Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. There is something very wonderful, and very awe-inspiring in the thought of the multitudinous, the immeasurable multitudinousness, of created things. Infinite space is thronged with multitudes of worlds, and every world with multitudes of things. When we think Of the race of mankind, how vast and inconceivable are the multitudes of men. Each individual that has ever lived exists somewhere. Once born, they can never die. Yet these vast hosts lie easily enough within the reckoning of God. Known unto Him are the history and the character, the temptations and the opportunities, of every single individual of the vast whole of the human race, both quick arid dead. One by one each will personally appear before the personal God in the valley of decision. Where is this valley? Tradition identifies as the valley of Jehoshaphat. But the wady of the Kedron cannot properly be called a valley. Joel invented the name for "Jehovah's judgment." Christ never localised the seat of judgment, any more than He announced, the time of judgment. But what is judgment? It is not Christ our judge who decides the bliss of the blessed or the curse of the accursed.' The blessed are deciding their own blessedness when they cultivate holiness of character, and the cursed are deciding their own doom when they are forgetting God and living in sin. The valley of decision is the valley which each man treads in the road of life. It is here and now. Divine decision, or final judgment, is no swift, sudden, arbitrary act of God's; but a long, slow process performed by ourselves. In the valley of decision there is no standing still. (Canon Diggle.) Parallel Verses KJV: Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. |
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