Well we turn again to the little book of Malachi, we're working our way through it and we're right at the end of chapter 3 this evening and I know we've slowed down a little bit towards the end here but I want to look at verse 18 particularly this evening and then we'll probably have another two, maybe three sessions on this little book as we look at chapter 4 in the coming weeks. But these last verses in chapter 3 have a lot to teach us and I hope they've been helpful and instructive as we've considered these things. Malachi chapter 3 verse 18 where we read these words, then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. Now again, Many of you, of course, have been here throughout this series, so I don't want to give an extended review, but just to remind ourselves again that here is Malachi bringing God's Word to the people. At least in the beginning of the book, they have come with their questions and with their concerns. They're not, I think, as we said when we looked at that, we give them in a sense the benefit of the doubt in the early part of the prophecy. Genuine questions they have, genuine uncertainties. They shouldn't have had them. If they'd known God and they'd understood what God had already dealt with them through the prophets, and through the immediate prophets that preceded Malachi, they should have known these things. But looking at it with a measure of understanding. We don't always take the word of God directly, do we? And sometimes we're filled with questions as to why God is working. But as the book goes on, so Malachi gets more insistent with them, and the Lord gets more insistent with them, and almost comes to rebuke them. And as we saw in chapter 3, verse 13, the Lord turns to them and says, your words have been harsh against me. Now, this is unreasonable. You should have understood. You should have heard my word. You should have received it. And God speaks against them in this way. But he is mindful of his people. And of course, that's the great amazing thing. Although these, those who are not listening to God's word, arguing with him, so that they're saying in verse 15, now we call the proud blessed and those who do wickedness are raised up, they even tempt God and go free. God doesn't seem to be doing anything about it, but he is, but they're not taking notice of it. But the Lord doesn't forget those who truly serve him and amongst those there are the true believers and what wonderful words they are as we looked at verse 16 and then the other week, last week at verse 17. Those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, the Lord listened and heard them. and wrote their names in the Book of Remembrance, those who meditated upon his name, and we spoke about true meditation, not the kind of thing that people talk about today, you know, Tai Chi and all kinds of nonsense like that, but meditating on God's Word, filling our minds and our hearts with God and his grace. God then makes this one, the Lord of hosts, Jehovah Yahweh makes this wonderful promise in verse 17, they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts on the day that I make them my jewels and I will spare them as a man spares his own son. who serves him, and we looked at that last time, and we spoke about this amazing word that is translated here by the word jewels, but it's a Hebrew word which is very much a covenant word. Here is God entering into covenant relationship with his people, but they are so special to him, they are like jewels, they are so valuable to him, and they are to sanctify themselves, to prepare themselves to be with him. It's the word that's used, as we saw in Exodus 19.5. It's not translated jewels there, but it could be, because it's precisely the same Hebrew word. And it's used again in Deuteronomy and in the Psalm 135, and it's taken up in the New Testament by Paul, of course, as he writes to Titus and in other words. And there are other similar references that we looked to. Speaking of God, the value that God puts upon his people. They are his purchased possession. They are special to him. And they come in all shapes and sizes. But they are safe and he spares them because their sin is covered because they are his children and because they are special to him. And even in days of darkness, they are still his jewels. And that's wonderful and that's glorious. And as I say, he spares them because their sin is covered, because they're his sons and daughters, and because they're special to him. Well that brings us to verse 18. And I want to ask seven questions. Don't worry, we're not going to be longer than normal, I hope. I want to ask seven questions about this as we look at this verse. Firstly, to whom is the Lord speaking in these verses? That's the first question. Well, he is not speaking directly in verse 18 to the faithful, to the people he has had in mind in verses 16 and 17, but to the whole people. How do we know that? Well, verses 16 and 17 are God referring to his people, they, and he uses the third person. But now it's back in the second person, you. They, my people, are special to me. But the whole people, you, you are not all faithful. Some of you are falling away from me. Some of you are speaking harshly against me. They're the same people as described in verse 13. Your words, you. So he's not speaking about them, his people, his special ones, but he's speaking more generally to the whole people. And the Prophet is addressing, or God is addressing through the Prophet, the godless people around him, the unfaithful, unbelieving Jews who had been complaining and were continuing to complain when they should have understood what God had so wonderfully and gloriously revealed to them already. And of course we've already seen something of the great revelation of the great coming of the Messiah in the earlier part of chapter three and so on, and how that is developed. And yet they were still robbing God, and they were still not listening to God, at least some of them were. And so he's having that wider view there. So it's not a word directly to the faithful, to the believers, but to the wider people to whom Malachi is speaking, to whom God is speaking through Malachi. of when he is speaking. Well, verse 18 begins with this word, then, when. Well, this is not when God is writing the names in his book of remembrance. That's the believers, that's the Christians, that's those who love him. It's not necessarily in the days of the prophet, but it's in the day when God makes up his jewels. Well, when does he make up his jewels? When does he gather them together and put them in his crown? Well, that's when he comes again. So here is Malachi doing what the prophets often do. I spent a lot of time talking about this when we were dealing with the minor prophets when I was lecturing in the Philippines. And I drew a drawing. I'm not going to do that tonight. Maybe I will another time. Speaking about the way in which we see prophecy fulfilled. And how the prophets of the Old Testament saw prophecy fulfilled, some soon, some in the future, some in the far future. And some of the things the prophets say are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming. Some of them are fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Some of them are fulfilled after the Lord returned to heaven and the gospel spreads. Some of them are not fulfilled until the Lord comes again, right again at the far end of time. Well, when does God make up his jewels? At the end of any time when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again in the clouds and takes his own to be with himself and this wicked world is wound up. and heaven and hell are seen and acknowledged when God makes up his jewels. Now of course he has that in mind of course in chapter 3 verse 1 because although he's referring to the coming of John the Baptist and then of course the Messiah and there is a two-fold thing as we saw when we looked at chapter 3 verses 1 and 2, there is a future reference even there. because the one who is coming at the word of John the Baptist when the messenger arrives and when the messenger of the covenant the Lord Jesus Christ arrives of course he is coming with an end in view he's coming to do something he's coming first to die upon the cross but he is he is coming in order to go back to heaven and then at the end of time to come again and to and and so there is a again there's a multiplicity of senses of his coming in that So here, now, we are being directed even further into the future. The Old Testament does that numbers of times. In fact, in Micah 5, where we have the prophecy about Bethlehem Ephrathah, Bethlehem south of Judah, not the Bethlehem in Zebulun in the north, which was the main, the bigger place in those days, but the little place, Bethlehem Ephrathah, and it's specifically mentioned in Micah 5. If you look at Micah 5, the first verses of Micah 5, within about the last verse, I think, of verse 4 and into about verse 5 or 6 of chapter 5, we actually cover almost all of the time from Micah's day to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he collapses in just those few verses. And there are references that you can see to the overthrow of Assyria, to various things happening, and to the coming of the Lord, and of course, the effect that concentrating on Bethlehem Ephratah and things and so on. And it's amazing, but here is the prophet, he's seeing into the future, he doesn't know how it's going to be fulfilled, but he knows that God's word is true and he can trust it. Thirdly, what is he speaking about? Well here we're speaking about discerning between the righteous and the wicked. So what is Malachi referring to? He is referring to the great difference between the character of the righteous and the character of the wicked. God is taking notice. God is taking notice. He's writing in his book. He's writing in his book of remembrance. He's writing in other books. He's writing in the book of salvation. He's writing in the book of remembrance. And he knows all and he sees all. And when you think he's not taking notice, remember God does not allow the wicked to get away with their blasphemies forever. Now I don't know about you friends, but I can remember as a child, you may think this is crazy, but I can remember as a child I was converted when I was seven and I was at junior school and I didn't like some of the The older boys, they were bullies and they were not very nice. And I prayed like mad that the Lord would come again before I had to go to secondary school. Well, he didn't. And I'm glad he didn't. But I prayed desperately that the Lord would come again. I said, Lord, I can't face it. Maybe I was just a coward or a wimp, but there we are. Well, he didn't answer my prayer, did he? Well, I'm jolly glad he didn't. But you know, sometimes we can think, well, when is the Lord coming again? And sometimes, I don't, that perhaps is a bit of a silly illustration. But the point is, there are times when the world presses in on us, doesn't it? When the burdens of life almost seem to overwhelm us. Well, maybe you haven't faced that, but some of us have. And you feel you don't know where to turn or what to do, and you just think, Lord, come, Lord, come. Don't you feel like that sometimes? Well, there are a number of times when I felt like that. As I say, I felt it when I was a child. But the number of times I felt that, I thought, oh, Lord, come again. Solve this mess. I can't sort this mess out. I can't, you know, I can't cope with this wicked world any longer. Well, the Lord gives you strength to go through it and keep on keeping on. But God will not allow the wicked to triumph. God will not allow the wicked to get away with their blasphemies forever. And if you think sometimes the coming of Christ is too slow, remember that when he comes, he will judge the world in righteousness. John Calvin says this, you shall find that God does not sleep in heaven when the ungodly grow wanton on the earth and abandon themselves to every kind of wickedness. Experience then will at length teach you that men shall not thus with impunity become insolent against God, but that all your wickedness must come to a reckoning. God knows what he's doing. Judgment will come upon the wicked, the godless, the complainers against him. And God has said to these wicked people here, you have charged the Lord with injustice. That's what he's saying in verses 13 to 15. You have said this. You have said, verse 14, not they, his people, you have said it is useless to serve God. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance? You remember as we looked at that. So now we call a proud blessed. For those who do wickedness are raised up, they even tempt God and go free. What's the point of worshipping God? The wicked seem to prosper. Well, of course, the ungodly don't have an answer to that, do they? But God is taking notice of all that is happening, and he records the righteous in his book of remembrance, and he will make it abundantly clear that he will not be mocked, and he will make at the end clear who are the wicked and who are the righteous, and you will be able to see the difference. You, even you unrighteous ones, will be able to discern what God has done. And you'll have to acknowledge that what God has done is perfectly just and perfectly right and perfectly fair. And nothing that God does damages him in any sense of the word. You know, we have these people say about politicians, oh, he did so and so, and that has damaged his reputation. God is not damaged by anything. God's sovereignty is not impugned by anything that man may say or any objection he may make against him. God is the holy, righteous, sovereign God who does what is right. And everything he does is fair and just and right and absolutely perfect. Fourth question. To whom is the Lord speaking? When is he speaking? What is he speaking about? Fourth question. Who are the righteous? We'll look at verse 18. Between the righteous and the wicked, well they're described. The one who serves God and the one who doesn't. So who are the righteous? They were sinners, but they've been saved. They were not righteous in and of themselves. They were not good in and of themselves. Malachi has made that clear. Of course, the context of the whole of the Bible makes that clear. But Malachi has made that clear, and God has made that clear through Malachi. Just in case you had any doubt about that, which I'm sure you don't. Here are those who are sinners, children of wrath, but righteousness has come to them from God himself. And they have seen him in all his glory and have come, verse 16, to fear him. God has written a book of remembrance for those who fear the Lord and meditate on his name. And the context of verse 17 and the words of verses 16 and 17 is that this righteousness is an imputed righteousness. Their sin is covered. I will spare them, says God. I will cover them. I will cleanse them. I will deal with them. I am the one who gives them the righteousness that makes them my jewels. And now they serve him. And that's why their names are written. in his book of remembrance. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that comforting? Well, I trust it is. Isn't that encouraging? We are his sons and daughters. We are special to him. And we do not want to do that which causes him displeasure. Why? Because we love him. Because he has done so much for us. That's the point. You, you, you ungodly, you don't realise this, but this is what they, the godly, do. And this is what the godly are like. Because they love me, says God. Because I have done so much for them. My service is perfect freedom. And they know that. So here are the righteous. Made righteous by grace. Made righteous as God spares them, covers them, atones for them. So who are the wicked? Well, the difference is between the one who serves God and the one who doesn't. Fifth question, who are the wicked? Well, they do not serve God. They're condemned because they have rejected Christ. But in the context here, they're amongst the people of God. They're mixed in with true believers. We're talking a bit about that on Sunday, won't we? They cannot be easily distinguished here always. if we haven't got to the wheat and the tares yet, but when we come to the wheat and the tares and the significance of that, the point, let me just say this now, I'll say it again when we come to that parable, if we get that far, the point about the wheat and the tares is that the words used with regard to that is that the The tares in that case are not just the ordinary weeds. When I was a teenager, I worked for a little while, I was on a farm for a little while, and I was there when they were weeding the weeds in the field they were going, and the weeds are easy to see. You know which are weeds, and you know which is wheat. But there is something which looks very like wheat, but isn't wheat. It's false, it's sham. It looks the same thing, but it's only when the farmer knows, well, I won't say any more about that now because otherwise I shall preach the sermon I'm going to preach when we get to that. But the point is, you may not know the difference. The farmer, the expert does. But the ordinary person doesn't. Now if you're planting wheat and you see groundswell growing up, for those of you who know anything about weeds, you know the difference. It's obvious the groundswell is groundswell. It's quite different from wheat. Or if it's a dandelion or something, whatever, you know the difference. But the point about the wheat and the tares is it's not so easy to determine. It's not so clear. It's not so sure. It's not so easy. Only the expert, only the Lord knows that. And the danger is, and we need to know this, that there are those, sadly, often among the people of God, who are not necessarily true believers. That was certainly true in Malachi's day. What a terrible day that will be if we find our religion is proven to be false. How awful to find that we've been deceived by the devil into a false sense of security when that day of separation comes. Well, what can we do about that? Well, the question is this. What is the direction? What is the bent? What is the indication of your life? Are you living for God? Are you taken up with how you can please Him? Now, that doesn't mean to say that every minute of every day you're involved in God's work. Well, in one sense you are, because when you're I remember my aunt, bless her, she's long since gone to glory, but she used to say, I hate ironing, she said. I really hate ironing, she said. So she said, I make the point that when I have to do ironing, I read my Bible first. So that when I'm ironing, I can think about the Bible and I can think about the Lord. Now, friends, you may enjoy ironing, but you see the point. There is somebody, and that's the attitude, isn't it? What's the attitude of our heart and mind? Forgive me, I know that's a silly illustration. But what's the direction, what's the bent of our life? Well, bless you dear friends, I'm sure you understand what I'm saying. Here are those who are his jewels. And they're made righteous by Christ, and they love him. And it's not just some kind of, well, you just do this because you're a religious type or whatever. It's something that has gripped our souls. We're taken up. What's the attitude? What's the controlling influence in all that we do? Do we do everything to the glory of God? Not simply to please our employer or whatever, or to please our family or friends, or simply to live a respectable life, of course, and all those things are important, but to do all that we do in all our ways to acknowledge Him. Because His eye is upon us, isn't it? Is our name in His book? Do you fear Him? I love that hymn that we often sing, Takum, Tatum, Brady, that paraphrase of the psalm, Through All the Changing Scenes of Life. We had that as our wedding hymn, actually. What a testimony that's been to the life we've had. Through all, in trouble and in joy, the praises of our God shall still our heart and tongue employ. Well, yes. Fear him, you saints, and you will then have nothing else to fear. make you his service, your delight, his wants, your wants shall be his care. Wonderful, isn't it? That's the Christian. And if that's your attitude, that's your attitude, that's you're a Christian, you're one of his jewels. How wonderful to rejoice in that. So, here's the sixth question. Why is it so difficult to distinguish them now? Why does our Lord say, then, or does Malachi through the Lord say, then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked? Why is it difficult? Well, it's relatively easy to spot the utterly godless, isn't it? I mean, the world is full of them, isn't it? Well, Britain is full of them anyway. Most of the people we meet in the street, I don't want to be unkind, but most of the people we meet in the streets are ungodly, aren't they? They haven't a care for God. They don't stop to think about God. But here's the prophet addressing the company who call themselves the people of God. Are they not all righteous? Well, not necessarily so. That's why there were so many of them here, complaining against God. And friends, I could take you, I'm not saying this is true or troublesome, bless you, but I could take you to churches where you can see that there are people who are there, and they're there for social reasons or for all kinds of reasons. they're not committed to the Lord and they're not committed to his work and service. I was talking to somebody only the other day about why is it that there are some churches and all they seem to do is they, you know, they want social this and social that and, you know, and they think they're saved, they think they're righteous. And often their circumstances are very similar, and they're seen in the same company. Judas was among the apostles, wasn't he? But he was wicked. And the other apostles never suspected him, all through our Lord's ministry on earth. And when the Lord at the Last Supper says, one of you will betray me, they look at one another and they say, is it I? They can't believe that any one of them would betray him. And yet, Judas was sitting there. Judas preached Christ, Judas worked miracles, and yet he stole from them. And even the ungodly can be quite mistaken at times. Look at the, look at, I say dear in the right sense, dear Job, godly Job, look at the anxiety he went through, look at the doubts he was filled with. Look at Isaiah, look at Jeremiah, look at the doubts he was filled with, look at his concerns in the book of Lamentations, wonderfully important book and relevant book as with the book of Job. David thought he would perish, Psalm 55, he thought he would perish. Now friends, bless you, I'm not trying to make you unsettled and put doubts in your minds where there shouldn't be doubts. But all I'm saying is we need to be careful. Here is David, listen to David in Psalm 55. My heart, verse four, my heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. So I said, oh, that I had the wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest. Indeed, I would wander far off and remain in the wilderness. Lord, I can't understand what is happening. And he goes on to speak about the ungodly and he says, destroy them, O Lord. And he says, I can't cope with this. Let death seize them. Many unrighteous think they're secure. That's why I read those two passages in Proverbs, not only because of them, but There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 12, 12, 12. I've got 12, 12 down. I've got 12, 12 down. The wicked cover the catch of evil man, but the root of the righteous yields fruit. Yeah, well that's another verse which speaks of the contrast between the wicked and the righteous. But 14, 12 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Who can read the heart? Well, friends, please, I don't want to discourage you in the wrong sense, but what I'm saying is this is the situation in our world, isn't it? There are many people who claim to be Christians who clearly are not, not by the Bible standard of Christianity. You ask most people, you go into hospital and visit people in hospital and then you say to somebody else, and some people are utterly unresponsive, but some people, and you talk to them and say, oh, I'm a Christian. I remember when I was down in St. Ives and we had one of the Methodist ministers, they change every three or four years, they change like yo-yos. But I don't know, it was probably the second or the third minister there. And I got to know him quite well. I'm still in touch with him a little bit. And he was a good man. I think he's, I'm sure he was genuinely born again and a lovely man. And he was visiting in the town. He told me on one occasion he was visiting the town and he knocked on the door and spoke to somebody. And they said, oh, oh, no, no, we're members at Zion, which is where I was. Oh, he said, how do you get on with the minister there? Oh, we haven't been to hear him preach. Well, I've been in the town for about four years by then. But as far as they were concerned, they considered they were members of my church. Well, I mean, they weren't members, they weren't, you know. So he said, oh, I said, I know him quite, I'll tell him when I see him. They said, no, don't, please don't, they said. He told me all about it. They didn't want to see me. They just, they were just, they thought that they were, now I don't know, we may have people in Droyleston who think, well, Droyleston, yeah, Droyleston Independent Church, that's my church, but they never darken our doors. They may not be because we're a younger church, but in a situation like that in St. Ives, that was the case sometimes. The number of times I went, I mean, I did a great line in funerals in St. Ives because if you weren't an Anglican or, you know, you weren't a very high Anglican, that people tended to come to us. We were sort of almost like the non-conformist parish church in a sense. So I, all sorts of people, and I used to dread the phone going and being the undertaker. I'd think, who's died now that I don't know, I've never met or I don't know, and you know. Time and again I would go to see people when this happened. I'd say, oh, thank you so much, pastor, for coming, and thank you for, and we'll come to your church. Well, I'm still waiting for some of them to come. And I was there for 21 years, and some of them still haven't darkened the doors of the church. But they thought they were associated with us, and they thought they had some Christian experience. And that's the world, isn't it? It's not always easy to distinguish. Who can read the heart? Well, one of the old Puritans said this, when I get to heaven, three things will surprise me. One, to see many there who I never thought would get there. Two, to see many shut out whom I expected to see there. Three, most surprising of all, to find myself there. Well, that's it, my friends, isn't it? That's it. Now, I don't want to give you doubts in the wrong sense, but we're not living on some vague pretext or some emotional feeling or some experience we had years ago. Are we among the righteous? That's it, isn't it? Are we among the righteous? This is the great danger, isn't it, of emphasizing experience above doctrine. Now, don't misunderstand me. It's important that we have experience, and I hope we have genuine experiences of God, but our experiences don't come above the doctrine. They're conformed by what the Bible tells us. And please, God, give us many experiences of his grace Years ago, when the charismatic movement first hit this country, people used to say, you know, oh, have you had a blessing? I said, you know, I used to say to them, any day without a blessing is not much of a day. Oh, have you had a second blessing? Well, phooey, I'm looking for a blessing every day. You understand? I'm not being facetious. I'm looking for God to speak to me, I want to, I want him to come to me from his word, I want to learn, I want to grow, I'm conscious how easily I will fall if I don't know his presence with me. I want to know God's grace and I want to experience him and I don't experience him enough and I know that. But I'm not living for experiences, I'm resting on the promises of God and his word. So we mustn't over-emphasize experience above doctrine. Seventh question, when will this separation take place? Well, Malachi tells us, on the day that he makes up his jewels. And that's when the day of separation is coming. As the old hymn puts it, sadly it's not in our book, the crowning day is coming by and by. God is preparing us for that day. And if you're among his jewels, I trust you are. then God is preparing for you for that day, and he is writing up his book of remembrance. And when that separation comes, it will be seen and it will be clear to all. It will be perfectly right and just, and nobody will be able to hide on that day, and no excuses will be acceptable, because everything will be open to God, and no one can escape. And we may try to conceal our sin, but if it's not covered by the precious blood of Christ, we cannot do so. All will be exposed unless we are covered by him, unless we are found in him, unless we are spared as he spares an own son, as we are covered. That's what the word means, the sense of it. and this separation will be decisive. There are only two classes and conditions of people in the scriptures, the saved and the lost, the righteous and the unrighteous, the just and the unjust, the cleansed and the filthy, those who fear God and those who do not. There are only two places, heaven or hell, light or darkness, the city of God or the pit of destruction, the place of glory or the place of wretchedness. There are no half measures. You see, friends, this gospel is an intolerant gospel. People don't like intolerance, do they? But this gospel is an intolerant gospel. It is a unique gospel. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Now I was just so moved by these words of Spurgeon, and I'm gonna close this evening by reading them. I'm sorry, again, it's a slightly longer quote, You're probably getting used to my slightly longer quotes now, so I hope this encourages you in this as we read this. This is some words that Spurgeon spoke when he spoke, preached on Malachi. Volume 24 of the Met Tab, pages 299 to 300, if you want to look it up in the volumes. And he said this, this is what he said. Look at the lot of the righteous. Look at the lot of the righteous. When Christ, the Son, S-U-N, the Son of Righteousness, shall arise upon the earth and gild it with his own light, there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the righteous will go forth and leap for joy, like cattle which aforetime had been penned in the stall. No works of the ungodly shall be left. As far as this world is concerned, they shall be utterly and altogether gone. I remember he's a Victorian, so pardon these, but I'm sure you will, you're all intelligent people here, so you'll understand the point he's making. There shall then be no tavern songs or alehouse ribaldry. There shall be no village profligate around whom shall gather the youth of the hamlet to be led away by his libidinous and blasphemous words. There shall then be no shameless reviler who shall provide a hall where blasphemers may congregate to try which can utter the blackest profanities against the Lord of hosts. There shall be no shrine of virgin or of saint or idol or image or crucifixion, crucifix, superstition shall be swept away. You can hear Spurgeon say that if you know anything about Spurgeon's preaching. There shall be no congregations where pretended preachers of the gospel shall deal out new philosophies and suggest newly invented skepticisms, or which at least they hoped men would accept as new. Though they were the old errors of the past, picked from off the dunghill upon which they had been thrown by disgusted ages. There you are. Sin shall all be gone, and not a trace of it shall be left. That's going to be great, isn't it? Here shall dwell righteousness and peace. The meek shall inherit the earth, and the saints shall stand each one in his lot, for the Lord himself will reign among his ancients gloriously. From every hill and every vale shall come up the one song of glory unto the Most High, and every heart that beats shall magnify his name, who at last has answered the question, where is the God of judgment? Then, cast into the nethermost hell, in the place appointed for the devil and his angels, the ungodly shall never ask again, where is the God of judgment? And saints, triumphant in their Lord, with whom they shall reign forever in eternity, shall also perceive that he discerns between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not. Beloved hearer, says Spurgeon, where Where will you be? Where shall I be in that day? Well, friends, I hope that's a matter of encouragement to you. I hope that hasn't driven you to despair. I hope it's encouraged you. I hope you know that you are a jewel in the hand of God, that he loves you with an everlasting love. that that day will come of which we sang in our opening hymn, Christ above all glory seated, king, triumphant, strong to save. Dying, thou hast death defeated. Buried, thou hast spoiled the grave. And then we, O Lord, with hearts adoring, follow thee above the sky. Hear our prayers, thy grace imploring, lift our souls. to thee on high. So when thou again in glory on the clouds of heaven shall shine, we thy flock may stand before thee, owned forevermore as thine. Well, may the Lord encourage us in these things.