GOD’S JUDGEMENT DAY

By Oswald J. Smyth, LL.D.             

The Great White Throne is set.   The Judge is seated.  Angels and archangels are in attendance.  All heaven assembles.  Unnumbered millions, in breathless wonder, survey the fearful scene.  With awe on every face, they wait.  Time’s final drama is to be enacted.  Nothing else matters now.  Everything of a secondary nature has been forgotten.  ‘Tis God Almighty’s Judgement day.

Presently, amid the awful silence, the Dead appear; sinners great and small, from every clime and race, sinners of the deepest dye; murderers, sorcerers, liars, thieves, idolaters, adulterers, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, infidels, atheists, agnostics, and criminals of the blackest type, along with those who have neglected and  forgotten God.

From the world’s great battlefields where their dust has lain for hundreds of years, they come; from ocean depths where ships were sunk long centuries ago; from graveyards innumerable, long since forgotten, they come.  Oh, what a company!  And how they keep coming, millions upon millions of them, once the men and women of the earth – summoned to appear before the God whom they have ignored and despised, to render an account.  They glance this way and that, looking for a means of escape.  They call for the mountains to fall on them, and hide them from Him that sitteth upon the Throne.  But there is no escape, no help.  It is the day of their doom.

And the books are opened, the books filled with the record of their earthly lives.  Very sin is recorded, every transgression entered, every failure and neglected opportunity written down.  Deeds long since forgotten, vile things carefully hidden from the eye of man, all, yea, all are now revealed, and the universe listens to the awful revelation.  Aghast they stand, terror-stricken they wait; dumb they hear.  Finally, the Book of Life is brought.  “And whosoever was not found written in the book of Life was cast into the lake of fire,” (Rev.20:15).  It is not now a question of the depth of their sin; for all alike are guilty.  Only one enquiry, only one thought:

                                                                 “Is my name written there

                                                                 On the page white and fair,

                                                                 In the Book of Thy Kingdom –

                                                                 Is my name written there?”

In vain they search, in vain they scan its pages!  Their last chance is gone, their final hope extinguished.

                                                                 “And oh, what a weeping and wailing,

                                                                 As the lost were told of their fate;

                                                                 They cried for the rocks and the mountains,

                                                                 They prayed, but their prayer was too late.”

My friend, will you be there?  Are you still unsaved, and yet unmoved?  And if so, will you not be warned today, now, before it is forever too late?  Do you not know that you will be judged?  God’s Word is very plain.  It says, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God,” (Rom.14:12).  No one else can appear in your place, nor will you be judged for the sins of another.  You must answer for yourself.  And unless you are saved, you will certainly be present.   

How will you be judged?  On the basis of your attitude towards Christ.  Not morality or religion, but relationship to God’s Son.  “He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God,” (John 3:18).  Only one question, therefore: “what did you do with Jesus Christ?”  “Well,” you reply, “I was a faithful church member, and lived a good life.”  That is not the issue.  Did you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour? That is the acid test.  “He that believeth shall not be damned.”

Who will be your Judge?  Jesus Christ Himself, the One who longs to be your Saviour.  Listen to the Word once more: “For the father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son,” (John 5:22).

A criminal was about to be run over by a car when a man sprang out and saved him.  Later on he stood in the prisoner’s box, charged with a great crime.  The judge was the man who had saved him from the car.  The criminal appealed to him, expecting that he would do for him again what he had done before.  “That day,” explained the judge, “I was your Saviour; today I am your judge.”  And he was sentenced.

Some day – God grant it may be now – you will own Jesus Christ as Lord of lords and King of kings.  Will it be now or then?  Now of your own free will, or then by compulsion?  Will you have Him now as a Saviour, or then as a Judge?  It must be one or the other.  Which is it to be?  My friend, I bid you accept Him, and accept Him – NOW.]

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This was taken from a Gospel tract written by Dr Oswald J. Smyth, and published by every Home Crusade, Northern Ireland.