The Coming Judgment - Part 2

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left (Matthew 25:31-33).

There are 4 judgments of God mentioned in Scripture: (1) temporal judgment, (2) the bema judgment, (3) the judgment at the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ, and (4) the Great White Throne judgment. We looked at God’s temporal judgment and the bema judgment of Christ yesterday. Today we will consider the judgment at the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ and the Great White Throne judgment.

3. The judgment at the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ. This judgment will take place at the end of the 7-year Tribulation that is yet to come. The sequence of events is as follows:

A. Christians will continue to live on the earth until Jesus appears in the rapture. During this time they, along with non-Christians, will be subject to the temporal judgments of Christ, i.e. Jesus will deal with their sinful attitudes and actions directly or indirectly. He will bless them for faithfulness and punish them for unfaithfulness.

B. At the rapture only Christians will meet the Lord in the air and their bodies will be resurrected and immediately changed into physical, glorified bodies that they will inhabit in eternity. They will then appear before the bema or judgment seat of Jesus Christ to receive their rewards for faithful service.

C. After the rapture of the saints, Satan will raise up the Antichrist and False Prophet to plunge the world into a 7-year Tribulation. The first 3½ years of the Tribulation will be terrible because of the satanic reign of the Antichrist. He will make a covenant with Israel that will bring peace to the Middle East. After the first 3½ years are over, the Antichrist will break his covenant with Israel and the Great Tribulation will begin. 

D. At the end of the 7-years of Tribulation the world and the human population will be nearly decimated. Jesus Christ will return to the earth. This will be the 2nd coming of Christ. At that judgment all non-Christians will be judged and destroyed. The only humans left alive after the 2nd coming of Christ will be those who are saved and who survive the Tribulation.

E. Jesus will then set up His Millennial (1,000) Kingdom on earth. In the Millennia Kingdom the resurrected saints will reign with Christ over the nations. The saved will enter the Kingdom and live throughout its duration. They will bear children during that time. Some who are born will be saved, many will not. The Kingdom is described in Isaiah 11:1-16; 65:1-25. It will be a blessed time for all who live in it, a time that has not been seen since the Garden of Eden.  Amen.

Pastor