Truth About Judgement

"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." Isaiah 28:17.

In the preceding verses of the chapter God has announced to Israel that there is a day of judgment coming for them. But the rulers of Israel regarded this warning with scorn. They spoke just as the obstinate fools today talk. The Assyrian army came and destroyed the stout-hearted princes of Israel. Now God has declared there is to be another judgment, another hail, another day of dealing with ungodly and Christ-rejecting men. What these princes of Israel did: strengthened their proud and wicked hearts and sought comfort in refuges of lies, in false hopes. Many are doing so today.

I. How to tell a Refuge of Lies.

Five common sense tests by which you can tell a true refuge, one that will stand fast in the Day of Judgment from a false one, a Refuge of Lies, one that the tempest of hail shall sweep away and leave you exposed to the pitiless fury of the storm of eternal judgment.

1. The first test is this: Does the refuge in which you are trusting satisfy the highest demands of your own conscience. If not it will of course

not satisfy God. 1 John 3:20.

2. Is the refuge in which you are trusting delivering you from the power of sin? The refuge that cannot save us from the power of sin here cannot save us from the consequences of sin hereafter.

3. Will the refuge in which you are trusting stand the test of the dying hour?

4. Will the refuge in which you are trusting stand the test of the all-seeing eye of God in the judgment?

5. Will it stand the test of Scripture? A refuge that will not stand the test of Scripture is utterly unreliable. The Bible is the book that the ages have tried and tested. Through these ages one philosopher after another has set up his opinions against the Bible. But the philosophers each have had their day and gone down, but the Bible has withstood the wreck of the centuries.