A Bigger Gift ...

Perspective can change your mind, or your priorities.  We make decisions, and set our priorities, based on how we can assess a situation, on what we believe we know of it.  Introduce more facts, expand the vision to a wider time frame, understand those consequences to our actions, and our minds can be changed, even our desires altered.  I’m certain the folks on the Titanic’s biggest concern was which party to attend, wearing which outfit, right up until the iceberg hit.  If that knowledge had been common before that event, not a single person on that ship would have cared about parties, or outfits.  To a person they would have either prepared for the inevitable with far more time to do it.  Or attempted to prevent the event entirely thus changing the history of the maiden voyage of the ship that “could not be sunk”.

It’s not just the big calamities we would avoid.  It is the little ones as well.  Driving just a bit more carefully, or being aware of the erratic or careless behavior of the other driver intent upon hitting us; we would take additional precautions, change our route, and avoid driving altogether if needs be.  But avoiding calamity requires some degree of additional foreknowledge, or does it?  Where it comes to our health, we seem to make one set of decisions before something goes badly, and another set, only after damage is done.  Science has warned us of the dangers of smoking and alcohol consumption for decades, maybe longer.  But the young are willing to “take the risk” believing themselves to be invulnerable, until history catches up with them, and the long-term consequence outweighs the short-term risks they took.  These days it is not just the young.  It would seem the fastest growing segment of our population suffering from sexually transmitted diseases are the old.  Whether the logic is there is little time left, or based on a history of not having to pay the consequences up to now, disease is finding a home in the population you might least expect.

This brings up the question … what do you want?  When you are healthy, the answer might be widely different than when you are sick.  Everyone would want to avoid the fatal car crash, but suffering from a condition for which there is no quick remedy, colors your response.  While the desire for wealth may be strong in us, when we suffer, we look for relief.  Finding that relief becomes more important than nearly anything else.  Therefore perhaps it is understanding what we suffer from that might surprise us.  Matthew records for us an incident in the life and gospel ministry of Jesus Christ that may provide some context on this topic.  Picking up in the ninth chapter beginning in verse one it says … “And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.”

This text has more meaning than might first appear.  Our encounters with Jesus must always be voluntary.  Jesus does not force Himself upon us.  The prior passages outline the story of Jesus healing 2 demoniacs on the far coast of the Sea of Galilee.  The demons entered the pigs, the pigs ran into the sea and died.  The villagers came to see Jesus, and promptly asked Him to leave their coasts.  It is hard to know why.  Maybe they were afraid more pigs would die, or that they would lose further wealth with Him being there.  At the end of the day, their motives do not matter, the outcome does.  They asked Jesus to leave, and leave He did.  Going back to His “own city” could imply Capernaum as He spent much time there, or Bethlehem as that was the town of His birth.  But most likely it was Nazareth where He was raised.

The story continues in verse 2 saying … “And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”  This portion of the story may have hidden meaning.  From a what is more important perspective; we suffer from our sins, more than we suffer from poor health.  Jesus attacks the more important problem with the blessing He offers.  But there may be more to it than that.  In the time of Christ, it is widely believed that disease only comes to those who “deserve it”.  Only sinners of unusual evil proclivity are attached with diseases to match their crimes.  This belief further states that it is not Satan who is allowed to torment them this way, but God Himself who punishes them for their evil.

The long-held view of a punishing God has yet to be extinguished even in our time.  Many Christians still hold to the idea that God is just waiting to “judge” the wicked and send them to hell for all the evil they have committed.  Many Christians further believe that the bad things that happen here, are just a taste of the punishment God has in mind for those who refuse to believe as they do.  In effect, we still believe AIDs attacks those who have sexually sinned.  Ebola attacks those who commit sins with animals (or at least that is how it started).  There is a whole host of misinformation to which the typical Christian mind looks for the punishing finger of God upon the wicked He is just waiting to kill in the flames.  And this with modern minds, and a complete Bible that should dispel this kind of thinking.  But it does not.  Negative interpretations, completely absent of the lens of Jesus Christ and what His life was to give witness to, support in the deceived mind, the continued idea of a punishing God.

So when Jesus says to be of good cheer, and forgives the sins of this victim of palsy, He is undoing the source of why a man would suffer from disease in the first place.  The man is not healed.  But the man is no longer guilty either.  Jesus is destroying the link between the guilt of sin, and the condition of suffering we often find ourselves in.  It is not our sins that cause lung cancer, it is our continual smoking that does.  It is not our sins that cause liver disease, it is the tons of alcohol we consume.  It is not our sins that produce someone else as a bad driver and cause us harm.  They are simply careless, even if only for a moment.  Satan would punish us all.  God would provide us with relief from our suffering.  But there is a distinction.  Sin itself is a punishment.  You do not need additional harm, the harm is buried right in the sin itself.

When we gossip, we hurt people.  When we lie, we hurt people.  When we betray our spouses and our marriages we hurt them, hurting the people we claim to love most, and who do love us the most.  When we dishonor our parents, we cause them grief.  They are flawed, but they have loved us since we were so small we could barely lift our own heads.  Their motives have never been in doubt, but now our actions of rebellion sometimes are.  We treat our God much the same, when we dishonor Him as well.  There is no need for additional punishment for our crimes, our crimes are punishment enough.  When we come to realize this, it is often behind the pain of knowing who we hurt, how much, and why it was so unnecessary.  Our God would provide us relief from this suffering by changing us, and acting as a preventative from sin entirely.

Jesus having broken the connection in the minds of those present between poor health, and guilt over sins, has undone a central tenet of local Sanhedrin doctrine.  The Rabbi’s present immediately jump to the idea of blasphemy, but they dare not utter the words, or the local crowd might stone them.  Jesus is popular after all.  Matthew continues in verse 3 saying … “And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. [verse 4] And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?”  Only our God can read our minds and thoughts.  Only our maker has this insight, is this omnipresent, and omnipotent.  Satan is a created being.  Satan can read our body language, and he is pretty good at guessing what we think.  But he is no mind reader.  Our God is.  Our God reads our very motives, and knows what we are going to say even before we say it.  This act of reading them should have convinced them of who He was.  But it didn’t.

So Jesus addresses the concern.  Matthew continues in verse 5 saying … “For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? [verse 6] But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.”  Jesus is sad, that anyone would look at the forgiveness of sins as being something evil.  Forgiveness of sins, gives us a fresh start, a ground zero from which to renew a relationship with our God.  And yet preachers of the organized religion, use that event as a basis to accuse of blasphemy.  So Jesus, adds the miracle of healing to this man, to show all in attendance, that forgiveness is as real as healing is.  From a priority perspective, the most important thing this man suffered from was the burden of guilt, and the burden of improper doctrine that exacerbated that guilt.  When Jesus broke that burden, the health of this man was not even in palsy stricken man’s mind.  He was free from the burden of his sins.  Made free by Jesus Christ.

His physical healing was only to be a symbol of his spiritual healing.  The short term, as well as the long term, priorities.  Matthew continues in verse 7 saying … “And he arose, and departed to his house. [verse 8] But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.”  The witnesses to this event understood, what apparently, we have yet to grasp.  They marveled.  They glorified God.  That is worth considering.  They glorified God.  For the forgiveness of sins, our hearts respond by glorifying God.  For the relief that comes from being unburdened from our guilt, and reformed to be likeminded with our God, we give glory.  Not just for the start of our salvation, but for the finishing of it.  For the relief God brings us, not just for sins past, but for sinning no more.  No more do we ever wish to do, that which brings harm to so many.  That is the relief our God wishes to bring us all.  He looks to punish none, but to redeem all.  Everyone.  From Adolph Hitler, to Saddam Hussein, to you to me; our God loves each of us, and wishes to redeem each of us.

If we can rid God of the false attribute of punishment and guilt, perhaps we can embrace God as the healing of what is wrong with us.  Perhaps we can finally understand that we suffer from our sins, not because of what God does, but because of what our sins do.  We suffer more from the disease in our minds that would actually have us crave sin, than we do from standing on the deck of the Titanic, or being hit by the car, or having our smoking habits finally catch up with us in our health records and lives.  Our sins are worse than all of these.  And the relief from each and every sin comes offered to us as a gift from Jesus Christ, just as He did for the man brought to Him on a bed unable to carry himself there.  That man would have gone home, still sick, but no longer suffering.  What was important to heal, was done at the forgiveness of sins, and the changing of his mind about the nature of God.  Healing his palsy then was only after effect.  The man knew it.  The crowd knew it.  And now the religious leadership knew it.

But their response would not be so positive …

 

Little White Lies ...

The concept of degrees of evil is one created by our common sense, and reinforced by our judicial system.  We expect “the punishment to fit the crime”.  Excessive jail sentences, or death penalties imposed for trivial misdemeanors make no sense to us; and cry out that the injustice must be reformed.  Yet our God only lists one “punishment” for sin, more precisely only one “wage” earned by the sinner, and that is death.  To our human sensibilities “punishing” someone for telling a little white lie, or engaging in idle gossip, hardly seems fair, if death is all they earn when so embracing these “minor” evils.  How could the damage caused by sin be so great it must be met with death?  For many, this seeming injustice is enough to cause non-believers to reject the idea of a loving God.  The situation only worsens when people who call themselves “Christian” further the idea of a vengeful God who lives to “punish” evil doers in the name of justice, often coupled tightly with intolerance.  Peter understands this cognitive dissonance, he understands on a personal level how much the weight words carry.  He knows firsthand what seemingly little white lies can do to the soul of one who tells them.  So in his first letter to the churches in Asia Minor, he continues his admonition.

In verse one, he writes … “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, [verse 2] As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: [verse 3] If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”  Laying aside all malice and all guile top the list of advice for Peter.  So often, even within the church, our arrogance leads to division, division to resentment, and resentment to malice.  We allow doctrinal disputes, and scriptural interpretation to become such a rigid topic for us, that we learn to despise other believers who refuse to share our particular views.  The malice takes flight in our speech.  Our motives are less hidden as we “talk down” those illiterates who refuse the knowledge we so graciously impart.  If we are unable to win a debate based on logic and fact, we, like Satan before us, introduce guile into the equation.  One third of a perfect heavenly angelic host did not abandon intelligence in their choice to follow Satan.  They fell to self-deception as they preferred to believe a lie that might indulge self, at the cost of the truth that happiness could only be found in loving others.  Lucifer introduced guile and lies into a society who had never known anything but truth.

His technique of mixing truth and distorting truth only slightly was so effective, he used it against Eve in the garden and she fell as well.  For beings who have only known truth, deception is harder to beware against.  So founded in the root of evil; self-love gives birth to deception and guile to advance its cause.  Peter then extends the diagnosis for where the cancer of idle words will spread next.  Hypocrisies, envies, and evil speaking leave the tongue and enter the world.  To cover our own ill motives, based in the self-love or arrogance of our own opinions, we must cover our sin and speak righteously while doing evil.  We state our righteousness, but love only self.  We state our purity of motive, but do nothing for anyone other than self, and those who will return our good deeds.  We become hypocrites to protect a false image of righteousness, because the cancer of self-love has already ruined our hearts.  We envy those who seem to have more than we do.  We begin to want for ourselves, what we perceive they have.  We want more love for ourselves, more admiration of others, more respect, more things.  And again we allow evil speaking of others who we envy and disdain to leave our tongues and enter the world.

The poison our mouths and minds are capable of creating and spewing into the world can have untold effects.  One third of the angels bear personal witness of this.  They were not compelled to join Satan, they were convinced to join him.  He had no pure truth in his logic, but mixed with distortion, and appealing to desires for power, for love, for fulfillment, he handily mastered the art of the lie.  Satan bids us to tell people what they want to hear, rather than what is plainly true.  Satan bids us to think of our own tastes and opinions as matters of fact, rather than matters of perception.  Satan bids us to speak unkindly about those who “deserve it” and those who plainly “have it coming”.  Satan is particularly effective in recruiting Christians to condemn those caught in public sins, particularly those who hold office in the church, or respect in the congregation.  After all, they should really “know better”.  Thus if caught in sin, they certainly “deserve” to be spoken evil of, and have their public sins discussed in a public forum.  Satan bids us to use our understanding of scriptures to condemn others who will not accept the “truths” we have to offer.  In all of his efforts, one result emerges – the cessation of love for others, and the embrace of love for self.

We too easily forget our own need of forgiveness, and general unworthiness of the love Christ has shown to us.  We too easily forget our own ignorance in the ways and truth of Christ when we began our spiritual journey and how far Christ has molded our own minds and ways of thinking from when we first began our walk with Him.  We think ourselves “mature” in our spirituality, but Peter reminds us, our goal was never maturity and independence, but rather the childlike trust of a baby who knows nearly nothing, but the love of its parent.  As newborn babies who crave milk, and cry when they are denied it.  So too, should we crave the WORD of God.  Peter was again not talking specifically about scripture.  Keep in the mind the New Testament about Christ had not even been fully written or assembled yet.  He was talking about craving Christ on a personal level.  He was talking about discovering the Christ foretold in the ancient texts of the Old Testament.  He was talking about realizing that in our infancy is our perfection.  It is not our depth of Biblical study and analysis, but our depth of reflecting the love of Christ that leads us away from words that would do another harm – whether they “deserve” it or not.

Peter was forgiven for the words and lies he spoke in his own denial of association with Christ.  Peter did not “deserve” his forgiveness.  He arguably spoke those lies at a time when Christ needed his love the most.  He abandoned his savior to save his own life.  He left alone the savior of the world, to keep from mere association with Him.  Peter knew the devastating power of a little white lie; for he had told three of them.  Peter told those who asked, what he thought they wanted to hear.  Peter’s lies would not “hurt” anyone, but would rather prevent a murder (likely his own).  For those who ask if it is better to lie or by speaking the truth risk death – ask Peter was it worth it.  Peter deserved the condemnation of Christ.  Peter’s sins were recorded in the New Testament and ALL the disciples knew of his failures.  They could have ridiculed him out of the ministry, except that Christ forgave Peter, and the others knew what tasting the graciousness of Christ’s forgiveness was all about.

Peter knew that the words that leave our tongues reflect the state of love that Christ puts within us.  If our words do harm, if they are callous, if they reflect a disregard for the heart of another – they DO NOT COME from Christ.  It is the territory of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin.  He needs no help from those who are still steeped in it.  It is NOT an act of love to call someone’s attention to the pain their own sin causes them and everyone else.   That is the opposite of love.  Pain is self-evident.  When it is not, the Holy Spirit is there to open our eyes to it.  Words of condemnation to those who are guilty put only nails in the coffin of sin; they do nothing to free the sinner from its power.  But words of unconditional love that would look to a Savior to be made free from our chains of self-bondage – those words have the power to heal.  The mission of Christ was to heal, and to redeem, not to punish.  The heart of our God is not bent on inflicting punishment, but instead to free us from the punishment we already inflict on ourselves.

There are no little white lies.  There are only lies and deception.  The corruption of truth is never a good thing, it leads always and only to destruction.  There is no evil speech, or speech laced with hate, malice, guile, hypocrisy, or envy that will ever do anyone good.  That kind of speech only has the power to destroy.  Those who engage in it become tools of the destroyer; and liars about the character of our God.  Peter would rather that the reading audience of believers spread across Asia Minor take a different path.  That instead of spending time speaking about the demise of others, and evil deeds they do, that we seek Christ, that we seek the WORD of God.  He would rather we abandon the malice that springs from pride, even in spiritual things, and instead embrace the childlike trust and love of a little baby who whether they know it or not, are completely helpless and fully dependent.

Peter then gives an example of how Christ might be found in the words of the Old Testament, and how the believers might see that Jesus is the continuation of scripture, not its end as he writes in verse 4 … “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, [verse 5] Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”  The temple of old, was built of stone by Solomon, and the sacrifices offered there were of pure white lambs.  Peter now tells his audience, “they” are the stones of the new church.  No longer must believers emigrate to Jerusalem to find the presence of God in a temple of stone.  Jesus can be found right where they are.  It is no longer the exclusive province of the tribe of Levy, but instead ANYONE who would choose to believe in Christ that becomes a part of a holy priesthood.  It is no longer the blood of innocent lambs, but the love of the Lamb within them, that gives rise to spiritual sacrifices.  We sacrifice the love of self, for the of love others.  We sacrifice our own needs, for those in need.  In so doing, we are members and witnesses of the holy priesthood of those who love like Christ loves.

Peter continues in verse 6 … “Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. [verse 7] Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, [verse 8] And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.”  Christ is the cornerstone of our temple, of our church.  The cornerstone was the basis for the entire remainder of the building to rely upon.  So it is with our Christ.  Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our faith.  The scriptures without Christ become useless.  The promise without the fulfillment loses all meaning.  Those who submit themselves to Christ are transformed into the obedience of truly loving others like He loves.  But those who refuse to submit to anything less than their own wisdom and knowledge, even when it was based in scriptures, refused to be made obedient.  Instead the cornerstone of our faith and transformation became a stumbling block to them.  It became even offensive to those who will not submit, that the very idea of submission should be the method by which perfection might come.  The disobedient would prefer to rely upon self.  Whether Pharisee, or Islamic Cleric, neither will accept that salvation is outside of the grasp of the will of man.  Both would rather rely upon their words, and their wisdom to find a path to paradise.

Peter continues in verse 9 … “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: [verse 10] Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”  Peter, proud Jewish man that he was, now points out a fact that runs counter to 1600 years of Jewish bloodlines and traditions – the people of God are now found everywhere, from every blood line.  Those readers and believers in Asia Minor are now the “people” of God.  No longer is believing a matter of tracing our roots back to Abraham, it is simply found in a declaration for Christ, and a submission to His authority.  Those “foreigners” who had no ties to Jewish bloodlines, were now in the very family of Christ right beside the Jews who had accepted Jesus.  The believers of Christ were certainly peculiar.  They included all races.  They included women and men equally.  They included young and old, and bloodlines mattered for nothing. 

Peter reminds his readers that a holy nation, and a chosen generation of royal priests have a duty to speak truth.  But the truth they are to speak about is the love of Jesus Christ that transforms the heart, and frees us from the chains of self-love, to the freedom of loving only others.  Carrying the responsibility of “priests” in the new faith, the responsibility every single member, every single believer, will now carry – is designed to call to attention the IMPACT of the words they will speak.  People tend to listen to priests.  They seek the council of priests.  They wish to know what God may think or teach on a particular topic.  Peter reminds us that as priests we are to reflect the love that our cornerstone reflected.  When a listening ear bends in our direction, it is not meant to hear little white lies, and speech that could cause another harm.  Instead allow our transformation to so reform our hearts, that the words never even form in our minds, let alone in our mouth.  When we seek only to love others, we care about how our words will be heard.  We care about whether they carry the love in our hearts for those in so desperate a need.

There are none who “deserve” our hateful speech.  There are only those whose need of love from us might be greater than those who have already embraced His love, and are already on His path.  Those guilty souls who war against the love of God, should find no ally in us.  They should never receive hate from us in word or deed, but rather we return love to them, no matter how we are treated.  In offering only love to them, we deny them the fuel our hatred might have provided.  Those who stumble in sin, and are publicly discovered, should find public forgiveness and acceptance.  Our words should ever be to their healing, never to add to their pain, and the pain they might have caused.  When we love others more than we love ourselves, we come to realize that our “truths” are not more important than insuring another knows we love them.  We can afford to allow God to bring the less educated into His knowledge and truth and doctrinal understanding, on the timeline He decides.  It does not have to be now, and on the timeline we would seek to impose.  For those who submit to Christ, we must recognize it may well be us who needs the education, rather than those we deem less than ourselves.

The power of words cannot be understated.  What evil we accept as innocuous is the evil that would destroy us utterly.  What degree of sin we find “minor” has already led to the death of Christ Himself, and to a willingness to kill God by the perpetrators of evil.  The cancer of evil and self-love is absolute, and leads only to death.  But the redemption and power of the love of Christ is absolute as well.  To embrace His love, and allow it to transform us, is to find a new way of thinking, that results in a new way of speaking.

But Peter was not through with his counsel to the churches …

An Epitaph for Death [part two] ...

In the previous portion of this study, our story in Revelations chapter 20 began AFTER the second coming to reunite us with our Lord and our God had already taken place.  The final end of evil remains the part of the story still to be told.  The Bible is more than just the story of the redemption of humanity.  It also serves to tell the story of the rise and eradication of evil itself.  That final ending part of the story of evil had only just begun.  Satan was bound alone with his demonic following here in the destroyed earth for 1000 years.  During this time we, the redeemed, review the judgments of our God upon those who have steadfastly refused every opportunity to accept the gift of His perfect freedom to love others.  The wicked lost have been asleep in their graves during this millennia but now, the time for evil is nearly done.  The time to see evil end is about to be revealed.

John continues in verse 7 … “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, [verse 8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”  As mentioned earlier the minute the wicked are raised, Satan looks with singular purpose to do one thing, build an army that can defeat the angels he lost to before.  Satan raises the old argument citing history from the tower of Babel, that if mankind unites behind a single purpose, we can defeat God.  Satan does not discourage evil in his ranks, he promotes it.  But in this instance he is not looking to lose troop numbers, so there is to be no early killing of each other in the ranks of his army.  We are to save our blood lust for the meek and mild residents of the city of heaven.  Notice too, there is no rebellion in his ranks.  No one stands up and rejects his ideas of conquest and murder.  No one refuses what he offers.

Think about it.  Scripture foretells all of this.  You are reading the future history of evil and righteousness right now in great detail.  Yet despite a sure knowledge of the outcome, if you find yourself awakened to be on the side of evil, you will join this insanity willingly.  What choice do you have?  What other fate is there?  Perhaps some join with the full knowledge of their impending doom.  Perhaps some continue to perpetrate evil acts of immorality and self-pleasure as much as they can while they await the coming battle.  How else to motivate his troops but to offer them temporary pleasures they might have been too timid to partake of while there was yet hope of redemption?  Evil does not look to reform and better itself, it looks only to deepen in the course it pursues.  What level of immorality could scarcely be imagined now, is fully set loose now that only one final battle remains.  Once again, the decisions to be lost or saved are seen cemented in the continued choices and actions of those in both camps.  The righteous are racked with grief at their own inadequacy in loving the lost back to redemption.  While the wicked are steeped in nothing but hate to see those who they formerly purported to love, killed to get out of their way.

Despite everything, despite the clarity of these revelations given to John and to us, NO ONE changes their minds or pursues a different course.  It is at this point, when the wicked approach the city of New Jerusalem descended from God to our world for the final battle, that a pause occurs.  The sky will serve as the 3D HD TV Screen from which a movie will be presented.  It is the actual story of humanity, of the genesis of evil, of the mission of love to redeem.  It is the story of His sacrifice here in life and on Calvary.  And within this picture is revealed to each individual the history of the attempts by God to see each of them redeemed.  All will see what Christ did.  All will see what was done in their own lives to see them redeemed.  And the results of this panoramic picture, perhaps the greatest movie ever played will have a unified result, even in the camp of the wicked.  ALL will bow before Christ and acknowledge that only the Lamb is worthy of worship and praise.  It is an involuntary response from a heart and sentient mind created by God.  No one can help themselves from doing anything other than this, up to and including Satan himself.

What happens next however is the reaction and distinction between good and evil.  The righteous once again have prostrated themselves before the Lamb, throwing their crowns to the ground at the thought of their own unworthiness.  They rise only as He comforts them and assures them once again of His so great love for them.  They think only to serve this God of Love in any way they can, according to His great purpose.  They carry no weapons.  They intend no blood shed.  They are not there to fight.  They are armed with only a love and gratitude to Christ that cannot be comprehended by us now, or by those who lay before them at that time.  They, like God, long for a different outcome.  They wish only that those who are lost, who at least now have seen the worthiness of Christ would seek one more time a chance at redemption.  Perhaps even now it is not too late.  But alas, one moment of clarity in the lives of evil, does not result in any desire to change.

And so it begins.  The evil ones rise from their acknowledgement of the love of Christ, with only one thought on their collective minds, to kill Christ.  They realize that so great a love exists, and since they cannot be a part of it, they must kill it to have peace.  But like at His second coming, this battle will end before it begins.  John continues in verse 9 saying … “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. [verse 10] And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Notice first that the attacking troops are “devoured” by the fires of God.  The devil is thrown into a lake of fire and will die last, in order that he suffer the longest and be punished for the magnitude of his deceptions and evil and pain he has caused.  John continues in verse 11 … “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. [verse 12] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”  He who longed to be their savior, stands now to impose the sentences of those who have been judged in the courts of heaven.  There is no escape for any who have refused to embrace redemption.  All men and women, both small and great are to have sentences passed.  They will burn and suffer in proportion to the pain they have caused. 

John continues in verse 13 … “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”  There is no form of death that a wicked person could have experienced in this life that does not give way to these series of events.  Whether lost in a drowning in the depths of the sea, or obliterated in the blast of an atomic weapon, all the lost have been raised, all have seen the judgment of Christ, and all are to now experience the lake of fire in direct proportion to the pain they have caused.  Those who have caused little pain for others will be consumed fully and quickly.  Those who have caused much pain for others will be consumed slower, and will die only over a period of time, receiving in direct proportion to what they have caused, the pain they have wrought.

The effects of this punishment are to be eternal, just as the choice while they lived to embrace evil would not be altered even after seeing the great love of Christ in attempting to redeem them.  There will be no further chances at redemption, nor any further resurrections to look forward to.  Whatever the length of lifeline they have lived to date, it is to be their last.  Immortality is NOT on the menu.  A permanent existence even in torture is NOT to be their fate.  They are to burn, and die, and be no more.  Satan and his demonic hoard will die last, but die they will.  The universe is to be cleansed of all evil, not have it exist forever, even in a tortured state.  Justice demands the death of evil, not its continual preservation. 

Imagine the alternative for a moment.  If traditional views of hell were correct, then Satan is obviously not impacted by the flames, or otherwise how is he able to continue to deceive mankind for the last 6000 years while hell was going on, presumably starting with Cain.  After some period of time humans will adapt to a pain that does not kill them.  It is in our nature to do this.  So either God would have to constantly continue to invent new ways to cause us pain, or whatever the fires do, would eventually become commonplace to us.  Then too, even if punishment could be eternally causing pain, at what point would our sentence be served and the demands of justice met?  Even Hitler, should have atoned for his murders at some point.  It might take 6 million years to atone, or perhaps 6 billion, but at some point doesn’t Hitler have the right to state that his debt is paid?  Eternal torture perpetuates evil forever, instead of eliminating it as God has promised.  And can you imagine the acts of evil that would continue even in a venue like hell, if hell were a place that lasts forever.  Lastly, how could any of us, the redeemed who think of nothing but to love others, find happiness while those who we loved, continue to exist in a state of perpetual torture.  None of this makes sense.  It is a misrepresentation of the character of God, as told to us by His enemy, and with attempts at using scripture to prove it.

Our traditional teachings of an eternally burning hell are the doctrines of the enemy, designed to perpetuate a myth of an unfair God who desires pain and not redemption.  But to punctuate this fact, and undo any lingering doubts in our minds, John continues and concludes this epitaph in verse 14 … “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. [verse15] And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”  The final thing to be consumed by the fires sent by God are “death” and “hell”.  Death itself is to be put to an end.  Once Satan has died, once there are no more alive who have chosen to embrace evil, death will NO longer be relevant or needed in our universe ever again.  Its purpose will be ended with no future victims of its concepts.  Evil will now be in a state of non-existence.  Only good will remain.  The fires will go out.  They will do their eternal job, in inflicting an eternal punishment, but then when the job is completed, they will be needed no more.  There is to be no more hell.  There is to be no more death.  They are both to be ended.  This revelation is to be their epitaph.

There is no balance between good and evil, as these are mutually exclusive concepts where only one can rule.  Should evil win, life itself would cease to exist for all the roads of evil lead to death, the death of others, and eventually the death of self to escape what we become.  Balance, has never been needed.  Balance, is the mantra of the enemy.  Good does not need evil to survive or find identity.  Good is love, and it will on this day, overcome evil forever more.  In the battle between good and evil, good was always destined to win, as existence itself was the prize in question.  Evil is destined to die, to be extinguished forever in every form. 

From this point forward, even death will be gone forever.  The cycle of life is all we have ever known.  We witness in the leaves of the trees, the cycle of birth, growth, decline, decay, and rebirth.  But once death is gone, perhaps the leaves will be ever green.  Perhaps there is no decay anymore, perhaps to pluck a rose from a bush is to begin a new plant as a result.  We have no idea what it means to live life without the reminders of our own mortality.  We live now treasuring every moment because of the brevity of our lives, but then perhaps we will live treasuring every moment because every moment will have no end.

We might have thought the story of our redemption ended when once we were reunited with Christ.  And perhaps our redemption story was over at that point.  But scripture did not end then, nor did the revelations of Jesus Christ given to John.  The disposition of evil in finality had yet to be given, the ending of death itself was an important point that must be relayed.  This revelation helps us understand what love means, and what justice means.  This revelation dictates the end of evil forever and ever.  It amplifies the finality of the choices we make.  Should we elect to be redeemed, it will be so by the power and love of Jesus Christ.  But should we elect to place our salvation in ourselves, our self-deception will be our undoing.  The evil within us MUST be removed.  For ALL evil will one day meet its end.  If it is still a part of us on that day, our fate will be that of evil.  If we trust to Jesus Christ, our fate will be that of love that remains.

But even now, scripture was not to be at an end.  There is yet more to be revealed.  There is yet more to this story …