The Comfort of Judgment

1 Peter iv. 17 v.

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”

There was a time when men thought very differently. It was once believed that evil fell most heavily on the wrong-doer. That was because the Pure Soul had not yet appeared. When the Pure Soul appeared there came a new revealing; the penalties of life passed me by and fell on Him. And, ever since, to those that bear His spirit it has been the same. The thunderbolts of God strike loudest on the good. Conscience makes not cowards of us all; it makes cowards of the whitest. I have read that the dead in Christ rise first to judgment. Why not? The pure mirror is most dimmed by the breath. The good ear is most jarred by the discord. The keen eye is most sensitive to the cloud. The men on the left have no fear of judgment — “When saw we Thee hungry and did not minister unto Thee?” The men on the right have no salve for a wounded conscience — “When saw we Thee athirst and gave Thee drink?” Only Christ’s Spirit can convince of sin.

My Father, is the picture of my life worth Thy criticism? Thy criticism is my conscience. Do I say “the picture is beautiful “? Then I am no artist, no member of Thy house, Thy royal academy. All membership there begins with judgment. I search my soul for the comfort of pain — the pain of self-condemnation. How shall I find it? Who shall create within me the beginning of the art of love? What shall waken me into discontent with my own picture? One thing alone, my rather. Let me gaze on a perfect model. Bring me into Thy house but for an hour, and point me to the portrait of Jesus. Let me look at the matchless beauty, at the stainless purity, at the spotless splendour of the humanly divine. Let me see the strength in gentleness, the courage in tenderness, the charity in righteousness, that has left its impress here. Let me catch a glimpse of the love undying in death, unsinking in the sea, unconquered in the cross. Then shall I fall prostrate before Thy judgment seat. Then shall d 2 my complacency be consumed like filthy rags. I shall call to the rocks to hide me, and to the mountains to cover me from the sight of my own picture. And in the cry I shall find peace — the artist’s peace. I shall know by contempt of self that my eyes have rested on the perfect beauty. I shall tell, by the shadow of judgment, that within Thy house I have seen the dawn.