I wasn't going to read this, but I think I'm going to here at the top of the sermon. I put something from one of the Sibylline Oracles, Sibylline Oracle 4, as a summary. It seems to be an early Christian summary of basically what we're looking at here in Revelation chapter 20. And I had forgotten about it, refound it this last week, so I thought I would read it as kind of an introduction here. When everything is already dusty ashes and God puts to sleep the unspeakable fire, even as he kindled it, God himself will again fashion the bones and ashes of men and he will raise up mortals again as they were before. And then there will be a judgment over which God himself will preside, judging the world again. As many as sinned by impiety, these will a mound of earth cover and brought to Taurus and the repulsive recesses of Gehenna. But as many as are pious, they will live on the earth again when God gives spirit and life and favor to these pious ones. Then they will all see themselves beholding the delightful and pleasant light of the sun, almost blessed whatever man will live to that time. In one of his best-known essays, I found out he wrote this in 1948, C.S. Lewis makes this observation regarding modern man that there is, quote, the almost total absence from the mind of any sense of sin. Now, let me say that again. He wrote this in 1948. It didn't matter who his audience was, whether public or private. Well over 70 years ago, he said this, when the Western world still at least had kind of what I think is the hangover headache from the Christian culture that it was trying so furiously to alleviate from its skull. How much truer is that observation in our own now thoroughly postmodern, relativistic, tyrannical, woke, fluid, trans-everything world that has arisen from the abyss to take its place? At any rate, he goes on to remark this, he says, the early Christian preachers could assume in their hearers, whether Jews, God-fearers, or pagans, a sense of guilt. Thus, the Christian message was in those days unmistakably evangelium, the good news. It promised healing to those who knew they were sick. On the other hand, he says, we have to convince our hearers of the unwelcome diagnosis before we can expect them to welcome the news of the remedy. This is made quite difficult because modern humanity has now taken the exact opposite approach and stand regarding deity that the ancients did. He says the ancient man approached God, or even the gods, as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. He is the judge, God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge. If God should have a reasonable defense for being a God who permits war, poverty, and disease, he's ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock. And that's kind of the famous line from this essay in Lewis. So what does the expression God in the dock refer to? A dock is a rather archaic, old, out-of-fashion word, at least to us Americans. It refers to something found in American courtrooms as late as the 1970s. In the British Commonwealth, which is where Lewis was from, a courtroom that tries criminal cases usually has a dock. which is a space reserved exclusively for seating a criminal defendant. In other words, if God is in the dock, it means he is the one on trial. Meanwhile, we in our arrogance and hubris sit aloft front and center in the courtroom, wigs fitted neatly on top of our heads, robes draped around our bodies, collars fixed tightly around our necks, and most importantly, the gavel is upraised in our hands at the judge's bench. To such a person, the very idea of final judgment, let alone the rewards and punishment and places reserved, are more than nonsensical. They are laughable and comical. It's absurd. There can be no such thing for any kind of deity who may lay claim to presiding over such an event as a final judgment must first come hands cuffed and led downward below us and off to the side to the dock of our personal court of opinions and judgments. So this is going to be our fifth and last week in what I am kind of calling a mini-series on Revelation 20. Today, we look at what for modern and post-modern man might just be the laughable or absurd idea of final judgment. However, for the reader of Revelation, for the student of Scripture, even for one who understands that there is evil and that it is wrong for evil to go unpunished, but especially for the one who truly knows himself to be the creation rather than creator, the one fallen in sin, unable to extricate himself from his own ultimately suicidal end. This comes as the climactic, necessary, final, only rational conclusion, not only for the devil and his angels, but for all that is evil in this world. So I've chosen verses 10 through 15. to look at this morning, because here we have many related topics. You have the final end of the devil, including his unending eternal torment. You have the great white throne judgment, the earth and sky fleeing away, all the dead standing before God's throne. You have open books, the final destinations of every man, woman, and child, quote, according to what they had done. And you have the lake of fire. Now structurally speaking, it seems that it's actually verses 11 through the first verse of the next chapter that form the most basic unit of thought. I'm basically going back one verse on either side of that. Because they both have an inclusio with heaven and earth. Verse 11, and I saw earth and heaven flee from the throne. Verse one of the next chapter, now I saw the new heaven and the new earth. And verse one of the next chapter kind of then ends this chapter and begins the last two chapters of the book. Looking at verses 10 through 15, we will confine ourselves to thinking about just what comes before this, which is the future damnation. Whereas, once we move into chapter 21, we'll have much more to say about everlasting life. Now along these lines, there's a direct tie in with our passage going all the way back to verse 6. If you look at verse 6, it says, over such the second death has no power. And if you look at verse 14 and 15, this is the second death. Anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And so this takes me to the 17th and final question that I originally began asking in the first six verses. of the chapter. Now I also want to note just to continue impressing upon you the repeating cyclical nature of chapters 19 and 20 that they talk about the same thing. Here in our passage we see today that there's a parallel in what when you read chapter 19 seems this kind of out of place section of Christ appearing on a white horse in the middle of two suppers. Well, that is the parallel to the judgment of God in the wicked in our chapter this morning. All right, so the last of our 17 questions, as I said, arose out of the end of verse six. That verse says, blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power. So what is the second death? That's the question. Now there's an adage that I learned in Sunday school long ago, if you're born once, you will die twice. If you're born twice, you will die once. Has anybody else heard that before? I say it again, if you're born once, you will die twice. If you're born twice, you will die once. The idea of being born twice takes us to another part of the inverse parallel in John's gospel that I want you to think about. And this is found in John chapter three. So if we're in Revelation 19, John three, you can see that it's the inverse. Jesus tells Nicodemus, the Pharisee, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, like almost everybody else in the Gospel of John, the teacher of Israel, as Jesus calls him, takes Jesus literally. He asks, how can a man be born when he's old? How can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? But Jesus was not talking about something truly absurd, like somehow going back into your mother's womb. He was talking about spiritual birth, wasn't he? Scripture teaches in Ephesians 2.1, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. He's not talking about physical death here. He's not saying you were physically dead in the trespasses and sins in which you walked. He's talking about spiritual death. Now this is not talking about a second death, either before or after physical death here in Ephesians, because this is a state or condition that we're all born into. The spirit must be made alive out of this dead state. So behold this, just a few verses later, even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. So the spiritual birth is equal to salvation. or we might call it regeneration, or even in Revelations terms, we might call it resurrection. Not a resurrection of the body, which comes later, but a resurrection of the spirit. And this, as we talked about last time, is the first resurrection. That's the new birth, being born again, being saved, being regenerated. That's the first resurrection. So this spiritual resurrection is a kind of death to the world. As Colossians says, if with Christ you died to the stoichia, that is the elemental spirits of the world, as if you were still alive to the world, see? It's a kind of death to the world when you're born again. And because it's spiritual and therefore invisible, it's a kind of death and new life that's difficult even for a man himself to always understand rightly. So the apostle reminds us, as Christians, you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Why? Because we often forget that. Peter tells us, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. See, only by doing this can you properly fight the spiritual battle. But dying to the world is also not the second death, because it is to these people that are made alive in the Spirit, born again by the Spirit, that John tells them that they will not need to worry about the second death. In fact, Jesus has told the churches this very thing in the parallel in Revelation, way back in Revelation 2. There's only two times that the phrase second death appears in the book In fact, in the entire Bible, and they're chiastically parallel. in 2.11, the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Now, yes, they will die physically. And the book strongly suggests that many of his people will do this as actual martyrs killed for their faith. But we will not need to worry about the second death. So he's already brought the second death up. So what in the world is it? All right, the phrase appears In Revelation 2014, this is the second death. It then immediately defines for us what the second death is. It says the lake of fire. Now the lake of fire is therefore the second death. That should be pretty simple. Now, the first time that the lake of fire appears is back in chapter 19. This is why I say it's so important to understand 19 and 20 are parallel, saying the same thing. 19-20, the beast was captured and with it the false prophet. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. Now, I want to just comment on two things in that verse. It is two supernatural creatures that are thrown into the lake of fire in that verse. And second, it burns with sulfur. Now these two points exactly match what we find in Revelation 20 verse 10. at the beginning of our passage today. After the great last battle, that in effect we saw last week is no battle at all, it says the devil who had deceived them, that is his great army composed here of its human component, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur. So again, you have a supernatural creature thrown into the lake and again it burns with sulfur. Okay, so great, we've seen what's the second death that's the lake of fire, but what is the lake of fire, right? Now again, it's a phrase that's only found here in the Bible, just like second death. But that doesn't mean it was unheard of prior to Revelation. So we're going to do a little bit of work trying to figure out what this place is. Now almost all Bible dictionaries point out that the image of sulfur has its origins in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I want you to recall. Way back in Genesis, this place was well watered before God destroyed it. It says, like the garden of God, even, back in Genesis 13. Everybody wanted to live here in what is now a desolate wasteland near the Dead Sea. But it was not so dead back then. In fact, Lot said, I want to go down there, because it's beautiful. Several great cities sprang up around it, and Lot, the nephew of Abraham, chose it as his home. Then something terrible. was about to happen because something was going on in Sodom. In fact, many terrible things were taking place here. The scripture has much to say about this. It includes, in Jeremiah, adultery, lying, strengthening the hands of the evildoers. Amos adds that they were oppressing the poor. Ezekiel tells us that there was pride and gluttony and idleness And of course, Genesis tells us there was inhospitality, homosexuality, and even sexually sinning with angels. Now, because their sin was so great, it reached up to heaven itself. And there, God decided to punish the cities with an everlasting destruction that continues to this very day. In one of the great verses of the Old Testament, for how it clearly shows us God the Father and God the Son, this is what we read in Genesis 19, 24. It says, then the Lord rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. So you have one Yahweh on earth there with Lot. The other Yahweh is in heaven. This is son and father. And curiously, God does this destruction all right next to the great dead sea, a lake where nothing now lives. Now we can add to this the Gog-Magog battle that we looked at last week, which also has something similar. It says in Ezekiel 38, with pestilence and bloodshed, I will enter into judgment with him and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him, torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. Now I find that really curious because the devil is thrown into this lake of fire immediately after the Gog Magog battle. Torrential rains of fire here could, like the now dead sea, get you an image of a lake of fire and sulfur, couldn't it? The lake of fire also has some affinity with the Old Testament, particularly in Isaiah 30 and Daniel 7. Isaiah talks about God's breath being like, quote, a stream of sulfur that kindles the fires of judgment. And Daniel, in Daniel 7 has a river of fire that surrounds the throne of God. And I think this is an especially important connection because it tells us that the beast that came out of the sea was killed and its body was destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. And so the only fire in the whole passage is this river. So was he thrown into the river of fire that is by the throne of God? Intertestamental books, especially 1 Enoch, play around with the idea of the lake of fire with streams and rivers of fire and abysses of fire and so on. And we also have similar conceptions with the Greeks, with Hades and Tartarus and Styx and other rivers. end up in the Scandinavian stories with Muspelheim. You have Babylonian Bitter River, which is a great river of fire. You have the Egyptians, which literally have what they call the Lake of Fire, and so on. So it's a very common idea. But really, When it comes down to it, it's the biblical place known as Gehenna that I think we find the best parallel to what the Lake of Fire is. And here, we need to understand something about Greek terms in our New Testaments and the English translations of them in most of our Bibles. So we're going to talk here about hell for a little bit. All right? Now, Lake of Fire is an actual translation of the Greek lemne to pyros. That's just lake of fire. It's all that is. And most translations do not explain to you that there's actually three different terms that are all translated as hell in our New Testament. So what are those? First Greek word is the word Hades. Hades is actually translated as Hades in our passage, for which I'm really thankful. Verses 13 and 14, look at that. Death and Hades gave up the dead. And then it says, death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. And we'll come back to that in a second. But sometimes Hades is simply called hell. in English Bibles. For example, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We've seen that in Matthew 16 several times the last couple of weeks. That's actually the word Hades there. The gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Now Hades appears scores of times in the Septuagint where it always translates the word Sheol, which is the realm of the dead. In the Old Testament everyone goes to Sheol and therefore everyone goes to Hades. Now, if you use that English word, that means everyone in the Old Testament goes to hell. But this is why it's so important to understand what these words mean, because you would say, Abraham went to hell? What if that doesn't even make sense? Well, it's because there's different words that, unfortunately, we're all translating with one English word. Believers, unbelievers, Jews, Gentiles all go to Hades when they die in the Old Testament. Therefore, words associated with Hades are described as down because it's the grave. She holds the grave. It also has gates. We saw that in Matthew. It's a place of torment and fire in Luke. I'll also come back to this in a little bit. It's a place of abandonment in Acts. And it's a place of death in Revelation 1 and even here in Revelation 20. Now, I do not believe that all people in the Old Testament went to the same part of Hades. Picture Hades like a huge country with many regions and cities. I think the story of the rich man and Lazarus can help. This story is told in Luke 16, and it's technically not a parable, though it does function in some ways as a parable. Now, whether it's real history or not, and we have that debate maybe in Sunday school or something if you want to, I tend to think, well, why not? But it's debatable. It is giving us a real depiction of Hades. Jesus isn't lying about what the place is like. Well, what does he say? He says there's a rich man who's tormented in a place of burning. And Lazarus is in a place of peace, which is called Abraham's bosom. And they're divided by a great chasm. Now in some ways this parallels the Greek conception of Hades where you have various rivers that divide the place up between the Elysium fields of blissful sleep and the horrific prison known as Tartarus. Tartarus is the second word in Greek that's translated as hell in English Bibles. Here's an example, 2 Peter 2.4. If God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell, and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept in judgment, and then he goes on. Well, hell is the word Tartarus there. It's not the word Hades. Peter uses this word in exactly the same way that the Greek myths do of the Titans who were locked up in Tartarus in the parallel of the Genesis 6 story. Now, Tartarus, you need to understand this, is not Hades, but it is technically in Hades. It's part of Hades. It's deep, dark, and gloomy. It is a prison that not even the most powerful watchers can escape. And since it's not identical with Hades, I find it unfortunate that the Bible translates both words as hell, because that gets confusing. There's a third word translated as hell in the English New Testament, and it's the word Gehenna. This word appears about as often as Hades does, but it's not found in Revelation. It's described as a place of unquenchable fire where the worm does not die, where body and soul are destroyed. Now you've probably heard this. I know I've talked about it from the pulpit at least once before. There's this fable out there and that's all it is. The fable is that Gehenna was named after a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. There is zero evidence that there was ever a garbage dump outside of the city that burned such that it became an illustration of hell and of Gehenna. Zero. None. It's a fable. When you say that and tell other people, It's just a myth, okay? You just need to know that. However, the truth is much more interesting and, quite frankly, disturbing. Outside of Jerusalem, there is a place called the Valley of Hinnom. It's one of the valleys that surrounds the city of Jerusalem. This is a place where Molech was worshiped by kings like Ahaz and Manasseh. And in this place, the Old Testament tells us, these kings of Israel sacrificed even their own children to Molech, human sacrifice. Hinnom becomes Gehenna. The idea of the worm never dying in Gehenna and dead bodies has a very close Old Testament referent in the very last verse of Isaiah. It says, they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of men who have rebelled against me for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be in abhorrence to all flesh. Now in the Targums, the Jewish paraphrases of the Old Testament written in probably the second century AD, the second death is actually directly linked to Gehenna. Here's the Targum of Isaiah, it says, Their punishment shall be in Gehenna, where the fire burns all the day. Behold, it is written before me, I will not give them respite while they live, but theirs is the retribution of their sins, and I will hand over their bodies to the second death. All right, so the second death in Gehenna directly linked. Here we have the second death and the Lake of Fire in Revelation directly linked. So that seems to give us good reason to think that Gehenna and the Lake of Fire are synonymous. And certainly they are for some people and that's the closest thing you get to what the Lake of Fire is. So thus far what we've seen is that the devil and the beast and the false prophet are thrown into the Lake of Fire And curiously, Jesus says about the final judgment, the judge will say, depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So what is this eternal fire? Some want to say it is Gehenna, though the term is not found in that passage in Matthew. Others want to say it is Jesus' way of speaking about the lake of fire. And frankly, both fit very well. I'm okay with the idea that Gehenna is the same place as the Lake of Fire, though I'm not dogmatic about it. What you cannot say is that the Lake of Fire is identical with Hades. This is made perfectly clear in our passage when it says that death and Hades are, quote, thrown into the Lake of Fire. Friend, you cannot be thrown into yourself. What's the image teaching us about Hades being thrown into the lake of fire the second death? What does that even mean? This is the next thing I want to think about. What does it mean that the death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire? This is frankly where it gets difficult. Now here we have to at least touch upon a very difficult question of the eternal punishment. Now, first thing to say is this. Biblically speaking, there is no question that when the unrighteous die, at some point, they experience punishment from God. We're gonna deal with why in a moment. Virtually all Christians have taught this, even conditionalists and universalists. The tougher question is when and where that punishment is and how long it lasts. The rich man in Lazarus seems to point that Hades is in fact a place of fire and that the rich man was in torment in Hades. I mean he says as much. Remember what he says, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in the water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame. Now this is a hellish thing that begins immediately upon a physical death. I have a book called To Hell and Back, in which a doctor details many fascinating firsthand accounts of people who swear that they died, went to hell. You always hear about the light, right? Oh, I saw the light at the end. No, these people said they died, went to hell, but for one reason or another were resuscitated and now they tell the story. There's lots and lots and lots of those stories out there. But there's a question about whether this lasts for eternity or whether it is at the end of the day finite punishment followed by annihilation. Is the Lake of Fire a picture of annihilation? Well, it is clearly a different picture from Hades, right, since the two are not the same thing. So if death and Hades are destroyed, you know, if Hades is a place of torment and punishment, what would that mean? What would it mean that it's destroyed? So you end up with images like eternal death or outer darkness or death being thrown into the lake and so on that certainly do lend themselves quite nicely to a finite existence after the unbelievers die. What is death, after all, but the absence of life, right? What is darkness but an absence? And there have been many Christians and many fascinating studies that support what they call conditional punishment. So they're punished for a while, then they're annihilated. But the language of Revelation seems to give the opposite conclusion. The devil, it says, verse 10, is tormented day and night forever and ever. It doesn't say something like he burns forever and ever, like we might think of Sodom, which no longer exists. He is tormented. Torment, it seems to me, necessitates consciousness. Now this is parallel to something we looked at back in chapter 14, and I've saved this discussion until now. Chapter 14, 10 and 11 says this in Revelation. He also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels, in the presence of the Lamb. By the way, did you catch that? In the presence of God, they're tormented? People have this idea that hell is the absence of God. No. If the beast is thrown into the river of fire in Daniel 7, the river of fire is by the throne of God. It's not away from God's presence. It's in the unmitigated full presence of God without a mediator and forgiveness. It says, in the presence of the holy angels, in the presence of the lamb, their smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they will have no rest. Now, when you go read conditionalists, they've tried to seize on this being an eternal burning. And what does burning do? Well, it consumes so that there's nothing left. So they argue for annihilation. However, as we saw back there, the structure of the passage does not allow for this. The smoke and the torment are parallel to one another. Furthermore, there are several times where fire is present in the scripture and it does not, in fact, obliterate. Now granted, it usually happens when the saints are near, but nevertheless, it demonstrates the point. Now, I must say this. I'm sympathetic to the conditional punishment view. I think there are many texts that could be read this way. There has been a long history of this opinion in the church, although it's never been regarded as particularly orthodox. Our own confession certainly doesn't think that it's orthodox. Now obviously there are good theological arguments for eternal punishment, which is the Orthodox view, but there are plenty of good theological arguments for non-eternal suffering too. One example of the latter is that there's an existential difficulty that finite beings who have sinned finite sins would be punished eternally for them. Can you feel why that's such a difficult question? Many Orthodox will not allow themselves to feel that. Indeed, I think anyone who finds this question simple is just lying to you and themselves. And yet fairness is not to let the wicked just die and get off scot-free. That's why virtually everyone agrees that yes, there is some kind of punishment in the afterlife for the wicked. It is impossible to read the scriptures faithfully and come to any other conclusion. But is it eternal punishment and suffering? Well, in fact, there are good theological reasons that punishment could be infinite. Perhaps the best, most well-known comes from Jonathan Edwards, who long ago pointed out that God is an infinite God. And since he's infinite, any violation of his infinite goodness would have to be, by definition, infinitely terrible. And therefore, no other punishment could satisfy the infinite judge than infinite punishment. Now obviously some don't find this persuasive and I don't think that philosophical theology like this by itself can settle the matter. However, this is kind of a transition of what I want to say this morning. Edwards is actually seizing upon a truth that must be taken into account and it is not speculative in the slightest. That truth is the nature and horror of sin. Far too many take the nature and horror of sin unbearably lightly, to quote one movie title. As Lewis pointed out earlier in the sermon. Remember, that's what he started off saying. Modern man doesn't even think that there is such a thing, let alone that he does it. As if sin is no big deal, or that it doesn't even exist at all. So this is going to take us to the center of our passage, verses 12 and 13. I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And the books were opened. And then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done." So what we have before us is the final judgment scene. Everybody is standing before the heavenly throne. Books are opened. This is the center of our passage. It describes these books in two ways. First, there is the Book of Life. Now, we've seen this book before several times. I'm going to return to the Book of Life in a minute. The other idea is that people are judged according to what they had done. Now these are separate but very related issues. Jesus has a very long discourse on this at the end of his Olivet Discourse on the last days, and I believe that he is talking here about the same thing Revelation is, which I believe is about the final judgment. So I'm gonna read this whole passage. It's quite long, but it's very important to hear. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Notice the works there, see the works? Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Then he will say to those on the left, depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. We saw that verse earlier. What I'm suggesting is this is the lake of fire. For I was hungry and you gave me no food and I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they will also answer saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick in prison and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them saying, truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Notice it doesn't say eternal death there, it says eternal punishment. Now we read here that Jesus is the judge and everyone is judged together, same thing as Revelation 20. They're judged according to what they have done, same thing as Revelation 20. Those who go to eternal life and inherit the kingdom gave him food when hungry and water when thirsty. They clothed him when he was naked, visited him when sick and in prison. On the other hand, the wicked did none of those things. Jesus says this refers not to himself personally, but to the least of my brothers. So what he's doing is he's talking about true religion, isn't he? Helping widows and orphans, like James says. The hungry, the needy, the poor, the downtrodden. And especially those in the church, for these are his brothers. In Revelation 20, the dead are all judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. So the idea is that God keeps a record of our deeds. But it's not just our good deeds. Revelation 21 verse 8 is very important to see. It says, But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. And so evil deeds also go into those books. Now their wicked deeds is precisely the point where modern man couldn't seem to care less, remember? There is no God and therefore no standard of right and wrong by which to be judged. And yet, curiously, they hold themselves as the standard as they sit in judgment of Him. The problem is they have no recognition of sin and what it is. Now, yes, sin is doing bad and wrong things. Those bad things are not determined by a committee. by a group of hypocritical politicians. They're not determined by a democratic vote. They're not determined by a social justice warrior teaching people, forcing students to read politically correct woke textbooks like has been happening to my girls in their college the last couple of weeks. Right or wrong isn't determined by your personal opinions. These things are objective eternal moral laws. That's what it's determined by. As Lewis was prone to discuss, it's always wrong all the time to kidnap, torture, murder, and eat little babies for fun. And it seems these days I have to add a few more things to get people's attention. I don't think he said eat little babies, but it's like, heck, half of those things people today are like, yeah, what's wrong with that? Everyone, though, knows these things. It is just as wrong to steal, friend, someone else's wife. It's just as wrong to break into your neighbor's home and take his stuff because you want it. It's just as wrong to dishonor your parents in their old age, and so on. Guess what? It's equally as wrong to have other gods before God, or to take his name in vain, or to give worship to someone other than him. Just as wrong. Jesus tells us that it's just as wrong in the sense of condemning us before the judge. He says to lust, to hate our brother, to gossip or to covet. Those are all internal things mostly. Now, yes, different sins get different punishment. I'm not saying otherwise. I think our passage even says as much. However, all sin is in fact a disrespect, a disregard, and a slap in the face to God who created you, who gave you life, who gives you breath, who gives you food, who gives you family, who shows you love, who shows you providence, who gives you gifts, and so much more. Sin is a violation of the created order. It is something we all understand, and this is proven by every single person on earth. You want to know why? Because every one of us has our own moral code whereby someone else, if they offend us, we demand justice. If there's no such thing as objective morality, then why do we all pretend like there is? Even the most post-modern, relevance leftist does this with their personal, objective, woke moral code that they demand everybody else has to live by. What you have to do is come to the realization of what sin is and where it comes from and how it is falling short of the glory of God. You have to do that, you yourself, listening to me right now. You have to come to this realization. God is the definition of moral perfection, and he is in all of his attributes this way. And therefore, he necessitates and defines what sin is. Sin is falling short of his glory. The Bible says all have sinned. And all sin, no matter how small, is a falling short. So you have to ask yourself, how have I sinned? Ask yourself, how have I violated God's law? Start with the Ten Commandments. You say, well, I can't find any of those. I've broken. And my response is, come on, be honest. You've never lied even a single time in your life. You've never disobeyed your parents, not even once? All right, if that's you, then go sell everything that you have and give it to the poor and follow Christ. Wait, so I can't do that? Well, that's what the rich young man learned the hard way. And that was his sin. You need more? From the external to the internal, as Jesus told you. Never lusted after anything. Never coveted anything. You've never hated anyone in your heart. Be honest with yourself. And then understand this. The wages of sin is death. What's a wage? Is it not what you earn? That's the judgment. We get what we deserve. Justice on the last day is not unfair, it's the wage of what we earned in this life by our sin and works. But too many people here have this totally unbiblical idea of God weighing deeds on scales, as if all God wants is those scales to balance more for the good deeds than the bad ones. Do you really think that if Hitler helped two old ladies across the street on two different occasions that that would outweigh one edict to send all the Jews to death ovens? I mean, it's two to one. Others, now these are really just believers, are terrified that God will show this long video of all their sins and the entire universe is going to watch it together. The latter is interesting because it shows that we're really more afraid of what they would think of our sins than what we know God already does. How terrible to be more afraid of man than God. And you say, but God already knows my sin and my friend doesn't. And that's my point. Proving my point. For the one, they literally need to hear the bad news of coming judgment to wake them up while it is only the hairs on the arms that are being singed in the flames of hell. For others, they're in desperate need of good news. Now, unless you are literally hell-bent on desiring to go to this place that we've described, sin cannot and must not be the end of this discussion. Notice that there is this book of life in our passage. That's a book that has names written in it. Those names were written in it before the foundation of the world, as Jesus said, and frankly, as John says in Revelation. That's the doctrine of election. Election is the teaching that before we're good or bad or done anything in this world, God set his love on us in Christ. Election comes before any good or bad works. Election also eventually inevitably leads to and necessitates good works. which is why Christians are also judged by what they do. All the dead are judged by what is written in the books. Now, if one of the books is the book of life, then what is written in it is simply names, as I said, right? If a name is written in that book of life, then that person will be judged according to whether their name is in the book. If it is, then their works are based on the fact that they've been given life. Those who are given life do good works. It's that simple. We were created in Christ Jesus for good works. But the best news is that for these people, the second death has no hold over them. They cannot die again because they have been born again. Notice this in verse 15. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Ultimately, they're thrown into the lake of fire then because their name is not written in the book. Jesus refers to this as sheep and goats. Goats go to one place, sheep go to the other. And one of the greatest questions of all then is this, what makes someone a sheep and what makes someone a goat? Now I could answer it very simply, I'd say God does. But we can also answer it that sheep have their names in the book of life and goats do not. However, that, of course, begs the question. We could ask, how's a name written in the Book of Life? This gets a little trickier. On one hand, the names are written prior to eternity itself, again, by God. On the other, though, we're all born dead in our sins. But all those whose names are written in the book have to be brought from death to life. And this happens in time. It doesn't happen in eternity. Otherwise, you weren't really born dead in your sins, were you? No one down here knows whose name is written in that book prior to salvation. The Book of Life provides, perhaps we might call it, the legal means by which we come to life so that we will not be harmed by the second death. It's a legal means because the book is open during the court trial of the dead, right? But the legal means is also accompanied by other vital and necessary means that God uses to awaken the spiritually dead. What are those means? Ephesians 2, which we've seen both this week and last week, it tells us, though we were all by nature children of wrath, and there's nothing in anyone whose name is written in the book that makes them differ in nature from someone whose name is not. It says this, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. And that grace raises us up with Christ and it seats us in heavenly places. We saw that back in verses four through six. So it is God's grace alone that causes someone to differ. But grace alone is never grace that is all by itself. For by grace you have been saved through faith. Faith in what? Faith in Jesus Christ. Do you believe in him? Do you believe him? Those are two different questions, and they're both important. It is faith that Jesus Christ is God, that he has died for my sins, been raised to life, that I can be justified, declared not guilty on the day of judgment, and ascended to heaven that I might ascend, that he ascended to heaven that I might ascend after him. Faith is not a good work. In fact, it's the opposite of works. Faith is not a good deed that you do to make God happy. Rather, faith is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. Faith is the firm conviction and certain hope that Jesus has obeyed God on my behalf and that he has forgiven my sins through his sacrificial substitutionary death, that God looks upon Christ, the spotless lamb, and credits that spotless perfection to my account on behalf of Christ by grace. That's what faith is. And make no mistake, no one is a sheep who remains dead in their trespasses and sins and does not have faith. Those people are goats, and they go to the lake of fire. But sheep will have faith in Jesus. They will hear the gospel. They will be convicted and respond in faith. They trust that this good news is for them, that there is a way to avoid the second death, and that Jesus has gone before them to make that possible. That's the word I'm preaching to you right now. Is God grabbing your heart through these words? Do you hear the voice of Christ calling you to follow him? Then you need to respond to the call of the master who's calling you to himself right this second. You need to pray to him. You need to ask him to forgive you of your sins. Tell him you realize that you can't stand before him on the day of judgment, in your own righteousness, because you know you've fallen short of his infinite perfect holy glory. You need to ask him to forgive you, and guess what? He will. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just, and he will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Then you need to confess this to the church, and you need to be baptized, and you need to come to the table of Christ to enjoy the sweet communion that he has with his people. It's never too late to do this, until it is too late. And there is coming a day when it will be too late for you to do this. when you stand before the throne of judgment. There's one more interesting way to show you this today. This is the parallel in John's gospel. In John 19, the king of kings is on trial. Pilate, it says, sat upon the judgment seat to judge. Now it tells us Pilate didn't want the job, but the Jews insisted. This is the reversal of all the ancient stories. Even the Greeks had the gods judging men in the hall of judgment. But today, man sits in the hall of judgment. And so incredibly, at the heart of our salvation, we find the very thing modern man is so quick to want. Man has God in the dock. That's what Pilate has. He's got Jesus, God, on trial in the dock. And what does man do? Man finds God guilty, and he sentences him to die. And man wins, so man thinks. Little did they know or understand that this was the only way that salvation could be provided to them. Because in it, God as man would conquer even death. And thus Revelation tells us that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, He now holds the keys of death and Hades. And now you sit in the crossroads. You might never have another opportunity to respond the right way as you do right this second. You don't even know one day into the future what God has ordained for your days. And I don't care if you're 85 or 10. But you know what? You have right now. And right now you're being given the news. that in ancient times was good news to all who heard it. If you turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, confessing your sins and his high kingship over all the realms of heaven and earth, if you confess these things with your mouth, you will be saved. The great injustice of the ages is not that God would punish men and women and children in hell, but neither is it that he would offer salvation and freedom to those who deserve it. Because Jesus himself paid the price justice deserves. There's no injustice in God. The only injustice is that someone would hear all that God has done to provide the way to eternal life, that they would touch it, and feel it, and taste it, and see it, and then they would walk away. That's the injustice. May none of us respond that way because we know that surely there's a day coming when we will all face our maker and stand before the judgment seat of God Almighty. And on that day, what will you have to tell him? Let's pray together. Lord, we do ask you would bless your word. This is a deep, heavy subject. Not many people want to talk about it today. Not many people want to be confronted with it. But you confront us with it in your word. And I pray that you would teach everyone here, especially those who don't know you, the reality of what is coming. And it is coming like a train rolling down the tracks and the brakes are gone. We're all coming to that judgment day. And it happens quicker than we can possibly imagine. And my prayer, Lord, is that you would send out the gospel to save those who don't know you. that you would give them comfort and let them know that they can have forgiveness of their sins. They lived their whole lives trying to flee from this, and the only way that you can deal with it is to confront it directly. We thank you for Christ that he did this for us through his death, through his sacrifice for us. And I pray, Lord, that you would kindly reach into the hearts of dead people and bring them to life. We would ask that you would sanctify your saints who already know you by this same word. We need to hear again of these truths ourselves. We need to hear the gospel and we need to hear of the judgment to come. We need to know where people are going and we need to know what you've saved us from. And so by these words, I ask you would sanctify your own people through the same word of Christ that washes us from our sins and makes us whiter than snow and creates us into be that perfect spotless bride of Christ that we're going to look at in the next couple of chapters. We ask you hear our prayer in Jesus name. Amen.