Turning your Bibles, please,
to Revelation, the 22nd chapter, Revelation 22. I want to read
two verses of Scripture tonight. The title of my message is, As
You Are, As You Are. Verse 10 and 11, And He saith
unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book,
for the time is at hand. 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. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word that
is honest and true, that declares things as they
are. We thank you, Father, for the report of the glorious success
of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, rehearsed in our hearts
and minds as we gather to hear the Gospel. Father, we pray tonight as we
look into your Word that you'll give us a real sense of what
the angel said to John here on the Isle of Patmos. as he's finishing up the revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to take heed and
take to heart the things that are spoken. Father, we pray for those who
are sick, those who are going through trials. You know every
heart. You indeed send to your people
what they need. Whether it be health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, we know that they are in your hands and we
do bow before you in thanksgiving that you have been mindful of
such poor creatures as ourselves. Help us tonight, Father, to see
the face of Jesus Christ and to appreciate the glorious work
which he accomplished on Calvary's tree. He is our hope and our
strength. our shield and our buckler, our
exceeding great reward. Bless this time together for
your glory. Get honor for your namesake. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Let me preface this message tonight
by saying it'd be good for us to remember as we enter into
the last chapter of this book, preach several messages already
from it, that John is still writing this letter to be distributed
among the seven churches in Asia Minor. So the things that he
is speaking of here tonight are for the church of the living
God. Now in the local churches that exist in the world today,
there are those who are converted and those who are not. There
are those who are under the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and
it has affected them to the salvation of their souls. There are those
who are under the doctrine of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ who have heard it for years and never been moved at
all by it. And so we read words like, He
that is unjust, let him be unjust still. He's not talking to the
lost. and dying world out there. He's
talking to the lost and dying world within the church. These
letters were sent, this letter was sent to the seven churches
in Asia Minor. And the subject is the final
glorious judgment and justice of Almighty God. It's about the
end of things and the end of time when you will end up and
be as you are when you die. Nothing will change. If you die
unjust, you will remain unjust. If you die filthy, you will remain
filthy. If you die righteous, you will
remain righteous. If you die holy, you will remain
holy. Nothing changes. I remember Brother
Mann telling me a story one time of speaking to a funeral director. And that funeral director told
Henry that he had never buried a lost man. He had never buried
a lost man. Now the man was being facetious,
but his words had a ring of truth to them, especially if you listen
to the religion of this day. It seems when it comes to death,
and especially that which follows, that men and women, particularly
if they've been under the onslaught of the preaching of the lie that
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, find it very
easy to speak of the departed in terms of eternal bliss, almost
always, no matter how that person lived in this world, no matter
what he believed. We have already seen in this
study that many will not be welcome in heaven. Many will not be welcomed. That many will not be there,
but will rather be cast into the lake of fire. In the last
verse of chapter 21, it says, And there shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
or maketh a lie. The only ones who enter in are
they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. Scott Richardson said to me many
years ago, he said, pretty much a man dies like he lives. A man dies like he lives. And I know that people want their
loved ones to be at peace after they die. It is my strong desire
that everyone whom I love would be at peace when they die, would
be in eternal bliss with Christ. Whether or not that's the case,
I'll leave that to the Lord. I'll leave that to the Lord.
Generally speaking, the human character, however, is hopeful.
We're just hopeful by nature. We tend to hold on to hope with
great tenacity and on a natural level. That's not an uncomely
trait. I'd rather be around hopeful
people than around those who live under a dark cloud all their
lives. I'm sure you would too. More often than not, natural
hope is merely a coping mechanism. That's what the psychologists
would call it today. And it falls more into the category
of wishful thinking than a true hope. A true hope is a spiritual
hope, a spiritual hope. It is a grounded hope, and it
is one that is based on God-given faith and the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual hope has nothing to
do with wishful thinking, nothing whatsoever. A spiritual hope
in Scripture is confidence and assurance in Christ, a grounded
and real and true expectation of good things to come. Now the
believer knows that what God says is so, and that however
God says a thing, that is the way it is. Some put great stock
in deathbed confessions, or professions. I remember as a child, that was
a big thing. When somebody died who was just
an all-out rebel that people liked to talk, well, maybe they're
at the last few seconds. He had time to make it right
with God. People hold to such things. Some put great stock
in them. If a person is a profligate all
his life, people want to think that he still has a chance at
his dying moment of making things right with God. I'm not wholly
averse to that thinking. I would like to think that maybe
that's so in many cases, especially those who I really like. Those
I don't like that much, I don't care that much about. But those
who I like, I would like to think maybe Having heard the gospel,
because they've been around me or they've been around people
I know, they've heard the gospel, maybe in those last few moments
God will give them spiritual life from what they've heard.
Whether that happens, I don't know. But the idea of that really
presents two real problems. First, salvation is not by chance.
We know that. Spurgeon says it was by chance.
Everybody had the same chance, no chance at all. But salvation
is not by chance. And secondly, men had no capability
in and of themselves of making things right with God. You can't
make things right with God, and neither can I. Religion, generally
speaking, has opted for the idea of extreme unction. so that they
call in the priest or the preacher to the bed of the dying and pray
for the dying and hope that the man of the cloth will carry some
weight in the matters of eternity. They don't. They don't. Those
who hold to deathbed professions or extreme unction generally
employ the story of the thief on the cross as an example of
one who in the throes of demise called out for mercy and was
heard and that very day was with Christ in paradise. We as believers
should never be guilty of discounting this possibility, and we should
never take some kind of sinister pleasure in trouncing on someone's
hope, even if it may be unfounded. I know preachers who like to
preach funerals and preach people into hell. I personally don't
do that, because I don't know whether they're in hell or heaven
at all. What I endeavor to do at funerals is preach Christ
and Him crucified, preach to the living. The dead are already
gone. In the account of the thief on
the cross, that's a true story. It really happened in Scripture.
But we must remember that there is but one such account in all
of Scripture. In all of Scripture. There is
one, I suppose, that no man may despair. But there is only one
that no man may presume. Today is the day of salvation. Our text is a clear statement
that when time is no more, there is no alteration of destiny when
time is done. There comes a day when this thing
is going to end, when all possibility of change is gone forever. We
live in a day of grace. That day of grace began with
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and will end with His
second coming. We live in what God calls spaceful
repentance. We live in that day, a day where
the gospel is preached. But on this day that's spoken
of here, from that moment and for all eternity, what is will
always be. And these are somber words. There
is no limbo. There is no purgatory where money
and prayers and good deeds can be purchased in order to buy
a pardon for the eternally damned. If you're unjust when you die,
that's how you'll remain for eternity. If you're holy when
you die, that's how you'll remain for eternity. The prophecy of
this book is sealed and no change will ever be forthcoming. The
wise preacher said in Ecclesiastes 11.3, where a tree falls, that's
where it lays. Where a tree falls, that's where
it lays. And whatever you're standing
before God is when you die, it will be exactly the same forever
and ever and ever. Our symbol of Lady Justice is
a woman with scales in her hands and a blindfold over her eyes. We call our system of laws and
justice blind justice. Blind justice. Supposedly to
set forth a justice that is impartial and doesn't show favoritism.
In our natural realm, we know that this is a wish more than
a reality. Justice in our world is contingent
upon one's financial state and mitigating circumstances often
govern the application of what we call justice in the world
today. In our world, though we would like to think differently,
the poor do not get the same justice as those who can afford
brilliant legal representation. It just don't happen. You find
a rich man go on trial and that trial will last for a year. You
find a poor man going on trial for the same thing and it lasts
a day. What happened? He don't have
legal representation. Justice is not blind in the natural
realm. But in the court of God, at the
bar of God's justice, at the heavenly bar of justice, there
is true, unflinching, absolute blind justice. At that bar no
legal chicanery, no extenuating circumstances will be allowed
in evidence and there is no possibility of appeal. There justice will
be fast and justice will be fair. There the guilty are punished
and the innocent are vindicated. The angel that speaks here is
not the angel of mercy because at this bar there is no mercy,
there is no grace. Only justice. Only justice. You will, whether a believer
or not, you will get your just desserts at the bar of God's
justice. This angel of justice speaks
of men and women in four ways in our text. And each of these
four categories must be remembered is a state of being. A state of being. Justice before
God is not about what you did or did not do. It is not about
intentions, whether good or bad. It is not about what you want
or do not want. Justice addresses what you are. What you are. Justice does not
address sins. It addresses sin. It does not address corrupt actions.
It addresses corruption. It does not address righteous
actions or holy deed. It addresses righteousness and
holiness before God. These are all states of being.
States of being. Justice speaks in the first words
that are uttered are this, He that is unjust, let him be unjust
still. The unjust will stand as such
and will be what they are forever according to this passage of
Scripture. The unjust are the unjustified. God justified some
of the unjust. For it says of Christ that He
died the just for the unjust. You were born unjust. But God
has justified you. If you are without Christ, when
this day spoken of here comes, you will remain so forever. You
are unjust and therefore rightfully condemned to an eternal place
fitting your natural estate, fitting what you are. It is only
fitting that the unjust go to hell. That's just that they do. That's justice. You cannot defend
yourself, nor will you be accounted the privilege of defending yourself
at this place. Unjust is what you are, and unjust
you shall ever be. Look over at Luke 18. Our Lord
spoke a parable about those who esteemed themselves and despised
others. You know the parable. It's the
parable of the two men in the temple. In Luke chapter 18 and verse
9, it says, And He spake this parable unto certain which trusted
in themselves. that they were righteous. They
trusted that they by themselves had attained a righteousness.
And because of that, as is the case of all self-righteousness,
they despised others. They despised others. The parable says, two men went
to the house of the Lord, or the temple, to pray. The one
was a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself. Why not? If he's achieved his
own righteousness, then he must be God himself. He said, God,
I thank Thee that I'm not as other men, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar
off would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven. but smote
upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner."
The literal translation is, God put the blood on the mercy seat
for me. And our Lord says, I tell you
this man, that publican went down to his house justified rather
than the other. You're talking about an understatement,
there's a big one. The other went down to his house
unjustified, while the publican went there justified. The Pharisee
spoken of here is in the number who hear these words from this
angel at the end of time. Let him that is unjust be unjust
still. The state of being referred to
as unjust means that you will be justly condemned in yourself. No one will stand for you or
with you. There will be no advocate to
plead your case. You are unjust and that is all
there is to it. Scripture says the Lord is angry
with the wicked every day. Scripture says the Lord, His
soul hateth those that worketh violence. The Lord says the sinner,
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. It shall die. Our Lord said
this is the condemnation that light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. He also said that
he that believeth not on the sun, the wrath of God abideth
on him. You are justly condemned. Why?
For what you are. You're born that way. And if
nothing happens in your career to change that, you'll stay that
way forever. You are justly condemned for
what you are. You are a sinner by birth. For
in Adam, all died. All died. You've transgressed
every law of God. Every law of God since you were
born. You came forth from the womb
according to scripture telling lies as soon as you opened your
mouth. You have rejected the gospel.
Those who are spoken of here have heard the gospel. This letter
went to their churches. It was read in their churches
and they've heard this. They've heard this. They've rejected
the gospel that has been preached throughout the earth. You've
turned your back on the day of grace. God is gracious. How gracious is He? He's gracious
to all His people. How merciful is He? He shows
mercy to all His people. And He endures with long-suffering
those fitted to wrath. He endures with them. But the
fact that you're alive, if you are still in rebellion
against God, is because God has put you in the hands of the Savior,
in the hands of a Mediator who has power over all flesh to give
eternal life to as many as given Him. In Proverbs chapter 1, Proverbs chapter 1, we read these
words. Our Lord speaking to those who
have rejected His counsel. Verse 23 says, Turn you at My
reproof. Behold, I will pour out My Spirit
unto you. I will make known My words unto
you. Turn. Repent. But He says, Because
I have called and you refused, I have stretched out My hand,
and no man regardeth. How does God call? God calls
in a thousand ways. He calls in providence. Close
calls we call them. When our life flashes before
our eyes and we come close to what we feel to be death, that's
a call of God. God calls by the preaching of
the gospel. It's a general call for all men everywhere to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ by commandment and to repent of their sins by
commandment. We call from the pulpit for men
to come to Christ We set Him forth as the only hope of mankind.
God said, I have stretched forth My hand. I have stretched forth
My hand, and no man regardeth. But He has said, It is not all
My counsel, and would none of My reproof. He thinks of My purpose
as nothing, and would hear none of My reproof. And when the time
comes, when all is said and done, that person must stand before
God. God says, I will laugh at your calamity. I can't imagine
the sound of that. I know by God's grace I'll never
hear it. I will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock you. Nobody likes to be mocked. But
how do you think you'd be mocked by God? I will mock when your
fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation,
and your destruction cometh as a tornado, when distress and
anguish come upon you, then, finally, you will think, I'm
in such a fix that nobody but God can help me. And like most
men in grave trouble, in the midst of the storm, they call
upon God. Then shall they call upon me,
but I will not answer. I will not answer. They shall
seek me early, but they shall not find me. For they hated knowledge,
and did not choose the worship, love, adoration, and reverence
of God Almighty. They did not choose that. They
would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way. and be
filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple
shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall
be quiet from fear of evil." Our Lord makes it clear that
to hear the gospel and to turn away from it is unjust. It's the action of an unjust
person. Why have you done so? You've done so because of what
you are. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. The angel goes on to say, And
just as he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. No one likes to consider themselves
filthy. That's why we take baths so often. Did you know that the British
thought the Native Americans were demon possessed because
they bathed every day? The British bathed once a month
whether they needed to or not. They invented things like bridesmaids
and brides carrying flowers because they smelled so bad at the wedding
it was the only thing that would cover them up. Same thing with
flowers at funerals. The French invented perfume,
heavy perfume, to cover up their stench because they didn't bathe.
And they still don't. A lot of them don't bathe once
a week, once a month. I think somebody was telling me about
a French exchange student coming to live with Joan and Jody Taylor.
And he said he'd take a bath on Saturday night. And Jody said,
no, you won't. You'll take a bath tonight. And every night you're
here. Every night you're here. Nobody
wants to be considered filthy. But whether you're a Native American
or a eunuch like me, before God, that's what you are by birth.
Filthy. Filthy. The Word declares an
unkemptness. The Word seems prejudicial almost. The Word intimates a foul stench.
And all this is true of the filthy one. It said, The Lord looked
down from heaven upon the sons of men to see that if there was
any that did seek Him, any understanding, they all together become filthy. And the Word there, they all
together stink. They stink. Folks are just about
to do anything rather than stink. But our Lord says, if you come
to this bar of justice stinking, you're going to stink forever.
You're going to be filthy. Filthy forever. As unpleasant
as this is, it is nonetheless so. If you have not Christ, you're
filthy. You're filthy. You have lived
in your filth as a maggot on a dunghill and you will die and
remain filthy forever. according to this passage of
scripture. Your very best deeds are filth. Isn't that what the
scripture says? All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Filthy rags. Our consciences are filthy. They
must be purged from dead works to serve the living God. You're
accounted in scripture as a pig in its wallow and a dog consuming
its own vomit. That's not a very pleasant thing,
is it? But that's spoken of those who reject the Word of Truth,
who have heard the Word of Truth and turned back from it. Turned
back from it. You may have, as Job said, sought
to bathe in the fountain of religious works and free will, and though
you wash your hands in snow water and they never be so white, God
yet plunges you in the ditch so that your own clothes abhor
you. You're filthy. No one can bring
a clean thing out of an unclean. Who can do that? Not one, saith
the Scripture. I know some men say, well, God
brings a clean thing out of an unclean. No, He don't either.
He makes something new. He makes something new altogether.
Altogether. Death will not change you. It
won't change you. Just thought about that. Death
will not change you. Death will not remove your filth.
Eternity will only exacerbate your filth and your lust and
the plague of your mind. He which is filthy, let him be
filthy still. Is this what you want? Is this
how you want to be forever? If you die filthy, you will remain
so and nothing can cleanse you here but the blood of Christ. If God makes you clean, you will
be clean every whit, saith the Scripture. You and I will stand
at the bar of justice exactly as we are, as we are when we
die. He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. He that is filthy, let him be
filthy still. And at this inflexible bar of
justice, the angel also declares this, he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. He that is righteous. Again,
be reminded that this declaration does not concern what you have
or have not done. This is a state of being. There
is not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Righteousness
before God is a state of being. It is not personal righteousness.
It is imputed righteousness. It is righteousness charged to
you. But it is even more than that.
In truth, it is Christ Himself made to be to you wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. He who bore our sin on Calvary's
tree, He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. The righteousness
of God. If you die righteous, you'll
be righteous for all eternity. That's good news, isn't it? What
if I slip up and sin right before I die? I'm telling you, you're
going to sin right before you die. You're going to sin with
the last breath you breathe on this earth. But if you're righteous, if you're
in that state of being before a holy God, that's the way you'll
be forever. Forever. If you're righteous,
it's because Christ alone is your righteousness. The name
which he shall be called is the Lord. our righteousness. If you are righteous, it is because
God has graced you with faith to reckon that Christ is your
righteousness. This is not personal merit. It
is a state of being righteous before an Almighty God. By the
works of the law shall no man be righteous before God, saith
the Scripture. But in Christ you are complete, according to
Scripture. If this is how you die, then
you will remain so forever. forever righteous. He that is
righteous, let him be righteous still." You see, justice demands
that the righteous receive the reward of the righteous. Justice
demands it. Do you know justice set you free? It did. Because Jesus Christ
died in your room instead, because He paid the last farthing of
the law, what the law held against you, and fully satisfied the
law, justice said that person is not guilty. He must go free. So justice says, he that is righteous,
let him be righteous still, and receive the reward of righteousness.
What is the reward of righteousness? It's Christ. Being endued with
righteousness is the crown of righteousness and the crown of
life. What is the reward of righteousness? To die and be righteous still. To die and be righteous still. And he goes on to say, he that
is holy, let him be holy still. If you stand before this bar
in a state of holiness, you will remain in that state for all
eternity. To be holy, what is that? I know
men have ideas about it. They say things like it's the
way you walk, the way you talk, what you drink and don't drink,
where you go and don't go. That ain't holiness. What is holiness? It's to be a saint. Not canonized
by the Roman church, but to be a saint because you're sanctified
by Jesus Christ. And this is a state of being.
It's a state of being. You are not accounted holy because
you act in a certain way. You are not accounted holy because
you do holy things or refrain from unholy things. You are holy
because Christ is your sanctification. That's why you're holy. That's
why you're holy. It's the only reason. He that
is holy, let him be holy still. Well, is there a difference between
righteousness and holiness? What is the difference between
righteousness and holiness? Righteousness is legal standing.
It has to do with the law being fulfilled and satisfied for you. It's a legal standing, a state
of guiltlessness before the law of Almighty God. The law alone
can declare you righteous. The law must declare you righteous.
And that only because the law has been satisfied concerning
your guilt. Because in Christ the just penalty for your guilt
has already been fully paid. That's what it is to be righteous.
To be legally righteous before God. Before
the law of God. Holiness is something different.
Holiness is a personal standing. And I say personal because it
has to do with relationship. Holiness is a personal standing
before God. It is not personally attained,
but is a personal standing. It speaks of likeness. It speaks of fellowship. It speaks
of oneness. The Lord said, Be ye holy. Why? Because I'm holy. If you want
anything to do with me, you've got to be like me. That's what
He's saying. Without holiness, no man shall
see the Lord, saith the Scripture. How holy you got to be? You got
to be as holy as God is. Nothing short of that. The poet
said, with Christ's holy garments on, we are as holy as God's dear
Son. Christ is our sanctification,
our holiness, and that affords us the privilege of a familial
relationship with the triune Godhead. The Spirit beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the child of God. The blood of Christ
gives us the joy of fellowship with the Father and the Son.
What this is saying simply here to every member of every church
of these seven churches here, if you die without Christ, you'll
be forever without Christ. If you die in Christ, you'll
be forever in Christ. You're not going to be any better.
You're going to be better off. But you're not going to be any
better. You're not going to get more holy or more righteous.
How you die is how you're going to spend eternity forever. Let him that is unjust be unjust
still. And he that 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. All of us are going to die. All of us are. Red and I were
talking today. I've been here almost half my
life. Almost half my life. I've been here preaching the
gospel. Been a long time. I've buried some friends. I've
watched children grow up to be grown-ups. I've watched hairs
turn gray. I've watched us all become a
little more feeble than we were a couple of years ago. I've seen
God operate in the hearts of His people. I've seen Christ
formed in people. I've seen attitudes and hearts
change toward each other. I've seen a lot. And I'm going
to die. I preached the gospel for 30
some years and I'm going to die. What's my hope? That I'm righteous
before God when I die and I'm holy before God when I die. And
that has nothing to do with anything I've experienced in this life
save the grace of God. That's how it's going to be.
Everybody here, unjust or just, filthy or clean, righteous or
unrighteous, holy or unholy, when we die. That's how we're
going to be forever. Father, bless us to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Good night and God bless
you.