| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
Three Kinds of Divinely Appointed Suffering, #4
He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. (Revelation 3:5—NIV)
Let me hasten to add that it is the wicked, those who rebel against God, who will experience total destruction. Just attending a Christian church or saying we believe in Jesus may not save us from such a fate. The issue is that of rebellion and wickedness, not that of our religious beliefs. This is an area of considerable confusion today.
The Lord Jesus did not come to bring the wicked to Heaven. Jesus came to make the wicked righteous so they belong in Heaven. The individual who persists in wickedness and rebellion, whether or not he or she is a Christian, stands in danger of being blotted from the Book of Life. This is the truth though it is denied today by Christian teachers.
The guarantee that we will not be blotted from the Book of Life is not given to the individual who professes Christ but to him who, through Christ, gains victory over sin and rebellion. The scriptural division is always between the righteous and the wicked, never between the Christian and the non-Christian. God is not nearly as interested in our "statement of faith" as He is in our personality and behavior. This is a very important concept and the Christians in America at the turn of the century need to understand it clearly.
The partial destruction of the personality. It is my point of view that some people shall experience the destructive wrath of God and yet not be thrown into the Lake of Fire.
Let me say first we are not presenting a purgatory. The concept of purgatory is based on the unscriptural idea that the goal of salvation is eternal residence in Heaven. The doctrine of purgatory is that some souls must remain outside of Paradise until they make amends for their sins on earth.
This is not what we are teaching by stating some people will experience the destructive wrath of God but not be thrown into the Lake of Fire. We do not teach the grace-Heaven religion but the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.
The Lord Jesus said there will be greatest and least in the Kingdom. The difference between the greatest and the least may be awesome. It may range from a position on the Throne of Christ to residence in the outer darkness.
No, it is not a case of either being in a glorious Paradise or being in a temporary purgatory or being in the deepest fire. The issue is what kind of person we shall be and in what kind of role in the Kingdom of God.
A favorite verse of Christians who have no intention of attempting to live a victorious life in Christ is as follows:
If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. (I Corinthians 3:14,15—NIV)
To be continued.