Gooding, David: 4 - World Without End?

Perhaps have noticed that the subject for this evening is printed on the card in the form not of a statement, but of a question. It raises the question whether this world, as we know it at present, is destined to continue forever, world without end. There is a phrase in our lovely authorized version of the Bible that runs somewhat like this: To him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus, world without end, amen. And that beautifully sounding phrase, repeated in many a prayer, has caused some people at least to think that this world will in fact go on indefinitely without end forever. The phrase, however, as everybody knows by now, I should thought, should have thought, is somewhat of a mistranslation. In the original language which it is attempting to translate, it plainly states, to him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus, and to all generations of the age of the ages, which is quite a different proposition from world without end. In fact, the thing is not disputable at all, for the plain words of Holy Scripture tell us explicitly that this present earth and the present heavens around it shall one day be dissolved. I read you the description from the calm, sane words of Holy Writ. They are found in the second epistle by Peter and chapter three. Again, this evening I am reading from the revised version. And I begin in the middle of a paragraph in verse 5, which says, for this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God, by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens that are now, and the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to you, Lord, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And I submit to you that no intelligent person, after reading those explicit statements, can entertain any longer doubt what the word of God says on this important topic. The day of the Lord will come. The heavens and the earth shall pass away. Here before us is stated the fact, this world shall not go on forever. Here before us is stated the means of that destruction. Just as the ancient world was compacted in and out of water, and God used the very elements of which the world was made to destroy it, the earth being overflowed with water perished. So in that great final death, this chapter tells us that God will use the very constituents of earth to destroy it. The heavens and the earth that are now are stored up with fire. In that coming day, God shall allow the elements to be loosed, to be dissolved. The earth shall pass away with great noise and with great heat. Our scientists have shown us in these recent years how vividly meaningful these words are. When the elements that compose any individual atom of material are loosed, the process is accompanied by tremendous heat and terrific noise. Says the word of God, talking in days when humans knew nothing about atomic fission. There will come this great day of the Lord, when the elements shall melt, shall be dissolved with fervent heat, the heavens and the earth shall pass away with a great noise. I know that to many people these statements must sound fantastic in the extreme. The inspired apostle is not unaware of the arguments that were urged against his statements. The argument that this promise had been made for many centuries and never fulfilled. The argument that the earth has always continued from the very beginning as it is now, and therefore might be expected to continue forever as it is now. I say the inspired apostle is not unaware of the difficulties that some people try to urge against these statements. He has answered them, though it is not my particular purpose this evening to rehearse before you his arguments. Rather, do I wish tonight to concentrate our attention on the occasion of this great event. For we are likewise explicitly told when this thing shall happen. We may lay it well to our hearts that mankind will not be allowed to blow up this earth just when he please. Behind those great electrical forces that tie together the stable atoms that compose our universe, lies the divine and limitless power of this earth's creator. We are told that in our Lord Jesus Christ, all things stand together. Not until he gives his word of permission will this mighty atomic fission occur, and the earth and the heavens flee away. And he has already informed us on what particular occasion he shall give his word for the dissolution of all things. The destruction of the heavens and the earth are reserved, we are told, against the day of perdition of ungodly men. And in the last book of scripture, we have described in vision that august occasion when heaven and earth shall flee away. The immediate occasion of their fleeing is this, that at that time a great throne shall be set, before which mankind shall be compelled to stand. For a voice that is no less than a voice of the Son of God shall speak. As he himself promised, the hour is coming when all they that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth. The dead shall stand before that great white throne. So terrible will be the aspect of the majesty of our Lord as he sits upon that throne to judge. We are told that heaven and earth flee before the face of him that sits upon the throne, and no place is found for them. It is, I say, the occasion of the end of this heavens and earth that I want us to consider this evening. We are again told explicitly that on that occasion, the temporary arrangements for the existence of humankind will be finished. For death and Hades, the temporary abode of those that have died, shall give up the dead which are in them. Temporary modes of human existence beyond the grave shall be done with forever. For at this august point in history, time is giving up its content to eternity. Temporary things are now going over to be eternally fixed. Dead, the sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and Hades shall give up the dead which are in them. Death and hell shall be transferred to the lake of fire. What hitherto was a temporary condition will now become eternal. It is that that perhaps is the most significant and the most thought thought-provoking thing of all these great things that are here told us. It is not the thunderous roar of the dissolving of heaven and earth that prof- impress our minds most profoundly. It is, I submit to you, the conception of eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Our minds reel as they try to grasp the infinite. As we look up over our heads on a starry evening out into space, we try to grasp the, the conception that there is limitless, limitless, limitless space. It goes beyond us. And yet, if we were to try and set limits to it, we should have, we should find ourselves arguing like Lucretius, the old Latin poet, who said, now suppose there is a limit, and suppose one could travel to that limit and stand on the very border. What would be the outside? And if one threw a javelin from the border, where would it go? I say our minds fail before they can understand eternity. Nor is it only its infinity... of space and time that strikes us with awe. It is also... that the very mention of eternity conjures up necessarily in our minds the question of the fixing of human destiny for good or ill. It has a way of making people feel uncomfortable, and understandably so. A friend of mine down in the south of England, with some Christian friends of his being concerned for the fellow men and women that go on heedless without paying any attention, as far as one can gather, to spiritual things, once hide between them a large poster affixed to a railway bridge on the outskirts of a very popular seaside resort in the south of England. It was an enormous poster, such as the p- petrol companies, uh, advertise their goods on. And right across this enormous poster, they had printed the one word eternity. After it had been up for a few weeks, an agitation occurred in the town. When the time for which they had hired this poster was expired, the advertising firm told them, I'm sorry, you can't have the space again. We could get more money for this space, and, uh, I'm afraid we can't let it to you anymore. Oh, said my friends, um, we will pay anything you'd like to ask. Name your price. Then they were embarrassed. And then the truth came out. The advertising manager had to admit that the Chamber of Commerce in the town had strongly objected to this poster being put on the outskirts of their holiday town. Said they it was bad for business. We don't want people coming down here for a holiday to try and forget their cares and their worries, being confronted with a poster like that the moment they enter the town. We don't want any such gloomy posters. Understandable, and yet very strange attitude, isn't it? You can't dismiss eternity by agreeing not to think about it. You won't hold it off. And anyway, what is it that makes eternity a gloomy subject? Oh, I would say at the outset to anybody here that finds the question of eternity gloomy, there is no need. God has a salvation for his creatures that can set their hearts agog with happiness and joy. Genuine joy, not merely excitement, genuine joy as they contemplate eternity. But obviously, for anybody who is not sure of salvation. Eternity must be an exceedingly troublesome thought. Possibility that to pass from life into eternity, unsaved and lost, and to find one's condition permanently and eternally fixed without any possibility of alteration. That, understandably enough, is a terrible thought. And if I speak to anybody here and my words bring shivers to your very core, be persuaded, will you, that I do so merely because I love you? It is no good. It is no good our trying to forget it if we are not yet sure. All of us are marching on. Whereas we may not be present on earth at this time when heaven and earth shall flee away, yet we too shall be involved in eternity. Death is not the end. After death comes the judgment. We shall do no good to ourselves by trying to forget the uneasy fact. Nay, rather, I bring it to your attention this evening, and I press it home with all the powers of my being, because to everyone sitting here this night, there is the real opportunity, the genuine God-given opportunity that we might embrace God's salvation, and receiving God's salvation now might have it and know it with a clear heart and a clear conscience. I say again, it is possible for all of us here without exception. We have never done so, yet if we did so this very evening, to enter into peace with God, such that for us the prospect of eternity would be bright with God's glory. Towards that end, I ask you to listen to what I have to say. Does eternity mean that human destiny is fixed? Let us consider the matter first of all, from the point of view of those who are already Christians. Is it the fact, my dear fellow Christian, that when eternity dawns, our salvation shall prove to be eternal? As something that never can be lost or overthrown or diminished? Is it the fact? Oh, how we should thank God for the clear statements of his holy word, so many times repeated. Let me remind you of what he says of that glorious resurrection body that shall be given to all who trust the Savior. The Apostle Paul says in two Corinthians chapter five that our present body is no more than a tent, a temporary dwelling, a thing that is so obviously collapsible. And in all of us, I suppose, here sitting, there is evidence that the body we inhabit is a collapsible thing. For some of you, the final collapse is not a long way off. But to a Christian, there comes the radiant reassurance. We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. A human body is a wonderful thing. The more it is explored, the more the mind wonders at the marvelous skill of God, a wonderful machine indeed adapted to express human personality. But the word of God informs us assuredly that compared with what our bodies will then be, even the marvelous machine that now we have is but a temporary thing, a tent, a collapsible tabernacle compared with a permanent building. The body that you will inhabit, my dear fellow Christian, will be a body perfect. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Not collapsible. It shall not decay. It shall not grow old. A body designed that we shall inhabit, it shall be part of us, not merely a house to live in, but an essential part of our personality. Designed eternally, because the people whose body it is, they too shall live eternally. Their eternal blessing has been guaranteed because of the effect of the work of Christ upon the cross. The scripture does not hesitate to say that when our Lord died upon the cross and rose again, he obtained eternal redemption for us. Being the infinite person that he was, his work has infinite effect. He has become, says Scripture, the author not of a temporary salvation, but of an eternal salvation to those that obey him. And the life which all shall enjoy there is called in Scripture an eternal life. We shall have no patience with logic choppers who would tell us that this Greek word does not really mean eternal. Within the covers of Holy Writ, this word is applied to God himself. And eternal life is eternal because of what it is. This is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God. Life is having to do with a person. Life is receiving the spiritual life of the eternal God. He has made his creation, the heavens and the earth, so that they can be collapsed and folded up. They shall grow old, and as a garment thou shalt fold them up, and they shall be changed. But the life which he imparts by generation in the heart of his children, this is his own very vitals infused into them. They could as easily perish as God himself could perish. But if God cannot perish, neither shall they, who by faith in Christ have become not merely creatures, but children begotten of the seed of God through his indestructible word. Being born again of the incorruptible seed by means of the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. All true believers may know it assuredly that they shall never perish. I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. A vivid matter for that. The thing that links a soul with God is faith. And somebody might say, my faith as a Christian is so weak that one day I fear a blast may come and scatter it to the wind. You have no need to fear if you be a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus. Certainly there are enemies that will constantly attack that faith. But our Lord has guaranteed that none shall be able to snap. None shall be able to break that link that ties you to Christ and to God. I give them eternal life, and none shall pluck them out of my hand. It was with the word of God well in his heart that Paul could stand as a mature man and survey the future not only calm, but happy and confident. I am persuaded, said he, as I have scanned the future, as I have scanned height and depth, as I have thought of all created beings, I am persuaded that none of them shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. With such certainty, we may watch with no undue excitement the mounting fears of men. We may watch developments in earth confident that God sits and rules, though one day heaven and earth fall down round our ears and disappear, yet shall we be eternally safe. That does not mean that as Christians we are to be idle. That does not mean that as believers in our Lord, assured that they shall never perish, we are to take the view that it does not matter how we live here. That matters immensely. The weakest soul that dares trust the Savior is given eternal life, and every person born again of God's Holy Spirit enters the kingdom of God and shall enter that eternal kingdom. But the scripture again makes it clear that while some Christians shall have an entrance, some shall have an abundant entrance into that eternal kingdom. To believers it was that the holy apostle Peter wrote, urging them, so far from growing slack because they knew they were eternally secure, they were to give all diligence, to add, by God's grace and the power of his, his spirit, add constantly to their character all those qualities that spell a Christian. For if a Christian neglects his spiritual progress, though nevertheless he is saved and enters into that eternal kingdom, that will be all. And eternally, eternity shall fix. That difference between him and the other Christian man or woman, who being saved gave diligence and sought God, by his help developed their Christian character. For one star in glory shall differ from another star. The way we live, my fellow Christians, the way we live here as Christians, will mark us eternally. God help us who are Christians, in a world given much to materialism, to show by our conduct what our real and true values are. All things material shall one day perish with this world. The eternal things it is that are valuable. The coat and the hat, the home and the car. These self-evidently are of so much less importance than the man and woman in the hat and in the coat and that uses the car. Oh God, help us to get our sense of proportions right in view of eternity, that when that great day dawns, ours may be not just an entrance, but an abundant entrance into that eternal kingdom. God grant that when eternity dawns, it shall find for us who are Christians that we have used time well, and that unique and never returning opportunity that is life shall have been used to its maximum to prepare us for eternity. Not necessarily. Perhaps the biggest question that rises in our mind as we consider eternity is the matter of the destiny of those who are impenitent. Does it really mean... men and women who reject Christ and God's salvation in Christ, does it really mean that they shall be eternally lost? Does it really mean that our fellow men and women that we have learned to love, if they reject Christ, shall experience unending and eternal sufferings? The thought is tremendous. The prospect is such, so awful that no one that is human at heart could face it without flinching, even now. Must we believe that? I hasten, as I begin to discuss this matter with you, I hasten to narrow down the limits of this discussion to such that we may profitably consider here this evening in our limited time. I wish to write completely out of our discussion the question of all those who have never heard of our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not wish to appear to be unfair or avoiding difficulties. And I know right well with many people, and particularly with people who are not yet Christians, this is a real and serious concern. As they face the claims of Christ to be the only way to God, they find themselves asking, well, is this really fair? Can this really be true, that Christ is the only way to God? For what about those millions of men? The vast majority of the human race of all time, that have never heard of Christ, or hearing of him, have never really understood? I say it is a real difficulty with some, though with others sometimes one is forced to believe it is but a smokescreen by which they hide for themselves the necessity of making a personal acquaintance with Christ. It's a trick, you know, of our old subconscious mind, maybe, that when we are pushed to confront Christ and make our personal decision about him, we prefer to delay the decision and naturally think up objections and suddenly become interested in the heathen, though to be sure we were never interested in them to do anything about them before. But I speak to people that are genuine, I trust. And I beg leave to omit from our discussion this question of those that have never heard of Christ, simply because we have. It is about people the likes of ourselves that we must think now, surely. Nevertheless, let me say in passing, that the God who gave his own son that we might not perish may be trusted to do what is just and right with the heathen. His own word has positively laid it down that men shall not be accountable for what they did not know. They who have sinned without the law, not knowing God's law, shall perish mercifully without the law. God shall not add to them the solemn charge of his law that they never knew. For God is fair, and judgment, when judgment comes, is his strange work. God shall not hold people responsible for what they never knew. Nor only so, but our Lord tells us exceedingly encouraging words. When he indicated that he knows in his divine knowledge not only what people did with the light they had, but what they would have done had they had bigger light. You remember discussing Capernaum and Chorazin, cities that had witnessed his own personal presence and his miracles. He said of those cities that it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them. Why more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah? For this reason, said our Lord, that if the miracles that had been done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented. Only a divine person could have told us that. God knows what men and women would have done had they heard the gospel. And a God who gave his only begotten son that men might not perish shall not send one to hell, that he is any just reason for saving at all. We are told that the value of the sacrifice of Christ extends not only to this present and to the future, it extends backwards to the beginning of time. And all who turn to God, however little they knew, are covered by that great atoning sacrifice. You may leave them out of this discussion. We are concerned for this moment, selfishly maybe, but necessarily with ourselves. We have heard, haven't we? Not one of us here present but knows that the Bible talks about Christ, that the Bible insists that we must be born again, that the Bible offers us a salvation that is so pressing that God's Son died to secure it. We know, surely. What would it mean for the likes of us to reject it? Would it mean that passing from time to eternity, our doom would be irrevocably sealed? Would it mean eternal conscious suffering? The thought is so tremendous. And men and women everywhere have not been slow to raise their protests. Let us examine some of them, shall we? Let us see if there could possibly be any hope. Some have said, but you know, it can't be. The doom of the unsaved can't be eternal. Surely a God that we have come to know in Christ as a loving God and Father, surely he could not stand by and witness eternal suffering. You say to me, I could not believe, sir, I could not bring myself to believe in a God who could watch human beings rise in torment forever. I understand how you feel. We must be careful not to let sentiment run away with us. We are here dealing not with what we think things ought to be, not what we imagine God should be like. We are here dealing with God as he has himself revealed himself. And the argument that God would not stand by and see people suffer has already been shown to be false. Nay, God in his word has called our attention to this, that within the limited time of human experience on earth, God has set forth certain examples that the fact might be established before our eyes that God will, God will look on and see something. Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown by fire and brimstone and flaming asphalt. The judgment there was temporar- temporal. Yet the New Testament reminds us that as they suffered their punishment, they are set forth an example of something bigger. They are set forth an example of eternal fire, of eternal judgment. God once stood by and watched those human forms utterly perish in those flames. Not before God had done his utmost to get them out. When at last they were impenitent, God did send his judgment. Oh, it's futile for us to argue that God wouldn't do it. He has done it. Set them forth in their temporal judgment as an example of that bigger thing of eternal judgment. Or may I quote you the example of the city of Jerusalem? Oh, how oft would I have gathered you, said the Savior as he stood outside that city. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, but you would not. How often? How often he had stood and with all, with infinite patience, besought them to come, but they would not. There came the time when a heartbroken Christ stood outside that city and wept. He was no sentimentalist. A man that en- can endure the sufferings of the cross, cry triumphantly, it is finished with a loud voice. That man is no effeminate sentimentalist, but he stood outside Jerusalem and he sobbed. What for? The days will come upon you when your enemies shall heap a mound outside you. There shall not be one stone left on an hour. His divine sight was looking forward to AD seventy, when the Roman armies encircled that city, and Jerusalem went down in a terrible bloodbath of carnage and killing. Oh, my dear friend, it's useless for us to say a God of love wouldn't let such things happen. They have happened. The God of heaven stood by while the Romans did their worst. He didn't stand by feelingly, unfeelingly. He didn't stand by rejoicing. He stood by, eyes wet with tears. But he had to let human choice go its way, and if humans chose death, even a broken-hearted Christ would not go against their will. He must let them meet the end that they chose. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, we have evidence supreme in this, that God spared not his own son. I tell you, if the doom of men and women were not eternal, God's Son would never have died. Here is the love of God, that God has gone to this extreme that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth should not perish. That's a God that must call forth the admiration of every human heart, surely. Mighty God that he is, in whose sight I must be nothing more than an infinitesimal midge. Yet he gave his only begotten son for me. The Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me and cried in the desolation of his heart, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The answer was obvious, so that God might not have to forsake those who trust Christ. But I tell you, the Godhead is not playing around. The Godhead did not stage Calvary for effect's sake. The Godhead didn't devise such an extreme, unless there were real and good cause. The effort to save was so extreme because the doom from which the Godhead would save men is nothing short of eternal. But the love of God will not impose itself upon our will. If men and women choose to reject Christ, the very love of God will compel God to honor their choice. For if God suppressed man's will and suppressed man's choice, the result would be something less than human, a mere machine. And God wouldn't do you such a dishonor, my dear sir. God wouldn't do you such a dishonor, madam, that if you chose to reject Christ, that he would make you be saved in against your will. He wouldn't do it. He loves you too much for that. What he gave you in giving you a free will, he doesn't propose to take away. He will honor your choice, even though it breaks his heart as he watches you perish. And some have said, but it's unfair. A man within the brief space of seventy years makes a mistake, you say, and isn't saved. However bad he has sinned, you say, surely it's an unfair thing that a limited, a finite crime should bring down upon his head an infinite sentence and punishment. Again, that argument looks, it looks good. It would perhaps at first sight seem unfair that a small finite crime, for however big it is, it would seem to be finite, should be met with an infinite punishment. But again, it's fallacious argument. There are some things in, in this life that if we do, we may injure ourselves and yet recover. I may make a mistake and get my leg in a machine and the leg be cut off, and yet I survive. But if I point a bullet at my, a gun at my head, thinking it's empty, and accidentally I pull the trigger and it goes through my brain, that's the end. You can't undo that. And God points it out to us that the thing he is offering us is eternal. To reject an eternal thing has eternal consequences. You see, it is not ma- a matter of accepting a few dogmas and doctrines and assenting to a few creeds. When we think of salvation, we are dealing with persons, persons. God is a person, he's not a collection of doctrines. It's a person we deal with. We are told that if the Holy Spirit deals with a man, and that man or that woman knows for certain that this is God speaking. That man or woman says no. And they have committed an eternal sin. To reject life is to choose death. To reject God is to choose the devil. To reject eternal salvation is in fact to choose eternal perdition. Oh, let us open our eyes to see the thing that Christ is offering us, each one now, this moment. The thing he's offering us is an eternal thing. And when we say no, if we say no, we are making an eternal choice. Some people have said, but surely a loving God will turn the very pangs of hell, the sorrows of the lake of fire, to bring men and women where they will repent of their earlier choice and be saved. The word of God holds out no such hope. Let me remind you of that extreme example of a man that rejected Christ, the man called Judas. Christ knew from the very start that man's attitude of heart. He would take all that God had to give, but had no time for God. He would take God's money, God's time, God's breath, God's everything. But he had no time for God. Came the very last supper, as he sat around the table with the others and with Christ. And our Lord indicated that he knew that one of them should betray him, and Judas now knew that Christ knew. And there they sat together. Here, we believe, God's only Son incarnate, and here a human soul, destined to exist somewhere eternally. And Christ, knowing all that man's heart and all his history, with infinite love, took that sop, and in Eastern fashion indicated to this man his love. For an Easterner, to offer anyone a sop is to offer that person his most intimate fellowship and his unbreakable friendship. He offered the sop. But God would love Judas to the very last inch. When Judas went out and made his final choice, Christ's comment were that better that that man had never been born. If Judas eventually ends up in heaven, then Christ's words are wrong. For heaven is so wonderful and eternity so immense that if after ten thousand years of suffering Judas were brought to heaven, then it would have been worth ten thousand years of suffering to get there. But no, it shall not be. Better that he'd never been born. For he made an eternal choice, and he has gone to his own place. So Christ always taught. Young man, he said, if I may paraphrase his words, young man, if your hand or your eye is a stumbling block to you and keeps you back from salvation, cut it off. It's better to enter into life maimed than having both hands to be cast into the lake of fire where their worm dieth not, the fire is not quenched. Annihilation is an empty hope, then. Where no fuel is, the fire goes out. But the worms shall not die because there will always be something to gnaw. And the fire shall not go out, said Christ, for there shall always be fuel for the fire. Because it is so terrible, man, woman, says Christ, better anything than to end up in the lake of fire. This is not soapbox preaching. I preach with some warmth, maybe. You wouldn't expect me to do anything else. You would if you believe this, wouldn't you? But I preach you not my word, but Christ's word. It is about him we have to decide. They who decide against him, I am not sure that when they reach their eternal destiny, they shall want to change. Our Lord told of one man in hell. Tormented in a flame, he asked for alleviation and relief. But even when that was denied him, he never once asked to get out. How do you know, sir, that the impenitent, once they enter eternity, will want to change their minds. If they didn't want to change them now, who said they'd want to change them then? If they find God and Christ such that they do not want them now, who said they should want them then? It's a will-o'-the-wisp of a wild and empty hope. My dear sir, if you don't want the Savior now, I've no reason for telling you you'll ever want him. Why did that man get there at last? Somebody says nobody has ever come back from the dead to tell us that these things are certain. You'll never get anybody back from the dead, more than you have got. We have one back from the dead. Our Lord himself rose again the third day. But beyond that, we may not expect any visions. To that man in hell, the answer came, they have the Bible, they have Moses and the prophets. Yes, he said, no, I know that, Father Abraham, but you see, if somebody went from the dead, they'd believe. Well, why don't they believe if they d- if they have the scriptures? Oh, but then we know, don't we? It's so difficult to think as we read this calm word without excitement, that God really means what he says. Why should anybody want another chance? If salvation is to be had now, why would you want a chance of accepting it after death? Why won't you accept it now? Or may I be, I almost said, brutally personal. But do I talk to one, even so much as one person here that is not yet saved? And you would like to think there is hope beyond the grave. Why would you like to think that? May I ask you? Why, when you've got an opportunity now to be saved, won't you be saved now? What's wrong with God now? What are you playing with? Ah, there perhaps is the trouble. But it's a delusion. If it is that our hearts don't want God now and fight against Christ because for the moment we want to go our own way, there, says God, is just the trouble. Just the trouble. But learn this. That what you decide in life will last eternally. My lecture is done. I want to make it abundantly clear that I put before you God's own word. We stand here and sit here together to hear not my word, but Christ's. In that coming day, I shall be judge, says Christ. Not all will be punished equally. Men who are lost shall be punished according to their works. The dead are judged according to their works, and he that knew his Lord's will and didn't do it shall be beaten with many stripes, and he who knew not his Lord's will and did not do it shall be beaten with few stripes. There shall be degrees of punishment. But the thing that decides whether a man or woman is cast into that eternal lake of fire or not is only one thing, one thing only. They whose names were not found written in the Lamb's book of life, these were cast. That is the governing thing. They whose names are not found written in the Lamb's book of life, these were cast into the lake of fire. And the wonderful thing is that we are required to have our names put in now, and we may know that our names are in. Rejoice, said Christ to his believers, your names are written in heaven. My fellow workers, says Paul, their names are in the book of life. Already they knew it. And it is the birthright of all who trust Christ to know this for certain, their names are written in. They shall never perish. So said Christ, he that hears my word, believes on him that sent me, shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. But it is his own self-same word that if we reject him, if we fail to receive his salvation, I tell you it is his own word, that even before we get to that great white throne, we are condemned already because we have not believed on the man.