My Advocate at the Judgment

Great and dreadful God, I come unto you this evening with a heavy heart and a burden in prayer. People in this world are dropping like flies and dying and going to hell. Oh great God, I ask you this evening to show mercy.

I plead with you to attend the preaching of your holy word by your spirit and disturb folks. Bring holy ghost conviction to sin and lead some poor sinner here this evening to the very verge of eternity. Lift the lid off that dark bottomless pit and open their eyes so they can see the red glow of those burnings there as hell fire flashes on their soul.

Open their ears, oh God, and let them hear the terrible cries of the damned. Let them get a whiff of burning sulfur as it billows up from that black smoke and as it ascends out of that smoking dark pit. Let someone here see a bleeding and dying Christ on Calvary agonizing there beneath the weight of sin.

Come and disturb somebody tonight, I pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Well, I've got a humdinger of a message for you tonight, friends, and I'm not gonna pull any punches.

I'm gonna be honest with your soul and like we sing the south, I'm gonna give you the oil straight from the can. I'm gonna preach the undiluted gospel of the son of God. So take off your hat and hang on to your seats as we take a trip up to paradise.

My Bible says, and it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. John Wesley called the last judgment the grand decise because it is a great courtroom scene. We find a vivid picture of this heavenly courtroom scene in the book of Revelation in chapter 20 where it speaks of the final judgment day in Revelation 20 and in verses 11 through 15 we read, And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

I want us friends to picture in our minds this evening that great heavenly courtroom scene where the dead the small and great the rich and the famous the known and the nobodies stand there before that judge who has eyes of fire as books are opened and lives exposed beneath his intense scrutiny. Here they come there's a heavenly roll call as all of mankind is brought before that judge. Here comes the Roman emperors there is Julius Caesar and Tiberius Caligula and Nero.

Nero who fed Christians to the lions in the Roman Colosseum. Here come the world's rulers there is Cleopatra Napoleon and Alexander the Great. Here comes the pimps and pornographers who trafficked in women as flesh.

There stands wicked Hugh Hefner who ruined generations of young men with his perverted magazine empire. There stands mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin and Saddam Hussein. There stand the great discoverers like Columbus and Marco Polo.

Why the whole world stands there. Here come the famous Hollywood actresses and actors one by one in life they clutched their Oscar awards now the tremble before the holy god they spurned in life. There stands Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.

There stands the rock stars who ruined generations of young people influencing them to drugs and demon worship. There stands Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

There stands the superstar singers why it's Elvis and Michael Jackson, Sinatra and Crosby. And here come the billionaires. Here come the Warren Buffetts and the Bill Gates who made money their god in life.

There stands the philosophers and all the ages. There's Plato and Socrates, Buddha and Confucius. And there stands Voltaire the French atheist who ridiculed god and tried to do away with the bible.

There stands Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. There stands all the drug dealers and beer barons who ruined the lives of millions. There stands the captains of industry and heads of state, American presidents and English kings, popes and emperors.

There stands Pharaoh who stood against Moses. There stands Bloody Mary who butchered Christians. There stands the greatest minds in all of history.

There's Einstein and Edison, Nietzsche and Freud. There stand the art world as Matisse and Monet, Renoir and Picasso stand there. And here comes the literary lions.

Here comes Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner, Flaubert and DeMoss upon. Poets are there like Shakespeare and Poe and Keats and Shelley. And there's the great composers.

Why there's Mozart and Beethoven, Bach and Chopin. The sports world is represented. Why there stands Muhammad Ali and Babe Ruth, Arnold Palmer and Michael Jordan.

There they are the small and the great as they stand before god and their lives are exposed, revealed and reviewed. Books are opened, evidence is presented, cases are reviewed and verdicts delivered. For the sentencing of the law must be carried out.

A holy god and a broken law must be dealt with. He must deal with them one by one. One by one they stand before that great white throne and he won't clear the guilty.

For the judge of all the earth is there and should not the judge of all the earth do right? One by one the verdict is read and they are bound hand and foot and cast into that lake of fire. There is screaming and wailing and cursing as they are led away and thrown to their doom and damnation. There is a great roll call from every generation of civilization but there stands the adulterer and fornicator and liar and murderer and sorcerer and witch and atheist and agnostic.

Here they come, there they stand. Wait, I think I hear my name as it's called out. I hear a heavenly voice say, Ye Johnston, come before my throne.

It's a heavenly courtroom scene and if I may so speak the angels are the bailiffs in charge of the books. Satan is the prosecutor, the accuser, the brethren, and that voice of authority calls my name to come front and center before that throne. There I stand trembling, trembling before the purity of that white throne and before the authority and majesty of that judge.

My sins are stacked up and rise against me like a mountain before me. There I stand in that dark shadow of my collective sins that I did in life. Sins of commission and sins of omission, willful sins and presumptuous sins, grievous sins against a holy God.

My mouth is stopped as my sins accuse me. The strictness and severity of God's unbinding law is held up against me as a holy and righteous God drops his plumb line on me. He measures me and I fail that test for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

A guilty sentence hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles ready to descend at any moment. It glistens with my own blood. My knees tremble and the blood drains out of my face.

And a story comes to my mind as I stand in that heavenly courtroom. A story I heard years ago. It's a story about a man traveling through the city of St. Louis and it's a Sunday and he's a so he parks his car at a downtown church and he goes inside to worship.

Once he's in there he realizes that he is the only white person in an all-black church so he takes his seat on the back row. Up on the platform is the well-dressed elderly pastor who is speaking on his subject for that Sunday morning. His subject is heaven.

He begins his sermon by saying, some folks call heaven paradise. Other folks call it Abraham's bosom. I like to think of heaven this way.

Here is Jesus just returned from his earthly ministry. He stands there at the pearly gates and old Gabriel greets him. Hello, Jesus.

Sure is good to see you, Jesus. We sure missed you up here, Jesus. Good to have you home, Jesus.

But wait, who's that with you? Is that that thief? That thief from the cross? Oh, no, sir. No, sir. We can't have no thieves up here.

Jesus, he's not welcome here. But Jesus replies, never you mind, Gabriel. Never you mind.

And just then Jesus put his arm around the thief and declared, he's with me. That's the story that runs through my mind as I stand guilty before that great audience that day and that great white throne. My sins condemn me.

I'm guilty as charged as I await the sentence into the law to be carried out upon me as the verdict is read. I can see the red glow behind me of that burning lake as it flashes hellfire upon my soul. But just then there's a disturbance in the courtroom as my defense attorney, my advocate, rises to his feet.

He comes beside me and puts his arm around me and in a loud voice he declares, let a man, he's with me. There's a shout of hallelujah that rings out in the courtroom as I enter into God's presence forever and ever. Why, there stand my loved ones and my friends to greet me.

It's a reunion unlike any on earth. Bless God for his mercy and grace. And thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for me on that bloody cross so I could live.

And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is a thirst come.

And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.