Series: The 7 Phases of the Atonement
Sermon: #7--Execution of the Judgment, Part 2
Pastor Rod Thompson
Midland SDA Church
December 22, 2018
From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation the central message of the Bible is atonement. That is, God providing a way for mankind to be restored to a harmonious relationship with Him.
Why? The attacks of Satan were far greater than just getting Adam and Eve to sin against God, the warfare began in heaven and its focus is God’s sanctuary, throne and sovereignty. So in reality, the atonement is God’s way of reconciling Himself with more than just you and me
The words atonement and reconciliation “are different words describing one and the same work of Christ.”
So the question is, how is God reconciling the world to Himself?
The first phase of the atonement was accomplished immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve. God gave them the remedy for the sin problem. He promised a Savior / Redeemer.
In the second phase, at the appointed time the promised redeemer arrived on the scene and laid down His life for you and me. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Daniel prophesied of Him saying that He would be cut off, but not for Himself. Isaiah said that He would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement for our peace would be upon Him.
In the third phase of the atonement He ascended into heaven and began His priestly ministry in the first apartment (the holy place). He pleaded His blood, offered up incense and prayers on behalf of sinners for over 1800 years.
In the fourth phase of the atonement, beginning in 1844 He stepped into the most Holy place of the heavenly sanctuary and the judgment began. Antitype had met type and we are now living in that antitypical day of atonement.
We saw that now is the time for us to afflict our souls, now is the time for us to get right with God. Because during this judgment it is being determined who will receive the reward of the righteous and who will receive the reward of the wicked.
In the fourth phase of the atonement we saw the pre-advent judgment that is taking place in heaven right now as we speak. Thrones are seated, the books are open and the holy angels are there. The on-looking universe pouring over the records in heaven. Every case is being decided for or against the reward of the righteous. They started from the beginning with Adam and Eve and one day soon they are going to be finished with the dead and look at the cases of the living
When that is accomplished Christ is going to come back to this earth. He will be bringing His reward with Him.
In the fifth phase of the atonement the judgment is going to be executed (part 1).
The righteous will receive the reward of eternal life and be taken to heaven. To the wicked and those who have failed to pass the test of the investigation of their lives they will begin to receive their reward. They will be destroyed by the coming of Jesus and all the wicked will remain in the grave for 1000 years.
In the sixth phase of the atonement we saw that there is going to be a second judgment that takes place in heaven. This is the post advent Judgment. Now God’s people are in heaven
Read Revelation 20: 4-6
In this judgment the redeemed will examine the books and they will see what pronouncements God has made, and in the end, concur with His decisions. So it’s not that the saints are deciding the punishment, God has already decided that – but they will see the extent of rebellion of each individual and concur with God’s conclusion.
We also saw the purpose of the atonement. God is trying to win back the trust of His creation. He is trying to restore our relationship with Him. Satan has painted Him in a bad light before the universe and He must be exonerated.
So in reality, God is the one who is on trial. He has to prove that the decision to save some and destroy others is right. He has to show that all the accusations against Him are wrong. He is proving to His creation that He is a righteous judge.
And that brings us to the 7th and final stage of the atonement. The execution of the judgment (part 2).
Remember what we just read in Revelation 20: 4-6. The righteous were taken to heaven by God. For 1,000 years they will be judging men and angels and ruling and reigning with God. They have received the 1st part of their reward. They are given the honor of examining the books of heaven. They have taken part in the first resurrection, so the second death has no power over them. They are given eternal life.
But the wicked have remained in the grave for this 1,000 years and the devil has been chained to the earth. Chained by his circumstances. He has no one to deceive. He only has the resulting devastation of the earth to remind him of the results of his rebellion.
But now the 1,000 years will be over
Read Revelation 20:7-8
Here we see that Satan is released from his prison. Why? Remember what verse 5 said. The dead remain in the grave until the 1,000 years are up. So the time has come for the unrighteous to be raised from the dead. This is the second resurrection.
The Great Controversy P662
At the close of the thousand years, Christ again returns to the earth. He is accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a retinue of angels. As He descends in terrific majesty He bids the wicked dead arise to receive their doom. They come forth, a mighty host, numberless as the sands of the sea. What a contrast to those who were raised at the first resurrection! The righteous were clothed with immortal youth and beauty. The wicked bear the traces of disease and death. Every eye in that vast multitude is turned to behold the glory of the Son of God. With one voice the wicked hosts exclaim: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" It is not love to Jesus that inspires this utterance. The force of truth urges the words from unwilling lips. As the wicked went into their graves, so they come forth with the same enmity to Christ and the same spirit of rebellion. They are to have no new probation in which to remedy the defects of their past lives. Nothing would be gained by this. A lifetime of transgression has not softened their hearts. A second probation, were it given them, would be occupied as was the first in evading the requirements of God and exciting rebellion against Him. Christ descends upon the Mount of Olives."
Zechariah 14: 4 “And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley.”
As the New Jerusalem, in its dazzling splendor, comes down out of heaven, it rests upon the place purified and made ready to receive it, and Christ, with His people and the angels, enters the Holy City.
The Great Controversy P664
Now Satan prepares for a last mighty struggle for the supremacy. While deprived of his power and cut off from his work of deception, the prince of evil was miserable and dejected; but as the wicked dead are raised and he sees the vast multitudes upon his side, his hopes revive, and he determines not to yield the great controversy. He will marshal all the armies of the lost under his banner and through them endeavor to execute his plans. The wicked are Satan's captives. In rejecting Christ they have accepted the rule of the rebel leader. They are ready to receive his suggestions and to do his bidding. Yet, true to his early cunning, he does not acknowledge himself to be Satan. He claims to be the prince who is the rightful owner of the world and whose inheritance has been unlawfully wrested from him. He represents himself to his deluded subjects as a redeemer, assuring them that his power has brought them forth from their graves and that he is about to rescue them from the most cruel tyranny…
Satan works wonders to support his claims. He makes the weak strong and inspires all with his own spirit and energy. He proposes to lead them against the camp of the saints and to take possession of the City of God. With fiendish exultation he points to the unnumbered millions who have been raised from the dead and declares that as their leader he is well able to overthrow the city and regain his throne and his kingdom.
In his vast throng are a multitude of those who were great men of war. At last the order to advance is given, and the countless host moves on--an army such as was never summoned by earthly conquerors, such as the combined forces of all ages since war began on earth could never equal. Satan, the mightiest of warriors, leads the van, and his angels unite their forces for this final struggle. Kings and warriors are in his train, and the multitudes follow in vast companies, each under its appointed leader. With military precision the serried ranks advance over the earth's broken and uneven surface to the City of God. By command of Jesus, the gates of the New Jerusalem are closed, and the armies of Satan surround the city and make ready for the onset.
But once again Jesus is going to appear to the view of His enemies. In the presence of the assembled inhabitants of earth and heaven the final coronation of the Son of God takes place. He has been proven by the on looking universe to be the righteous judge. And now, invested with supreme majesty and power, the King of kings pronounces sentence upon the rebels against His government.
Read Revelation 20: 11-12
As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried them in the violation of the law of God. The seductive temptations which they encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted, the messengers of God despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of mercy beaten back by the stubborn, unrepentant heart--all appear as if written in letters of fire.
Great Controversy P 666
Above the throne is revealed the cross; and like a panoramic view appear the scenes of Adam's temptation and fall, and the successive steps in the great plan of redemption. The Savior’s lowly birth; His early life of simplicity and obedience; His baptism in Jordan; the fast and temptation in the wilderness; His public ministry, unfolding to men heaven's most precious blessings; the days crowded with deeds of love and mercy, the nights of prayer and watching in the solitude of the mountains; the plotting’s of envy, hate, and malice which repaid His benefits; the awful, mysterious agony in Gethsemane beneath the crushing weight of the sins of the whole world; His betrayal into the hands of the murderous mob; the fearful events of that night of horror--the unresisting prisoner, forsaken by His best-loved disciples, rudely hurried through the streets of Jerusalem; the Son of God exultingly displayed before Annas, arraigned in the high priest's palace, in the judgment hall of Pilate, before the cowardly and cruel Herod, mocked, insulted, tortured, and condemned to die--all are vividly portrayed.
And now before the swaying multitude are revealed the final scenes--the patient Sufferer treading the path to Calvary; the Prince of heaven hanging upon the cross; the haughty priests and the jeering rabble deriding His expiring agony; the supernatural darkness; the heaving earth, the rent rocks, the open graves, marking the moment when the world's Redeemer yielded up His life. The awful spectacle appears just as it was. Satan, his angels, and his subjects have no power to turn from the picture of their own work. Each actor recalls the part which he performed.
And so every person will see the extent of their sin, they will see the blessings that they rejected. They will see that by their own choices they disqualified themselves from the life that God had freely offered them. In the city before them they see the people of God who by their own choice yielded up their wills and accepted the free gift of God.
For a moment the words of Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:10 and Philippians 2:10-11 will be fulfilled.
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Even Satan will be constrained to acknowledge God’s justice and bow to the supremacy of Christ.
But, alas, his character remains unchanged. His submission is short lived. The spirit of rebellion, like a mighty torrent, again bursts forth. Filled with frenzy, he determines not to yield the great controversy. The time has come for a last desperate struggle against the King of heaven. He rushes into the midst of his subjects and endeavors to inspire them with his own fury and arouse them to instant battle.
They recognize that he has led them astray, they try to resist him, the wicked are filled with the same hatred of God that inspires Satan; but they see that their case is hopeless, that they cannot prevail against Jehovah. Their rage is kindled against Satan and those who have been his agents in deception, and with the fury of demons they turn upon them.
Read Ezekiel 28: 6-8
Satan has been unmasked, and now he and all those with him will receive the execution of the judgment part 2.
Read revelation 20: 9-10
And thus the rebellion will be squashed. Sin and sinners will be destroyed.
The Great Controversy P 672-673
Fire comes down from God out of heaven. The earth is broken up. The weapons concealed in its depths are drawn forth. Devouring flames burst from every yawning chasm. The very rocks are on fire. The day has come that shall burn as an oven. The elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up. Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10. The earth's surface seems one molten mass--a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men--"the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." Isaiah 34:8.
The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. Proverbs 11:31. They "shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts." Malachi 4:1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished "according to their deeds." The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch--Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah. Satan's work of ruin is forever ended.
And the righteousness of God is forever validated in the hearts of His creation. But the atonement is not quite finished yet. There must be a complete restoration, complete atonement, and complete reconciliation. The righteous must receive their execution of the judgment, part 2.
Read Revelation 21: 1-8
And thus the controversy is over. Sin will never rise up a second time. Eden has been restored and God will dwell with man.
As we read in our scripture reading in Malachi 4: 2 they shall grow fat like stall fed calves.
As it says in Matthew 5:5 The meek shall inherit the earth.
As Isaiah 65: 21 says They shall build houses and inhabit them, They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit
As revelation 22: 3 says there shall be no more curse
Why because God has finished his atonement. As we read in Revelation 21: 6 (It is done!)
God has made atonement
1. He promised a redeemer
2. He provided the redeemer
3. He completed his priestly duties in the first compartment of the sanctuary
4. He was your advocate in the pre advent judgment in the second compartment
5. One day soon that judgment will be over and Christ will return to this earth.
6. The righteous will be taken to heaven and the post advent judgment will take place during the millennium
7. Then Christ, his saints, and the city of God will return to this earth. The rebellion will be ended and final atonement accomplished
Brothers and sisters is it the desire of heart to be a part in the atonement of God?
Is it your desire to Eat from the tree of life? Is it your desire to drink from the river of life?
Let’s stand and sing our closing hymn #432 – Shall we gather at the river?