In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: When something is a violation of the word of God, it doesn't make any difference what you think. The issue is what is right, what is just. And thank God that's the way it's going to be because there are people who are very unjustly treated in this life and go through life that way. But there's going to come a time when God's going to settle it all and He's going to do the right, just thing—not most of the time, not some time, but all the time.

We don't even know what real just and right is in certain situations and circumstances. But He's going to be a just God and a righteous God.

Guest (Male): When you look at the many injustices in the world, it's easy to become disillusioned. But a day is coming when God will right all wrongs. However, it'll prove to be a devastating encounter for some. But today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, alleviates any unnecessary fear a Christian may have by describing the judge of the judgment.

Dr. Charles Stanley: You've trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. The Holy Spirit came into your life to seal you forever as a child of God. Now you are eternally secure. No matter what happens in your life, if you've placed your life in His hands, trusted Him as your personal savior as a result of what He did at Calvary by laying down His life, shedding His blood in payment for your sin, you are forever a child of God.

Well, you say, "That's fantastic. So now I can just sort of live my life like I please because I know that I'm eternally secure. And if I'm eternally secure, I'm going to heaven no matter what." Is that right? Well, you are going to heaven, but there is a "no matter what" because, you see, the Bible says each one of us shall give an account of himself to God for our works, good or bad.

The Bible says, in fact, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God—that each one of us shall give an account of himself to God for what we have done. So the Bible says in these verses that you and I are going to be held accountable, really, for the way we live our life. So if you had to give an account today for the way you're living your life, would you be ready to do that?

And so what I want to talk about in this message is the judge and the judgment. This is the second message in our series entitled, "Countdown to Judgment." If you'll recall, we mentioned this: that the day that you were born, at that very moment, the countdown began. From that moment on, our time in this life gets shorter and shorter and shorter.

And so once you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, the countdown is going. From that moment on, we should be living a godly life. What happens when we don't? What happens when we do? That's what the judgment is all about. So I want you to turn, if you will, to the fifth chapter of John.

In this fifth chapter, beginning in the 22nd verse, we discover something very clearly, and that is: who is going to be this judge? Listen to what he says: "For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." I want to explain two things right up front. Number one, when he says all honor the Son even as they honor the Father, he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

I want you to think about this. When somebody says to you, "I believe in God the Father. I don't believe in this Jesus stuff," let me tell you something: you cannot honor the Father without honoring the Son. You cannot. You can't go around Jesus to get to the Father. He says no one comes to the Father but by me, through me.

And so Jesus Christ will be the judge of every single believer when we come into the judgment. He'll be the one we face. And so he's saying to us here, look, that the Father has given all judgment to him. Jesus Christ will be the one before whom we stand to give judgment. Second thing I want you to notice in this passage is verse 24.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life." Now, that sounds like a contradiction because he says in 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 10, he talks about the judgment seat of Christ. Here's what I want you to see. The judgment seat of Christ in the Greek is bema.

It's a place of judgment, a place of accountability. When he speaks of judgment here, he's speaking of condemnation, that is, to be condemned to something. And so what he's saying is this: that once having received the Lord Jesus Christ, we will not come into judgment or condemnation because we've already passed from death unto life, which means we've already left the stage of being condemned.

In Romans chapter eight, the first verse, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." We're talking about being condemned in sin and unto a separation from God. But judgment here means appraisal, investigation. That is, all of us are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for our life, not to be condemned but to be rewarded.

We're going to talk in a moment what those purposes are. So it's very clear in this passage who it is that's going to do the judging. And the question is, what is this judgment going to be like? And if you turn to 2 Corinthians for a moment, he says in the fifth chapter and the 10th verse, "For we must all, all of us, appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that, for the purpose of, each one may be recompensed or rewarded."

That's what it means: rewarded for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Now, the reason this last word, bad—the reason I want to mention that is because here's what that means. It means rewarded for the things that are worthy, and we'll have to give an account for the things that are worthless.

So this is not a time for God to shame us, but it's a time of being rewarded for what we've done. When he says good or bad, there's some things that are worthless and of no account, and we get no rewards for them. And so he tells us here what's going to happen. Now, very clear: Jesus is the one who is the judge.

In fact, you remember in what we call the Great Commission, in the 28th chapter of Matthew, he says, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth." Then he gives us the commission to go and evangelize the world. So Jesus said all judgment is turned over to me. All authority in heaven and earth is His authority.

So every single person is going to stand before Him. Those of us who are believers in the judgment seat of Christ, where only believers are. Those who are unbelievers in the great white throne judgment, where he says no name is found in the Book of Life, and they will be eternally separated from God. Now, what you and I have to remember is this.

We think about Jesus, and it's amazing how people say, "Well, the God—my God is a God of love. He's not a God of judgment and condemnation. There's no such thing as hell; that's my God." I want to say, well, let me ask a question: how did you come up with this God? Because you didn't come up with it right here.

For the simple reason the word of God is crystal clear. God hasn't changed. That is, the difference is this: in this life, Jesus Christ, He is acting as Savior, Lord, and Master of our life. When the judgment time comes, Jesus is not—He's not changed. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He's still the same; He's still the character that He's always been. He is God in flesh, and He is God as Savior, and He is God as Judge. The difference is His roles change. Now He is saving and redeeming and forgiving. When that day comes, He will be in the role of judge. He will be the one who judges us and evaluates our life and shows us what is worthless and what is good in our life in order to reward us.

So we're talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we might have to ask the question: what kind of judge is He? The Bible says that He is a just, righteous judge, which means He will only do the right thing. He Himself is the judge for whatever is right, and He's the standard for whatever is right.

There are people today who say, "Well, you all may not be able to do this, but I can. I just don't happen to believe what you believe. And I don't think that the Bible's really all that true, and besides, I think I can do this and I can do that," when it is a direct violation of the word of God. When something is a violation of the word of God, it doesn't make any difference what you think.

The truth is that the one who's judging us, the one who's revealing us, the one who's examining us, the one who's investigating us—listen, my opinion will not matter. The issue is what is right and what is just. And thank God that's the way it's going to be because there are people who are very unjustly treated in this life and go through life that way.

But there's going to come a time when God's going to settle it all and He's going to do the right, just thing—not most of the time, not some time, but all the time. We don't even know what real just and right is in certain situations and circumstances. But He's going to be a just God and a righteous God.

And when I think about it, I think about what he says in 1 Peter chapter one: He's not partial. God is impartial. He's not going to be influenced by what somebody else thinks. He's not going to be influenced by what other people have thought all your life. In other words, His justice is absolutely perfect.

He is going to reveal—in other words, we're going to see ourselves as He sees us. Things are going to be made right. All wrong is going to be made right. And you will stand before Him and the real you is going to be revealed. Somebody says, "Wait a minute. Let me ask a question now. Is he going to show all of my faults and failures to everybody?"

And I can remember when I was a kid growing up and listening to an evangelist maybe or some pastor speaking, I can still remember this scared me to death. And that is he said, "One of these days God's going to put this screen up, and there you stand and all of your sins and all of your disobedience and all of your reckless living is going to be there.

You're going to see it, God's going to see it, the whole world's going to see it. Then you're going to be judged for it." By that time in my life, I didn't even want to grow up. I think, "My goodness, that'd scare me to death." Well, I want to give you a little relief. That is not going to happen. That's not what this judgment's all about.

That's not what Jesus is all about. If you'll think about this, Jesus in this life wasn't in the process of trying to shame somebody or destroy them. So go back, if you will, to the second chapter of John for a moment. Look, if you will, in these last two verses of the second chapter. Listen to what he says in the 24th verse.

"But Jesus on His part was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man." When He walked on the earth, nobody fooled Him. He knew exactly what was going on. He is a just, righteous judge.

There are three things, if you'll remember, that the Lord's judgment of us is going to take—three things into consideration just in general. Number one, how much light of truth did we know? How much truth have you heard? Secondly, how much opportunity did He give you with the gifts and talents and skills He's given you?

And thirdly, what did you do with that opportunity? That puts everybody on the same basis. Everybody hasn't heard the same amount of truth. Everybody hasn't had the same opportunity. And so it's a matter of what each one does with what he or she has as far as gifts and talents and skills and resources, and God's going to judge us accordingly.

And the truth is, people get saved at different times in their life and for different reasons. I think about a man who is a very wonderful friend, and so I went to see him. And when I came across the street, he was going to meet us at this restaurant, and I saw him standing over there and he had this military hat on.

It was an Air Force cap. And so I'd never seen him before, but I walked up to him and I said, "I'll bet you're so-and-so." So he said, "Yes, I am." So we went in and he said, "What do you want to talk about?" I said, "Whatever you'd like to talk about." Well, he didn't even hesitate, he opened this book.

And this book was extremely detailed, so thick. He had someone to go back and investigate, put all this information together. Every flight he had been on. He was a bombardier on a B-17 Flying Fortress in the Second World War. And every flight, every man who was on there, every person who'd been injured.

I mean, he had this mass of information. So, being a kid and growing up in those days, that was interesting to me. And so I knew all those planes. I had memorized them all. I knew what was going on: the Japanese, the Germans, the Italians, and Americans. I had it all down. So I was fascinated by this.

And so he began to tell me about these things. And so finally I said, "Well, when did you get saved?" He said, "We were on a bombing run over Germany." And he said, "We knew that the Nazis really had our altitude just right because about a mile, a mile and a half in front of me I saw the explosion right on line with us."

Then he said, "In about a half a mile I saw a second one." He said, "When I saw the second one, I knew that the next one would be me. I got saved between there and that one." And he said, of course, the next one hit behind me. And he'd given his life to Christ and came back and had been a really very committed Christian all these years.

And so somebody says, "Well, but how does God judge all that?" Well, God, listen, God gave him one last chance. And he took advantage of it. And now he lived out his life in the most wonderful, beautiful way. And I think about opportunities that people have they don't take. And none of us know about somebody else's opportunity.

He could have been blasted out of the air and that be the end of it and that'd be the end of him and the end of the story. But he didn't let that opportunity go by. He could have said, "Well, maybe the next one will miss me." He didn't take any chances; a very wise man. And God's blessed him in the most enormous way.

So God is a righteous, just God. This is why you and I can't judge anybody, really and truly accurately. Because first of all, we don't know all the story. We don't know all the things that people have been through. We don't know why they act the way they act. We don't know what their circumstances are.

And people make decisions in life and we think it should have been this way and should have been that way, when only God is a righteous, just God who knows all the details because remember, He's omniscient. He's the only one who knows every single thing there is to know about your life and my life.

Things happen in our life that other people don't understand, they want to judge us for it. And you know what? God knows that it may be something in your life that you had nothing to do with or couldn't do anything about, whatever it might be. So He's going to be a righteous, righteous judge.

And one of the things I love about this whole idea of the judgment is this. Why do you think Jesus came to earth? He came to earth, primarily to lay down His life at the cross and to make it possible for your sin debt and mine to be forgiven forever, so that we're not going to be condemned by it.

The second reason He came was to reveal the Father, and to help us understand who the Father is in ways that the Old Testament doesn't quite give us all of that. And so think about this at the judgment. Because Jesus Christ came into this world and lived among us and walked among us on our level.

He was a man like every other man except sinless. But he had a body like ours; He loved to eat and to fellowship and to go fishing and all the rest. So there was a lot of humanity in Him besides being God. Well, one of the wonderful things about the judgment is this. He knows exactly how you feel.

He knows what it feels like to be persecuted, lied about. He knows what it feels like to be tempted and tried and tested in every way possible. When you and I stand before Him at the judgment, we're not standing before this holy, isolated God who knows nothing about human feelings.

And the wonderful thing about it is, listen, He will sympathize with us. He knows why that happened to you. He knows that you didn't have anything to do with that. He knows that you would never have made that choice. He knows that somebody else brought about something in your life that caused that to happen.

He knows it all. And He is the only one about whom we can say he's a know-it-all. He knows it all. Thank God He does. And then you and I will not be judged for things other people think maybe we should be judged for. And so when I think about that and think about how understanding He is and how much He loves us.

And if you think about this: He loves you and me enough that He laid down His life for us. Do you think He's coming to the judgment with, "I'm just going to get you and catch up"? No, He's not. He's an awesome, loving God who can't wait to reward us and to get us into heaven. He died to make it possible.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. We can trust that all judgments in eternity will be correct because our righteous judge is trustworthy. We'll hear more about the judge and the judgment on tomorrow's program.

In the meantime, stop by intouch.org to find out more about beginning a friendship with God or growing in the relationship you already have with Him. Review what you just heard at the link to today on radio and order a copy of today's complete message over at the bookstore.

The title is "The Judge and the Judgment," or look for Dr. Stanley's "Countdown to Judgment" teaching set. Again, that's intouch.org. To call or text, it's 1-800-IN-TOUCH. You can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Is it your desire to honor God with your life, but you're not always sure how? Here's some answers about that very thing coming up in today's Moment with Charles Stanley. Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at CharlesStanleyInstitute.org.

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Guest (Male): Is the print smaller? It couldn't be my eyes. The In Touch Daily Devotional is now available in large print. While other print seems to be getting smaller, ours is getting larger.

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Dr. Charles Stanley: You're listening to In Touch. Can you know that your decisions are honoring to God? Here's a moment with Charles Stanley. Now, we receive lots of emails here at In Touch, and oftentimes they deal with the same issues. And here are a couple that I think are very interesting and I think people can be encouraged by these. Listen to this.

One of them says, "I struggle on a daily basis with temptation and always fall short of where I know God wants me to be. Because of that, I fear I'm missing the true plan God has for my life." Now, I want you to remember that one. I'm going to read this second one. Listen.

Here's one from Naomi. She wants to follow God but feels she's lost. She writes, "I recently turned 50 years of age and took an early retirement at age 48 from a company that I had known as my second home for 30 years. I knew that there was something more out there and I needed to find it. Now, I talk to God every day and don't know which direction to turn. Am I supposed to be where I am right now in my life?"

Now, both of these emails are like many we receive. And both people simply saying this: "You know, I'm trying to do my best, but I don't know whether God's pleased or not. I don't know which way to turn at this point in my life." And let me say this: God wants to encourage you and help you to know His will and plan for your life.

And both of these people are saying, "I don't know what to do next. I don't know which way to turn." Well, I want to give you a scripture in the 32nd Psalm that's very encouraging. It's encouraged me all of my life. When he says in this passage in the eighth verse, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will guide you with my eye upon you."

God is willing to answer your prayer. He desires that you know His will and plan and purpose for your life. And oftentimes when people do not know God's purpose and plan, they feel guilty. And it may be that you feel that way. "Well, you know, God must be displeased with me because I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing."

Well, let me remind you of something about the judgment seat of Christ. And that is: on what basis does He judge us? Knowing that we're Christians now—you're not going to be lost, that's not what this judgment's all about. But upon what basis does He judge us? Three things, and I think you can remember these.

Number one, how much truth do you know? And secondly, how much opportunity do you have? And thirdly, how are you responding to the opportunities God has given you? Now, here are some folks like many of us who are saying, "You know, I want to do what's right. I'm not sure what right is at this point. I don't know how God wants to use me."

Listen, if you will cry out to Him, if you'll seek His guidance, if you'll surrender your will, one of these days you'll look back and you'll think, "Lord, I sure struggled and You were so patient. Thank You, God, for understanding me and loving me through it all." Because He does.

Guest (Male): Only someone who has trusted God to forgive them through humble faith in Jesus Christ can have this kind of relationship with Him. Learn how to become a Christian when you visit us at intouch.org. Tomorrow on In Touch, our series continues with more insight on the judgment of believers.

I hope you'll join us Thursday for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.