Beginning to Begin Anew

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dead, death, earth, fire, hades, lake, second death

Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

Rev 20:14  And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire.

Rev 20:15  And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.

Ok here is something I bet none of us ever considered.  Look at verse 14, death and hades are cast into the lake of fire.  When we think of death, we think of cessation of bodily function as in the heart arrests and stops and the lungs fail and cease to bring in the oxygen we so desperately need for physical continuance in the physical plane or the world around us. The eyes close the final exhalation and the brain madly scrambles to perhaps restart things or run the video of your life before your eyes, and you … die.  But God sees this form of death as a pause and discontinuance of the life in the flesh; never forget Jesus experienced this process first hand.  He experienced it in perhaps one of the most gruesome manners ever, Roman crucifixion. Now Jesus being fully God as if He were no man AND fully man as if He were not God is His own conundrum of existence, He being God in flesh had a “deathless life” He actually had to permit Himself to be torn apart with whips and bruised with impacts and pierced with nails and allowed to let go of that which made His body function even under such strain.  It is said that the true cause of death may very well be a “broken heart” in that the strain may have actually ruptured His heart.  If He keeps all things by the Word of His power and those things are the universe around us how hard do you think it is for Him to keep alive despite all the major damage until the precise moment when the wrath of the Father had fully spent itself and that is another thing altogether in that this wrath He took and took and took until there was no more to take must have had an impact on Him physically.  Thus once the task of redemption ransom expiation propitiation atonement and fulfillment of His own law was complete His purpose for remaining was over and He committed His spirit to the Father.  But having died on one day and being entombed the next and over the night part of the third (Jewish days run sundown to sundown so they start at night) such that as the sun rose perhaps during what we would call the morning watch part of the third day, Jesus body not only is restored to full function but that void of decay and somehow it slips it bindings.  It is said that the thing which made the disciples believe was that the wrappings of the body from the neck down were INTACT or still as if wrapped around something but the something was missing.  The napkin over the face is what was tampered with in a manner that suggested the occupant was finished with His occupancy. At least that is one theory put forth of the facial napkin and the other may be that it was not tampered with at all and simply lay as if it had been covering something that sunk beneath it and was gone.  Either way it was its own mystery until He showed up in a locked upper chamber of someone’s home.  Is it not interesting that the gospels don’t record that the owner of the house below the locked upper room never saw Him at all?  So the way we view death is not the way God views death.  Also if you go back to the passage in Revelation that talks about the prophetess Jezebel, Jesus speaks of killing her children WITH DEATH.  It would appear that to God Death and Hades are entities which might also be places but all this goes into one lake that burns eternally.  A lake of fire with brimstone is only place… where the lava is constantly molten.

Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.

Now there are passages all over scripture that allude to this verse.

2Pe 3:5  For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God;

2Pe 3:6  by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

2Pe 3:7  but the heavens that now are, 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.

2Pe 3:10  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.

2Pe 3:11  Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness,

2Pe 3:12  looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Mat 5:18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.

Mar_13:31  Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Luk_21:33  Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Heb 1:10  And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands:

Heb 1:11  They shall perish; but thou continuest: And they all shall wax old as doth a garment;

Heb 1:12  And as a mantle shalt thou roll them up, As a garment, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, And thy years shall not fail.

In fact this is even referenced to in the Old Testament.

Psa 102:25  Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands.

Psa 102:26  They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

Psa 102:27  But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end.

Isa 34:1  Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye peoples: let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all things that come forth from it.

Isa 34:2  For Jehovah hath indignation against all the nations, and wrath against all their host: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

Isa 34:3  Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies shall come up; and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

Isa 34:4  And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fade away, as the leaf fadeth from off the vine, and as a fading leaf from the fig-tree.

Isa 34:5  For my sword hath drunk its fill in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

Isa 34:6  The sword of Jehovah is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Jehovah hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

Now verse four is what we are looking at but I chose the passage because it also speaks of the last major battle before the second death.

In each verse we find the old being “rolled up” or gathered up or burned up and being destroyed and disposed of, which means our monuments and legacies will go with them, so much for enduring testimonies of men.

(Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. )  So we have NEW GENESIS, God has created again.  Recall that He has told us He will make all things … new?

But lets go on.

Rev 21:2  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

Now it may seem as though this is   It is a ready-made place and in today’s thought of building and construction one might say it is “modular” and they would be correct.  This is a complete ready to go assembly that will be placed on a massive piece of real estate.  What we need to remember here is that the maps of the Earth as we know it with its seas do NOT exist now.  So the land masses are different which means the national boundaries are different.  This then gives credence to certain passages of the Old Testament.

Isa 11:16  And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

Isa 19:23  In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.

Isa 19:24  In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:

Isa 19:25  Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

Isa 35:8  And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

I cannot at present locate the passage I want but it talks about there being land set aside and sparely inhabited all throughout the Palestinian lands ( I think) It is a massive foot print.

Rev 21:3  And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God:

This is Temple, the Greek word of Tabernacle is a tent or a gathering place as it were, but this place is where the Living God will now once again be among humanity but as King of the Nations and those who are not fearful, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sorcerers, idolaters, or liars, these do not inherit the Kingdom because this is the Kingdom fully manifest.  Here there will be no sorrow no tears no pain no sickness no evil, in the presence of This King no sadness or darkness will be. Because Jesus will remove all the reasons of the heart and circumstances for it.

Rev 21:4  and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.

Rev 21:5  And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true.

Rev 21:6  And he said unto me, They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

Rev 21:7  He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

He who over comes….  This references the first three chapter so the book which I shall cover.

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Judgment Day

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book, judge, LAMB, law, throne, virtue, white, yom kippur

Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.

In Jewish tradition, at Yom Kippur they tend to say “may your name be written in the Book of Life”; we know this to be the LAMB’s Book of Life. But there are other books opened.  In the next verse we find that somehow every person who is now produced to stand before this Great White Throne is being judged according to “THEIR WORKS” and in the fifteenth verse the deciding factor of their judgment was whether or not they were found in the “book of life”.  In some Jewish tradition they talk about the book of deeds.  It is said that on Yom Kippur each year that the books are opened and it is decided who lives and who dies and who prospers and who does not. The other Book by virtue of a need for a Standard of Law would be the book of the Law.  By these two books perhaps does a soul get judged, and is weighed and found wanting for as James will tell us, if in any point of the Law we fail to live up to it and comply with it then we are guilty of the whole law. (Jas 2:10  For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all. )  Here are a few more facts that argue for the Book of the Law being used to compare to the Book that may well record all the deeds of men.

Rom 2:12  For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law;

Now look at this; this one statement covers the Jew who is NOT IN CHRIST and the Gentile as well.  The Law of Moses judges the Jew and the Deeds of the Gentile either stack up to Christ or … they are found … wanting.

Rom 3:20  because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.

Justification is the key for without being able to be justified before God as Judge Eternal there is no entrance into The Kingdom and realize this that there are no Christians here….at least there are none whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s book of life.  In Justification you are made Not Guilty, which puts you in “right standing” before God and grants you access into the Kingdom.  But since by the Law or Deeds no one can be “justified” these have no chance.  You see dear reader there is no deed, no action or sacrifice or ceremonial thing that will replace being recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life which means saved by grace through faith and that not of yourselves.  This Justification is Salvation and that as a free gift. Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Just as in the other judgment previously the wages of their being in Christ were paid, now here for these the wage is being paid.

One more book is actually recorded in Scripture.  A book of Remembrance.

Mal 3:16 Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name.

This was in connection with a rebuke of Malachi the Prophet against the Israelites. Now the actual book may still be used or was only used on this occasion. However what this does tell us is that God listens in on and considers every word of our mouths.  Jesus confirms the thought of God listening on and weighing out our conversations.

Mat 12:32 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.
Mat 12:33 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by its fruit.
Mat 12:34 Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Mat 12:35 The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Mat 12:36 And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Mat 12:37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Now some folks say they will have some explaining to do before God when they get there but the reality is that the explanations and adjustments were to come in our lives in flesh un-glorified here on Earth BEFORE death.  It appears that Eternity is a fixed aspect.  There will be no explaining or reasoning with the MIND of God.

So then its not just what we did or didn’t do with Jesus but also what we said.