Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
08/18/2019 P.M.
There’s A Great Day Coming
Revelation 14.13
We can’t read Revelation chapters fourteen and fifteen without understanding that there is a great Day coming… A Day of Judgment…
• A day of reckoning…
• A day when justice will prevail…
• When wrongs will be righted…
• When evil will be punished…
• Righteousness will be rewarded…
• A day when we will be seen as we really are… Truth will be revealed and every lie and falsehood will be visible to all in the light of truth.
Solomon declared… For God will bring every deed into Judgment… Including every hidden thing… Whether it is good or evil… Does that scare you?... It does me!
Indeed… A time…A day… Is coming when we will all stand before the throne of God and be judged for how we lived in this life.
our lives will be laid bare… Including every hidden thing.
• Both the good and bad…
• The things seen and secret things that no one knows.
I’ve gotta say this again here… Because I believe it to be of utmost importance as we look at our Judgment Day… motive is important… Motive is everything!
We can’t… We don’t want to stand before God having practiced our religion out of improper motive… That won’t be pretty!!
The Bible teaches this truth… It teaches that…
• We can come here three times a week…
• Know truth… Stand for truth… Preach truth… Defend truth…
• Be deeply involved in ministries…
• Be evangelistic…
• Intensely defend the orthodoxy of the church of Christ… This church…
• Look…Good… Pure… And Holy…
But… But… If our motive is wrong…Nothing counts!... Nothing Counts… And we are in serious jeopardy on our Judgment Day!
Jesus affirmed this right motive concept in the Sermon on the Mount when He said… Our praying…Our giving… and fasting… With improper motive has no Heavenly reward.
Perhaps the most severe words ever… from the lips of Jesus… were His Seven Woes pronounced upon the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in Matthew chapter twenty-three?
These condemnations begin with these words in verse five… Everything you do is done for men to see!... Wrong Motive!!... Their religion was in vain!... Useless!
Paul addresses the fact that motive reigns supreme in First Corinthians chapter thirteen…
• Saying that we can know truth… Have all knowledge about truth… Teach truth…
• We can know Scripture so to understand every verse… Every Biblical mystery…
• Have faith so that we could remove mountains…
• We can give all we possess to the poor…
•Surrender our bodies in martyrdom to the cause of Christ…
But if we do not have the right motive… In this case love… Paul contends that it gains us nothing… NoThing.
Motive cannot be seen… So… It’s possible to live a lie!!
This is why we are so ill equipped to judge others…
But listen… When we stand before the… Sovereign… Creator… Savior… Holy… Just… God of the universe… Only truth will be the basis for our judgment.
The Omnipresent…Omniscient… All-seeing eyes of Jesus… Who sees us as we really are… Will judge us.
We can’t talk about the Judgment Day without keeping this in mind… It’s of most importance… Motive is everything!!
On that Great Day…
• How our neighbor lived…
• How the Eldership did their job…
• What your preacher stood for or against…
• What the church down the road taught or didn’t teach…
• What mom and dad… grandma and aunt Jessie… Considered truth…
Will not be important.
The only things that matter will be our relationship with the Lord… And did we live life with proper motive… Are we living truth… Truly… living… truth?
OK… What does the Bible Teach about this…
Great Day… Judgment day?
First… There’s the certainty of it…
Daniel Webster was asked…What was the greatest thought to ever pass through your mind?... To which he replied… My accountability to God.
Down deep… We are all aware of the fact that somewhere in the future… In a time known only to God… There is going to be a day of judgment.
Jesus speaks of judgment in Matthew 24... As in the days of Noah... So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In the days before the flood... People were eating and drinking... Marrying and giving in marriage... Up to the day Noah entered the ark... And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away... That is how it will be at the coming of the Son ofMan.
Acts 17.31… From Mars Hill… We hear Paul declare… For God has set a day when He will Judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed.
Hebrews 9.27… Just as man is destined to die once… And after that to face Judgment.
Second Corinthians 5.10… For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
Even though we acknowledge the idea of judgment… For some reason… We tend to ignore the certainty of it.
It’s an appointment that we all must keep.
The question is…Are we ready?... Prepared for God’s Judgment.
Secondly…God protects His People… We can be spared from God’s wrath.
Listen to Peter as he references the Judgment Day of Noah & Lot... For if God did not spare angels when they sinned... But sent them to hell... Placing them into gloomy dungeons to be held for Judgment... If He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people... But protected Noah. He destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah… But rescued Lot. DID YOU CATCH IT?...
• Protected Noah and seven others...
• Rescued Lot and His family.
If this is so... LISTEN NOW... If this is so... Then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the Day of Judgment.
There are some things in those verses which are tough to understand... But the main point is perfectly clear... God’s people will be protected... Even when the Lord is executing judgment on the ungodly.
Then I heard a voice from Heaven say… Write… Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.
Indeed… God protects His people in the midst of judgment.
At this point we gotta ask… What’s the basis for our judgment?
So much could be said here…But I want to go back to our text… Two thoughts… Two basis for our Judgment…
One… Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord… We must be IN the Lord!
Two… They will rest from their labors for their deeds will follow them.
Let’s explore each for a moment… Both from the lips of Jesus.
Jesus gave us several Judgment Parables… Earthly stories with applications about the basis for this Great Day Coming!
First… Our Judgment will be based upon… How we’re dressed!...
Listen as I rehearse a parable from Matthew 22.1-14…
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who prepared a wedding banquet for His son… He sent his servants to those who had been invited saying… The time is here… Come to the banquet… But they refused.
So… He sent his servants into the streets… The highways… By-ways… To invite everybody they could find… Both good and bad to come to the feast.
All those who came were to wear wedding clothes…
When one was found without proper dress… The King separated him from the others in Judgment and had him cast outside into the darkness where there was to be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So… Again the question becomes… How are we dressed?
Our text says… We must be in the Lord.
Revelation 7.9 & 14 describes these as those from every… Tribe… Nation… and Tongue… Wearing White Robes… Robes that have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb.
In Galatians 3.26 & 27… Paul tells us…
• How we get into Christ…
• How we become properly dressed…
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus… For all of you who were baptised into Christ… have put on christ…have been clothed with Christ.
Listen… There is no way to miss Paul’s point here… That we get into Christ by faith and baptism… That these two things dress us for His Coming… for Heaven’s banquet.
It was Jesus… who said in His discourse with Nicodemus… Unless one is born again… He cannot see the Kingdom of God… Unless one is born of water and the Spirit… He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
Peter speaks of this new birth in First Peter 1.22-23 and 3.21… You have purified yourselves by obeying the truth… For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God… And this water of Noah’s time symbolizes baptism that now saves you also… Not the washing of dirt from the body… But the answer of a good conscience toward God.
Then Peter tells us what this new birth… This washing in the blood of the Lamb… This water baptism does for us… You become a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Gotta ask tonight…
• Are we a child of God?...
• Have we been born again of water and spirit?…
• Had our robes washed in the blood of the Lamb?…
I pray so… If not tonight’s invitation is for us to do that.
Now the second basis for Judgment is found in our deeds…
Our text indicates that Heaven’s rest is because of… Our deeds… Good works.
This idea is affirmed by Jesus in His Parable of the sheep and goat Judgment found in Matthew chapter twenty-five… Listen as we hear Jesus say…
• I was hungry and you gave me something to eat…
• I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…
• I was a stranger and you invited me in…
• Naked and you clothed me,…
• I was sick and you visited me…
• I was in prison and you came to me…
Then the righteous said… Lord… When did we see you in these predicaments… And Jesus replied… As often as you did it… To the least… To the least… Of these you did it to Me. Welcome in to the Kingdom…Come be a part of your Lord’s Joy.
To those on the left… Those who did not respond to the people they saw in need… Jesus said these will go away into eternal punishment.
Church… Are we listening to the conclusion of Jesus’ remarks here?…
Are we hearing Him say that… Righteousness is bound-up in how we treat one another… Others… All others.
Did we catch we are created to serve from Parker’s lesson last Sunday Evening?...
Jesus came to serve… Be a servant…
To do that He became human… In the likeness of a man.
So… The conclusion is that mankind must have been created to serve… To be a servant.
Church… This is our purpose… We were created to serve others… To do good to others.
Listen to Ephesians… 2.10… For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Titus 2.11 says… As God’s children… We are to be anxious to do good deeds… Zealous for doing good works.
After washing His disciples' feet… Jesus tells them and us to go and do likewise.
It was Jesus who said…The greatest in God’s Kingdom… In the church… In this church… Will be the servant of all.. Are we willing?... Are we REALLY?
Are we trying to be great in this church by some other method except than by serving?...If so then we have a wrong motive.
I gotta tell you…
• When we never help feed the poor… Give a drink to the thirsty…
• When we never greet and welcome the stranger…
• When we never give clothing to the needy…
• When we never visit the hospitals or nursing homes…
• When we never make any effort to minister to those in jail or prison…
• When we go through the foyer intentionally ignoring our brother or sister…
• When we purposely sit across the auditorium from another so we don’t meet him or her face-to-face…
• When we harbor… Hurt feelings… Envy… Jealously… Spite… against another…
• When we gossip or belittle others… Wrongly judge others…
We’re doing the same to Jesus… And this behavior… And this behavior… Public or secret will come to visit us on our Judgment Day.
Listen again to Peter as he tells us how to serve Jesus by serving one another… Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
One last point… How we die is how we are judged?
If I understand the Bible correctly… If we die before the Lord returns… Our eternal fate is sealed as if Jesus returned at that moment.
Scripture appears to teach that nothing happens between Death and the Judgment Day that would change our eternal destiny.
So… Tonight…
• Are we living with proper motive?...
• Cognizant of the fact that a Judgment Day is in our future?...
• Do we take comfort that God protects His own?…
• Do we understand that we must be… IN CHRIST…CLOTHED WITH CHRIST… BY FAITH AND THE NEW BIRTH OF WATER BAPTISM?…
• Do we understand that our Heavenly rest is somehow proportional to our serving the Jesus in others?
So… Where does this invitation find you and your preacher?
Do we have something that needs correcting before our Judgment Day?
Wherever the invitation finds you tonight… Respond to Jesus as we sing together.