Years ago, Judge Wapner was on a television series called, “The People’s Court.”
It was not only popular, but the show has outlasted its first host judge and continues with another judge.
And it was popular enough to start a whole group of similar spinoffs.
There is Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Judge Hatchett, Judge James Curtis, Judge Mills Lane, and on and on the list goes.
And if that is not enough, there is an entire cable network devoted to the subject -- Court TV. Turn it on and watch people being judged any time you want.
Bored with reality? Then watch fictional judges at work on Law and Order. That’s a television series that seems to be on 24 hours a day. At any given time, on one channel or another, there seems to be a Law and Order episode.
We seem to enjoy watching folks getting a taste of justice — as long as we are not the ones facing the judge.
But for the Christian, we know that someday we will face not just a television judge, but the greatest of all judges. God almighty.
Judgment day is coming!
We proclaim that we believe that every week.
We stand and say the Apostles’ Creed and declare that we believe “he is coming to judge the quick and the dead” – which means, of course, the living and the dead.
We have been studying the Book of Revelation for several weeks, and the last judgment is one of the great themes of this book – but it is also an important theme that permeates all of Scripture.
In Psalm 98, verse 9, we read, “Let them sing before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.”
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” (Matthew 12:36)
And, of course, what would the Book of Revelation be without a description of the Judgment Day?
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books … The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
I think this is one of the reasons why we shy away from the Book of Revelation.
It is not just that the Book of Revelation is confusing, which it certainly is.
It is not just that the Book of Revelation is open to all sorts of interpretation, which it certainly is.
I think the real reason why we shy away from Revelation is that we feel very uncomfortable with the thought of a FINAL judgment.
This is not a new discomfort. If you ever go to the Sistine Chapel in Rome, you can see Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last Judgment. It is a startling painting, filled with images. One of these images shows a man being dragged down into hell by demons. He has one eye covered, but the other eye is looking out. It is as if he is afraid to look, but afraid not to look. His face is filled with fear and sadness. At his feet a sadistically gleeful demon has a hold of his ankles and he is pulling his victim down to hell.
Hell.
It has been said that “Hell is truth seen too late,” and Michelangelo’s painting captures that so clearly.
So what can we say about this business of hell and heaven and the Last Judgment?
In the Book of Revelation, John offers a lot of graphic information, but beyond the images of fire and brimstone, three significant truths emerge.
The first is that the Last Judgment is fair.
Fair?
What in the world is fair about the possibility of being thrown a lake of fire?
If you listen to children long enough, you will eventually hear them declare about some event or experience, “It’s not fair!”
What they mean by that is that something is happening that they do not like. In other words, they are not getting their way.
But if you look in the dictionary, the definition of fair is this – “Fair. Adjective. 1. Just to all parties; equitable. 2. Consistent with rules.”
God is a judge who is fair. He does not take bribes. He is not subjective. He will not judge one person by one set of rules and another by a different set of rules.
In the Psalms we are told that God’s judgment will be founded on righteousness (94:15).
In the Book of Acts, we read, “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35).
For all too many people, the Last Judgment will be a time of one great regret – that they ignored and refused the grace of God.
Karl Barth, the great theologian, once said, “Whether the achievement of a man’s life is great or small, significant or insignificant, he will one day stand before his eternal judge, and everything that he has done and performed will be no more than a mole hill, and then he will have nothing better to do than hope for something he has not earned: not for a crown, but quite simply for gracious judgment which he has not deserved. That is the only thing that will count then, achievement or not.”
So there is a sense in which the Judgment Day is more than fair. If we belong to Christ, we will not receive what we deserve, but something far better – a gift of grace.
The Psalmist said, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities..” (Psalm 103:8-12).
The Last Judgment will be fair. It will also be full. Complete.
We will all be judged.
The rich and the poor. Famous and infamous. Celebrity and unknown. White collar, blue collar. Church member and unchurched. Good and bad. Even the living AND the dead – all will be judged.
No one will avoid the judgment, and God will fully take everything into account. Nothing will be omitted.
When Jesus talked about the last judgment, one of the things he said was that “there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17).
A lot of people are concerned that the government has gone too far in keeping track of who is calling whom. Privacy advocates are outraged.
I’m all for rights to privacy, but when it comes between what I do and what God knows, there is no privacy.
Everything we do is there on the divine record to be examined.
Every thought.
Every action.
Every motive.
It will be a full judgment.
As the writer of Hebrews said, “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
Paul in his New Testament letter to the Corinthians said about the Judgment Day that God “will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
I have one final point to make – and that is that judgment is final.
There are no second chances.
Last year I was on a short term mission trip to India, and many of the people I met there believe in reincarnation.
If you do well in one life, you move up in the caste system in the next. If you don’t do well, you come back in worse condition in the next life.
Sounds good – get a second chance in life.
But that’s not the way it is. You can’t come back and give life a second chance. You get one shot.
You can make a mid-course correction. At anytime in life you can give your life to God and live for him. But once you are dead, so are the opportunities you have to make a decision for Christ.
The writer of Hebrews says that a person is “destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
That sounds so terrifying!
When I was a teenager, I took my driver’s test and failed it. But that was not too bad, because a few weeks later I was able to take it again.
When I was in school, there were some tests I did poorly with, but that was not too bad, because the teacher gave other tests and they averaged out.
But this? It is a final judgment! Last chance.
So much pressure!
Steve Winger is an interesting minister – he bills himself as a “Juggler for Jesus.” In his ministry, which is part comedian and part revival preacher, Steve likes to tell a story about a final exam he took in a logic class at the university he attended.
The professor was well-known for his difficult finals. Winger says, “To help us on our test, the professor told us we could bring as much information to the exam as we could fit on a piece of notebook paper. Most students crammed as many facts as possible on their 8 ½ x 11 inch sheet of paper. But one student walked into class with a blank piece of paper. He took the piece of notebook paper and placed it on the floor, and had an advanced logic student stand on the paper.
The advanced logic student told him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an ‘A.’”
Our final exam at the last judgment will be more than fair, because we are allowed to bring with us Someone who will answer the questions on our behalf. We could never pass the exam on our own, but we have someone who will stand with us.
Paul wrote in his New Testament letter to Timothy (1 Tim 2:5-6): “For there is one God and one mediator between God and people, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”
In Christ, we have someone who mediates with God on our behalf.
In Christ, we have someone who stands with us in our final exam.
In Christ, we have our only hope.
Today we conclude our series of sermons on Revelation.
You can be confused by this book.
You can be amazed and fascinated by this book.
You can be bored with this book.
But do not be afraid of what you read in this book. For if you have Christ, you have nothing to fear.
(Images of the Michaelangelo painting can be viewed by visiting http://goodshepherdsermons.blogspot.com/2006/06/blog-post.html)
The outline for this sermon, and some of the thoughts and phrases, were suggested by another sermoncentral.com contributor -- Rodney Buchanan. See http://sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=43648&ContributorID=3883
