Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190023B
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00:01 Of course, God knows everything, but He's got it also recorded.
00:03 Now I don't know how He does all of that. 00:06 We have video recording today. 00:08 We understand you can just record a person's life, 00:11 as it were. 00:12 We're all on camera, it seems, everywhere we go. 00:14 But God is watching everybody's life. 00:16 It's all recorded. 00:17 There's not going to be any question about who did what. 00:20 Let's go back to verse 12 of Revelation 20, 00:23 the great white throne judgment. 00:25 "And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, 00:29 and the books were opened. 00:31 And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life." 00:35 Now that's the one you want to be in. 00:38 "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, 00:41 and Death and Hades..." 00:42 Or the grave. 00:43 Hades is another word for the grave. 00:45 "...delivered up the dead who were in them. 00:48 And they were judged, each according to his works." 00:52 Now people are going to be judged fairly. 00:55 They're going to be judged righteously. 00:57 That means that some are going to be judged 00:59 more severely than others, according to their works. 01:02 In fact, these text say that twice. 01:05 Verse 14 says, "Then Death and Hades 01:08 were cast into the lake of fire." 01:12 The lake that's on this earth. 01:14 "This is the second death. 01:19 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life 01:22 was cast into the lake of fire." 01:27 So this is a repeat and enlarge picture of the preceding verses. 01:31 The one who sits on the great white throne 01:33 is none other than the Judge of the universe. 01:37 And at the resurrection of the dead at the end 01:41 of the 1000 years... 01:42 I'm just recapping here what the Scripture said. 01:45 The dead come from anywhere they were buried. 01:49 None of these people who are judged have taken advantage 01:54 of the blood of Christ. 01:56 None of them have taken advantage of the gift of life 01:59 that Jesus has offered to all of us. 02:03 And since there's a careful record, the Bible says 02:06 that some will be beaten with many stripes 02:09 and some with few. 02:10 So if you punish everybody for eternity, 02:14 aren't you punishing them basically the same? 02:17 No, the Bible says God is a just God. 02:21 He's a fair God. 02:23 And He takes no delight, by the way. 02:25 The Bible calls this in one place, His strange act. 02:28 It's not something He likes to do. 02:31 So we want to notice that the lake of fire, once again, 02:34 is here on the earth. 02:37 It's on the surface of the earth. 02:39 They're cast into this lake of fire. 02:43 And the lake of fire is the end of death and the grave, 02:48 because it puts an end to sin. 02:52 It's also, as I call it, the dreaded second death, 02:57 from which there's no coming back. 03:00 So is there a contradiction between these phrases, 03:02 "forever and ever," and the declaration that this is 03:06 the second death? 03:09 It seems like it's a contradiction, 03:10 but it's not really. 03:13 We need to look at the context. 03:16 Now I want to say this, that this burning forever ends 03:20 the second death. 03:22 Hell fire does come to an end. 03:25 In fact, we'll look at that word, "forever," 03:28 and we also want to look at the context. 03:29 The context is crucial. 03:33 I always say to people, "What is the context saying?" 03:37 Well let's look at the context. 03:39 Now the next chapter, the chapter divisions 03:43 were not inspired. 03:44 When John wrote this, he just wrote it right through. 03:47 He moved from chapter 20 to 21. 03:49 And he just keeps moving after he talks about 03:52 death and hell being thrown into this second death 03:55 and this forever and ever business. 03:57 Now listen to what he goes on to say. 03:59 "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, 04:04 for the first heaven and the first earth..." Were what? 04:08 "...passed away." 04:10 So he sees a new heaven and a new earth, 04:13 for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. 04:16 So you can't have it both ways. 04:17 You can't have this earth where the devil and his evil angels 04:21 and the wicked are judged with fire that comes down from God 04:25 out of heaven, they're standing on the earth 04:27 in front of the New Jerusalem, 04:29 this thing creates a lake of fire, 04:32 and it's called the second death, 04:34 and then this thing passes away. 04:36 Of course, the apostle Peter describes that, 04:39 how that the earth burns like an oven, as it were. 04:43 It becomes a molten mass. 04:45 And then he says the same thing, that you get a new heavens 04:48 and a new earth made out of the old earth 04:52 and the old heavens, if you please, 04:54 that have been burned up. 04:56 They've been destroyed. 04:58 And when they're destroyed, they're destroyed with the 05:00 wicked in it. 05:01 Just like the flood destroyed the antediluvian world, 05:04 so now a flood of fire destroys these wicked people 05:10 at the end of time. 05:13 So the context does not allow you to have a forever and ever 05:18 burning hell fire here, 05:21 because you have a new heavens and a new earth. 05:23 The first heavens, the first earth have passed away. 05:25 The apostle Peter says it's all been consumed away, so to speak. 05:30 So what is going on here? 05:33 Since the lake of fire is on this earth, that means 05:36 the earth is going to pass away. 05:39 It can't be the smoke of their torment ascending up 05:42 forever and ever because it's coming to an end. 05:46 Well let's look a little bit at that phrase, "forever and ever." 05:48 I got very fascinated by that. 05:50 And I can give you a lot of text in Scripture 05:53 that will tell you that the wages, 05:56 and we'll talk about that, the wicked are going to die. 05:59 That the penalty of sin is death. 06:02 We'll look at maybe one or two of those before we're done here. 06:05 I mean, there's just mountains of those text in Scripture 06:09 through the Old Testament, through the New Testament. 06:12 This is an eternal fire, meaning its effects are eternal, 06:15 but it's not an eternal punishing. 06:18 It is a fire that has an end, but not an ending. 06:24 Meaning, the results never end. 06:26 It's an eternal decision. 06:29 These people are not coming back. 06:33 I also did some looking, and the early church fathers, 06:36 I'm talking about real early before the popes, 06:39 they didn't believe in this ever burning hell part. 06:44 But let's go back to this phrase, "forever and ever." 06:48 I did a little look to that, and actually the literal translation 06:53 is, "to the ages of the ages." 06:57 In other words, the smoke of their torment ascends up 07:00 to the ages of the ages. 07:02 That's what John actually wrote. 07:05 And it can be translated, "forever and ever." 07:09 But when you look up the word in Strong's Analytical commentary 07:14 and lexicon, and so forth, or dictionary, it will tell you 07:18 that the word also allows for a period of time. 07:22 But let's look at it a little different. 07:24 Let's look at it the way John wrote it. 07:27 "To the ages of the ages." 07:29 What ages of the ages is he talking about? 07:33 Well, I think that... 07:35 Let me give you some other translations. 07:38 Because I think sometimes our translations have been 07:41 influenced by Roman Catholicism that basically 07:44 invented this ever burning hell. 07:46 We'll talk a little bit about that in a moment maybe. 07:49 But let me give you Young's literal translation. 07:52 He says, "Tormented day and night to the ages of the ages." 07:57 That's different. 07:59 "...to the ages of the ages." 08:01 And that, "to," is a very fair translation. 08:03 I looked it up. 08:05 And here's Weymouth's New Testament. 08:06 He translates it, or they translate it, 08:08 "The day and night they will suffer torture until..." 08:12 That's even better. 08:14 And it can be translated that way. 08:16 "...until the age of the ages." 08:19 So this literal translation then makes a lot of sense, 08:23 given the context. 08:25 Let's just take a look at this literal sense. 08:27 First of all, the punishment goes on until 08:32 the ages of the ages, 08:33 or until the beginning of the new age 08:37 which starts with the new earth. 08:40 Now let me give you some of the insights to this 08:44 from the teachings of Jesus. 08:46 In Matthew 12:32, Jesus says, "Anyone who speaks a word 08:54 against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; 08:59 but if he speaks against the Holy Spirit, 09:01 it will not be forgiven him..." 09:03 Now notice what else He says. 09:05 "...either in this age or the age to come." 09:11 And that's a theme that runs through the New Testament. 09:14 This age that we're in is coming to an end. 09:18 This age. 09:19 But there's another age that's coming. 09:22 And that's the age of the ages. 09:25 That age of the ages will never end. 09:27 That's the age we want to be part of, 09:29 because this age that we are in, it's coming to an end. 09:36 So notice again in Matthew 13:37-40. 09:43 In Matthew, He's talking and telling the parable of, 09:47 and He's interpreting here, of the sower who went out to sow. 09:50 "And He answered and said to them, 09:53 'He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 09:56 The field is the world...'" 09:58 That's the world we're living in right now. 09:59 This is the interpretation. 10:01 "...the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, 10:04 but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 10:09 The enemy who sowed them is the devil..." 10:12 Now listen carefully. 10:14 "...the harvest is at the end of the age..." 10:18 This age is coming to an end. 10:21 But hallelujah, there's another age that's coming. 10:24 "...the reapers are the angels." 10:26 Verse 40, "Therefore as the tares are gathered 10:30 and burned in the fire, 10:35 so it will be at the end of this age." 10:40 If the translators had translated 10:42 the way John wrote it, it really wouldn't have been a problem. 10:45 No, he's saying it's going to continue until the 10:48 start of that new age. 10:50 The context is very clear about that. 10:54 So Revelation 19:3 gives us again a picture of that. 10:59 It says, "'For true and righteous are His judgments, 11:01 because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted 11:04 the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her 11:07 the blood of His servants...' 11:09 Again they said, 'Alleluia! 11:11 Her smoke rises up forever and ever.'" 11:15 In other words, her smoke rises up to, or until, 11:19 the new age. 11:21 The age that will last into eternity. 11:24 This age, though, is coming to an end. 11:28 "Strong is the Lord who judges her." 11:31 She will be utterly consumed. 11:34 And by the way, the Bible says in Revelation 18:8, 11:38 "She will be utterly burned with fire." 11:40 "Utterly," means to be utterly consumed, to be done away with. 11:45 So there's really no contradiction, 11:47 if they had translated it the way that John 11:50 had really written it. 11:52 The book of Malachi, I'll give you this one really quick, 11:54 Malachi 4:1-3. 11:56 "For behold, the day is coming that shall burn as an oven, 12:00 And all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble." 12:04 And then it says that they will be like ashes 12:07 under the feet of the righteous. 12:08 Why? Because they are burned up. 12:12 It was Voltaire, that atheist, that helped bring on 12:16 the French Revolution, who hated God. 12:19 And the way he learned to hate God was he 12:21 sat on his father's knee, and his father told him 12:23 if he didn't be good, that God would burn him 12:25 forever and ever without ceasing. 12:28 That little boy looked at his father and he says, 12:30 "Then I hate God." 12:33 God is a God of justice. 12:35 This whole idea of an ever burning hell 12:37 was invented by a church that was cruel in the Dark Ages 12:41 in order to keep people in place. 12:44 In order to make them so fearful that they could control them. 12:48 But God doesn't want that kind of control. 12:51 God wants you to respond to Him because you love Him, 12:54 because you choose Him. 12:56 No, if you are lost, it will be your own fault. 13:01 And I pray that you won't be. 13:03 But I have a question to ask. 13:05 If you're lost, God is going to wipe away the tears 13:08 of the righteous, but if you're lost, 13:11 who is going to wipe away God's tears? 13:15 He really loves you. 13:16 He gave His Son so that you would never have to go 13:20 to this place. 13:22 He cares about you. 13:24 Who is going to wipe away, if you're lost, God's tears? |
Revised 2019-10-15