The Destruction of the Nations, Part 5
Selected Scriptures
We're going to be considering tonight the fifth in our series on the destruction of the nations and if you you're your Bible, you might turn to Matthew Chapter 25. Matthew Chapter 25 deals with the subject the judgment of the nations, the judgment of the nations. I'm going to make some introductory comments and then we'll look at Matthew Chapter 25.
The Bible says "be sure your sins will find you out." And thus is stated a very, very important fact There is no way to escape the judgment of sin. It is inevitable. It is inescapable. In Romans 1:18, the Bible says, "For the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness." None escapes.
Sin has its moment, but so does inevitable judgment. In the Psalms there are many statements to the same effect. In Psalm 90, verse 8, the Bible says "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy face." In Psalm 139, verse 11, the scriptures say, "If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. For I think I can hide my sin in some darkness in God's eyes it shall be light." In Psalm 140, verse 11, it says, "Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him." There's no escape.
In Proverbs Chapter 13, verse 21 says, "Evil pursueth sinners, but to the righteous good shall be repaid." Evil pursueth sinners. In Isaiah Chapter 3, verse 11, the scripture says "Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him."
Those are just a few suggestions of the biblical principle, "be sure your sins will find out." There is no way to escape judgment. With God there is no such thing as unfinished business. And God always deals with sin, for He's a holy God. And as we are living in the end of age by all the signs that we can see around us, we see that not only is judgment impending, but at the same time, sin is speeding up in its great climax.
And man, if we were to characterize him we might say he's like somebody who's on a runaway train, and the train is plummeting down a mountainside, the breaks have gone out, there's nobody really in control, it keeps going faster and faster with increasing speed and inevitably at the bottom there's going to be a terrible crash.
And the Bible says that in the last days civilization's going to be like a runaway train and that men's sin will increase and increase. Evil men shall become worse and worse. The mystery of iniquity that is sin as it's never been seen before will mount and mount until the train of humanity plummets faster and faster toward the inevitability of the judgment of God.
It's interesting though as you look around the world, everybody on the train seems to be having a party. It seems to be that man have no idea of how fast they're going towards judgment. They have no thought of restraint, of holding back. They don't realize what is inevitable and yet the Bible says judgment always comes, you'll never escape it, because God always finishes His business and His business with sin is always judgment.
Now, the climax of all of this judgment that man is racing toward is the return of Jesus Christ. Christ is going to come back to execute final judgment. This is even indicated in...as far back as the Psalms in the Old Testament. We've read a couple of verses. Let me just take your attention to a couple of more.
Psalm 96:13, "Before the Lord for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with His truth." Verse 9 of Psalm 98, "Before the Lord," closing off verse 8, "for He cometh to judge the earth with righteousness shall He judge the world and the people's with equity." Equality. The Old Testament then says, "The Lord will come in judgment." There is no escape from sin.
Now tonight we want to look in our study at this coming judgment. The judgment when Jesus Christ returns to earth is the final feature of really the times of the Gentiles or the history of the nations. Now we have discussed many things about the destruction of the nations. We've discussed the times of the nations. We've discussed the ruler of the nations. This great one coming that is called antichrist. We've discussed the religion of the nations, how there's going to be a false church. And we've discussed the alignment of the nations and the war of the nations and we went into Armageddon and what's going to happen in detail last time.
Now tonight we want to talk about the judgment of the nation. Everything peeks out when Christ returns. We covered last time how that Armageddon is going to happen. And at the close of the time known as the tribulation the great battle of Armageddon takes place. At the end of that battle Christ comes, and when He comes, He comes in judgment.
The judgment of the nations then occurs at the end of the tribulation period. The church is going to be taken out of the world seven years of terrible tribulation, then Christ returns to set up His kingdom and He comes in judgment. Now I want you to notice five things tonight about this judgment. The judge, the time of judgment, the place of judgment, the subject of judgment, and the judgment itself.
We'll begin with the judge. And in your Bibles look now at Matthew Chapter 25 and let's see the judge. There's coming a judgment who is going to be the judge? Matthew 25 beginning at verse 31, "When the Son of man shall come in His glory," and we'll stop right there.
Now this is going to be the time of judgment. It says, "when the Son of man shall come," down in verse 32, it says "he shall separate the nations. In verse 34, "He shall introduce some into His kingdom." In verse 41, "he shall introduce some to judgment." Now the judge clearly in this situation is the Son of man. "When the Son of man shall come in His glory."
Now turn in your Bible for a moment and I want you to go to this passage, because I want to show you some things to John Chapter 5. John Chapter 5, now we know that the judge is the Son of man or Jesus Christ as He was called the Son of man. Verse 22 of John 5 says, and these are the words of Jesus Himself. "For the Father judgeth no man. But hath committed all judgment unto the Son."
Now go down to verse 26, "For as the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the son to have life in Himself and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of man."
Now here Jesus says that it is He who has been granted by God the right to be the judge. Now I want you to notice an interesting thing, and I think there's a lot of doctrine in it. It's implied. Verse 27 says "That He has given the right to judge because He is the Son of man." Now why is He called the Son of man?
In verse 25, He is called the Son of God. It says, "Verily, verily I say unto you the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live." Let me give you a simple illustration of why I see the Son of God in verse 25 and the Son of man in verse 27.
In verse 25, its speaks of His ministry of resurrection. Now that takes a divine miracle, doesn't it? That takes the intervention of deity. And so when the Bible speaks of resurrection it speaks of Christ as the Son of God, emphasizing that He has the power to do the miraculous, raise men from the dead.
But when it speaks in verse 27 of judgment, it doesn't emphasize His deity. Why? Because judgment requires no particular miracle. You say what do you mean by that? I mean this, that in the case of judgment, Christ really doesn't have to do anything. The Bible says "whatever a man sows, that he reaps." The Bible says, "the soul that sinneth it shall die." And the implication of scripture is this that if a man just lives his life the way its going in sin, God doesn't get involved at all, He merely brings upon Himself the inevitable consequence of sin.
God doesn't have to do anything. God merely pronounces the verdict that the man himself has brought to pass in his own life by his own sin and rejection of Christ. So it never says that Christ has been given judgment and He's going to kill people and He's going to do all of these things actively. It simply indicates that He as the Son of man pronounces a verdict and that verdict is based upon what man himself has done and therefore God does not need to exercise any miraculous power.
We've illustrated this before from Romans and other portions of the New Testament where you have statements about the wrath that comes on sin. And very often it doesn't even attach to God. It just says dewrath, dewrath. And what it seems to be indicating is that there is a principle in the universe that when a man violates, he throws himself into chaos. Now if I jump off a 15 story building, God doesn't have to kill me, that's the point. The fall will do fine.
If I take a gun and put it to my head and blow my brains out, God doesn't have to be involved at all. And the same thing is true in terms of the moral law. There is...it's just like there are physical laws that take over, so there are moral laws and if a man lives a life in violation of moral law, he brings on himself the consequences of that life. And so we see Christ portrayed as the son of man insofar as He does not have to be active deity and perform a miracle of judgment. There's no miracle to it. The man lived in sin, he'll die in sin. The soul that sinneth it shall die. God doesn't even need to be involved.
God is involved in redemption. Now all judgment then has been committed to the Son of man who is Jesus Christ. In the upper room the night before His death, Jesus told His disciples He was going to go away. But He said, I'm not going to stay away, I'm going to return. He came back after the resurrection, he went up on a mountain side and he ascended into heaven and two angels stood there and said, "Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into heaven. This same Jesus you have seen taken up from you shall so come in like manner as you've seen Him go into heaven."
Jesus kept saying, "I'm going, but I'm coming back. I'm gong, but I'm coming back." Do