INDICTED!

Isaiah 30:18 declares that the Lord is a God of judgment. This truth of God's judgment has both a positive and negative connotation. For the guilty whose sins have not been repented of and washed in the precious Blood of the Lamb, there is the stark terror of the wrath of God and eternal torment in the Lake of Fire. For the righteous whose sins have been forgiven, judgment is a positive enforcement of all that Christ has promised, in this life and the world to come.

And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. — John 16:8-11

The text clearly states that the Holy Ghost has come to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Grand Jury of heaven has convened and found enough evidence against all of of mankind to return an indictment of murder,treason, and other serious crimes against God. Consequently, at some point, everyone receives a summons to appear in court to answer the charges brought against him/her by the Word of God. These charges are very grievous:They all carry the death penalty.

Eternal death.

The word judgment means a separating, a decision given concerning anything, condemnation and punishment. The Greek word translated judgment in John 16:8 is translated condemnation in John 3:19: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Thus the Holy Ghost has come to convince men of their separation from God and the resulting condemnation of eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire if they do not repent.

This convicting ministry of the Holy Ghost is absolutely necessary for man to be brought back into right relationship with God. Without it man in his fallen state would never realize just how guilty he is and would not understand his need of deep repentance and cleansing by the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore the Holy Ghost has built his case of truth based on the unchangeable Law of God: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). Without this sense of guilt it is impossible for man to repent because he is blind, spiritually dead, and altogether self assured of a self righteousness. Only the Light of the Word of God can bring man to the cry of, “What must I do to be saved?” Without this light we will be like the Jew’s of old that Peter preached to: We will think we have done God a service when in truth we are guilty of the murder of Jesus!

Amazingly this truth has been bypassed by the “Seeker Friendly” church. In there deficient wisdom they seek to reconcile man to God without ever showing mans dire need and imminent danger. If you were to relate this to the medical field, it would be like trying to convince a man to have open heart surgery without showing him his clogged arteries. This would be next to impossible; especially if that man thought he was all right and would live another hundred years.

The sad truth is that man in his fallen state became the “children of disobedience” and as such took on the nature of their father the devil: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Romans 3:12 says man has “become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” This simply means that man became “good for nothing.”

How dare we compromise the ministry of the Holy Ghost and preach to man how inherently good he is when God said he was good for nothing. We preach the "convincing of righteousness" and leave off the convincing of sin and judgment. This is nothing but pride that says we really do know more than the Almighty. B.H. Clendennen says, “Not since the Pharisees called Jesus Beelzebub, has there been a greater insult to the Christ than the so called "user friendly" gospel.” He basically says that to lower the standards of the Word of God to make Christ acceptable to a world that hates him is an abomination to God. Amen.