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The scenes of the Book of Revelation are now approaching completion, and they present more definitely the characteristics of "the end." Judgment proceeds on human conduct daily, but there is a final judgment, "the judgment of the great day," when "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God." That dread day is now present to the mind of the seer, and before that inner eye, by a spiritual illumination, the solemn scene is depicted. It is pictorial, and, like the Lord's own picture of the separating of the sheep from the goats, though it lacks the completeness of this teaching, it has aspects of the most awful grandeur. In the symbolical presentation the following dreadful features are prominent -

I. THE AUTHORITY, SANCTITY, AND DREAD TERRIBLENESS OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT. The symbol of the authoritative character of the judgment is represented in "a great throne;" its sanctity in the ever-present symbol of purity - it is a "white" throne, "we know that his judgment is according to truth;" while the terribleness of the holy judgment is indicated in the assertion that the very "earth and the heaven fled away" from "the face" of him that sat on the throne.

II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE JUDGMENT. The symbol here approaches a terrible realism. The seer beheld "the dead, the great and the small, stand before the throne," and "the sea" and "death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged." The judgment is upon the "dead," and it transplants our thoughts to the final issues of human history.

III. The judgment which is universal is also MINUTE AND INDIVIDUAL. "They were judged every man." None escape or pass by. Every servant to whom the Lord has entrusted goods must give account of the same.

IV. The judgment proceeds UPON THE CONDUCT OF THE EARTHLY LIFE. "They were judged every man according to their works." Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."

V. THE FINAL, TERRIBLE AWARD OF EVIL DOING. "If any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." That this represents the termination of the present order of things is indicated by the destruction of death and Hades; the present, the temporary, is swallowed up in the final. One side only of the judgment is represented - that of the wicked. Truly these awful scenes are not for the eye, but for the heart. No picture is permissible of any part of these unspeakable things. Men must take the terrible intimations, and ponder them in their hearts; and "blessed" is the man that so "reads" and so "understands the words of the prophecy of this book," that he turns in lowly meekness to him who is the one and only Saviour of men, and seeks by his grace to walk "in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." - R.G.

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KJV: And 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.

WEB: I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.