Open your Bibles to the book
of Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. Most everybody that we meet acknowledges that one of these
days there's going to be a judgment. Now, most people don't know all
that's going to be involved in that judgment. In fact, they
know very little about it. But most people will say there
is going to be a time when we will have to give some kind of
account before God. Now, whether people know it or
not, and most of them don't know, the judge who will preside at
the final judgment is the Lord Jesus himself. And there will
be a wonderful standard by which all men are going to be weighed. All men will be judged by the
same standard, and that standard is righteousness. Here in Acts
chapter 17, I'm sure that you're familiar with the portion of
Scripture. Paul is preaching it in Athens
at Mars Hill. And as he begins to speak to
the people, he says, I perceive that in all things
you're very superstitious, you're very religious. They had some
30,000 idols that they worshipped in Athens, Athens known for its
great philosophers, Athens known for its great wisdom, but in
all of their wisdom they had no understanding of God. of spiritual understanding. No
spiritual wisdom. And so the apostle, once he sees
all of these statutes and idols that they had, he said, well,
as I walked around and I beheld your devotions, he says in verse
23, I saw your temples, I saw your altars, I saw your statutes,
I saw your religious images. In verse 23 he says, as I passed
by and beheld your devotions, He said, I found an altar with
this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly
worship. That's the one I want to declare
unto you. He said, that's the one I want
to preach to you. It's the God you don't know.
The God you have no understanding of. And then as he works his
way down through this passage of Scripture, he gets down to
verse 30. He says, in the times of this
ignorance God winked at, that is, God in his mercy, in his
great forbearance, there was times during the ages of the
Gentiles, the gospel being sent by and large to the Jews in the
Old Testament scriptures, the Gentiles were left in their darkness,
left in their ignorance, And now He says, those things having
come to an end, now God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
Not that there wasn't a need for men to repent even before
this, but now the Gospel is going to go worldwide. Our Lord Jesus
has said to His disciples, go ye into all the world and preach
the Gospel to every creature. And indeed, this was the mission
of those men who succeeded our Lord Jesus, and he had taught
them the truth of how God can be just and justify the ungodly,
and then they went forth preaching the gospel. and they instructed
others and they went forth and so forth and on and on until
even today, there are men preaching the Gospel in many different
parts of the world. Men have no excuse today. There's no excuse for ignorance.
There's no excuse for not knowing who God is. Buy your Bible. You can go down and get one at
the dollar store. Read the Word of God. Read the
Scriptures. Lift up your eyes to the heavens.
The heavens declare the very glory of God. Look around you. Look every day at the faithfulness
of the rays of the wonderful sunshine as the sun passes over
us from the east to the west as it were. Can you not behold
the wisdom of God? The glory of God? in all of the creative things,
the things that He has made. These things leave us without
excuse. You read Romans, the first chapter. That's exactly what it says.
God made all things and you observe His handiwork. You see what God
has made. You see how you are. It's only
man's willful blindness ignorance that leads him to conclude, well,
God isn't in charge of anything and man is the master of his
own destiny. It's our own ignorance that leads
us to do that, but all of this life that God has given us leaves
us without excuse. And so he says, now God commands
all men everywhere to repent for this reason. Verse 31, because
He's appointed a day. He has established a day. That day is already fixed. It's
already set. You can't move it up. You can't
push it further away. I don't know when that day is
going to be. You don't know either. No man knows the day nor the
hour when the Son of Man is coming back. Don't pay any attention
to those people who endeavor to set dates for the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He said the angels don't even
know. And then He spoke in His capacity
as the Son of Man who is the righteous servant of the Father.
He said not even the Son of Man knows. to say, well, don't you believe
we're in the last days? We've been in the last days ever
since our Lord Jesus Christ went back to glory. We've been in
the last days. You know how long the saints
of God have been looking for the Second Coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ? Ever since He left. During every age, all of those
who love His Gospel, they also love His appearing. They long
for His appearing in every age. Read back through church history.
All the saints of God, as it were, have been standing on the
tiptoes of faith saying, even so, come, Lord Jesus. We want you to come back. Would
you come back? They've been looking for the
coming of our blessed Savior, our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Below these nearly 2,000 years,
He hasn't returned yet. You say, well, is He going to
come back soon? Well, yes, sooner than it was,
it's going to happen. He is going to come back. He's appointed, He's fixed, He's
established a day in which He will judge the world. Here's
the thing. He's going to judge the world in righteousness by that man. That is, the judge will be that
man, that man by whom he hath ordained, that man, even the
God-man, Christ Jesus. The standard for judgment is
righteousness. It's not the best you can do.
It's not He's going to put you on the scales, and if your good
deeds outweigh your bad deeds, then you get to go to heaven.
If your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, then you're going
to have to go to hell. If that was the case, heaven would be
empty, hell would be full. The standard is righteousness.
It's not how good you can be, it's how good He is, and being
righteous in Him. He is the righteousness of God. That's the reason He died, to
make us righteous. For God hath made the Lord Jesus
to be. sin for us. Who knew no sin that
we might be made in order that we would be made the righteousness
of God in Him, in Christ Jesus. That's the standard. We've got
to be in Christ Jesus when we stand before God at the judgment. Because righteousness is in Him. He is the Lord, our righteousness. Standing in Him, we're righteous.
We're righteous. Outside of Christ Jesus? Unrighteous. Unrighteous. How do we know this
is going to happen? He says, "...whereof He hath
given assurance unto everybody, and that He raised Him from the
dead." The one who is going to judge is the man in Christ Jesus. The standard of judgment is righteousness. Now I go to another reference
in John chapter 5. John chapter 5. Our Lord has
healed a man who for 38 years couldn't walk. Our Lord, as He walked through
the area called Bethesda, He saw lots of people there who
were sick. And there was this one man that
He went up to him and He healed him. He told him, rise, take
up thy bed and walk. He did it on the Sabbath day.
The Jews got mad at him, got upset with him, the Jewish leaders,
because he did this on the Sabbath day. Well, in verse John 5, 17, but
Jesus answered them, my father worketh hitherto and I work.
And then they were really furious. They were already furious at
him because he did this work on the Sabbath day. There was
no rejoicing that the lame walked again. There was no joy and happiness
because this man who had been for so many years, 38 years,
he hadn't been able to get around and move by himself. He was always
dependent upon other people. There's no joy about that. There's only anger directed at
Jesus of Nazareth. because he dared to heal this
man on the Sabbath day. Later, our Lord, of course, met
him in the temple and revealed His glory to him, and the man
was saved by His grace. But anyway, in verse 18, Therefore
the Jews sought the Moor to kill him, because not only had he
broken the Sabbath, but he said that God was his Father, making
himself equal with God. And then the Lord Jesus begins
to set forth Himself, His own deity, His glories. And for the
sake of time, I want to get down to verse 22. He says this, For
the Father judgeth no man, but He has committed all judgment
under the Son. All judgment has been committed
under the Son. Well, why should He judge? Because
He's God. He's equal with the Father. There's
no mystery here. There is in the Godhead, Father,
Son, and Spirit. The Father has set forth the
fact that all judgment belongs to the Son of God. And it's only
right that He would judge. He's God. Listen, He's our Creator. He is our Sustainer. We answer
to Him. Everybody answers to Him. He is the judge. And He is rightfully
the judge because He is the Son of God. There's His deity. But watch this. Look over verse
27. Well, verse 26, for as the father
hath life in himself, so he hath given to the son to have life
in himself, and hath given him authority to execute judgment
also, because he is the son of man. Now, what we just read before
this, back there in verse 22, the judgment has been committed
to him because he's the son of God. But now it says in verse
27, he has been given authority. Now listen, as the son of God,
he wasn't given authority, he had authority. Nobody gave him
authority as the son of God. He is equal with the Father in
every way. He is the Maker of all things,
the Preserver of all things, the Savior of His people. He
is God of very God. He is the Son of the Father. He is His co-equal. In every
way. Christ said in John chapter 10
and verse 30, I am the Father of one. One in will, one in essence,
one in nature, one in authority and one in power. He is the Son
of God. And so as the Son of God, nothing
was given to Him, He possessed it in and of Himself. But now
He gets down here to verse 27. He says something has been given
to Him. Authority. to execute judgment
for this reason. He is the Son of Man. Now, as the Son of Man, the Son
of Man came into being, He was born of a virgin. There's the
Son of Man, one of the titles that our Lord loved to take unto
Himself. That sets forth the reality of
His manhood. Earlier in 22, that's talking
about His deity. He's co-equal with the Father. He is forever and ever. Here
in verse 27, He's the Son of Man. And as the Son of Man, authority
has been given to Him to execute judgment. As God, He already
possessed the right to judge. As the Son of Man, He earned
that right. and it was given to him. All
judgment, all judgment has been given unto the Son of Man. Now,
undoubtedly, this is looking way into the future, to that
final judgment. But actually, literally, all
judgments have been given to the Son of Man. And as we go
back into Revelation chapter 9, this Scripture speaks to us about
judgments. Now, since all judgments have
been given to this One who is the Son of Man, then these judgments
that are being poured out, these judgments that are warnings,
trumpet warnings of another judgment. All of these judgments that are
being spoken of, it's the Lord Jesus who's bringing them all
to pass. This is that One who is the Son
of Man. He is the Son of God, there's
His deity. He's the Son of Man, there's
His humanity. And as that One who was born
of a virgin, who grew up in this world, he died for the sins of
his people. He laid down his life for us
by his life. His people lived. God gave Him
a people and trusted these under the Son of God. And Christ Jesus
came and lived and died. He died under the wrath of God
in order to redeem His people under God. He paid our debt of
sin. All of the sins of all of His
people charged to His account made to meet upon Him. He bore
them in His own body on the tree. And the wrath of God, the wrath
of God dealt with Him Vengeance and fury that only God can pour
out. And He suffered in the stead
of His people all the hell that we would have ever suffered and
saved His people from their sins. And because He did that, God
raised Him from the dead, and because He did that, this Son
of Man sits upon the right hand of glory right now, ruling and
reigning over all things. He is the one who gives the word
to the angels to sound out these trumpet judgments, and He's the
one who therefore in the end is going to be the judge upon
the throne who dons His black robe of justice as it sets forth
more fully in Revelation chapter 20, and we'll get to that eventually
when He sets upon His great white throne of judgment. But even
now, before then, even now, He issues out judgments. Judgments. It says here in verse 13, the
sixth angel sounded. Here's the second woe. Here's
the second woe. Do you remember earlier in the
last verse of chapter 8? Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants
of the earth. And then the angel said forth
the first woe. Here's the second woe. The second
woe. Wars throughout this world. Wars throughout this world. The sixth trumpet judgment. This describes physical destructions,
deaths on this earth brought about by war. Not any one particular
war, but all wars which arise and they do so because the of
the natural enmity of men, not only toward God. We have a natural
enmity toward God, but we have a natural enmity toward one another. Men are lustful for possessions. For land, men always crave more. And because of our own depravity,
Because of our own lusts to have more, wars arise. Men crave power. Men crave authority. And God, in His purpose, raises
up men to sit upon the thrones of nations, men who are in authority,
men who have all kinds of power over people, dictators, presidents,
prime ministers, etc. God puts these men in power and
those men are lustful for authority, lustful for more, more land,
more possessions to conquer more people, and wars break out. There
have always been wars ever since man's sin. The first war that
broke out on earth between individuals was the war between Cain and
Abel. And men have been killing each other in war ever since. But all of these wars, all of
these wars are like trumpet judgments announcing there is coming a
final war. And it's a war between God Almighty
and mankind, and you can't win that war. It will be over just
like that. Just like that. And in that day, all who are
not on the Lord's side will meet final, everlasting defeat. It will mean forever to suffer
the vengeance of God in hell. Notice in verse 13, and the six
angels sounded, sounded the trumpet, and I heard a voice. Where did the voice originate? Where did the voice, where did
it come from? It was a voice from the four horns
of the golden altar. which is before God. The voice came from that altar
of incense. It's the voice of our great high
priest. You see, the Lord Jesus is to
all of His elect, to all of His children, He is our advocate,
He is our intercessor, He is our go-between. He is always
at the altar of incense. We saw that earlier, back in
the 8th chapter. where He presents. He's at the
altar of incense there. And He presents all the worship
and the prayers of His people to the Father. He is always representing
us. He is always our great High Priest. Read in Hebrews chapter 4 and
chapter 2 as well. He is our sympathizing High Priest.
Therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace. Listen, we have
a mediator between us and God. And He is always our He is always
our friend, He is always our Savior, He is always our advocate,
He is there, He is there, right at the golden altar. He is always
our intercessor, He is always our priest. But as He is to us,
our beloved priest, our high priest. He is to others a judge. A judge. He is at the same time
a high priest and a judge. Or, could I put it this way,
He is a priest upon His throne. He is the King Priest. That's who He is. To His friends,
to those who are beloved of the Lord, to those in whose stead
He came and shed His blood to redeem us, to us, He is a friend
who sticketh closer than a brother. He is our dear high priest. But
to His enemies, to His enemies, He's the righteous judge who
will pour out vengeance upon all of those who know not God. He is there, the Scripture says,
at the golden altar. He's always there. For the Scripture
says He has an unchanging priesthood. His attitude toward you and me
who are His people. Those of us who are brought into
covenant relationship with Him by God's free and sovereign grace. Those of us who are God's elect.
Those of us who are redeemed of the Lord. Who've been regenerated
by the Spirit of God. He's always our intercessor. He has an unchanging priesthood. The reason we will never perish,
you understand? The reason we will never fail
to arrive home in glory is not because we maintain our strength
of faith and that sort of thing. Oh no, it's because of who our
priest is. He has a hold on us and he's
always our intercessor. And his intercessory work, it
cannot fail. It's as certain as his redemptive
work. He's our great high priest. He's
always there carrying out the office of the unchanging priesthood. He is the king priest. What a mercy to have such a king
priest to represent us. And to know this, that when in
His purpose, And according to His will, He brings about two
malts throughout the world. And listen, there are wars going
on throughout the world all the time. All the time. I know we
live kind of in a bubble. We kind of live on an island,
so to speak, in this sense. You know, we're more aware of
what's going on over here, but there's a lot going on throughout
the world. There are always wars going on. There are battles going
on throughout the world, throughout the ages. How good it is to know,
however, that these things are being ruled over, governed by
that One who is our Great High Priest. The world isn't out of
control. The wars that are happening.
What's going on like in North Korea? You know, you mention
North Korea now and people begin to be very concerned and with
good reason. And there are other very hot
spots in the world. But how wonderful and consoling
to know that the One whose voice controls all of those judgments
is the voice of Him who speaks to God for us, His people. He's our great high priest. Where is it that He stands? Where
is it that the voice originates? From the four horns of the golden
altar which is before God. That's where the voice originates
from. The altar of incense, it was made of chitin wood. What
was Shetham Wood? A durable wood. It just wouldn't rot. It just
lasted and lasted. That's the work of our intercessor. He has an ongoing priesthood
that never fails. And that altar of incense was
covered with gold. There's his glory. There's his
excellence. Of that altar of incense, we
know it was four square. Our Lord Jesus is carrying on
His work throughout the world, the four corners of the earth.
He's carrying out His work. And His work is our mediator,
extends everywhere, wherever His people are throughout the
world. Talks about the four horns of
the altar. There He is, a voice from the
four horns of the golden altar. Well, the horns represent authority
and power. That's power. Our Lord sends His gospel forth
to the four corners of the earth and it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth. And you notice that this voice
that comes from the four horns of the golden altar, which is
before God, Before God. In the tabernacle, then in the
temple. But let's say the tabernacle.
It had the various pieces of furniture in the holy place.
And right up next to the veil, there was the altar of incense.
And you know what was on the other side of the veil in the
Holy of Holies? There was the Ark of the Covenant
with the Mercy Seat on top. There is the presence of God. And it says here that this is
the golden altar which is before God. Where is our Lord Jesus
Christ? He's before the Father. He's
before the Father. He speaks to the Father on our
behalf. He continually appears there
as our Advocate and as our Great High Priest. And you'll notice
that John said, I heard a voice. He didn't hear many voices. Back
over in chapter 7, he heard the voices of many of the saints
of God. Thousands and thousands of them,
a multitude which cannot be numbered. But these are not the voices
of the saints of God that he hears now. Back in chapter 5,
he hears the voices of the angels as they exalt King Jesus. But these are not the voices
of angels. John hears one voice. There is
only one voice that speaks with absolute authority and power.
There is only one voice that makes a command and that command
comes to pass. That's the voice of the Son of
Man, the Son of God, Christ Jesus. And He says in verse 14, to the
sixth angel which had the trumpet, He speaks to the angel, See,
all of the angels worship Him. All of the angels adore Him. In Hebrews chapter 1, where the
inspired writer speaks of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
because He had purged our sins and He therefore sat down at
the right hand of the majesty on high, God Himself says, let
all of the angels worship Him and obey Him. They all obey His
voice. They're His angels. And He says
to the angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are
bound in the great river Euphrates. I understand this much about
this passage. The judgments of God that happen
every day all around us. Specifically in this context,
various conflicts between men, families, nations, empires. All of these are governed by
the Lord Himself, who gives the command to His angels. for these things to happen. I wish that as the people of
God we would ever be mindful of this, that the voice that
gave us life, the voice that passed our way as he did when
he stood in front of the tomb of Lazarus and said, Lazarus,
come forth. That voice that spoke life to
us, that spoke grace to us, that spoke mercy to us, is the voice
that rules the world. And all of these wars and conflicts
that go on throughout the world is because He's issued the command
for these things to happen. You and I, we're not exempt from
being involved in these skirmishes and these wars in the sense that
wars affect everybody. And some of you have had to fight
in literal wars for the U.S. But we're always mindful of this.
These things that happen in the world do not happen by chance. They don't happen because men
just have absolute authority over all things. Somebody says
it's the devil that brings these wars to pass. This is not the
voice of the devil that speaks from the four horns of the altar.
This is the voice of the exalted Christ. And I know that He does
use the devil in skirmishes and wars and things of that nature,
but by and large, He uses Satan as a weapon against those who
will not hear the gospel. And Satan therefore further blinds
the minds of those who believe not. The Lord says, blind them
some more. Blind them some more. They won't
receive the truth. The one who is behind all of
this is not the devil. It's the Son of God, the Son
of Man. That's what we need to learn.
This is what the world doesn't have any comprehension of. They
have no understanding of the fact that He's the Sovereign
Christ. He's the Christ who rules. He's
the Christ who reigns. He is the Sovereign Lord of all. He's Lord of lords and He's King
of kings. He is the High Priest to us.
He's the King who governs all things that go on in this world. He gives the command to this
angel. The angel can't do anything until he says, loose the four
angels. It's as though these angels stand
ready. And they're always ready to do
his bidding. They're ready. But he restrains
them. Aren't you glad He restrains
the judgment that this world is due? Listen, this world is
ripe for punishment. Don't you agree with that? Look
at the vileness in this world. Look at the vileness all around
you. The filth and the immorality
and the perversion and how men rebel against God and have no
respect for God. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Would it be a shock to you if
God poured out more judgments in this world? Well, it shouldn't
be a shock to you because men have had their fist in God's
face all along. It's only the mercy of God that
keeps these angels restrained. Not yet, he says, not yet. But every once in a while and
quite often, in fact, he says to the angels, okay, Release
some judgment. And when that happens, that's
when peace departs. He says, Loose the four angels
which are bound in the great river Euphrates. The river Euphrates
was like a dividing line. It was on the other side of the
river Euphrates into Babylon that God's elect, the children
of Israel, were taken into captivity. This is like a boundary line.
On one side is peace, on the other side is war. On one side
is quietness, on the other side is great turmoil. It's a boundary
line and the only one who can cause, bring about peace and
the only one who can bring about turmoil and turn it loose is
the sovereign Christ. He does that. And so the four
angels were loosed and prepared for different times. Watch it. For an hour, a day, a month,
a year to kill the third part of men. In other words, battles
and wars come and they last various lengths of time according to
His will. And as you look about and you
read, got some historians in here, you read history, you read
about the deaths of so many thousands and thousands of people died,
soldiers died, women died, children died in all of these wars and
skirmishes and battles. Be reminded of this. There's
one big war yet to come. One big battle yet to come. And
you do not want to be found on the side opposite the sovereign
Christ. Bow to Him, proud sinner. Humble yourself before Him. He alone is the Prince of Peace. He alone made peace with God
by His bloody death on the cross of Calvary. You do not want to
be His enemy. As you look at the enemies of
this world as they go about fighting against one another, men killing
men, brother killing brother, that's just a physical death.
And as bad as war is, This is just an announcement. Be warned! Be warned! Every battle, every
war that you ever read about... Somebody was telling me the other
day they were reading about some battles of World War II. That's
fine, but as you read about them, remember this. These are all
trumpet warnings to all of us. Be warned! There's a final battle
to be fought. You cannot win it if you're on
the wrong side. If you're on Christ's side, the
battle's already won. But if you're an unbeliever, you're on the wrong side. And
that's a war you can't win. You can't win. But do what Brother
Scott Richardson said, stack your shotguns up in the corner.
And bow down, proud sinner, make the dust your headquarters. He talked about the vastness
of the army. Some writers say that this, bound in the great river Euphrates,
some say this speaks of the Muslims and their great enmity against
the West. Maybe so. Certainly we see war
brewing over there, and we see ISIS and such folks like that. And actually, if you read in
their so-called Bible, the Koran, we're a bunch of infidels. We're
infidels. But whatever they do, whatever
they do, and I don't know what's going to happen, and you don't
know what's going to happen either. But whatever does happen, our
sovereign Christ is in charge of all of it. That's what we
take away from it. He says, there are lots of them,
in verse 16, verse 17, I saw horses in the vision, them that
sat on the breastplates, they had heads of horses towards the
heads of lions, their fiercest fire and smoke and brimstone
coming out of them, by these three a third The heart of men
killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone issued
out of their mouth are powers in their mouth and their tails.
Their tails are like on the serpents. Their heads, within, they do
hurt. I tell you, men can be absolutely
vicious and you know that. And it's the Lord, our Savior,
who brings these wars to pass. But here's the thing. These trumpet
warnings are necessary and they're ever so solemn. But you know
what? Nobody will ever listen to them unless God's pleased to give
ears to hear. And that's what the last two
verses are about. You want to see the depravity
of men when God brings all these awful turmoils and death and
violence? So much bloodshedding. Those
who weren't killed by these things, these judgments, they didn't
repent of the works of their hands. That they should not worship
devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and
of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. These things won't ever lead
anybody to repentance. That's just how destitute we
are of any spiritual life. All the warnings are real. All
of the warnings of these trumpet judgments, they're all real.
They're all sounded out. I'm sounding out a warning right
now. You can read over in Ezekiel
chapter 33. The Lord talked about the watchman. He says that the watchman sees
the enemy coming and he picks up his trumpet and he sounds
a note that's very clear and understandable. And people don't
get ready. They're not prepared. They ignore
it. He said, the watchman, he's free
of their blood. But now if a watchman doesn't
sound forth a clear note when he sees danger coming and people
perish, they're still going to perish. But he says, I'll hold
the watchman accountable. I'm like a watchman. I tell you,
there's trouble brewing out there, folks. There's judgment brewing. The wrath of God is building
up. It's only the sovereign will and pleasure of our Christ that
holds it back. I'm talking about everlasting
judgment. And all of these other things that are happening, all
these troubles and skirmishes throughout the world, they're
all warning of a final warfare that we can't win. And I'm warning you, the only
place of safety is in Christ Jesus. I'm trying to speak in
words that are easy to be understood. Only refuge, the only shelter
in the time of storm, the storm that is brewing, the storm that's
going to come to pass is in Christ. Flee to Christ Jesus. Come to
Christ Jesus now. Oh, may God help you. And if
you don't, Judgment's going to find you.
It's going to find you. And it says in verse 21, neither
repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of
their fornication, nor of their thefts. All the sins that men
have ever committed are going to find them out. Surely your sins will find you
out. Oh, God, help us to come to this
blessed Christ and find in Him refuge for our poor souls. He's
the solid rock. We build upon Him. We build all
of our foundation for salvation on Christ Jesus, His blood and
His righteousness. And I bid you do what we're going
to sing, 216, look to the Lamb