SERMON XVI – William Elbert Munsey
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
” But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
” Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness ;
” Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ?
” Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
“Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” — 2 Peter 3:10-15.
THIS day is called by Peter, in the text, “the day of the Lord,” because for it all other days are ; from it all other days borrow their value ; and into it the interests of all other days will be crowded, from the first day that dawned and flashed its splendors upon man’s Eden home, till the last day shall fade. It will be emphatically ” the day of the Lord,” because, then, He will so publicly demonstrate His justice and integrity in saving the righteous and destroying the wicked, as to call forth the voluntary and spontaneous sanction of the Universe. The principles of His law, the righteousness of its claims, the justness of its penalty, the moral agency and conduct of His subjects, the principles upon which some are saved and others lost, the whole ad- ministration and system of His government, will be so perfectly exhibited and endorsed, that heaven, earth, and hell will say ” Amen.” Then, for the first time since man was made, God will receive Universal glory.
It will be ” the day of the Lord,” for Christ shall be the Judge ; ” The Father hath committed all judgments unto the Son.” The General Judgment is the consummation of the scheme of Redemption. Christ is the subject of redemption : He began it, and He will finish it. He began it in humiliation and suffering, He will end it in august and triumphant grandeur. His persecutors, crucifiers, and tempter will stand as trembling culprits at His judicial bar. All His enemies will stand quaking beneath the majesty of His glory, and wait with insufferable woe the announcement of their doom. It will be the day of Christ’s triumph.
II. This is not a dream. The announcement of this warning is a great coming fact. The text says, ” The day of the Lord will come ! ” In the days of the Apostle Peter there were scoffers who denied this, doctrine and said, ” Where is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” After showing the sophistry of such a process of reasoning, by arguments drawn from the creation and Noah’s flood, he shows the fallacy of attributing our ideas of the length of time to God, and says, ” The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,” and assigns a reason for the apparent delay of Christ’s coming, the mercy of God in extending the time of man’s probation as a race, and adds by inspiration, ” The day of the Lord will come,”—*, truth at once repeated by every writer in the New Testament.
There will be a General Judgment, a period when all men will be judged, because it is the universal teaching of the Bible. Because man is in a state of trial as a race. There- fore he must be judged as a race, hence a General Judgment. And as judgment cannot precede trial, it must be in the future ; because all things were made for God’s glory. Such is the teaching of the Bible. Then from the nature of God, and the relation all created being sustains to Him, it is clearly presumptive that the chief end of all things objectively by the Divine intention was to glorify Him. God is glorified when anything He has made carries out the design He had in the making. God is glorified when the principles of His government are maintained, though it may involve the defeat of some of His designs by the unlawful action of some intelligent moral agent. But God is more powerfully glorified when intelligent beings whom He has made, who are capable of «thinking, investigating, reasoning, and acting for them- selves, voluntarily bear witness to the integrity of His character, and the rectitude of His administration. Good men may glorify God in this sense in the absence of all knowledge of the character and principles of the administration of His government by faith, but demons and wicked men would not. In fact faith ceases to perform the functions of such an office at the expiration of the mediation of Christ in the practical redemption of sinners.
To secure the united voice of the intelligent universe in glorifying God, there must be a thorough and perfect exposition of the entire administration of God affecting men ; and which from the necessity of the case could not be made with- out the publication of every thought, word, and action, com- mitted by the human family. Again the will of God is only realized in the perfect. The earth, the surrounding heavens, are not perfect. If perfect, there would not be leagues of barren sand, and smothering bogs ; continents of ice, and districts of sterility. If perfect, the conjunction of natural causes would not be so imperfect, that plants would bud before frosts cease, and frosts come before plants mature.
Geology teaches us that the earth has passed through many epochs, every one precipitating it towards perfection. Every epoch has involved the change or destruction of the living creatures inhabiting it — others taking their places better adapted every way to its improved condition. If it is not yet perfect , and the will of God is only realized in the per- fect, this in connection with the precursory changes every- where apparent, points to a coming geological epoch^which will certainly change the destiny of the creatures now inhabiting it — and is presumptive evidence of the General Judgment— involving the end of man’s probation as a race*and his introduction into a higher state, and the attending geo- logical phenomena described in the Bible.
III. The manner of His coming. — “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night — i. e. unexpectedly to us. Men know not when it is. Says Christ, in “an hour when ye think not.” Do you think he will come now? That condition is fulfilled — unexpectedly. Hear Christ : ” But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray : for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. “Watch ye therefore ; for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock- crowing, or in the morning ; Lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.”
You say the Judgment will not come now, for Christ says, ” This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come,” and this is not fulfilled. The end spoken of in the verse which should come, means the end of the Jewish Nationality — not the end of the world. You answer, the Gospel was not preached “in all the world ” before the final destruction of the Jewish nationality, which happened a.d. 70. But Paul says it was. In Col. x. 23, eight years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, he writes : ” Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.”
Very often in the Bible the whole is put for a part. The Roman Empire, the small part of the world with which they were acquainted, was called all the world. ” All countries came into Egypt …. to buy corn.” Let the Bible explain itself and there is no difficulty. When Christ said the ” Gospel …. shall be preached in all the world,” before the coming of a certain event, we understand him to mean to the Jews and surrounding nations ; we then can clearly under- stand what Paul meant when he said the Gospel ” was preached to every creature . . . . under heaven.” Upon any other Scriptural exegesis we are involved in difficulties from which there is no extrication. Take it any way, the prophecy is no objection to the Judgment coming now.
IV. Let us consider the vast changes in the Divine Government, the events of such a day will produce. It will end the administration of the Kingdom of Grace.
This whole system in its magnificent embodiment is ambrotyped, unified and epitomized in man the microcosm. He is a material being, and, as such, is under material laws and material government. He is a spiritual being, and, as such, he is under spiritual laws and spiritual government. He is a moral being, and as such he is under moral law, and moral government. The unity of God duplicated itself in the unity of His system ; the unity of His system duplicated itself in the unity of man. Man is therefore the counterpart of God in miniature. Man’s relations to God, and God’s system are of the most intimate and sympathetic character.
Now, sin affected man and disturbed the unity of his entire being, and made the conjunction of all material, spiritual, and moral causes so unnatural, as to disjoint and disorganize all his parts and powers, and pile them in a wasted ruin, which made angels weep. Man’s relations to the system of God were such that his ruin affected the whole. Having in his constitution the essential links to the system of God, and sin severing these, the whole system commenced disuniting, and a howl of horror ran along the pathway of every orb and echoed and reverberated amid the trembling arches of universal being.
To prevent universal ruin God must cast sin out of His system, and grasp the dissevered cords binding the whole into a unity and cement them again. God’s system constituted an ellipse of which God and man were the foci. All cords of unity proceeded from God by divergence, and united in man by convergence. Man being a focus, his destruction affected the whole. God must unite all relations again in their appropriate focus. Hence, man was to be restored.
To accomplish this, God established a dispensation of Grace, the appropriate form of the recuperative power of His system, having for its object the redemption of man. A levelled, balanced scheme whirling around a centre, and that centre a cross, and that cross consecrated by a victim, and that victim the propitiary sacrifice for the world. That system of grace was founded upon the mediation of Christ.
The characteristics of this system of Grace are pardon and salvation. It is the only thing which can pardon. Law cannot pardon. Justice cannot pardon in the absence, of satisfaction. This scheme working commensurate with law and working to a great destiny.
But, when the day of judgment comes, Christ will close the book of mercy, lay aside the sacerdotal garments, wind up the period of grace, and come as the Judge of men, not as their Saviour. The sinner may then fall upon his knees, and with streaming eyes lift his hands to heaven, and plead for pardon and salvation, but the mediatorial Kingdom of Christ will be at an end, the dispensation of grace will be finished, and mercy will be clean gone forever. In place of the smiling face of a sympathetic Saviour, the stern brow and angry eye of an awful Judge will fill his soul with horrors till fleeing into the gorges of the quaking earth, and clambering amid her rocking crags, with expectant earnestness they will cry out to the frowning granite and towering slate, to tottei and fall upon them and hide them from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne forever and forever.
It will end the dispensations of Providence with reference to man as a creature on probation. Under the administration of Divine Providence in this world, all events, all causes — natural, moral, casual — all effects, are subordinated to carry out the design of Christ’s mediation, the salvation of man. For this all Providential agencies walk, fly, revolve, and act. To this all its dispensations, however wide and mysterious they are in their sweep, tend and converge in focal glory.
But when the throne of Judgment descends, the chariot of Providence will ascend. As the one will sweep upward, the other will descend in fiery grandeur. They will meet above the stars. As the one will sweep over flowery plains to the Throne of God, the other will roll along the mountain tops jarring all the earth. And the sinner when condemned to dwell in inextinguishable fires, will learn by sad experience that the punishments of hell are not corrective, but penal.
It will end human probation. Men are in a state of trial. They are the architects of their own fortunes. This is the state of preparation. Heaven above, hell below, and a mediocral earth the stage. Probation will end, and destiny will be unalterably, and irrevocably fixed.
V. Let us examine some of the characteristics and facts of that day. The trump of God will sound, the dead will be raised, and the Judge attended by legions of angels will come with a shout, and be met in mid-air by the righteous ascending with a shout ; and the earth and the heavens afire will flee from His presence.
The text says, ” The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise.” The heavens here mean the earth’s surrounding atmosphere, and not the whole material universe. The destruction of the universe identically with the destruction of this earth is not taught in the Bible.
Owing to the vast chemical changes which must take place in the earth and atmosphere to sustain the description of the phenomena of the text, the sun may appear to grow dark, the moon may look like blood, and the stars appear to fall ; but the descriptions of such phenomena in the Bible are splendid figures, always having reference to the end of kingdoms and pseudo-religions, and not to the General Judgment.
The atmosphere will be so affected by heat, and have so many gases thrown into it from a burning world, as probably to destroy its character as a medium for the transmission of light, and the Sun may appear darkened, and the Moon may look red like blood, and inflammable hydrogen and other gases liberated by heat uniting with oxygen of the atmosphere, the highest supporter of combustion known, may produce meteoric coruscations filling the air, resembling falling stars — also verifying the declaration of the text. in causing the heavens to ” pass away with a great noise.” Such would be the natural effect of such chemical action.
Again, ” The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” The elements, or first principles of nature, which can- not be burned up, the text says shall be melted. This may refer to that portion of the globe which has already been oxydized or burned, therefore could only be melted then. But the combustible matter of the globe, the surface of its continents, its mountains, with all the splendid works of art scattered over its surface, will be ” burned up ” — the whole globe will probably be a globe of fused rock.
French astronomers say that, in the last three hundred years, fifteen hundred fixed stars, at least, have disappeared from the firmament. A European astronomer says that a brilliant star which on account of its peculiar radiance had been an object of his especial and daily observation for several months, paled gradually and finally disappeared. Another astronomer describes a star as ” of a dazzling white, next of a glowing red and yellow lustre, and finally it became pale and ash-colored,” then vanished. He attributes the destruction of the star to fire, and says that it was burning sixteen months. The fifty-seven Asteroids, revolving along irregular orbits frequently decussating each other between Mars and Jupiter, are thought to be the fragments of a large and exploded sphere. That stars and planets have been burned or torn to pieces by internal fires I have no doubt, but that they were annihilated is unphilosophic.
Now, the earth contains the elements of its own destruction : — Latent fire is slumbering in all nature — In descend- ing into the earth every forty-five feet, heat increases one degree Fahr. In the same ratio, at the depth of sixty miles every known rock would be melted — The very form of the earth as an oblate-spheroid shows that it was once in a state of fusion — Three hundred active volcanoes belching thunders forged in subterraneous fires are terrific witnesses — Ridges, mountains, continents, disjointed strata, bespeak internal fires — Some dynamic power is elevating islands continually. One arose this year in the Grecian Archipelago — The organic remains of animals and plants indicate that in the earlier ages of the earth its temperature was warmer — The ancient heathens believed there were internal fires, but they were the fires of Vulcan’s forges where the Cyclops worked, of which volcanoes were the chimneys — What an ocean of fire ! nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, enclosed in a cyst only sixty miles in thickness. Let God but remove the counter- vailing agencies ; let Him but unchain it, and earth’s primordial fires will rend the feeble crust, and pour their cataclysms of flame along the mountain gorges, and leaping will kiss away the shiny glaciers cresting mountain towers, and mountains and continents will sink in one melted mass of liquid rock. Other stars will see the fire* and speculate on the phenomenon.
Fire does not annihilate, it only changes the form of mat- ter. The earth purified by fire will constitute a new geological substratum upon which God will doubtlessly rear a more splendid creation ; for says the text there shall be a ” new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” This old earth will be changed, and the change will be so radical, that it is called a “new earth.”’ A new earth be- cause of its geological changes — There will be no more sea — deserts — bogs — sterile districts. — Diamond is crystallized carbon ; charcoal is carbon ; there is carbon in the stone, carbon in the earth, carbon in the leaf, everywhere. The fire may crystallize it all into diamond — A new earth because of its zoological changes — A new earth because of its moral changes.
But the earth and heavens afire .will flee from the presence of the descending Judge, and His throne will be set in space, to Judge both angels and men. Every angel in the universe will be there. Heaven will be emptied. Millions of spheres will be deserted by their ministering spirits. They will crowd all space in their lightning flight to the throne of the Man of Calvary, the Jehovah of the patriarchs. Hell will open its hideous mouth, and its blackened legions will come tramping out of its dungeons, darkening the ether in their as- cent to the Judgment seat.
Every son and daughter of our apostate race will be there. There are twelve hundred millions of people now living. The future plus may balance the past minus, and then it may average that number every age. Aggregate the ages, and we may have a number infinite to human calculation. And possibly the representatives of a thousand worlds may be there.
How strangely mixed ! Antediluvians, postdiluvians, Asiatics, Caucasians, Africans, Indians. All types, Japhetic, Hamitic, Shemitic. All languages, all fashions, all ages. There will be Michael, tallest angel in heaven’s hierarchy, with his brilliant train. There will be the fallen Lucifer, with his ruined third of heaven’s host. O, the throng of living creatures ! flatten the earth, and there would not be room to stand — every inch filled. He looks at me.
All will be there to be judged according to law. What Law ? the great moral law of the universe. The distinctions” made in our text books, that the heathen will be judged by the law of conscience, the Jews by the law of Moses, and Christians by the Gospel, are all unscriptural and absurd. The passages of Scripture quoted to prove these distinctions only teach that men will be judged as they know the law, and in proportion as they know it, or having opportunity for doing so. Adamic law, and mosaic law, are about as sensible as Bascom law or Whitefield law, because those men were under it or expounded it. And as to gospel law there is no such thing. Men will no more be judged by the Gospel than they will be judged by their mother’s prayers— they will both 9* enter into judgment as blessings for the use or abuse of which we will have to account.
God only has one law, and it is the one law of love, en- joining everything which love would naturally enjoin, and forbidding everything which love from its nature would for- bid. All other commandments given are but the manifestations of this law. This law requires perfect obedience, perfect love. And as man is under a dispensation of grace which imparts to him an ability to keep the law, an importation equal to the obligation of law, he will be judged for its every infraction whether great or small.
A man will be judged by the law of God, he will be judged for everything to which the obligation of law extends. He will therefore be judged for his Intentions — Intentions give character to action, and cannot be ruled out of judgment. Beliefs — Religious beliefs are voluntary, therefore come un- der law and enter into judgment. Men are required to believe the truth. Belief that poison will not hurt you will not save you from its evil effects. Principles — Principles are the sources of action, and if men are accountable for their actions, they must be accountable for their principles. Thoughts — Thoughts are spoken of in the Bible as good or evil, if so they are under law, and as such must be accounted for in the judgment. ” The thought of foolishness is sin.” How fearful our account, when myriads of sinful thoughts, year by year, travel every path in the complicate network of our intelligence, hardening the character by the tramp of their feet, and darkening it with the dust of their smoky trail. Imaginations — many spend nearly all their time amid the idealities, shades, and chimeras of an idle imagination. They climb mountains of dissolving fog, and skim over shadowy plains, and revel with weird spectrums, and fleecing dreams. Oneirus never paraded a more gorgeous pageantry of visions before the mind of a sleeper. There can be no objection to a bold and intrepid imagination. It would be wrong to cage it. Let it fly ! Let it sweep with daring wings along all the paths of space. Let it walk the bottom of the sea — walk among the clouds — career amid the stars — fold its wings upon the battlemented walls of the city of God. Let it kneel at the foot of Deity, or hang with weeping pinions over Calvary — but- let it not prostitute the soul in the realms of folly. Affections — God’s law tells us what we must love, and to what degree. Words — Good or evil. Idle words, “But I say unto you that every idle word …. for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Actions — Influences — Good things — Evil things — Facilities — Ad van tages — This sermon.
The Books shall be opened. This is a figure. A book of law — a book of accounts. As everything is recorded in a book it is impossible that God should forget anything which ever occurred. From the laws of the intellect and the phenomena of intellectual action under certain circum- stances, we conclude that the intellect of man possesses the power of reproducing to the consciousness everything upon which the attention was once fixed. The Books of life and death will also be opened. This is a figure. The Book of Death will be opened. Those whose names are written in its long catalogue, will, with the announcement of their names, take their places upon the left hand of the Judge. The Book of Life will be opened. Its pages will gleam in the light of the Judgment. The names of the redeemed written with the blood of Jesus will be announced. As each name is heard a face brightens, till when the list is complete, the book closed, and all the elect are posited on the right hand of the throne, the aggregated light of countenances whose numbers trample upon all enumeration, will form a sea of waving light. It will seem as if Aurora had forgotten her Elysium bowers and flew away to the Judgment upon wings of coruscant silver, and flung out her flaunting banners of dawning light, wide-streaming, dropping from every fold of their sweeping circumferenceuthe mellow glories of Paradise.
A line is drawn separating angels from devils, separating husband and wife, parents and children — a line drawn through nearly all the families of earth, an Abel on this side, a Cain on that side. Here and there a few families together, both on the right and left. They are separated forever. A temporary separation from them we love is painful. But this will be a separation forever — forever. Save your children. Let us walk along both lines. Upon the left are all unbelievers, idolaters, murderers, drunkards, robbers, adulterers, blasphemers, liars, slanderers, misers, worldly-minded, hypocrites, lukewarm professors, apostates, and ministers recreant to their trust — ministers who worked too little, neglected to feed the sheep, preached themselves.
Let us walk along this line again. Here are kings, heroes, statesmen, and scholars — Parents and their children. Here are women. The seraphs of our households who entwined the sweet fibres of their love around our hearts, torn away, each fibre snapping, and cast among the vile.
Every heart in this vast throng massed and crowded upon each other is breaking with sorrow, every face is coursed by tears, every countenance is pale with horror — the die is cast and cast forever. They gazed upon each other — the ruined mother upon ‘her ruined son, the wretched daughter gazing upon the affrighted face and quivering lip of a father doubly wretched because his daughter is so — gazing they shudder with anguish and terror. They cast a despairing look at the other side. In unalterable misery they groan — altogether groan from front to rear, from centre to circumference, till the terrified stars weep over their heads, and hell’ growls beneath them, the thunder of their woe pealing amid all of its empty caves soon to be crowded with shrieking mil- lions.
But let us walk along the other line. Upon the right are widows and orphans escaped from their widowhood and orphanage, for God is their husband and father ; persecuted maidens wearing in their tresses flowers plucked by an angel from the garden of God ; the Lord’s poor now are rich m treasures imperishable ; ministers with stars in their crowns; old men and matrons no longer gray ; Patriarchs and prophets, martyrs and reformers-all Christians. Jesus has well kept His promise, ” Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
The work is done. The Judge arises. His throne be- comes another Sinai. The fires of His wrath, and the lightnings of His power, blend in fearful grandeur. The batteries of Divine Justice rock and bellow while their, emptied thunders tear through the shivering throng and burst in awful ruin His sword is unsheathed-the stars stand back be- yond its sweep, its edge glimmering fire-” Depart ye cursed into the Hell you have usurped, prepared for the Devil and his angels.” The Nemeses of the Divine wrath will lift their burning scourges, and before their impetuous charge both devils and men will fly howling from the judgment. seat-FAREWELL God-and the tempests of Gods retribution overtaking them in their flight, they fall ! fall ! I fall ! ! !— The dungeons of woe are bolted-and the eternity of their night sets in. ,
His sword is sheathed. The tempests float from His throne. The brightness of an approving smile rests now upon His brow. Angels reflect it ; saints reflect it ; the relaxing brow of Justice reflects it; the sweet face of Mercy reflects it; the new earth rolling in sight reflects it-” Come ye blessed “-The throne of the Judge wheels into the front- its muttering thunders now playing the sweetest music- ” Come,” and angels and archangels, and families and friends, fall into grand procession, and the magnificent pageant sweeps into the heavens, rises above the stars, and the choral thunders of the coronation anthem of Christ ring against the arches of the universe.