In a lot of ways, this sermon
from Genesis 49 is going to not deal so much with the context
as it probably ought to, but it seems like an important truth,
nevertheless, that's applicable to us. I'm praying that Lord would give
these words a place in your heart, give Himself a place in your
heart. As we look at Genesis 49, let's ask the Lord to be
with us. Gracious Father, we pray that
you would show us, as Jacob in his dying hour here showed his
children their latter end, you would show us this that you've
provided for us and your purposes to make for us an expected end. And we pray, Lord, that we would
find ourselves enraptured with the thought of your eternal purpose
and your work, both in the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and
in all of our lives in providence, and your work in our hearts.
that you would bring us to glory according to your good will and
to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Now in Genesis chapter 49, it says in verses 1 and 2, And Jacob
called unto his sons and said, Gather yourselves together. that
I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together and
hear, you sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father."
Those are the two verses that I want to consider with you today.
Gather yourselves together. Jacob is at the end of his life.
and he's looking back perhaps at his life, but I think more
than that he's looking forward. Because if you look a little
further in verse 18, Jacob interjects this statement. In all the rest
that he says to his sons, he says, I have waited for thy salvation,
O Lord. So Jacob is looking at the end
of his life to the other side of Jordan, as we speak of it
metaphorically, looking to heaven and his crossing from death,
from life, through death, into glory. And he's about to leave
this life, and so he gathers his sons together. He's 147 years
old. The age in his body, he's weakened. He can't see, but his mind is
sharp. with the truth, the promises
of God. And he is intent on making his
sons hear his last words because God has given him a word by his
Holy Spirit to speak to them. And here is the way he says it
to them in verse 1, gather yourselves together that I may tell you
that which shall befall you in the last days. Notice the words
shall, that which shall befall you in the last days. Now the
word shall, when I was an engineer we would write what we called
requirements before we designed anything. And a requirement would
be stated as a shall. whatever it was, shall do this,
or shall do that, it shall meet this spec. And it couldn't, it
wouldn't be a product, we wouldn't be done with the job unless it
actually did what the requirements said. Here, God is saying through
Jacob, I will tell you that which shall befall you in the last
days. This is what's going to happen,
in other words. And so this is a very definite
a very fixed, predetermined outcome that God is speaking about here
of Jacob's children, not just his immediate children, but his
children's children farther on down the line, all of his posterity. And so he's about to give him
this instruction, and he does so in the remainder of the chapter.
But I just want to consider this with you, and the title of this
message is Our Expected End. The end. That's what he's speaking
about here. And the words here that he said,
your ladder in the last days could be translated
as your latter end or what will come at the end. And so, this
is what Jacob is telling his children that you need to consider
these things. Now, a lot of times we wonder
what's going to happen in the future. We may even be curious
enough to wish that we could know what was going to happen
to us in the future. But aren't you thankful that
you don't know what's going to happen to you in the immediate
future through the trials of your life? What if you knew that
you were going to get sick and suffer pain or loss of loved
ones or property? What would you do? You would
be constantly thinking about that. You wouldn't be able to
sleep. You would be wondering when it's going to happen and
all the events leading up to it. And you'd be preoccupied
with it. It would consume your thoughts.
And you couldn't function. But here, Jacob is telling them
what's going to be at the end. Your latter end, your expected
end. And so God doesn't tell us all the details of our lives.
What he tells us instead is he tells us about himself who controls
all the details of our lives. He doesn't tell us the details
of what shall be, but he tells us the one who has determined
what shall be. That's the way God knows what
will be, is he's determined what shall be in all things. And so
that's what Jacob is doing here. He's telling them about their
latter end. In the book of Revelation, in
Revelation chapter 10 and verse 6, I won't turn you there, but
in Revelation 10.6, an angel, meaning I think the Lord Jesus
Christ, lifts up his hand to heaven that time should be no
more. There's coming a time in God's
time, in God's timing, when He shall make time stop. Time will
be no more. It was God who created time itself. We live in time, don't we? We
can't think outside of time. We can't imagine what it's like
to be outside of time. But God doesn't live in time.
God is in the ever-present eternity. And that's something we just
really can't understand. When we say God determined that
from eternity, we think of it as something in the past, because
it was before time. And it's true. But there was
never a time when it was not so. When I was little, I couldn't
rest with the statement that God never had a beginning. It
would constantly go back in my mind, how could that be? There
had to be a starting point, because that's all we know as children
and as adults. But as we read God's word, we
become more and more comfortable with the thought that God dwells
in eternity. God is everlasting. He's from
everlasting to everlasting, according to Psalm 90, verses 1 and 2.
So there's no time that's outside of God's eternal time, whatever
that means. You don't know really how to
talk about it, do you? But there is coming a time when time shall
be no more. And when that happens, we will
all be in eternity. That's when the end will come,
when time shall be no more. Now, God says here, through Jacob
to his children, He says, I'm going to tell you about what
shall befall you in the last days. Everything with God is
predetermined. Predetermined with God. Nothing
happens that God didn't already determine before time. It wasn't
that he determined it as a contingency or as a dependency upon how we
would act. God doesn't look down the corridors
of time in order to see how we are going to think or react to
events and then say, well, this is the way I'll do it, since
he's probably going to do it that way, or he will do it that
way. That's not the way God does things. God doesn't respond to
angels, to devils, or to men. They act according to God's predetermined
will. And so, this is the way God has
done things. All things are controlled by
God. So, let me give you these reasons, three reasons, why everything
is determined and fixed with God. First of all, God is sovereign. Now, we use that all the time,
and a lot of preachers use that term sovereign, but what does
it mean to be sovereign? What does it mean when we say
God is sovereign? Well, think of a king. Kings
do whatever they want to, don't they? God does whatever he wants
to. And we put it this way, or the
Bible puts it this way, that God has a will. God has a will. That means he's determined, he
has a purpose of what he's going to do. God has a will. And God
does, and God's will does not depend on anything about man. Man didn't advise God how to
make the earth or that he should even create the earth, did he?
Man wasn't even there. Man didn't influence God. God
created man. It was God who put this whole
thing in motion. Man's knowledge and man's work
didn't affect God's will. For that matter, nothing outside
of God influences his will. God's will comes from God. It
doesn't come from the outside. God controls everything through
His will. In fact, in Ephesians 1.11 it
says, He works all things according to the counsel of His own will. That's amazing, isn't it? God
has a will, and He uses His will as His counselor, and everything
He does, He does according to His will, His counselor, His
will. No one can question God's will. In Daniel 4.35 it says,
He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven, on earth,
and among all the inhabitants. And no one can say to Him, What
doest thou? No one can question God's will.
God acts. He doesn't react. He always moves
forward in His will. He never backs up and tries it
again. Everything that He does, He does
according to His will. God always does His will. Look
at a few scriptures with me in Isaiah. Chapter 14. This one
is probably the most powerful one. So I'll take you there first.
Isaiah 14 and verse 24. It says, "...the Lord of hosts
has sworn..." So God has taken an oath. He's staked Himself
to this. If he doesn't do what he's sworn
to do, then he is no longer God. He's unfaithful. He's not true. But here he says, "...the Lord
of hosts," or the Lord of the armies of heaven and earth, he
said, "...the Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely, as I have
thought So shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall
it stand." You see how God's almighty, sovereign will? That's
what sovereign means. It means God has a will. It means
that His will doesn't depend on anyone outside of Himself.
None can question it, and it means that God always does His
will. In Isaiah chapter 46, look at
this while you're in the book of Isaiah. See how God's will
is always done. Not only is His will always done,
but He says beforehand what shall be done, so that when it is done,
we'll know that He determined it. And we have to acknowledge
that He is God. In Isaiah 46 and verse 9, it
says, remember the former things of old. I, for I am God, and
there is none else. There's no one God but God. There's only one God, and there
can be none other than God. I am God and there is none like
me. You can't find anything that's
like God because there's none like God. That's why it's idolatry
to create an image of God. There's nothing like God. Anything
that we look at and say, well that helps me think about God,
that's itself an idol. He says, in verse 10, this is
what God does. He declares the end, which is
what we're talking about here, what shall be, what shall be
in the latter end. He declares the end from the
beginning and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done,
saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. All of it, everything that is
done is according to God's pleasure. Verse 11. This is even calling
a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel
from a far country. It was God's counsel to call
this ravenous bird, which he's speaking of here, a judgment
of the Babylonians upon Israel. He says, he executes my counsel. This is what God determined from
a far country. Yay! This is what God says about
the invading armies of the Babylonians against Israel. He says, yay! I have spoken it, I will also
bring it to pass. I have purposed it, I will also
do it. So whatever God wants done, He
purposes, He speaks it, and He brings it to pass. Isn't that
what creation is? God spoke, and the light was
shined out of darkness. Everything that happened in creation
was by God's word. And so, if you look at Psalm
33, I'll take it to just one more like this. Very powerful
statements about who God is as our sovereign God. In Psalm 33,
verse 6, it says, "...by the word of the Lord were the heavens
made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He
gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap, he layeth
up the depths and storehouses, Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. Why? Because He spake, and it
was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel
of the heathen to naught, to nothing. He makes the devices
of the people of none effect. Whatever they intend, He nullifies
the effect of whatever they're intending to do, unless it's
according to His will. Verse 11. The counsel of the
Lord standeth forever. the thoughts of his heart to
all generations. There's no time when God's counsel
had to change. Because his counsel, the thoughts
of his heart, stand to all generations. There's no change with God. He
doesn't change. He doesn't have to. He determines
it and he does it. He speaks it before it happens
and brings it to pass. And this is the first reason
why everything is determined with God. Everything is fixed. It seemed good, Jesus said in
Matthew chapter 11 verse 25, it seemed good to the father
to hide the things of Christ to the proud and to reveal them
to the babes. It seemed good to him, and so
that's what happened. And mostly, when we think about
God's sovereignty, we want to remember that God, not man, determines
who He shall save. It's God who saves. And God determines
how He will save, and who He will save, and the one He's going
to save them by, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not us who determines
our salvation. Of His own will begat He us by
the word of truth, James 1.18. And so in the Gospel of John,
chapters 1, verses 12 and 13, he says, it's not of the will
of the flesh, it's not of the will of man, but it is of God
that we're born. And because we're born, that's
why we believe Christ. We're born of God by His will,
therefore we believe Christ. It's the proof that we've been
born of God, that we look to the Lord Jesus Christ as all
of our salvation. And so God did it. It was His
will. That's why we were born. That's why we believe. And so
He says so in Acts 13.48. Those that believed were already
ordained by God to eternal life. God determines whom He will save,
how He will save, and He does it for His glory. Did God determine
to use the sin of men and the evil of devils for His glory?
You better know he did. In Psalm 76.10 it says, "...the
wrath of man shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he
shall restrain." In so many places in scripture it says this. In
Romans 9.17 it says, "...God raised up Pharaoh, in order that
he might show his power in him, and that he might make his name
known over all the earth." God did it. God uses evil, God uses
the sin of men, and He does it. He turns the evil intentions
of men and the wickedness of men for His glory. In Isaiah
45 verse 7 it says, God brings evil upon men for their sins
because He creates light and He creates darkness. He creates
good and He creates evil, according to Isaiah 45.7. Does God overrule
all evil for His people? Yes, He does. We talked about
that in our Bible study in Romans 8.28, last week in the sermon.
Why God brings evil. Why God brought Israel into Egypt
and so on. But will God triumph over all
sin, all the sin of men and devils? And we know that He will because
He says, He makes us more than conquerors through Him that loved
us. So God is sovereign. That's what sovereign means.
He determines all things. He says what He will do before
He does it. He Himself does it. And He uses
it for His own glory. That's what sovereign means.
God saves as He will. He saves whom He will. Can our
sin or the sin and wickedness of devils hurt God? Can we keep
God from doing His will? Can any man keep God from doing
what He determines to do? Well, in Job 35 it says, verse
5, Look unto the heavens and see, and behold the clouds which
are higher than thou. If you sin, what doest thou against
him? Or if thy transgressions be multiplied,
what doest thou to him? If thou be righteous, what givest
thou him? Or what receiveth he of thine
hand? Your wickedness may hurt a man,
as you are, and thy righteousness may profit the Son of man, but
not God. God is not affected by anything
men do. You can't change God. God is
God. He's unmovable, unchangeable,
eternal. And He is sovereign. The second
reason why everything is determined. The first reason is that God
is God. He's sovereign. And we know now something about
what sovereign means. He does His will, uninfluenced,
all the time. especially in salvation. But
the second reason why everything is determined is because God
is absolutely just. Why is the end already determined? Because God is holy and He is
just. He will give to every man According
to his deeds. This is the words of scripture.
God will render to every man according to his deeds. God will
bring all things to a just end. A righteous end. Because he's
God. His justice is part of his sovereignty. We wonder, how can God be just
and do this or that? Because he's God. Because he's
God. Doesn't that humble us? What
are you going to do about it? Pygmy man may do lots of things
trying to make God change or to claim God is unfair. God is
not even affected by all of the protests of puny man. He isn't. God will bring all
things to the end, a just end. The judge of all the earth will
do right. Therefore, if I am righteous,
I will be rewarded as righteous, because God is just. And if I'm
wicked, I will be rewarded as wicked. God shall punish all
sin. God is just. He will either punish
my sin in me, or he will punish my sin in my substitute. But God will punish all sin because
he's just. That's the end. When we talk
about what is determined, we know that God will do right. He will do just. And no matter
what protests the rebel, the sinful rebel against God raise,
Their voices will all be silenced when God executes His judgments
at the end. It will be just, and men will
bow to it, saying, Yes, God did right. He did right to punish
sin. In Romans chapter 3, it says,
If my wickedness brings glory to God, then how can God judge
me? That's the question that's raised,
and the answer is given is, Basically this, you fool. How could God
be God if He didn't punish sin? Look at this in Romans chapter
3. This is the foolishness of men.
They think, I've got an argument here that's going to overthrow
God's judgment. He says, in Romans chapter 3. He says in verse 3, what if some
did not believe? Well, I don't believe what God
said. So what? It's not going to change it.
What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith or the truth of God without effect? God forbid. No. Yea,
let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that
thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome
when thou art judged. It's like, think of this. I remember
standing on the dam at Bullard's Bar when I was little. when I
was much younger, looking over the edge and thinking, whoa,
whoa, whoa, that is a long way down. I do not want to get near
that ledge. If I fall, I'm a goner. I'll
splatter like a bug on the concrete. That's the way God's truth is.
Men bang their heads against it and it doesn't affect it.
It doesn't even make a dent in the sidewalk. But he says here,
listen to this, but he raises an objection. But if our unrighteousness
commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God
unrighteous who taketh vengeance? I speak as a man, of course.
God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world? You nitwit. How could you oppose God's judgment? He's the judge of all the earth.
Because your sin, by your sin God brings glory to himself and
his justice in judging you. Are you going to say now that
God can't judge you? Then God couldn't judge the world. He's
the judge. And so we see God is just. That's the reason the
end is determined as it is. And I mentioned last week, God
judged all of Egypt. There wasn't an Egyptian who
didn't come under the judgment of God. And God judged all of
Israel in Egypt. There wasn't an Israelite who
also didn't come under the judgment of God. But the Israelites came
under the judgment when God told them to take the lamb and kill
it and sprinkle its blood on the doorpost and go into the
house and stay there. So when the destroying angel
judged them, and he saw the blood, he would pass over them, because
the judgment came upon them in the Lamb. And so God will judge
that he will be just. If I'm a believer, God sees Christ's
obedience and his blood as my righteousness, and therefore
his justice, his justice demands my release, my salvation. All for whom Christ died, God's
justice cries out, for their salvation. That's amazing, isn't
it? That's why the end is determined,
because God is just. And the third reason that all
is determined is because salvation is by grace alone. All of our
salvation is determined because it's by grace alone. Look at
Romans chapter 4. Look at these verses here in
Romans chapter 4. In verse 16 of Romans 4, He says,
therefore, in Romans 16 verse 4, therefore it is of faith that
it might be by grace. To the end, that's what we're
talking about here, to the end that the promise might be sure
to all the seed. How did God make sure that his
promise was going to happen? He did it by grace. He didn't
leave anything up to us. Grace, the grace of God, doesn't
require God to look for anything in us to save us. He doesn't
require anything, any dependence upon us to save us. Grace is
God doing everything in our salvation. Therefore, it is of faith that
it might be by grace. Our justification, our righteousness,
our eternal inheritance, everything is of grace. Faith itself is
of grace. Faith abandons all claims to
any contribution. Faith not only abandons all claims
to contribution, but faith owns its own sin. And that Christ's
blood alone removes our sin. And so, grace makes sure that
God's end is done. Because grace means God's going
to do it out of motives found in Himself. Not out of reasons
found in man. The objects of saving grace.
I can do nothing to mess it up. Though I do things every time.
Everything I do, I think, is messing it up. But God does not
find a reason. He doesn't put any contingencies
on me. He brings everything required to save me from Himself, faith
itself, His Spirit, to quicken me from the dead. Faith to make
me see Christ and Him crucified and to rely on Him. Even the
heart to cry to Him, that comes from God. Everything comes from
Him. He delights to show grace. Grace
is who God is. It is His glory to show grace
to sinners. Therefore, He can't fail. It
must be, because it's determined. Now, this doesn't make us, as
God's people, as believers, it doesn't make us presumptuous,
does it? We don't presume upon the grace
of God. It's His grace that convinces
His people of their sin. He causes them to see the plague
of our own hearts and flee to Christ for refuge. Look at 1
Kings chapter 8, the book of 1 Kings. And Solomon is praying
here. 1 Kings chapter 8, and he says
in verse 38 and 39, He says, "...what prayer and
supplication soever be made by any man," and he's talking about
a prayer and supplication resulting from the pestilence and blasting
mildew and locusts in the verse before this, the enemy and sickness
and whatever plague it was. He says, "...whatever prayer
and supplication that any man should make by all thy people
Israel, which shall know carefully which shall know every man the
plague of his own heart." Because that's the reason we pray and
cry. God shows us the plague of our own heart. So when we
come to God, what do we say? Like the publican, God, be merciful
to me. The plague is in me. It's not my environment that
made me this way. I can't lay the fault of what
I've done or who I am at anyone's feet but my own. Jesus said it
himself, evil comes from within. It comes out of the heart of
man, the very core of who we are. Don't blame your mom or
your dad or your kids or your job. It's you. And that is the
purpose of God's law is to show us that we're sinners and guilty
and to close our mouth in silence before God with no hope except
that God would have mercy upon us in Christ. And so he says,
whoever shall know the plague of his own heart Because you
know God showed it to him. And spread forth his hands toward
this house, then here thou in heaven, thy dwelling place, and
forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways,
whose heart thou knowest. For thou, even thou only, knowest
the hearts of all the children of men. God knows our hearts. And when He knows our hearts,
He knows that He has put it in our hearts to know our own hearts. And to know that salvation is
in Christ alone. And so He put it there. He put
it there. And so when He spread forth our
hands toward this house, it's teaching us the house He's talking
about is the temple, the sanctuary, where the offerings were brought.
And what is the place where the offering of Christ was brought?
Where did Christ offer Himself? It was in the sanctuary, at the
throne of God in glory. And that's where God accepted
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we pray, knowing
the plague of our heart toward this place, this place he's speaking
about is the throne of grace, where Christ offered himself.
And so, in Jeremiah 17, verse 12, it says, a glorious, high
throne. is the place of our sanctuary.
That's where we have communion with God. That's where we're
accepted by God. That's where Christ offered Himself and makes
an intercession to God for us with His own blood. And that's
the basis on which we come, through the blood of Jesus. We're not
presumptuous. God has taught us the plague of our heart. Yes,
everything is fixed and determined. But knowing this, and knowing
that God reveals to us that we're sinners, We come to Him knowing
that He's determined to save sinners in this way, by showing
us this. And so, though all things are
determined and fixed, yet because in His mercy He makes known the
plague of our own heart and concerns us, makes the great concern of
our soul, our sin, And He shows us Christ in our salvation, then
we call and we cry and we seek the Lord. And we ask Him to save
us to the uttermost, because we know that nothing in our salvation
comes from us. We go to Christ for everything.
Justification, His Spirit to believe Him and live to Him.
Everything. And so let me consider now, just
briefly here, what is the end? What is the end? Our latter end.
Jacob said, let me show you your latter end. We know it's determined,
it shall be, but what is it? What is the end of the wicked?
We need to speak about that. What's the end of the wicked,
first of all? Look at Psalm chapter 37. The
end. Don't you want to know the end? We don't want to know so much
the details, but I want to know the end. How is it going to turn
out in the end? What will it be like when God
is done? That's the question. What will it be like when God
is through with His work and fulfillment of His promises?
It says in Psalm 37, in verse 37, Mark the perfect man, and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors
shall be destroyed together, the end of the wicked shall be
cut off. This is what the end of the wicked
is. Who are these perfect men though?
Who could these perfect men, mark the perfect man, who could
that be? Well, we know the Lord Jesus was perfect, and we also
know that by His one offering He perfected forever those that
were given to Him by the Father to save. So we know the perfect
man has to refer to those for whom Christ died. They have peace
because Christ is their peace through the blood of his cross.
But all those who refuse Christ, who, like in Romans chapter 10,
would not submit to his righteousness, all they shall justly perish
under the wrath of God. Like God says in Ezekiel 18 verse
4, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. So that's the end
of the wicked. It shall die forever under the
wrath of God. And so we read about this. There's a time of judgment. There's
a time coming of judgment in 1 Peter 4, verse 17. It says, What shall the end be of them
that obey not the gospel of God? What shall the end be of those
who don't obey the gospel of God? What does it mean to obey
the gospel of God? It means to believe Christ, come
to Him, to call upon Him, and bow and submit to His righteousness,
and to own my sin, and to bear my soul to Him, and plead for
Him to save me by His grace. That's what it means to obey
the gospel. And so the end of the wicked
is that they will receive the just reward of their sins. And
who can know what that's going to be but God only? In Psalm
73 it talks about the end of the wicked. Look at this in Psalm
73. The end is what we're talking
about. We have an expected end given to us and it's predetermined
by God in Psalm 73. He says this in verse 1 and 2. He says, this is the psalmist
who's bemoaning the fact that he looked at the wicked of the
earth and noticed that they didn't seem to be in trouble, and he
began to be envious of them. Look at Psalm 73, verse 1. Truly,
God is good to Israel, even to such of our clean heart. But
as for me, speaking of himself, the psalmist says, my feet were
almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped,
for I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. So this is what the psalmist
says. I began to wonder, what good
is it to serve God? What good is it to always be
laboring under the burden of my sin and crying out to God
to deliver me from my sin? What good is it? Because these
guys are just prospering in the earth. They have no problems.
And he goes on in verse 17, "...until I went into the sanctuary of
God, then understood I their end." The sanctuary of God. That's what happened. He went
into the sanctuary and he He saw the holiness of God. He saw
the justice of God. He saw the wrath of God and the
evil of sin in the cross of Christ in the sanctuary of God. He saw
what God thought of sin in the death of His Son. He saw what
the sin of man did to Christ, the Son of God. He saw these
things and he said, then I understood their end. God is just. He's
going to bring punishment on sin. He brought that punishment
on his son. What's going to happen then to
those who are in their own sin? He's going to bring it on them.
And so he says in verse 18, Surely thou did set them in slippery
places, thou castest them down into destruction. God has laid
a snare for proud despisers of His Son. He's laid a snare for
them. He set them in slippery places.
He gives them over to their own heart's lust. He gives them over
to plenty and to ease. So that they do what is described
here in the verses that I didn't read to you in Psalm 73. They
walk about in pride. They boast in oppressing others. They have no fear of death. They walk on, and so God has
set them as slippery places. They don't have a need for grace,
so they go on in their rebellious, proud hearts, as if they are
the masters of their own fate. and bring themselves to the end
they desire. But God says, no. He set them
in slippery places and He's going to cast them down into destruction. In verse 19, How are they brought
into desolation as in a moment they are utterly consumed with
terrors? Remember, Herod was standing
and giving some kind of a speech and the people who heard him
said, It's not a man, it's a God who speaks. And because Herod
didn't give glory to God right then, God killed him. But before
he died, God sent worms and ate him. The worms ate Herod, right
there, in front of the people. Can you imagine? He brought them
down with terrors. As a dream, the Lord says, when
one awaketh, so O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise
their image. What's the end of the wicked?
What's the end of those outside of Christ? God is going to despise
even their face. They turn their face, their back
towards Him. He's going to despise them. They'll
be separated from Him forever. That's what the end is. As a
dream when one awakes, God will bring them to their appointed
end. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 9 it says, God has not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
But God has appointed that everyone going on in their own sin and
despising in proud rebellion against Christ shall receive
everything they deserve for all of their thoughts, motives, words,
and deeds. There is an end. And God's going
to bring them because God is just, and God is sovereign, and
He has the power to do His will. And therefore, let all the earth
stand in awe of Him. But what is the end of the righteous?
Isaiah 3.10 says, So here we are. Don't you profess to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ? It says in scripture that all
who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are righteous in His righteousness. Right? Say ye to the righteous,
it shall be well with him. The Lord says this in Jeremiah
29. Look at Jeremiah 29. You probably
hear these verses nowadays. I think these verses became popular
sort of recently. But in the book of Jeremiah,
This is speaking about God's thoughts towards His people.
He says in Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11, that I think toward you, saith
the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected
end." That's what we're talking about, the end. What's the end
of the righteous? God says, say to the righteous,
it shall be well with you, to give you an expected end. Thoughts
of peace, not of evil. And so the Lord speaks peace
to his people in so many ways. What is the end? Look at Micah
chapter 7. The book of Micah. One of the
minor prophets. It's after the book of Amos. It's before Nahum. Before Habakkuk. I'm not sure where you're going
to end up. It's before Zechariah if you're there. It's near there. I'll give you
a sequence here. Hosea, Joel, Amos, and then Micah, or Obadiah,
and then Jonah. There are a lot of people. Micah, chapter 7. One of these
days I'll ask some of the kids here, who are between the ages
of 12 and 13, to recite the Old Testament books in order. But
I won't do that now, because I can't do it myself. Micah chapter
7, look at this in verse 7. What is the expected end of the
righteous? This is what the righteous says. This is what the believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ says. The man who in himself has a
plague in his heart and knows himself to be a sinner. He says,
therefore I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God
of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my
cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to
the light, and I shall behold his righteousness." What's the
end of all of God's people? Well, he says, I will look to
the Lord. All of God's people look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the end. God brings him to that. And what
else? They wait for his salvation. They wait on him who is the God
of their salvations. He also knows that his enemies
will be put to shame because he says, Rejoice not against me, O mine
enemies. When I fall, I shall arise. In
Isaiah 45 he says that all who are incensed against the Lord
will be put to shame. And though I have sinned against
him, though all of God's people have, yet the Lord Jesus Christ
pleads our cause. When we appear before God in
judgment, what is the end? It's judgment day. And what will
happen in judgment day to the righteous? The Lord Jesus Christ
will be the judge, and He will plead our cause. Who can lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is Christ that died.
It's God who justifies. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
himself will plead our cause. Remember the thief on the cross?
He was righteous in God's eyes. How do we know? Because the Lord
Jesus told him, today you'll be with me in paradise. The thief
had taken for his own what didn't belong to him. The thief had
taken what belonged to someone else. He was covetous, so he
took it. And he treated those that he
stole from with cruelty when he took from them. And he lied
and misrepresented the truth about the things he stole, claiming
it to be his own. He was a thief. And yet God opened
his eyes to see the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. He opened his eyes to see the
one hanging next to him, hanging on the cross, nails through his
hands and feet, and a crown of thorns on his head. And in looking
to him, he saw that he himself, the Lord Jesus, was actually
the Lord of glory, who hung on the cross. Who would die, he
saw that he would die, and rise again, and receive glory, and
come again in his glory. And so the thief said to him,
Lord, Remember me when you come into your kingdom." That's resurrection. That's exaltation. That's honor
and glory from God the Father. Because he knew he had done nothing
amiss, therefore he was dying for the sins of his people. The
thief saw this. And he heard the crowd, he heard
the mob accuse him falsely and condemn him and mock him. And
by all outward appearances, it looked like he was helpless on
the cross there, cursed, nailed in his hands and feet. But by
God's grace, that believing thief saw that this was his grace and
his love that held him there, and not the nails. He saw that
He had come to take and bear and remove the sins of His people
by His own willing sufferings and death, and therefore that
thief said, This man has done nothing amiss. He said, Lord,
Lord, to the one hanging on the cross, Lord, remember me. When you come into your glory,
when you come into your kingdom, And Jesus said, today you'll
be with me. That's your end. Today, you'll
be with me in paradise. That's your latter end. That's
your expected end. But in Matthew 25, this end was
not something that just happened to occur in the mind of the Lord
Jesus then, as if he didn't know this man before. Look at Matthew
25. This is what happened already
before. It was put in place. It was determined.
By God's sovereign will, in Matthew 25, verse 31, it says, "...when
the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels
with Him." And these are angels powerful beyond belief. Angels
can wipe out an entire army of men with just their... I don't know how they do it.
But God used them in the Old Testament to overcome thousands
in a single blow, it seemed like. So the Lord Jesus is going to
come in His glory. and all the holy angels with
him. And then shall he sit upon the
throne of his glory. This is the end. Before him shall
be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from
another. Each of us individually will
be separated then by the Lord Jesus Christ, as a shepherd divides
his sheep from the goats. He'll set the sheep on his right
hand. but the goats on the left hand.
Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, this
is their end, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. These are the ones
God saved. God determined to save them.
And the Lord Jesus Christ now is giving them what he determined
to be their latter end. And then he goes on. These were
all of God's sheep he's speaking to. He says, I was hungry, you
gave me meat. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, you took me
in naked. And you clothed me, I was sick,
and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came
to me. And then the righteous shall answer and say, Lord, when
did we see you hungry and fed thee, or thirsty and give you
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
to thee? And the king shall answer and
say to them, here's the justice of it all. He'll show that they're
His. "...Verily I say to you, inasmuch
as you have done it unto the one of the least of these, my
brethren, just a cup of cold water..." What is this that we're
giving to the Lord Jesus Christ, brethren? The drink, and the
food, and the clothing, and the visitation in prison, and the
comfort. All these things. It's the gospel
of His grace. Do you see it? It's not just
physical clothing, and physical food, and physical water. And
visiting people physically in prison is taking the gospel,
which is the message of God to the captives, to the hungry,
to the thirsty, to the naked. This is the only thing that will
give them anything of value, is the gospel. And all of God's
people meet together weekly, and as often as we do, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together, to do what? To speak the truth
in love. To give to God's people, without
realizing it, the very thing that's the food for our heart,
and the drink for our soul, and the clothing before God. The
thing that released us from prison, in Ephesians chapter 4, I'll
read these verses to you. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15,
he says, But speaking the truth in love, and what is the truth
if it's not Christ and Him crucified? And we do it in love. because
we love God's salvation, we love God's Savior, we love those the
Lord loves, that we may grow up into Him in all things, which
is the head, even Christ, in verse 16 of Ephesians 4, from
whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
edifying of itself in love. We meet together to worship Christ,
our Savior, and to give to one another the very thing God has
given to us in our own souls. That's what we do. And so, we
receive the expected end. Because God, the Lord Jesus says,
see, that's the evidence. Faith, it's of faith that it
might be by grace to the end a promise might be sure to all
the seed. Faith is what God gives to point
us to Christ. And he says God has used faith
as the means to show his people the Lord Jesus and their Savior
and to come to God. So we see this. We see the importance
of it. We see that God is determined
to give us our expected end. What will happen to the righteous
in the end? Let me turn you to one last scripture.
Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah chapter 45. This is what
God's going to do when everything is all done. This is what's going
to happen when everything is done. Isaiah chapter 45. He says in verse 23, I'll read verse 20 through 25. He's talking to his people in
that first part, and then he says this to those others. He
says, "...they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their
graven image and pray to a God that cannot save." The issue
is about salvation. This is what the Scripture is
about. You're either calling on a God that can save, or you're
calling on a God that cannot save. All men by nature have
no knowledge. They have no knowledge. They
set up the wood of their graven image. We set up the imagination
of our heart out of the forest of our own depraved minds. We
carve out idols and we serve them, the works of our own hands.
And God says they have no knowledge. They call to a God that can't
save. We imagine that God is going to save us because we decided
for Him. Made a will, a decision for Him. We work for Him. We
do things for Him. We have an experience where we
felt good all over. All those things that we look
to ourselves. God says, that's a God that cannot save. And then
he says, tell ye, and bring them near, yea, let them take counsel
together who has declared this from the ancient times. Gather
all your idols together, the Buddhists, the Islam, the Muslims,
and the Catholics, and the Baptists, and whoever you are. Gather your
idols together. Which one of them has declared
the end from the beginning? That's what he's saying. from
ancient times. Who has told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior. God is just, infinitely just. He will not compromise His justice,
but He's also a Savior. He's done the impossible. There's
none beside me. Only the God of the gospel is
a just God and a Savior. That's the difference between
the gospel and everything else. Men think God's justice is appeased
and satisfied by what I can do. As if they claim that God loves
everyone in all the world. Jesus died for everyone. The
Spirit of God is drawing everyone. But it's man who makes the difference.
That's not true. That's a God that cannot save.
Here he says, look to me, look unto me and be ye saved all the
ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else. You can't
be saved by another God, by another false doctrine. Only the God
who is just and a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who
stopped talking here. Verse 23, I've sworn by myself
the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not
return. Here's the end. Unto me every
knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then surely shall one say,
this is what all of God's people say, in the Lord, and in the
Lord only, have I righteousness and strength. I was justified
by God because of the righteousness that His grace imputed to me
when He looked to Christ at the cross and received from Him all
as if from me and counted me righteous in His obedience unto
death. In the Lord, all who believe
say, where is your righteousness? What's your answer when you come
before God? In the end, Christ is my only answer. If His answer
is not enough, I don't have another answer. And I don't want another
answer. I'm completely satisfied with Him. And I have strength. I can't do anything unless He
gives it to me. And so I go to Him for everything.
Even to Him shall men come." This is the end. God's people
all shall come to the Lord Jesus Christ and all that are incensed
against Him. Those who raise up in their rebellion
and self-righteous lack of submission to Christ's righteousness, they
shall be ashamed before God. Utterly put to shame in the presence
of the onlooking universe and in the presence of God Almighty.
But, here's the end of the righteous, in the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. That's the end. We shall
be justified, perfectly conformed to the image of Christ, dear
Son, God's dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll be like Him
when I see Him. And then I'll be satisfied. And
this is the truth of God about the end. Let's pray. Dear Lord,
we pray that you would do your will, you would save us for the
Lord's sake, the Lord Jesus' sake, for your name's sake, for
your glory, and we would be found in Christ, not having any righteousness
we would think of as righteousness before you, but what the Lord
Jesus has done in himself and is for us. And when we see him,
Lord, we pray that we would be made like him. And then we would
be satisfied in eternal bliss, never a doubt, never a barrier,
nothing marred but full of joy and thanksgiving and peace because
of what you've done. And we would give you all the
glory and we would love to have it so that the Lord Jesus Christ
would be exalted and we would be able to worship Him, we would
be given that privilege throughout eternity to say, He alone has
saved us from our sins. What a wonderful Savior. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.