When We Meet 'Jesus As Lord' In Judgment, It Shall Be Truly Dreadful To Us, If We Have Not Met Him As Savior and Lord In This Life! A Point to Ponder . . .

Jesus telling one at the judgment, "Depart from Me for I never knew you!"

A Devotional Thought for November 3, 2025

From the pen of John Bunyan author of Pilgrim's Progress

His Presence is Dreadful to Us

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his righthand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last’”

Revelation 1: 17.

[One reason] . . . is God’s own greatness and majesty. The discovery of this or of himself thus, even as no poor mortals can conceive of him is altogether unsupportable. The man dies to whom he thus discovers himself. “And when I saw him,” John says, “I fell at his feet as dead” (Revelation 1: 17). It was this . . . that Job would have avoided in the day that he would have approached unto him. “Let not thy dread,” he says, “make me afraid. Then call thou and I will answer; or let me speak, and answer thou me” (Job 13: 21-22). But why does Job after this manner . . . speak to God? Why! it was from a sense that he had of the dreadful majesty of God, even the great and dreadful God that kept covenant with his people. The presence of a king is dreadful to the subject. Yea, [even] though he carries it never so condescendingly. If then there be so much glory and dread in the presence of the king, what fear and dread must there be, think you, in the presence of the eternal God?

When God gives his presence to his people: That his presence causes them to appear to themselves more what they are than at other times, by all other light, they can see. “O my lord,” said Daniel, “by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me.” And why was that but because by the glory of that vision, he saw his own vileness more than at other times. So again: “I was left alone,” says he, “and saw this great vision,” and what follows? Why, “and there remained no strength in me; for my comeliness was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength” (Daniel 10: 8, 7, & 16).