Put Your Pencils Down
When we were in school we all had to take exams. Call them what you want, quizzes, tests, finals, exams. But the really big, stressful tests were the timed tests. You had a certain amount of time in which you were to take your test, and then you were told "Put your pencils down", and you were done whether you were done or not! Kids would frantically write all they could before the teacher would say firmly "I SAID PENCILS DOWN!".
Life is like that timed test, with some major differences. We don't wear a watch that tells us what time the test will be over. We don't even know how much time we have--it might be 10 minutes, 10 years or 110 years. But we are all graded on how we do on the test. Lazarus passed the test by faith, the rich man did not.
How so? Well, when we die we are judged on what or Who we believed and trusted in. If you trusted and believed in Christ, then you go to Heaven. If you rejected Jesus Christ then you go to Torment, then eventually to Hell. This is called the Judgment of Faith.
At a point afterward, there is what is called the Judgment of Works. In short, your life will be reviewed and you will receive judgment based upon what you did with your life. For the Christian, we will receive reward at the Bema (pronounced bay-ma) Seat Judgment. For the lost, as we studied last week, judgment will also be based upon works but will be used in a fair way to determine the eternal punishment of the person.
We have precious few days to make an impact in life, even if we live 110 years, in the grand scheme of things. Eternity is longer than trillions of years, and the judgments of God are everlasting. Those that are saved by Jesus, then we must work for Him. Those that are unsaved we give warning to, because we know their eventual fate should they not repent and turn in faith and trust toward Jesus Christ.
We never know when our life is going to be abruptly taken--when we will, for the last time "put our pencils down.
I) Judged According To Their Works
As we have discussed, there are two judgments for each person--Judgment of Faith and Judgment of Works. Here we see the latter, the Judgment of Works, for the unsaved masses called the Great White Throne Judgment.
Erwin Lutzer, Pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, related of a nice, kindly old man that told him "If your God is the type that would send anyone to Hell for eternity, then I want no part of him." I have heard a lot of people voice the same sentiment. Other variations include statements that begin with "Well, my god would never...". Notice that I intentionally did not capitalize the g in god here, because these people have a false god! The first and second commandments deal with "other gods" and with "false images". When we make God out to be anything that He is not, he then becomes a false god.
Here is a statement that may shock some people, but it is entirely true: The Doctrine of Hell glorifies God. Yes, it does. You may ask how. ALL people have no idea how repulsive sin is to our righteous, sinless, holy God. God is without sin, and sin angers God. In fact, it repels God, and God's wrath is held only in check by His great long-suffering. You see, each and every sin will be punished by God; in fact the wrath of God builds up against each person that is against Him:
Rom 2:5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, NKJV
The Greek word for "treasuring" means to "amass or reserve". The wrath of God has been building up and will be cut loose during the Tribulation and at the Great White Throne Judgment. It will be tempered to a degree by the moral works of the individual. Note these are moral works, not "good" works. While it may be seen as splitting hairs, it is not. Only God is good, and only good works are done by Him. The good works that we do are done with the empowerment and will of the Holy Spirit.
In short, we have no idea just how repulsive sin is to God, and how much it angers Him. We often want to make God only the God of love, but in truth He is the God of wrath and justice as well. Hell is the place of exclusion of all that is offensive to Him. It is a place where no good thing dwells.
Hell glorifies God by revealing both His attributes of wrath and justice, and Heaven (and the New Earth--Rev 21 & 22) will glorify Him by revealing his love and mercy.
II) Only God Knows The Heart
And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.
Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:12b-15 NKJV
What if you had someone said he was your friend and loved you with all of his heart, but never called you or talked to you, or ever visited your house unless he wanted something? Would you call that man a friend?
In a similar way, some people do the same with God. If you ask them if they are going to heaven, they just might tell you that they love God, do good things and that He answers their prayers but in the same breath tell you that they don't think you need to attend church to be saved. In fact, when pressed to ask them what "good" things they do for God, the either have no answer or stretch the truth.
Tell me, would either of the above examples be considered valid friends? Would the man be a friend of yours? Would the so-called Christian be really in a relationship with God?
God will judge each and every work at judgment. At the Bema, He will judge all works done by the believer from the time they were saved until they either die or are raptured--reward is at stake. At the Great White Throne Judgment, He will judge each and every work done by the individual, and the level of Hell will be at stake.
During our lives, God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the true intentions of the heart, which can easily deceive us through our rationalizing sin (Jeremiah 17:9):
Ps 44:20-21 If we had forgotten the name of our God, Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart. (NKJV)
The books mentioned contain each and every moral and evil work, thought and word uttered by each person that stands before Jesus at the Great White Throne Judgment. No deed will be ignored.
Some say that God is not fair by sending people to Hell. The problem with this line of thought is, again, a misunderstanding of how much God hates sin, and how often people sin against Him and just rationalize it away or just plain ignore it. We are, in fact, born in sin and corrupt from the very beginning of our lives (Ps 51:5). Truth is, God has shown great mercy and long-suffering by allowing the corruption of the world to go on this long!
In addition, there will be so called "ministers" that will stand at the Great White Throne Judgment (Matt 7:21-23). Although they do ministry work, Jesus never "knew them"; He never had a saving relationship with them.
III) The Second Death
Rev 20:14-15 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Romans 6:23a states "The wages of sin is death...". In other words, the paycheck at the Great White Throne Judgment is an all expense paid trip to Hell for all eternity. Before we are saved, we already have a one-way ticket to Hell:
John 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. NKJV
Thankfully, for the believer that trip was canceled and our destination changed and paid for by Jesus Christ (Is 43:25, sins blotted out).
In Romans 6:23a. death does not actually mean death in the physical sense but instead "second death". Death means separation, and we would normally understand that to be separation of the body from the soul and spirit here on earth. However, at the Great White Throne Judgment, it will be--once and for all--a separation from God forever. And it all adds up to an eternity with not one good thing about it.
Only God is good (Matt 19:16-17), and He is the fountainhead of all that is good. Each and everything that we enjoy in life we find the source is God. Sometimes these are things that are perverted by Satan and the sinful hearts of men, but God created things good and all good things come from Him. That triple chocolate brownie ice cream that you love? Made good by God. The hug from a loved one? Made good by God. That song that you love on the radio? Made good by God (unless it is off color, which is a perversion of God's good gift of music). Basically, everything in life is good until it's use is perverted by sin.
When a person experiences second death, it is a trip to Hell with no second chances, no possible chance of return (no matter what Hollywood says). There are no "do-overs". In this passage, we see that Death and Hades (those that died at the last war in Revelation 20 would be Death) are cast into the Lake of Fire, which would be "Hell Proper".
There is much misinformation about Hell, both on the liberal side and on the legalistic side. Here are a few of them, covered in brief:
"I'll see you in Hell, and we will have a big party." Not at all. First, there will be no parties in Hell, no good pleasurable thing will be experienced in Hell. In addition, one of the horrible features in Hell will be isolation of each person.
"Satan and his demons will flay your flesh, and torture you day and night". I have gone through the Scriptures on references to Satan, demons and Hell, and have found no Biblical support for this position what so ever. I think that some people are either sensationalizing their stories or their witnessing, and this is grave error. With a knowledge of how bad Hell is, there is no need to embellish the story.
IV) Two Things You WON'T Do In Heaven
Folks, I long for the day when I am with Jesus in Heaven. The longer I tread this soil here on Planet Earth, the more I realize that I sure do not belong here. That being said, it is important to know that there are two things that you won't do in heaven. It is a given, of course, that we will not sin and we will not die. We won't miss anyone that is in Heaven because we will be with them anytime we want.
The first is revealed in the passage above: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes." We are given the Lord's Supper as a remembrance; we won't need to "remember" Jesus as we will be face to face with Him. So then, we will not partake in Communion since it is a memorial to Jesus, and we will be with Him.
The second thing is simply this: once you go to heaven, your called duty to witness to the lost will be finished. Paul wrote "To live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21). In other words, we live for Christ and in service to Christ now but we make a great gain when we go to be with Jesus. We will indeed have work in Heaven; of what nature, for the most part, we do not know. But there will be no unsaved people in Heaven; thus, no one to witness to!
Give this some careful thought: if you were to die today, all of those people--family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and even enemies--you should be witnessing to today will not hear the gospel from you.
Now picture in your mind one person that you know needs to hear the gospel. Would it not break your heart to know that you would not see that person ever again if you died right now and did not share Jesus with them? Even worse, knowing what you know about Hell--even in the smallest degree from what we have discussed this week--does that not give you the desire to share Jesus with them?
In short, then, don't wait. Tomorrow might be too late...and once you go to Heaven, your witnessing days are over.
