The fifth dispensation, the Judgment Seat of Christ, is a future event for believers where their works will be evaluated based on their motives. This judgment is necessary because human judgment is flawed and often based on outward appearances, leading to misconceptions and misjudgments. The sermon emphasizes that at the Judgment Seat, God will impartially assess actions, revealing true motives and correcting misjudgments, ultimately leading to either reward or loss based on faithfulness. The core lesson is to live with a constant self-examination of motives, striving to please God rather than seeking human approval or focusing on the scale of one's accomplishments.
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Well, I resisted the temptation this morning to talk again about Satan. Instead, in view of what we covered last night, I thought we'd read from the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians. And the moment we begin to read, you'll realize why I've chosen this portion. Second Corinthians chapter five, And it has to do with the dispensation that we covered last night, but not what took place on the earth, but what is going to take place in the heavens during that period, and especially the judgment seat of Christ.
Verse one of Second Corinthians five, for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we had a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnest and desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that has wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
Therefore we are always confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. We are confident, I say, in willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him. Now I know that those verses find an echo in our hearts as time goes by and we get a little older and we move inexorably toward the end of life, the thing that encourages our hearts is the realization that things are better on before.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. However, there is another side to this coin. When Paul says in verse nine, Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him, he begins verse ten with a four. Now he uses that word a number of times in his letters, and he has the force of the curse. I'm going to read it that way. We labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him, because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences." Now Paul, obviously, in his life had very earnest spiritual ambition And he tells us why, because at the end of life, eventually he's going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
During World War I, when Britain was fighting the war without a conscripted army, the nation became dependent upon its volunteers, and so a lot of pressure was brought to bear upon young men. to volunteer for the armed services. In fact, that pressure became so great that young women, in order to show their contempt for any man, any young man who was still in civilian clothing and not in the forces, it was so great that they devised a method of calling a man a coward without speaking to him.
They would carry in their purses small white feathers. And if they saw a young man who wasn't in uniform, they would open the purse, take out a white feather, and just drop it on the table before him or at his feet. And as it floated down, it was saying, coward, coward, coward, coward. That was their way of increasing the pressure on these young men. Now, one young man sat in a restaurant in London in civilian clothing. and the inevitable happened. The girl got up from her table across the restaurant, stepped over to his, and opened her purse, took out a white feather, held it high, and dropped it, and the people around watched as it wafted down and settled on his table.
He didn't touch it. Instead, he reached into an inside pocket, and he took out a little square leather case, and he flipped it open and held it side by side with the feather and said, how strange that I should receive both of these on the same day. He had just come from an investiture at Buckingham Palace, where he had received Britain's highest award for valor, the military cross. He was a military man. But he hadn't been to the palace in his uniform, and he was sitting in his civilian clothing in the restaurant, a man who had just been decorated by the Queen for military valor.
charged by a girl who didn't know a thing about him with being a coward. Now, it's because things like that happen that God is going to have a final judgment for the Christian. We find human misconception in every sphere. How glibly we say, well, two and two make four, but two and two don't always make four. Sometimes they make twenty-two. It's according to what you do with them. And so we are very short-sighted in our judgment, and that's the reason why God, at the end, has to put things right. We don't very quickly learn our lessons.
We sometimes learn and sometimes don't learn lessons in our business life, in our school life. in our home life and so on, in our friendships and things like this. We try to learn, we hope we learn, but we all of us know that lots and lots of lessons go by, unheeded by us. Now there's a lesson that has not been learned by the church, and it's expressed by the man in the street, never judged by appearances. Things are not always what they see. The poet said that. Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.
Thus thou art, to thus returneth, was not spoken of the soul. And that poet begins, things are not always what they see. The church all too often judges by appearances, forgetting that the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart. Now because man does look on the outward appearance and because human beings do manifest a very faulty conception, in fact all too often it is misconception, God looks at the results of this and is very disturbed.
It is that misconception that's been responsible for bringing into being among those who profess to know God a chaos of conflicting creeds. It's what prayer has produced, too, in the Church of God, a raging of bitter controversies. It's that which has been responsible for heartbreak in personal quarrels judging by outward appearances. How many times have we done that? And then as time went by, discovered how very wrong we were. This seemed to be this. And so in our thinking, it was surely this.
But in reality, this was that. It only seemed to be this. It was really that. And sometimes our attitude, the things we did as a result of that misconception, caused grief and pain and the results we were never able to totally erase. Now it's because of this, because of the horror of human misconception that the demand for a final, equitable investigation is absolutely insistent. Somebody has got to put these things right. I remember after Second World War that there were a lot of wartime or a lot of post-World War tribunals trying to sort things out.
There were labor tribunals, there were rent tribunals, there were hardship tribunals, there were conscientious objector tribunals, there were pension tribunals, there were war crimes trials, trial after trial, investigation after investigation. That's not surprising. In view of all this, the God has planned his final investigation for his church. And it is called the judgment seat of Christ. Here in our chapter five of Second Corinthians, we find that this realization caused Paul to constantly examine his life, his service, and his motives.
in his service. Look at that verse nine. Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him because we're going to appear before the judgment of Jesus Christ. Now that word labor is very interesting. Do you have a marginal reading there? My marginal reading says, Wherefore we endeavor. Actually the force of the original word is, we are ambitious. I can remember when I was a young man, an elder who might believe was judging by appearances, and his conception was misconception, who he'd hang on my shoulder, and he said, Young man, you are too ambitious.
I don't believe it's possible to be too ambitious. And all through my life, ever since that time, when I've examined the situation, I've come to the same conclusion, it is never wrong to be ambitious, and you cannot be too ambitious. as long as your eyes are pointed in the right direction and your motives are not mixed. We are ambitious, Paul says, and this is our ambition that we may be acceptable to him. Now, that kind of ambition is an ambition that no man or woman ever has to apologize for. Paul's intense activity was directed by a single-mindedness He wanted to do what was acceptable to God.
And when he made mistakes, as most assuredly he did being human, I'm sure that God looked at those mistakes in the light of the motive that constantly drove him a desire to be acceptable to God, to please God. Now, that's the motive that God is going to use. during this time, you know, of this investigation. We strive, we are eager, we endeavor, we are ambitious. Now that's the marginal reading in the revised version, that we might be acceptable. Not all men. It's been well said you can please some men all the time, all men some of the time, but you can't please all men all the time.
And it's a very thankless job to try. And if we are wise, we won't attempt it. It's much more simple. I didn't say easier. It's much more simple to live to please God. And the reason that Paul did it and the reason we should do it is this. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad. Now sometimes, perhaps almost invariably with some of us, When we think about the judgment seat of Christ, we tremble a little, because we're all too conscious of our faults and our failings and our shortcomings and so on.
But let's never forget that the judgment seat of Christ is a place for putting things right and at the judgment seat things good as well as things bad are going to be covered and investigated. And my, that's going to put a lot of wrong things right. That's going to alter a lot of opinions. That's going to bring a lot of joy to the hearts of many who have been misjudged for many, many years. Things are going to be put right. Now, when Paul says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, he's speaking of himself.
Paul... He's speaking of the church occurrence. He's speaking of the believers in a tire. He's talking about the church at large. He's talking about you. And he's talking about me. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And motive is to be the basis of that investigation. Now I have an idea that this is going to uncover some very shabby things. Because we've done a lot of very commendable things from the least commendable motives. And since motive is to be the basis of the investigation, perhaps we should more consistently than we do ask ourselves, what am I doing for God?
Rather than ask ourselves, what am I doing for God? Ask ourselves, why am I doing what I'm doing for God? because that's going to be the motive for the, that's going to be the basis for the investigation. Not just what I've done for God, but why did I do it? I don't think I need to stay there. Our time is moving along. But I should just mention in passing that God is not interested in greatness. That's not going to be the basis of the investigation. In fact, there's a danger in bigness.
There's a danger in the spectacular because the human heart is so prone to pride. When Billy Graham first came to prominence and conversions that were taking place in his campaigns included some very, very well-known people, and soon he made the front pages of the newspapers. Some of his team members said to believers, Now you pray for him that God will make him successful in his work for God, and you can pray for us because we intend to keep him humble.
That was a little bit of facetiousness on the part of the team, but somebody's done it. You know, God has been answering the prayers of his people. because Billy Graham, and I read an article just very recently about Billy Graham, and in it, in very openness and frankness, he said, I didn't think it would last this long. I wish it were over. Only God knows the demands that are made on that man, and he actually said that in the interview, I wish it were over. But while God is using me to reach thousands of people, I have no option but to carry on. But here's a man, and I think most of us recognize, when we see an interview with him on television, that God in some way has allowed him to continue without becoming overbearing, arrogant, or obviously proud.
Of course, we can't judge from appearances. I don't know what goes on in his heart. But I have an idea that had he become a proud man, God would have stopped using him in the same way. a long time ago. It's a very wonderful thing to see a man who is famous, who consorts with presidents and indeed with kings in other countries, who across the face of the world has a name that's a household word, and to see when he's quietly interviewed, just very, very skillfully, but very, very faithfully, weaving into the interview the Gospel of the Lord Jesus and making sure that when he leaves the interviewer, The Word of God has been laid before that person and before the observers.
But it isn't very often that bigness is accompanied by humility. And bigness is not the answer. At least it's not the basis of the investigation. I rather think... from what I know from a distance of Billy Graham, that he would probably be one of the first to tell you he does not expect his reward to be the greatest in the glory. He's gotten a lot of reward. It's a big thing to travel around like this, be recognized by everybody, to be sought after by the thousands, and to be a consort of these famous people. There's a reward in this itself that sort of...
encourages the human heart. I think he will tell you that those who are going to get the greatest rewards are the ones who prayed humbly and earnestly in the quiet place where nobody knew it was going on. Those are the ones who are going to get the greatest reward. And I'm sure that's really true. It's really true. Bidness is not the basis of the investigation. Bidness is not the basis of the investigation. Now, if bidness tends toward pride, you know what busyness introduces as a danger? A danger of murmuring and complaining. I have to do it all.
Did you ever feel that way when you were so busy, so busy, tripping over your feet here and tripping over your feet there because there were jobs all the way around you to be done and you looked around for some kind of help and you couldn't find any help and so you struggled on and inside resentment rose and you said, Why should I have to keep on doing all of this? There must be somebody else who could take part of the load. Busyness is not the basis of the investigation. They also serve... who only stand and wait. There's a time when God says, sit still, my daughter, till thou shalt see how the matter will fall. Business is not the basis of the investigation.
Production even is not the basis of the investigation. It's not how much we produce. You know, there's a danger here. If we can look and see that our lives have been fruitful abundantly and we've produced here and we've produced here and we've produced here, there's a danger that we can figure we've got to the point where we don't need to produce anymore. I read a story about a very famous sculptor who was working for many, many months on a beautiful piece of white marble. He had fallen in love with this piece of white marble and determined that he was going to make from it the best piece of sculpture he had ever produced, in spite of the fact that he had produced breathtaking pieces for many, many years.
His daughter came into his studio just after he had put the last tool on the work and it was completed. And she found him standing there with the tears coursing down his cheek. And she said to him, Daddy, this is the most beautiful thing you've ever produced. He said, My daughter, when I started on it, this is what I intended it should be. And he said, I really feel that that's how it's turned out. But he said, I wink because for the first time in my life, I feel satisfied at what I produce. Now he recognized the danger of being satisfied with what he'd produced.
The word of God says that at best we are unprofitable servants. Let's never imagine that production has reached such a scale that at last we can sit down and let George do it. When that moment comes, God will take us home. While he leads us here, he still has a work for his glory for us to do, and we better make sure that we are doing it. because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Now, we know the Bible speaks about a number of judgments. There's going to be a judgment of the nation. There's going to be a judgment of the godless. There's going to be a judgment of believers at the bema, the judgment seat of Christ.
And there are just three very simple things I want you to take away with you this morning. And just... roll them over in your mind and think about them. Here's the verse, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Now I want to focus for a moment on that word must, because this judgment will certainly take place. Nothing can prevent it. All investigations have been planned in the past have never came to begin. investigations were determined and then never carried out. But this one is certainly going to take place.
And every one of us, as believers, must appear before that judgment pleases. Now its existence in the first place is imperative. It deals with failure of human judgment. We must all appear. It has to be set up. And having once set up, this judgment seat for which, or the existence of which is inevitable, the use of it, or the existence is imperative, the use is inevitable. God isn't going to set it up and then not use it. We must all appear. And not only is its existence imperative, and its use inevitable, but its verdict is inescapable.
Whatever comes out of that, that investigation will be truth in the absolute, and the verdict will be without fault. Whether it is approval and reward or censure and loss, its verdict will be inescapable, as will the consequences of that verdict. And so, although, as I mentioned last night, This will not be a matter of sin. Sins will never be brought up at the judgment seat of Christ. It will be a matter of faithfulness. Did we or did we not? Serve God with a pure motive.
If we did, we'll suffer gain. If we'll enjoy gain. If we didn't, then we'll suffer loss. It will certainly take place. But then our text says, we must all appear. Now that word tells me something else. That this investigation, this tribunal, this judgment suite, which will certainly, or judgment which will certainly take place, will publicly take place. Because that word appear is a word that means we shall, we must all be exhibited. Now it's the same word that would have been used in this particular day to describe the log of a ship.
Now, why does a captain keep a log? So that eventually the log can be brought out and examined. That's the purpose of a log. It's not to be put away in a secret place like a seven-year diary. It is made that it might be, it might be examined. It is, well, you've heard of a ship's manifesto. A manifesto, statement of its cargo, the same sort of thing, It is to be exposed. It is to be manifested. It is to be exhibited. Now the Word of God says, we must all be exhibited at the judgment seat of Christ.
That which will certainly take place will publicly take place. Now you can see how that this is God's intention to are bringing, belatedly, to believers who've been faithful in the quiet place, never been acknowledged, never been praised. This will be the time when all and sundry will see, will be brought face to face with their faithfulness, and will applaud them, will acknowledge their faithfulness, which has been unknown down through time. That's going to be a very glad day for the quiet, consistent, praying and working believer who comes from behind the scenes.
We must all be exhibited at the judgment seat of Christ. And as the analysis of our earthly occupation is gone over, everybody will see, everybody will hear. In the first place we shall see ourselves, as we've never seen ourselves. Every man sees himself through rose-colored blackers. Everybody is sure he's a little bit better than he really is. But in that day we shall be exhibited to ourselves in a way we've never seen ourselves. We shall see ourselves. The church at large will see us.
Those people who rubbed shoulders with us, who perhaps admired us for our busyness with God. Maybe then they'll find out that the reason why we were busy for God was not as commendable as they down through all this long time had figured. The church at large will see us. But something else, we shall be conscious of God's scrutiny in a way that we have never been before. And that for us will be extremely joyous. or it will be painfully humiliating. We must all appear. The judgment will certainly take place.
We must all appear. The judgment will publicly take place. But then it says we must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That judgment will impartially take place. It's to be the judgment seat of Christ. We are judged by our friends, and because they are our friends, they judge us indulgently. We are judged by our critics, our foes, and because they are our critics and our foes, they judge us harshly. We are judged by the world at large, and by the world we are judged vindictively.
But when we are judged by the Lord Jesus, we shall be judged absolutely impartially. He's the one who has shared our life. He was in all points tempted like us we are, yet without sin, who better could fit upon the judgment seat? He's known our struggles. He's known what it was to be friendless. He's known what it was to be abandoned. He has known what it was to suffer. He's known what it was to be ostracized. There's nothing happens in your life, but the Lord Jesus can enter into it personally. Who better could fit upon the judgment seat?
He's not only shared our life and known our struggles. He suffered our temptations. They came to him as they came to us. Maybe we surrendered. He certainly didn't, but he knows the struggle that ensues. He knows what it means. And this is the one who has confronted our foes, and therefore knows how bitterly, on this hand or that hand, we've been opposed. He enters into it. He knows it. He can personally appreciate it. Why, says the word of God, we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmity. You know, there's a Greek word used there.
It's the word sompathio. Sompathio. Can you think of an English word that sounded like it? It's the word sympathy. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched. St. Matthew's sympathy. We have a sympathetic Christ. Now we're not going to be judged indulgently. We're not going to be judged vindictively. We're not going to be judged harshly. We're going to be judged impartially because this judgment seat will be the judgment seat of Christ. I want to find myself with my pilgrim preacher colleagues in North Wales town where most of the people, or many of the people, spoke the Welsh language, Camerag.
And because there was no assembly in the town, And we didn't know the town. We didn't know where there was an evangelical church in the town. We decided to go to the closest church. And so after we had broken bread at eight o'clock on that Sunday morning, we went along to the Sunday service in this Welsh church. And the preacher was preaching in Welsh. Now from time to time he would use a little sentence in English because he could think a group of us sitting there, didn't recognize us but figured that we were English and so a little comment here and there he slipped in for us in English. But he never did quote his text in English.
But he quoted it so many times in Welsh, repeated it that I learned it in the Welsh. without knowing what it means. Now, I know my inflections were abominable, and I know my accent must have made it unintelligible almost to a Welshman, but every time he said it, I committed another syllable to memory until at the end of the service I was repeating his text, and I didn't know what it meant. Canis, athabarnabarnach, earth, venir. I knew what canis meant. It meant four.
F-O-R. Canis, athabarnach, earth, burnir. So I waited until I could meet a Welshman that day to whom I could say this. So, somebody we had gotten acquainted with, I said to him, a Welshman, he said, I don't know what you're talking about. I said, listen, and try to put up with my English accent. Canis, he said, that's four. Canis, after a barn, a barn, a barn, a barn, a barn, a barn, a barn. Oh, he said, and then he gave it to me properly in Welsh.
I said, that was the preacher's text this morning. Please tell me what was he preaching about. For with what judgment ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. I said, I'm going to feel for the rest of my life. I missed out on something very valuable. I never heard anybody preach from that text, either before that or since it. I'd love to know what he said about it. But I think that's the challenge in this morning. For with what measure ye meet, a judgment, it'll give me many tears. With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. I think I'm going to go finish right on that note. Like I have.
But time was gone. Shall we pray? Our heavenly Father, we have been thinking of the ages. We have been looking at the panorama of time. And now we have arrived at the place where things are going on on the earth which are dreadful. But things are going on in the heavenly that are both wonderful and startling. that perhaps we tremble a little about when we think of them. But since it is true that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, we ask that even this reminder this morning shall cause us the more critically and earnestly to examine our motives and find out not just what we are doing for God, but why we are doing what we are doing.