Judgment Day and a God of Sorrows

I awaken out of deep sleep. It is midnight and booming thunder just rattled my open window and also my dead eardrums; a powerful storm approaches. I am transported to another place and time: the bar of God, Judgment Day.

Another peal of thunder with lightning mixed, directly overhead like the detonation of a Mega bomb. I cringe and duck wondering if the roof might cave in. Another thunder, and another. Some close, some distant. The Judge of all the earth arrives on the wings of the wind to preside over an event that is so very abnormal from One forever known for endless patience and mercy. “The Lord shall rise up in Mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” Is. 28:21.

As another lightning bolt smashes down with its incumbent unearthly volume of noise, God speaks and I see a guilty sinner receiving an irreversible sentence, each case reviewed in fearfully graphic detail. The meanness, the stifled stabs of the conscience, the Holy Spirit’s ongoing daily work for 70 years spurned, the selfish revenge, the arrogance, the haughty attitude toward the thought of a Judgment Day: all insults toward the Comforter when He brought conviction to save them, and toward His earnest entreaties which were turned down for something an incredibly short lifetime had to offer, instead. Bright flashes, thunder, Mega bomb thunder. Our Father loves the rebels, but He hates rebellion; a concept difficult for us to comprehend. But now the guilty sinner sees it all, the awakened conscience now is blinded by light and the fear of God’s fiery indignation and certain justice upon the enemy, and by His determination to bring closure to sin and sorrow. All during the controversy of sin, played out on Earth, each individual was given a lifetime, a sufficient period of probation abounding in opportunities to turn away from sin, to turn to Someone for righteousness, to glorify their great Father-Friend on the throne.

All those who did fear God and accepted His mercy and grace, do not take part in the second death. They already went there as they had daily relived that day at Golgotha, the day the Lamb tasted Judgment Day for every man. They saw the exceeding pain that sin brought to the Father, and His exceeding love for rebellious sinners. They beheld Christ’s arms pinned back as widely as possible, permanently nailed wide open by the Father, forever the image of His yearning heart’s appeal to a world of unreconciled, abused, and dissevered children. But the vast majority rejected it all. Through one way or another, most of them found reasons to ignore God’s greatest work to save their hearts.

Now the day has come. The condemnation that Christ could have borne for them all, they must bear themselves. A flash of lightning and cracking, booming thunder. Again God speaks in wrath to the condemned one for all the suffering his sins have caused all those who ever knew him, all the temptation he caused, even the slightest influence for evil. Lightning and thunder slam my roof and shatter my attention. How much longer for the Judgment? How much more from the Judge? A whole lifetime of mercy for the guilty is now counterbalanced with equally full, but sudden justice. In peals of wrath God opens the willfully deaf ears and a deafer conscience. The mutually agreed upon sentence of eternal death is spelled out in the hearing of the guilty, which reaches down, like electricity, to the depths of the speechless degenerate, frozen in obstinate hatred and terrified haughtiness. —Consumed. Forever gone. Forever nonexistent. The beauty and innocence of heaven seen clearly for a wonderful moment, never to be enjoyed; never ever to enjoy the abundant love and grace of God so beautifully revealed during the divine sentencing; the songs of thankful rejoicing forever to miss. The echoes of the execution of justice travel out in all directions until silent. Righteousness is vindicated. The painful presence of rebellion is removed. Justice is done.

Rain. Rain, pouring down. God weeping and yearning for the sinner who refused all that was brought to help him out of rebellion. Torrents and torrents of rain.

More fearful thunder and lightning as another sinner is ushered into the presence of the great Judge. Then another bright flash and overpowering noise. And another sentence carried out against an unyielding soul. My house shakes under the condemning crack and roar of the lightning storm. Another crash, another sentence, and the execution. Another, and then another. And in between each cataclysm I hear rain, much rain, like “lamentations, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Jer. 31:15; Matt. 2:18. More showers, burning hot tears falling from a torn and distraught Father.

Incomprehensible to created beings, the Almighty expresses all the frustration, all the horror, all the sorrow that sin has caused and that He has borne; all the anger for the searing memories of contempt for righteousness and fairness and intimate love. He who is infinite in that love, but who can never divide His mercy and His justice, can only communicate justice and mercy with soul shattering volume. Thus, no sinner can endure the pronouncement of their just sentence or the intensity of infinite divine love. Some go in a moment, some must continue until the end of a lengthy case. All agree that they don’t deserve a moment of heaven’s perfection. Blinding lightning, crashing thunder, a sin-ruined soul destroyed, floods of rain.

Flashes. Crashes. Torrents of sorrow. More flashes, crashes, more torrents and torrents. Last of all in judgment is His most bitterly prejudiced enemy. No good reason could ever explain Lucifer’s discontent; no good justification for the destruction and misery of so many billions. Eons have separated the two; now eternity will. Justice is executed upon him. Yet, invisible to everyone, there returns a flush of ancient good memories and a flood of sadness for an old servant and friend turned utterly ruthless and murderous. A long finale of angry lightnings and din.

The thunder finally quells but the rain continues pouring down. Downpours and more downpours, day after day. The unutterable throes of sorrow from a God of love. Sin made the Ancient of Days cry with excruciating pathos. We made Him writhe in mourning; not once, not millions of times, but millions of times for thousands of years; indeed, throughout eternity.

The storm subsides. Silence, but for rain. Lightning flashes in the distance with muffled booms. The storm finally subsides.

The wrath is past, the Great Controversy is finalized, but the tears from heaven never stop flowing. A God of sorrows and acquainted with much grief, weeping in silence for His children and never to be comforted, because they are not.