The Great Day of the Lord

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Well, as I've noted already, we find ourselves now at the tail end of our study in this book of Malachi, this last book in the

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Old Testament. And hopefully by now, if you're with me at least, you have a better appreciation for what this book is all about.

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I'm not sure, I won't take a survey, but if we were to ask at the beginning of the series, what do you know about Malachi?

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It would have been interesting to hear what people knew about this minor prophetic book.

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But if someone were to ask you today as you're on your way home, or maybe you're stopping at the grocery store or something like that, what is the book of Malachi all about?

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What in the world is in this book? Hopefully you could somehow summarize it in this way, that Malachi is a prophetic book that is divided up into six disputations or parts, six back and forth rebuttals between God and the nation of Israel.

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And it was written to them after their return from exile to prompt them to covenant faithfulness.

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Now I'm not sure if you were approached in the grocery store if that's how you would answer that question exactly, but it is a back and forth between God and his people about what it means to love

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God truly and to live for him fully. And today as we close out our study now and approach this final chapter in the book of Malachi, the book really reaches its crescendo as we find the

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Lord is going to leave the nation with a concluding ultimatum. There are two options before them today.

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The great day of the Lord is coming and the people must realize that they are at a critical juncture and they stand as it were at a crossroads.

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They've been shown their errors, the errors of their ways. They've been reminded of what it means to be faithful to God's covenant.

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They have even been shown what it means to be the recipients of God's covenant love to them.

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And this closing section, there's a fork in the road and they can choose this way or that way, each with its own distinct destination.

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And it's almost as if, as I was reading this, it is like Malachi is standing in the place of Moses, the giver of the law.

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When Moses stood before that great crowd in the second reading of the law and addressed the people in Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 19,

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Moses said this, he said, Before them in these final six verses of Malachi is life or death.

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Blessing or curse. After everything that we have looked at in this book thus far, in this final chapter,

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God is preparing his people for the great day of responsibility when he will call all accounts into order.

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When people will either stand or fall before him. And so perhaps this is why this passage was so difficult to prepare this week is because it is a heavy passage in many respects about the just judgment of God.

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And whether you appreciate it or not, this final section for us is immensely valuable.

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A person can think, a pastor, an elder, a preacher can sit at home and wonder to themselves what is a passage about God's judgment?

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How is that going to edify God's people this week? How is it going to bless God's people? You might be sitting here going, how is a passage about God's judgment going to feed my soul today after the week that I have had?

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And I think it's immensely valuable. And I'll give you a couple of reasons why it is.

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I think it's rooted in the fact that there are two major deficiencies in this area.

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The first is this, that we live in a culture that rejects any notion of accountability.

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And the fact of the matter is that we're surrounded not only by a secular culture that rejects accountability, but in many respects, not to browbeat, but in many respects we're surrounded by a

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Christian culture that doesn't think much about accountability either. To the point, in fact, that it is not uncommon to find men who stand in the pulpit who refuse to preach on the topic of the doctrine of hell or refuse to emphasize when it is appropriate the wrath of God or, as one popular

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TV preacher refuses to speak about, even sin itself out of fear that it would turn seekers away.

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Outside, in the contemporary Western church, we are afraid of speaking about God's wrath, of speaking of God's judgment, of speaking even of the eternal destination of those who die in their sins.

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But it can be easy to talk about those outside the church. Let's talk about ourselves for a second.

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That we too are not exempt from this malady. But yet this insidious defect is alive and well in us also.

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And how many of us have to admit, whether in the past, true in the past or true in the present, that we have entertained sinful thoughts, entertained sinful behavior patterns and gone on for days or weeks or even months without the consideration that we will one day stand before the judgment seat of Christ to whom we must give an account, an account for those sins in particular.

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Don't you see it, brethren, that sometimes we live like there isn't a judgment either. But the second malady that we see, the second reason why this is important for us to consider is because many churches simply do not know how to prepare

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Christians or the surrounding world, for that matter, for the great day of God's judgment.

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In more pulpits than we care to admit, the gospel is often assumed rather than preached.

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The doctrines of heaven and hell are referenced frequently but rarely taught on.

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And there's a glaring lack, I would say. One of the areas where we see our deficiency perhaps in our understanding of the knowledge of God's judgment is there is a glaring lack of urgency in evangelism.

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That we do not think about the eternal destination of the lost and therefore we are not that concerned for the lost.

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The church has in many ways failed to think biblically about judgment.

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And this is evidenced by an initiative that I discovered a number of years ago that I think is worth reflecting on.

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I thought about whether I should include it or not. But there was, if anyone's familiar with the

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Left Behind series, the Tim LaHaye books, the fictional books about the pre -tribulational rapture.

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If you have more questions about that, talk to me about it afterwards. But the Tim LaHaye, the Left Behind franchise produced a series of VHS tapes in the late 1990s,

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I think it was 1999 or 2000. And the VHS tapes were entitled, Have You Been Left Behind?

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And even though this was based on a fictional book and on an eschatological perspective that I myself do not hold to, the premise was this, that this

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VHS series or this VHS movie would be created and purchased by Christians and by churches and left in conspicuous places.

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So if we were in this room permanently, we would maybe leave it on the resource table or leave half a dozen copies in our library to be found.

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So that when the rapture occurred and the church and all of the children and all of the babies were gathered up and the parents were wondering where their children were and the people were wondering where the

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Christians were, that because of their curiosity, because of their need to know what had happened, they would go to the churches or they would go to their

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Christian friend's house and there they would find on their nightstand a video entitled,

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Have You Been Left Behind? And that video would prepare people who had been left behind for the coming great day of God's judgment.

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Now when I see that, and I have seen that in churches in Edmonton, faithful churches, so not to disparage them, but when

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I see that, I appreciate the conscientiousness that we see in their desire to reach the lost.

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I can appreciate that. But one of the weaknesses of that, I would say, is that many of the churches and the individuals who use that were more concerned with preparing people for the coming day of judgment after they were gone than while they were still alive and walking on the earth today.

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We, many of us, fail to think about God's judgment biblically,

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Christianly, but in the passage that is before us, we are confronted by this head on, because we see here that God has a great day coming when he will settle all the counts, when he will judge the living and the dead, and he would have us to be ready now.

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And so, with our Bibles open to Malachi 4, you've been waiting patiently, let's read

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Malachi chapter 4 and verse 1. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the evildoers will be stubble.

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The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

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Now, today, what I've done, and you can find the layout or the outline of the sermon in the insert in your bulletin, we're going to look at three elements, three key elements that we find in this text.

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I'm going to highlight the first two, especially, with a brief touch on the third, and so don't let the layout of that sermon make you think that third point is extra long.

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It'll be the shortest of the three. But we're going to consider the judgment of God and the reward of the righteous and how it is that we prepare ourselves for each of these.

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So the first element that I want us to look at is this, number one, an oven for the evildoer.

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What a title for my first point, an oven for the evildoer. Now, at the onset,

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I need to acknowledge that the title of this point is stunning. It might even seem distasteful, insensitive, but I promise you,

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I'm not trying to be just a shock jock in the pulpit, but I want to take terminology that is rooted in the text, that is graphic itself in its nature, and I want to put it before you for what it is.

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It is graphic, an oven for the evildoer. As God begins to draw this book to a close, we find here this shocking picture of the eternal fate that awaits those who persist in their sin and the rebellion and in their evildoing.

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And my aim today is to so paint a picture of this fate that all of you would be spared from it.

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Children, I want you to listen very carefully to this sermon. It is a sermon about the judgment of God, and I would have you to hear it and to take heed of what it says.

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But adults, those of you who profess faith in Christ, those of you who don't know where you stand,

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I would have you to listen to this and to take heed that you would be spared. For those in this room who still abide under the judgment of God, I would have you to flee for your lives.

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And for those who have been saved from it, who are certain of your salvation, that your confidence, your faith is in Jesus Christ, that you would praise

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God forever for his salvation from this and live accordingly. And so, verse 1 seeks to capture our attention with this word, behold.

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The Hebrew word can be translated, lo, look, see, see for yourself.

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Here we find a shocking picture of what is to come for those who die in their sin.

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God wants us to pay attention to what he is about to say. In verse 1, we're told there is a day coming when this world will see the full, final, and ultimate recompense of the wicked.

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On that day, the world as we know it, the world as you know it, will be changed forever.

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And it is certainly coming, behold. And the Lord God would have each of us to behold and to contemplate this sobering truth for ourselves.

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And you might recall, as we have made our way through the book of Malachi, that there has been, as an undercurrent throughout the book, this sense of expectancy that God is addressing the nation of Israel in some of the same old sins that they usually fall victim to or dive headlong into, is probably a better way of putting it.

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That is, maintaining a form of worship, but with no heart. Maintaining a form of worship where the lips are near, but where the hearts are far.

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And God is preparing them for something that is to come. Malachi, which means my messenger, he is dealing with the nation as his messenger, but he's not just dealing with their sins in a vacuum.

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He's dealing with their sins in this, we could say, pathway of expectancy.

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He is not only addressing the nation of Israel, but he is having them look over the horizon at what is to come.

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And you might remember that we saw this, if you turn with me to Malachi chapter 3 and verse 2, that in just one chapter earlier, the

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Lord, through Malachi, had the nation anticipating something that was to come.

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We heard that God was about to send one who was like a refiner's fire, one who was like a fuller soap.

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And we heard how this messenger of the covenant, when we were studying this together in chapter 3 and verse 2, was none other than Jesus Christ.

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You may recall that I quoted from John Piper, it's a vivid picture, he said that when

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Christ was coming, he was coming to his people as a refiner's fire, not as a forest fire.

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That he was coming with precision. He had a specific mission in his first coming to purify and to refine and to save.

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It was laser focused in its orientation, and that was to accomplish redemption on behalf of his people.

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And so we've been living in this book of expectancy, but we have shifted gears now in chapter 4 from a refining fire in chapter 3 and verse 2, now in chapter 4 to a forest fire.

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This is not a laser focused, refining flame, but an all -consuming fire, unlike anything the world has ever seen.

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In fact, we see that it adopts that forest fire language. The evildoer, it says, will be like stubble.

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What is stubble? I think of children. Do you remember the story of Samson? Do you remember when he tied the fox's tails together and he set all the fields ablaze with the torches?

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No, that he sent these foxes out and they burned down the fields to stubble.

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God will set them ablaze, it says, so that they will be left with neither root nor branch.

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That is forest fire language. It reminds me, or it makes me think, perhaps, is a better way to say it, of the intensity of this particular fire, that they will be neither root nor branch.

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I'm not sure if anyone here has ever been to Hawaii, or specifically to the island of Maui.

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I've been privileged enough with my family to go a couple of times with my in -laws. And there's one city, or little town, in Maui known as Lahaina.

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And maybe you're familiar with Lahaina. It was in the news not that long ago that there was a fire on the hillside that swept through because of the hurricane -forced winds that were passing by Maui, and essentially burned up all of Lahaina.

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There were 2 ,200 buildings destroyed in Lahaina. 4 ,000 vehicles.

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The fires were so hot that of the 4 ,000 vehicles that were burnt, many of them, their rims of their vehicles had melted.

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Apparently, it had gone beyond the temperature of the aluminum rims. And yet, as the fire swept through the whole city, destroying the whole of the downtown, there's a bunion tree that is in the middle.

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And what they discovered was that when they dug up the roots of the bunion tree, they said, it's going to be okay.

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It's going to live. $5 .5 billion in damage around this bunion tree.

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And the roots are alive and well. But when God comes with his judgment, there will be neither root nor branch.

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And the language of verse 1 confirms this. When he says, the Lord says, that it's going to be like the fire of an oven, burning like an oven.

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This is a vivid picture of intense heat. Now, when we think about this, oftentimes we read the text, we read our own understanding into it, and we picture a

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GE oven, like an electric or a gas convection oven. But this is something that far surpasses that.

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This was a giant stone oven that would be used to fire clay pots.

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And even with a wood -fired kiln such as that, it would produce temperatures of some 1 ,500 degrees

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Fahrenheit. Enough to turn anything into ash. And so what we're dealing with here is the judgment of God, the judgment of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, in his second coming, when Christ comes again.

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Oh, he has come once, and he has come to save his people from their sins. But when

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Christ comes again, he is coming to judge the earth. And the question

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I have for you, whether an adult or a child, believer or an unbeliever, is this, are you prepared?

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Scripture affirms over and over and over again that Christ will be the judge of the earth.

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John 5 .22, we're told, for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgments to the

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Son. And the purpose of this judgment, we're told in Hebrews chapter 9, that it is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment.

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That there will be a judgment when each person dies and goes to be with the

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Lord, if he should not return first. But there is a greater judgment, where we will all stand before the living

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God and give an account. And Louis Burckhoff, in his systematic theology, he says this, it will serve the purpose rather of displaying before all rational creatures the declarative glory of God in a formal forensic act which magnifies on the one hand his holiness and righteousness, and on his other hand, his grace and mercy.

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And those who have been found without Christ, apart from Christ, will be cast into hell.

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Hell is a place of eternal conscious torment for those who have rejected

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Christ and died outside of him. There are many people who would contest that this doctrine simply is not, that it's not true, that there is no hell.

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But scripture again and again and again affirms it. In Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2, we're told that after the judgment, it says many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

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After judgment, it is conscious torment that Matthew 22 says that there it is defined as a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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It is a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die. Charles Spurgeon said, maybe as I paint this picture of hell, you'll understand why

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I struggle with this passage. Spurgeon said, there is no sleep in hell.

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Oh, a blessing. What a blessing it would be if sleep could enter the habitation of the damned.

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Have you ever had a bad day? Or a long day? Or a hard day? And said, I'm just gonna go to bed.

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I've had enough. I'm just going to sleep now. There is no sleep in hell.

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Isaiah 44, 22 says, there is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked. And it is eternally conscious that the same mental faculties that we enjoy today, perhaps they will be more enhanced still, but God will not send people to hell in a coma, but alive and awake and thinking and conscious of their surroundings.

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Revelation 14, verses 9 to 11, I'm just going to pick from the tail end.

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We read about those who receive the mark of the beast on their foreheads and on their hands. They will drink the wine of God's wrath.

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And it says, the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night.

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Revelation 20, they will be tormented day and night forever. Hell is not a pit stop.

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It is forever. We don't hear a lot of quotations, a lot of teaching on hell in the modern day.

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There is some, but I went back to the Puritans who weren't afraid to address this topic.

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And some of the things they have to say are just shocking. Thomas Watson said this, thus it is in hell.

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They would die, but they cannot. The wicked shall be always dying, but never dead.

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The smoke of the furnace ascends forever and ever. Oh, this word ever, he says, breaks the heart.

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Wicked men now think that the Sabbath is long. And they think of prayers as long.

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Perhaps you thought my pastoral prayer was long. But oh, how long it will be to lie in hell forever and ever.

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Thomas Brooks, one of his contemporaries, said the damned themselves shall live as long in hell as God himself shall live in heaven.

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One 18th century, 19th century preacher said, in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease should infect the whole district.

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Hell is God's leper colony where sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope.

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What do we do with these truths? If you've had a hard week, how do you take heart from this?

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For believers, I say this, first of all, that we must embrace this doctrine of hell because it is representative of the divine attributes and character of God.

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It is unnatural to us, but it is altogether natural to God. It's been said men hate hell for the same reason that murderers hate the gallows.

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But as the redeemed, we must learn to accept the doctrine of hell and even more to embrace it, but to embrace it without making light of it.

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Hell should never be a subject that we joke about, nor should it be something that we speak flippantly about as we go about our days.

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I'm reminded of two Scottish Presbyterian pastors who were walking together once, Robert Murray McShane and Andrew Bonar who wrote his biography and McShane looked at Bonar and he said, what did you preach on this week?

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And Bonar said, I preached on Psalm 9 verse 17, the wicked shall be turned into hell.

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And when McShane heard this, he said, were you able to preach it with tenderness? We should find it very difficult to talk about hell with dry eyes.

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But more than that, it should move us to evangelize. When we see Paul's heart towards the

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Jews, he said, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

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And it calls up one popular quote that we often hear that if sinners be damned, let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.

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And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees imploring them to say, if hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one go unwarned and unprayed for.

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But if you're an unbeliever, how do you apply this?

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Children, adults, if you are not certain of your standing before God, don't live another moment in this place.

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As you've heard me say before and I am fond to say it again, do not sleep, do not rest until you are right with God by repentance, that is turning to God and faith, with placing your faith in Jesus Christ.

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God commands everyone everywhere to repent. If you don't feel like it, do it because God commands it and place your faith in Jesus.

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God has not commanded us to walk on hands and knees around the world a dozen times that we might be saved, but he sent his own dear son to die on the cross for sin, to take the just wrath of God, the full cup and to drink every last drop, squeeze dry.

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And he offers that salvation to you by repenting of your sin and believing in Christ.

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Now with that, the weight of that on our shoulders and perhaps off my shoulders, let's go to verses 2 and 3.

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But for you who fear my name, if I might just pause for a moment,

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God would be perfectly just to speak verse 1 and then at the end of verse 1 say the end of Malachi, but, that is one of the most beautiful words in the

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Bible, but for you, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

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You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when

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I act, says the Lord. And so we have an oven for the evildoer and on the other side, sunshine, if I can call it that, sunshine for the righteous.

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Just as there will be a great day for the recompense of the wicked, there is a coming day of vindication for the righteous.

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And deep down inside, if you don't feel it, our hearts, let me assure you, our hearts are longing for it.

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MacArthur writes on this text, he says, while the wicked will be devoured by the heat of his wrath, those who fear him will feel his warmth with healing in the rays of his sunshine.

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Now let's look then, oh this most important qualifier, who is it then that shall enjoy that the son of this righteousness and find healing in its wings?

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It is said, for those who fear my name. Now who are those?

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Is it just anyone? Is it a Muslim that will meet at the mosque down the road this

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Friday, who they fear Allah? Who is it that fears

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God's name? We find the answer all throughout scripture as those who are partakers in the new covenant.

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That in the new covenant we are told God would put his fear in their hearts. They are the new covenant saints of God.

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It is characteristic of the righteous in Christ. Is it characteristic of you that you have placed your faith in Christ?

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Yes. And you fear him. It was grace that taught my heart to fear.

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And grace my fears relieved. That the experience of the Christian life is not just that I am saved and then

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I go headlong into the sins of the old man, of the former shame, of the former

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Sam, of the former man, the former woman, but the Christian life, the one who is truly saved is one who has placed their faith in Christ, that Christ is their only hope.

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And just as they have placed their faith in Christ, not they, but God has placed his fear in them so that they fear him and they revere him and they love him and they treasure him.

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Do you fear God? And is it a fear that God himself has placed in you?

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Or is it a fear that you are somehow trying to manufacture or muster or bring about?

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The healthy Christian will fear God. And for those who fear God, he is coming as the

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Son of Righteousness. Look at this language. The Son of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

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Now we would completely miss this if not for some of the tremendous work that has been done by scholars and archaeologists who have dug up much of Israel and the ancient

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Near East. But in the ancient Near East there was an image that would often be placed on stone walls and other things of a sun disk with wings.

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It was adopted universally in a number of Near Ancient cultures. Each with its own varying meaning.

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But if you were to go to ancient Israel, what you would find is that in the nation of Israel in the house of Judah amongst the kings they had a seal.

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And the seal is found on a number of different possessions with the sun disk and the wings appearing from the sun disk.

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You can look it up on Google this week if you can't picture it. A sun disk with wings. And surrounding the sun disk and the wings it says belonging to the king.

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That the king himself, the Lord Jesus Christ perhaps playing on the cultural practices of the nation.

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He is coming as the king to his people, to those who belong to him.

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And he comes with healing in his wings. We think of Christ, how he speaks of the nation, how he would have gathered

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Jerusalem under his wings as a bird her chicks. And here

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Christ comes with healing in his wings. And it's not just physical healing but it is synonymous with salvation.

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Isaiah 53 in verse 5. One of the quintessential

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Old Testament passages on the Messiah reads like this.

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But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

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And with his wounds we are healed. Here we have

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Christ coming in all of his glory. Abhorrent to the lost.

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Abhorrent to the wicked. They are climbing under rocks and hills and mountains and calling for the rocks to fall on their heads and to crush them.

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And the righteous in Christ longing for his coming. Longing for his appearing.

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Waiting for him. Hastening the day when he will come and make all things right.

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Here we see a picture of Christ. From one perspective the judge of all the earth.

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And from another perspective the savior of mankind. And we're told that when he comes we will go out leaping like calves from the stall.

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Now, I'm not sure how many people here grew up on a farm. I did not grow up on a farm. My wife did.

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But I would imagine that if you have a calf bundled up full of energy and you've been feeding it and feeding it and feeding it in its stall and then one day one of the farm kids comes over and he slides the lock and opens the gate that that calf is going to be overjoyed to get out of the stall and to enjoy life as he was meant to live it.

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To wander the pastures to experience what it means to be a cow in all of its grandeur.

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Humor me if you would. We will know when Christ comes what it is like to be a man or a woman

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Christ to live life to the freest and to the fullest in all of its grandeur.

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I'm not making a political statement here so do not take this as a political statement, please. But just a comment that as all of the truckers and the protesters and everyone descended on Ottawa calling for freedom honking their horns and doing all that they did the freedom that they had in mind was not even a fraction of what we will enjoy in Christ for all of eternity when he comes.

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Do you believe that? Do you even understand that? That so many of us live with this impending sense of doom that if I were to die that I would lose every good thing that I have in this life.

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The Lord has blessed me with a wife and two children and a fantastic life as far as human beings are concerned.

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And yet it is not death to die. It is not loss for Christ to come or for you to go to him but like a calf running out of the stall.

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You enjoy true freedom, true life as it was intended to be. In verse 3, some people might hear verse 3 and be disturbed.

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What in the world does the Christian have any business doing treading down the wicked?

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For they will be ashes under the soles of your feet. This is the picture.

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Again, in Malachi's day what would happen is it would rain and they didn't have gravel trucks or cement trucks to pave pathways.

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They had dirt paths when they went and the livestock would go across them and there would be excrement on the path and all kinds of things and when it would rain you'd get deep ruts and it would be dirty and mucky and gross and so what they would do is take the ashes from the fire and spread them across to absorb some of that moisture and to make a level path for those walking on these paths.

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And this is the picture that for those who have endured who have endured the exploits of the wicked of those who want to oppress

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God's people and who want to make a name for themselves in the world and to rebel against God and to spurn

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Jesus Christ for those who would kill

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Christians for sport there will come a day when the

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Christian's path will be made level with their ashes that God's people will be vindicated that there will be justice and righteousness in the land.

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Now if you think that that is still a grotesque picture perhaps this will help you.

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I think of the believers our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in North Korea who again for sport their government and the leaders there will put them to death and it's been reported

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I'm not sure how true it is but it has been reported that for many of those

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Christians who are persecuted by the North Korean government they will suspend them over open fires to allow their bodies to be burned while they are yet still alive or even worse that they will bind them and lay them on the ground and run them over with steam rollers from foot to face that is how they are put to death.

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One day those Christians will arise in Christ and they are not going to drive steam rollers over their oppressors bodies but they will tread them under their feet.

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That is what they deserve. And the Lord in His grace has saved us for that purpose.

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It is not something we take into our own hands. It is not a sword that we pick up now but it is a hope that we patiently wait for that God will have

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His day and we in Christ will be vindicated. So brothers and sisters let us hope in this justice of God.

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Let us hope patiently for that day when it is to come. And let this give us assurance that Christ is coming and when

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He comes we will be healed we will be saved fully and finally. I tried to take some passages that we wouldn't normally think of with respect to heaven just to meditate on but as it relates to assurance

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Isaiah 25, 8 and 9 says He will swallow up death forever this reads like it is from Revelation and the

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Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of His people

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He will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken it will be said on that day behold this is our

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God we have waited for Him that He might save us this is the

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Lord we have waited for Him let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation that we can have assurance brethren that if we are in Christ and we have waited for Him that He has saved us and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

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One Puritan said wherever thou meetest a Christian wherever you meet a

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Christian He is going to heaven what a profound thought and whenever that Christian meets you dear

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Christian He might say the same that in contrast to the eternal conscious torment of the wicked there will be in Christ's presence everlasting and conscious joy no longer

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Revelation 22 says will there be anything accursed but the throne of God and of the

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Lamb will be in it and His servants will worship Him they will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads oh

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I want His name on my forehead and the night will be no more and they will need no light or lamp or sun for the

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Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever in the presence in your presence the psalmist says there is fullness of joy at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore

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Matthew Henry says the day which the wicked the day on which the wicked will burn like an oven will be to the righteous as the morning and it is that that they wait for and children perhaps adults my children often ask the question but dad what will heaven be like will we know each other there

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I love what one theologian said he said when someone asked him will we know each other when we get to heaven he said we won't really truly know each other until we get to heaven that the

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Lord will give us such clarity of mind and such mental faculties that we will finally and fully be able to know one another and to know what it is to be a

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Christian and to know what it is that Jesus Christ dies for sinners like us we will have all eternity to meditate on the gospel of Jesus Christ and in a billion years we will not understand the magnitude of it that we will stand in awe that we will never be bored of the glories of Jesus Christ on the cross taking our sin that we might be counted righteous in him by faith alone we will need all of eternity to grasp that truth and so how do we prepare

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I said it would be fast verses 4, 5 and 6 remember the law of my servant

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Moses the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel behold

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I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children the hearts of children to their fathers lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction the third element that I want to highlight very quickly is this we must be prepared and how do we prepare well we can just look at verses 4, 5 and 6 and what do we see there but the preparations of Christ's coming in verse 4 we see the law of my servant

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Moses at Horeb Horeb was another name for Mount Sinai we have the law and then in verse 5

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I will send you Elijah the prophet we have the law and the prophets and who do the law and the prophets bear witness to but Jesus Christ and so how do we prepare oh to meditate on Christ to make the gospel of Christ your forever acquaintance in meditation that we should be and I say it so often and I will say it again that we should be, must be, need to be a people that are obsessed with consumed with the truths of the gospel and the person of Jesus Christ so that when we wake up in the morning we say good morning

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Lord my hope is in Jesus Christ today and when I go to bed at night and when you go to bed at night we can put our heads on the pillow and say whether I live or die in my sleep tonight my hope is in Jesus Christ and when we have the best day that we have ever had in our lives and we wake up at 5 in the morning just as we had planned and we read our

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Bibles and we pray the way we ought to have and husbands you love your wives as you know you are commanded to do and wives you submit to your husbands and we speak gently and kindly to our children and we go to work and we give the very best day that we have ever given at our jobs so that everyone comes and says wow you are on fire today and we say then in my best of frames my hope is in Jesus Christ I am altogether insufficient but my hope is in Jesus Christ and for some of you today you ask if you've had the worst week in the world it feels like what hope do

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I have from this passage that when everything is going wrong and you feel like a poor and a miserable and a wretched sinner and you wonder how can

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I even go another day how could God love a one such as I you look into the mirror of the gospel and you say my hope is in Jesus Christ we believe and then we live in light of it that we live in light of this truth remember the law of my servant

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Moses that word remember comes from a Hebrew word which doesn't mean just to remember but to do we love

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Christ our hope is in Christ but Christians we are not antinomians that is those who are without a law but the

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Lord has given us his full counsel let us prepare let us live in light of what he has said in his word to love it and to keep it in 1

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John 3 .3 it says all those who have this hope this hope of Christ returning thus purify themselves believe on Christ and purify yourself at least in the biblical sense to obey

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God to give yourself to loving him to living for him to do what the Israelites did not do in Malachi's day but to offer him true worship to say not only

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Lord do I know that you have loved me but I will love you also to give our very best offerings to give the very best years of our lives

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I'm not that old but I'm old enough to appreciate that the way that I spent my time at times when

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I was single and when I was in my twenties and in my early thirties that there was a lot of lost time there young men, young women serve the

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Lord in your youth give him the very best of your lives now do not wait until you are old and feeble and cannot raise your arm or raise your voice but with the lung capacity that he has given you twenty -two, twenty -three year old man or woman use it and sing and praise and live to the glory of God and so to conclude

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Romans 11, 22 note then the kindness and the severity of God severity to those who have fallen but God's kindness to you provided you continue in his kindness

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Let's go to the Lord in prayer Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church If you would like to keep up with us you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

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Instagram at gracechurchyeg all one word Finally, you can visit us at our website graceedmonton .ca