THE JUDGMENT by B. L. Howe

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1901

THE JUDGMENT.

By B. L. Howe

ELDER B. L. HOWE.

(Honolulu, H. I.)

THE prophetic message that announces the entrance of Christ upon the atonement work, as represented in the cleansing of the sanctuary, is called the judgment message. Judgment is defined as “the act of judging; the mental operation by which facts are weighed, comparisons and deductions made, and conclusions reached; the faculty by the exercise of which deliberate conclusion is reached. Psychologically considered, it is the process or form of comparison in which conceptions or notions are compared, and their logical agreement or disagreement apprehended, and mentally asserted.”

By these definitions it is evident that the term judgment is not, as it has come to be theologically considered, merely the rendering of a decision, but it has in it the thought of a progressive work, in which facts are considered, evidences are studied, testimony is weighed, and conclusions are reached, preparatory to the rendering of a final decision, which brings us to the definition of the term as used in law.

When the Lord decided that the earth should be overflowed by water, He centered all the energies of heaven in the work of warning the people and preparing a way of escape. He connected every faithful man and woman with Him in this work.

When the time came for the revealing of God in Jesus Christ to the world, the angel came to Mary and said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.” When Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea, a multitude of the heavenly host came to make it known. The shepherds spread the tidings abroad.

When Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” All heaven was doing everything in its power to turn the thoughts of the people on earth to the subject in which it was interested.

The time came for the judgment message to go to the world. The prophet Daniel had a view of the opening of the judgment. The Father and Christ were both engaged in the work, and—not a multitude of the heavenly host, but the entire host—“ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands.” Every one in heaven is interested in the judgment work. All have a part to act in it.

This wonderful interest in heaven does not, however, satisfy the mind and purpose of God. The exile on Patmos saw a mighty angel flying through the midst of heaven, crying with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.” This time was reached in the fall of 1844. The judgment was set, the books were opened, and every member of the family in heaven was concerned about the work. But the work of the judgment especially concerned the people on earth. The cases of the dead were to be investigated, but it was the travelers, somewhere on the road between birth and the grave, that the Lord was especially anxious to have connected with the work of the judgment. God is now holding an open court into which He invites all. So the call to come into court is sent down from heaven. It travels by land and by sea, and through the day and night the cry sounds, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.” At the going forth of this message a solemn earnestness settled down upon the people everywhere. In the places where the older people were not allowed to preach the message, the Spirit of God came upon the children, and they preached with such power that backsliders returned to the Lord, and sinners were converted.

In the type every one who was called under the name of Israel was interested and had a part to act in the service of the day of atonement. Although the decision was not reached until the close of the day, every individual had a part to work out for himself, from the beginning to the end of the judgment day. So the work of the final judgment is not all in the decree which says that every man must remain just as he is.

The hour of God’s judgment came at the conclusion of the prophetic period of twenty-three hundred days, in the fall of 1844, and every one who has heard the certain sound of the trumpet since that time, and has accepted the message, has become a living, active part of that open court, which the Judge of all is conducting.

The Judge and all His associates in heaven are devoting their thought and energy to weighing the evidences for and against the applicants for eternal life. Are we overcoming, or are we being overcome? Are our sins all confessed, and pardon written over against the very last one? We need not concern ourselves as to whether the judgment has begun with the living. If we are living this side of 1844, we cannot be living in any other time than the time of the judgment.

The work of the day of atonement in the type demanded the most solemn service and best energies of all the living people; so the judgment

message for to-day is sent to living, active people, that they may know, and live, and act as though standing before the throne of the Eternal. Only those who receive this message as a living reality, and walk with God, as Enoch did, will meet their Lord at His coming without tasting death.

We now have a case in the open court of heaven, for the Lord has raised us up together with Christ, and we are sitting with Him, in the sanctuary, in heavenly places. “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.” Blessed life! hidden with Christ in God, nothing is seen but God’s own life.

With what earnestness, with what gladness, we should press forward, for the glad day is just about to be ushered in, in which the last foul stain of sin is to be forever blotted from the universe.

“The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hasteth greatly.” God help us all, and make us stand now, that we may stand then.