Gospel Testimonies

Uncovering the Mystery of Judgment

By Enhui, Malaysia

My name is Enhui; I'm 46 years old. I live in Malaysia, and I have been a believer in the Lord for 27 years. In October 2015, I moved to another city to take up a job. My new colleagues were all really into Facebook, which they used for chatting, finding new friends, and making posts. Seeing that I didn't have a Facebook account they set one up for me, and I gradually learned how to go online and use it. When I had the time, I would take a look at the postings of some brothers and sisters in the Lord and I'd share them and like them. Sometimes I'd make some posts about praising the Lord or share the Lord's grace with the people in my friends group. Every day was really fulfilling for me.

One day in February 2016 when I was browsing the profile of one of my Facebook friends, I saw this post: "We discussed the issue of judgment today in our group. We all said different things but agreed on the major points. Someone said: 'If I don't understand something, I don't dare spout some old nonsense—it's something that God will do in the future and we shouldn't try to make wild conjectures.' Someone else said: 'Psalm 75:2 says "When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly." God takes note of everything that every single person does, so when the Lord Jesus returns to judge all humans He will reveal our deeds to all, just like playing a movie. So we should always be upright in our behavior and absolutely never do evil so that God doesn't judge us and then cast us into hell.' Someone else said: 'It says in the Bible: "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. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works" (Revelation 20:11–12). From the scriptures we can see that when the Lord Jesus returns in the last days He will set up a giant desk in the sky, take a seat behind it, and open the books. Then, with all of mankind kneeling on the ground, He'll call out the name of every individual and judge each of them one by one according to their deeds. Good people will be taken up to the kingdom of heaven by the Lord, while the wicked will be cast into hell.'"

After reading this post I continued sitting in my chair, and sketched out a mental image of the Lord Jesus judging mankind: The Lord sitting on a throne, people all kneeling in front of His desk and coming clean on all their sins for God to judge, and the Lord sending each one of them to heaven or to hell according to their deeds. I thought about how I'd been a loyal follower of the Lord for over 20 years and had tried my best to put His teachings into practice. I believed that the Lord would see my piety and take me up to the kingdom of heaven. But as I thought it over more and more, I suddenly had an idea: Now that I knew how to use the Internet why not do a search for "judgment" and see what came up? I opened up a browser and typed in the word; I can't remember which link I clicked on but to my surprise, this sentence popped up: "God's Chastisement and Judgment Is the Light of Man's Salvation." This piqued my interest immediately, and so I went to the website to read more. As the webpage loaded I heard this hymn that was both pleasing and thought-provoking: "God's Chastisement and Judgment Is the Light of Man's Salvation." The lyrics included: "... In his life, if man wishes to be cleansed and achieve changes in his disposition, if he wishes to live out a life of meaning, and fulfill his duty as a creature, then he must accept God's chastisement and judgment, and must not allow God's discipline and God's smiting to depart from him, so he can free himself from the manipulation and influence of Satan and live in the light of God. Know that God's chastisement and judgment is the light, and the light of man's salvation, and that there is no better blessing, grace or protection for man" (Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs).

I pondered the lyrics after the hymn had ended; I found it quite moving. I began to think: "Is God's chastisement and judgment the light of our salvation? Is it mankind's greatest protection and grace? How are we to understand this? If people want to be purified and live meaningful lives, does that mean they have to accept God's chastisement and judgment?" As I mulled over these lyrics, many questions circled around my brain. I also thought: "If God were to judge man, wouldn't man be condemned? And how come judgment becomes a light of salvation?" I was both curious and excited because I had never heard anything like this before. Even though the judgment being talked about in the hymn was not how I understood judgment to be, I still had this vague feeling that judgment possesses really deep significance, and is relevant to a person's future and fate. When I checked the source of the hymn I saw that it was from The Church of Almighty God, so I went to their website. I saw that not only was the homepage novel and aesthetically pleasing, but the content was also rich and varied. There were things to listen to, things to read, songs, discussions and lots of other stuff. I thought to myself: "How come no one ever told me about this website? It's so great, but could it be that no one's shared it because they haven't found it yet?" I clicked on the "Books" link and as I was scrolling down the list I saw this title: Testimonies of Experiences in Entry Into Life. Clicking on it, I saw that they were mostly testimonies about God's judgment, for example: "God's Judgment and Chastisement Saved Me," "God's Judgment and Chastisement Was a Great Salvation for Me," "I Saw God's Love in His Judgment and Chastisement," "God's Judgment and Chastisement Awoke My Sinful Heart," "God's Judgment and Chastisement Put Me on the Right Path." It was almost time for me to go to work, so I only had time to quickly skim through a few of these testimonies. They were all written by believers describing how their corrupt dispositions were purified, and also talking about their deficiencies, corruption, mistaken views in faith, etc., and how these were somewhat changed through the words of judgment of Almighty God. This made me even more curious about "God's Chastisement and Judgment Is the Light of Man's Salvation." Could it be that judgment wasn't about being condemned? That it wasn't about determining each person's ending? I started to feel really unsettled, and I knew I had to get to the bottom of what "God's Chastisement and Judgment Is the Light of Man's Salvation" was talking about. I came to the conclusion that Testimonies of Experiences in Entry Into Life was probably an extremely helpful book for people in their faith, and that I should take a good look at it. But time was running short, so I turned off my computer and went to work.