Q&A 55: How do we reconcile "God is not willing that any should perish" with...

This will be our last meeting. We will not have a meeting this next week. One reason is I'll be two states away, so it'll just be difficult. So anyway, this will be the last meeting. This is the way it looks. So we have three questions to address here. And one of them, the last one, will be very interesting because I made a major change in direction here, at least in my approach. All right, Q&A 55.

How do we reconcile God is not willing that any should perish with lest they should believe and be saved? Now, so there are two verses in question, and typically I use the New American Standard unless there's a reason otherwise. 2 Peter 3.10 says, The Lord is not slow about His promise, that is, the promise of His coming, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. The main reason for Peter saying that is people are saying, well, when's the Lord coming? Come on, when's the Lord coming? And Peter says, well, the Lord's patient, and that's why He's not coming.

Otherwise, the Lord could just say, hey, let's wrap this thing up and get it done, right? But the Lord wants to allow maximum opportunity. And then the next passage is Luke 8, 11 and 12. And this is the middle of the parable we looked at just recently. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God, and those beside the road are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved.

Let's take a look at the 2 Peter 3.10 passage first. It's in the context of events from the present time, that is, last days. and forward to the end of the present heavens and earth. By the way, there's a terminology that both Christ uses and Paul.

Have you ever heard the term, or the set of words, this age and the age to come? The present age is the present evil age, including our time, including all times before. as the Jews used to phrase it, and the age to come is the millennial age, the Messiah's age. So that's the term, this age and the age to come. The present evil age, where the Messiah is not reigning, and then the age to come.

Our enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil, right? Two of those will be out of the way when the Messiah reigns. Which of the two? The world, the flesh, and the devil. Which of the two of those three will be out of the way during the time when Christ reigns on the earth? Pardon? The devil and the world, right? Because the devil will be where? Bound. He will be bound during that time. So he's out of the way. And why is the world out of the way? Yeah, Jesus is ruling over it rather than simply having worldlings out there with the world system ruling. So you have those two out of the way. The one evil present during the time of Christ's reign is the sin nature.

Now, forward to the end of the present heavens and earth, because in that same passage, he takes it all the way to the end of this present heavens and earth, the end of this physical universe as we know it. The word that's translated wishing indicates God's permissive will, that is, it reveals what God desires, but not what God determines. There's the difference. What do I mean to make a difference between what God desires and what God determines? There is freedom for people to choose and I think that's the ultimate point. God desires things but leaves freedom. That's I think the right word. Freedom for people to make choices. even to choose contrary to what God would desire that people choose. That's exactly right. It's the right word.

As we go through here, a different Greek word would have been used if the verse were intended to say that God absolutely wills that none should perish and therefore every single person will be saved. There is a different Greek word that's used. In order not to get too greeky geeky, I didn't put it in here, but anyway.

God has a will in this matter of salvation and that is that none would perish, but God does not fix his will in this matter such that the human will is entirely overwhelmed and without, and Jack chose the right word here, freedom to choose. God's greater will is that people have the freedom to choose to believe so as to be saved or not to believe so as to perish. God's greater will is that people have the freedom to choose. Could God have designed a world in which everybody is just automatically going to choose to be safe? Yeah, he could have. However, he wants beings who choose to love him, who choose to respond to his grace. Therefore, people are not simply automatons. They are not robots programmed to say, yes, I believe. Right? See the difference there? Okay.

Christ died and was buried and rose again to make it possible to be saved. He sent the Holy Spirit to convict the hearts of the unbelievers so that they might have a willingness to believe. Contrary to the inclination, the fixed inclination of the sin nature. If it were entirely up to the sin nature, would any of us believe? No. Not a chance. And that's what the Holy Spirit's ministry to the unbeliever is. not to force them to believe, but to make them potentially willing to believe that without that ministry they would never choose to be saved. The sin nature of itself would never choose to believe and be saved. And so it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit that makes the difference there. But though God is not willing that any should perish, God does not absolutely and irresistibly will that all will be saved.

In Believe the Lord Jesus Christ and You'll Be Saved, Acts 16.31, the word translated believe contains an appeal to the will of the unbeliever. There is a freedom for the unbeliever to choose, but that unbeliever must choose faith in Christ in order to be saved. That's why it's very interesting that believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved does contain an appeal to the will. But the only way that that person is going to be saved is if they choose to believe and therefore be saved. And that's why it's an imperative, it's a must. You must, not because God is forcing you, but you must make a choice to believe and be saved if there is any hope of salvation for you at all. There is no hope otherwise. You can't just say, well, it's an option, I'll think about it.

Now we'll move to Luke 8, 11, and 12, which is actually out of the parable that we looked at just a few weeks ago. That was Lesson 46, Q&A 45. Looking up the parable of the sower, that was on November 21st. The King James Version, the New King James Version translated the last portion of this passage, lest they should believe and be saved. There are two things, however, that we should note carefully. So we have them itemized here.

The first one, it is the devil who comes and takes away the word from their heart to draw them to draw from the wording of 2nd Peter 3.9, the devil is willing that all should perish. The devil is willing that all should perish, isn't that right? The devil is willing that all should perish, God is not willing that any should perish. God, however, does not determine that the people will absolutely and positively and irresistibly believe.

So you have a conflict of wills there, right? Okay. So think about that. In this there are three wills, aren't there? There's the will of the devil, there's the will of God, and there's the will of the person. A battle of wills, if you will. Okay, pun intended, sorry about that.

Okay, number two, the Greek word pair behind the King James, New King James, Lest, and the New American Standard and NIV, So That, Not, is explaining why the devil comes and takes away the Word. The devil does not desire that any should respond favorably to the Word of God and believe and be saved. God and the devil have different wills. God is not willing that any should perish. The devil is not willing that any should be saved.

And so guess what? Because God does not determine it, it is up to the will of the individual in the end. So the less they should believe and be saved is really that Satan's will. God's will is that none should perish. But it's not an absolute and determined will.

Let me ask this question. Does God have an absolute and determined will about some things? Yes, He does. He most certainly does. And it's important that Christians recognize that. Let me ask this question. If you're a believer, will you ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ? Yep. And guess what?

If you're a believer, that's predestined. That is God's determined will. You will be conformed to the image of Christ. It's comforting while there is a place, and we'll be looking at it in this elective next quarter, there is a place for our involvement in that conformity. In the end, we can't blow it. Isn't that gracious? Isn't that gracious? You know, we can say, yeah, but this happened to me. Yeah, but I did this. Yeah, but I didn't do that. So what? Right? So what? Because in the end, there is something, there is something here that is predetermined. It will happen.

And let me offer something that is, I think, perhaps even hopeful. for some of you, and I think it's valuable that I present this. Do you know of anyone who once claimed to know Christ and you thought it was genuine and then seemed to set it aside? Does anybody know anybody? Yeah, and I'm related to some of them, okay? And you probably have people like that that you know and care about that are in that position.

Do you know that that person, I think what you can look at is if that person was genuinely a believer, and they may be, they will be conformed to the image of Christ ultimately. And I think that's something we can count upon. As much as it is quite clear that God saves eternally and people do not lose their salvation, we can also look at the predestination that the Lord will conform us to the image of the Son. Okay. Yes.

There was perhaps another one you were thinking of then. It's like, he didn't want him to turn or repent, so he coded this. I think you did answer that previously, didn't you? So the non-believers could not hear the message, and the believers could. Yeah, let me just quickly address that to make sure it's clear. It's real interesting, and we brought this point up previously.

Christ spoke in parables a number of times. He didn't do it initially, early in his ministry. But there was a point at which he started doing it fairly frequently. And one of the primary and very clear reasons for Christ speaking in parables is so that those who believed could receive it and understand, but that those who didn't believe wouldn't get it. They wouldn't understand it and wouldn't understand what it was. Even to make that distinction, Christ at times would privately explain his parables to the disciples. with an explanation that the others who weren't intended to believe and understand couldn't hear. And he separated out those who were intent on understanding and believing and those who simply weren't going to believe and were in fact just looking for a way to hang Christ up on something.

So I think that's what they're really looking at is that distinction. and minor changes in what you're saying when you come out as a lessee of your faith is in Matthew if you look at the book of Matthew which is primarily written to the Jews you have the Sermon on the Mount which is Matthew 5 through Matthew 7 and he's presenting himself as king as you know he's giving national Israel the opportunity to receive Messiah which is prophecy offered in the Old Testament And then after that, he's thrown out the metal, he presents himself, and then he does all these signs and wonders which verify his messiahship according to all the prophecies in the Old Testament. And eventually, national Israel rejects him.

And the turning point, my understanding is, is when the religious leaders accuse him of performing all his signs and wonders by the power of Satan, the Holy Spirit, so he couldn't blaspheme. At that point, from there on, my understanding is, that's when he starts talking in parables. This quote, Leslie B. Tate, is actually quoted out of Isaiah. And in that parable, the sower, and my understanding is the main thing there is taking how you cure. And Israel had a major curing problem.

And even in the book of Deuteronomy, when they're given the law, it's prophesied that they're going to reject God. And he teaches them this song, that they're going to go to this land before they can build a country. They're going to worship other gods. He's going to send this Redeemer, and Moses said, there's a prophet coming after me, listen to what he says, hear him.

And Israel ultimately did not hear him when Jesus came. And so then he starts talking in parables, and it's almost like Israel, national Israel, has already rejected Messiah. So it's not that he's here to be saved, like he's, you know, not wanting to be saved, but they've already had 1,500 years, and then here he is, and they rejected him? I mean, that's kind of my understanding of that. Yeah.

What's interesting is the book of Deuteronomy, towards the last part of it, last few chapters, spells out the future of Israel all the way up to times yet to come. So it's really kind of amazing. It talks about them being cast out of their land as ultimately happened in 70 A.D. It talks about them coming back to the land and it talks about the time when the Lord would reign on the earth. All thousands of years, that was 3,400 years ago. The future of Israel is spelled out in the last two chapters of Deuteronomy.

Let's move on to second page, Q&A 56. Why should we pray more than once for anything? I think you'll find the response that I've drawn up to that at least interesting. Q&A 56, why should we pray more than once for anything? We could give a quick answer, but we won't. That's what the first line says. Here's the longer and I think the better answer because it provides, I think, some special insights.

One point there, given God's knowledge of all circumstances and of all of our hearts, God does not need us to pray so that God is informed. Get that? It isn't like we could bring something to the Lord and the Lord goes, oh, well, I didn't know that. Right? The Lord doesn't do that. He knows everything we're going to pray about. And, does He not know the answer that He's going to give? And when He's going to give it, and how He's going to give it. Right? The Lord knows all those things.

If we don't pray, God is not any less aware of anything. On that basis, it would be possible to ask why we should pray at all. Get that? One rationale that you could give, if you were to use human logic, is why should I bother to pray at all? God knows all the problems. I'm not informing Him of anything. Why should I pray at all? He knows even what I'm going to pray. So why bother? God knows how He's going to answer the prayer. He knows the end from the beginning, right? So He knows what's going to happen and what the outcome will be before I even pray.

So why bother? Why not just keep quiet and let God do what He's going to do? Hmm. So why does God want us to pray at all? If he knows everything and it's all powerful, it almost makes no sense to pray. Sort of. Ah, well you're jumping ahead of the game here. He didn't say that. Okay. Even more, God knew about our requests from even before we were born and knows how the situation will turn out and how he will answer it.

Given God's infinite knowledge and power, can our prayers make any difference at all? The Apostle Paul provides an example of asking three times, And God did not rebuke nor ridicule Paul for asking those three times. God just said no to Paul's request. That's the passage we studied not too long ago, 2 Corinthians 12, 7-9. Now let's ask this question. Does God value our prayers?

Revelation 5, 8, and 9, John writes about the heavenly scene, and he writes this. When he had taken the book, that is, Christ had taken the scroll, The four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are, get this, the prayers of the saints. A golden bowl full of incense isn't just some religious symbol. That's our prayers. Very interesting. So in heaven, the prayers of the saints are kept in golden bowls. not clay pots or wooden boxes, but golden bolts. The prayers of the saints are indeed highly valued in heaven.

Even if God says no to a particular request, he still values the prayer. Why? Isn't this puzzling? Isn't this interesting? Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again so that we could have relationship with him. Beyond that, he did these things so that we could have fellowship with him. The word that Norm brought up here. God does not need for us to pray. There is nothing deficient in his character that would make him need for us to pray. But he wants, he desires, here's God's will again, he wants us to pray in order that the relationship that we have with him extend into fellowship. I've used the example of the difference between those two words this way.

Okay, Randy is my son and that's always going to be. That's the relationship between the two of us. Now it is possible that I might say something in the midst of Randy's family that was deeply offensive. And he just said, Dad, just don't come over for a while. You really offended us with what you said. And that would break our fellowship, right? Would it change our relationship? No. We would still be father and son. It would, if I were to say something so deeply offensive, it would break our fellowship. See the difference there?

God has made it such that by faith in Christ we have relationship with Him. But the ongoing thing he desires once that relationship is established, because we believed, he desires that we have fellowship with him. He doesn't have to include our prayers in what he does, because he knows everything and is all-powerful, and he even knows that we're going to pray anyway, right? doesn't have to include our prayers in what he does, but he wants us to be included in what he is doing, and prayer is God's way of carrying that out. No vain repetitions are not what God has in mind, as if the number of requests is what God will finally respond to. but God desires that we continue to talk to him about the concerns of our heart because it's part of extending and expressing eternal relationship into ongoing fellowship. See that? He wants us to pray not because God needs to be informed. He wants us to pray not because he doesn't desire to do the things that we ask until we ask. but he wants us to bring these things before him because he wants us involved with the things that he is doing.

And it is extending the relationship that is there, regardless of what we do, into fellowship that's ongoing moment by moment, day by day. By the way, you know the hymn, Day by Day? There was a guy who just walked out of church having sung day by day, and he said, that's not often enough, so he wrote moment by moment. So, anyway, as we look at this question of prayer from a human standpoint, there are ways we could talk ourselves out of it.

You see that? We could say, well, God's going to do what He does, He doesn't always do what I ask, and he knows what he's going to do, so why even bother? But that's missing the point why God, God knows all those things, but that's missing the point as to why God asks that we pray. It's because He does indeed want us to have an involvement with what He's doing, and He does indeed want us to have ongoing fellowship with Him. It's based on that eternal relationship that we have with Him by faith.

Okay. Let me take a for instance. I'll give you the instance of my grandmother. My grandmother was raised in a home. I have pictures. This is my grandmother on my dad's side. I have pictures of her at about one year of age. My great-grandfather, they were up in like, you know, North Dakota or something like that.

And here he had half a dozen kids in the house, and it was a blizzard outside. And he insisted on going out and checking on the cows out in the barn or out in the field or something like that. But it was freezing cold, and from his wife to the older kids were all begging him, don't go out there. And he insisted and they finally talked him into tying a rope around his waist. Well, he didn't come back and they pulled the rope in.

So she basically from her infancy grew up without dad around. A couple of her older sisters got into Christian science and some of the other parts of the family got into just skepticism. So over the years, I can remember my dad's mom, my grandmother, just being rather closed mouth about anything spiritual. If you talk about anything spiritual, she'd just shut her mouth, just clam up. And anyway, in her later years, she developed cancer and she wasn't particularly doing anything about it.

And many of us were concerned, myself included, making attempts to talk to her about the Lord, and she would just do the usual, zip it up. But anyway, the Christians in the extended family, and there were a number of them, kept praying about her situation. And all of us, if at all possible, taking a chance to talk to her about the Lord, and she would always clam up. Unbeknownst to us, There were Christian neighbors who were helping her because she was getting to a place where she needed help.

And she responded to them about three weeks before she died. And I got to see her just right after that. And she had a look on her face that she had never had before. She was always very sober, you know, faced and closed mouth. She wasn't in her last weeks.

So this is an instance where, you know, oddly enough, all of our direct efforts to present the gospel to her didn't seem to impact her at all, at least not that we could tell. But the prayers for her did bring something about. And it's consistent with the Lord wanting her to respond to the gospel, not being willing that any should perish.

But interestingly enough, all these family members praying for her, responding, from what we could tell, more to the prayer than our direct statements. So that's maybe a fairly specific answer, but I think it's one of those cases where, does the Lord want us to tell people about the Lord? Certainly he does.

But in this instance, prayer seemed to do more than all that we could say. All the talking to her seemed to do not very much at all. But all our talking to the Lord did everything. The Lord carried out, and who knows what he would have done otherwise, but we were all involved in this.

And the Lord had us involved in touching. Sort of implied that we could influence him. Yeah. And it's real interesting. And how that happens with a God who is sovereign, who is not stuck in the time tunnel we are, that raises some good questions I'm not sure I have answers to. But the Lord does want us to be involved with what He's doing.

And prayer is one way of doing that. So you said that prayers did do something. I thought you were saying, whether we pray or not, Well, and it would be easy to take that perspective, but I'm saying from human logic, if God is all-knowing and God is all-powerful, people could ask the question, well, why pray at all? But what I'm saying is the final answer to why should we pray at all has to do with what the Lord wants us to. The Lord wants us to be involved in what He is doing.

The Lord wants us to have fellowship with Him. if it isn't aligning us with what he's going to do, and really not changing the outcome of your grandmother's salvation, that we would have a heart and a concern, because we took the time to be concerned, and so now we're just having a concern that God placed in our hearts. So we build up a, let's say, compassion because we pray, Yeah, I think there's something I didn't necessarily write into the text, but comes out of what you're saying, and that is, while in prayer we're looking to change circumstances and change hearts, right? It is perhaps not a part of prayer to change us. See that? Well, there is that. Does not our fellowship with the Lord have a benefit to us? Yes. Well, certainly it does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

One element that we haven't talked about is how the Holy Spirit works in that, like when we don't know how to pray, He receives for us. Isn't this interesting? The Lord desires that we fellowship, but when our prayers are not quite on target, the Holy Spirit corrects them anyway. Isn't that something? Yeah, there is a lot more dimension to it than easily works out. And the human logic thing that you were questioning, the human logic aspect of it, where we say, well, God's going to do what he's going to do, and he knows what he's going to do, and why should I bother praying? It fails to see these other dimensions to prayer, that God's looking for fellowship. that in fact this is a work of the Holy Spirit to bring those prayers before the Lord Himself.

And even to change us. Or as Marilyn put it, to benefit us. So there is more to it than simply the logic and mechanical aspect of God knows everything and why do I need to ask Him? I'm not informing Him of anything. There is a definite purpose in prayer. It is something that God values and it is something that God intends to use in our lives.

I think that Elder and I have probably grown more in our spiritual lives, having spent a great deal of time in hearing and up until that time we didn't have time to stare at our own things. And all of a sudden, time opened up for us. And we were able to meet with them. And then she had a problem. She and I sat down and visited the body. And I was so glad. And I brought up a point where I was kind of wondering why I had been given the tricks and crutches of the new generation. And then I started looking at Peggy. And she was taking me.

And the things that she is doing now. You know what the Lord has already planned for Peggy. Only the Lord knows that. But I know what He did for me that day. Being able to see her expanded in her growth, and in turn, it caused me to grow at the same time. And that's all I guess you can ask for. That's all I would ever want. It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. Good. Thank you.

Let's turn to page three, which is this color handout. And this is where I've had kind of a change of mindset in the past, starting even about eight years ago. I had used a chart that I kind of jokingly described as a wiring diagram for the space shuttle. Nancy told me this last week. She said, Vern, I've seen you present that several times.

I still have no idea what you're talking about. So I said, well I better do it differently. And not only Nancy's input, but also the fact that I keep getting asked this question even after I've answered it. So I apparently have not answered it. So anyway, this is an attempt to simplify it a bit, but hopefully make it more comprehensible.

What you see there is basically three places on the chart. The present heaven, which is the top part, the present earth, and the present Under the, excuse me, the present era, the lake of fire is the third item. So you have the present heaven, present earth, and the lake of fire. The next thing that is going to happen in this who goes where is the rapture of the church. Now the rapture of the church is not simply taking those who are saved alive to be with the Lord.

That's part two. The first part is those who are asleep in Christ. And who are some people who are asleep in Christ? The Apostle Paul is now asleep in Christ. Okay? My grandmother. Pardon? Al Molloy is asleep in Christ from our time standpoint. Right? Yes, and that's something, it's a little complexity that I'll choose to avoid for the moment and if we have time I'll try to include it. Alright. first those asleep in Christ and then those who remain. And I think the reason for that sequence is a part of the answer to your question, Marilyn. So that's the next thing that's going to happen.

After that, which would be seven years or perhaps a little bit more later, the second coming of Christ with the Church and including the saints of all prior times, all times prior to the Lord's second coming, and angels. That's why it describes this, you know, coming with the clouds, where the Lord comes again. That the Lord will come himself, the Lord will come with all saints of all prior time, including us. This will also, however, be the resurrection of Old Testament saints, right? So, I mean, imagine this moment. It would be like, wow, man, look at who's coming. There's David! You know, here we are coming with the Lord. Wow, there's Abraham! Look at that guy! Noah! Wow! Give me five, right? It will be kind of an amazing time.

Here is this second coming, which is a resurrection of all saints of all time. Here's Enoch, who walked with God. for 365 years and then was not. The Lord will bring all saints of all time with him at the beginning of his reign. There will be on the earth Christ, all these resurrected saints of all prior time, and all the earthly saints, that is those in bodies like our own, who because of faith in Christ enter into this millennium time. and those born during that time. So there will be resurrected saints of all prior times and there will be those living either having survived the tribulation or been born during that time in bodies like this. That's correct. That's correct. You've got that right. Yeah, Art?

We're told in heaven that we're not married, or we're not, but will there be recognition? Will we remember? Will I remember? Yeah, this is a question that we asked and answered some months ago in this class, and we said the answer is yes, that there will be a recognition of people It will not be that you have lost identity, but rather that you will have a different body, but you won't have changed who you are. And there will be a recognition of who you are. Exactly how that recognition happens is a good question, but it appears that there is recognition of who people are. Okay, then, yes?

Are there two body types? You have resurrected bodies, and then there are those with bodies like this. Yeah, as a matter of fact, even during the week in which Christ was crucified and resurrected, you have an example of that exact same thing. Who was it that was brought alive that had a body like this? Lazarus had a body. He was resurrected back into this kind of a body. Christ, however, was resurrected into a new kind of body. So there are two resurrections of different kinds during that time. What there will be is those with this kind of a human body, like we presently have now, and those with resurrection bodies. We will rule and reign with Him. We will always be with the Lord. But reigning over the guys that have got fleshly bodies? Yes. We will also, and this timing is not made real clear, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 1 through 8 includes a verse that says we will judge angels. So that will be very interesting.

Okay, now, the next one you see there is saints who died during the kingdom. will also be given resurrection bodies brought into the New Heavens, New Earth. It appears that, when you put it together, it appears that they are given resurrection bodies at the Second Coming. And that comes out of the book of Daniel chapter 12. First couple of verses there. Yes, what's interesting is we appear to be the first given resurrection bodies of the new kind. Yeah, we in the church. Okay, on the lower part of that, the lake of fire has already been prepared. Jesus said that the lake of fire has been prepared perfect tents. But right now it is empty. It's already been prepared, but it is empty. Its first inhabitants will be the beast and the false prophet and those who receive the mark of the beast during the tribulation period. Those who have the beast and the false prophet and those who receive the mark of the beast.

Those will be the first inhabitants of the lake of fire. The final inhabitants of the lake of fire will be the judgment There will be Satan and all fallen angels, as well as the rest of the unsaved for all time. When I say the rest of the unsaved, the beast and the false prophet and those who receive the mark of the beast will already have been judged. The great white throne judgment is the rest of the unsaved of all time. So there are two judgments, if you will, that will put people into lake of fire. One is at the end of the tribulation period, and the second is the great white throne judgment.

And the unsaved of all time, and Satan and all his angels, about a third of them, and that ratio or fraction is taken from Revelation chapter 12. About a third of the angels fell with Satan. And they will also be in the lake of fire. And by the way, Satan is not going to be the king of hell.

This won't be a place where he rules and ranks. You know what he's going to have in terms of position and ranking? Nothing. He'll just be there. And that's as good as it gets. He won't be the king of hell. He won't be in charge of it or anything else. In a physical sense that would be certainly contradictory. Is it possible to have dark heat? Yes. Can be, right? Yeah.

I suppose one way to put it, if you've ever gotten your hand on something that's not glowing but it's quite hot, you find out real quick it's hot. I remember in welding, if we had a piece of metal we just got through working on, we'd take welding chalk and mark it hot. And that's just so that nobody comes along and touches it, since it's not glowing. But boy is it still quite hot, enough to burn.

So this lake of fire is not a place of blazing light, but of darkness and great heat. What we have here in the picture is sort of a, yeah the darkness is there and the fire is there, but the reality is a mixture of the two that does in fact have some representation here. on the earth. There is a complication to that which is the reason that I dropped the other chart and that goes through that part because that's actually not the lake of fire. That's prior to this lake of fire judgment.

So this fellow is in the place of those who are unsaved, awaiting judgment. There's also a resurrection of the unbelievers, right? Yes, and the thing is, what you look at is, I think the way it's put is there's a resurrection of sorts. It's a resurrection, but not to this body that is a new body like ours. It's a body that is a new body, but is capable of lots of pain.

Whereas we get the promise, no more mourning or crying or pain. These people don't get that. As a matter of fact, what they get is that's all they get. Is there a name for that? Is that Hades? Yeah, ultimately Hades is the place of the dead or it is the equivalent in the Old Testament of Sheol in the Hebrew. Those are synonymous terms, and that essentially is the place of the dead both saved and unsaved. However, there is, as I believe it's Luke 16 spells it out, a chasm fixed between the saved and the unsaved.

But that's a complication I left out of here in order to make it a little more comprehensible. After I showed this to Nancy, she says, okay, I can handle that. The one I had before, I said, what's funny? All the engineers I know understand it. But that tells you something. What's that? Yes. Yeah. So anyway, this is definitely simplified, but the previous explanation included that.

But I think it was part of what threw a lot of people. So I just cut it out. So this looks ahead entirely and doesn't include that consideration. Yeah, Sheol in the Hebrew and Hades in the Greek are the place of the dead. It actually includes both the saved and the unsaved. But that's not included in this picture here. Yes? What about the word paradise? Ah, very good. Glad you asked about that. The word paradise, which is interestingly enough a Persian word, It means pleasure garden.

It shows up three times in the New Testament. The one place is Jesus speaks to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. That's the first place it shows up. The second place it shows up is where Paul says he was taken up to paradise. And then the third place it shows up is in the promise and the messages to the seven churches that we would be in the paradise of God. So that word paradise is one that's explicitly a New Testament term. It means pleasure garden and it is used of being in heaven with the Lord.

Interestingly, no. It's only those three places. But it talks about those three places where Jesus says, today you'll be with me in paradise. Which, by the way, I think is one reason for rejecting the idea that Jesus goes and descends into hell. That's actually from what's called the Apostles' Creed, but it's a multiple translation error that ended up with a strange doctrine. And then the Apostle Paul saying he was taken up into paradise and then the promise in the messages of the seven churches that we would be in the paradise of God. So is paradise the better half of Jehovah? I would say no. I would say that rather it is with the Lord in heaven. It is actually in heaven with the Lord.

But without God? No, actually for the Christians who are raptured, it does include a body. There is a question that is not directly addressed, and that is, what about those who have not yet gotten resurrection bodies? And it is possible for there to be souls in heaven without a body. And as a matter of fact, that is how the saved out of the tribulation period are described as souls. But it doesn't describe them as having a body.

Yes? It's like the soul is one of the last things to be saved from the body. And I know the scriptures have said that your spirit will be regenerated when you leave your spirit. It will be regenerated when you die. as long as your physical body will be saved at the rapture and you get a glorified body and your soul is just to get that life force to animate you I mean if our spirit and our soul are separated from our body at physical death and our soul goes up to heaven is it I mean I guess I'm confused with that I'm just you know is your soul saved at that time or is it saved I mean I guess If you're a believer, your soul is saved right now. Right. The body is the last part. The last part.

As a matter of fact, the only reason believers have a sin nature is you still have this body. The sin nature is associated with this physical body. And that's one reason why he has to give us a new one, is a new body that no longer has the sin nature attached.

There's a scripture that talks about the saving of your soul. Right. And some people do teach that your soul is yet to be saved. I mean you're saved from the standpoint that you're born again and your spirits are regenerated and you have eternal life.

I think there's this, what we are going to see What we are going to see is that your soul is actually still undergoing a process. And that's what we're looking at, is there is still a conformity, there is still a transformation, there is still maturity and growth. So there's still a process taking place, even for the believer who is completely and eternally saved.

And that's what we'll be looking at this next year. I don't believe so, however, there is still learning to go on. Very interesting. Yeah, I think the conformity will be done when we walk through heaven's gates, but there is still learning that goes on. God is still revealing eternally the infinite magnitude of his grace. Very interesting.

We've got people pressing their noses up against the glass. We'd better pray. Lord, we do thank you for what you've revealed. We also are in awe and in wonder about what is yet to be revealed. We, in some cases, have a thin fabric of detail and would long to see it filled in. We pray that one day soon it would be. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.