NOTHING strikes such terror into the mind of a guilty man as the thought of meeting a judge. It is bad enough to have the guilt of some criminal offense resting on one’s conscience, but the thought of that guilt being brought out in a court of justice and openly exposed before one’s fellows is far, far worse.
To be taken from the court in disgrace, with good name, friends, and situation, lost, and to be confined in a prison, is enough to make an honest man shiver with terror.
The law shows no mercy. Mercy is not the prince of the law. The law can only condemn the evil-doer and punish the guilty. The tears and pitiable condition of many a criminal has before now moved a judge to weep; but though such might be the case, he must, as the representative of justice, perform his solemn duty. He must pronounce sentence on the sinner.
Pardon might be afterwards granted by the king, or the governor of a state, if the case was extremely pitiable; but that is not the business of the judge.
Now if it be solemn and dreadful to be exposed before one’s fellows, what must it be to stand before God, the supreme Judge and righteous Ruler of the Universe, and to have all one’s lifetime of unpardoned sins openly exposed in His holy presence? “Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. He can by no means clear the guilty.”
If it would be so much worse to be taken from before an earthly judge and court with loss of character, and friends, and situation, and to spend years in prison for perhaps only one criminal offense against the law of the land, what will it be for those who stand before the righteous bar of God to be led by the executors of judgment to hell’s awful prison?
“where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
Reader, yet unsaved, awake to the awful fact that you are a sinner, and that God is holy and hates sin. Though He loves and pities you, He hates your sins, and must in strict righteousness deal with you if you continue unrepentant and die in them. Do not let the devil befool you on this most momentous point. It is perilous in the extreme to be blind as to it.
The Lord is long-suffering. He proves that every day with you. “Judgment is God’s strange work.” If so, He will never find pleasure in it. He delights in mercy. His nature is love. Has He not proved that He delights not in judgment, by bearing with this world in all its heinous forms of wickedness, cruelty, and oppression, and worst of all the murder and rejection of His own dear Son?
Yet He has appointed the day of judgment. He will judge righteously — all will be fairly and squarely examined and tried. No soul in hell will be able to say that he did not get a fair trial. Though God’s nature is love, and the gift of His beloved Son to save a rebel-world proves it, yet He must be true to His righteous character. Man having gone on persistently in open defiance of His will, and lived in sin’s pleasures without Him, God must vindicate Himself as a righteous Being.
It is a great comfort to see that there will be those who shall never come into judgment. Even now there are those who are completely and eternally exempted from it. Having been justified by God through faith in Christ, they are now cleared from all charge of guilt — that is, sin is not and cannot be imputed to them. Happy people!
Is not this most wonderful? In John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24) Jesus plainly says, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment), but is passed from death unto life.” Paul says by the Spirit, “Much more then being now justified by his blood (His death), we shall be saved from wrath through him.” The same blessed Person whose blood was shed to clear us from judgment, will make sure that none ever falls upon those who have distrusted themselves and their own doings and trusted His atoning blood. Thus will God Honor the precious blood of Christ. Woe be to all who now despise it!
The past being all cleared away and the future secured, we who believe may well be happy in the present enjoyment of the wondrous love of God that gave His Son to accomplish this.
Many believers not seeing their perfect justification by God through the work of Christ from every charge, have not at all times this simple and blessed assurance. Perhaps they have been brought up to believe that such assurance is a great attainment.
They are like a gentleman of whom the story is told, when crossing the Atlantic, thought he observed a storm-cloud, which rather terrified him. A sailor passing observed him in this apparently fearful condition, and inquired the reason. The gentleman replied — “Do you see that cloud overhead? If that cloud bursts upon this vessel we shall all find ourselves in a watery grave.”
The sailor, who knew more about storm-clouds than the passenger, quietly remarked — “Sir, that cloud is not overhead as you suppose. That cloud has spent itself regions behind this vessel. We are now sailing under a cloudless sky.”
What a glad surprise to the timid, frightened passenger! The word of the sailor at once dissolved his doubts and brought peace to his troubled mind. All his fears were now gone, and he sailed to his destination in peace.
Peace to him was the result of learning what he had not previously known. The truth dispelled his ignorance. This is a simple illustration which has helped to clear many a doubting soul.
What is it that drives all terror from our hearts and minds when the thunder-cloud of God’s judgment seems hanging over our heads? Is it not the truth of God’s Word brought home in power to us when believed in all simplicity? When death stares us in the face, and our conscience is under the pressure of sin, and we feel utterly helpless to relieve ourselves, what a relief and joy it is to see for the first time that the thunder-cloud of divine judgment broke over the devoted head of Jesus, and that in His holy spotless soul all the terrors of God’s wrath were forever consumed.
There is no storm-cloud in the sky for the weakest, most timid believing one now to fear. It is regions behind us. We now stand beyond it in the risen Christ, who in His own blessed Person on the cross exhausted it. All who believe are now justified, and are as clear of judgment as the risen glorified Christ of God who sits in the highest place in all the universe.
When He came into the midst of His own His first words were, “Peace be unto you.” He made the peace by bearing the judgment. In heaven He is our peace. Instead of looking above to see clouds, we see Him who went up right through the clouds to clear the way for all who believe on Him.
Once the eye of the soul sees Him in heaven who on the cross exhausted all the judgment, there is peace. Faith sees Him. Faith does not look at self to find happy feelings so as to trust them. Faith looks at an object outside self. That object is Christ in heaven glorified, and, be it said, glorified because He did His blessed work on the cross to the full satisfaction and glory of God.
Anxious, doubting soul, get clear of your doubts now and forever, by looking at Christ and not at self. Put yourself inside this one verse, “Who was delivered for our (my) offenses, and was raised again for our (my) justification.” You cannot help having peace if you do. Peace will flow into your soul almost unconsciously to yourself. Then you will be able to say in truth, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.”
How could there be? He passed through the judgment and exhausted it by bearing it. He is risen and gone up to heaven to live forever in the cloudless sunshine of divine love. Fellow-believer, that is our portion. Not only are we justified, but accepted in the Beloved. If we live daily in the conscious sense of our own acceptance before God in Christ, our souls not only should, but they will be filled with joy and peace all the day long. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.”
No one ever enjoys what he does not believe is his. If we believe all this is ours, we cannot help enjoying it. Let us not be half-hearted, but wholehearted believers, making manifest to all around that we have got something that the world cannot give nor yet take away.
“Not your own! to Him ye owe
All your life and all your love;
Live, that ye His praise may show,
Who receives all praise above.
Every day and every hour,
Every gift and every power,
Consecrate to Him alone
Who hath claimed you for His own.
“Teach us, Master, how to give
All we have and are to Thee;
Grant us, Saviour, while we live,
Wholly only Thine to be.
Henceforth be our calling high,
Thee to serve and glorify:
Ours no longer, but Thine own, —
Thine Forever, Thine alone!”
P. W.