The Last Great Day

Good morning, everyone. Happy feast day to all of you. It's been a very enjoyable time here for our short visit to Virginia Beach to be with you. My wife and I feel like we've had two feasts this year. One in Jekyll that ended and now one in Virginia Beach that ends today. So we've enjoyed it a great deal. I was listening to Mr. Newtsman try to answer whether or not the feast will be here next year, and he sure took a long time to say, I don't know. I can kid my old friend, Steve Newtsman, and I think I can get away with it, but he'll probably come back at some point in the future.

Probably remember that one. So anyway, we have appreciated seeing and talking with many of you and especially appreciated the many supporting comments of the efforts of the Church to preach the gospel, especially in the area of television and beyond today where I have a role along with the other two other presenters, Gary and Steve and the production staff. We certainly appreciate your prayers and support for all of the work that we are doing, all the writers and all those who are making an effort to preach the gospel and help care for the people of God and those that the work God has given to us to do here in the United Church of God.

He has been very, very kind and good and merciful to us all in our lives and to us as a Church. And on a day like today, it's good for us all to just kind of stand back and think about this day and live in the moment for a period and think deeply about what this day means. And we're very glad that we've come to this point in the festival picture this year. How many of you ever watched the television series Cold Case Files? Some of your hands go up. I watched a few of those.

I don't think it's still in production any longer. It was on one of the major networks, probably in reruns someplace. But Cold Case Files was a very simple premise, a police department that had rose upon rose in their files of cases, usually homicide cases, that had never been solved, never been solved.

And the whole story would revolve around a 20- or 30- or 40-year-old case that usually some little bit of evidence had come to light in recent times and opened it up again, and they were able to unravel the mystery of what happened and then close the case. I remember, as I watched a few of those episodes, I could not help but be remembered of a literal Cold Case File of one that I knew quite personally and quite well. And it reminded me of a young person who was a young lady. I'll just mention and say that her name was Brenda in my small hometown in Missouri.

We were in the same high school together. She was a year older than I, and Brenda was one of those upon whom the stars seemed to have fallen. She had the looks, she had the brains, she had talent. She was popular, she was a homecoming queen, she was a cheerleader, she was everything every young girl wants to be in high school, and every man's dream of the perfect woman in one sense. Yet she was also very down to earth as well.

She would talk to geeks like me and be friendly. I remember finding out in Latin class, I think I was a sophomore, she was a junior who walked in a Latin class and they signed the seats. I drew a seat right in front of Brenda. So the whole semester I sat in front of Brenda. I was just stupefied, but I didn't know how to handle myself. As I said, she could talk to anybody. Brenda graduated. I don't know what she did. I didn't really see her after graduation in her year. A year later I graduated from that small school and I went on to my life and she went on to hers.

About August, four or five years after I had graduated, same time in the late 70s, my mother called me one day and told me that Brenda had been found dead in her home along with her mother, murdered. And this home was just a few blocks from my home where I grew up, where my mom was making that phone call that day. And it shocked this small town. It was a case that things like that just didn't happen in where I grew up in those days.

Those happened in big cities, not my small town. And there she was, dead, murdered. And they never could, they couldn't find out who did it and why. And there was nobody. I mean, they interviewed her boyfriend, they interviewed people she worked with, and all the family and went through all of it there, the detectives, and never found anything. My mom would send me various clippings because this was kind of like, you know, she knew the family and I knew that I knew the family. And over the years, I would occasionally, when I would either go back home or I would talk to my mother, I'd say, did they ever find out who killed Brenda?

Nope, never did. And as the years went by, I would occasionally, she would send me certain clippings and it became literally a cold case and put on the shelf. And I even knew the investigating detective. He and I had gone into, we were in Boy Scouts together.

And so I kind of had another attachment to the case and he couldn't solve it. He did his best and FBI and everyone else came into it and never could find out. And years went by, the decades went by, and no solution.

And I would even ask certain individuals, if I ever run into any of my cousins, did they ever find out who killed Brenda? No, never did. And then just a few years ago, about three or four years ago, a little piece of evidence in another case came up and through DNA, they linked a prisoner in a federal prison in southern Illinois, not too far from where my hometown is, with another case of an unsolved murder in the same town. Came to find out there had been about five or six women killed over that period, over about a five-year period that were unsolved.

And they linked this convict in jail to another crime and they began to interrogate him and he opened up, and he was well up in age at that time, and he admitted to all the other crimes, including murdering Brenda.

Someone he'd never met didn't know just a random selection that he made of killing, and just so many of these things go. And I remember reading about it online on my hometown newspaper and it was big news. They'd solved all these cases, and this one in particular, and they had a press conference and I read through all the what was said there, and they said of one of her high school friends had said of her now up in their, at that time, in their late fifties after a whole lifetime, they said, oh, she was a nice person.

She would have made a difference in the world. She would have made a difference in the world. I remember reading that and thinking, yeah, maybe she would have. She was a nice person. She had talent, and she never got to achieve that.

She never got to marry or have children or realize her full potential. And there's a song by Kenny Chesney, the country artist that I like to listen to, and every time I hear him saying, who you'd be today, I think of Brenda. Who you'd be today, who would you have been?

And that's what, that's one of the stories that makes this day very personal for me. As Sean was mentioning in the sermon, we all have stories, individuals that we link to this day. And I thought about that one because when this day comes to pass, people like Brenda will have justice truly served. You know, the family of Brenda didn't go to the press conference and they didn't make any public appearance because there was no justice still. Even though they find out they get a certain amount of closure, even that doesn't bring about justice because they can't bring anyone back to life. But when we turn to Revelation 20, and we read about this day, we see that God in this plan does bring people back to life in the time of the Great White Throne judgment.

And we see this here in Revelation chapter 20, verse 11, Then I saw a great white throne, John records, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, everyone, the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. These are the books of the Bible. These are the books that lead to eternal life. And 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 dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one, according to his works.

And so they enter into a time of judgment for the first time. And they have the books open to them, the books of eternal life that lead to eternal life, and the knowledge and the understanding that comes from these scriptures. And they have their opportunity for their name to be written into the book of life. And they then stand before God in a time of judgment. And this period that is described here, called the Great White Throne period, or the Great White Throne Judgment, is such a fascinating day.

We trace it through here, through Revelation 20 even, with the events of atonement, the millennium, the first resurrection, and come down to this point. And we understand this within the context of the Holy Days and the plan of God, to be that eighth day that is referenced in several places in Leviticus 23 and verse 36, where there was to be a solemn assembly after the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles.

There was an eighth day. We know that this is a separate festival. It has no name, like atonement or trumpets, or the Feast of Tabernacles has. It's just called an eighth day. We read in Numbers chapter 8 and verse 18 that they, in the time of Nehemiah, I'm sorry, Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 18, in the days of Nehemiah, they kept an eighth day according to the prescribed manner, coming out of Leviticus 23. And it is an eighth day.

It is a separate festival. And here we are on that day. It's interesting, the Jews who do, in the Orthodox and Jewish customs and traditions and their religion, keep the Holy Days with different understandings than we do. They don't understand the fullness because they don't accept Christ as the Messiah. But that's another story. But they do keep Passover, and we understand that. And they really don't do much with Pentecost. Pentecost is one of those days they don't know what to do with. And they haven't really, since the time of the Second Temple destruction, known what to do with Pentecost. And since they don't recognize the church, the New Testament church, Christianity again, they can't really fit that into their theology. And through the generations, they have kind of devolved around Passover and the cedar and the unleavened bread.

And then in the fall with Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Trumpets, and the Yom Kippur, the Feast of Day of Atonement. And then they will keep Sukkoth, Tabernacles, all with different meanings in one sense when you really do look at what their traditions have built upon all of that. But when they come to this day, the eighth day, they don't know what to do with this day.

In fact, they call it an eighth-day solemn assembly in some of their writings. And as they try to write about it, they look at this day and they call it Shemini Azzurant, an eighth-day assembly. One Jewish rabbi writing about this day says they quote Numbers 29 verse 35, where it gives the prescribed offerings on that day for the eighth day. And then they say, quote from this one rabbi, This is all we know about this holiday. This is all we know about this holiday. After the temple was destroyed, Shemini Azzurant, or the eighth day, became a holiday without a cause. A holiday without a cause, end of quote from Rabbi Nina Cardin in writing about this. And you will look it up and you don't find very much information about this eighth day within Jewish theology. They just, it's a holiday without a cause.

They really don't have any idea what today means. They're looking for meaning to it. You have to be a New Testament Christian observing the feasts and the holy days, really, to understand their true meaning and significance. That's what it comes down to. You must be a New Testament Christian observing these days to understand their full meanings. The Jews have preserved certain aspects of some, but then they get some of the meanings wrapped around each other and don't fully understand and they have built their own traditions upon it. They look at the Day of Atonement as a time when God seals the names all into the book of life, in what the Bible calls the book of life. And they kind of mix in certain descriptions that we would take from this festival back into, and they fold it back into the Day of Atonement. But they have a confusion that's understandable, since they do not accept the New Testament scriptures nor Jesus Christ as their Savior. On this day, we see, when we put all the scriptures together on this subject, that God will make the greatest injustice to follow mankind right. He will make it right. He will give opportunity for a life eternal to all who have never had their first chance, or any chance, to live a life, understanding their true purpose, understanding the purpose of life, the kingdom of God, and they will have an opportunity to become a part of the family of God. He will give back to life those who had it snuffed out in its prime. People like my friend Brenda, and people that you know as well, and others who never came close to understanding the Word of God, the Bible in any shape or form, as even a holy book. God's plan has the opportunity for all to come to life and to know that there is hope. What we read here in Revelation chapter 20 is a fascinating story. Actually, as we really do understand, the book of Revelation is a fascinating book in itself.

It's always a hot topic for people who are interested in the Bible and prophecy especially.

You will find tons and tons of books written about Revelation and various interpretations, and people trying to figure out. Some people eventually just throw it all up in the air and say, it can't be understood. You cannot comprehend this book. But really, when you understand Revelation for what it is, the truth, and God's revealed truth, it is really a capstone to the entire Bible, both prophetically and theologically. John had such an amazing experience when God revealed what He did to him on the island of Patmos. They say that it was in a cave over there, and if you ever go there, they show you a cave that was supposed to be the cave of the revelation, where the apostle had that. And I don't know if it was that or if it was just a complete vision. As he looked out over the sea, I don't know. It says that it was a revelation from Christ to Him. And He saw, and He saw, and He saw this, and He heard this, and He was taken up through a door. And, you know, it's the best literature you could ever read if you want to get into that genre of, you call it an out-of-body experience. It was a revelation from God. But all the different things we put people, try to put themselves into to tell a story about myth or fantasy today. And this is truth, and it's the best story that there ever was. And it wraps up the entire Bible, puts a capstone on prophecy, on theology, on the plan of God, and tells us so much through the pages of the book of Revelation. And when we come down to chapter 20, here is the story of how God will make all things right. Here is where some of the great questions of life were answered.

When we read in verses 1 through 3 about an angel coming down with the key to the bottomless pit, and binding that great dragon, Satan the devil, setting a seal upon him for a thousand years so that he will not deceive the nations anymore, you learn the answer to the question of why there is evil in the world. Why evil exists? Philosophers, theologians ponder that, debate that question. Why evil? When we keep the day of atonement, we understand why there is evil. We understand Satan's role as a deceiver. And that prime verse is this scene right here when he is bound for a thousand years, that he will deceive the nations no more. And you need go no further in one sense. You understand why there is evil, the type of evil that took the life of my friend Brenda.

People you know created wars that resulted in the mass destruction of millions of people, small and great, innocent and guilty, all who got caught up and suffered during all of the conflicts of mankind's existence and time. Why did they come about? And historians and people ponder the reasons of why a nation like Germany would turn as it did in the 1930s, a nation that produced people like Beethoven, and music and literature and great art, and then turned as it did to produce a man like Hitler that wrought such an evil upon the world. And they debate and consider to this day to understand how it could happen. The Scriptures tell us how evil is a part of this world. And so that question can be answered, and then you can get about to the real business of overcoming evil. There's another great question of life. If a man die, will he live again?

Job asks that question. We read that quite often when we do a funeral sermon, it seems. If a man die, will he live again? What happens after death? Every time we do a Beyond Today program on any aspect of that subject, it always gets a strong response. We know anytime we do a program that will advertise or booklet about death, what happens after death, we will be virtually guaranteed a strong response. And that's good. That's good because it is a nagging question in people's minds. They want to know the answer. And the truth gives hope. The truth gives encouragement. It does give answers. When we read here in verse 6 of Revelation 20, and we understand about the first resurrection, this it says is the first resurrection.

And as we observe that day of trumpets that pictures that day of that first resurrection, of the first fruits that follow the path of Jesus Christ, first of the first fruits, we know the truth of the resurrection and the answer to the question that if a person dies, will he live again? Yes, they will. In a resurrection. And we also know as we apply it with what we're told in this verse, that it applies to those who come into a time of a physical resurrection as well as we'll look into a little bit more.

Jesus was asked another big question, what do I have to do to live forever? What must I do to have eternal life? A rich young ruler came and asked Christ. And he said, if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. We know that law keeping doesn't save us. But he said, keep the commandments.

And his point, his intent was, by telling him that, that you will learn the purpose of life. You will learn the mind of God, because the law of God shows how God is, what he is, what he's like. You will come to worship the true God at the right time. You'll know how to relate to your fellow man in the right way. And in doing so, over a lifetime of keeping the law of God, you will come to learn to live and to reign with Christ for a thousand years, which is what we're told here in Revelation 20. That we are to rule and reign with Christ. And then you begin to understand why obeying God is so important and what eternal life is all about. And we come to, we know it's not to go to heaven.

It's not to, you know, into some aimless, ethereal, unnameable or explainable concept of heaven and afterlife there. It's not any form of reincarnation coming back in an endless cycle of life. There's purpose to this life, when you understand that, because it is a training ground, preparation for our eternity in the family of God. And so we understand what it is that we must do to live forever in the family of God. When we look through the verses here in this section of Revelation chapter 20, it wraps it up. The question of why do good people suffer is another great question that is answered when we look here in Revelation 20. Why is God a good God?

The concept of a loving God allows human beings to suffer. And that may be one of the biggest and most difficult questions for people to grapple and try to understand. It causes people to lose faith when they cannot come to a satisfactory answer, when they see people suffer through war, through evil perpetrated individually or collectively, through disease, through birth defects, especially upon children.

And when they see people suffer to no end for a lifetime or for two or three decades, and there is no effective conclusion or even a healing, and we ponder that. And we wonder that ourselves. Let's be honest with ourselves in the church. People of faith ask the same question. Why does God allow people to suffer? Good things or bad things happen to good people. It becomes a challenge, and those questions come into us. People want to know the answers to it. And sometimes the answer that you can give them is not good enough, because the answer, at least in their life, in their situation or what they may be dealing with, it doesn't lift the burden.

It doesn't lift the challenge. It is a challenge to explain for people even having difficulty with faith as to why God allows this. In this you have all the challenges even from the story of the Bible, because you see where God ordered the killing of the Canaanites when Israel entered into the conquest of Israel. And I know the answer to that, and I hope you do. There is an answer.

That answer is bound up in this day. And again, if we're not focused on God, grounded and rooted in God, that answer won't even be good enough. Sometimes even for people of faith raised in the church. We have to come to this day, we have to come to what we're told here to understand how loving God can order His people to do things that you and I won't do, will not and should not do.

Yet we see the record, and it's used by people to trip up, again, people of faith and belief in the book and the story of Israel, the story of God and what He's doing, and people can't get to that.

We see an unjust God, and they can't reconcile it all. When you come to this day, when you come to this section of Revelation 20, then you have the answers unfolded. Then you can then work your way back through everything and begin to understand, because you see here is a God who holds the power of life and death. And He will resurrect all who've ever lived and give them a fair chance of living forever in His family. He will do that. He is the judge of heaven and earth, and He knows why He has set in motion the world as it is, the world that we see and read about from the past history and our own present modern world with all of its problems. He alone will bring justice for everyone on this day, in this time pictured by what we read here in Revelation 20 and verses 11 forward. We understand that God holds the power of life and death, and He will resurrect all who've ever lived. And so He can sit and tell and work and allow the things to exist that we see and live and read about. He can do that because He is a great God, and He is a loving God. And what He has designed for His family for eternity, out of the flesh of the earth, to create man in His image, is beyond ourselves to understand and step into. We have to, as I say, just kind of sit back and look at the scriptures and try to step into it through the understanding that we have on this day, this eighth-day festival, as we look back over God's kingdom, God's time, and this world and what has taken place. And we come to see when there will be a time of justice based upon the righteousness of God's eternal law. Let's look back in Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42.

Beginning in verse 1, Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my elect one, and whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor get discouraged, be discouraged, till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait for his law. We have to wait until this day begins to unfold in the events of this period of time to see verse 4 finally fulfilled, justice established in the earth, and all the coasts to the ends of the world waiting for his law. But it will come, and all will have an opportunity to know that.

We cannot understand a scripture like this, or events such as the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, or statements even by Jesus Christ, unless we come to this day in Revelation 20 and see all of these matters unfold. There's a statement that Jesus made in Matthew 11 that cannot be understood without this day. Matthew 11, verse 20, Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. The mighty works were healings, feeding of thousands, casting out of demons. That's why they were all flocking around him. He was giving them things they needed—food, relief, from suffering and evil. And that's why they came. And yet, many most did not repent. And so he singles out three cities. Woe to Eucharzim. Woe to Bethsaida.

For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, two Gentile cities on the coast of the Mediterranean, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment.

Than for you. And Euchaperne, a third city there on Galilee, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to the grave, to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. That's quite a statement.

He speaks of a time of judgment when he will be more merciful, patient, with the likes of Tyre, Sidon, or Capernaum, or I mean Sodom. Sodom is the epitome of corruption and unrighteousness. When you look at the story of Sodom, prophets talk about Tyre and their rebellion against God and what they harbored and their attitudes. And yet Christ said, those people, I've been working in those cities, they would have repented more. More people would have responded than in these three cities of Galilee, cities of Israel. And he says it will be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment. And he's speaking of the time of this judgment when the books were open at Revelation 20, and the people were judged out of the things of those books. Judgment's a period of time. It's not just a finality of one day a sentence and a banging down of a gavel by a judge and a sentence pronounced. You and I are under judgment today as we live our lives with the calling God has given to us. This is our time of judgment, as God has called us. The rest will be judged at a later time. And Jesus is showing the finality of that. You know, it's interesting just to look at one of these cities, Bethsaida. You can go to Bethsaida today, or you can go to actually the remains of all these cities. Capernaum is more of a popular spot on the northern shore of Galilee. If you ever take a tour of Israel, you will go to Capernaum, no doubt. Corazene and Bethsaida, you can visit, but they're not usually on the A-list itineraries. You go to Capernaum, and it's like going to Disneyland. Buses are unloading people in and out of there. There's a synagogue of the second century there. They've excavated what they feel is the remains of the house of Peter. And it is there, but it's largely just there's a church, a Catholic church, and it's a major tourist. But it's very interesting. It's fascinating to see.

You go down the road a few miles to Bethsaida, and it is in more recent years been excavated. And Bethsaida offers us a very interesting story and lesson. Bethsaida, if you look in the accounts, was a fishing village in the first century. Some of the apostles lived there. They were fishermen.

They were fishermen in Bethsaida because Bethsaida, in the time of Christ, was on the northern shore of Galilee. Today, what they have identified as the ancient city of Bethsaida is about a mile off the water of the Sea of Galilee. And you can stand there and you can look out on the southern part of what was the ancient city, and you can see about a mile away the Sea of Galilee.

And yet it was a fishing village in the time of Christ. What happened? Well, Jesus, in a sense, kind of pronounced a curse on these three cities. He says, woe to you! But what archaeologists figure happened is that at some point after that first century, second century, there was an earthquake. And it diverted the river and changed the shoreline. And today, the shoreline of Bethsaida and the sea on the Sea of Galilee is a mile distant. And so the city just dried up its business, and it just went into ruin and was covered over through the centuries and just now recently in recent years discovered by archaeologists. And you can... it's quite a fascinating place to stop and see. But if you look at that and you recognize what Jesus said about it, and you stand there in Bethsaida today and you read what Jesus said, it's a very striking example of what can happen when you... we don't heed the Word of God. And the fact that they were removed from their water, and as Mr. Love was talking yesterday in his message about the power of the water and the symbol that water is of God's Holy Spirit, when you either don't respond to the power of God's Spirit, when you don't respond and let it work its work within us, we dry up. We just dehydrate. Bethsaida, ancient Bethsaida kind of dehydrated. And it lost its reason for being. People left and moved on because Jesus once walked along its streets and did great miracles and they did not repent. And He said, woe to you. And in a sense, He says that to any who don't... who do not respond to the Word of God at any time. And for you and I today, it's a stark lesson to make sure that we do respond to the works of God, the mighty works of God, as they are manifested at various times in our own lives, in His church, and in this world today. Because Christ said that it will be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for anyone who doesn't respond and repent and change and discern the mighty works of God. It's a direct warning to us, I think, to whom God has shown His mighty works. And I consider what, as I was saying the other day in my sermon, what we've been a part of, what this is all about for all these years, to be a mighty work. It's not done. It's not finished.

And whether it's acting upon us individually and the power of conversion, the opening of a mind of the truth, or anything beyond that, it's all the work of God. And where God's Spirit works, it's a mighty work. And we need to always be very, very sensitive and responsive to the work of God's Spirit within us. Because this is what Jesus said here as He was pointing ahead to the time of this day, that woe to those who don't respond to that. It'll be more tolerable for people of Sodom. You talk about how merciful, patient, and long-suffering God is.

A city and a people whose name have been linked with every form of unrighteousness that you can imagine down through the ages, both biblically, literally, sin, in a literary fashion. It's become a byword, not just among religious people, but throughout world literature of depravity.

And God says, Christ said, it'll be more tolerable for them. And woe to those of you among whom I walked and you didn't respond to my mighty works, you cities. Brethren, let's take that as a direct warning to whom God has shown His works that there are some categories of people, as this Scripture shows us, some whom God works with who are held to a high standard. Where Jesus walked in the first century among those people, they were accountable for that. He had some very strong things to say to these cities and to Pharisees who worked against Him. The Apostle Peter shows in 2 Peter 2, and we'll turn there, but you know the verse, that those who reject God and return to their former life are like animals returning to their vomit, wallowing in their mire, He says. And it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment. We read that occasionally, and it should strike a little note of fear in us as to what we have been given and how tolerable and intolerable at times God is. He's tolerable with those that have been deceived, and He will be very patient with those that were in that time of life not called. To those who were called, there is a great responsibility.

You know, I was thinking about this as I worked through this sermon here for this morning, and back in Revelation 20 here, where this one event that takes place between verses 7 and 10, I've looked at and you've looked at. I didn't hear anyone, maybe at least toward the end of the feast, I didn't hear any reference to this event this year, but in the years past, I've heard sermons and messages about when the thousand years have expired.

Satan will be released from his prison, it says, in verse 7.

So we sometimes we don't always focus on it, and it's not that it's been forgotten, but let's focus just for a minute on it. When the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison. So there's another period of Satan's running rampant, and he will go out to deceive the nations. This is at the end of the millennium, still physical people on the earth, and however God's family has grown to that time, there are still people to be deceived, which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

The devil who had deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.

Okay, in four verses we have another little episode that takes place. Just prior to the time of the great white throne judgment, there's another period of deception. Why do we see that? Why is that?

Well, God allows it, just as He allowed Satan to deceive man for 6,000 years, and all the suffering and evil that has come with that deception, He allows it one more time.

Someone asked me, maybe you have the same question, how many more times will we have to go through what we go through in the church? Upsets, divisions, how many more times? It'll just happen again, someone said to me. I said, read your Bible. Read your Bible. You want the answer to that question? Read your Bible. It happens up to the time of the end. And you know what? It happens at the end of the millennium, again. Why? Is God not fair? Some will say that, and that's why they perhaps will be caught up in a deception that will be. Even after a thousand years of God's way, the millennium, the world tomorrow, peace on earth, utopia, all that we've talked about and read about and think about, that that will be another period of upset. They will not go far, and it is doomed to failure. And we read about it in advance, just like we can read about every other time, a period of upset almost, and at least the elements of it, and the Bible in advance, and yet it happens today, and it will happen at this time. And, oh, I don't have all the answers, but in thinking about it, I can certainly see this, that it's God's purpose that we today would hear and heed and hear a warning from God, that He will not abide evil treachery to ever again infect those who have spent a lifetime in deception. This event shows that these people in the great white throne judgment have had their time of deception and the evil and suffering that comes with it. God, in His love and mercy, will not let them go through it again, and He will show and prove that God is not going to go through it again. And He will show and prove one more time, with a finality with this event, that He will not, that it will not happen to those people. And yet, it will seem to take a few. So how do you and I avoid deception in our own time? Well, I can't go too far into that subject deep, abiding relationship with the Father and with His Son.

And I guess we'll spend another year in sermons and Bible studies and personal reflection, hopefully God willing, all of us deepening that relationship. We will only stand by doing it, having a deep relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ. That's how we will do it. We could, I could give you two or three other points, but I won't give you that at this point in time.

But God won't let it happen again to a world that lived out its life and time under that deception.

Those people will be brought up, and the books will be opened. Who will teach them? Well, people who have overcome deception, error, and a lifetime of righteousness and obedience to God and learning a way of life, having been forgiven of sins by the grace of God, and then spending a lifetime living by a way of life that is defined by the word of God, the law of God, the commandments, the standards, principles of righteousness that the whole Bible gives to us as to how a holy people should be. They will be the ones that will have the charge and wonderful opportunity to open the books to people and to explain and to show them this is the way. This is how to walk. This is how to live.

You know, you young, for those of you that are young teenagers, young adults in our audience, and I'm grateful and glad to see a number here in this feast site.

This is the period that we talk about today, that we will see the fruit of right decisions that we make, that you make today. This is the time of the great white throne when you will see the fruits of it.

The decision to accept God's calling to you, through your parents, through a grandparent, maybe some other adult, to accept God's calling to his way of life and to live it. A life that, yes, isn't a life of sacrifice, yet many blessings, far more blessings come even in this life. When you get the foundation right, don't make the mistakes that define the rest of your life in some type of trial or suffering or miscue. Lay the right foundation. It's worth it, because when this day comes, you will see the fruits of that decision. Make the right decision today. You will then be used of God to teach and to help open the books to those who stand in that time of judgment, and you don't want to let them down.

You don't want to let down people who will come up who know you today and have to ask the people dead and dead and will be small and great, who will come up and stand before God and look around and they'll say, where's Mary? Where's David? Where's that friend who kept the Sabbath? Where's that person who went off every year to keep the Feast of Tabernacles and skip football practice, skip class or soccer or whatever it might have been?

Where are they? Oh, they didn't make it.

They didn't make it. They chose something else.

Yes, it's worth the sacrifice. When their day comes, be there to help. Be there to teach. It's worth it.

I have another friend that I am looking forward to seeing on this day. A friend that I grew up with, played ball with, his name was Gary. We were both in the same class, running around, getting into mischief and mayhem. And Gary and I were some, we were kind of like that story in the James Cagney movie, Angels with Dirty Faces.

If you ever saw that movie, the beginning two young boys were running from the cops. I forgot what they did. They did something wrong. The cops were chasing them in, I think, New York City.

And they were running down an alleyway, and there's a wall there, and they both tried to get over the wall. And one makes it over, and the other doesn't, and is caught by the cops. It's the character played by Jimmy Cagney that didn't make it over. He was incarcerated, turned to a life of crime.

The one who made it over, Pat O'Brien, became a priest and went on to a different life. He made it over the wall. And Jimmy Cagney didn't, all because of that one moment. Well, my friend Gary and I were... I'm the one that made it over the wall. Because after high school, I went a different way, and Gary turned to the dark side, so to speak, and got off into drugs. And one night, a drunken drug-inspired stupor broke into a house looking for drugs to keep his habit going and killed three people. And he was eventually, after a number of years, put to death on Missouri's death row. I was shocked when my cousin told me, did you hear about Gary? Because I'd not kept up with that one. I couldn't believe it. And what's so interesting about that is, as Gary and I used to run around, his mother was Pentecostal. And I remember one day, being in his home, and his mom stopped me and asked me if I went to church. I said, well, yeah, I go to church. She said, where do you go? Because she was trying to get me to go with them to their Pentecostal church.

I said, well, I go to a, you know, worldwide church of God, and she just stepped back in horror.

She said, do you know they don't believe in hell?

And I said, yes, I know.

Thank you. Got to go. And I was out the door.

According to her theology, her son may be in hell for his act, but he's not. And he'll be in the time of the great white throne, and I'll be able to help him over the wall, make that trip over the wall.

And it's worth everything I've had to go through. It's worth every decision that I've made, and it's a great life. It is a great life. It's a wonderful life, as the movie title says.

And then when we come to the meaning of this day, we see it, mask in it, live it, and understand and know that God, in His greatness and His goodness, is going to bring it all together.

There's so much to look at in the scriptures in this way. We had a scripture read yesterday of the waters that will flow out of Jerusalem and will be for the healing of the lands.

As the truth that people begin to understand when those books are open to them comes to them, they'll be healed emotionally, spiritually, yes, physically. They won't be suffering the diseases that took their life. They won't be suffering from the mental prisons that life in their age, whether it was ancient Rome or medieval France or communist China or 21st century America created for them. They'll be healed of that.

When you come to this day, the only way you can understand whole prophecies, whole sections, even of the epistles of Paul, you have to understand this day. You cannot read Romans 9, 10, and 11, where Paul lamented over Israel, what about my brothers? I would give myself if they could be saved. Then he comes down and he works himself through it in that period of time where he wrote this book and figures it all out. You don't understand what he's saying about Israel and ultimately the world without the meaning of this day. God will bring the flesh back upon Israel, as we're told in Ezekiel 37, where God took the prophet out into the valley that was full of bones. And he caused me to pass by them round about, and to behold, there were many in the open valley and they were very dry. Son of man, can these bones live? O Lord, only you know. Prophesy to these bones. Say to them, Hear the word of the Lord, O you dry bones. I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. And a rattling took place and the bones came together and there was a noise and he looked and there was flesh and muscle and sinews that came upon them and skin and there was breath upon them and they lived. A physical resurrection, a great vision that Ezekiel saw. Paul knew that and he must have had that rolling around in the back of his mind as he penned the words there in Romans and he came down at the end of Romans chapter 11 and he came to this conclusion, the scripture that we often turn to in our own times of stress and distress. In Romans 11 verse 33, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

The depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. When we stop to think about what this day will mean and the lives and the stories that will all come back together when those bones are put back in place and muscle and breath come into them and they live again and the stories that we don't even know about and the stories that you do know about of people will all come to pass and in a sense come to fruition again and people will be looking for answers. They'll wonder what's gone on and they'll need people right there to teach them and to stop them from maybe an action that they died with or a thought that they died with, to comfort them, to encourage them with a fear with which they took their last breath or the anger that may have been put upon them. Their last waking moment in this life being one of fear or anger and that will be taken away. That will no longer haunt them. That will no longer create any problems there. And then their story will get a chance to be filled out and completed.

We all like stories.

Stories are the stuff of life and we all like good endings. God's plan gives a good ending.

You know, they they refilm certain movies that they make and if they make an ending that's bad, doesn't wrap it all up, tied up in a nice neat bow, it usually doesn't do well.

And they'll sometimes put a movie out to a focus group and if they don't like the ending, they'll go back and refilm it and tie it all up together and give it a happy ending.

There's something about us. We love stories and we want happy endings. On this day, God brings about the opportunity for everyone's story to be finished out in life and it will have at that time a happy ending. This day has always been a special one for me.

It was on this day, the last day of the feast, the eighth day, 20 years ago that my father died.

He was never a member. He was not even a religious man, but he died on the eighth day, the last great day of the feast. And so I always have a special memory for my father on this day. I forget the day of his death. I just remember he died on the eighth day of the festival when I got the phone call. And so I always remember him, his family, and where he's buried, a graveyard there on the hillside in Missouri with grandparents and uncles and other people with the McNeely name that are all there. And, you know, their stories will be finished out. Their stories will be brought to a happy ending. So it's on this last day of the feast, this eighth day, that I always reach out in memory to those that in my past that I knew, lived with, didn't always understand, but loved. And I look for the day when we'll all be reunited in a better time and place and understand each other for the first time. You'll have that opportunity with those that you knew and didn't quite know, didn't fully understand. And maybe have spent years in your adult life now asking certain questions as to why they were like this or why this happened. And this will be the day when all those answers come together and everything that's ever happened in our families.

The day when God will bring to life the dead, small and great. And they will stand before Him, have the books opened, and their name will be written into the book of life.

God is guiding history to the time when good will triumph over evil. He's bringing us to the moment in time when truly all of His creation will be at one with Him. And so let's rejoice in that.

Let's think about this over the coming hours of this day and appreciate what God has done.

All the cold case files will be solved on this day. All the questions will be answered on this great day in the plan of God.