As you discuss this you begin to think, "Where did I read about a white throne? Didn't the white throne have something to do with the unsaved? About people being cast into the Lake of Fire?"

Slowly you come to realize the thousand years have already passed and you are going to be judged for your works. You know also that the maximum penalty that can be imposed by the Court is eternal confinement in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.

Now you are beyond all terror, only numb as you wait for your name to be called and the books opened that contain all you have thought, said, and done during your lifetime.

There is no earth to stand on, no way to faint or die. You are being held in the hand of God Almighty. Now you must wait to know the verdict of the Court.

Please do not regard the above as idle words. They are what the Scriptures teach. The Evangelical formula of how to be saved is terribly lacking in substance and truth. The prime error of today's Evangelical teaching is that once we "accept Christ" it is not critically important how we behave.

We are teaching and believing error!

Notice the words that the Lord Jesus spoke to some church people:

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (Revelation 2:23—NIV)

"I will repay each of you according to your deeds."

We are so abysmally deceived that when we read the Lord's warnings in the unchangeable book of Revelation we think "I am saved by grace" and are blinded to what we are reading. We do not stop and realize, "the people being addressed by the Lord and warned were also Christians who were ‘saved by grace.'" We have been terribly, horribly deceived!

The Key to the First Resurrection

The issue of the two resurrection is that of judgment, of when we are judged and delivered from sin.

As we mentioned previously, in order to attain the first resurrection you must have been judged by the Lord, and found worthy to be with Him forever, in advance of the resurrection. The first resurrection is the sentence of the Court handed down, that you are to be raised, filled with eternal life and immortality, and assigned a place in the army of the Lord that will descend from the air and install the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Obviously it is not possible to be raised from the dead, filled with eternal life and immortality, and after that be judged.

If we are not judged before the time of the first resurrection we will have to wait until the thousand-year Kingdom Age has transpired. Then we shall be raised from the dead and stand before Christ and His saints at the great White Throne. We shall be judged fairly according to our behavior on the earth, exactly as described by the Apostle Paul.

To be continued.