Ungodly Shall Not Stand

Driving home: It will not be baited by the blessings of godliness, nor driven by the fear of ungodliness — there's nothing left for God to do but to judge.

Christ called 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden' — but he also said 'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' God uses both promise and threat.

Remember our Lord Jesus on one occasion said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. There's positive baiting. There are also times when he said, Ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment of hell? Be not afraid of those that kill the body, but fear him who can cast both soul and body into hell.

5:20 - 5:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Saints, do not despise the negative motivations of Scripture — let the threats of judgment drive you when love does not draw you.

John pointed to the Lamb of God and also cried 'Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?' — God's preachers carry both invitations and warnings.

We see it in the life of John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God. He baits them by this beautiful display of the Lamb of God. And if they will not be drawn, he then says, Who hath warned you to flee the wrath to come?

5:51 - 6:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Listen to your conscience as God's standing witness that judgment is coming — every twinge is a divine reminder.

Martin describes how every man tries to stifle the 'pesky little fellow' of conscience from earliest awareness — and yet its persistence is itself God's witness that judgment is coming.

in fact from his first awareness of the presence of conscience he does everything to stifle and eradicate this pesky little fellow from his head and his heart and the very fact that when you as a little boy or a little girl consciously did something wrong and were smitten with the sense of wrongdoing that you instinctively knew deserved some kind of judgment you knew that that source of condemnation was outside of yourself. That that sense of guilt came because you were accountable to the one who put that little monitor within your mind and your heart. And I appeal to every boy, girl, man or w...

12:33 - 13:20 Read in full sermon

Israel could not stand before its enemies at Ai because of Achan's sin — they turned their backs and fled. The opposite of standing is to be defeated and crushed; that is what the wicked will do at judgment.

In the book of Joshua, we have the record in those early chapters of the entrance into the land of Canaan. You'll remember how that they turned back before the little town of Ai because Achan had sinned in the conquest of Jericho. Joshua is praying, and God comes to him and says, Now you've prayed long enough. Sins in the camp.

15:43 - 16:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Adults whose mothers, fathers, and pastors have pleaded with you in vain: prepare to face them in judgment having despised their pleas.

Revelation 6 paints kings, captains, and mighty men crying to rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of the Lamb — the inability to stand is dramatized.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. And the stars of heaven fell upon the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. The heaven departed as a scroll, and is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

20:13 - 20:45 Read in full sermon

The point: If your Christianity consists only of enough religion to keep inside the circle of the church, you are a tare among wheat — repent before the harvest.

Martin confesses that nothing makes a pastor sob more than the helplessness of knowing he cannot play God and separate the wheat from the tares — but the angels will.

and if there's anything that makes a servant of God feel helpless and make him sob with him is that he knows he has no power to play God and separate the good fish from the bad but the one who has both the knowledge and the power to do so has pledged in the day of judgment that he will for not only does he declare the wicked shall not stand in the judgment their individual relationship before God, that they should be rooted out of the congregation of the righteous. For in that day, according to Matthew 24, 31, the Lord Jesus will send forth his angels to gather his elect, his true ones, out of...

27:22 - 28:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine yourself for the sober reality that 'Lord, Lord' professors will be among the rejected — do not rest in profession without union with Christ.

Christ's own warning that many religious workers will be exposed as strangers — judgment day will be a day of surprising discovery for thousands.

A day of surprising discovery. For the Lord Jesus said, Many will say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, in thy name done many wonderful works? Beloved, this is serious business.

29:08 - 29:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Make sure you are in Christ — only those hidden in His wounds and clothed in His righteousness will stand in that day.

Martin quotes Wesley's hymn — 'Bold shall I stand in thy great day' — as the only ground on which any creature can stand: hidden in Christ's wounds and righteousness.

Only one reason. If you can say with Wesley, Bold shall I stand in thy great day, for who ought to my charge shall lay, fully absolved from these I am, from sin and fear and death and shame. On what basis? on the basis of the first stanza of that hymn, Jesus, thy blood in righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds in these arrayed with joy, shall I lift up my head.

35:55 - 36:38 Read in full sermon