GOD – PART 6 (THE JUDGE) – SPECIAL SUNDAY SERVICE WITH PASTOR (DR) MENSA OTABIL (GENERAL OVERSEER, INTERNATIONAL CENTRAL GOSPEL CHURCH (ICGC) CHRIST TEMPLE, ACCRA GHANA);17TH MARCH, 2024

SPECIAL SUNDAY SERVICE WITH PASTOR (DR) MENSA OTABIL (GENERAL OVERSEER, INTERNATIONAL CENTRAL GOSPEL CHURCH (ICGC) CHRIST TEMPLE, ACCRA GHANA)

TOPIC: GOD – PART 6 (THE JUDGE)

DATE: 17TH MARCH, 2024

BIBLE TEXT: GENESIS 1:4-5

This is Part 6 of my God Series; and my Subtitle is: “GOD – THE JUDGE.”

One of the things we know about God is that He is a Judge – God is a Judge!

A Judge is the one who decides the final outcome of a matter. He or she determines how things should rightly be. A Judge is there to defend what is right and Just.

In my opinion, and it may be subject to debate but that is my personal opinion, “Judging is the most Powerful responsibility on Earth.”

And by extension, I believe Judges are the most Powerful People on Earth – They decide between right and wrong on all Natural matters; and Pronounce verdicts on them.

Judges overrule Presidents.

They can just make a verdict and get everybody into trouble.

They are very, very Powerful – It’s a very Powerful Position.

And the Judges of this Earth derive their Power from the Ultimate Judge – God Almighty.

And so, that is what we are going to look at today – God as a Judge of the Universe.

The God who is Creator is also our Judge.

Many times we want to see God as One who loves us, One who is Merciful, full of Grace and all of that – And that is all true of God!

But don’t also forget that this God who is Merciful is also a Judge.

And that, we find also in the Book of Genesis: In “God – Part 5” I quoted from Genesis 1:4-5, but I looked at a different aspect of God and His Works.

Today we are referencing the same Bible Text; and we are going to look at God as Judge.

Genesis 1:4-5 (NKJV)

4 And God saw the Light, that it was Good; and God divided the Light from the Darkness.

5 God called the Light Day, and the Darkness He called Night. So the Evening and the Morning were the first Day.

… God is the Judge of His Works!

I made the same Statement in Part 5 but did not expand on it very much.

The idea of God as a Judge is not something that comes up later in the Bible. As I said, the Book of Genesis is very, very important (especially Genesis Chapter 1).

Because all the important Doctrines about God are in Genesis Chapter 1.

Later on, they are expanded in the rest of the Scriptures. But right from Genesis 1, we see God that He is Eternal, a Creator, a Spirit, His Works are Good and we see that He is also a Judge – These are very important!

We see also that God is the Word – What we later come to formulate as the Trinity; these are all ideas Present in Genesis 1.

In Genesis 1, God is introducing Himself and He is telling us who He is.

Here we see that God is a Judge – He is a Judge of His Works.

Now, how do we arrive at the idea that God is a Judge, just by reading this Passage?

THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT GENESIS 1:4-5.

There are couple of things I want you to pay attention to:

1. GOD SEES:

God saw the Light that had been made – He sees!

He observes and inspects His Works.

When we say “God sees”, it means that He looks at something and He pays attention to it.

In the context that we are using it in Genesis 1; it means He examined what He had done – God sees!

And it is an idea that you find through Scriptures – That nothing is hidden from God. He sees what is obvious and hidden; and no Creature, Thoughts or Actions can happen without Him seeing it.

That’s the first thing we see about God from this Passage is that He sees.

And whatever we do, He sees.

As a matter of fact, He even sees our Thoughts before they become Actions.

2. GOD CALLS:

He called Light Day.

Not only does He sees the Light, He also calls it.

What does it mean?

It means He names and He identifies things as they are – He sees and He Calls.

God calls Light by its rightful name, and calls Darkness by its rightful name.

God has names for all things – It is also a concept that runs through the Bible.

Not only does God see, but He calls.

He names things, Proclaims things and identifies things.

When God sees sin He doesn’t hide it, and He doesn’t decorate it.

When God sees that you’ve done something wrong, He is not going to massage it – He is going to see it, and He is going to call it as it is.

If you commit Adultery God will call it Adultery – He will not call it a Generational Curse.

If you are jealous and envious, He will call it Covetousness – He will not call it a desire to get.

… He calls things as they are!

Human Beings have a way of messaging things especially in our Community; when ‘Big’ People do bad things we try to rename the bad things.

And these days, we see that even among Preachers, we try to rename what Preachers do.

A Pastor is doing something wrong, we say “Touch not the Anointed.”

A Pastor is committing Adultery you say, Oh don’t touch him, he has Special Grace.

And a lot of that foolishness is settling down in Christianity.

But what does God call the sins of His People?

• He named and called the sin of Adam and Eve – He didn’t hide it.
• He named and called out the sin of Cain.
• He called out the Drunkenness of Noah – The man who redeemed the Human Race.

God didn’t say, for all the Goodness you’ve done, your Drunkenness is nothing. It’s just your own Personal matter. No!

God calls things the way they are.

• He calls out the father of Faith, Abraham who lied, that his wife (Sarah) was just his sister.
• He calls out the Anger of Moses and the murder of Moses.
• He calls out the sins of both Eli and Samuel’s children.
• He calls out the Adultery and the Murderous act of David – The man after God’s Heart.

God doesn’t say well, He is a man after my Heart and so I am not going to see what he wrong.

No! God sees, and He calls!

And don’t ever get deceived that you are so Special to God; that because you give a lot of Tithes and Offering, Fasting and Praying; you are God’s Special – No!

Nobody is God’s Special – He will see and He will call.

… He sees and He calls.

3. GOD DIVIDES:

The Word ‘Divide’ means to separate, and to set things apart.

So God divided the Darkness from the Light.

He saw it, He called it, He separated it.

It’s all Part of God’s Judgement – He sees, He calls, He divides or separates or sets things apart.

And this is also an idea that continues throughout Genesis and throughout the Scriptures:

• God separated Abraham from his father’s Land.
• He separated Lot from and Sodom and Gomorrah.
• We see it in the Laws of Moses: The Holy is separated from the Unholy.
• We see it in the Parables of Jesus: The wheat is separated from the tares; sheep are separated from goats.
• We see it in the concept of Judgement in the Book of Revelation: The Righteous are separated from the Abominable.

God does not mix things – He separates them.

When God is going to Judge, He doesn’t judge brackets; He separates and judges – Two travelling together, one would be taken, one would be left.

… God sees, He calls, He separates.

In God’s Judgement, He doesn’t say, Oh you are a Pastor’s son so you are accepted – He separates you from your father.

• Your father’s Righteousness doesn’t cover you.
• Your husband’s Righteousness doesn’t cover you.
• Your wife’s Righteousness doesn’t cover you.
• And your children’s Righteousness doesn’t cover you.

All of you men who don’t Pray but rely on the Prayer of your wife; you think because your wife Prays, God would be Merciful to you – Well, in God’s Judgement, He sees, He calls, He separates.

There is coming a time when God will separate – Our Membership of a Local Church does not give us Salvation. Even in the Church, God will separate People.

Being in Church is Good; but if you don’t belong to Christ when He is coming to Judge, He is going to separate!

Don’t think that belonging to something that is Holy, you become Holy. Or that you belong to the right means you are right – No!

You can be wrong and still belong in the right Group.

Those are the ingredients of God as Judge and we see it right in the Book of Genesis Chapter 1.

God put all these concepts together in the first Judgement that He brought to Mankind.

And the first Judgement was on the first Parents of Human Race – Adam and Eve. They were the first to be Judged.

Now, I want us to go to Genesis 2 and see how “God as Judge” in the concept worked out – Let’s look at how God Judges us.

Genesis 2:9 says, And out of the Ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is Pleasant to the sight and Good for food. The tree of Life was also in the midst of the Garden, and the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Remember, two (2) trees – The tree of Life and the tree of the Knowledge of Good.

Then Genesis 2:16-17 says, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the Garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

God does not just judge us.

You don’t know what you are doing then God slaps you with Judgement – No!

THERE ARE PROCESSES

When we read the Passage we see the Processes:

1. God gives us Options to Choose from.

This is because He created us to have Freewill.

Freewill allows us to choose and act responsibly – And that’s what enables Human Beings to respond to God’s Word: Either to obey or to disobey.

Human Beings have got a Freewill – We are the Authors of our own Actions.

That is why we are able to sin and that is why we are able to be accountable for our sin.

If we didn’t have Freewill, then there will be no sin; then we will not be judged because it just happened. But we have Freewill.

And Please, listen to me carefully; because there is a lot of very wrong Doctrines all over being taught:

• Bad Doctrines that make People not to be responsible for their Actions.
• Doctrines that make Witches, Ancestrals, Yokes, Principalities, Powers, all kinds of things responsible, except you.

Now, if all of these things were responsible for your Actions, then there was no need for you to be judged because you had no Power.

But we read from the Scriptures that God would give us Options.

Listen carefully, you have Options in Life – You can be Good, you can be Bad; you can be a Fool, you can be Wise; you can be Rich, you can be Poor.

I have always said that Poverty is not by force – We are not poor by accident; we are poor by Choice.

So God would give us Options to choose from.

Freewill is what makes us higher than animals but freewill can also demote us and make us lower than animals – It is a free world!

God gives you options: You can decide which way you want to go.

I call Heaven and Earth as Witnesses today against you, that I have set before you Life and Death, Blessing and Cursing; therefore choose Life, that both you and your Descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Your Life is in your hands.

2. He shows us the Best Choice to make.

Although Adam had two (2) Options to choose from, God Pointed him to the Right Choice:

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the Garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” – Genesis 2:16-17

God doesn’t live us to blindly determine what He wants us to do; He Points us to the Right Way.

In addition to Freewill, we have Divine Guidance – “I have given you freewill; but if you want what I want for you, this is it”.

“You have Freewill, but you also know my Choice.” It is not that you have Freedom, and you don’t know what is right or wrong; you have Freedom, and I have told you this is right and this is wrong.

We have Freedom, but God also Points you to what is best for you.

He said to the Children of Israel, I Place before you Life and Death, Blessings and Curses; but choose Life – Deuteronomy 30:19.

In other words, the fact that you have options doesn’t mean He leaves you blind – No! That’s not what He does: “You have options, but this one is better for you.”

You can commit Adultery, but being Faithful is better for you. But if you want to commit Adultery, it’s a Free Choice!

If you want what I want for you, stay with the one you are married to.

3. He tells the Consequences of our Choices.

He said to Adam, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Now, some of us want to experiment and see what it is.

You have the Choice of experimenting with your foot for a car to run over. But you know what’s best for you – You know the consequence! “If I put my foot there, I would find out but in the wrong way.”

So why do you want to commit Adultery to find out how it is like?

Why do you want to have sex before Marriage to find out how it is like?

Why do you want to do that?

You will find out as Adam and Eve found out! Because there are some Lessons that doesn’t reach you anything.

You would find out what you want by jumping from a building, but you would learn nothing from that.

There would be no Lesson to be learned, because by the time you find out, you are gone!

Experience is not always the Best Teacher; some times, experience is the worse Teacher in Life.

4. He judges us based on the Choices we make.

By the time we get to God’s Judgement, we would have no one to blame, but ourselves.

God’s Judgement is certain; it does not come suddenly, it comes after we have ignored the Options He gave us, the Guidance He gave us, and the Consequences He told us about.

And if you ignore all of that, then there is none else to blame but to receive the full Judgement of God.

And the Bible says, there is a Day of Judgement coming.

Maybe you’ll say “well, let me find out whether there will be a Day of Judgement” – Do you really want to find out?

Or the People who say, “I will find out when I die.”

Really? Is that when you want to find out?

There are certain things finding out doesn’t help you. Because, by the time you find out, there is no way out – By the time you find out, there is no Redemption.

And some of us are making Choices that we know are wrong.

I am not saying it’s wrong – You know it’s wrong.

How do you know?

You know! God has Pointed it to you.

You say Pastor, how do you know?

Your Conscience told you it’s wrong!

You know it’s wrong, unfortunately like Adam and Eve, when they found out it was too late: they were kicked out of Eden.

And with them, the rest of the Human Race – They found out, but they never went back to Eden.

God who is the Creator, who is the Eternal, the Merciful God, the Kind God, the God of Grace, the God who came in the form of Man to die for us is also the God of Judgement.

And He didn’t become a Judge at the end of the Human Story in the Book of Revelation; He shows us He is a Judge right from Genesis – He judges here on Earth and He judges after Earth.

Some People don’t have Judgement here on Earth – They can escape all Human Judgement but one thing you can never escape is God’s Judgement.

They can never escape it – He sees, He calls, He separates or divides and He judges.

As we live our lives as Christians, all of us get tempted.

The Options of Life be thrown at you – “Of every tree of the Garden you may freely eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

I don’t know about you, but I think with a little Self Control, we can live a far better Life than the lives we are living.

Just a little Self Control – Just a little, “I am not going to do it.” I feel it, but I am not going to do it.

Just like:

• I felt like putting my foot on the road – I never did it.
• I felt like jumping from a building, but I never did.

Have you ever asked yourself, “what will it be like to do a lot of things you’ve never done – To drink Poison, to do all kinds of things but you never did them?

There are many things in your home that can destroy you that you’ve never used to destroy yourself because you have a Will and you exercised Choice not to go that way.

That same Will you use to overcome sin is the same thing.

For some things, People will hail you here on Earth, and God judges you.

For some things, People will judge you on Earth and God will judge you.

The fact that People hail you doesn’t mean God is also hailing you – Your fans are not God’s Fans and God is not in your Fan Club.

It has nothing to do with Witches Ancestral Spirits or whatever Yokes you are carrying, and all kinds of nonsense People are Preaching these days – Taking Personal Responsibilities for our Actions.

ALTAR CALL

So today, before I Close: If you are here or reading now on the Label of DMC, and you know your Life is not right before God.

There are lots of People living two-timing Christian lives – They love God, but they love the world too. They do this right, that right.

And then there are People who have never given their lives to Jesus Christ.

If you are a Christian and your Christian Life has been wishy-washy, in and out, inconsistent.

You say you are a Christian, but you are doing all the wrong things and you know it’s wrong!

No Pastor says this is wrong, you know it is wrong because God Pointed His finger on your head and your conscience judges you.

You are a Christian but you are living that Double Life. Or you’ve never given your Life to Jesus Christ; you always say Oh! I think I can live my own Life – There is Judgement Coming.

PRAYER

I just want us to Pray a Simple Prayer for God’s Forgiveness and for a New Life in Christ Jesus – That Christ would come into our lives and make us Brand New People.

Every eyes close, every head bow;

If you are here or reading now on the Label of DMC, and you’re saying Pastor, I want to give my Life to Jesus; I want to be Born Again, I want a New Life in Christ, I want Christ to be the Lord of my Life.

Or you say Pastor, I gave my Life to Christ but my own Christian Life is not Stable. I want to really make a re-dedication of my Life to God. I am re-dedicating my Life to live a Consistent Life.

If you fall into any of these Categories of People, just lift your right hand wherever you are now.

And Point one hand on your heart and say with me:

Heavenly Father; I come to You today just as I am. I have sinned against You and my own Conscience.

I ask You Father; have Mercy on me, forgive me, wash me and Cleanse me with the Blood of Jesus.

From today, I ask You for Grace to live for You. Help me to do Your Will. Give me the Will, give me the Power, give me the Ability to make the Right Choice and stay with it

I receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Saviour and I Thank You for Your Free Gift of Salvation.

In Jesus’ Name – Amen.

Thank you so much for staying all through to read.

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