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God’s Supreme Court of Justice — Part 12 “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15). Today, as we conclude this series on God’s Supreme Court of Justice, let’s observe that there is only one fundamental reality that is absolutely fixed in this life. It is the inevitability of your personal appointment with death. Unless the Lord Jesus returns first, all have an inescapable rendezvous with death. Moreover, there is another assured appointment that will occur after death for all of the unconverted. That appointment is a ‘one-on-One’ encounter with the Great White Throne Judge. “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27). For this reason, please understand, there is only one valid preparation to avoid this meeting with the Great White Throne Judge. “YOU NEED TO SETTLE OUT OF COURT!” How do you settle out of court? Well, friend, you settle out of court by pleading guilty now! By confessing to Jesus that you are an indicted, convicted, and condemned criminal now! Then, you cast your life on the mercy of the court, now! Moreover, you must place all of the weight of your personal confidence in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ (as well as what He has accomplished) as the sole substance for you to be acquitted! The astoundingly good news of the Gospel is that “The Great White Throne Judge has actually borne the 'equivalent of an eternity of God’s just wrath' on behalf of every condemned criminal who will come to the Lord Jesus Christ in true repentance and genuine faith. Remember, all will stand alone at the Great White Throne. This is personal, between you and the Lord Jesus. The Judge, Jesus, God the Son, literally exited in the courtroom in heaven, took off the royal robes of His heavenly glory, and condescended into this cesspool of sin, which we call earth. He perfectly obeyed the moral law of God, which you have utterly shattered. He perfectly loved God the Father with 100% of His heart, mind, soul, and strength, but you have utterly failed to meet that divine standard. He perfectly loved His neighbors as Himself; certainly, you have fallen far short of that plumb line. The Lord Jesus perfectly pleased God the Father in every second, of every moment, of every hour, of every day! Prayerfully, no one who is reading this devotion would be self-deceived and self-righteous enough to imagine that they have perfectly pleased God in every second, of every moment, of every hour, of every day! Then the Lord Jesus Christ willingly walked the Via Dolorosa and voluntarily presented Himself not only as the Great High Priest, but as the Lamb of God. He freely gave Himself, as the Offeror of the sinless sacrifice, but also, He was the offering! And there, on the Cross, in the three hours of the blackness of darkness, “Jehovah God the Father made Jehovah God the Son (who knew no sin) to be sin on behalf of every sinner who will repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So that the perfect righteousness (which Jesus wrought in His sinless life on this earth) could be credited to that sinner’s account! The innocent Judge suffered ‘in the place of’ and ‘on behalf of’ the guilty criminals! He took the wrath that you deserved because of your sin, where you could have His perfect righteousness. If you are reading this final devotion on this sobering subject, and you have never been converted to Christ, you need to settle out of court immediately! You are a convicted criminal in the courtroom of a God of pristine holiness and inflexible justice. God’s uncompromising justice declares that the wages of your scores of sins against God (which are going your way and not His) will undoubtedly end in the second death. You urgently need to settle out of court, by seeking the Savior now! You must declare your spiritual bankruptcy now! You must confess that you have lived a life of treason against God now! You must declare your desperate need for a Savior now! You are personally responsible to turn from your ways, now; turn from your sins, now; turn from your idols, now; turn from your self-centered ways now! You must flee to the Lord Jesus Christ at once! You are personally responsible for committing your life to the ONE who lived this perfectly righteous life; who bore the sins of “repenting and believing sinners” in His body on the cross; who fully and completely paid the wages of those sins; and who rose victoriously from the grave, so that “repenting and believing sinners” can be justified before God. I fully agree that this is a very solemn subject which we have been studying. But no man can be true to the Word of God if he avoids this sobering subject concerning the “wrath of God against unconverted sinners.” No proclamation of the Gospel is comprehensive and biblical if it does not include a serious warning of the coming wrath of God against unconverted sinners. For the same chapter that graced us with John 3:16, closes with John 3:36: “He who believes INTO the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Today is the day of Salvation.