How has the Winning Walk
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going to winningwalk.org/MyStory ♪ Theme Music ♪ I invite you to open your Bibles
with me, if you would to "One" Corinthians,
I Corinthians, Chapter Number 5. I'll
read Verse 9 and 10. I Corinthians 5, Verse 9 and 10:
"Therefore, we also have our ambition, whether at home or
absent, to be pleasing to Him; for we must all appear before
the Judgment Seat of Christ so that each one may be
recompensed, rewarded for the deeds in the body, according
to what he has done, whether good, or bad." I have a good friend whose name
is Janet and she reads a book the strangest way that
I've ever heard. She'll take a, a biography, or
an autobiography, or memoirs, or even a work of fiction, and she
begins to read the book by turning to the last three pages. Oh yeah! She reads the last three pages
first! And I asked her, "What in the
world are you doing?" She says, "Well, if it doesn't
have a good ending to the story, I just won't read it!" She says, "I'm having a tough
time reading with my IPad. It really challenges me!" How do you read a story? Well, you, you start at the end
and know how it ends up... We read the Bible. We know the rest of the story. The Bible tells us in
Genesis that life began in a Garden in Eden. The Bible tells us in Revelation
that life ends up in a City -the New Jerusalem. And therefore, we've been
talking about eschatology. Big word-it just means
the science, or the study of last things... We've talked about when God
brings down the curtain of history and Jesus Christ returns
to this earth, and that is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We know he fulfilled all the
prophecies in His first coming, and now He will come again,
and that will be the signal for time to end, and
life as we know it on this earth will
never be the same. It is over; it is ended. We know there'll be a new
Heaven and a new Earth; but that is the signal for the
end of all time. Now, we study prophecy because
we want to know something about what's going to happen in the
future; what's really going to take
place out there. When, when I die, or when time
comes to an end, or you die and we're here,
what is going to happen? And so we're interested in
prophecy. Prophecy... Now sometimes when you have
time, look at Revelation
Chapter Number 10. It has a very, very interesting
study about prophecy. It's a picture here-remember, John is writing on the
Island of Patmos. He's inspired by the
Holy Spirit. He's speaking the words of
Jesus, and in 10, a voice comes and says-an angel comes and
hands John a scroll, a book. And he says to the Apostle John,
"Eat this book." Now this is apocalyptic
language. What's he saying? He's saying, "Take these words
of prophecy, John, and eat them, and let them go down in your
system and down in your gut and digest them until they
are a part of you. You will know how time will
come to an ending." And that's what John did. He took that scroll, and he ate
the book, and in that 10th Chapter, it says
John reports that, "When I put the scroll in my
mouth, it was sweet as honey." But he said, "When the scroll
went down in me, I began to digest that scroll. It was bitter." Quite a picture, isn't it? When you and I begin to study
prophecy, end times; when the curtain of history comes down,
in the beginning, it is sweet like honey to us. We say, "I have a future that
will last forever..." and we begin to celebrate what
the future's going to be. But before long, that same
feeling of celebration-it sort of begins to die down and to be
phased out, because we are reminded that everybody we know
and love will not be there. We're reminded of regrets
we have for the life that we
did not live. And therefore, you read in
Revelation Chapter 21 that "God will wipe away
every tear in Heaven." You say, "Well, I didn't know
there was going to be any tears in Heaven. If God has to wipe away your
tears and my tears, then evidently there is
going to be tears..." right? Why would we as Christians
be crying in Heaven? It would be because we would
know that there are people we thought would, should be there;
people we knew, and loved, and cared for on this earth, and
they didn't make the cut. They didn't make the team. At the same time, we'll be
reminded of what we should have been with the opportunity
we had in life -the failures that we made. And God will have to wipe away
those tears, even in eternity. And therefore, we are studying the Second Coming of
Jesus Christ, and today, we are looking at
judgment because the Second Coming is followed by, or
is simultaneous with judgment. Let me say a word about
judgment. First of all, the Second Coming
of Christ is not logical. Have you ever thought about
that? Take a secular person and tell
them that Jesus, who died on a Cross, was resurrected, ascended
to Heaven at the right hand of the Father; He's going to come
back and live on this Earth as King of kings,
and Lord of lords. That's not logical to the
secular mind. Just not logical... And also, the resurrection of
your body and my body is not logical to the
secular mind. We, we start off as dust;
we go back to dust. That ought to be it, and the
idea that God is going to come and Christ is going to come and
we're going to be reconstituted and have those resurrected,
supernatural bodies forever -that's not logical. Let me tell you what is logical: Judgment. Justice. Okay? Built into everybody on the
planet is a sense of justice. What is and what ought to be,
and we will lament over things great and small when we see
injustice, and the idea that there will be a day, an hour, a
moment, a season in which everything will be made right;
that is logical. We start off with little
things... Did, did any of you see the bowl
game when South Carolina played Michigan? And there in the fourth quarter,
did you see that Michigan went for a first down on a fourth
down call, and, and they placed the ball down, and if you know
anything about football, they brought the sticks out, and they
did not make the first down. It was obvious to the watching
world. It was short! But the official said,
"First down!" First down? Coach, if I'd a been there, they'd a thrown me out
of the stadium! I'm a game cock fan! I mean, millions saw it! How in the world? Injustice! Injustice... In our world, ladies and
gentlemen, we have been victims, most of us, of things that were
not right and not fair. We see injustice. How can it be that this
life was snuffed out at such an early age? We want justice... How can it be that the corrupt
seem to get richer, and those who are honest seem to get poor? We cry out for justice! And it's logical that there will
be a day, an hour, a moment in which justice will be
established by Almighty God. And this Book tells us, there
will be that day. And, and we talk about the day
of Judgment. "The Day of the Lord" is the
phrase in the Bible, all the way through the Bible-Old Testament,
New Testament -"The Day of the Lord is coming. The Day of the Lord is coming when there'll be justice and
judgment." Now by the way, the word "day"
there doesn't mean a 24-hour period of time. It could be from the birth of
Christ, to His Resurrection,
His Ascension. It could be a period of time. It could be a period of years. They talk about the hour of
Jesus has not come. That hour is not sixty seconds;
it can be an, a scheduled period of time. So don't be limited in the
concept there. As we move along and understand
it, we need to see that in the Second Coming of Christ,
Judgment is always connected. And those who are Dispensational
Pre-Millennialists-by the way, if this is foreign talk to you,
we'll get over it in a moment. If you're a Dispensational
Pre-Millennialist, they see the Bible teaches at least five
different judgments. Ray Summers teachers this. Others would say,
James Montgomery Boice, there's seven different
judgments. And I want you to look at those
seven judgments. I'm going to hit them rapidly. They're on the screen. Look at the first one: There
will be one judgment, is the Judgment Seat of Christ. This is for Christians. There's a series of judgments on
Earth. These are spoken of in
Revelation. There's judgment of the Beast
and the False Prophet at the time Satan will be
imprisoned. There's the judgment of the
Gentile nations. There's the judgment of Israel. There's the final judgment of
Satan, and then there's the Great White Throne Judgment. I personally think there'll not
be this many individual judgments, but I believe there
will be at last two judgments, and most of those who have these
Millennial views, these views of last things, would tell you the
same thing. So let's look at these. I think judgments can be
combined under these two headings.
Follow me! Stay there... First of all, there is the
judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment. It is for those who do not
believe, and those who are not
Christians. Look at it with me.
It's in Revelation, found in Chapter Number 20,
Verse 11 following. This is the Great White Throne
Judgment you've heard about. Christ is on the Throne. The Throne is white,
of purity and holiness. This is the judgment of those
who did not receive Christ. Here it goes: "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,
and the great, and the small standing
before the Throne. And the books were opened, and
another Book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the
dead were judged from the things which were written in it; the
books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which
were in them, and they were judged, every one of them
according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were...
(Do you see it?) Death and Hades
were thrown in a lake of fire. This is the second death,
the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not
found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown
in the lake of fire." What does this say to us? It is saying that in the Great
White Throne Judgment, those who are not Christians, they are
there for their justice. This is a time of great justice,
and two books were opened. One would be the Book of Deeds. Did you know everything you and
I've done; everything you and I've thought had been
written down? Wheww! Is that scary? Is to me! It's all been written down, and
those who are there -they've got plenty of time,
by the way. Eternity's, you know, long, last
time I checked... So everything that was there is
written down. That's the Book of Deeds. Then there's the Book of Life. And some of there, are there who
have said, "Lord, Lord..." but they are not there. And they said, "Look-you mean my
name is not in the Book of Life? You mean I, I'm not going to
make it?" And they said, "No, it's not
there..." And so we see the judgment will
take place. Now, the judgment of those
who did not receive Christ will not be equal. I don't know exactly what that
means. The fire will be hotter; the,
the loneliness will be more lonely; but I can tell you a
couple of things in the Bible stands out about those who did
not accept Christ. First of all, those who abuse
children! Pedophiles, those who exploit
children, the Bible teaches will have a
special place of punishment and damnation
in Hell! And that is taught in the
Scripture. You mark that down! (Audience applauds). Without Christ,
there is no hope. Also, is a special place for
those who have my position, or if you teach a Bible study class
and we do not present the whole truth of God-what it means to
be a Christian-repentance, reception of Christ-when the
Cross is left out, and when the Holy Spirit is not mentioned as
convicting people of sin; when there is not repentance; when
there is not a new life-there's just salvation without lordship;
doesn't mean we're perfect, but salvation in the sense that now
we're in the parameters and we seek to live lives pleasing to
Him; there's a special place for those who teach heresy and false
views of this Book. So that is all written in the
judgment process. Now, I know somebody here is
saying, "What about those who've never heard about Jesus? What is God going to do?" Let me tell you something:
Look at your screens. I want you to remember this. Nail it down. Listen-people will be judged on
the basis of what they did with what
they knew. God is not going to say you
didn't never -you never heard of Jesus? GGrrrr-go down in the fire! What kind of God is that? Are you-where are you? Where, what are you?" So they're going to be judged on
the basis of what they, they did with what they knew; judged on
the basis of conscience, based on the light of nature, and
based on whether or not they've ever heard
the Gospel. Romans 1. Other passages in Scripture. We've got a God that's gracious;
a God that loves; a God that cares; a God that forgives
people like you and me? Man, He's in the business of
grace and forgiveness. But also, there will be
judgment on this basis. And we need to see, and
we need to understand that. It will be an exacting judgment
for those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Great White Throne
Judgment. There'll be a second judgment
for those of us who are Christians. I want you to look at it. It's found also over there, and
uh, you find it again in
II Corinthians. That's what I read while ago. Let me read it again, Verse 10:
"For we all must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ so
that each one may be recompensed (will be rewarded) for the, for
the deeds that's done in the body, according to what he has
done, whether good or bad." Now that's important that we
know. We will all be there before the
Judgment Seat of Christ -not really judgment;
it'll be our reward. You say, "Well, I'm not working
for rewards. You know, all I want is a little
shack in Heaven..." Well, you haven't been satisfied
with a shack on this Earth. You think that's all you want? Be careful!" Somebody said, "Well,
I just want to have a backseat in Heaven!" Maybe God wants you to have
a front seat. We're talking about
responsibility, accountability with what you are, and what I
am, and what we have, and that's where it'll all be measured;
it'll all be handled out, and one thing is for sure:
God's judgment in Heaven will be absolutely fair. It will be fair. It will be equitable. There'll be fairness there
-total fairness. Somebody said, "Well, will I be
able to be plead my case?" I wouldn't recommend it. He who knows all-oh, no, no, no! He will be fair. And this will be a time of
reward, but when we step up there, if, if, if you read in
the Bible another passage in Corinthians, it says that
if you -we stand on the foundation
of Jesus Christ. We're building our house,
our lives on the foundation of Jesus, right? As Christians, that's where we
stand. And then we're to build on that,
and that is our good works; that is our moral living. That's things we do for God. That's our belief, our
integrity, our faith. But, at this judgment of
Christians, the figure is that fire will be set to us-not the
punishment; it'll not burn, but it'll burn away all the
phoniness and hypocrisy and insincerity that we have
in our lives, even though we're Christians. So, I would stand before the
Judgment and I would say, "Lord, look what I built! I preached that sermon!" "Ohhh, but you were showing off
in front of the people-Pweeew! That's burned up...." "Oh, I gave something to
the poor to help them at Christmas..." "Well, but you did, and a lot of
people knows about..." Cheeewt! That's burned up.... So begin to look at our motives
and what we've done, and what we haven't done. All of a sudden, we have this
fire. It says, "Wood, hay, and
stubble-whoof! Burned up in the judgment-all
this stuff we've done when you check out your motive and my
motive, right? Only the gold, and the silver,
and the precious stones-they, that which we have done and
accomplished and said with a pure heart-that will stand in
eternity. Therefore, most of us, I'm
afraid-we say, "I'm a Christian. My life is built on the
foundation of Christ..." but we put on top of it a play
house, or a candy house of sweetness and pleasure, and we
haven't lived the lives that are transparent and humble,
and serving, and loving, and kind,
and generous. Oh yeah... And so as we are receiving
rewards, a matter of capacity and responsibility and closeness
to the Father and the Son in all eternity as we receive our
rewards; it'll be on the basis of our generosity; on the basis
of our integrity; on the basis of our candidness; on the basis
of our work ethic! Listen-if you are a Christian,
you ought to be the greatest employer or employee in
your company. There's no room for laziness, or
slothfulness, or lateness. As a Christian, we'll answer to
God that I stood, and I worked, and I represented that which
I was a part of, strong and straight! That'll be a part of the justice
and the judgment we'll face in eternity. Millions upon millions gathered
there in that open plain. It was all the people of the
world before the Judgment Seat of God, and
they were not bowing. They were complaining. They were saying, "God, You've
lived a sheltered life. You can't judge me from up there
in Heaven..." and, and, and here's an old
woman who stood before. They said, "God, do you see
those numbers on my wrist? I was in the Holo, Holocaust. I was in Ravensbruck, and I saw
all of my loved ones butchered, and fried, and killed, and
exploited, and mutilated. God-You can't judge me! You don't know what I've
endured." And there was a black man
there among the millions before the
Judgment. He said, "Do you see those rope
burns on my neck, God? I was hung just because I was
black, for no reason, and my people came on, on boats of
slavery, and we worked and worked for, until we were dead
as animals. God, You can't judge me! You don't know what it means to
suffer! You've lived a sheltered
life..." Someone else spoke up from a
gulag in Siberia and said, "You don't know what I've been
through!" An untouchable from India said,
"You don't know what I've been through, and, and shame and
disgrace!" And here's a man there who was
brought up and had a life that was twisted because his mom was
a coke addict, and someone else was brought up because a parent
was HIV positive, and they, they tell the shambles and the shame
of their life, and they're shaking their fist at the
Almighty saying, "Who are You to judge us? God, You've lived a sheltered
life!" And so they divided up into
committees-thousands, upon thousands, all the
people of the world. All who've ever lived, and they
offered their complaint to God and said, "God, we want to
sentence You. You have to endure this,
if You're to judge me." And so they got all their
reports in, and finally, they gave the complaint to God and
said, "God, if You're going to judge us, this is what You have
to do. First of all, you have to be
born a Jew-persecution
through the ages." Then they said, "The second
thing, you have to be born and your birth has to be questioned
in the sense that no one really is sure who your father really
is." And then they said, "You have to
be born with a commission to communicate something to the
world that nobody has seen or heard before, and You'll be
considered a radical and a revolutionary
and a lunatic." And they said, "Also, You'll
have to present a message in which all the religions of the
world would seek to destroy what you say and what you've
pronounced." Someone else said, "Oh yes,
You'll have to be betrayed by one of your closest friends and
confidants." And then also it said, "You'll
have to be tried under false charges before a jury that was
biased, and before a judge that
was a coward. Then they said, "You'll have to
be whipped! Yay! You'll have to be spat upon and
shamed. You'd have to be stripped naked
in public, and you'll have to die a horrendous, painful death
with enemies and with criminals known in the world, and you'll
have to be virtually alone. And every time, what God would
have to do in the sentencing of those who'd be judgment, judge;
they'd be cheers going 'Yes!' That's what you'd have to do. 'Yes!' That's what you need!' God, You've lived a
sheltered life..." and when all the sentences was
completed, suddenly, there was silence. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word. Gradually, somebody fell to
their knees. Then they all fell on their
faces in total silence because everybody knew that God had
already served the sentence. The signs are all around us. Our world is gripped by natural
disasters, political revolution, and the persecution of
Christians, all prophesied in the Bible. Are we in the last days? How can we prepare for the end? As believers, we don't need to
fear the end of the world. Jesus tells us that He will
return for His children. So how should we live in these
end times? In the series End Times,
Dr. Ed Young takes an in-depth look at death,
the second coming of Christ, and the promise of Heaven. Get your copy today by calling
the number on your screen or go online at winningwalk.org. It's our gift to you for your
support. You can be confident in your
future, knowing the proven truth of
God's plan for the end of time. If you're watching today, and you've never given your life
to Jesus Christ or you're not sure you're
walking with Christ, let me invite you right now to
pray this prayer with me. It is a prayer that will lead
you to God through Christ. Will you pray these words with
me right where you are? "Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you for loving me. For sending your son,
Jesus Christ, into the world who died for me so that I might
have a new life. Lord Jesus,
I give my life to you. Thank you for the promise of
giving Your life to me. Thank you for salvaging me, for restoring me to the purpose
forwhich I was made. May I walk with you in this new
life in Christ from this day forward. For I pray in His saving,
healing, forgiving name, Amen." Listen, if you prayed that
prayer, call the number on your screen. They'll be mature Christian men
and women just waiting to talk with you about the prayer you
prayed. What does that mean? How do I follow through? How do I really know that I know
Christ? How do I really experience the
reality of being in the family of God? Call that number. And watch again next week right
here on The Winning Walk.
