WAR, WORLD WIDE TERRORISM & NATURAL DISASTERS!

SURLY THESE ARE SIGNS THAT:

THE JUDGMENT DAY IS NEAR!

BUT WHAT IS THE JUDGMENT DAY?

· Is it a literal twenty – four hour day? Is it a day filled with fear & quaking? A day set aside to sentence every man woman & child who has lived to a place of eternal bliss or a place of eternal suffering & untellable tortures

· Or is the judgment day scenario entirely different from this?

LET’S CONSIDER BRIEFLY THE JUDGMENT DAY –

FROM TWO VIEWPOINTS: GOD’S & MAN’S

MAN’S VIEW of the Day of Judgment began to be introduced in the Second Century and human fear and superstition made it worse and worse over the years until it became man’s worse nightmare. Man’s mind became filled with visions of monstrous demons, which God employed to torture the billions of mankind. And what made this nightmare more horrifying was the realization that our family, neighbors & friends might be among these billions! And while these unfortunate ones are being tortured day in and day out without end, the small remnant of fortunate faithful ones supposedly look over the battlements of Heaven and rejoice in the misery of the unfortunates…

GOD’S VIEW (found in the Bible) however is very different. In fact, the Bible represents the judgment day as a period of glory and blessing. The Psalmist for instance calls upon humanity and all creation to rejoice because the Lord would come to judge the earth in righteousness and the poor with equity (Psalm 98:9)

According to the Bible, the world's Judgment Day will be mankind’s time of opportunity for coming to a knowledge of God. Then with this PROPER KNOWLEDGE man will be tried, tested, or judged, as to their willingness to serve and obey God and His righteous government. Those found heartily obedient will be granted everlasting life with every joy and blessing appropriate to man in his perfection. Those rebellious to the light of the righteousness of Jehovah will be destroyed in the Second Death without hope of any future whatever.

This judgment day according to the scriptures will be the time when all the heathen will have their trial, after they shall all be brought by Messiah's Kingdom to a clear knowledge of the Truth. That will be the time in fact, when the great masses of Christendom will for the first time hear of the real character of God and His requirements of them.

Although some of them may have been in churches occasionally and may have seen Bibles occasionally, nevertheless the eyes of their understanding were darkened. They saw not; they heard not; they understood not. Why? Because the god of this world blinded them by replacing the truth with error, by replacing a God of love with a demonic God. (Mat 13:13,14; 2 Cor. 4:4)

That Judgment Day, the thousand years of Messiah's Kingdom, will not only bind Satan, but chase away with the glorious beams of the Sun of Righteousness all the darkness, superstition and error of the world (Rev. 20:1,2; Mal. 4:2; Isa. 60:2). The Church will not be judged during that thousand-year Judgment Day, because her trial, her judgment, takes place now--during this Gospel Age. The saintly few who will gain the great prize of joint-heirship with the Redeemer, Messiah, will be His Queen and sit with Him in the Great White Throne of Judgment mentioned in the text; as the Apostle declares, "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?" (Psa. 45:9; Rev. 3:21; 1Cor. 6:2)

MAN’S VIEW OF JUDGMENT:

NOT ONLY ERRONEOUS BUT UNREASONABLE

Most hold the view that man, "born in sin, shapen in iniquity," (Psa. 51:5) and depraved in all of his appetites, will be condemned of God in the Judgment Day on account of this heredity and environment, for which he is not responsible. This theory also holds that the heathen also will be damned in that Judgment Day, because they did not know and didn’t accept "the only name given under heaven" (Acts 4:12). This unreasonable theory also states that the masses of civilized society would in that Judgment Day be damned because they did not live perfectly (an impossibility due to heredity).

Those of us who view the Judgment day from God’s perspective (according to the scriptures) see that the death sentence was upon Adam and his entire race, which were in his loins when he sinned (Rom 5:12,18,19). We see that they could not be put on trial a second time until released from the first sentence. We see that their release will be at the Second Coming of Messiah in the glory of His Kingdom, when He shall cause the knowledge of the Lord to fill the whole earth and open all the blinded eyes (Isa. 11:9; 35:5).

Then, because of having satisfied the claims of Justice against the race, the Great Redeemer, as the Mediator of the New Covenant, will grant the world of mankind another judgment or trial--additional to the one given to Adam, in which they all failed and from the penalty of which failure Jesus redeemed them. True, the measure of light and knowledge now enjoyed and willfully sinned against will work as a corresponding degradation of character; all downward steps will need to be retraced.

"The Great White Throne"

What does the whiteness of "The Great White Throne” of (Rev. 20:11) indicate symbolically?

In symbol white represents purity. So "The Great White Throne" represents the purity of the justice and judgment that will be meted out by the Great Redeemer as the Messiah-King. The heavens and earth that will flee away from the presence of that throne are not the literal heavens and earth, but the symbolic. The symbolic heavens are the religious ruling powers and the symbolic earth is the present social arrangements. These will not be able to stand in the presence of that majestic Tribunal.

The people of earth in this day will not be judged nationally nor by parliaments and systems in society, but individually. The judgment or trial will not merely test those living at the time of the establishment of the Kingdom, but will include all the dead. The books of the Bible will then all be opened—that is, understood. All will then see that the Golden Rules laid down by inspiration through Moses and the Prophets, Jesus and His Apostles, are the very ones with which God will require people in the future and which Messiah will then enable the willing and obedient to comply by assisting them up out of their sin and degradation. The judgment of that time, the test, will not be of faith, for knowledge will be universal and all the darkness and obscurity created by ignorance and superstition will have passed away. The test at that time will be of works, whereas the tests of the Church at the present time are of faith.

Another Book of Life Opened

Now the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev. 13:8) alone is open and only those called to be members of the Bride class and who accept the call are written therein. But in the great day of the world's trial or Judgment, another book of life will be opened (Rev 20:12). A record will be made of all who, by obedience, show themselves worthy of everlasting life on the human plane, and, if faithful, they will eventually be accepted of the Father to life eternal.

What about those who will not give their hearts to the Lord and be obedient to the laws of the Messianic Kingdom? These will fail the test! And failing the fairest most favorable test that could possibly be given, these will prove themselves incorrigible, unworthy of life, so they "shall be destroyed from amongst the people." (Acts 3:19-23).