“Judgment Day: How Not to Prepare” 1
June 14, 2009
Second Sunday of Pentecost
Corinthians 5:10
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (ESV)
We live, I think, in a culture that is very concerned about the future. The events of 9/11 still haunt us. The current economic crisis gives us cause for concern. Jobs are hard to find. Good jobs are even harder to find. We are concerned about our health, our careers, our marriages, and our families. As we look ahead to the future, many are apprehensive. Some are downright frightened.
Although our society is concerned about the future, the vast majority are either totally ignorant of, or else totally unconcerned about, the possibility that God will bring everything to a sudden end. Yet, throughout the Bible, God warns us that he will bring all things to an abrupt halt. The apostle Peter writes, “But the end of all things is at hand.”2 Jesus himself says, “[And this] gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”3 And in our text, St. Paul gets very personal when he says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”4
This is certainly no laughing matter. Yet, the world scoffs at the idea of a Judgment Day. But it shall come to pass. There’s only one right way to eternal joy come Judgment Day. All other ways, all other roads, all other planes will get you to the wrong destination and the worst of eternities. The one and only way to eternal joy is by way of Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”5 No other religious leader dared to make such a claim. But Jesus did. And his submitted this claim to the ultimate of tests, namely, that he would be put to death … and on the third day rise again from the dead. And his resurrection is the evidence that what he said must be true.
But if you don’t believe that Jesus is the only way, you’re on the wrong plane, a plane headed for eternal darkness. One day, the last day will be Judgment Day. Christ will return visibly for every eye to see, the omnipotent Judge of humanity. Unbelievers, those on the wrong religious roads, will be filled with terror. When they see him they will be afraid and, like the great men of old, they will say to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”6 Who can stand? All who trust in Christ will not only stand; they shall be glorified!
Scripture tells us that Judgment Day will come like a “thief in the night,” i.e., suddenly and unexpectedly.7 When Jesus comes, he will separate all people who ever lived into two groups. On his right will be those who died trusting in him alone for their salvation. On his left will be all the others who died apart from Christ. Those on his right, his sheep, will be ushered, body and soul, into the eternal joy of paradise. But those on his left shall be cast in the eternal fire of endless misery.
Years ago, a young man said to me, “Hell can’t be all that bad—all of my friends will be there.” I was shocked by his statement. But I pointed out that he shouldn’t be so cavalier about this, for Scripture says of those in the fiery abyss, “Their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”8 “Their worm” may well be a description of the worms and maggots that consume dead flesh.9 Accordingly, their bodies will be abhorrent even to look at. But this young man was not bothered in the slightest. He said he looked forward to being in hell.
So then, for the benefit of those who want to join him I want to tell you what you must do to get there. If you follow what I lay before you, I promise you that you will get what you want.
The first thing you must do is go home and locate your Bible. If you find that it has collected dust, you are doing well. Just leave it there as you have grown accustomed to doing. But if you actually use the thing, throw it away. You see, the Bible is God’s Word. If you read it, study it, or hear it preached, the Holy Spirit will actually work through it. He will work through it to bring you to and preserve you in the one, true saving faith. We remember also what Jesus once said, namely that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of god.”10 The apostle Paul also said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.”11
So then, it is clear: If you make use of the Scriptures, you will very likely have a joyful Judgment Day. But since this is not your goal, you will avoid this at all costs.
Now that you have dispensed with God’s Book, you are free to create your own god. You must get rid of the notion that God is actually holy and just, and that he actually punishes sin.12 True, that’s what the Bible says, but you must try to forget it. Most people feel good about making a god of themselves. Why not you? That way you can indulge yourself to your heart’s content. Yes, indeed, become an addict of pleasure. Make everybody serve you and demand that they make you happy. Love no one but yourself.
We come now to the point that separates the men from the boys, as they say. It concerns the problem of guilt. Everybody knows that when you break one of God’s holy Commandments, you feel guilty—or at least you’re supposed to. When this happens, it’s important that you just keep on breaking God’s commandments. Pretty soon your conscience will become dulled and you won’t feel guilty about anything anymore.
Just think of the benefits: You can lie, cheat, steal stuff from work and hotel rooms, honor and obey no one, and do anything you want whenever you want—all without feeling any guilt. And be sure to blame everybody else for your immoral behavior.
To meet your goal, I need to mention one final thing. If you don’t go to a church, keep it that way! If you decide to go, you should never go to a church that teaches what the Bible says. A person who goes to that kind of church is very apt to get to heaven. You see, such churches actually believe that the 10 Commandments are commandments, not suggestions. You, on your part, need a church that stands for nothing, tolerates everything, accepts all aberrant lifestyles, and teaches that Jesus just wants you to have fun.
One kind of church must be avoided at all cost, namely confessional Lutheran churches, for they teach what the Bible says, and maintain that the only way to eternal life is by grace alone, through faith alone, in the merits of Christ alone. And they actually teach that Christ comes to his people in Word, water, bread, and wine to forgive them and strengthen their faith.
This is all quite true, but stay away from this preaching and teaching. People who go to these churches will probably not go the “lake of fire” but to everlasting life. On Judgment Day Jesus shall say to these believers, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”13 So, stay away from them.
My dear friends, I now want to stop the foolish manner of my speaking, for we all know that our true goal is to enter into the kingdom that God has prepared for his children.
On the last day, we who trust in Christ will know only joy and happiness, for Jesus will bring with him the fullness of our salvation, the salvation of our bodies as well as our souls. We do not talk enough in the Church about getting our bodies back. We need to be reminded that, when the Lord Jesus comes again, he will recompose all the atoms, molecules, and cells of our dead bodies and breathe new life into them. The Scriptures say, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”14
But there are questions as to the relationship between the final judgment at the end of time and the private judgment God makes at the moment of death, i.e., when he sends the believer to heaven and the unbeliever to hell. The most important thing to understand is that the private judgment at death will not be overturned by the public judgment on the Last Day. That is to say, if you die in faith, you will be a sheep of the LORD. If you die in unbelief you will be a goat of Satan. Faith in Christ, or the lack thereof, determines everything.
There is a difference, however. The norm of judgment at death will be on the basis of faith. But the norm of judgment at the end will be on the basis of works. In a simplistic sense we might say that the Lord Jesus will instantly replay the videotapes of all our lives. Since unbelievers have not received the forgiveness of their sins, their sinful deeds will be the evidence that they deserve eternal death. But on the other hand, we believers have received from the Lord the forgiveness of sins. The videotapes of our lives will, therefore, reveal no sinful deeds but only our good works. Our good works are simply the evidence that we died in faith. In this way, God will reveal the eternal destinies of all.
For us Christians if Judgment Day comes today, it will be the most wonderful day ever. It will be an even greater day than our baptisms through which we were born again and made new creations in Christ. Here’s what we can look forward to:
My friends, it doesn’t get any better than this! May the Lord preserve us in the one true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Endnotes
1 Note about capitalization of Trinitarian pronouns. In my written sermons, I usually do not capitalize pronouns referring to God. I believe, teach, and confess that there is but one God, the Triune God, three as to persons and one as to essence. I choose not to capitalize them for two reasons: (1) The original Greek and Hebrew texts are all written in (what we would call) capital letters. Thus the original texts of Scripture do not make distinctions of capitalized personal pronouns with reference to God; and (2) Almost all English translations with the exception of the NASB (1977 and 1995), the NIV (1973, 1984), the NKJV (1982), and the HCSB (1999, 2004) do not capitalize pronouns referring to the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Thus the capitalization of divine pronouns are a rather modern practice. But when translators capitalize a personal pronoun they must interpret whether they think a pronoun is a reference to one of the divine Persons. Sometimes this is a difficult task. It is not the job of translations to interpret; they should only translate and leave the references to divine pronouns uncapitalized so the reader will have to determine from context whether or not the pronoun’s referent is to one of the three, divine Persons. It is worth noting that two very good translations do not capitalize, namely, the KJV and the ESV. I have no objection if translations choose to capitalize but place a footnote saying that the original does not capitalize the particular pronoun.
2 See 1 Peter 4:7a, ESV
3 See Matthew 24:14, KJV.
4 See 2 Corinthians 5:10, ESV.
5 See John 14:6, ESV.
6 See Revelation 6:16-17, ESV.
7 1 Thessalonians 5:2 says, “For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.”
8 See Isaiah 66:24.
9 Albert Barnes, for example, says of the Hebrew word toleah (worm), “[It] properly refers to the worms which are generated [by] such corrupting bodies.” See Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, Isaiah, Volume 1, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, reprint ed., 1996), p. 444. Luther suggests that toleah may be a reference to a guilty conscience. Both may be right.
10 See Matthew 4:4.
11 See Romans 1:16.
12 In Exodus 34:6-7, we read of God forgiveness and of his judgment. Yahweh says, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation” (ESV).
13 Matthew 25:34.
14 See Philippians 3:20-21, ESV.
15 See also Revelation 2:10d.
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