Day 363 – Revelation & the Final Consequences

2 days to go! Today’s passages are, once again, hard to read, so I suggest reading with someone else if you can.

• We enter our last three days of the year with a sombre reminder that God’s punishment for those who have walked away from Him will be eternal. Like the readings on day 362, these words should convict us with the seriousness of what it means for those who do not repent and believe the good news of Jesus.
• What, according to the final verses in Revelation 20, will be the final end for those whose names are not written in the Book of Life? What is also thrown into the lake?
• How does this make you feel? We know the God is just and keeps His promises, and this is the response God promises for those who have rebelled against Him. But the world around us might say that “a loving God would love me for who I am and what I’ve done, and I think I’m OK”. Do you find yourself tempted by this argument? How can you think scripturally, rather than humanly, about God’s promises in Revelation 20?
• We’ve read the passage in Luke before, haven’t we? Why did we read it again today? What’s the clear link between Jesus’ parable, and the message in Revelation?
• Think about those “rich men” from the parable that you know in your life. I mean, of course, those who don’t follow Jesus. If you are convicted of truth of these words, and the future that they are headed towards, what is stopping you from speaking to them and urging them to come to Jesus?
• The parable reminds us that there will be a time when it will be too late to turn to Christ. Pray for your friends, and for yourself. Our names will only be in that Book of Life if Jesus writes them in.
• Look at the words Isaiah used to finish his prophecy. They finish with the same warning. Isaiah doesn’t want his readers to be in any doubt about this.
• These words are uncomfortable, but they shouldn’t be surprising. Churches spend a lot more time speaking of the love of Jesus than the reality of Hell, but the Bible speaks clearly about both. These two things go hand in hand, of course; the reason Jesus’ death on the cross is so wonderful is that it rescues us from that reality.

Yesterday’s passages ended with the joyful reminder that Christ saves us from the destruction we’ve just been reading about. Let’s finish on great news today. For those who have their name in the Book, this moment will be joy *uncontained*. Death is defeated and so begins eternity with our Creator: