Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-02-01
THE JUDGMENT DAY.
A Time Coming When the Secrets Of
All Hearts Shall Be Barred.
WHAT THE ORDEAL WILL MEAN.
The Judge Will Be Just, and More, he Will
Be the Friend of all.
REV. GEORGE HODGES SUNDAY SERMON
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.I

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.I
! "And after that, the Judgment" After
death, the Judgment.
Yes, two judgments. One at the hour of
death, the judgment of each soul alone, and
another at the great Day of Judgment,
when the secrets Of all hearts shall be dis
closed, and we shall ali know each other as
we are. And between the judgments. a season
of waiting. We know almost nothing about
it. 1t is all dim beyond. But that is what
it looks like. That is what we think we
read in the words of Christ and of His dis
ciples, whom He taught-a judgment, and
then time of waiting, and alter that an
other and a universal judgment, with heaven
or hell following.
That everybody will be judged at the
Last Day seems plain enough, anyhow.
| That 1.-THE souls of believers are at their
death, made perfect in holiness, and do i'm
mediately pass into glory" seems to be a
contradiction of this general judgment
That the souls of the dead are in Gods
keeping, and in Christ's presence. we are as
| sured, repeatedly. But that, somehow and
somewhere, these souls are waiting until all
have joined that innumerable company,
seems to be the teaching of the Bible. And
then, the judgment.
A Chance After Death.
There will be multitude such as no man
can number. of all nations. and kindreds,
and people, and tongues-the dead, small
and greas-standing before the throne of
God; and parted right and left. Then, shall
some 60 into life, and some into the dark
ness of death. st. Peter, in his Whitsun-
day sermon. declared that David is not
assembled into the heavens" David is
somewhere-not in hell, and yet not in
heaven. God has given his promise to all
repentant sinners OF whom David is one, but
he has not yet received the fulfllment of it.
st. Paul was not content to pray for the
well-being of his converts all their lives
long; his prayers reached out beyond that
limit to the day of judgment-to ''that
day." as he called it; as if between these
two great crises one of their death and the
other the great day of decision, and between
these two judgments, one of them alone and
the other in the face of all the world, there
might still be change, and a chance for .
man and need tor prayer.
st. John, in the vision of the Revelation,
saw before the altar the souls of the martyrs,
waiting not very patiently. but told that
they must wait season longer, till their
brethren also should come into that same
place and Gods hour strike.
And the writer of the Epistle to the He
brews closes his long roll of the golden
names of Jewish saints and heroes with the
statement, plain enough, that none of them
have yet received the final and complete
benediction of God, nor "passed into
glory" and that they will not attain beati-
tude until we, too, are in their company
"that they, without us, should not be made
perfect"
Accordingly. the teaching of the Bible
seems to be that there is an interval between
death and the general judgment, time o
waiting, an intermediate state. And after
that the judgment.
When the Day Will Come.
When that judgment day will be, we
know not, nor is it at all likely that we will
know until it comes Useless to try to spell
out the hidden meanings of the old prophe-
cies useless to seek for days and dates, for
times and seasons, between the mystical
lines of the Revelation of st. John; useless
to look among the stars, or to count the steps
which lead into the inner darkness of the
Great Pyramid of Egypt, or to try any of the
manifold paths along which men hope to
find vision of the Valley of Decision.
We cannot know the day nor the hour.
This alone is plain about it-that that day
will come with most surprising suddenness,
as thief breaks through the windows OF an
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flashes swift across the sky, defying all en-.
deavors at prediction. And this. also-that
it will come. if we may so express it, natu-
rally, as naturally as the birds of the air
come sweeping down upon their prey, or as
q vulture lights upon a carcass. That is
not q pleasant illustration-that of the
vulture-but it is the one which the Master
used Himself. As ii the whole world " ill
be dead when the judgment day gets here.
! The Fulness of the Time.
And so it will be the ''fulness of the
time" again, as it was at Christ's first COM
ing. 1t is noticeable that the prophecies
which our Lord made about the last days OF
the world are, almost all of them, iore-
shadowiugs of disaster. There is no indica-
tion that the world will keep on grow
ing better and better, until it gets
good enough to be called heaven. That
would fit in most accurately with our favor
lite theories; but it is not what Christ said.
There will be connections and su pheavals,
"Signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in
the stars; and upon the earth distress of ma
tions with perplexity; the sea and the waves
roaring; mems hearts failing them for fear,
and for looking after those things which are
coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven
shall be shaken"
There will be "falling away" REIN
| ~, u
victory OF evil. faith in defeat, "When the
Son OF Man cometh, shall He find faith on
the earth?" In short, the OLD story of the
Flood pictures it all out for us-people buy
ing and selling, marrying and giving in
marriage, laughing, and diverting them
selves, and making money, aud for
getting God, needless of all preach
ing, all persuasion, all warning and en-
treaty, until at last, utterly unready,
like the foolish virgins OF the parable, the
Event overtakes them, the judge comes
| Christ came in the winter time when all
hearts seemed frozen, and all religion
seemed to be dead. He NAV come again
some other winter time. No matter when,
if we are ready for His coming.
The Where and the How.
Where will the judgment be? and how
will it be? 1 put the two questions to-
gether, because there is no answer to either
of them. Even 10 imagine an answer pains
tie mind. 1t is like looking at an object
which is so vast, or so bright, or so distant,
that il hurts your eyes. Sit down and think
intently of the meaning of the word "for-
ever" We are to live forever, year after
year, century after century. without any end,
ever endlessly, endlessly! II wearies the
mind to think Of it. 1t is a truth SO big
that it reaches away out beyond the range
of thought
So with the Day of Judgment. Try to
conceive OF it-a plain so vast that there is
space upon 1t for all the souls of all the
people who have inhabited this planet from
the four corners of the earth, from all the
ages of time; and in the midst great
white throne set where every eye can see it
and Him who sits within it; and then a