Tonight, by the way. Five fifteen we'll be looking at that phrase in the Nicene Creed that the Son of God is light of light. That is a biblical expression from revelation that he is the light of the the lamb. The light of God will illuminate, uh, heaven. And so we'll look at where that expression comes from, what it means that when we say that Jesus is the light of God, that's tonight at five fifteen this morning, we finished Matthew sixteen. I feel like I'm saying farewell to another friend. Uh, verses twenty seven and twenty eight hear the word of God, for the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. This is the word of God. British philosopher Bertrand Russell, who died in nineteen seventy, left a legacy of questioning the idea of an afterlife. Really, until Russell, it was kind of philosophically accepted that there is logical and philosophical grounds for an afterlife. After after all, the concept of heaven and hell or reincarnation is somewhat ubiquitous in every culture and in every religion. And so to argue against that is to really take on the world. But that's exactly what Russell did. Russell argued that the idea of either heaven or hell is rooted in a fear of annihilation. And so he says, the universal concept of life after death really comes from the universal fear of the alternative. Yet he tips his own hands here for happiness when he writes. Quote. I believe that when I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I love life, he writes, but I scorn those who shiver at annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness, because it must come to an end. Love does not lose its value because it is not everlasting. Now there is a element of truth to what he says. Happiness can be real and love can be real, even if the happiness or the love that you feel is not an eternal experience. You love a pet that dies. The love is not less true because the pet is buried, and that's an argument from the lesser to the greater. You love a child or a spouse who dies and their body goes into the ground. And your love may may fade over time or even find another resting place. But that doesn't make the affection that you experienced any less real, simply because it does not itself endure. But there is a logical problem with that view. Our expressions of love and happiness, though they may be temporary, only have significance and value if love itself is greater than us. And let me try to explain my critique of Russell here before we get back to Jesus in Matthew sixteen. Because I do think it's it's helpful for us to think through here, Russell says. Just because love or happiness is an eternal doesn't mean it's not real. And that's true. But who taught Russell that happiness was a good thing to pursue as he contemplates annihilation, that he's going to die and cease to exist? By what grounds does he find it important to defend the notion of happiness? What justification does he have for saying life can still have value? Because I am happy and life can still have value because I do have love. Honest, I do have love even though it's not internal, I do have it. Therefore life has meaning. Where does that come from? Why is it a nihilistic philosopher forced to argue for the importance of love and happiness? Who taught him that? The Christian response to that is love is rooted in the eternal nature of God. It is eternal. Our experiences of it and expressions of it may not be, but it has its value and its virtue, because it is from an eternal and ultimately valuable and virtuous God. It wasn't just heaven that Russell critiqued. He obviously rejected hell. He wrote, quote, there is one very serious defect in my mind about Christ's moral character, and that is that Jesus believed in hell. I do not believe any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. So what I respect about Russell is that he takes this head on. So many philosophers and logic professors and so-called scholastics are content to say that Jesus was a good teacher and had a profound influence. Maybe he was even a miracle worker. Maybe he was like a prophet. That's basically what every religion in the world does. You know, from the eastern religions that say, Jesus could have been like a God, or he could have been, you know, reached enlightenment to Islam. Oh, he's a great prophet. I mean, everybody has to do something with Jesus. And normally they prop him up and say, oh, he was a good and profound teacher that shaped the world or calendar revolves around him, the whole thing. We respect that, of course. But not Russell. Russell hits it head on and says, I can't respect Jesus as a good teacher because he taught the reality of hell. And it is true that every religion in the world has a concept of hell. And Hinduism you have Naraka or punitive reincarnation. Muslims, Catholics, Mormons all believe in hell. But why do people who fight hell have a particular focus on Jesus? It's because Jesus himself makes the concept of the afterlife so confrontive. It's one thing to say that there's going to be life after death, or there might be a hell for the really bad people, or a heaven for the really good people. Or, you know, most people in the world are probably content. And I don't just mean Americans. I mean most people in the actual world are probably content with the idea that there is an afterlife. More likely than not. I can't control it. I can't do anything to guarantee it. So I'm just going to try to be a relatively good person in whatever religious context I am. And an eastern context, African context, Western context. I'm just going to try to be as good of a person that I can, and hope that when I die, if there is an afterlife, I've done enough to get in kind of attitude and I don't really believe that it's there, but I hope that it is. And so I'm just going to do the best and it's out of my hands. Sara. Sara, that is what I think most people in the world probably believe. Jesus explodes that not by simply teaching in heaven and hell, but Jesus explodes that by going to both places when he dies, he physically descends to the realm of Sheol. His body goes to the grave, his soul goes to the realm of the dead, and he triumphs over the dead, coming back from Sheol, rejoining his body, resurrecting from the grave, walking on the earth for a period of time, and then ascending to heaven, saying that he is going to heaven and that he will come back. So this takes it out of the world where it's possible to say, yeah, he's a prophet. Yes, he's a good teacher. Yes, he's done miracles. Yes, we all hope for heaven, and we all hope God judges the really bad people. But we don't know. Jesus obliterates all of that by descending to Sheol and rising to heaven. No longer are you able to say he's a good teacher and the afterlife is a possibility. Now Jesus links the reality of the grave and of heaven with his own person, and then he goes beyond that. To say that everyone who is baptized into Christ is baptized into his death and into his resurrection. You're buried with him through burial and death, and you're raised with him in resurrection and hope of new life. You are adopted in him. You're hidden in him. Your life is hidden in Christ. So where he is, there you will also be. Your hope is set in a physical resurrection, where your body will likewise come out of the grave and join the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus as he rules the nations and dwells in heaven. That's the promise of heaven that Jesus doesn't just teach, but physically manifests. He makes the belief in both heaven and hell an essential or inextricable part of his teaching. You can't separate Jesus as the teacher, from Jesus as the prophet who preached about heaven and warned against hell. It's unavoidable in him because he himself conquered the grave and went to heaven. I mean, you can even think that's arguing from just the reality of that. Jesus did it. But you can argue it even logically. If Jesus, who is the greatest sinless human who has ever lived, if he experienced death and then resurrection, how much more will you be required to experience resurrection? If he experienced it, so should you. And Jesus, here at the end of Matthew sixteen, is recalibrating the disciples hopes. I've said time and time again in Matthew sixteen, which we've been in for a long time, I know, but this is such a wonderful chapter. This is the summit, in a sense, of his teaching in Matthew's gospel. He's two plus years into his ministry. He's been building towards this point. It's not a coincidence that he physically takes his disciples up a mountain for this. From here he says that he's going to build his church, but first he's going to be crucified, buried, then resurrected, then build his church. That's so discombobulating for the disciples. It's so reorienting that. Remember, Peter forbids it. Peter says, no, you're not Lord. We took a vote twelve to one. You lose maybe eleven two. I don't know how Judas would have voted. Jesus says, I'm going to die. And notice he says, you're going with me. Verse twenty four, if anyone would come after me, he's going to deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me. He says, I'm going to Jerusalem. In Mark's gospel, he says he sets his face towards the cross in Jerusalem. He's going to walk from this northern border. Border of Border of Israel, down to Jericho, down to Jerusalem, where he's going to be crucified, buried and resurrected, and then build his church. And he tells his disciples, you're going to be with me. You're going to die with me. You're going to pick up your cross and follow me. And if you don't do it, you're not worthy of me. If you value your loyalty in this life and your loyalty to people in this world more than your faithfulness to Christ, you are not worthy of me. He says. You will lose your soul, forfeit your soul. You might gain this world in whatever elemental passing things you have here. But verse twenty six, what would it profit you? You gain the whole world and you forfeit your soul. Now if you're going to pick up your cross, you're going to die with Christ. You proclaim that even in your own baptism. As I mentioned, it's so jarring that Peter forbids it, but Jesus reiterates it that he is going to die on the cross, and that is not the end. He's going to build his church and that is not the end. There will be a great tribulation in the world and then he will come again. This is the reality of the Second Coming that he teaches right here in verse twenty seven, The Son of Man is going to come with his angels. It is going to happen. He's going to teach you. More on this later. This is not, obviously, the entirety of his teaching on the Second Coming, not even the entirety of his teaching in Matthew's Gospel. Matthew twenty four unpacks it at length. Jesus says he's going to go build his church. That much will happen. He's going to die on the cross, rise from the grave and build his church. In Matthew twenty four, that's called the church age. It's this present age that he will establish, and rumours will always abound throughout the church age that the end is here. They'll be endemic. There'll always be some rumor. Oh, the rapture's tomorrow. Wake up early so you don't miss it. Jesus says when you hear those rumors, don't believe him. He says first, there's going to be nations fighting nations. That's not the end. Kingdoms will fight kingdoms. Kingdoms bigger than nations here. That's not the end. There will be famines and earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars. And that's not the end. There will be persecution. And that's not the end. The gospel is going to go forward to the whole world, to every tribe and every nation. And then the end will come. In other words, the church will be established. Shore to shore, kingdom to kingdom. The Antichrist will be revealed. There will be a great tribulation, such as never been seen on the earth before. There will be false messiahs, and then the Son of Man will return. And when he returns, the nations will look at him and they will mourn. They will look at him and they will weep. That's what he says in Matthew twenty four. And this is not the mourning of repentance. Oh, no. And I'm sure you've seen people that have tears. They feel so terrible about what they've done. They've done something and they feel shook by it, and they cry about it, and they're so sad about it. And they go and do the same thing again. 30s later. This is Israel and judges the end of judges chapter one. Remember that they they compromise, they sin, they cry, they fill the valley with tears. They renamed the valley the valley of the Valley of Tears. And they go back to doing the exact same thing again. This is true in our world today. People will cry about how sad they are about their sin and then do it again. And that's the kind of mourning and grief that the nations will have when they see Jesus coming back. They'll say, we did this. We rejected him. We sinned against him. Oh, we're so sorry. And then they will go from that and fight him. Israel will see him, and Israel will mourn. They will mourn differently. They will mourn tears of repentance for the first time. They will see him coming, and they will look at him, and they'll recognize him as the one they have pierced. And they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and then salvation will come to Israel. Family by family, tribe by tribe. And then all Israel will be saved. That's what happens when he comes with his angels. There's so much left. Even at the end of the church age. There's so much left for the Lord to do on earth. It's. People always ask, is the world getting better or is the world getting worse? And it's somewhat of a. false choice there, isn't it? There is no denying that the world is getting better in so many ways, largely through Christian influence. It is like yeast working through society. There's increase in wealth and freedom and civil rights and all kinds of stuff, the capacity to feed the nations. And this concept of freedom and justice that is so prevalent in the Western world, that is largely the result of Christian influence. And you can you have to grant the world is getting better in so many ways. But you also have to grant the world is getting worse in so many ways, too. There is still injustice in the world. There are still kids who are abused and nations that rage against the Lord. There's still refugee camps. There's still parents who walk out of their marriages and bosses that are corrupt, and they're still false religions that marry away their young daughters and rob from their old widows. And those things will remain until Jesus comes back and ends them himself. And so he promises his disciples that he will come back. He will come again. And you can be sure of this. The Old Testament made crystal clear prophecies about his first coming that were fulfilled exactly like they were prophesied, weren't they? Prophecies you would read in the Old Testament and think those have to be figurative or metaphorical. He's going to be born to a virgin. Certainly. You mean a young lady? That is going to be anointed for death? No, not the savior that he's going to have to flee to Egypt so that he can be called back. That's got to be a metaphor for for Israel, right? He's going to have his clothes raffled off at his death, as his hands and feet are bound that he's going to be poor and yet buried in the grave of a rich person. I mean, and so many more. You know, you know them all, and all of them are fulfilled exactly like they were described in the Old Testament. Even in the Old Testament. You read those and think there's no way that both of those could take place. And it happens just like it. And there are so many prophecies about his second coming that likewise will be fulfilled exactly like they're prophesied. The prophets indeed prophesied two comings, one which already happened about a dishonored and suffering man rejected, killed and buried. The Second Coming is about a resurrected man who comes in power with angels and resurrects his followers. The first time he came alone and subject to decay. The next time he comes, he won't come alone. He's going to come with an army of angels. He won't come Subject to decay. He will come. Immortal, invincible, resurrected and glorified. What a contrast. The first time he came. Needy. Dependent. With angels there to help him. The second time he comes, he'll be flanked by an army. The first time he came. Innocent and helpless. The next time he comes, he'll be calling for vengeance and revenge. The first time he came, there were animals. Because he's in a manger. The second time he comes, he'll be riding on a horse with blood up to the saddle. It's not just the reality of the Second Coming, but there's the rewards. This is what he says in verse twenty seven. He's coming with his angels in the glory of his father. The full authority, the full Power of God the Father. Remember, in his first coming the glory of the father was veiled in human flesh. At his second coming, the glory of the father will be on full display as the nations melt. What's he doing? Well, he says I'll repay each person according to what he has done. Each person. Let's start with believers. He will come with an army of angels to reward believers. They've left the whole world to follow him. They've put love and faithfulness to Christ above love and faithfulness to the world. And he remembers that, and he will reward them. He's taught this already in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew five verse eleven, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. You would think. Well, That's not true. Blessed being happy here. Happy you are. When people lie about you and persecute you and slander you. You think somebody once told a lie about me and I cried for a week? And Jesus says, blessed are you when people lie about you and persecute you, because your reward in heaven is great. How short sighted it would be to trade loyalty to this world and choose that over loyalty to what Christ commands. To do that is to basically confess with your lips you don't believe Jesus rewards people that side with him. But he says in Matthew five, you hunger for righteousness. You thirst for righteousness. You are broken. You are poor. You have nothing of your own. So be filled with his righteousness. Be strengthened with his food. Have a faith that comes from him, receive it, be persecuted, and then rewarded for it. Matthew six one beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. Now he's going to expressly elaborate what he means by that. But just think about the corollary of that for a second. Blessed are you if you do your righteous deeds. Where nobody sees them, because then you are rewarded by God. That's the corollary. If you lose your reward because you do things to be noticed by people, it follows. Then you receive a reward. When your heavenly father is the one who sees your actions. And he says that later on in Matthew six, when you give. Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. So your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. He rewards his children. We are not talking about Works righteousness here that you're earning your salvation. Remember, he's already said in Matthew five that you are hungry for righteousness. You are broken. You are bankrupt. You place your faith in the righteousness of God accomplished through Jesus Christ's sinless life. You receive that you're saved by the free gift of God, but then you are rewarded based upon how you live your life. Luke nineteen verse seventeen Jesus tells the parable of the the King who goes away to receive his kingdom. He is a king, but he doesn't have a kingdom yet. He's wealthy and powerful. He has followers. He has stewards. He's called to a foreign land to receive the kingdom. He's got to go away and get it and then come back to his kingdom. It's like going away for Inauguration Day and coming back, and he leaves the stewards in charge of his property. He comes back a long time later. They don't know when he's coming, but he comes back to receive his kingdom and he judges the stewards and rewards them for how they were faithful to him in his absence. Do you have to connect the dots, or is it obvious enough? Jesus goes to heaven and he's going to come back and reward his followers. What kind of rewards do we get? Revelation two lists some of them, you're rewarded with the ability to eat from the tree of life. That means you'll never die. Once Adam sinned, that's what was removed from him. You in heaven will eat from the tree of life and never face death. You'll wear the crown of life, which means there's no second death. You'll eat hidden manna, which means the Lord will continually strengthen you daily. You're not frozen, suspended throughout eternity. No. You have a daily experience of Renewing your strength in the Lord. You get a white stone with a new name that nobody knows. Don't ask me what it is. You'll rule the nations of the earth with a rod. You'll worship the morning star. You'll be clothed in white. Your name will never be blotted out of the Book of Life. You'll be confessed by the son before the father and before his holy angels. And you will dwell in the city of God forever and ever. And the biggest gift that you receive is to reign with Jesus on his throne over the nations. That's revelation three twenty one. This is for all believers. But as we all reign over the nations, there is degrees of authority and degrees of responsibility that are commensurate to how faithful we are in this life. We'll stand before the Bema Seat. That's Paul's language in two Corinthians five. That's the reward seat at the. The games stand before the judge and you receive your prize. You're not punished for your sin that was nailed to the cross. You don't earn eternal life that is granted to you through faith, but you are rewarded. You are rewarded. That's why the promise of rewards for believers is so clarifying. There are lots of people that would say they believe in Jesus. They would go to church. They would sing songs. They have a Bible. ET cetera, et cetera. Do they believe that Jesus will reward them for enduring hard things? That's what crystalizes your faith. It's very easy to say, I'm a Christian. I have my Bible and I love Jesus. When my family loves me, my job pays me and my dog is obedient. But when the dog bites and the family turns and the job ends. Do you love the Lord more than them? And what make it more personal? Not in the abstract. When the dog bites and the family turns. What about in the concrete? When family turns against you because of your faith in Christ? When you lose your job because of your faith in Christ. When you are called to endure hard things that are actual suffering in this world because of your faith in Christ. When you lose your home because of your faith in Christ, at that moment, it's on display. Do you believe the Lord rewards people who value obedience to him above the pleasures and ease of this life? Do you remember when Jesus says this? Peter interrupts him and says, Lord, I've left everything for you. What about me? It's in Matthew nineteen. Peter says, Jesus, we've left everything and followed you. What will we have? I picture him giving a high five to Andrew after that. And Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel and everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother or children or lands for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. What a glorious promise. If you lose or endure or sacrifice in this life, it is never in vain. If it is done in faith. Third, the retribution or the recompense of the Second Coming. The reality of it, he says, I'm coming again with the angels. The rewards were bringing. Rewards for all those who die in faith. But that's not everybody. He says I will repay each person. Sometimes people get caught in the weeds here. Each person is he talking about believers and unbelievers? Each person. It is exhaustive. Believers receive rewards. Unbelievers do not receive rewards at the Second Coming. They receive judgment. He's talking about hell. He's talking about eternal damnation. And to be honest, there are two kinds of Christians those who care deeply and are troubled deeply about the doctrine of hell, and those that try not to think about it because hell is real and it is horrible and its existence is offensive to everyone except God. It's offensive because it strikes at the very nature of what it means to be a human being. If you think people are the most important creatures in the universe, then hell makes no sense. But if you think that God is the most important being in the universe, then you are confronted with his holiness and the reality that even the smallest sin is against an eternally perfect and righteous God and deserves an infinite punishment. The existence of hell testifies to the fact that God is more glorious than we can imagine, and no amount of punishment can ever assuage his wrath. That's why it's an offensive doctrine. You can see how it only works at the divine level. It does not work at the logic of hell does not make sense at a human level. You can't tell your spouse because I'm such a good husband, I'll never forgive you for sinning against me. You can't live like that. You can't tell a friend. There's no forgiveness for that. Who do you think you are? You can't keep a record of your spouse's wrongs. Because if your spouse kept a record of your wrongs, it would be longer than your record of their wrongs. This doesn't work at a human level. The human level. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous. It does not boast. It does not insist on its own way, and it keeps no record of wrongs. But a divine level. God is jealous. God does keep a record of wrongs. He does insist on his own way. And he will punish those who sinned against him with an infinite punishment, because his glory is infinitely beyond anything we can imagine. Again, held by human standards would be unjust. But the key phrase is by human standards, it is impossible to have a theology that has hell in it and also have a high view of mankind. It makes you ask yourself, is your God big enough and important enough and majestic enough that a sin against him requires punishment, an infinite punishment. And some people try to magnify the glory of God by minimizing his wrath. But you cannot magnify his glory by minimizing his wrath, because that minimizes justice, and it minimizes his own, his own holiness. It erases the difference between God and us. When someone sins against us, we turn the other cheek. And someone sins against God. There's an eternal penalty required. God does declare his own glory. We cannot, because we're not objects of worship. God is the object of worship. So he declares his own glory and he will avenge every wrong committed against him. Do you understand? The smallest sin makes somebody deserving of an infinite punishment because the smallest sin is against God. But do you also understand this? Nobody is going to hell for the smallest sin. I know you stub your toe one time and you curse, and that means you deserve hell. No one's going to hell for that smallest sin. You have a book of all of your deeds that are recorded. We don't need to go to the appendix and find the small ones. No one is righteous. No. Not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all of our actions, all of our conduct, are recorded in the book of works that will be opened when Jesus comes with his angels to judge people. Now marvel at this by the way, Christians are on their way to heaven because before the book of works is opened, the book of the lamb who is slain before the foundation of time that is open. And there are names that are written in that book from before time, independent of your own works. And you go to heaven because your name is in that book. But for those whose name is not in the book of life. The book of works are opened. No one goes to hell because their name is not in the book of Life. People are on their way to hell because of their deeds that are recorded in the book of their own works. And that's what Jesus says here. He will repay each person according to what he has done. We all bear in our bodies the marks of pride, the marks of self-deception. Everyone with Adam's volition has Adam's deception in them. So we all find ourselves in a paradox. We simultaneously love ourself, and so our pride makes us skeptical that hell can be real or eternal, or that we would go there. And it's that very pride that makes us skeptical of hell that reveals that we deserve it. And Jesus will execute God's wrath when he comes. he will ride on a horse. He will have the words faithful and true tattooed on him. The angels have come before to deliver the law with Moses, and they'll come again to punish the law breakers with Jesus. His eyes will be like a flame of fire. On his head were many crowns. His robe will be dipped in blood. And he will lead an army of angels, and they will put an end to the rebellion. Slaughter the Antichrist, subdue the nations, and send people to hell. He will write every wrong. Punish every bully, expose every corrupt judge, and put an end to wrong and elevate the right. He will definitely come again. He'll come righteous and armed for battle. The first time, as I mentioned, he came in need. He was helpless. The second time he will come with a sword and vengeance. The first time he said, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. The second time he comes saying, vengeance is mine, I will repay. The first time God's glory was veiled, the second time it will be unmasked. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. We will meet those people in Matthew seventeen. Let me send you on your way with this. Behold, I'm coming soon. Jesus says, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. God, we know that you are a righteous judge. You will judge the nations. Avenge yourself. Vindicate your holiness, right every wrong. And turn the world right side up. We long for that day. You. Thanks for the promise of your coming. In Jesus name, Amen. And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ.com. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.