The Great White Throne Judgment When Terrified Multitudes Stand Before God Unprepared
There is no topic as terrifying as the Great White Throne Judgment…but what do we really know about it? Let’s look at Revelation 20:11-15 together.
Who is on this majestic throne?
We can be sure that Jesus is sitting on this throne, for God has “committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22). Jesus is now the Judge of all the unredeemed. His throne is great, majestic, and being white, signifies His holy justice and impartiality.
If you can’t say yes to that simple question, you can’t affirm you are “walking with God,” which happens to be the greatest honor imaginable. Jesus, who had all power, would rise up before daybreak to commune with His Heavenly Father. Can we do any less?
D.L. Moody, who founded The Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute, was a great evangelist, but also a humble man who sought God with all of his heart. Read his words on daily time with God carefully: “A man can no more take in a supply of …
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23, ESV).
What Entertains Us?
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune uncovered what I believe to be the most serious threat to the Christian Home. The headline read, “Media Options Swamp Nation.” The bottom line is that the average American spends 9.6 hours a day inhaling media: watching television, going to the movies and surfing the Internet. Two months of every year are spent just watching TV; we have 392 cable channels to choose from and 40,000 DVD titles.
About 70% of the time, pornography falls into the hands of children, so when a friend of mine was a teenager and found a stash of his father’s magazines, he began to browse at the pictures. Though he became a Christian in college, the images stayed with him, and so did his habit. He kept his fantasy world intact, making sure that no one found out about his secret pleasure. He both loved pornography and hated it.
One man with a similar story said, “I lived like …
Just as a small spark can light a whole forest, so “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body” (James 3:6). With so much potential for good or ill, we should not be surprised that there is a great battle for the control of our tongues.
When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, He took control of the tongues of those waiting for Him. Today some people insist that this experience is for every believer; others are equally convinced that it is only one …
Most of us wish that God would work on us while we are asleep so that we could wake to face the day with unwavering confidence and faith! We’d like to be renewed by osmosis, hoping that just being in the vicinity of Christians would make us more Christ-like and that opening a Bible would make us biblical in our thinking. If only such good intentions could make us godly! But although salvation is a free gift, the Christian walk is one that takes some basic disciplines.
As we stood on the Mount of Olives, the words of the prophet Zechariah kept coming to mind, “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east.” (Zechariah 14:4, ESV).
This wasn’t my first visit to the Mount of Olives. But on this particular trip I co-led to Israel just weeks ago, I was especially awed to think that the most spectacular event of all history will take place on this spot… affecting every person who has ever lived on planet Earth. …
“The question of why the tsunami happened is a geological question, not a theological question.” So said a Christian cleric when asked about the terrible disaster that has riveted our attention in recent weeks. Most of the Christians interviewed on television have tried to protect God’s reputation by putting distance between Him and the horrid suffering that we’ve seen so graphically.
So, does God have ‘anything to do’ with natural disasters? We all agree that nature is fallen and as a result there are faults in the earth that cause earthquakes, and earthquakes cause tidal waves. So, the argument goes …
“When the dead are counted, the number will be more than we can bear,” said Mayor Giuliani. And so it is, the number 5,500 is more than we can bear.
Why did God not protect Washington and New York City?
The same question was asked back in A.D. 410, when Aleric the Goth overpowered the guards at the Salarian Gate and trashed the City of Rome. The citizens were angry, and blamed the disaster on the God of the Christians. They insisted that their own pagan gods would have done a better job of defending the city; but now the …
“We are presenting these texts as sacred books and sacred scriptures of the Gnostics.”
These words are found in the Introduction of The Gnostic Bible, a collection of documents which some believe give an alternate interpretation of the early days of Christianity. These writings lie at the heart of The Da Vinci Code and other kinds of esoteric literature which insist that originally Christianity was diverse, with no strict doctrines such as we find in the New Testament. In fact, according to this scenario, what we now call heresy was originally the teaching of …
