In the sermon titled 'The Last Judgment,' Michael Tutor discusses the purposes of the Day of Judgment as outlined in the Baptist confession, emphasizing the manifestation of God's mercy in the salvation of the elect and His justice in the damnation of the wicked. The sermon references various biblical passages, including Romans 9, Matthew 25, and Ecclesiastes 12, to illustrate how God will reveal His glory through both mercy and justice. Tutor highlights the skepticism and disrespect shown towards God by both the unregenerate and the distracted faithful, noting that the Day of Judgment will clarify God's justice and mercy to all. The sermon further recounts the story of the rich man and Lazarus, emphasizing the irreversible separation of the righteous from the wicked. It also describes the forgiveness and imputed righteousness that believers will fully experience on that day, assuring them of complete salvation and joy. Tutor encourages Christians to anticipate the Day of Judgment with hope rather than fear, as it will be a time of ultimate fulfillment of God's promises.

So this week in the Baptist confession, we are in chapter 32, paragraph 2. The end of God's appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and of His justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life and receive that fullness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards in the presence of the Lord. But the wicked who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast aside into everlasting torments and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. Romans 9, 22, and 23.

What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." Matthew 25, 21, and 34. His Lord said unto him, well done thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

And 34. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I know we just talked about the Day of Judgment last week and what it is. So this paragraph is about the purpose in that day. It starts off, the end of God's appointing this day, the end meaning the purpose, the reason or the purpose for this day of judgment.

The first reason that is listed is the manifestation of the glory of his mercy. And then the second given is the manifestation of his justice in damning the wicked. Manifestation means to make something known, to make something publicly known, or to publish it. So the second part of the paragraph explains how God will do this. In Ecclesiastes 12-14, we read, God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

And then 2nd Thessalonians 1, 7 through 10, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in them and all them that believe because our testimony among you was believed in that day." So throughout history, and I feel like these days I hear questions a lot, but people have questioned, doubted, and denied God. We don't show Him the respect that He's due. We don't praise Him as we should, and we don't glorify Him as we should. The unregenerate, they alternate between either saying God is unjust because He sends people to hell or saying He's unjust because He allows evil to continue. I feel like I hear they'll ask, well, how could a good God send good people to hell?

And then, especially at work, I feel like I'll hear, well, how could a good God let these horrible things continue happening? So we non-Christians will doubt and disrespect God, calling him unjust. And then even the regenerate, we're distracted by earthly things. We're distracted by our jobs, just everything else we have going on. We're confused by wrong teachings.

And we have an incomplete view of the amount of mercy that God shows us. We don't see how big a gift our salvation is from here. In 1 Corinthians 13-12, it says, for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. So from here we can't fully see the glory of God and His salvation for us and in His destroying of the wicked, but we will on that day of judgment.

I'm reminded of the story of the rich man in Lazarus from Luke 16 22-31. I'm sure I don't read the whole thing, but it's the story of the rich man who sat at his table eating his feasts and the poor man Lazarus was covered in sores laying on the ground there just hoping for some scraps and he eventually died Lazarus and was taken to heaven and then the rich man died and was in hell and he was begging that Lazarus could be sent to give him just a drink of water and he was told that there was a that Lazarus couldn't go to where he was and that he could not go to where Lazarus was, that there's a separation there, then he asked that Lazarus be sent back from the dead to warn the rich man's brothers. And he was told that If his brothers had all the prophets and they wouldn't hear the scriptures and they wouldn't hear the prophets, then they're not going to hear someone who was sent back from the dead. But on that day of judgment, his brothers will know, they will hear at that point what they've been denying their whole lives just as the rich man now that he's in hell.

He obviously has a little better understanding of what he should have been worried about his whole life. So that will be made clear to everyone on that day of judgment. The confession doesn't list it, but I think another thing that will be made clear that day will be God's power, His preeminence. We saw a small sample of God's power when Jesus healed the man from the tombs from Mark 5, 1 through 13, which I'm going to read because I like this story. It says, And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gatarenes.

And when he, Jesus, was come out of the ship, Immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains, because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces. Neither could any man tame him and always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshiped him and cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.

And he asked him, what is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send him away out of the country. Now there was there, nigh unto the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding, and all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.

They were about 2, 000 and were choked in the sea. From what I was reading online this morning, a legion of Roman soldiers is 5, 000 to 6, 000 troops. And we aren't given an exact number in this story, but they used the word legion and then they used the word many. And then we're also told that there was 2, 000 pigs, so it's obviously quite a few devils or unclean spirits in this man. And yet Jesus just showed up in the area and they immediately come running and cowering before him, begging him for mercy.

A whole legion of devils. I think it just shows a bit how powerful this Christ that we serve is and the Christ that saves us is. We read in Jude 1, 6, the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. So on the day of judgment, every enemy of God, every human, every fallen angel, every unclean spirit or demon, we brought before God and judged and then cast into hell. All of God's enemies.

God will stand in judgment over the entire horde of evil creatures and cast them out and there will be no safety in numbers for them for those who are not standing on Christ. God's power on that day will be undeniable. There won't be any more opportunity for people to pretend that they can stand against Him or pretend that He is an unpowerful God. The devils can't pretend that they have any possibility of rebelling against him at that point. They will be completely destroyed.

For the Christian, for the regenerate on that day, we will be given a clear view of the blessings that we've received. Our sins will be recounted. We will see fully our guilt and the sinfulness of our sin, which is scary and shameful. But we will also then see fully the covering of Christ and the effectiveness of His work, His blood cleansing us, the effectiveness of His bearing of our guilt. Isaiah 45-17 says, Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.

You shall not be ashamed nor confounded. And in Romans 10-11 it says, for the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Those who put their faith in Christ will be so fully covered by His righteousness that we will no longer have anything to be ashamed of. In this life, when we sin against our brother, we apologize, and they say, I forgive you, it's all right, don't worry about it, it's in the past. At least that's what we should be saying.

But it's easy to kind of still remember that sin and we can wonder as the one that sinned, you know, I wonder if he's still a little bit mad at me or he probably thinks less of me or they're probably disappointed in me for what I've done. And as a person that should be forgiving it's easy to still kind of hold on to a little bit of that offense and not fully forgive somebody. But we are imperfect and Christ is not. That forgiveness will be complete. The forgiveness of Christ, His imputed righteousness, His payment of our debt of guilt is so complete that there will be no shame left to bear.

So when God calls us to account for all of our sins, Our answer will be that Christ has paid for them, and Christ's answer will be for us that He has borne that guilt. Isaiah 53 10 says, the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Everlasting joy, sorrow and sighing shall flee away. So on that day that fullness of joy, that promise of our salvation that we hope for will be completely known by all at once and the damnation of the wicked and their complete destruction will also be fully known by all at once on that day.

So in that Christ, God's glory will be made manifest. No one will be able to doubt his justice. No one will be able to doubt his mercy. So that's all I have from reading through this. A little bit of studying I've done.

I do have one application. I've heard a little bit lately, I guess, since the pope died recently, there's some conspiracies going around about how the end of the world is coming, or this is, since there wasn't another pope prophesied to be that this is the end of the world. And we constantly have every few years someone saying, oh, the world is ending tomorrow or next year or whatever it is. And everybody is always fearful. Like even Christians, even if they don't believe that we know when the world is ending, we can tend to treat the end of the world or the end of the age or the Judgment Day as like a scary bad thing.

But we should not be afraid of that day. The wicked should be afraid of that day. The unregenerate, if you're not living in Christ, then you should be trembling about your own death or about the judgment day. But if you are a child of God, that should be the day we look forward to. There should be no fear there because that's the day that we will fully see God's mercy, fully receive the completeness of His joy, and go into eternal rest with Him.