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This past week, good friends, some of us have been studying together the last book in the Bible, generally known by the name the Book of the Revelation, a book that is full of God's information about what is going to happen to our world. We found it to be a book brimful of hope that the God who made this universe and our world in it, spoiled though it is at the present moment, is not going to abandon it as a downright failure.
He has schemes for redeveloping this world, what he calls the redemption of creation. And therefore, as we listen to his purposes, as he has shown them to us in this book of the Revelation, our hearts have been filled with joy and hope and expectation. At the same time, of course, this book has talked to us about the way God reacts to our world and its evil. And we come tonight to think together about what God has said, about the fact that there shall be a final judgment when Earth's wrongs shall be put right.
And the consequences of the way people have lived shall come into play. Now that by any, any standard of measurement is a very grave subject, is it not? A boy or girl at school facing final examinations, that's a thing to be taken seriously, isn't it? Then what about the final judgment? For according to God's word, none can escape it. Because it is so serious and grave, because we must, each one of us, eventually, willy or nilly, be involved therein, it seems to me good that we should read here now a passage in this book of the Revelation that talks about the final judgment, and take the pains to read it very carefully.
For all sorts of curious ideas there are in people's minds about this final judgment, and it would be important for us to read it and notice exactly what it says, what it doesn't say. So I am going to read now the passage. It is found in the last book of the Bible, the book of the Revelation, and there in particular in chapter uh twenty, beginning in the verse eleven. I am reading from the English Revised Version. I am elderly, as I pointed out last week, and the Bible translation I use is one I used in my youth, and it is by now old fashioned, you see.
And you marvelously up-to-date people will doubtless have a newer, uh, translation. Have mercy on me and the elderly like you should, you see. And, uh, uh, never mind, if you notice some differences in your translation, look at them all the more carefully to what it is actually saying. Or if you don't have a Bible with you, don't worry about that either, you'll see. Sit back and listen. But do listen. It is important. This then is the book of the Revelation in chapter eleven, and it is John giving us his, a record of the vision that he was given to see.
And he says, I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. And the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life.
And the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. They were judged, every man according to his works. And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire.
If any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire. They are grave and solemn words, are they not? And obviously will call for a response from our on our part. A response of our mind, response of our consciences, and of our emotions, and of our will. To impress that upon us, shall we sing a verse of one more hymn?
And the hymn this time is three hundred and eighty four. The topic of the final judgment, ladies and gentlemen, is so solemn, and to many people so disturbing and frightening, that many people are tempted to dismiss it from their thoughts altogether. Indeed, some seriously minded people do more than dismiss it, they question it. It seems to them that this idea that there will be a final judgment, followed for the im- by, uh, for the impenitent with an eternal punishment.
It seems to them to be so outrageous, so immoral, in fact, that they say it belongs to the primitive savage days and the centuries gone by, and true Christianity ought to forget it completely. They argue, do they not, that if there's a God at all, he must, they say, be a God of love. It is a very interesting thing to notice who it was that first alerted us to the fact that God is a God of love.
You know, some people think it is self-evident that God is a God of love. You know, some people think it is self-evident that God is a God of love. But if you were a historian, you would know that you can search through the annals of history and the literature of bygone centuries before Jesus Christ came into our world. And there's very little about God being a God of love. People thought of him as a supreme po- a power in the universe, a God, if need be, of wrath against his enemies, but a God of love. I suspect for all of us here tonight, the idea that if there's a God, he's a God of love, we owe that to Jesus Christ, God's son.
It is he who taught us, spectacularly taught us, more than anybody else had dreamed of before, that the heart of the eternal is infinitely kind. He is a God of infinite love. It was in the person of Jesus, who being God incarnate, humbled himself and nursed the little babies on his knee and blessed them. Taught us that God is love, numbering the very hairs of our head and caring for us because we are the creatures of his hand.
It affirmed that the God who made us will be loyal to us. It was Jesus Christ who showed us in practical terms that God is love, in his supreme sacrifice for us on the cross, that we might be forgiven. Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved, and uh, gave himself for us, that we might go at last to heaven, cleansed by his precious blood.
Now, the interesting and important thing to notice is that it was this Jesus Christ that spoke more than anybody else in the whole of the Bible about the judgment that is to come, and about the fate and doom of those that arrive at that judgment unrepentant, unbelieving, and unsaved. Let's take the proposition then, as we try to think about it, and use our minds on the topic, and our moral judgment, and our consciences.
We need to think coolly and calmly, don't we, on these matters? These are not, uh, uh, panic. We need to use our cool thought and conscience. Let's take the proposition then that God, being a God of love, would never punish anybody. But, ladies and gentlemen, as far as I can read it, the very opposite is true. It is precisely because God is a God of infinite love, that he will punish some people.
You know, if we catch ourselves off our guard some days, we're not against punishment, are we? We hear ex-President Robinson visiting West Timor and her demand that the nation set up a court to try the war criminals and those guilty of crimes against humanity in Indonesia, in Kosovo, in Bosnia, whatever it be, and insisting that these men be brought to justice. Wouldn't that be what ninety percent of people would say? Men guilty of such heinous crimes must be punished, say people.
And why do they say it? Because it is instinctive in the human heart that the sheer value of a human being is such. If some evil dictator or warlord commits crimes against humanity, they must be punished. Civilized society insists on it, God or no God, to maintain our sense of value of what it means to be human. Men can commit horrible crimes against women and children and defenseless old men or young men either, and get away with it.
I've come to think that such crimes don't matter. Who of us would like to vote, I wonder, and say, yes, Hitler's crimes, Stalin's crimes, Pol Pot's crimes in Cambodia. In the end, it doesn't matter, forget it. Did they kill sixty million? Did Stalin and Hitler likewise? Did Pol Pot murder uh two million people in cold blood? Oh, but it's past, let's forget it. Who would say that? Does it not matter? Ladies and gentlemen, as far as I can read God's holy word, it is precisely because God loves people.
That God will never say that sin doesn't matter. Suppose, ma'am, I'm a drug pusher, and at a party I needle your daughter and get her hooked on some devilish drug, and it blows her brains, and she dies an early death. What will you say about me, ma'am? And what will you say about your daughter? Say it doesn't matter? No, you won't, will you?
If you ever loved your daughter, you will never come round to say, it didn't matter, forget it. I'll tell you more about your daughter. That God loved your daughter. And if I don't repent, God will have it against me for all eternity. He will never forgive. Your daughter is of eternal significance to him. The sin committed against her and unrepented of. That lovely daughter of yours, her creator will never, never, never say it didn't matter.
If I refuse to repent and pass into eternity unforgiven, God will have it against me forever. Precisely because he is a God of love. You'll say, but wait a moment. You're going to talk about eternal punishment, never ending. Well, you say, suppose the biggest sinner there ever was, a Hitler, if you like, or a Stalin or somebody, their crimes were enormous, but after all, they were finite, weren't they?
You say, could it be proper and right for God to punish somebody eternally for sins that they did in a brief lifespan, at the most, say seventy years. Wouldn't that be unfair? Oh, but we've only thought through half the question, haven't we? Suppose, do we, that people who have sinned grievously in life, and then like Hitler shot their brains out, but now escaped. No. Death is not the end.
Do you suppose their sinning is at an end? Let me remind you that death doesn't wave any magic wand over anybody. People who die, sinners unforgiven. Their hearts are not changed. They remain what they ever were. One of the warnings that end this book of the Revelation, people are told, blessed is the person who washes their robes and makes them white in the blood of the Lamb, that they might have right to the tree of life and enter into the gates of the eternal city.
Blessed are those that enter in. Why blessed? Well, for this reason, amongst others, says Scripture, because outside, Outside. The fearful and abominable and liars and sorcerers and whoremongers, and all the rest of those things that love and make a lie. Unchanged. And unrepented. Because they are unchanged and unrepented, God's displeasure will be shown against them forever.
That's not fair. If God is a God of love, and people make a mistake and they refuse to be saved, they refuse to repent and trust the Savior. Why won't God, when they get the other side, perhaps after a year or two in what you call hell, why doesn't he force them to repent? He could, couldn't he? So they might be let out of their prison house and come at last to God's heaven. God won't force them. God, you surely have observed, doesn't force people to get saved, does he?
Why not? Well, he respects people too much. I said he, I nor nearly said he loves them too much. You see, it's one of the awesome things about us, isn't it? That God made us, dignified us as human beings with a free will and a free choice. We're not just super duper computers, are we? This is the marvel about us. God has not made us to run like machines or even like animals that just go by instinct. To be a human is to possess this marvelous gift from our creator, a free choice, a free will.
And you can see how important that is, can't you? You can't have a moral human being without free will. Suppose I had here a box in front of me full of gold, you see. And, uh, nobody about. And I could steal it. And nobody would ever found out I'd stolen it. And I intended to steal it. But I know that the moment I touch that box, it's wired up to a lethal dose of electricity, and I should be finished.
So I- I, I don't have any choice about it, really, do I, unless I want to commit suicide. So I don't steal it. Would you congratulate me on being a very, uh, uh, uh, moral, upright, righteous man? Of course you wouldn't, you say. He had no free choice. If he didn't steal, that's simply because he was afraid of the consequences, you see. That's not mere, mere, uh, real morality. No, that's true. And you see what you're saying? God has made us with a free will, and he gives us the choice, and it is an awesome thing. God has given us the ability to say yes to God or to say no.
That's what makes us human. Take away that free will, and we should cease to be human and become mere animals or machines. And because God so respects us, he will never force us. Oh, he will plead with us to trust the Savior and be saved eternally. He allows us to decide. He will warn us against the inevitable consequences of sinning and refusing to repent and be saved.
But he will never force us. For if he forced people to be saved, what he would save would not be a human being, but a creature no longer with a free will. And why is it all important, you say, to have a free will? Well, you wouldn't like to be without one, would you? Have you ever thought about it? Would you like to be a machine? What should we lack if we were mere machines? Well, this much is import- is obvious, that real love, grown-up love, real love, and not just affection such as a dog can show for its owner.
Real love depends on there being free will. Suppose one of these days, uh, you are sitting in your lounge in your comfortable shower, and in comes a robot, one of these fantastic things, and comes up to you and putting its robotic arms around your neck, says in its sepulchral voice, oh, I love you. What would you do? You'd say, don't be so daft, don't kick it in the ribs. Why? Because the thing is programmed. It doesn't have any real choice. It will only do what it's programmed to do. We sense that for love to be real love, the one who loves has to have a choice.
So it is with us and God. Seeks our love. Gave his son to win that love. Calls on us to repent and receive a savior and be saved. Warns us of the consequences of refusing. But if we say no, in the end he will accept it. How do we know it? Because Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is the Son of God, demonstrated it here on earth, and talking to the inhabitants of Jerusalem city, among whom he had preached, with whom he had pleaded to come and find salvation.
When they refused, he said, with tears in his voice, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you had known in the days the things that belong to your peace. How often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings? And you would not. It is possible, ladies and gentlemen, for a human being finally to say no to God. Now tell me, what do you suppose will happen to those that say no to God?
You see, God is by definition the sum total of all good. There is no good without God. God cannot, he certainly will not, but he cannot make two paradises. One for those that have received salvation and love the Lord, a paradise to be spent with him, eternally. And another paradise for those who say no to God, so that he can say, oh well, I'm sorry you didn't, uh, choose me, but you can, you here's a paradise.
That is impossible, ladies and gentlemen. There isn't any good outside God. To say no to God is to be without any paradise forever, and nothing but the black darkness of hopelessness. It is not because God isn't love. It is precisely because he is love. But somebody says, perhaps, but look here, yes, perhaps grave sinners like Stalin and Hitler are rightly punished, and those that have committed war crimes in Kosovo and West Timor.
But you're not supposing, are you, Mr. Preacher, that we, your audience tonight, are to be bracketed with a Hitler and a Pol Pot? They were outrageous sinners. Yes, we. Oh, well, we have done our little things here and there, peccadillo or two just here and there, one or two perhaps more serious things, but on the whole we're pretty decent. You're not lumping us with them, are you? If they deserve hell, you're not suggesting we do, are you? Are or are you saying our works are so bad that we're misplaced in some hell or other eternally?
Oh, but friend, it's just at that point we need to listen, don't we, to the verses that describe the final judgment, because I find there is much confusion of thought on the topic. We read, don't, didn't we, that at the final judgment the dead shall be raised and the books shall be opened. But God has his records. They may not be books made of paper and ink. They may not even be sort of heavenly computers, vast though the information is that can be preserved on computers. God has his own records.
And one of these days, so the Bible says, he shall reveal to people their secrets and their judgment when God's records are. And people say, but no, no, I didn't do that, and I didn't think that. Shall not God play back to them and show them, can you see yourself there? And what you were thinking in the secrets of your heart. So people get the impression that the book is saying, when it says that people shall be judged according to their works, according to the things written in the books, that the verses are saying that the final decision, whether anybody goes to God's heaven or is dismissed to the lake of fire, depends on this.
If their works are extremely bad and obnoxious, of course they will join the Hitlers in hell. If, on the other hand, their works are tolerably good, and perhaps on the whole, the balance is on the plus side of the credit side, they will be admitted to God's heaven. And the thought that, uh, the preacher could be saying that they too might be consigned to the lake of fire strikes them as horribly unjust. Lives may not be a hundred percent good, but are they not eighty percent? Seventy five anyway, or sixty?
But you see, there is a nestling, a misunderstanding. The Bible does not say, and when the books were opened, if anybody's works were found to be confoundedly bad, they were cast into the lake of fire. There is only one thing he said. There was opened the book of life, Lamb's book of life. If anyone's name was found not written in the book of life, he or she was cast into the lake of fire. Now just please pray, listen.
Let's try to get this clear in our minds. I repeat, it does not say if anybody's works were found to be spectacularly bad, they were cast into the lake of fire. That is not the criterion. The criterion is this, if any man's name, if any woman's name was not found written in the book of life. You see, the fact is, ladies and gentlemen, we are all sinners. Some big sinners, some little sinners, some guilty of colorful and dramatic sins, and most of us guilty of mean little old sins. All of us are sinners.
And if the book of our records were opened before God, we would, as the Bible puts it, we have all sinned, and we do come short, still come short of the glory of God. Therefore, if God's justice were to have its unprevented way, all of us must be consigned to bear the penalty that our sins, many or few, deserve. But here is the wonderful news. Here, on the very brink of hell, is the glorious gospel preached, when all our sinners, all could be saved.
And this is the glory of the Christian gospel. Now, let me put it immediately. This book of life, list of the redeemed. Yes, they were sinners, but in repentance they came to the Lord Jesus as their hope of salvation, and repenting of themselves and their works, and owning themselves lost and hopeless and helpless. They put their faith in the Lord Jesus as the Savior who died to put away their sins, to cleanse their hearts and bring them forgiveness and eternal life. Upon their receiving Christ, their names were put in the Lamb's Book of Life.
That is the glory of it and the wonder of it. Before anyone is consigned to the lake of fire, listen, the books are open. Can his name be found? Can her name, what is her name? Let's see it again, let's make sure. Can the name be found in the book? It suggests a search, doesn't it? The very words. If the name is not found written, they're cast into the lake of fire. We must pause, mustn't we? Ladies and gentlemen, that forces on us now an immediate question.
Is my name written down in glory? Is my name written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You say, how would anybody know? Don't we have to wait until the final judgment before we find out? Oh no, oh no, my good friends, God isn't like that. You should not think of God as some torturous tyrant keeping us in anxiety over this eternal matter. People whose names are written in the book of life can know their names written.
Listen to the blessed Lord Jesus talking to his disciples that had received him as the Lamb of God and had found in him forgiveness. And he says to them on one occasion like this, they had come back as preachers would, you know, and in the course of their preaching they had cast out demons and they were getting very, very excited about what wonderfully successful preachers they were. And the Lord, so to speak, patted their apostolic heads and said, all right, gentlemen, yes, you're getting excited, but in comparatively speaking, in this don't rejoice. That's a small matter that the spirits are subject to. Rejoice in this, said he, that your names are written in the citizen lists of heaven. What joy must have flooded their hearts that moment when they heard it from the lips of the Lord Jesus himself that they were enrolled in the citizen list of heaven.
And he told them so, and they knew it. And the great Apostle Paul says in one of his letters, as he comes to the end of it, oh, give my greetings to so and so and so and so and so and so, my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life. Says it casually, as though, well, it was a sort of one of those ordinary things. And believe it or not, that is so. It is such the birthright of every believer in Christ. The Holy Spirit so fills a believer's heart with assurance that his sins have been forgiven and God has accepted him or her, and he's right with God, and heaven is his home.
The believer knows it. It's one of the things of life, more certain than the weather. Names are written in the Lamb's book of life, and they shall never perish. They shall be with God in his heaven for all eternity. I confess to you, friends, that as far as I personally am concerned, since I have grasped that matter, if I were not certain tonight that my name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, how could I give sleep to my eyes?
How could I lay my head upon a pillow? How could I attend to anything else before this matter was settled? I was absolutely sure that my name is in the book of life. We'll say I don't think I'm bad enough to know, to go be sent to perdition. I don't feel good enough to be sure, absolutely sure, that my name is in the book of life. And forgive me, but I'm not altogether surprised. Because, you see, when people are thinking, am I good enough to have my name written in the book of life, they're still thinking, aren't they, that somehow we have to earn salvation by doing our best to behave, doing our best to keep God's law.
But that again, of course, is false, and God himself tells us so. By the deeds of the law, says scripture, no flesh shall be justified. You say, well then, if I can't be saved by keeping God's commandments, why did he give the commandments in the first place? But God tells us why. He says, you know, the law was given to expose sin. We know that whatever things the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and we be proved guilty. You say, that's a hard thing, isn't it? Well, not necessarily. We need to be saved, you know. And it could be we need to be woken up to the fact that we need to be saved.
There's mother, you see, and she being a devoted mother and caring for her children, she's got a very serious form of a flu, actually, but she's not giving up, and she feels she's indispensable. And, uh, husband says, you must get the doctor. No, she's not going to get the doctor. She's afraid he'll put her in bed, and what's going to happen to the children now, and all that, you see. But the husband persuades the doctor to come and see the good woman, and he takes out his thermometer and he puts it in the necessary places, and he gets it out, and he has a look at it, and his face turns grave. Why, he says, hundred and five or something, and uh, you are ill, my woman, he says, to bed you go forthwith. He's done her a good service, hasn't he? She didn't think she was so bad as all that.
Now he's got the thermometer out, and now he's proved to the dear lady she's bad. That's good. That's a good use of the thermometer. But what would you think of the woman if she sat in bed with a straw around her neck and a hot water bottle and started sucking the thermometer? You say, my dear, what are you doing at? Well, the doctor says I must get the temperature down, you see, and it's got to come down to ninety whatever point four, and uh, uh, I- I do my best to get the- the- the- the- the thermometer down, you see. You say, my dear woman, you are ill. You're ill, more ill than you think you are. You don't suck the thermometer to get better. The thermometer was to show you how ill you are. You want to get better, you must get the medicine.
God's law is to show us we're sinners. The sad thing is we don't take it seriously. We're convinced we're not as bad as we, as people think we are, you know, in God's sight. If you took his thermometer, his law, and took it seriously, it would show all of us that we have come short, that the wages of sin is death. Our condition is perilous. Why else do you think God sent his son to die upon a cross? He did it because there was no other way of our being saved, that's why. But repentance means facing up to the fact that when we've done our very best, we should perish because we have sinned.
When we face the fact and admit it, that's what God means by repentance, and come to God saying, God, we're lost, we've sinned, we've broken your law, we deserve perdition. It is then that God points us to his son as savior and promises that they who put their trust in him shall never perish, are cleansed and forgiven, justified and accepted. Will the judgment take place? Well, the Bible says plainly, it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death comes the judgment, not before.
God doesn't hold court on our lives every day of the week. He comes after death. And what is more, the Bible is careful to point out that the great final judgment comes not after each person's death, but at the end of the world. You say, why is that? Well, because of the seriousness of sin, friend. You do a sin today. You get drunk, not you, but some man gets drunk and comes home and frightens the life out of his kids for the first four or five years of their lives, damages them psychologically, and the father dies in the drunken stupor, and the child grows up damaged.
The damage is repeated, and perhaps it was that child's child. You see, the effects of our sinning don't stop when we die, do they? They go on and on and on and on. The full gravity of our sin will not be seen until history comes to its end. Oh friend, if we could see the ongoing effect of our sins to the end of time, what a sight it would be. But listen, it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment, when the whole of life comes up before God.
In view of that time, when the whole of life shall come up before God, how could we possibly be saved? Listen, as it is appointed to men once to die, and after death the judgment, so Christ was offered once and for all, that is he when he died at Calvary, to bear our sins in his body on the tree. He was offered once. That one sacrifice for sin avails to those who trust him to cleanse them from every sin, past, present, and future, to the end of this world.
Oh, it's a marvelous gospel. There is a final judgment. But none of us need perish, need we? Tonight the door stands open. And the God who loves us and the Savior who died for us bids us come. And if we've never done it before, to come manfully, womanfully, deliberately. To come to Christ. You say, I don't know how to come, but come anyway. Say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, you died for me, the sinner, and I need to be saved.
Oh, Jesus Christ, hear me and save me now. The promise of the Lord Jesus is this, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Since he is to be the judge at the final judgment, according to Holy Scripture, he can promise all who trust him, he can give them his final verdict now, give them the comfort and assurance of it. Verily, verily, I say to you, he who hears my word, believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Glorious savior and glorious salvation. May we have the wisdom to make sure we have seized it and received it before the deadline is passed, lest we should face an eternity without Christ, and therefore lost forever.
