JUDGMENT AND MERCY AND FAITH
Alex R Henry
Revelation 20: 10-12, 15
Acts 17: 30
Matthew 27: 41-46
Zechariah 3: 1-4
Revelation 20 is not a scripture you would normally read in a gospel preaching. This book is the word of God; I trust you value it. Many of the laws of our land, and the constitution of the United States of America, have some basis in what is found in the Bible, and, sad to say, in many cases much of it is being given up; Satan is in that. How many things are given up nowadays? To the world: the Lord’s day, now just another day; marriage: given up, to a large extent; other important elements of God’s order are being given up. Is the world any happier?
The world to doom is passing (Hymn 220)
- men are going on.
The first passage I read refers to hell, the lake of fire; belief in that has been given up too; it is regarded as a myth, even in some religious circles. It is not a myth! The lake of fire is real; the great white throne is real; I know the Person that is to be Judge there, and I will not be there: thank God for that! It was not down to me, friend; it is the work of Christ. How about you? The wrath of God fell on the head of Christ; that was real. My sins were borne by Jesus. These are realities. The courts of this world are so different. You can get a lawyer who might be a brilliant lawyer, and he might be able to get you off with technicalities, though you might still be guilty of the charge that was laid upon you; but he might get you off and you would be able to escape. But there is no appeal in this judgment: this is fact. “Books were opened”; a person’s life is all laid out, then God’s judgment. And, my friend, I will tell you one thing: you will believe it if you are there, and you will say, “God is righteous!”. But in the gospel we are not preaching this, this is not part of the gospel because what God is saying is that now you can have your whole life out with Him, and He can forgive you all your sins, your whole history can be removed! Do you wish that? Do you want that? Open your heart tonight, let Jesus in!
We read in Acts; scripture is so wonderful: even in Ephesians it goes over certain things, and then it says, “but God, being rich in mercy”, chap 2: 4. That is what we want to speak about, God’s mercy! When you come to Acts 17 how amazingly it says here: “having overlooked the times of ignorance”; how could God do that? I can tell you He can! If you go to the beginning of Acts Peter could say in chapter 3, “And now, brethren, I know that ye did it in ignorance, as also your rulers; but God has thus fulfilled what he had announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer”, v 17-18. Even to the rulers, those that had perpetrated the greatest sin in the crucifixion of Christ, Peter can say, “I know that ye did it in ignorance”! My friend, claim it today! Claim it today when the Lord is available for you: He can be yours, He can be your Saviour, He can clear you irrespective of your whole past! Everything you have said about the Lord, about God, about everything, about the brethren, about anything, the Lord would say, ‘You did it in ignorance, and I am going to appeal to you’. If Saul of Tarsus could be saved, anyone can be saved! How about you? Let your heart open, get something of the greatness of the love of God because it says, “For God so loved the world”, John 3: 16. Think of God’s feelings for mankind. So many things have been given up, but what is of God is going through and in the midst of it all He is appealing to you. He is appealing to you that you might accept Him.
Now when you come to Matthew you see what the cost was in view of the salvation of souls. Think of the perfection of that life of the Lord Jesus; you may have heard it many times in your house; your parents may have gone over the greatness of the life of the Lord Jesus in all its perfection, One who could say, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me”, John 16: 32. But it came to a point when the Lord could say at Gethsemane, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. He knew what was in that cup; He knew the horror of it; He went forward because He knew everything depended on that work and, friend, for your blessing everything depended on that work too! We appeal to you to accept the Lord Jesus Christ for yourself.
So, think of what God felt when His beloved Son, Christ, was nailed to the cross and was hanging there, and there were all those passing by and they said, “He trusted upon God; let him save him now if he will have him”. How awful! And then it goes on from the sixth hour to the ninth hour when the Lord Jesus was made sin. He was made it! My sins were laid on Him. Were yours? Do you know Him as the One who died for you? Think of what that meant to God, three hours when the whole burden of sin and sins was laid on Christ, and the Lord Jesus at the end of it had to cry. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. Thank God this happened! That was where my salvation was attended to. But, friend, how about yours? Where do you stand? Have you availed yourself of the work of Christ? You read the Old Testament; think of Exodus, think of the blood being put on the door post and the lintel, and think of God saying, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”, chap 12: 13. He was looking forward to Christ, looking forward to that great work; that comes into Acts 2, “him, given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye, by the hand of lawless men, have crucified and slain”, v 23. The work of Christ is God’s way of doing it. Not a committee: God did it; He said, ‘For the way of salvation, I am going to have to lay the whole matter as to sin and sins on the head of my beloved Son’! That is what makes the gospel so wonderful, because it was not left to anyone else to try and work something out; God did it! And if God has done it, He is delighted in the results of that, and He is appealing in the gospel today for you to accept the Lord Jesus Christ and to come into the full enjoyment of all that He has in mind.
In the last passage I read in Zechariah, it says, “Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing”. Satan is very active today in relation to your mind and your heart to counteract anything that is said in the preaching. But God is going to have His way, and this scripture tells us what God has to say; He rebukes Satan. Now Satan is maybe working in your heart now; maybe you are thinking something different, maybe you have taken up the idea that you are going to refuse God’s offer in the glad tidings. Some people can be very stubborn; that is all of man, and the enemy knows about you. Maybe you have started to think, and maybe you have started to pray; maybe you have started to desire something; maybe you have started to read the Scriptures: Satan is against that. He knows that, he knows about you, and God is appealing, and that is what you see here. God says here, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”; you might say that just before you are lost completely, God says, ‘I am going to save you’.
Dear friends, open your heart. It says, “Joshua was clothed with filthy garments”, and He says, “Take away the filthy garments”. People have a veneer today, a certain veneer of niceness, but when you get underneath the surface, what is it but filthy garments? Think of the younger son coming back in Luke 15 in all the destitution of the land that he had been in, and what did the Father say? “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it”, v 22. God wants the best for you! He wants to clothe you in the work of Christ. He wants to bring you into the enjoyment of His house. You might say, ‘Well, I cannot understand it; I do not understand it; I do not appreciate it all’. God will give you faith to believe; you need faith, and God will give you faith to believe. You can ask God for faith; it is a gift.
And then you can ask Him for the Holy Spirit, because you need a power outside of yourself because as soon as you go out that door the world is there with all its allurements, and all the outward show to attract you to hold you. How much there is to hold persons today in the world but the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit can maintain you and preserve you. God wants to preserve you. When a person believes in the Lord Jesus He could take them out of this scene, He could remove them, but He leaves you here so that you might prove Him, and He gives you strength. And so you come to the point where you say, ‘I am going to give my life to Christ, and I am going to be here for Him, and I am going to give Him enjoyment’. He will give you peace. You will have something in your heart; you will be able to go through this scene a different person. Do you want to be a different person? You think of it: He will clothe you with festival robes! God wants to bring you into His house, into the merriment of His house. He wants to bring you into His family; that is what God wants. He does not want to leave you just to have your sins forgiven - how great that is! - but He wants you to come into the enjoyment of what He enjoys. Think of God finding His enjoyment in Christ, the One who accomplished His will in every detail. He wants you to enjoy that!
Then you want to give Him something back, and the Lord says, “this do in remembrance of me”, Luke 22: 19. I wonder if you are remembering the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread. Simple and yet profound, it is what He asked. It was “in the night in which he was delivered up”, He instituted the Supper, and He said “this do in remembrance of me”, 1 Cor 11: 23, 24. Every Christian, every believer on the Lord Jesus, should want to do that.
Well, what are you going to do tonight? You need to make a decision; it says in that hymn we sang
The world to doom is passing,
And you are passing too.
It may be no tomorrow
Shall dawn on you or me;
(Hymn 220).
It used to be said at the end of a preaching, ‘There will be a preaching here next week’: we cannot say that; we cannot even say what it will be tomorrow, but one thing we can say is, “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart”, Heb 3: 15. Just bow to Jesus today and let Him in to your heart.
For His Name’s sake.
Cathcart, Glasgow
19th January 2020