When Chickens Come Home to Roost

I believe this world is a sinking ship and things have gotten so bad, friends, in our world today. Everybody's shooting one another. It's a madhouse.

Fighting and cussing. People punching one another. Society has gone into a time of violence.

It's moral chaos and spinning out of control. I believe that in Washington today the inmates have taken control of the asylum. Yet, the word of God declares in Hebrews 9 27, and it is appointed unto men once to die.

But after this, the judgment. This text promises two things. One, you're gonna die and you're going to a final judgment.

You have a date with destiny, friend, that you can't escape. And that's the last judgment. Every mother's son from every generation of mankind that ever lived will have to stand at that future judgment.

In fact, the longest line in eternity leads right up to the last judgment. Oh, I have a hard message to preach to you tonight, friends. It's gonna take all I've got.

Gonna take all my strength to pull this off. And as I preach it loud and clear, every hellhound will be barking to drown me out because the devil doesn't want you to know what I'm gonna share with you tonight. I've got to stop right now, friends, to pray.

Please bear with me a moment friends. I need help from above. Great God in heaven, you who created heaven and earth, you are the almighty.

You are mighty, Lord. You sent your only begotten son to die for sin on a cruel cross for sinful man. Oh, great and terrible sovereign, I need your help right now.

Right now. Come, Lord. The devil's got his artillery pointed at me tonight because he doesn't want the truth to get out.

The devil's got so many pastors in his claw who are false prophets and ravening wolves going after the sheep to hide truth from them in these last days and feed them lies. Great God, let your truth be known tonight about your final judgment. I plead with you now, Lord, that you give me a large portion of your spirit.

And I beg you to attend this message tonight, Lord, and open eyes and show folks where they're going, either to heaven or to a devil's hell. Break up every false foundation, I pray, with the hammer of thy word and get out your sword of the spirit and slay someone here tonight with holy ghost conviction of sin. Oh, Lord.

Oh, Lord Jesus, walk out of the pages of your book and walk among us tonight and disturb folks. Let them see hell and eternity. Let them see the line in eternity that leads up to the judgment.

Oh, sweet Jesus, come save a sinner here tonight. Reveal yourself to them. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus.

Amen. Well, thank you, friends. I'm going to begin my message now.

You know, everybody thinks everybody's going to heaven. Just listen to the world talk. When somebody dies, that's all they say.

They'll say, well, he's no longer suffering now or she's up there watching over you. Everyone is good and God is good and he sends everybody to heaven and only serial killers and sociopaths, hitlers like that, go to hell. That's what most folks think.

Everyone believes, whether they're a or a Mormon or a Buddhist or a Baptist, they all are convinced they're going to some kind of paradise when they die. Nobody believes God sends anybody to hell anymore unless they are really, really bad or the devil himself. But if you take the time to read the book of Ecclesiastes, you will soon see that King Solomon was a man who had it all, who had seen it all, who had done it all, and who was sick of it all.

It was just all vanity and emptiness to him. And he ends his book pointing his long finger down the corridors of time to a future event. And he cries out, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

In other words, friends, there's a day of reckoning, fast approaching, when the chickens come home to roost. And that's the title of my message tonight, friends. When the chickens, when the chickens come home to roost.

We have a saying in the South that means when the bad things that someone has done in the past, they've come back to bite them or haunt them. We call it when the chickens come home to roost. You may label it or poetic justice.

You may say, well, he got what was coming to him. But the bottom line is, friend, that one day future, you will stand before the judge of all the earth, and he will open the books on you. Every act, every word, every thought, every lie, every dirty deed will be dragged out and placed beneath the spotlight for the world to see.

And that judge will hold up his magnifying glass of eternity on your life, how you lived, and it will pass under his intense scrutiny. Yes, sir. The chickens will come home to roost.

Every American president will have his dirty laundry exposed, all his adultery exposed, all the crooked deals he made under the table exposed, all the reasons why he threw this nation into war. Oh, listen to me, friend. We'll find out on that day the secret things like who killed Marilyn Monroe, who shot JFK, who really gave the orders to kill Martin Luther King.

All the crooked politicians in Washington and all the robber barons will be exposed on that day. Yes, sir. The chickens will come home to roost for sure.

And there'll be a lot of hooting and hollering in the crowd going on that day as they see all that dirty laundry hanging on the line to dry. Yes, sir. We'll have us a time on that day sitting in that audience hearing about all those dirty crooks and what's coming to them.

But before you get all worked up, friend, about seeing all these other people getting their due, bear in mind when the judge is through with them, the judge will turn to you. Do you have any skeletons in your closet? How does your hen house look? Do you have some chickens that will come home to roost? Maybe you should be worried. Maybe you should be concerned.

There's not that much amusement when it comes your turn to stand before that judge yourself. When I was a 16-year-old boy, I got my driver's license and while I was driving my mother's car, I ran a stop sign and a policeman pulled me over and wrote me a ticket. When I showed that traffic ticket to my mother, she said, Don't worry.

We'll go to court and beat it. I said, How? She said, It's easy. You just lied to the judge.

Tell him you didn't do it. Chances are that cop won't be there anyhow. So we spent the day downtown in a courtroom waiting for my name to be called.

And when the bailiff called my name, I approached the bench and I looked that judge square in the face as he sat there looking ominous in his long black robe and my knees went to knocking. And they asked me how I pleaded and I blurted out in a little nervous voice, I said, Guilty. I couldn't lie to that judge, even if my mother wanted me to.

And all the way home, I got chewed out by my mother for being such a stupid boy to waste her time to just plead guilty. Well, there's a coming day, friend, when every mother's son will be arraigned at a future judgment and stand before the judge of all the earth who declares, I will in no wise clear the guilty. Evidence will be presented.

Cases will be reviewed and sentences handed out because all sin will be punished and all sinners will be convicted because the sentencing of the law must be carried out. Upon all guilty lawbreakers, I'm telling you the truth, friends. You better listen to me.

You can't escape that coming day. There is a judgment day coming down the road when the chickens will come home to roost. I'm telling you the truth now, friends.

I can prove it to you now. If you have a Bible, turn to the book of Revelation, go to chapter 20, put your thumb there and wait. While I begin this message, we're going to start in verse 11.

And as I read this striking passage of scripture to you, friend, I want you to imagine in your mind that you were standing in the crowd that day in that heavenly courtroom scene with the attending angels as the bailiffs, the prosecuting attorney is the devil himself, but the judge who sits at that great white throne has eyes of fire and feet of brass and he is the risen Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. He sits on a pure white throne that denotes holiness and purity. The narrator of the story is none other than the apostle John who'd been banished to the Isle of Patmos for preaching the gospel.

I've been on that Isle of Patmos in Greece. I've stood at the very cave where tradition has it that the apostle John received these heavenly visions. He was an old man at the time and he had to lay his head on a ledge of a cave.

And as he got those visions, he would recite them to his scribes and they would write them down. And this became the written book of revelation. Here now is God's holy word.

And I saw the 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. Listen friends, here they come.

Look at that scene. Every generation from Adam, that long line standing in eternity. Here come the antediluvians who drowned in the flood in the days of Noah.

That entire civilization perished except Noah and his family. They're there marched out right now and the judge would deal with them one by one. Here come the citizens of the plains in the days of Lot when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

There stand the Sodomites before that throne and before that judge as he reviews their cases one by one. Here come the ancient civilizations of the world, the Mayas and the Incas, the Persians and the Medes, the Syrians, the Romans, all of ancient Greece. Here come all the ancient rulers of the earth.

Why? There stands the Caesars. There's Julius Caesar. There's Tiberius.

Here come the pharaohs. Here come the monarchs. Here come the kings and queens.

Look, there stands bloody Mary. Look, there's Napoleon. Here come the distinguished members of parliament.

Here come the American presidents along with their dirty laundry. Here come the richest men of their generation. There stand the billionaires who made money their god when they lived their life.

They were the movers and the shakers. Here come the captains of industry, those who held the reins of power in their day. Here come the great painters of the ages of the Italian Renaissance, the French impressionists, the Spanish surrealists.

Out come all the famous opera singers. Here come all the classical composers. Here come all the Hollywood movie stars of every generation.

It's a roll call of everyone who was great in their day. Here come all the rock stars and all the celebrities of every generation. Why? Here come the philosophers.

Why, there's Plato and Socrates. Here come the great playwrights like Shakespeare. Here come the great poets, some who were atheists in life.

Here are the literary lions like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Flaubert and Tolstoy. Here come the famous atheists of their generation like Voltaire and Paine. Why, it's a roll call of the who's who in every generation from every nation that ever lived.

The great stand before their throne and their cases are reviewed one by one. Men who were great stand there. Then come the small to stand there as well.

The billions of people from every generation that were the nobodies in the eyes of the world, just ordinary people. There stands your coworker. There stands your neighbor.

There stands your school classmates. There stands your relatives. There stands your friends.

Names never heard of in their generation, but they lived their lives for either two things. They'll live for themselves and this world or for God in eternity. So the small and great stand there before that great white throne.

Then our text says, 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, listen to me friend, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That's right friends.

This is when the chickens come home to roost or roast. I want to share a story with you friend, which means so much to me. There was a man traveling through the city of St. Louis and it was a Sunday and he was a Christian.

So he parked his car at a downtown church and went inside to worship. But once inside he realized he was the only white person in an all black church. So he took his seat on the back row.

Upon the platform was an elderly, well-dressed pastor who was speaking on his subject that morning. And his subject was heaven. He began his sermon by saying, some folks call heaven paradise.

Other folks call it Abraham's bosom. But I like to think of heaven this way. Here is Jesus, just returned from his earthly ministry.

And old Gabriel greets him. Hello, Jesus. Sure is good to see you, Jesus.

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

He's not welcome here. Then Jesus replied, never you mind, Gabriel. Never you mind.

And just then, Jesus placed his arm around the thief and said, never you mind, Gabriel. He's with me. He's with me.

Oh, well, I like that story, friend. Don't you? If you allow me a little literary license here, let me describe this heavenly courtroom scene as I see it. Like when I was a 16-year-old boy in court myself, and my name was called, and I went before the judge.

But this time, I'm at the final judgment, and an angel calls my name. And I go stand before that throne, and the judge of all the earth sits there. And behind me, I can feel the heat from that lake of fire as it crackles and spits.

And as I stand there, while the books are opened on my life, it's my own personal biography recorded. Every act I did, every word I spoke, every thought I thought, everything I should have done, and I didn't, and everything I should have done, and I did. The good, the bad, it's all there.

Why, you don't even have to read it, Lord. I know I'm guilty. I know that, sure.

I'm a guilty sinner. Guilty as charged. I deserve hell.

I'm not going to argue with you. But suddenly, the judge rises from his throne, and that judge walks like an earthquake with every footstep he takes around beside me. And he wraps his arm around me, and he shouts with a voice that sounds like a volcano erupting, and it's for all the world to hear.

He says, this sinner is acquitted. My blood is upon his soul. He's with me.

Oh, glory. Why, there's shouts of hallelujah in that courtroom as I'm escorted into glory, and I see a big crowd of friends and loved ones waiting for me. God's word is true, and he's true to his word.

Jesus is a wonderful Savior. How about you, friend? Do you know Jesus as a Savior? How is it with you? Are you going to be ready for the day when the chickens come home to roost for you? How will you stand? How will you stand when the strict, severe, unbending law of God is held up against you? How will you stand? Will you stand guilty in your own merits, or will you stand forgiven in the merits of another? Are you washed in the blood? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you born from above? Listen, dear sinner friend, Jesus is the pearl of great price. We're selling all for so he may be gained, but you have to feel your need of him.

He can't help the self-satisfied. The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. Let me ask you, friend, are you hungry for God? Are you sick and tired of your sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? Then come, come in repentance, confessing your sinner and own him as your Savior and Lord.

Get to Jesus, friend. Get to Jesus, friend. You must close with him.

His blood must be on your soul. Listen to this gospel call. A day is coming when the chickens will come home to roost.

Listen to this gospel plea, friend. And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that hears say, come.

And let him that is thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.