Maggie joins me in expressing our deep gratitude,
excuse me.
Don was letting us know this morning, he
was 84, and I remember the first time
we heard him, he was explaining a problem
with his voice and justifying it somewhat by
his age.
Now, at the time I first heard him,
I realized I was running nine years behind
him.
I haven't caught up yet.
So, if I've got any trouble with my
voice, I'll explain it away by age and
you'll understand, won't you?
I did want to say how grateful Maggie
and I are for the privilege of being
back again.
As has been acknowledged to you, I was
and I still am a Congregationalist.
Many people have had to forgive me for
that and I appreciate your kindness in allowing
me to continue to speak here from time
to time.
Cedars has always meant, I think, a whole
lot more to Maggie and myself than we
have to you.
But we are truly grateful and honored at
the privilege.
Now, as Henry mentioned, I stated to the
group of leaders yesterday, the subject that we
are focusing upon is of narrow scope.
Now, by that I did not mean that
it is relatively inconsequential, for it is a
terribly long ways from that.
I wonder how many of you have ever
taken the time to go all the way
through your Bible to discover the heart of
God on the subject of his righteous judgment.
I was led at one time to get
the fresh Bible, one without marks, and to
read all the way through from Genesis to
the Revelation and to mark with the letter
J in the margin every time the Lord
registered his discontent, his heart grief, or his
joy over his own people.
And by the time I got through, I
could scarcely believe that the subject of God's
righteous judgment was such a truly prominent theme.
And hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of passages
dealing with the judgments of God.
But the agreement was made among those who
are leading this weekend to focus upon not
just the subject of God's judgments, but his
remedial judgment.
And I understand that not everybody knows what
we are talking about.
We had lunch at our own church last
Sunday.
I have not been in our own home
church but once in the last calendar year.
Every other Sunday I've either been preaching out
of the state or preaching in a nearby
city where the First Baptist Church lost its
pastor and I've been filling the pulpit.
They too, you see, have had to forgive
me for being a non-Baptist.
But last Sunday I was asked to preach
in our home church and had the great
joy of preaching on John, chapter 15, verses
1 to 8, on fruit.
That we prove that we are his disciple
by bearing much fruit.
But even more importantly than that, verse 8,
we also bring glory to our Father through
the fruit that we bear.
Anyway, at the luncheon that followed the service,
three young men deliberately sat across the table
because they wanted to ask me what I
meant by remedial judgment.
And it was crystal clear that they had
not the slightest notion of what these matters
of righteous judgments really consist of.
So, with the supposition that at least a
few here yet have to understand the subject,
let me just lay out in a few
simple sentences the situation as it presents itself
to us.
Now, normally when the word judgment is used
by professed Christians in America, what is in
their mind is future, what we describe as
eschatological judgment, the judgment of our works, or
what is referred to sometimes as the great
white throne judgment, where God calls before him
everyone who has ever lived and everyone gives
an account of themselves before God and is
held responsible for their entire lifetime.
And certainly, the subject of divine judgment does
include eschatological or judgments at the end.
But we're not speaking about future judgments this
weekend.
We're talking about those judgments that are concurrent
with sin.
And it's terribly urgent that we understand that
even when we fail to judge ourselves and
when our churches fail to judge us as
they are ordered by our divine commander, he
himself will and does do what he has
commanded us to do personally concerning ourselves and
what he has commanded our churches to do.
If we fail to judge ourselves and our
churches fail to judge us, God does judge
us.
Now, these righteous judgments concurrent with sin fall
into two general categories, the one of which
we are speaking this weekend, the remedial judgments
of God, and also the final judgments of
God.
Now, by using the word final, I haven't
suddenly leapt over to the future or to
eschatological judgments, but I'm making a contrast between
those judgments which are remedial and those which
are final.
Now, the young men said, no, we know
the word remedial in terms of school.
A child falls behind in their reading skill,
and so they're put into a remedial reading
class, a catch-up class.
Well, that's what we're talking about.
The people of God fall behind in their
walk with God.
They violate him.
They trespass his clear commands.
As Henry has so carefully pointed out to
us this morning, the wages sin, that is
death.
Death lays hold of a person in this
way or that way.
They have lost something of incredible consequence in
terms of the life of God in them.
And so God brings upon them a remedial
judgment, a judgment that will help them to
catch up, to return to the Lord, to
get where they should have been and should
have stayed but did not.
I trust that that is crystal clear.
But just in case someone is a bit
on the slow side, let me run it
through again.
The judgments that are future and are very
real, you will be judged according to your
will.
There will be a great white throne judgment,
a judgment in which there is a permanent
separation of the sheep and the goats.
But those judgments are not our theme this
weekend.
Our focus is upon the remedial judgments of
God.
But someone thoughtfully is saying, you have described
what you mean by remedial but you haven't
distinguished what you're referring to by the use
of the term final.
All you've said is I'm not leaping over
now to eschatological.
I'm still with these righteous judgments concurrent with
sin.
Yeah, final.
You see, a remedial judgment is a gracious
judgment, a judgment demonstrating God's incredible generosity,
God's loving kindness, God's desire that all of
us come to repentance.
In remedial judgments, there are both time and
opportunity extended for repentance to occur.
But as some of you have learned, a
remedial judgment left unheeded will in God's time
become a final judgment.
A final judgment is a judgment in which
there is neither time nor opportunity for repentance.
But again, it's not the same as an
eschatological judgment.
If I were to ask you what is
the most amazing of these final judgments stated
in the New Testament, most of you would
immediately say Ananias and Sapphira.
For when the lie was told, Peter did
not say, over there is the prayer room.
You see the door over there?
Go to make your way to the prayer
room and see if you can't discover some
grounds for grief.
No, no.
The sin was committed.
It was confirmed.
And immediately, death.
No time, no opportunity for repentance.
So while we are not going to focus
this weekend on final judgments, we would be
most foolish not to retain in our minds
and our hearts an awareness that we dare
not neglect the remedial judgment that God places
us under.
Because to do so is to greatly imperil
our future.
Now that must be said individually, but it
must also be said corporately.
For the judgments of God are not merely
upon individuals, but upon churches, upon denominations, upon
entities of every conceivable sort.
And it is crystal clear that neither Henry
nor I have come this weekend to say,
be careful, God may place you under judgment.
By His grace, we don't speak so foolishly.
The judgments of God are not iffy.
There is absolutely no uncertainty whatsoever in terms
of the judgments of God.
If we sin and we do not deal
with that sin in repentance and turning to
Christ, we are immediately under the judgment of
God.
Not a week from now, not three days
later.
The very day we sin and do not
deal with that sin as God requires, He
places us under His judgment.
And we must not.
We must not for His glory and for
the good of the multitude to watch us
like hawks.
We must not fail to deal with our
sin as it occurs.
Now it's my happy privilege to launch my
part of this weekend by speaking to you
this morning about seven great aspects of the
character of God that make this subject of
remedial judgment so very, very consequential.
So, I probably will not say anything but
what in some fashion you have heard before.
I don't have any desire to be novel,
but only to draw together the vital issues
concerning the very character of God that ought
to lead us to great promptness in dealing
with our sin.
Let me begin with His sovereignty.
There are seven that I will mention.
I do not mean to imply that there
are only seven of God's qualities that affect
these remedial judgments, but just seven of which
I hope to speak this morning.
So as I said, number one, God's sovereignty.
You understand, don't you?
That nothing can hinder, delay, or prevent God
from doing exactly what He pleases.
Now that needs to sink in deeply.
One of the messages that the church ought
to be conveying constantly to the world is
you're not going to win.
You've already lost.
There is a sovereign God who always gets
His way without any exception.
All around us are multitudes of people who
think they can rebel against the sovereign God
and somehow in it all survive.
But it cannot happen.
God always wins.
There are literally millions of Americans who would
be wise to lay hold of the little
parable that Jesus taught concerning two kings going
to war.
And the one king looks across at his
enemy and sees the magnitude of the army
that he's up against and he sends up
a white flag of surrender.
It's not only millions in the world who
fail to understand that God has already won,
but multitudes in the church who continue in
their rebellion against the God who sees them
as they are losers.
Now there's something very stupid about arranging your
life in a guaranteed loss pattern.
But the church has not been faithful in
presenting this aspect of the character of God.
He is sovereign.
Let me give you some scriptures.
Numbers chapter 23.
I'm reading verse 19.
God is not the man that he should
lie, nor a son of man that he
should repent.
Has he said and will he not do
it?
Or has he spoken and will he not
make it good?
Why indeed when God says this is the
way it is, that's it.
The whole issue is settled.
There's no controversy.
There's no room for argument.
Anyone who says otherwise declares himself to be
what he truly is, a fool in his
own heart.
God is the victor.
Now there may be some area in your
life where you hold out against the sovereign
God.
Are you going to lose?
You already have lost.
You are making a fool of yourself.
You would be wise to run up your
white flag.
And in the event that this has escaped
your notice before, when one person sends up
the white flag of surrender, who declares the
terms of the treaty?
The loser or the victor of
incredible consequence to the subject of the remedial
judgments of God is God's sovereignty.
Listen to these words from Isaiah chapter 14
verses 24 to 27.
The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely
just as I have intended, so has it
happened.
And just as I have planned it, so
it will stand.
Excuse me, I'm going to have to get
a little something to drink.
I've seen Don do this, so apparently it's
all right.
Let me start again, Isaiah 14.
The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely
just as I have intended, so it has
happened.
Just as I have planned it, so it
will stand.
To break Assyria in my land, and I
will trample him on my mountains.
Then his yoke will be removed from them,
and his burden removed from their shoulder.
This is the plan devised against the whole
earth.
And this is the hand that is stretched
out against all the nations.
For the Lord of hosts has planned, and
who can frustrate it?
And as for his stretched out hand, who
can turn it back?
We've got to get a hold of that.
God wills it.
God brings it to pass.
All the nations of the world, gathering together
and marching against God, will not raise one
single hair of fright on God's head.
God wills it.
He brings it to pass.
Perhaps these words, some of Isaiah 46, verses
8 to 11, are familiar to some of
you.
Remember this and be assured.
Recall it to mind, you transgressors.
Remember the former things, long past.
For I am God, and there is no
other.
I am God, and there is none like
me.
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from
ancient times things which have not been done,
saying, my purpose will be established, and I
will accomplish all my good pleasure, calling a
bird of prey from the east, the man
of my purpose from a far country.
Truly, I have spoken.
Truly, I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it.
Surely, I will do it.
In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 11, we read,
who works all things after the counsel of
his own will.
I repeat, there is something extraordinarily foolish about
thinking you can resist God, his will, and
his way, and get away with it.
And before we go to my second observation
concerning the character of God as it affects
the matter of remedial judgments, let us be
certain that not one of us is in
any way resistant to the will of our
God.
Well, you say, I don't know that we
really need to worry about that.
Oh, God hates divorce.
And how many divorced people are there here?
One could go through the catalog of sins
and discover that everyone in the room is
somehow involved in some form of rebellion against
God, past, present, or is calculating it for
some time in the future.
The remedial judgments of God are very much
determined by God's sovereignty.
Let us be sure we have that crystal
clear in our hearts and are responding appropriately
to that incredibly important truth.
Number two, the holiness of God is indeed
an aspect of his nature, of his character,
that profoundly impacts his judgment.
God is absolutely righteous.
And he hates both sin and unrepentant sinner.
Now, all my life, I've gotten in trouble
for that statement.
But I haven't backed down, and I'm not
going to.
Some of you have heard me report that
a long time ago, I was preaching in
one of those large California churches, and it
had one of those circular balconies that covered
about three quarters of the church.
But it was at a beautiful slope, so
standing in the pulpit, one could look into
the eye of everybody there in that vast
congregation.
And I remember so well in the evening
service that as I began to preach, there
were these hundreds of children visible and watching
and listening intently.
And as the sermon progressed, perhaps a wee
bit longer than some of the folk were
used to, I saw some of the children
kind of tip over and lean on their
parents.
And then after a bit, why, some of
the children were picked up and placed lying
out under the benches or in the aisles.
And it was just simply a beautiful sight.
And at the end of the service, a
large group attacked the pastor and said, Pastor,
why did you tell Mr. Roberts he had
to preach a short sermon?
And he said, I didn't.
Well, they didn't believe him.
So they brought the pastor to me and
said, Mr. Roberts, did the pastor tell you
to preach a short sermon?
No, he said, take all the time that
God wants you to.
Well, then why were you so brief?
Well, I said, I saw all the little
ones laid out under the benches and on
the steps.
And I just thought maybe you were concerned
to get them home.
No, why don't you give us another sermon
tonight?
It was a beautiful atmosphere, a tremendous hunger
expressed on the part of the people.
But to my astonishment, later the next week,
I got the letter from a very important
figure on the West Coast.
And the essence of the letter was you're
an extremely dangerous person because you have such
a subtle way somehow of worming your way
into the minds and the hearts of the
people.
But you say the most reckless and dangerous
thing.
He said, you adamantly insisted that God hates
both sin and the unrepentant sinner.
And that is a dreadfully wicked thing for
you to have said.
And he really gave me a good assailing
on that.
But I wrote back to him a very
kind letter in which I said to him,
I believe that I have a distinct advantage
over you in this matter.
For I have weighed every passage of scripture
dealing with the subject of the love of
God.
And I find overwhelming evidence that God hates
unrepentant sinners.
After a while, he wrote back a most
courteous and kindly letter saying, You were right.
You did have an advantage over me.
And I apologize for my attack.
But not long thereafter, my son called.
He was then himself living in California.
And he said something like this, Dad, I've
heard you say some amazing things.
Things that I was sure you would never
be able to recover from.
But somehow you always seem to have some
biblical proof.
But this time, you'll never manage.
I heard on a tape that Mom sent
me your statement, God hates both sin and
the unrepentant sinner.
And you'll never recover from that statement.
And so I said to him, Bob, answer
the question.
What is sent to hell?
Sin or sinner?
It was a long pause.
All right, he said, you got me.
I'm not ready to admit you're altogether right.
But that's certainly a powerful argument.
But then not long after that, I was
with him in a group.
And I heard him convincing someone that God
hates both sin and the unrepentant sinner.
Now I want to ask you, is this
an area where you're in trouble with God?
Are you still among that vast crowd of
so-called Christians who tells unrepentant sinners that
God loves them just the way they are?
Oh, that sounds so delightful.
That's such an encouraging and a lovely thing
to say to a sinner.
But it's a lie.
Well, you said we heard your argument to
your son, but it didn't persuade us.
Well, maybe the word of God will persuade
you.
How about Psalm chapter 5, starting at verse
4?
For thou art not a God who takes
pleasure in wickedness.
No evil dwells with thee.
The boastful shall not stand before thine eyes.
Thou dost hate all who do iniquity.
Have you faced that?
Thou dost hate all who do iniquity.
Thou dost destroy those who speak falsehood.
The Lord abhors bloodshed and deceit.
Or these words from Psalm 11, starting at
verse 4.
The Lord is in his holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
His eyes behold.
His eyelids test the sons of men.
The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked.
And the one who loves violence his soul
hates.
Upon the wicked he will rain snares, fire,
and brimstone.
And burning wind will be the portion of
their cup.
For the Lord is righteous.
He loves righteousness.
The upright will behold his face.
I'll tell you very plainly why the subject
of divine judgment concurrent with sin is such
a neglected subject.
Because the bulk of the church has swallowed
a lie straight from the pit that God
loves the sinner just the way he is.
You can believe that until the day you
die.
But you were wrong the first time you
believed it and you're still wrong.
God is holy.
He has zero tolerance for sin.
The church has been teaching he has huge
tolerance of sin.
Almost everyone in the whole evangelical movement in
America believes in a God who doesn't care
whether they live righteously or whether they live
ungodly.
That if they ever had a moment of
faith they're forever secure no matter what.
But in actual truth, because God hates both
sin and the sinner he brings us under
remedial judgments.
So we will learn to hate sin as
he hates it.
So we will learn to flee from it
as he requires us to do so.
What a tragedy.
If someone here were to continue to insist
to the unrepentant that God loves them, it's
only their sin he hates.
But have you ever thought of the consequence
of that type of teaching?
Here's a sinner.
He loves his sin.
He has no intention whatsoever of repenting of
it.
He is told by some clergyman or some
Bible teacher that God loves him just the
way he is and it's only his sin
that God despises.
And what have you done?
You have encouraged him to live out his
life of sin.
You have taught him that it might be
nicer and more pleasant to God if he
turned from his sin, if he repented, but
it isn't mandatory because God loves him just
the way he is.
Now I'm not much concerned about some of
you being angry over this matter.
At this point in my life I fail
to see why any threat from anybody could
have any real consequence as far as I'm
concerned.
But my concern is not in any sense
personal.
We claim that we worship and serve a
holy God and yet we create an atmosphere
of great tolerance for sin among people who
persuade themselves that they're followers of Jesus Christ.
But my real purpose, as I hope I've
made it clear, in bringing this up is
the second aspect of God's character that affects
righteous judgment.
If God were not righteous in this sense
of hating both the sin and the unrepentant
sinner, he would perhaps let us get away
with things.
But he doesn't.
But let me move on.
Let me mention as a third quality God's
jealousy.
When was the last time you gave any
serious attention to biblical statements concerning God as
a jealous God?
God is such a jealous God that he
will not allow any who are identified with
him to rob him of his glory.
We exhort one another not to rob God
of his glory and it's right that we
should.
And Ron and Patricia have some songs that
I particularly am fond of and always so
appreciative when they use them concerning robbing God
of his glory.
And while we ought certainly to stir ourselves
up and to guard against robbing God of
his glory, I declare to you today God
is a jealous God and he will not
tolerate anyone robbing him of his glory.
Now let's look at this matter briefly but
at least fairly from a biblical perspective.
Exodus 20, verses 3 and following.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol
or any likeness of what is in heaven
above or on the earth beneath or in
the waters under the earth.
You shall not worship them or serve them
for I, the Lord your God, am a
jealous God.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children on the third and the fourth generation
of those who hate me but showing loving
kindness to thousands to those who love me
and keep my commandment.
Do you remember Henry's closing words this morning?
28 times?
I saw Maggie get her pen out and
start calculating.
What was your figure?
2,401?
You take 28 and multiply it out the
way that passage, 7 rather, and multiply it
out the way that passage requires us to.
You're running up to 2,000.
What did I just say?
2,401.
As soon as she showed me that on
her pad, I immediately thought of something I
had read during the course of the week.
He would visit iniquity onto the thousandth generation.
Then I began to wonder, I wonder how
many generations there have been since Adam.
I don't know.
I doubt that any of you do.
But I don't think there have been a
thousand yet.
And we still are feeling the impact, the
effects of Adam's sin, are we not?
Have you not this very week felt something
of the curse of Adam in your own
life and especially in the life of those
that you love and are burdened concerning?
The Lord our God is a jealous God.
Notice these words also from Exodus.
This time, chapter 34, verse 14.
You shall not worship any other God.
For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is
a jealous God.
Now, I don't know that I ever heard
anybody declare for the Lord, whose name is
Jealous, is a jealous God.
Or hear these words from Deuteronomy, chapter 32,
verse 21.
They have made me jealous with what is
not God.
They have provoked me to anger with their
idols, so I will make them jealous with
those who are not a people.
I will provoke them to anger with a
foolish nation.
Have you thought about those words?
Let me read them again.
Deuteronomy 32, verse 21.
They have made me jealous with what is
not God.
They have provoked me to anger with their
idols.
To whom are those words first addressed?
Well, obviously, to Israel.
Israel provoked God to anger by their idolatry.
So, as a judgment against Israel, what does
God do?
Why, these words are so perfectly plain.
I will make them jealous with those who
are not a people.
Who's that?
Why, that's us, the Gentiles.
Those who were nobody at that time have
been raised up by the Almighty God to
make His own ancient, much-loved people jealous
because they provoked Him to jealousy.
Now, how asinine can you get when you
think God would do that to ancient Israel
and then let us provoke Him to jealousy
and get away with it?
So, the subject of the righteous judgment of
God hangs to a very significant degree upon
the absolute fact that God is a jealous
God.
Joshua said to the people, this is in
the 24th chapter of his book, the 19th
verse, you will not be able to serve
the Lord for He is a holy God.
He is a jealous God.
He will not forgive your trespasses, your sins.
Now, I've lifted that out of its context.
But in the context, He's demonstrating to Israel
how hard it's going to be for them
to follow the Lord.
And then they come back and they say,
every commandment that He issues, we will obey.
We enter into covenant with God.
Well, they meant it at the moment, but
they quickly forgot.
Or listen to these words from Zephaniah, chapter
1, verse 18.
Neither their silver nor their gold will be
able to deliver them on the day of
the Lord's wrath.
And all the earth will be devoured in
the fire of His jealousy.
He will make a complete end, indeed a
terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the
earth.
So I've spoken of His sovereignty.
I've spoken of His holiness.
I've spoken of His jealousy.
Let me mention a fourth.
His eternal love.
Now, God is not fickle in His love.
It is only when His people willfully and
persistently violate Him that He turns them over
to their own iniquity.
God is never in a hurry to bring
His people under judgment.
He loves His own.
He loved Israel.
His patience with Israel is remarkable.
Every time I pour over the pages of
the Old Covenant, I'm again impressed and amazed
with the eternal love of God demonstrated toward
a stiff-necked and rebellious people.
But that doesn't ever move me as much
as the examination of my own heart and
life.
And I consider the grace of God extended
to me despite the hardness of my heart
and the stiffness of my neck.
Surely, an incredibly important part of the righteous
judgment of God is His eternal love.
He does not have to extend Himself to
us the way He does.
At any moment, He would be righteous in
plunging the whole band of us into hell.
We long ago earned it.
But instead, His love.
But because we do not respond to His
love as we ought, He then introduces these
remedial judgments.
When we speak of remedial judgments, we must
never lose sight of the fact that they
are truly expressions of God's eternal love.
It's not as if God is saying, I
can't stand you.
I can hardly wait until I have fully
destroyed you.
On the contrary.
I have loved you with an everlasting love.
And with loving kindness, I'm drawing you.
That message through Isaiah, or Jeremiah rather, the
prophet, is the message that these judgments of
God continually extend to us.
Jeremiah 31-3.
If you haven't got a hold of those
words yet, lay hold of them this morning.
Will you not realize that these righteous judgments
of God are expressions of His loving kindness?
With loving kindness, He says, I draw you.
Now some of us lose patience with one
another.
And we're glad to cut somebody off after
they've tried us for the umpteenth time.
Now I'm not implying that God never turns
a person completely over to their iniquity.
But I surely hope you understand, He's not
in a rush to do so.
I listen to some who talk about our
nation as if it will be a great
delight for them if God opens the bowels
of the earth and dumps us all in.
I listen to others who are in prayer
meetings pleading with Christ to hurry up and
come back and rescue them from this rotten
mess.
And whenever I hear that, I say, what
about your lost children?
What about your lost grandchildren?
How can you be anxious for their destruction?
Well thank God, no matter how weak and
silly the church is, Christ remains as He's
always been.
A God of eternal love.
Now not soupy, not sickly, not silly.
Coffee love.
So when you sin, you can count on
it that God will bring upon you some
judgment calculated to turn your heart back to
Him.
Give thanks, we're told by Jeremiah in chapter
33, verse 11.
Give thanks to the Lord of hosts for
the Lord is good.
His loving kindness is everlasting.
Let me move to another aspect of the
character of God that greatly impacts this matter
of righteous judgment.
His kindness and His long-suffering.
I've pointed this out already, but it bears
repeating in this fashion.
God is not in a hurry to bring
a person or a people under condemnation.
But He exercises extraordinary long-suffering in providing
them more than ample opportunity to repent and
return to Him.
You remember the experience of Moses after that
wicked season of the golden calf when Moses
spoke to God and requested, show me thy
glory.
And God summoned him back to the mountain.
And we read in Exodus 34, starting at
verse 6, the Lord passed by in front
of him and He proclaimed, the Lord, the
Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger
and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who
keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity,
transgression, and sin, yet He will by no
means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers on the children and on
the grandchildren to the third and the fourth
generation.
The kindness and the long-suffering of God
are a significant part of these righteous judgments.
We read in Psalm 86, 15, But thou,
O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness.
And Paul crystallized this matter in Romans 2,
4, Or do you think lightly of the
riches of His kindness and His forbearance and
His patience, not knowing that the kindness of
God leads you to repentance?
Did you see what's happening in our day?
Is that we have become abusive of the
kindness of God.
We have become presumptuous.
We act as if the kindness of God
proves that we're all innocent, that we've never
done anything wrong, that God has no broken
heart because of us.
Whereas in actual fact, His kindness is intended
to lead us to repentance, not to arrogance,
not to presumption.
And let us pause and ask our own
heart, Has the kindness of God, His
compassion, as manifested in His remedial judgments, led
me quickly to repentance?
And if not, why not set your heart
in this very hour to respond to God
appropriately?
Now we read in 2 Peter 3, 9,
The Lord is not slow about His promises,
as some count slowness, but is patient toward
you, not wishing for any to perish, but
for all to come to repentance.
But I think that the words that gripped
me most as I was thinking my way
through this matter were the words in 1
Peter 3, verses 18 to 20, where we
read about Christ going and making proclamation to
the spirits in prison who were once disobedient,
but then this line is what has caught
my heart.
When the patience of God was kept waiting
in the days of Noah during the construction
of the ark.
Did you ever think about those words?
God had decided what to do with the
wicked men on earth.
He called upon Noah to build an ark.
Was that ark built overnight?
No, you know as well as I do,
what a protracted season of time it took
to ready that ark, and during all that
time, the patience of God was stretched.
And during all the days of your life,
when you have been trying and testing God
by your evil thoughts and ways, the patience
of God has been stretched even as it
was prior to the flood.
The whole of the matter of divine judgment
is affected by the kindness and the long
-suffering of God.
Number six, we must also use the term
mercy.
All of God's righteous judgments are tempered with
mercy or compassion, as the same word is
often translated.
So even when we ourselves are under divine
condemnation, we never receive at the hand of
God what we really deserve.
Suppose you were sent to hell tomorrow.
Would the sum of your life be you
got what you deserved?
No.
No, you didn't get what you deserved.
You deserved hell long ago.
But God, in His mercy, has all this
time extended His grace and His favor to
you.
And surely you can readily see that in
sending remedial judgment rather than final judgment, God
is demonstrating His mercy.
Now take our own nation.
Does our nation deserve another chance?
Could any of us plead with God and
say, our record was so remarkably good in
the early years, surely you must extend your
mercy now and give us another real demonstration
of your mercy.
No, no, we have no grounds along those
lines of appeal.
And yet we have hope.
We have hope that the God who has
invested so much of His grace and His
mercy in our land may yet extend His
mercy beyond what we can foresee and give
us an opportunity to prove that like Him,
we hate sin.
And really, the great test of the usefulness
of this weekend will not be the flowery
words that you speak to those whose words
have blessed you or even the report you
give in your home church on the next
Lord's Day.
The report will be the speed and the
permanency with which we demonstrate that the Word
of God has changed our lives.
When we came, we really didn't know how
many would be here.
But when we arrived yesterday, it was mentioned
that approximately 450 had registered.
And I was thinking to myself, how many
were there in the upper room?
How many were there in that first great
Moravian outpouring of despair?
How many were there that banded together with
Whitefield and the Westleys in those days?
Oh, my friend, 450 people in one place,
all responding to the Word of God permanently.
The prospects are incredible!
But my final word has to do with
judicial timeliness.
Now, that's not an expression you will find
in Scripture, but it's a summary of Scripture.
We live in a land where really nothing
is known about judicial timeliness.
You're well aware that someone can be observed
by 14 eyewitnesses committing a murder, and 17
years later, they're still fooling around in court
trying to decide whether he's guilty or innocent.
We've become so used to delayed injustice that
we can scarcely comprehend judicial timeliness.
We need lay hold of that.
God is never tardy in His administration of
justice.
There are many powerful passages in Scripture that
demonstrate this, but the one that comes quickly
to most minds is one that our dear
brother Henry has already made reference to in
the life of David.
As he pointed out to us in the
earlier hour, when Nathan arrived on the scene
and took his bony finger and poked it
in David's face, already at least nine months,
more probably a year or more, had passed.
Now, does that passage suggest that God was
a year late in getting to David?
No, not if you know your Scriptures.
You know that in Psalm 32.
You know that in Psalm 38, David makes
it crystal clear the very day he sinned
and did not repent, God brought him under
judgment.
He speaks about his bones being broken, about
his lips being parched, about his spirit being
withered.
God is always on time with his judgment.
The minute you sin and do not judge
yourself and put that sin away, God brings
you under his judgment.
But we somehow foul things up because we're
still here, and we say, well, I guess
God hasn't judged me yet because I'm still
here.
That's because we don't understand the distinction between
the final judgments of God and the remedial
judgments of God.
But most of us have come to understand
that of all the countless numbers of judgments
recorded in Holy Scripture, the most prominent of
the remedial judgments is the withdrawal of God's
manifest presence.
And most of us are members of and
in regular attendance at churches that God has
come nowhere near for months and years.
And indeed, some of them, God will never
visit again.
Their situation is as hopeless as was that
of the temple in Jerusalem when our Lord
overlooking the temple said, your house is left
unto you desolate.
But for our own private lives, thank God
that there is still time and opportunity of
repentance.
Now, the seven terms that I've used this
morning all bear heavily on the subject of
righteous judgment.
But as I finish, let us nail down
for good the realization that no time can
be lost.
The righteous judgments of God are always on
time.
And if there's some sin in your life,
you are under God's judgment if you have
not judged yourself and put that sin away.
And there is always the frightening truth that
a remedial judgment left unheeded will in God's
time become a final judgment.
Remember, our God is a consuming fire.
And what a tragic thing that those who
have sat under the ministry of the Word
and have felt the pull of the Spirit
of God in their heart to tell, to
heed the Word of the Lord and should
discover, as the author of Hebrews made it
clear, we receive a kingdom which cannot be
shaken.
Thus, let us show gratitude that we may
offer to God an acceptable service with reverence.
For our God is a consuming fire.
He is the sovereign God.
He has won.
Let us get our flags up high and
live in total surrender to the victorious King
Jesus.
One of the wonderful things about Cedars is
that we're not going anywhere else.
And we don't have to worry about a
time schedule.
Would you bow your heads for a moment
of prayer?
We really would be amiss to just rush
off to lunch after hearing such a message
and not recognize that it's God's
kindnesses and His patient endurance of us that
ought to cause us to hurry back to
Him in repentance.
We are going to be moving to lunch
hour in just a few moments, but I
want to just mention that sometimes fasting, the
reason you fast is because you don't have
time to eat when you're doing business with
God.
And it may be that there's some of
you that need to go get along with
the Lord during this lunch hour rather than
eat.
And I would encourage you to do that
if that's what the Lord is dealing with
you about.
And others, I would ask you, as you
talk over the lunch hour, let's not get
far off the subject but share with one
another what God's saying and what He's doing
that we might help each other return to
the Lord.
Heavenly Father, You are
sovereign.
You alone are God.
You are right and righteous in all that
You do.
What You purpose, You bring to pass.
Help us, Lord, today to surrender to Your
sovereignty.
Lord, You are holy.
Like Isaiah, when he really caught a glimpse
of Your holiness in the temple, he saw
his sin and cried out because of his
sin, Lord,
we are a people of uncleanness and we
dwell among a people of uncleanness and we
have no grounds to stand on.
Pull back the veil, Lord, and allow us
to see Your holiness in a way that
this weekend will forever change our lives.
Lord, You are love eternally.
And we saw Your love on the cross
that demonstrates Your holiness that required sin's penalty
to be paid for and Your love that
paid the price in our stead.
Thank You for Your love.
Lord, You are kind and compassionate.
You're merciful.
Lord, we're grateful for the way You have
endured and been merciful to us.
Lord, the very fact that we are alive
is a clear demonstration of Your mercy.
We don't want to be presumptuous upon Your
continued mercy, and so, Lord, I pray that
You would make clear to us all that
needs to change.
Lord, may we begin to experience the reality
of Romans 6, that when we were buried
with Christ in baptism, we died to sin.
We've been delivered from sin, that sin no
longer is our master.
We're no longer slaves of sin because we've
been set free from sin.
And, Lord, I pray that You'd allow us
to begin to live out the reality of
that life in Christ that is free from
sin for Your glory and Your honor.
Refine us, Lord, and purify us and cleanse
us.
Continue Your work in us.
Lord, I pray that as we share with
one another over the coming hour what You
are saying and doing, Lord, would You begin
to help us help each other.
Lord, the Scripture says, confess your sins to
one another and pray for one another and
be healed.
Lord, I pray that throughout this weekend, we'll
have ample opportunity to turn to a brother
or a sister in Christ, to bear witness
to what You're doing in our lives, and
to know Your cleansing and Your forgiveness.
May there be great healing come in our
midst in the coming days.
Lord, we thank You for the food that's
been prepared for us.
Lord, far more than the physical food, we're
grateful for the spiritual man that You've been
feeding us this day.
And we pray that You will continue Your
work.
In Jesus' name, amen.