In all the hurry and hustle and confusion of modern living,
the Lord has a way.
We believe that the Bible is God's revelation of His way.
We invite you to join us for
In Search of the Lord's Way with Mack Lyon.
My friend, we welcome you to our program of Bible
study in Search of the Lord's Way.
The Lord's way to live: that's a great
and noble ideal, isn't it?
But there are so many ways that are supposed to be
the Lord's way, it's confusing; just which way
is His way and how can a person know?
It is in the New Testament.
Of course, that is where it is.
Now over the years since the last New Testament
book was written, there've been lots of ideas about
it, and some of them have been formalized into
church creeds and catechisms, but you and I
can go around those and before them, right to the
New Testament as the source of our faith.
Of course we can, and that's
what we're doing in these programs.
We're glad to have you with us today.
This one today is our fifteenth in a series of
messages from the apostle Paul's sermon about God
delivered on Mars' Hill in the city of
Athens in Acts 17:22-30.
He has spoken of God as Creator of heaven and
earth and everything that's in them; as the
Sovereign Ruler of everything He created.
He's shown Him to be Spirit so that He isn't
restricted to our limited concepts of space and time.
He has revealed God as the sole object of man's
worship; as the great Giver of life, breath and
all things; and as the loving Father, giving
mankind identity as His offspring.
He's spoken of God's great grace in granting the
sinner man repentance unto life.
But, there's one thing more everyone must know
about God and we come to that in today's study of verse 30.
God Will Judge The World, and that is the title
we've given today's program.
God, the Almighty, the all-knowing, the all
loving God, the judge of the world? Yes!
We hear and read in the news media of the
injustices of our justice system, which is probably
the best such system in the world, and we're
amazed and disgusted, and sometimes made to wonder
if there is such a thing as justice at all --for
anyone, anywhere, anytime?
By the frequent miscarriages of justice in
our society, our concept of justice can become so
warped that we wonder.
But, oh yes, there is justice for all.
And after Ken Helterbrand leads the Edmond, Oklahoma
Church of Christ in a hymn of praise to God the
honorable Judge of the universe, I'll be back and
we'll read those verses from the Bible and pray together.
I'm reading from Acts chapter 17 beginning at
verse 22 then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hills
and said you men of Athens I proceed that in
all things you're very religious far as I passed
by and beheld your devotions I found an altar
with this inscription to the unknown God whom
therefore you ignorantly worship Him declined to
you God that made the world and all things
therein seeing his lord of heaven and earth dwelleth
not in temples made with hands neither is
worshipped with men's hands as though he needed
anything seeing he giveth to all life and breath and
all things and hath made of one blood all nations
of men for to dwell on the face of the earth and has
determined the times before appointed in the
bounds of their habitation that they should seek the
Lord if haply they might feel after him and find
him though he be not very far from every one of us
for in him we live and move and have our being as
certain also of your own poets have said for we are
his offspring for as much then as we as offspring of
God we ought not to think that the God that is like
in the gold or silver a stone graven by art and
man's device and the times of this ignorance God
winked at but now commandeth all men
everywhere to repent because he has appointed a
day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained wear off he hath
given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised
him from the dead now let us go to this great God in
prayer a father we bow before you humbly and
approach you only in the name of Jesus Christ they
give you thanks and praise for life and all things in
it we are aware the source of our blessings and we
are grateful before you fought them we're thankful
for the blessings of this privilege in this way of
communicating and studying together in your word and
we pray your blessings on our study too draw us
nearer to you as we meditate upon these
precious truths in the name of Jesus amen
Having preached the true God to the Athenians and
assured them that in the past God had no universal
plan for turning men from idolatry, but now He does,
He now commands all men everywhere to repent,
"Because," says Paul, "he hath appointed a day, in
the which he will judge the world. . ."
Judgment day! Judgment day for the whole world!
It's already been set; been set by
none other than God, Himself!
And, quite frankly I am a little more than
surprised, I am astonished that Paul, the greatest
advocate of God's unbounded grace that ever
has been, doesn't appeal to the grace of God, as
motive to repentance --or the goodness of God as he
mentioned in Romans 2:4.
Instead he uses, what modern ministries strictly
avoid, the dreadful thought of judgment day.
Men everywhere are commanded of God to
repent, not because the marvelous grace of God is
going to reckon everything and everyone alright, or
because He loves us so much and is so good to us,
but because He has set a day in which He will judge the world.
Say, that borders on what some of us would call
"hell-fire-and-brimstone-p reaching," doesn't it?
We really shouldn't be surprised at Paul in this,
though, because in the book of Romans, admittedly
the greatest dissertation of the grace of God ever
written, he wrote, "After thy hardness and
impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself
wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of
the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to
every man according to his deeds: To them who by
patient continuance in well doing seek for glory
and honour and immortality, eternal life:
But unto them that are contentious, and do not
obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish,
upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the
Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory,
honour, and peace, to every man that worketh
good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
For there is no respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2:5-11).
The Holy Spirit says in Hebrews 9:27 that it "is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
judgment." And again in Hebrews 10:30-31 He says,
"For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth
unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord.
And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God." No presentation of the
gospel, the good news of God, would be complete
without reference to Him as the Judge of all mankind.
Here in Athens, Paul says of Him that He "will judge
the world in righteousness." That is good news!
It is a righteous judgment to which we are summoned.
I'm reminded by this statement of an incident
in the Old Testament.
When God saw the extreme wickedness of the people
of Sodom and Gomorrah and planned to exercise His
righteous judgment and destroy them for it, He
confided in Abraham, because you see,
Abraham had family there.
And Abraham interceded for Sodom.
He asked God, if fifty righteous people could be
found in Sodom, would He spare the city,
and God said He would.
Well, you know the story.
It's found in Genesis 18, how he finally reduced the
number to ten; if just ten righteous people could be
found in Sodom, would God spare it.
And it is in verse 25 that Abraham expressed the
faith in God that is important to our message today.
He said, "Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?" Oh yes!, my friend.
We approach the final judgment of God with the
fullest confidence, with absolute faith, that our
God will do the right thing by us
--and by everyone else, too.
There will be no bias or
prejudice or discrimination there.
There will be no favoritism, no
partisanship or one-sidedness with God.
God is known by His justice.
It is hard for us to conceive of such absolute justice.
Paul wrote the Corinthian Christians, "To me it is a
very small thing that I should be examined (judged
KJV) by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do
not even examine (judge) myself.
I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am
not by this acquitted; but the one who examines
(judges) me is the Lord" (I Cor. 4:3-4 NASV).
Three things are important there: (1) In the final
judgment of the world, we won't be judging one another.
Oh, we pass such rash and careless and hateful and
mean --and uncalled-for judgments against one
another in this life.
People make such uninformed, unfounded and
unjust judgments against others they don't like,
that it's sad and discouraging.
God, forgive us!
Well, we won't be judging one another
when we appear before God.
I'm glad! Aren't you? That's good news!
(2) This may come as a surprise to a lot of
people, but we won't be judging ourselves, either.
Paul put it this way in the passage we just cited
from I Corinthians, "I am conscious of nothing
against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted." If
asked, I would imagine by far the most of us would
see no reason why we shouldn't go to heaven.
But, that won't be the determining factor.
(3) The one who will judge us all is the Lord.
Ah, that's good news.
Now we have confidence in the justice of it, don't we?
In Paul's sermon we're studying, he said that God
"hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath
ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all
men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."
Despite the fact that He isn't mentioned by name,
this is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ
--and so far as we can tell, it is the first
reference to Him in Paul's Mars' Hill sermon.
Some of the apostle's modern critics are swift
to point this out, and to hold that that was undoubtedly
a contributing factor to His "failure" in Athens.
Did Paul not preach the gospel of Christ in Athens?
His critics say, "No, he did not." However, we know
that Luke, the author of the book of Acts gave us
only a brief summary of the sermon and, it would
have been totally without meaning and effect to talk
about our Lord's resurrection, without
having preceded it with something about His life
and death and burial.
But the point of interest here is that God is going
to judge the world by Jesus Christ, whom He has
ordained or appointed, and confirmed it by His
resurrection from the dead.
But, if Christ is actually going to be our judge --by
the authority delegated to Him by the Father --what
about all those verses that say He
came not to judge but to save?
Let's look at some of them.
There is the familiar and beloved "golden text" of
the Bible (John 3:16) that says that "God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." And the next verse
says, "For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn (judge NASV) the world; but that the world
through him might be saved." That thought is
repeated in John 12:47 in which Jesus is speaking
again and He says, "If any man hear my words, and
believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to
judge the world, but to save the world."
Well, there are others.
Then, there are those passages such as John 5:22
in which Jesus says, "The Father judgeth no man, but
hath committed all judgment unto the Son."
And He continues in verse 26, "As the Father hath
life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to
have life in himself; And hath given him authority
to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of
man." Does Jesus contradict Himself when in
one set of passages He says He came not to judge
the world, but to save; and in another set He says
He will judge the world by the authority
given Him by the Father?
No, no of course not.
There's no conflict in the Scriptures.
The point is that Jesus Christ came the first time
to save, and when He comes again, He is coming to judge.
He is now our Savior, but when He comes again, He
will come to judge. That's right.
Look: In the twenty-fifth chapter of the gospel of
Matthew, Jesus tells three parables all of which
relate to His second coming, the end of the
world and the judgment.
The third one begins in verse 31 where He is
saying: "When the Son of man shall come in his
glory, and all the holy angels with him, then
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And
before him shall be gathered all nations: and
he shall separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And
he shall set the sheep on his right hand,
but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world. . .
Then shall he say also unto them on the left
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. . .
And these shall go away into everlasting
punishment: but the righteous into life
eternal." (Now I have had to leave out some verses
because of the limitations of our time.
You need to read the whole story for yourself because
what was omitted was the basis on which some were
saved and some were lost.
It was a matter of works, my friend.
No, no, no, they were not saved by good works, but
those were lost who didn't do them.) And, what we
read was our Lord's own teaching about the
universal judgment of mankind.
Please notice, He said, "When the Son of man shall come. . .
there will be judgment.
No, it hasn't happened; it's future.
"When the Son of man shall come. . .
Before him were gathered all nations," Jews and
Gentiles, men and women, all nationalities, all
languages and tongues and ages.
While it will be a universal judgment, it
will also be a personal one.
We'll not be judged by nations: "Oh Lord, you
know I was a citizen of a Christian nation." Nor
will we be judged by families: "Well now Lord,
I had a good old mother and one of the finest
father's a boy ever had, and all my brothers and
sisters were Christians, too." No, it won't be that way.
We won't be judged by churches or congregations.
"Well now, Lord, the church I joined was a
great church, lots of lovely people."
No, no, don't count on it.
The Holy Spirit wants us to know that.
He wrote in Romans 14:11-12,
". . . As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to
me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then every one of us shall give account of
himself to God." And again in II Corinthians 5:10-11,
He says, "We must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things
done in his body, according to that which he
hath done, whether it be good or bad."
Let us go to God in prayer dear father we thank you
for the message that you've given us about
judgment grant us the courage now and the faith
to respond to your teaching and prepare for
judgment in the precious name of Jesus Amen
That God will judge the world by Jesus Christ just
has to be one of the best-news parts
of the Christian gospel.
You see, it's certain.
"Justice delayed is justice denied." Justice
is as much a part of God's character as
grace or love or generosity.
God's judgment will be impartial and thorough.
It will be universal and personal.
It will be thorough and just.
It will be final and irrevocable --never
overturned by a higher court, for there is no higher court.
There's one other question about it that we need to
answer, though, before we go: on what
basis will mankind be judged?
The beloved apostle John, while exiled on the island
of Patmos for preaching the gospel of Jesus
Christ, had a vision.
He wrote it all down.
It's the book of Revelation.
And in it, he was given a vision of judgment day
which he wrote in Revelation 20:11-15: "And
I saw a great white throne," he said, "and him
that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God; and the books were opened: and another book
was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written
in the books, according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and
death and hell [hades] delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they were judged every man
according to their works.
And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book
of life was cast into the lake of fire." Are you
ready for the judgment day, my friend.
I pray you are, but if not, get ready, now --today.
Let us help you, will you?
Call or write me.
Here's our address: In Search of the Lord's Way,
P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083.
Our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633.
If you'd like a free printed copy or an audio
cassette tape of today's program --or any other
program in this series, please use that same
address or telephone number.
You won't need to send money, because everything
we do for people is free to them.
This is a ministry of Christians and
congregations who love you and want to share the
message of New Testament Christianity with you.
We would like you to worship with us though at
your very first opportunity.
There's probably a church of Christ right near you,
but should you need help locating it, please call us.
We're planning to be back next week at this same time.
We hope you'll plan to do it too.
God bless you now, we love you.
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