Catechism Class – LD4, Excuses!

Catechism Class.

Excuses You Can’t Make at Last Judgement

Text .  Hebrews 9:27-28  Lord’s Day 4. Q. 9-11 

Consider the ultimate end of man, who will one day stand before God, and give account of his works done in this life, and as we know, all our works, even our righteous works, fall short of God’s standards, and condemn us to the Lake of Fire. It’s that judgement that we want to learn a little bit about today, or rather, some of the ideas that people have to stop themselves from having to prepare for it…   Think of some common misconceptions…

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Death is The End.
  This is one of the most common beliefs today, that when the body dies, there is no more. The bible totally refutes this notion, and tells us that our soul lives on. The question for us is WHERE does it live on? Hebrews says, ‘After death comes judgement.’ There are no loopholes. Death is…

• Appointed. The scriptures teach us that our days are numbered, that there is a time to be born and a time to die, – we don’t  know when that is, but the appointment is already made. And just as it is appointed for man to die.
• Once only. There is no second chance. We get one go at this life and only one – we don’t get the chance to come back and do  it all again, no karma, no reincarnation, – we die once appointed for man to die once
• After! and after that comes judgement. And here’s the problem. Not a lot of people will disagree with my analysis up to now, but what happens after death is the sticking point. So, Hebrews makes it abundantly clear, that there is a time, an appointment, already made for each one of us, when we will depart from this word for the very last time and we will stand before God, in judgement. It’s described for us in Revelation 20:11ff

God is Unfair.H/C Q9 The actor Stephen Fry is an atheist and sceptic. He was interviewed by Gay Byrne about his views on God and eternity and asked what he would say when died. His reply was typical…. ‘Bone cancer in children: what’s that about?” Fry then proceeded to launch into a powerful description of how “evil” and “stupid” God is to allow suffering we have not brought on ourselves.’ It’s an argument you will hear often among sceptics. The catechist anticipated this argument, so he asks, ‘But does not God do man an injustice by requiring in his law what man cannot do?’. Look at his reply. God so created man that he was able to do it. Genesis 1: 31
In fact we will not answer back to God on judgement day. We will not level any accusations against him, and we will not question his judgement or his sovereignty. We will stand condemned under the law and our mouths will be stopped and we will not need to be cast into eternal death for we will flee from the holiness of his presence. Romans 3:19

God Made Me Like This. H/C Q.10 Will God allow such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished? A. Certainly not.Here’s another frequent excuse. God cannot judge me or punish me for my sins, because he created me like this, and after all God loves us just the way we are. Such reasoning renders the death of Jesus on the Cross as totally useless.  What was the point of Jesus dying for our sins, if God accepts us as we are? We are ALL born as sinners. There are no exceptions, and we all need to be saved by grace alone. It’s not God’s fault, it’s ours

But man, at the instigation of the devil, John 8:44 in deliberate disobedience. Genesis 3:6. robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts. Romans 5:12.  We sin because we are sinners. He is terribly displeased with our original sin as well as our actual sins. Therefore he will punish them by a just judgment both now and eternally, Romans 1:18 Romans 5: 12  What is God’s standard for judgement? as he has declared: Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law (Gal 3:10).

God made me like this’ is no excuse on judgement day. He made us perfect and innocent in the garden of Eden, – what made us like this is sin, – the sinful nature that we inherited from our first parents, and the actual sins that we commit every day. We need to be remade, to be regenerated, born from above, if we are to enter our eternal rest.

God is Too Loving and Merciful to Punish Me.
I’ve heard this reasoning so many time. How could a God of love be so cruel as to send me to hell, for ever and ever?

Read our text again, and learn from it that Christ has come to offer you his love and mercy and forgiveness, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. He has borne in his own body the sins of many, he has been offered, as a sacrifice, ONCE, and that will not and cannot happen again. When Jesus returns the second time, it will not be as Saviour, but as Judge!  H/C Q11 But is God not also merciful? A. God is indeed merciful, but he is also just. His justice requires that sin committed against the most high majesty of God also be punished with the most severe, that is, with everlasting, punishment of body and soul.

• God is indeed merciful. Psalm 103:8-9
• God is also just. The punishment must fit the crime. Hebrews 10:30 Because God is just he will not demand that punishment be applied twice.

So yes, we have a merciful God, and that mercy was extended to us at the cross, where Jesus died for sinners. If we reject the cross, we reject his mercy, and we have no right to plead for it when it is too late.  Romans 5:8  

We’ve learned today that when we stand before God, excuses won’t do. A way of salvation has already been provided, and there is only one way, through Christ and Him crucified. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father, except through me.’

© Bob McEvoy