I don't like PowerPoint. I'm sorry it was ever invented, but it is, and I'm going to try to do it. I want you to bear with me this morning because I have three things we're working with. I have my notes. I have my slides for the PowerPoint. and I have a brother Rex over there who's actually gonna be doing the clicking because I don't have a computer up here that will work. So it's gonna be a hard job coordinating all these things. My notes are similar to what you're gonna see, but they're not totally so. So anyway, let's begin with prayer and then we'll get started. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this place you've given to us to meet. And thank you for the opportunity to come on another Lord's Day to look at your Word and its teachings. We pray that this may be a day of wonderful worship for the glory of your name and of great instruction unto edification for your church. We ask that you do this for only you can make it successful for those purposes. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we're gonna finish up the confession, chapter 32 of the last judgment. The last chapter of our confession concerns this sure future event, the final judgment. Absolutely certain, brothers and sisters, that this day that we're going to talk about and that our confession talks about is coming to this world. It is not merely hinted at. It's not merely occasionally referred to. It is proclaimed all over the scripture. Even in the Old Testament we read passages like Daniel 7, 9, and 10 where the prophet says, I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat, and the books were open. Now there are seven, Rex, I'm not sure exactly where I am, but there are seven primary New Testament passages on the subject. Okay, I've already said that. Here are the scriptures, the seven primary New Testament passages. You can take them down if you're taking notes or just get Pastor Sam's book and those seven passages are listed. Now, what you're seeing now is the important question, a most important question. Are you looking forward to the day of judgment? You know, there's a lot of awesome things said about this day. It's called the day of judgment. It's called the great day. It's called the great day of the wrath of God and the Lamb. It's the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. It's the day when the secrets of men will be made manifest by Jesus Christ. Now that sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? Sounds kind of foreboding. But we still need to ask the question, are you looking forward to the Day of Judgment. Your answer, Rex, should be an unhesitating and emphatic yes. Bring on the Day of Judgment. That's the way every Christian should feel. Why? Because this is the day that your God and Savior will be vindicated before the assembled universe. This is the day for you to admire and enter into the glory of your Savior who was despised on this earth. This is the day that justice and righteousness will be exactly measured out and God will be vindicated. This is the day when all evil will be judged and destroyed for God's glory. This is the day when you will be once and for all publicly, and we know we're justified once and for all the moment we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but this will be the day of our public justification and vindication. Once for all, the whole world will know that God has called you righteous. and you'll be welcomed into eternal glory. Now, should we anticipate with joy those things? Of course we should. Here's our first quote from Dr. Sam Waldron. It won't be our last. In fact, we may even see this one again. By the way, I'm hoping to get through this in one week. which means we may travel fast. If I see halfway through that we're not going to make it, then we'll stop. But here's a quote by Sam Walton. There is no text which asserts that the Christian has anything to dread in the day of judgment. So if you're dreading the day of judgment, it may say something about where you are spiritually. There's no text which asserts that the Christian has anything to dread in the day of judgment. But there are many texts, conversely, which teach that the true Christian has everything to look forward to in the day of judgment. As I said, it could say something about our spiritual condition if we have nothing but dread for that coming day. John Calvin says, No one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection. And of course we know that the judgment is followed by the final resurrection. So the truth of the last judgment should be an object of sweet meditation to every true believer. But the opposite is true, Rex, for the unbeliever. He should be in dread. As long as he is in his impenitent state, he should dread this awful day. Okay, with that being said, as an introduction, we want to go ahead and look at the three paragraphs in our confession. And here's our outline. Paragraph one. Either my eyes are playing tricks or I typed something wrong. Paragraph one, the incident described. Paragraph two, the issue declared, and paragraph three, the impact desired by the teaching of God's word on this subject. Paragraph one, the incident described. And here's what this paragraph says. God has appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father, in which day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil. And you see there the proof text, which we won't look at all of them now. We'll be looking at some of them as we go through our study. But those are the proof texts given by the framers of our confession. There's a whole lot said about the subject here, but we want to divide paragraph one into two major headings. Number one, who is doing the judging? And number two, who is it that is being judged? Who will do the judging? Act 1731. God has appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. That's not Acts 17.31, but that's what our confession says, taken from Acts 17.31. Who's the judge? God is the judge. Who is more qualified to judge the world than the omniscient omnipresent, just, holy God of heaven and earth. No one but Him is qualified to do it. Now, there's a lot we don't know about the judgment. We do know that it will occur on a day of God's appointing. Acts 17 and 31 tells us that. We don't know the exact day, when it will come. We know it's after the second coming, after the rapture of believers as we saw last week. There is such a thing. After the destruction, after Christ destroys his enemies with the breath of his mouth, and after the general resurrection, that's when this day will come. But we don't know when it will be. I don't know exactly where it will be, although I do think it will be in very close proximity to this earth, if not perhaps on the earth. While we know the day will come, we don't know exactly how long the day will last. I'm not going to say that this has to be speaking of a 24-hour day, although it's called the day of judgment. If it is, it is, because I know that God can do a whole lot in a little bit of time. But we don't need to worry about how long the judgment will take. Our concern is to know this. that God in the person of His glorious Son will be sitting on an awesome throne someday. We will be judged according to the confession by Jesus Christ to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. And here's scripture proof of that, John 5, verses 22 and 27. Jesus said, not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. and he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man. Jesus Christ, who lived on this earth, who stood before man to be judged by man in order that he might save us, as part of the reward for his humiliation, has been given the authority to judge everyone. Here's a quote by Charles Hodge on that. It is especially appropriate that the man Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, should be the judge of all men. He has this authority committed to him because he is the Son of Man. This is part of his exaltation due to him because he consented to become obedient unto death. It is fitting that he who stood condemned at the bar of Pilate should sit enthroned on the seat of universal judgment. It is a joy and ground of special confidence to all believers that he who loved them and gave himself for them shall be their judge on the last day." We're right back to why should a believer dread the judgment? The one sitting on the throne is the one who became a man to save us. What then do we have to fear? Notice that our confession says that he will judge the world in righteousness. the righteousness or the justice of God demands a formal day of judgment and reckoning. Throughout the scripture, God is represented as a God of righteous judgment. And because he's a God of righteous judgment, then a day of strict final judgment is necessary. If God is the supreme ruler, as scripture says, And if he is good, as Scripture says, then there must be a judgment so that justice can be meted out. Now, some people have objected to a final judgment, and the reason they've objected is for this. If at death there's this intermediate state where the unrighteous go to hell and the righteous go to heaven, then that would make a final judgment superfluous. it would take away the reason for a final judgment. But the final judgment is a day for God to formally and publicly display before all the assembled universe His justice. This has never yet happened in the, I believe, 6,000 years history of our world. God's justice has never been totally and publicly to everyone displayed. So a final judgment is necessary because neither good nor evil is fully rewarded in this life. God's judgment prior to this day have been incomplete, justice has not been fully measured out, and it has not yet been seen by everybody. That's what the day of judgment is for. Not everybody saw the flood. There are a lot of people in our world today who don't even think there was a flood. They deny it. They don't think it ever happened. So they don't believe, at least they didn't see that aspect of God's judgment. A lot of people don't believe that God rained fire and brimstone out of heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. That was an act of divine judgment upon sin, but a lot of people didn't see it and a lot of people didn't believe it. When God judged Pharaoh at the Red Sea, we know that happened, but the rest of the world, many people in the world don't know that it happened. And while God does send people who die in their sins into the intermediate state of hell, not everybody believes that either, do they? Many people don't. And that's why we need the whole assembled universe to see the glorified Son of God, Jesus Christ, sitting on his throne, dealing out righteousness and justice on the final day. Louis Burkoff says, are we there yet? Yeah, here we go. Rex, you're doing a great job over there. God, even in the present life, visits evil with punishment, and he rewards the good with blessings. But it is also manifest from scripture that the judgment of God in the present are not final. The evil sometimes continues. We've been seeing this in Ecclesiastes, haven't we? The evil sometimes continues without being duly punished and the good is not always rewarded with the promised blessings in this life. The Bible then teaches us to look forward to a final judgment as the decisive answer of God to all these questions, as the solution to all such problems, and as the removal of all the apparent discrepancies of the present. Louis Burckhoff. Augusta Strong said, God's justice needs a final and an outward judgment as to its vindication. That answers our first question, who will be judging? Question number two, who will be judged? And here's what our confession says. in which day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil." Who will be judged? The devil and all apostate angels will be judged. Jude 6 talks about some angels. I don't personally believe he's talking about all angels, but I believe he's talking about a class of angels who have been kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Angels will be judged. Demons knew that. When they encountered the Lord Jesus Christ when he was on the earth, They said to him, what, are you come here to torment us before the time? They knew that a day of judgment was coming for them. 1 Corinthians 6 and 3, and I don't know exactly what this means, but it does say, remember when Paul was kind of getting on to the people at the church at Corinth because they were having disagreements and they were even going to law, suing one another, and he says, What are you doing? Aren't we competent? Aren't believers competent to be judges? Do you not know, he says in 1 Corinthians 6, 3, do you not know that we will judge angels? I don't know exactly what that means. I think it probably means that we will acquiesce, we will agree with God when He pronounces from His throne, when Jesus from His throne pronounces judgment on the angels. And that ought to comfort us. That the old serpent, the roaring lion, He's gonna stand before Jesus Christ, whom he tried to usurp his authority and destroy his kingdom. He's gonna stand to receive a just sentence from our Savior. That's comforting. But the truth that concerns us more is this. The confession says, likewise, all persons that have lived on the earth. That's you and me. So then Romans 14 says, every one of us shall give account of himself to God. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. And 2 Corinthians 5.10, you can see up there, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. I'm not going to read Matthew 25, but it's certainly one of the major passages where Jesus describes the judgment when he comes again, sits on his throne. He has on his right hand the sheep, on his left hand the goats, And He judges them according to the way they treated Him. And the way they treated Him is manifested by the way they treated or mistreated those, the least of those who belong to Him. And the end result of that judgment has the goats going into eternal and everlasting punishment and the sheep going into everlasting blessedness. I won't take the time to read that. You're familiar with that passage. Now here's what these passages tell us, that the judgment, and it's important that we get this and be sound on this, the judgment is based upon deeds. 2 Corinthians 5.10, whether they be good or evil, whether we've done right or whether we've done wrong, it is based upon deeds. However, that does not in any way, beloved, indicate that the righteous can merit heaven by their good works. Now if this were the only, if 2 Corinthians 5.10 and Matthew 25 were the only passages in all the Bible that tell us how people get to heaven, then we might come to the conclusion, mightn't we, that it has something to do with our works. Well, it does have something to do with our works, but it's not because of any merit in our works. Any teaching that says that we can contribute by our good works anything to merit salvation is contrary to the gospel of the grace of God. It is rank and it is damnable heresy. You say, well, then why are good works even brought up at the judgment? Because good works, the good works of the believer, are essential evidences of saving grace and faith, and they're brought forth at the judgment as sure evidence that we are truly united to Christ by faith. So Paul's not saying in 2 Corinthians 5 and 10 when he says that he'll judge good and evil, everything that's done in the body, he's not saying if our good works outweigh our bad works, then we deserve heaven and we'll get to go to heaven. That would be heresy. He's not saying that. Jesus in Matthew 25 is not saying, if you're nice to my people and you visit them when they're in prison and when they're sick and you feed them when they're hungry, then you deserve to go to heaven and you can go. Those works are brought forth as the proof and the evidences that we are in Christ. because it is by His merit and His merit alone that we are justified. Pastor Sam Walter says this, judgment proceeds on the basis of our deeds because our deeds taken as a whole manifest our character and our character manifests our relationship to Christ and the presence or absence of faith in him. Now before I move on, anybody have any questions so far? Pretty soon we'll get into paragraph two. Any questions or comments? Clarifications? Either nobody knows what I'm talking about or I've made it plain enough, I guess. But what about some believer, some tender-hearted, conscientious believer comes and says, what about all my bad works? Don't I have to be judged for them? Well, my answer is no. I find it very difficult to believe that the bad works, which are sins of the believer, will show up in the judgment day. All Christ says in Matthew 25 is, All He does is commend your good works. Jesus Christ paid for all my bad works. They're sinful, but He fully atoned for them and removed them as far as the east is from the west. And if He did that, are they really going to show up on the final day? Seems to me like that kind of teaching cast negative aspersion on the glorious finished work of Christ. It's almost like some people believe in a, and a lot of people believe in a separate judgment seat of Christ for believers. It's almost like they make this a form of Christian purgatory. You know, you're gonna have to pay for all those sins you're committing. But the truth is, brothers and sisters, thanks be to God, we don't have to pay for any of the sins we have committed. because our Lord Jesus Christ has paid for all of them. Again, Pastor Sam says, no inquisition will or can be made into any believer's sins. In their place will be found, hallelujah, only Christ's blood and righteousness. Therefore, the believer does not need to fear that any of his worthless deeds will be exposed. Only the lifestyle of righteousness, which vindicates his faith, will come to view." And then Pastor Sam says, this should give us great hope as God's people. All right, I'm going on to paragraph two now. Let's see if anyone has any questions or comments. Yes, Alex. And he said, all the work that my father wants you to do is believe in God and in whom he has sent. Amen. That's our hope. That's our only hope in the Day of Judgment. Yes, Blake. We fail at evangelism. We fail at preaching the gospel. We fail at loving people. But to know the judge is on our side because of Christ. It's like now we can go out into evangelism, not because we're going to say the perfect words, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't preach the gospel, right? That is our big motivation. Because the judge of the earth has showed love to us first, even when we didn't love him. And that's why, really quickly, that's why Paul's biggest motivation of why we are to be like Christ is because In Philippians 2.11, I believe we have all read this before, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Because of the hope we have in the final judgment, we can go out and obey the commandments of God, not because we're going to be safer obeying the commandments of God, but rather because Christ obeyed the commandments first for us. Yes, Jonathan. Will that most likely mean that we will know whose side we are on at that very moment? Well, if we have died and already gone to heaven in the intermediate state, of course we already know. And I'm sure we will know by then. If we don't know before then, we will know when he conforms us to himself and to his own image. I don't think there are going to be a whole lot of, and I think I say this later, a whole lot of surprises at the actual day of judgment. You're either going to be on the right hand and you're going to know why you're there, or you're going to be on the left hand and you'll know why you're there. Tom, you had something? Yeah. Mm-hmm. more complete when this is manifest. It's going to be a consummation of a greater integration of both countries. And I believe in the judgment. What's going to be added to us by manifestation of our works being done in Christ is more complete joy and happiness in what Christ has done through us. It's not going to be a consternation. Yes. Good. Yes, David. I know that he's actually speaking about pastors and church planners, things like that, but he does say, if any man's work is bought on that which he has built, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work will be burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. So even though we know we're not going to pay for any of our sins, will there be a sense of reward and loss of reward? I think there will be a sense of reward, and by the way, that was handled last week in my brother Rex, that particular passage. But I believe, yes, there will be rewards, but I believe any rewards enjoyed will be entirely consistent with the glory of Christ, and there will be no envy, there will be no jealousy if someone has more rewards than I have. There'll be no gloating if I have more rewards than someone else has. We will have complete satisfaction. And if someday any future wrongs could be brought up, it will not be as a result of embarrassing us. Jesus Christ loves us. Jesus Christ says, He that believeth in me shall not be put to shame. So we need not expect to be shamed in the day of judgment if we are safely in Christ. It will be proven by our good deeds that we were in Christ. but we will not be shamed, I don't believe, for our bad deeds. I don't know if that helps your question any or not. Okay, let's go on to number two. I'm far enough along, I don't have a lot of time, but I think we can go ahead and get through this. Number two is the issue declared publicly and finally. The Confession says the end of God's appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and of His justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life and receive that fullness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards in the presence of the Lord. But the wicked who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast aside into everlasting torments and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. The issue of whether or not we're guilty or justified, that's the issue. Whether or not we will live with Christ or whether we'll be punished by Him for all eternity will be declared. That's why the title of this is The Issue Declared. It will be, according to our confession, it's for the manifestation. Because the issue really is already settled. God already knows who's His and who's not His. The devil already knows that he doesn't belong to God. And by this time, by the Day of Judgment, I believe sinners must surely already know. But this is the day for God to publish publicly the verdict regarding man's character and regarding man's everlasting destiny. Strong says, the object of final judgment is not the ascertainment, but the manifestation. That's the word that the Confession uses. It's not the judgment not to ascertain who is God's, but to manifest the manifestation of character and then the assignment of outward condition corresponding to that character. Dabney says, speaking of this judgment that his declarative glory demands a judgment like this. A more formal forensic act by which his righteous, holy, and merciful dealing shall be collectively displayed before the universe. So the final judgment will result in the final state. The issue will be not just decided, it will be declared in that day. in one of two ways. Number one, the final salvation of all the elect will manifest the glory of God's mercy. All the redeemed triumphantly entering their final home in the new heaven and new earth According to the confession, they will go into everlasting life and receive fullness of joy and glory with everlasting reward in the presence of the Lord. And this quote by Dabney, I loved. Think of how God for his mercy is going to be magnified and glorified in that day. Jesus is coming to be admired and to be marveled at. So think about when God finishes things up. This conclusion, Dabney says, gives us a noble view of the immutability of God's purpose of grace and the glory of His victory over sin and Satan. This planet was fashioned to be man's heritage. Satan sought to mar the divine plan by the seduction of our first parents, and for long ages he has seemed to triumph and has filled his usurped dominion with crime and misery. But his insolent invasion is not to be destined to obstruct the Almighty's beneficent design. The intrusion will be in vain. God's purpose shall be executed. Messiah will come and reestablish his throne in the midst of his scarred and ravaged realm. He will cleanse away every stain of sin and death and make this earth bloom forever with more than its pristine splendor. So that the very plan which was initiated when all the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, That plan's gonna stand, folks. It will stand to everlasting ages. As the confession says, he's gonna manifest the glory of his mercy in making us to enjoy what he created us to enjoy. But the other side, the ugly truth here, is that final condemnation and damnation, it will result in the glory of God also. This damnation of wicked and disobedient reprobates will display God's holy justice for His glory. The wicked, our confession says, who know not God. Notice how the confession is careful. While it magnifies the mercy of God in saving the elect, it emphasizes the wickedness of men. They are wicked reprobates. They are disobedient. They are those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. There are a lot of people who struggle to accept. This is talking about eternal punishment. God, on the day of judgment, when he says, depart from me, you cursed, God will be glorified in that statement, and God will be glorified as he, one by one or however, sends to eternal damnation all of those who have refused to know him. He'll be glorified. A lot of people can't see that. Here's a quote from this guy named Savage, he says, And I understand we all want to love our fellow man, don't we? There's a part of me that wishes that I could believe something besides eternal punishment, but I can't because it's so plain in the scriptures. Mr. Savage doesn't care what the scriptures say. He says if the doctrine of eternal punishment were clearly which it is, and unmistakably, which it is, taught on every page of the Bible, I could not believe a word of it. You know why? Because he believes in a different kind of God. He believes in a good God. I should appeal from these misconceptions of even the seers, like the apostles, and the great men, to the infinite and eternal good who only is God, and who only on such terms could be worshipped. Mr. Savage doesn't like the doctrine of eternal punishment, and a lot of people don't, and this distaste for the doctrine of eternal punishment has led many to seek other alternatives. We'll just talk about a couple of them. One is annihilationism, which says that after a period of time, I guess some people may say, from the judgment, they're burned up. Or if they don't believe in the judgment, they would just say, the moment you die, you're burned up, you're annihilated, you go out of existence. Whatever form it takes, annihilation would teach that after some period of punishment, the wicked will be, just cease to exist. The second thing is universalism. Everybody eventually is going to be saved. Even the devil, some people believe the devil is someday going to be saved. If that doctrine were true, then Jesus would be proved wrong when he said it would be better off for Judas never to have been born, right? No matter what Judas has to suffer, if eventually he's saved and he lives forever in heaven, it's still good that he was born. whatever amount of temporary suffering he might have to go through. Some people argue for universalism by saying, what about those passages that talk about Christ reconciling all things to himself? What they need to understand is that these passages are not speaking of the universal reconciliation of people to God. That contradicts all the rest of the Bible which tells us not everybody is going to be saved. Those passages are talking about the restoration of total righteousness and harmony to God's creation, God's kingdom. And that's going to be accomplished Not by saving the wicked, not by annihilating the wicked. It's going to be accomplished by excluding the wicked forever from God's righteous kingdom and punishing them forever for their sins. Now, while I confess that there is something within me that is sorry, it won't always be that way because someday I'll see sin the way God sees it. I'm sorry there's an eternal hell. I'm horrified that there's an eternal hell. But I can't find anything else taught in scripture but that. And I believe it's taught plainly. And our confession believes that it is taught plainly. For the confession refers no less than three times in this second paragraph to the punishment of the wicked as what? Eternal? or everlasting. And just a couple of reasons. Number one, man made in the image of God has an immortal subsistence. That's in chapter 31. We looked at this last week, chapter 31, paragraph one. He's made in the image of God and has an immortal subsistence. That means he's not going out of existence any more than God is going out of existence. Chapter 31 says, The bodies of men after death return to the dust and seek corruption, but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them and to God who has to do something with them forever. An immortal being can no more cease to exist than an angel can or a devil can. So men might as well make up their minds that they're going to be somewhere forever. There's a way of salvation provided you don't have to go to hell forever, but if you know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will go to hell and you'll go to hell forever. These words or forms of words that in the Greek are translated eternal and everlasting. While it is true the word translated eternal may on rare occasions speak of a long lasting event and the context will usually show us when that's the case. Usually it refers to that which lasts forever. The phrase, the term is used of the eternal God. And he's not going out of existence, is he? It is used, and this is what I don't understand, a lot of people don't have any trouble believing in a heaven that lasts forever, but boy, they have a lot of trouble believing in a hell that lasts forever. But the biggest wonder is not that there's a hell that lasts forever, but that there's a heaven where people go and live forever. That's what the angels, the angels don't marvel that there's a hell, the holy angels. But they marvel that there's a heaven populated with sinners like you and me. This word is used to describe the everlasting bliss of the righteous. And we may as well believe that when we've been there 10,000 years, God will blot us out and annihilate us. As to believe that when the sinner has been in hell 1,000 years, he's going to be annihilated. Because the same word describes the duration of Glory or the duration of punishment. Same word. Can't have it both ways. If hell's temporary, heaven's got to be temporary. But nobody wants a temporary heaven. As the new and final heaven and earth will be a place of delight for believers, wow, in body and soul, so the Gehenna of fire will be a place of everlasting torment for men, body and soul. I'm gonna just read through the rest of this because I don't have enough for another week, but I don't wanna go too long either. Hard truths are still true. You cannot make them go away with your denials. Spurgeon says, your unbelief of eternal judgment will not alter it nor save you from it. And he says, I know why you don't believe in the terrible threatenings, because you love your sins. That's why you don't believe in hell. You want to be easy in your sins. So beloved, don't anyone here let yourself think that a good God will not punish sin. A good God must punish sin and an eternally good God must punish sin eternally. As terrible as the truth is, we have to believe it and we have to proclaim it. We can't be ashamed of it. We have to believe it and proclaim it unashamedly, and we must believe it with broken hearts. As McShane says, the preacher ought never to speak of everlasting punishment without tears. And Dabney says, the sinful callousness of Christians towards this tremendous destiny. Brothers and sisters, this ought to move us often. The sinful callousness of Christians towards this tremendous destiny of their sinful fellow creatures. Can we contemplate the exposure of our friends, neighbors, and children to a fate so terrible and feel so little sensibility and make efforts so few and weak for their deliverance? And yet, Dabney says, we profess to have faith. How can our unbelieving friends be made to credit the sincerity of our convictions when we act like we don't care? God's people must possess a holy, tender, humble, yet burning zeal to pluck men as brands from the burning. This next quote by Doolittle. Go to the Man of God Network and find where Brother Tom narrated from the book, An Earnest Ministry, and that's where you'll find this and many other good quotes. I'm not going to take the time to read it right now. So we have to believe this doctrine, we have to proclaim this doctrine because as Strong says, all preaching which ignores the doctrine of eternal punishment just so far lowers the holiness of God of which eternal punishment is an expression and degrades the work of Christ which was needful to save us from it. And we preach this because God can use faithful preaching of eternal punishment to make people like Felix tremble and hopefully eventually make them seek salvation and find it. You don't get saved by believing that there's an eternal hell. But you can be stirred up by the Spirit of God to seek deliverance from that eternal hell and find that deliverance in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go to point number three. I don't have a minute, but I'm going to take a minute to read it. The impact desired by the belief and proclamation of this doctrine of final judgment. As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both to deter all men from sin and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity, so will he have the day unknown to men that they may shake off all carnal security and be always watchful because they know not at what hour the Lord will come and may ever be prepared to say, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Christ wants us to be persuaded of this for two reasons. Number one, a deterrent from sin. Number two, this truth of a final judgment day at Christ's return should give great consolation to the godly. 2 Thessalonians 1, 6-8 tells us that. So these are good reasons, good results, good impacts that should be made upon our hearts if we know these truths. We should be full of dread leading to repentance and salvation if we have not been saved. And if we have been saved, then we should know that our trials are momentary and light, and we should look forward to the day of judgment with eager, comforting anticipation. And we should say, as the Confession says, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. I'll just mention three applications quickly. May God burn these truths into our hearts. Number one, may it move us to make our calling and election sure. If you tell me you're not sure what side you're gonna be on on the day of judgment, you better find out. You better make sure because we cannot afford to be wrong on that day. Secondly, this ought to impact the way we evangelize the lost. Think about the quote by Dabney. Do we believe this or not? And thirdly, this may impact the way we live our lives in true holiness. As Peter says after talking about the coming of Christ and the day of judgment, he says, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God? I have three more quotes which I'll mention quickly. It is impossible, Strong says, to overestimate the power. This is why we need to meditate on this, why we need to believe chapter 32 of our confession and the scriptures that teach it. We cannot overestimate the power of the final judgment as a motive in the primitive church. On almost every page of St. Paul, for instance, we see that he lives in the presence of that day and he lets the awe of it descend into his heart to keep his conscience alive. J.P. Poyce says, "...the revelation of such a judgment to come produces a decided influence for good upon the conduct of men in this life. Doubtless it is on this account that it is taught so plainly, so frequently, and in so many ways that none should fail to be impressed with the certainty of its occurrence. Are you eagerly awaiting the day of judgment? Pastor Waldron, again, I remind you, says, there's no text that asserts the Christian has anything to dread in that day. If you're dreading that day, there's something wrong. Get it worked out in your soul. There are many texts that teach the true Christian has everything to look forward to in the day of judgment. I am really sorry, I don't have any time for questions, but let's take our bulletins and let's sing the hymn.