own hearts. Lord, do that, that we might
not have to be chastened by Your hand but we trust that you'll
be faithful to do so if need be. Lord, help us to deal graciously
with our brethren, forgivingly with our brethren, knowing that
you will come and you will correct and you will chasten and we'll
know then when it's time to do what we ought to do. And Lord,
give the unbeliever a desire to look into your word and to
seek you now while you may be found. It saddens us to have
to think of anybody that sat under this gospel with us meeting
God without the righteousness of Christ through faith. Pray
Lord you'd give them that heart of faith to trust Him. And Lord
don't, if you will, don't let the judgment day be a frightening
thing for you people. Make us to see that what is going
to be Condemnation for the unbeliever is going to be all righteousness
and glory and praise for those that You've made righteous. It's
going to be for Your sake, for Your glory, for Your honor and
praise. We thank You, Lord. We ask You
to forgive us of our sins. For Christ's sake, it's in His
name we ask it. Amen. Alright, Eric.