Church, isn't it funny how so
many times that different things can bear change to our mood? It doesn't matter what it is.
We can be having a good day, and the smallest thing can take
us away from that good day. We could be having a bad day.
And the smallest thing can take us bad day to a good day. Now
that's never going to change. Our emotions will ebb and flow,
rise and fall. They will be good, they will
be bad. They will lie to us, teach us things that are not
true, make us feel things that are not true. They will deceive us. And so we must take all of the
thoughts and feelings and so-called realities of our lives every
single moment and we must arrest them. We must hold them captive
to the truth of Jesus Christ who is the truth. I mean the
mere weather can make us feel a little blah. Our singing today
was not as powerful as it was last week. Because last week
the sun was shining. It wasn't as cool. Today is one
of those days where we'd be better fitted to stay in bed. Snuggle
up with a blanket or a fire or a pet or hot chocolate or whatever
it is that we like to find solace in. It's amazing how overcast
days and cool weather sometimes, when the sun doesn't shine, it
can affect our joy. We just don't feel very good. Yet the scripture teaches us
to reflect upon it this way. is that Jesus faced the cross
with joy. He looked beyond the pain to
the glory. He looked beyond the suffering
to the joy that came. By the very life of Jesus, not
to ignore the explicit teaching of Scripture which is identical,
but by the very example of the life of Jesus, there is no joy
that does not come through pain. Beloved, I'm glad you are here
among us this morning. I'm glad that you gather together
as a family today because whatever weighs heavy upon your shoulders,
the Word of God will give you hope. The prayers of your brothers
and sisters will give you strength. Being honest about who we are
and what we feel and what we're experiencing is an opportunity
for the rest of us to minister to each other. We're able to
come to the throne of grace with our face lifted high because
Jesus the God-man paid for our sins so that the judge of all
judges has nothing against us. Nothing. Nothing. We're not partly loved by God.
We're not almost righteous. We're not just a little bit on
the way. We are sanctified through Jesus Christ and that will be
a journey like no journey. But one day we will see Him face
to face. We shall be perfect. But until we are perfect, we
are safe in Jesus Christ because He has sealed us with the Holy
Spirit. God's judgment against us has
been poured out upon Jesus so that we are now justified before
Christ. How? You might ask. Because Christ
has done all of the work. Salvation is all of Him. It is
all of God. It is all of grace. So friends,
while there may be gloom in our hearts and frustration in our
minds and illness in our bodies, this is light momentary affliction
that is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. On the way home from Statesboro
yesterday, I was listening to XM 76 and that's the classical
station. And with hopes that it would
put everybody to sleep, it did not. It doesn't work like that
often. Beethoven's last full symphony
that he composed, 18, I don't even know when it was, symphony
number nine, opus 125, symphony number nine in D minor. It is
the one where we know as the chorale or the ode to joy. It's
the first time anyone composed a symphony with a chorus in it. And as I sat there and I listened
to this native tongue sing a very known tune to me, even in its
original language, I'm very familiar with it. I've performed it myself.
But as I hear it and it doesn't touch what worship should be
in our hearts. And I thought to myself of all
the times I've sat preparing to see a symphony play or sat
before the opening of an opera and I just hear the orchestra
tuning to itself. And you hear that first violin
give the concert C or the concert A, depending on what they're
playing. And then everybody starts to tune. And it sounds like a
bunch of cats walking through a garden of bells and microwaves
and toddlers And just a bunch of little...
And then the conductor stands up and he taps once and he holds,
and depending on how you conduct, some people conduct very strangely,
but once you learn how a conductor moves the sound from this orchestra,
you can follow it. And he stands there and every
one there, all these pieces, who even by themselves can make
good music, is nothing compared to the ensemble. And you could hear a pin drop.
Between the movements of the symphony, I contemplated what
it must be like in glory. As a pin could drop in the presence
of Christ. As the conductor of our joy stands
before us and raises the baton of his grace. And we sing praises
to his name. The chill of just that physical
experience brings me to tears when I hear the opening chord
of an orchestra. When I hear a French sonnet being
sung, Just the beauty of what human beings can do with the
creativeness that God has given them. It sends me into a place
of experience that is indescribable. There is no poetry that could
flow from my mouth that could give you the description of what
I feel and experience when I hear good music. But oh how disturbingly
weak and disgusting and ridiculous and worthless that shall be in
comparison to the glorious chorus of Worthy is the Lamb that we
shall sing together on that day. And there will be no gloomy weather,
there will be no election, There will be no sickness. There will
be no infighting. There will be nothing to hinder
the joy of our expression. There will be nothing to stand
in the way of us truly, with all of our spirit, with all of
our mind, with all of our soul, and with all of our strength,
together in unison, worshiping Jesus Christ, who is worthy of
all praise. Ne'er will there ever be anything
whether a lawn to be cut, or a car to be washed, or a child
to be bathed, ever stand in the way of the eternal worship that
is due our God. So beloved, when we see the days
like today, when there is just an oppressiveness about our emotions,
let us be glad, for there is a day that is coming where these
things will disappear. So until then, let us not live
for this world. Let us not love this world. Let
us not exist for the sake of this world. Do not grow and build
treasures for this earth. Do not stand and leave a legacy
of footnotes and worklessness in this life. Do not think you
are making a difference in this world when the only difference
that is ever going to be made in the mark of history is that
Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of man, came to redeem
a people. And if you are not in the counted
number, you will not stand. and you will be an obliterated
nothing for all of eternity. But glory be to God, He saved
us. We don't have to worry about what we shall do, for Christ
has done it all. We do not have to worry about
how we shall stand, for Christ has stood for us on the cross,
and when He finished His work, as we see in Scripture, He sat
down at the right hand of the Father, and when He receives
us unto Himself, He stands to receive His own. Beloved, Christ
is ready for you, whether you're ready for Him or not, because
He has made you righteous. God has declared you just. And
there is something worth singing about when we know that truth. There is not an argument, hurt,
harm, or pain that can stand in the way of such joy. Turn
with me to 2 Thessalonians. Chapter 1, verse 5. Follow with me through verse
10. This is the evidence of the righteous
judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom
of God for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers
it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to
grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord
Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming
fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and
on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They
will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from
the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might.
And when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints,
and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our
testimony to you was believed. Let's pray. Lord, this word is
so true. Allow it to arrest us, to seize us, to capture us, to mold us, to break us, to grow
us, to shape us. Father, let us consider ourselves
as we sit this day under the teaching of this Word, and let
us consider how we stand before You. Are we trusting in works? Are we trusting in self-righteousness? Are we trusting in our faith,
of our faith? Are we trusting in anything?
Are we trusting in our ability of Lordship? Are we trusting
in ourselves? Lord, help us to see that there
is no hope except in Christ. that we might forsake our self-reliance
and rest in Him. And Lord, let us not only contemplate
ourselves, let us look deeply into the hearts of those around
us as we know each other intimately to some degree, and help us to
pray for one another that we would all be filled with all
your fullness, that our joy would be full in Jesus Christ, that
our hunger would not be for relationship or glory, or worldly pursuits,
or ministry, but our hearts for each other. Our prayer is that
we would pray that each other's hearts would be drawn to Your
Word and powerfully affixed to the affection of Your Son, Jesus
the righteous. And finally, Father, as we pray,
let us contemplate those in our lives and those not in our lives
that exist outside the world, in the world, outside the protection
of your grace, of the sealing of your spirit. Father, those
who are perishing this very moment, let us pray that you would use
us as an instrument of power, an instrument of grace, an instrument
of hope as we preach to the lost, as we preach to the weary, as
we preach to the doubting, as we preach to the wicked about
your saving grace. Give us lives that are exemplary,
that give a testimony in themselves. But Father, let that testimony
be true as we preach the gospel of Jesus. Lord, we pray that
for ourselves and for each other. And we pray that Your Spirit
would open the eyes of unbelievers, that they may see and savor the
beauty of Jesus Christ, the Son. And as we take this Word into
our ears today, as we take this Word into our hearts, Father,
if You do not prepare our ears and hearts, it is futile. So,
Lord, I pray desperately, I beg of You, Lord, by Your sovereign
grace, would You please work in me and each other and all
of us the power of Your Word so that we might stand and celebrate
Your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen. This is
the same text that I preached last week and in part the text
that I preached two weeks prior to that. But inside of this text,
there's several arguments that are made congruently. And so
this morning, I want us to think about several things. And in
the beginning, I want you to have your mind set on some things
that philosophically and argumentatively are a little off Let me just
tell you what they are. I want you to think about two
negative aspects of this text, the two negative aspects that
Paul that Paul teaches here to the Thessalonians. There's the
negative aspect of there are people who are rejected by God.
That's negative. I mean, everybody likes and I
mentioned last week in the in the opening to my sermon that
there are people who would say that I'm a hellfire brimstone
preacher. That's not the case. Any preacher
who does not preach the full counsel of the Word of God by
preaching God's righteousness is actually lying. Let me tell you how easy that
is. When you consider felt needs of a people, of a city, of a
congregation, and you start thinking, well, this is not going to make
them feel good. Let's encourage them and build them up. And we
think that the absence of negative is the presence of positive. If I'm drinking poison and you
go, I just don't want to hurt his feelings, he really enjoys
that drink. Isn't that wicked? The same would
be true if I ignored the very aspect of the fact that Paul
is saying that the judgment of God is coming. Oh heaven, Zabetzi,
that encouraging letter to the Roman Christians. How in the
world has this set the tone for encouragement when he starts
out that the wrath of God is going to be poured out on all
unrighteousness? all who suppress the knowledge
of the truth by unrighteous words. And then not only is God going
to pour out all of His wrath upon unrighteousness, who suppress
the truth by their unrighteous works, He's then going to turn
them over to a reprobate mind to do that which is unnatural.
And then in a sense build a case against them even worse than
there already is. So that when He destroys them
for all of eternity, Punitively, judicially, He's glorified in
it and we worship Him for doing so. Wow, what a positive message,
Paul. Thanks. Same is true here. The two negative
aspects of this text is that there is rejection of God, rejection
by God toward groups of people. And because of that, there is
the judgment of God toward two groups of people. It's negative. There are two
misapplications of this text that some people would look at
and say, well, you know, this is just to show us the God of
the Old Testament. We misname the God of the Old
Testament often. How many times, if you just by
a show of hands, you've ever heard somebody say, the God of the
Old Testament is a God of vengeance. The God of the New Testament
is a God of love. You ever heard that? Hear it
all the time. Well friends, God has never not
been a God of vengeance, and God has never not been a God
of love. As a matter of fact, if we start
to look at the reality of vengeance and the reality of love, God
of the New Testament is oh so much more vengeful than the God
of the Old Testament. Because in the God of the Old
Testament, in His vengeance and His righteousness, He pours out
justice on those who were overly guilty for what He's pouring
out on them. Here's a hundred years, get it right. Here's another
hundred years, get it. Here's another hundred. Here's
another hundred years. We do that as parents. What did
I say? One, two. When I was a kid, it was like
two and a quarter, two and a half, two and three quarters, and you're
like running through. It's like you're waiting for
the God, safe at home plate. And that junk doesn't work. And
your parents just don't really want to spank you and they start
going, two in one thirty seconds? I mean, you know, for you mathematicians
in the room. Let's break it all down. Friends,
it's never wrong, it's never vengeful and evil and wicked
and maniacal to bring justice against those people who deserve
it. What could be considered maniacal What could be considered
wrong, what could be considered unfair is that Jesus Christ,
the Holy, Righteous One of God, suffered the consequence of sin
that He did not do. So don't tell me the God of the
New Testament is a God of love when He destroyed the very essence
of love. Why did He do that? Because He's a God of righteousness.
He's a God of judgment. So in order for God to forgive
us, there must be judgment against us that satisfied propitiation. Brother Doug prayed this morning.
That's what the word means. So with these two negative aspects
and these two misapplications that the God of the Old Testament
is wrathful and vengeful and the God of the New Testament
is merciful, there's three false assumptions that I think that
are always at play in the text like this. And there's probably
more, but there are three, certainly. And here they are. Some people
like to say, God won't judge me. He's too, what? Loving. He's too merciful. God is love. Well, if God is
love, then the love is pure. And if the love is pure, the
love is righteous. And if the love is righteous, the love cannot
give affection and mercy toward those who are unrighteous. So
for someone to say, well, God won't judge me, He's too merciful.
It's funny how when we say, hey, there's a building on fire over
there, nobody says, don't judge that building. Just because that building's
got smoke coming out, somebody could be cooking bacon. Don't
judge that cook. But we say, hey, you know, somebody just
committed grievous sin. Don't judge them. That's God's
business. God's already judged us, y'all. He's already passed
judgment. The consequence of the sentence
of that judgment has yet to come. which is death and eternal damnation. But the free gift of God is what?
Eternal life through Christ Jesus to be received how? Striving
and pushing and working? No. Faith. It's believed that
God has accomplished it. We put our trust in the accomplishment
of God. We put our faith in Jesus Christ every moment, all the
time. Not last week, not last year,
not ten years from now, not tomorrow, but now. Another false assumption is that
some people are so lost in their own minds, they say, well, God
will never save me. God's never going to save me.
He's too vengeful. You don't know what I've done.
You ever heard somebody say that? I hear it all the time. Matter
of fact, I hear those equally amongst the community. God can't save me. I'm bad. And I say, well, you're better
off than the guy I just talked to who said God can't judge him because
he's good. And that's the third false assumption.
God won't judge me because I'm pretty good. God's not going
to pass judgment on me because I'm in church. God's not going
to pass judgment on me because I'm a pastor. God's not going
to pass judgment on me because I was baptized. I had a guy named
Jeremiah who was homeless when I used to do up in here preaching
in Savannah back in 1995, 96, 97, 98. And it was harsh down
there. You stand out on the street corner
and you wear a suit. I wore suits all the time. I always wore suits.
I don't know why, I just always wore suits. I didn't get my first
pair of blue jeans until I was like 27. And this guy named Jeremiah,
he's always waiting on me that day. And he'd come up to me,
he'd say, hey, Brother James. Jeremiah, how are you? He says,
I was baptized two years ago. He said that every day. And Jeremiah,
what did we talk about last week? He said, yeah, but I need some
food. I said, well, let me go buy you some food. No, I just need to get
it myself. What he wanted was money for drugs. He just wanted money.
I'm going to go get you some food. So I'd show up with food.
He'd throw it in the trash. And I'd talk to him about the
gospel. He'd sit there and watch me preach. He'd watch me go door
to door to the businesses and preaching the business. And laundromats,
oh, heaven help. You ever been in a laundromat?
A laundromat's a good place to preach, son, until the owner
shows up. Are y'all washing your clothes?
Why are you washing your clothes? They're dirty. You know what?
Is your heart dirty? Is your life dirty? Is your mind
dirty? Are you a sinner before God? Well, I don't think so.
Well, I think you are. Why don't you get in the washing
machine and see if you can make yourself clean? It's a good opener. All of us
are dirty before God. Jeremiah put his hope in the
fact that he was baptized three years ago. And I preached down
there for four years and it was always the same thing. I was
baptized three years ago. Five years later, I was baptized three
years ago. That was his stick. That was his hope. He was baptized.
He puts his hope in what he did to follow through some precepts.
Just like many of us, we sit here secure. And we should sit
secure if our faith is in Jesus Christ alone. We should sit very
secure. But oftentimes, here's where
we're going to get by the time we get through with the sermon
today. A lot of us are secure in our own hearts because our
neighbors and our family members and the lost people of our community
say they're secure and we just accept it because we don't want
to engage it. Well, friends, there are many
false assumptions about the justice of God. Let's be sure that we're
not believing them in ourselves, and let's also make sure that
we're not accepting them as an excuse not to engage in the gospel. You know how many people tell
me every week they're going to be in Grace Truth Services? Fifteen,
twenty. I probably talk to four hundred
people a week. At least a minute or three. Aren't you preaching here? Dude,
don't ask that question. I told a guy like that a couple
of weeks ago. Don't ask that question. Y'all still got a church? Don't
ask that question. Well, I'm coming. I said, this
week? Yeah. All right, I'll see you at 1015.
I'll meet you at the door. Never seen that guy. There was
somebody in here playing the piano yesterday. I'll see you
tomorrow morning, pastor. Are you here? No. Spiritual conversations, spiritual
application, obedience, it comes when God renews us. When God
saves us in His mercy, the fruit of salvation is the work of God.
It's not the other way around. In this text, though it has some
negatives, let's remember what the Scripture has taught us thus
far in verse 5. Look at this. We learn, this
is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may
be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also
suffering. Now this, this is the evidence is not referring
back to verse 4 and 3 and 2 and 1. This is the evidence. He's talking about the suffering
for the Kingdom of God. This is the evidence of the righteous
judgment of God. That God is just in His righteousness. He is good in His judgment. And
God has judged it necessary for His people to suffer affliction
in this world. It is good. Listen to that. Let
me say it again, another way. God has, in His good judgment,
decided it was good for the church to suffer affliction. If we are to be identified with
Christ in life, we are also to identify Christ in death. If
we are to be identified Christ in glory, we will also be identified
with Christ in what? Suffering. Because through much
suffering comes glory. It's a guarantee. God, in His,
according to Ephesians 3, manifold wisdom has displayed this reality
and it is righteous and it is true and it is a good judgment. God is right by allowing His
church to suffer affliction. Why? Because it is evidence of
our adoption. You see that? These professing Christians who
live this life of absolute glorious joy, and who tell me they have
no burden, no temptation, no suffering, no nothing, But that
God is good all the time, and all the time God is good, and
if you get that started in some places, it never quits. You're like moonwalking out back
going, okay, I'm done. Somebody else hears this like
a bullfrog starts, and then the whole swamp comes alive. If you
don't know what I'm talking about, just go out one night about two
in the morning to a swamp or a pond. Or the cicadas, or crickets,
a cricket. Friends, yes, God is good all
the time, and yes, our joy is full, and yes, we are complete
in Christ, and yes, we are satisfied, and yes, we lack nothing, and
yes, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
we have no fear. But friends, it is with much affliction, it
is with much burden, it is through much labor, it is through much
toil that we will see glory. Anybody, listen to my words,
anybody who tells you that the gospel is a gospel of simplistic,
easy living is a liar. If you are born of God, temptations
and trials and suffering is yours in Christ. Just as glory is yours
in Christ, temptation, trials and suffering are yours in Christ. That's a reminder of last week. Verse 6 is a reminder, remember
from last week, that he says there, since indeed God, we see
then for which you are suffering, the evidence of the righteous
judgment of God is that you're considered worthy because you're
suffering. That shows that you're worthy.
Verse 6, then, since indeed God considers it just, the word justice
and righteousness are interchangeable in meaning and application. And
so it's just His righteous judgment that He repays with affliction
those who afflict you. Now here is how we look at that
sometimes. What we learned last week is
that recompense is righteous judgment against those who afflict
God's people. But oftentimes we want it now. Do we not? And so we're sitting around.
We're not even like the martyrs in Revelation 5. And the martyrs
in Revelation 6 under the throne, you know, that picture there.
If you want to know what that means, come Tuesday or go on the church
website and listen. All eight weeks are up now. We like to see it now. We want
to walk out of the fight and the doors swing. And as they
swing, it's like a Steve McQueen movie. The whole thing blows
up behind us. Got them! Told you not to mess with me.
I'm God's... What is the word? Anointed. There
you go. That's what we want. We want
this guy who gets in our face and causes us pain. We want our
neighbor whose dog never stops yapping. We want like fire to
come down from heaven and the ground to swallow up the kennel.
And we walk over there and say, peace be with you. I told you
to silence that dog. You bothered me. We want persecution
when it comes to be dealt with immediately. Those of you who have numerous
children, one of the frustrations as a parent with numerous children
is that we can get in there sometimes and there's an infraction. You
know what an infraction is? That you've done something wrong,
you've said something wrong, you smell wrong, or you've looked
at somebody wrongly. Any of those things and all in
between. And the other person wants justice now. So, this happened. Okay, let me deal with it. You
know, the car is still running. Don't run out in the driveway
and almost die because you want to tell on somebody. What are
you doing? Why did you run out in front
of the truck, slow down, skid marks, tear up the driveway,
hit the house. Daddy, daddy, so-and-so did so-and-so and said
so-and-so. Okay, let me get out of the car and You know, you
walk in, if the belt's not off, the paddle's not in hand, the
scythe is not being, you know, we're not reaping people's souls.
Oh, you're just not going to do anything about it. Okay, now
you're on the chopping block. Now everybody's going to die.
The whole house is dead now. Let's call the kneesmith and
get a bunch of caskets. We're all gone. I mean, this is what we want.
We want it now. We want justice now. We want
to get over our feeling hurt and crushed and abused now. We want God to do something miraculous,
but the Scripture doesn't teach that He's going to do that now.
The Scripture says that He is right and He considers it good
and righteous judgment to afflict them when? At the coming of Jesus. Solomon dealt with this. Have
you ever read Ecclesiastes? If you ever feel like you just
want to get off this boat, go read Ecclesiastes. I taught a
summary of Ecclesiastes years ago. I don't know how long it
was. I was too dumb to know better.
But I entitled the sermon series, like eight weeks, I entitled
it, Let's Kill Ourselves. That was the title of it. Because
that's what I felt like Solomon was saying, why live? And of
course people go, you know, that was a little crude. I'm like, that's just the title.
It's like when I entitled when I preached in Brunswick out of
the revelation of the letters of the seven churches, I preached
the title of the sermon series was Church for Sale. And I put
it on the sign and people drove by and liked to have a coronary
because they thought the property was for sale. Because I put it
up there, Church for Sale, just like that. Not sermon title,
just Church for Sale. So I don't entitle my sermons
now. It's very difficult. Because I might hurt your feelings. Not intentionally, this is the
point. Ecclesiastes Solomon said there's nothing good under the
sun, there's nothing new under the sun. It's all worthless. We toil,
we work, we pray, we labor, we worship, we do all these things.
For what? We die. What good is it? And then I try
to do right, Solomon says. I try to live for the Lord. I
try to do what's good. But I'm persecuted. I thought I could
find happiness in wives. I thought I could find happiness
in money. I thought I could find happiness in wisdom. But all
of it came to nothing. It all is worthless. It's all
the world. So now what? There's nothing.
What does he conclude? It's all for the glory of God.
It's all good because all of these things prepare him for
an incredible taste of that which he's longed for all along and
cannot find. Beloved, when we suffer in this
life, we long for a better day. And the better day is not a good
cup of coffee the next morning with peace and our dog in our
lap. The better day is standing before Jesus Christ and worshiping
Him for all of the ineffable majesty that's due Him. That's
the better day. That's the better day. So God
says that it's just, it's in righteousness judgment to afflict
those people. And in verse 7, not only will they be afflicted
and to grant relief, verse 7, to you who are afflicted as well
as to us, so we know that we're going to have peace. We know
we're going to have relief. If you have a headache and you
take something for the headache, it goes away. But if you're like
me, my headaches are coming back. Depends on what the trigger is.
Light, sound, fatigue, caffeine, lack of caffeine, sugar, lack
of sugar, hunger, lack of hunger. I thought about, I haven't had
a headache in a while. Boof. It's crazy. Nobody knows the
world of migraines. Doctors don't even know what
they are. I think the best medicine for migraines is the ball peen
therapy. Know what a ball peen is? It's a hammer with a little
ball on the end of it. Knock yourself out, wake up later
with a bump, headache's gone. What about all this judgment?
This judgment of affliction upon those who cause harm. This judgment
of... This judgment, and I'm using
the word judgment as Paul uses it here. His righteous judgment. He's judged it right to afflict
those who afflict us, and he's judged it right that we will
be given what? We will be given relief. He's judged correctly. What does
the scripture teach about that? There's some questions here.
There's some questions here that we can answer based on the next
three verses. We can ask the question, when
will this judgment of God come? When will the judgment of God
come? When will all these things be made right? When is this going
to take place? Now sadly in our day, people
like to watch the news and watch the television and watch the
radio and watch social media and watch newspapers and say,
oh wow, the end has come, the judgment is here. Listen friends,
that cannot be discerned by those things. Those things cannot be told.
Scripture teaches very clearly we are not to sit on our hands
and wait for the justice of God. Wait for the day of the Lord.
We are to be actively at work, ready, sober minded, prepared
and working for the sake of the glory of God and for the name
of Christ. We are to be investing in each other's lives. We ought
to be praying. We ought to be preaching. We ought to be sharing.
We ought to be worshipping. We don't sit together like at
an airport terminal when everything's packed and say, oh yeah, I prayed,
I worshipped, I waited, I loved, I lived, I fellowshiped. Now
I'm just, it's almost time, they're going to call my number anyway.
We waste that time. We don't need to waste it, we
need to redeem the time. We don't need to waste the time. When
will the judgment of God come and all these things? Verse 7,
the latter part. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven
with His mighty angels. Imagine that. You know, I like
to watch storms. That's one thing I miss when
we lived in the East Bay is you never saw a storm. It rained
maybe 35 days a year and it was all within the first part of
spring and the rest of it, it was 68 degrees year round, 40
degrees every night. It was beautiful, not a cloud
in the sky. It was a paradise for those who like to be outside
and not sweat and no bugs and no rain. But I miss thunderstorms. I like
to go out when it's getting bad weather and watch it. I like
to be out in the country where I can see it over an open field
and you can look and everybody's like, well, aren't you scared
of a tornado? No, I can see that stuff forming. I know when to
go inside. You can watch it. You know when
a tornado gets you? When you're binge watching a
show on Netflix and you can't hear it. I'm not scared of that. I'm a little
crazy about it. I actually like to go out. Now,
lightning makes me a little uneasy, but as long as I can count to
three, I'm staying outside. Some of us think the coming of
Jesus is going to be like a storm. Oh, I heard some thunder. This thing might fall down. I
better watch it. I saw some lightning. The wind's starting to blow.
Oh, look at these clouds forming. Oh, is that a funnel cloud? Ah,
no, it didn't make it. Well, let's see if this will
come. It's not going to be like that, y'all. We're not going
to be able to watch for weeks and months and years and say,
oh, Jesus is coming. He's about to get here. The plane's
about to land. Here He is. Yeah, let's go get Him and hit
Him. We have a sign, Jesus. I mean, we're not going to be
like that. We're not going to be able to watch it. We're not
going to be able to anticipate it. The Scripture says that we
ought to tell people that the judgment is imminent. The righteousness
of God through justice through Jesus Christ the Son is imminent.
Today is the day of salvation. Not yesterday and not tomorrow.
Not next week. Today is the day of salvation.
Judgment will come when God is ready for judgment to come. Christ
will return when God the Father has predetermined before the
world began. The creatures of this world are
not... God is not waiting on us to accomplish
certain things before He returns. That's a joke. That's what Zeus
of Greece does. Oh, they almost did the right
thing. Now I've got to wait another
month. God looking at his clock. Can
you imagine worshipping a God like that? That's an annoying
boss that you wish you had another job. Well, you're three minutes
late. God does all that He pleases.
No one speaks to His will. Everything will be perfect when
Christ comes back, immediately. Paul says of the first, like
a twinkling of an eye, The judgment of God will come
when Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven and He's not alone.
All the hosts of glory are there. People who do not believe the
gospel, they can say whatever they want to say and they can
do whatever they want to do and they can believe however they
want to believe in their speaking to themselves in their mind.
But they know that one day Christ will come. They know that God
is righteous. Well, how will the Lord come?
Look at verse 8. It says there, He will come in
a flaming fire. Now, can you imagine that? When we see over in, I think
it's Revelation 19, when we see Jesus, the depiction of Jesus
over, man, there's a lot of concordance in this thing. We see over there where Jesus On a white horse,
the one sitting on it is faithful and true, and is righteous as
he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of
fire, and on his head are many diadems, are many crowns, and
he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is
clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called
is the Word of God." Should bring John chapter 1 and 1 John 1 to
mind, and Genesis 1. And the armies of heaven, arrayed
in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses.
From His mouth comes a sharp, sharp sword." Ephesians 6, you
understand that word, rima, the sword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God. The word there is not logos, but rima. with
which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a
rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the
wrath of God the Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh
He has the name written, King of Kings and the Lord of Lords."
This is Jesus, the timid lamb, coming to bring justice. This is what it means when it
says that He will come in fire. in a flaming fire, inflicting
vengeance. Beloved, this is not a story
that we teach our children at bedtime. This is a truth that
we teach them all the time. When the Scripture tells us that
we spare the rod, we spoil the child, I'm not advocating beating
or spanking, if that's what you so choose to do, fine. We know
what abuse looks like and we know what discipline looks like,
but if we do not discipline our children to teach them consequences
of wrong and the beauty of intimacy with right. See, we don't teach
our children to do right by rewarding them to do right. Jesus even
says that. He teaches that in Mark's Gospel where he talks
about the servant that works in the field that works all day
and slaves so hard and works. He says, what does the master
say to the servant after he's worked a hard day in the field?
Does he bring him in the house and say, hey servant, put your
feet up on the table and dine with me for you've worked hard.
He says, no slave, where's my food? Did you know Jesus said
that? You know what point he's trying
to make in that parable? We don't get rewarded for being righteous,
this is a command of God. But we are certainly going to
suffer the consequences of unrighteousness. But what is the consequence of
right? What is the reward of righteousness? It's not sitting
back with our feet up. It's enjoying the joy of Christ
intimacy. If we're unified with Him, then
we have intimacy with Him. If we have intimacy with Him,
then we are satisfied in Him. If we're satisfied in Him, that
means there's nothing else we need, nothing else we want, nothing
else we long for, nothing else that's on our mind. We're okay
with just Christ. 499 years ago, just a few weeks
back, was the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Friends,
these are the things going on in Luther's mind that caused
him to lose it. For Jesus' sake. We don't need anything but Christ.
What about these icons? Don't take away people's religion.
What else is there going to be? Jesus alone. Faith alone. That's it. That's all we need.
The justice of God is coming. Jesus Christ is coming to judge
the world. He is going to destroy every
government. He is going to destroy every institution. He is going
to take down every king. He is going to remove every single
head of state. There is no nation that belongs
to God in righteousness. There is no government that has
not been established to do good to those who are righteous and
to punish evil that will not be taken from their thrones.
There is not a ruling class in heaven. There is one king, and
he has one body, and we are it, or we are not it. Well, then who will suffer the
judgment of God and His wrath when He comes? Look at the second
half of verse 8. See these questions that this
text answers? Two identifiers of those who will suffer the
judgment of God in the last day. What are they? Those who do not
know God. And those who do not obey the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now see, this is where some people
get really twisted up. So let me correct some things
before we even get to these two statements. The obedience of
the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ is not walking in obedience to
the law of God and thus being sanctified righteously and justified
through obedience. So what is it? We'll tell you
in just a minute. I just don't want you to sit here and think
about that for the next four minutes. It's making you sit there and think
about what it's not. Those who do not know God, I
say this often, and of course, John is always in my heart and
mind. John is there all the time. I
thought, Jesus, you know what I'm talking about. John's writing.
Scripture is there. It's there. What's in you? What letter is yours for your
joy? Not what verse. What text? Get a text. Make this New Year
coming up. You want to be resolved. Make
the New Year. Not to read the Bible 20 times.
Woo! I wish you would read it a thousand.
Don't be resolved to even memorize a bunch of bunch of scripture.
That's a good... These are both good things. But you know what?
Above all that, resolve to make a letter of the New Testament
yours. And read the whole thing every day. Every day. Read the whole letter. The whole
thing. By the end of next year, you
will have memorized the entire thing. Word for word, probably
not. But you'll have it. Read it. Those who do not know God, Jesus
in John 17 says these words. This is eternal life. That they
know you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have sent. And
I believe it's necessary to re-emphasize that which is continually like
a little patter of mind. If Jesus Christ, the God of heaven,
said that this is eternal life, we ought to listen to what He
has to say. Jesus is also the one who says,
not everyone who confesses or says to me or calls me Lord,
Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. This calling Jesus our
Lord is a declaration of intimacy, a declaration of authority. And
it feeds into the second thing about obeying the gospel. Friends,
we can say that Jesus is our Lord, and we can live as though
He is, and we can act as though He is, and we can obey righteously
as though He is, and we can do all sorts of things, and we can
believe that this righteous act of obedience and placing Christ
on the throne of our life is what works for our justification,
but it does not. Knowing God is a work of God. How is it? Well, Paul would argue
in Romans, he would say these words, that our throat is an
open grave. Do you know that? What does that
mean? Well, what use is a grave anyway? What use is an open grave? In John's book, in Romans chapter
3, as it is written in verse 11,
Psalm 14, Psalm 5, there's a bunch of different
places that this comes from. Paul recapitulates and summarizes
many places. And he says these words, none
is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks
for God, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless,
no one does good, not even one, their throat is an open grave,
they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps, is under their
lips. Their mouth is full of curses
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace
they have not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes." And if we keep on going in verse 21, he gives a
contrast. So therefore then, the context
of this is that there is a righteousness of God that is upheld, and His
justice and His vengeance against those who do not know Him. But
the sad truth is, is that no one seeks to know God. But in verse 21, 23, he says,
but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart
from the law. Those who do not know God are
those who do not obey the gospel. What does it mean to obey the
gospel? What has the gospel commanded of us that we might obey it?
Believe! Faith to be those who are the believing
ones. I am holy. Therefore, be holy. We cannot. Jesus Christ is holy. So the gospel, if you look at
it through the New Testament, look at it. Jesus Christ never has ever asked
anyone to believe in him. He never has ever said, will
you believe in me? He never has said, please come believe
in me. I want you to get this church. He has, because of His place
of authority, all heaven, all earth, all authority over all
things is His, and every essence of every place of every time
you hear Jesus say to believe, it is a command. Did you hear
that? The gospel is not an offer to
be chosen. The gospel is a command to be
received and to be obeyed. And the bad news is we can't.
Except God give us a heart to hear. Friends, if we are not believing
on Christ alone, we do not know the one true God. And if we do
not know the one true God, we are not His, and we will suffer
the judgment of God's wrath in a flaming fire who inflicts vengeance. How will they suffer judgment? Look at verse 9. Punishment and
eternal destruction. And this explainer. away from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of His might. In Revelation, this past Tuesday,
we answered the question about who could stand. In chapter
6 of Revelation, We see Jesus Christ take the decrees of God
and is found worthy to open the decrees of all creation, the
decrees of time. So that Jesus then becomes the
commanding voice of that which God decrees. It's what we see
in this imagery. If you want to know what that
is three weeks ago, go listen to it on the church website.
I really encourage you to make it on Tuesday or either at least
listen to the class, Reading of Revelation. And at the end of this text,
we see in verse 12, when he opened the sixth seal, John says, I
looked and behold, there was a great earthquake. The sun was
gone. I'm just going to paraphrase
this so you can understand it. The moon was gone. The stars were
gone. The trees were gone. The sky
was gone. The mountains were gone. The
kings were gone. The generals were gone. The rich
were gone. The powerful were gone. The slaves
were gone. The free were gone. And the question they're quoting,
there's the picture of those who desire to escape the judgment
of Jesus Christ, the Lamb. As the mountains were disappearing,
they cry out, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him
who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For
the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? That
question is answered in chapter 7. Who can stand? How will they suffer the judgment?
They will suffer eternal justice. Forever and ever, I think it's
Revelation 18, forever and ever and ever, the smoke of their
torment goes up and up and up. Jesus, in His day, spoke to the
most horrific thing that people could comprehend. Fire that never
went out. Darkness that was never shined
light upon. Well, fire creates darkness,
so we understand these are pictures. The worm never dies. Gnashing
of teeth, screaming, wailing. And Jesus says it will be worse
than that. That those who are not saved
by the grace of God through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, will stand under the judgment of God, and they will
be broken, and they will bow down before Jesus, and they will
worship Him as Lord, but yet it will not be worship, it will
be a command of the very essence of His being. Jesus is Lord,
Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, for He is Lord, and no one can
say that He's not Lord. We don't make Jesus our Lord,
He is our Lord, even if we're in hell for all of eternity,
He is our Lord. So if you think salvation comes
through making Jesus Christ your Lord, you could very well have
Him as Lord in eternal damnation. Not everyone who says to me,
Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. This intimate conversation
with Jesus Christ, this intimate application of Him as our Lord
and Savior. He is everybody's Lord, but He
is not everybody's Savior. He is only the Savior of those
who believe. And friends, there is something
that was plaguing the church in my childhood and is plaguing
the church now, even in the name of Reformed doctrine, and that
is this Lordship Salvation baloney. that teaches that if you just
do things right in your life, and you put Jesus on the throne
of your life, you have eternal life. Well, let me tell you something,
folks. Jesus is on the throne of everybody's life. And as the
king sees fit to judge, his judgment is righteous and good. And if
he judges us worthy to inherit the kingdom of God, we shall
inherit it. If He judges us unworthy, we shall rightly be condemned
for all of eternity. And that is one of these things
that cause us great strain. Strain it, church. Strain with
it. Because the strain in trying to pull that together in our
own minds, the frustration that comes when we try to make the
gospel work in a worldly way, or in a fleshly way, or in a
cognitive way, it doesn't work that way. The gospel is the good
news of Jesus Christ. That's what it means. Evangel
means good news. It is the good news that no matter
how hard we try, we will fail. But God has accomplished perfectly
salvation for His people. And that there is no condemnation
for those who know God and who have obeyed the gospel. Because
God has effectively and efficiently satisfied His judgment against
us through Jesus Christ the righteous. So then we are able to say, praise
God, praise God from whom all blessings flow. For you are holy,
holy, holy. Worthy, worthy, worthy, you are
my all, you are my treasure, you are my king. We can say these
things because God has secured us and sealed us with the Holy
Spirit. We are able to say that we can stand under the judgment
of God because there is no condemnation against us. Who are those that
will stand? His saints. His church, His bride,
His people, those who have obeyed the gospel by the work of God. 2 Corinthians 2.10. What does
it say? For you are what? You have done
well for yourself and created yourself in the image of Christ?
No. It doesn't say you've tried hard
and God's met you halfway. Nope. It doesn't say you believe
by faith alone and then you really are producing some good fruit.
Good boy, good girl. Nope. It says for you are God's
workmanship. Beloved, rejoice in that. You
are God's workmanship. There's too many books and too
many sermons and too many DVDs, too many YouTube videos that
teach everybody how to be like Christ in their own power, in
their own ability. When God is the one who makes
us like Christ. God is the one who gives us the good news. God
is the one who teaches us to obey. God is the one who produces
these things. For you are God's workmanship created how? In Christ
Jesus to do what? Good works. What works? My works? No, the works that have been
created beforehand for us to walk in. Let me tell you what
that looks like. Here's James before Jesus doing
good works, teaching the Bible, praying, going to church, loving
his neighbor, feeding the hungry, praying for the sick, visiting
those in prison, giving cups of cold water in Jesus' name,
and every act is wicked. It's all going to be punished.
Those same acts in salvation are righteous. God takes us out
of darkness and places us in the kingdom of light, puts us
in the kingdom of His beloved Son, and therefore He places us into
the works that are righteously effectual, because it's His doing. That's hard for people. That's
why as people age and get real cute and sweet and sit in chairs
and rock, there's no way Granny's not going to be with Jesus. Look
how sweet she looks. Let me tell you something, brother.
One of the sisters, one of the greatest evangelistic ministries
is in those nursing homes. There's a lot of people dying
to go to hell there every day. And Jesse can attest, and Brother
Brett, who most of you know, can attest that when they go
in there, sometimes there are people who have been in there in their
90s who have never heard the gospel preached. They've been
told, just do godly things. Act godly ways. Just be in godly
places. Hang around godly people. You're
godly. Paul, quoting from the Psalms, says that we've all together
become worthless, together, if we're not in Christ. Who will
stand? Those who are believers. Those
who will glory in His presence. Look at verse 10 there. when
He comes on that day, to be glorified. He will be glorified in His saints,
and He will be marveled at among all who have believed. So those
who glory in His presence, who bask in His majesty, who marvel
at His glory, these are those who stand. These are those. Friends, this is us. This is
you if you have believed in Christ. This is you if you're trusting
fully in Jesus Christ. Sola Fide is not a point in history
that we look back on. Sola Fide is that which Jesus
taught. Faith alone. Faith alone. Faith
alone in Christ alone. If we don't have faith in Christ,
we have nothing. And we can't compare ourselves
to our neighbor. We can't compare ourselves to our pastor. We can't
compare ourselves to the heathen. We can't compare ourselves to
the deplorables. Pop culture. It invades everything. We can't compare ourselves to
the wicked and say, look, we're okay because Jesus tells us a
story about that very thing, does he not? That there are those
who walk amongst the world during his day and their righteousness
was of highest honor. He even says, if your righteousness
is not greater than that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the
kingdom of heaven. And the Pharisee prays, and he
thanks God for his righteousness. He thanks God that God has worked
in him all these good works, and his trust is in his works,
and his trust is in the fruit of his faith, and the faith of
his faith. And the publican, the tax collector,
that Jewish man who stole from his own people to line his own
pockets, cried out, tore his clothes,
and beat his chest, and said, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Because that is the cry of one
who realizes there is nothing that we can do in ourselves,
nothing we can muster in our volition, nothing that we can
produce out of our flesh that could please God. Jesus Christ
in His flesh, as He lived holy and as He died righteously, is
the only thing that will satisfy God for us. Those who believe are those who
know God. Those who know God, or those
who are not rejected by God, even though it feels that way.
Remember last week? Though we suffer, we fill out,
where is God? God is in the midst of our suffering, for it is a
gift from Him. It is a guarantee from Him. It is part of the evidence
of our salvation, which is good judgment. Why is it righteous
judgment of God to declare us just? Because He has suffered
His Son on our behalf. Did you hear that? So that if
Jesus Christ is truly paid for the sins of anyone, anyone whose
sins have been paid for cannot be condemned. It is wicked. So for whom did Christ die? All the believing ones. That's
what John 3 teaches. That's what Romans 3 teaches.
That's what Ephesians 1 teaches. All the believing ones. Who are
the believing ones? Those who know God and have obeyed
the gospel. Who are they? Those who God has
foreknown. Well, who are they? Beloved,
I pray that it's you. You hear the gospel today? In
the day of judgment, those who are accepted by God, their suffering
will cease. They shall hunger no more, neither
shall they thirst, nor shall the sun strike on them, nor scorch
them with heat. For the lamb in the midst of
the throne, he will be their shepherd, and he will give them to springs
of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their
eye. Is that what you want, beloved? How will they stand? How do you
know that you will stand before God justified? Look at the latter
part of verse 10. When He comes on that day to
be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among all who
have believed. I mean, those are sermon right there. I might
do that again next week. Because our testimony to you
was believed. What? What testimony? Oh, well, I used to be bad and
now I'm saved. Is that a testimony? Well, I
was lost and now I'm found. Is that the testimony? That's
not what he's talking about. The testimony, even in that circumstance,
is this. Jesus Christ, the righteous,
has made me righteous and has satisfied God's judgment against
me. For you were not destined unto
wrath, but destined unto eternal life. to the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead. Friends, is your hope in Jesus
Christ? Are you believing in Jesus Christ? Are you trusting in Jesus Christ?
How are we to hear? How are they to hear? Romans
10, if no one preaches. Sadly, and then we'll quit, Sometimes
we get very satisfied in our holy huddle, and we take for granted, remember
what I started out with at the very beginning of this sermon,
we take for granted that other people, just by their profession and
by their lifestyle, that they are in Christ. And we think that the gospel
is this evangelism message. Well, what New Testament letter
was written evangelistically? to unbelievers. None of them! The New Testament was written
to the church that they may be equipped and empowered and encouraged
and prepared to do the work of the ministry. So we preach the
Gospel not only to the lost, but we preach the Gospel to each
other, we share the Gospel, we live the Gospel, we remind each
other of the Gospel today. Friends, listen, evangelism is
not getting people to receive the Gospel. Evangelism is teaching
each other to obey the Gospel as they become God's children,
as they become part of the local church. Missions without building
the church is not biblical. Why? Because when you're saved,
you are the church. Are you not? And what worse place
to do? Go adopt the child and drop him
off outside the trash cans. We just want to get you out of
the orphanage. Hope you're okay. When we share the faith, when
we share our testimony, we are encouraged as God's children,
and the lost can be brought to salvation through our testimony.
Do you share the gospel? I'll tell you, we all have opportunity
to do so. And as we continue to learn in this text, we'll
see that there is an impending urgency to do so. Before we close, I've just got
a matter that I want to share with the church while we're focused. Sister Pam, I don't know, it was a year or
so ago, a year ago, two years ago. It's already been two years.
Her brother has had trouble in the past and is a suspect and
has been incarcerated and is standing trial this week as a
suspect in a murder. And she needs prayer, the family
needs prayer, mother needs prayer, and her brother needs prayer.
It's difficult. I can't imagine I mean, Doug,
even as a husband, you can't really imagine what the family's
going through, what somebody you love is being tried for something
so heinous. And so I'm just asking us to
pray for her, to pray for him, to pray for the family, to pray
for justice, that it is done according to the will of God
and that righteousness prevails, that even if her brother has
to go to prison, that he might be a free man there through Jesus
Christ. It's our prayer. Jury selection
starts tomorrow, and according to the prosecution, it's going
to be a pretty lengthy trial throughout the week, I think.
It's going to be all week. And so I just want to make you
aware of that. It's not something you really
post on Facebook, you know, or send out emails on. And so with
that, let's just go to the Lord in prayer, thanking Him for the
Word, and also praying for your family. What's your brother's
name again? Quentin. Let's pray. Our Lord, our God,
our Father, our King, we praise You, Father, for just Your mercy, And Lord, how when we in our
human minds think about Your majesty and reflection of Your
mercy, it seems such a polar opposite. But Father, You are
so majestic in Your mercy. You are so glorious in Your mercy
that You pour out judgment on the righteous one, on Your Son
Jesus, the Christ, so that we could be free. And Father, we
pray that the preaching of the Word today would just rest in
us and empower us and give us life and joy and hope. And we pray that we would be
just encouraged and compelled to share this good news with
everyone. Even if we don't know the details of how to explain
all these things, Lord, let us simply say that Jesus suffered
for my sin and in Christ I live. A simple phrase of powerful truth. And to call others to believe
on Jesus as He commands them to. as we compel them to, as
we urge them and plead with them to hear the command of Christ.
This is good news. Jesus says, I am life. I am the
way. I am the truth. And so, Father,
it is in that gospel where we find the ability to pray for
Quentin, Lord. Lord, for his family, for Pam
and for Doug and the girls and her mother. Lord, it is in that Gospel, in
that Good News, that we find the courage to stand, though
we grieve, that we can say, Lord, please hear the pleas of our
prayers and take righteousness to the highest level that you
would be exalted. And if this man did take a life,
Lord, let the sentencing be equal to that which is necessary under
our law that you may prevail. But most importantly, Father,
I pray you grant mercy upon his life. Lord, that You would spare him
eternally. That this trial, that these things,
that this justice would come to a place where the gospel would
ring so hard in his mind, that You would open his ears to hear,
that You would give him eyes to see, and that his heart would
be made ready for the seeds of grace that would be planted there
that You would bring to a great harvest. And that even if he
goes to a penitentiary, Father, that he would be a beacon of
glorious, gracious gospel. And Father, we pray for comfort
during this time. We pray for the Hagen family,
Lord, as they will be there and their hearts might be bitter
and angry. We pray the gospel would come
forth, that they would learn that forgiveness is at the cross
of Jesus, and that no matter what we may have done under the
laws of this land, Lord, we are all guilty of breaking Your law. Help us weep with them as they
grieve and help us rejoice with them as they see hope. And Father, I often don't, even
in the circumstances I've been praying for two years, Lord,
it just has gone by so quickly. Father, I just... Lord, we don't know what to pray.
We don't know how to pray beyond what we've just said. And so,
Lord, help us to pray. Pray in our weakness. Pray in
the weakness of their family like you've shown us in Scripture
that your Spirit does. Lord, help us to come around
them in prayer. Lord, for those who are able
to even be there as we can this week in prayer during the trial. Father, even there present during
the trial, Lord, that your gospel may have opportunity to be shared
even during the recesses. During the witness testimonies.
For God, you can do mighty things in the hearts of all men, women
and children. We pray these things in the authority
of Christ Jesus. We pray them, Lord, standing
on the promises of Your covenant with us, on the promises of Your
Word, on the promises of Your heart and of Your being. And
we praise You, Father, for being a loving God, and for doing all
that You do for our good and for Your glory. And we pray these
things in Jesus, in His precious name. Amen.