Expecting God To Judge - [Ecclesiastes 3:16-22]

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If you look around the world, what do you see? Righteousness?
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Justice? If you watch the news, you look around your neighborhoods, is that what you see? Justice? Will there ever be any justice, or is this just the way we have to live?
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It lends itself to a bigger question. If it seems like there's no justice, is
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God just? Doesn't He punish the wicked? Doesn't He take care of unrighteous deeds and unrighteous people?
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Where is God in all this mess? It's a very good question. And if you'll take your
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Bibles and turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, we're going to work through that very issue today. It seems like the world is, not seems like, but the world is wicked and sinful and unjust and full of unrighteousness.
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And will anybody ever have to pay? Corrupt people have money.
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Righteous people get sick. It seems like everything is upside down. And if you look at it only from that perspective, the human perspective, life is going to be pretty frustrating for you.
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It'd be, for me, full of vexation. Is this it? People get away with murder.
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People get put in jail for murder when they don't murder. What is going on? And Ecclesiastes asks good questions and gives good answers.
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And so we're going verse by verse through the book of Ecclesiastes and we're coming to chapter 3 today.
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But I thought we'd give a little bit of review in this book that's called Wisdom Literature.
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And you'll see that word wisdom a lot, matter of fact, in this book. And this book reads well.
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It's full of all kinds of grammatical things with rhetorical questions and parallelisms and some sarcasm in there once in a while.
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It just is written well. And it asks the question, is there more than life than this?
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It asks the question, how can we enjoy life when there's so much pain and suffering and toil?
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I mean, he's right in chapter 1 verse 2. Everything's vanity. It doesn't last. It's puzzling.
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It's full of riddles and smarter people than myself haven't been able to solve the problem.
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So what do we do? And so the first thing the writer reminds us to do, remember, is found in chapter 2 verse 24.
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You can't get satisfaction in this world. So from whom should you get it?
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Verse 24 of chapter 2. There's nothing better for a person than he should eat, drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
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This also I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from Him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
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In other words, the world is very difficult. There's all kinds of trials and stresses and pains and issues that go on.
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Very real ones, very hurtful ones. And so you can, though, realize that the good that you have in life is from God's hand.
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A giving God, a God, of course, we realize how generous He is when the Father gives His Son to die for our sins.
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Michael Eaton said, Ecclesiastes defends the life of faith in a generous God by pointing to the grimness of the alternative.
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In other words, if you don't say, life is very difficult, but I receive some good things from God's hand, good things physically, good things spiritually, for the pagan, what does life give except total frustration?
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But we know, don't we not, that the Lord is good and does good. I love Psalm 107,
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O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness. That's what Ecclesiastes says, when the world is difficult,
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God still exists and He can be praised for what He does and who He is. Nahum 1, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
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James 117, every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above. And so we realize, yes, because of our sin we deserve a lot of chastisement and punishment, but we get wonderful things.
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Secondly, found in chapter 3, to keep the alliteration, sometimes you have to avoid all alliteration, but not today, you not only enjoy things from God's good hand, but you embrace
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God's sovereignty over everything. The word embrace is even a wonderful word. It means to put your arms around something.
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And when you lose a loved one, when you get that diagnosis, when something bad happens and you lose your job, you need to put your arms around something as it were, to hold on to something.
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And it better just not be error. And so what do you put your arms around? The sovereign God who has a time for everything.
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And remember in chapter 3, verses 1 through 8, there's a time for everything. And it's just showing you with great poetry,
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God is sovereign. God controls. God rules. Martin Luther said, our
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Lord God does work like a printer who sets the letters backwards. We see and feel well his setting, but we shall see the print yonder in the life to come.
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It's like everything's backwards. It's almost like reading Hebrew. We read left to right. Hebrew reads right to left.
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And you look at the world, and it seems like it's right to left. It seems like it's backwards. It's typeset wrongly.
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So how do we look at everything? And so we saw last week, we look at things through the lens of God's sovereignty.
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It doesn't seem like he's sovereign, but he is. We're not certain he's sovereign with our eyesight, but we walk by faith in the
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Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. Remember the word that's used in Ecclesiastes, for God?
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It's Elohim. It means sovereign. It means creator. It means he is in charge.
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It's used nine times. Let's see, I think if I remember properly. For every thousand words in Ecclesiastes, the word
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Elohim comes up nine times. Over and over and over. And what's the response?
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Verse 14 of chapter 3. If God is so great, God is so magnificent, God is so sovereign and reigns and rules and does whatever he wants.
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Verse 14, I perceive that whatever God does, chapter 3, verse 14, it endures forever.
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Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken away or not anything taken from it. God has done it.
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What's our response? So that people fear before him. We are to fear
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God. As Christians, it's not kind of the crouching, servile fear of I'm going to get executed,
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I'm going to be tortured. That's what the unbeliever should be thinking. This God I sin against and there's a payday one day.
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It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. It's appointed for man once to die and then what?
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They should be very, very afraid. Petrified. Nail biting like. But we have a
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Father because of the Lord Jesus. And so when we stand before God, yes, we fear him, but it's changed.
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It's a family fear. It's a son or daughter like fear. Where your dad is so great.
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Your father is so wonderful. You want to honor him. You want to please him. You want to obey him.
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That's the kind of fear there is for the Christian. God is our father and we have Jesus as a redeemer.
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So we respect God. We love God and we want to make sure we please him. And now we come to the third
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E for what we're going to do today. And that is expect. Enjoy, embrace and now number three found in verses 16 and following.
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Expect. What shall I expect? Dear Christian, you should expect that God is going to make every wrong right.
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That's the message for today. You should expect that while people might not have to pay on earth, there's an ultimate payday.
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While sometimes it seems like justice goes slowly, God's justice grinds finally.
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And so now we're going to look at this passage today and we're going to be able to say this. It seems like there's so much injustice.
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But I don't need to let that worry me. I don't need to let that vex me. I don't need to let that even concern my mind.
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Pray for righteousness, yes. Vote for the right kind of leaders, yes. Do whatever you want. If you want to be in law enforcement, great.
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But God is managing this. God is sovereign over this. And every sin in the universe will be paid for.
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Either on Jesus or on them. And so as Paul would write from the Old Testament, Vengeance is mine,
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God said, I will what? Expect my people to go repay. Just let that burden go off of you.
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The world is a chaotic mess full of corruption. And I know there's something instinctive in us that wants to fix it.
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We want right things to happen. But since we can't do that very well, we need to make sure we rest in who
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God is and say, You know what? We're expecting judgment one day. We are expecting God to judge every wrong.
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Let's take a look at this in chapter 3. Verse 16.
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This is designed to help you walk by faith. So you can have joy. You don't have to be so full of angst about this.
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Anxiety. No, no. Chapter 3, verse 16. This is good wisdom literature. It makes us wise to see things rightly.
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Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness.
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And in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. Do you know in the place where there should be the most justice, the courts, there's injustice?
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Do you know there are wicked people and corrupt people on appellate courts? Superior courts?
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Supreme courts? What do we do in the place where there's justice? We're not talking about some kind of Vegas casino where we think, yeah, built -in injustice.
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We're not talking about mob rule. We're not talking about mafia rules. We're talking about in the courts there's injustice.
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That's what he sees because it's true. I mean, here's justice in America all too often.
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If you've got enough money, you get justice. You buy the right lawyers, the right kind of people to pick, the right forensic people, and you get the justice you want.
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It doesn't seem fair. People are judging based on background, based on economics, based on skin color, based on this, based on that.
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Where's the justice? I mean, when the law courts are perverted, what do we do?
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Remember Lady Justice? What's the main thing that you notice about Lady Justice, the statue of Lady Justice?
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What do you notice? Well, the scales, but what else? The blindfold. What's that blindfold even mean?
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You know, in the 16th century, they started putting a blindfold on Lady Justice. And according to one account, it's not to show that she was impartial, although she should be.
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Here was Lady Justice, perfectly described by Ecclesiastes. In the 16th century, she had a blindfold on because she was seemingly blind to all the injustice in the world.
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How can Lady Justice do anything when she sees it all? It's like she's blind to justice. Later on, it meant, well, she should be impartial.
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But early on, Lady Justice wore a blindfold because it was satire. She doesn't seem to care at all.
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So you look at the world and you think, what is going on in the world? The halls of justice, one writer said, are the corridors of corruption.
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Now, every good preacher, if they're worth their salt, they preach to themselves. So here's how it works.
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I'm just going to open up the curtain into the pastoral studies so you get it observed. I begin studying on Sunday night and Monday and kind of a day off, but still looking and then working, working, working, knowing
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I need to preach to a congregation that wants Christ -centered, verse -by -verse preaching. And I'm really involved in the text and what does
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God say? What does He mean? How do I preach it to these dear people? And if I'm not careful,
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Sunday comes by and I have forgotten to preach to myself. If I'm going to preach to you about not being anxious, well,
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I should be preaching to myself. Lord, yes, in fact, I was anxious. Yes, in fact, I am thankful for the one who was never anxious, the
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Lord Jesus. And He loves me and it doesn't affect my relationship with Him in terms of He doesn't love me less or more because I'm a son and I might be disciplined, but I work through that whole thing.
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So every good preacher, about Wednesday or Thursday, they should start to say to themselves, have I preached this message to myself?
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I had a lot of crazy things going on this week and I've been thinking a lot about the sovereignty of God.
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And I thought, well, duh, Mike. You've got all these tests for pneumonia and tests for prostate cancer follow -up and all these other things and you're getting all anxious.
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You better start preaching to yourself. What have you been preaching about, Mike? Ah, the sovereignty of God.
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It's so much easier just to tell you what to do. Just kidding. So I'm one of you.
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We'll have communion shortly and I'm on the floor with you. I'm not better or greater or anything else.
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We are all in this together. Now I'm purposely the preacher, yes, but I need this to settle down into my soul.
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Do I really believe that God's sovereign over cancer? Just think about the worst things that are going on in your life now.
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Do I really believe that this is under the sovereign hand of God? Do I believe those tests or this thing at work or whatever it might be, medical issues and all these things, is it from God's sovereign hand?
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I have to preach to myself. I said to Luke this week, I said, you know, all this lung stuff
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I'm going through and maybe I should have just went and got monoclonal and everything else but it was too late. And Luke was nice about it but Luke then started preaching to me.
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It's one thing to have you have to preach to yourself but when your 25 -year -old son preaches to you and he said, well, dad, in light of God's sovereignty, that was the best thing that could ever happen to you.
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Okay, Luke, got to go. Solomon sees what's going on and now he says,
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I'm going to preach to myself. Notice verse 17. I said in my heart. In other words,
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I'm going to preach to myself. Pay attention, Solomon. What do I need to pay attention to?
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I need to pay attention to what I've just been preaching and here's what I've been preaching. There's a time for everything. A time to be born.
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A time to die. God makes everything beautiful in its time. God is sovereign over time. Time, time, time, time.
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Is there a time for justice? Verse 17. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
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God can judge but He is going to judge. I need to preach that to myself because I look around and I think,
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I want justice. There is going to be a day where every wrong will be judged.
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It's driving us to faith. It's driving us to hope. It's driving us to rest. We don't have to manage the world. We don't have to worry.
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We don't have to fret. God will judge the righteous and the unrighteous.
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The self -righteous and the righteous. I mean, here's what we probably could have expected in Ecclesiastes 3.
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Let's reread the verse. Verse 17. In verse 16 we've seen there's corruption in courts. Verse 17.
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So I said in my heart, all is vanity. But He didn't say that, did
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He? He didn't say all is vanity because He's giving us the solution now. Another son of David is described this way in 1
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Peter 2. He committed no sin. Talking about Jesus. Neither was deceit found in His mouth.
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When He was reviled, He does not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten. But Jesus continued entrusting
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Himself to Him who judges justly. Isn't that what we're supposed to do, dear congregation?
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Just like the Lord Jesus. There's injustice. Could there be a greater injustice than the innocent
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Son of God put on trial one after another after another and then crucified? And what did Jesus do?
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He entrusted Himself to His Father who judges rightly. There's a right time for judgment.
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It might be in this world and it might be after this world. But we know God knows. Revelation 6 .10
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They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
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There is going to be judgment. Listen to what Jesus said. John 5,
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Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life.
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He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. Jesus said,
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Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the
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Son of God, and those who hear will live. For the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the
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Son also to have life in Himself. Here's the line that's important. Verse 27 of chapter 5 in John.
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And He has given the Son authority to execute judgment because He is the
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Son. Do not marvel at this, Jesus said, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear
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His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
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Solomon's confidence. Christian, your confidence should not be in the court system. Well, what if it goes to 13, the
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Supreme Court? What if it goes to 15? What if it goes down to 5? What about this? What about that? That's not where we're supposed to have our confidence.
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There's going to be judgment, ultimate judgment. Paul said on Mars Hill in Acts 17, God has fixed a day on which
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He will judge the world in righteousness by a man, the Lord Jesus, whom He has appointed. And of this,
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He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. How do we know there's going to be justice?
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Because Jesus was raised from the dead. There will be justice one day. As a matter of fact, chapter 12 of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said,
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God will bring every deed into judgment. So what
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I thought we would do just to remind you, since Ecclesiastes is a Christian book, I don't come to the book of Ecclesiastes and say,
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I don't care what was written before it, and I don't care what was written after it, because I have all of God's revelation.
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And I have New Testament revelation, later revelation, that helps inform me what the same author, the divine author, is saying in Ecclesiastes.
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We sometimes know more than the human author, do we not? And let's go to Revelation 19 to reinforce to you, dear congregation, that there's going to be justice one day either on this earth or on this day.
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Here is Jesus on this day. Remember what Luther said? Two days in my calendar, today and that day, judgment day.
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Here comes Revelation 19, Jesus on judgment day. Remember the first time
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He comes? Donkey, humble, been crying for Jerusalem.
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I wonder what His eyes are going to be like when He comes back the next time. I wonder what He's going to be writing the next time
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He comes back. Not for a saving mission, but a judgment mission. And of course as I read this, one of the things
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I say to myself is, I'm sure glad I'm a Christian. He's not coming back to judge me.
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You have to be thinking, I'm so safe and secure from all alarm, including the return of Jesus.
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Can you imagine when Jesus comes back, what's that going to be like for the people who have to give an account for their own sins.
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Jesus has paid for all our sins, and so when He comes back, He's not going to judge us for anything. We have been judged.
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But He's going to come back for other judgment. And so we go to chapter 9, and here's what I call the
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Hallelujah Chorus. Four times He says Hallelujah. And by the way, what's the word
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Hallelujah mean? Is this what they say on TV all the time? You turn on some channel. I don't even know the channels anymore.
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1942 channels, whatever you get. It used to be channel 40, I think. It's kind of TBN.
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I always thought TBN was funny because it was Trinity Broadcasting Network, but half the people they had undenied the
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Trinity, so I didn't get that. Hallah is
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Hallel, to praise, and Yah, or Yahweh, is praising Yahweh. Praising God.
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Hallelujah means praise God. Jesus is coming back. Who can say this? Verse 1. Here's the first Hallelujah, and this
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Revelation 19 verse 1, I heard, after this, what seemed to be a loud voice with a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
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Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our
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God. This rejoicing in heaven for who God is, He saves. He's glorious.
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He's powerful. There's another Hallelujah Chorus. The second one, verse 2, and it's apropos for our sermon today.
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What kind of Hallelujah is for God the Savior, who's powerful?
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That's a wonderful one, but now what about justice? Verse 2. For His judgments are true and just.
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For He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of His servants.
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Once more they cried out, Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever.
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The evil is so bad, yet God is just, and He is to be praised for that.
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Hallelujah Chorus number 3, found in verses 4 and 5, And the twenty -four elders and the four living creatures fell down, and worshipped
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God, who was seated on the throne, saying, Amen! It's true! Hallelujah! Praise the
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Lord! And from the throne came a voice, saying, Praise our
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God, all you His servants, you who fear Him, small and great.
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The fourth Hallelujah Chorus is found in verse 6. I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
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Praise the Lord! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
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He is to be praised because He's sovereign, powerful, judge, justice, comes from this
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King. How do we respond to that? Let us, verse 7, Rejoice and exalt and give
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Him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saint.
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Here's the marriage supper of the Lamb. I love officiating weddings. Daniel and Kelly, have you been to a wedding lately?
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And people are like, Well, what do we do? You know, when do we stand? When do we sit? This, that and the other? And the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, what do we do?
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It's like, okay, all eyes on the bride. When the bride comes in, you just look at her, stand, everybody keeps looking at her, all eyes locked on the bride, right?
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But here it's a little bit different because in this marriage supper all eyes are not locked on the bride. We're glad to be there, they're locked on the groom.
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Verse 9, And the angel said to me, Write this, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the
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Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.
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I fell down to his feet to worship him, and he said, You must not do that. I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.
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Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And now we come to one of the passages that is one of the most amazing passages in all the
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Bible. Some say, maybe too glorious for exposition.
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Too great to even talk about from the pulpit. Just read it in other words. Here we have the second coming.
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Jesus is coming back. Graphic judgment. Everybody's going to understand what's going to go on.
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And by the way, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen
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Savior, you don't think rightly about your sins and call out for God for mercy, this Jesus is coming for you.
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Not to save you. What will He do? Well, let's find out. This is warrior language.
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This is chilling language. Everybody thinks, Oh, I like to watch scary movies.
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This isn't a movie. But unless you're on His side, it's scary. Then I saw, verse 11, heaven opened.
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This is going to happen. And behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true.
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And in righteousness, He judges and makes war.
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The language of the apocalypse is the heavens are open and they stay open. They don't need to shut again. Revelation 1 has said,
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Behold, Jesus is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. This is it.
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This is revelation right here. If you don't understand anything about revelation, this is what you need to grasp.
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This unveiling, this revealing, this apocalypse of the Lord Jesus, who's true, who's alive, and who's coming back to judge.
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And what is He riding? Again, not some kind of lowly animal, but the warfare animal.
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The white charger, the horse. This is language of the general in the days of Rome.
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He's coming back after His great triumph and there's a procession. And He's coming back as the victorious general king.
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No more Jesus, the son of David, riding in a donkey to give salvation to people. He's coming back to judge.
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He's on a white horse. And what's He called? He's called faithful and true.
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After all the years of blasphemy about Jesus, He's a liar.
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He's not true. He manipulates. God isn't true. God doesn't keep His Word. You're suffering, dear
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Christian. God doesn't care about you. Every single lie that's ever been told about God. You're the product of evolution.
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You're this, you're that, the other. Here comes faithful and true. What do you think He's going to do? He's faithful to His promises.
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He said to the men, I'm coming back. He said through the apostles, I will return. And He's doing that.
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Absolutely trustworthy. And in righteousness, He judges and wages war.
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Remember what we're doing here, dear Christian? We're saying to ourselves, put yourself under Scripture.
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You don't have to go right every wrong. You don't have to be worried about people are going to get off scot -free.
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The Lord will come back. In righteousness, He judges and wages war.
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Not against His children. Why would He? He loves them. His children have been given to Him by the
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Father. And He's lived for them. He's died for them. He's been buried for them. He's been raised for them.
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He's been praying for them. He's been praying for us. Why would He come back for us? To judge us that way and have holy wrath against us.
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No, these are people that will not bow the knee and confess that Jesus is Lord. Look at verse 12. No more weeping eyes over Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
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His eyes are judgment eyes. When you see flame of fire eyes, you should say, piercing gaze of Messiah to judge.
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His eyes are like a flame of fire. You can't hide behind anything. You can't say to yourself, well, you know, maybe
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He didn't notice this. Maybe He's so busy with everybody else in this world, He doesn't see me. He sees it all, dear unbeliever.
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And on His head are many diadems, and He has a name written that no one knows but Himself. Nothing escapes the gaze of this great judge.
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So you say, well, people get off scot -free, and there's all these court issues, and law, and everything else.
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He has this vision. He sees. He searches all things.
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And He's just not the Lord. Look what's on His head. The crown of thorns.
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Back in those days, if you would conquer another kingdom, you would take the king's crown and you would put it on yourself.
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And you could have four or five crowns and just kind of put on there kind of haphazardly, but it was like I'm king over you, you, you, and you.
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And how many diadems does He have on His head? True royalty, true sovereignty, true crowns.
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No more thorns. He's the King of kings, not just the king. He's the Lord of lords, not just the
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Lord. And what does He have? He has a name written on Him, but nobody knows except Himself. What's that?
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Here's what that is. In those days, if you were superior, you don't have to tell them your name. If I'm a king and you come to me and you're a serf or a peasant,
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I don't need to tell you my name. I'm in charge. Same thing here. The only way we understand who
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God is and what He's done, Paul talks about that in Ephesians. Does he not? The mystery has been unveiled.
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Not mysterious. Ooh. No. That sounds like an owl. I mean like, ooh, ooh, ooh. I've got to get my oohs right.
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He tells us. We don't demand of Him. Verse 13.
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There's white everywhere. There's white horses. There's white linens. There's white horses of believers we'll see soon.
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But on the backdrop of all the white, maybe white clouds, there's some red. And it's not
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Jesus' blood on Calvary. He's the warrior. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood.
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And the name by which He is called is the Word of God. The languages of anticipation.
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There is going to be blood spread out. There's going to be blood everywhere.
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Sloshing and splashing. This is right from Isaiah 63. Why is your apparel red and your garments like the one who treads in the winepress?
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Just think about people with bare feet stomping on those grapes up onto their linens.
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Verse 3 of Isaiah 63. I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with me.
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I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment.
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There's judgment. And of course, everything in me wants to say, children, adults, are you trusting in the
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Lord? Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus? Because if you are, He's not coming back for you.
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Actually, He's coming back with you. There's no way you can stand underneath this wrath. There's no way you can withstand this on that day.
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You're going to die one day or the Lord will return and you have to stand before Him. Do you want God as your enemy?
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Or do you want Him as your friend? It's all based on the Lord Jesus. Trusting in Him or not.
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Verse 14, And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses.
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That's believers. No weapons. We don't need weapons when we're coming back with Jesus.
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If we die and come back with Jesus on the second coming, we don't need weapons. Because verse 15,
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From His mouth, Jesus's, comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron.
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He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
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So why am I so upset and concerned and losing sleep over this is a corrupt nation and other corrupt nations?
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And there's corruption in courts, municipal courts, superior courts, every place else. Verse 16,
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On His robe and on His thigh. Remember He's seated on a horse. What's eye level to someone looking at a horse, a large horse like this, a large charger, what's eye level is the thigh.
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And please spare me the tattoo comments here. He has a name written.
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It's obvious who He is. Who's like this? It's obvious. He's the
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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Everybody knows it. Nobody will doubt on that day.
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Believers will know. Unbelievers will know. The sovereignty of the Warrior King. He's going to judge.
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Maybe you've been wronged in a lawsuit. Maybe you've been taken advantage of business -wise. Jesus is going to make everything right.
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And I saw an angel standing in the sun. How about that? And with a loud voice,
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He called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, Come gather for the great supper of God.
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This isn't the Lord's supper. This is the supper the Lord gives to the birds so they eat the carnage.
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You say, how do you get that, Mike? Verse 18. To eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both great and small.
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I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who is sitting on the horse and against His army.
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That's kind of Psalm 2 language. Here we have, you know, this great battle against Jesus.
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How's that going to work out? I'm trying to think of two different kind of... Okay, let's see.
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Here's the warrior battle. There's nuclear bombs and then there's pea shooters.
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It's the best I can think of it. Children, do you know what pea shooters are? Do you know what spit wads are? These guys have spit wads and the
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Lord Jesus, He's the Almighty. The beast was captured.
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False prophet who was in the presence had done the signs by which He deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worship its image.
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These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. The rest were slain by the sword that comes out of the mouth of Him who is sitting on the horse and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
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There's going to be judgment one day for us again, Christian. You say, are you worried about that,
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Mike? Should Christians be worried? You shouldn't be worried at all. You should be happy in the sense that you're going to win.
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Jesus wins. Sad for unbelievers in your life. That's why we evangelize them now.
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Jump down to verse 11 of chapter 20. You want to know if there's justice in the world?
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Then you need to preach to yourself from Scripture just like Solomon did. There's a time for everything and here's the ultimate time.
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We can rest in God's judgment. God is just. God is faithful. God is true. Verse 11, then
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I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. Isn't He an impressive
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King? From His presence, earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them.
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I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne and the books were opened.
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By the way, if you're here and you're not a Christian, this will happen to you one day. What will the book say? Will the book say you perfectly love
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God and love your neighbor? Will the book say you're a commandment breaker?
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Will the book say something about lying and lust and deception, self -righteousness, pride?
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What will the book say? They'll be opened. Then another book was opened which is the book of life.
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The dead were judged by what was written in the book. Every act of an unbeliever will be judged.
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It's in the book. According to what they had done. God's not senile.
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He doesn't forget. Thoughts, words, deeds, motives, commission, omission, everything will be judged.
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And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged. There's a time for judgment.
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We have to say to our own hearts, we preach to ourselves, each one of them according to what they had done.
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God expects perfect obedience. Entire obedience from His creatures. And if you're an unbeliever, that's what
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God expects for you to obey. Verse 14, Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
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This is the second death, the lake of fire. You say, well, what about us? We're going to be there on that day.
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What will happen to us? Will we be judged as Christians? I thought, Pastor, you said, Jesus already paid for our sins and so there's no double jeopardy.
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He doesn't charge us twice. That doesn't seem right. Don't you love it in verse 15?
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And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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There's unbelievers who have deeds written down. They'll pay for those.
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What are the deeds written down for the believer? Answer? No deeds written down.
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They're paid for. What's written down for the believer? Your name. You're not going to be judged for your deeds.
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I'm not talking about rewards for doing things good as a Christian. I'm talking about sinful deeds. Your name's in the book.
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No deeds, Christian, because your deeds have been paid for. That is really good news, especially in light of the alternative, to be thrown into the lake of fire.
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Years ago, I was swimming in California and I thought, you know what?
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Every person in life should try to do the Alcatraz swim. And so I thought, all right, I'll do it.
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And I thought I was pretty hot shot. I could swim and I could do all this stuff. I'm going to swim from Alcatraz and see what
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Clint Eastwood thinks about that. I jumped in the cold water at 7 a .m.
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And I thought, all my family's at the shore waiting for Dad, the warrior king, small w, small k.
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And I thought I was going to barf. Sorry, can I say that when I'm preaching? I thought I was going to lose my stomach and give some fish food or something because I was so petrified.
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And I had two thoughts. I have to tap out because I don't want to drown and they have rescue boats right there.
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So just tap out. But I thought, no, no, I'd rather die because I'm so prideful. I can't have the boat take me to my family.
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Hi, kids. Be a man, Luke. And my second thought was,
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I can tap out. But in the lake of fire when you're thrown in, why is it called a lake?
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Because there's no outlet. And once you're thrown in, you're in.
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Sobering. Makes me want to evangelize. Makes me thankful I'm a Christian. There is going to be a judgment day, the last judgment.
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And as one writer said, there will be summoned there with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, every person.
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With good reason, the Belgic Confession said, the thought of this judgment is horrible and dreadful to wicked and evil people.
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But it is very pleasant and a great comfort to the righteous and the elect. Then they will receive the fruits of their labor.
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The Son of God will profess their names. All tears will be wiped from their eyes.
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And their cause at present condemned as heretical and evil will be acknowledged as the cause of the
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Son of God. And as a gracious reward, the
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Lord will make them, you dear Christian, possess a glory such as the human heart could never imagine.
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So we look forward to that great day with longing in order to fully enjoy the promises of God in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. What's the point, pastor?
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Solomon asked the question, is there going to be justice? He then preaches to his heart and says, yes, there is.
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There is a time. And today we saw in Revelation 19, that is the time. God will judge.
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And so for Christians twofold, aren't you thankful to be a Christian? He's not coming for you.
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Doesn't this make you want to evangelize others and tell them about good news, how God has mercy on sinners freely and graciously?
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And for the unbeliever, this should cause you not to sleep at night until you rest in Christ Jesus.
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The world looks unjust. Expect justice. Let's pray.
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Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You so much for this passage. It is awful and awesome because You're awesome.
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We look forward to that day, the Lord Jesus coming back. He'll keep His Word. We know He'll do it.
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What if it was today? Oh, what if it was today? Would You help us this week,
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Father, to preach to ourselves, to realize that in the midst of things that might be wrong with us physically,
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You're sovereign. When we sit down and enjoy a meal with our family, You're a good, giving
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God. And that when we look at the news or we look at ourselves or we look at other people, we think, you know what,
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Father, You're true and You're right because You're going to send Your Son back and every wrong is going to be right.
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We're thankful for that. What a world it would be if there was no ultimate justice.