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The End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to another edition of Reformed Thinking.
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  It is good to have you with us as we open up the archives of
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  Church history and try to understand some of the hard
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  sayings of the faith. We really do try to lean into
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  those. We do.
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  We're not here to give you the easy stuff.
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  You know you can get the easy stuff anywhere.
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  We're here to look at the texts that make you stop, scratch your
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  head, and maybe even tremble a little bit.
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  That really is the goal. We want to understand what the
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  Bible actually says and what great thinkers in the church
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  have said, it said, Even when it cuts directly across the grain
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  of our modern sensibilities. And of the text we are looking
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  at today, I mean, it might be the sharpest cut of them all.
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  It's right up there for sure. It really might be.
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  We are looking at a sermon by Jonathan Edwards.
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  Now, usually when I say that name, everyone's mind goes to
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  one specific place. Oh yeah, the spider.
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  The spider, Exactly. They think of sinners in the
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  hands of an angry God. They think of the spider
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  dangling over the fire. They think of the, you know, the
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  pit opening up. It's the one sermon that made it
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  into all the secular literature textbooks.
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  It has become this, this caricature of the Puritan mind,
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  you know, the angry preacher just trying to scare people into
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  the pews. And look, Sinners is a
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  masterpiece. Don't get me wrong.
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  It is a powerful, powerful warning about the real danger
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  facing the wicked. Absolutely.
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  But the text we're discussing today, which is titled The End
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  of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous, deals with the
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  reality that I think is much, much harder to process
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  emotionally for a modern listener.
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  I completely agree. Sinners is about God's posture
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  toward the wicked or the danger they're in.
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  This sermon, this one, is about our posture toward the wicked.
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  Specifically, it's about the posture of the Saints in heaven.
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  And the premise Edwards is working from is that the people
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  in heaven, the glorified Saints, your grandmother who passed away
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  in faith, the apostles, they will actually rejoice at the
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  sight of people in hell. It sounds incredibly harsh to
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  our ears. It sounds almost.
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  Impossible it does. I mean, we think of heaven as a
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  place of infinite love, of compassion, of gentleness.
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  So the idea that a mother could look down at a lost child in
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  torment and feel joy that just stops you cold, it feels like a
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  defect in her character. It feels like something is
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  deeply wrong. And that's the hurdle.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to walk through Edward's
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  argument. We need to try to understand how
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  a loving, holy person can look upon eternal tournament without
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  any grief. And more than that, why?
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  Edwards argues this is actually proof of their holiness, not a
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  flaw in their love. So to do that, we have to start
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  where he starts. We have to look at the source
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  material. Right, the biblical text he's
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  preaching from. It's Revelation 18, verse 20.
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  Let me read that for us, so we have it in our heads.
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  Wow. Rejoice over her, thou heaven,
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  and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged
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  you on her. You got to notice the grammar
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  there. It's a command.
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  It is an imperative. Rejoice.
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  It's not a suggestion. No, it's not saying you might
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  feel a little happy about this. It's an order from the throne.
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  It is telling them to do it. And the context here, this her
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  that's been referred to is the fall of Babylon.
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  Right in Revelation 18, we're seeing this climactic
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  destruction of the great enemy of God.
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  Now historically for Edwards and the Puritans, they would have
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  identified Babylon very specifically.
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  With the papacy. With the corrupt papal system of
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  their day, the anti Christian power structure that they saw in
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  Rome. But theologically and for the
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  purpose of understanding the doctrine here, it applies to the
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  entire world system that sets itself up against God.
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  It's the city of man versus the city of God.
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  And the language used to describe Babylon's state in this
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  chapter is it's intense. It says Babylon has become a
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  habitation of devils and a cage of every unclean bird.
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  It's a picture of total moral rot.
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  This is a place that has been completely, utterly given over
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  to evil. And because the corruption is
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  total, the judgement is total. The command in the chapter is to
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  reward her double according to her works.
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  That word double always catches people off guard.
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  You know, we think of justice as an eye for an eye.
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  Equal retribution. Why double?
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  Yeah, that's a good question. It refers to the fullness of the
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  cup of wrath. She Babylon, filled her cup of
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  iniquity to the very brim. So she has to drink a cup of
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  judgement that is, in a sense, twice as full.
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  It's a biblical way of saying the punishment will be severe,
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  overwhelming and absolute. It's reprovative justice at its
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  most complete. Now, Edwards makes a distinction
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  in the sermon about how this destruction plays out.
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  He doesn't just see it as one single event, he sees it
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  happening in two stages. That's a really important
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  distinction he makes so we don't get confused.
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  First, he says, there's a temporal overthrow.
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  OK, so on Earth. On Earth, in history, this is
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  what Revelation describes with the plagues, the famine, the
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  burning of the city. You see the merchants weeping
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  because their whole economy has collapsed.
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  This is the visible defeat of the Church's enemies in human
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  history. But that's not the whole story.
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  No, not at all. That is just the beginning.
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  The second stage is eternal. The text says her smoke rises
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  forever and ever. We see the beast and the false
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  prophet cast into a lake of fire.
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  So while we might see the Church's enemies defeated on
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  Earth, like when a persecuting regime collapses, the ultimate
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  vengeance is executed in the world to come.
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  And that eternal vengeance is where this this difficult joy
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  we're discussing comes into play.
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  That's the one. Let's go back and look at the
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  audience of that command again. Rejoice over her, thou heaven.
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  Who exactly is being told to rejoice?
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  It's the inhabitants of the heavenly world.
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  The text gets even more specific.
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  It names the holy apostles and prophets.
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  So the leadership, the pillars of the faith, yes.
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  These are the most sanctified, most Christ like people, whoever
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  lived, and they are the ones being commanded to rejoice over
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  this destruction. Edwards points out that they're
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  not called to be indifferent spectators.
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  They're not told to just look away and ignore it.
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  No, they're told to actively participate emotionally.
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  Exactly. They're told to engage with this
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  reality and respond with joy. And the reason given in the text
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  is for God hath avenged you on her.
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  Yes, that word you is key. OK, now I can see a listener
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  asking a question here. If I was a Christian in the 1st
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  century and say Nero was burning my family, I might want
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  vengeance. I get that.
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  But most believers in heaven were not personally killed by
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  the Antichrist or the specific political entity of Babylon.
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  So how is God avenging them? This is where we're forced to
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  think about the church the way God thinks about the church, not
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  the way we do. We have to think about the
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  mystical body of Christ. Break that down for us.
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  What does that mean? The church is not just a
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  collection of individuals who all happen to believe the same
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  thing. It is a single Organism.
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  It's a body. If you hurt my foot, you are
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  hurting me. It's not a separate event.
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  So if you persecute a Christian in the 1st century or the 17th
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  century or right now in the 21st century, you are attacking the
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  same body. You are attacking the same
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  spirit that dwells in all of them.
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  So there's a kind of spiritual solidarity that transcends time
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  and space. Exactly.
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  The apostles in heaven are spiritually united to the Saints
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  on earth who are suffering. So when God judges the
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  persecutors of the Church, he is avenging the entire body.
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  He is vindicating the 'cause that they all lived and died
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  for. You can't separate the head from
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  the body, and you can't separate one member from another.
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  In this sense, persecuting One St. is an attack on the whole.
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  That makes sense. OK, so we have the command to
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  rejoice, and we have the reason, which is this corporate
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  vindication. But for this to happen, the
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  Saints have to be aware of what's going on.
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  Of course, you can't rejoice over something you don't know
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  about. That is correct.
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  You have to see it. And this leads us to Edwards
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  first major proposition in the sermon.
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  He argues that the glorified Saints will actually see the
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  wrath of God executed upon ungodly men.
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  This is the visibility of hell, and this is often a huge point
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  of contention for people. People often say, well, in
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  heaven, surely we won't know about hell.
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  God will just wipe our memories. We'll be in a little bubble of
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  bliss. Edward says.
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  That is not what Scripture teaches.
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  So what evidence does he bring to the table for this?
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  Well, he starts with a very familiar passage, the parable of
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  the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.
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  You know the story. The rich man is in Hades in
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  torment. He looks up and he sees Abraham,
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  and he sees Lazarus in his bosom.
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  And they speak to one another. There's a dialogue.
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  They do. They have a conversation.
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  That implies that the sight line goes both ways.
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  If the rich man in torment can see Abraham in paradise and
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  Abraham can speak to the rich man, there is an awareness,
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  there's a connection. What other text does he use?
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  He also cites Isaiah 66 verse 24 which is very very graphic verse
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  talks about the righteous in the new world going forth and
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  looking upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed
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  against God. Looking upon the carcasses,
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  that's visceral. It is.
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  It's not a sanitized image at all.
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  And then Revelation 14, verse 10 is perhaps the strongest proof
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  he offers. It says the wicked are tormented
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  with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and
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  in the presence of the Lamb. In the presence of the lamb,
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  that's the critical phrase. It is, and Edwards logic here is
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  based on our union with Christ. We just talk about the body of
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  Christ. The church is the body of
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  Christ. We are where he is if the
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  punishment happens in the presence of Jesus and the Saints
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  are with Jesus. Then the Saints are present for
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  it as well. They have to be.
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  You can't really blindfold the body while the head is watching.
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  So what does that actually look like then?
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  Is he suggesting we're going to be, you know, staring down into
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  a pit for all eternity? Is it like some cosmic spectator
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  sport? He admits we don't know the
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  exact mechanism, we don't know the physics of the spiritual
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  realm, but he insists that Scripture confirms a direct and
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  immediate apprehension. Apprehension, meaning we will
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  know it's real, we will perceive it.
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  It won't be an abstract idea. Yes, the two worlds are in view
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  of each other. Think about judgment Day itself.
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  The sheep are on the right, the goats are on the left.
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  It's a public event. It's not a secret trial in a
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  backroom. No, it's the vindication of
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  God's justice before the entire created universe.
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  Edwards argues that this clarity continues.
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  The Saints will see the horror of those on the left.
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  It will not be hidden from them. That is a very heavy thought,
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  but it's what sets up the real emotional difficulty of the
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  sermon. And this brings us to his second
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  proposition. This is the theological dilemma.
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  Proposition 2. When they see it, it will be no
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  occasion of grief to them. No grief.
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  None whatsoever. How is that possible?
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  I mean, we're humans, we're wired for empathy.
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  If I see someone suffering, even a stranger on the news, I feel a
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  tightening in my chest. I feel sad for them.
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  How can someone see agony? The Bible talks about fire and
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  brimstone, weeping and gnashing of teeth and not be sad,
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  especially if it's someone they knew and loved on earth.
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  Edwards provides 2 main arguments for this, and they are
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  both. They're fascinating.
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  The first one is based on the nature of heaven itself.
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  We can call it the argument from compatibility.
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  Explain that. Heaven is, by its very
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  definition, a state of perfect happiness.
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  It's the place where the Bible says God wipes away every tear
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  from their eyes. Grief, sorrow, pain, These
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  things are banished. They are foreign concepts there.
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  They cannot exist in heaven. So if the Saints felt grief,
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  heaven wouldn't be heaven. The definition would collapse.
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  Precisely. If looking at hell made the
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  Saints sad, their happiness would be incomplete by
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  definition. There would be a dampener on
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  their joy. Grief is an utter stranger in
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  that world, to use his phrase. So logically, if we believe
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  heaven is a place of perfect joy, we have to conclude that
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  the sight of hell does not ruin that joy.
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  OK, that makes a kind of cold logical sense, even if it's hard
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  to feel emotionally. But his second argument is even
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  more radical. You said it's based on 1st
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  Corinthians 3.21. Yes, all things are yours.
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  All things are yours this. Is one of those verses we just
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  tend to skim over, but Edwards drills right into the heart of
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  it. Paul tells the church all things
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  are yours. Whether Paul or Apollo's or
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  Cephas or the world, or life or death or things present or
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  things to come, all are yours. And we usually take that to mean
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  God gives us good gifts, you know, blessings.
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  Edwards takes it much more literally and comprehensively.
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  All things means everything in reality.
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  Life, death, the present, the future.
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  And he argues that includes hell itself.
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  Wait, hell belongs to the Saints?
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  In a certain sense, yes. Edwards argues that everything
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  that exists is there to contribute in one way or another
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  to the Saints joy and glory. So if there was something in the
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  universe, like the damnation of the wicked, that had the power
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  to make the Saints sad, then that thing would not belong to
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  them in the way Paul means. It would have power over them.
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  It would be their master. Exactly.
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  It would have power over their emotions.
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  It would be able to rob them of their perfect happiness.
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  But because the Saints are heirs of all things, nothing can rob
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  them. Every single reality, even the
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  dark and terrible reality of judgement, must be captured and
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  made to serve their joy. That completely flips the
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  script. It means the Saints are not
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  passive victims of the sights they see.
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  They are, in a sense, the masters of them, right?
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  But this brings us to a very, very dangerous edge.
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  We have to be extremely careful how we define this joy.
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  I was just about to say that because if we're not careful,
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  this sounds like sadism. It sounds like the Saints are up
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  there, you know, eating popcorn and laughing at people's pain
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  haha. Look at you burning.
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  Yeah, that's the vibe people are afraid of.
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  It is a terrifying vibe. And Edwards explicitly rejects
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  that. He says this joy is not born of
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  malice, it is not cruelty, it is not the spirit of the devil who
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  delights in misery just for the sake of misery.
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  So if it's not malice, what is it?
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  Where does this joy come from? He says it is the fruit of
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  amiable and excellent dispositions.
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  In other words, it is the fruit of holiness.
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  The Saints are not delighting in the pain is pain.
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  They are delighting in what that pain signifies.
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  OK, let's unpack that. That's a huge distinction.
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  What does the pain signify? It signifies the glory of God in
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  heaven. The Saints love what God loves.
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  Their wills are perfectly 100% conformed to His will.
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  And here is the hard truth of the matter.
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  God has no pity for the damned in hell.
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  That is a stark statement. It is, but it's biblical.
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  Once the judgment is passed and the sentence is carried out,
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  God's orientation toward the wicked is one of pure justice
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  and wrath. He does not love them in a
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  saving, benevolent sense anymore.
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  The time for that is over. And since the Saints are made
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  like God, they cannot love what he hates.
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  They cannot pity those whom he has judged.
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  If they did, they'd be disagreeing with God.
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  They would. They would be implicitly
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  questioning his sentence. They'd be thinking, God, this is
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  too much, you're being too harsh.
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  But in heaven, all that confusion is gone.
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  They see clearly. They see the attributes of God
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  shining forth brilliantly in the destruction of the wicked.
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  Which attributes specifically does he focus on?
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  He focuses primarily on to justice and power.
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  Let's talk about justice first. In this life, we often struggle
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  with the idea of hell. It can seem disproportionate to
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  us. But Edward says in heaven, the
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  justice of God will appear as light without darkness.
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  There will be no ambiguity. They will see the heinousness of
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  sin, they will see how much sin truly offends a holy God, and
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  therefore they will see that the punishment fits the crime
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  perfectly. So they rejoice that the moral
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  universe is being upheld, that accounts are being settled.
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  Yes, they rejoice that sin is finally and fully punished.
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  They rejoice that God's name and honor are vindicated.
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  It's a joy and righteousness, OK?
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  And regarding the second one, power?
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  Edwards references Romans 9 where Paul says God is willing
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  to show his wrath and to make his power known.
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  The destruction of the wicked demonstrates just how great and
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  powerful God is. It shows that He is infinitely
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  stronger than his enemies who are so proud and defiant on
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  Earth. He uses an analogy for this
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  right? He does a classic biblical
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  analogy, the Red Sea. The Song of Moses.
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  Exactly. Picture that scene.
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  The entire Egyptian army is drowning.
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  These are human beings, men, horses, Chariots, all being
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  crushed by the water. And on the shore, Moses and the
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  Israelites are singing. They're praising God at the top
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  of their lungs. And they're not singing because
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  they love to watch people drown. That would be monstrous.
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  No, absolutely not. They're singing because God has
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  triumphed over a cruel tyrant who enslaved them.
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  The joy is in God's victory and their deliverance.
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  Edwards argues that the Saints in heaven are doing the same
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  thing. They are seeing the final
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  ultimate defeat of evil and they are praising the victor.
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  There's another element Edwards brings up, which he calls the
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  contrast effect. This feels a bit more
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  psychological. It is very human.
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  It's an insight into how our emotions work.
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  It's the idea that seeing a contrary misery heightens the
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  sense of 1's own happiness, like.
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  Sitting in a warm house during a Blizzard.
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  That's the perfect analogy. Seeing the storm raging outside
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  doesn't make you cold, it makes you appreciate the warmth and
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  safety of the fire even more. Edwards says that when the
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  Saints see the smoke of torment, it drives home the reality of
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  sovereign grace in a way nothing else could.
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  How so? What's the connection to Grace?
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  They look at the damned and they realize with a clarity they
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  never had on earth. I was naturally in the exact
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  same condition. I was a Sinner.
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  I deserved that same fire. I was no better than them.
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  The only difference between the St. in glory and the Sinner in
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  hell is the free, unmerited, sovereign grace of God.
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  So it destroys all pride. You can't be arrogant in that
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  moment. Completely.
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  You cannot look at hell and feel proud or self-righteous.
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  You can only feel an overwhelming, crushing sense of
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  gratitude. It makes the dying love of
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  Christ, as Edwards puts it, infinitely more precious.
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  You see with perfect clarity what he saved you from.
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  So the joy is not, I am so glad you were suffering.
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  The joy is God is perfectly just.
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  And Oh my goodness, thank you Jesus for saving me.
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  Precisely. It turns the gaze right back to
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  Christ. He fuels the worship.
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  The sight of hell paradoxically makes the songs of praise to the
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  Lamb even louder. Now I have to ask the obvious
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  question here. If this is the holy attitude in
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  heaven, why do we not have this attitude now?
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  Because if I walked around today rejoicing that my lost neighbor
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  is probably going to hell, I would be a monster.
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  I would be sinning. You would be a terrible sin.
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  Scripture commands us to mourn. Paul said he had continual
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  sorrow in his heart for his lost kinsmen, the Jews.
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  Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they would not repent.
• 18:19
  So why the huge shift? Why is it a duty to mourn now,
• 18:24
  but a duty to rejoice then? This is a critical point, and
• 18:27
  Edwards anticipates this objection.
• 18:29
  He gives us three very specific, very clear reasons for this
• 18:33
  shift. The 1st is about knowledge.
• 18:35
  Knowledge of what? Knowledge of God's will.
• 18:38
  Right now in this life we do not know who is elected, who is not.
• 18:42
  We don't have access to the secret decrees of God.
• 18:45
  The worst Sinner you know might be converted 5 minutes from now.
• 18:48
  The apostle Paul was the chief of sinners.
• 18:51
  So because we don't know, we have to love everyone and hope
• 18:54
  for everyone's salvation. Right.
• 18:55
  We hope for everyone, we pray for everyone, we offer the
• 18:57
  gospel to everyone. But in the afterlife, the books
• 19:00
  are opened, the judgment is declared, the verdict is in.
• 19:04
  We know who God has rejected. To love them, then, in a way
• 19:07
  that wishes for their salvation would be to oppose God's
• 19:10
  revealed and final will. That makes sense.
• 19:12
  We're operating on limited information now, but total
• 19:15
  information then. The second reason is about
• 19:17
  capacity. Right now we are in a day of
• 19:19
  grace. Every single person you meet is
• 19:22
  a capable subject of mercy. They could be saved, but in hell
• 19:25
  the door is shut. No mercy is possible.
• 19:28
  It is useless and even contrary to God's will to wish for their
• 19:31
  good. Because their good is no longer
• 19:33
  a possibility. Their state is fixed forever.
• 19:36
  So our love now is based on the hope of their salvation.
• 19:40
  When that hope is factually gone, the nature of our response
• 19:43
  has to change. It must.
• 19:45
  And the third reason is most interesting one to me.
• 19:47
  It's about natural affection versus spiritual virtue.
• 19:50
  What does he mean by natural affection?
• 19:52
  He means the love we have for our family, our friends, our
• 19:54
  tribe. This is a good thing in this
• 19:56
  world. It's a God-given glue to whole
• 19:59
  society together. Parents love their children.
• 20:01
  Spouses love each other. In fact, Romans one list being
• 20:04
  without natural affection as a sign of depraved mind.
• 20:07
  It's a sin to not love your family now.
• 20:10
  But Edwards says this is temporary.
• 20:12
  It has an expiration date. He argues that natural affection
• 20:15
  is like scaffolding. It's necessary for the
• 20:17
  construction of this age, but in heaven, virtue is exercised in a
• 20:22
  higher manner. All of our affections are
• 20:25
  gathered up and absorbed into the love of God.
• 20:28
  Absorbed into the love of God? What does that look like?
• 20:30
  Think of it like a drop of colored water falling into the
• 20:33
  ocean in heaven. You don't love your mother just
• 20:36
  because she's your mother. You love her because of her
• 20:38
  perfect union with Christ. You love the Christ in her.
• 20:42
  Your love for her is a facet of your love for God.
• 20:44
  And if she is not united to Christ?
• 20:46
  Then that primary bond doesn't exist.
• 20:49
  If the only reason you loved her was the natural biological
• 20:52
  earthly bond, and that bond is dissolved in the age to come,
• 20:56
  and she's not in Christ, then there's nothing left to bind you
• 20:59
  to her in a way that would cause grief.
• 21:01
  Your entire being is oriented toward God's glory, and she, in
• 21:05
  her unrepentant state, stands opposed to that glory.
• 21:08
  That is a terrifying thought, and it leads us directly into
• 21:11
  the warning Edwards gives at the end of his sermon.
• 21:14
  This is the solemn warning section, and Edward stops being
• 21:17
  a detached theologian here and starts being a pastor pleading
• 21:20
  for souls. He wants his listeners to feel
• 21:23
  the full weight of this. He wants them to feel the utter
• 21:26
  isolation of the damned. He goes through this sort of
• 21:29
  systematic list of everyone you might think would pity you in
• 21:32
  hell. And he strikes them off 1 by 1.
• 21:34
  Will God pity you? No, he quotes Proverbs saying
• 21:38
  God will laugh at your calamity. Will.
• 21:40
  Christ pity you. No.
• 21:42
  The mediator becomes the judge, the lamb becomes the lion.
• 21:45
  There is no more sacrifice for sin.
• 21:47
  Will the angels or the Saints pity you?
• 21:50
  No, we just spent all this time establishing that they will be
• 21:53
  praising God for His perfect justice displayed in your ruin.
• 21:57
  What about your friends in hell? The other wicked people you ran
• 21:59
  with? Edward says they won't pity you
• 22:01
  either. They'll just be fellow sufferers
• 22:03
  trapped in their own misery. They'll be tormenting you and
• 22:06
  cursing you and being tormented themselves.
• 22:08
  It's a world of total, absolute lovelessness.
• 22:11
  But then he gets very, very personal.
• 22:13
  He talks about the relationships you have right now, the godly
• 22:16
  friends. He paints this picture of
• 22:18
  Judgement Day. He says.
• 22:20
  Imagine seeing your Christian friends, the people who prayed
• 22:23
  for you, who invited you to church, who warned you.
• 22:26
  You see them ascending to meet the Lord, and he says they will
• 22:30
  have joyful countenances. They're not looking back with
• 22:33
  sadness and tears. Not at all.
• 22:36
  They are not worried about you. They're entirely focused on
• 22:39
  Christ. They are completely satisfied
• 22:41
  with God's judgement. And then he brings up the
• 22:43
  parents. This is for me the hardest part
• 22:46
  of the circle to read. It's gut wrenching.
• 22:49
  He speaks directly to the children in the congregation.
• 22:52
  He says essentially you have parents who love you dearly,
• 22:55
  They pray for you, they weep for you now.
• 22:57
  But how will you bear to see them in the Kingdom of God while
• 23:01
  you're turned away? And he says the parents will
• 23:03
  sing hallelujahs as it happens. Yes, he says they will praise
• 23:06
  God's glorious justice. He even uses the term assessors.
• 23:10
  He says they will act as assessors in the judgement.
• 23:13
  Explain that term. That's a very specific word.
• 23:15
  In a legal context, an assessor is someone who sits with the
• 23:18
  judge and officially approves the sentence.
• 23:21
  Edwards is saying that the godly parents will stand with Christ
• 23:24
  and say Amen to the righteous condemnation of their own
• 23:26
  unrepentant children. That image, a mother approving
• 23:30
  the eternal sentence of her own child, it seems monstrous to us.
• 23:33
  It does, but Edwards would explain it by pointing back to
• 23:36
  that fundamental shift in love. The mother has not become cruel.
• 23:40
  She's become perfectly holy. She sees that her child, despite
• 23:43
  all her warnings, all her tears, chose to be an enemy of the God
• 23:48
  she loves more than life itself. Her supreme love for God
• 23:51
  completely swallows up her now defunct natural love for the
• 23:54
  child. The child is now, from her
• 23:56
  perspective, simply a vessel of wrath that demonstrates God's
• 24:00
  perfect justice. He uses the marriage analogy to
• 24:03
  the most intimate human bond. 2 in a bed, 1 taken, 1 left.
• 24:06
  And he says the one taken feels no sorrow for the one left
• 24:09
  behind. The bond is severed instantly
• 24:11
  and completely. And then he even mentions
• 24:13
  ministers. And he names his own
• 24:14
  grandfather, the famous Solomon's Stoddard, who'd been
• 24:16
  their pastor for decades. Yes, Stoddard was a legend in
• 24:20
  Northampton. Everyone revered him and Edwards
• 24:23
  tells the people in the pews. You loved Mr. Stoddard, but on
• 24:27
  that day he will rise up as a witness against you.
• 24:29
  The. Witness for the prosecution.
• 24:31
  Exactly. He will declare, I warned them,
• 24:33
  I preach the gospel to them. Week after week they heard the
• 24:36
  offer of mercy. They have no excuse.
• 24:39
  And Mr. Stoddard will rejoice that God is vindicating His
• 24:42
  truth against their unbelief. The very people trying to save
• 24:45
  you now will be the ones validating your destruction
• 24:48
  then. That forces you to rethink
• 24:50
  everything about your relationships.
• 24:52
  If they are not grounded in Christ, they do not last.
• 24:55
  They don't just fail to last in this ultimate sense.
• 24:58
  They turn against you. They become part of the evidence
• 25:01
  for your just condemnation. But, and this is the crucial
• 25:04
  pivot we need to make, we are not there yet.
• 25:06
  No, we are not. And that is why Edwards is
• 25:09
  preaching the sermon. He's not trying to crush them
• 25:11
  with despair. He is trying to wake them up.
• 25:14
  The situation now is the complete opposite.
• 25:16
  It is radically totally different.
• 25:19
  We are in the day of grace right now.
• 25:23
  God commands love. He commands us to seek the
• 25:26
  salvation of the lost. He commands us to weep for them.
• 25:29
  So that godly mother, that faithful friend, their prayers
• 25:33
  are real, their tears are real. They are real now.
• 25:35
  They are weeping for you now. God is waiting to be gracious
• 25:38
  now, Edward says. Christ is standing at the door
• 25:41
  and knocking now. He points to the example of
• 25:44
  Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. That's the posture of God
• 25:48
  towards sinners in this age. So the coldness of the future is
• 25:51
  meant to highlight the warmth and opportunity of the present.
• 25:54
  Exactly. He is saying look at all the
• 25:56
  help you have right now. You have parents praying,
• 25:58
  ministers preaching, Christ Himself inviting.
• 26:01
  Why would you wait until the day when all of that help turns into
• 26:04
  a testimony against you? And he offers an alternative,
• 26:06
  rejoicing. There's another way to make
• 26:08
  heaven rejoice. Yes, Luke 15 verse 10 there is
• 26:11
  joy in the presence of the angels of God over 1 Sinner that
• 26:14
  repenteth. So heaven is going to rejoice
• 26:16
  over you, one way or the other. That's the take away.
• 26:18
  That is the inescapable reality. You will glorify God.
• 26:23
  The only question is, will you be the occasion of joy because
• 26:27
  of your destruction which displays His perfect justice, or
• 26:31
  will you be the occasion of joy because of your salvation, which
• 26:35
  displays His Amazing Grace? You can be the fuel for the
• 26:39
  fire, or you can be the guest at the feast, but either way, God
• 26:42
  will get His glory. He will.
• 26:44
  That is the bedrock of Reformed theology.
• 26:46
  God does not lose. His purposes are always
• 26:49
  accomplished. As we wrap this up, it really
• 26:51
  brings home that tension we live in every day, the age of
• 26:54
  opportunity versus the age of judgement and.
• 26:56
  We take the opportunity for granted.
• 26:58
  We live as if this day of grace will last forever.
• 27:01
  But Edwards reminds us with this terrifying sermon, there is a
• 27:04
  deadline. So here is a final thought for
• 27:07
  you to consider. Think about the Christians in
• 27:09
  your life. Maybe it's a parent, a spouse, a
• 27:11
  friend, the ones who maybe annoy you with their invitations to
• 27:13
  church or their talk about the gospel.
• 27:16
  When they look at you today, they feel love.
• 27:17
  They are praying for you. They are on your side.
• 27:20
  But according to this text, there is a clock ticking on that
• 27:23
  love and on those prayers. Exactly, do not rely on their
• 27:28
  prayers to save you, because one day those prayers will stop and
• 27:32
  the very people you count on now to plead your case to God will
• 27:35
  be the one standing with Christ, praising the Judge for your
• 27:38
  righteous sentence. Do not wait for that day.
• 27:40
  Do not wait. Thanks for joining us for this
• 27:42
  deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 27:44
  We will see you next time.