THE TRENTON BULLETIN

THE TRENTON BULLETIN

Trenton Church of Christ, Trenton, Florida

Railroad crossings dot the landscape of every community. It is at this place that men in automobiles meet men in very large trains. Without proper restraints and safety regulations many people would be killed in the inevitable collision of auto and train. Especially prone to tragic consequences of train crossings are buses filled with school children. By law the school bus must stop at each crossing, quiet the passengers and open the door to listen for oncoming trains. When all is clear the bus can proceed and the endless chatter of the school children can resume.

A remarkable thing happens when the bus approaches the crossing. At the urging of the bus driver the bus becomes very quiet. The driver takes precautionary actions to ensure the safe crossing and then continues on the way. As soon as the door closes and the bus begins to move the volume increases by three hundred decibels. If you try to take a roll of the passengers it is very hard to get them to quiet down. When you roll up to a railroad crossing, everyone gets quiet. Danger has a way to give warning to even a bus load of band members.

Understanding the peril of the crossing lends itself to apply a lesson from the word of God. “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:9-11). Paul outlines three important lessons in this verse. First, our lives should be patterned after a desire to please God. Again in 1 Thessalonians 4:1,2 he writes, “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.” Pleasing the Lord is following His commandments because we love Him (John 14:15).

Secondly, our obedience is tempered by the knowledge that we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. The necessity of our accounting before the Lord is clearly seen. We know that death is certain and as certain as death is so is the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). At the judgment our life will be presented before the Lord in accordance with whether we have lived a righteous life or unrighteous. The judgment serves as the declaration of our eternal destiny.

The third point is the understanding of God’s terror or righteous judgment upon all men. The terror of the Lord gives us the power to persuade men. There is danger in neglecting this judgment. As the students gave respect for the fear of the crossing so must we learn to give respect for the judgment day. The consequences are eternal. The Lord has all power and He will execute His righteous judgment to every man. No one will escape. The knowledge of the judgment should make us grow silent in our noisy lives of trivial pursuits. We will all be at the throne of the Most High and “as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11-12).

Does the New Testament Teach That the Wicked Will Be Punished Eternally in the Lake of Fire?

It is asserted sometimes that God punished the wicked in Old Testament days, but that He is shown to be loving. and compassionate in the New Testament; therefore, the Old Testament concept of punishment for sin is thought to differ from the New Testament concept.

Let us begin by noting what Jesus Christ said on this important subject. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). The word for "destroy" that Jesus used here means "to devote or give over to eternal misery" (Thayer's Greek English Lexicon). "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (Matthew 23: 33). This was the question which our Lord put to the Pharisees and scribes.

Depicting the final judgment of the wicked, Jesus said, "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels...And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (Matthew 25:46). Our Lord made three points clear in this passage: (1) The wicked will be given "punishment." (2) It will be "everlasting" punishment. (3) It will be in the "fire" prepared for the devil and his angels.

Now notice what the apostle Peter had to say on this subject. "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly . . . The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished" (2 Peter 2:4-9). Peter here gave three arguments to show that God will reserve the unjust to be punished. First, God did not allow sinful angels to escape judgment. Second, He spared not the wicked world of Noah's day. Third, God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah.

No writer in the New Testament spoke more clearly on the subject at hand than Paul. "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). Paul taught that in the judgment God will render to every man according to his deeds. "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality," God will render "eternal life." "But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness," God will render "indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile" (Romans 2:6-9).

We often think of John as the apostle of love because he had so much to say about love, but John, like the Lord and the other apostles, understood that the wicked will be punished in the lake of fire. Hear John's testimony. "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" (Revelation 20:10). "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15). "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: Which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).

All that any of us can know about the punishment which the wicked will receive is what God has disclosed in the Scriptures. If we cannot believe what the Bible says about hell, why believe what it says about heaven, or anything else? God is loving and kind; but at the same time, His divine law demands that there be some penalty for violation. Justice could not be served in the absence of punishment for the wicked: It is for God, not man, to decide on the penalty for sin. Let us not presume to be wiser than God.

A while ago Tim Blackford gave me an article titled “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” To understand the article one must understand the Premillennial Doctrine and the Rapture. Let me first try to define the rapture doctrine. By rapture, they mean the truly righteous will be taken up to be with Jesus and every body else will be left behind. Hence, we have the “Left Behind” books that were popular a number of years ago. Supposedly this will be sudden and without warning. The righteous will just disappear and everyone else will eventually realize that their loved ones are gone. According to this theory there will be seven years for those left behind to become believers. During this time the anti-Christ will appear. At the end of the seven years, Jesus will appear again and there will be this battle to end all battles called Armageddon.

The point of this article is that there is an enterprising group that for a service of $40 will allow you to set up an email account. When the Rapture occurs and all of those that are left behind realize they have really been left behind, those of this company that also are left behind will send out all of these emails. What will these emails have in them? The article suggest leaving documents that will allow your love ones access to your bank account, places you have hidden valuables, or the power of attorney. Why will all of this be necessary? Because there will be no bodies and it will take seven years before the courts can declare you legally dead. Of course, at the end of the seven years, Christ comes back and you will not need the bank account, aunt Pearl’s jewelry, or the power of attorney.

I found the article to be both humorous and sad. It just goes to show that someone is always trying to figure out a way to make a dollar. What needs to be proven from the scriptures is the whole “Rapture Doctrine.” You see this doctrine is based upon a false doctrine which is, Jesus came to set up a physical kingdom. When the Jews rejected Jesus, then God had to substitute the church in place of the kingdom. Eventually Christ will come back and set up the Kingdom. This will restore the land of Canaan to Israel and Christ will reign on the throne of David for 1000 years. (Keep in mind this is the simplified version of this doctrine.)

The problem is none of this is actually taught in the Bible. First, Christ came not to establish a physical kingdom but a spiritual one. To Pilate, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servant would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here” (John 18.36). Ironically, the Jews were willing and ready to fight for a physical kingdom. After feeding the multitude in John 6 we are told Jesus “perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king” (John 6.15) it was at this time that Jesus withdrew from the people. If Jesus had intended to set up a kingdom, He would have done so. Can anyone possibly believe that the Son of God, the one with the power to calm the seas, the one that fed the multitude with a few loaves of bread and a few fish, the one that could raise the dead did not have the power to establish a physical kingdom? Jesus was not crucified because He came to set up a physical kingdom and failed, but because He came to set up a spiritual kingdom.

Jesus did establish His kingdom and it still exists today. “He has delivered us form the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1.13). Before anyone can be in the kingdom it must exist, therefore, those people being in the kingdom proves its existence.

Secondly, Jesus intended to die on the cross for our sins. Those preaching the Premillennial Doctrine must say that Jesus was surprised that He was rejected by His people and crucified. Obviously this means that God, the Father, was also befuzzled by His Son’s rejection. Yet we can turn to many prophecies in the Old Testament that point toward the very things they said God did not plan. For instance, Psalms 22 as it describes the pain and agony of Jesus on the cross. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and later on that payment was used to purchase potter’s field as is spoken of in Zechariah 11.12ff. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection were all prophesied in the Old Testament. It was God’s plan for Jesus to die for the sins of mankind.

A simple but important question is this: “Why did God allow Jesus to die on the cross if Jesus came to set up a physical kingdom?” The only reason for Jesus’ death on the cross was to pay the debt owed by man, Romans 6.23. If Jesus had set up a physical kingdom and not been crucified, then man would still be lost in sin. If Jesus died to pay for man’s sin, then setting a physical kingdom would have had no purpose.

Thirdly, Jesus will come back one time and everyone will know about it. The Premillennialists have Jesus coming back at the Rapture, and then seven years later. However, the Bible says Jesus will return and all those in the graves will come forth. At that time the kingdom will be delivered to God and the earth will be destroyed, see 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18. Both the righteous and unrighteous will know when Jesus returns. Both the righteous and unrighteous will come from the grave and both will appear before the judgment seat of God, John 5.28-29 and 2 Corinthians 5.10.

Do not worry about what will happen to your bank account or who has the power of attorney; we need to be concern about what will happen to our soul.

· No one ever graduates from Bible study until he meets the Author face to face.