THE LAKE OF FIRE

The lake of fire is in contrast to the sea of glass, Rev. 4. 6; 15. 2. It is a place of unimaginable torment. In chapter 19, the beast and the false prophet were cast into it alive as our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth as the warrior King, subduing all His foes. The devil, too, is cast into the lake of fire. He had been loosed from his millennial prison, the bottomless pit, and success­fully deceived the nations to raise a rebellion against the King of kings; that rebellion is summarily dealt with by fire coming down from God out of heaven, after which the devil meets his final end.

The wicked dead are also going to that dread place. All those who have never been saved will stand before God, in the Person of His Son. They have died but death will deliver up their bodies. Their souls are in hell but hell will deliver them up. Though the universe will have fled from before the face of Him who sits upon the throne, sinners in their sins must stand there. Their names are not written in the book of life. That which unites them is that they have never been saved through faith and must endure the penalty for their sins.

There are no believers there. The unbeliever has before him only the prospect of coming judgement to all eternity, but the believer is in the happy position of looking back to Calvary and seeing that on the cross the Lord Jesus bore his sins ‘in his own body on the tree’, 1 Pet. 2. 24. He does not fear the future for Christ bore for him all his sins and all their judgement. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’, Rom. 8. 1.

In that day the secrets of men will be judged, Rom. 2. 16, as well as their actions. This is true of great and small who will without discrimination be arraigned before God’s last, great judgement bar, the great white throne. The fearful, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire. Solemnly, this will include those who are mere professors of Christ, the reli­gious as well as the irreligious. This is the eternal, unchanging state of the lost. How vitally important it is to be saved.