THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT
(continued)
“And
the sea gave up the dead that were
in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works” (Rev. 20:13).
“And
the sea gave up the dead that were in
it…” In its symbolical and spiritual
meaning the sea speaks of the manifestation
of those who dwell in that lowest realm of life. Throughout the scriptures the sea is a type of the inner storms and
turbulent nature of the Adamic
man. The prophet Isaiah penned these
inspired words: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, which
cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to
the wicked” (Isa. 57:20-21). Jude also
described wicked men when he said, “These are raging waves of the sea, foaming
out their shame” (Jude 13). The
beloved John on the isle of Patmos, had a
vision of a great whore sitting on many waters.
The angel revealed the
meaning of the many waters, saying, “the waters which thou sawest, where the
whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Rev.
17:15). I think there could be no better
symbol by which to represent the people and society of any day than by the
waters of the sea! At times the human race, even in their carnality, is
calm and peaceful, then rough and boisterous, and then dangerous and
treacherous.
No
one can dispute the fact that it is this restless, turbulent, raging, evil
heart of the fleshly man that inspires every evil and devilish perversion, and
has filled the world with ever increasing confusion, faithlessness, immorality,
falsehood, fraud, hatred, bigotry, violence, tyranny, oppression, greed,
cruelty, strife, war, and bloodshed. Ah,
the sea is the lowest realm on earth, and this vast sea of fleshly Adamic humanity represents
mankind at his lowest point — as bad off as man can be! Individually it speaks
of the lowest aspect of our human nature and life — the body with its passions
and lusts. Collectively the sea represents society
as it is guided by physical desires and impulses and aspirations that
are corrupt, restless, driving, compelling, and raging out of control! You see it especially when crowds are out
marching, demonstrating for ungodly and perverse causes, demanding their
“rights” to practice perversion and evils of various kinds. The raging sea, foaming out their shame!
Now,
it would be strange indeed, would it not,
should the “sea” be a clear symbol in
Revelation 17:15 and other places, yet be literal in our present text! Is John really talking about earth’s vast
oceans yielding up the bodies of the dead who have been cast there throughout
vast millenniums? Is that the “dead” who
are brought to stand before God’s throne of judgment? God is certainly able to do such a thing, and
I do not doubt that it includes them, but the fact is that ALL who dwell in the sea-realm of this
present evil world are spiritually dead — dead in
trespasses and in sins! Every man
outside of Christ is already dead! How can he become any more dead than
he is? Did Paul not say, “I was alive without the law
once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Can we not see that
when the sea gives up the dead that are in it there is a judgment
of God coming to all who are dead in trespasses and sins, those who live in the
manifestation of that low realm, restless, troubled, angry, cursing, tormented,
conniving, fornicating, robbing, murdering, high on drugs, unloving, without
natural affection — “foaming out their shame.”
“And
death and hell delivered
up the dead that were in them.” While the sea
bespeaks the manifestation of the
wicked who are spiritually dead in
trespasses and sins, death signifies
the condition of the spiritually
dead, and hell denotes the realm of the dead ones. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom.
6:23). It is not written that the wages shall be death, but the passage we have
before us, penned by divine inspiration, is, “The wages of sin IS death.” “She that liveth in pleasure,” the scripture
again says, “is dead while she
liveth.” It is a sad and most horrible
fact that millions and thousands of millions of people going about this earth
today are dead men walking! They are
dead to God! Dead to virtue! Dead to truth! Dead to purity! Dead to heaven! Dead to reality! Dead to righteousness! DEAD!
I
speak not, therefore, concerning a death that is to come, I speak of the wages, in the Greek opsonia, which means the reward of a soldier, the wages of a man who is fighting as a
soldier. Wages he has earned, as a
patriot fighting for his king and his country; or wages which he has received
as a mere mercenary soldier, fighting for the pay which a tyrant might give him
for his work in destroying life and property and liberty to put a usurper in
power. The meaning, therefore, of the
word is wages for a military man. But
Paul says two things. First he says,
“the wages of sin is death,” and then he adds, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The free gift of God is the reverse of the
wages of sin! God’s soldiers do not
receive the LIFE OF THE AGES as wages, but as a free gift. There are but two
armies in this world, the devil’s army and God’s army. But, my, they do have very different payment
systems!
If
you are enlisted in the devil’s army you are already receiving your wages. The devil’s Saturday night always comes. Every man gets his wages. And Adam and
all in Adam
HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED THEIR WAGES! When Adam sinned and reaped what he sowed, he not only reaped
for himself, Adam, but for all men in Adam, the entire
race. “In Adam all
die.” In that day of death, it became more than the
death of a single man, for it became the death of all humanity. Humanity left the condition of life, and
entered into another condition called death, or if you please, man entered a life of death. He entered that realm or that life of death
through the acceptance of wages, which wages was death. He earned the wages by sinning in the devil’s army. The truth is not that man is under the sentence of death, as the church systems
teach, and in danger of being lost,
but he is already dead and lost! And Christ comes to seek and to save the
lost, and to give life to the dead world! “If one died for all then were ALL DEAD” (II Cor.
5:14). Mark it well, dead, not in danger of death, or liable to it, or waiting to die — but dead
already!
As
one has written, “In one of his books Glenn Clark discusses the problem of why
a rotten apple in a barrel of good ones will spoil the whole lot, but a good
apple in a barrel of rotten ones is powerless to make the rotten ones
sound. He says that the good apple has
the stroke of death in it already. When
the stem was severed from the tree its source of life and health and growth was
removed. Even a good apple is a dying
thing! He should have added that death
was hovering near the apple even while
its stem was still fast to the tree.
Just let the wind swing the apple against a limb near at hand and break the peel, immediately
rot sets in. Let a bird peck a hole in
it, or a worm enter its body, at once the forces of decay and death are
manifest, and the end is putrefaction.
In the midst of life we are in death.”
The
first warning against disobedience is, “In the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.” The words “thou
shalt surely die” are more correctly translated, “dying thou shalt die,” or
“thou art dying to die.” That is,
“dying” is a process, and “to die” is the final act or event in the
process. When Adam sinned it was life that he lost: it was
death and dissolution that he received.
Therefore the word “death” means vastly more than this old dilapidated body going to the grave; it means the whole condition or
state of being of the man outside of Christ.
May God make this truth real to your heart! There is only one life in the universe, and
that life is Jesus Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. In Him was life, and the life was the light of
men” (Jn. 1:1,4).
In
the conflict with which the enemies who have to be overcome by the people of
God, the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death. In the final triumph, death and hell shall be
cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death, that is, the death of
death and the death of hell. Death is an
enemy! Death destroys! Death corrupts! Death, foul, hateful, hell-born, “the wages
of sin,” belongs to the devil, and eats out the brain, blinds men to God and
truth and righteousness, destroys all vitality, corrupts the mind, perverts the
emotions, torments the soul, and reduces the eye to dust and leaves only an
empty socket. Do not talk of death as
though it were a holy thing. The King of
Terrors, Death, is unholy. Death is an
enemy. Death is devilish. Death is hellish. Death is corrupt. Death is foul and dark as night. Death is the wages of sin. Sin is the work of the devil. And now John in his vision beholds the wonder
of this whole condition of man’s death delivering
up its captives to the righteous judgment of God!
And now we come to the scene
of hell delivering up its dead. The Greek word used here is hades.
Concerning the literal meaning of the word hades there can be no doubt.
It comes from the Greek a(i)des. The “a” is a prefix which is equivalent
to our “un,” and the stem “id” means perceive. Thus we have UN-PERCEIVE or imperceptible
— the unseen. Where do the dead go? They go into what has been called “the
unknown.” That is Hades — the unseen
world, the unknown realm. Our English
word hell is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word “hillan” or “helan,” meaning a
cavern, anciently denoting a concealed or unseen
place. In parts of England men
still say, “I plan to hell my
potatoes,” meaning to bury them in a hole or pit, that is, a covered place, out
of sight. And in the old days a young
couple seeking to be alone, sought a hell,
a place where they could make love without being seen by prying eyes.
We
know that the physically dead haven’t passed out of existence altogether, for
man is not only a body and soul, but above all spirit. And when the “spirit
of man” passes from this present tabernacle of flesh it goes into a realm
unseen by the eyes of mortal man. David,
in speaking of it at the time his first son by Bathsheba died, said, “I shall go to him, but
he shall not return to me.” He knew
there was a place or realm or dimension where he would be able to join that
infant child. And likewise the phrase
often used in the Old Testament of those who died being “gathered unto their fathers” meant far more
than having their bodies buried in the same cemetery. It bespoke a gathering
in the unseen world. And our Lord
spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, linking their names together as all being
in the same place, and also added that their God is “not a God of the dead, but
of the living,” thus affirming that they were all alive at that time, even
though they were in the Hadean state. Indeed, they were all in
Hades — the invisible world of departed spirits.
We
must pause for a moment here to make the truth clear that hell — the realm of the dead — is not by any means
limited to those who have departed this life.
It is a sad fact that many men and women in the here and now live in hell just as they are also those
who are dead while they live! Remember, Hades means at its root
“un-perceive,” and multitudes live under such a veil of spiritual blindness
that they are unable to perceive the world of reality. Sinners live in God’s world, yet they do not
perceive Him at all. They are unaware of
God, of truth, of redemption, of spiritual realities, of what man’s true state
and destiny is. They exist under a
shroud of darkness, a swirling fog of
ignorance, that secludes them in a shadowy world of spiritual unreality. Even carnal Christians walk in their own hell
of un-perception. Many who read these
lines have had glorious experiences in God, have seen marvelous realities in the
spirit, and have been given to understand the deepest mysteries of the kingdom of God,
while family members, friends, and neighbors have no comprehension of any of
this, and are completely unenlightened, unaware, unconscious, undiscerning — not
cognizant in any way of this beautiful and powerful walk in the Spirit of
God! Speak to them of the deep things of
God and you may as well be trying to teach them advanced nuclear physics for
they will stand there and look at you unknowingly as though you had just
stepped out of a space ship from some
far distant galaxy! Wherefore, we look
with blessed anticipation to the day when hell “gives up its dead” to the
righteous judgment of God, that they might know
Him!
And
beyond that, on another level, there is no hell that could be more vile than
the hell I see around me right here in Texas, the hell of sin, sorrow,
torment, fear, demon possession, hatred, murder, strife, drugs, immorality,
rebellion, blasphemy, nervous breakdown, godlessness, and wretchedness. We have a great deal of hell here in Texas, and there are no
hells that could be worse than San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, New York, Hong Kong, Calcutta,
Ciudad Juarez, and ten thousand other cities of this world. “Oh, but there is a hell that is full of
murderers!” you say. Well, these cities
today are full of murderers. “But there
is a hell that is full of devils!” you say.
Well, these cities today are full of devils. “But there is a hell that is filled with liars, fornicators, and
blasphemers!” you argue. Well, these
cities today are filled with liars, fornicators, and blasphemers. “Ah, but there is a hell where the devil himself dwells!” you contend. Well, the devil himself is right here on this
earth, cursed to crawl upon his belly, to feed upon the dust of the carnal mind and nature of man. Or is it that people cannot be that bad? What about Dachau
and Buchenwald? Just let a war start and see what devilish,
satanic, vile, brutal, inhumane things men do!
Germany
is the place where the Reformation started, it is a place of high education and
culture. But it was Germany also
where in the second world war some people made lampshades out of people’s
skins. It was a German leader who said,
“We will eliminate the Jews from the face of the earth,” and Germans killed in
mass killings and devilish tortures.
Remember how the church in the Dark Ages persecuted the saints? You would not believe that a human being
could conceive such evil! What makes
them act like that? It is because they
are dwelling in a dark world of spiritual denseness where such things as love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, righteousness, goodness, life, light,
truth, and divine purpose and reality are imperceptible to them! They walk under the dark shades of spiritual
obtuseness — the Hadean state!
We
have lots of hell beyond us, but our work is to follow Christ, to be willing,
as sons of God, not only to ascend the throne, but to be poured out as a River of Life
INTO THE LOWEST PARTS OF THE EARTH, INTO ALL THE
HELLS, and clean them out by His all-conquering power and transforming life,
until there is no more hell anywhere.
What father would not go to any of the hells of the world, what father
would not trudge through the saloons of the Bowery or the sex-filth of Las Vegas in the hope
that he might run across his son or his
daughter who is captive to the devil there and bring them back to God and the
kingdom? This is the spirit of the
Father who “so loved the world” and it is the spirit of the Son who “descended
into the lowest parts of the earth” and it is the spirit of every son of God,
born of the incorruptible seed of a Divine Hope, a Divine Faith, and a Divine
Love. If you would not walk across the
street to see some poor soul delivered
and converted by the redeeming power of Christ, don’t waste your time relating
to me how you are one of God’s “apprehended ones” to help in delivering the
whole creation from the bondage of corruption.
The Spirit of Reconciliation must reign within our hearts even now. The Ministry of Reconciliation must proceed
from our lives even now. God will share
with you His throne, He will give judgment into your hands, but you must be
willing both now and then to be there when He “stands men up,”
when He “opens the books,” and begins His corrective and redemptive processes
of judgment in their lives!
We
stated earlier that hell — hades — is
the “imperceptible realm,” a dimension of existence that is covered, unseen and
unseeing, unknowable, a silent world of darkness. “The dead know not anything,” saith the Lord
(Eccl. 9:5). Furthermore, the dead see not anything, nor
do they hear or feel anything. Now we
know that is true of a dead body, but
can we not ask how it could be possible for a natural man who is dead in trespasses and sins to hope to
see or understand the things that belong to the wonderful realm of spirit, life,
and glory, since death has closed his eyes to them? It is Christ and Christ alone who raises the
dead, making men alive to God and the realm of the spirit. It matters not to Him nor to His resurrection
power whether these dead be corpses buried in the earth or whether they be men
walking on top of the ground, dead while they live. “Let the dead bury the dead,” said Jesus,
because He understood the mystery I seek now to explain. Well did the Son of God know that outside of
Him both the man who was being buried and the men who cast the earth into his
grave belonged to the realm of death and were alike dead!
This
is the description of the land
of the dead in which the
whole world lives by nature. The land of the carnal mind, which is death, and the
land of trespasses and sins in which there walk the dead. “Wherein,”
Paul says
to the quickened ones, “in time past ye walked” (Eph.
2:2). Is that not amazing? We were dead and yet we walked; we were the
walking dead, a land filled with zombies, walking, yet dead! Did you ever stop to think that when Jesus
Christ, the firstborn Son of God, came into this world HE WAS THE ONLY LIVING
MAN IN A WORLD OF DEAD PEOPLE? The whole
world lies in the hands of the wicked one and death reigns over all the earth
realm! No wonder the scripture says that
men are a stench in the nostrils of God because spiritual death sends forth its
reek and stench. How the soul of Jesus
must have recoiled at the state of death that was rampant over the earth! We, the walking dead, walked according to the
course of this world, we are told. The good news is — because of Christ, the
sea, death, and hell shall deliver
up all
the dead that are in them unto the righteous judgment of God! And consider this, my beloved. Since Paul
speaks of the dead walking, and we
know what he means, can we not in like manner understand John’s words when he
says, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God, and the books were
opened…” It is not necessarily a
dead body rising up, but it is certainly the person brought face to face with God! That is the mystery.
THE SECOND DEATH
“And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev.
20:14).
The
scriptures teach an apparent paradox, saying first that to man it is given “once to die,” (Heb. 9:27); and
secondly, that all men abiding in the state of death must subsequently suffer a
“second death.” What can this mean?
Children
in school learn what we call definitions.
A definition is an explanatory statement which tells us exactly what a
certain thing is, as “an island is a tract of land completely surrounded by
water.” God also gives us definitions in
His Word. We could cite hundreds of
examples! He tells us exactly what
certain things are. And in the passage quoted above God tells us
exactly what the second death is. “And
death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH.” Now let
me make this a little plainer.
Definitions of men can be given backward. For instance, the definition, “An island is a
tract of land completely surrounded by water,” can be given thus: “A tract of
land completely surrounded by water is an island.” This is but another way of stating the same
fact. It does not, in any way, change
the meaning.
Now
let us try this on the definition of the second death. The Bible states it thus: “Death and hell
were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” Now let us turn this statement around for
clarity. “The second death is death and hell cast into the lake of
fire.” Therefore we have exactly the
same meaning either way it is stated.
What is the second death? IT IS
THE FIRST DEATH AND HELL CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE! This fact is very important. Most Christians and nearly all
preachers read the Word of God very superficially. They read and suppose that the second death
is men being tortured forever in the lake of fire. Yet there is absolutely nothing in this passage about men! The verse that follows
the one we are considering speaks of men being cast into the lake of fire. But not this one! It is the state of death and the condition of
hell that are cast into the lake of fire.
The second death is not men cast
into the lake of fire, or men tormented or tortured forever. That’s not in the Book! The Holy Spirit has made it very simple and
plain. The second death is the first
death and hell cast into the lake of
fire. That is the Holy Spirit’s
definition, not mine.
One
thing is obvious in this passage: hell and the lake of fire are not the same thing! Because the preachers rant on and on
about a fiery hell multitudes of
believers confuse the issue, supposing that hell itself is the lake of fire. Brother Elwin Roach once explained it thus:
“What do we suppose death and hell are?
Some will say it is obvious; but their thinking may be biased due to
incorrect information. One common belief
is that to be dead is to be a corpse, and hell is said to be a blazing place of
fire and brimstone that will burn forever.
If this were true, explain to me: How
can hell be cast into itself (the lake of fire)? If the two words are synonymous, the verse
could have been written: “and hell was
cast into hell,” which we know cannot be.
For instance, if we were on a camping trip, I could take a piece of wood and ask, What is this stick I hold in my hand? The answer would be, that piece of wood is a stick. The two words are
synonymous. I could then cast the piece of wood into the campfire.
Since the stick and the campfire are two different things, the
stick can be cast into the fire. But it
doesn’t take a genius to know that I can’t cast the piece of wood into itself — into the stick. And so it is with hell and the lake of fire. IF THEY ARE
BOTH THE SAME, hell could not be cast
into the lake of fire, plain and
simple. Notwithstanding, since they are
different from one another, hell can be cast
into the lake of fire!”
Can
we now open the eyes of our understanding to see that everything that is cast
into the lake of fire pertains to death?
Death itself is cast into the lake of fire. Hell, the realm of the dead, is cast into the
lake of fire. And those whose names are
not written in the Book of Life, those
who are dead in trespasses and sins,
who inhabit hell, are cast into the
lake of fire. That is the end of death
and hell and sin, for God shall destroy death in the lake of fire, He shall
burn up hell in the lake of fire, and He shall consume sin and rebellion in the
lake of fire. How I long to see the end
of sin and death and hell — and sinners as well — for when they come out of
their fiery purification they will come forth as redeemed and transformed men,
no longer rebellious sinners. The time is coming, praise His name! when God
shall be ALL-in-all, and there shall
be neither sin, nor sinners, nor death, nor hell. It is clear that God does not destroy men in the lake of fire, nowhere does it
say that, for that would be a contradiction of terms. How can you destroy death by creating
death? How can you abolish death by
bringing men under the power of eternal death from which there is no escape? Oh, no, it is not men who are destroyed in
the lake of fire — it is the kind of men they are that is
destroyed. It is sin and death
and hell that are destroyed!
As it is written, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (I Cor. 15:26). Thus the lake of fire is nothing more nor
less than THE DEATH OF DEATH!
The following words by Ray Prinzing give precious
insight into this wonderful truth. “The
offence of the first Adam
brought all men under the sentence of death for sin. Hence presently our mortal bodies are in a state
of dying, while our minds need to be freed from minding the things of the
flesh, to mind the things of the spirit.
The act of disobedience of Adam
brought forth death. Now, the obedience
and work of righteousness of the last Adam
also brings forth a death for every man.
The question arises, Is the second death the same kind of death
as the first? Many people think that it
is a repetition of the first, and that the results are the same, while its
action is more severe and cruel, and destructive, being by fire.
And some Christians add very sorrowfully, ‘and from this second death
there is no resurrection, it is an endless torment in agony,’ BUT NOT SO! For God’s seconds are never duplicates of the first, they are
always better, higher, and more powerful than the firsts, and used to counter-balance
all the action of the firsts, and much more — He always saves the best
until last.
“All
Bible statements prove that the two deaths are absolutely UNLIKE, and that the
two are opposite and antagonistic. The
second death undoes all the work of the first death in the same manner that the
last Adam undid all the work of the first Adam. Not to nullify the purpose being wrought out
by the plan of God in the firsts, but to bring a release from the firsts
in a MUCH MORE manner of majesty and
glory and power and scope of converge, into the greater and more glorious
things of God. Creation was made subject
to vanity for a purpose! Sin was allowed for wise ends, but when those ends have been
secured it will have to cease to exist.
The purpose is not nullified, but the means whereby the purpose has been
executed shall be done away. Discipline is a means to an end, but not the
end itself, it leads up to the ‘AFTERWARDS YIELDING THE PEACEABLE FRUIT OF
RIGHTEOUSNESS.’
“The
first Adam died
to God and righteousness, and became alive unto sin. The last Adam
died unto sin (Rom.
6:10), and liveth unto God, and so fulfilleth all righteousness. The first made all men sinners, the last
makes all men righteous. The lives and
the deaths of the two Adams
are thus greatly contrasting the one to the other. The first death was a transition from
life to death, whereas the second death is a transition from
corruption to incorruption, from mortality to immortality. Transformed from the carnal mind to the
spiritual mind, which is life and peace, which transformation is wrought by a
dying out to the one realm, to become alive to the higher realm. Because — the second death is prepared to
purge out and burn away sin and its results, and so doing cleanse all of God’s
universe.
“Death
came as an enemy, the fruitage of an act of disobedience that turned man away
from God and into the realm of carnality, minding self and flesh. Now God makes death overcome itself. It is by death that death is rendered
powerless, and there arises an upspringing, a new life. It takes death to destroy death, and thus
Christ ‘did taste death for every man’ — ‘that through death He might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage’ (Heb. 2:9, 14-15). Since we are all under the effects of the
first death, it is appointed unto us to die once more — not physical death, we
are already in a state of mortality —
but now a dying out to this present death state. We conquer this death of the carnal mind by
dying to it — only God could use such a process bringing victory, but praise
God, He is destroying the first death with the second death!
“All
the Crucifixion, our identification with the cross of Christ, must first be
accepted by faith as a fact, and then the working of it in and through us is a
process. If it is done now, through our
yieldedness to the call and claims of Christ upon us, we won’t have to face it
later, in what is called ‘the lake of fire,’ which is the second death. The passing through that lake of divine
purification will thoroughly purge out the remaining fragments of the rebellion
and waywardness of man, till the mystery of iniquity is no more, and then the
carnal mind being abolished, death is no more” — end quote.
There
is a strange and wonderful statement found in Revelation 2:11. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit sayeth unto the churches; he that overcometh shall not be hurt of
the second death.” I would draw your
attention to the fact that it does not say that the overcomer experiences nothing of the second death, that he does not
pass through it, or that its work is not wrought in his life; but the thought is that he will
not be “hurt” by it. It is possible to pass through the most
terrible experience and not be hurt by it.
Listen! “And the three men,
Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning
fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and
rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast
three men bound into the midst of the fire?
They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men
loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form
of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Dan. 3:23-25). Oh, to know that we can pass through the
darkest night or the hottest fire and not be hurt by it if Jesus goes with
us! How heartening and assuring to read
such promises as these: “When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with
thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; and when thou
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall
the flame kindle upon thee” (Isa. 43:2).
The great difference between the unbeliever and the child of God is that
the unbeliever is taken hand and foot and “cast” into the lake of fire,
fighting, kicking, screaming, and resisting all the way, whereas the child of
God willingly and obediently walks into the fiery processings of God hand in
hand with His blessed Redeemer. And, one
way or the other, ALL MUST DIE UNTO SIN!
A.
M. Hinchliff once wrote, “I wondered for many years what John the Baptist was
talking about when he said Jesus would baptize us with fire. ‘I indeed
baptize you with water…but He that cometh after me is mightier than I…He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire’ (Mat. 3:11). Also in Acts 2:3 we read, ‘And there appeared
unto them cloven tongues like as of
fire, and it sat upon each of them.’
Luke wasn’t speaking of the languages they were given when he spoke of tongues of fire. We have all watched a fire burn and have
seen the flames rise in what is often referred
to as tongues of flame. They spoke in many different languages by the
Holy Spirit, but the tongues of fire were for a different purpose. In speaking of the fire that is spoken about
here many people think of the boldness that the Holy Spirit gives. They think of a preacher becoming ‘fiery’ in
his speech and actions. The Holy Spirit
will do that but that is not what the scripture is talking about.
“Let
us read Malachi 3:2-3. ‘Who may abide
the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap:
and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the
sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness.’
Malachi is talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the fire that God has sent to refine
His people! This is the fire that Jesus
has baptized us with! This is the fire
that rested upon His disciples on the day of Pentecost! God wants us to partake of His Holy Spirit
that the fire may refine and purify us.
“I
once visited a silver refinery. As one
looked in through the door of the furnace you could observe a beautiful sea of
molten silver. The flames were reflected mirror-like in the
melted metal and one would doubt whether anything could be more pure. Then the operator of the furnace added a
chemical reagent and within minutes none of that beautiful silver was
visible. The material that was added
reacted with certain impurities in the silver and these impurities rose to the
top. The beauty was completely obscured. The operator then used a long-handled tool to
rake all these impurities out the door of the furnace. The silver returned to its original
beauty. Another reagent was then added
and the same thing happened again. This
process went on for about a week and by that time the silver was over
ninety-nine percent pure.
“This
is similar to the work of the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We may look at one another and think we all
reflect the beauty of Christ from within. Then God sends some circumstance
which acts as a reagent and suddenly we find that beauty clouded over. Many times things come to the surface that we
didn’t even know were in our lives! We
are then able by the help of the Holy Spirit to remove these ugly things that
were hidden beneath the surface of our lives.
We must pray for the process to go on until we are completely in His
image and likeness. To have this work
done in us by the Holy Spirit’s Fire is not easy on the flesh! It is like a warfare. We must willingly submit to the process if we
desire to be among the overcomers who sit with Christ in His throne” — end quote.
Let
me repeat — all men shall die unto sin.
Some lovingly submit to God’s dealings that the dreadful death of the
carnal mind in their members may be “mortified” or put to death, while others
must be subdued and broken under the severe heat of judgmental fire. The former pass through the death to self —
but are not “hurt” by it. In dying by a
living and active faith to everything of the flesh, and living by the indwelling power of the
Holy Spirit, a perfect work is wrought in which everything that is in any way
opposed to God is brought to death.
These become what God seeks in order to satisfy His heart. God has apprehended in this hour, as in all
preceding generations, a remnant in whom His
Spirit is working, and they are becoming daily experiential partakers of
His death, overcoming all the desires, allurements, deceits, and lusts of the
carnal mind and the fleshly heart. To
those who now overcome, the same shall not be “hurt” of the “second death.” For us who willingly submit to this process
“no man taketh our life from us, we lay it down.” But for those who will not lay it down, I do
not hesitate to say that IT WILL BE TAKEN FROM THEM. Make no mistake about it. There are multitudes who shall resist God
until the extreme measures He must use to subdue them are beyond our
comprehension. For them the second death
shall hold terror, and will prove a most painful experience. Let us die now! Let us take the cup of suffering and submit
to the refining fires now! Let us arise
in the newness of His life now, to be conformed to His image. He that overcometh now shall not be hurt by
the second death!
There
is another passage that speaks to this truth.
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death
hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall
reign with Him a thousand years” (Rev. 20:6).
Those who experience the first resurrection are the ones who have their soul fully redeemed and transformed into
the nature of Christ. Because they are
both blessed and holy the second death hath no more power over them! That is, they do not need to be forcibly
“cast” into the lake of fire under the sovereign command of the Lord, and in
truth the fire of God has already accomplished its complete work in them. There are several different words in the
Greek which are rendered in many of our Bible translations by the one English
word “power.” There is dunamis from which we get our words
“dynamo,” “dynamite,” and “dynamic.”
This power is that of great
force. There is another word
which is very similar to our word “energy.”
Still another word, kratos, gives
us the power of ruling, as in our combined words, “democrat,” “aristocrat,” and
“autocrat.” But there is still another
word, exousia, which is translated
“power” is such statements as, “power to become the sons of God” (Jn.
1:12). This word would be better
translated “authority.” This is the word
that is used in the passage above. The
second death has no “authority” over those who have been blessed and made holy in
Christ, whose souls have been fully saved, raised up in His life, and made one
in Him! For these the judgment day is
over, ended! And even in that judgment
day they were not “hurt” by the second death for they yielded themselves
willingly to the fire of God and there was One who walked with them through the
fire! This means that the work is
complete in the overcomer, there is nothing more ever to be dealt with by the
righteous judgments of God — this is the true “eternal security” of which men
speak! The “second death” no longer has
any authority in their lives! Isn’t it
wonderful!
It
is true that some men are cast into the processing of the lake of fire. But what a disreputable lot! “…the fearful, and unbelieving, and the
abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and
all liars shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). These are men saturated with, and captivated
by, the power of the first death — dead in trespasses and in sins, sold under
sin, slaves to every devilish passion, possessed of corrupt and perverse
natures, obsessed with every evil device, unrelentingly driven by the spirit of
the world, the flesh, and the devil. And
nothing God has done has yet broken these stubborn wills or brought these men
to repentance. The wages of sin has not
broken them. The harvest of evil has not
broken them. Hell has not broken
them. The tender mercies and
longsuffering of the Lord have not broken them.
The Spirit has faithfully told us of a second death into which
unbelieving and incorrigibly wicked men shall surely go. They go there with death and with hell. The second death will be an experience and a
period of time similar to this first death we are now experiencing, but much
more severe and intense than anything we now know. But don’t entertain the idea that it is some
literal kind of fire, some physically tortuous method God uses like tyrants who
poke men with red hot irons, or like water-boarding techniques used in times
past by our own CIA in order to coerce men into confessing, recanting, or yielding
up information. Oh, no! God is not a sadistic tyrant. The fire and brimstone are THE HOLY GHOST
FIRE OF GOD! Our God IS a consuming
fire! It is, therefore, a spiritual
exercise of God, not a literal or physical tactic of ruthless men. Aren’t you glad!
The
penalty of sin is very great. The
processes of God to break
the resistance of willfully wicked men are extremely severe. Not only in this present age do they smite
us, but in the second death which is to come.
It can only be described as the “lake of fire.” This dealing of God is reserved for those who
have not profited from the previous judgments and still need further correction to subdue them to the will
of God. When the process is complete,
and the last sinner has emerged from the discipline with a broken heart and a
contrite spirit, having learned the lessons of the awful fruit of man’s “own
way,” fully yielding to the Lordship of our Saviour, then at last shall be
fulfilled the beautiful promise, “And I heard a great voice out of heaven
saying, Behold, the tabernacle (dwelling place) of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be
with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there
shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain: for the former things
are passed away. And He that sat
upon the throne said, Behold, I make ALL
THINGS NEW. And he said unto me, Write:
for these words are true and faithful” (Rev. 21:3-5).
Whatever
we hold as the nature of the death state, may we let this truth sink deep into
our hearts: DEATH IS TO BE ABOLISHED.
The ringing declaration, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death,” overthrows the whole structure of accepted, but unproved, theology
which shuts up the mass of the human race in “eternal death.” When the “last” enemy is destroyed,
abolished, it is self-evident that none remains. Those wretched religionists who demand the endlessness
of death, who argue for eternal torment in the lake of fire, the second
death, do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. The lake of fire must end because death
and hell are cast into it, which is the second death, and in the end THERE
SHALL BE N-O M-O-R-E
D-E-A-T-H. No more death! No more first death. No more second death. No more of any kind of death. To say there is no more death is to say that
there is no more sin and no more sinners, for sinners are dead men, and the wages
of sin is death. To say there
is no more death is to say that God has not “burned up” all the wicked and left
them dead, or in hell, for as long as any creature of God is in a state of
death, death is not abolished — its power still reigns. To say there is no more death is to say there is no more hell, for hell is
“the realm of the dead.” To say there
is no more death is to say there is no
more a lake of fire, for the lake of fire is the second death. What a universe of truth is contained
in three little words: NO MORE DEATH!
We
are now approaching the final verse of chapter twenty. “And
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of
fire” (Rev. 20:15). The grammatical
construction is not that strong in the actual Greek text.
As you can see by consulting an interlinear
the literal translation of the Greek is: “And IF anyone was not found
in the scroll of life having been written he was thrown into the lake of
fire.” In Greek grammar it is very conditional, indicating a big “if,” as though at this
point in the processes of divine judgment there would be but few who would face
the sentence of the lake of fire. The
wonderful truth is, however, that even in the lake of fire there is hope!
Most
Christians are confused not only about
the purpose of the lake of fire, but
also about the length of time men stay there.
Have you ever heard a vivid, graphic sermon about the pains of the
wicked in the lake of fire? I have! One brother related the following: “I heard
in a sermon as a young boy in Arkansas, a description of how
long ‘eternity’ really is. The preacher
was speaking of everlasting torment in the lake of fire for all outside of
Christ, even the little baby that dies without knowing Jesus. To impress the audience with just how long that torture — that blistering,
sizzling, pain-wracked, excruciating agony of torture would be prolonged, he
said, ‘Imagine, if you can, a huge, solid granite mountain exactly one mile
high, and one mile wide. Once every
year, imagine that a little bird flies to the top of that one-mile-high block
of solid granite and cleans his beak. A
whole year goes by, and the bird flies
to the top of the granite mountain and cleans his beak again. You get a fair idea of how long is eternity if you imagine how long it
would take for that bird, cleaning his beak atop that one-mile-high block of
solid granite to wear the granite completely down until it was gone!’
The young boy wondered within
himself, All of this? All this pain and
suffering because a little baby who
had never heard the name of Jesus; perhaps a
baby belonging to another race, or to a non-Christian religion, who died under
what the churches call ‘Adam’s
sin,’ went to the lake of fire? He then proceeded to ask what horrible things
that innocent baby could have done to merit even a moment’s punishment, even a
harsh spanking, let alone TORTURE,
and that for ALL
ETERNITY!” — end quote. The truth is, however, the Bible
nowhere speaks of “eternity” in connection with the lake of fire! The Greek term is “unto ages of ages” signifying the on-going dealings and processes
of God until the work is complete and all men are purged, purified, and fully
reconciled to God.
If
there were a great lake of fire that would burn throughout eternity, this would
mean that people whom God had created for His pleasure would be suffering on
and on, endless ages of time. Always God
would realize that in His universe the souls of the vast majority of mankind
were suffering torment so hideous that it is beyond comprehension, and that
would never
end. God’s mercy could not find them,
God’s grace could not reach them, and God’s power could not save them! Satan would be the victor and God’s universe
would be marred forever! Sin would be constantly before God and never again could God be
happy amongst His children — unless He is a sadistic psychopath! What kind of God do you serve? Is He a fiend that takes pleasure in roasting
and toasting His children forever? Or is
He so cold and callused, so void of
empathy, that He just ignores them without feeling? Or does He pull them out of the fire when
they have scorched a little too long and when they have cooled down, drag them
back into the flame? Is this the kind of God we serve? No, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!
Think
of the lake of fire as God’s great Rehabilitation
Center. The fire of that dealing is His very
professional and effective Rehabilitation Therapy. Some years ago there was a reality television
show called Clean House. It was about
three trained specialists who go into homes that are a mess. In each episode, there is clutter
everywhere. In some homes there is so
much junk that visitors must remain standing because the furniture is covered
with all kinds of stuff. The Clean House specialists face the
challenge of convincing the residents to get rid of their junk. And the strange thing often is — even though
it makes their lives miserable, they don’t want to get rid of the clutter! So some very interesting scenarios play out
as the specialists do what they have to do to change these people’s
mindset! You and I can be the same way
in our relationship with God, not to mention the world! We say we want to clean things up, and we can
see what’s got to go. But so often even
we cling to things that make life miserable for us and for others. But our God has a wonderful Rehabilitation Therapy! Oh, yes, HE is a specialist! God builds a great bonfire — whosoever is not
found written in the Book of Life — whoever is not expressing and manifesting
the Christ — is cast into His great bonfire!
And as Paul wrote, “EVERY MAN’S WORK shall be made manifest (the “books”
opened!): for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try
every man’s work of what sort it is. If
any man’s work abide…he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (I Cor.
3:13-15).
“And
He saith unto me, It is done. I am Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely…the
fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:6-8).
“I will give unto him that is athirst of the
fountain of the water of life
freely.” May I reverently ask, Who
would be more thirsty than the man in the lake of fire? These passages must be taken in their association and context. If you don’t believe the man tormented in
fire is a thirsty man just ask the rich man in our Lord’s parable who died and
lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torments.
He sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and cries out:
“Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of
his finger in water, and cool my tongue.”
Now, it is not my purpose to explain the meaning of the parable in this
writing, for that is another story altogether.
But, irrespective of its spiritual meaning, in the parable of Lazarus
and the rich man, the rich man was tormented in fire and wanted Lazarus to come
and cool his tongue and slake his thirst.
He had been a very bad man, and so was tormented in the hell that he had
created for himself. But when he asked
that Lazarus should come, Abraham said, “Between us and you there is a great
gulf fixed: no one can cross it.” Abraham could not cross that gulf! David could not cross that gulf! Moses could not cross that gulf! None of the prophets and none of the
Patriarchs could cross that gulf! NO MAN could cross it!
There
is no denying that, BUT THE CHRIST CROSSED THAT ABYSS. There is
the difference! You say that
Abraham said, “Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they
which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross
over from thence to us.” Let me remind
you that, although Abraham said that, the Christ did not. That is right, Abraham, you could not bridge
that gulf! And even if you could, you
did not have the keys to the gates. But the Christ crossed that gulf, He
strode into Hades, He went and preached to the spirits that were in prison, and
He led captivity captive; that is, He captured the captives, those who were
captives to sin, captives to the devil, and captives in hell, and led out from
thence a mighty host of captives, and delivered them into the liberty of the
children of God. The Christ crossed that
gulf, and HIS SALVATION BRIDGED IT.
Christ bridged it! The Christ
Himself IS THE BRIDGE! It is no use
talking nonsense, saying that the gulf was not bridged. It was
not bridged at the time Jesus told that story, but when He arose and
grasped the keys of death and of hell, He made a way for His banished to return.
It
was bridged by Jesus Christ, and there is not any gulf that He cannot bridge. I believe it!
If there is, then He is not God, because there is no gulf that God and
His love cannot bridge. Jesus Christ has
bridged the gulf between God and man, between heaven and earth, between Israelite and Gentile,
between bond and free, between male and female, between rich and poor. He has bridged all the gulfs, blessed be His
name, and so “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).
“For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that
they might be judged according to men in
the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (I Pet. 4:6). Thank God! a greater than Abraham is
here. He bridges the gulf between heaven
and earth and between earth and hell, for it is written, “That at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). Weymouth translates,
“That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of beings in the highest heavens, of those on the earth, and of THOSE
IN THE UNDERWORLD, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The hymn writer captured the wonderful truth of this when he penned
these immortal words:
Oh, the love
that drew salvation’s plan!
Oh, the grace
that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty
GULF THAT GOD DID SPAN —
At Calvary!
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
