It’s Not About Us

An article on the Judgment

By Dan M. Appel
October, 1960ish, Portland, Oregon

You settle back into the plush mohair upholstery of your theater seat and sniff the faint odor of

popcorn and a potpourri of perfumes and colognes left by generations of previous patrons of the

Oriental Theater. A gentle fall rain has washed the Portland air and the humidity lifts the scents

off of the upholstery and mixes them with the tangy odor of wet wool and shoe leather and the

sweet earthy musk of the leaves you and your parents walked through on your way to the theater.

As you lean back and wait for the service to begin, you wonder about the quandary your angel is

in right now. He is supposed to leave you at the door of places such as this - at least that is what

your grandmother wrote from her post as a far away missionary. Your teacher at church school

confirmed that angels do not go into theaters under any circumstances, so it must be true. “But it

must be very frustrating,” you muse, “to miss out on the program you are about to enjoy -

especially when the people stream down to the front and accept Jesus as their personal savior.”

Soon the singing evangelist with the powerful tenor voice finishes his solo and the silver

tongued, blond haired fireball who played the drums in a jazz band before his conversion begins

to pace the stage. He reviews the powerful truths from the Bible he has taught you from night to

night for over six long weeks and tells you that he is going to miss these evenings with you and

your friends. Now, he announces, on this last night he has come to the most important topic of

the whole series.

It's Not About Us - Page 1

Opening his Bible, and pointing to carefully crafted diagrams projected onto the screen, he

begins to talk about the responsibility that we all have to act on the truths we know. The urgency

making his voice tremble as he shouts so loud that the teenagers making out in the back row of

the balcony can’t help but hear, he begins to recount the message of Daniel 8. As he thunders

like God Himself about the judgment which began in the year 1844, he reminds us that the

Trinity, even as he is speaking this very moment, may be looking at the record of our life,

pondering whether to allow us into heaven. Now that we know the truth, he urges us, we must

act on it - to fail to do so would be sin. We could die this very night on the way home and, if we

have not completely surrendered our lives to everything God asks of us, be eternally lost.

Now, a picture fades onto the screen above the young evangelist’s leonine head. A coliseum

larger than Dodger Stadium comes into view, filled with myriads of angels all focused on one

point on the floor of the building. A throne, faced with a facsimile of the Ten Commandments,

white with blazing nuclear light, is discernable to one side, while a man - every man in the form

of one man’s experience frozen in a moment of technicolor time - stands alone looking up

towards that awesome dias where God Himself sits enthroned.

“It’s time to decide!” the evangelist begs, pulling a white handkerchief from his back pocket to

wipe the tears from his eyes and the sweat from his brow. “God doesn’t want you to be lost. The

judgment has begun, it is going on right now. Come, come to the front and signify your decision

to become a loyal follower of God; come, come before it is too late! This may be your last

chance. Don’t gamble with eternity! This very evening may be the moment Jesus comes for you.

It's Not About Us - Page 2

You could die tonight. Don’t die a rebel. The time is now to surrender to obedience to God’s

law and to become a Sabbath keeper,. Come, come, there are pastors waiting here at the front to

greet you and tell you how to become a part of God’s only last day, true, Bible believing people.

November, 2006

There are those who, reading thus far, might be tempted to think that I look back on those times

with something less than fondness. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Those halcyon

times were good and innocent. Neither do I question the sincerity of my parents or the evangelist

or the thousands of other loyal Adventists and their friends and neighbors packed into the

Oriental Theater in downtown Portland, Oregon. Some of those who became part of the church I

love are my friends to this day. Rebel souls were added to the Kingdom of God, sins were

confessed and lives were turned over to God for eternity.

What I question is not the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus sacrifice on Calvary or the

blessing and place of the Sabbath or what happens to a person when he dies. I still choke up

every time I lower someone into the waters of baptism and believe that it is very necessary for

those of us who love God to honor Him enough that we are not only willing, but anxious to keep

His law - for the right reasons. I am not even adverse to traditional public evangelism - even

though in today’s sophisticated world it is decreasingly effective. And, I am too much a spiritual

descendent of Charles Finney to be adverse or offended by emotion and drama in the service of

God.

It's Not About Us - Page 3

No, what I question are some impressions about God and His ways that many were left with that

night, and thousands of other similar nights around the world, as we have attempted to explain

our faith to those in our communities. And, I believe it has skewed, in the eyes of church

members and onlookers alike, the picture of the judgment portrayed in the Bible, from Genesis to

Revelation

Think back to that picture burned into our minds by my evangelist and thousands like him

through the years. Reminiscent of Jonathan Edwards’ vivid picture of sinners in the hands of an

angry God, it forever seared into the hearts of countless people a picture of God as our adversary.

That prototypical man, trembling before God’s throne, wildly trying to recall any unconfessed sin

that might possible show up in the evidence against him and keep him out of heaven, was not

excited to be in the presence of his Heavenly Father at that moment. He was terrified to be in His

presence. And, this was not the “great white throne” judgment when God executes judgment on

rebels at the end of world time and those unrepentant rebels will cower in terror, it was now,

today, and the One he stood before was the One the Bible describes as our loving Father, the

Gracious One, slow to get angry, kind and patient, who is doing everything in His power to woo

and draw people out of the darkness into His Kingdom of Light.

While it is true that the whole point of the picture was to scare people in “the valley of decision”

into making a decision to do what was right, it left a distinctly skewed picture in the minds of

many, if not most, of the viewers of God and the judgment and it left a decidedly warped picture

of what God is doing today in his interactions with humanity.

It's Not About Us - Page 4

After a while, thinking Adventists who read their Bible became concerned. So, a new picture

began to appear in our publications and on the screens at our public meetings. The same huge

amphitheater filled with angels and un-fallen onlookers, with the same fiery throne where the

Father was seated now confronted the observer. Only now, Jesus, his eyes filled with love and

tenderness stood by the side of Everyman, his arms comforting him, the holes in his hands raised

in pleading. The irony of this attempt to portray a kinder and gentler God was that their attempts

to fix what had become a theological travesty only made matters worse. Now the kind and

gentle Jesus stood protecting His people from the Father - an illustration hardly destined to install

confidence in the good will and grace of the presiding officer of the Godhead and the judgment.

Then in the 1970s, Morris Venden, Graham Maxwell and Jack Provonsha, in one of the few

things they ever appeared to agree on, again attempted to rectify the horrific portrayal of God we

had been foisting on the world for almost 100 years. We are not on trial, they opined, but God

has placed Himself on trial in the judgment. The whole Great Controversy is about the character

of God and His plan of saving humanity and the universe. While we play a part - we are the

evidence in the trial after-all - it is God’s whole kingdom and person which is being scrutinized

in this cosmic courtroom scene. The God who created and sustained the universe has stepped

down, as it were, into the dock and placed all of our future - his and our’s - in the hands of a jury

made up of every created loyal subject in the cosmos.

While one cannot help but admire their temerity in the face of the backlash which followed their

introduction of this idea, and while it is a major step in the right direction, it still misses the main

It's Not About Us - Page 5

point of the Bible’s picture of God’s judgment. To understand why, you have to go back to a

dusty outcropping on the edge of a desert in Palestine where two of the most powerful beings in

the universe are locked in the early stages of mortal combat1. On the way, it behooves us to

make a brief stop at one of the most beloved passages in the Bible for most Adventists - in fact

this passage has defined our reason for existence for almost 160 years.

Good News, the Judgment has Begun

Revelation14:6-7 - Then I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, with an eternal gospel to

proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he

said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and

worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water." RSV

Whatever else one may believe about this passage, you cannot help but note the irony when you

look at these verses through traditional Adventist eyes. The juxtaposition of the words

“judgment” and “good news” seems contradictory at best. We are forced to admit that something

does not add up, because, the process of judgment as we have understood it is definitely not good

news! If we can leave our preconceptions behind for just a few moments, just what does the

Bible say about what is going on in the pre-advent stage of the judgment?

We will find a clue in the interaction of two figures on a hillside in Palestine.

1
Luke 4:1-13

It's Not About Us - Page 6

Satan has just finished tempting Jesus with something He is, literally, dying to receive. And

Jesus has not taken the bait. Now, Satan takes Him by the hand and flies with Him up to a

vantage point overlooking the whole then known world. “There’s everything you came for,” he

says, his hand sweeping from horizon to horizon in a grand gesture. “The only way you’re going

to get it, you know, is to die - the most horrible, grisly death I can cook up for you. You made

me, so you know just how creative I can be when I set my mind to it. The physical pain will just

be the hor d oeuvres. I have things prepared for you that even you can’t imagine. They are going

to be so bad that even God will turn His back on you.

“But . . . ,” and Satan the snake pauses for dramatic effect, there is a win-win way around all of

this. Jesus, we know each other too well to let our relationship end like it will when you fail.

We stood by the Father’s throne for millenia as covering cherubs2. Next to God Himself, we

were the two most important and powerful beings in the whole heavenly government. When I

chose to exercise my right of choice and rebel, you led the armies of heaven and defeated me and

threw me and my followers down from our lofty position out into the darkness of the cosmos.3

You won round one - fair and square. But, will win round 2 - you can count on it!.

When Adam and Eve listened to the voice of reason and chose to join my rebellion, I became the

rightful ruler of this little cesspool some call earth. It’s not much, but it doesn’t belong to you.

2
Jesus, uncreated, took the form of an angel, Michael, to show created beings by
example how to serve and worship God.
3
Revelation 12:7-13

It's Not About Us - Page 7

You know that every time there is a council in heaven, I appear by right as it’s lawful

representative.4 And, it’s a toehold which I am going to exploit to bring down the rest of God’s

government. So, you have a choice. You can bow down to me as the future ruler of everything

and be on the winning side, or you can choose to pursue this little crusade you are on and prepare

to suffer like no one ever has before. What do you say; we can be partners in this. To show my

good faith, I will give you everything you came for - without the price. Just bow down and

acknowledge me as the winner and it’s all your’s.”

We strain forward to hear Jesus’ next words - and they surprise us. “And Jesus answered him,

"It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" 5Jesus never

disputes Satan’s right to offer him this world - because for the time being it belongs to him. He

is the rightful ruler of this world - ever since Adam and Eve ceded their dominion to him.

Wait a minute, you say, God is the owner and ruler of this world. You are right, and you are very

wrong. Ultimately, God is the owner of the earth. But, the Trinity chose to bestow the rule of it,

as a wedding present, to Adam and Eve and their progeny when Jesus created them. They were

the rightful monarchs until abdicated their position and transferred it to Satan. And, God cannot

it take back by force without besmirching His own character and violating everything His

Kingdom of Light is all about. So, someone else controls, for now, what He owns.

4
Job 1
5
Luke 4:7-8

It's Not About Us - Page 8

An illustration might help: Suppose for a minute that a pickpocket stole your cell phone. In one

very real sense, it is still your phone - even though someone else controls, you might say rules in

the context of this article, your phone for the time being. Scripture and human experience make

it abundantly clear who rules this world now. In Job 1:6 Satan appears in heaven as the rightful

ruler/representative of this world. In John 12;31, 14:30 and 16:11 Jesus himself describes Satan

as the “ruler of this world. John in 1 John 5:19 tells us that the whole world is in the power of

the evil one.

But wait you say, doesn’t Colossians 2:13-15 tell us that Jesus won back the right to rule this

earth on the cross? He won the right, and in that sense delivered us from the power of darkness

according to to Colossians 1:12-14, 19-23; but according to Hebrews 2:7-9 we do not yet see the

world in subjection to Him. That is why good little girls are still molested by their fathers and

godly women are raped and nice little boys are killed by their playmates and teenagers in the

beginning of adulthood die of cancer and good husbands are divorced by their wives and loyal

spouses die of AIDS brought home by their husbands and terrorists fly airplanes into buildings

filled with innocent people and young and old people die and Ethiopian’s starve and Sudanese

are killed in wars and on and on and on. Either God isn’t big enough to stop it or He chooses

not to if you believe that he controls this world. Either option is not what the Bible teaches. And,

in that realization comes the good news of the judgment if we just listen to the message of the

Bible.

There is one individual on trial in the judgment, and it is not you or me or God.

It's Not About Us - Page 9

So, Who Really Is on Trial in the Judgment?

The answer to that question lies in the most exciting chapter of the Bible. It is the most complete

and thorough discussion of the judgment that exists in Scripture. It was written by the prime

minister of two of the greatest nations to ever exist on this earth. You will find his description in

Daniel 7. We do not have the space to parse this chapter line by line - instead let’s look at the

larger picture for a few moments.

Daniel begins by taking us on a roller coaster ride through human history from his day to the end

of the world.

There would be a series of four great nations who rule the world, he tells us, followed by 10 other

kingdoms who exist and rule concurrently, before our globe comes under the sway of an all

powerful religious power who will terrorize and persecute all true followers of God. In the

midst of this, God will take His place on His official throne and the last judgment will begin.

Note the sequence of events from that point onward as described by Daniel.

1. God’s court sits in judgment.6

2 God renders judgment “in favor of the saints7

3. The kingdom of this earth is taken away from Satan, the ruler of the earth up until this

6
Daniel 7:10
7
Daniel 7:22; Revelation 18:20

It's Not About Us - Page 10

 time.8

4. It is given to Jesus, the Lamb.9

5. Jesus restores it to His people10

There is a pivotal difference between a civil trial and a criminal one in most judicial systems. In

a criminal trial the judge or jury weighs the evidence against a party then renders a verdict. This

verdict can be appealed. Then, when the appeals are exhausted, the sentence is carried out. In a

civil case, on the other hand, two parties appear before the bar of justice in adversarial roles.

After hearing the evidence presented, the judge or jury decides against one and for the other.

Daniel 7, and the rest of the Bible when it is read through the lens of the insights found in this

chapter, portray God’s judgment as a civil case where Jesus sues for the restoration of what was

lost to Him and His people at Adam and Eve’s fall. In this trial, Jesus represents His saints and,

in a very real sense, the whole Trinity in their quest to reclaim what has been taken from them by

Satan. That is why Daniel speaks of the judgment in terms of “vindication” in Daniel 7. Jesus’

claim rests on two premises: He created the world in the beginning, 11 and He won the right to

recreate and restore it by His death on Calvary.

8
Daniel 7:26
9
Daniel 7:14
10
Daniel 7:27
11
John 1:2; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2

It's Not About Us - Page 11

After the evidence is presented, God proclaims, as He did on the wall of Belshazzar’s banquet

hall, “Your kingdom has been weighed in the balances and found wanting!” With the

concurrence of the whole universe, the earth is then taken away from Satan and restored to Jesus

and His people.

The judgment message is Good News because it is an announcement that Satan’s awful rule on

this earth is finally coming to an end. There will be no more tears or death or mourning or pain

ever again.12 The rule of the evil prince, the ruler of the powers of the air, and all of his black

minions will end forever. Their reign of terror will be over. No more orphans and broken hearts

and promises; no more divorce and pornography and incest; no more teenagers dying on the

streets and young parents selling their bodies and souls for a chemical high; no more wars and

rumors of war and stock market crashes and crop failures; no more famine and flood and

volcanic eruptions. It will all be over!

What Satan has worked so hard to cover up is that we are not on trial in heaven’s judgment, he is.

By changing the focus, he has made God look exceedingly bad and turned what God designs to

be Good News into bad news.

One question remains. How about those texts in Scripture that talk about us facing our life’s

record in the judgment? If we are not on trial in heaven’s court, what do these passages mean?

12
Revelation 21:4

It's Not About Us - Page 12

While we are not the focus of the last judgment, we do have a part to play. You will recall that

the earth is to be finally restored in the end to God’s people. At some point, God has to

determine who is, and who is not, one of his saints - and He has to be able to defend His decision

to the whole universe. That decision has to stand up to the appeals process which will occur

during the 1000 years of the Millennium.

The Bible says that profession is not sufficient to be classified as a follower of God. Our lives

must bear evidence that we have made Jesus our Lord as well as our Savior. But, that is a very

minor part of what happens in God’s judgment. Our part is the heavenly equivalent of a Drivers

License check at a traffic stop or a passport check at airport security. The real focus is on God’s

actions vis-a-vis his arch enemy Satan and the final annihilation of His kingdom. The

concentration of the Bible’s witness on the judgment is on God’s final triumph over evil.

Suddenly, instead of being bad news, the judgment is fantastically good news for anyone who

groans under the weight of sin and it’s effects.

The Good News of Revelation 14

No passage in scripture makes this clearer than Revelation 14:6-12 - a passage very near and dear

to Seventh-day Adventists. To really understand this passage, you have to read it within the

larger context of this whole section of the Revelation.

It's Not About Us - Page 13

When we come to Revelation 12, God’s people are at the apparent nadir of their existence. Their

spiritual and temporal enemies have conspired to eliminate them. The dragon, the devil, defeated

by the Lamb and thrown down to this earth with his followers has recruited “the beast” and it’s

confederates to help him wipe out God’s true followers on earth - once and for all. Every human

on earth is finally marked either as a follower of God or a follower of Satan the Dragon - as a

citizen of the Kingdom of Darkness or the Kingdom of Light. Together the unholy confederacy

controls the whole world and sets out to eliminate all of God’s loyal friends and subjects. And,

from every human perspective it looks like they are going to be successful.

In the face of that satanic final solution, God send a message of hope to his people. “Have faith

and endure,”13 he calls, “Satan will be defeated in the end!” That Good News from the

Commander-in-Chief is delivered by three angels who are pictured flying across the sky from one

horizon to the other shouting their messages to every nation and cultural and language and ethnic

group on earth.

“Give God the respect and admiration He deserves,” the first angel calls. “Worship the Creator

of heaven and earth. His Kingdom of Darkness has been weighed in the balances and found

wanting and is about to be taken away from him and returned to Jesus and His people”14

13
Revelation 13:10; 14:12
14
The judgment referred to in this passage is the final judgment on Satan and His dark
kingdom. The angels that follow expand on that announcement and the rest of the chapter
describes it happening.

It's Not About Us - Page 14

A second angel now streaks across the sky calling: “Fell! Fell! Babylon the Great who made all

nations drink the wine of her impure passion fell!”

The traditional translation of Revelation 14:8 is “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great nation who

made all men drink the wine of her impure passion.“ While this translation is technically correct,

the ambivalent language chosen by generations of translators leaves a very wrong impression of

the sense of the original and of the story upon which it is based. It is not an isolated statement

with no context. It refers back to another time and we will only understand it’s meaning when

we know the story of what happened then.

Over 1000 years before John wrote the Revelation, God’s people were in captivity in the land of

another Babylon - literal Babylon in Mesopotamia. From any human point of view there was

absolutely no hope or prospect for the future. The most powerful nation on earth had razed their

cities, including Jerusalem, had destroyed the temple so completely that there was not a single

stone left standing, and all of the people except for a very few farmers and tradesmen in the

whole nation had been deported and pressed into servitude. There was no hope!

Then a prophet began to speak. His message was almost too good to be true for those slaves in

Babylon. We can read his messages in Jeremiah 50 and 51. “Babylon will fall!” he cried. Don’t

lose heart! Hang in there! The God of Israel will come through for you. Babylon will fall!

Babylon will fall!”

It's Not About Us - Page 15

To put this message in context, it is as if the nation of Tonga or Fiji had been completely overrun

by the combined forces of the old Russia, China and the United States and all of its people sold

into slavery. Then a prophet arises and says, “They will fall! They will be destroyed! Don’t give

up, there is still hope! You will shortly be freed and vindicated.” Babylon ruled the then known

world. They were the superpower. They were invincible and it looked like they would rule the

world forever. Jeremiah’s messages must have seemed ludicrous and naive at the time.

But history tells us that Babylon did fall. The impossible occurred. The miracle happened.

God’s people were freed and vindicated.

That series of events provides the point of reference for Revelation 14:8. You can only

understand what God and John are saying in the context of what happened back then. The

English word “fallen” can either denote something that exists in a state of moral decay, which is

the way we have traditionally viewed those words, or it can mean that something fell over and

remains fallen. The Greek word used for “fallen” in Revelation 14:8 is “epesen.” It is a simple

aorist - something happened at a point of time in the past and the effects remain. The best

translation of this verse is “Fell! Fell! Babylon the great who make all nations drink of the wind

of her impure passion.” In other words, “It’s happened before! It may have looked impossible

then, but Babylon fell! So have hope, it will happen again!”

Which brings us to the message of the third angelic messenger who streaks across the sky. This

angel cries with a loud voice, in other words he shouts, yells, “Not only will spiritual Babylon

It's Not About Us - Page 16

fall, it will be totally eradicated once and for all time! Anyone who worships the Beast, Satan,

and his reflection and is marked as loyal to them will drink the wine of God’s wrath mixed with

His righteous anger. The Beast is about to be destroyed by the nuclear brightness of God’s

presence with all protection removed. The smoke of their destruction will drift throughout the

whole universe!15 Their will be no respite for anyone who serves Satan and reflects his image

and is loyal to his Kingdom of Darkness until it is finished once and for all.”

In that darkest of hours, the messages of the Three Angels arrive as dispatches of hope from the

ruler of the universe.. In essence God is saying, “Hold out just a little longer. The cavalry is on

the way.” So, John concludes in words reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s in Britain’s darkest

hour, “Hold on, Hold on! Never, never, never give up! Help is on it’s way.”

Conclusion

The judgment message Seventh-day Adventists have been called to carry to the whole world is

good news to everyone on earth except Satan and his loyal subjects. The good news of the

Judgment we have been called to take the world is about the triumph of God in His Great

Controversy with Satan! It is a message of hope and comfort and optimism for anyone who lives

under the oppressive rule of the devil. It is a positive message charged with triumph for slaves

15
Just as sin infected this whole universe, so the smoke of God’s enemies will drift from
one end to the other. The Second Law of Thermodynamics appears to be in effect universe-wide
in this universe. Simply stated, all things decay in our universe. Whatever unfallen worlds exist
must exist in the parallel universes demanded by Quantum Theory. Sin and its effects appear to
be isolated to our own.

It's Not About Us - Page 17

groaning under the weight of their servitude to the prince of darkness. It is a promise of rescue to

anyone drowning in a sea of sin. It is a message of hope for the hopeless and relief for the weary.

It is a message of victory when it seems the battle is lost and a message of support when we feel

that we are all alone.

Unfortunately that message has not had the impact that God designed for it to have because we

turned it into a message of doom and gloom. By making the judgment all about us, we have

thought way too small and in the process we have missed the whole point and misrepresented

God and turned off and away most of the people God most wanted to impact with the messages

of the Three Angels of Revelation.

Maybe it’s time we restored the message of the last judgment to what God intends it to be and get

on with finishing the work He called us into existence to do.

It's Not About Us - Page 18