Let's go to Revelation again
this morning, Revelation chapter 15. Back in the book of Isaiah, God
had His servant make A couple of very powerful
statements. One was made to the righteous,
and one was made to the wicked. He said, Isaiah, say ye to the
righteous, it shall be well. And I say to you who are righteous
this morning, it shall be well. If you're righteous, you're righteous
through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. The scripture
says, he is the Lord, our righteousness. How good's a man got to be to
get into the presence of God? He's got to be as good as God.
In other words, he's got to be righteous. That righteousness
was established by the obedience unto death of our Lord Jesus. Understand this, those who stand
righteous before God They are in that wonderful condition not
due to anything that they did. They're in that condition due
to the grace of God given to them in the Lord Jesus even before
God made the world. And God therefore sent His Son
into this world to be the propitiation for our sins. That's just a nice
long word that means He satisfied justice for us. All of the law and all of the
justice of God has been fully honored and accomplished and
satisfied by the Lord Jesus. And the Spirit of God gives to
us the gift of faith. We believe on the Son of God,
and so all that have the Son of God, all who believe the Son
of God, have life. And so I say to those of you
who are righteous, it shall be well. It doesn't mean you're
not going to have difficulties in this world, but it shall be
well with God. It is well with God. We just
sang Wednesday evening, it is well with my soul. It is well. It will always be well, and it
is now because God is working all things out for the good of
His people. And in the end, we're going to be with Christ Jesus
in heaven's glory. So I say to the righteous, it
shall be well. But he had another statement
that he was to make to the wicked. And he said, the Lord said, Isaiah,
say ye to the wicked, it shall be ill with him. Woe unto the
wicked. Unto the wicked. Who are the
wicked? All who are not in Christ Jesus.
All who don't love Him. all who don't admire Him in all
of His offices as our prophet, priest, and king, all who have
not laid a hold of Him as the only Savior, as the only righteousness. You're wicked. You may be, and
I suspect that you are, a very moral person. And outwardly,
as we count goodness, as men count goodness, you may be a
very good person. But in the eyes of God, you're
wicked. You're wicked. And unless something
is done about that state in which you're in, you're going to experience one
of the awful vials of God's wrath that is filled up. Woe to the
wicked. Woe to the wicked. It shall be
ill with thee. We go back this morning to Revelation
chapter 15. And I'm going to use this really
as more of a starting point for the message this morning. It's
a message I've been Well, I've been burdened about
this for several days, and I just haven't felt very comfortable
about preaching it. And as I always do, beginning
first of last week, I began thinking about what I was going to preach
on this morning. and again tonight, but I never could quite get away
from this thought I had back in the back of my mind. And yesterday, I got here to
the office and I sat down to try to organize a few thoughts. What I usually do, I'm reading
during the week and then I get to the weekend and then I try
to Kind of put them in some kind of way so that you'll know halfway
what I'm talking about. Kind of organize them. And I
actually began to prepare a message in a different direction. And
then I came right back to the subject that had been back in
the back of my mind that I haven't been able to get away from it.
And so that is the message that I'm bringing you this morning.
judgment, a just judgment. God is going to judge all men. All men will stand before Him
at the last judgment and it will be a judgment that is just and
fair. I'll just read a verse for you
in Revelation 15, 7. One of the four beasts gave unto
the seven angels, 15, 7, gave unto the seven angels seven golden
vials. They're full of the wrath of
God who liveth forever and ever. I want to talk to you about just
judgment. The fact that God must punish
all sin. Know this, every transgression
against God is going to receive a just recompense of reward. That's what the Word of God says.
God has to punish sin, and I'll give you several reasons. Number
one, because His holy nature Demands it. I know we talk about
holiness and we usually think of holiness as, that is, let's
say the world, the religious world in general, usually thinks
of a holiness as what you do and what you don't do. That really
isn't holiness. If you're going to examine the
subject of holiness, then you've got to start with that one who
is holy. You're not going to know anything
about holiness until you study a holy God. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah
heard the voices in heaven saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. He is righteous in His nature. This is God's very being. He
can't do wrong. He always does right because
of who He is. This is His very character. When
we begin to examine the attributes of God, The attributes of God
are just His perfections, the perfections of the nature of
God. When we begin to look at those
and examine those, really this one holiness, it isn't so much
an attribute, that just speaks of the essence of God. God is
absolutely holy. He is very pure. in all of His
ways, in all of His thoughts, in all of His actions, in all
of His determination. And God has got to punish sin. He's got to punish sin because
His holy nature demands it. Because whatever His holiness
is, it is really beyond our ability to define it and understand it. But whatever the holiness of
God is, that which is the opposite of it is our sinfulness and our
wickedness. You see, that's the way we come
to understand and see and realize what we are, why what we do is
wrong. It's all in the light, the brilliant
light. the exposing light of the holiness
of God. We don't first of all begin with
man and say, well, okay, now this is man's condition. No,
you don't know, you can't set forth man's true spiritual condition
except in the light of the holiness and the purity and the perfections
and the righteousness of our God. And as we consider who He
is, then we know anything less than what He is, that's sin. And that means all of us have
sinned. That means all of us are guilty
against God. You think of the ways of God
and the mind of God, the perfections of God, the motives of God, which
He always has pure motives. and the way God acts in creation,
in providence, and in salvation. He is always holy in all of His
doings and so therefore we can say whatever His holiness is,
anything less than that is wickedness and sin. And that's us. That's
the reason the Bible says the law of God pronounces us all
guilty. Guilty. We violated God's law. We violated that which we know
is right, God having set forth what is right in His Word. We read in Habakkuk chapter 1,
"...thou art a purer eye than to behold evil." Now the Lord
with His eyes of omniscience, He beholds all things good and
evil, there's no question about that. He beholds all men good
and bad and all their actions. But when it says, Thou art of
purer eyes than to behold evil, it means He can never look on
evil or wickedness or sinfulness with any kind of approval or
pleasure or delight. Because you see, every sin is
a direct attack upon the very character of God. He's got to punish sin. Because
of His holy nature, it demands it. And I'll tell you this, He's
got to punish sin because His inspired Word, it declares it. We read in Hebrews chapter 9,
and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this,
the judgment. It is an appointment that you
will keep, a divine appointment. Whether you're righteous or wicked,
whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, a vessel of mercy
or a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction, you are going to
die. But death is not the end of our
existence. After this, after this, the judgment,
and that is also by divine appointment. Death certainly ends our existence
in this world, but it doesn't bring the existence of a person
to an end. Rather, death serves another
purpose It brings us to God. It brings us to judgment. As I understand the Word of God,
there's really a two-fold judgment when we die. The soul immediately
goes back to God and God does something with it. If that soul has been washed
in the blood of the Lord Jesus, if that soul is robed in the
garments of His salvation, If that soul is a soul trusting
the blessed Savior, it enters into glory. If that soul dies
in wickedness, you see, we're all souls. We say it wrong. We say, well,
you know, I've got a soul. I beg your pardon, you are a
soul. Your soul has a body. And one
of these days, your soul is going to leave that body and it's going
back to God. If you die in Christ Jesus, you're
welcomed into His presence. You die outside of Christ Jesus,
God's going to do something with that soul too. He's going to
send that soul into hell. He will assign the souls of those
who die without Christ Jesus. Without the blessed mediator,
without the high priest, without a sacrifice, those who die without
a sacrifice, those who die laden with all their guilt, all their
sinfulness, the soul goes back to God and God puts the soul
in hell where He preserves it until that time when Christ comes
back. And He raises the dead bodies
and the souls of both the just and the unjust will come back
to their bodies for another judgment. And that's the great white throne
judgment. That's the final assigning of
those who are righteous to an everlasting glory with Christ
Jesus. And it's the assigning of the
wicked, those who die outside of Christ Jesus, assigning them
and everlasting destruction. We can think of the last judgment
as kind of a formal sentencing to the righteous, to those whose
sins were remitted by the blood of the Savior. Those will hear
these words of the Savior, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of
the world. To those who die without Christ Jesus, they must hear
the words, bind them hand and foot and cast them into everlasting
darkness and there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
It is an appointment you will keep. You'll die after this,
the judgment. So God's holy nature demands
it. God's inspired word It declares
it. Thirdly, His broken law requires
it. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. That's the law of God. The Lord said to Adam in Genesis
the second chapter, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. God's broken law requires it. Therefore, the Scripture says,
sin, when it is finished, it bringeth forth death. Now we
rejoice in the knowledge of God's infinite goodness and His matchless
mercy. But religion today has got a
perverted view of the mercy of God and the goodness of God.
And they have watered down the judgment of God, and the justice
of God, and the righteousness of God. Most of the world says, you know,
God is good. And He is good. We read in Nahum, Nahum said
that the Lord is good. The Lord is merciful. But that
does not mean that God will clear the guilty. It doesn't mean that. And they have perverted, much
of the religious world today has perverted the goodness and
the mercy of God and the judgment of God, and they've relegated
the judgment of God to be only for the very scum of society. And they say things like, well,
we believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
men. And when we die, we all go to
heaven except the very worst of society. They've got a wrong
view of the goodness of God and the mercy of God and the justice
of God because here is a fact you must not forget. God will
not show goodness nor mercy at the extent of His justice. He can't do it. He can't do it. The law of God demands every,
every violation of the Word of God, the commandments of God
must receive a proper reward. The wages of sin is death. That's what the Word of God says.
That's what the Word of God says. And then I'll tell you something
else. Sin certainly deserves it. I know, like the holiness of God, which
we don't really fully appreciate, neither do we appreciate or understand
the awfulness and the blackness of sin. We just don't. That's the reason even in the
Bible there are people who spoke about little sins. Little sins. There are no little sins because
all sin is against God. It's an attack against God. It's
rebellion against God. Every sin, every sin is bad. It's bad. Sin is opposed to God
being God. Why? Sin would take God off of
His throne of glory. What is sin? Transgressing God's
law. That's what sin is. It is opposed
to God being God. It would remove Him from the
heaven of heavens if it could. Don't ever think lightly of sin.
I'll tell you how bad sin is. In order to get rid of it, God
had to kill his only begotten son. You want to get some idea
of the awfulness of wickedness and sinfulness, wickedness and
unrighteousness? Christ had to die to put it away.
I mean, the Immaculate Son of God had to come down here. and
he had to bear himself the wrath of God. The fullness of the vials,
these golden vials of God's wrath that would have been poured out
on all of his people, they were poured out upon the head of the
Lamb of God. You want to know how bad sin
is? Judge the awfulness of sin by
the price it took to put it away. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Which brings me to this point. Just judgment, how do we know
God's going to punish sin? The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
proves it. If anybody wants to know if the
God of the Bible will really punish sin, you don't have to
revisit the Garden of Eden. and see our parents when they
rebelled against God paying an awful price for their sinfulness.
I know they lost spiritual life. They lost the favor of God. They
lost their innocence in which they were created. They lost
that intimate fellowship with their creator. And I know they
were forgiven upon the basis of an innocent victim dying in
their stead, which pointed to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But they paid an awful price. They were put out of the garden,
and they began to age, and they began to die, and they did die. But you don't have to go back
that far to find out whether God punished the sin or not.
You don't even have to revisit the multitudes of people who
perished in the floodwaters of God's wrath. While Noah and his
wife and his sons and daughters-in-law were in the ark, God said Himself,
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God
said in Genesis 6, verse 12, the Scripture says, God looked
down upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh
had corrupted His way. All flesh had corrupted His way
upon the earth. They had corrupted the way of
God. They had corrupted the way of
God with their false religion and with their idolatries. They
denied salvation by substitution, salvation by sacrifice, salvation
by the grace of God. And their religion had been infested
with and corrupted by the religion of Cain, and God wiped every
soul on the earth away. He just washed them away, except
for those in the ark. Hell opened her mouth wide and
swallowed up millions of people. Can you comprehend that? Does
that even move us? Does it move us today to think
that God is causing people to perish? That God is sending people? He
kills people who despise His Son, and He sends them into everlasting
darkness. Does that trouble us? Does that wake us up? Does it
bother us that people are perishing in their sinfulness? Doesn't
it behoove us who've got the gospel, who've got the only hope
of salvation, doesn't it behoove us to go into all the world and
preach the gospel, knowing that God will make application of
it to whoever He will? I tell you, if you want to know
whether God will punish sin or not, You only need to go back
2,000 years ago in our history and revisit Calvary. Do you see
those two thieves hanging on their crosses? One on the one
side and the other on the other side of our Lord's middle cross. Those men were getting exactly
what they deserved. Justice was being carried out.
But that man dying on the middle cross, as Pilate said, he hath
done nothing amiss. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Number one, what was it that
separated man from God in the very first place? The answer is quite simple, sin,
right? Sin, transgression, iniquity. That's what separated God and
man. Number two, what was the penalty
for sin? Death. That's what God said. In the day thou eatest thereof,
you'll surely die. Now, as you think about those
two things, take a long, hard look at Calvary. You see the
man Christ Jesus? He's the Son of God and He's
the Son of Man. And the Scripture says, And God hath made that man Christ
Jesus, God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Yes, this impeccable,
impeccable, what does that mean? absolutely pure. This impeccable
Son of God suffered, bled, and died. I know there's been a lot of controversy
among sovereign grace people over 2 Corinthians 5.21. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him." Please hear me out this morning as I try to
show you what the Word of God says. And I'll tell you what
I'm not going to do. I'm not going to build a proverbial,
what they call a straw man and tear him down. And I'm not going to attack what
other preachers may or may not say. because every preacher must
keep to the Word of God, and every preacher has to set forth,
every preacher of the Gospel has to set forth that which he
feels God has taught him, and every preacher stands or falls
before the same Master. I'm only going to say what the
Word of God says. I don't want to say more than
the Word of God says, And I don't want to say less
than the Word of God says either. Keep up with me. Number one,
Christ Jesus had no sins or iniquities of his own. And I don't think
anyone would argue with me about that. He was and is the immaculate,
perfect, holy Son of God. For such a high priest became
us. Who was, the Scripture says,
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heavens, Hebrews 7, 26-27. All the perfections of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that One who is absolutely pure. Even when He
died, this is what was written. Listen, even when He died, this
is what was written. Hebrews 9 and 14, he offered
himself without spot unto God. When he was offering himself,
the Lord Jesus was without spot unto God. In the Old Testament,
That was one of the requirements of a lamb that was to be offered
to God without spot and without blemish. And if you read 1 Peter
1 verses 18 and 19, that's exactly what the Lamb of God was. He
was without spot and without blemish. And in 1 Peter 3.18
it says, For Christ hath once suffered for sins the just, that
is, the righteous one, for the unjust, in order to bring us
to God. So number one, Christ Jesus had
no sins or iniquities of His own. Secondly, when our Lord Jesus, when He
hung on the cross, He was separated from the Father. Okay? When our Lord Jesus hung on the
cross, He was separated from the Father. Go to Psalm 22. Look at Psalm 22. You know, whenever somebody preaches,
we must only say what the Word of God says. I think we get in
a lot of trouble when we begin to use our logic. We say, well, if this is true,
then this must also be true, even though maybe the Bible doesn't
state it that way. But if A is true, then B must
be true because that's logical to us. When you read the Word
of God, you've got to remember this. This is a logical book,
but not to us. It is to God. It is a logical book, but not
to these poor old finite minds that are depraved by guilt and
sin. It's logical and reasonable to
God. I know our Lord Jesus had no
sins or iniquities of His own, and secondly, I know that when
He hung on the cross, He was separated from the Father. Look
at verses 1-3. Prophetically, here's our Lord
speaking. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? That, my friends, is separation. Agreed? That is separation. That's
God forsaking God. You can't explain that one either. No, you can't. And so he says, the Savior says,
Why art thou so far from help? So far, for you're so far away. And from the words of my roaring,
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not, and in
the night season am not silent. But Thou art holy..." This is
the reason there was a separation, you see, "...because Thou art
holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Thou
art holy. Drop down to verse 11. "...be
not far." From me. You know what that means? The Father
was far away from me. Read verse 19. But be not thou
far from me, O Lord! O my strength, haste! Haste. To help me. There was a real separation from
the Father. What happened on the cross? God
forsook God. Listen, God who is light, God
who is light, He forsook the Son of God, and when the light
forsook the Son of God, there was darkness. It lasted three
hours. Three hours. Now, here's the third thing.
First of all, Christ Jesus had no sins or iniquities of His
own. Number two, when Christ hung on the cross, He was separated
from the Father. Here's number three, what brought
about the separation? Well, in order to answer that
question, let me ask another one. Turn to Isaiah 59. Isaiah
chapter 59. Let me ask this question, and
really we've already answered it. What caused, what brought about
the separation between Adam and God? The presence of sin. Would you
agree? The presence of sin, the presence
of iniquity. Well, this is what the Lord says,
Isaiah 59, we look at verse 1, Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it
cannot hear. Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God. What caused the separation? Iniquities. That's what caused the separation.
Nothing else, iniquities. Because a holy God could not
bear to be in the presence of iniquities. And they were cut off. Therefore it says, "...and your
sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear." When our Lord Jesus hung on the
cross, turn to Isaiah 53, and we read there in Psalm 22 how
He cried out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? It
was as though the heavens were as brass. That's right. Why art thou so far from helping
Me? No answer. What brought about
this separation? Verse 6, Isaiah 53, 6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him, literally, look it up,
made to meet, made to meet on him the iniquity of us all. And I say this with reverence
in my soul. The same thing that separated
Adam from the Father separated the Son of God from the Father. I say the same thing, but not
in the same way. The same thing that caused that
initial separation of Adam from God and in Isaiah 59 of Israel
from God and from us from God also separated the father from
the son of God. The same thing but not in the
same way. You see Adam actually violated
the law of God. He deliberately sinned and therefore
he and Eve were separated from the Father. But our Lord Jesus
never violated the law of God. He was therefore never a sinner. You see, what is a sinner? A
sinner is one who sins. Could our Lord Jesus have ever
been a sinner? The answer is no, because He
never sinned. The only one who can be legitimately
and rightfully said to be a sinner is one who commits sin. And our Lord Jesus never sinned.
And yet, This is obvious. Iniquities, they were present
at the cross. Sin was there. Otherwise, the
Father wouldn't have forsaken Him. You see, our iniquities were
made to meet upon the head of the Lord Jesus. In some mysterious
way, all of the sins, all of the iniquities of all of God's
elect, of all of the ages, were bound together by God. Who could do that but God Himself
and laid as a great weight upon the head of the scapegoat for
His elect? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who could
bear that save one who is God Himself? I already mentioned that song
we sang Wednesday night, It Is Well With My Soul. My sin, listen
to the third stanza. It's the best stanza of the whole
song. My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin,
not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross. You know why it was nailed to
the cross? Because it was really there. It was nailed to the cross. And I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. Listen, if sin was
nailed to the cross, and I do believe it, it means sin was
there, sin was present. The only reason God the Father
could not be present there was because sin was present there. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. As I say, this is a subject,
it is so mysterious and it is so profound. And I know, at least to me, I think some have
gone too far in addressing this subject And they've kind of walked
into the darkness where God dwells, trying to set forth and explain
that which can't be explained. But I want to say what the Word
of God says. Let's not take away from the
mystery of it and the miracle of it. The miracle of it. Look
at 1 Peter 2 and 24. 1 Peter 2 and 24, "...who his own
self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being
dead to sin, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes
ye were healed." He bare our sins. This is not an animal sacrifice. As those that had been offered
for 4,000 years, this is the offering of the Son of God. He
bare our sins in His own body. In order to bare our sins, He
had to take them off of us, and they had to be put on Him by
divine appointment, and He was responsible for them. As a great weight put on Him,
And here's the glory of it. It didn't sink him down. You
know why he could bear the weight of our sins and then, then have
the fullness of the wrath of God poured out on him? The reason
he could do that is because the whole time he's there, he's the
mighty God! The mighty God! See, nobody could
save us but the mighty God because nobody could satisfy the justice
of God and endure the wrath of God and take away the sins of
all of His people and cast them into the depths of the deepest
sea except He who is God manifest in the flesh. The just judgment of a holy God
fell on Him, the full vial of God's wrath for the sins of
His people were poured on Him. It's obvious sin was there. It's obvious because He died. He died. This is not pretend. He really died. And He couldn't
die without the presence of sin being there. You can call it
a debt, you can call it a weight. I know one thing, they were not
his own except by imputation. They were reckoned to him, charged
to him, but they were really there. They were really there. And we're really saved by his
death. And he really put them away. He really buried them in
the depths of the deepest sea. See, he was like that scapegoat
in the Old Testament. Aaron put his hands on the head
of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. He confessed all the
sins of Israel. And then in just a symbolic way,
of course, the sins were transferred to the head of that scapegoat.
But our sins in reality were transferred to Christ Jesus.
In reality. And then Aaron chose out a fit
man, said, take this goat, lead him out of the camp of Israel
in the wilderness uninhabited. Turn him loose and come back
without him. And all of Israel watched. And
that guy went out of sight. They didn't take an intermission.
They didn't say, well, the service is going We'll wait and pick
up again when He comes back." Everybody stayed there. And then
they saw Him coming back. A watchman said, I see Him coming
back. Does He have the goat? No. And you see, as a watchman,
I tell you, Christ Jesus died under the wrath of God, bearing
the weight of the sins of His people in His own body on the
tree. What does that mean, preacher?
I don't know. Could we sometimes just say that?
Instead of trying to explain that to you, I can't explain
that to you. And that's where we really get
in trouble. I like what Scott Richardson
said. Somebody said, I wish you'd explain that to me. He said,
I'm not in the explaining business, I'm in the proclaiming business.
I just, I proclaim this. He bore our sins and he bore
them away. And you know what? I know He
bore them away into a land uninhabited because He was raised again from
the dead. That's right. And this is the Savior I love.
This is the Savior I trust. And if this doesn't fit in your
understanding of it, So be it. I can't help you with that other
than to tell you what I believe is the Word of God. Everything
I've said to you this morning is based on Scripture. That's
the reason I had you look at these Scriptures. And let's just
be content to say, you know, this is a mysterious thing. And
I'm not going to try to explain it away. I'm not going to say
more than the Word of God says. And I'm not going to say less
either. I'm just going to say it the way God says it. Because
the way God says it, it's okay to say it the way God says it.
And we've got to say it the way God says it, right? We do. Just judgment. Our Lord Jesus,
all the punishment that He endured on the cross, every bit of it
was just. Every bit of it was fair. And
because He took our hell for us, there is therefore now no
condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. And we rejoice
in Him.