I believe you’ve heard this story recently, but I am repeating it because it jump-starts this message. Lewis Craig was a Baptist pastor in Virginia during the days when it was illegal to be a Baptist pastor. In the course of preaching the gospel, in about 1767, he was arrested and brought to trial. On the jury was Jack Waller, a man who hated God, hated religion and particularly hated the Baptists. He was delighted to be on the jury and was looking forward to putting Craig in jail or at the least giving him a heavy fine. Later, Waller testified that when Elder Craig was given the opportunity to speak, he did so with the utmost meekness and respect. He said, “I thank you, gentlemen of the grand jury, for the HONOR you have done me. While I was wicked and injurious, you took no notice of me; but since I have altered my course of life, and endeavored to reform my neighbors, you concern yourselves MUCH about me. I forgive my persecuting enemies, and shall take joyfully the spoiling of my goods.” Those words, along with other factors under the providence of God, were used by the Holy Spirit to bring Jack Waller to the foot of the cross where the Lord gave him a new heart and saved his soul.
In our text Peter refers to all the Lewis Craigs of this world, who, for the early years of their lives, walked in lasciviousness, fleshly lusts and abominable idolatries. In many cases, if not most, the world doesn’t mind people like that, if they don’t go too far with it. But then, once the Lord makes righteous creatures out of them, the world does take notice, and because they don’t understand, they begin to dislike and sometimes even hate those new Christians. Peter says, “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot.” They even begin to “speak evil of you,” because your manner of life brings them under conviction of sin.
But, says Peter, those who speak evil of righteousness, and of God, and of God’s people, will soon have to give account to that God who is ready to judge them. “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them,” that they might become ready for that judgment. The gospel is preached that at the appointed hour they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but who through grace have been saved and enabled to live according to God in the spirit.
My point this morning is that Christ is ready to judge you. The question is: are YOU ready for that judgment? Verse 5 says that the One to whom the account must be given is ready. You might say that the court room is filling up. James 5:9 tells, “Behold, the judge standeth before the door.” God will soon judge the quick and the dead.
By the way, three times the Bible speaks, very poetically, of God’s judgment of “the quick and the dead.” Even though we could apply the words in a spirit sense, they are pointing to something physical. Some people will be alive on the day this judgment begins, but many more will have already died. But it doesn’t matter, whether dead or alive, all the children of Adam will have to stand before God. The word “quick” is related to all those scriptures which speak of God’s “quickening” the lives of people who have died. As I say, we could make application towards those who have been born again, but the context of each of those three verses point to physical conditions.
Beloved, the Bible says a great deal about Jehovah’s judgment of His creatures. That judgment will broken down into several divisions, and they will take place at different times. But without doubt, every child of Adam… every member of the human race… every person in this room will be judged by God in one way or another. Are you ready for that judgment?
GOD is ready for the day of judgment.
The Old Testament is filled with statements about God’s assessment and adjudication of the wicked. Take for example, Psalm 96 – “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad… before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth; he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.” Psalm 50 – “The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.”
Often those statements about judgment express the joy of the inspired psalmist. Psalm 9 for example, balances God’s justice and His grace. “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence. For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them. But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”
God, the mighty God, Elohim, is ready for the coming day of judgment. Are YOU ready? Do YOU know the name of God, and is YOUR trust in Him? Do you love Him? Do you serve Him? Praise the Lord that despite the coming judgment, He will not forsake those who seek Him in repentance and faith.
We might also say that the DAY of judgment is also ready.
There is a famous paragraph in Ecclesiastes 3 that you might know. Perhaps you can even sing it. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and time to build up…” In verse 17 of that chapter Solomon says, “I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” On the calendar of God there is a specific and set time for each aspect of the coming judgment. The judgment of the saints is on God’s calendar; the day of the judgment seat of Christ – the bema. There will be a judgment of the nations in regard to their treatment of Israel, And the judgment of all unbelievers before God’s Great White Throne has been set as well. YOU have an appointment to face the omniscient Judge. “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment.”
In his second epistle Peter returns to the subject of Noah and the flood. He points out that like today, there were people in Peter’s day and in Noah’s day laughing at the thought of the flood. But before Noah was commissioned to start building that colossal floating hotel and zoo, God knew which day the rains would come and when the fountains of the deep would be broken up. When the appointed day arrived so did the judgment of the flood. “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” Then Peter went on: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, RESERVED unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men…” Each aspect of God’s future judgments are on schedule, and their appointments will be met. The day of judgment is ready.
Revelation 11 describes what shall take place at the blowing of the Seventh Trumpet toward the end of The Tribulation. “And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead (is come), that they should be judged…” The God who controls all things; the God who sets up kings and remove kings, the God who determined the precise moment of the birth of Christ, and the moment of the death of Christ, has a set time for the judgment of the quick and the dead. The day is ready. It is on the Lord’s schedule. Are YOU ready for that day?
While the Bible tells us that God will judge His creation, we are also told that…
God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be our Judge, and He is ready to take the bench.
This is a really important point: God the father has deferred all judgment unto God the Son. Jesus tells us so. Christ, the One who was a such a blessing while He was here, will be the Judge over all His creation. One day while He was here, Jesus came under attack for healing man who had been crippled for decades. The miracle was performed on the Sabbath, and the overly critical Pharisees were incensed. John 5:16 – “Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.” When Jesus replied, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work,” the “Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had he broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God.” Shortly after that, Christ said, “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them (renews their lives), even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the son; that all men should HONOUR the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent (and authorized) him.”
Why is it so important that Jesus Christ will be the judge of the quick and the dead? It is because it was He who went to the cross to provide deliverance from that judgment. Christ is the Saviour, which Peter, Paul and so many other servants of God had been preaching. “Christ also hath once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust that he might bring us (in peace) to God.” Paul, in writing to saints, asked, “Who is he that condemneth” or who is the judge? “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” To reject or neglect Christ the Saviour, guarantees condemnation by Christ, the Judge.
In Acts 17, Paul was standing on the summit of the famous Mars Hill, in Athens, Greece. Some of its citizens had asked him to explain the strange doctrines he had been preaching. Paul took advantage of the opportunity to share with them the elementary rudiments of the gospel. He pointed out that his hearers were idolaters, and thus sinners in the sight of the holy God. He could have talked about a hundred other prominent sins among them; sins still prevalent today: Adultery, homosexuality, theft, murder – all the way down to intellectual pride and arrogance. When he saw that he wasn’t going to have much more opportunity to speak, he wrapped things up saying, “And the times of this (your) ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Because he hath APPOINTED a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man who he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
Notice several of Paul’s lessons here: You may think that God is overlooking your sins, winking at them at the moment. But today is the day; now is the time to repent of those sins. Because God has set a date; He has appointed a day of judgment. And the Judge of that day is the one whom He raised from the dead. The Judge of that day is Christ Jesus, who was crucified for sin, buried and resurrected – “quickened.” And Christ is ready. He has already put on His holy judicial robes. He is nearer to the door and nearer to the judge’s bench than He has ever been. The first of those judgments could start today.
The Son of God is ready, but are YOU?
Peter, the man who wrote the letter we are studying… the one who said, Christ is “ready to judge the quick and the dead,” earlier, had been sent by the Holy Spirit to give the gospel to the Roman centurion, Cornelius. In talking to Cornelius, Peter referred to several of the things he had personally witnessed in Jesus’ life. He mentioned some of the miracles and good things which Jesus did. But, he said, that life ended in the crucifixion – “whom they slew and hanged on a tree.” And yet, “Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly” to several hundred chosen witnesses Peter said, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through is name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” Those who, in humble repentance, turn to Christ, putting their faith in Him, shall be forgiven. They shall not face the judgment of the Lord as already condemned souls. But then in the same breath Peter declared: God “commanded us to PREACH unto the people, and to testify that it is HE which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead” – Acts 10:42. Peter was commissioned by God to preach the gospel of salvation, because the One who gave His life on Calvary to deliver us from our sins, has also been ordained to be our Judge.
In prophecy Christ said, “I will judge YOU… every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” – Ezekiel 18:30. Your sins will be your ruin at the Judgment of God, if you do not repent and trust the Saviour. Are you ready for that judgment?
You may be thinking that you really aren’t such a bad person – not a terrible sinner. And in comparison to some others this may be somewhat true, but that is not the point. This Judge does not grade on a curve, based on the human average. His judgment is based on His own perfect standard. So that every idle word we have spoken during our lives will be measured by God’s holiness – Matthew 12:36. And every tiny lie, whether white, black or pink, will be exposed and condemned as sin. The Lord is aware of your smallest transgressions of His law, and He will judge you for each and every one of those small sins.
Luke 16:2 tells us that we will be judged for our stewardship – how we have handled God’s blessings. For example, if you have been made rich, but you are not thankful to God for those riches, you will be judged for your selfishness and pride. If you have been blessed with good health, but you attribute it to your choice of a good diet, your exercise and your genes, without acknowledging it to God, you will be judged for your unthankfulness. The Book of Ecclesiastes concludes with the words, “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.” Christ, the righteous judge is familiar with everything you have ever done – large and small, open or secret. If you and those sins are not buried under the blood of Christ, you will pay the price – eternal damnation. But more importantly, if you have been given the gospel – if Christ’s sacrifice on the cross has been explained to you – and you have rejected it, this will be brought up in the Lord’s courtroom. If you have had the opportunity to sit comfortably in one of the Lord’s churches but the message of that church has been neglected, your neglect will be a part of your condemnation.
As Paul was watching the end of his life getting nearer and nearer, he wrote to Timothy, his son in the ministry. He said, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” One of the fables accepted by non-believers of our day is included in Paul’s exhortation: “The Lord Jesus Christ, shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.” One of the modern day fables, accepted by so many, is that there will be no accountability for sin. But the Bible declares otherwise. It begins that declaration in Genesis 6 and doesn’t stop before Revelation 22.
Are YOU ready to be judged? You are not ready, if you snicker at the idea of God’s judgment. You are not ready, if you claim that your personal righteousness is good enough for God’s holy inspection. You are not ready, if you do not love and serve, trust and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Christ is ready to judge you, are you ready to be judged? I would be happy to explain to you how you might be made ready by the grace of God.