Judgment of God

“ How can you stand before the judgment-seat of God, after having in this manner confessed through your whole life upon earth that God is good, and His law is perfect, and yet through that whole life have gone counter to your own confession, neither loving that God, nor obeying that law? "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." ”

“ That God is just, and what it is to be just, I can learn from the just lives of the just men about me; but how just God is, to what unconceived perfection, to what unexplained developments that majestic quality of justice may extend in Him—of that I can form no judgment that is worth anything from the justice I see in my fellow-men. ”

“ You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to hell along with you, accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God's saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity. ”

“ God shall bring every work into judgment. Note, 1. There is a judgment to come, in which every man's eternal state will be finally determined. 2. God himself will be the Judge, God-man will, not only because he has a right to judge, but because he is perfectly fit for it, infinitely wise and just. 3. Every work will then be brought into judgment, will be enquired into and called over again. It will be a day to bring to remembrance every thing done in the body. ”

“ That will be the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God; for then will God judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath appointed, even Jesus Christ the righteous Judge. The righteousness of God does not so visibly appear to all men in the procedure of his providence as it will in the process of the great judgment-day. The scripture has made known to us the judgment to come, and we are bound to receive the revelation here given concerning Christ. ”

“ But how recklessly some people wield the judgments of God! If a man meet with business misfortune, how many there are ready to cry out: "That is a judgment of God upon him because he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or overreaching, or miserly. ”

“ Sore difficulties beset us in working out a clear and harmonious theory of the judgment and its issues. But blessed be God that we can rest in the belief that all will be, in ways that we see not, so wisely and righteously ordered by the Judge of all the earth, as to satisfy the yearning heart, not of the great Father only, but of the Redeemer of humanity, and to fill the universe with praise. Here as elsewhere, when we are bewildered and perplexed by thoughts too high for us and which reach too far, we find a sure refuge and rest in faith. ”

“ Men will find, when truth shines in their spirit, that they have not to await a great day of judgment in the end, when the good results of sin shall be reversed and reward allotted to those who have done righteously, but that judgment is a constant and universal element in God’s government and to be found everywhere throughout it, distinguishing between sin and righteousness in every present instance, and never for one moment allowing to sin the value or the results which only righteousness has. ”

“ For God is just and just are His judgments, and with Him there is no respect of persons; and He judges each in proportion to the varying benefits with which He has endowed mankind—benefits of body or of spirit, whether knowledge, or understanding, or discernment—and will require the fruits of virtue accordingly, and will render to each the due reward of his works in the day of judgment. ”

“ The Law terrorizes the conscience. The Law reveals the wrath and judgment of God. The Gospel does not threaten. The Gospel announces that Christ is come to forgive the sins of the world. The Gospel conveys to us the inestimable treasures of God. ”

“ To this tendency of the human mind is attributable the almost universal adoption of the so-called Judgment of God, by which men, oppressed with doubt, have essayed in all ages to relieve themselves from responsibility by calling in the assistance of Heaven. ”

“ Those that keep judgment are blessed, for they are fit to be employed in praising God. God's people are those whose principles are sound— They keep judgment (they adhere to the rules of wisdom and religion, and their practices are agreeable) ; they do righteousness, are just to God and to all men, and herein they are steady and constant; they do it at all times, in all manner of conversation, at every turn, in every instance, and herein persevering to the end. ”

“ When we are doing the work of the Lord with all our might, and the evil within us is subdued by the power of God, and the light of Christ so shines within us that we can see clearly the things of God and men truly as they are, and all is judged by a righteous judgment, then we may look at and talk about the faults of each other without in the least disturbing our peace. When we do this, working faithfully for the building up of God's kingdom, we are ready to acknowledge all things we possess to be the Lord's, holding them for him in time, not knowing what he will do with them in the future. ”

“ There is no more escape from the one than from the other. It is part of the burden of both the Old and New Testament message that a day of judgment is appointed for the world. God's kingdom shall extend universally; but a judgment in which the wicked are judged and the righteous rewarded is necessary and in order that the kingdom of everlasting righteousness may be established upon the earth.
3. THE CONSCIENCE OF ALL MANKIND CORROBORATES THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIPTURES WITH REGARD TO THE CERTAINTY OF A COMING JUDGMENT. This is true of both the individual and universal conscience. ”

“ And this judgment which he makes of the heart is in order to his passing judgment upon the man; it is to give to every man according to his ways (according to the desert and the tendency of them, life to those that walked in the ways of life, and death to those that persisted in the paths of the destroyer) and according to the fruit of his doings, the effect and influence his doings have had upon others, or according to what is settled by the word of God to be the fruit of men's doings, blessings to the obedient and curses to the disobedient. ”

“ It judges what it cannot understand, because it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely. Let us not use it today, but make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it. He will relieve us of the agony of all the judgments we have made against ourselves, and re-establish peace of mind by giving us God's Judgment of His Son.
Father, we wait with open mind today, to hear Your Judgment of the Son You love. We do not know him, and we cannot judge. And so we let Your Love decide what he whom You created as Your Son must be. ”

“ In the Judgment.—And when we turn to God's relation to us in the judgment, we can be sure, I think, of a further application of this principle, contrary to common teaching and expectation. We have no reason to look forward to a time when the secrets of all, or of any, hearts shall be laid bare to all. In so doing, God would violate, it seems to me, the principle of his entire dealing with men, and give the lie to his own revelation in Christ and in history. ”

“ Christ and his doctrine and doings desire nothing but righteous judgment; if truth and justice may but pass the sentence, Christ and his cause will carry the day. We must not judge concerning any by their outward appearance, not by their titles, the figure they make in the world, and their fluttering show, but by their intrinsic worth, and the gifts and graces of God's Spirit in them. ”

“ For such sins, it says, God has appointed such a punishment; and the object of judgment is to glorify God, by showing how exact he is in finding out every sinner, and fulfilling his every threat against evil. But, according to a better view, which alone can commend itself to minds of any large range—future judgment is simply the act by which God shows to a man the truth concerning himself, so that he can see it. ”

“ Judgment and then deliverance; judgment of the mistakes and sins men have committed, thereby bringing themselves into trouble; conviction of sin and righteousness; thereafter guidance and help that their feet may be set on a rock and their goings established—this is the right sequence. That God should help the proud, the self-sufficient out of their troubles in order that they may go on in pride and vainglory, or that He should save the vicious from the consequences of their vice and leave them to persist in their iniquity, would be no Divine work. ”

“ But though this may be the case in temporals, yet it is not so in spirituals; all judgment is committed to Christ, because he is the Son of Man; he is the judge in the court of mercy, and I will hear what the Lord will say. Moses has condemned me, conscience has said Amen to the sentence, justice demands satisfaction, the law is broken, guilt is great, Satan is busy, hell appears open, heaven shut, and the soul trembles, and with all the heart exclaims, God be merciful to me, to me a sinner! And amidst all, will you believe it, faith is waiting for the sentence from the judge ”

“ If there seem to us to be some irregularity in the present decisions of Providence, yet these, instead of shaking our belief of God's justice, may serve to strengthen our belief of the judgment to come, which will set all to-rights. ”

“ And when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or final for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise, and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated so great a sin. ”

“ In the day when God shall judge - And all this shall be farther exemplified and proved in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ; which judgment shall be according to my Gospel - according to what I am now laying down before you, relative to the impartiality of God, and his righteous procedure in judging men, not according to their opinions or prejudices, not according to revelations which they never possessed, but according to the various advantages or disadvantages of their political, religious, or domestic situation in life. ”

“ In whatever way you judge others, you condemn yourself, for you the judge do exactly the same things. 2And we know that when God judges those who do these things his judgment is absolutely right. 3Do you really think—you the one who is judging those who do such things—that you will escape being judged by God? ”

“ Why will there be a general judgment besides the particular?
For three principal reasons: 1. That God's wisdom and justice may be acknowledged by all men; 2. That Jesus Christ may be glorified before the whole world; and 3. That the good may receive the honor due to them, and the wicked the dishonor they have deserved. ”

“ It is required of a man according to that which he hath—this he can render—the neglect will be fatal. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that we may receive the deeds done in the body, according to that which we have done, whether good or bad. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil.
An unseen hand is constantly writing down our volitions and actions, to be reserved to judgment. ”

“ It is certain that every man's judgment proceeds from the Lord, and it is well or ill with us, and is likely to be so to all eternity, according as we are, or are not, accepted of God. Let this support the drooping spirits of the righteous, that the Lord knows their way, knows their hearts, (Jer. xii. 3.) knows their secret devotions, (Matth. vi. 6.) knows their character, how much soever it is blackened and blemished by the reproaches of men, and will shortly make them and their way manifest before the world, to their immortal joy and honour. ”

“ From this we may deduce, as regards the matter under discussion, that, although God may have revealed or affirmed something to a soul, whether good or evil, and whether relating to that soul itself or to others, this may, to a greater or a lesser extent, be changed or altered or entirely withdrawn, according to the change or variation in the affection of this soul, or the cause whereon God based His judgment, and thus it would not be fulfilled in the way expected, and oftentimes none would have known why, save only God. ”

“ We think we may safely refer ourselves to a man of judgment; and shall we not commit our way to a God of judgment? (2.) That therefore all those are blessed who wait for him, who not only wait on him with their prayers, but wait for him with their hopes, who will not take any indirect course to extricate themselves out of their straits, or anticipate their deliverance, but patiently expect God's appearances for them in his own way and time. ”

“ He supposes that there is a day coming when we must all give an account of ourselves to God; and he declares that then the judgment will proceed, and the sentence pass, not according to the sentiments of the world concerning us, or any ungrounded opinion we may have had of ourselves, or upon our having been better or worse than others, but according as our state and behaviour have really been in the sight of God. ”

“ And yet it is our Lord's judgment—it is God's own verdict—that this man, this publican, this sullied, sin-stained, but withal penitent man, went down to his home justified rather than the highly respectable, highly respected, highly religious Pharisee. The answer is this—to know God is the beginning and the end of all wisdom; to know God is to think truly, is to act truly, is to live truly. ”