The Day When Righteousness Will Rule

Audio Link    http://brettell.org/webex.htm

In a recent web conference, I gave the following message to a group of fellow believers all around the world. The “webinar” was generated and hosted by Dr. Jim Brettell, a Christian pastor and leader located in Little Rock Arkansas. Dr. Brettell is a pioneer in the internet church, one of the latest movements in the church where men and women have gone to the web to publish the word of God. It is believed that in the next few years, millions of people will actually go to church using the internet, tuning into live and recorded services, hearing the word of God taught while sitting in their own homes. While the internet church has its obvious drawbacks, it is a reality in 2010 and a reality that motivated Christian leaders ignore at their own peril. I have become one of those Chrisitan leaders who gladly use the internet to promote the message of Christ to a world of men and women who need Him so desperately as the day of His return comes on e day closer.

The theme of the Web Conference was “One Day Closer”, with each different teacher communicating what that phrase meant to him. When I heard the phrase, One Day Closer, I was moved to discuss the day when Christ will have defeated all of His enemies and placed them in their eternal abodes, when He will have submitted the kingdom to God-Father and when all free creatures in God’s universe will exist in a state of perfect righteousness. On that day, there will be only righteous thinking, feeling, speaking and acting in the life of all His creatures living with Him. All those who trust in Christ will be together with Christ and all of us will live free from sin and evil.

Imagine the world, ruled by Christ, full of angels and resurrected human beings, filled with righteousness, free from all sin, expressing love to one another and living this way forever. Gone will be the bad news we hear every single day, gone the hurt and pain caused by one person’s selfishness against another and gone the possibility that sin will ever harm us again. What a glorious day!

These following notes were used in my message that was delivered on Friday, 3/5/10. Dr. Brettell has also posted the recording of this message on a dedicated page on his website. If you wish to hear the audio of this message, go to http://brettell.org/webex.htm When you open the page, scroll down and look for my name connected with session # 2 and simply click on it. The link will take you to a Webex page and the recording will begin automatically. Thanks for tuning in. Continue growing in your faith and in your love for the Lord Jesus Christ to whom belongs all glory and worship forever.

Web Conference 3/6/10
One Day Closer Righteousness Rules

I. Introduction

Historical Context:
At the eternal life conference in eternity past, God-F, God-S & God-HS decided to create the universe and creatures to live in it. These creatures were made to worship and serve God. The creation of both angels and mankind have striking parallels that are pertinent to our discussion, the most important of these is the capacity to choose and the freedom to do so. First He created angels with volition and allowed them to choose sin and evil. 1/3 of the angels chose to reject whatever grace God offered them and they now exist in a permanent state of unrighteousness. Their minds and daily decisions within the A/C are guided by unrighteous goals, priorities and ideas. Then God made mankind and also allowed him to choose sin and evil for himself. The creation of mankind is God’s plan for winning the appeal trial of these fallen angels.

We find ourselves at this point in human history with a completed system of grace salvation being offered to the human race, with some having accepted God’s grace, others having rejected God’s grace and others not yet having made their decision. It is by accepting God’s grace that we prove out His point in the appeal of fallen angels, that no creature can live on his own apart from God’s grace. Fallen angels & humans who choose to live independent of God will demonstrate this truth forever.

The issue at hand in our time together is the unrighteous thinking, speaking and actions of creatures both angelic and human. The unrighteousness choices of creatures have caused the world in which we live to be a place dominated by sin and evil. Every human soul born into this life, experiences damage to their souls and endures great pain and grief.

1. Fallen angels – choose evil which is to live in opposition to God’s plan with the goal of defeating God’s plan in even the smallest way, to prove that He is not +R and perfect. If God could be found to be –R or imperfect, this would allow Satan a basis for a successful appeal on the grounds that God makes mistakes.
2. Unbelievers – choose sin and evil mostly unknowingly, without clear understanding of the implications of their choices or the havoc they cause through sinful choices.
3. Believers – 2 cag
a. Negative to truth – live as saved people but choose to reject knowledge of their Old Man beliefs/behaviors and therefore choose to live dominated by their sin nature causing pain to everyone in their lives because of their –R way of life.
b. Positive to truth – live as saved people who have yielded to the Spirit to have their hearts transformed into the likeness of Christ and therefore choose sin and evil less and less as their operating system. These believers gain the capacity to produce divine good giving aid to others and blessing everyone in their life.

Christ has defeated the devil through His work of death, burial and resurrection. God is allowing the forces of evil to play out the appeal trial, proving out the will of God that life without God is doomed to failure and must be condemned.

When the appeal trial is completed, Christ will take every –R creature in the universe and throw them into the Lake of Fire. At this time He will submit the universe to His Father and His +R will once again be the only standard by which creatures choose to act. There will be no more bad decisions and no more people damaging others through sin and evil. Every soul living with God in His kingdom will be free to live +R life and God’s +R will rule the universe. Come Lord Jesus Come!!

This study will cover Mat 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
We will discuss:
Hunger & thirst
God’s Righteousness
Results of living God’s +R

II. Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness

NAS Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Mt 5 begins the Sermon on the Mount and contains the Beatitudes (declarations of blessing). The S/M is addressed to Israel during the Age of Israel and so does not directly apply to the church, but to the Kingdom to come when the Lord returns.

Vs 6 – blessed – makarios – happinesses; those who fulfill these qualifications will be the recipients of many types of happiness

Vs 6 the ones hungering and thirsting – spiritual appetite, desire for God & +R

The S/M is for the Millennium and for believers of that dispensation and so this concept does not directly apply to the Church Age believer. What does apply to the church are the principles that transcend every dispensation. An example of concepts that transcend dispensations would be the Laws of Divine Establishment, the principles that God designed to govern both believer and unbeliever throughout all of human history.
a. Freedom – the right to use volition to choose for self
b. Marriage – marriage is found in every dispensation
c. Family – children are found in every dispensation
d. Nations – after the flood, God formed nations to protect freedom

One of the things that has existed in every dispensation and every generation is certain individuals who have a spiritual appetite . God designed the human soul with a need for God that we experience as desire, longings and yearnings deep in the heart. It is this spiritual hunger that characterizes those who are positive to the truth.

Gen 4:25-26 – With the birth of Seth, men began to call upon the name of the Lord
· The hunger in man’s heart led men to seek for the Lord
Psm 42:2 My soul is thirsty for God
· During the Jewish Age, men had a desire to know God
Mt 5:6 Hunger and thirst for +R; Jn 7:37 thirst for God
· Jesus’ day there were those who desired to be +R before God.
Gal 5:17 – desire produced by God-HS in the soul of the believer.

Spiritual Hunger & Thirst
1. God created the human soul with needs. Man is not meant to live on is own but to live in relationships with God and one another.
Gen 2:18 – not good for man to be alone
2. Some needs are intended to be met by God and others are intended to be met by other humans.
Jn 7:37 a thirst that only God can fill; Gen 2:18 – a need that only a mate can fill
3. Man is born spiritually dead and therefore separated from God.
a. We don’t have access to God to meet our inborn needs.
b. 1Cor 2:14 We are unable to process spiritual things to know truth
c. We don’t even know we are missing God, believe people are the answer
d. Man attaches all of his needs to man in the absence of God.
4. Living with unmet needs causes man to experience soul pain.
5. Man’s failure to find fulfillment through people causes him to find substitutes.
a. Phil 3:18-19 men obey their appetites and turn to worldly things
b. Eph 4:17-19 men develop addictions to ease their pain
6. The failure to find fulfillment through other humans can lead to opening the heart to seek for God.
Act 17:27 God has made us to seek Him, feel after Him and find Him.
a. When our initial strategies fail, some will realize that God is the only answer.
b. Others will use their failures to simply change strategies and continue seeking fulfillment through man and worldliness.

The ones who hunger and thirst in Mt 5:6 are those who have realized that there is more to life than what can be seen with their eyes and known with human logic. They have opened their minds to something bigger than themselves. They have realized their need for forgiveness and realized that they cannot earn it themselves. They have looked into their own hearts and have discovered their hunger and thirst. They hunger to be loved in spite of their flaws and failures and they thirst for an existence that is free from the sin and evil that has broken their hearts and kicked a hole in everyone they love.

The people in view here are hungering & thirsting for +R. What does Jesus mean? What does it mean to hunger/thirst for +R? Let’s look at +R.

Vs 6 Righteousness – dikaiosune – the thinking of a Judge, the standard by which the judge determines right/wrong, guilt/innocence; The righteousness of God.

God’s Righteousness
1. God’s righteousness is perfect rightness and is absolute.
2. Perfect rightness is whatever the Creator says is right/wrong.
3. Absolute means that His +R is 100% and can’t accept anything less.
4. God’s +R is the standard by which He determines if creatures are worthy to be blessed or cursed – Act 17:31
5. If a creature is 100% +R, then God blesses; If a creature falls short of 100% +R, then God curses.
6. Creatures who stand before God for judgment who possess 100% +R will be blessed to live with Him forever in a state of perfect +H.
7. Creatures who stand before Him for judgment who fall short of 100% +R will be rejected from His presence and live in a state of misery forever.

Christians will experience God’s +R in 3 primary ways
A. Imputed +R given at salvation to all who believe the gospel
Rom 3:22 This +R comes from God by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe
· Faith (in the gospel) is the requirement for God to credit His +R to us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
· Christ took our sins upon Himself and gave His +R to us through our union with Him
1. The moment we trust Christ for salvation we are imputed (credited) with His +R
2. In the courtroom of heaven our sins are counted as paid and God’s +R is counted as ours through union with Christ – Justification.
3. Every believer has faced and seen the last of God’s Justice in a punitive sense.
4. Imputation of divine +R has made us worth the same as Christ – worthy/blessing

B. Experiential +R developed through spiritual growth, accomplished by the transformation process whereby the believer takes off his/her old man beliefs/behaviors and puts on the new man beliefs and behaviors.
Heb 12:11 – divine discipline; God’s training & growth program yields peaceful fruit +R.
· Discipline strips down the Old Man and inspires obedience to New Man – NM is +R
Eph 4:24 – NM is created in likeness of God in +R and holiness from the truth
· NM is the thinking of Jesus/humanity and is aligned with God’s +R from the truth

C. God’s +R will rule the free universe among all who live with God.

1 Cor 15:24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

1. At the present time, while the appeal trial of satan continues, Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth, holds the highest position of authority.
2. While Christ holds the highest position, creatures continue to freely live by their own sinful standards and methods.
3. At the end, when Christ has brought human history to a close, all creatures who rejected Him will be confined forever to the Lake of Fire.
4. Even then, though they might continue to reject His right to rule them, they will bow down to Him and confess that He is the Lord – Phil 2:10-11.
5. In contrast, those who live with God forever will be enabled to think, feel and act out God’s +R with every thought brought into captivity to Christ.
6. For those of us who live with God forever, we will enjoy total freedom from sin, evil and every form of harm that we now endure in the present state.

To hunger & thirst for +R, is to deeply desire to receive God’s own +R imputed at salvation, then the desire to attain a mature status as a Christian to be able to live according to experiential +R and finally, every creature who knows God hungers and thirsts for the day when all sin and evil will have been eliminated from us and from all those we love.

1. From birth until death, every human being lives within an environment where sin and evil dominate every relationship and all human interaction in general.
2. Being born into sin, experiencing human development while dominated by a sin nature, being raised by sinful parents, living among other sinful people has harmed the soul of every human being.
3. Every human being has experienced soul pain from having a sin nature and relating to other people who are dominated by their sin nature.
4. When a sinful person encounters God and is given a vision of life without sin, life without hurtful interactions with others, it causes a hunger to be formed.
5. This hunger/thirst is attached to an image of life where no one does wrong, no one acts selfishly and where no one is harmed.
6. As a believer learns what the bible says about the eternal state, his hunger becomes a hope, a confidence that one day this will actually occur.
7. The hope that every believer possesses is that one day, at the end, God will eliminate sin/evil and create an environment where our every thought and deed edifies others.
8. The bible describes this future, perfect life with the following words:

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”