An Epitaph for Death [part two] ...

In the previous portion of this study, our story in Revelations chapter 20 began AFTER the second coming to reunite us with our Lord and our God had already taken place.  The final end of evil remains the part of the story still to be told.  The Bible is more than just the story of the redemption of humanity.  It also serves to tell the story of the rise and eradication of evil itself.  That final ending part of the story of evil had only just begun.  Satan was bound alone with his demonic following here in the destroyed earth for 1000 years.  During this time we, the redeemed, review the judgments of our God upon those who have steadfastly refused every opportunity to accept the gift of His perfect freedom to love others.  The wicked lost have been asleep in their graves during this millennia but now, the time for evil is nearly done.  The time to see evil end is about to be revealed.

John continues in verse 7 … “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, [verse 8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”  As mentioned earlier the minute the wicked are raised, Satan looks with singular purpose to do one thing, build an army that can defeat the angels he lost to before.  Satan raises the old argument citing history from the tower of Babel, that if mankind unites behind a single purpose, we can defeat God.  Satan does not discourage evil in his ranks, he promotes it.  But in this instance he is not looking to lose troop numbers, so there is to be no early killing of each other in the ranks of his army.  We are to save our blood lust for the meek and mild residents of the city of heaven.  Notice too, there is no rebellion in his ranks.  No one stands up and rejects his ideas of conquest and murder.  No one refuses what he offers.

Think about it.  Scripture foretells all of this.  You are reading the future history of evil and righteousness right now in great detail.  Yet despite a sure knowledge of the outcome, if you find yourself awakened to be on the side of evil, you will join this insanity willingly.  What choice do you have?  What other fate is there?  Perhaps some join with the full knowledge of their impending doom.  Perhaps some continue to perpetrate evil acts of immorality and self-pleasure as much as they can while they await the coming battle.  How else to motivate his troops but to offer them temporary pleasures they might have been too timid to partake of while there was yet hope of redemption?  Evil does not look to reform and better itself, it looks only to deepen in the course it pursues.  What level of immorality could scarcely be imagined now, is fully set loose now that only one final battle remains.  Once again, the decisions to be lost or saved are seen cemented in the continued choices and actions of those in both camps.  The righteous are racked with grief at their own inadequacy in loving the lost back to redemption.  While the wicked are steeped in nothing but hate to see those who they formerly purported to love, killed to get out of their way.

Despite everything, despite the clarity of these revelations given to John and to us, NO ONE changes their minds or pursues a different course.  It is at this point, when the wicked approach the city of New Jerusalem descended from God to our world for the final battle, that a pause occurs.  The sky will serve as the 3D HD TV Screen from which a movie will be presented.  It is the actual story of humanity, of the genesis of evil, of the mission of love to redeem.  It is the story of His sacrifice here in life and on Calvary.  And within this picture is revealed to each individual the history of the attempts by God to see each of them redeemed.  All will see what Christ did.  All will see what was done in their own lives to see them redeemed.  And the results of this panoramic picture, perhaps the greatest movie ever played will have a unified result, even in the camp of the wicked.  ALL will bow before Christ and acknowledge that only the Lamb is worthy of worship and praise.  It is an involuntary response from a heart and sentient mind created by God.  No one can help themselves from doing anything other than this, up to and including Satan himself.

What happens next however is the reaction and distinction between good and evil.  The righteous once again have prostrated themselves before the Lamb, throwing their crowns to the ground at the thought of their own unworthiness.  They rise only as He comforts them and assures them once again of His so great love for them.  They think only to serve this God of Love in any way they can, according to His great purpose.  They carry no weapons.  They intend no blood shed.  They are not there to fight.  They are armed with only a love and gratitude to Christ that cannot be comprehended by us now, or by those who lay before them at that time.  They, like God, long for a different outcome.  They wish only that those who are lost, who at least now have seen the worthiness of Christ would seek one more time a chance at redemption.  Perhaps even now it is not too late.  But alas, one moment of clarity in the lives of evil, does not result in any desire to change.

And so it begins.  The evil ones rise from their acknowledgement of the love of Christ, with only one thought on their collective minds, to kill Christ.  They realize that so great a love exists, and since they cannot be a part of it, they must kill it to have peace.  But like at His second coming, this battle will end before it begins.  John continues in verse 9 saying … “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. [verse 10] And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Notice first that the attacking troops are “devoured” by the fires of God.  The devil is thrown into a lake of fire and will die last, in order that he suffer the longest and be punished for the magnitude of his deceptions and evil and pain he has caused.  John continues in verse 11 … “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. [verse 12] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”  He who longed to be their savior, stands now to impose the sentences of those who have been judged in the courts of heaven.  There is no escape for any who have refused to embrace redemption.  All men and women, both small and great are to have sentences passed.  They will burn and suffer in proportion to the pain they have caused. 

John continues in verse 13 … “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”  There is no form of death that a wicked person could have experienced in this life that does not give way to these series of events.  Whether lost in a drowning in the depths of the sea, or obliterated in the blast of an atomic weapon, all the lost have been raised, all have seen the judgment of Christ, and all are to now experience the lake of fire in direct proportion to the pain they have caused.  Those who have caused little pain for others will be consumed fully and quickly.  Those who have caused much pain for others will be consumed slower, and will die only over a period of time, receiving in direct proportion to what they have caused, the pain they have wrought.

The effects of this punishment are to be eternal, just as the choice while they lived to embrace evil would not be altered even after seeing the great love of Christ in attempting to redeem them.  There will be no further chances at redemption, nor any further resurrections to look forward to.  Whatever the length of lifeline they have lived to date, it is to be their last.  Immortality is NOT on the menu.  A permanent existence even in torture is NOT to be their fate.  They are to burn, and die, and be no more.  Satan and his demonic hoard will die last, but die they will.  The universe is to be cleansed of all evil, not have it exist forever, even in a tortured state.  Justice demands the death of evil, not its continual preservation. 

Imagine the alternative for a moment.  If traditional views of hell were correct, then Satan is obviously not impacted by the flames, or otherwise how is he able to continue to deceive mankind for the last 6000 years while hell was going on, presumably starting with Cain.  After some period of time humans will adapt to a pain that does not kill them.  It is in our nature to do this.  So either God would have to constantly continue to invent new ways to cause us pain, or whatever the fires do, would eventually become commonplace to us.  Then too, even if punishment could be eternally causing pain, at what point would our sentence be served and the demands of justice met?  Even Hitler, should have atoned for his murders at some point.  It might take 6 million years to atone, or perhaps 6 billion, but at some point doesn’t Hitler have the right to state that his debt is paid?  Eternal torture perpetuates evil forever, instead of eliminating it as God has promised.  And can you imagine the acts of evil that would continue even in a venue like hell, if hell were a place that lasts forever.  Lastly, how could any of us, the redeemed who think of nothing but to love others, find happiness while those who we loved, continue to exist in a state of perpetual torture.  None of this makes sense.  It is a misrepresentation of the character of God, as told to us by His enemy, and with attempts at using scripture to prove it.

Our traditional teachings of an eternally burning hell are the doctrines of the enemy, designed to perpetuate a myth of an unfair God who desires pain and not redemption.  But to punctuate this fact, and undo any lingering doubts in our minds, John continues and concludes this epitaph in verse 14 … “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. [verse15] And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”  The final thing to be consumed by the fires sent by God are “death” and “hell”.  Death itself is to be put to an end.  Once Satan has died, once there are no more alive who have chosen to embrace evil, death will NO longer be relevant or needed in our universe ever again.  Its purpose will be ended with no future victims of its concepts.  Evil will now be in a state of non-existence.  Only good will remain.  The fires will go out.  They will do their eternal job, in inflicting an eternal punishment, but then when the job is completed, they will be needed no more.  There is to be no more hell.  There is to be no more death.  They are both to be ended.  This revelation is to be their epitaph.

There is no balance between good and evil, as these are mutually exclusive concepts where only one can rule.  Should evil win, life itself would cease to exist for all the roads of evil lead to death, the death of others, and eventually the death of self to escape what we become.  Balance, has never been needed.  Balance, is the mantra of the enemy.  Good does not need evil to survive or find identity.  Good is love, and it will on this day, overcome evil forever more.  In the battle between good and evil, good was always destined to win, as existence itself was the prize in question.  Evil is destined to die, to be extinguished forever in every form. 

From this point forward, even death will be gone forever.  The cycle of life is all we have ever known.  We witness in the leaves of the trees, the cycle of birth, growth, decline, decay, and rebirth.  But once death is gone, perhaps the leaves will be ever green.  Perhaps there is no decay anymore, perhaps to pluck a rose from a bush is to begin a new plant as a result.  We have no idea what it means to live life without the reminders of our own mortality.  We live now treasuring every moment because of the brevity of our lives, but then perhaps we will live treasuring every moment because every moment will have no end.

We might have thought the story of our redemption ended when once we were reunited with Christ.  And perhaps our redemption story was over at that point.  But scripture did not end then, nor did the revelations of Jesus Christ given to John.  The disposition of evil in finality had yet to be given, the ending of death itself was an important point that must be relayed.  This revelation helps us understand what love means, and what justice means.  This revelation dictates the end of evil forever and ever.  It amplifies the finality of the choices we make.  Should we elect to be redeemed, it will be so by the power and love of Jesus Christ.  But should we elect to place our salvation in ourselves, our self-deception will be our undoing.  The evil within us MUST be removed.  For ALL evil will one day meet its end.  If it is still a part of us on that day, our fate will be that of evil.  If we trust to Jesus Christ, our fate will be that of love that remains.

But even now, scripture was not to be at an end.  There is yet more to be revealed.  There is yet more to this story …