On Thy Judgment-Seat
“We must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ!” — 2 Cob. v. 10.
“All!” There is no eluding that searching scrutiny — “Every eye shall see Him!” My soul! if safe in the covenant, there is to thee no terror in that coming reckoning. The judicial dealing between thyself and thy God is already past. Thou art already acquitted. The moment thou didst cast thyself at the cross of thy dear Lord, the sentence of” !N’ot Guilty” was pronounced upon thee; and “it is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth?” But this sentence will be ratified and openly proclaimed before an assembled world. On that great day of disclosures God will avenge His own elect.
All the calumnies and aspersions heaped on their character will be wiped away. And in presence of devils, and angels, and men, the approving sentence will go forth from the lips of the omniscient One, “Enter ye into the joy of yom’ Lord.”
And who is to be thy Judge? Who is to be enthroned on that tribunal of unerring rectitude, before whom every knee is to bow, and every heart is to be laid open? “He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness ly that Man whom He hath ordained!” “That Man r Oh! it is no stranger! It is He who died for thee; who is now interceding for thee; who will then stand on that latter day on the earth to espouse thy cause, vindicate thine integrity, and utter the challenge to every reclaiming adversaiy, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”
My soul! seek to know this God-Man Mediator on a throne of grace, ere you meet Him on a throne of judgment! Seek to have
-J your name now enrolled in this Book of Life, that you may hear it then confessed before His “Father and the holy angels.”
What an incentive to increased aspirations after holiness and higher sj)iritual attainments, to remember that the awards of that day and of eternity will be determined by the transactions of time! It is a grand Bible principle, that, though justified by faith, we shall be judged by works. Nay more, while from first to last, Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the meritorious cause of salvation, yet the works flowing from faith in Him and love to Him will regulate the degree of future bliss; whether we shall be among the “greatest” or ‘’ the least in the kingdom” — whether we shall occupy the outskirts of glory, or revolve in orbits around the throne in the blaze of God’s immediate presence!
Reader! were that trumpet- blast now to break on thine ear, wouldst thou be prepared with the welcome response, “Even so, come?” Seek to be living in this habitual state of holy preparedness, that even the midnight cry would not take thee by surprise; that the summons which will prove so startling to a slumbering world, would be to thee the herald of glory — “He cometh, He cometh to judge the earth!”
“Never again your loins untie, Nor let your torches waste and die, Till, when the shadows thickest fall, Ye hear your Master’s midnight call!”
O the blessedness of being able, in sweet confidence in the Saviour’s second coming, to compose myself to rest night after night, and say, ‘’ Even though the trumpet of judgment should break upon my ears,
“I WILL BOTH LAY ME DOWN IN PEACE AND SLEEP; FOR THOU, LOED, ONLY MAKEST ME DWELL IN SAFETY!”