THE COMING JUDGMENT

"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of person judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. -- I Peter 1:17.

     Andrew Jukes says, "Only on dark cloudy days can the bow of heaven be seen spanning the lower earth. Then, mid dark waters, when the sun breaks out, though the cloud may be dark, a bow appears amid the darkness; half a ring-half that ring with which the regenerate soul is now married to the Lord. The lower world yet hides the rest of the ring; but on high 'a rainbow' shall be seen 'in a circle round the throne.' "

     Along with other men, our fisherman disciple had his seasons of passing through dark waters, but he learned that this life is only a sojourn, and that he was living in the midst of strangers who were hostile to his profession and who would exert every power to cause him to make shipwreck of grace and thus displease God, hence the need of fear.

     He had seen his Master command the winds and calm the raging sea; he had seen the demoniac sit clothed at the feet of Christ, and the multitude go backwards and fall to the earth before the calm gaze of the Son of man; but now he catches a glimpse of the great white throne and Him that sits thereon, before whose face the earth and the heavens flee away and in view of the majesty and awfulness of that hour, he counsels us to pass the time of our earthly life in fear.

     This life is a sojourn. A sojourner is a temporary resident, one who will stay but a short time and then be gone. The Christian realizes that here he has no continuing city, but he seeks one to come, a city which is out of sight, whose builder and maker is God. The worldly man's hopes and aims are too degrading and transitory to be worthy the quest of an immortal soul. " He builds too low who builds beneath the skies."

     This life is but a rehearsal where men prepare themselves for the great realities of eternity; it is only a school in which they learn lessons and fit themselves for the eternal sphere of action in the other world. How many persons have trifled away their school days and afterwards spent their lives in regretting their lack of fitness to meet the great problems with which they were confronted! In like manner, there are many who trifle away their earth-lives in dreams of sin, and they finally awake, when it is too late, to the fact of a misspent life and consequent lack of preparation for the great problems of eternity. Eternal derelicts! Drifting out into the night of regrets and the hell of lost hopes, without rudder or anchor, to be dashed forever in their helplessness against the fiery rocks of perdition! Eternally weeping out their remorse over a ruined life! But their tears will never fall in mercy's sight.

     Oh, my friend! for Jesus' sake, for your own soul's sake, cease your trifling, gird up the loins of your mind, call upon God, and pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.

     Our surroundings are not conducive to growth or even continuance in grace. Isaac Watts understood. this point when he wrote:

     "Must I be carried to the skies

     On flowery beds of case,

     While others fought to win. the prize

     And sailed through bloody seas?

"Are there no foes for me to face?

     Must I not stem the flood?

     Is this vile world a friend to grace,

     To help me on to God?"

     It seems to be the continual study of worldly men to invent new methods of alluring from the paths of righteousness those who otherwise would be pious. Theaters, movies, amusement parks, new and vulgar dances, ungodly secret societies and clubs, fashionable and immodest dressing, moneymaking schemes, "and such like," spring up on every side in an ever-increasing multitude, until they have become as much a pest as the frogs of Egypt, and their name is legion.

     Besides these things which allure are others which are opposed to the grace of God. False doctrines, higher criticism, infidelity, formality, occult science, shallow evangelism, a time-serving ministry, unreasonable and wicked men who persecute the way, and many other notions and isms, are bitterly arrayed against the gospel and those who profess a personal interest in its blessings.

     There is great need of carefulness on the part of the Christian that he may properly meet the besetments of the way. When our first parents came from the hands of God, in their innocence, they knew nothing of sin, but when evil came into the world it became necessary that we should know enough of sin to avoid it, enough of ourselves to properly practice self-control, and enough of God's will to follow it.

     It is a mistake to say that all we need to preach is the positive side of religion. On the contrary, enough must be said of negatives to warn people that the end of the ways of sin is death. Many a person has made shipwreck of faith because he had not been taught certain things were sinful and that indulgence in evil would forfeit the favor of God. Either all negative or all positive produces an overbalanced religion, while the religion of the Bible is well balanced, composed of hatred for sin and love for God and our neighbors.

     Besides being beset by foes without, there are certain appetites and desires which are perfectly natural and legitimate, but concerning which self denial must be practiced or they will monopolize our attention and thus cause our overthrow. Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

     Then, the honest heart is careful to know the will of God and when it is known, to perform it. There is too much haphazard religion, too much blindness and too little studying the will of God. Search the Scriptures, for they testify of Jesus Christ and reveal the path of duty.

     The heart must be filled with a filial fear of God and an earnest desire to do His will. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

     All this carefulness should be exercised in view of the fact that we must all stand before the awful judgment seat. The passage before us states three facts concerning the judgment:

     We will be judged by the Father. That awful being, before whose blazing throne angels and archangels, principalities and powers, bow in abject humility, will summon us before His tribunal, and while His omniscient gaze penetrates to the deepest recesses of our hearts, will pass our sentence which we must acknowledge to be just.

     He will judge us according to our works. Not according to our nationality, our family, our color, our condition in life or our church membership, but according to our works. No man can blame the judge for his condemnation, but in addition to the sentence of the judge the sinner's own conscience will declare its justice; on the other hand, the reward of the righteous will be all the greater because it is based on moral worth as manifested in the whole course, of their ransomed and Spirit guided lives.

     The Father will pass judgment without respect of persons. The money of earth's millionaires will be utterly worthless, the greatness of kings and lords will be contemned, the learning of the wise will be counted as foolishness, and all these will stand on equal footing with the poorest, the most unlearned and the meanest of earth, for God accepts no man's person.