“The Divine Judgment” by J. D. Jones

Notes from Chapter 12 of Paul’s Certainties by J. D. Jones. This chapter contains the sermon “The Divine Judgment” based on Acts 1:25, “Which Judas left to go where he belongs.”

“Scripture satisfies itself with this simple, solemn sentence: He fell, that he might go to his own place.’”

“The worst and most hardened sinner can meet with no punishment more dread than this—to be sent to his own place.”

“Judas among the Apostles was a man out of place, and Jesus, at any rate, knew it.”

“But deception cannot last for ever. It ends at death. Then the reign of reality begins. Then every man appears what he is, and occupies the place he deserves.”

“This is what happens at the judgment—every man finds his own place ; every man occupies the station
he deserves ; every man joins the company he loves.”

“In every walk of life, in every trade, in every profession, there are some very obvious ’ misfits.’ We look at the man, and then at the work he is doing, and we say, ’That man is quite out of place.’”

“It does not necessarily follow that a man is good because he frequents the company of good men, or that he is religious because he frequents religious services and sits down at the Lord’s table.”

“Hypocrisy is not extinct.”

“If the piety is skin deep, if the goodness is not of the heart, the mistake will be rectified up yonder. In the white light that streams from the throne deception and makebelieve are no longer possible.»

“There will be some strange reversals of human judgments in heaven! Our Master Himself forewarns us of them. He tells us we shall find publicans and sinners there, the very scum and filth of the world, and some of the children of the Kingdom cast out.»

“Heaven, if by God’s grace we are privileged to get there, will be full of surprises. We shall see people there whom perhaps we never expected to meet. On the other hand, we shall miss some whom we certainly expected to see.”

“It is not God who decides our sentence ; we decide our own.”

“Who is it that decides what a man’s place shall be? I will tell you. Not God! no, not God. We ourselves
decide that. There is nothing capricious or arbitrary about the judgment. The heart will declare what things we loved and cherished here on earth, and there—among those things—will be our place. It is our own hearts that either justify or condemn us.”

“We all hope somehow or other to find our way into heaven at last. But there is no getting into heaven by magic.”

“Character settles destiny. Where you shall be depends on what you are.”

“When I realize this, I know what Paul meant when he spoke of the ’terror of the Lord.’ For I can conceive of no doom more dreadful than that of being compelled to live in the next world with what our hearts have loved and cherished here.”

“If we love sin, we shall live with it. But if we love Christ, we shall live with Him. Love to Christ is the key to heaven.”

“Heaven must be in us before ever we can enter heaven. And hell must have possession of our hearts before we can be cast into hell. Heaven and hell begin here.”

“We are busy today and every day making our own heaven, making our own hell.”

“Our eternal home when we reach it will be — shall I say?—a familiar place.”

“Whether heaven or hell be a man’s lot, it is never a foreign country to him; it is always his own place.”

“Heaven must be in us before ever we can enter heaven. Christ must live in our hearts before ever we can go to live with Christ.”