Dear Pastor Whoever….
How are you doing, Pastor Whoever? And how is your congregation doing?
I am reading a book, for about the fifth time, titled “The Judgement Seat of Christ” by a pastor, Rick Howard. The judgment seat tomorrow will reveal how you and your congregation are doing today.(And yet, curiously, you rarely mention this upcoming milepost.) Rick writes of a vision…. a vast multitude of white-robed saints from all ages and all nations gathered together in one place. He compared this throng to both the wheat fields of his Kansas and the vast expanse of the ocean as seen from a cruise ship. Massive. Endless. A sea of white robes.
2 Corinthians 5:10, 11: “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body,according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”
Rick testifies that this will be a grievous time for many (many, certainly not all). He speaks of “guttural sobbing” of remorse, sounds he would have previously associated coming from hell. (I personally know two others having similar visions.) Before each individual is a pile of “wood,hay, straw”. Hidden beneath this jumble are, hopefully, imperishable“gold, silver, precious stones”.
The Lord torches the heap. Will all his/her works be burned? Deep remorse or ecstatic rejoicing? Did what matter most to Jesus matter most? You do realize that how your people fare will depend largely on you, their chief influence. Did you steer them to or away from Jesus Christ? Did you feed them Bible or religion? Or a mixture?
So I ask again, Pastor Whoever, how are you doing? How is your congregation doing?
See you then and there, “the judgment seat of Christ”,
Larry Jones