September 20 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

Romans 2:16:

¹⁶In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

Devotional:

It must be granted that the number of people who intentionally give a portion of their time to be busy with God and to press forward into the knowledge of God, is almost vanishingly small.

To pray, to attend church, to do good works, can all go on outside of this actual practice of holding tryst with God. A number of prayers are prayed, in all sorts of settings and on all sorts of occasions, in which the soul does not appear before God, nor God to the soul. Constantly, people go to church, and presently return home again, without having for one moment sought the face of God, or having been met by Him. Even though in the sacrament and during the preaching of the sermon the mind was engaged with Divine things, this by itself was not being busy with God. And as regards the good works, it needs scarcely be said that we can fill up an entire day with them without so much as devoting one thought to Him Who inspired us to do them.

Oh, there is so little of actually being busy with the living God.

And then we only had in mind confessing, believing Christians, who pray, live for their church and do good works; but now enter for once among those un-Churchly companies, which are not worldly in any bad sense, but rather cultivate seriousness of thought and honor virtue, and dote on higher ideals, but yet put religion to one side; and what do you find with even the noblest and best of them, of a being busy with God? And when you strike out still further, and come among the men and women who live merely for business and after business hours for pleasure, forsooth, are you not impressed yourself with the fact, that there is altogether no more such thing as a being busy with God? Of course the openly wicked and godless circles in society, and with these, those who are indifferent to all higher interests, are counted out altogether; so it is sufficiently demonstrated, that the number of those who give but a small part of their time to the practice of the presence of God is deplorably small.

And you also feel how painful, if we may so express it, this must be to God in His love for this world. "So God loved the world, that He gave it His only begotten Son." He imparted ability to the world to know Him, and to love Him in return. Of the world only a small part bears the Christian name. And in this small part, that lives under Baptism, there are day by day but few, very few, who turn their soul and mind to Him, and enter into His hidden walk. All the rest pass by on the other side; they are filled with other things, and the knowledge of His Name and Being is scorned by them.

But what according to the Scripture is certain, is this, that for every one, sooner or later, a moment comes in which God shall compel him to busy himself exclusively and with nothing else than with Himself.

He has appointed a day for this.

And for what man so ever this day breaks, in that day he shall have to appear before God, and God shall overtake him with His Majesty, and shall take entire possession of him, in such a way that he shall not be able to think of anything else than God.

And that day is the Day of Judgment.

In the representation of this Day of Judgment, art has done much harm.

As art, it could not do otherwise than give expression through visible form, and for this expression it borrowed its material and figures from an earthly court of justice, with all the millions and millions that have ever lived on earth, as defendants before God's holy tribunal.

It could not do otherwise, and more than one pencil or brush has done it in a masterly way.

But it should never be forgotten that here was represented outwardly what was of a radically spiritual significance, and that this spiritual action in the Judgment could not be represented in a picture.

When unbelief came in and also denied that there is a day set for Judgment, it took the outward representation, as an occasion for turning the matter itself into ridicule and for showing the impossibility of it. Where would there be room for these millions upon millions of people to stand? How much time would it not take, to try a single human life upon the particulars of every word and every thought? It is said to be one day; but for one single family it would require years.

The Confession of Faith struck a truer note, when in view of the spiritual character of the Judgment, it spoke of it as of an opening of the books of conscience.

So taken, the Judgment is nothing else than a review, in one clear vision, of every man's whole life; an immediate sight of totals; where before, we only reckoned with the unpaid accounts of each moment.

The Judgment is a settling of accounts. On this bill stands, side by side, what you owe God, and what God must recompense you for your deeds according as they are good or evil.

This is the teaching of Scripture.

"We must all appear," says the Apostle, "before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10).

And every accountant knows what accounting here means, and what it implies that, in the Judgment, God shall present us His bill in toto, together with explanations and proofs, so that we shall be convinced in our conscience, that the account is correct and just.

It shall be the total result, the whole resume of our life, from childhood on, that will suddenly appear before us, with such overwhelming certainty as to exclude every suggestion of doubt.

On our automatic counting-machines, which are now in general use, the cipher of whatever is put in immediately appears in sight, and addition takes place of itself.

This is the image of your life. And he who throughout his entire life has refused to take due notice of the cipher that showed itself each day, will in the Day of Judgment suddenly see the total amount before him, in which nothing could be or was permitted to be forgotten, and against which nothing can be said. You will have the opportunity to examine it, but that will do you no good. A mistake in this account is unthinkable. And with the sudden clearing of the light of the conscience that will flash across your whole life, you will not be able to do anything else than acknowledge that God is just.

This now raises no apprehensions in those who believe and those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

The end will show them also a terror-striking shortage, but, over against this, stands in their behalf the Atonement, which covers everything. Their judge is their Savior, and liberated from the curse, they enter into eternal blessedness.

But dreadful will be this opening of the book of the conscience for all such as have died outside of Christ.

For such a one it will then be too late for conversion; he can not hide in Christ; he can no more obtain a part in the Atonement; he has nothing to his credit in the face of his immeasurable guilt; and he must succumb under a sentence that is read to him in his own conscience.

This will constitute the eternal dreadfulness of it. This, in his inmost self, shall be the worm that restlessly gnaws, without ever dying; this shall be the heat in his conscience of the fire that can never be extinguished.

No outward torture needs to be added unto this. The fire itself within is the eternal punishment, and this inner self-consumption shall eat like a cancer throughout his whole being, and corrupt his whole life and his entire existence.

This shall be "the knowledge of God" on the part of those who here on earth have not willed to know God in His grace.

This knowledge of God is twofold.

On one hand, here on earth, through faith, it is a knowledge of God that saves. "This is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God."

On the other hand, there is a knowledge of God, which only comes after death, in the Judgment, but for this very reason it is a knowledge of God which does not bring eternal life but eternal death.

On earth it was lightly asserted, that there was no God, or that God knew nothing about us, or that there was no need to concern oneself about Him. But after death, one stands at once before this disregarded God, feels the terror of His all-pervading Presence, and, try as he may, he can no longer rid himself of this God.

For this is not the end of the Judgment, that immediately afterward life can be continued again in the old forgetfulness, as though there were no God. No, the self-destroying impression which at the moment of the actual Judgment one receives of God, continues, and is never effaced again.

Of devils it is recorded, that they well know that God is—and that they tremble. And so likewise all those who in this life have evaded God, shall come, in the Judgment and after the Judgment, to the dreadful discovery that they have been mistaken; as before their own eyes they will see that God actually exists and they also—will tremble.

Behind the veil of sensual things in this life, and back of the mists of our earthly limitations, one can shield himself with the pretense that he does not see God, one can even persuade himself that there is no God, because one wilfully does not see Him.

But all this ends with death. Then this veil is rent from the top downward, then these mists lift themselves, then all semblance ceases, and then the Majesty of the Lord God appears and reveals itself in all its clearness.

The knowledge of God which was ignored for a whole lifetime, then comes of itself, it inundates the lost; but it is a repulsive knowledge, a knowledge which does not draw you toward God, but causes you to recoil from before His terribleness; and wherever you may look, there is nothing anywhere behind which you might hide yourself from the sight of the Majesty of God.

It then becomes the heat of a sun which does not cheer or cherish you but which sears you.

The Scriptures call this hell; and it is a hell, but it is only one which God makes by means of His holy Presence. If God could be brought to naught, or if withdrawal from God were possible, or if one could hide himself from God, hell would be ended.

But this is not possible.

God's holy Presence does not cease to deluge you, and that constitutes your eternal death.

And therefore it is well with him, who in this life has sought the knowledge of his God in Christ. After death this knowledge shall become to him the drinking in of Divine sympathy.

But woe to him, who first learns to know his God in the Judgment. To him this knowledge shall be torment.

* * * * * * *

This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."

The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit

Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.