Are You READY to Appear in Court?
By Varner J. Johns
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 2 Corinthians 5:10. “We must all appear.” Men may ridicule the Bible and reject its message of salvation; they may scorn the divine pardon and scoff at redeeming love; but they must render an account of their evil deeds and their idle words before the judgment bar of God. “We must all appear.” There are no exemption clauses in the Bible record. Rich and poor, black and white, bond and free—all are included in the summons to the great court session. There are no court favorites; there are no special privileges. All men everywhere are included in the roll call of the judgment. “We must all appear.” Your wife, Mr. Man-of-the-world, may keep the home fires of religion burning for you and for the children, but her faith in Christ cannot cover your sinful record. You must appear to give account of your riotous living; you must pay the penalty for your reckless abandonment. Your dear old mother may spend her days in sorrow and her nights in prayer. With bleeding heart, with blasted hopes, she may go down to her grave praying for the boy who went astray, but her prayers cannot wipe the foul stains from your page in the books of record. “According to that he hath done.” It is not our intentions, nor our promises, nor our pledges, nor our resolutions that are given consideration in the judgment. “The Judge of all the earth” penetrates the inner recesses of the heart. Hidden sins are laid bare, secret thoughts are exposed, dark deeds are brought to light. Of no avail are the words, “I intended to do right.” The selfish heart cannot commit itself to unselfish deeds. Thoughts of hate and revenge never lead to deeds of love and kindness. Hidden sin is not linked with deeds of righteousness. Thoughts are sown in the springtime of life. Deeds are the harvest from the seeds of thought. You may carelessly sow the seeds of sin, but you will have to do the reaping. Let me read you a law of life that is as certain as the law of gravitation. It is found in James 1:15: “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Death—eternal death—is the end of that impure thought, that unholy imagination, that poisonous suggestion, that is formed in your mind. Sin is the most expensive thing in all the universe. Pardoned or unpardoned, its cost is infinite. Pardoned, the penalty is paid in the blood of the innocent substitute, the Son of God. Unpardoned, its penalty is the life of the guilty sinner. Sin pays its wages in full. The first installment is sorrow and suffering; the last installment is despair and death. “The wages of sin is death.” Sin is declared to be the violation of an infinitely important law. In 1 John 3:4 is the inspired definition: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” All through the ages the Ten Commandments have stood as the fundamental code of morality. They were ordered of God because they reflect the character of God. They are the perfect standard of righteousness, and their violation is called “sin.” Nothing so dishonors God as a disregard of His law. Nothing is so destructive of Christianity as antinomianism. Either the penalty of the broken law must be paid or the whole government of God would crumble. That is why Jesus came into this world of sin. He came to vindicate God’s justice. He came to demonstrate before the universe that it was possible, while living in the midst of corruption, to live without the stain of sin. He came to uphold the majesty of God’s law. He came to pay the penalty for the transgression of that law. He came to die in our stead, that we might live through Him. The life of Christ was a living expression of the law of God. Jesus put the law in practice. His was a life of perfect obedience. And, friends, if we expect to walk with Him in that land of wondrous beauty, we must learn to walk with Him now in the path of sacred duty. There is no excuse for disobedience. Jesus came to make it possible for us to keep the Ten Commandments. If He is enthroned in our hearts, His life of obedience will be lived out in us. Let me tell you plainly, disobedience is sin. And it is only the carnal nature that cries out against the law of God and chafes under the binding restrictions of the Ten Commandments. “The carnal mind . . . is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Some people find fault with the Ten Commandments. For them Christian liberty means “license,” and righteousness means to do what they please. People of the world break the Ten Commandments, and we call them sinners. But some “Christians” think they can trample underfoot one or more of the commands of God, and excuse themselves by saying, “We are not under the law, we are under grace.” Sin has ever been the transgression of the Ten Commandments. It was so in the days of Cain, and it is so to-day. Morality is not a sliding scale. Truth is eternal and unchangeable. The same Ten-Commandment law that was binding upon patriarchs, prophets, and apostles is binding upon us to-day. But it is a law of bondage only to the sinner. It is a law of liberty to those who walk with Jesus. That law, the law of Ten Commandments, is the standard in the judgment. You will be judged by that law; I will be judged by it. Let me read it to you right out of the New Testament. In James 2:10-12, I read, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” Two of the Ten Commandments are named in these verses. Thus does Inspiration identify the law that is called “the law of liberty.” It is indeed a “law of liberty” to those who live victorious lives. When a man calls the Ten Commandments a “law of bondage,” I know that he himself is in bondage to sin; he would not find fault with the divine “looking-glass” if there were no stains of sin reflected in that mirror of righteousness. But he would do well to remember that it is by that law that he is judged. The “whole duty” of man is summed up in the Ten Commandments, and in the judgment the record of man is compared with this rule of righteousness. Let us read theFivelast two verses in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” “Every work” into judgment; faith in Christ is the touchstone of righteousness, but abiding faith is evidenced in good works. Those who talk of “faith” while trampling upon the law, those who speak of “grace” while giving evidence in their words and deeds that they do not have the “fruit of the Spirit,” may deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive the Lord. “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Revelation 22:12. “Like lightning’s flash will that instant show
Things hidden long from both friend and foe;
Just what we are will each neighbor know,
When the King comes in.”
Now is the appointed time for heart preparation. Now is the appointed time to get rid of sin. Now is the appointed time to square our lives with the divine rule. In the judgment it will be too late to change our characters, and “Endless the sad separation then,
Bitter the cry of deluded men,
Awful that moment of anguish when
Christ the King comes in.”
A remarkable pen picture of the judgment is given to us in Daniel, chapter 7. The books of record are opened,—the book of life, wherein are the names of those who have accepted Jesus as their Saviour; the book of remembrance, with its record of the righteous deeds of those that love the Lord; and the other books. The judgment begins with the name of Adam and passes along through the many generations of men. Finally it reaches the names of the living. Finally it reaches your name and my name. Is your record clear before God, or are you waiting for some more favorable season of salvation? One morning about two o’clock I received a telephone call from a boy whose mother had been a member of our church. His father was dying. Would I come? Of course I was ready to help in that hour of need. I stood by the side of the dying man, talked with him about the eternal realities, then, at his request, kneeled in prayer. Then he prayed—and such a prayer it was! Never had I heard a more perfect prayer. Somehow the man passed through this sudden attack and lived for several months. The next day I called upon him and referred to the events of the night before. He did not remember anything of the experience. “But don’t you remember my praying, and your praying?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “I certainly do not remember praying last night.” So it is with the majority of “deathbed” repentances. The mind is weakened, the strength is gone, the character is fixed. The prayer of anguish at the eleventh hour is indeed a strange climax to the life of a scoffing, jeering, reckless sinner. Character building is the work of to-day, not of to-morrow. Delay has ever been dangerous, but it is doubly so at the present time; for we are living in the days of the investigative judgment. The apostle Paul could reason before Felix of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.” But our message for these last days is, “The hour of His judgment is come.” PROBATION WILL SOON CLOSE
For a generation we have been living in the time of the judgment. The great threefold message of Revelation 14, the message that is heralded to the world just before Jesus comes, is now being proclaimed. An integral part of that message of mercy is, “The hour of His judgment is come.” Bible prophecy locates the very year of the beginning of the investigative judgment. We do not know when probation’s hour will close, nor do we know when your name and my name will come before the heavenly tribunal. In such an hour as we think not probation will close for us. In such an hour as we think not the decree will go forth: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Revelation 22:11. While the door of probation stands ajar, while mercy lingers for fallen men, let us open our hearts to Jesus. Let us do it to-day. To-morrow may be one day too late.