We are finishing Revelation 20 this time. We have seen the end of the Millennial Kingdom with the rebellion of Satan and his hoards against the Lord. We have seen them destroyed and Satan cast out. We come to the Great White Throne Judgment now. We have seen the judgment of the unbelievers. We are looking at that judgment. We are coming now to Revelation 20:14-15 to see the final destiny of those who have rejected Christ. It is an ugly thing.
Look at Revelation 20:14, it says, “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” First, we want to think about this “death.” It is called the second death. In the Bible, the word “death” is the idea of separation. So, to be “dead” physically is to have our spirit separated from our bodies. To be “dead” spiritually in this life while we are alive means to have our person being separated from God. We are separated from the Lord. We are not reconciled to Him. We are alienated from Him. That is a spiritual death. The “second death” is a continuation of that spiritual death in which those who are spiritually dead continue to eternal death; an eternal separation from the Lord Jesus Christ. So, that is the second death. It says here that this is the second death, the lake of fire. So, those who experience this second death are cast into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is distinguished in the verses above from physical death and from Hades which we usually call hell. It is the final destiny of those who do not know Christ.
There is a tension here when we talk about this type of issue. The tension between what the scriptures teach, and we want to believe, and we want to proclaim, and at the same time the horror of knowing that multitudes of people will be eternally separated from the Lord in a place described here as the lake of fire. I do not think anyone who is normal wants to talk about hell and wants to talk about the punishment of the unbeliever. We all recoil against that to some degree, maybe to a large degree, because no one wants to think of the punishment or suffering that those people who reject Christ will endure forever. It is a horrible, horrible thing to consider. At the same time, the scriptures proclaim that there is an eternal separation from God for those that reject Him. So, we must proclaim that . . .
