Full text of Bible teacher David Pawson’s teaching on Life After Death titled ‘Judgement (Part 4)’
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TRANSCRIPT:
David Pawson – Bible Teacher
Our Heavenly Father, if our outlook was conditioned only by those things which we can see, we would not rejoice this morning. As we look out upon the world in which we live, there are many things in it to sadden our hearts, to cause us to doubt and to fear the future. But we rejoice because we do not walk by sight, but by faith. And by faith we see Jesus on the throne. We rejoice that He is King, that He must reign until all His enemies are under His feet. And the last enemy of all to be conquered we know is death. But we thank You that He has both conquered it in the garden tomb, and will conquer it in our own lives one day, so that even death must die.
We thank You for our hope for the future. We thank You that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to imagine what You have prepared for those who love You. And we pray this morning for minds that are wide open to the truth, willing to face the facts, ready to look at the worst and then see it in the light of the best, to look at death and see it in the light of immortality, brought to light by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead.
And as we continue to study this all-important subject, which concerns each one of us with our future, with where we are to spend eternity, we pray that You will so teach us and so illuminate our thinking that our daily lives may be different, that we may be able to see this life in true perspective, its sufferings as not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall follow, its questions and mysteries as not worthy to be compared with the moment when we shall understand as we have been understood, and no longer see through a glass darkly.
And so we come here this morning as we come week by week, not just to learn how to live but how to die as well.
Now if there are any waiting outside in the vestibule, perhaps they could come in now.
From time to time every minister takes funeral services. It’s part of our calling to minister at times of need like this, and that brings us into contact with a group of people known as funeral directors. It’s a great joy to a minister to meet from time to time a Christian funeral director who understands what the minister is seeking to do, what the real need of the situation is, but above all who’s in a position to help people at this time of deep need and often is the first to be in the home and to be able to bring some word of comfort.
I’m most grateful to Mr Wakefield for coming along this morning, and I’m going to ask him one or two questions which we’ll share with you perhaps in his answers. Some of the insights he has gained because of all callings, his is one that faces and has to face the fact of death and come to terms with it and seek to help people to face it.
So if you would come, I’m afraid you’ll have to come fairly close to this mic and then they’ll be able to pick you up right at the back.
Now, Mr Wakefield, I don’t know exactly how long you’ve been a Christian. Could you tell us how long you have and how you became a Christian first? You come and you stand right in front. They don’t want to hear me.
Mr Wakefield: They may not want to hear me.
David Pawson: Well, we’ll see.
Mr Wakefield: They may not want to see me. Well, I became a Christian. I had to look it up in my Bible and I found it was the 30th of April, 1952. So, as you were reminded, I’ve never been a Christian since I was a little, tiny child. And I think at this point I ought to say that I became a Christian because someone who was concerned that I should become a Christian. And people were praying.
When my son, who’s now about 23, was about four, we decided that we’d send him to Sunday school. For no reason. I don’t accept that we wanted to get him out of the way, I think. But we decided to send him to Sunday school and the little girl as well, who was younger. And, of course, the contact was made. The pastor at that time, who was a honorary pastor, called on the parents. And I happened to be in the father and I was called on too.
And this dear man, he decided that obviously he wanted the Lord. And he conceded, just by reading me the word of God. Now, I hadn’t read into the church at all. I don’t think I knew at that time what it looked like inside. It’s just only a little chapel. But by reading me the word of God and persistence in calling on me, say, once on a fortnight or something like that, over a period of time, and I believe now, of course, I didn’t know at the time, but the prayers of the people, they led me to the Lord.
David Pawson: Well, that’s wonderful to know. Now, you’ve been a funeral director for longer than that. They used to say undertaker, but that has now gone out with the word workhouse and other things. And I gather the Americans now call themselves cemitorial consultants.
Mr Wakefield: Or cremator.
David Pawson: Well, it’s a wonderful calling in the sense that you’re really helping people. It’s not a calling that many people would choose to have. How did you become a funeral director?
Mr Wakefield: Well, originally my father decided I ought to be apprenticed to a trade. Well, I wouldn’t call my profession a trade. But anyway, I was apprenticed. And I’ve been apprenticed to upholstery and cabinetmaking, of course, that involved making coffins. And so I’m one of the only, I think, funeral directors that started from the bottom and worked out.
David Pawson: From one point of view, it could be a lonely life. I’ve said in an earlier sermon in this series that people are running away from death, and presumably, therefore, from anything and anyone associated with it. Do you find this?
Mr Wakefield: Well, as I said to the people just now, the congregation, but not many people that want to know me. Which I think is a good reason.
David Pawson: Well, now you have this opportunity to help people. You’re meeting them at the point at which they have a very deep felt need. Answer this honestly. Do you notice any difference when you go into a Christian home after a bereavement?
Mr Wakefield: Well, being a Christian, I naturally feel that there’s oneness with them, people who are Christians. And also, one of the things that stands out more is at the time of the funeral, when I find that people who have a deep faith in our Lord do hold on to that faith and hold on to Him. And although, of course, they grieve for the loss, I find that they are not so outwardly grieved, and in stark despair, that I find people who have no faith.
David Pawson: How do people who have no faith comfort themselves with such a situation?
Mr Wakefield: Well, I think they look round for everything they can find. I think all the ways of the world, such as, well, probably, drink and gay time, but I think they still feel that they haven’t really got any satisfaction, not for quite a long time afterwards.
David Pawson: According to a recent Gallup poll, 98% of the people in this country would like to be buried by a clergyman. It’s far from 98% that would like to meet him earlier than that, judging by his congregation. It does seem strange to those of us who are ministers that people, 90% perhaps, would prefer to keep out of our hands during their lives, but would like us to bury them. Have you any comments to make on that?
Mr Wakefield: Well, I think you’re correct what you’re saying, in that respect. Sometimes, as I’m the first one to come before people who have lost someone, and I find that, as a Christian, I feel that the first thing to do is to point them to someone who can give a word to God. I know I’m a Christian, and I should really, being evangelical in mind, tell people about our Lord, when I do, if I get the real opportunity, but I feel that God’s ministers are there, available, and as soon as I can, I contact, if it’s the person of the church being of faith, I contact the minister of the parish, and I give him details as to when the people will be in, available, and I tell people that the minister will call on them.
Of course, if people are of the faith of the Baptist, of course, they’re naturally in contact with their own ministry. There’s mostly people I deal with who are not in contact with any church organisation at all, or any minister at all.
David Pawson: I believe you do follow up, in a little way, yourself, afterwards?
Mr Wakefield: Yes, I do. I send out a card afterwards, in my morning card, with the word of God on it, because I tell people I came to the Lord through the word of God, and I believe the word of God, and I think that if I pass the word of God onto someone else, they might come the same way as I do.
David Pawson: Now, as a funeral director, you’ve had to face death very directly, both before you became a Christian and after. What was your first reaction to this? Was it to shrink, or to become hard, or…
Mr Wakefield: Well, I don’t think I’ve ever become hard, but I certainly treat death with respect. I know the word of God says it’s the last enemy, and it is an enemy, I believe, and I treat it with respect. But I feel that I am, as it was in the Old Testament, I used to sacrifice a calf and sprinkle the burnt ashes on the water, and they were cleansed after they’d come in contact with death, but I feel now that being close to our Lord Jesus Christ, He cleanses me and keeps me cleansed from any adverse effect of it.
David Pawson: Do you find it easy to believe in a life after death?
Mr Wakefield: Well, I’ve always been brought up to, ever since I’ve become a Christian, that is, not ever since I was born. But ever since I became a Christian, I’ve always been brought up to believe this work, and I find I’m always reminded about it, because nearly every other service I go to, it’s 1 Corinthians 15, and if anybody wants to know what I’m talking about, they have to read it themselves, 1 Corinthians 15, and the Lord says that there is an after death through St Paul, and I believe it.
David Pawson: [Crimmins], usually. Don’t you know what hymns are?
Mr Wakefield: Well, I’ve always loved that. I never get sick of it.
David Pawson: Well, finally, what would you say to those who are unwilling to face death to think about the future? Have you any word that you’d like to pass on?
Mr Wakefield: Well, it’s always been through my mind that people, whether they’re young or old, I mean, nowadays we never know when we’re likely to be taken from this earth. And I feel that people are not concerned enough about our eternal life, and they should really, those who are not concerned, should be concerned that they should be close to our Lord Jesus Christ and know Him as a personal Saviour and friend.
I feel that not just as an insurance policy, but if they’ve got faith in Christ and know Him, they’ve also got someone to rest their faith on and trust on and, as it was, their feet on a rock, for the ills and troubles of this present life, apart from eternal life thereafter.
David Pawson: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Wakefield. You have in your job, obviously, to be serious most of the time, and that tends to get funeral directors a name for being gloomy, because you have to be serious, but it’s been a great joy to meet you and see something of the Christian joy in you.
Mr Wakefield: I’d like to read out just before I finish what’s on my card that I send out.
David Pawson: Yes, do. They’d be most interested.
Mr Wakefield: I don’t want to read that. I put my glasses on, sorry.
David Pawson: And this is a card to send out how long after this?
Mr Wakefield: Well, as soon after as I can.
David Pawson: Yes. You read it, yes.
Mr Wakefield: It’s from Romans 8:38-39: For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
David Pawson: Well, thank you very much for coming, and now you’re going off to your morning service at 11. It’s been lovely to have you. Thank you very much for coming. Bye-bye.
The letter to the HEBREWS, CHAPTER 9, VERSE 27: It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment.
There are two appointments which every man and woman in the world has, neither of which may be put in the diary, because the date is not known.
The first appointment is the day we die. And while it would be wonderful to be able to put that in the diary and prepare for it, many of us cannot. And perhaps it’s a merciful providence that enables us to live in the uncertainty of that.
The other appointment we have is equally uncertain as to the date, but it will of certainly occur, and after that comes the judgment. Everybody knows the first appointment is coming, but if you leave that by itself and consider only that, then your reaction would be to live it up. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. If that’s the only appointment we’ve got in the future, then let’s make the most of here and now. Let’s live it up while we can. And this is what many people are doing.
As I have mentioned before, a Gallup poll among sixth formers in Surrey revealed that over half of them did not think that they would live to see middle or old age, that the world would have been blown to bits before then, and therefore their aim and object is to live it up right now. And if you want to know the reason behind some of the crazy behavior of youth at the moment, this is it.
But once you consider the second appointment that follows the first, far from living it up, this sovers you down. And this morning’s subject is JUDGMENT.
Now this is not a very nice subject, it’s not a very comforting one, it’s not a very helpful one from one point of view, and the great temptation when we’re talking about life after death is to rush on to the nice bit. It would have been much nicer for me to give you six sermons on heaven, which I could have done and would gladly have done, but it would not have been the whole truth. And heaven will seem all the sweeter in a fortnight’s time when we talk about it, for having faced the realities that come first.
By way of introduction, let me say two things. First of all, the necessity of judgment is written into life. It is absolutely necessary that there should be some sorting out, some compensation, some reckoning in the future.
Why should it be necessary? For two reasons. First of all, because of the injustice of life. The fact is that in this world many wicked people do prosper and many good people do suffer. Life itself demands some kind of sorting out. Some kind of leveling up. Some kind of putting things straight and putting things right.
This life, taken by itself, is not just. It is not fair. It is not balanced. And once we study just the facts of children’s suffering in this world, that’s enough to tell us that the injustice of life demands judgment. It is not right that Napoleon and Father Damien, that king Herod and John the Baptist, that Jezebel and Mary, that Hitler and Albert Schweitzer, should ultimately come to the same end.
And our instinct demands that somewhere beyond death all the wrongs should be righted.
But there’s another reason why judgment is necessary, and it is the justice of God. Not just the injustice of life, but the justice of God. If God is good, then He must put things right.
If we dare to say that God is just, then because life is unjust there must be beyond death an expression of God’s justice, if He is good. And if there were no judgment in the future, I could not believe in a good God.
And people who say to me, how do you expect me to believe in a good God when the world is like this? If there is no judgment in the future, you could not. And if we limited our sights to this life, we couldn’t believe in a fair God.
But the Bible repeatedly makes the point that someday in the future, ‘whatsoever a man has sowed, that shall he also reap, because God is not mocked.’ (Galatians 6:7)
Now the second thing by way of introduction is this. Not only is judgment necessary, but a day of judgment is also necessary. Why?
WHY COULD GOD NOT JUDGE EACH OF US THE DAY WE DIE? Why does He have to save it all up for a big day in which judgment will take place?
And of course, Christians have never believed that we are judged as soon as we die. There is a waiting until the resurrection, then the day of judgment.
Why a day? The answer is very simple. Justice must be public.
Now if ever you’ve had the experience, as I hope you have had, you have the right to have it, and you should take advantage of the right. If you’ve ever had the experience of sitting in a court of law, you will know that you were perfectly free to go in and sit in the public gallery. Why? Because there is a deep-rooted instinct in British justice that justice must be public, that it must be seen to be right, that it must be witnessed by all, that it must not be secret, that it must not be hidden.
And however painful and difficult it is for those immediately concerned, I would not like to see the public galleries abolished from our law courts. Because in a country where there are secret trials that are not open to the public, it is because there is a totalitarian regime that is afraid to let people see what is happening for fear they would see that it is not just.
Justice must be public, and seem to be so. And therefore the Bible makes quite clear that God’s judgment will be public for all to see.
Why? For three reasons. First, God must be vindicated. God must be seen by everybody to be just. At the moment a lot of people do not see this. They say ‘God is unjust, God is unfair, why does He do this, why does He allow that?’ There must be a day in which everybody looks at God and says He is fair, He is just, He must be vindicated.
Christ must be vindicated publicly. The last time the world saw Christ on a day of judgment, they saw him condemned as a criminal. There must be a day in which Christ is seen publicly to be right and just and fair.
And Christians must be vindicated. The world has been very unfair to Christians. There has not been a period of ten years over the last two thousand years in which Christians have not been martyred because they belong to Jesus. Christians must be vindicated. There must become a day when they are seen to be God’s people publicly.
And therefore this fact of a day of judgment is written into the Bible. You can’t read the Bible without coming across it. It’s there in the Old Testament prophets, it’s there in the New Testament epistles. Above all it’s right there in every story almost that our Lord told.
You study the parables of Jesus, those amazing stories which are so deep in truth that you can go on studying them a lifetime and never get to the bottom of them. And again and again the story builds up to a day. The wheat and the tares grow together until a day comes when they are separated. The sheep and the goats graze together until a day comes when they are separated. The wise and foolish virgins are together until a day comes, a moment comes when they are separated.
The good and the bad fish caught up in the fish net are caught up together until the day when they are sorted out and distinguished. And so many stories of Jesus finish up with the day when the sickle is put into the harvest. When some crisis comes which divides what has formerly been together.
Now let us look at this day of judgment as a trial, as a courtroom. That’s how we’re told to look at it in Scripture.
First of all let us look at the judge. Who is there sitting on the bench today? Now having been in courts from time to time I’ve noticed that so often this is a crucial factor. Who are the JPs today? Oh it’s so and so. He’s a bit tough or she’s a bit soft and so the word goes around. Who is it today?
It is a vital question. Who is going to try me? Who is going to take this case? Now the obvious answer would be God but it would be the wrong answer.
Because on this great day God has delegated the responsibility for judgment to someone else. That is the Bible teaching. And to a human being, to a man, a man is going to judge the human race. Someone who knows what it is to be human. Someone who has known all the pressures and all the problems of living a human existence and His name: Jesus.
Listen to Paul preaching in Athens, the centre of the intellectual world of those days: ‘God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world by a Man, Christ Jesus.’ (Acts 17:31)
There is still — or Jesus is still a Man. We must not forget that. He didn’t become a Man for 33 years but for eternity. And when He appears on the bench on this day He will appear as a Man for He is a Man. And it will be a Man who judges the human race.
I find it very intriguing and indeed awe inspiring to realise that on that day Jesus sitting on the bench will confront Pontius Pilate in the dark. Those who have judged Jesus through the ages and said what they thought of Him will find that the crucial question is what He says and thinks of them. A reversal of the situation we read in the gospels at the end of the story.
NOW THEN WHO ARE THE PRISONERS?
The answer is all the human beings who have ever lived. Great and small, kings and slaves, dead and alive, those who have been drowned in the sea will be there. We’re told that specifically in the Bible those who have been buried in the earth will be there. Everybody will be there.
And here is a very important point: Each person will be dealt with personally.
I suppose it would be some comfort to some if we were going to be dealt with in blocks, in nations. But it is crystal clear from Scripture. Now don’t ask me how God can do this. I can no more explain how God can have a trial dealing with each one personally in a day of judgment and having sat hours in court waiting for someone’s case to be brought up. I just don’t know how He can do it.
I don’t know how He knows the number of hairs on all your heads, but I just know He’s God. He’ll manage it. But He will most certainly deal with each one personally. Anything less than that would be unjust.
At school when the headmaster or the foremaster kept us all in and punished us because of what one boy had done, instinctively we felt unjust, unfair. And it would be equally unfair if God did the same thing. So we are told in the Bible quite simply, every one of us shall give account of himself. You will not have to give account of anyone else, only yourself. He will deal with each one personally and directly.
And we give account for no one’s life but our own. That should make us more concerned about our own standards than about anyone else’s.
The third thing, WHAT EVIDENCE WILL BE BROUGHT?
Well let us say first of all that the evidence of appearance will be worthless on that day. The evidence of appearance will be worthless. Unfortunately we all judge each other by our appearance. We’re bound to, that’s the part we see. We judge each other by what we see.
But we’re told that the Lord does not look on the outward appearance, but on the heart. It’s the inside of us, not the outside of us He’ll be concerned with.
We’re told that it will not be the evidence of our profession, what we say. ‘Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’’, said Jesus. Not everyone. It’s not what we say. You may have sung hymns, you may have said prayers. Profession, what we say, is not the evidence He will use.
We are told that He will not use the testimony of other people. There will be no witnesses for the defense because God knows everything that there is to know. We will not be able to say, ‘Well would You just hear from my next door neighbor? I’ve helped her quite a bit and she’ll put in a good word for me.’ That will not be used. God knows the evidence perfectly. There will be no testimonies.
There will be no quibbles over technologies of the law because we are dealing with a perfect law. And there will be no loopholes, no quibbles that can ease the situation.
WHAT EVIDENCE WILL BE USED? We are told this, that books will be opened.
Now what will be in those books? What evidence will be in them? The answer is very simple. All that we have done in the body are works.
Now let me explain this word works. It doesn’t mean just our good deeds, it means everything we have done and said and felt that was an expression of our real character. Not just when we were on duty or on show but everything we’ve said and felt and done that expressed what we really were. And that’s why one of the most frightening things I think Jesus ever said was that we would be judged for our idle words. And He meant by that the occasional slip of the tongue that came out and revealed what we were really like.
This is the evidence that will be taken, everything that has expressed our real character and it has been recorded in books. As our Lord said that means many secret things will be revealed. Things that were done and said in the bedchamber will be shouted from the housetops. Things that other people didn’t know about will come out on that day as evidence.
Now the fourth question, By What Standard Will This Evidence Be Tested? What is the pass mark?
Now as an RAF chaplain I used to have great fun with the recruits, the boy entrants who came in and had to appear before a padre before they went on to their training. And I used to say how many Methodists here, how many Baptists, how many so on. And they used to put their hands up and then I would say ‘How many Christians are there?’
And they would look so hesitant and some of them would look to see if anybody else would put a hand up. Occasionally one did and by a look at the face I knew that they knew what I meant.
But usually the others said well what do you mean by a Christian? And I would say well what do you think a Christian is? And they would say well somebody who keeps the Ten Commandments. It’s amazing how often that came up.
So I used to say fine, a Christian is someone who keeps the Ten Commandments. How many Christians here? And again this sort of hesitation.
‘Oh well no one can keep them all Padre.’
Alright then what’s the pass mark? How many do you have to keep? And they nearly always settled after a considerable discussion for six out of ten. And so I would say fine, a Christian is someone who keeps six out of ten Commandments. How many Christians are there here? Now then what is the pass mark? What is the standard?
The answer is very very simple. And the number of people who seem to have difficulties at this point. It’s just not necessary to do so. The answer is the revealed will of God is the standard.
And to go one step further. We shall each be judged by how much of the revealed will of God we knew. No more, no less. It would obviously be utterly unjust for God to judge someone on what they never knew. And we have an assurance in Scripture written there in black and white in Romans 2 that such a thing would never happen.
What we are told is that everybody will be judged according to the light they have received. Nothing could be fairer.
Now let us look briefly at three main groups of people in this regard to see it clearly.
First of all, those who have heard about Jesus Christ and known Christian standards will be judged by Christian standards and by Jesus Christ. And so many people who say to me, well what about those who have never heard? My answer is, well you have heard and it’s you who must render your account. You can leave them to God. But if you’ve heard you will be judged by that. You will not be judged in the same way as they will. But if you’ve heard about Jesus, if you’ve heard that He died to save you and that He desires you to be His disciple and you’ve refused to be that, you will be judged by that.
So that there is what might be called Christendom and I would include Britain in this and the majority of people in this country who still come back to the clergyman to bury them. And most people in this country seem to have at least some basic knowledge of Christian things still. And they’ve had ten years of it at school.
And I know that God will allow for the kind of teaching they got at school but they’ve had it. They’ve heard of Jesus and there’s a church at almost every street corner. We shall be judged by that. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
Then there are the Jews who have not had what we have had. But we are told that those who have had the Ten Commandments will be judged by the Ten Commandments and every Jew has had that.
And then there is the heathen world and people say well what about them? The answer is they have not had the gospel of Jesus Christ, many of them. They have not even had the Ten Commandments. But they have had two things from God which have revealed Himself to them. They have had creation. The things that God has made is enough to tell them there is a power greater than themselves to whom they should bow. And they have all had conscience. And this has been God’s revelation within them of at least some difference between right and wrong. And they will be judged by the light they have received according to creation outside them and conscience inside.
There is not a man on earth who doesn’t have a conscience of some kind. And he will be judged by it. So that in fact God’s test of our life will be how far we have been rightly related to Him and to each other according to the light that we had. Now that’s a fair, just, straight forward case.
But quite frankly it worries me stiff. Because I have never yet met a man who could look me in the face, however ignorant of Christian things he was and say, honestly and sincerely, I have always lived up to the light I had. I have followed my conscience. I have responded to the truth as I saw it. There’s not a man or woman can do that.
And therefore Paul is right in concluding after stating in Romans 2 that God will judge by the light that we have received. That by that light we all stand guilty before God. It is as simple and straight forward as that.
If people ask, why do we need to send the gospel overseas, this is why. If they were in a state of innocence before God, then to take the gospel to them would damn them. It would send many to hell who are not going there. Because it would make them guilty of rejecting the light. But the Bible states they have light and they have already rejected it and therefore need desperately the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ. That’s the heart of missionary work. It’s the heart of evangelism. That’s why we preach Jesus.
Because while in theory, if any man lives up to the light he has, God will accept him in that day in practice none of us has. Nor can we blame our heredity and environment. We must all say even to some degree that we are responsible for the people we have become. That not one of us is the man or woman we might have been had we perfectly responded to what we knew to be right.
This leaves us in a state of guilt. Like Belshazzar we are weighed in the balances and found wanting. (Daniel 5:27) And yet we are told in the Scripture that a great number of people are to be acquitted.
Indeed it goes further and says a great number of people will never even reach the dock and will in fact be sitting on the bench helping the judge. Here we come to the most extraordinary statement in the Bible I think. That there will be many many people who will be sitting on the bench with Jesus to judge the world. And these are people who are not to be condemned but acquitted or in the language of the Roman law courts, justified.
Why should this be? The answer is that there is another book to be opened. The books that I have mentioned already are the books recording our real character as expressed in thought, word and deed.
But there is another book to be opened on that day and it’s called the Lamb’s Book of Life. It’s a book that belongs to Jesus and in which only He can write. And it’s a book containing the names of many many people. I hope every one of your names, if not it’s no one’s fault but yours that your name is not in that book. And it’s a book of those who have asked that their case be taken earlier. It’s a book of those who have deliberately asked God not to wait till the day of judgment before dealing with sin. But to take it right now. To take the case early. Not with the hope of being acquitted because the good deeds outweigh the bad deeds. And that somehow we might just get past that pass mark. But with the knowledge that Jesus Christ died that we might be acquitted, justified, forgiven, freely. That’s what the cross is all about. That’s the heart of it.
God doesn’t want to punish a soul. God doesn’t take any delight in paying people back. God doesn’t have any joy in the death of one wicked person. God is a God of love and mercy as well as of justice. And He longed to take people’s case early and to acquit them. He longs to do that. But if He did it without the cross He would not be a just God.
If He simply overlooked and winked at our sins and said well there there boys will forgive and forget. I could never say He was good. I might say He was nice but I could never say He was good. He had to find some way in which justice and mercy could be satisfied together. And He found it in the cross. That’s why He is able to take your case now.
You can plead that all the sins you have ever done and all those you are going to do can be taken into account and dealt with now. And once you have obtained an acquittal from a court with all that you have done taken into account and freely confessed once you have that acquittal you can never again be charged with the same offence. And this is the gospel, this is the good news for those who know that when the day comes when they stand naked before God and all that they have really expressed in life of their real self is brought out into the public who know that they don’t stand a ghost of a chance of getting acquitted in that day who come humbly now and say God for the sake of Jesus Christ will You take my case now. Will You take into account all that I have ever done and because Jesus died in my place to deal with those things will You accept that Your justice is satisfied by His death and may I plead for Your mercy.
Every man or woman or young person who does that will have their name written in another book: The Lamb’s Book of Life and that book will be opened on the great day.
Does this mean that Christians will never come into judgement? Well into the judgement of punishment yes it does mean that. There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, nothing could be clearer.
But there is a kind of judgement if you call it by that for Christians for purposes of reward, not punishment. Christ will test our service for Him since He forgave us as to how much we have used our opportunities not to stop us going to heaven we shall get there, but for purposes of rewarding us in heaven.
Our position in heaven our responsibilities there will depend on our faithfulness since we became Christians here, and that is mentioned in more than one passage in the New Testament. So a Christian is not someone who goes dancing down the street, ‘Well you’re all going to hell, I’m not; you’re all going to be judged, I’m not; I can do anything I like now…’ A Christian is not one who does that.
A Christian is one who is so grateful for the acquittal that he has received and so mindful that his service is still to be tested and rewarded accordingly that in the fear of God he passes his time of sojourning here in faithful service.
This then is the fact of judgement the second appointment which every man has and here is the way to take that appointment now to get it dealt with now so that never again will it be brought up against you.
‘And I saw the dead small and great stand before God…’ This is the writer of the last book of the Bible, ‘and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the Book of Life and the dead were judged.’ (Revelation 20:12)
Next week we’ll go on with this study; we’ll look at this thing called hell, what does it really mean? and then the week after that to quote Charles Wesley in a lovely hymn, we shall land in heaven.
For Further Reading:
Life After Death (Part 3) – Resurrection: David Pawson (Transcript)
Life After Death (Part 2) – Between Death and Resurrection: David Pawson (Transcript)
Life After Death (Part 1) – Death: David Pawson (Transcript)
The Death and Resurrection of Christ: Billy Graham (Transcript)
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