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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Daniel Krall

Finding Assurance and Meaning in the Judgment

It's an absolute honor to be up here with you this morning.

I know my bio was skipped, so I'll just give you a brief introduction.

I'm a third year dental student here at Loma Linda University.

And I started coming here after I graduated from Southern in 2022.

I was at a bit of a spiritual drought at that point in my life.

And I was, I got to this point where I was kind of wondering, like, what do I believe?

You know, Is this something that I want to stick with for my life?

And so I feel like God led me to this place.

And I remember during those early years, my first and second year of dental school, I'd be here every meeting.

You know, they'd have certain weekends, it'd be Friday night, Sabbath morning, Sabbath afternoon.

I'd be there at all of them, just eating it up, eating up the word, and I found that this is a place where you're gonna hear the truth, and that's a really important thing for our time.

So if there's a student out here that perhaps was in a similar position as me, or still is in a similar position, I invite you to stick with it, to come out and to approach the presentations that are given here with the same fervor and intellectual curiosity that you take to your lectures at your departments.

And I hope that today's message will also be a blessing.

I know that this is an important topic and it's not discussed a lot.

So I'm gonna ask for the assistance of the Holy Spirit now in prayer before we get started.

So let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Father God, I want to thank you for this opportunity to be with.

I thank you for the freedom to be able to gather in a place like this.

I know there's a lot of places around the world where this sort of meeting would not be allowed to take place.

I ask that you be with me now as I share on the judgment.

Be with my mouth and teach me what I shall say, Lord.

Fill this room with the Holy Spirit and give us all discernment as we discuss spiritual matters this morning.

So the title of my presentation this morning is finding assurance and meaning in the judgment.

Now when you hear the word judgment, what is your gut reaction?

Perhaps you feel indifference, confusion?

Well let's begin by first acknowledging that according to the Bible, there is a pre-advent or investigative judgment.

But here's a few verses just for a quick demonstration.

Second Corinthians 5.10 which says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

There's another 1 in Romans 14.10 which says, for we will all stand before God's judgment seat.

So the judgment is a present reality, but the question I want to address this morning is how should we then live, knowing that we are living in the judgment hour?

Now, I'll be honest with you, for most of my life, the judgment was something that I did not have assurance in.

I had no assurance that I would pass the test, if you will.

I was worried that God was going to uncover my sins and ban me from heaven forever because of the poor choices that I had made.

I wonder if there's anyone in this room who shares in that similar experience.

And by the way, I don't know if this is true for you.

I recognize that we all come from different backgrounds, different churches, but I noticed that growing up in the church, almost no 1 talked about the judgment.

Consequently, I knew nothing about it, which is a dangerous place to be in, because external influences can then shape your perspective on the doctrine.

And I'll share 1 example of something that shaped my perspective of the judgment early on.

When I was a kid, I used to listen to this radio program called Your Story Hour.

Has anyone ever heard of Your Story Hour?

So it's this, for those of you who aren't aware, it's this Bible-based children's program where they would share stories.

And so we'd listen to it, my sister and I, when we were growing up, and their attention was good.

It was to create a good content that would steer young boys and girls to heightened morality.

But unfortunately, some of their programs left a negative, lasting impression on my young mind.

It was a young girl, she was having this dream about Judgment Day.

She's here in the vision, and she's seeing all of her neighbors, family, friends on judgment day.

And so they go up before the fiery presence of God.

And there's a massive ruler, there's a massive ruler there.

So each person goes, they stand up back to the ruler.

And then God then proceeds to read out all of the wrong deeds they've done in their life, all of the good deeds.

So we're exposing everybody in front of everybody here.

And so she's seeing some of her best friends go up and she's like, oh, they're really good.

So God starts reading off their deeds, and as he's reading off the bad deeds, they start shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.

And then some of the people, she's like, oh man, this person was a bad person.

And they start reading off really good deeds that this person did.

And so some people were so good, but they got super, super tall.

Some people were really, really bad that they shrunk to the point of invisibility.

She's like, I can't even see them anymore.

Now, for someone like me, at that point in my childhood, I was obsessed about height, and I think that's why they went with this approach.

Of course, she passed me up at 1 point, And it just made me so mad.

So when I heard the story about, well, if you're bad, you're gonna start shrinking, you know, that was a little bit traumatic for me.

And yes, it made me a very obedient little boy, but at what cost, right?

Avonholt family, are we to obey the commandments of God because we are fearful of the consequences?

If the topic of the judgment doesn't really sit well with you, if it makes you feel uneasy on the inside, if it makes you even question your own salvation, then perhaps this is the message that you need to hear today.

You know, in talking to the older generation and reading countless books and articles on the judgment, I've realized why this has become somewhat of a sore topic for people.

For 1, ministers have long used this message to scare believers into obeying God.

Artists have even depicted Judgment Day as this fearful day where you're gonna go before the fiery presence of God.

You're there, small, in contrast to his great transcendent being.

You're shaking as he pronounces the verdict.

And that's not really what the Bible teaches about Judgment Day.

And I firmly believe that the detrimental impact of such erroneous teachings has significantly harmed our church over the past few generations.

I mean, when's the last time you heard about the judgment in church?

Aside from Advent Hope, and I know some people come from different churches, so I get we all have a different background, so I'm speaking from mine personally.

You would be surprised how many Adventists today do not even believe in the investigative judgment.

Just this week, I had a religion course here on this campus where a religion professor was jeering and poking fun at this doctrine.

Finding Assurance and Meaning in the Judgment

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