A Christian's Certainty - Tried by Fire

If you would again open up your copy of God's Word, 2 Peter 2. As always it is such a great pleasure and privilege to preach God's Word. I hate the circumstances around this blessing in which I get to share God's truth, but we do trust that the Lord will prepare us. Since that time a lot is going around, sickness is going around, but we have a lot to be thankful for, don't we? We have made it through a pandemic. You're going around, you're seeing fewer and fewer masks on faces, you are seeing fewer and fewer people call in to work. We are hearing of sickness, but we know that God is good and faithful.

The Lord has brought us through, for that I am extremely thankful. In this time when we turn our attention to God's Word, I want us to be mindful that each of us here will definitely face the fire of God. If you're a born again believer, you might say, "I am set for heaven's pearly gates. I am free, the Lord has saved me from hell." But if we are faithful to scripture and to the scripture that we will look at this morning, scripture tells us that everyone here in this room and everyone on the face of the earth, all 7.8 billion of us will face the fire of God.

If you're a believer, you will face the fire of God on that day when the Lord's just fire will pour down upon all of your Christian service. The Bible says that we will be refined as gold. We can't talk to a piece of gold jewelry, but if we could, gold would not speak of this experience in a very fun manner. We look at the beauty of jewelry that adorns a bride and we can see how glorious is that gold and that shimmering necklace.

But if you look at the pressure and the heat that those jewels had to go through, if they could speak, they would say, "That was not a fun experience." Now on that beautiful day when the bride of Christ stands before Jesus after he has wiped every tear from our eye, we will have no more recollection of that great and terrible day. But on this side of eternity, the born again believer has to fear that day. If you are saved today, the fire of God's judgment on your works should give you sleepless nights. As a believer, the fire of God's judgment on your motivations and your pride, that should keep you up late at night, early in the morning.

It should cause you to miss a meal. Dear friend, if you are unconverted to Christ, the fire that awaits you is far worse. So you are here today because the Lord has sovereignly allowed our pastor to become sick. He sovereignly allowed me to find out at 5.30 in the morning that I'm preaching. And I have to believe it is because someone here needs to be prepared for the fire. You either need to be prepared for the fire, dear Christian, because you are not listening to Brother John O's admonition to us in revival. You haven't gotten out that legal pad yet. You haven't stayed away from that dinner table. You have not wept over your sin.

Dear Christian, the fire waits. This is a gracious call. But could it be that the unconverted and the sound of my voice are here today because the Lord has allowed Brother Christ to become sick so that you would be warned that the fire of God's eternal judgment is at your door. Let's go to the text, 2 Peter chapter 2. Again I'm reading verses 4, 5 and 9.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains, gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of ungodly, verse 9. The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the righteous under punishment until the day of judgment. So it is important for us to see God's trying of fire. The message today is you take notes. A Christian's certainty tried by fire. A Christian's certainty tried by fire.

I tell you I'm thankful for Brother Chris for a lot of things. Thankful to the Lord for my best friend, a partner in ministry and someone to run these PowerPoint slides. So the Lord has allowed for us this word. The first thing that I want us to see, and I will work to get these up in just a second, but the first thing that I want you to see this morning is that we have a certainty of judgment. The first thing that we need to see in scripture is that fallen angels were judged in verse four. The certainty of judgment fallen angels. Look at verse four.

For if God did not spare fallen angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. We can rest assured that judgment is coming to all of us because the angels were judged. Now this is none other than Lucifer. Lucifer was a worship leader. This has brought me a great deal of fear. Lucifer was actually in charge of leading worship. But he looked upon this office with pride and he said to himself, could I not be like God? The Lord cast out Lucifer and one third fallen angels. If you wanted to study this, you could look to Luke chapter 10 verse 18, Matthew 25 verse 41.

The fallen angels were judged. I want you to see they were judged in the past. This was a past event and the Lord cast them out. They are being judged in the present. Here it tells us in verse four that there are demons that are being held in demonic dungeons. Even right now they are being held. They were judged in the past when they are cast out of hell. They are judged in the present and they will be judged in the future. Do you know that the Lord will have a final judgment day for believers? For unbelievers and for fallen angels. They will receive their just penalty, their just due.

And the Lord is faithful in that he will bring every sin to account. He will bring every wicked deed done by angels to life. So we see a certainty of judgment. We not only see a certainty of judgment for angels, but we see a certainty of judgment for humanity. All people saved and lost alike will be judged. So we see a judgment of fallen angels. Secondly, we see a judgment of fallen man. I want you to see verse nine in the text. The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. Dear friend, there is a day of judgment that awaits.

All lost, unconverted await a great and terrible day. This is referred to as the great white throne judgment. The great white throne conjures up an image and a picture that is terrifying of a mighty king. Scripture tells us that on that day, the lion will lay down with the lamb. What does that mean? The lion will lay down the lamb. That means in that moment, Jesus, who was the sacrificial lamb for your sin, will be one and the same as that Jesus who is casting out lost sinners into eternal hell. And he will be one and the same. I remember being in high school and I remember working on student council. Pep rallies were Friday.

And Friday, we had these really big banners that the football team would run through. Truthfully, I was on student council because you got a nice home room. You were allowed a home room that had couches. You were able to have a little bit extra time in the morning. You could sit and hang out. And you knew who was going to be there and your friends were there. And to be honest, I was not a good painter. In fact, I don't remember a single homecoming banner that I painted. But I was known as the Christian kid. Now being unconverted in Mettery, Louisiana, a very religious city, but a very hedonistic city, six miles from downtown Bourbon Street.

And we would discuss all sorts of things. And I can remember one day just standing there while two of my classmates did a wonderful job painting a homecoming banner. Soon be destroyed. And I remember one of my classmates, she said they would bring up religious things. You know that when you're working around unconverted people, if you're religious in any way, they will bring any question or any idea. It's as if they project their idea of God upon you. And even as an unconverted high school student, I was the representative of all things evangelical, I guess. And she said, you know, Keith, I like the New Testament. I like Jesus.

I like the red letters of the Bible, but I don't really care much for that Old Testament. She loved the lamb, but she didn't like the lion. You can't have one without the other. And you can't have the justice without the love of God. And you can't have the love of God without the justice. It's actually because God is loving and he loves truth that he has to punish wrongdoers. After the millennial kingdom, Christ will judge the unbelieving dead at the great right throne judgment. This is in Revelation 20 verses 11 through 15.

Jesus Christ, mediator between God and people, will take center stage on a great white throne because Jesus is head of the body, his church. He is perfectly qualified to execute justice and he will do so rightly. He is the final judge of all who refuse to trust in him. But the Lord is also going to be over all of those who believe in Jesus. So I want you to see the certainty of judgment that fallen angels are judged past, present, future. Unbelievers are judged and believers are judged. Believers will be judged on the great day. The great day. He is the judgment seat of Christ or the Bema seat. John 5 22 23 tells us he will judge believers.

Second Corinthians 5 10 tells us for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. So this will take place about 1000 years before the final judgment. This is important for us to note because this happens directly after the rapture. We believe in the rapture. We believe that the Lord is coming back for his own. The Lord will gather up all of the saved children of God who are alive as well as the dead in Christ. Those loved ones who are fallen asleep. Scripture tells us the Lord will bring them.

We will be given a resurrected body and we will give an account for everything that we have said. This is a terrifying thing for the believer. It's terrifying in a different sense. I was explaining this to our youth. I've had lots of questions from our youth in discussing some of these things. I've actually taught an extra lesson just on this so that we could clarify some confusion. But I made a comment just before Brother John O'Kane to our youth that on that day, a believer who had sin in their life would be as a beggar.

I had to clarify this because Scripture tells us that believers at the Bema seat will not be held accountable for our sin. So let me clarify. You will not be fearful of the Lord for your sin as a believer. When the Lord has the great Bema seat, all believers will come before him. But we will not be judged for our sin because that is fully and completely dealt with on the cross. So you might say, "Why should I be afraid? My sin has been taken care of. The blood has washed away my sin. Jesus, thank you." This is not going to be a fun experience as I mentioned.

The fire will test all of your Christian service if you stand here and you're confident in your salvation. If we think hard and long enough, if we're honest, how many good deeds have you performed that were perfectly and completely pure in motivation? I think the better question is this. Have you ever performed a religious deed or a good action with a pure motive? Scripture tells us it is impossible for you to do any religious action with a completely pure motive. And this should humble us. Now before we are totally discouraged at this prospect, I want us to think of something.

Ephesians tells us that the Lord has predestined good deeds for his elect. What that means is even before the foundations of the earth were laid, God knew you. He knew you and he predetermined good deeds for you to do. He knew that you would fall and he knew that you would have imperfect motivations. But because of the blood of Jesus, we can rest assured that as long as we are walking in obedience to the Lord, it will all shake out. This should still give us a holy fear. We don't need to be afraid of the Lord. One youth questioned this just to clarify.

She said, "So at the Bema Seat when we stand before the Lord and the fire tests our work, does this mean that we could go to hell?" And I said, "Absolutely not. No one at the Bema Seat will be going to hell." But Scripture tells us that some will lose every single reward. And I said, "It's kind of like this." I was a little transparently there. Every week I lead worship. And I don't know if you guys realize this, but I really wrestled with self-consciousness for many, many years. I'm going to have to tell a story on my wife in order to completely do this.

But since 2011, I was driving to Nolabab's church and I've been leading music for about three weeks. And there's a really sharp corner. If you were out at the old church, you would know that this was a corner that you'd have to really slow down or else you'd be all the way in Lawrence County. You would be in Monticello. So you'd slow down. I was going through that corner and I was transparent to my wife and I said, "You know, I just don't really think I like the way I sound when I sing." You know, I was getting some self-consciousness and self-concern.

And she said, "Well, that's pretty selfish." And I said, "Hmm, I wasn't too happy about that." But the more I thought about that, that was pretty selfish. In fact, that was very selfish to me. The Lord has given me gifts regardless of what my opinion is of those gifts. The Lord had called me into service. And so from the time we turned that corner to the time I got to know about that church, I repented of that impure motivation. The Lord has delivered me from self-consciousness and the Lord is good. The Lord has given me essentially victory over that.

But I told the youth, "Can you imagine what would have happened if my wife had not been faithful to speak that to me? What would have happened if I had spent 11 years leading worship at Grace Life Brookhaven, leading worship at Youth Camp? What would my life have been if I went 20 to 30 years of having sinful pride in my life?" And I faced Jesus and Jesus says, "See over there. Those are the rewards that you would have received if you were humble." These are the rewards you would have received if you were more Christlike. This is what should keep us up at night as believers.

Not that the Lord is going to say, "You did measure up eternity in hell." If you are a blood-bought believer, if you have the Romans 8.14 and Romans 8.16 assurance that the Lord is leading you, the Holy Spirit is bearing witness, you're walking in victory, you're becoming more Christlike. You know how we know we're saved? It's because you see the Lord's correction in your life over these issues, over a long period of time. Dear friend, if you don't have a testimony of the Lord humbling you, lovingly correcting you, then you need to be afraid. And I love you enough to warn you of that eternal flame that awaits.

We have a certainty of judgment in verse 4, but we also have a certainty of preservation. We have a certainty of preservation. Let's look in verse 5. "If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness." What a great certainty. Scripture is telling us we can rest assured. If he judged the angels, he will judge us. But if he preserved Noah, won't he preserve you? What a great, blessed assurance we have. Five things God preserved in Noah's life. He preserved Noah's family. If you're walking in humility, you know God's going to protect your family. We can have the greatest fears that we have about our kids.

And there's days where you're living a Christian life and you think, "I've got no pure motivation in my life." You may think, "I've done nothing right in my family." Do you know that God put Noah's sons on the boat? Noah didn't put his sons on the boat. God put his sons on the boat. If you have a testimony that you're living in, the Lord brought your kids to you. They belong to him. They're on the boat. I'm not saying you don't need to pray for their salvation. What I'm saying is the Lord will complete the work that he began. We get into trouble when we start to think that we are out attempting to save our children with our own efforts.

There's times when you just have to look at the Lord and you have to say, "Lord, you put him on the boat. You got to keep him on the boat." God preserved Noah's family. God preserved Noah's legacy. He had three sons, Shim, Ham, and Japheth. Shim is the father of the Hebrew people. You've heard of the phrase "anti-Semitism." Anti-Semitism is an anti- it's basically racism towards Jewish ethnicity. Where does "Semitism" come from? It comes from this phrase, "Shim." So Shim became the father of the Jews. From the Jews, we have Christ. Noah's legacy is preserved in Christ. And your legacy as a believer is preserved in Christ.

You got to trust God not just to get your kids on the boat, but to keep them on the boat and to trust that the Lord will do something in your life that outlasts you. If you're taking notes, why don't you write this down as a prayer? I'm going to challenge you to meditate on this this week. It's your homework. Lord, give me something that outlasts me. Isn't that we want something that will outlast us? A legacy. Dear friend, I hope you have more than a tombstone. I hope you have a legacy. God preserved for Noah his family, his legacy, but God preserved Noah's heritage.

God gave Noah heritage, which means that all of the people who walk on the face of the planet owe their life to Noah. That means that God did something through Noah that Noah could not have imagined. Perhaps you meditate on this. Lord, do something in me greater than what I can imagine. The faith healers, the health, wealth, and prosperity camp has made us fearful of praying things like this, but it is entirely biblical. God preserved Noah's testimony. God preserved Noah's testimony. Do you know that Noah sinned? Noah blew it.

Noah was a man of the fields, and after things had settled, and after the animals settled out, after his sons and their wives developed families, he grew a vine, grew a vineyard, made wine, he became drunk, and he blew it. Because of that, he left open the door for his son to sin. Because Ham sinned, the sons of Ham, Canaan, were cursed, and they became Canaanites, and they became enemies of God. You will see failure in your life. I encourage you, dear Christian, to have the humility, to look at your mistakes honestly, and to look at your sin honestly.

And right before you get so discouraged that you're going to throw in the towel, thank God that he is bigger than your mistakes and failures. Can I be honest? Brother John, O, ministered to me when he came to revival. And if I could sum up the ministry that the Lord did in my life that week, it was this phrase. "The Lord has more mercy and forgiveness in him than you have sinned in you." And we sing this, right? My sins go there, many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord that God's forgiveness is greater than our sin. God preserved Noah's family and legacy, heritage, and testimony. And God preserved Noah's sermon.

Scripture tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Let's look at the text in 2 Peter 2, verse 4 and 5. I'll read 5. "If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah a herald of righteousness." Many translations will say, "a preacher of righteousness." Now that single phrase has caused me to think and meditate quite a lot over the years. You know, I'd ask myself some questions. What kind of sermons did Noah preach? Did he preach topical messages? Perhaps he preached a message about how to be a godly father. Did he preach expository sermons, verse by verse? Did he preach a sermon series?

Did he ever get called to preach at 5.30 in the morning when he wasn't expecting it? Scripture tells us nothing of these things, but Scripture tells us he was a preacher of righteousness. Do you know why he built a boat for 120 years when the world had never rained? There had been no rain. He was mocked. He was humiliated. I don't know if anybody has, has anybody been to the ark encounter? I know it's big, right? It's big. I actually have a brother-in-law that works there, and I know that it's a very, very large facility, and I know it's not even close to the dimensions of the real ark, as the Bible tells us.

But Scripture tells us that Noah and his sons built this ark. It took them 120 years. Probably did not have a lot of time to look at commentaries. Probably didn't have a lot of time to read the text. In fact, we really don't know if there was any. I'm speaking facetiously. But he had two things. He had the very word of God that spoke to him, and he had faithfulness to that word. "Dear Christian, can I challenge you with something? You're preaching a sermon. Your life will preach a sermon. You will preach a sermon to your kids. You will preach a sermon to your coworkers. Your life preaches a sermon to your neighbors.

Your life preaches a sermon to your lost relative. Can I just ask you the question, what are you preaching? All we need to know about Noah can be summed up in this phrase, "a preacher of righteousness." He preached as he was a carpenter. He preached as he was a father. He preached as he was a man of the soil. We know that a Christian will certainly be tried by fire, a certainty of judgment. There's a certainty of preservation. There's also a certainty of deliverance. We rest assured that deliverance will take place. Let's go to the text again in verse 5.

"If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah a herald of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly." Scripture tells us that the world was a place of the ungodly. The Lord actually regretted making humanity. The thoughts and the motives of everyone were wicked all of the time. It sounds a lot like where we're living today. "But the Lord was faithful to take Noah and put Noah in the ark." Scripture tells us that God shut the door. He shut in Noah and all of his family. And this was a deliverance. "Dear friend, are you in the ark this morning?

Did you hear the voice of the Lord warning you of judgment? Have you heard the voice of God's word telling you to run to Christ?" Scripture tells us that Christ is our ark. One day, those on the ark, those in Christ, will be judged. And they should be very sober about this day of judgment. But rest assured, dear friend, everyone on the face of the earth at that time, other than those seven people, eight people, they recognized in that moment they were wrong. Even an unbeliever alike, lose sleep now. Skip a meal now.

"If the Lord has blessed you and you're walking in great assurance of your salvation and you're growing more and more like Christ, he is showing you your impure motives. You are a repinter." Jeff Noblet always says that Christians make the best repinters. "Let it be said of Grace Life, Brookhaven, that those are some repenting people. But if you are outside of Christ, there's no deliverance. There's no deliverance. That everyone outside of that ark knew they needed a deliverer. They knew it too late." We see certainty of judgment, of preservation, of deliverance. And finally, verse 9, we see a certainty of judgment day.

A certainty of judgment day. Let's look at verse 9. "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment." The Lord knows. Do you know that we are made and created by a competent god? That is a very egregious understatement. To say God is competent or capable, it's almost taking the Lord's name in vain if we don't qualify. The Lord is beyond competent. In fact, scripture tells us that Jesus, the only begotten son, the language means he is the only qualified son. Jesus is the only qualified judge of the earth.

I think it is enough to say that Jesus is the only competent person to judge. And so this means, as a believer, we can rest assured the certainty of judgment day. I want you to see some things about this day. I want you to see, in regard to the judgment of believers, I want you to see love and faithfulness. Even though the Lord will bring the fire to all of your motivations, even though the Lord will bring the fire to all of your pride, for all that you could have been for Jesus, he will do this in the most loving and compassionate way. How do you correct your children?

And I know that we lose our temper, we perhaps lose our patience, but how do we correct our children with love? We do it because we love them. How much more will the Lord correct you when he judges your motivations? Unbeliever, I want you to see the same two words, love and faithfulness. Do you know hell exists because God loves? Hell exists because God loves truth. But God is faithful enough that we have the witness of creation, we have the witness of his word. The fact that you are here today is proof that God loves you. The cross is proof that God loves you, but his mercy and his kindness allowed you to hear the gospel this morning.

I would like to conclude by urging law sinners to repent. I'd like to conclude by urging believers to heed this quote by C.T. Studd. Only one life will soon be passed, only what is done for Christ will last. And on that day, how happy I will be if the light in my lamp is burned out for thee. Even that great day is not something that we should fear. The Lord will rest assured that this is his work, that he will hold us fast, he will complete. Isn't that what we learn from the text? And I'll read it one more time. The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

I tell you when I read verse 9, I see great hope. I know that if the Lord kept Noah, if the Lord maintained and preserved Noah, even among his failures, I know the Lord can do that for me. Let's go to the Lord in a time of prayer. Let's pray over these things. Let's ask the Lord to seal this in our hearts so that we might seek him earnestly and live with a reverent and holy fear.