Now picking back up where we left off in John 5 and verse 29:
John 5:29
"And shall come forth; (now here God separates them,) they who have done good (in other words, people of trust, that’s the only good that a man can do is have trust in what God has said and then to do as Christ Jesus has done) unto the resurrection of life; (Eternal life. Into God’s presence. But the other side of the coin are the lost) and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
The lost, ungodly and wicked (those who call themselves by the name given to those who became Christ-ones) have remained in unbelief. They’ve never exercised trusting faith. And so they are workers of iniquity, they do evil. They’re going to come forth in a resurrection to what? "Condemnation." Horrible thought. But they’re going to. They’re not going to escape it. I don’t care if Cain has been dead, what, almost 6,000 years in our reckoning? Cain’s going to come forth in resurrection, as a lost person as far as we know. And where’s he going to stand? Before the Righteous Judge. Now we have to go back to Revelation chapter 20, don’t we?
Paul speaks of the resurrection of the redeemed or the justified ones in I Thessalonians 4:13-18, and I Corinthians 15:51-58, when the dead in Christ shall rise with new resurrected bodies fit for glory. But the lost are going to be resurrected to stand before the judge and to hear their sentence here in Revelation chapter 20. And this is at the end of the 1,000 years of the Kingdom Age, and John says:
Revelation 20:11-12a
"And I saw a great white throne, 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, (the dead of humanity, those who remained separated from God through personal choice and unbelief) small and great, (the great emperors, the great politicians, the corporate CEO’s, the great pastors, evangelists and yes Sunday school teachers all of them, small and great, and they’re going to be resurrected to) stand before God;"
Now what person of the Godhead will they stand before? The Son! Christ Jesus is going to be the Judge. The Righteous Judge. He will send no one to their doom that doesn’t deserve it. He will never make a mistake. For He personally knows those who heard and obeyed Him and did follow Him through the cross, death thereby, burial, resurrection and ascension that fateful first day. How by trusting God and His voice and thereby acquiring His faith. And so they stand before God the Son:
Revelation 20:12b
"…and the books (plural) were opened: and another book (singular) was opened, which is the book of life: (to show the list of names that are no longer in that singular book) and the dead (Not those who by personal choice have passed through the veil of His flesh and His blood, the lost or lawless) were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."
So the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books (plural) according to their works. Or according to their individual faith or lack of it. God’s record. They’re there from beginning to end of every life. Their the wicked and lawless ones.
Now you know, years and years back I use to have to contemplate something like that. My goodness, Heaven would be full of books. But if mankind can put the whole King James Bible in a chip as small as a pin head, then God won’t have any trouble keeping track of everybody’s works. It’s not going to take a lot of room doing it. His technology is far beyond human technology. So don’t ever doubt this. Yes, every lost person is going to come before Him, and the first thing they’re going to be shown is that the Book of Life does not have their name in it any longer. Now you can look at it two ways. Either they were never entered into the Book of Life, or, like some say, every person that’s born, their name goes in then when they leave life as an unbeliever, in lawlessness, it’s taken out. You take your pick.
They’re going to stand before the Judge and they’re going to have to see that their name is not in the Lamb’s Book of Life (how does one get into the book of Life? John 12:24 tells us) and then they will be judged out of those books which are a complete record of everything, from the day they were born until we die or fall to sleep. And according to those works (works are not of the physical kind but are simply of trust or unbelief as these are what is meant by,"to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" Philippians 2:12) they will then suffer their condemnation.
Now, it stands to reason there’s going to be a lot of good people there. Good people who have never done anything vile. They’ve never done anything, what we would call wicked or sinful, the lawless but they’ve never become partakers of Paul’s Gospel of Acts 20:24; I Corinthians 11:23-32, 15:1-4, Romans 10:9-10 and 13 and Galatians 2:20. They stayed in their unbelief. It’s going to be frightening. Because you know, I’ve said there’s only one sin that will condemn a person to a lost eternity and it’s lawlessness which is unbelief! Not their wickedness, not their sin. It’s lawlessness, unbelief. And so yes, there will be some who are going to be ‘good people.’ But they were still in lawlessness, unbelief – condemned.
Then you’ve got the murderers and the wicked, just the lowest of humanity. Yes, they’re going to suffer. In fact, let me go back and show from Scripture that there will be degrees of punishment. We’ve done this before but you know, a lot of time has gone by and we’ve got to repeat some of these things. Come back with me to Matthew chapter 10, and then in chapter 11. But let’s start in chapter 10 of Matthew. And again it’s the words of the Lord Himself.
Matthew 10:15
"Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city."
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