I was having a conversation with a Christian
who made the following comment.
She said, I don't think it's fair for
God to send someone to hell who has
never heard the gospel like a native in
the jungles of Africa who's never heard the
gospel.
I don't think it's fair for God to
send that person to hell.
Now before we accuse God of being unjust,
let us examine who God is.
He is the great God almighty who made
heaven and earth and his very name is
holy.
He dwells among the cherubim and seraphim who
praise him for his majesty and bow before
his authority as a supreme ruler of all
things.
The trouble with that lady's comment is the
fact that her view of God is too
small.
She has shrunken God down to her level
of understanding and by her interpretation, she accuses
God of unfairness of injustice in sending someone
to hell who has never heard the gospel,
but nobody asked her.
Her opinion doesn't matter.
God is a fair and just judge and
shall not the judge of all the earth
do right.
And that is what we are going to
look at this morning, friends, why God is
a just judge and why he has every
right to send someone to hell who has
broken his law, because that is the bottom
line.
A man is a sinner, a lawbreaker, a
guilty rebel who already stands convicted and guilty
as charged.
And the sinner's only hope is to find
refuge in the person of Jesus Christ, because
the wrath of God will indeed be poured
out upon all guilty rebels who have broken
the law of God.
God's law is strict.
God's law is severe.
And God requires perfection to get to his
heaven.
And man is not perfect.
Man is a lawbreaker, a poor sinner in
need of pardon.
A man is not on probation here on
earth, friends.
No, sir.
Man already stands guilty before God for breaking
his holy law through sin.
And a future day is coming, a day
of judgment where the judge of all the
earth will sit on a throne of judgment
and each person who has ever lived will
be brought before that throne.
It will be a courtroom scene.
The angels will be the bailiffs.
The sinner will stand before the judge's bench
and his case will be reviewed.
Time will be taken to present the evidence
of that person's life.
Their actions, words, thoughts and motives will be
presented to the judge who sits on that
throne and that person's life will be held
up against the strictness and severity of God's
holy law.
And everyone will fail that test because divine
justice must be carried out.
The sentence of the law must be carried
out.
The poor, miserable sinner will stand there with
no excuse.
The Bible says every mouth will be stopped.
He will stand there guilty as charged.
He will stand there in his own merits
as he is held up against that strict
and severe law of God.
And he will fail that test.
Listen, friends, I know I'm a sinner and
I need a substitute in the person of
Jesus Christ.
And so do you, friend.
So do you.
But the trouble is a man does not
see his condition as dangerous.
His concept of God is too small.
God is to him like a human who's
on his level, who thinks as he does.
And in his mind, God won't send anybody
to hell.
And man is blind to his great danger
of dying in his sins and being cast
into a burning hell for all eternity because
he does not see himself for what he
is, a guilty rebel or one who is
guilty as charged or one who deserves to
be sent to hell for divine justice must
be enforced.
His trouble is how he compares himself with
others.
He compares himself with others and comes to
the conclusion that he's not so bad after
all, that there are some really bad people
in this world and he is not as
bad as they were.
He's done some good things in his life.
He supported charities.
He's even given money to the church.
He helps his neighbor when his neighbor is
in need.
He's a pretty good person compared to many
others.
So he concludes he will go to heaven
when it is all said and done.
But the problem is he is greatly mistaken
because it doesn't matter a hill of beans
how he sees himself.
What matters is how God sees him and
what God looks at him.
He sees a transgressor of his holy law.
He sees an enemy before him, a guilty
rebel who hates the very attributes of a
holy God and who refuses to bow to
the lordship of Jesus Christ and allow Christ
to reign in his life with utter authority.
Rather, he sits on the throne of his
life and he lives unto himself.
He's broken the law of God time and
time again because man drinks iniquity like it's
water.
He loves the sins and hugs them, coddles
them, indulges them and because of sin God
stands against him ready to cut him down
with his sword of justice.
Now you won't hear that message from many
pulpits in America these days because it's not
a popular message.
But that's my message this morning friends and
my message is entitled Divine Justice and the
Sinner.
Our text today is found in 2 Thessalonians
in chapter 1 and verses 7 through 9.
You may turn in your bibles there now.
There is a coming day of judgment friend.
You can count on that as surely as
the sunrise in the morning.
Every mother's son will stand before the bar
of God on that day of judgment.
Here now is the word of God.
And to you who are troubled rest with
us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not
God and that obey not the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of his power.
Now that is not a text you will
hear from your average pastor in America today.
It's not an encouraging word.
It's not a politically correct one either because
it speaks of hell and its fire and
it speaks of the wrath of God poured
out on sinners taking vengeance on them that
know not God and that obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And there are a good many church members
who fall into that category as well.
Baptized church members who never submitted to the
reign of the Lord Jesus in their lives.
They joined the church but remained in their
sins.
They became good church members but they were
never changed individuals.
They were still mean to their family members.
Bitter, hateful, angry church members who look good
on Sunday morning but the rest of the
week they live like the devil himself because
the devil is still their father.
Although they are baptized, they've never passed from
the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of
light and life.
They've never been awakened to their lost condition,
never been convicted of sin, and never been
born again by the Spirit of God.
They are not washed in the blood and
born from above.
Rather, they are filthy still and God will
take vengeance upon them even if they even
if they are deacons in good standing.
God is no respecter of persons.
You see, friends, when you come to Christ
savingly something happens.
A self is dethroned and another is enthroned
there.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice our text in 2 Thessalonians mentions Christ
Jesus three times in this text and all
three times he is referred to as Lord.
Listen, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven that know not God and that
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord.
Listen, friend, if he isn't your Lord, he
isn't your Savior.
You've been duped by the modern gospel of
our hour, the modern gospel that only declares
God loves you.
God has a wonderful plan for your life.
All you have to do to go to
heaven and to be with God forever is
to accept his son, Jesus Christ.
Just invite him into your heart.
Now, friend, just repeat this prayer and you
will be saved.
Welcome, friend.
You are now a Christian.
That is the modern diluted gospel of your
day and mine, and that watered down version
of the gospel can't save a flea, let
alone a guilty sinner who loves his sins.
If you're going to be saved, friend, you're
going to bow to the Lordship of Christ
and surrender you all to his claims and
rights on your life where Christ Jesus, the
Lord reigns.
He must reign.
He is a living Lord who sits at
the right hand of the father, and he
earned that right by way of a bloody
cross.
You must come to him there.
You must submit to him there.
You must throw down your shotgun of rebellion.
You must pull up that stake in your
life, that stake you have planted in the
ground, that area of rebellion in your life
where you have told God, OK, God, I
will follow you and you can have all
these other areas in my life, but you
can't touch this one.
I'm holding on to that.
I'm putting a stake in the ground and
attaching a sign to it that says in
capital letters, keep off the grass, keep off
this area of my life.
But you, friend, by doing that, do not
obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
with all his rights and claims on you
where he declares, if any man follow me,
let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me.
You, sir, are a haughty rebel.
You, ma'am, are a haughty rebel.
You, young lady, are a haughty rebel.
You, young man, are a haughty rebel who's
told God not to touch your life and
leave you alone to hug your sins.
You were sitting on a false foundation of
carnal security and you stand with the same
crowd in the Bible who cried out, oh,
we will not have this man reign over
us.
You fall into the same category of the
crowd in George Whitefield's day when George Whitefield,
the great evangelist, was in America in 1740
during the Great Awakening.
He was preaching on Boston Common to 20
,000 hearers.
At the time, Boston had a population of
60,000 people, so Whitefield had the ear
of one-third of that city.
I've been out to Boston Common many a
time.
I have walked the spot where Whitefield preached.
It's still a grassy area today.
Just picture in your mind those 20,000
people standing out there beneath the sky to
hear him preach.
And this is what he told them.
He said, you are monsters of iniquity.
You are half devils and half beasts.
And your great problem is you do not
have God's good grace to see your wretched
condition.
You won't cry and lament over your sins,
but if you won't cry over your sins,
as great as they are, as numerous as
they are, George Whitefield will cry for you.
And that great man would throw back his
noble head and weep like a baby, weep
over poor blind sinners who were ignorant to
their own condition.
And that is your problem, friend.
You've never been awakened to your lost condition
and your perilous position outside of Christ.
You are a transgressor of the law of
God and an enemy of the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ because you still sit
on the throne of your life and rule
there.
You cry out, we will not have this
man reign over us.
You reign, but your reign will come to
a sad end for a day is coming,
which is spoken of here in our text
today.
And you better listen more closely to it
this time than you did the first time
when I read it before.
Let me read it to you again.
And to you who were troubled, rest with
us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not
God and that obey not the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of his power.
Listen, friend, divine justice must be meted out
by a holy God who hates sin.
There is a foolish statement made by many
evangelists today.
They say God loves the sinner, but hates
the sin.
That is a politically correct version of a
perverted gospel.
Listen, friend, if you are outside of Christ,
God stands against you.
You are an enemy in his sight, an
enemy who deserves to be cut off and
sent to hell.
Listen to his word, which declares God is
angry with the wicked every day.
If he turned not, he will wet his
sword.
He had bent his bow and made it
ready.
God stands against you with the sword of
his divine justice unsheathed, ready to cut you
down.
Your only hope is to fly to the
refuge of the Lord Jesus Christ and stand
in his merits.
Jesus is the substitute for sin.
When he hung on that bloody tree, the
wrath of God was poured out upon him
because of sin.
Hell came to Calvary that day and darkness
settled over the land as the father turned
away from looking at his son because God
hates sin so much he could not even
look at it.
Divine justice was carried out at Calvary that
day, friend, by a broken hearted God who
had to look away from his only begotten
son and divine justice that day, friend, was
taken care of.
Jesus said from the cross, it is finished.
Divine justice was paid in full by the
blood of the lamb.
I deserve that divine justice.
I deserve hell.
I'm a guilty rebel and so are you,
my self-righteous friend.
But I, like Paul, have obtained mercy.
I'm washed in the blood.
How about you?