Corporate Confession and Repentance - Part 1 — Richard Owen Roberts

It was suggested that we walk out of time for questions and answers and knowing myself I might walk right up till the end and not give it a shot. And because I really wouldn't be interested in entertaining questions about this or anything other than the subject at hand. I'm going to make the following suggestion.

This is not a very good service by any special imagination, with a special gravity. It burns people, it will take up earnest issues. If there are any questions you would like to ask, why not ask them as I'm going along.

Feel that liberty with you. Obviously, I want you to jump for a few minutes without me. Someone might consider giving me flight if you did that. But, wave your hand, so good for life. Or, if I don't see it, stand if you need to and wave your hand.

But I'm quite serious now. If there's any questions that you feel are pertinent to what is being said and that would be helpful for others as well, don't you hesitate to ask. And let's just keep it within the framework of the Bible.

The Biblical Call to a Solemn Assembly

And our concern together is to see that the obstacles to the work of God's grace are almost removed. Now, I want to ask you to turn backwards into the book of Joel. And I want, in a relatively brief span of time, to discuss with you the issue of the Sovereign Assembly as it's featured in that particular book.

And as you're turning to it, may I indicate to you how this subject of the Sovereign Assembly seems to have been lost, to a very significant degree, to the Church of this century. It's a pinnacle thing, but nonetheless true.

If you are one who loves American history, you are aware, and I made a small allusion to this this morning, but you are aware that the Sovereign Assembly was a very prominent part of the spiritual life of this nation.

Long before it became a nation, but during the colonial period in New England, Sovereign Assemblies were very, very commonly held. And then, as I did mention as well, even at the time that the founding fathers were putting together the constitutional documents, they enacted a Sovereign Assembly.

But one of the latest significant Sovereign Assemblies on record was at the time of the Civil War, when the Congress again adjourned and went together to Church in a Sovereign Assembly. And if you're interested, where is Reuben?

Did he step out? Among the books, I think, that Reuben has to offer for sale is a little text that's called The American Vine. And it's a sermon that was delivered at the Sovereign Assembly in connection with the Civil War.

And I'm certainly not knowledgeable about the Civil War, and I certainly have no interest in getting off on the subject of American history, but it would appear to me a perfectly wonderful thing that the nation, despite that terrible upheaval at that time, was preserved intact.

And I have the conviction that God Himself responded to those who called upon Him during that dark season. And although the war occurred and the terrible tragedies of it, nonetheless, the nation was preserved as one nation under God.

Historical Forgetfulness About God's Judgments

So what I'm saying is that up until that time, there was this very long history, 200 years approximately, a time in which Solomon's Sandals were a very, very frequent occurrence. Now, they were not something that was done to routine.

It was not as if they had their annual solemn assembly. These solemn assemblies were called in a very careful fashion. In those days, Christian leaders saw the hand of God more readily in the affairs of men than we do in our day.

It's strange, isn't it, that we can have the very early death of a very prominent leader, and nobody even thinks to say, let's ask God if there's meaning or significance in his death. We can have these tremendous natural calamities of which I spoke this morning, and we pride ourselves in getting through them successfully.

But I don't hear anybody say to the nation, let's call upon God and ask Him what He's saying to us in these frequent and distressing circumstances of fire, floods, hurricanes, and so on. But in the earlier years of our nation, whenever anything out of the ordinary occurred, maybe three young men who drowned in a boating accident, maybe an earthquake in the city of Boston, maybe a fire in Philadelphia, when something out of the ordinary occurred, the first thing, it seems, that the godly leadership thought to do was to call the people together to inquire of the Lord what He was saying.

Now, we're so far removed from that that even when you say, the Lord is speaking to us, people sort of scratch their brows and say, where did this weirdo come from? Since when does God speak through things like this?

So we've had a complete reversal in this whole realm. As I imply, the subject of the solemn assembly itself seems to have fallen into almost total oblivion in this century. Now, hope I'm wrong in what I'm about to say, but I personally am unaware of any solemn assemblies called any time between 1900 and 1980.

Now, I hope I'm wrong. I'd like to think I'm very wrong, but I'm not so wrong that what none of you are going to be able to prove me wrong. I mean, the likelihood of it is virtually non-existent. Almost everywhere I have said anything about the solemn assembly in recent years, people have said, what is that?

I never heard that. And even those who heard it may be thinking of something quite different from what the Scripture has said, what our forefathers practiced. So I'm going to talk to you, not the whole afternoon, but for a brief period, about the solemn assembly and utilizing the Book of Job.

Providential Preparation for the Message

And I think it might be helpful to you to notice the kind providences of God in these matters. I don't recall the time frame exactly, but I'm going to guess about 16 years ago. The church in the area where I live asked me if there was any way that I could come to a series of Sunday night meetings.

They requested that I come four Sunday nights in a row. Well, it wasn't possible, as I recall, to do that, but I did go there three Sunday nights in a row during the month of January. And the first two Sundays, after I had spoken each time, I really felt sick in my heart.

When they invited me, they made it clear that they needed a word from the Lord. And I really didn't sense that I had any word from the Lord before that. And that really grieved my heart. And I expected to grieve them, too, though they were gracious enough not to abrade me concerning the matter.

But the third grasp was approaching. And as I looked over the week, I realized that it was an extremely busy week. That I had virtually every moment of the week committed to the exception of Thursday, where I had a considerable block of time.

But I had given all of our employees something else to do out of the office that day. And that left me there alone to handle whatever happened in the office. And yet that was the only period of time that I could see that I could do anything at all by way of earnest preparation.

So early Thursday morning, I said, Now, Lord, I don't ever remember praying this before, but will you see to it that nobody comes anywhere near the office today? Although we have a bookstore, I mean, when you're asking God to send you more customers, it is not quite the normal way of proceeding.

But, O Lord, don't let the phone ring, either. Just give me a day that I can be alone with you. It's my only hope for such an act. And the Lord first answered that prayer on a lovely day. With one exception, the postman came in, plopped the veil on the desk, and went out.

But other than that, I didn't see a soul, and I never had any phone to answer or any interruption that time. So as I was seeking some word from the Lord, some sense of direction, some help for Sunday night, I was led to the Book of Job.

And for the first time in my life, though I had read it many, many times before, for the first time in my life, it all clicked. I understood it. Came in the postman. And I went to him to preach that Sunday night from the Book of Job.

I reported this morning what happened. The church called in the summer and said that the elders avenged the terrible law that had been committed. And I began to understand at that time this matter of corporate sin and corporate repentance.

Joel's Call to Remember God's Mighty Acts

Now let me read this, not in the sense of a straightforward reading, but what you should call a Bible reading, where I'll just repeatedly interrupt myself with comments. Job chapter 1 verse 1. The word of the Lord, the King of Job, the son of the fool.

Hear this, O elders. And this is all incompetence of a man. Has anything like this happened in your days or in your father's days? Tell your sons about it. Let your sons tell their sons and their sons the next generation.

Job is about to describe a righteous judgment from God that takes on two forms. The most obvious form is this plague of locusts. I don't think anyone knows for sure whether what is described in verse 4 as the dawning locust, the swarming locust, the creeping locust, the stripping locust, whether that's four separate invasions of insects or the same army of insects at various stages of their development.

But Job has just said, I'm going to tell you about something which you don't know anything like it that has ever happened. You have no records of an incident of this magnitude, nor will there ever again be anything to be compared with this.

This invasion of locusts, the drought that accompanied it, and the solemn assembly that followed. Now, just to help us to keep perspectives correct, the subject of locusts is certainly not one that most of us have delved into, nor are we total strangers to.

Here in our own nation a few years ago, there was the beginnings of a major locust invasion, and ten or twelve of the western states were reporting the density of these insects. I don't recall any of the figures exactly, but there were areas where there were twelve insects per square foot, and other areas with fourteen or fifteen, even eighteen insects per square foot.

But you can't compare an invasion of eighteen insects per square foot with what Job is describing. There are records of invasions of locusts which have been put into print, which are awfully astonishing.

For instance, there was a period of two days and two nights in which neither the sun was seen, nor the moon, nor stars, nor sky, because there were insects passing overhead steadily for forty-eight hours.

There's another record of a plague of locusts where they covered an area of two thousand square miles, and they were seven inches deep underground. Still another incident where there was this horrendous invasion of insects, and they devoured everything in sight as they moved along, and then a wind arose, and they were thrown into the sea, and they drowned in the sea, and the waters of the sea rolled them up on shore in great mounds where their carcasses rotted, and some two thousand people died of a plague that emanated out of those rotting carcasses.

But Job is describing something worse than any of those. What the non-locust has left, the swallowing locust has eaten. What the swallowing locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten. And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

Remembering the Works of God Without Exaggeration

Many of us are aware of the fact that one of the greatest grievances that God had with his people in the past, and I believe still has, is our poor memory. Now, I don't mean that we've only poor things to remember.

I mean that we can't remember the great things that God has done for us. We have a situation in our own family which came to me as a child of a proud-leaving youth. Three or four years ago, we were faced with the greatest financial crisis of our lives, and the whole family just met together in praise and soft faith in God.

And within hours, when we were right on the verge of being driven into bankruptcy by someone else's error, right on that verge, the only wealthy man in the world that I knew personally, but I never knew him to give anybody a penny, called out of the blue.

And he said to me, I understand your face was in a losing state. I said, Yes. He said, What is the expenditure? I said, I must have $200 ,000 tomorrow, or I'll be forced into bankruptcy. And he said, You now have $200 ,000.

It was alone, but mildly grateful. Instead, I went back to the family in a circle and recourse. And we did that. And the very next day, the money was in our hands. While we all just about let down of our skin, we joined Thanksgiving.

Maybe eight, ten days later, a very small problem arose in our father. And I said, I don't know what we're going to do. I don't see how we're going to handle this. And my son said, Dad, where is your memory?

Have you forgotten already what God just did for us? And to my shame, I asked, Isn't that the way many of us are? We have some God's most glorious benefits. They haven't even grown cold in our hands. And we've forgotten that.

And God is talking Israel for us and saying in verse 3, Tell your sons about it. Let your sons tell their sons and their sons, the next generation. But dear brothers and sisters, doesn't it cause you nearly to weep with sorrow when you stop to think what it is you've got to tell to your sons?

And they to their sons. And the next generation. I mean there are Christian people who if they were going to tell their sons the greatest thing that ever happened to them in all their life could tell them about the time they won first prize in the county fair for the biggest cash.

Have seen so little of the mighty acts of God that we invent them much of what's reported by way of miracles, no miracle at all. I was in a fun mood one day at our office in Warehouse somehow. I got it in my head that I had to climb up on top of the tallest ladder in our warehouse and bring down 60 boxes of books that had been stored at the top level at 16 feet.

I don't know what possessed me to think I had to do it that day. I had to do it all alone, but I was sure I had to get that job done. So I got this big ladder and I leaned it up against these pallet racks and I went to the very top and in order to reach the 16 foot level I had to stand on the top of this ladder and I got a hold of one of these big boxes and I don't know now what it weighed, but I would guess somewhere around 70 to 80 pounds and I couldn't get my arm all the way around it.

But I got my arm partly around it and I swung it off of the pallet rack and there I was towering on the top of this ladder and suddenly off I went. A little later I stood shaking in my shoes and wondering if I was dead or alive and saying, well this is incredible.

Everything seems to work. Nothing seems to be broken. I landed on my feet. Wow! Now there you have a miracle. So I rushed right into the office and I said to myself, Bob, the most incredible thing has happened.

You know that big ladder? Oh yes. Well do you know those commentaries up on the ceiling level? Yes. Well I was startled. You were lost. Dad, whatever made you think you ought to bring those down? Oh I said, just something your old father got to say.

Well he said, what happened when I said I fell off the top of the ladder? Are you hurt? No. He said, the angels must have worn you out. And I said, Maggie, the most wonderful thing happened. An amazing miracle.

And I praised it to everyone. Praise the Lord. That night, when I was getting ready for bed, I took off the heavy sweater I had worn all day and was quite astonished to see a huge rip in the back of that sweater.

Troubles me. I wonder how that happened. I thought it was a good sweater when I put it on. That night I took off my shirt and there's another big rip. I surely couldn't put on two torn garments in one day.

And then I took off my other shirt and it's two torn in the same place. So I backed up to a mirror and there's a long scratch down my back. So I went to bed saying, first thing in the morning I've got to go back to the scene.

I've got to understand what occurred. And tell you what happened. I had a small scratch on my hand. I had been aware of that but hadn't figured it out either. But when I went back and stood there in the warehouse where I had fallen, I realized that when I began to topper, just before I fell I reached out to grab something because I was up above everything but the boxes, the pallet racks.

You know what pallet racks are, these large metal racks. It went up only to twelve feet. And then there was a platform at that twelve foot that ran up to the sixteen foot level. As I fell I realized I had tried to grab something, had gotten a hold of one of these rough metal tops of the pallet rack.

That had swung me around a corner and there in this corner were a whole series of wooden uprights that we used for shelving where there are pegs all the way down. And we built massive, we had miles and miles of shelves in our warehouse and we built these massive racks of shelves that the shelves fit on these wooden pegs.

And what I realized was I had swung around a corner landed on these shelves that were leaning against the wall. The peg had caught hold of my clothing and let me down gently like an elevator. But you see, I had told my son it was a miracle.

Then I had to get along with my wife and say, did I honor you by calling it a miracle? What if in the world at large I called that a miracle? Would that bring you glory, Father? And I realized if I exaggerate what God has done, that is not His point.

It is as bad to exaggerate as to understate. When we speak of the mighty acts of God, we ought to speak honestly and correctly. I came to realize I had a marvelous providential deliverance. The Lord Himself kept me from serious injury.

But it was not a miracle. A miracle requires a suspension of God's own laws of nature. There was no suspension of laws of nature. There were no angels there that wore me out. In the providence of God, I reached out.

I got hold of the power and power rack that was sliding around the corner. I slid down these boards on the table. What a great God! My, I'm grateful that it happened that way. But if I told you it was a miracle, you'd be a liar.

I'm telling you the part of why we need revival is because we're liars. We call things miracles where there is no divine intervention and suspension of God's laws of nature. And we ought to revise our vocabulary and our speech.

And we ought to speak with honesty. God doesn't give the glory of something that I've exaggerated. God is the God of truth. Now here, Job requires these people to tell not something they imagined, but something that really happened.

And to tell it in such a way that subsequent generations could not forget it. And I'm saying to you that often because we do exaggerate so grossly, God does not step in and act mightily. And so we are left with nothing but cabbages to talk about.

Joel's Description of Judgment and the Call to Fasting

We would turn desperately honest before our God. I believe our God would give us much more to praise him for. Go look at verse 5. Awake, drunkards, and weep and wail, all you wine drinkers, on account of the sweet wine that is cut off from you now.

Now that we might almost treasure. We might almost look forward to a time when times were so devastating, when food supply so scarce, when crops so despoiled that the drunkard had no wine to drink. It's a remarkable occasion, isn't it?

When the first lament that's recorded is the lament of the drunkard who can't find any wine to drink. That's not where it ends. That's only where the account begins. For a nation, verse 6, has invaded my land, ninety and without number.

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion and has the fangs of a lion. Did you ever examine carefully a locust or even a picture of a locust? It's a very accurate description. It has made my vine waste and my fig trees splintered.

It has stripped and bare and cast away their branches and become white. Just envision this language that the prophet is utilizing here. Oh, how graphic and clear it is. Can you envision one of these mountainsides tomorrow morning covered with billions and billions of locusts in the morning?

It is black with their presence, but by night they have stripped every leaf, every inch of bark, every small twig, every minor branch, so that by nightfall there is nothing but the stark white of decay.

You know, the strongest branch that is there. Is that looking verse 8? Well, like a virgin, gorgeous as sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. Oh, what touching language. Let me tell you how I see it.

The Bridegroom Image and Corporate Grief

I'm picturing in my mind right now a lovely girl in your church, sweet and gracious. Ready to marry, but oh, so divine. So earnest that she married God's man. The whole congregation is praying, Oh, God keep this sweet virgin with the right man.

Don't let some tall fellow touch her. And then God's gracious providence, the hour will come when the young man arrives on the scene and at first glance everybody says, He's just the fellow we've been praying for.

And with every passing, meet the evidence. Mountside, here is the perfect couple. And finally the engagement is announced. And then the wedding day. And the whole congregation comes to celebrate this glorious act of God and brings them together.

They meet in the presence of the church and the ceremony proceeds and the vows are taken. And then they have a reception. A car is parked out on the highway in front of the church. This dear young man helps his beloved into the passenger seat and he walks around behind the car and opens the door to enter the car himself.

And the wild raging youth comes carrying down the highway scrapes along the side of the car, crushes the life out of this newlywed. And this virgin is directly husband. Oh, you know what a lesbian is like.

Can't you almost hear it even now as I speak? Can't you feel the heartbreak of that entire congregation? Hear these words again. Well, like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the bridegroom of the youth.

The Locust Plague and the Day of the Lord

The grain offering and the libation are cut off from the house of the Lord, the priest mourns and ministers to the Lord. The field is ruined. The land mourns for the grain is ruined. The new wine dries up.

Fresh oil fails. Be ashamed, oh farmers. Wail, oh vine dressers. For the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. The vine dries up and the fig tree fails. The pomegranate, the palm also.

The apple tree. All the trees of the field dry up. Indeed, rejoicing dries up from the sons of men. The drought and the plagues of war. Gird yourself with sackcloth from the mantle, priest. Wail, oh ministers of the altar.

Come and spend the night in sackcloth, oh ministers of my God. For the grain offering and the libation are cut off from the house of your God. Concentrate the fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord.

Alas for the day. For the day of the Lord is near. And it will come as destruction from your mantle. Has not food been cut off from before our eyes? Gladness and joy from the house of our God. The seeds shrivel under the cloth.

The storehouses are decadent. The barns are torn down. The grain is dried up. Oh, how the beasts of the field wander aimlessly. They groan. There's no pasture for them. Even the flock of sheep suffer.

The fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field dance for days. For the water brooks are drying up. The fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. For the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near. Now, strangely, many who have read these chapters and interpreted them have somehow seen two separate instances described here.

And honestly, there are most astonishing interpretations given to these two chapters that one could possibly imagine. I hope I don't sound arrogant in saying to you that chapters one and chapter two all the way through verse twenty-seven are speaking of the very same event.

They're both describing that which Joel said was beyond anything that had ever happened before. Notice now how in verse two he comes at the description from a different perspective than he did in chapter one.

These words, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick darkness, as the dawn spread over the mountains, so there is a great and mighty people. There has never been anything like it, nor will there ever be again to the years of many generations.

I want to picture it now in my own words. All around you are gorgeous mountains. For some years I pastored a church down here in Portland, in Oregon. And from the home where I lived I could look out and behold glorious mountains on the seaside.

And not further but to what I saw to the east. And this is what I .D .A. Joel is describing here in chapter two. In the morning when these people arise and look out onto the hills, they're aware that the hills seem to be somehow a mask of blackness.

The great darkness just covers the whole of the hill. But as the day dawns and the morning advances, they realize that this is not just a phenomenon created by clouds and sun, but indeed there are gathering on the mountainside an entire army, a vast army, an innumerable army, not of soldiers, but of locusts and drifts.

There has never been the like before, nor will there ever be again unto many generations. A fire, he says in verse three, consumes before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them.

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses, so they run to the noises of chariots they meet from the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of the flame of fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people of age.

Therefore, before them, now get this, before them the people are in danger. For after all, in this ascending people there are young, but there are also old. There are those that have heard these crackling sounds before, that have heard the advance of an army of this kind on other occasions.

When they have become perceptive as the mountains blacken, they begin to say, Oh no, not this, not this, surely not this. Oh, will to God, it was not locusts gathering there by the billions. But as the noise begins, and as the movement commences, and the whole army is advancing toward them, the prophet says, the people are in anguish, and with all patience turn their heads.

The mountains, he says, they run like ninety men, they climb the walls like soldiers. They each march in line or who they deviate from the path. They do not crowd each other. They march everyone in his path.

When they burst through the defenses, they do not break ranks, they run on the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. Oh yes, these people have pulled the shutters tight, and they have done everything in their power to keep the insects out.

But on and on and on they push through the cracks and the shutters, even eating the carpets off the floor, the draperies in the house, the shoes off the floor. And the earthquakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness.

Remedial and Final Judgments

And the Lord offers His voice before His army. Surely His camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out His word. The day of the Lord is indeed great, and very awesome, who can endure it. Now friends, I have spoken to you already about the righteous judgments of God.

And I need to say to you that there is a great deal of misinformation and confusion that seems to permeate much of the Church on this subject. When the word judgment is utilized, from the pulpit, there seem to be always some who suppose that what the creature is talking about is something yet in front of us, something down the road, what we would call technically eschatological judgments, judgments of God, great white-throated judgments, or the judgments of worse.

But now get this clear. When I'm speaking to you about the righteous judgments of God, I'm not talking about something in the future. I'm talking about the here and the now. There are preachers who have said to me, if we're not careful, God may judge us.

Since when are the judgments of God iffy or uncertain? God judges sin as it occurs. God is a retiree in His judgment. God hasn't taken our court system as His example. We ought to take His court system as our example.

If I sin today and do not judge myself, God brings me under judgment today. Have you got that principle straight? If I sin today and don't judge myself, and God judges me, it is then imperative that my church judge me quickly.

And if I am part of a church that won't judge me quickly, then God judges the church just in His judgment. And the sin of the individual becomes the sin of the whole body. Have you got that straight? I repeat, God is never entirely in His judgment.

We have powerful examples in Scripture. For instance, David, of whom I spoke this morning. Some read the account of David's sin this past season, and the subsequent murders, and they say, Why God let David get away with that sin for months, nine months at least, before Nathan confronts Him.

You are a poor reader if you read that conclusion. The very day David sinned and would not judge himself, God brought him under judgment. And He describes the judgment in Psalm 32. Describes himself as being in a parched wilderness.

Describes his flesh as withered, his bones as broken, his lips as parched. A wilderness experience. Now, I don't know what it's like in your church, Pastor, but believe me, I have been in a large number of churches where the majority of people were living in wilderness.

Time after time, people have said to me, Well, I used to love the prayer meeting. I used to study my Bible every day. I used to witness. I used to love the Lord. They say all that as if they don't know what happened to them.

Well, in case you don't know what happens to people in that circumstance, let me tell you, God judges them. If I sin and won't judge myself, God will invariably step in and judge me. Put somebody in their mind's protest and say, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Roberts, you can't be that son.

God hasn't judged people like that. There's trouble around. Demonstrating that you don't understand the judgment of God. You see, there are two basic judgments. And again, I remind you, I'm not speaking of the future.

There are two judgments that accompany sin as it occurs. Either one of which God is at liberty to decline. The first of these judgments we call, technically, remedial. The second we call final. Let me explain it a bit more.

In remedial judgment, God brings something to pass in the person's life or in the life of the entity that causes them to realize they have sinned against God, that they are out of His favor, that they are under His wrath.

Something that is, as I said, remedial. That is to say, it is corrective. It is designed to turn them around. We read Isaiah 63 and 64. We did not read in those two chapters that God said to the Philistines, You help yourself.

Israel is yours. Weighed in and put them to death. We didn't read anything like that. No, instead we read God turned Himself and became their enemy. God turned them over to their own sins. God allows their hearts to be hardened.

God did not stir up His strength and come and say, God has prayed His compassion for them. Remedial judgment. I described when I began this afternoon the situation as it existed in America in earlier years.

The sudden death of three young men drowned in a boating accident. And the call to a solemn assembly to inquire, What is God saying to us? An earthquake in which nobody dies but the whole place is shaken.

What is God saying to us? Time after time after time, when these phenomena occurred, they inquired of the Lord, Lord, what do you say? And they did so with this significant understanding. A remedial judgment left unheeded will in the course of God's time turn into a final judgment.

Let me repeat that. A remedial judgment left unheeded will in the course of God's time become a final judgment. You say, well, what is a final judgment? A final judgment is a judgment in which there is neither time nor opportunity given for repentance.