Turn back with me now to the
book of Acts. I've preached from this passage
many times, and you can go a lot of different
directions with this passage. There's a lot of different things
emphasized, as I read to you a while ago and talked to you
about these appointments of God, these various things in this
chapter. But this morning I want to speak on this subject, the
day of righteous judgment. You find that down in verse 31.
My brother Glenn called me this past week, early one morning,
and told me that Clovis Olive had passed on. And I was in my
study, studying the book of John over in chapter 1 that I brought
to you this morning about the Word being made flesh. And after I hung the phone up,
my mind just kept thinking about Clovis and thinking about his
family and thinking about what I knew about him and thinking
about what I heard about them. I don't really know them juniors.
They're the only one I know anything at all about. But this passage
of Scripture kept coming up into my mind. And here's why it came
into my mind. because it's appointed unto men
once to die. After that, the judgment. That's what he says, isn't it?
After that, the judgment. And this passage often comes
to my mind because it fits the time and the generation to which
I minister. It fits them to a T. Paul walked
around Athens and he looked. You ever look around at what's
going on? You can't help but look. You
can't go anywhere, buy anything, do anything without seeing it. Seeing it. He said he walked
around the city and he said, I observed this city and they
were wholly given to idolatry. That's what he said. You think
he'd been a little rough on them? After all, this was the city
of knowledge and the city of philosophy and the city of all
these great men that even in our schools yet today and in
our museums and in all these things we pay tribute to. Talk
about how wise they were and how brilliant they were and their
craftsmanship and all their philosophies and the way they laid out their
cities and all. They were great men, great men. Paul looked at
them and said, Do you think he's being a little
rough? The apostle John said, and we
know, you read the book of 1 John, when he gets down to the very
end of the book there in chapter 5, he said, and we know that
we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness. Do you think he's being a little
harsh? He said they was idolatrous. And this generation in which
I live, they're wholly given to idolatry. I can't turn on
my TV without seeing it. I can't have a conversation without
hearing about it. Given to idolatry. What is idolatry? I wonder if we understand what
Paul is talking about. Well, it's certainly the worship
of images made with hands. He talks about that here. called
the art of man's device. Certainly that. And he certainly
saw that when he walked around that city. But he did more than
walk around the city. He disputed with them in the
marketplace. He talked to them. He talked to them one-on-one.
He went down to the church. He went down to the synagogue.
Ain't that what it says? He went down to this synagogue
in the middle of Athens, and he listened to what they preached.
And he listened to what they had to say. And he debated with
them. He talked to them about these
things. This ain't something he heard from somebody. This
is something he saw and he listened to and he heard that he was aware
of. And he went then into the marketplaces and began to talk
to them in the marketplaces. And the whole outfit, he said,
was just stooped in idolatry. And you look around and they
had these images everywhere, just everywhere you wanted to
look. There was temples, the temple of Diana, all these temples
around. in Athens and all these idols,
all these figures, all these things around, all these philosophies
of this god and that god and the sun god and the moon god
and all these other gods. So it certainly has to do with
images made with hands. The Mayan Indians, I went down
into Yucatan some twenty-five years ago to visit Brother Walker
Groover down there. And he took us out to the Mayan
Indian ruins. which disappeared back in the,
well, I guess they flourished back in the days of Christ, but
shortly after that, they just disappeared off the face of the
earth. And they worshipped a god they called Kukulkan. That's
the feathered serpent. And you can go out there on the
temple. It's got four sets of steps that
lead up to the top. And coming down the rail of that
temple is this big serpent. And he's got feathers on him
like a bird. He comes all the way down. And a certain time
of the year, the way the sun shines on that temple, makes
it look like that snake's moving. And they know by that that it's
time to plant, and they know by that in the fall that it's
time to harvest. And they watch that. But they
worshipped all these figures, and there's nobody in here that
hasn't seen a little statue of Buddha. You can't go in a gift
shop without finding one of them sitting up on the shelf. And
there are just untold thousands, thousands of images carved out
by the art of man's device that men fall down to and worship
or adopt as their God. But idolatry goes past these
kinds of things. It goes to the imagination. It
goes to the head. It goes to your thoughts about
God. The word image comes from imagination,
and anything, hear me, anything in the imagination less than
the God of revelation is an idol. It's an idol. Turn with me over to Isaiah chapter
40. Isaiah chapter 40 is a declaration
of the coming of Christ. And it's a declaration of his
servant, John the Baptist. The chapter begins, you read
it down there in the first two or three verses, you'll read
there where he talks about the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And when they asked John if he
was that one that was to come talking about Christ, he said,
No, I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness, but there
standeth one among you whom I know not. He was before me, and he
was preferred before me. He is for everlasting, and he
began to declare who this Christ was. So this is about John the
Baptist's testimony to this world concerning Christ. Just hold
your place there in John chapter 40. Now, I want you to understand
who he's talking to here. He's not talking to a bunch of
heathen idol worshipers. He's not talking to a bunch of
folks who bow down. These folks didn't have any images.
Every time they'd build one, God would kill about two or three
hundred thousand of them, and they'd fall on the ground dead. These folks didn't have images.
They didn't have carved statues and things. He's talking to Jews.
He's talking to Jews. And this was a people who read
the Scriptures. They were a people who didn't
have graven images. Had no graven image before me.
Ain't that what he told them? And they were law keepers. They
wouldn't have any part of that. They were immoral people. They
were very strict people. They were straight-laced, church-going
people. We're not talking here about
Gentile heathens. We're not talking about folks
who bowed down to Buddha and Baal and all these strange gods. We're talking about religious
folks, Jews. John's ministry was to stand
before this stiff-necked people and tell them this. He had a
two-fold message. If you read Isaiah chapter 40,
you'll find in there a two-fold message. The first part of that
message is this. All flesh is grass. All of it. And their whole religion was
about flesh. It was about flesh. that they
could reform and flourish, that they could make acceptable to
God. Just flourish. The whole thing was about flourish.
Everything they did. And the second part of John's
message was this, Behold your God. Behold your God. Now, I want you to see this here
in Isaiah chapter 40. Look here in verse 9. He said, O Zion, that bringest
good tidings, get thee up into a high mountain, O Jerusalem,
that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift
it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
you know who the cities of Judah was? The scepter should not depart
from Judah until Shiloh come. This was that people out of which
the Redeemer would come, the Promisees. This is that people
that he was going to raise up a prophet like unto Moses. He
is going to be the root of Jesse and the seed of David. And the
scepter, he said, is not going to depart from Judah until Shiloh
comes. Oh, say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God! Behold your God! Behold, verse
10, the Lord God will come with strong hands, and his arm will
rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him,
and his work before him. And he will feed his flock like
a shepherd, and he will gather the lambs with his arm, and carry
them in his bosom, and gently lead them that are with him." These two verses describe the
revelation of God. And this is the only revelation
you're ever going to get of God, was in that man, Christ Jesus.
Now, he's telling them this a thousand years before he came. Before he came. He's talking
about it. It's in this union of God and man in one person,
and his redemptive work he accomplished. And outside of this man and his
accomplishments, we've never seen God. come to think you know about
God outside that union is idolatry. It's idolatry. Talk about the man upstairs.
That's idolatry, what it is. Now, listen to these next six
verses. This is that man, this is that shepherd that's going
to come and pick that little lamb up. and hold it in his bosom. This is that Lamb that is going
to come and gently lead those which are young. This is him,
now listen, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his
hand, kneaded out heaven with a span, and comprehend the depth
of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales,
and the hills in a balance, who hath directed the Spirit of the
Lord, or been his counselor, or taught him. With whom took
he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path
of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of
understanding? Behold, all the nations are but
the drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of
the balance. Behold, he taketh up the isles
as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor
the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All the
nations before him are as nothing, And they are counted to Him less
than nothing and vanity. That's the Redeemer. That's the
Redeemer. The God in whose name He comes. Listen now, verse 18. To whom
then will you liken God? To whom will you liken God? Who
are you going to compare Him to? whose image you're going to give
him. This generation is giving him
the image of a man. And he tells you that over there
in Romans 1. He said that's the beginning of your downfall right
there. He said your evil imaginations,
he said, and the first thing that you do is you liken the
uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. That's the first notch on the
way downhill. After that, birds. And then after
that, four-footed beasts. And after that, creeping things.
Oh, cuckoo gone. That's the end of the ladder.
That's the end of the ladder. Took their children and sacrificed
them before their God in the fire. Listen to this. Chapter 41, verse
4. Let us come nearer together in
judgment. In judgment. Let's come talk
about this thing of judgment. Let's come together in reality
and talk about this thing of judgment. Because that's where
it's all headed. And that's where it was declared
in eternity past. And that's where it's headed
in eternity future. Let's just come together now
and reason about this thing of judgment. Verse 2, "...who raised
up the righteous man." The righteous man. from the east,
and called him to his foot, and gave the nations before him,
and made him to rule over kings. He gave them as the dust his
sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. Who hath wrought
and done it? Calling the generations from
the beginning, I the Lord, the first, and with the last, he
said, I am he. And he stood before those unbelieving
Jews, those idolaters, And he told them, he said, except you
believe I am He, you will die in your sins. Idolatry. Idolatry. There is no way, I am telling
you this morning, there is no way outside of Christ that you
can go and see this revelation of God and reason with God about
judgment. I don't ever want to look at
a man in a coffin again and think to myself, is there one more
thing I could have told him? Is there one little bit of light
I could have given? Did I have one more minute in
the foreboding of God to tell him something about the glory
of Christ? I don't ever want to do that
again. And I'm going to tell you this
morning the plain truth. I may have to go out there one
day and read some words over you. And I tell you when I look
at you laying there in that box, I want to know in my soul and
in my heart I've held nothing back. I've told you the truth.
I've told you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. God
hath appointed a day in the which He'll judge this world in righteousness
by that man. by that man. Oh, by that man. Oh, I tell you, there's no way
outside of Christ you can go and see the revelation of God,
who it is before whom we have to stand. You can see a little
bit about His eternal power and Godhead in the creation, in the
disasters. You see that hurricane hit New
Orleans, boy, they started talking about in a little moment, you
know, this might have something to do with the living God. This
might have something to do with judgment. You see a plague come
through a country and a half a million of them die from this
little virus. Well, you can understand a little
something about the judgment of God, the eternal power in
God's head that's over this world, ruling over this world. We can
see those things, can't we? We know a little bit about that,
and we know a little bit about what's right and wrong because
of our conscience. We do something that just ain't
up to snuff, and boy, that conscience just hurts. It gnaws, and it
follows you around like an old hound dog. It just nips at your
heels the whole time. You should have done this, and
you didn't. You should have restrained from that, and you didn't. You're
guilty, you're guilty, you're guilty. It follows you all the
way. It will follow you into hell,
where it will follow you. You'll be sitting down there
in hell and you'll be thinking about all those opportunities
that I had to seek Christ and trust in Christ and give Him
my soul, lay it down at His feet. But you wouldn't. And that conscience
is going to nip and bite and chase you all the way through
eternity. Oh, I tell you, God is known
in Christ. It's no game. It's no game. This is God. This is the living
God. Oh, to see God in the harmony
of His perfections and in the glory of His character, you must
see Him in Christ. Actually, and this is where I'm
headed with this thing this morning, what you cannot see of God anywhere
else is His glory. That's what you can't see. And
His glory is in His grace. It's in His grace. It's in His mercy. Old Moses
was up on that mountain, and he saw that bush, and it burnt,
but it wasn't consumed. And he began to talk with it.
And God began to talk with him and began to reveal some things
to him. And he said, God, show me your
glory. Well, he said, I'm going to put
you over here. You can't look on God and live. I'm going to
put you over here and hide you over here in the cleft of the
rock. And He said, I'm going to pass by before you and I'm
going to declare who I am. I'm going to show you my glory.
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I'll show mercy
and have compassion on whom I will. That's His glory. That's His
glory. Oh, His glory is mercy and grace. Glory of God is declared and
manifest in the person and work of Christ. In that redemptive
work, God displays all His attributes. You see, to be gracious and merciful
to sinners, His justice has to be upheld. To be compassionate to lost sinners,
His righteousness must be maintained. God can't do anything that causes
His own character to be compromised. He can't do it. He can't do it. Over in Romans chapter 3, verse
9 through 18, Paul declares to you the absolute depravity and
inability of the flesh. You read it. I wrote an article
on it. It's either in this week's or
last week's bulletin. Talking about the hope in this
flesh is the hope in an empty box. He uses that word four times. None, none, none, none. all together become unprofitable. Oh, he said their throat, and
not only that, not only that, but he goes on to describe their
very nature. Describe that very nature, and
he said their throat is an open grave, their tongues are full
of deceit, the poison of snakes under their lips, their mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. There is no
fear of God before their eyes because they don't know who God
is. The only reason a man won't seek God is because he doesn't
know who He is. You fall down at His feet like
a dead man. These saints of God from days
gone by. Daniel, here is a man of God.
Here is a man who survived the pit of the lions. by faith in
Christ. God preserved him. He knew something
about God. He knew something about God.
God revealed to him the mysteries of the Scriptures and all these
mysteries that these kings just scratched their head in these
dreams that didn't make sense. Daniel knew what they were. You
say he's a man of God. Daniel saw him and he said, all
my comeliness, he said, melted into corruption. Is there a more loving disciple?
Can you find a disciple closer to Christ than the Apostle John? You can't find one throughout
the Scripture. You can't find one. He's just
right there where you find Christ, you find John. His head laying
on his breast. He loved him. John saw him and
he said, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. I'm talking
about judgment before God. Before God. Oh, I tell you, when
God convinces that sinner of this, when he turns his eyes
within and he sees that black hole, that bottomless pit of
corruption, that's all he can see. And he looks and there's
an immaculately holy God. There's a God who will by no
means clear the guilty. Oh, he's in a mess. He's in a
mess. That's what you call loss. If
you'll never be found, you'll get lost. And God will lose you
in the gospel. Oh, yes, He will. You'll be so
lost, you won't know which end's up. You won't know if it's better
to die, but you're afraid to die. But I can't live, because
every day I live, I just sink further in the pit. You get where
you can't sleep, and you can't stay awake, and you don't want
to think anymore. Can somebody give me some help?
Yes, Christ. That's the help. Oh, you begin
to look, and your best prayers, and the best day you ever had,
and the best obedience you ever had just filthy rags. It might
serve up good here in the crowd. We live in crowds. But brother,
we die alone. That man laid a loan in that
box, and he had to be put down that cold ground. You going down
there, is that hope you've got, that old refuge you've got, is
that going to handle that? Is that going to suffice in that
day of judgment? Oh, I don't want to be embarrassed.
I've been on this thing a long time. You better throw it down.
You better throw it down. If it ain't of God, you better
just throw it down and you better seek Him today. I wouldn't give
you 50 cents for something to happen 25 years ago. If it ain't
happening right now, you don't know Him. You don't know Him. And I'm telling you, that day
is coming. Paul said, or Peter said, we're running. We're running
toward it. Hastening toward it. If you read
over there 2 Peter 3, he said, I know what to preach. He said,
they preach that all things are the same from the beginning.
Ain't nothing ever happened. Ain't nobody going anywhere.
They're just the same. Everything's the same. Don't
get excited. Don't get worried. He said, here's what they're
willingly ignorant of. Back in that day that the water
and the land were separated by the Word of God. God's the one
who held those ways back. He's the one who told them seas
come so far and the proud waves not to come any further. The
Word of God's what held those things back. The Word of God's
what held those rains back. It come up amiss from the ground.
Watered the plants. There wasn't no rain. The Word
of God held those things back. And then come that time of judgment,
and God by the same Word caused that overflowing scourge to come
forth. Judgment. Judgment. That's what they're ignorant
of. And he said this world right now, by that same Word, is held
in store against that righteous judgment of God and fire. Same
Word. Folks, he's still saying the
same thing. Tomorrow I'll do something. Tomorrow you're going
to be in the box. You better hear me. You're going
to be in the box. Oh, Paul goes through here in
Romans 3. Listen to me. He said, and what
we're saying here is all you can ever find in the law. You
read through Romans 3. He tells you all you'll ever
find in that law is just guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. Condemnation
and guilt, that's all it ever says. That's all it ever says. He convicts us of sin by our
unbelief. He said, therefore, verse 20,
by the deeds of the law, no flesh be justified in His sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. And he's not talking about
that's how you get convicted. You get convicted when God shows
you your unbelief in the light of His goodness and His light.
That's when you'll turn. When you see all His goodness
on you, all His witnesses and promise. He swore by His own
name because He couldn't swear by any greater. He sent His own
Son and sacrificed Him for you. Oh, I want a little more evidence.
You do? You'll probably get it in hell.
That's probably where you're going to get it. I'm telling
you the truth. By the deeds of the law, no flesh
is going to be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. That's all you're ever going
to find in it. That's all you're ever going to find in this flesh.
What he's saying here is that all you can ever find in the
law, in your attempts to keep it and honor it and observe it,
is the knowledge of your own inability to keep it. But here
in verse 21, he said, But now the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested. being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith or
by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all
them that believe. Can you believe? Can you believe? It's a powerful thing. I'm telling
you, to take your future and to take what you are, and to
take what you profess and to take your very faith and just
lay it down at his feet and say, Here I am. Here I am. That's the only way you'll ever
be counted righteous before God. It's upon all them that believe,
unto all and upon all. And then he says this, For there
is no difference. See it there? Verse 22, there is no difference. What
in the world is he talking about? There is no difference. That
goes back to verse 9. Back up there to verse 9. You
see, Romans chapter 1 deals with heathen Gentile idolaters. Had
nothing but the witness of nature and conscience. Chapter 2, he
deals with Israel. He deals with them. They had
all kinds of advantages. They had the oracles of God.
They had the utterance of God. They had the Word of God, the
ceremonies, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the priesthood. They
had all this light. But being in the flesh accomplished
the same thing. The same thing. Nothing. Nothing. In all their religious activities,
In all that they did, all the ceremonies they kept, all the
sacrifices they made, all the things that Israel did, he said,
Is there any difference? You see, how do you answer that
question? He said, Are the Jews any better
off for their religious activities and all their advantages, all
their ceremonies? No, in no wise. Ain't that what it says? There's
no difference. I don't care if you're religious
or heathen. I don't care if you bow down to Buddha or you bow
down to this sweet little Jesus boy they're preaching down here.
They're both idols. There's no difference. And the
reason there's no difference is because the righteousness
that God requires and the righteousness God has manifested unto men is
not in you. It's not by you. It's manifested
in the faithful obedience of Christ. That's where you see
it. And this righteousness is unto
all and upon all them that believe." Do you believe that? Then that
righteousness is upon you. It's on you. Do you believe that
the only righteousness God will have is that righteousness brought
out by the obedience and suffering and death of the God man? Because,
my friend, you're righteous according to the promise of God. You can't get no more righteous
than that. You can't get no more accepted than that. But know
this, that what it costs Him for that righteousness is what
it's going to cost you in eternity if you don't. That's right. And I'll tell you this, God could
be satisfied with His sacrifice. He could never be satisfied with
yours. Ain't that what I just read to you there in Romans chapter
3? If we don't seek God here, we
ain't going to seek Him in hell. If we don't trust Him here, we're
not going to trust Him in hell. Those folks down there in hell
looked up and saw Lazarus up there, that rich man did, and
Abraham's bosom. And he said, if you could, he
said, can you just get me a drop of water? Just a drop. No. He
said, there's a great gulf fixed. You can't come up here and I
can't come down there. That great gulf is God's righteous
character. There ain't no passion between
the two. And he said, well, do this for me. Send somebody back
to my relatives and warn them. No. No. They wouldn't believe
though God raised one from the dead. Ain't that what they said?
Huh? He raised Christ from the dead.
And you're going to receive that or you're going to receive His
judgment. I'm telling you. You think that this righteousness
ain't something? They ignorantly worship God in
less than the revelation of the Word of God. They can't imagine
in their mind the righteousness that requires the death of the
Son of God. You ever enter into that, you
enter into worship. You worship Him. That old leper,
he was filthy and stinking and in his rags, and he came and
fell down, and he worshiped Him because he saw Him in his true
life. That's when we'll worship. There's no hope in me ever keeping
even my confession in Christ. There's no hope in me ever producing
anything good or of any value. There's no hope in me of ever
gaining enough sincerity to hold on to even what I thought I promised
I could hold on to. He proved that to me. He proved
it to me. Faith is that which disowns itself. It looks at itself and disowns
itself and comes over here and gets on God's side, on God's
judgment against it. That's what faith does. You remember
Moses one day when they challenged his authority and challenged
his leadership and challenged his message. He said, everybody
on God's side line up right here. What happened to the rest of
them? God opened up the earth and took them to hell with their
shoes on. You read about it, Corradation and Abiram. I'll
tell you what faith is. Faith is like a man hanging over
that bottomless pit. God reveals to him that pit.
And he's hanging on and he just keeps grabbing for one root.
And that one comes loose and he grabs for another. Them old
roots of righteousness hanging over that pit. And he just keeps
hanging on to them, hanging on to them. But he's sliding. He's
sliding right into hell where he's going. And he just keeps
grabbing and he keeps grabbing. And one day God opens his eyes
and he sees that hand. And I tell you, when he's going
to quit grabbing for the root, when he's convinced that hand
will hold him up, as soon as he does, both hands, he'll hang
on to the hand of God. That's why I just read to you
where Isaiah 40, my arm, my arm, he said. My arm is going to pick
that lamb up and put him into my bosom. I tell you, let go
of the roots. Grab on to the hand. Lay hold
of Him. That's what that's talking about. Oh, Paul said, I'm persuaded. God ever shows you what you are
and who He is, you'll be persuaded. You'll be persuaded. And then
he says over here in Romans 3 verse 24, being justified freely by
his grace through that redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom
God has set forth before men and angels and the devils in
hell, God set him forth. One time in all eternity, God
set him forth. He set him forth to be a propitiation
of complete restitution. That's what that word meant.
Through faith in His blood. Now, don't miss this. To declare
His righteousness. You want to know something about
this righteous judgment? Here it is. It's declared right
here. To declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past. All those Old Testament
saints that look forward to that promised seed. and Abel, Seth,
and all down through time. You see those men who look forward
to that seed. That's what this is. He set him
forth in his time, in his day, in that appointed hour of God.
He come forth and was manifested. And that righteousness was manifested. Look at this, verse 26, to declare,
I say it this time, that same righteousness. Why? that he might be just, and justifier
of him that believeth in Jesus. That day of righteous judgment
is about God being God. That's what that's all about.
God being God. It is God justifying himself
in his justification of ungodly sinners. It is his declaration
of the glory of his righteousness and the glory of his justice
and the glory of his grace and the glory of his whole person
in the redemption of these people. It's a complete restoration of
the image of God that was lost in the garden. That's what it
is. He has appointed a day in which
he'll judge this world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained."
And everything in time and eternity has to do with this day. In the
eternity of God, John saw Him back there in heaven and saw
God sitting on the throne with a book sealed, sealed with the
perfection of God, all His eternal decrees and purposes all in a
book. And that book had seals all the
way around it, seven of them. Seven is the number of perfection.
It's the perfections of God that kept anybody in glory from opening
that book or even looking inside. And he said, I wept because there
wasn't anybody worthy. Not even in glory there wasn't
anybody worthy. And he said, one told me, he
said, look, here's one. And he came and he took it from
the hand of God. And it was a lamb slain. There's
that judgment. And he got a moose to seal. begin
to bring the purposes of God to pass. You can read about it
over in Revelation chapter 5. And then in the garden was the
fall of man. Here's the righteous judgment
of God on man who sunk a well into hell by the deeds of one
man. And there they go. There they
go into that pit of no return, into that cursed nature by which
you can never crawl out of. But before the first night fell
on that man came the promised seed of God. What was it? It was a lamb slain. A lamb slain. Only eight generations away came
the judgment of God on this world, and you've got to read these
things in light of the Gospel, but he said every imagination
of man was only evil continually. What's he talking about? He's
talking about their image in their mind of who God was. It was just evil. Everything
about it was evil. Evil. And God come and destroyed
the whole world, but He saved eight souls in a vessel of His
own design. And he landed that vessel in
a place of satisfied justice. And they walked out free. They
walked out free. Oh, down in Egypt. Here are God's
people down in Egypt under a monarch. Nobody could challenge him. He
ruled with an iron hand. And he worked them. They were
down there in bondage. And he worked them. in their
hot sun. And he just, oh, what a bondage
it was. They could work and work and
work and work, but they could never be free. They could never
have peace. They could never have joy. And
God sent His Servant down there with a message. And He said,
tonight, He said, God is going to move through this place and
He is going to kill every firstborn son in the land of Egypt. That doesn't say death, Angel.
It says God. God Himself moved through that
place. Took the life of every firstborn
son in the land of Egypt. But there was some whom God,
through a substitute, put His blood on the doorpost. And when
He saw the blood, Jesse, He passed away. That's righteous judgment. Righteous judgment. And you come
on down in the tabernacle of Israel come a people laden with
sin. Read about them. They murmured
continually and rebelled continually and never wanted what God set
before them. They always wanted what God didn't
want them to have. That's all they was about. But
they came in and worshipped God. How'd they do it? Through a sacrifice. And God declared that righteous
judgment on that sacrifice in those rivers of blood that poured
out of that tabernacle. Read about thousands upon thousands
upon thousands of sacrificed cattle and goats and lambs in
that old tabernacle. And one day, in the end of the
world, the Son of God, the Lamb, He said, Behold, be Lamb. And
that Lamb came into this world as a man, obeyed God's righteous
law in every jot and tittle, in every thought and intent of
His heart, even to the death of the cross. even to the death of the cross.
And upon him fell the righteous judgment of God. The righteous judgment of God.
And I'm telling you this this morning. I don't want you to
go home and say, well, he didn't tell me anything. Oh, yes, I
did. I told you God has appointed a day in which He'll judge this
world in righteousness by that man. And what I'm telling you
is this. You're either going to be judged
now in Him, are you going to be judged then by Him one way
or the other? What's it going to be? What's
it going to be? Our Father, we thank Thee. Let me never take another opportunity
like this. Let me never put off another
day of study or another prayer to be prayed, because this heart,
this day, to be more sincere than ever and cause this tongue
to be able to speak your gospel to a dying world. Help me for
Christ's sake. Amen.