The Judgement Seat of Christ - Part 6

You know, there used to be an old hymn, and maybe not ten people here could recite it or tell me the first verse, but everybody knows the chorus, when the saints go marching in. You know, they dance to that down in Bourbon Street, that hellhole, with all its prostitutes. They dance to it every night. When the saints go marching in, they shuffle their feet. Listen, that's for the redeemed. It's not for that bunch of scum of the earth. It's for the redeemed. When the saints go marching in, can you imagine them going in? From earth's wide bounds, from oceans farthest coasts, through gates of pearls, streaming a countless host, singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, hallelujah. A multitude which no man can number. I'm going to look in the gallery and see all the saints of all the ages. Man, I'd be thrilled to look on Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and those major prophets, and those minor prophets, and Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John, and Acts. Well, everybody in Acts, anyhow, and the Apostle Paul. Antichrist, and all those strange characters. Won't it be wonderful and say, see, those are the men who walk with Jesus. See, there's Paul. He gave his colossal intellect to God. He wrote about 14 epistles. He went over Asia Minor. He didn't sit in a jet and say, you know, how good the Lord is to me. No, sirree. He was lashed to the post a hundred and ninety-five times. He was in weariness, and fastings, and painfulness, and tribulation, and distress, and famine, and peril, and nakedness, and so on. In tribulation amongst false brethren, in perils of the deep. You think that man's going to get two ounces of reward for a life like that? You want to get rewarded. Grace is free, but rewards are not free. People say, you're talking about works. Sure I am, because God did. Jesus did. You know that some saints again are going to judge the earth. Well, that'd be an awesome task. I won't want to be one. Maybe I never will. Maybe I will. Maybe God will ordain that I should do it. Can you see the holy dead all lined up there? All the saints in the Old Testament, all the saints in the New Testament. I hope the Lord, I can't give him any advice. I think I try to in prayer sometimes, but I can't give God any advice. I'd like to see a pocket full of those gorgeous people who prayed. Oh my, won't that be wonderful? You know, when you see a political convention, they have a sign up from Cincinnati or somewhere. Maybe there'll be signs in heaven. These are the prayer warriors. These are the great sufferers. These are the travelers. These are the missionaries. These are the failures. Well, anyhow, there's going to be all kinds of people listed in that great day. It's going to be an awesome thing. And here is a man, his life is just made of wood. Very beautiful. Ten thousand dollars wouldn't do much for a stack of mahogany these days, would it? But when the fire goes through it, what do you have? All you have is that wood going down until you've got ashes, maybe up to your ankles, and that's all that is left. I heard a woman say not long ago, well, praise the Lord, I'm glad I don't have to account for anything when I go to heaven. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Wait a minute. You can never isolate the scripture by itself. There's no condemnation for past sins. I'm mighty glad this morning, I think sometimes, I don't wonder that God had to keep saying to Israel, remember thou was the bondsman in Egypt. Remember your sin. Remember your iniquity. Did you get up this morning and thank God you were pure? Didn't you thank him that that devilish fever you used to have for sniffing cocaine or drugs or something, that he broke the fetter of it? Are you really glad you're not a prostitute now? You're going to be a part of the bride of the Lamb? Are you glad he's removed from your heart covetousness and bad temper and all those creepy horrible things that used to master you? A man's life, all his ministry, it showed. Do you see the difference between the wood and the hay and the stubble and the silver and the gold and the precious stones? Wood, hay, and stubble are above the ground. They catch the eye. Silver and gold and precious stones are below the ground. Nobody sees them. There's a lot of public ministry in that day that's going to go down in ashes, my brother. You say, well, it doesn't say that the Christians are going to be judged out of the book. Yes, I think it does. Where? In Malachi. It says that God has a book of remembrance. And I think it would do you good before you go to bed every night this week to ask God, what did you put in your book today from my life? It doesn't necessarily have to be some outward act. You could worship God on a tractor. You could worship God. It's not the best way, but you can do it still. The fire is going to take the big shoy life of that man and burn it, and it's only going to be a bunch of ashes. Wood, hay. Well, if you put $10,000 in hay, you get a lot, yeah, and you get a lot more ashes too when the fire got to it. And stubble? You could buy half the stubble in Texas maybe for $10,000, but boy, you'd have a mess when the fire got to it. Instead of ashes to your ankles or ashes to your knees, it would be up to your nose maybe, and you couldn't get your way out. But that's what lives are going to be like. Wood, hay, stubble. I used to have trouble with these boys always begging, you know. And it makes you wonder if some Christians do have hearts of flesh that they won't send them money to keep their jets going. You know, I believe every dime that ever came into Agapio, every dime that ever came to Oral Roberts, anybody else is going to answer for it at the judgment seat of Christ one day. Jesus talked about these men who go and take widows' houses. Well, that's what they're doing now. They're not satisfied that you give while you're living, they'll ask you to hand your house over to them and leave this in your will, and if you do, you'll get a better place in heaven. Don't believe it for a moment. It's a lie from hell. They're going to give an account to God in that day, but I believe we're going to give an account too. A brother was telling me this week when he got baptized, it was a kind of a sudden thing, and he went down into the water there and suddenly realized he had his wallet in his pocket. Well, not many pockets get, you know, not many wallets get baptized. We kind of say, Lord, you look after my sins, I look after the rest. Every penny you earn since you became the property of Jesus Christ, you'll give an account of before God. He doesn't just take your sins, he takes yourself, he takes the government of your life. There's an awful lot of money being wrongly invested. You know what I think? I may not be right, I usually am, but I may not be quite right in this, but you know what I think? I think that now the crunch is on the nation. I think it's going to get worse and worse. This is going to be the roughest year we've ever lived. I told some of you three years ago that an important man called me late at night and said, the next three weeks in American history, the next three weeks we're going to live will be the most important in American history. One of the most famous preachers in the country called me at nearly midnight and said, you know what? I've come to this conclusion. God Almighty is already taking his hands off America. For the simple reason we've had so much light and rejected it. Carter can't make a move to the right. If he makes it to the right, it's still to the left. Every move he makes is a counter move that makes him sink further and further in the mire. It's not only true that we live in a world of bankrupt politics, we live in a world, and this is the most tragic of all, of a bankrupt church. Isn't it awesome to think that all this stuff, we sing, all that will be glory for me. Friend, you've got one big stumbling block. Let me rush through this, time's going. Your life is wood, the fire's going to come, hay, the fire's going to come to it. Stubble, the fire's going to come to it. But what is your life is silver and gold and precious stones. What is gold a sign of? Gold, I believe, there is a sign of our devotion to God. You wouldn't get much gold for ten thousand dollars today. And I could have a small, uh, induction crucible here and put your ten thousand dollars worth of gold and press buttons and it moves and moves. What happens when you burn gold? Nothing. All you do is change it from solid to liquid, but you don't reduce it.