Settle Out of Court, Part 1

Acts 10 informs us that after Jesus arose from the dead, and this is actually Peter preaching, I'll quote his words, He, Jesus, ordered us to proclaim to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of him, Christ, all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin.

So he's telling people he's the coming judge and you need to believe in him so you can be forgiven of your sins. As unpleasant as it is to think about, Hell is real. It's not a myth.

It's not a legend that was made up to scare children into being obedient. It's where everyone who doesn't place their faith in Jesus Christ will end up. Because the Bible's teaching on Hell is true, it's a topic that we shouldn't avoid. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey begins a series on Hell. He's calling this series, Is Hell for Real? We're going to find out that it is, but we're also going to see that it's avoidable if we make the wise decision now. Here's Stephen. Sometimes, especially in the matters of eschatology, which is the doctrine of last things, there's so much to get your arms around that it's difficult to deliver it clearly enough.

Here's a case in point. I thought this was really cute, funny. A mother sent me an email this past week that said, My younger son spent Saturday night at a friend's house and went to church with them on Sunday. After church, over dinner at our home, we were discussing what you had covered Sunday morning. In giving him an overview, I mentioned the millennial kingdom, and he said, Oh yeah, that's when we're going to have a thousand years of rain from his ears.

You can see it, can't you? Bless his heart. He writes, I guess the good news is he was listening.

That's cute. Well, we're about to dive into another subject that has raised perhaps more questions and more objections over the centuries than perhaps any other biblical topic. It is the doctrine of the last judgment and an eternal hell. In a recent issue of the News and Observer, there was an interesting article in the faith section of the newspaper. Maybe you've seen that section. Several in our fellowship sent me a copy of that article, which I'm grateful I don't subscribe and I'm well sourced by people who do research for me as informal research assistants, and I'm grateful for that. This is in the faith section. I have read enough of that section to know it really ought to be renamed to give it your best guess section, because it has little to do with objective biblical truth, certainly true faith in Christ. This particular article ran under the headline, quote, It's God's job, not ours, to give out salvation tickets. I agree with the headline. We can't give anybody a salvation ticket.

However, we can tell them where to get them, right? In this article, the author took issue with someone who had challenged him by writing in relative to the text of John 14 six, where Jesus said, I'm the way the truth and the life knowing gets to the Father, except through me. The contributor wrote, worshiping anyone other than Jesus Christ would be teaching false doctrine that effectively means they will spend eternity in hell.

I know this isn't a popular view, but it's the biblical truth, end quote. The journalist, a member, he calls himself a member of the God squad, I guess that means he represents God, wrote his answer in the news and Observer by saying, I appreciate the power of your faith, but it isn't compassionate. He goes on to say, I can't believe Gandhi is rotting in hell. He goes on to explain that God will let all of the virtuous people into heaven, even those who've denied Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

In fact, he used the illustration. He said, think of a Buddhist monk who denies salvation through Christ. Well, he explained, God considers him, because of his sincerity, an anonymous Christian, quote. He got that phrase from a Jesuit scholar. You won't find that, by the way, in the Bible if you're thumbing back your way to the concordance.

It's not there. He went on to explain this and it was intriguing to me. He said anonymous Christians are people who, even though they've rejected Christ throughout their lives, because they are good people, they'll get into heaven. Evidently, they were Christians, they just didn't know it until they had to.

Then the journalists rebuked the contributor who dared to suggest Christ's words in John 14, 6. And he wrote, it's not your job to tell people they are damned. God didn't put you in charge of dispensing salvation tickets. God put you on earth to witness to your faith by keeping your heart open and your mouth shut. I wonder what kind of neighbor you'd be if you saw a house in flames across the street and you said God would rather me keep my mouth shut.

But I tell you what, I'll go over and mow their lawn. I'll show my faith, but I won't warn them of this fiery judgment. Ladies and gentlemen, the fundamental issue behind this kind of advice is the belief that either a literal hell does not exist, or if it does, only really, really bad people go there. Hell is a place for the devil.

It's a place for Hitler and Stalin and Attila the Hun. Jesus Christ made it very clear that no one can enter heaven unless they've been born again. Spiritually made alive by the power of the Spirit of God, invisibly removed from the family of Adam and death into the family of God and life. And you can't get in, no matter how sincere, unless you have had that spiritual transaction take place in your life. What I found interesting was that this journalist completely ignored the words of Christ and went immediately to, I can't imagine Gandhi writing in hell.

You can't ignore his words. He said earlier in John chapter 10 verse 9, I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved. Listen, these claims of Christ have to mean something. Jesus Christ is a liar, a lunatic, or he is truly Lord.

This is what C.S. Lewis called the great trilemma. That Christ was either a liar, he was just making this stuff up. It really isn't true. Or he's a lunatic. He has this grand Messiah complex and he just felt good about himself and thought everybody ought to come to him if they wanted to get up there. Or he is a Lord.

You can't have it but one way. So why do people throughout our culture, like this newspaper journalist, flirt with the vocabulary of truth but deny the definitions of Christ's claims? Because you have this knotty problem, this troubling issue relative to this book and the God-man. You have a problem with the apostles and the prophets before them. You have this issue of final judgment and a place called hell.

The intention of God is to warn us that it really exists. In fact in his word in Romans chapter 10 verse 3 he says, All of the world will become accountable to me, he said. Accountable to God. That's the thing the world resists, rejects, tries to mock, distort, deny, redefine.

Some way we've got to get around that and still get into the place this book introduced called heaven. The word accountable. All the world will become accountable is hupotikos. It's a word that literally means to answer to. To be liable for judgment. It's a legal term that refers to being liable for punishment. You see the problem isn't that Jesus and the apostles and the prophets weren't clear.

The problem was they were very clear but our world does not want to hear it. The apostle is saying that there's a coming day when all the world of unbelievers will be brought to a trial before God and they will be liable for everything they've ever done. For the believer will never stand before God based on our deeds. We've accepted the gift. We'll stand before him relative to how we lived our deeds and we'll be rewarded for that which was profitable.

That which is unprofitable will burn up as wood hay and stubble. But the unbeliever will stand before God and give an account as we'll talk about in our study. In fact this is this paragraph where we're at now in Revelation chapter 20 if you haven't been with us we're at verse 11.

There's so much here that I'm going to take two sessions to get through it to work through it with you and I'll attempt to answer in our next session some things that come out of a text like this. Questions like well what about those who've never heard the gospel? Are they going to hell? How could God send anybody to hell who never had a missionary deliver the gospel to them? How could anybody be sent to hell who never had a Bible? Does hell really last forever for people or is that just for the devil and all those other bad people I mentioned?

Well I'll answer those as we work our way through this. What I want to do today is to introduce with just a few phrases of John's vision the most despised doctrine of future events. In fact it is the most offensive repulsive doctrine of biblical Christianity to our world. It is this doctrine of final judgment that is too horrifying to even begin to imagine when billions of unbelievers will be summoned to court by guess who? Jesus Christ.

R.G. Lee the preacher of old a few generations ago called this day payday and I heard his sermon on an old cassette one time. He preached a sermon entitled payday someday.

Some of you have heard that. Well according to this scene in Revelation chapter 20 beginning of verse 11 payday has arrived. Divine courtroom of God is about to deliver a call to order and the great trial that ends human history as we know it is about to begin.

Let's take a look first at this unforgettable setting. Verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead the great and the small standing before the throne.

Let's stop for just a moment. There are several descriptive phrases that John delivers for us that come out of his vision. He says first of all that this was a great throne.

The word is Megan which gives us our word mega. This is a mega throne. This throne is so awesome and fearful and great because of the glory that is so great surrounding it. This is a great throne. All other thrones compared to this throne are small. This one is great.

This is the only court ever convened by one whose jurisdiction was universal. It's that great. He says it's also a white throne. The brilliance, the splendor of the light emanating from the one seated there. The throne has been described for us already with lightning flashes and the sound of thunder. It's a terrifying thing at that moment to be on the other side of his grace where the mercy of God will be no more, so to speak. This is a white throne referencing the purity of his verdict.

Lukon is the Greek word. It symbolizes absolute justness. There's not one speck of injustice. There isn't any hint of the potential of bribery. There's no spin in this courtroom.

There's not one molecule of inequality. In other words, God's coming verdict of punishment to an everlasting hell is right and just and true. Mankind that stands before him is about to receive what it actually deserves.

You say you've got to be kidding. How offensive is that? Think about it this way. It's one thing to say someone isn't going to heaven because they don't deserve heaven. Listen, it is an entirely different thing to say that someone is going to hell because he deserves hell. That is offensive.

Utterly offensive to every generation to believe that hell could possibly be deserved. Later on, John will tell us why. But here in verse 11, he informs us of this unforgettable setting which involves a great, a white, and he mentions it's a throne. This isn't a desk for dialogue.

This isn't a couch for therapy. This isn't a stool upon which some wise counselor may sit or some teacher. No, this is a throne from which will be delivered the king's verdict. John makes reference to the king. Look at verse 11. He speaks of the one, him who sat upon it, capital H. Now, we have to go outside this text to know which person of the Godhead is instrumentally involved in the judgment of humanity. We know from a number of verses that God the Son shares the throne with God the Father.

It's the place of authority. We know that he's seated on the throne. Revelation 22 refers to the throne of God and of the Lamb. Paul wrote to the Colossians in chapter 3, verse 1, therefore, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

That means he's seated at the place of authority. He represents the triune God in this unique way. The writer of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 12, wrote that Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. It's a reference to the throne being shared by the Father and Son, the Spirit hovering there as well, a reference to the triune God certainly being in place. The apostle Peter wrote that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God having gone into heaven, 1 Peter 3.22. They share the throne as equally divine along with the Spirit, God in three persons, we sang great truth.

We believe it not because we understand it but because the Bible delivers it. Now, although they share the throne and all three persons equally divine, they yet have unique functions. We talk about the economic subordination of the triune God. Ontologically, they're equal. Economically, as it relates to function, they are subordinate. So you have Jesus doing the will of the Father and you have the Spirit glorifying the Son. It doesn't mean that they're less equal than the other.

They have unique functions. And one of the unique functions of God the Son is that he will be the judge. Jesus Christ himself said in John, chapter 5, verse 22, not even the Father judges anyone but he has given all judgment to the Son. Jesus Christ then is the judge.

And by the way, this court can't be held if the judge is dead. He's alive, resurrected, ascended, seated. In fact, it's this truth, by the way, of the resurrection of Christ that turned cowards into crusaders, isn't it? You have these apostles or disciples before they got promoted. A few months earlier, what are they doing?

They're denying him and running. Here's Peter cursing so that people would be fairly certain that he had nothing to do with the Galilean, covering it up. Now, just a matter of weeks later, he's boldly preaching the Gospel. What changed him? The judge is alive and he's seen him.

It's more than that. Acts chapter 10 informs us that after Jesus arose from the dead, and this is actually Peter preaching, I'll quote his words, he, Jesus, ordered us to proclaim to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of him, Christ, all the prophets bear witness that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin. So he's telling people he's the coming judge and you need to believe in him so you can be forgiven of your sins. The irony is this, the one who now receives people who will, he then will forgive their sin will be the same one who will judge them who do not. By the way, I don't know if you caught it.

I'll read it again. Jesus said, and he ordered us to proclaim to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God, the Father, as judge of the living and the dead. Didn't Jesus know that his followers weren't supposed to say things like that? That he's going to judge the world? Didn't Jesus know that we were just supposed to keep our hearts open and our mouths shut?

Didn't Peter know that? He said, no, I'm under orders. We've been commanded to go, haven't we? And in the process of making disciples, we're to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit and to teach them to observe all I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always.

That isn't a suggestion. That isn't for really good Christians. That isn't for people who join the church and everybody else doesn't have to sign on yet. That's for every one of us who know Christ. We have been commanded to tell our world the judge is coming who will judge the living and the dead. We cannot keep this to ourselves. And Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 5-20, we beg the unbelieving world to be reconciled to God.

Why? Well, for one, we want to glorify God and obey him. And yet the thing that moved Paul to a word of tears was this idea of an unreconciled world being judged.

There is a coming payday, that is. A terrifying verdict so terrible that we would never wish this upon anyone. The scene is actually made more terrifying by what John writes next in verse 11. Note at the beginning, we'll start there. I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it. Now notice, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them. In fact, there's quite a good debate among committed believers as to what God is going to do with the earth and the heavens. There are those who believe that he's going to burn the surface of it and sort of burn away, as it were, the effects of sin.

And they have a good argument. But John's vision here, coupled with numerous Old and New Testament passages, including primarily 2 Peter chapter 3, leaves little doubt in my mind that what will happen in between the ending of the kingdom and that brief period of time where Satan is judged and the earth is destroyed and this great trial takes place, that period of time where those things are happening between the kingdom and the new heaven and the new earth is this terrifying moment where the universe will be literally consumed by fire. Peter writes, the heavens will pass away with a roar. The Greek word for roar is a word that delivers to us the sound of what that would make. It's a clap. It's a bang, so to speak. We believe in the big bang then, at the end, not the beginning.

It's this clap, this snap is how the word is intended to be spoken. And the earth, Peter says, and its works will be burned up. According to his promise, however, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Peter writes, the elements will be destroyed.

The word for elements is the Greek word stoicheion which refers to the atomic particles which are the basic building blocks of everything that is. It will all be destroyed. In fact, when Peter says the elements will be destroyed, the word destroyed is even more enlightening because the Greek word literally means loosed. It will come unhinged. The atoms will split, and what happens when atoms split? You have a nuclear explosion. The universe will literally come apart and explode as if it were one fiery, gigantic nuclear bomb. The heat from this universal explosion, Peter writes about, will disperse everything. In fact, John then says, and I think it's interesting, he says in verse 11, and from his presence, earth and heaven flee. Matter perhaps isn't destroyed, but yet it flees.

We do not know where in its unhinged state, and perhaps what God will do then is he will collect it all and he will fashion a brand new earth and a brand new universe. So imagine then you have this explosion, and all of a sudden there's nothing. You have a courtroom then that is suspended in space. You don't see earth below you. You don't see the heavens above you. There are no planets.

There are no stars. There's nothing except the redeemed who are seated upon their thrones, the hosts of heaven, Satan and his demons already having been sent to the lake of fire, and you have the unredeemed standing upon nothing, but they're standing before the great white throne. It will be a terrible day for those who stand before the throne of God to receive an eternal sentence. The good news is that God has provided a means of escape now.

That escape comes to all who respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is wisdom for the heart. Stephen called today's message, Settle Out of Court. It's a great title because that's the wise thing to do.

Settle your accounts with Jesus Christ before facing him in judgment. There's more to this lesson, and we'll come back to this scene in our next broadcast. We don't have time to finish it today. Between now and then, please take a few moments and share your thoughts and comments with us. We'd enjoy hearing from you and learning how God uses the ministry of wisdom for the heart to encourage you in your walk with him. If you have a comment, a question, or would like more information, you can send us an email if you address it to info at wisdomonline.org. You can use that address for any correspondence you have. You can actually use that to ask Stephen any questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith.

Stephen answers those questions that come in, and we post those answers on our website. Once again, write to us at info at wisdomonline.org. Don't miss the conclusion to this message on our next broadcast. That's next time, here on Wisdom for the Heart. .