God Has a Settling Day — E.A. Johnston

The Rise of Scoffers and the Certainty of Judgment

We live in a day of great wickedness in the land. We live in a day of scoffers of God. In the last days these scoffers will increase in number. In 2 Peter it declares, knowing this verse, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of His coming?

The Prosperity of the Wicked and God's Patience

God-haters and God-mockers are all around us today, and it's as if atheism is flourishing more than religion right now. And we live in a day where the wicked prosper and they flaunt their wickedness in the face of a thrice-holy God, where a Justin Bieber can walk into a strip club with $70 ,000 in $1 bills and hand them out to strippers like it's water.

Why doesn't God just cut him down? Why doesn't He? Or a Miley Cyrus who can strut her naked body all around a stage and perform lewd acts and pervert an entire nation of young people. Why doesn't God just cut her down?

God's Appointed Day of Righteous Judgment

Why doesn't He? My Bible says that there is a settling day on the horizon. We see this in Acts 17 31, which declares, because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness.

I'm telling you, friends, that God has a settling day on the horizon. Listen to 2 Peter 2 9, which declares, The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

Yes, sir. God has a settling day coming. And that's the title of my message today, friends. God has a settling day. About a hundred years ago, when America was still pretty much a Christian nation that feared God, there was a farming community in the Midwest and the town itself was a God-fearing town.

It was a time in this nation when the Sabbath was kept and honored by the majority. In this little farming town, the people worked hard from sunup to sundown to plant their crops and to bring in their harvest under tough conditions that they barely got by.

And there was a scoffer who lived in that community and he delighted in making fun of God's people. Well, one day this atheist wrote a letter to the editor of the local grain and feed journal and the editor published this atheist letter.

This is what the letter said. Sir, I have been trying an experiment. I have a field of corn, which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the crop on Sunday and on Sunday I hauled it into my barn and I find that I have more corn per acre than has been gathered by any of my neighbors during this October.

The editor of the paper printed the letter with this footnote. We take note of your remarks, sir, but God does not always settle His accounts in October. And this, friends, explains the present prosperity of the wicked.

Future Reckoning and the Judgment of the Wicked

This explains why evil flourishes and the wicked boast in glory in their sins. At times, righteous God will cut some wicked person down with a sudden removal of them by visiting sin with His manifest displeasure.

But mostly, God's reckoning day is future. God has a settling day coming, a day when His accounts must be settled. All debts must be paid. The wicked, who have a sin debt and they have no way to pay it, they will have their accounts settled on that day.

They will be judged, found hand and foot, and cast into a burning hell. The wicked can mock today and shake their angry fists defiantly in the face of God and He may be silent now, but God has a settling day coming.

Korah's Destruction and the Delay of Judgment

We live in a day where hundreds of thousands of perverts can parade naked down Main Street in our major cities and even have sex with one another in public and the police leave them alone. And God is silent, so it seems, and these parades just get bigger and bigger and the participants more fragrantly wicked and God does nothing.

Why doesn't He open up the ground like He did in the days of Korah and bring sudden destruction upon them? In Numbers chapter 16 we see this,. And it came to pass, as He had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clathed asunder that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth and swaddled them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods.

Well, why doesn't God do that today to the wicked? Let me tell you why, friends. Why let them remain on the earth to further pollute and pervert it? Well, let me tell you why. Why doesn't God just open up the ground and swallow the whole bunch of them?

Well, let me tell you why. It's because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness. Listen, friends. God has a settling day coming. It's coming. It will be here sooner than we realize.

The Day of Grace and God's Longsuffering

Well, what's another reason why God doesn't bring sudden judgment upon the wicked in our day? It's because we're still living in a day of grace where mercy and grace is free. But on that future day, strict justice will be enthroned.

We see in 2 Peter, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

If it was up to you and me, we probably wouldn't have the patience that God has with the wicked. We would vote for their removal right now. Why let them continue to pollute the land and pervert the people?

But Jesus said, for the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. This is a day of mercy, friends. The day of justice will arrive soon enough for God's settling day is coming, Hebrews 9 .27 declares.

And as it is appointed, unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. So we have scoffers abounding in our day, mocking God and making fun of God's people. We have the wicked who prosper and who glory in their sins and dare God to do anything about it.

Political Defiance and Divine Authority

We have a political system that is anti-God and court justices that enact laws that promote evil in the land. And they strut around in their long black robes as if they are the final authority over God.

But listen, friends, God has a settling day coming. God does not always settle His accounts in October. But sometimes He does. I've known this happen in times past to individuals who provoked God by hindering the work of God.

Sudden Death as an Example of Immediate Judgment

I remember the evangelist Rolf Barnard relating a true story which he preached in a sermon called Sudden Death, which related this very thing. I've got this sermon here in front of me. Let me read you his words now.

The pastor of a church in a certain place asked me to come and hold meetings before I got there. Seven deacons of that church had come to the pastor and said, Now, brother pastor, we are not going to oppose anything, but we don't believe in what you call evangelistic campaigns, so we will not be back until this preacher is gone and the meetings are over.

The pastor said, Well, I hate to see you take that attitude, but if that's what you want to do, I appreciate you coming and telling me. Well, if they had done what they said, it would have been alright, but we couldn't get a crowd for a few nights and we were hitting it pretty hard.

So those fellows were glad and got to bragging about how we weren't getting anywhere in the meetings. They violated their word that they wouldn't oppose us. The pastor came to me and he was broken hearted.

And he said, Brother Barnard, this is killing me. What can we do? I said, I don't know. Are you game for us to get down on our knees and ask God to save them or kill them? He agreed. And we got down on our knees and said, Lord, You know what these fellows are doing.

They are ruining the meeting. They are making fun of the gospel, the church, and the Lord Jesus Christ and God's preachers. They were just filling the whole town with this. And everybody was talking about how the meeting was no good and those seven deacons making fun of it.

So we said, Lord, save them or kill them. Neither one of us was supposed to tell about that prayer. And I don't think I did, but somebody did. And those deacons heard about it. They just heard half of it, though.

So they just had a big time. They said, The preachers up there are praying for God to kill us, but we were praying for God to save them or kill them to get them out of the way. They were bucking God. They were hardening themselves against God.

I think that's dangerous. They just laughed and laughed and had a big time about it. But in four days time, the pastor had seven different funerals. And they were the funerals of those seven Baptist deacons.

Every one of them died a horrible, sudden death. Now, friends, that's an instance where God does settle His accounts in October. But most of the time, He delays until His settling day when He will judge the world in righteousness.

Peter's Prophecy of Scoffers and Coming Fire

But I can promise you, friends, God's settling day is coming. It is coming. But we have scoffers in these last days, and they're just having a grand old time making fun of a thrice holy God. But let me read you more what the Apostle Peter has to say about it.

Here now is the Word of God. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, Oh, where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.

But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. So we see, friends, that mockers mock now, scoffers scoff now, the wicked prosper now, the God-haters shake their fists, in the face of God now, and dare Him to do anything about it.

God's Settling Day Is Certain

But, like that scoffing farmer who defied God by planting his cornfield on the Sabbath and challenged God to express disproval by giving him a disappointed crop, but instead he reaped an exceptionally good harvest, better than his Christian neighbors.

But this explains the present prosperity of the wicked who defy God because God doesn't always settle His accounts in October. But I can assure you this, friends, God's settling day is coming. It will be here before you know it.

God hath appointed a day into which He will judge the world in righteousness.