The truth is (and no one knows it better than Adam and Eve) if you do not obey the commandments of God you will surely die, and there is no grace, or mercy, or love, or dispensation, or any other of the devices employed today that will prevent your death if you do not keep the commandments of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

A minority of the churches. The judgments concerning Sardis seem to be pointed toward the next age. Only a minority of the believers of Sardis are eligible for the first resurrection, the resurrection of the royal priesthood. Only those clothed in white robes are members of the priesthood. The rest will be judged for their refusal to return to their first works of prayer, of continual repentance and turning away from sin, of meditating day and night in God's Word and practicing what the Word teaches.

Only the victorious saints have the assurance in writing, in the book of the Bible that preempts all of the other books because it is a direct revelation from God through Jesus Christ, that the Lake of Fire no longer has authority over them.

Lukewarm Christians. How wonderful to be spit from Christ's mouth! Not really. When will the lukewarm be spit from Christ's mouth? Probably when He, after warning and chastising them, has decided they are not going to seek Him with their whole heart.

The sheep and goat nations. After no small amount of wondering we have come to the conclusion that the separation of the sheep from the goats will take place at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

To place the sheep and goat judgment at the time of the return of Jesus Christ presents certain problems, problems that do not arise if we move this judgment to the time of the White Throne.

For instance, we are of the opinion that these will be the sheep and goat nations of the entire Christian Era, and perhaps of all world history. Christ's brothers, who either were ignored or assisted by the nations, probably include all the righteous from the time of Abel. At least the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews could be viewed as suggesting this.

If this is true, if the sheep-goat judgment is not limited to nations on the earth at the time of the Lord's coming, then we have people being raised from the dead and judged prior to the time of the White Throne. This to me seems unlikely. Why pick on just the living nations when multitudes of people long since deceased also have either refused to help God's witnesses or else have gone to their assistance? In addition we have the problem of people being sent to the Lake of Fire at the beginning of the Kingdom Age, the time of Jesus' return. This means they will not be raised from the dead and appear before the White Throne at the end of the Kingdom Age. Actually we would then have had two White Throne judgments, one at the beginning and one at the end of the thousand year Kingdom Age.

To be continued.