Enemies of the Cross

06.20.09

J.A. Matteson

"And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds." Revelation 20:12

Two dreadful occasions await the unrepentant wicked at death: a definitive tribunal judgment and conviction before Almighty God, and being cast away for all eternity from the presence of God to suffer the indescribable anguish of hell, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). And in as much as eye as not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of men the blessed wonder of all that God has in store for the redeemed in heaven (1 Cor. 2:9), neither has it truly been understood to the fullest extent just how unimaginably horrible hell will be for the wicked.

Beloved, the terse language of the Scriptures and especially that by the Lord Jesus Christ ought to serve as a strong warning and convincing proof that no man should dare trifle with it and that the administration of the Gospel is urgent to the hearing of all in danger of perishing. As for the redeemed they will stand before the judgment seat of Christ where each pilgrims work will be evaluated by the Lord Jesus Christ, faithful service being recognized and rewarded (2 Cor. 5:10).

The unregenerate, however, will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ at the great white throne of judgment and all of their wicked deeds laid naked, serving as the basis for their just condemnation (Rom. 2:5). All who rejected the salvation offered in the Lord Jesus Christ will stand before Him condemned (Jn 3:18-19)—the educated and ignorant, the wealthy and poor, the charitable and stingy, the politically powerful and the weak, the moral and immoral, the religious and impious—all will stand individually before God Almighty and hear the piercing indictment of their eternal sentence of doom, their sins itemized one by one, the foremost and eternally damning sin being unforgivable; viz., the sin of unbelief in the Son of God as the spotless Lamb of God and the rejection of His vicarious substitutionary death atoning for sin on the cross, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

On judgment day saints will have The Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous, Who will plead their pardon before the Father, these being justified by faith in the Lord’s atoning work on their behalf, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Woe to the prideful man who brashly contends that he is righteous apart from the imputed righteousness found only in the cross of Jesus Christ, he is utterly deceived and by his boasting a deceiver of the simple, deluded in mind and worse than a charlatan, a diabolical fraud, for he has denied that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Diabolical is the teaching the Emergent Church movement that denies Scripture pertaining to the penal substitution of sin laid upon the spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10; see also Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 Jn. 2:2)—it is the foundation of the Gospel. These fail to understand that apart from the shed blood of Christ they are still in their sin, justly condemned, twice dead, and in danger of hell fire.

Apart from the vicarious substitutionary death of Christ there is no hope, only a sure consignment to eternal darkness. These delusional teachers will not have The Advocate by their side to defend them for they have denied the very work He performed that they might be saved. By their words and deeds they are enemies of the blessed cross of Christ.

Copyrigtht (c) 2009 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8)