You sinners seek his face whose
wrath you cannot bear. Fly to the refuge of his cross
and find salvation there. Oh God help you to do so. I'm certain that many, many,
many people in this country and around the world died this past
week. But I've had my mind on two men
in particular. who went into eternity this week. The one you're all familiar with,
President George H.W. Bush. A man obviously religious. A man highly respected, known around
the world. A man who was spoken of even
before he died with great admiration and high esteem as a kind, gentle,
strong man. A man who all men considered
good. And another died that very few
people know. None of you know him. I knew
him pretty well. Brother Bill James, Pastor Tim
James' older brother. As I've told you recently, we
were all raised on the south side of Winston-Salem. When God
saved Bill, he began preaching pretty early. And back in 1970,
started Chaliford Baptist Church in Louisville, North Carolina,
just outside of Winston-Salem. preached the Gospel of God's
free grace, a faithful man, an esteemed friend who had no righteousness,
no goodness, no uprightness with which to commend himself to God
except the righteousness of God's own Son. And he went to glory and Sadly, President Bush probably
knew nothing about that righteousness. And he went into eternity with
peace. Because you can find peace where
there is no peace. You can make yourself peaceful
and have no peace with God. God Almighty demands righteousness. He won't have anything less.
God demands holiness. He will not accept less. The
word of God's law is it must be perfect to be accepted. It must be perfect to be accepted. You must be perfect to be accepted. I must be perfect to be accepted. And the only person who ever
obtains that perfection is a person who knows he's nothing but sin. and he has no goodness, no righteousness
by which to recommend himself to God. Trusting Christ alone,
he finds that righteousness, that holiness, that perfection
that God demands. Oh, may God make it yours for
Christ's sake. Soon, you and I, like President
Bush and like Bill James, will die. As surely as I stand here
this hour, the hour is coming in the which all that are in
the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come
forth. They that have done good unto
the resurrection of life and they that had done evil unto
the resurrection of damnation. Soon, very soon, we shall pass
from this time world into another world, into another state of
existence called eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. What a heavy, heavy,
heavy word. Eternity, I've come here again
today to preach the gospel to you, eternity-bound sinners, to you who are but a breath from
eternity, and to persuade you in the name of God to trust His
Son. For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the
things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. How can I persuade you to set
your minds on eternity? young and old. Oh, would to God
you could hear this word from God ringing in your soul with
every breath you take. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. I turned again and read Moses'
prayer this morning in Psalm 90. The number of our years is
three score and 10. And if by reason of strength
they be four score years, they're full of labor and sorrow. But
what's that to eternity? Just a puff of wind, a vapor
that appears for just a little while and is gone and passes
swifter than ships in the night. Everything in this world is temporal
and passing away. Everything. Everything. Turn and touch that dearest one
sitting next to you. Do that. Do that. Touch them
now. Just temporary. Just temporary. That's soon gonna
end. In that world to which we're
now going, everything is eternal and permanent. Heaven with all
its blessedness and glory, with all its joy and delight is eternal
and permanent. And hell, whatever that horrible
place and condition of darkness and torment is, Whatever it is. And I don't have a clue. Neither
do you. It's indescribably worse than
you've ever imagined. But whatever it is, it's eternal
and it's permanent. And we're here. And what we are here. Are you
listening to me? What we are here. We will be
in eternity. You will not enter into heaven
when you die unless you made fit for heaven before you die.
Death changes nothing but the place of our existence. Somehow, somehow people get the idea that
death changes everything. You can ask any mortician you
want to, did you ever hear anybody preach the feeling of somebody
going to hell? And unless they've heard me or some faithful man
preaching, they haven't. Once they quit breathing and
the undertaker gets hold of them, everybody's a good man. Everybody's
a good man. Not so. Death changes nothing. Just the place of our existence.
Hear what the wise man said and understand it. In the place where
the tree falleth, there shall it be. If it falls to the south,
that's where it's going. If it falls to the north, that's
where it's going. If it falls to the south, it
will lie there. If it falls to the north, it
will lie there. No changes, no changes. Solomon's
language isn't hard to understand. His meaning is obvious. Whatever
your condition is when you die, that will be your condition forever
throughout eternity. Death changes nothing. There
will be no changes in eternity. Whatever your spiritual condition
is at the moment of death, that will be your spiritual condition
throughout eternity. Whatever your state is before
God when you die, That will be your state before God in eternity. Death changes nothing. The judgment
bar of God, you see, is not a trial to determine the guilt or innocence
of those who stand before the great judge. Judgment day will
determine nothing. Judgment day simply will show
and declare to all in heaven and in earth and to you It will
show and declare to all in heaven and in earth and to you the justice
of God in either sending you to hell or taking you to glory. It will declare to you and to
heaven and earth that it's right for God to damn the wicked and
right for God to save the just. Right for God to send you to
hell or right for God to take you to heaven. Judgment will
reveal everything, but judgment will change nothing. There will
be no changes in eternity. In the place where the tree falleth,
there shall it lie. Now let's look at my text in
Revelation chapter 22, verse 11. Here we read a statement
given by divine inspiration. telling us about the state and
condition of all men as we leave this world and enter into eternity. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him
be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. And he that is holy, Let him
be holy still. That's the message the angel
gave to John, and John gives to us. It's my message to you
today. There will be no changes in eternity. No changes in eternity. Oh, may God, the Holy Ghost,
burn those words into your heart this minute. and burn them into
your conscience permanently. Write them upon your minds so
that you cannot forget them. No changes in eternity. No changes
in eternity. No changes in eternity. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him
be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him
be holy still. I'll give you my message in four
unalterable, inflexible, unbending statements. Four statements that
arise directly from the book of God. They can't be altered,
not for you, not for me, not for anyone. We're told that justice
is blind. And I learned that early when
I was in school. But I'm 68 years old now, and
I recognize that that's just not true with regard to men. Justice rarely is blind among
men, if ever. But I want you to understand
this. The justice of God is blind. The justice of God is blind. It never takes into consideration
age, or sex, or environment, or training, or learning, or
knowledge, or opportunity. It never considers any of those
things. Justice only considers justice,
nothing else. It sees only two things, sin
and righteousness, guilt and innocence, filthiness and holiness,
nothing else, nothing else. Now let me make these four statements.
I pray God the Holy Spirit will give you ears to hear them. Number
one, if you die without Christ, When you die, you will die unjust, guilty, condemned, lost under
the wrath of God, and you will be unjust forever. I can hardly think those words.
let alone save them without great trembling for multitudes, for
you who know not thy Redeemer, for the many I know who today
in hell are unjust still. If you die in a state of guilt
and condemnation with the curse of God's holy law upon you, Under
the wrath of God, you will spend eternity under the curse and
unmitigated wrath of God Almighty. Nothing will change after you
die. There will be no changes in eternity. It is written, he
that is unjust, let him be unjust still. I've listened a little bit to
some of the news commentaries concerning former President Bush
and things that were said. One night, Francis, or Frank
Graham, told a story about his father getting a call, Billy
Graham, who was a family friend. And he realized immediately he
was involved in a family quarrel. And the Bushes were debating
whether or not a person could get to heaven some other way
than by Jesus Christ. And so Mrs. Graham, Mrs. Bush
said, call Billy Graham, let's ask him. And Frank Graham described,
I can't remember his exact words, but they were pretty well typical
of Mr. Graham's ignorance. He said,
my dad realized he was in a family quarrel and he said, he said,
well, we have to realize that none of us knows what happens
just before a person dies. He might be like the dying thief,
and in just the last moment, believe on the Lord, and he'd
be all right. And it is true. The scriptures do speak of a
dying thief, so that none despair. But the scriptures speak of only
one dying thief who believed in his last hour, lest any presume. And the fact is, faith is the
gift of God, whether 50 years before you die or in the last
moment of your death. It is God's gift, not your prerogative. If you die unjust, you will be
unjust forever. If you're without Christ, you're
unjust. In a state and condition of non-justification,
What does that mean? That means what you know is so. You've broken God's law. The
guilt of sin is upon you. Oh, if you could understand what
I'm saying, you would tremble in fear. The wrath of God is
on you. The wrath of God is on you. Did you hear me? If you're without
Christ, the wrath of God is on you. The curse of God. The very curse under which God's
own darling son died as a sinner's substitute. That curse of the
law is on you. You're condemned. condemned, as was God's own son
when he was made sin, and the Lord God cried, Awake, O sword,
against the man that is my fellow, smite and slay the shepherd.
Now listen to me, listen to me. Everybody tells you God loves
you, Jesus loves you, we love you, everybody loves you. This
religious age hasn't got a clue who God is or anything about
God's love. Listen to me. If you're outside
Christ, you've got no reason to be suspicious that God might
love you. This book never says God loves
you. Nowhere in this book does God
speak his love to a sinner outside Christ Jesus. Nowhere, nowhere. This is what the book of God
says. What is it? What is it that fuels
the fires of hell upon the dam now? What is that wrath under which
Judah screams and curses God now? What is that wrath, that
condemnation, that curse, that curse, that curse that's endured
by the sons of Korah now? That's the wrath of God that's
on you. The wrath of God is on you. God's
angry with the wicked every day. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. You're under the wrath of God.
He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed
on the name of the only begotten Son of God. Your unjustified condition. Your
state of condemnation is a matter of righteousness, justice, and
truth. If God should seize you before
you draw your next breath and cast you into hell, his judgment
upon you would be exactly right, exactly what you deserve, exactly. You've earned his wrath. The
wages of sin is death, and God always pays his debts. You were
born in sin, in a state of guilt and condemnation. You have personally
broken every law of God, transgressed every commandment, come short
of every requirement from your youth up. Going astray from your
womb, from your mother's womb, speaking lies, that's the path
of man. and you've repeatedly, repeatedly, you in this place,
have repeatedly heard and rejected the gospel of God's grace. You've
repeatedly had Jesus Christ crucified plainly set before you, and this
is how you behaved. preacher, shut up. I won't hear
you. Shut up. I refuse to see. Shove Christ out of your way
and say, leave me alone. If you die in that condition,
you will be forever unjust. Dare you die unjust? precious the blood of Christ
will be to you in hell. When you wake up in hell, you
will value justification by Christ more than anything. You'll want
it more than anything, but there'll be no possibility of obtaining
it. Number two, If you die without Christ, you
will die in your sins, unclean and filthy before God. And you'll
remain unclean and filthy forever. If you die in a state of filth,
depraved, defiled, degenerate, sinful, you will forever be filthy. Nothing will change after you
die. No changes in eternity. He that is filthy, let him be
filthy still. None of us like to think about
or talk about filth. If you've ever smelled something
really filthy, or you've ever had to work in filth, just the
thought of it will cause your stomachs to start to churn. But filthy is what you are by
nature. Filthy is what I am by nature.
We are all originally, naturally, and universally filthy and defiled. Utterly and totally depraved. If you're without Christ, you're
filthy. So filthy that as this book describes
it, your very best deeds, your very best deeds, Let me see if
I can get it home to you. Your love for your wife, your
love for your husband, your very best deeds, your Bible reading,
your philanthropy, your kindness, your Doing good for your neighbors. You're feeding the poor. You're giving water to the thirsty. You're visiting the prisoners. You're visiting the sick. Your
very best deeds, your very best deeds are filthy. Filthy rags before God. Isaiah 64, six. Preacher, do
you mean we can't do any good? That's what I mean. It's impossible
for an unrighteous man to do good. It's impossible. It's easy enough for me to do
things that will impress Rex Bartlett, and he said, boy, that
was good. It's easy enough for you to do things to impress Don
Fordyce, that's good. And we often speak of men and
women, of children and husband and wife and mothers and dads,
that's a good man, a good woman. Oh, they're such good children.
And that's all right. As long as you understand that
good is very, very, very, very, very relative. Very relative. Very relative. If you should
go outside and pick up the hood of my truck, you'd look at it
and say, well, it's clean. It's clean. I don't suggest that
you take your white shirt, pull it down over your hand, and rub
it over the top of the valve cover. You'll find out it's not
clean. It just looks clean. And you
and I, by nature, are filthy. Filthy. so that the very plowing
of the wicked is an abomination to God. Our consciences are filthy
and must be purged. If you die in your filth, you
will wallow in your filth forever. Death won't change you. The fires of hell won't purge
filth from your nature. He which is filthy, God says,
let him be filthy still. You love your lust, you love
your uncleanness, you love your vile passions, you love your
dark mind, you love the filth, keep it! Keep it forever! Nothing will change, except there'll
be no satisfaction for your lust. No satisfaction for your passion. In hell, everybody will know
your filth. Oh, how precious the blood of
Christ will be to you in hell. You see, the only one who can
purge you from your filth is the Lord Jesus Christ. His blood
purged away the filth of every believer from the book of justice. His blood, if you believe, purges
your conscience of filth before God. Believe on the Lord Jesus. He is a fountain open for cleansing,
for cleansing, for cleansing, for your uncleanness. He's the
only one there is. Number three. If you die in Christ,
you will die righteous. And you will remain righteous
forever. If you die in a state of righteousness,
justified and complete in Christ, you will be righteous forever
and enjoy the just reward of your righteousness forever in
heaven's glory. Nothing will change after you
die. There'll be no changes in eternity.
He that is righteous, let him be righteous still. That which
God has given shall never be taken away. Death and judgment
will not make you more righteous and cannot make you one bit less
righteous than you are the moment you die. Are you interested in being righteous?
Would you like to be righteous? I mean righteous before God,
righteous before holy angels, righteous forever. So righteous
that God beholds no evil in you. So righteous that God, the omniscient
God, sees no corruption in you. So righteous that you cannot
ever be made unclean, filthy, or unjust again. You can't make
yourself righteous. Not by anything you do. Not by
saying a prayer. not by walking down a church
aisle, not by keeping the Ten Commandments, not by reading
your Bible, not by getting religion. You can't make yourself righteous.
The only way a sinner can be made righteous is by the doing
and dying of the Lord Jesus, the sinner's substitute. Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so death passed upon all men, even so, as in Adam all die,
in Christ shall all be made alive. We're made righteous by the obedience
of Jesus Christ, by the doing and dying of God's darling Son,
by His keeping the law in our stead, by His satisfying justice
in our stead. And the only way you can obtain
that righteousness is by faith in Him. There's no other way. Paul describes the righteousness
that the Jews thought they had. And he said, they've not attained
a righteousness. Why? Because those people who
had the law, who had the word of God and the ordinances of
God, the commandments of God, all those ceremonies, all those
sacrifices, the priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, the altar,
the mercy seat, they had all the revelation given in scripture. But they went about to establish
their own righteousness. And they took this book, reading
it every day, reading it, memorizing it, quoting it, and every time
they spoke it, they closed it, stuck it in the drawer and forgot
it. They refused to submit to the righteousness of God. What
does that mean? They said, I will not trust another
for righteousness. I will not trust another to make
me righteous. I can do this. God has to accept
my good works. I can do this. And they went
to hell, stumbling over the stumbling block, just stumbling over the
stumbling block. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Christ is the
one who fulfilled it. Christ is the one who finished
it. Christ is the one who satisfied it. He's the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now let me tell you something
about Don Porter, this sinner who's talking to you. This man
who has no ability to do anything good. I'm righteous before God. I'm righteous before God. God
says I'm righteous. God declares I'm righteous. How
can that be? I submit to the righteousness
of another. I bow to Christ the Lord and
receive His righteousness. And if you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, you too are perfectly righteous in Him. Immutably righteous,
completely righteous, eternally righteous. And if you're righteous when
you die, you will be righteous forever. He that is righteous,
let him be righteous still. Wherever you stick me in the
ground out here, you're gonna have to have a big tombstone
to write all the things on. I recommend you do it. You can just pick
one of them. You can write this down. Here lies Don Fortner,
an utterly sinful man. A perfectly righteous man. righteous man, righteous, righteous
forever. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness, wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Number four,
if you die in Christ, you will die holy, and you will remain
holy forever. Again, death changes nothing.
There'll be no changes in eternity. It is written, he that is holy,
let him be holy still. Now perhaps you ask, Pastor,
what's the difference between righteousness and holiness? There's
a big difference, a big difference. Righteousness has to do with
law. Holiness has to do with experience. Righteousness has to do with
your record. Holiness has to do with your
character. How on earth are people made
holy? Of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness, And you know
what that next word is, Jerry? Holiness. That's what sanctification
is. You get to be made holy the same
way you get to be made righteous by God doing it. You see, holiness
is not the obedience of Christ made ours by the grace of God.
Holiness is not the death of Christ made ours by the grace
of God. Oh, no, no, no. Holiness is the life of God in
you. Holiness is that new nature given
to sinners in the new birth. Holiness is that holy nature. Described like this, we are made
by the power and promise of God, partakers of the divine nature. Partakers of the divine nature.
So that when a person is born again, Born again by the power
and grace of God, he's given an entirely new nature. He's a new creature in Christ.
Not only are we called the sons of God, but beloved, now are
we the sons of God. And that new nature that's ours
by the grace of God. The apostle John tells us, can
not sin. It cannot sin because it's born
of God. So that the believer, whether young or old, whether
man or woman, is a person who lives in a constant state of
warfare with his flesh, with his old nature. And that which
is born of the devil can't do righteousness. It can only sin,
but that which is born of God can't sin. It's born of God. We're the children of God. And
when we die, we will not become one bit more holy than we are
now. We will simply cease to be bothered
by this sinful body of flesh. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 4.
Let me read this to you, and I'll wrap this up. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17. Our light affliction. Some of you read those words
and you think, Paul, what on earth are you talking about?
Our light affliction. I've had this going on for years
now. Our light affliction. This has been bothering me for
years now. Light affliction, which is but
for a moment. Our featherweight affliction. Here's how heavy it is. Our light affliction. Our light affliction. If it's in this world, it's a
light affliction, which is but for a moment. just for a moment,
compared with eternity. It's light, and it's just for
a moment. Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight, ton of glory, while we look not at the things which
are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. For we know, we know that if
our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Now don't fail to read the text
as it reads. Some folks teach that when you
die, your body and soul die altogether. That's the end of it. That's,
of course, not so. There's no such thing as resurrection,
no such thing as eternity. You know better than that, and
I do too. Other folks say, well, when you die, your body and soul
sleep until the resurrection. That's not teaching scripture
either. But preacher, your body's going to the grave. And here
he says, when this house of this earthly tabernacle is dissolved,
we're going to float around in heaven on clouds, kind of like
ghosts. No, that's not so either. Look
what it says. When this earthly tabernacle,
this body of flesh is dissolved, as soon as I've breathed out
the last time, immediately. We have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Immediately there is provided
for God's elect another house, a house to which our physical
bodies shall be joined in the resurrection. But in this, in
this we grow. We grow. God, I thank you that you never
let me find satisfaction in this crumbling house of clay. In this
we grow earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house,
which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed upon,
we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle
do grow being burdened not for that we would be unclothed, but
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up for victory.
Now watch this. Now he that hath wrought us for
the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given us the earnest
of the Spirit. He who us for eternity, and made us
fit for eternity, is God. And He's given us the earnest,
the seal of the Spirit. That is, He sealed this hope
to us by faith in Christ, by the gift of His Spirit. Oh, God
help you now to believe on His If you're thirsty, come and drink. Come and drink. Come to Christ. Don't say a word. Don't move a muscle. Right where
you are, with your heart, believe on the Son of God. And believing
on the Son of God, you have righteousness and holiness that only God can
give. And you'll have it forever. Amen.