Thursday, December 20, 2018

Heaven or Flame- After Jesus Returns.


People are deceived- and the nature of deception is NOT realizing you are deceived.

Jesus is our LIGHT to the truth.

Jesus is the eye salve to cure our spiritual blindness.

Our hearts can be cleaned, our spirits renewed.

We dare not rest content with our knowledge but ever seek truth, ever desire the wisdom only God can give to us, ever long for our hearts to desire the love of our Savior, and only HIS love!

All by the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness and love of our God!

The Rich Man and Lazarus
By J. N. Andrews
Concluded…
Lazarus died a beggar. But he rests in hope, an heir to the inheritance promised Abraham. Eternal life and endless felicity are his, and by personification it is said that he is "comforted."

Dives(Rich Man) lives in the greatest splendor, and dies an impenitent man. The lake of fire is to be his portion. personification, he is represented as in it already. This is in accordance with the teaching of Paul, when he says of God that he calleth things that be not as though they were.

That is, God speaks of things that exist only in his purpose just as though they had a present existence; because they shall surely exist; even as he called Abraham the father of many nations, when as yet he had no son. Gen. 17; Rom. 4:16, 17. 

This is the more clearly seen when we consider that to Lazarus, in the silence of hades, there will not be a moment between his death, at the gate of the rich man, and his resurrection to eternal life, and not a moment to the rich man between the closing of his eyes in death, and his opening them in the resurrection to damnation.
 
That we have done right in hearing the testimony of "Moses and the prophets" on this subject, we have the authority of the parable itself to show. And we have this further evidence of the truth of this exposition that, without doing violence to a single text, we have a divine harmony on the subject of the dead in hades, in all that is said by Moses and the prophets and by Christ and the apostles. 

That those who conversed together are not disembodied spirits, but personified dead men, is further proved by the following facts:

1. Not one word is said of the spirit of any person named.
2. This conversation takes place in hades, which the sacred writers affirm to be in the depths of the earth.
3. The persons named are men that had lived, the one clothed in purple, the other covered with sores, and both were then dead. But these dead men have bodily organs, as eyes, fingers, tongues, etc.

But the truth on this point is sealed by the fact that Lazarus could only return to warn the rich man's brethren by being raised from the dead.

"Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead" -Gr., ean tis ek nekron anaste. It was not whether the spirit of Lazarus should descend from the third Heaven, but whether Lazarus himself should be raised from among the dead ones. This shows that the conversation did not relate to the coming back of disembodied spirits; and in fact that they were not disembodied spirits that here conversed. 

The parable of Dives and Lazarus does not therefore teach the present punishment of the wicked dead. And as there is nothing else on which to rest the doctrine, it must be given up as having no foundation in the Bible. The testimony shows that the wicked dead are asleep in sheol, where they await the resurrection to damnation. The following texts show that the resurrection and judgement of the wicked take place before they are punished; a doctrine in the highest degree reasonable, and sustained by many plain testimonies. 

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to RESERVE the unjust unto the day of Judgement to be punished." 2 Pet. 2:9. The day of Judgment must arrive before the retribution of the ungodly. 

"The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Pet. 3:7. The perdition of ungodly men comes at the Judgment.

"The wicked is RESERVED to the day of destruction; they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." Job 21:30. The next scripture will explain this. 
"Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29.

The wicked are first raised and judged, then afterward cast into the lake of fire. Rev. 20:11-15. 

Vengeance is taken upon all the ungodly together when the Lord comes with his saints. Jude 14, 15. 

The wicked are cast into the furnace of fire at the end, and not before. Matt. 13:30, 39-43, 49, 50. 

The burning day is the time when the wicked meet their fate. Mal. 4; Ps. 21:9. 

The wrath of God waits till the day of wrath. Rom. 2:5-9. 

Tribulation to the ungodly comes in connection with the advent of the Saviour. 2 Thess. 1.

The wicked dead are not punished till after the seventh trumpet. Rev. 11:15, 18. 

The Judge says, "Depart from me, ye cursed," and then, for the first time, the ungodly enter the furnace of fire. Matt. 25:41. 




*******

NOTE.  The reader will observe that texts are quoted in this tract with words sheol or hades, instead of grave, or pit, or hell; which our English version uses.  This is because sheol, or hades, is the word used in the original Hebrew or Greek Scriptures.  See the lists above.
Webster defines personification thus: "The giving to an inanimate being the figure or the sentiments and language of a rational being; prosopopoeia, as 'Confusion heard his voice.'"

     He defines personify thus: "To give animation to inanimate objects; to ascribe to an inanimate being the sentiments, actions, or language, of a rational being, or person, or to represent an inanimate being with the affections and actions of a person.  Thus we say, the plants thirst for rain.  'The trees said to the fig-tree, Come thou and reign over us.'"   Judges 9.

     He defines prosopopoeia, or intense personification, thus: "A figure in rhetoric by which things are represented as persons, or by which things inanimate beings, or by which an absent person is introduced as speaking, or a deceased person is represented as alive and present.  It includes personification, but is more extensive in its signification."

No comments: