“Then when all of life is over, and our work on earth is done,
And the roll is called up yonder” …will you be there? 1 [old hymn]
So sad to think of it. Unfathomably horrifying, what will be the experience of so, so many “so-called” Christians on that momentous day, when, in person, they face Creator God of the Universe, and He says to them,
“Depart from Me – I never knew you.”
– Matthew 7:23
I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you evildoers.
– Luke 13:27
…45 ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that
you did not do it
to one of the least of these,
you did not do it to Me.’
46 These will go away
into eternal punishment,
but
the righteous
into eternal life.”
– Matthew 25:45-46
(See also: Matthew 25:31-46) 2
Imagine the pain. How important to “be on the same page with” God. There is no other page! We are His creation, so He gets to make the rules.
God is damn right, and you damn well better get your thinking right before it is too late. There is hell to pay for those who don’t.
God is a damning God. [He is the Potter.] Without the forgiveness of Christ – you are a God damned puny mud-man. Mere men.3 And His judgment is eternal.
Your thinking is a vapor in the wind, whereas God’s Word is eternal – and real. 4
You are a mere man, a created human, living-out your days on God’s earth until He then deigns to call you up front in His Court to His Throne of Judgement, and says to you, “What did you do with my Son, Jesus?” 5
God is all that matters. He matters because on That Day, someday, we (every one of us!) will stand before Him, the Ultimate Judge, to give an ultimate accounting. And if what you think is not what God thinks, then… who is out-of-line? Who has the wrong “think”? Is it God!? Is it God that doesn’t have His thinking straight? Or is it you?
And so THEN, what are you going to do in That Day? Argue and plead with the Almighty? You really think THAT will work? You are the putty, the mud, in the Sculptor’s hands. Is the mud to question the potter? I stand amazed looking at the arrogant mud-man shaking his puny little mud-fist — at God, the Potter! At God! Ha! What impudence. What futility, despair, regret. 6
He will not ask you what you think. He might not ask you anything. Maybe your whole life will flash before you in an instant, and you will stand there confounded, condemned, with all your sin unforgiven – all on you.
Why should God let you into His Kingdom?
Salvation in Christ has nothing to do with “one’s religion”. You can talk religion all day – and it won’t get you into heaven. At the Great White Throne Judgement, God will not ask you what your religion is. He will not care where you parked yourself on Sundays, what brand of church or temple or forest you worship in. God is not Muslim, Buddist, Catholic, Protestant….
God came down into the world He created, was born as the man Jesus Christ, and told us what-is-what. Look at the evidence. Believe Him.
God does not save sinners on the basis of how well one talks religion, how well you explain doctrines, how well you pontificate about what you think, how sincerely you believe anything, how powerful you are, nor on the basis of how important you or the world thinks you are.
Don’t arrive before The Throne of God –
and discover there
that you are merely a God–damned mud-man.
– The Damning God
On earth we have freedoms to be whoever we want. But in reality, there are only two choices: we serve the Lord, or we serve against the Lord. Like in the Dillon song, “Gotta Serve Somebody”, you may be whoever… whatever…
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Bob Dylan – Gotta Serve Somebody Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Salvation is all about genuineness. God obviously does not accept a lie. How can one expect God to accept falsehood? You cannot expect God to save a “lied repentance”, as it were. If it is fake, God has to reject it:
- Fake “repentance”
- Fake “calling upon the Lord”
- Fake “accepting Christ” as your Savior
- Ingenuine allegiance to Christ
- A life that screams ” I am unwilling to bow my knee to what the Bible says.
- Fake Christian – saying one thing, but your life is opposed to what Jesus stands-for.
Your heart must be genuine when you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. The Thief on the Cross with Jesus 7 was found by Jesus to be genuine in his repentance, his confession of sin, and his acknowledgement of Jesus as the Messiah. That thief did not fake it. And his short life after accepting Christ as Lord shows you don’t have to live a long life to reveal to God where your heart really lies. That thief was known in an instant – and welcomed immediately by Christ.
There is no question at all that phony-baloney-charlatan-so-called-christians are known immediately as so – by God. It may take us longer to catch-on, or we may never. But, is our omniscient God to be fooled? How stupididiotic to believe that you can live a life in opposition to all that Christ stands for, and expect to be ushered into His Holy presence to live with His glory forevermore!
Folks: we need to be serious about this matter of following Christ.
If you are not following Christ, then you are not saved.
I cannot be the judge of that, but God will. He knows. Pay very close attention to James, because James tells it like it is: (my paraphrase) You may have made a profession of faith in Christ (back-when…) but if the actions of your life contradict Jesus’ teachings —- then your profession is dead, and you are not really saved. Actually you are still damned. James actually put it this way:
I like the way The Message version renders this verse. It is quite blunt:
in the one and only God,
but then observe you
complacently sitting back
as if you had done something wonderful?
That’s just great. Demons do that,
but what good does it do them?
Do you suppose for a minute
that you can cut faith and works in two
and not end up with
a corpse on your hands?
– James 2:20
Read the Bible – and conform your day-to-day life to IT.
Your words are not who you are. Your “works” are who you are. Do you reflect Christ through what you are:
- your actions,
- your non-action, refusals to act…
- what you do with your family and friends and neighbors, and what you do not do…
- what you do at your job,
- how you treat the homeless, mistreated and those “different” from you, and what you do not do…
- how you love your neighbor, and what you do not do…
- how you vote, for good or for evil, for what is of God or what is not…
- what political issues you support or work on-behalf-of, for what is of God or what is not…
It’s not like as if your “works” are going to save you. They don’t. But if your works do not reflect Christ — then your faith is dead, and you were never saved at all. If you are not conforming to Christ, then you maybe just might not be “of Him”. Does that not make you tremble and fear?
It goes back to your heart. The true believer will sin, and quite regularly! We are weak. But it is always a struggle against sin. Whereas the fake believer will embrace and accept sin as something normal and good. Do you call good what God calls evil? Do you test yourself and your actions against the Word of God?
An easy barometer for determining if your life is “of Christ” or not, a barometer to reveal if you are “in Christ” or your faith is dead, is to compare your doings with Christ’s doings, your actions with His revealed will.
If you are truly saved, then sin will not condemn you to God’s wrath. But our life should not be accepting of sin. God hates sin, like these. Do you hate what God hates?
- God hates killing; killing little babies in the womb
- God hates fornicating and adultery; having sex with anyone not your husband or wife
- God hates sexual immorality; sex with someone of your same sex
- God hates lying; putting forth as truth – what is not true
- Read more of what God hates: Accepting What God Rejects
Scripture shows us very clearly what IS part of the normal Christian life. Just read these passages, listed here, God’s Normal, and test them against your practice, and “see if you are in the faith”.
Or do you not recognize this about yourselves,
that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
– 2 Corinthians 13:5
It is a haunting image, the prospect, the possibility of – being rejected by Creator God on That Day. Are you ready to meet your Maker? Does God see you and see a normal Christian life, or does He see you living the life of a charlatan?
Footnotes:
1. When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder is a hymn from 1893 written by James Milton Black.
3rd verse:
Let us labor for the Master from the dawn till setting sun,
Let us talk of all His wondrous love and care
Then when all of life is over, and our work on earth is done,
And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.
2. The complete scriptural section referenced is Matthew 25:31-46
31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’
…34… ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
…41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat…
…45 ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
3. Other “mere man” references: Your Way or God’s Way, The Damning God.
4. The Damning God.
5. See the Parable of the Landowner: Matthew 21:33-41
6. The Damning God.
7. See –Luke 23:39-43. An article explaining the Thief on the Cross: That Moment In Time
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