The Judgment of God—The Book of Revelation
Week 39, 2018
This is a subject I’m sure everyone is excited about covering. Actually, if we really understood the judgment of God, it would be exciting and encouraging. We would look forward to it rather than trying to pretend it will not come.
The next text to be covered is Revelation 20:11-15:
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
When Jesus was asked about the signs of the end of this age, the first thing He said was “Don’t be deceived.” As we see in Revelation and through the prophecies of the New Testament apostles and prophets, deception is a primary problem at the end of the age. When we see doctrines that are so fundamentally contrary to Scripture, such as those called “hyper-grace” that are being embraced by so many Christians, we have to conclude that this is indeed a time of great deception. As the text we are now covering in Revelation addresses these errors so directly, we will briefly address them here.
“Hyper-grace” teachers say that God no longer judges since all sin was paid for at the cross. If this is the case, then what is this we just read at the end of the Book of Revelation? The judgments of God are addressed throughout the Bible and from the beginning to the end of the New Testament. The judgment of God is covered far more than such important subjects as God’s love, mercy, and even salvation. Why? Because His love, mercy, and even our salvation are the result of the judgments of God, and if we really understood them, we would not run from them but to them.
As Paul wrote, we must all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and we see this at the end of John’s Revelation—this will happen and no one will escape it. This tends to be a fearful thing to everyone who hears it, as we see with the Roman Governor Felix in Acts 24:24-25:
Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus.
As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, "That's enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you."
Because something makes you afraid does not mean that it is wrong. As we see repeatedly in Revelation, even the Apostle John, who was the oldest living of the original apostles of The Lord at this time, was often falling down in fear when he saw The Lord. The fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it is one of the most serious lacks we tend to have in our times. Therefore, a primary reason why there is so little wisdom and such bizarre foolishness as some modern false doctrines.
If we have wisdom, which starts with the fear of The Lord but matures into understanding His love, we will approach His judgment like the psalmist in Psalm 98:7-9:
Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands and let the mountains sing together for joy
before The Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.
When The Lord comes to judge the earth, the whole world will learn righteousness and justice. We know that our God is not only utterly just, but also merciful. His judgments of our deeds will be completely right and just, and we can completely trust Him in this. Those who have already lived their lives before The Judge will have no fear of The Judgment Day. If we do have fear of this, then there are some things in our life that we must face or that great day will be much harder than it needs to be for us.
A Personal Note from Rick
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