The 260 Journey

Day 258 Today's Reading: Revelation 20 A young man was drinking heavily and decided to go for a swim at a California beach. Fortunately, an older man was watching the young man as he entered the water and saw that when he dove in, he did not come back up for air. The older man ran toward the struggling young man, dove into the water, and saved his life. A few years later, that same young man was standing in court facing a sentence on drug charges. Suddenly, the young man realized the judge was the very same man who’d saved his life when he was drowning years earlier. He looked at the judge and said, “Sir, don’t you recognize me? You saved my life a few years ago. Don’t you remember?” The judge nodded and then looked at the young man. “Young man,” he said. “Then I was your savior, but now I am your judge.” While we are alive, Christ is available to all who will trust Him now as their Savior. But if we reject Him in this life, we will stand before the Lord and know Him only as our Judge. Savior or Judge—that decision is ours. What will we do with Jesus while we are alive? If we do not choose Jesus as Savior, Revelation 20 speaks about the setting and the court we will be in called the great white throne judgment—in this final scene in human history where all will be judged. This is what John the apostle saw: I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15) The way we live here will have eternal, unchangeable, and profound consequences. Who we are today—and who we are becoming today—is preparing us for who we will be for all eternity. And only in this life can we impact our eternity. There are two judgments in heaven: the great white throne and the judgment seat of Christ. The latter is for the saints of God who receive a reward for their Christian life. The great white throne judgment is when it’s all said and done. It’s over for a person if they appear at this heavenly hearing. A misconception is that while we are at the throne of God, that will determine whether we go to heaven or hell. Whether we go to heaven or hell is not determined in heaven, it is determined in this life right now. There is no opportunity to reroute our travel plans after we have died. One second after we die, our eternal destination is unalterably fixed. If Christ has not bore our punishment in this life, we must bear our own in the next. As Matthew Henry tells us, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.” Your attendance is mandatory at one of two judgments: the judgment seat of Christ or the great white throne judgment. This is an appointment humanity will keep. Which one you will be at will be determined by whether you are born again or not. If you are not born again, you will be at this Revelation 20 great white throne judgment. Here are the characteristics of this Revelation 20 judgment: We will be judged fairly: no jury bias, no venue change because none is needed. We will be judged thoroughly: no loopholes and nothing missed on the evidence. We will be judged impartially: all proceedings will be fair, and no one can buy off the Judge. We will be judged individually: no one will stand with us as we stand before the Judge of all the earth. What makes this day incredible is that the Savior of the world will become the Judge of the world. Jesus tells us that God will not judge us on that day, but the Son will: “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). The day the Savior turns to judge. When I think of John’s description of this frightening day, my mind goes all the way back to the book of Genesis and a conversation Abraham had with the angel of the Lord. It was right before the judgment and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 18:25, Abraham made an eternal statement in question form: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The resounding answer to Abraham’s question is yes! During one of Billy Graham’s final interviews, Diane Sawyer asked, “What do you hope [people] will say?” In other words, she wanted to know how he would like to be remembered” He responded, “I don’t want them to say big things about me because I don’t deserve them. I want to hear one Person say something nice about me, and that’s the Lord. When I face Him, I want Him to say to me, ‘Well done, thy good and faithful servant,’ but I’m not sure I’m going to hear it.” The humility of Billy Graham is staggering. I think he did hear those words a few years ago when he passed away. C. S. Lewis said this about that day: “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.”

Day 257 Today's Reading: Revelation 19 For a number of chapters, we have been through some dark moments, but now in today’s chapter, the hope bursts on the scene with loud shouting! It is God making all things right, and heaven explodes in praise over it: After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bondservants on her.” And a second time, they said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bondservants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.” Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.” (Revelation 19:1-6) Hallelujah! That’s a great word to use when great things happen. Heaven shouted it! We see it here four times. A great multitude in heaven shouted it twice: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” Then the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures said, “Hallelujah.” Then the bondservants said hallelujah so loudly that it sounded like Niagara Falls or thunder in the heavens. What a great word. But what does hallelujah mean? The word is an interjection, a part of grammar that is an interruption to a sentence. It is an emotional and, many times, a good interruption. It’s a word that just pops out. It bursts out of the mouths because of joyful hearts. That happens in many of the psalms of the Old Testament. It’s a Hebrew expression that means, “Praise Yahweh [the Lord].” We would translate the phrase as praise the Lord! It’s a victorious shout. In the New Testament, hallelujah only occurs in Revelation 19 in the triumphant song of praise as heaven sings about God finally making things right and getting His banquet ready to celebrate. In this chapter, all of humanity has been waiting for this day of judgment. God is avenging the wrongs done to His people. It’s a great word to use when something great happens. I think hallelujah does two things: it gives God the credit, and it reminds me that He is good to me. We will get many hallelujah days now and will not have to wait until Revelation 19 to join heaven’s chorus. It’s important that God gets the credit for them. I love the simplicity of the word and the magnitude of it. It’s an exercise that we should start using immediately. When you have a good physical, and all the numbers are healthy, throw out a hallelujah. When your child has been in a car accident, and the only thing busted up is a car, but everyone is safe, throw out a hallelujah. When you are reading the Bible and come across a verse that is exactly what you needed for that day, throw out a hallelujah. When for some reason, there is no rush-hour traffic coming home from work, throw out a hallelujah. When the rent is paid . . . When there is food on the table . . . When the report cards are good . . . When there is gas in the car . . . When the sun is shining . . . When you wake up in the morning . . . throw out a hallelujah! It’s saying, “God, You get the credit. God, You are good to me.” There was a church that would not give God praise for anything. Every service, they just sat there. No hallelujahs came from this congregation—it was strictly a no-hallelujah church. The pastor knew he needed to do something epic to shake things up. He remembered what Jesus said in Luke 19:40: “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (NIV). So one Sunday, when the people came to church, they saw a giant boulder the pastor had rolled onto the stage. He’d spray-painted on it, “If you don’t, then I will.” Just remember, no matter how many praise God besides you and around you, they can’t praise God for you. You must praise God for yourself. Let’s start joining with heaven with some hallelujahs today. That is such a great word when great things happen. And great things are always happening!

Day 256 Today's Reading: Revelation 18 When Michael Bloomberg was still mayor of New York City, he announced he was stepping up his efforts beyond his role as mayor to battle a number of social issues, including fights against smoking and obesity, and for gun control. He detailed his plans in an interview in which he predicted his crusades against those issues would serve him well in the afterlife. Then billionaire Bloomberg said, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” That is scary talk, Michael Bloomberg. That is Babylon talk. What is Babylon talk? It’s the prophecy in today’s chapter of the fall of Babylon. But I don’t think Babylon is Babylon at all. The Revelation 18 Babylon has been the topic of so much eschatological speculation and guessing about who that actually is. I think that is dangerous and usually ends with the wrong assumptions. Scholars have speculated that it could be Rome or the United States. I don’t see either. When people become sure of what the Bible calls mysteries, my antennae go up. Why? I think Babylon is bigger than a localized and specific name of a city or country. It is a spirit of security that comes from wealth and influence and seeing no need of God for our forgiveness or help in getting to heaven. Fallen Babylon is the fall of humanism and every false foundation it is built upon—from science to affluence and influence, riches, power, and personality. Without God, Babylon will fall and always fail. Here is what John saw of what was considered Babylon the great: After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.” I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:1-5) Babylon was a specific Old Testament place. At one point at the height of her power, Daniel chapter 5 says the king of Babylon saw the finger of a man’s hand write on the wall of his palace a message of judgment that needed someone to interpret. It was during a feast that the image crashed their Babylonian party. It was so frightening that the Bible says it affected King Belshazzar physically: “The king’s face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together” (Daniel 5:6). Daniel is called to interpret the writing and says basically, “Babylon, your days are numbered and this kingdom is coming to an end.” And the end for them happened that night with the invasion of the Medes and Persians. The party was over in one night. And now, in Revelation 18, the party is over again. But I don’t think it’s the same city again. I think it has to do with anyone, anything, any country, system, or government that feels no need of heavenly help. The scary part is that Revelation 18 almost sounds like Daniel’s interpretation from more than 2,500 years earlier. The Revelation Babylon party has a timed ending too. Twice in the chapter, it says, “for in one hour your judgment will come” (verses 10 and 17). Any system that tries to last without God is simply Babylon, be it a country, a person, a system, or a billionaire. Even if you are the best at these, your sins and forgiveness of them need God. Let me give a word to those who have Babylon talk and left God out in their lives. Someone said it like this: “There are two ways whereby God punishes sin: the fires of hell and the blood of Jesus. These two things go together: the fires of hell and the blood of Jesus. It’s not a question of whether your sin will be punished, it’s a question of how.” Remember, God always wins. Everyone who pronounces their power over God will fall like Babylon. In the mid-1700s French humanist Voltaire, at the end of his life, had some Babylon talk. He declared that his writings would displace the Bible and that in one hundred years, the Word of God would be forgotten. You can’t fight God, or you will fall like Babylon. Here is what happened. Twenty-five years after Voltaire’s death, Voltaire’s house became the printing center for the Geneva Bible society, and tens of thousands of Bibles were printed and sent from his house. You can’t mess with God. He always wins. Or, as Allister McGrath said, that many are “trying to exterminate God and finding out that he outlives his pallbearers.” I wouldn’t spend my time trying to figure out if Babylon is an actual place in the tribulation future. I would spend my time making sure I am trusting in the only thing that can get me to heaven, the blood of Jesus. Have you heard the story about the rich man who was determined to “take it with him” when he died? He prayed until finally, the Lord gave in. There was one condition; he could bring only one suitcase of his wealth. The rich man decided to fill the case with gold bars that he’d invested in. The day came when God called him home. One of the angels greeted him but told him he couldn’t bring his suitcase. “Oh, but I have an agreement with God,” the man explained. “That’s unusual,” said the archangel. “Mind if I take a look?” The man opened the suitcase to reveal the shining gold bars. He thought gold would be good everywhere. The angel was amazed. “Why in the world would you bring pavement with you?” Revelation 21:21 tells us that gold is the pavement in heaven. Why trust in something that God says has no great value? Our greatest value is the blood of Jesus.

Day 255 Today's Reading: Revelation 17 A few times in high school, I had to fill in on the track and field team because some players were lost due to injuries and the track coach pulled athletes from other school sports. I remember being asked to run a relay. I found it intriguing how these runners crossed the finish line in a close race. They leaned forward, sticking out their heads across their chests because in that sport, milliseconds matter. And if the head crosses, the other parts of the body win too. The Bible says in Colossians 1:18 that Jesus is the head of the body, which is His church. And as God’s children, we are the body of Christ. He’s the head, and we are the body—that’s the New Testament image. And as a runner wins the race with his head first, so it is true with us spiritually. If the head crosses, the rest of the body wins. The book of Revelation reminds us that the head of the body is crossing the finish line. And because He wins, you and I win! Revelation 17 shows evil unleashed on the planet through the great harlot, Babylon, and the beast. This unholy trinity seems to launch on all cylinders with one target in mind: the saints of God. In fact, their hatred for the saints is so intense that John describes it as “being drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” (verse 6). Then we read about the head. And wherever the head is, the body goes with it: “These [the unholy trinity of the harlot, the beast, and Babylon] will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). I grew up in the church. We used terms and terminologies so often and frequently that I never knew context or reasoning, which has the capability of watering down the power of phrases. One of those phrases is King of kings and Lord of lords. We would say this about Jesus all the time. But to see it in the Revelation 17 context reminds me, this church boy, how powerful this phrase really is. What makes King of kings and Lord of lords powerful is the word that comes before it, because. That word because is a subordinating conjunction, which means it connects two parts of a sentence in which one (the subordinate) explains the other. Part one of verse 14 says that these will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them. How? The answer is in the subordinating conjunction, because. Because He is the Lord of lords and King of kings. That phrase, which I heard in songs and sermons, is connected to the greatest victory in all human history—the Lamb defeats hell forever. Because no king and no lord is higher than Him. But that’s just part one of the subordinating conjunction. Without bogging us down with grammar, we get a conjunction within the subordinating conjunction. We read, “Because He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and [because] those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.” The good news for us is that because He wins, you and I win. Because the head crosses the finish line, the body gets the reward also. Because He is the King, you and I are royalty. Because He is the Lord, you and I are protected and provided for. I was reading the story of someone that knew the power of the words King of kings and the Lord of lords instinctively. When Queen Victoria had just ascended her throne in the mid-1800s, as was the custom of royalty, she went to hear George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, rendered by the London Royal Symphony. She had been instructed as to her conduct by those who knew the royal protocol and was told that she must not rise when the others stood during the “Hallelujah Chorus.” When that magnificent chorus started, and the singers were shouting “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” witnesses of the event said she sat with great difficulty. It seemed as if she would rise in spite of the custom of kings and queens but contained herself. Finally, when the oratorio came to that part of the chorus where the choir echoes the sopranos proclaiming Him “King of kings and Lord of lords,” and as it kept modulating higher and higher, suddenly the young queen could no longer contain herself. She rose and stood with bowed head as if she realized that a higher authority was being sung about and to at that moment. She realized He is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, and so she must rise and declare it against all tradition and protocol. And Queen Victoria was right to do it. King of kings and Lord of lords means there is no authority higher than the Lamb, and that is why every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. You can confess that now on your own, or you will be forced to confess on the day of judgment. I choose now.

Day 254 Today's Reading: Revelation 16 One of the scariest movies I have ever seen was not in a theater but in a church. It was called A Thief in the Night, and it was circulating in the 1970s about the end times. I knew I wanted to be ready for the rapture, the second coming of Jesus. I remember leaving that church service as an elementary student knowing full well in my heart that I needed to be ready for that day. I went on to read Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. At that time, they had it in a comic book form, and it was the clincher for me that I was going to be ready for Jesus to come back as a thief in the night. If things could get any worse for earth and humanity, Revelation 16 tells us it does in the great tribulation. As if seven trumpets of disaster were not enough for the planet, God unleashes seven bowls of wrath into the earth, from bodily affliction to polluting rivers and water. What’s interesting is that in the midst of these wrathful bowls of God’s judgment, one theme keeps being shouted by the angels inflicting the punishment: “Righteous art Thou O Holy One.” Their words remind us that God is not doing anything we don’t deserve—this is a day of wrath and judgment after millennia of mercy and patience. These bowls are terrifying, as is men’s response to the outpouring of God’s wrath. Almost as many times as it says “God is righteous” after one of the bowls is poured out, it says as many times, “They did not repent so as to give Him glory.” How corrupt is man by this time in his history? The chapter ends with a name many of us are all familiar with. As if things can’t get any worse, we are introduced to Armageddon, the place of the final battle on the planet. All that to say that in the midst of these horrific verses, a parenthetical statement shows up and stands alone in these passages because the verse speaks to the now and not to the future: “(‘Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.’)” (Revelation 16:15). Verse 15 is a parenthetical life preserver for humanity now, right now before this chapter comes upon the planet with the wrath of God. When I say parenthetical, it’s just a large word for parentheses, an insert of another thought, a little path from the original thought. But this is not a little diversion. This is deliverance from the wrath of God. It is as if John breaks from the vision and, in terror of what will happen, says to humanity, This doesn’t have to happen to you. Stay awake and ready for the rapture. The parentheses show us John being overwhelmed and wanting to help us all. The parentheses bring us to the rapture, the second coming of Jesus. The apostle John says that Jesus will come like a thief in the night, but this is not only John’s description of the second coming of Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 24 that this is the way it happens. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2, Paul uses the thief-in-the-night image. And in 2 Peter 3:10, Peter also says He will come like a thief. The thief-in-the-night day is the rapture. The rapture is Jesus coming physically a second time to the earth, not to redeem it but to start judging it. The rapture has two important days attached to it: the wedding day and the judgment day. The wedding day is the celebration of the “born again” dead and living all going to heaven. It’s the final call, our reward of heaven. And the Bible calls it a wedding-day celebration. The second day is judgment day, and it is God making all wrongs right. No one gets away with anything because of this day. Every person will be judged for what they have done. Hitler and Saddam Hussein will be there. Stalin and Castro. People from your city and my city and every place throughout the ages. Every person will stand before God. In, Who Will Face the Tribulation?, Tim LaHaye vividly imagined what the unexpected suddenness of the rapture would be like: When Christ calls His living saints to be with Him, millions of people will suddenly vanish from the earth. An unsaved person who happens to be in the company of a believer will know immediately that his friend has vanished. There will certainly be worldwide recognition of the fact, for when over one-half of a billion people suddenly depart this earth, leaving their earthly belongings behind, pandemonium and confusion will certainly reign for a time. A million conversations will end midsentence. A million phones . . . will suddenly go dead. A woman will reach for a man’s hand in the dark . . . and no one will be there. A man will turn with a laugh to slap a colleague on the back, and his hand will move through empty air. A basketball player will make a length-of-the-floor pass to a teammate streaking down the court and find no one there to receive it. And no referee to call it out-of-bounds. A mother will pull back the covers in a bassinet, smelling the sweet baby smell one moment but suddenly kissing empty space and looking into empty blankets. Just as the Old Testament is saturated with prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming, which we call Christmas, so both testaments are filled with references to Christ’s second coming. One scholar has estimated that there are 1,845 references to Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament, where seventeen books give it prominence. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 318 references to the second coming of Christ. One out of every thirty New Testament verses speaks about the Second Coming. Twenty-three of the twenty-seven New Testament books refer to the second coming of Jesus. For every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first coming, there are eight that look forward to His second! The first time He came, He came as an infant. The second time, He comes as the infinite. The first time He came in humility, deity in diapers. The second time, He comes in purple robes of royalty. The first time He came, men killed Him. The second time, every man will bow before Him.