BELIEVING

Steven Eagle

Psalm 33: 8, 9; 2 Corinthians 5: 10; Revelation 20: 11-15

If we are to know God the first thing which is important is to believe that He is – that means that you must believe that there is a God. This is a vast subject for a long discussion, but I would just say one thing for the children to think about. Go outside and take some time to look up into the night sky and look at the stars – recently we were able to view Mars in a way that had not been seen for many years – I would just ask you to take time to look at God’s creation. God made the stars, the heavens, and He made all the animals that live on the earth and He made you. The important thing about the gospel is you.

The scripture in Psalm 33 should make us realise with whom we have to do when we have to do with God. It says simply, “Let all the earth fear Jehovah; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him” – the note says, ‘revere’. When it says, “fear Jehovah”, it is not a terror, it is a reverence of Him, an appreciation of who God is and how great He is. That is what I would like you to have, an appreciation in your heart and in your mind as to the greatness of Who God is. That should be a starting point changing your life forever.

I want to speak about two things; and they are both blessed. The first is the judgment seat of Christ – at the judgment seat of Christ those that will stand there will go over their histories, everything they have done in their lives, good and bad, everything put before them, and I think one thing that will come out of that is that those that stand there will have an appreciation of God’s view, God’s judgment, and this will bring out worship towards God and towards the One you stand before. The way that you will get to the judgment seat of Christ is not by doing something wrong. We talk about judgment and we can put it in the context of today’s life; if you were to come before a judge, you would have to have done something wrong, committed a crime. There are many people in court every day for minor offences, maybe doing something that would appear very small, and also some that we would call grossly evil. But the judgment seat of Christ is for people that have been blessed. They are going to be there because they have believed in God and believed in God’s work, and they have come to know Him as a Saviour God. That is a wonderful thing! You say, why is it necessary to come before a judgment seat? To see the righteous basis in which you have been brought into blessing, that sin had to be dealt with. God wants that in your life if you have come to know Him as a Saviour God and you have come to believe in His word, you have come to know the Lord Jesus as a Saviour. Again I say that the judgment seat of Christ will be a time to go over your history, and, you know, what is wonderful about that, is that you will be shown the points in your life where God was operating with you and that God was working with you. The points when self-will came in and you were doing the things of your own will, and then the point when you yielded to God’s will. You are going to see that; maybe you have done that already. I trust everyone in this room is going to be before that judgment seat. It is a blessed judgment seat. We are only here for time. I you read Ecclesiastes it speaks about time, specific times, “A time to be born” everyone here knows that time, “a time to die” (Eccl 3: 2), no one here knows that time. God does, He knows both times and He controls both those times. We are in time and we can only think in time, but God can think outside of time because of who He is. God made man in His image (see Gen 2: 27), He made man and He gave man perfect conditions to live in, He gave man everything he wanted, He gave man perfection because that is what God saw fit to do and God purposed for man. He gave man life, but man failed – through the sin of one man, sin entered into this world and banished you from the presence of God forever, save one thing that if you today trust in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ you are made suitable to come into God’s presence again. It is worth thinking about. One thing to lay hold of is that God has made it simple for you.

Another subject which is exhaustless is the wisdom of God. It is exhaustless because of Who God is. It is foolishness to say, I am going to sit down and study everything about God and one day I am going to reach a point when I will know everything. You never would, you never could. I believe you would eventually come to a point when all you could do was well up in worship and praise toward Him because you would be affected by it. I trust you are affected in the gospel, not because of me, but because of God speaking to you, of Himself. When you stand outside and you look up at the stars, you will feel very small. You will start to realise how great God is in creating the universe, something that is so full of splendour and wonder; and that God is interested in you. If you look at the youngest in this room, look how perfect she is, God made her, and God made you. He has given you a soul, something in you that belongs to Him, that is precious to Him, something in you that never dies, something in you that He wants to be affected and He wants to claim. He wants you to have your soul affected by the work of Jesus. He wants you to think about a cross, the cross at Calvary, think about the time when the Lord Jesus died for you when He took upon Himself the sin of the world, that those that trust in Him will be saved. The work of the Lord Jesus is great enough to save everyone if they trust in Him and believe in Him. How sad it would be, and I say this humbly because it is a warning to us all, if I believed that there was a God, but I did not come to know Him. If I believed that God was great but I did not come to know Him as a Saviour God. How sad that would be! Do you have a hope in your heart of knowing that one day you are going to be before the judgment seat of Christ? It is going to be a blessed place to see God’s wisdom worked out, when God worked in your soul that you cried out in repentance towards the Lord Jesus and your life was changed forever and you were secured and made safe, you were saved in time and saved for eternity. We are often reminded that God has dipped into time to work things out according to His will. God is beyond time because He is an eternal God, but how wonderful, what grace, that God has dipped into time to secure you, to work out His purposes, and you are part of that if you trust in the Saviour’s precious work.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is the judgment according to the great white throne. It is a place, I hope I can explain it in measure. It is a blessed place. The reason I say that it that we see the wisdom of God as to something which is final, the wisdom of God as to judging finally, once and for all, everything that is abhorrent to Him. My trust is that no one here will be there. If you read Revelation 20, it can be quite a scary passage for a child to read but you do not have to be scared, because if you know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour – you are not going to be there –but God is going to deal with sin and the causes of sin once and for all. That is a blessed thing! The reason it is blessed, again in God’s wisdom, is that He has made it so that only for a fixed period of time sin is allowed to operate and after that it will be finally dealt with. The great white throne is for the souls who have not trusted in the work of Christ and have not come to know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. It is a solemn place. It is a very solemn thing to contemplate, but it is not one for a believer to be frightened of. When we read Revelation locally we were helped as it was pointed out that even at this place of final judgment it speaks about the book of life. Why is it that at a place where God’s judgment is going to be seen in its finality as to sin still has the book of life there? I believe is shows God’s mercy and righteousness. Do you know about the book of life? If you know Jesus as your Saviour have your name written in that book. Once you are in that book you cannot be taken out of it. Once you are saved, you are saved for eternity. God can see what lies before you, and not that you would seek to do it, but even if you sin after you have been saved the precious blood of Jesus covers you for that.

It says as to the great white throne, “And I saw the dead, great and small”. It must have been a wonderful thing for John to see, “a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled, and place was not found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne” – great and small – it does not matter who you are, it does not matter who a man thinks he is, what he has achieved, he will be there if he has not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. “And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books according to their works”. People often say that if they had a chance to meet God they would have something to say to Him. He would like to say a few things because of the state of the world. You can tell God now on your knees and He knows the state of the world, you can speak to God, you can pray to God and He will give you understanding if you trust in Him, but man does not have a right to challenge God. There will not be a voice for man at the great white throne, there will not be a voice for man to come up with excuses or to say that this or that is not fair. God speaks to men, maybe He speaks to men more than we realise, maybe He speaks to us more than we realise even as believers, but God has given man ample opportunity through His grace and His mercy to come into blessing. Here man will not have a voice. At the judgment seat of Christ, as things are gone over it will draw out worship and praise from each one as to the appreciation of what their lives have been under God’s guiding hand because the Lord Jesus has come into your life, but here – just think about it – man has no voice. The time to deal with matters that concern your soul is now – death is final. Death is final as to the things of this world, but as to the things of God every man will have to go before Him. It says, “the sea gave up the dead which were in it” – think of all those who died in the Titanic who where never found, they will have to be before God, many may be there at the judgment seat of Christ; they will be there in glory because they know the Lord Jesus, but any that died on that ship who did not, they will be at the great white throne. There is no hiding place for man. Sometimes men think that if they die, they can escape from God – do not believe that, that would be folly to believe. First of all believe that God is, come to know Him, have an appreciation of His greatness, do not let it scare you, let it affect you, let it move your heart and soul, maybe it troubles you, maybe it is troubling your conscience – I would say that is a good thing that is God working with you, for the first time maybe, to draw you to know the Lord Jesus, His beloved Son, the One whom He gave to secure you for blessing.

When the Lord comes again, He is coming in triumph. We shared in that this morning, there was a time of triumph. The Lord’s coming again, He is coming for you to claim you and take you to a place where there will be no sin, a place where there will be joy and happiness eternally. Trust in Jesus, put your faith in Jesus, go on your knees and ask for help where you are, cry out to Him, become a believer, become a follower of Jesus, become one of His sheep, know Him as a Shepherd, know Him as a friend, know Him as a Saviour, know Him as a Lord, know Him as One who reigns over your life. The kings and rulers of this world, they all have jurisdiction in their capacity, but know the Lord Jesus, know Him as Lord, One that rules your life, guides, shapes and forms it, know One who can help you throughout your Christian pathway. He died for you but He is raised. He is soon going to come and claim you, “the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds” (1 Thess 4: 16,17). Everyone in this room could be amongst the living who remain; the triumph is that when He comes again, everyone that belongs to Him will be claimed. Are you going to be there? Think about it, contemplate it, and do not let it go past. When it comes to the gospel you are not to put if off, you are to make a decision today. Scripture says that, “To-day” (Luke 23: 43), make Jesus your Saviour today. For His Name’s sake.

DORKING