Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190025B
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00:01 Lo, the day of judgment has come,
00:04 reflecting that great symbolic Day of Atonement 00:07 the Jewish people use to practice. 00:09 It was prophetic in that it looked down to the end of time, 00:13 the end of time. 00:15 And we're in that great Day of Atonement. 00:18 That's why the angels said that the day of 00:21 His judgment has come. 00:22 Fear God, because the day of His judgment has come. 00:25 In other words, it's time to get ready. 00:27 It's time to get your heart purified, 00:29 because there's going to come a close of human probation. 00:33 This also, when this happened in the symbolic Jewish Sanctuary, 00:38 that now we're living in a reality, 00:41 the high priest went into the Most Holy Place. 00:44 It was the only time of year he went into the Most Holy Place. 00:48 And when he went into the Most Holy Place, 00:50 they would actually tie a rope in case he was not right himself 00:55 in the glory of God and he would have sin on his heart. 01:00 You know, God is a consuming fire. 01:02 He hates sin, and there's a reason He hates sin. 01:06 There's a real reason. 01:08 You have to understand why God hates sin. 01:10 You know, when I was a little boy... 01:13 I've told this story a few times, 01:14 so if you've heard it, I apologize, 01:17 but I can't get a better one. 01:20 When I was a little boy, my little brother and I were 01:23 playing out in our grandmother's big sandy driveway. 01:26 She lived out in the country. My aunts lived there. 01:29 I have wonderful aunts. 01:31 I'm so grateful for them. I love them. 01:32 They're watching this. 01:34 And my aunts were around, 01:37 and we were out playing with our little cars. 01:39 And all of a sudden I saw my grandmother, 01:42 my sweet grandmother, she came running toward us screaming 01:46 with a hoe in her hand. 01:48 Now I wasn't afraid, I was just stunned. 01:52 I'd never seen grandma this way before. 01:55 And she comes running up to us and she starts 01:58 beating the ground with that hoe. 02:00 Well there happened to be a little copperhead snake there. 02:02 And I think one of my aunts must have seen it 02:04 and went and told her. 02:06 And grandma chopped that little snake into a thousand pieces. 02:12 Of course, that's hyperbole. 02:14 But why was my grandmother so angry at the snake? 02:21 Well, because it was a threat to her little grandboys. 02:25 You can measure God's anger towards sin 02:30 in relationship to His love for us. 02:33 Sin, like a snake, has crawled into His universe. 02:37 And God has a reaction that's predictable. 02:41 It's as predictable as my grandmother's. 02:43 And that is, He's going to destroy it. 02:45 But He's made a way so that we, as poor sinners, 02:49 that we can be cleansed by the blood of Christ. 02:52 And we don't have to come into judgment. 02:55 That's what Jesus teaches. 02:56 And that's so wonderful, because our heavenly Father loves us. 03:00 He hates sin because He loves us. 03:03 And He doesn't want us to become identified with sin. 03:06 So this last Day of Atonement, the priest 03:11 goes into the Holy of Holies. 03:13 And as he goes into the Holy of Holies, 03:15 he offers a sacrifice. 03:17 Now there's two goats that were brought for that day, 03:21 two special goats. 03:22 Now one was sacrificed as a sin offering. 03:25 His blood was shed, that represents Jesus, 03:28 his blood was shed for us. 03:29 He's the one who cleanses us from all our sins. 03:31 And there was another that was called a scapegoat. 03:34 I really don't like the word, scapegoat, here, but 03:36 it's the best we'll use for the moment. 03:38 And his blood wasn't shed. 03:41 He was just taken off in the wilderness. 03:43 And he was left out there to die, as it were. 03:47 Well this scapegoat does not represent Jesus. 03:50 It represents Satan. 03:52 And the reason it represents Satan... 03:55 And the priest, by the way, confessed the sins of Israel 03:57 over both of these goats. 03:58 The reason it does not represent Jesus 04:00 is because his blood was not shed. 04:03 And it represents Satan. 04:04 Now Satan cannot pay for our sins. 04:06 Let me make that really clear. 04:08 But he has a part in all of our sins. 04:11 And he's going to suffer for his own sins 04:13 and all the part he's had in all of our sins. 04:17 Suffers for his own sins, so to speak. 04:20 So when God comes to the end of the world, 04:24 the big question is, who done it? 04:27 Who's responsible for this mess? 04:29 And in this symbolic service, the whole universe 04:33 will say to God the Father... 04:36 And He's the Creator, so He's been a prime suspect. 04:39 People blame God today everywhere for all the trouble, 04:42 the sorrow, the heartache, and all the misery. 04:44 They blame God. 04:45 There's the tendency in every human heart to do it. 04:48 But God didn't do it. 04:50 The prime mover of evil was none other than Lucifer. 04:54 Satan himself, he's the prime mover. 04:57 And the justice of heaven, the courts of heaven, 05:00 the host of heaven, and all the earth 05:03 is going to recognize that this is the one. 05:08 This is the one who did it. 05:11 And so he's going to be condemned. 05:14 And the blame for the sin problem and our suffering 05:18 is going to be put right where it belongs. 05:20 Not on God, not on the God of love, 05:23 but on Satan who was the prime mover of this whole thing. 05:28 So his suffers that awful fate. 05:30 But we are cleansed by the blood of Christ alone. 05:35 Now this solemn day in which we are living, 05:38 this solemn time period, as I mentioned, 05:41 we often call it sometimes the day of Yom Kippur, 05:45 people are familiar with that, 05:47 but it's a reality now, as we're talking about here 05:50 in the time of the end. 05:52 This reality is a time to fear God. 05:55 It's a time to take God serious. 05:58 People say, "How can the everlasting gospel 06:01 start out by saying, 'Fear God, and give glory to Him.'" 06:05 I want to talk about this fear of God just a little bit. 06:08 The fear of God means that we should take God serious. 06:11 And let me tell you, the day and age in which we're living in, 06:13 we need to take God serious. 06:15 All through history when people didn't take God serious, 06:17 they got into lots of trouble. 06:19 You know, I got into lots of trouble as a boy 06:21 when I didn't take mom and dad serious. 06:22 I needed to take... I should take them serious. 06:25 They knew a lot more than I knew. 06:27 They had a lot more experience. 06:28 Listen, God is infinitely more wise than any of us. 06:31 And He loves us, He cares about us. 06:33 Let's just listen to this just a little bit. 06:36 Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of God 06:41 is the beginning of wisdom; 06:44 and a good understanding have all of those 06:46 who do His commandments." 06:48 So the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. 06:52 When you take God serious, that's a start 06:53 of when you're starting to get wise. 06:55 Now the book of Job 28:28 says, "Behold, the fear of God, 07:00 that is wisdom..." 07:02 So when you finally get wisdom, 07:04 it's because you've got the fear of God in your heart. 07:08 And Proverbs 8:13 says, "The fear of God is to hate evil." 07:18 Like my grandmother hated that little copperhead 07:20 that was a threat to her grandboys. 07:23 So God hates evil. 07:25 And when we have the love of God in our heart, 07:27 we're also going to have the fear of God in our heart. 07:29 It means that we're going to take God serious, 07:31 and we're going to hate evil like He hates evil. 07:33 Because evil is a destroyer. 07:35 It destroys people. 07:38 And look what it's done to our world. 07:41 The New Testament doesn't let up on this, by the way. 07:43 Acts 9:31 says this after the story of Ananias and Sapphira, 07:49 and some other events there, Acts 9:31 says, 07:52 "Then the churches through all Judea, 07:55 Galilee, and Samaria had peace..." 07:57 The apostle Paul had been converted. 07:59 Saul to Paul. 08:00 "...had peace and were edified." 08:02 Listen to this, New Testament, "Walking in the fear 08:07 of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, 08:11 they were multiplied." 08:12 Walking in the seriousness. 08:14 Taking the Lord serious, they had the comfort 08:18 of the Holy Spirit. 08:19 Now 2 Corinthians 7:1 says, 08:23 "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, 08:26 let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh..." 08:31 In other words, "We need to get ready. 08:33 Get our hearts purified." 08:34 Listen to this, "...perfecting holiness in the fear of God. " 08:39 When you take God serious, it begins to change your heart. 08:43 What He says becomes important to you. 08:46 Ephesians 5:18-21 says, "And do not be drunk with wine, 08:53 which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit; 08:57 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns 09:00 and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart..." 09:03 We should be the happiest people in the world. 09:05 If you have the fear of God in your heart, 09:07 you take God serious, you have the sweet 09:09 comfort of the Holy Spirit, and you have the 09:11 blood of Christ covering you, you should be the 09:13 happiest person in the world. 09:14 And he goes on to say, "...giving thanks always 09:17 for all things to God the Father 09:19 in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..." 09:21 Then he says this, "...submitting to one another 09:25 in the fear of God." 09:27 We don't just submit to one another blindly, 09:30 but we are humble with one another 09:33 because we take God serious. 09:35 So what He says guides our submitting. 09:39 "...submit to one another in the fear of God." 09:44 Now if we're going to get ready for Jesus to come, 09:48 we have to take sin so serious that we repent of it. 09:52 The story of Nebuchadnezzar with Daniel in chapter, 09:57 I think it's chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar has this dream 10:02 that I don't have time to get into, but he sees this dream 10:05 of this great tree, and it's so big, and everything. 10:08 It's wonderful. And it's cut down. 10:10 And Daniel is called to interpret it for the king. 10:13 And Daniel is, you know, he says, "Well, this ought to be to 10:17 the king and to his enemies." 10:19 But the king says, "No, you better tell it to me." 10:22 And Daniel says, "This is you, king. 10:24 This is you." I'm paraphrasing. 10:26 And then Daniel says this to him, "Therefore, O king, 10:29 let my advice be acceptable to you. 10:32 Break off your sins by being righteous..." 10:35 In other words, "Repent of your sins by being righteous." 10:38 "...and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor." 10:41 In other words, "King, turn from your selfishness. 10:44 Repent of your sins." 10:46 John the Baptist, in Matthew 3:1-2, said, 10:50 "In those days came John the Baptist preaching 10:53 in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 10:55 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!'" 11:00 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" 11:03 In Matthew 3:5 it says that all of Jerusalem and Judea 11:07 went out and were baptized by John, "confessing their sins." 11:11 And they came to John and asked him questions. 11:14 In Luke 3:8-14 John says, "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." 11:20 So if you've repented, you're going to be changed. 11:23 And he says, "Don't put stock in the 11:26 fact that you're Abraham's seed." 11:27 A lot of people say "I'm a Christian, I'm okay. 11:29 I've accepted Jesus. I believe. 11:30 I'm okay, everything is okay. 11:32 I can just keep on doing what I want." 11:33 No, no. Be careful. 11:34 No, you bear fruit of repentance. 11:37 Your life is changed. 11:40 You don't just say, "I'm sorry." 11:43 You behave differently. 11:46 And John says that, "Therefore, every tree 11:48 which does not bear good fruit is cut down..." 11:52 So people are saying, "What should we do then?" 11:55 And he said, "If you have two cloaks, 11:58 give one to somebody else. 11:59 If you've got food, then share your food." 12:01 In other words, don't be selfish. 12:03 Tax collectors said, "What should we do?" 12:06 And he says, "Don't collect more than you're supposed to collect. 12:10 Don't rob people. Be honest with people." 12:12 Solders came to him and said, "What should we do?" 12:15 And he said, "Quit being so violent. 12:17 Be content with your wages." 12:19 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" 12:21 There was a little girl in the special Olympics. 12:24 And they were running the race, and she had a little friend. 12:28 And they were getting close to the goal line, 12:30 and suddenly her little friend got confused. 12:32 And he ran off to the center of the field 12:35 as they were running this race. 12:37 And she was concerned about her friend. 12:39 She had down syndrome. 12:41 She was concerned about her little friend. 12:44 And she stopped in her race, not far from the finish line. 12:49 And she said, "Come over here, come over here." 12:53 But he was confused, so she went over. 12:56 She put his arm in hers and brought him out to the track. 13:00 And together they went across the finish line last. 13:05 But they finished. 13:07 There wasn't a dry eye in the whole place. 13:09 And I can still hear her words, "Come over here." 13:13 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come! 13:17 Come over here." 13:19 Oh, how Jesus loves you. 13:21 Don't turn down that invitation. 13:23 The invitation of a lifetime. |
Revised 2019-11-18