THE BOOKS OPENED by St. Louis Christian Advocate

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 33.

THE BOOKS OPENED.

By St. Louis Christian Advocate

THE book of Revelation is, the gospel illustrated. The picture of the Judgment is graphic and impressive:—

“I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”

These books are the things that make that hour terrible and its decision alarming. These books are simply the proofs of what we are, tested by what we do. Each one is writing a book, the transcript and picture of ourselves, our thoughts, our fancies, our words, our works; we write the book and the book is as we are. It is not a self-chosen task, but one to which we are decreed, as certain as life; to live is to write. The biographer runs parallel with the biography; they are one. The books are not open now; character is hidden, silent, shaded. Men are not what they seem; not hypocrites, but concealed; not sham, but flowing under ground. Paul says, “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.” Our conceptions of men are partial, the facts are not all before us, cannot be. But the Judgment will have all the facts. To us the books are not open; then they will be opened, everything full, uncovered, exact. Then shall we be seen and known as we are, the veil torn from character, the light let in on human motives and history. More fearful if possible than the great white throne will these books be. For the books will give to the throne its terror—its decision made up from their lips, its Judge speaking only the sentence they had rendered. Those opened books have armed that throne with all its fierceness, kindled every flame, written every doom. These books are being written, each individual is writing secretly and openly his book. Every sensation, act, word, deed, like the pulsations of the heart, is making the record, is making the history, is writing the book. This book, the transcript of what we are, and what we have done, is the Book of Death. But over against it the Book of Life will be opened. With what painful, trembling solicitude we will listen to the unfolding of its long roll of saints and heroes. Will our names be written there? What kind of a book are we writing? What character and eternal destiny does it bear for us under its sealed cover?