The Certainty Of God’s Coming Judgment

Pastor Eric DoumaJuly 8, 2012

God’s Judgment On Man’s Rebellion

Isaiah 13:1-16 Future Babylon

Isaiah 13:17-14:23 Near Term Babylon

Babylon’s Significance

1. Satan’s unique tool

2. Man’s attempt at autonomy

3. Man’s idolatry

God Will Judge All Sinners

Isaiah 13:9-10 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light.

Why Darken The Sun, Moon, And Stars?

1. Symbol of judgment and withdrawn blessing:

Amos 5:18 Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, For what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light.

2. Symbolizes judgment on demons:

Deuteronomy 4:19 And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

1 Kings 22:19b …I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.

The Connection In Isaiah

Isaiah 24:21, 23 So it will happen in that day, That the LORD will punish the host of heaven on high, and the kings of the earth on earth…Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders.

The Certainty of Judgment

Isaiah 13:11-12 Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir.

Death Toll Indicators In Revelation

Revelation 6:8b …Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Revelation 9:15 And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.

The Rebels Try To Return Home

Isaiah 13:13-14 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the fury of the LORD of hosts in the day of His burning anger. And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with none to gather them, they will each turn to his own people, and each one flee to his own land.

There Is No Home For The Lost!

Isaiah 13:15-16 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, and anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

Remember: You’ve Been Spared!

Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ…

Mockers Claim There Is No Judgment “A staggering number of people have been

taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.... This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear” (Rob Bell).

Mockers Are Terribly Deceived 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 For after all it is only

just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven…dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power…

How Did Paul Preach To Pagans?

Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”