This sermon is about the final judgment…the Great Assize, and
how each of us will one day stand before the greatest judge.
Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For the Scriptures say, “‘As surely as I live,’
says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare
allegiance to God.’” Romans 14:10-11(NLT)
Have you ever had to stand before a judge as the accused? The only time for me was as the responsible
adult representative of a minor child who had made a really dumb choice.
It is a very solemn thing; it’s entirely sobering and makes every nerve
ending you have come alive as the bailiff summons you to stand before the one
who will make decisions about your future.
It’s also a pretty humbling moment if you live in a small town and even the
judges know you. I mean, how much more
embarrassing could it be than having no hole to crawl-in when the hushed
courtroom silence is broken as the judge, in front of a roomful of small town
citizens, begins the conversation with, Good afternoon, Rev-er-end Brownworth!
In retrospect, that kind of humiliation is a
picnic compared to the reality of what Scripture’s Great Assize, the
Great White Throne Judgment is all about.
Paul the Apostle says we will all stand before that judgment
seat some day.
You may now shudder instead of saying amen!
Apostle John was shown the great courtroom in the vision recorded in
Revelation:
And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on
it. The earth and sky fled from his
presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and
small, standing before God’s throne. And
the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what
they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and
death and the grave gave up their dead. And
all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were
thrown into the lake of fire. This lake
of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded
in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15
when will this judgment happen?
There are only
two possibilities about when we appear before the judge:
1.
We will
stand there after we die, or…
2.
We will
stand there when Christ returns.
But either way
Scripture declares we will all
stand before the throne.
Now, not
everyone believes this; there are those today who declare, even from pulpits
where, supposedly, God’s Word is faithfully preached, that God welcomes
everyone, and there is no such thing as punishment; this is called universalism
and it ignores the plain truth stated over and again in the Scripture that
there is no grace for those persons who refuse to stand before God confessing
their sin.
The principles
upon which God created this universe include the balance of opposites;
without “up” there is no “down”. Without
“cold” how can you have “hot”, and, indeed, if there is no sin to be forgiven,
how can there be forgiveness; what do you forgive, if not sin?
No – the grace
of God also tells us quite plainly of the judgment of God
for those who reject Him.
where will this judgment happen?
The fact that
Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians indicates believers join Christ in
the air would have us conclude that it is there or perhaps in heaven
near the throne of God.
My personal
view is that it will be a mobile court.
Scripture indicates that there will be nothing of a “defense” for those
who have rejected Christ. I take that to
mean the evidence of their deeds done in the body will
convict them utterly.
Scripture[ii]
says that during this judgment the accused will see his or her words,
actions,
and even the intention of their hearts for every sin ever committed. This will require a mobile court.
For instance,
if you’re Adolph Hitler, you will move from the bunker in Berlin to Auschwitz
and to scenes of atrocities in Poland and the laboratories where human
experiments were done on the mentally ill.
If you’re
Sadaam Hussein you will see the many thousands of executions in Baghdad, and
the cowardice of a hiding hole outside Tikrit.
And if it’s
me…or you….everything will be revealed at the seat of the Assize; God, who is
omniscient, (all-knowing) is going to replay the security camera footage of all
time in every place:
For the time is coming when everything that is covered will be
revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Matthew 10:26(NLT)
John Wesley
fleshed-out in his 1758 sermon on the judgment what it will be like to stand in
front of the throne of God in that day:
And in that day shall be discovered every inward
working of every human soul; every appetite, passion, inclination, affection,
with the various combinations of them, with every temper and disposition that
constitute the whole complex character of each individual. So shall it be
clearly and infallibly seen, who was righteous, and who unrighteous; and in
what degree every action, or person, or character was either good or evil.[iii]
This is without
question one of the most worrisome parts of the Great White Throne assize; the
judgment comes from He who is omniscient, knowing everything from actions – to
words – to deeds and even the intentions of our hearts!
what will the judgment cover?
Again, Wesley,
who preached his “Assize sermon” before the magistrates who had come to
Bedford, England to conduct trials:
Here [meaning,
now, on planet earth, in our court systems] a man is questioned
concerning one or two facts, which he is supposed to have committed: there we
are to give an account of all our works, from the cradle to the grave; of all
our words; of all our desires and tempers, all the thoughts and intents of our
hearts; of all the use we have made of our various talents, whether of mind,
body, or fortune. In this court [here and now],
it is possible, some who are guilty may escape for want of evidence; but there
is no want of evidence in that court. All men, with whom you had the most secret
intercourse, who were privy to all your designs and actions, are ready before
your face. So are all the spirits of
darkness, who inspired evil designs and assisted in the execution of them. So are all the angels of God; those eyes of
the Lord, that run to and fro over all the earth, who watched over your soul,
and labored for your good, so far as you would permit. So is your own conscience, a thousand
witnesses in one, now no more capable of being either blinded or silenced, but
constrained to know and to speak the naked truth, touching all your thoughts,
and words, and actions. And is
conscience as a thousand witnesses – yea, but God is as a thousand consciences!
O, who can stand before the face of the
great God, even our Savior Jesus Christ![iv]
Who indeed is
rich or powerful in the grave? And who
is it that can change one word of the Great Assize?
Charles Haddon
Spurgeon preached in the late 19th century a sermon on this Great
Assize,
But to the ungodly how terrible. They are to receive the things that they have
done; that is to say, the punishment due,—not every man alike, but the greater
sinner the greater doom; to the man who sinned against light a greater
damnation than to the man who had not the same light,—Sodom and Gomorrah their
place, Tyre and Sidon their place, and then to Capernaum and Bethsaida their
place of more intolerable torment, because they had the Gospel and rejected
it—so the Lord himself tells us. And the
punishment will not only be meted out in proportion to the transgression, but
it will be a development of the evil actions done in the evil consequences to be
endured, as every man shall eat the fruit of his own ways. Sin, after the natural order, ripens into
sorrow. This is not a blind fate, but it
is the operation of a divine law, wise and invariable. Oh, how dreadful it will be for the malicious
man to have for ever to gnaw his own envious heart, to find his malice come
home to him, as birds come home to roost, to hoot for ever in his own soul; for
the lustful man to feel lust burning in every vein, which he can never
gratify;—for the drunkard to have a thirst, which not even a drop of water can
allay;—for the glutton who has fared sumptuously every day, to be in hunger
perpetually; and the soul that has been wrathful to be for ever wrathful, with
the fire of wrath for ever burning like a volcano in his soul; and the rebel
against God for ever a rebel, cursing God whom he cannot touch, and finding his
curses come back upon himself.[v]
Spurgeon’s
description of Hell finds little support in this day. It is this preacher’s humble opinion this is
so because we are moving quite definitely towards that time where the Bible
declares a great apostasy will overcome common sense and right thinking.
Apostle Peter
warned:
But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be
false teachers among you. They will
cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden
destruction on themselves. Many
will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of
truth will be slandered. 2 Peter 2:1-2(NLT)
Simply:
·
Right will be proclaimed as wrong and intolerant.
·
Righteous
living will be seen as bigoted and judgmental.
·
Kindness
will be seen as weakness;
·
Bullying
and sadistic treatment of those who cannot defend themselves will be seen as
strong leadership.
In short,
Christian values will, in the eyes of the world, be turned upside-down.
Paul warned
Timothy:
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and
wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers
who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3(NLT)
The Great
Assize, the Day of the Lord, Judgment Day is coming. It may not be in our lifetime; it could begin
before I finish this sentence. The
question we must deal with is:
how shall we live with this?
You live with
this by embracing the truth that Christ can be either your Assize, your judge
in the hereafter, or He can be your Savior now. You just cannot have it both ways.
The simplest
verse of Scripture even many unbelievers can quote is:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16(KJV)
The strength of
that one Scriptural truth is that God does not want to be your judge; he wants
to be your savior. He wants to redeem
you from the judgment, so instead of hearing these words:
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: Matthew 25:41(NLT)
…you will
instead hear these words
“Then the King will say to those on his
right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared
for you from the creation
of the world. Matthew 25:34(NLT)
Great Assize…or
Great Savior and friend.
You have a
choice – so says the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
SOURCES
[iii] John Wesley 1758 Sermon, The
Great Assize Clem P. Guthro, Ed. ©1999 Wesley Center
for Applied Theology
[v]
The
Spurgeon Archive, The Great Assize, sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
Metropolitan Tabernacle, 1872
So, preacher,
when will all this take place? Have you
got a prediction like that nutcase standing on the street corner downtown,
waving his sign? No, I don’t have a
sign, and God has not chosen to tell us the ETA on our GPS. But what God has chosen
to tell us is to be prepared so, when it does happen, we won’t be like those
surprised and losing all hope of eternity.
