Nahum, Nahum, Nahum - [Nahum 3:8ff]

Will the foreperson of the jury please stand? Have you reached a verdict? Yes, Your Honor. Will the defendant, Nineveh, please stand? You may read the verdict. Guilty. So say you all? Yes, Your Honor.

And the gavel goes down. That's the book of Nahum. Please turn there. Nahum, Chapter 3. The Judgment of God Through a Prophet. If you need to find Nahum with your table of contents, that's fine. We're finishing up the book of Nahum today.

And while you're turning there, let me ask you another question. Where are the great empires of the past? Where are the great nations? Why does Rome appear as a great empire and then it's gone? What about the Babylonian Empire?

What about the Assyrian Empire? Why do nations come and go? One man said, quote, luxury, skepticism, weariness, superstition, a preoccupation with self, promotion of the wrong people, urge to overspend, and the rise of liberal opinion.

That is, the attitudes and policies controlled by sentiment rather than sound moral judgment. Why do nations come and go? Rich nations, gone. Powerful nations, gone. How can you have a world-dominating nation or empire and then now it's over?

The rise and fall of nations, the collapse of empires. Now, some people think, well, economically, they couldn't maintain it. They couldn't maintain a soldiering force large enough for their extended empire.

Some people think, well, it was disease that broke out or another cultural issue, a political issue. But the overlooked reason why empires come and go, why nations come and go, is the judgment of God.

That God judges nations for their sin, yes, but we'll learn today, especially for the sin of oppressing and persecuting God's people. That will, as it were, get the ire of God, not that he has ire, but as it were, that will really get God's attention.

To the degree that God loves his children is the degree to which he will vindicate them and judge his children's oppressors. Now, if I just took a book of the Bible, any book of the Bible, and said, let me show you how much God loves his children.

To think that the father gives the son in eternity past a love gift and says, I want you to go die for them and redeem them and wash them and cleanse them and then hand them back to me as this gift because they look like you.

If those people that were so loved by God the father and the spirit and the son are persecuted by anyone, God is going to react. If I read something like this in the book of Ephesians about how much God loves Christians, and then you say, well, if he loves Christians that much, those that oppress and attack, something's going to happen.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us, listen, for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. God adopts us and now nations persecute us, our God's people, something will happen. Ephesians 2, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.

If this great love is toward Christians, toward believers, towards the bride, toward the elect, and then nations come and people come and oppress and persecute, what might happen to those nations? Ephesians 5, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might, Jesus, sanctify her, the church, having cleansed her, the church, by the washing of the water of the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

The question is, I ask again, since God loves his children so much, his bride so much, what will happen to any person, group, or nation that does the opposite of loving God's people? And so we come to the book of Nahum today.

I think this is our sixth message. I'm kind of sad to see it go, but it's an important book and it talks about judgment. If you remember the name Nahum means comfort. So the people of God are oppressed, they're persecuted, and here we have a man, Nahum, given a vision, an oracle by God, and he says, by the way, your oppressors are going to get it, they'll be judged.

It's future, chapter two and three are future for the people who are receiving this book. It's past for us, we know that it happened, Nineveh was destroyed. But he reminds the people by the authority of God's word, God knows, God cares, and he's going to judge.

And by the way, have you ever thought of this? It was by somebody's words that the Assyrian empire was crushed. I don't know if Nahum was a small man of stature, I don't know what kind of city he came from because I don't know much about the background of Elkash, but here's a man proclaiming the word of God, and it happened by fiat, by divine fiat, by verbal fiat, he speaks and all this happened.

That's amazing to me. Nahum is a word of comfort for God's people. God knows that you're oppressed and he will do something about it because we've learned in chapter one, he's jealous, he's avenging, he keeps wrath for his enemies, he's slow to anger and great in power, but he will by no means clear the guilty.

If you want to trust in him and run to him, he's a refuge in the time of trouble, he cares for those who trust in him. But if you are going to stand up against God's people, you're standing up against him and therefore he's going to be against you and you will have no descendants, Nahum chapter one.

God is against those that attack his people. It's one thing for a nation to kill, it's another thing for a nation to lie, it's another thing for a nation to have idolatry and plundering and enslaving nations, but at the top of the list, I agree with John Calvin, the worst sin that they could commit is the oppression and persecution of God's people, the apple of God's eye.

So here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna review verses one through seven in Nahum three, and then we'll work our way towards nine through 19, excuse me, eight through 19, and we'll finish the book of Nahum today.

We will go to another book soon, but I think the next two weeks, I'll devote to what the Bible says about the sanctity of marriage and what the Bible teaches us about how to look at marriage and those who try to destroy marriage, i .e., homosexual marriage, transgendered issues, et cetera.

Those will be the next two weeks. But now to Nineveh and chapter three, and remember there was a woe there, W-O-E, and then kind of like a, wow, what's going on? This is amazing. He gives the woe first, woe to the bloody city full of lies and plunder, no end to the prey.

Now, what you would do back in those days if you wanted to really kind of show how strong you were to other nations, you might say, you know what, even though I killed only 300 warriors, I killed 9 ,000 warriors.

But even if there's an exaggeration of these leaders of Nineveh, they were awful people. One general said he, of Assyrian descent, he said, 700 men I impaled on stakes over against their city gate. Their young men and their maidens I burned in the fire.

Their dismembered bodies I fed to dogs, swine, wolves, eagles, and to the birds of heaven and to the fish of the deep. Leading around people with nose rings and impaling people on sticks, cutting out their tongues.

That's all bad, but when it happens to God's people, woe is going to be the response. And then we come to verses two and following. It's like you're there, you can hear it, you can see it. Cracking whips and wheels and horses and chariots, charging, flashing, glittering, and there's so many dead bodies, it's hard to fight.

Heaps upon heaps, you stumble over it. I mean, this is chilling, ghoulish language. Could it get any wilder? Yes, verse four. And for all the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and deadly of charms, who betrays or enslaves nations with her whorings and peoples with her charms.

It's like the prostitute that says, come here and enjoy pleasures, and then you go there, but you're trapped, you're ensnared. There's a hook inside that bait, and you've got that sex goddess Ishtar who's leading all this, this demonic God, betraying people, leaving them to serve.

What a lecherous group, what a lewd group. Verse five, of course, behold, I'm against you, declares the Lord of Hosts. You have hosts, you have armies, you have an armory, you have the machine of war, but the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of armies, I'll lift up your skirts over your face and I'll make the nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.

I'll throw filth at you and make you with contempt and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle. Did you know Nineveh, they love beauty. They love to make theirselves a city that had great columns, and at the entrance of all the gates, there were these huge bowls that would be like made of marble and other things.

They were so beautiful. But you know what? Behind the curtain, they're ugly, they're gross. I don't know if you remember, kids, there was an idol that the Israelites made. It was a golden what? Calf. And God was so upset with the people that he had the leaders pulverize that gold cow and they made everybody drink it.

Why would he do that? So you don't go foraging for the gold later. Get my drift? It's gross. Look at even here. I will throw filth at you. I'll treat you with contempt. I'll make you a spectacle. I mean, they're not gonna want to go back to this goddess and worship when there's just excrement thrown all over them.

It's gross. It's awful. It's certainly not sexual. Verse seven, all who look at you, they're gonna run, they're gonna shrink from you. Cover your eyes, kids. Wasted is Nineveh. Who will grieve for her?

We know the answer. Where shall I seek comforters for you? And so we come to our passage today, verses eight through 19. Let me give you an outline. Two questions for every nation. Every nation will give an account because God is immutable and just.

And so I'll phrase it, two questions for every nation. Question number one, verses eight through 11. Are you better than other nations who are judged by God for sin? Are you better than other nations who are judged by God for sin, especially the sin of persecuting God's people?

Are you better? We could ask America. If you're gonna persecute God's people, by the way, I don't really think we're getting much persecution right now, but I think many people, many churches are folding even with what we have now.

What about when real persecution comes? Are you, America, better than other nations who are judged by God for sin? In this particular case, we come to a city that's in Egypt. Do you see it there? T-H-E-B-E-S.

How do you pronounce that? T-H-E-B-E-S. Anybody? Thebes, some know that. I was gonna say Tebbes. It's Thebes, T-H-E-E-B-Z. That would be a good way to pronounce it. Or it's also called No-Ammon, because no in Egypt is city, and Ammon is the God.

And so it's a city of their God, Thebes. And so he's gonna ask this question, verse eight. Are you better than Thebes? Assyria, Nineveh, are you better than Thebes? That sat by the Nile. What a good way to protect yourself right there by the Nile.

Waters around her, a rampart, a sea, essentially the river, and water her wall. Hey, are you better? And by the way, this was a current event. Thebes was destroyed 25 years earlier by the Assyrians. The Assyrians conquered Tebbes.

That's why I give Pradeep the pronunciation chapters and genealogies in the Bible. I actually went to Google and typed in Thebes and clicked on it. And it said, Thebes, are you any better? You think you're superior?

You think you're invulnerable? They were better off. They, Thebes, had more protection. They, Thebes, were more isolated. And their God, that Ammon God, he couldn't do anything. You think you're gonna be better?

The apple of God's eye, his people, his bride, when you persecute them, you think you're gonna get away with it? That's the idea. Of course not. You think you're undefeatable? No, Thebes thought the same thing.

And by the way, Thebes had allies and Nineveh doesn't. These are the allies of Thebes. Cush was her strength. Egypt, too. Look at the confederacy they had. And with that without limit, put, and the Libyans were her helpers.

I mean, Assyria didn't really have any helpers because they knew the helpers, if they came along, the other nations, that they were gonna get pounded by Assyria. It was all gonna be a joke anyway. So here we have this city, Thebes.

They had confederates, but what happened to her? Verse 10, she became an exile. She went into captivity by you, Assyria, by the way. And you didn't wanna raise up their children and make them in your own society.

Her infants, what'd you do to them? Thebes' infants were dashed in pieces by the Assyrians at the head of every street. Let's show people what we're really about. For honored men and lots were cast and all her great men were bound in chains.

You think you're better? If America does start persecuting the church, you think it's gonna last? The new kid on the world domination block, I was gonna say new world denomination, the new world domination block, Thebes was there, now they're gone.

And you gave them no mercy. Now we talk about Nineveh, verse 11. You also will be drunken. You'll go into hiding. You'll seek a refuge from the enemy. If you have to fight somebody, you hope they're gonna be drunk because they can't pay attention, because they can't stand.

And it was said even in some history books that the night before Nineveh was attacked, that they were in a drunken stupor. They're gonna seek a refuge for the enemy. Chapter one, verse seven, it says, he knows those who take refuge in him.

But when Jonah went 150 years earlier and said, repent, they did. And then they, as it were, repented of their repentance and said, you know what? We're back to our old ways and God will judge. Nations that persecute God's people are going to be judged.

Secondly, a question for every nation, for they will give account. Are you strong enough to fight God? Are you better than other nations that were judged? And are you strong enough to fight God? Verses 12 through 19.

And of course we know the answer, but it's like this taunt. It's like this taunt song, this satire, this irony. And look what he says. Look what God says about Nineveh. All your fortresses are like fig trees with first ripe figs.

If shaken, they fall into the mouth of an eater or of the eater. You think you've got great fortifications? All you have to do is go up and shake the tree a little bit and open your mouth and the figs fall right into your mouth.

They fall of their own accord. Nineveh is going to fall as well. I drove past, I might've been in New Zealand and I saw something wrapped around the trunk of a tree and it had a gas engine next to it.

And it was vibrating the tree. It was shaking the tree. And what was happening? Why did they put that there? What's the technical name for that thing they put around the tree and shook? Does anybody know?

It's a mechanical tree shaker, of course. And it shakes and down fall the pecans or fruit or something else or almonds. And you shake that thing. By the way, I was interested. So the origin of the mechanical tree shaker, 1945 Henry Daly working for Beasley Farms in Pomona, California in the walnut orchard.

And he kind of had this hook and he smacked the tree branches and some walnuts came down. So he thought, okay, this is a good idea. Back to the orchard after he'd gone to the barn and placed a hook over a limb and put the tractor in reverse, the tires spin, the limb shakes and the walnuts fall off.

Simple. Nineveh, you and your armies, I don't have to shake too hard. I don't have to do much too hard. It's just like the wind will blow and down fall the figs and down you go. Look at verse 13. In cancel culture, can I say this?

Can I say this in a mixed audience? This is God saying this to Nineveh. Behold, your troops are women in your midst. Ha! You're strong, bold, courageous warriors. They're like women. Do you know back in those days, they had like these taunts and kind of like a voodoo doll.

They put curses on people. Here was a curse. All your warriors are going to become like women. All your wives are going to become like prostitutes. This is the curse. And now it's God saying it. Hey, your troops are women in your midst.

They can't stop anything. The gates of your land to protection, wide open to your enemies. Fire has devoured your bars. So quick to take over. So easy to take over. These warrior men, defenseless, fearful girls running.

What a taunt. I pulled up a couple other taunts. Winston Churchill, he has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. He also said, a modest little person with much to be modest about. Irvin Cobb said, I've just learned about his illness.

Let's hope it's nothing trivial. Clarence Darrow, I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. You guys are much more vocal than the first service. Oh, Mark Twain. I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Here's the taunt from God though. And this here in verses 14 and following, this reminds me of when I used to play basketball and I would get the ball and I'd start dribbling down the court and somebody would guard me and I would say to them something like this, I'm gonna go over to the right-hand corner and I'm gonna shoot a 20 foot jump shot over your face and make it.

That's what he's saying right here. Uh, Nineveh, I think you might need some more water. You're gonna get thirsty and you need some water for those extra fires. Better get some. Draw water for the siege, God says to Nineveh.

Strengthen your forts. How do you make 50 foot walls back in those days? Go into the city, go get the clay, get the mortar, take hold of the brick mold. By the way, there's gonna be a stampede. Make sure the walls are all set up.

Get plenty of water. You're gonna need it. There, the fire will devour you and the sword will cut you off. It'll devour you like the locust. I think you need more people. Multiply yourself like the locust.

You're gonna need more armies. Multiply like the grasshopper. What sarcasm from God to Nineveh. The people that would stand before God and persecute His people because they can't have their arms long enough to persecute God will be judged.

They'll be exterminated. Verse 16, you increased your merchants. Oh, did they? They had all kinds of people selling things, absorbed with their national prostitution and sex goddesses. More than the stars of heaven, the locust spreads its wings, flies away.

Hey, where are your leaders? Your princes? Like grasshoppers. Where are the smart people? They're like scribes. They're clouds of locusts. And what do they do? When it's cold, they just sit there. When the sun rises and they get hot, they fly away.

No one knows where they are. Where are all the aristocrats? Where are all the leaders? Where are all the powerful people that lead you? The army is gonna come and destroy you. Where'd they all go? They ran.

They're all gone. Doom is pronounced. God is the one who makes Assyria stop. The question is, why do nations come and go? The answer is God Himself is King. Reminds me of this story. And of course, I love teaching this to young people because it's just so vivid.

Belshazzar, when he tasted wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them.

Hey, we've ransacked Jerusalem. We've got the special goblets and vessels from the holy place of God, and we're gonna drink from them because we are king. We've destroyed them, and now we're going to show what we do.

They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. The king saw the hand as it wrote.

The king's color changed. His thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. Belshazzar was greatly alarmed. He needs somebody to interpret that. And of course, we know Daniel does that very thing, and Daniel says, and you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this.

You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. Then from his presence, the hand was sent, and the writing was inscribed, and this is the writing that was inscribed. Mani, mani, tekel, farsan.

Mani, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found what? Wanting. Perish, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. The doom of God for those who oppress his people. And then we end in verses 18 and 19. Your shepherds are asleep. I thought they're supposed to be shepherding.

Oh, king of Israel, we finally figure out who this person is. Oh, king of Israel, your noble slumber, your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. There's no easing to your hurt.

Your wound is grievous. And now we come to one of only two books in the Bible that ends with a question. What's the other book of the Bible? Jonah. Jonah and Nahum both end with questions. They're both about Nineveh.

All who hear the news about you, clap their hands over you. Ha ha, look at you. For upon whom, here's the question, has not your unceasing evil? For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil? It's over.

Their shepherds left. When I think of shepherds, what do you think of? Do you think of the same thing I do? I think the Lord is my what? Shepherd. I think to myself, oh, Jesus is a good shepherd because he was raised from the dead, John 10.

He is this great shepherd because he's victorious over sin and death and hell. He's a chief shepherd running and ruling the church. Who's their shepherd? Psalm 49, you won't forget it anytime soon. Death shall be their shepherd.

Who's gonna kind of round them up? Answer, death. How'd you like to have it? Death is my shepherd and it's gonna be awful. Nahum ends with a rhetorical question like Jonah. Here's Jonah's ending. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120 ,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle?

And Nineveh received this very thing not many years later. For every nation, are you better than other nations who are judged by God for persecuting people? Are you strong enough to fight God? Which leads me to this question.

Since Jonah was about preventing judgment, Nahum, judgment is going to happen. What about you? Are you going to be judged? Christian, are you gonna be judged one day? Unbeliever, are you going to be judged?

Is there a judgment for believers? If so, what's that look like? This is part of eschatology. Normally when people think eschatology, they maybe wanna argue about the rapture. Is the rapture going to happen?

When will the rapture happen? Pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib? What about the millennial kingdom? Is it pre-mill, a-mill, post-mill? Are you pro-mill? But this is about you. There's an eschatology that's about you.

And of course, when I say that, I mean me. Let me give you some questions so you can understand judgment. Because this whole book is about judgment, it would be fair to ask in a sermon, are you going to be judged?

What's the judgment going to be like for me when I die? Question one, will there ever be a final judgment? I mean, come on. Over and over and over, we just see the cycle of these world empires and they come and go.

And even recently, the British Empire falling apart. I mean, is there gonna be any kind of judgment for anything? Let's look at a couple of scriptures. 2 Peter 3, please. Will there ever be a judgment?

This ties in perfectly to Nahum because Nahum was told there'll be judgment in the future, be comforted. And so the same thing is with us. We know that the Lord Jesus will come back. There is going to be a final judgment.

Why? Because the Bible tells us that. And we walk by faith and not by sight. 2 Peter 3. This is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets, Old Testament, the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, New Testament.

Knowing this, first of all, here's what's gonna happen in the end times. Scoffers come in the last days scoffing. Why do they do that? Because they're following their own sinful desires. And so here's what they say.

Where's the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things were continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Same old, same old. They deliberately overlooked this fact.

Heavens existed long ago. Earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And these heavens, verse seven, are stored up for fire. Do not overlook this fact, verse eight. Beloved, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years and thousand years is His one day.

The Lord's not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness like these scoffers. But He's patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish. We want all the elect to come, but that all should reach repentance.

The day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with the roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Question number one, will there ever be a final judgment when Jesus returns? Yes. Question two, when will that be? Anybody here know? That's kind of a good response, but I'll see you after service. We don't know when it's going to be, Jesus said, but concerning that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father.

So don't let anybody come along and write a book 1988 and then have to revise it 1992 and all this. We know the imminent return of Jesus is true, but nobody knows when. So be very, very careful if you spend a lot of time trying to figure out end times through the USA Today or any other news outlet.

Is that still in existence? Maybe not. Okay, Washington Post. Jesus is going to come back because he told us that. And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

This Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Not only Jesus said he would return, but these angels said, there's going to be a bodily literal coming of Christ word.

And we know that because of God's word. When every elect person has gathered in, it is over. Question three, who will stand before the judge? Who will stand before the judge? Answer, every creature, every angel and all of you and everybody who's ever been born in the history of the world, except the Lord Jesus.

Question four, some people have been dead for so long. How will they be able to stand before the judge? Answer, they'll all be resurrected. Every person who's died, of course, their souls go to be with God or to be tormented, but their bodies are still in the ground.

And the Bible says, we declare to you by the word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ will rise first than we who are alive.

If people are alive when Jesus comes back and there will be some who are left, we'll be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Understand what's going on there with the resurrection, the general resurrection, every person who's ever lived and died, God will raise up their body.

And you say, how could he do that? Some have been cremated. Some have been buried. Some have been eaten by worms. Some have been eaten by sharks. Some have been, you know, it's just all the decay. The powerful God of the universe will take their bodies and he will reunite them with the soul for their resurrection and they will stand before God.

Jesus said about himself, he has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man. Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, not just Lazarus and come out.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. God will take the spirits of those who believe and unite them with their resurrection body.

And it will be a body ready for eternity for all the pleasures and joys of communion with God. And then he will take the bodies of those who won't trust in the Lord Jesus and he will reunite those with their souls and they will be given a body perfectly adept for suffering the torments of the dam for eternity.

What will happen immediately after the resurrection? Question five. It will be the judgment. Right after the resurrection, it's a judgment. Question six. This is the question for every person here. On what basis will you be judged?

You'll all die with me, we'll die and we'll stand before God on that great day. How will we be judged? It would be good to know. Do more good than bad? Okay, I'll get on it. Bell curve, find other people worse than me?

I'll get on it. I don't really obey the law of God, but maybe he'll count my sincerity toward the obedience that I don't really do. All those are false, false, false. How will you be judged? You'll be judged based on God's law.

Have you with thought, word and deed perfectly obeyed God and loved him and loved your neighbor? I mean, Jesus even said in Matthew 12, I tell you on that day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak.

And that's not all you're judged for. The deeds and things that you should have done but didn't do, that you did, but you shouldn't have done. One writer said, and then the secrets and hypocrisies of men will be publicly uncovered in the sight of all.

Therefore, with good reason, the thought of this judgment is horrible and dreadful to wicked and evil people. But what about Christians? Turn to Revelation chapter 20. I think it's important for us, if we're studying a book about judgment, we ought to ask ourselves the question, can we withstand such judgment?

Yes, Nahum was temporal judgment, but what about the eternal wrath of God? Can we stand before God? We must stand before God and we're going to need a savior. I love Revelation 20 because it talks about this very thing.

And if you read very, very carefully, you're gonna see there's two kinds of books. Then I saw chapter 20, verse 11, a great white throne and him who was seated on it. I mean, this is the big deal. Do you understand how it's written here?

From his presence, earth and sky fled away. No place was found for them. What happens at a throne? Judgment. I saw the dead, great and small, everybody standing before the throne and the books were open.

There's two kinds of books. Another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. The sea gave up the dead who were in it.

Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them and they were judged, each one of them. Answer to the question, what will I be judged on or for? It's what they have done. Verse 12, what they have done.

Verse 13, what they have done. 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.

Wow. The first lie ever was about the judgment of God. Remember Satan? You're not gonna die. Judgment's important. It's quiet in here and it should be. But here's the good news. There's a book that says, this is what you've done.

I'll judge you on that. How would we fare, by the way, with that? Based on what we've done, it's in the books, God records it all. There's things that we don't wanna ever talk about that we've done, but now we're gonna be judged for that.

How would you fare in front of a thrice holy God who's just? Based on only last week, what you've done. We know that we could never measure up. But if you look carefully and read carefully, the other book doesn't have deeds in it, it has names.

There's a book of deeds and there's a book of names only. Yes, this deeds book, God knows who they are, but this other one just has names and not deeds. Why is that? This is for the unbeliever and you'll be judged based on all of your deeds, impartially and thorough justice.

But there's another book that just has names. Why doesn't it have deeds? Because all those deeds that are recorded over here that fall short aren't in this other book. Why? Because Jesus paid for every one of those.

And now the only thing that's in that book is my name and now I'm before God. Ask yourself the question, why did Jesus not just come to earth and die when Herod was on his baby killing spree? Well, that would have been enough atonement.