THE WORK OF THE LAKE OF FIRE
“But
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).
You
may remember the story of the man who was trying to get his mule into the barn.
The man was tugging on the rope and pulling with all his might. He got behind the mule and pushed; he put his
shoulder to its back but he could not budge the mule who just stood there,
stiff-legged, and would not move. Try as
he might he could not get it into the barn!
A fellow walked up and watched for quite a while. Finally, he said, “Mister, I’ll get your mule
into the barn for you if you like.” The
man stopped in astonishment and said, “Can you?” He said, “Of course, it is easy.” The stranger walked over and picked up a two-by-four, came over to the
mule, quietly lifted the two-by-four, and whacked him on top of the head ,
right between the eyes. The mule went a
little cross-eyed! Then he hit him
behind the ears. Before the mule could
quite straighten up again, he struck him beneath the chin. With that he took hold of the rope and with two fingers led the mule into
the barn! The owner stood there
astonished. The fellow came out again and said, “You see, mister,
actually this mule is a very cooperative critter. You just got to get his attention!”
Sometimes
God has to GET OUR ATTENTION! And to do
that He chooses to use events which are instruments of His judgment. We often think God’s judgments are punishment
and vengeance, but more often they are skillfully designed to wake us up. God told Moses that the reason for His
judgment upon the Egyptians
was to make them know that He is God. Everything
God does shows us something about who He is and what His purposes are, but in
this instance of judgment God particularly expressed that His intent was to
reveal Himself to the Egyptians. And He was successful in this, for in chapter
eight of Exodus Moses records the magicians telling Pharaoh,
“This is the finger of God!” Our God has
foretold the blessed era when He shall be ALL IN ALL.
How can God ever be ALL — IN ALL? Properly translated that means that God shall
be everything to everyone! Are there not some creatures and men too
incorrigible to bend to His
omnipotence? Let each one who
knows Him as their ALL
give answer thus: “He who has broken my stubborn will and brought me to His
feet can draw the most obstinate to Himself.”
Oh, yes! His will is more than a
match for any man’s! Were it His decree
to become their DOOM, they could not
stop Him. But as it is His will to
become their ALL (which is a far nobler and
greater goal for Him who is Love),
their ALL He
shall become. His indignation
may break and
destroy pride and rebellion for the ages, but His love will endure endlessly
and He will pursue all men until at last they surrender to His love. Not even one
stray sheep will be lost!
Ah,
yes, God knows just how to GET OUR ATTENTION!
He can get it here and now. If He
doesn’t get it here, He will get it in hell.
If He doesn’t get it in hell, He will
get it in the lake of fire. He
will get it by gracious words and tender mercies, if He can. But if not, He will get it by severe
judgments and grievous dealings. But,
blessed be His name, He will get our
attention!
God
gives us power, in the positive realm, to get men’s attention, to subdue them to
Christ. Jesus has said, in effect, “All authority has been given to me in heaven
and on earth. Go ye therefore, I give you authority to tread upon serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.
I give you this authority. I am
behind you, and all the powers of heaven are on your side. Go ye therefore and MAKE DISCIPLES!” They were a poor lot to go. They were nearly all fishermen, with one honest
tax-collector. If you can find one
honest tax-collector in America,
I think you might make him an apostle without further
investigation. These men whom Christ
sent out were uneducated for the most part.
They had no political clout and no social rank, until Christ took them
in hand. They did not know very much
until He took them in hand for three years.
It was astonishing what He made of them!
Even then they did not realize His mission until the Holy Spirit came at
Pentecost and brought to their remembrance the things which Jesus had said, and
showed them the meaning of Jesus’ words after He had risen from the dead, when,
on the mountain side in Galilee, He gave them authority to make disciples.
But
sometimes God has to use more severe means.
Many years ago I turned on my car
radio while enroute to a meeting on Sunday morning and heard a preacher relate
a most interesting and illustrative story.
He said, “I remember a friend of mine that I was in school with. He was a pastor
in the East Texas oil fields at the time of the explosion at the New London
School. I shall never forget that night when word came in
over the radio that that school had exploded and that over 300 boys and girls
had been killed. I was speaking the next
morning on the radio in Dallas,
Texas. And that morning I directed everything I had
to say to the parents and loved ones of those boys and girls. We received cards and letters from New
England, from Mexico,
and from all over the country.
“But
this pastor
friend of mine told me this story. He
said, In the parish in which I was the pastor, there lived a man
who had become suddenly rich. He was a Texan who had become oil
rich, even had put up a small refinery.
And he had made already several millions of dollars. He had built a lovely home. He had a wife and two beautiful boys. And the wife and two boys were believers,
fellowshipping in our church. And this pastor went on and said,
This man was the worst blasphemer I had
ever met in my life. I’ve never heard a man talk
as that man would talk. He would
blaspheme God, curse God. And his wife
was so concerned about him and asked me to go see him. I went to see him, and I’ve never been treated like that in my
life. He cursed me from the moment I
opened my mouth until I got out of earshot.
He called me everything that was in the book and some things I didn’t
know were in the book. He was vile.
“His
wife and one of his little boys took sick during the flu epidemic and both died
at the same time. I went over that night
to see them. I went in and there sat the
father and the little boy that was alive.
I went over and sat down beside them and began to talk, and he began to
abuse me again. And curse — I’ve never heard anything
like it! It was vile beyond
description. He blasphemed God’s
name. There was nothing left for me to
do but get up and walk out of there, which I did. I had the funeral. The man wouldn’t even speak to me. And he became more vile after that. But all of the love that he’d had for his
family, and that seemed to be the only thing about the man that was a redeeming
feature, was now turned to this one
little boy that was left.
That
little boy was in the New London School. This man, when he heard of the explosion,
went out to that school and went through that rubble like a madman until he
found the torn and twisted, broken body of that little boy. Then he took it in his arms and walked up and
down that schoolyard like a maniac until they actually took it away from him
and carried it to the funeral home. You
know, I felt it was my duty to go and talk with him. So that night I went over to that big home,
and I went in and there was that little white casket and there he sat, the same
place he’d sat before. I just steeled
myself for the cursing that I was to
get. I was afraid to say anything. I just sat down. Then that great big hulk of a fellow looked
up and our eyes met. He hadn’t cried
before, he was too tough to cry, but there were tears in his eyes. And instead of cursing me, he said to me, God
has been after me all the time. He’s
tried to speak to me all my life, and I turned my back on Him. He took my wife and my other little boy, and
I knew He was talking to me. But I was
afraid of what men might say, those I worked with and were associated with. Oh, what a coward I’ve been! And now He’s had to take this one! Well, he said, God can have me now. And that man got down on His knees beside
that casket and surrendered his life to God and took Christ as his
Saviour. The last time I saw that pastor friend of mine he told
me that that oil man was still walking with the Lord” — end quote.
That
man did not respond to the POSITIVE witness of
the gospel of God’s grace, so corrective measures were needed, and God
stretched forth His hand and brought NEGATIVE forces into action, thereby getting his attention. Oh, yes, God knows exactly what it will
take to gain the surrender of every heart!
Once broken under the judgmental dealings of God, he knelt before the
Lord and received the goodness and mercy and deliverance so graciously proffered. Hallelujah! It should be clear to every thinking child of
God that God does not use the same means and measures with every man to bring
them to Christ. It would be very simple
to fill this message and a dozen more with instance after instance from holy
scripture as well as personal experience which loudly and unerringly proclaim
the nature and purposes of God’s judgments in men’s lives from the banishment
of Adam and Eve from Eden’s fair
garden in Genesis to the blazing inferno
of the lake of fire in the Revelation. But
I would point you briefly to one plain and positive illustration which
proceeded from the lips of our Lord Jesus the Christ. “But if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall
begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be
drunken; the Lord of that servant will APPOINT HIM HIS PORTION WITH THE
UNBELIEVERS. And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and
prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be BEATEN WITH
MANY STRIPES. For unto whomsoever much
is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much,
of him they will ask the more” (Lk. 12:45-48).
In
this parable it is plain that Christ is teaching degrees of punishment or
correction. The Christ teaches that
those who have committed things worthy of many stripes, will receive many, and
those who were ignorant, and with lesser light did not know or understand the
will of God, yet did things worthy of stripes, shall receive but a few. Here is set forth in the plainest of language
not only varying degrees of judgment, but also varying lengths of time for the
judgment. Whatever the judgment typified
by the “stripes,” it takes longer to inflict many stripes than it does to
inflict just a few, so it should not be difficult to understand that some men
are under God’s corrective judgment for a longer period of time than
others. The Word of God declares that
the Judge of all the earth shall do right, and I believe that He shall do just
that. As our children were growing up we
did not have one stock punishment for all their misdeeds. We suited the punishment to the disobedience,
yet we haven’t granted the same privilege to God! We have said that everyone from your lovely next
door neighbor who doesn’t know Christ to Adolph
Hitler is to receive the very same common punishment, hell fire, and that that judgment
would endure for the very same length of time for all — eternity! How, then, I ask,
can some be beaten with “many stripes” and others with “few stripes” if all
receive the same punishment of endless damnation in hell fire? How foolish can we be! It is always extremely foolish to hold to a doctrine
that clearly contradicts the Word of God.
I
can almost feel the holy wrath, I can almost hear the stinging invective of
some who think they have me now — “Ah,” they say, “but Jesus is not talking in
this parable about the condition of the lost:
He is teaching about the punishment of disobedient SERVANTS OF GOD!” And you are so right, my friend. I concede the point. We never
want to forget it. Nothing could be
plainer, for Jesus prefaces His remarks with these significant words: “Who then
is that faithful and wise
servant, whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give
them their portion of meat in due season?
Blessed is that servant, whom the Lord when He
cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I
say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath” (Lk.
12:42-44).
There
would be no answer to your argument; I would
be forced to throw up my hands and admit that these words of the Lord
apply only to the correction and discipline of servants of the Lord, and have
absolutely no bearing whatever on the judgment of unbelievers, or on hell, or
on the lake of fire, were it not for one significant statement in
verse forty-six. The Lord says,
“The lord of that servant will come
in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will
cut him off (from his position), and will APPOINT HIM HIS PORTION WITH THE
U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-E-R-S.” Do you see
that? Ah, the punishment of this SERVANT
is the SAME PUNISHMENT as the UNBELIEVER receives! He is appointed his portion WITH THE
UNBELIEVERS! The punishment, therefore,
of this servant of the Lord and the punishment of the unbelievers is equal,
identical, of the same intensity, for the same length of time, the very same punishment
— and that punishment is? — “MANY
STRIPES”!
Not unending stripes, not everlasting whipping, not eternal torment at
the hands of the tormentors, for no master ever ordered the eternal beating of
his slave! Just many stripes. Severe, yes, but restrained,
responsible, and purposeful. Now, notice
the similarity of the language describing this judgment with that which John
records in our
present text.
The master commands, “appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.” What is the “portion” of the
“unbelievers”? Hear it! “But the fearful, and unbelieving…shall have their
part (portion) IN THE LAKE
WHICH
BURNETH WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE.” (Rev. 21:8). The “portion of the unbelievers” in the lake
of fire! And not only are the
unbelievers, idolaters, etc. judged there, but the unfaithful servants of God
are dealt with there, too! And, by Jesus’
own words, this judgment is called “many stripes,” and is shown to be limited
in its duration and corrective and remedial in its purpose.
Some
years ago the following testimony came in the mail from a preacher by the name
of Chuck Johnel who was well known by a certain circle of brethren who
considered themselves “end-time” saints.
This preacher wrote, “In the very early days of my walk with Jesus I was
taken ‘in the spirit’ during abiding time and Father God showed me the damned
after the judgment of God, which is the second death. What I was given to see looked like a massive
hermetically sealed furnace and I was given to see inside briefly, but the
Father would not allow me to know or experience it, only to see and know what
He gave me to know. Inside this furnace
I saw what at first looked like multitudes of white larva, maggot-like things
that were bent over on top of each other stacked to the walls of this
furnace. It was pitch black inside, and
anyone who was claustrophobic would go nuts as the place was compressed
tightly, there was no room or open spaces but everything was jammed onto everything
else.
“I
saw fallen angels mixed in with these maggots who ripped their way through
these creatures trying to find an open space but there was none. Inside this furnace, though it was pitch
black, raged a fire so intense that the heat was unbearable, and while it was a
raging fire there was no light, only a suffocating heat and dense
darkness. I then knew that these maggots were the souls of the damned, those who had
been cast into the lake of fire, suffering the second death. I discerned an absolute sense of hopelessness
in these wretched souls, they had no hope and were eternally separated from
God. So horrific was this encounter that
I was moved by a strong desire to run down the streets of Chicago screaming a warning, ‘There is a place you must avoid!’ However, I will say this — I knew that
these souls were locked inside this fiery, black furnace that was shrinking in
time and space forever, getting hotter and more suffocating by the moment for
all eternity. No one could see inside
this place (except Father God allowed that), it would be no longer visible or
part of the new creation — yet the suffering of the damned would never end — only it
would not be known, seen, or heard” — end quote.
It
brings me no pleasure to say it, but this preacher is a liar. He is thoroughly and completely
deceived. I don’t know whether he
fabricated this story, received it from deceiving spirits, or if he was on some
hallucinatory drug, but his story is not true.
It sounds like something a distorted mind and a wild imagination would
invent as a result of listening to years of hell fire and damnation preaching by
the ministers of Babylon
who are possessed of a sadistic mindset in regard to God and His
judgments. If his testimony were true,
the god he serves is a sadistic monster who by comparison makes Adolph Hitler look like a
heavenly angel of glory. I have no
hesitation in saying that God did not show him any such thing as he
claims. If some god showed him those
things, it was certainly not the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus the Christ who reconciled the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, who
is not willing that any should perish
but that all should come to
repentance, who is the Saviour of all
men, and the Saviour of the world, who
because He was lifted up on the cross of Calvary will draw all men unto Himself!
I
believe every word that the Bible says about the lake of fire; I don’t believe
what Rome says
about it, nor what the church systems of man say about it, nor what tradition
says about it, nor what Chuck Johnel says about it; but I certainly believe
what the Bible says about it!
One
would think that the lake of fire was a prominent theme throughout the
scriptures from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation. It is
not. The fact is that the
teaching concerning the lake of fire and brimstone does not appear anywhere in
scripture except in the book of
Revelation, the book with the most signs,
symbols, and metaphors of any book in the entire Bible. If the book of Revelation had not been given
us we would have no knowledge of the lake of fire at all. The Revelation speaks of the lake of fire
five times. The last passage is our text. There should be no question as to the
certainty of this lake of fire; neither should there be any doubt as to the
awful consequence of having to be cast into it.
The various passages with their dreadful foreboding should be a fearful
warning to all unthinking, careless, and foolish people who, because of their
love for the world, the flesh, and the devil, have dared to ask why we should
serve God now if all are going to be saved eventually. Such people have no love for God nor fear of
God, and they manifest by what they say that their professed serving of God is
only a pretense, arising — not from any true love for Him — but from fear of
punishment. If there were no prospect of
hell or the lake of fire these would promptly tell God to go to hell and they
would, themselves, go to the devil. It
is not thus with those who really know God,
who truly love God, for they serve
Him not from fear, but from pure love and devotion. Remove all punishment and judgment completely
from the universe, and they would still serve God with all their hearts!
Because
of the gross misunderstanding of almost all people concerning the lake of fire,
I would like to draw our attention to three words found in our text. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, 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.” The word “BURN” means
combustion, or to consume. To consume
does not mean to annihilate, for there is no such thing as annihilation in the
absolute and scientific sense. When fire
consumes a log in your fireplace it does not destroy any of the elements within
the log, it merely changes their
form. Combustion is the process by
which chemicals combine to form new chemicals.
For example, a tree might be cut down, sawed into fire wood, and
burned in your fireplace. When the wood is burning the heat causes the
chemicals of which the wood is composed to vaporize, mixing with the oxygen in
the air to form new chemicals, including water and the gas carbon dioxide.
So what was formerly a tree is no longer identified as the form of a
tree, but the substance thereof is now simply changed into a different
form and exists in its new form within the atmosphere as water, carbon
dioxide, etc. Thus, to burn means to
CHANGE! And of course we are not
speaking of our bodies being burned up in the lake of fire — the fire is spiritual fire and its work is a spiritual work upon our stubborn wills,
our carnal minds, our flesh nature, our corrupt passions, and all that causes
us to be cast into this divine processing of God! Furthermore,
it is significant to note that fire does not burn down; it always burns up; it
seeks the highest level. All that it consumes
“goes up in smoke,” to exist in a new form in a higher
dimension. Even if you take a pan of
water and place it over a fire, before long the water will take on the property
of the fire and will begin to go up in steam. To burn means to CHANGE, and the change is
always UPWARD in motion!
“FIRE”
is the heat and light that you feel and see when something burns. It takes heat to start a fire, but once the
fire is started it produces heat that keeps the process going. Thus, fire is really heat and light.
In my study of the lake
which
burns with fire and brimstone I was very much impressed and helped by the
understanding given by Charles Pridgeon and I would like to quote from his
scholarly work on the subject of brimstone.
He says, “The Lake of Fire and
Brimstone signifies a fire burning with brimstone; the word ‘brimstone’ or
sulphur defines the character of the fire.
The Greek word theion translated
‘brimstone’ is exactly the same word theion
which means ‘divine.’ Sulphur was sacred to the
deity among the ancient Greeks; and was used to fumigate, to purify, and to
cleanse and consecrate to the deity; for this purpose they burned it in their
incense. In Homer’s Iliad (16:228), one is spoken
of as purifying a goblet with fire and brimstone. The verb derived from theion is theioo which
means to hallow, to make divine, or to dedicate to a god (See Liddell and Scott
Greek-English Lexicon, 1897
Edition). To any Greek, or any trained
in the Greek language, a ‘lake of fire and brimstone’ would mean a ‘lake of
divine purification.’ The idea of
judgment need not be excluded. Divine
purification and divine consecration are the plain meaning in ancient
Greek. In the ordinary explanation, the
fundamental meaning of the word is completely left out, and nothing but eternal
torment is associated with it” — end
quote.
I
realize that the above thoughts define the subject very briefly, but let us
summarize the meanings thus: BURN means combustion; to change the form of. FIRE means heat and light. BRIMSTONE means divine. Putting these three together can we not see
that the lake burning with fire and brimstone is,
actually, DIVINE HEAT (JUDGMENT) AND LIGHT (ILLUMINATION) PRODUCING A
CHANGE! Is such a process eternal? All the laws of nature shout that it is not! More than 2500 hundred years ago the Holy
Spirit warned the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem
that God would kindle a fire at Jerusalem’s
gates which would devour her palaces.
“But if ye will not hearken unto me…then I will kindle a fire in the
gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched” (Jer. 17:27).
Did not God say this fire “shall NOT BE QUENCHED”? This prophecy was
fulfilled and the fire did occur a few years later when Nebuchadnezzar’s
armies devastated Jerusalem (Jer. 52) and the
fire did destroy all the houses of Jerusalem.
Since God said no person or thing would “quench” this fire, did that
mean that it would burn forever? That is what most people think when they
hear of “unquenchable fire!” The fire at Jerusalem accomplished the work it was sent
to do, and since it is not burning today, it obviously went
out by itself after accomplishing its
purpose! Unquenchable fire is not eternal fire — it is
simply fire than cannot be put out until it has consumed or changed everything
it is possible for it to change! It then
simply goes out, for there is nothing more to burn. Yet I hear the preachers ranting and raving
about poor souls being cast into hell fire where “their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched” and this, we are told, means eternal, unending
torment. How foolish, illogical, and deceptive!
Such a view blatantly contradicts the plain meaning of the term
“unquenchable” and its use in the Word of God.
If
you think the kingdom
of God
is rosewater, or eau-de-cologne, you are mistaken. You cannot war on the devil with that. You cannot war on the carnal minds of men
with that. You have to make war on the
flesh, the world, and the devil with a sword sharper than any two-edged
sword. You have to make war on the flesh
nature and self-will with fire, divine fire, that must burn up every inherent
altar of Baal, and lick up the very dust around. Make no mistake! OUR GOD IS
A CONSUMING FIRE! He is man’s “horse
breaker” and He will break you, precious friend of mine, and bring
you to the foot of the cross of Jesus no matter how hot He has to build the fire around you! Even if long ages of fiery judgment and
tormenting darkness fall upon you, they will last no longer than till the Great
Fire of God has melted all arrogance into humility, all hostility into
surrender, and all that is self has died in the bloody sweat and all-saving
cross of the Christ, which will never give up its redeeming power till sin and
sinners have no more a name among the creatures of God. Aren’t you glad!
Let
us now explore with reverence some of those conditions that exist in men’s
lives which will be dealt with by God’s
Holy Ghost Fire. And I think you will
see that it is not just the world of incorrigible sinners who are purged and
purified in that fire, but indeed the unfaithful servants of God as well! There may not be room for all of them but we
will do the best that we can.
“But the fearful…” If there was a
list of names of every man and woman who will find themselves in the God’s lake
of fire, and if we were permitted to scan that list, we might be surprised at
all the names that would appear.
Certainly the worst of sinners, and the most incorrigible of men, would
make the list, but some seemingly very good people would likely be on it as
well! Even our own names might be found
on the list, for just the offence of being fearful would qualify one to make
that list! Is it not obvious that fear
is a powerful emotion that plagues, torments, and dominates the lives of many,
especially of God’s own people? To begin
with, many are fearful of displeasing the Lord and therefore being cast into
the lake of fire! Others are fearful of
missing the “rapture,” fearful of the “end-time,” fearful of the devil, fearful
of the mark of the beast, fearful of false doctrine, fearful of being deceived,
fearful of getting cancer, fearful about the economy and the future, fearful of
dying, and fearful of a thousand other things.
GOD has not given us the spirit of fear, my beloved, but of love, and
power, and a sound mind! The fearful
shall have their part in the lake of fire, for they must die to such
debilitating things that rob men of peace, and joy, and victory in Christ!
There
are three Greek words for fear. One is phobos, from which our English word
“phobia” is derived. It refers to fear
in general, whether good or bad, and has broad applications. Then there is eulabeia, which is always used in a positive sense and refers to
reverential fear, godly fear, that is, to revere, venerate, stand in awe of, as
in the fear of the Lord. But the word
for fear in our text
is deilia, which is always employed
in a negative sense, with reference to a cringing
coward who refuses to take his
stand. Spiritually, this is
tremendously significant! The highest
courage appears when a man is desperately afraid, but in spite of his fear does
the right thing at any cost. What is
condemned in this word is cowardice which
prevents one from embracing the truth, taking a stand, and moving forward in God
as He leads. I remember when I was
fearful of taking a stand on the ultimate salvation of all men, afraid that
many of our friends and brethren would abandon us; yet at that time the Lord
gave the anointing and the courage to write our “Saviour of the World” booklets
and begin sending them forth across the land and around the world. I found that my fear was ungrounded, for our
stand for the truth God had revealed had just the opposite effect, it opened
far more doors to us than it closed! Oh,
yes, people hear the Spirit’s urging, “Come out
of her, my people,” and yet they are fearful of leaving the Babylon church system, fearful they won’t
have any fellowship, fearful for their children outside the church structure,
oh, so fearful!
How true are the words of the wise man in Proverbs
29:25: “The fear of man bringeth a snare…” This fear was illustrated in the
intriguing statement of the scripture record that the chief rulers “believed on
Jesus”; that is, they believed in their hearts that Jesus was indeed the Christ; but they would not openly
confess Him because they were afraid they would be put out of the synagogue.
Thus they sacrificed a place of glory and honor in the kingdom of Christ
on the altar of the “safe,” and at the destruction of Jerusalem they lost both! It is a terrible sin to allow the opinions
and favor and support of men to keep us from stepping forth in the new paths of
God’s leading, and perhaps this is the reason “fear” was listed first!
George
Hawtin, in one of his booklets, asked this penetrating question: “Are we fully
persuaded that God is calling us to sonship? Are we sufficiently persuaded about Zion to earnestly press
toward it? Are we sufficiently persuaded
about Babylon,
the Mother of harlots, to come out of her
and be joined to Christ and to Him alone?
Are we fully persuaded about the eternal
purpose of God? Persuaded enough, I
mean, to abandon all else and cling only to that? Oh, how often we meet men and women on the
way back. They become impatient about the road that
leads to Zion’s hill, so back they go to Babylon’s tottering
tower. They lose patience and can no longer believe that the vision they saw is sure
and the promise immutable. They start
thinking and reasoning in the natural and human wisdom tells them to forget the promise of
God and return, so back they go. Can we
not hear the voice of Jesus saying, ‘He that putteth his hand to the plow and
looketh back, is not fit for the
kingdom?’ And again, ‘Remember
Lot’s wife.’ Let us then be fully persuaded concerning the promises of God, and, being
persuaded, let us lay aside every
weight and run with patience and confidence the race that is set before
us” — end quote.
“…and the unbelieving…” Unbelief
is to be void of faith, and the writer to the Hebrews assures us that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). The message is just this: Unbelief is
sin! Faith is the spiritual sense by which
we recognize the presence, character, and purpose of God; both that He is, and that He rewards the seeker. Faith seeks for God; it believes that He is;
it keeps the heart open towards Him; it bows in humility and hope for Him to
make Himself known. To know God, to see
God in everything, and everywhere, to hear in our heart His voice and His
teaching, and in our daily life to be
conscious of His presence so that we always walk with Him — this is the true
nobility of the man of faith! This is the life that faith lives; this is the
blessedness that Jesus has now fully revealed by coming by His spirit of sonship into our hearts,
whereby we cry, “Abba, Father!” Faith
can walk with God as a son of God! And
it’s not our faith, but as Paul said, the life which
we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God who…gave Himself
for (and to) us. Truly, HE is
both the author (origin, source) and the finisher (maturity, consummation,
fullness) of our faith! Consider HIS
FAITH! Jesus had faith to walk with the Father. He had faith to acknowledge and walk out His
sonship to God. He had faith to speak as
the oracle of God. He had faith to heal
the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, feed multitudes with five loaves
and two fish, walk on water, turn water into wine, raise the dead, forgive
sins, and fulfill the whole purpose of the Father in His life even unto Calvary and the tomb,
and to conquer death, hell, and the grave!
Oh, yes! That, and much more, is the
faith of the Son of God! To
doubt that faith within ourselves, to neglect the growth and development of
that faith, to be unbelieving of God’s call, purpose, and power in our lives
would surely put us in the category of “the unbelieving” who must be purged and
purified in the lake of fire!
Selah. Pause and think about that.
“…and murderers…” The
subject is not just homicide, the bloody murderers of this world, although
without doubt there will be multitudes of them there, but we must never lose sight of the
fact that the Revelation is first and foremost a spiritual book, and its realities are spiritual realities! The
natural figures the spiritual, and we know that a natural man can be killed
many different ways — with a gun, a sword, a knife; by starvation,
deprivation, suffocation, poisoning, and many others. The very same John who on Patmos
penned these portentous words is also the one who wrote, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren. He that loveth not His brother
abideth in death. Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding (dwelling as a life
principle) in him” (I Jn. 3:15). No
one knew better than the beloved John
what, in its spiritual meaning, “murder” signifies! The message is clear — If old Adam is still alive in us
we cannot help hating our brother who offends, misuses, or abuses us, and we
are in our heart a murderer; to boost our own ego, or enhance our standing with
others, we will at least whisper behind people’s backs, repeat (with a certain
sense of satisfaction or justification) a negative report, carry a tale about
someone, engage in idle gossip, thus assassinating
the character of any brother who appears as a threat to us, or whose place
we wish to usurp — that’s the way the carnal nature works, even that “devil”
who is a murderer from the beginning! Like
the Inquisition, those who are not in allegiance with a particular church system
have throughout the centuries been tortured in dark dungeons, burned on the
racks, burned at the stake, boiled in oil, beheaded, or otherwise destroyed by
accusations of heresy. Some were merely
excommunicated, spiritually suffocated by being cut off from spiritual
fellowship and spiritual food, unable to breathe
the life-giving breath
of the heavens. Don’t think it was just
the Papacy who committed these atrocities, my friend, for John Calvin and
Martin Luther and other Reformers and Christian kings killed and ordered the
extermination of the “heretics” of their day!
All who retain that carnal mentality, though in other ways they may be
great men of faith, still will have to
be dealt with by the Holy Ghost Fire of God to purge them of their spiritual wickedness!
“and whoremongers…” I’m sure vast numbers of the fleshly
whoremongers of the world will be discovered in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, but I am just as certain that the
whoremongering here is also a symbol signifying
something spiritual, a joining to that which is not Christ. Women in the Revelation are always symbolic,
either positively of the bride of Christ, or negatively of the individual soul, or
corporately of religious organizations and activities which are soulish rather than spiritual. These are those
ministries, and multiplied millions of believers, who daily sow their seed,
deposit their spiritual life of Christ, into man-made religious systems,
mingling the reality of Christ with the commandments of men, joining themselves
to carnal programs, promotions, methods, and worldly-minded religious
activities, as well as with the political systems, governments, and social
programs of the world, satisfying their own soulish appetites and sensual lusts
in the name of the Lord. It is spiritual whoremongering!
The
church is imitating the world!
Christians regulate their devotion by the clock. The church schedule is packed with
flesh-appeal programs and activities that run day and night, often called
“outreaches.” They feel that unless
every night of the week is taken up with some sort of activity, the ministry is
an ineffective thing. They have the
strange idea that nothing is being done unless someone is talking! So they fairly swarm to conferences,
seminars, workshops, committee meetings, platform discussions, concerts, plays,
ball games, and programs and entertainments of many kinds.
It
is distasteful to have to admit it, but the plain truth is that the vast
majority of Christians live their lives in soulish
lusts. The further truth is that God’s purposes are not
accomplished by intellect and soulical activity! The church systems go forward today like a
little Samson shorn of its locks of power.
It parades up and down, boasting of its accomplishments, and like
Samson, it knows not that the Spirit of God has departed from it. But even as Saul and his armies tremble in
fear before the mighty Goliath, the Lord is raising up a little David with a
slingshot of the spirit of sonship to meet the enemy with all of his stratagems
and come off with a mighty victory! The
David company is still in preparation, far out in the solitude of the green
pastures of a living word, and beside
the still waters of the quickening spirit, learning by faith and obedience to
slay their bear and kill their lion in their own experience. It is not unlike Jesus during His first
thirty years in Nazareth
as He learned the ways of His Father, daily growing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Ah, God’s sons are gaining new victories
every day and are learning within ourselves the power of God and the ways of
His kingdom! Saul’s armor will not
do! The sons of God are being
prepared to step forth in the majesty of
the name of the Lord God of Israel! This preparation does not take place with
David’s seven brothers who appear so tall, handsome, articulate, charismatic,
and accomplished, nor in the hustle and bustle of the streets of Bethlehem, but alone with God in the pastures of HIS
choosing, outside the camp, in the secret place of the Most High!
Amid
all the religious ruckus of the hour, and all the fuss of those who run after
many lovers, whoremongering with the flesh, the world, and the carnal church
systems of man, there is a little flock that
has climbed the mount
with Jesus. They care not for the flamboyant humbug of the gaudy harlot’s
house, but, having beheld the glories of the kingdom afar off, they are
pressing through surging waves of flesh-oriented believers to come apart to receive instruction from
the King of the kingdom. At His feet
they hear the call to the heavenly mark and find a door opened for them to
enter in and lay hold upon the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. These are they who follow the Lamb whithersoever HE goeth! They lean hard upon Christ! They keep themselves unto Him, and to Him
alone. As the hart pants after the water
brooks, so pant their souls after God!
The spirit of sonship to God dwells within them! They are partakers of His mind!
They have been given the knowledge of His will! They comprehend His great plan and purpose in
the earth, in His sons, and in the unbounded universe! They have laid aside every weight and the sin
which doth so easily beset them! They
are running the race with patience! They
esteem the hope that is set before them as higher and better than all the
pleasures of Egypt and
greater far than the enticements, allurements, and prestige of the wanton
harlot of Babylon!
They are patient in tribulation, knowing
that through much tribulation we shall inherit the kingdom! They continue instant in prayer to God , and
He comforts them and upholds them with the right hand of His
righteousness! They no longer have any
inclination to find their way on Sunday morning or on Wednesday night to the
harlot’s house to be entertained, stroked, and seduced by her. The fire of God has here and now purged from
them the very spirit of whoredom, so you will not find them in that great day in the lake which
burns with fire and brimstone! To them
the voice of the Father speaks in words of everlasting hope and assurance,
“Fear not, little flock, it is the
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Isn’t it wonderful!
“…and abominable…and
sorcerers…” The word for “sorcerer” used
throughout the book of Revelation is an altogether different Greek word than is
used anywhere else in scripture. In our text it is pharmakeus and in Revelation 22:15 it
becomes pharmakos. Then in Revelation 9:21 the word is pharmakeia.
It is at once obvious that these are but three different forms of
the very same word, and the prefix “pharma” reveals that the meaning of the
word has something to do with drugs, as
in the words “pharmaceutical,” “pharmacy,” and “pharmacist.” No other place in scripture, but in the book
of Revelation, is the idea of “sorcery”
associated with drugs! The word
identifies deadly poisons and those who either make or sell those deadly
poisons. That is just what the words
mean, nothing else. In the Greek
language a Pharmacist is, therefore, a Sorcerer, a maker or a dealer, a vendor
or a user of deadly poisons sometimes administered as medicines. Legal, or illegal, in many cases they destroy
the brain, weaken the immune system, damage the liver, kidneys, heart, and
other vital organs and systems, addict or madden the user, and ruin the
spirits, souls, and bodies of countless millions who rely upon them.
Now,
our purpose in this message is not to attack prescription drugs, medicines, or
pharmacists. The apostle John certainly
knew what drugs were and who sorcerers were in his day, and among many cultures
they are not so different today. In my
encyclopedia, under the headings “MEDICINE MAN” and “WITCH DOCTOR” it states
that these treat diseases by appealing to the sick person’s superstition. The medicine man wears fierce-looking masks
to frighten away the evil spirits that are causing the disease. He makes up drugs or potions which are
strange mixtures of hallucinogenic herbs, lizard’s tails, frogs teeth, and such
things. As a sorcerer they have crafted
the art of manipulating the human mind.
Ah, the apostle John also understood what, in their spiritual meaning, drugs and sorcerers signified! All who think with a spiritual mind will
perceive the truth that the drugs point to the doctrines and teachings of
religious Babylon which dull the spiritual senses of the Lord’s people and are
destructive to true spiritual understanding and spiritual life, giving them a
distorted view of God and His purpose, a false hope, a mis-directed goal, and causing
them to live by religious superstitions, myths, traditions, legends, and
folklore. Do you know how many preachers and religious systems today are
masters at manipulating the human mind? They are sorcerers! Doctrines about the power of the devil,
financial prosperity, the rapture, eternal torment, free will, so-called end-time events, the antichrist, the
great tribulation, a mansion over the hilltop, along with holidays, rituals,
ceremonies, sacraments, and a hundred more delusions drug God’s people into a
spiritually hallucinogenic state. They
live in a false, starry-eyed, fairy-world of soulical imaginations which they
suppose to be spiritual realities!
Pleasure! Fun! Thrills!
Excitement! Charismatic
personalities! These and many more
things are the result of a cunning spirit that saturates the church systems as
they run after the “high” of soulical programs, concerts, fleshly
manifestations, emotionally stirring singing, entertaining preaching — the same
as any drug user in the world. In
chapter eighteen of the Revelation the Holy Spirit testifies that all nations
are deceived by the “sorceries” or the “spiritual drugging” of Mystery Babylon!
I
do not doubt for one moment that there will be a great assortment of shamans,
medicine men, witch doctors, and sorcerers in the lake of fire. Nor do I doubt that there will also be quite
an array of preachers and teachers and ministers of various kinds who
administered an unceasing supply of Babylon’s
deadly poisons to the Lord’s people!
There are not many people who are sufficiently awake to believe it, but
at this very moment hundreds of millions of church goers of every sect and
creed are walking and talking and acting under the delusions
of Babylon’s
drugs. They are filled with false
doctrines, false hopes, false expectations, false interpretations, false
understandings, false forms of worship, and though they profess to be
Christians, they would not know the real Christ if they met Him on the street.
They are so “high” on their mixed potion that they giddily imagine that
they are going to be caught up in the sky where they will sit on a cloud with
Jesus eating pork chops, or some such foolishness, at the marriage supper of
the Lamb, while the inhabitants of earth suffer the excruciating pangs of
“great tribulation” under the rule of a superman dictator called “the
Antichrist.” Ah, Babylon,
and the multitudes that are deceived by your
sorceries, your psychotic hallucinations are so intense that you
actually believe that the vast majority of earth’s billions of human souls will
be
lost to the all-loving, all-wise, and omnipotent God — finally,
irrevocably, and eternally — and not only will they be separated from God and
heaven forever, but they will be given over to the most sadistic, inhuman,
ungodly tortures that could be devised by the vilest fiends — a thousand times
worse than anything inflicted on man by Adolph Hitler or any other tyrant of human history.
I once saw a picture which originated as a
painting in the cathedrals of Europe which is
a picture of hell. I also saw one not so
different right in the Vatican
in Rome. This picture supposedly illustrates what hell
is like and was placed in the cathedrals to teach the people the horrors of
eternal damnation. There are little
paths running everywhere through hell.
There is this huge demon scampering about loose snatching people off the
paths and stuffing them in his mouth, eating them alive. There are legs sticking out, arms hanging out
of his mouth, while he’s grabbing more people to eat. There are many other little demons running
around stabbing people with pitchforks, bringing them to the head demon to
eat. And we wonder why the minds of the
captives of Babylon
are so warped? Millions of people
actually think like that — to them it is the “wisdom of God” and the “gospel truth.” No wonder that the doctrines of Babylon are called
“abominations and filthiness” (Rev. 17:4).
These are the abominations and filthiness of concepts that misrepresent,
denigrate, defame, vilify, revile, malign,
and impugn the nature, the character, the love, the wisdom, the power, and the purpose of
God! Vast multitudes of the Lord’s
precious people can scarcely believe that God loves them, that God does not condemn
them, and that God is not out to “get” them because of the sorcerers and the sorceries, the manipulation
of their minds by the practitioners of the church systems! In my opinion you have to be either a great
lover of “Christian fiction” or very “high” on something to believe such things! I do not hesitate to say that all these shall
have their part in God’s great Holy Ghost Lake of Fire to be purged, purified,
and refined — delivered from all the errors
and delusions
of the harlot church system!
“…and idolaters…” Upon hearing about men worshipping
idols our thoughts immediately travel to other lands, and other times; either
to the idolaters of ancient civilizations and empires, or to religions very
alien to our own. Of course the Roman
Catholic Church as well as others venerate the images of Christ, the Virgin
Mary, and the saints. The truth is,
however, that much that goes on in Christianity and within the walls of church
buildings and in the name of God is little more than a refined form of
idolatry. An idol is anything that
usurps the place of the living God, of His living reality in our lives. In their crudest form, idols are fashioned by
men according to their own imaginations out of whatever material they are
pleased to use. Christianity’s
“refinement” for this practice is still to worship a god manufactured by their
own imaginations, emotions, traditions, and will, merely abolishing the
manufacture of an artifact. In short,
those who present a god who is different than the God revealed in and through
the firstborn Son of God are guilty of idolatry. No matter how religious the depiction, how
appealing the description, how supposedly “orthodox” the assumptions, any church,
minister, or movement that presents a
god other than the One revealed in Jesus is guilty of making an idol.
No
man lives without a god. The real
question is, who or what is his God, or gods.
The pronouncement in the nineteen fifties and sixties that “God is dead”
did nothing to God. Instead it simply
attempted to assert that a certain God or kind of God was dead. It was a false image of God that men were
endeavoring to cast away. All of us have
had false images or concepts of God that we venerated which now we have had to
cast aside! We have even had to tear
down their altars in our heart! If you
listen to people speak, and hear what they say, it is easy to see their image
of God. The fact remains, our Lord Jesus
Christ is the true image of God! Any characterization of God that deviates
from the revelation of the wisdom,
nature, power, compassion, mercy, love, truth, and grace revealed in Jesus is a
demon god, an idol image! God has caused
us as His called and chosen elect to repent and empty our minds and hearts of
the remnants of false beliefs and
inadequate concepts of God which most of us had accumulated in our early childhood, or
perhaps carried over from an elementary stage of spiritual understanding and
experience of God.
What
is an idol? It is an image.
The image may be in our mind, but it is an idol. When we honor, give respect to, pay homage
to, that is, worship an untrue image
of God, we are idolaters! It is the soul
that births the false ideas about God — not the spirit. It is the soul that plays the harlot, and it
is the soul that creates false “images” of God in the mind and
understanding. Our spirit has a true
knowledge of God, our soul does not — it has to be taught. Our spirit has a true sense of worship, our
soul does not — it worships images. So
this great religious Babylon,
this great confusion originates not with the outward religious system, but out
of the souls of men — peoples, kindreds, tongues, and nations. It comes from the woman inside of us! There are millions of people in
confusion today because they have false
images of God enshrined in their minds.
And there are many gods! In the
church systems of man there is a literal pantheon of gods! Religion, yea, Christianity is beyond any
doubt a polytheistic system! There is one
image of God honored by the Catholics, another image of God revered by the
Baptists, a different image of God esteemed by Jehovah’s Witnesses, a further image of God
adored by the Pentecostals, a distinct image of God elevated by the Mormons,
and so on. Some of these “images” barely
resemble one another! But of this I am
certain: All of them will go up in smoke as they are burned out of men’s minds
and consumed out of their hearts in the lake of fire! That
is the mystery!
“…and all
liars…” The word “liars” in this
passage is the same Greek word as “false” in Acts 6:13. It signifies that which is false, not true, a
lie. Later in chapter twenty-one of the
Revelation John adds this warning: “And there shall in no wise enter into it (the holy city) any thing
that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they whose names (natures) are written in the
Lamb’s book of life” (Rev.
21:27). Ah — there are no pretenders in
the holy city of God, no fakers, no
hypocrites, no imposters, no false doctrines, no traditions of men, no empty
rituals, no lifeless ceremonies, no childish immaturity, no play acting. All this religious externalism will be
consigned to the garbage heap of history, the dung hill outside the city. Crawling
around with the liars on that dung hill are the others: “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and
whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 22:15). The
more our hearts bow down in meditation upon the seriousness of these
spiritual realities, the more we are brought face to face with God’s purpose to
make men holy. You will notice that the
list of people “outside” the holy city is essentially
the same as those who “have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone.” Oh, yes! To be outside
the “holy” city, whether one is a believer or an unbeliever, is to be headed
straight into GOD’S HOLY GHOST FIRE OF
PURGING AND PURIFICATION! Can you
not see the mystery?
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
