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Divine Justice
Chuck Smith

Chuck Smith (1927 - 2013). American pastor and founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, born in Ventura, California. After graduating from LIFE Bible College, he was ordained by the Foursquare Church and pastored several small congregations. In 1965, he took over a struggling church in Costa Mesa, California, renaming it Calvary Chapel, which grew from 25 members to a network of over 1,700 churches worldwide. Known for his accessible, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, Smith embraced the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s, ministering to hippies and fostering contemporary Christian music and informal worship. He authored numerous books, hosted the radio program "The Word for Today," and influenced modern evangelicalism with his emphasis on grace and simplicity. Married to Kay since 1947, they had four children. Smith died of lung cancer, leaving a lasting legacy through Calvary Chapel’s global reach and emphasis on biblical teaching
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In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal experience of his daughter's house being invaded by two strangers. He expresses his anger and fear for his daughter's safety, but also acknowledges that justice belongs to the Lord. The speaker emphasizes the importance of turning to God and trusting in His judgment, as every transgression and disobedience will receive a just recompense of reward. He warns that everyone will have to answer to God and give an account of their actions, even every idle word spoken. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the twisted thinking of those who would take something that belongs to someone else, and the assurance that justice will ultimately prevail.
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Hey, God bless you guys. I thank you for all your prayers and stuff. We're really feeling it in New York. I called my wife up and she told me we had an earthquake in New York. You're talking about a bad hair day. I tell you. All what's happening down there at the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center, is that it's still on fire. It's still burning after all this time, over a month, it's still burning. We had 80 nations set up offices in the World Trade Center. That's what affects so many people, so many lives, so many walks of lives. We lost, in the New York City Police Department, we lost 23 of our guys, most of them from the elite unit, which is the emergency service unit, that they respond to emergencies like this. Three of them I knew personally, or one of them I worked with personally. He went in and three times, the third time he didn't come out. He brought two people out, two ladies out. He went in, he didn't come out. The Port Authority Police Department, which runs the World Trade and the PATH trains and the airports, Newark, Kennedy, and LaGuardia, if you're familiar with New York, and they lost 37 police officers there, including their director, their chief, and lieutenants, and men, because it had a precinct under the World Trade Center. When it collapsed, it collapsed on top of the police station, and they lost 37 guys. At Ground Zero, we've been pulling out pieces and gun belts and stuff like that to get disclosure for the families. The fire department. You know, I always say my gun belt weights 35 to 40 pounds when I put it on. The fire department, they lost 343 guys of the elite unit. And these guys, you've got to give them credit, because if my gun belt weights 40 pounds, over 100 pounds they're carrying. The boots, the rain gear, the hat, the tanks on their backs, and all the special equipment, hatchets and all that, plus the hose, and plus all the special equipment they take when they ran into the World Trade. They got up to, I think, the 46th floor, a lot of these guys, and you know what? They wasn't coming back, and they were going in. Everybody was running out. At Ground Zero, you're going to hear a lot about the cross. What happened there was a large cross made out of debris came flying over the air when that happened, and it landed perfectly in the cross. And when everybody saw that, they bowed down, they started praying. They stopped all work, they started praying there. You know? You're going to hear a lot about that. A lot of times, you know, many years go by that we bring in the cross to our jobs and places, and nobody accepts that. But you know what's happening now, Dan? It's a wealthy part by World Trade Center. They're fighting for the cross now. The community wants it. The wealth community wants it. And World Trade people want it to make a memorial. So now they're fighting for the cross. That's wild. I'm just going to give you real quickly, Ground Zero, when that happened, the guys, they're pulling out people. We have another location, which is a city morgue, which all the bodies go up to the city morgue. The city morgue, we have 40 tractor trailers, refrigerated tractor trailers at the city morgue. And over there, we're storing the body parts, and we've got over thousands of body parts that we have been finding, you know, or we found and stuff like that, and we're keeping it there. Also, we have a spot called the Staten Island Arthur Landfill. The landfill is where we're taking all the debris from the World Trade Center, and it's going to the landfill. And what they're doing there, the FBI, ourselves, we go there and we're dressing hazmat, and we rake through the debris, and we'll look for body limbs and IDs for disclosure for the family, and we found gum belts and all kinds of stuff over there. But through all this, we see the Lord is working. Through all this horror and stuff, you know, and tragedy, the Lord is working. See, the Lord opened up a door for us to set up prayer tents down there. I'm the president of Police Officers for Christ, fraternal organization of the New York City Police Department. And we go to every priest and preach in the gospel and giving out Bibles at roll calls. We do youth ministry. We do a whole bunch of stuff like that. But with this situation, we started setting up prayer tents all over Ground Zero at Staten Island and at the morgue. And that's what we did. And we see that how God was blessing that. There's a lot of work to do. We were down there at Ground Zero, and I was speaking to a fireman. All I did is put my hand on his shoulder, telling him, yeah, God's still in control. When I told him that, he just started weeping. I started crying, man. I wasn't embarrassed. Jesus wept. He's good enough for me. He's more man than me, you know. So this fireman, he just started sharing with me how he was abused when he was young. I said, whoa, whoa. I wasn't prepared for that. I thought he was going to tell me about the parts, the pooling body parts, because I did that. I said, yeah, I can relate. But all this junk is coming out. You know, we're living in exciting times, being a Christian. And yesterday we talked about the closet Christian. You know what, I should rephrase that, because I don't think there's any closet Christians. My Bible says, are you with them or against them? I think instead of coming out the closet, I think you better clean your closet. You know, I think it's about time the Christians are doing that. I went with one of the Calvary Chapel pastors, and we set up a meeting with the super chiefs. We have all these chiefs and a chief of chiefs. Sounds familiar, right? So they have the super chiefs set up a meeting so we can meet, and we talk about the prayer tent to set up food and stuff for the guys. So next thing you know, the mayor's office called, and they want to set up a meeting with the Calvary Chapel pastor and Safe Harbor and stuff. And we was excited, but the police officers were crying, because usually it's like, get out of here with that Jesus stuff, and now come on with the Jesus stuff. Right on, Jesus. Let's do it, man. And God is doing just a tremendous work, because I'm running out of time. God is doing just a real tremendous work, because that door opened up, and I always say, when God opens a door this much, get in there right away. I'm telling you, get in there right away. Don't wait until the door's wide open and honey, get the cornflakes. No, get in there. Get in there right away. Don't waste time, because you know what? Tomorrow's not promised to no one in here. Nobody. Tomorrow's not promised. And it's so important to get God's word out, to show them what Jesus has done for us, that they can be free, because New York City Police Department, we've got the highest rate of suicide, alcohol, and divorce. And now with all this, we're going to be down there, they already said, a year. We know it's going to be over a year with the digging. We've got 25% of the debris out. 75% more to go to Staten Island. So what the Lord opens a door on Staten Island, what we're doing is, with the mayor's office, he gave us permission to me to have Christian officers around the clock, one Christian officer each tour, no overtime, okay? But around the clock, get paid for it, that all the chaplains are going to report to that Christian officer on site. So we put up a tent, you know, I wanted to get a tent in there, pray a tent. He says, no, we're going to give you a trailer. Wow, he's going to give me a trailer. Amen, I like that, God. You go ahead. Because I had that thing, a little trailer, at least they could come in and grab something. And we see in Isaiah, I think it is, they tell you, expand your tent. And they give us a trailer, so I want to take over the whole island. No, this is how we're going to do it. God will do that. Two minutes, I'm out. And God will do that, believe me. You know, I learned to, you know, even 19 years saved through Calvary Chapel, I learned that, man, God is in control, man, no matter what. So we're setting up Staten Island, they gave us a trailer. I'm so excited. We're going to put, I'm from New York, we're talking quick, you need a interpreter, East Coast, West Coast, we'll get that for you, don't worry. But what we're doing is the track trailer, we're going to set up computers in there. So the workers, especially at Ground Zero, they're down there for about a month, and they're working seven days a week, 14 to 18 hours a day. And what they're doing is they're coming from all over the country. You'd be surprised, they're coming to give us a break. We've been working our guys, and we had a collapse the other day, and we had to take guys from Ground Zero, five people died in a collapse in Gramercy Park. That's happening. The wall is caving in. The seawall is coming into Ground Zero. So they've got to maintain that wall, because all that water is coming in. Now they're still trying to put out the fire. It's a mess. It's a mess there. Keep us in prayer. If you feel, what can I do, pray. That's what you can do. So Staten Island, real quick, Chuck, Staten Island, he's going to throw me out next. Hey, I'm in uniform. Stay there. Hey, hey, they're laughing. You guys got to stay. I'm going home. You got to stay with this guy. Don't laugh. In Staten Island, we're going to do that. We're going to put the Ground Zero first. They gave us this Catholic church. You know, they said, hey, I wanted a tent. They said, no tent. The mayor's office says, wow, they're going to give us the church. I went, hmm, gave us Catholic church. We're cleaning it up Monday morning. We've got a crew coming in there, so I can take my little prayer tents out now and move into this Catholic church that's going to be remodeled, that we're going to take over. And it's not Police Officers Christ at Calvary Chapel. It's Jesus doing this. And what he's doing there, we're going to have food, coffee, stuff like that. We're going to have little Bibles and toys and teddy bears, whatever they can send out to their families, because they're away from home. I saw the kids here pass. The truck was dedicating. And, you know, it touched my heart how important family is, you know, and how you know when you're not going to see your family. You know what I notice on my job? One detective female, she tells me, wow, I notice a lot of cops and firemen, they're hugging each other. There's so much love. And I'm a huggable guy. I always do that. You're not even, even if you're not safe, I go up to you, hey, Captain, I love you. This guy, you know, he's on drugs again. But, you know, I see that our department, a lot of people hugging and we're seeing that and we're seeing God's love flowing through there. So we want to keep that love flowing. And it's telling about Jesus. So we're setting up the Bibles, the coffee, we're doing computers. They come in and email their families back and forth. And we're doing that also on Staten Island. So, you know, keep us in prayer. There's a lot going on that God is doing. Through all this, God is doing that. And I see it and I see the love, what's happening. People, cops are calling me up. I used to go to church and, you know, where can I fellowship? So I'm plugging them in, man. Now is the time to plug them in. I'm just plugging them in and let them, let just Jesus take it, God, man. And you know what? I see in this nation, like I said yesterday, United States is a prodigal son. It's coming back. Thank you for your time and your love. God bless you guys. Carlos is a good friend of mine. I met him yesterday. But he's kind of a guy that you just instantly sort of bond with, you know. Yeah, this guy. We're brothers. We've been brothers for a long time. Good to have you, Carlos. Thank you. Grab your Bible. Stand up again. Let's turn to Psalm 94. I'll read the first, the odd-numbered verses. Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the even-numbered verses. O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth. Render a reward to the proud. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they utter and speak hard things, and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage. They slay the widow and the strangers, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, and neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Understand ye, brutish among the people, and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that created the ear, can he not hear? He who formed the eye, can he not see? He that chastiseth the heathen shall not be correct. He that teacheth man knowledge shall not be known. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law. That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. But judgment shall return unto the righteous, and all the upright in heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers, or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. When I said, My foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. But the Lord is my defense, and my God is the rock of my refuge. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness. Yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off. Let's pray. Father, many times we as David, as we look at the inequities in the world in which we live, we see evil people that seemingly are getting by with what they are doing, and we say, O Lord, how long will you allow this to go on? How long, O Lord, before you bring righteous judgment upon the wicked? Lord, we, as David, realize that you do see, you do know, you do hear, and that the day is coming when you will bring righteous judgment upon the evildoers. Lord, we pray that today as we look at David's frustration with the inability to bring righteous judgment, that you, Lord, will comfort our hearts with the knowledge and the understanding that you are on the throne, you are the righteous judge, and one day, Lord, righteousness will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. So, bless our study of your word today, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. We begin the book of 2 Samuel this week, and so, if you haven't read the first three chapters, read them over this afternoon, join with us tonight at 7 o'clock, as we continue our journey through the word of God, now arriving and beginning 2 Samuel. This morning, we'd like to draw your attention to the third chapter and verse 39. Actually, we will begin reading a little bit with verse 38. At the news that came to David how that his general Joab had murdered the man named Amner, David said, Know ye not that there is a prince, a great man, who has fallen this day in Israel? And I am this day weak, though I've been anointed king. And these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me. The Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. Upon the death of Saul, King David was actually crowned as king over the tribe of Judah in the city of Hebron, and he began to reign there in Hebron. Amner, who was the general of Saul's army, had anointed one of Saul's sons, Ish-basheth, to be the king over the 11 northern tribes. And for a period of time, years, there was conflict between the northern 11 tribes under the son of Saul and Judah, who was being ruled by David there in Hebron. One day Ish-basheth, the son of Saul, accused Amner, who was the head over the army, the military general, accused him of a horrible crime that he did not commit. And suddenly Amner realized that he had thrown his lot in with the wrong man. That Ish-basheth really wasn't capable of ruling. And he recognized that God had anointed David to be the king over the whole land. And so Amner came to David and he offered to turn the northern kingdoms over to David, which he was capable of doing as the military general. And so they more or less made a covenant together that Amner was going to deliver to David the northern kingdom also. Joab was off at that particular time, fighting in a battle when he got home. It was told him that Amner, who was of course a real competitor to Joab, they were men who were in conflict with each other. In fact, Amner had killed the brother of Joab in a battle. And so Joab, upon hearing that Amner had come and that David had sent him away in peace, was upset. And so he, through subterfuge, called Amner back again as though there was needed to be some more discussion concerning the turning of the northern kingdom over to David. And when he had Amner back again, he murdered him. And this upset David tremendously. He felt betrayed by Joab. And this is when he said that a great man, that is Amner, had fallen in Israel. But I am weak, David said. And these sons of Zariah are too much for me. But the Lord, He will reward the evil for their wickedness. How many times have you found yourself, like David, frustrated over the fact that there seems to be so much injustice in the world in which we live. So many things that people are doing that are absolutely wrong and yet so often we are powerless to do anything about it. And we feel that frustration that comes from a desire to see justice but the inability to perform justice. We hate to see people get by with evil. But so many times we are totally powerless to do anything about it. What do you do at a time like that? Do you just sit and stew over what's happening? Today we have a situation that is really somewhat similar to that. We are angry with those men who hate us so much that they were willing to commandeer jet planes and with those innocent people on board fly those planes deliberately into the World Trade Center there in New York destroying those buildings and the thousands of people that also were destroyed, the innocent people by these attacks of terrorism. We can't bring those men to justice. They committed suicide in these attacks. And it leaves you with a sense of frustration. These men ought to be brought to justice and pay for these horrible crimes. We find ourselves upset with those men who planned and financed these vicious attacks. And we think surely they should be brought to justice. We want to see justice wrought in these situations. We're angry with those who rejoiced and danced in the streets when they saw on their TVs the human suffering that resulted from these attacks. And we wonder, do these kind of people really belong in the human race? What kind of monsters are they? Our hearts cry for justice, but how? And that's exactly where David was when Joab, his chief general, murdered Abner. And he and his brother were just too strong. David could not resist. He could not bring real justice in this situation. And so David's heart, filled with emotion, sought but could not bring justice to bear upon these men. And so David found his solace in the righteousness of God and in the fact that the Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to wickedness. What are your feelings when you return to your car, find that someone has broken the window and ripped out the stereo from your car? You feel violated. You feel angry. You know that when you call the police they'll come out and make a report, but that's about as far as it goes. You know that your chances of ever recovering that stereo or ever seeing the person apprehended who took it are probably something between nil and nothing. It only goes down as a report on the police blotter, but you know that probably nothing more will ever come of it. The person who did that seemingly got by with it and that angers us. But we feel helpless. How can you apprehend that person? How can you see judgment come forth? We cannot understand the mind of a person who would deliberately take something that belongs to someone else. It just doesn't compute in our minds. And we wonder just what kind of a person could do that. How can a person's thinking become so twisted that they would callously take something that belongs to someone else? One day we got a call from our older daughter who was living in a condominium in Huntington Beach and her voice was shaking with fear. She said, Daddy, I was in the house and the doorbell rang. I didn't answer it and I heard the doorknob being twisted off and so I stepped into the bathroom and she said, I saw two men go by. They went upstairs and when they went upstairs I slipped out of the house and I'm calling you. They're still in the house and so I jumped into the car with my son Jeff. We sped over to her condominium in Huntington Beach. I was hoping that we could catch these two fellas in the house and turn their bloody beaten bodies over to the police. But it was not to be. They had already left. But the anger that I felt that my daughter's life was put in jeopardy by two strangers who would deliberately with channel locks twist off the handle and come into her house and go through the house looking for something to steal and the things that they took. That didn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that my daughter was endangered and was made to be fearful by these invaders. It's hard for us to see a person escape justice. We hate seeing someone get by with evil. But what can you do? You can sit there and fret or you can turn it over to the Lord. And it is a comfort to know that the Lord will reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. We read concerning the law of God that every transgression and disobedience will receive a just recompense of reward. For the Lord has said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. You know it always sort of troubles me when you read of someone who goes in and kills a family and the horror of someone killing the entire family and then committing suicide. You somehow feel that justice is frustrated. A person who would do such a deed as that surely ought to face punishment for the crime. But they've committed suicide, they're beyond your reach. And they've mistakenly think that by committing suicide they have escaped the judgment for their sin. But the Bible says, It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. Though you might escape the justice from the hands of men, it's impossible for you to escape from the justice of God. You might say that the world has two kinds of people. Those who seek justice and those who seek to evade justice. Bin Laden may be sitting in a cave somewhere today thinking that he is safely sheltered from justice as he sits there in his mountain bunker and continues to direct the activities of the terrorists around the world. With all of his money and connections he may successfully elude the justice that should be brought upon him for his crimes. But with all of his money and cunning he cannot escape the justice of God. Someday he'll stand before the judgment seat of God from which there is no hiding or escape. Now I heard a fellow the other day and I really concur with him that though we want him dead or alive I would rather see him caught alive and I think true justice would be to have doctors perform a sex change and let him live with the Taliban in Afghanistan. But such no doubt will not be the case. We have too many bleeding hearts. But know this someday you will stand before the judgment seat of God and as you stand there you will either be declared guilty or justified. Now all of us are guilty of sin. We are all of us deserving the penalty of our guilt. For God said already that the soul that sinneth shall surely die. And thus as we stand before God we stand there as a unforgiven sinner or as a forgiven sinner having been justified through the work that God did for us through his son Jesus Christ. Some of you will stand there to plead your own case before God. Others will have a superior advocate who will be pleading their case and that is Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus is our advocate. John wrote my little children these things I write unto you that you sin not but if any man sins we have an advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the righteous. But can you imagine standing before the Father seeking to defend yourself before God? There's only going to be one question that you will have to answer. And that question is why did you reject my love and forgiveness that I offered to you by sending my son Jesus Christ into the world to die for your sins? Why did you reject Jesus Christ? That's the question. The question that you will have to answer and God will cross examine you. Imagine how lame some of the excuses will be. Well God I rejected your son because there were so many churches I didn't know what church to believe in. And he'll say I didn't ask you to believe in any church. I asked you to believe in me and to believe in my son. Well Lord there were so many hypocrites in the church and I just can't stand hypocrites. You should have thought of that sooner you're going to spend eternity with a bunch of hypocrites. But God I didn't believe that you existed. I didn't believe the story that you sent your son into the world. It sounded too far-fetched and I just couldn't believe things that sounded so far-fetched. Oh, is that so? Did you believe that somehow you evolved from a single cell apart from intelligence? That your ability to see was actually developed as the little worm was coming out of the ooze and when the sun hit its forehead formed a freckle that over eons of time developed into an optic nerve which transmitted messages into a brain that evolved in another process over a period of time and you were able to see now as a little salamander. Gradually you wore off the two front legs and they became arms and you believed all of that and you had difficulty believing that I existed when you saw the unique design of the life forms throughout nature. You wouldn't believe that the watch that you were wearing on your wrist evolved out of millions of years of interesting processes. Your watch, it was very simple but you believed that it was designed by an engineer. You wouldn't believe that those parts could have just come together. How is it that you believe that the wrist upon which you wore your watch which is so much more complex than the watch just came about through a series of fortunate mutations, accidental circumstances. You couldn't believe in me because it was too far-fetched and yet you believed this lie. And one by one your foolish excuses will be blasted before God and they will be what they actually are absolutely absurd. Paul wrote to the Romans So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. One day you're going to have to stand before God and give an account of yourself. Or if you have accepted Jesus Christ you will have an advocate with the Father and he will step forth in your behalf and he will be your defense. Now Jesus will either be the prosecuting attorney or the defense attorney for you. You're going to face him one way or the other. Better think about that. Solomon wrote, Rejoice so young man in your youth. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes but know this that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Know that one day you're going to have to answer to God. All of these things God will bring you into judgment. Jesus said, But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they will have to give an account of it in the day of judgment. A person is foolish to believe that he can escape judgment by suicide. It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the true judgment, the righteous judgment. You can be sure as David said, One day the Lord will reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. You can be sure that justice will win in the end. Now that thought either brings comfort or terror to your heart. It all is according to what your relationship with Jesus Christ might be. If you've accepted him as your Lord and Savior and as you look around at the world in which we live today and you see all of the inequities and your heart is crying out for justice and you think, Lord, that's not fair. Know that one day when God judges it will be fair. Totally fair. And you can take comfort in that as did David. If you have not accepted Jesus Christ and received the forgiveness of your sins that God has offered you through him then the fact that one day the evil will be rewarded according to their wickedness that should terrify you. Because you're not going to escape the righteous judgment of God and the sentence that will be pronounced by God upon those who rejected and would not respond to his love and to his son who he sent to die for your sins. One day when you stand before God, which we all will you will either stand there justified or condemned. The opportunity to accept God's forgiveness is given to you now. This day. And I would encourage you to accept it. Father, we thank you for that confidence that we have in the ultimate justice that you shall bring forth in the end. Lord, as we do look around at the world in which we live we do get frustrated because people are seemingly getting by with evil because they have clever attorneys or other things, Lord, by which they can escape and seemingly escape your justice. Lord, we long for that day when there will be true righteousness righteousness covering the earth like the waters cover the seas. The day, Lord, when you reign in righteousness and truth. And Lord, we pray today for those who are yet not prepared to stand before you. Those who are still living in their sin unconfessed sin. We pray, Father, that this day they might make that choice to no longer reject your love but to receive your love and your forgiveness the cleansing and the pardon from their sins. Let the Spirit of God work now in their hearts drawing them unto Jesus Christ the only hope that we have of escaping the righteous judgment of God for evil. Work, Lord, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Shall we stand? It is appointed unto man once to die. The problem is we don't know when that appointment is gonna take place. We are living in a world in which terrorism has become a major problem. How, when and where they're going to attack next we really don't know. How secure or safe we are, we really don't know. Those people who were in the World Trade Center on September 11th didn't know how close they were to standing before God and in the presence of God. Some of them were ready. Some of them were not ready. You don't know how close you are. Will you be ready when your appointment comes to meet with God? You can be. The pastors are down here at the front this morning to pray for you. And if you're not ready to meet God today I would encourage you to take this opportunity that God is giving you one more chance to be prepared to meet God. One more chance to have Jesus as your advocate before the Father when you stand before Him. Standing there to defend you. I would encourage you as soon as we're dismissed don't head for the exit. But head down here to the front. Make your peace with God today. Find the forgiveness and the love that God is freely offering to you. The Bible tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses a man from all sin and God can cleanse you this day. But you have to come. You have to ask Him. These men are here to help you to find a relationship with God today. Don't put it off. Don't delay. The Lord bless thee. And keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee. And be gracious unto thee. And be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee. And give thee peace.
Divine Justice
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Chuck Smith (1927 - 2013). American pastor and founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, born in Ventura, California. After graduating from LIFE Bible College, he was ordained by the Foursquare Church and pastored several small congregations. In 1965, he took over a struggling church in Costa Mesa, California, renaming it Calvary Chapel, which grew from 25 members to a network of over 1,700 churches worldwide. Known for his accessible, verse-by-verse Bible teaching, Smith embraced the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s, ministering to hippies and fostering contemporary Christian music and informal worship. He authored numerous books, hosted the radio program "The Word for Today," and influenced modern evangelicalism with his emphasis on grace and simplicity. Married to Kay since 1947, they had four children. Smith died of lung cancer, leaving a lasting legacy through Calvary Chapel’s global reach and emphasis on biblical teaching