I was reading a sermon preached by Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844) on the subject The Judgment of the Great Day. The entire sermon is very sobering and thought provoking. There are two points in particular that I would like to share wit you. First the duration of the judgment, “We cannot determine how long the Day of Judgment will be; but the transactions of that day, we may well conclude will continue for thousands of years as we now calculate time. The powers of saints and sinners may then be greatly enlarged; they may be able to recollect and communicate ideas with far greater faculty than at present. Yet, suppose the world to stand seven thousand years. It is calculated that there will be more souls to be tried than there are seconds in seven thousand years. If one sinner were tried in a second the Day of Judgment must continue longer than the world has stood -- supposing it to stand seven thousand years. God will not be in haste – duration will not be wanting, eternity will be long enough to settle everything in the best manner. The Day of Judgment will, no doubt, be a long day, continuing for thousands of years.” Another sobering point that he brings out is the great separation that will take place. “The Day of Judgment will be a day of great separation. For these who do not truly believe in Him shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. What an awful separation! Many who have long been acquainted, who have lived together in the same society, will now be separated. Many who have walked to the house of God in company, who have belonged to the same church, and often communed together at the sacramental table on earth, will now part to meet no more. “Ministers and people will part. Some, who have not been faithful to warn the wicked of his awful guilt and danger, will now turn and go away with the blood of souls in their skirts. Others, who, though they have declared the whole counsel of God, have never experienced the power of religion on their own hearts, will lose their own souls. Many who have lifted others into heaven will probably never enter themselves. Those again who have been faithful to their own souls and the souls of their hearers may now enter heaven, while they behold their hearers in multitudes going away never to return. “Members of the same family will now separate. A pious father will now leave his ungodly wife and children while he ascends with Christ. A pious wife may now leave an ungodly husband to perish in everlasting fire. A pious child will now part with his ungodly parents, while he ascends to heaven, they sink down to hell. Brothers and sisters too will now part to meet no more forever. The separation at death is nothing compared to that at the Day of Judgment. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.”
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