God’s Three Appointments for Man (Part 2)
By admin | Jun 14, 2011
We now want to examine the second appointment that God has made for all mankind. Following death He has appointed a day of judgment for each of us. In Acts 17:31 we read that God “hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained.” It will be a day of righteous judgment. In this world vice is not always punished and virtue does not always receive its reward. There are judges in this world who have been corrupted by money and power and the trust and confidence of the people have been shattered. However, His throne is established upon justice and righteousness. He has perfect knowledge and wisdom and His judgments will be unbiased and it will be final and irrevocable.
It will be a great day because everyone will be present. We read in II Corinthians 5:10 that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” John tells us in Revelation 20:12-13 we read, “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God…..And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” Paul warned in Galatians 6:7-8, “be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
It will be a day of Confirmation. Every promise as well as every warning that is recorded in His Word will be confirmed by this day of final judgment. Those who did not think it was necessary to heed the warning Christ gave when He said, in Luke 13:3, “except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish, or the admonition that He gave to Nicodemus in John 3:7, “Ye must be born again…” will, too late, recognize that His divine imperatives are not optional.
There will be those who will come up short in that day who rejected His will for them to be sanctified wholly and refused to heed the call to a total abandonment of their life to Christ. Life in the Spirit is strangely paradoxical. According as we suffer we will reign, as we humble ourselves we are exalted and only as we die we begin to live. Jesus taught this truth in John 12:24-25 when He said, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone…He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” When we read Luke 14: 25-35, He teaches the requirements of a disciple is one who bears his own cross and dies to all rights to himself. Dietrich Bonhoffer states in his book entitled The Cost of Discipleship that when Christ calls a man He bids him come and die.
The church member who learned how to be religious without being a true Christian will come up wanting in that hour. Jesus warned in Matthew 7: 22-23 that, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” In that day we will need something more than church membership, good deeds, water baptism, or catechism if we expect to hear His pronouncement of approval on our lives. We will need our spiritual birth certificate and spiritual baptismal certificate in order to hear the words “well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord.” (Matt. 25:23)
It will be a day of Revelation. The final verse in the book of Ecclesiastes says, “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” When we read the words, ’secret thing’ we are made to realize that nothing is hid from His all-seeing eye. We are told in I Samuel 16:7 “The Lord seeth not as man seeth…the Lord looketh on the heart.” Here we are unable to see the motives behind man’s actions but God does. In that day our motives will be as manifest as our actions. One’s own conscience will rise up to condemn him in that day. What a revelation that will be for the whole world to see!
We pride ourselves in this age of advance technology of being able to capture and store all kind of data. God has the ability to re-play man’s whole life and every word that he has uttered while on this earth and it will be played back at the judgment. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:36 that “every idle word that man shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.” That being true, it behooves each of us to weigh our words very carefully.
It will be a day of Separation. In Matthew 25:33 and 25:41 Jesus tells us that He will separate us “as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” He said that those on the right hand will go to their everlasting bliss but those on the left He will say, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Jesus further reveals that there is a great gulf that is fixed between the two. He illustrated this truth in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. In that day all those who have rejected the blood of Christ will suffer irreparable loss. Mothers will be eternally separated from her children, husbands from their wives, siblings will depart from each other never again to be re-united. Those who are lost will never again hear a baby’s laughter, or sense a mother’s love, or feel the tender touch of a mate. They will have forever forfeited the love, mercy and grace of God. They will have received their last call, sensed their last conviction, and will have forever thwarted their last hope of conversion.
However, for those who have opened their hearts to be His dwelling place in this world He will welcome into the blissful habitation of heaven in the next world. They will enter into the place that He went to prepare for all those who love Him. They will enter a land that is fairer than day and the joy of the Lord will be their portion. “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away…..And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.” Revelation 21:4–22:4
In the final appointment that will follow in the next article I will share with all who want to escape the wrath of God and how to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. The previous appointments with death and judgment are inevitable but the last appointment to obtain salvation requires our cooperation
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