Eternal Judgments

In the New Testament letter of Jude, a very short little letter at the end of the canon of the New Testament, this little letter is there. We don't read it much, but there's a couple statements I want to look at today. Jude, it's just one chapter, so it's Jude verse 5. And I want to, actually verse 7 is what I want to read, but I want to pick up the context in which this is written.

Verse 5 says, but I want to remind you, though you once knew this. Now Jude is writing to the general audience of the church, it's not to a specific congregation like Paul's letters, or some of Paul's letters are written to a specific person. It's just written to the church as a whole, towards the end of the first century.

And he's saying there's doctrines in the church, there's teachings that had been passed on through Jesus and the disciples and the apostles that were being lost in the church. So he says, I want to remind you, though you once knew this, you've forgotten this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. So he's making a point here to the church that remember what happened to ancient Israel. They were saved by God. God did all kinds of miracles. God took them out of Egypt. He was taking them to the Promised Land, and they forgot everything God had done, and they ended up not going into the Promised Land.

And the angels, he says in verse 6, who did not keep their proper domain, they didn't stay within God's dominion, they decided to follow Satan into his kingdom, but left their own abode, he has reserved an everlasting change under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

So he said, and then there's the angels that we call demons that have followed Satan. And then in the same context, he says, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Now the word vengeance there in Greek probably work correctly, and it can be translated either way would be here, it's the punishment.

They receive punishment of eternal fire. And so there's always a question of what was their eternal fire because it stopped burning. But there's something important here we need to look at, and that is the understanding of a doctrine that in Hebrews is called eternal judgments. And it's one of those doctrines that we can sort of forget, and we can start to compromise with our lives and forget how important it is to God that people repent and come into a relationship with Him through Christ.

And there is an eternal judgment. Now the question is, okay, did Sodom and Gomorrah receive their eternal judgment? Well let's go to Matthew 11 because if we look at these two passages we're going to have to come up with a solution to the problem here. Matthew 11 and verse 20. Jesus here is speaking to a crowd. He says, and then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works have been done because they did not repent. You know Jesus went to all throughout Judea, and some places He went to He did extra miracles.

People were healed, people were raised from the dead. Remarkable things happened. And He started to look at some of those cities and rebuke them because He said, look what God has done in your city.

Woe to you, Tereisen, woe to you, Vicidia. For if in the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre inside him, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre inside and in the day of judgment than for you.

There is this day of judgment. It says, even the angels, we just read in Jude, are reserved for a time of judgment. And to you, Capernaum, who are exalted into heaven, will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Well, what does that mean? More tolerable. What is the day of judgment?

And why is it worse for some than for others? When we look at this, there's a whole lot of questions that we ask and that we tie into a whole set of doctrines. Doctrines that we sometimes can take for granted. And it would take us all afternoon to go through all the doctrines that are tied up in this discussion.

But we have here, Sodom was destroyed by God as a punishment, as a judgment. And yet they have a day of judgment still ahead of them. They receive the judgment from God. And they will receive another judgment from God. And what we have to be careful here is not to look at this in our 21st century post-modernity where we look at the Bible through a lens that was not written in it. It does not mean. We must understand that there are temporary judgments on human beings and there are eternal judgments on human beings. And those judgments can mean different things. They can mean different things as far as there can be good judgments and there can be bad judgments.

I've heard, and this is common, in the new Christianity that's formed in the United States, entire denominations have fallen into this. And it is dramatically different. In fact, Barna reports that if you are a mainstream Protestant in the mid-1970s, today you would make up 6% of the population. Then it made up over 80% of the population. That's how much Christianity has changed. And you can hear where people will say when confronted with the biblical situations like Sodom and Gomorrah, or the fact that there is this thing called the Lake of Fire, and they will say that the Bible can't be taken literally.

It's metaphors and can't be taken literally. Or, and I've heard this, I could never worship a God who was that cruel and that evil to do that to people. One of the most interesting arguments I heard a while back was, I could not worship a God who commits abortion. What's that mean? Well, if there were pregnant women in Sodom and Gomorrah, he killed the women and the babies. And I'm against abortion, so I'm against that God. I don't believe that's the real God. That's just some made up God in the Bible.

We have to come to grips with the concept that there are judgments that God makes. We talked about this a little bit at the Women's Discussion Group on Sunday, and where we talked about God's righteousness, and it's something I gave in a sermon a while back, where it's based in His goodness, His justice, and His love. And His goodness should be overwhelming to us to understand what that actually means.

His love gives us hope and will lead us and give us salvation, lead us to and give us salvation. But the justice part is just as much a part of who He is than the other two. And it's the meshing of those three parts of His character together that creates His righteousness. He is right. He is right all the time. And that justice concept is that God judges sin. And once again, sin is a word that is banned in much of the religious Christian world today. We did a had a focus group looking at Beyond Today programs. Beyond Today programs we did years ago, not in the church, religious people that watch religion on television.

They weren't against it. They thought it was pretty interesting except for one thing. We used the word sin.

Now these are religious people. And they said any minister gets up and uses the word sin, we just turn them off. Because they're judging and Jesus never judged. But God does judge. And we need to understand what that means. So let's first start with temporary judgments. There's consequences of things that are just the natural consequences. They're not judgments from God. And all sin, no matter what it is, from the smallest sin to the greatest sin, has consequences. And we suffer those consequences. He doesn't always take away those, in fact he almost never takes away the consequences. He'll take the worst consequences away. But you know, if we sin, there is a consequence of that. In the damage we do to ourselves, the damage we do to others, and sometimes the damage we do to our relationship with God. I mean, sin separates us from God. Now, once again, his love is always there to bring us back to redeem us. But the issue is, there are temporary consequences to every sin. And you and I live with those every day. And then sometimes he carries out punishments. Punishments for sin. There is a level of evil that God will not live with after a certain point. He just won't. He'll stop it. And that's why Jesus Christ is coming back, because the evil in the world is going to get so severe that if he doesn't come back, it says we will destroy the whole world. We'll destroy each other. Totally destroy each other. So there are temporary judgments. The first judgment we talked about on Sodom, it was an eternal fire. It was done supernaturally, and it burned out. And they are all dead, but they haven't received their eternal judgment yet. There's two judgments we just read where Jesus said, in the day of judgment, it'll be more tolerable for them than it was for some other people. So we have to...what does that mean? They received their judgment. Are the people...and this is where we have to tie in all kinds of other doctrines. Are the people in Sodom and hell being tortured, and then they'll be brought back up to be judged and sent back? There's people who believe that. So there's all these other doctors are connected here that we can't do all today. I just want to give an overview of eternal judgments. That God is going to pass judgment. Some of the judgments will be, enter into my kingdom. And some of the judgments, the eternal judgments will be, you don't come into my kingdom. There are people that will not go into the kingdom of God because they refuse it.

Of course, eventually the judgment or the consequence of all sin is death. Every human being, because sin has just destroyed our bodies. First of all, we're not designed to live forever in a physical body. This body would have to be changed. So the deterioration of sin has a long-term effect on us and we die. So every time someone dies, it's not because God hasn't forgiven them of their sins. There's times God totally forgiven somebody of their sins and they die. That's not the issue. The issue is you can't live forever in a sinful state.

And that's why death is part of what we have to discuss here as a temporary state.

When someone dies at this point, there is no eternal judgment past yet.

It's just the natural consequence of living in a sinful world.

And that's why all of us will have to face that until Christ comes back. The only ones who don't face actual death are those who are there when Christ comes back and it says they're changed.

So they go through a change into a spirit body, but they don't die in the way that has been normal for all these thousands of years for people to die. But for the overwhelming great majority of humanity, they're going to die. And there is a promise of a judgment day after that.

Now the question is, okay, okay, if you're dying now like the people of Sodom, what kind of punishment are they receiving? And that's where we come to a great understanding that in the Old Testament, the word that is translated hell, she'll, simply means the grave.

And when you go through the Old Testament, and most biblical scholars all agree with this, the Old Testament has no concept of an ever-burning hell. It's just not there.

They'll try to twist things in the New Testament that makes it saying it in the New Testament. But in the Old Testament, it doesn't say that. So what happens to people who die? Where are the people of Sodom? They were judged, but they weren't eternally judged. Let's go to Acts chapter 2. Once again, we'd have to go through, you know, 30 scriptures to really make this point. I'm just going to pick a couple, hoping that most of you know how this, you know, all these doctrines, we're going to fit them together here. Acts chapter 2 and verse 23, because this is a fascinating point that Peter makes. Peter is talking to a large group of people.

It's on the day of Pentecost. They're outside the temple in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit's been poured out. Huge crowds come because they hear these, the sound and all these people speaking in different language, languages. And Peter gets up and starts telling them how this is prophesied. What they're watching is part of a prophecy from the Old Testament, a partial fulfillment, not a complete fulfillment. And then verse 22, he says, men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst as you yourselves also know. So he says, now I want you to remember Jesus had only died a few weeks before. And now there are hundreds and hundreds of people, especially in Jerusalem, that are telling everybody, I've seen him. He's been resurrected. I've actually seen him. I've talked to him. You know, some, we ate with him. And it's not just a few. It's hundreds. And so these people are gathered here and everybody knows that Jesus died. It was in their city. It was the biggest news event of the day. And now everybody has heard rumors and everybody knows somebody who says, no, no, no, it's not a rumor. I've seen him. So then he says, okay, let's talk about Jesus for a minute.

Him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. You have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death. It's interesting, the Romans killed him, but he said, you know what? You should have known better. You're the ones who did it. You're the ones who turned him in. The Romans would not have come after him otherwise. Of whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. It was not possible that he would stay. You know, Jesus was never, you know, he never suffered eternal death. He suffered a temporary death for us, but he, you know, it was impossible for him. He wasn't going to stay dead forever. And then he says, he goes to a passage in Psalm 16, which is a messianic prophecy.

And he says, verse 25, For David says concerning him, in other words, he says this Jesus is the person that Psalm 16 is about. I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad, moreover my flesh also will rest in hope.

For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

You have made known to me the ways of life, and you will make me full of joy in your presence.

Now Hades here is a Greek word. Hades in the Greek concept of death was very vague. People went there, everybody, the good, the bad, the Romans at least tried to separate the good from the bad, with some different ideas, and some Greek philosophers did too.

But overall, in Greek religions, you just crossed the river Styx and went into Hades.

And descriptions of it were that people are vaguely aware of where they are, nobody's really happy, it's an empty, meaningless place.

In fact, one of the descriptions was that everybody's just a shadow.

They don't even really exist anymore, they're just shadows moving around in this dark place.

Now, that is not the description of hell or Sheol in Hebrew.

And what you need to understand is, when they translate this word into Greek, they use the Greek word for the place where the dead go. But no place in the New Testament, no place, does it change the meaning of the Hebrew word.

It's just a... it's like today, we use the word hell. If you ask the average person, what does the word hell mean, they would say, that's where all the wicked go and they're tortured forever, right?

That's the general meaning of the word. But we know, when we read it in the Bible, that's not the meaning of the word in the Scripture.

It's the grave.

And so, if... when we see what Peter does here, he uses the Greek word, because Greek was the language people would have known, and it's the language that Luke uses when he writes this down. So, Luke uses Hades.

He may have actually used sheol, it doesn't matter, because the point he's making is it's the same meaning.

The same meaning is used, and you never see it changed.

That's why it's interesting when people try to prove that people go to be tortured in hell forever, they usually don't use the passages where it talks about Hades. They use the passages where Gehenna is used, which is actually a weaker argument.

So, he's saying, you won't leave me in the grave, this Holy One of Israel.

And what Peter says is, this is Jesus.

Now, if the New Testament has any meaning, this has to be true or not true. You know, there's a lot of things that just come down to it. It's either true or not true.

God either destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, or he didn't. If he didn't, the Bible can't be trusted.

If he did, then we have to understand the judgments of God. Yes, God will do that.

He says, man and brother, so he quotes his passage, man and brother, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, okay, the one who wrote this. He says, the one who wrote this is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. He's dead in Sheol. He's in the pit.

He's never left the pit, which is the whole Hebrew concept that in death you're unconscious, waiting a judgment.

So you die and you wake up. That's what death is.

You know, we think of passage of time, but death, when someone dies, they die, they wake up. That's it. It's just that.

There's no passage of time because you're not conscious.

It's the ones who continue to live in time, and all the problems of time, right?

He says, therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. He says, David knew when he wrote this that he had been promised that there would be a Messiah come from his lineage.

So think of his argument here. Think of what Peter's saying.

This can't be David because David never was resurrected. He's still buried.

And it had to be about the Christ that David knew, and that all these people, by the way, he's talking to, were waiting for the progeny of David to come to rule over them as king. So they knew exactly what he's talking about.

He, verse 31, for seeing this, so David, given this information from God, in writing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. At this Jesus, God has raised up, of which were all witnesses.

Now, I just want to use that one passage because what we have here is proof that David's still in his grave, and the proof that Jesus is the Messiah is that he is not.

That alone gives us a context for this whole concept of where are the dead.

They're waiting to be resurrected. No matter what physical judgment has happened to them, they haven't faced the final judgment day.

So we're not going to go through now, you know, the whole explanation and understanding of hell, because you can't read this and believe that everybody's in, you know, like, where is David? Well, he's not in heaven. He's still in hell, in the meaning of the Hebrew word.

But Jesus, on the other hand, was resurrected as prophesied because his death was just a temporary experience. It was impossible, you know, that death would keep him forever. It's not possible, as we just read. Now, let's go to 1 Timothy 6, because this does tie into when we get into eternal judgments.

1 Timothy 6. I'm doing a little proof texting. I like to sit down and go through, okay, I'm going to cover a subject, and here's a dozen scriptures. I almost never use 15. Here's 10 scriptures that prove this point. So I'm just using one or two scriptures to prove different points to show how this all fits together. 1 Timothy 6, verse 12. Paul writes to Timothy, he says, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life. Now, Lord, you've got to grab hold, God's offering you this, grab hold of it. To which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless, and to our Lord Jesus Christ appearing. So he says, look, grab hold of the eternal life that God is offering to you, because He gives life. He's the one who gives life. Follow the example of Jesus Christ, and look forward to the day when He returns. He says that you may, or verse 15, which He, this is speaking of God, the beginning of this long Greek sentence is God, which He will manifest in His own time. He who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in inapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. Only God has immortality.

And we do know from various scriptures in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, who was God and with God, has immortality. No human being has immortality. We don't have immortal souls.

We don't have immortal souls. In fact, when we look at the concept of annihilation, that means that you in the lake of fire, the people who go there, they're annihilated. They lose all consciousness. They lose life. They have no life left. They're gone forever. Because they never had immortality to begin with. Only God can give immortality.

And if he doesn't give it to you, you don't have it. And who makes this final judgment? This is very important. Because part of the argument is Jesus loves. The God of the Old Testament was an evil, bad God. Fortunately, Jesus came to say, hey, you know, the people wrote the Bible. They didn't know what they were doing. That's not really God. The real God, I've come to show you the real God who's loving and caring and good. He would never judge anybody. He would never hurt anybody. Well, let's go to John 5.

John 5, verse 24.

In the middle of a very long sermon given by Jesus.

Verse 24 says, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my voice and believes in him who has sent me has everlasting life. You don't have it until you come in contact with God. And through Christ, we enter into this relationship and God's going to give us in the judgment day everlasting life.

He who has my words and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but is passed from death into life. In other words, he won't receive the bad eternal judgment.

Most assuredly I say to you, the hour's coming and now is, he's going to tell this when this happens, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who will hear will live.

In other words, you won't be alive and then you will be alive. You will be in this unconscious state where everything we are goes to God and he keeps it. Nobody is lost. Every human being, even the most evil human being is kept by God to be resurrected. Every human being is going to face this judgment. So, you know, there's no worry. There has to be a worry like, oh if I die, well what if God misplaces me? You know. God takes us, holds on to it. We are his creation. Nothing is forgotten and that's why he can resurrect us back to life and we will be us. You know. You will be who you are. Well, in the first resurrection, all the evil is gone.

The ability to commit sin is gone and you have a spirit body.

I'm not sure exactly what that's like but it's a whole lot better than this.

It's a whole lot better than this. So he says, for as the Father's life in himself, he has granted the Son to have life in himself. In other words, I am going to do this. God's going to do this through me, Christ says. And has given him authority, given Christ's authority, to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man. He says, because I came to be like you and I am going to be sacrificed for you and I'm going to suffer for you and I'm going to be resurrected. God has said, no, no, no, you come to me through him and the judgment, the eternal judgment is made by Jesus Christ. Now, he and the Father agree on everything. It's not like he's going to make up his own judgment. Another point he says, whatever God the Father judges, I judge also. But the point is everybody stands before Jesus Christ at the judgment day.

The one who died for us and was resurrected for us.

So, those who are judged for eternal, you know, the lake of fire, it is Jesus Christ who pronounces that judgment on them. That's who they hear say it. He and the Father in agreement, but it's Jesus Christ who says it. Do not marvel at this with the hours coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. He goes on and says, now remember, I make these judgments because God makes them, my Father makes them, and then I carry them out. So, the idea that Jesus never judges anybody is not what he said about himself. And he's talking about when it happens and how it happens and these resurrections that take place. Now, we know there's two resurrections. We know that the first resurrection are all the saints that have been called by God and given his spirit throughout history. And that's when Christ returns to bring the kingdom of God here to rule on earth at the beginning of the millennium, the beginning of that thousand year period. As we go through the Holy Days, Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, the eighth day, the last great day, what we're talking about here, eternal judgment is contained in every one of those Holy Days. Those Holy Days are about the sequence of events where these judgments are carried out.

I mean, the Feast of Trumpets, which we'll be keeping here in just a little over a month, is about Christ's return, his temporary judgment on the armies that come against him. He kills them by the millions. That's what he does, to come to stop him. That's a temporary judgment. And an eternal judgment is made on all those who are resurrected to spirit life. That's an eternal judgment. You don't go back from that. Once we're resurrected into that spirit life, that's forever.

So that's a judgment. That's a good judgment. All of us want that judgment, right? We want to be there and be resurrected when Christ returns. Let's go to Hebrews 9, verse 27. Once again, I'm now cramming dozens of scriptures into just a couple here. Hebrews chapter 9.

Verse 27.

And it has been appointed for men to die once, but after that, the judgment.

Once again, the judgment comes after you die. It doesn't happen immediately after you die. That's why you're in an unconscious state. Jesus clearly shows, Peter clearly showed, when it happens.

The book of Revelation, the entire New Testament is detailed on when these judgments take place and how they take place. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many to those who eagerly wait for Him. He will appear a second time apart from sins for salvation.

That's that first resurrection. That's what we're looking forward to. 1 Corinthians 15. I'm going to just pick out a little. We can read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 15, which is about the first resurrection. Well, I'm just going to read a couple verses here.

Verse 15. Paul says, now I say this, brethren, and I use this a lot of time in funerals. And I always mention how for the Greek world, who believed in Hades as a dark place, everybody went to no meaning, no purpose, semi-consciousness. In fact, you could just be there so long, you fade away, you become a shade, which is a shadow, and then you just one day you just fade away and you're gone. That's it. For eternity, you're gone. You may spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of years in Hades, and then one day you just fade away in this meaningless place. This idea of a resurrection and receiving a body was absolutely bizarre. I mean, coming back to life and not being in Hades, and receiving a spirit body, that's just bizarre. I mean, they believed you were a ghost, which is some kind of spirit body, but what Paul's talking about here, which has been shocking.

That's why when when Paul talked to the area Ophagus, and they listened to him when he talked about God, then he talked about Jesus Christ being resurrected, and some of them said, this man's nuts. Others said, he's making an interesting point. Why would you think he's nuts? Because everybody knows you just become a ghost, and you go down, and you exist somewhere deep in the ground, and in nothingness. So this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. For hold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Throughout the Old and New Testament, the state of the dead is called sleep. You go to sleep, you wake up. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. At the feast of trumpets, we'll talk some about how, what that last trumpet is. It's the seventh trumpet that is sounded when Christ returns.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

Paul looked forward to this. Paul never writes about it. There's one passage where they say, well he's really saying, I can't wait to die so I can see Christ in heaven. And of course, if you add all his scriptures together, that's not what he believed at all. He believed in this judgment day, and he believed that God had worked with him, and forgiven him, and changed him, and he was going to be there when Christ returned. We should have a confidence in that.

In fact, that confidence, though, drives us to try to get sin out of our lives. We don't want to have anything in our lives that's going to keep us from this promise from God. Look how he talks about this in 2 Timothy. Let's go to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy, chapter 4 verse 6.

Paul is an older man at this point, probably in his mid, maybe late 60s.

He's had a tough life. Ever since he became representative of Jesus Christ, he'd been beaten, put in jail, stoned, shipwrecked until he was actually floating around on a piece of ship all night in the sea. He had walked across huge parts of the Roman Empire, walking for months, riding donkeys. Maybe on a good trip he got to sit in a wagon somewhere, taking ships across the Mediterranean. He talks about going hungry. He talks about actually at one point he was thrown into one of the arenas to fight the animals. You look at his life and he's finally saying, it's almost done. He's not depressed. He's not afraid.

He says, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have laid up. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me when? On that day, the judgment day. And not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. That judgment day is when he appears. You don't die and go to heaven and appear before God. You die and are resurrected, appearing before Christ as he comes.

So Paul was looking at his life and said, you know, I've had a lot of suffering in this life for obeying God. But you know a lot of that was the temporary judgment for the fact that I killed the followers of God. He never stepped back and said, God, you know, really you're being unfair to me. He looked at himself and said, anything God does to me is less than fair, because fairness would be, I would just be, I would die and come up and be cast in the lake of fire. So he looked at this temporary world and the temporary judgments and even the things he now suffered to be a Christian, and he said, it's almost time. It's almost time. And when that day comes, I'll wake up and I'll receive what he's going to give me, which is eternal life, when all this stuff is gone.

That is a good judgment. That's the judgment we want. That's the decision from God that we want through Christ when we're resurrected and we meet him in the air and he says, hey, it's nice to have you here. And then we go before the Father and what we all want to hear is, well done, my good and faithful servant, right? Or well done, my child. Come here. That's what we want to hear.

That's the judgment that we can receive, because that's what's been offered to us.

We're looking forward to that day of judgment. Now, we don't have to receive that judgment. We could choose to go another way, but why would we?

Now, we know that there's two resurrections in the Scripture, and we'll talk about this during the days of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and especially on that eighth day. There is a second resurrection. And in Revelation, chapter 20, it talks about the first resurrection, which is sometimes called that day, because it's the day of judgment for the church, for the saints of the Old Testament. That's the day of judgment.

But there's another judgment, because if you go through verses 1 through 6, it talks about the first resurrection. And you look at verse 7, it says, now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison, because he's actually put in prison during that time period. He has no influence on humanity.

He's given a little time at the end of the thousand years during this resurrection.

And we'll go out to deceive the nations, which are in the four corners. This actually happens right before the second resurrection. It's at the end of the millennium. He's released for a short period of time. Then, verse 11, then I saw a great white throne, him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. The books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the death that were in them. And they were judged each according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Now, we talk about this in terms of what does this mean to all those who never knew about God? I watch something. I watch YouTube, little religious shows and things that are all the time. And there's a couple of them they do with animation. And one of them I watched this week, you know, it was all five minutes. Well, what happens to all the good people who never knew God?

So it looks at this, and the conclusion was, if you were good when you're a resurrection, it doesn't matter if you worship idols, as long as you were nice to people, and you sort of thought there has to be something greater than me. It didn't matter, you know, if you committed adultery, it didn't matter. As long as you were nice and good, and tried to live a good life, and believed in something greater than you, you were going to be given heaven.

That's not what the Scripture says. When you go through all the New Testament, especially, about those who will be rejected from the Kingdom, there's list after list after list of people who are evil that are not going to be in the Kingdom. And evils even define just not as, well, they kill people. No, it's, they're liars. You know, what do you mean a liar? Well, surely God wouldn't kill somebody forever for being a liar. It's because you're like Satan.

Now, we have to step back from that and look at some other Scriptures. Once again, we won't look at today. But we do know that it's said, we've already read, that it's more tolerable for Sodom than others. So if everybody's resurrected, and there's two judgments, you're either given eternal life, or you're thrown in like a fire. And death, and in Hades, and these people are literally on an earth that's totally destroyed by fire. And they cease to exist.

How do you determine who goes where? And this is where there's various Scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament that tell us about a time when people who are resurrected and they are told they will now get to know about God, and they get to make a decision.

In fact, Ezekiel talks about every...he's just talking there about the nation of Israel, the 12 tribes that came from Abraham. And it says, every one of them will be resurrected and given an opportunity. All throughout history. Every Israelite that's ever lived. And of course, that means eventually everybody. I mean, it's not just one group of people. Everybody is resurrected and given an opportunity. How long that time is? We don't know. We sort of guess at it from a couple of Scriptures. But it involves a choice. It involves a choice to, yes, God is God. I will follow Him. I repent. And they go through some kind of process. Or they do not. And we don't know how many people will not. We tend to think it'll be a small group, but sometimes I don't know.

I mean, a third of all the angels follow Satan. I'm not saying it's gonna be a third. I'm just...I don't know how many people. There are people who will not change. There are people that are so evil. They are not going to give up that evil. And then there's other people that are going to say, yes, I get this. I understand. I didn't know about God. And God will work through them so that they can receive eternal life. If you just read this, you wouldn't know that. You have to put other Scriptures into it to understand it. But when you do, you realize that God isn't just throwing away billions of people who never know Him. He's just not doing that. They will receive some opportunity to know Him. But the reality is there are people who will say no.

That's the great danger today. You know, if we have God's Spirit, we are told, I will give you eternal life. If we give up God's Spirit, once again, the unpardonable sins, a whole other doctrine.

If we give up God's Spirit and just give up God, and it becomes the permanent state of mind we're in.

I don't mean we've committed a sin or sin. I mean, we've actually given this up and it's our permanent state of mind. We won't be in the first resurrection. We'll come up here.

Just like there are people there that will say no to God. God will not have evil in His kingdom forever. That's why Satan and the demons are cast out. We don't even know what happened. They're gone. Outer darkness is where they're put.

Human beings will be destroyed. Absolutely. Like they'll just cease to exist. And you say, how cruel is that? I tell you something.

I visited people of mental institutions before.

Eternal death is better than that. And there's no way of understanding what it would be like to live eternity with billions of other evil people or demons in Satan. I mean, to live in that environment would be the worst torment and torture you can imagine. And God's not going to torture us.

Human beings will die.

That's why this powerful statement by Jesus Christ is so important. Matthew 10, 28.

We need to remember from time to time that God will not abide with evil forever.

Jesus says, do not fear those, verse 28, Matthew 10, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, the very life. Soul is a very interesting psyche in Greek and in the word in Hebrew. It means your life. It is what gives you breath. And in human beings, it's what gives you consciousness. Animals, by the way, are called souls, both the Old and New Testament. So, you know, the immortal soul is not found in the scripture. But life, this ability to actually, for us, in the image of God, we have consciousness. We can think. We have emotions. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the life force. When we die, what we are simply goes to God.

The body doesn't matter anymore. You know, people say, well, what happens to people who were blown up in Hiroshima? How can they be resurrected? Or, you know, people that were eaten by lions, you know, how can they be re... Oh, I mean, it's... The molecules don't matter. He can build us out of molecules and chemicals. That's... God does that, you know. That's easy. That's child's play.

But He puts the life force back in us. And here, Jesus says, don't fear the person who can kill your body, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hades. Actually, the word He uses there is gehenna, which is... They would have known what that meant. It's only... Gehenna is only used by Jesus and James. Ones by James. The reason why is the Greek world would have no idea what gehenna was. Gehenna was an ever... It was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem that was burning all the time. You could smell it. You could see it. And so when He uses gehenna, everybody goes, oh, you know, fear the one who can throw you into the garbage dump. Fear Him. Not the person who can just take your body, because that's a temporary thing. Fear Him. So God can destroy human beings forever, which is an eternal judgment. It's much better, though, than being in torment and hell forever, like so many people believe. Now there's another thing people say, is that God... This will be my last point here. God... There'll be universal salvation. God wants to save everybody. Nobody, a loving God, isn't going to destroy anybody. And there's a passage they use in 2 Peter 3. So let's just look at that. I covered a lot of different ground today, but this gives you a picture. The Holy Days will start filling out parts of that picture.

2 Peter 3 verse 7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. So He says, once again, the day of judgment. The final day of judgment. Remember? First resurrection is the day of judgment. The final day of judgment is like fire. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is this one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. So they take this verse and say, see, nobody perishes, it's not God's will. Everybody receives salvation. The problem is, is the context of the whole sentence. Well, actually, three sentences here in English, but the Greek is one sentence.

Remember verse seven. But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until at the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Punishment of ungodly men. So to say, verse nine says, God wants everybody saved, so everybody will be saved. Verse seven doesn't let you come to that conclusion. There is a lake of fire for those who are ungodly. It's God's desire, but God will not take away free will. God will not take away free will. And those who decide, I will not, will face the eternal judgment. So there is no universal salvation. There is no universal salvation. That is not, that doesn't explain the justice of God either.

God will only abide with evil for a period of time. He will not live forever with evil children, because they will torture themselves and they will torture everybody else.

That's a reality. And that reality is rejected by more and more and more Christians today.

Or the other side just puts people in hell forever, which isn't the eternal judgment either.

The Bible reveals two categories of eternal judgments. There are temporary judgments.

We see them. What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah was temporary judgment. Their eternal judgment will be determined at that resurrection. It's interesting. He says it will be more tolerable for them. It may be easier for them to actually say, I repent than people who knew Jesus.

It may be easier for them. But they will have that opportunity. For those who turn to God, there's the eternal judgment of being changed. You turn to God now, being changed at Christ's first coming when there is the eternal judgment on them.

Then for the incorrigibly wicked, at the end of the millennium, the very white throne judgment, there will only be those who have said yes and received power from God to become spirit.

And there will be those who have said no. And that judgment is eternal death in the lake of fire. The entire earth is destroyed by fire. And then God builds a new heavens, a new earth.

We think what we have now is nice. This was all designed to be temporary.

He's going to create something brand new for those who become His children in His Kingdom.

It is God's desire for you to be in that first resurrection. It is God's desire to give you the eternal judgment of being children in His Kingdom. That's what He wants for you. That's His desire. And He's going to give it to you. If you let Him, He will.

But always remember, always remember, the price of total rejection of God is an eternal judgment called the lake of fire.