Good morning, all.
Good morning.
Well, he has already given away now that we are talking about preparing to meet the Lord. Actually, what we want to talk about today is preparing to meet the Lord.
Just think: if any of you who are about to be married were expecting your fiancé to come soon, would you just sit anxiously by waiting, or would you be doing all kinds of things to get ready? You would probably be so nervous, you would be doing a lot of prepping, looking at things in the mirror this way and that way.
That is the idea of getting ready for the coming—preparation for the coming. It is not just something we should wait passively for.
That would bring us to the first Scripture I would like to look at together. If we could, turn to the book of James, chapter 1.
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.
But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;
A doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.—James 1:1-8
And another Scripture: look in the Old Testament, to Micah 6. These two passages should get us started today on this matter of getting prepared for the Lord.
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?—Micah 6:6-8
The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will see Thy name: hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it.
Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a scant measure that is abominable?
Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful weights?—Micah 6:9-11
Let us have a word of prayer before we continue.
Father in heaven, we do thank You for the reality that the Lord Jesus is coming. And we want to thank You: not only is He coming, but You have given us an opportunity to prepare for His coming.
Lord, we know the day will come when there is no more preparation, there is no more time. We thank You for the time we have, and we pray, by Your grace, not to waste this time, but to know what this time is about and know the provision You have made for us in this time, in this hour.
Help us even this morning that Your Word would speak to us. Lord, it is not intellect, not emotion; it is the Spirit of God that we need. How we thank You that Your Spirit is here on earth and will be here until the Lord returns to receive His own.
So we ask for that ministry, that gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit today, that Your Word will be living among us, and that we have ears to hear—even ears of our heart—to hear Your Word and to take it to heart. We ask You in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, in getting ready to meet the Lord, we find these statements in James: “Count it joy when you fall into various trials.”
Now, I could ask—I do not want any show of hands—but how many of you are having various trials? We can ask right along with that: how many of you are counting it joy that you are having various trials?
Now, if you are not counting it joy, you are being unscriptural, because James told them to count it joy. There is a good reason why it should be counted joy, which he explains. The reason is that these trials are for your good.
We want to say, “Well, I am satisfied with the good I have. I do not need—” You may be satisfied with the good you have. I might enjoy the good that I am receiving. But are we really ready to meet the Lord?
I mean, I might think I am ready to meet the Lord just like I am right now. But as soon as He showed up and I saw Him, I would say, “Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I should have. I should have. I wish I—”
Well, the great news is, He has not come yet. That might sound like blasphemy, to say the great news is that He has not come yet, but it is not. You should be very happy that the Lord has not come yet.
That does not mean you want to delay it. May He come in His time. We know if we had to pick the time, some of us would pick it right now and the rest of us would be really sorry; or some of us would just never let Him come.
Look, God is going to take this time, but He has given us today—however many days, we do not know. This might be the day. It might be a lot more; we do not know. But whatever time He has given, the point is that the time is given to prepare, not that the time is given to waste.
My wife was talking the other day about school and busywork. A student said, “Is this busywork you are giving us?” I said, “You know, it just depends on what you want to do, whether it is busywork or not.”
Probably a good bumper sticker would be: Life is busywork. For most people, I hope not for us, but for most people, that is all life is—just busywork. Just occupy yourself, do something. It means nothing.
Absolutely, in the light of the Lord’s return, it means absolutely nothing. How much of our time is really focused on the purpose?
Let me say, “Lord, I really appreciate all the days You gave me. I watched 4,900 football games,” or whatever else. And what has it got to do with the getting-ready part? “Well, I needed refreshment.” Well, did you need that much?
I am not trying to point things at anybody, because I waste more time than all of them. And I really mean that. I know I do.
But the Lord is saying, “There is a purpose in this time. You need to lay hold of that purpose.” This matter of testing, or trials, is the thing that actually focuses on getting ready.
If nothing ever happens, if we never have any problems, nothing is going to do anything. It is like trying to take some people and send them to school and say, “Well, all the materials are there. The library is over there. Go and study to your heart’s content and learn everything. This is what we hope you will learn in twelve years. You hear? Yeah, see you.”
Twelve years later, you would get people who were probably almost as smart as some of the people who come out now.
I mean, you have to give some direction. And it has to be tests. Try getting some classes with no tests. You learn all you can, but there are no tests.
“Well, trust me, I will study. I will learn it all. I will give myself tests. I will tell whether I am ready.” That is what most of us want to do. We want to give ourselves our own tests.
The thing about giving yourself a test is that you already know what you know before you ask yourself the question. So you never ask yourself anything too hard.
But sometimes what the student thinks needs to be known and what the teacher knows needs to be learned are not the same thing. In our case, this is the Lord knowing where we have to be. He is the One preparing the test.
Therefore, we should count it joy and not be double-minded.
I want to mention one thing about this word double-minded. I have an alternate rendering here that says, “two-faced.” I want to really hit on that aspect of double-mindedness.
Two-faced, or double-minded, is like the student who says, “I am really doing all this. I am really studying,” but actually is just partying the whole time. He is doing something else. He is pretending to be a good student, but really is not being a good student.
How many of us just pretend to be really in love with the Lord? You say you are; you sing the songs, pray the prayers, come to meetings—whatever you do, whatever I do. We are pretending one thing, but the reality of our lives can be something different.
That is two-faced. That is the thing that we need to have attention drawn to: being two-faced about the dealings of the Lord.
When it is that way, we are not really asking for wisdom. Sometimes we want to have everybody think we are looking for wisdom. Maybe we fool everybody else. Well, maybe we even fool ourselves. That is really dangerous too.
You fool yourself into making yourself think that you are really interested in something, but you are not. You may fool yourself, but I will guarantee you that you will not fool the Lord.
The Lord knows, and He can drop a test on you at any time. And thank God He does. If it were not for His testings, we would not be ready for His coming.
If we think we are qualified to set the requirements and say, “When you are going to meet the Lord, this is what you need. Do not worry, this will do it,” I cannot say it. I am not qualified for that. I do not know, and I have never been there. I do not think any of you probably have either.
But He has, and He knows what we need. If we do not trust Him to tell us what we have got to do, we cannot be ready. His trials are His grace in preparing us.
We get a funny idea about judgment and trials, thinking it is all negative, and that God brings judgments and trials just because He is mad at you and says, “I am going to teach you a lesson.”
When people say, “I am going to teach you a lesson,” they do not necessarily mean, “I am really going to teach you a lesson that you are going to learn.” What they really mean is, “I am going to make you really hurt for what you did, so you do not do that again.”
Well, God wants to teach us the lesson. He really wants to teach us the lesson. Do we want to learn the lesson? That is the different question.
James said, “Count it joy.” I hope maybe we can put some light on this today, that we should count it joy.
In the book of Micah, I really want to focus on verse 8. It is put there as one thing: what does the Lord require of you? Actually, He mentions three things:
To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.
—Micah 6:8
Micah wrote in a time of impending judgment. The judgment was coming upon the nation, and the question was, “How can I live? How can I live in the midst of judgment?”
Maybe we think we have a lot of judgment around us now that we are involved in. How do we live in this judgment? How do we react to it?
The things Micah speaks there are simple things: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. If you do this, you can walk through the time of judgment.
He does not say, “Dig up every fact in the history of the nation and determine what it was that went wrong and try your best to go back and reverse it.” You cannot do it.
God is able to move pieces around and get it to where He wants in the end, but none of us are wise enough to do that. If we had a pure enough heart, we do not have the power and wisdom to do it. But God does.
He knows where we are now. He knows where we need to get, and He knows how to get us there. If you go with Him, He will get you there.
I have thought about this so much. I was never in the Marines, but maybe some of you were. I would like to use them as an example because they are a famously tough group.
There is this thing called the Marine Corps. They have posters and recruiters, and most of us are not in it. But maybe somebody is attracted to the idea that they are going to become a Marine.
What do you do? After you talk to the recruiter and accept the terms, sign your name, raise your hand, and take the pledge, they say, “Okay, now you are a Marine.”
Well, yes, but no. Now you are committed to having them make you into one. They will very quickly tell you, “You are not one. You are a recruit. When we get finished with you, maybe then you will be a Marine.”
If we thought becoming a Marine was simply a matter of signing a paper, raising our hand, taking a pledge, and now we can probably wear the uniform and everybody admires us, then we would really be in for quite a shock.
If we thought being a Christian was that—walking there and accepting the Lord, and that is it, now I am going to heaven, it is all settled, everybody gets the same thing—then we have missed something.
When you sign your name with the Marines and take the pledge, then it is just the beginning. They do not say, “Now go home and study the books and come back because we can use your service after you read this.” They have a program for you.
You get in, and you would think, I am sure, “This is a stupid program. They are trying to kill us. How are we ever going to fight the enemy if they are going to kill us themselves?”
You would have to have faith to believe that these people who are doing this have been doing it longer than you have, and they know something about what they are doing. They know more about what they are doing than you know.
If you do not have that kind of outlook, you are going to find it difficult to stay with this—maybe impossible. Maybe they will tell you, “Forget it. We have decided you will never be one.”
But we have an attitude that we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we just signed up and took a pledge, and that is it. Well, it is not.
You see, God wants to save us. When you sign your name and raise your hands, you are in. You are in; your name is registered. You have a serial number, the whole thing. You are one of them. They may not treat you like one in the way you thought they would, but you are in.
When you come to the Lord, you are in. Nothing else to it: you are in. But when you are in, it may not be exactly what you had in mind.
Being in Christ is not just an objective thing, like putting on a uniform. “There I am. Now I am authorized to wear the uniform. I am authorized to have His name.”
What God wants is not only that Christ has been given to us in this objective way, but that He be worked into us on the inside, that we present Him, or represent Him. We become conformed.
In fact, He says clearly that God is committed to this. He has preordained that you be conformed to His image. He has a program. He is not going to be satisfied with anything less.
Like when you go into Marine boot camp, they have a program, and when you are at the end, before you get out of there, you are going to be there. Trust me, you will be there.
God has a program, and before we get there, we will be there. It is not a smooth and easy path all the way, because this is not a small thing. This is much bigger than joining some organization on the earth, even the Marine Corps.
Much of our testing and trial has to do with our life together. In fact, I think the more we get with the Lord, the less bothered we tend to be by things outside, and the more bothered we are by the things inside. They become the bigger problems.
The problems we have close to us are the ones that give us the most trouble.
I want to read another Scripture to make everybody sit up in their seats a little bit. If you will, look in 1 Corinthians 11—just to raise the anxiety level so we switch along.
I am going to read from verse 18. This was written almost two thousand years ago, so we cannot say we are pointing fingers at anybody. This is not unique to any assembly. It is something that was true in Corinth and has been true in various degrees among all of us through the centuries.
Do not find it shocking if we run into the same problems that have been around before. I have wondered over the years when people belittle the book of 1 Corinthians: “No, no, no. We are not a 1 Corinthians church. We are an Ephesians church.”
I thought years ago, “Lord, if we do not get our 1 Corinthians, if we do not learn it ourselves, we are a 1 Corinthians church and think we are Ephesians.” You are in for some more trials, are you not?
For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and I partly believe it.
For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you.—1 Corinthians 11:18-19
Do you understand that? If you get in a group where everybody is just saying the same thing, and you get a funny feeling that maybe this is not really true but they all say it together, you are not sure.
But when you start getting people saying different things, you say, “Well, I know they are not all right anyway. Maybe they are all wrong, but they are not all right.” It says here that unless this happens, that which is really true is not going to come to the surface.
Because of the trials that take place, something deeper will come to the surface and will be seen. How soon? Well, first of all, God sees it right away. You should take comfort in that.
Sometimes we say, “Lord, wait up. Do You know what they are doing? Are You aware of that?” We are going to tell the Lord something He did not know about.
It is not like that. We have got to listen to Him and stop worrying about trying to inform Him of something. The Lord is aware of what is right. He is even aware of what is wrong in those who are right—what each one needs, and how to get you there.
This is the background of much of the trials we as Christians experience: they have to do with our brothers and sisters. In learning to deal with our brothers and sisters, we are actually, by the grace of God, being prepared to meet the Lord.
You should take comfort in that. You might think, “Why can we not all just get along? If we all could just live peacefully together and have a nice little life, a nice church, have our meetings, come routinely to our prayer meeting and Sunday meetings, and go on and on, and we are happy and walking in the Lord—that is all you need.”
If we do not have that, we want to get back to that as quickly as possible.
But the Lord may say, “There is something I do not like in the system. It needs to be adjusted and changed. Unless I blow this wind in here, it will never change. You will be happy and content just to go along with this forever.”
We might be content with something, but the question is: is the Lord content? Will you be ready to meet the Lord if you just continue in something with which we are content? Will I be ready to meet the Lord?
But the Lord is doing these things to make us ready. This may not be evident to some until much later, but the Lord knows right now.
For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
—2 Corinthians 5:10
What is approved may not be manifest to everybody until we get to the judgment seat of Christ. It is manifest to the Lord right away.
Man looks upon the appearance, the outside. The Lord sees the heart. You and I cannot see each other’s hearts. We cannot really clearly even see our own heart, much less the hearts of others. But the Lord can see it.
Even though the Lord can see our heart, it is not as if He is going to call us up before the judgment seat and say, “Bad heart. Good heart.” No explanation.
The other Word says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Another place, the Lord says that for every idle word you speak, you will be judged. Why? Because your mouth is going to reveal your heart. Your heart is being revealed in the things you are saying. It is being revealed right now.
Full and final attention will be given to that at the judgment seat of Christ. After we go through the judgment seat of Christ, He will position us according to our then readiness.
When is this judgment seat of Christ? The judgment seat of Christ, as we can find in Scripture, comes only after the resurrection of the Lord’s dead—those sleeping in Jesus. We do not precede them. We do not get there before that. You do not get your own little judgment seat just when you die.
We appear before the judgment seat at a time after the dead in Christ have been raised. But it seems to be a time before the Lord comes back and takes His position on the earth—an interim in which He deals with His own people.
The judgment seat is going to reveal good. The judgment seat is going to reveal bad. If I put it another way, it is going to reveal what God has approved and what He has disapproved.
Remember 1 Corinthians: that which is approved may be made manifest. The conflicts that we have in the church will be among those things spoken of in that day—what is approved. The Lord will let us know, and we will see clearly why something is approved or not approved.
It is like the judgment of Solomon, with the two women and the baby. You know that story; I will not repeat it. When Solomon gave that word of judgment, the people were amazed: “Wow, what wisdom!”
That is the kind of wisdom we will see at the judgment seat of Christ. As soon as Solomon said it, everybody knew it was right. They had never thought of it before, but they thought of it then, when they saw it happen.
We will be awestruck by the wisdom of God when we come before His judgment seat. He will judge rightly, and we will know it is right.
God has given us an opportunity today to know this. It is not like He is trying to keep it from us so that, at the judgment seat, we all go in there not knowing what is going to take place.
He reveals to us constantly what is wrong. Can you imagine having a child and never telling them anything that is wrong or right, and then when they are twenty-one years old, throwing the whole thing back at them? “You did this, this, this, and this.” “You never told me.”
God is not going to do that to all of us when we come before Him. “I never heard this before.” No, we have heard it before. He is a good Father, and He is constantly offering us opportunities to get the things right that are not right.
Now look, if you will, at Matthew 5, an example of that principle of getting things right now.
Some will be going to the judgment seat of Christ totally without a clue. But the wise do not have to go in there clueless. The Lord is telling us now what we need.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
But I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire.—Matthew 5:21-22
If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee,
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing.—Matthew 5:23-26
The judge in this case can rightly be applied to the Lord Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ. If we go to the judgment seat of Christ in this condition—if you have a charge against you from a brother—it will be taken care of there. Adjudication will be swift and righteous. And you will pay the uttermost farthing.
This does not mean that you have lost your salvation, but it may mean you have lost the place you would have had in the kingdom of God.
It could mean something as simple as this: for a thousand years, while the Lord reigns on the earth, you will be somewhere else—a place called outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
There is nothing that indicates to me that the wicked who are confined to the lake of fire ever weep and gnash their teeth. They never get out. But if you are consigned to prison to pay the last farthing, you will get out.
“Do not worry about it; it is only a thousand years. You have eternity to go.” Well, if that is the case, then do not worry about a little bit of suffering right now, because you have a lot less than a thousand years of this to do.
You do not think a thousand years is too much. Why do you think one week is? Why is the little thing today too big to ask if a thousand years is no big deal?
Well, a thousand years is a big deal. It is not just what I will lose, but what the Lord will lose. The Lord has a place for us. If you have a child and a place prepared for your child, and your child will not take the place, but instead must be sent off and disciplined, it hurts you. It hurts the Lord.
But He will do it. Praise God, He will do it. If you have to go to prison for a thousand years, you will go to prison for a thousand years. But you will be ready.
He does not want to consign anybody to that. That is not His will and His goal. He is not trying to set us up to make us fail. He is trying to give us an opportunity to get it right—to get it right now.
I want to give a little illustration of one case I had in court. I went with someone to a court case where they were summoned for a debt not paid. While I was at that court, I observed some things that the Lord spoke to me about concerning this very thing.
When we got there, there was one judge and just a crowd of people, all waiting to see this judge. Being a mathematician, I quickly started calculating: “We will be here until about 1999.” That was a number of years ago. I did not see how we were going to get out of there that day.
An officer came by and said, “Could I see your summons?” Then he pointed and said, “Go over there and meet with the plaintiff’s attorney.” There was a bunch of people over there, so we went over and waited in line to speak to the plaintiff’s attorney.
Around the courtroom there were other such things happening—lawyers here, people waiting around there. After not too long a time, we actually got to talk to the attorney.
In our own particular case, we had a good reason, and the attorney dismissed it. But many of the people really did owe money. You saw people writing checks to the attorneys and taking care of things. Of course, not everybody did that, and the judge had to deal with some of them.
But all around this courtroom, there was justice being worked out—or equity. It was taking place in the courtroom. It was not all there with the judge declaring something.
We were all right there in the light of the judge. Everybody knew: “If I do not make a deal here with this attorney, then I will be in line, and I will not get out of it until I talk to the judge. Whatever the judge says, that will be the last word on it.”
This is the place we are in right now. The Lord said to me at that time, “Remember, agree while you are on the way.” Agree before you have to get before the judge. Cooperate. Make a deal. Work it out.
When you worked something out with the attorney, when your case was called, the attorney said such-and-such and handed over the papers. It was entered in the court record, and everything was gone. You did not actually have to appear before the judge for any additional judgment. The judgment you had worked out was it.
Is that not nice? We have the opportunity today to work it out. We do not have to go before the judgment seat of Christ with these things pending.
If we go before the judgment seat of Christ with some things pending, I wish you did not. You are going to be sorry you did not deal with that, because He has given the opportunity to deal with it now.
Deal with it. That is His point. Deal with this today.
I want to look at these three things Micah spoke of: doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. We will look over these three fairly quickly, because they tell us what kind of attitude, what kind of stance, what kind of dealings we have to make.
If we are willing to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, we can work it out now. If you are not, you cannot work it out. It keeps coming back. Maybe you work out one thing and another old matter pops up. You will wind up with pending judgment at the judgment seat of Christ.
But remember, the judgment seat of Christ is not all bad. There is good too. There are rewards as well as punishments. If we have gotten everything worked out on the judgment side—the bad side—it can be a great experience. I hope it will be for all of us, a great experience.
The Lord would love, I am sure, to be able to give rewards and not punishments to as many of His children as He could.
Just as we do not want to leave these negative things pending, it might be a good idea to leave the positive things pending. Do not insist on getting paid now. If you do not get paid now, you will get it at the judgment seat of Christ.
If we get it now, the Lord can say, “Well, you got it. You have your reward. You already got it, remember? You insisted on it. You got it.”
You insisted on something you were right about. Well, you got to rule it while you were on earth. It has already been taken care of. There is nothing else to say about it.
We could get rid of the negatives—deal with the negatives—and let the positives draw interest, if I can put it in worldly terms. We will be glad that we delayed getting what was coming to us. We will be sorry if we delayed getting straight what was on us.
Preparing to meet the Lord: we are going to meet Him. You are going to meet Him in the air. Do not deceive yourself that everything is just pie in the sky. There is the judgment seat of Christ; after that, the kingdom.
Preparing to meet the Lord is preparing to be before the judgment seat. If your brother has aught against you, deal with it. If your brother owes you something, maybe let it rise. It will all be made right at the judgment seat.
While these things are going on in the assemblies—heresies, which just mean schisms, divisions, inability to get along, inability to cope together and work together—how do we live in the midst of that kind of environment?
Micah tells us. There is a requirement. What does the Lord require? Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
Now, justice. Let us look at the first one: do justly. Micah himself mentions this right after the verse about the wicked balance and deceitful weights.
What is justice? What is doing justly? I will try to make it very brief. We know the symbol for justice: the woman with the blindfold. What has she got? She is blindfolded, and she has scales over here, right? Balances.
The balances represent objective truth—not just what you say, think, and feel, but what is objectively true. The blindfold shows that it is impartial. It is the same for you as it is for you, the same for me. Impartial. This is doing justly.
You can summarize justice by saying it is being honest and dealing with honest weights.
The example in Micah is dishonest merchants who have deceitful weights. It is said that merchants would have three weights, all saying the same thing on them: one for buying and one for selling.
You tried to buy low and sell high. Simple. You tried to get a little bit more than you were really supposed to get when buying, and sell a little bit less than you said you were when selling.
Then that third weight—that is the one that is really right. That is for the inspectors. When they come to examine your weights, you show them the right weight. “Ah, you have the right weight.”
It is the very existence of that right weight in your bag that makes you so guilty. You knew what was right; you did not do it. You deliberately cheated.
You took from someone else what was not coming to you. You lied to them about it. You said, “It weighs this,” and you knew it did not, whether you were buying or selling. And you used the right weight when the inspector came.
Now let me apply that for a moment to our dealings with one another in the assemblies. Do we deal with honest weights? Do we say what we mean?
Do we skim a little bit off to advantage? Do you have that correct weight in your bag? Do you know what the right thing is, so that if it is not you involved, you can tell somebody exactly what the righteous thing to do is?
Maybe you get up and preach and say, “You forgive your brothers, and you do this and this,” but then when the case comes up to you, do you really do it?
If you know what to do, and you are preaching what to do, and you do not do it, you are more guilty than if you were ignorant. We have got to get our weights right.
It should be summarized in this: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is that simple. Will you treat people any differently than you want to be treated? Would you do something to somebody else that you know you would hate to have done to you?
Can I go and talk about somebody? Suppose I found out somebody was over here talking about me. “What? Are you talking about me?”
That is deceitful weight. It is injustice. It is playing a different standard. When we are dealing with ourselves, it is to our advantage, and we have in our bag all along the right weight. We know what the right thing is.
We are required to do justice. When the Lord tells us we are not doing justice, does that mean that is it? No. It is still today, and we can still get it right. That is the point.
If we have been dealing unjustly, remember Zacchaeus: “Lord, if I have taken anything that was not right, I am going to restore it.” I want these things settled. I do not want to wind up having done some things wrong.
First, we have to confess it, know it, and get it right—with impartiality. The main partiality we have is toward ourselves. “Show partiality to me.” You have to apply the same standards to yourself.
The Lord has given us our conscience. Our conscience is sort of saying this: “What is this going to feel like at the judgment seat of Christ? I do not feel comfortable doing this.”
Maybe you can rationalize some things, but our conscience tells us if we are being unjust. If we are not dealing truthfully, our conscience starts telling us.
I do not know how anybody ever gets the idea that our conscience tells us when other people are doing things wrong. Your conscience does not tell you when other people do things wrong. Your conscience tells you when you are doing something wrong.
Your conscience is for you. My conscience is for me. My conscience is not for you. If I was thinking, “Jerry, my conscience will not let you do that,” well, Jerry has his own conscience, and he is going to have to stand before the judgment seat himself.
I am not going to have to answer for what he did in that respect—except if I was responsible to tell him something and I did not tell him. Then my conscience would be hurting because I did not tell him what the Lord told me to.
That conscience is for our own justice, to keep us from our injustice.
Let us look at mercy. The Lord will weigh out judgment correctly and righteously. He is a righteous Judge. But consigning people to prison, if that is what He has to do, is something He will do, but not something He delights in doing.
What He delights in is mercy. How many times have we read that? Do we know that the reason we have a place with the Lord at all is because He is merciful and He loves to be merciful?
The Lord loves mercy. In our being conformed to be like Him, we have to be conformed to become merciful.
For judgment is without mercy to him that hath showed no mercy: mercy glorieth against judgment.
—James 2:13
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Do you have an opportunity to show mercy? Has anybody done wrong to you? You can demand payment, or you can give mercy.
Get your payment now, or appear before the judgment seat unmerciful.
Remember the story of that one servant who owed a great deal. His master said, “Pay now.” He fell down and asked for time: “I will pay it all.” His master showed mercy wholly.
Then he went out to his fellow servants and found one who owed a little bit to him. He probably had many little people who owed a lot. Maybe he was thinking, “If everybody pays me what they owe me, I can pay the master. They owe me more than I owe him, so I am going to go about and systematically collect.”
He came to one and said, “Pay up.” The man did the same thing: “Have patience with me; give me time, and I will pay.” “No. Lock him up.”
He played hardball. He was going to make him pay. But the story got back to the master, because the other servants were grieved at his behavior.
The master was furious, brought him back, and said, “I showed you mercy. Should you not have showed mercy?” He did not make the connection: “I got mercy. I should be merciful.”
How many of us make the connection? God showed me mercy; I should be merciful. How much do I owe Him? How much do they owe me?
If we take the approach that other people owe us more than we owe the Lord, we could be like that.
I will tell this story about mercy. It is a story I heard, and I cannot remember where I heard it, but I heard it as a true story. I wish I could tell you where. It concerns George Washington at the time of the Revolution.
Somewhere in New Jersey, I believe, one of the British sympathizers had been selling things to the British and doing other things to cause real problems for George Washington’s army. He had been found out, taken to a military court, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged for what he had done.
One of his neighbors came and begged an audience with General Washington. He came in to General Washington, humbled himself before him, bowed down to him, and said, “Remember, I have been a loyal citizen. I have helped your cause. I have served your needs. I have come to You with a request that You spare the life of my neighbor.”
He went on at some length, begging the general to spare the life of his neighbor.
Washington, after a while, said, “For you to put yourself out, even offering to pay much of the debt incurred because of this out of your own pocket, he must have been a very good neighbor of yours.”
The man said, “No. Actually, he was a terrible neighbor.” He told him a few things he had done. He was very hard to get along with. He had done them wrong.
Washington was confused. “If he is such a bad neighbor, why are you coming and putting yourself out for him, asking for mercy for him?”
The man said, “Because I want to show my gratitude to God, Who showed mercy to me in having His Son die for me when I was His enemy.”
Washington was touched. He said, “Thank you, sir. You have your request.”
Scarcely for a good man would one die. Perhaps some would die for a good man, but God commended His love toward us in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.
We all know John 3:16. Do we know 1 John 3:16 also? Because He loved us, we ought to love the brethren.
How did He love us? When we were sinners, He died for us. How should we love the brethren? Well, simple: were they nice? Did you get along with them? No. That is incomplete.
We get tests. People do all kinds of mean and nasty things to us, and we have an opportunity to show mercy. This opportunity may not be here forever.
You can show mercy to the unjust. You can show mercy to the unmerciful. You can take it out.
If we do that, this builds reward. Not only does it build reward, but maybe you get off a whole lot of injustice too. The Lord may overlook our injustice, but He will certainly take into account how merciful we were.
He will show mercy in His judgment to us according to the degree in which we showed mercy.
Take it to heart. This is the day of opportunity. If nobody ever does you wrong, you will never have an opportunity. That would be nice, would it not? But thank God—count it joy. You have an opportunity.
Finally, walk humbly with your God. Walking humbly is just the exact opposite of being proud, is it not?
Let us look at a couple of Proverbs. First of all, Proverbs 3. If we go too long, we will just pause and have the blessing so people can go eat. We will try to wrap up very quickly.
Be not wise in thine own eyes;
Fear the Lord, and depart from evil.—Proverbs 3:7
The fear of the Lord is a great and wonderful thing. The fear of the Lord can deliver you from all kinds of bad things. The lack of the fear of the Lord is so dangerous because you go into every kind of thing and situation you should not be in.
The fear of the Lord is a wonderful thing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. But the opposite of that is being wise in your own eyes.
To be wise in your own eyes is to not fear the Lord—not scared of the judgment seat, not worried about anything. “I am right, and I know I am right.” That is proud. That is not humble.
If we walk in a non-humble way before the Lord, you are going to be sorry at the judgment seat. Today is the day when you can do something about it. That day, He will do something about it.
It will get rectified. It will not be like that forever. But today, we can do it in our own cooperation with Him.
Let us look at Proverbs 6.
There be six things which the Lord hateth;
Yea, seven which are an abomination unto Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood;
A heart that deviseth wicked devices,
Feet that are swift in running to mischief,
A false witness that uttereth lies,
And he that soweth discord among brethren.—Proverbs 6:16-19
You see, the last one there—he that soweth discord among brethren—is one of the seven things that are an abomination to the Lord. What is right as this list begins? A proud look.
A proud look. A proud heart will keep us from being merciful. A proud heart will not be willing to forgive. A proud heart will demand payment.
The Lord has given us opportunity to humble ourselves. Back to James before I finish—James 5, beginning with verse 7.
We will try to summarize what I am trying to say today. Being ready for the Lord, being ready to come before Him as Judge: we can be living, and we should be living, as if we are right in the courtroom now. The Judge is there, and we have an opportunity to work out all things before we go before the Judge.
Soon, we will not have an option. It may seem to drag on and on and on, but that could really be in your and my favor. So that when it is over, we are going to say, “Lord, thank You. Thank You that You delayed one more year. Oh, thank You. I am so glad You did not come last year now, because the judgment seat would be over.”
Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain.
Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold, the Judge standeth before the doors.—James 5:7-9
Is that not a nasty-sounding word—grudge? Do not hold a grudge. I do not want to go before the Lord with a grudge, because the grudge is going to come right out and be seen and be adjudicated by the righteous Judge.
Do not want to go before the judgment seat with a grudge.
Remember, the Judge is there. If we remember the courtroom, if you do not deal with the brethren on the way, he is going to deliver you to the Judge, and the Judge is going to deliver you to the officer. We will get adjudication swift and righteous.
Do you not think you have a problem with righteous judgment? Well, maybe you do not need to worry about it. But I do. I do not want to go before Him with a grudge.
Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.
The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.—James 5:16
Maybe even if you do not bring the one you are praying for into line, if you pray for them, you might bring yourself into line.
My brethren, if any among you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
Let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.—James 5:19-20
If my children were wrong and somebody was able to restore them, I would be mighty appreciative. God will be mighty appreciative.
These people that you might have a grudge against—maybe you have a good reason to have a grudge—but they are God’s children, and He loves them. It just does not please Him for you to carry a grudge against them, even if they carry a grudge against you.
You have an opportunity. Opportunity is still abounding today. Take it to heart. Do not try to put this off on anyone else. It is for you. It is for me—each one for himself, for herself.
If we will do these simple things of trusting in the Lord, the Lord will be pleased. Really, what more can you ask than that?
Lord, give us grace. While we still have opportunity, let us invest while it is still an opening. Let us pray.
We thank You, Lord, for the opportunity we have, and we thank You that all of this is in Christ Jesus. It is none of us, simply our own work, but letting that life that You have given to us have its course and not resisting it.
Lord, we know so often it is our old inclination to justify ourselves, even if we have to call You unrighteous to do it.
But we thank You that judgment is delayed in that sense—that final judgment—and that You are today still extending mercy and still extending opportunity.
Do touch our hearts, that we will want to follow You, knowing that nothing required of us is not a thing that You have already done and are doing. It is simply Your life, Lord. We hold it back and crave it.
You will lead us into being conformed in Your image in these things that were set before us. We pray it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Amen.