Eternity — Paul Washer

Seeking God Through Holy Dissatisfaction

Well, it's a great, it's a tremendous privilege for me to be with you here this, this afternoon. It's a tremendous privilege. You know, there's a lot, a lot of conferences on seeking God, a lot. But my and large men talk a lot about seeking God.

There's not many men who seek Him. So much can be said and so much can be taught. When the only thing that needs to happen is for a great emptiness to come into your heart and the realization that only God can fill it, then you're driven like a madman.

You'll find no peace, you'll find no rest until He moves upon you. Young men, what you need is more than what can be given you here. Young women, the same. You know what you need to do. You need to seek Him.

And that is part of sanctification. God will spend the greater part of the rest of your life creating and revealing need. If you belong to Him, He will not allow you to be satisfied by any lesser thing.

He will drive you. He will take away and rob you of all satisfaction in lesser glories if you belong to Him. And He will make you seek Him. Sometimes in conferences like this, I so appreciate them. But other times, I just want to scream, just go seek Him.

He will be found by you. One of the great problems in the 21st century is we speak much about what God has done. But few men know the reality of what He will do, even in this present age. Let me just say this before I go on to my sermon, which is sort of a departure from what this conference is about.

God can so move upon you in prayer that He will become the most real thing. So real that you do not know whether He has come to bless you or kill you. He could put everyone at this moment on this floor.

He could raise everyone up to joy unspeakable. But don't think He is just a correct way of thinking or a letter on a page. If you see few men with the reality of God in their life, it is not God's fault.

It is that men by and large are so entertained with so many things, even good men entertained by good things. They do not recognize that the only thing is His presence, His power. This is eternal life to know Him.

Thinking Great Thoughts of God

In my life, I have found that there are two ways in which the pursuit of God is initiated and is continued. The first is by thinking great thoughts of God, by studying Scripture, not in just a passing.

Many of you memorized Romans 3 .23 as one of the first texts you ever memorized as a Christian. But you could plant yourself in that text for an eternity of eternities and not exhaust it. There is nothing common in Scripture.

And you have been called to leave the trinkets of this age and to seek out great thoughts about God. The greater He is before you, the more you will seek Him. The other way in which God will both initiate and continue growth in your life is by breaking you into a million pieces, by encompassing you with His strong arms of unconditional love, by cutting you off and cutting you out, by taking away and adding to His providence in your life.

There are many evidences that would tell us whether a person is born again or not. But one of the greatest evidences, in my opinion, is the inescapable providence in the life of a believer. God will chase you down.

You will belong to Him. He will have it no other way. He is a very, very jealous and zealous God. So if you belong to Him, you will seek Him. Not simply because He has given you a new nature, even though that may be the basis of it.

Not simply because He has put the Spirit to dwell in your heart. But His providence will demand it of you. He will take away your ministry. He will take away earthly joys. He will do anything at everything, sparing no cost, so that you will belong to Him.

Eternity and the Responsibility of Hearing the Word

Now, this afternoon, I've got just a lot of pages of notes that I want to go through. It's not something I usually do, but I want to talk about eternity. I want to talk about eternity. And I don't know what it is, but usually in conferences like this, I'm so often drawn to young people.

Young people who have been brought up hearing the Word of the Lord and not recognizing two things about what they've been given as a privilege. One, it is a great privilege. The other is it a terrifying responsibility.

So I want us to go to the book of Revelation, chapter 20, verse 11. Then 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 are written in the books according to their deeds.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in them. And death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, each 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 fire. In genuine Christianity, it begins with a crisis, a confrontation.

We see this perfectly in the example of the Apostle Paul on his way to Damascus with certain plans. And his entire life, not simply his life, we can use a broader term, his entire reality is pulverized and replaced.

So that he is left without eating or drinking, because literally everything in his life has collapsed. I understand, and it's a quite popular thing to say that the Reformers were always saying, Semper Reformando, which means always reforming.

But we are always in need of a continuing and ongoing crisis of reality. We constantly need something to break through and bombard our lives with truth, with reality, with eternity. Because one of the things that the enemy does so well is to draw our thoughts away from that which is not eternal, from that which does not matter.

It's nothing more than a pauper's dream. It comes and it goes and we worry about it so much and we forget that we are all standing with half our feet over the brink of eternity. We need passages like this.

We need to understand that this is not a matter of mere convenience or a better life. It is a subject of life and death. It is a subject of eternity, of heaven and hell. It needs to be burned into our hearts and burned into our minds because the devil has won when he has made you think about more temporal things.

The Great White Throne and the Judgment of the Wicked

So we'll look at our text. I want to begin with the first word, then. He says, then I saw a great white throne. Then. Literally, it's and. And I saw a great white throne. And that and links us up with the verses that proceed.

And what's going on in the verses that proceed? Well, there is something that has to be done by divine providence before there can be a new heaven and a new earth wherein righteousness and joy dwells.

And what must be done? The devil must be cast out. He must be judged. Nothing good can arise until he is dealt with. He's like a cancer. A malady. Malignant and evil. And there'll be nothing of a new heaven and a new earth until God deals with him.

But then, after he has removed this great obstacle so that he may go on and create a new heaven and an earth. After he does this, he turns his attention toward wicked men. And this is what you need to understand.

If you're here tonight and you do not know Christ, you do not know Him, and you go on not knowing Him until either He returns or you die. Know this. After he has dealt with the devil and put him out of the way so that he can create a new heaven and a new earth, something still must be done.

He has to get rid of you. He has to cleanse creation of you before the new creation can begin. Now, I don't know if many of you have listened to this story or seen it on television or read it. The Ebenezer Scrooge.

And Ebenezer Scrooge is transported into the spirit world. And he's privy to a conversation of some people talking. And they're talking about this horrible man, this wretched man, this unloving man. And he can see that this man is bad and that no one cares whether he lives or dies.

And that when he shows up, it just ruins everyone's fun. And he's wondering, who is this person? Only to discover with terror that the people are speaking of him. Now, imagine that you're privy at this very moment, unbeliever, to a conversation between God and the elect angels.

And they are talking about a malady, a malignant tumor, an evil, a vice that must be dealt with before the new heaven and the new earth can be created. And you're thinking, who is this? And then they call your name.

They're talking about you. You must be dealt with. You must be removed. You who have rebelled all your life against God. You who have rejected His Savior, His only begotten Son. You who would not turn if you are not terrified.

It's only because your eyes are blinded. It goes on and he says, Then I saw a great white throne. Literally, in the Greek, he says, I saw a throne. Now, this throne, literally, is a throne seat or a chair of state having a footstool.

It's a magnificent thing. And there is a sense in which everyone on the face of the earth, like John, needs to see a throne. Those of us who are believers, we need to see a throne. We need to constantly be beholding a throne.

Even in these times that we're living in the United States of America and all the confusion and convulsion in this world, we need to constantly have our eyes upon a throne. It's like Isaiah when the good King Uzziah died.

He saw also the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a throne. The believer needs to constantly have that in view. And in that there is great encouragement, even in the light of our own failure and sin.

Because He is Lord even over me and my sanctification. And He is working everything for my good. But at the same time, the unbeliever needs to see a throne. Oh, if you only knew what you are doing, you would stop it.

You need to see a throne. Why? Because it is a tribunal bench. It is a judgment throne. In one place in Scripture, Paul tells us that it's the judgment seat of Christ. In another place, he tells us it's the judgment seat of God.

Nevertheless, there is a throne. You will stand before it. You will be judged. Take it as a certainty. Take it as an absolute certainty. Take it as the most certain thing that's ever going to happen in your life.

For it is appointed unto man once to die. And after that, the judgment. Now, the Scriptures tell us that Christ, the Son of God, in His earthly pilgrimage, that He stood before a throne, a judgment seat of a man called Pilate.

But it shows us here that one day, Pilate, in the greatest of the kings of the earth, will stand before a judgment seat that belongs to Christ. Pilate judged Him wrongly. Pilate trifled with Him. Pilate did not know who was standing before Him.

In the same way, you have gone years and years and years nonchalantly hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not realizing how you trifle with the Son of God. The same blood on the hands of Pilate is on yours.

It says it was great. It was great. He said, I saw a throne. I saw a great white throne. Now, it was great in every sense that you can use the term great. It was great in appearance. It was great in its dimensions.

It was great, and this is important in the Hebrew idea especially. It was great in mass. An infinite significance to this throne. And I want you to think about the word significant, because there is so much in your life that is absolutely insignificant.

And the most significant thing that is going to confront our future age is this throne of infinite mass and weight. It's infinite in compass and extent, strength, rank, eminence, esteem, virtue, authority and power.

It reaches everywhere. It's like Isaiah when he says, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and His train filled the temple. There was no place in that temple where you could stand and that you would not be standing upon this robe of sovereignty and power.

There is nowhere you can flee that this judgment throne will not call you back, even if it has to grab you by the nape of the neck and drag you before it. Now, the greatness of the throne is absolute, but it's also seen in comparison to what's going on here.

And I think if you'll just contemplate on this for a second, you will see the magnitude of this throne. Now, we know from this text that every man, woman and child, from Adam to the last one born at the coming of Christ, an immense multitude of billions upon billions upon billions of humanity all standing together.

But when John gets a glimpse into the room, he doesn't even recognize them. He doesn't even see it. All he sees is a throne. That throne is so large that all of humanity dwindles to nothing before it.

So that the words of the prophet ring true, even in the mouth of John the Revelator, that the nations are nothing. They are like a drop in the bucket before God. It was great. The greatness of that throne is described in Isaiah 66.

Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. The older I become and the more I look at the marvels of this world, scientific marvels, I'm absolutely astounded at the power of God.

A while back I was watching a Discovery Channel program. I had this Bengal tiger who had killed this very large sort of antelope or deer right by the bank of a river. And it left it there and this immense crocodile came up and grabbed the antelope and then drug it into the water and was carrying it off.

The Bengal tiger returns and sees it without one moment's hesitation, leaps into the water, thrashes this immense crocodile and then grabs the antelope. Now, it's in a swamp and so the top of the water is covered with sticks and limbs and leaves and moss.

And so this gigantic tiger with just the muscles in its neck grabs a hold of that antelope and flips it completely out of the water and then swims to it and grabs it again and throws it further into the water, lifting the entire animal.

And I just marveled at the power of deity. This is the One before Whom you are going to stand. Psalms 99 .5 says, Exalt the Lord our God and worship at His footstool. Holy is He. You are invited to worship at this footstool.

Because make no mistake, you will be judged at it. You will be judged. It's a thing that rings in my mind. It's a thing that gives me a fright and a start when I put my little children to bed at night.

They too will stand at the judgment throne of God Almighty. And they know not what awaits them. And all the pleading and all the tears and all the prayers of their father cannot avail against their stubborn will unless God has mercy.

The Holiness and Sovereignty of the One on the Throne

Now the greatness of this throne, in a sense, is demonstrated to us. And where does the greatness come from? It comes from the One seated upon the throne. You see, there's nothing about heaven, in a sense, even worth talking about, except that it is touched by God.

Except that it has to do with God. That's why this music about gates of pearl and streets of gold, it's upsetting to me. I don't care much for it. I mean, there are men on this planet who can buy gates of pearl and make their entire compounds and their mansions out of solid gold.

That is not what makes glory, glory. It is God who makes glory, glory. And never forget this, it's also God who makes hell, hell. But the One seated upon this throne is the I Am. There's no one like Him.

Try on this side of judgment to measure up your opponent. Compare him to a bear or a lion or a great wave, a tsunami. Try to compare him to an F5 tornado and it will all fall short. He is compared to no one.

And so when you try to size up your opponent to determine whether or not you really want to go to judgment with Him, beware, take the full force of all this world and combine it into one power and it's nothing before Him.

He's the I Am. He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's eternal. Listen to me, there will never be a changing of the guard. If you do not like this divine administration, then realize it will not change. Do not wait another president or another royalty or another election.

There will be none. And I dare say that the inhabitants of this world ought to know something. If there were an election, the infinite and most glorious beings of heaven would outvote the sons of men because they have seen Him.

He's the Ancient of Days. Don't think that He's like me, feeble or crippled. He's ancient in His wisdom. Ancient in His strength. He's not an upstart God. He's the eternal God. He's the invisible God.

He's the blessed God whether you go to heaven or not. I can't quote Tozer accurately on this, but I can get enough of him in there to put his name on it. And as he said this, If all of the men were to go blind, it would not diminish the glory of the sun and the moon and the stars.

If every man on earth were to become an atheist, it would not diminish the glory of God. He'll gain nothing from saving you. Blessed God, the Mighty One, the Holy One. One of the greatest mistakes that is made is that you attribute holiness to sinlessness.

Now make no mistake, He is sinless. And that is one aspect of His holiness. But know this, He is holy in that He is separate. He is distinct. He is not like you. In other words, you don't know what you're going to encounter.

But there are enough warnings in Scripture to let you know what you are going to encounter is holy. And there is none holy like the Lord. He's the God of gods, so make your gods. He'll tear them down.

He's the King of kings. He's the Lord of lords. He is the Possessor of earth and heaven. He's the Blessed and Only Sovereign. He's the Lawgiver. He's the Judge of all the earth who will do right. And He is the One that must be feared.

Isn't it amazing that God can get more wisdom out of the mouth of a pagan king than He can most contemporary preachers? Because He said this through Nebuchadnezzar,. But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me.

And I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, What have you done? And it is a white throne. I simply believe that John is using this word simply because there's not another word. I think the idea here is the color of white is representing a perfect holiness, a moral excellence, an unmingled purity, an unwavering, invincible justice.

But white doesn't really seem to fit. I define this term based on what I see in Daniel 7 -9. I believe that John saw the white hot flames of God's brilliant holiness. I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took His seat.

His vesture was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were burning. It is a brilliance that you dare not see with the naked eye. You see, apocalyptic language, the language that is used in the book of Revelation, the language that is used among the prophets, I think is the language of the wild man.

It's the language of a man, a prophet, who has had an encounter with God that is so great that his mind cannot comprehend it, nor does his language give him enough strength to describe it. And he's left there with mouth open, gaping, trying to find terminology.

Blazing like the midday sun in all its glory. It's not even the foothills of the fire of His holiness. He goes on. He says that it was white. That it was great. But there is something to be learned here.

What Is Missing from Revelation 20

Not by just what John sees. But there is something to learn here from what John does not see. I want you to go for just a moment to the book of Revelation chapter 4, verse 1. After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven.

And the first voice which I heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking to me, said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things. And he says, Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and one sitting on the throne.

And he who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardis in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. Around the throne were 24 thrones. And upon the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting, clothed in white garments and gold crowns on their heads.

Out from the throne come splashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

And in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes, and in front and behind. Now that's a different description of the throne than what we have in Revelation chapter 20. First of all, notice in Revelation chapter 20, nothing is said of the appearance of the one seated upon the throne.

God has spent a good many centuries revealing Himself to men. All the days of your waking life, God has been revealing Himself to you. Telling you over and over and over, either by the laws written on your heart and the conscience bearing witness, or by preachers faithfully preaching the Word of God.

God has been revealing Himself and revealing Himself and revealing Himself to you. When John comes in chapter 4, God is revealing something. But here on judgment all revelation is over. Nothing is there.

The knowledge of God is gone. There will be nothing to learn. Nothing to hold to. Nothing to believe in if you already have not learned and held to and believed in. One of the greatest judgments God can ever bring upon a people is to take His knowledge away from them.

And here when they look forward, they see nothing of a saving God. Also notice that there is no rainbow representing any sort of covenant or promise. He has given you promise after promise after promise.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. It is as though for the last 2 ,000 years angels have been circling the globe with six wings flying, crying out, He died, He died, He is risen indeed.

Come and eat and drink. Promise after promise after promise after promise. And you say, no, no, no, no. I don't care. The greatest thing in all creation, the greatest thing in all human history, the greatest thing in all the minds of all the godly creatures in glory, and you don't care.

Also notice that the smaller thrones that were placed around the throne in chapter 4 have all been removed. It's as though God is looking at you saying, this is between Me and you. No one comes with you on this day.

No one stands beside you on this day. There will be no glance of pity. There will be no help from outside. It is just between you and Me. One of the most important things about this is God will be able to say to you, I told you to listen.

I told you to prepare. I warned you and warned you and warned you. Now there is no help. You know, in our educational system today, it seems like everyone can spend the entire semester flunking and then they can go to the professor and ask for make-up work.

There ought to be something I can do. And always the answer is, yes, certainly there is. We can find some way to help you. But we are going to go to the most compassionate, loving being and He is going to say no.

No. You look to those who are sitting on those 24 thrones and try to find them, you won't find them. If you catch them in an alleyway somewhere or you catch them in a corridor of heaven, they'll run from you.

God has told them to withdraw. You're alone. Notice also there is no angelic choir with joyful singing. Not one voice of gladness can be heard. The silence is terrible and terrifying, filled with questions.

What is this? But you don't want an answer because you know what it is. Your heart has been screaming this at you ever since you can remember. And now it all comes back with clarity. You see, for all your life, God has given you His truth.

But your wicked, ungodly, evil heart has pressed it down and suppressed it and restrained it and said, I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear. But now even that is pulled back. Notice that there is no more lightning and thunder.

You say, well, finally some relief. All these Christians and all these preachers always storming and yelling and talking about judgment and thunder and lightning and law. Finally, that's all over, which you don't understand.

And many people don't understand this because they'll look at the Law of Moses. They'll look at that mount and they'll say, Law. And then they'll look at the New Testament and say, Grace. I look at that mountain and say, yes, grace, but New Testament greater grace.

Because you see, even the law was grace. Even the thunder and the lightning was grace. It was God crying out, listen and live. It was God saying, be instructed. You don't want thunder and lightning? The thunder and lightning that precedes a storm can be the very thing that saves you from the storm.

But now all thunder and lightning are gone. There's no warning for you. What comes upon you, comes upon you like a flood and there is no remedy. You can be the fleetest of foot and you will not escape it.

You can be the most enduring swimmer, but you will not be able to escape its torrents. It's coming for you. Make no mistake, it's coming for you. Also, the seven torches representing the Spirit of God are gone.

The only medium, the third person of the Trinity, able to take the gospel to you. Able to speak to you a word, able to draw you. He's gone. His ministry has been withdrawn. Now you can hear all the promises.

Now you can hear all the warnings, if there were warnings, if there were promises. But it will be to no avail because there will be no ministering Holy Spirit there to make it real or to recreate or to convince.

Also, there is no celestial pavement marking your way back to God. There is no sea so calm that it looks like solid crystal. Now it's just fury. The road has been broken up and retracted. You don't know where to go.

And the calm sea across which you could have walked by faith is now a tsunami, a torrent to engulf you and send you to hell. Also, there are no angels ready to fly with burning coals in order to cleanse the guilty.

There is no lamb in this picture of the throne looking as if it had been slain. And there is no trumpet saying, draw near. But rather you hear, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you.

When I look at my culture and the brilliant men of my day, I know that all the things I'm saying, please know this, I know they seem absolutely absurd. Like I'm a by-product of some ancient, long-ago Victorian era.

A fool screaming out mythology and trying to convince men of a ghost. But I take great heart in that my Lord told me it would be that way. I stand not upon my own intellectual capability or my ability to judge my culture.

I stand upon this. Jesus Christ really was God in the flesh. And everything He says is true. But other preachers, I don't care about other preachers. I care about Him. Well, who do you think you are? A lone island out there?

No. Go back through history. Cut a mark all the way from the beginning. And you will find these are the things men of God have always told people. Now, who is upon the throne? As I've said before, in some parts of Scripture it tells us that it is the Father upon the throne.

Other parts of Scripture we read that it is the Son upon the throne. And this is a good lesson for all the budding exegetes and theologians out there. If you're trying to figure out exactly who it is, Father or Son seated upon this throne, you are entirely missing the point.

You are straining at a gnat. And you're missing the greater, more important matter. What He's telling you is God in all the fullness of deity is seated upon that throne. And that God has appointed a day when He will judge all men through His Son, through the man Christ Jesus.

And He will judge them in righteousness. Now, notice this, that He sat. It's one of the most powerful things. Every time I turn on some news channel and I see the nations and the politicians and the captains and great men of this age raging and strutting with all their supposed power, I realize He sits.

He sits. Even in the most amazing day of creation, even in the middle of the chaos of judgment upon the throne, the psalmist said this, Why are the nations in an uproar and the people devising a vain thing?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His annoying saying, Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at him.

I can hardly bear listening to most Christian radio and Christian news because you would think every day the world's coming to an end. The secularists and the materialists and everybody else are coming to steal our children.

They're going to throw us all in jail. They're going to burn all the Bibles. God says, let them come and see what I do for my people. And that's why you should be looking to the throne instead of conservative politicians.

One of the reasons God's judged this country is because many of the so-called Christians have turned their eye more toward conservative politicians than they have the God upon the throne. The church in a way, not the church, but Christianity in America is like the ugly girl at the school dance.

She'll dance with anybody that looks her way. Every person that calls the name of an evangelical or a Christian, we're ready to dance with them. Cut the rope and let them all go. Turn our attention toward heaven where God is reigning.

So He sits upon the throne. And He is so great that the multitude is subdued by His appearance. If the full measure of all the strength of all the creatures in heaven and hell and the earth were to revolt against God and come at Him with their full force in one concentrated area of the throne, it would be as though the weakest of them was standing alone.

It would be like a mite beating its head against the world of granite. But most of us, we worry about persecution not because we think the kingdom of God is going under. We worry about persecution because we don't want to suffer.

And we don't want to suffer because we think more about comfort than we do holiness. Go on. Whose presence earth and heaven fled away. The Greek word literally means to flee away, to seek safety by flight.

Now, the very important thing here is from whom are they running? From whom are they running? They're running from the one who sits upon the throne. From the face or countenance of the one seated upon the throne.

Sice says this. Now listen, this is very, very important what he says. This throne, for those in judgment. Now listen. This throne has an awful occupant. There is no name, no figure, no shape, but only an awful, mysterious and composed presence, which can be nothing less than the one unnameable, indescribable, eternal Godhead.

Here there is nothing but the naked presence of almightiness. And so dreadful that the very earth and heavens seem to flee into nothingness before it. This is often repeated, especially in the book of Psalms.

In Psalm 75, it says, When I select an appointed time, it is I who will judge with equity. The earth and all who dwell in it will melt. Now notice, here's something very, very important. It is one thing for inhabitants or men to melt at the injustice of a cruel tyrant.

But this verse betrays our wickedness in that we melt before the equity of God. We melt before the justice of God. Now if I get an abate at times in evangelism and things, and someone says certain things to me, I'll say, Well, men do not seek God.

Why don't men seek God? Well, that's easy, because God is good. And they'll absolutely say, Well, that's preposterous. Why would someone not want to seek a good God? I say, Only if they're evil. And the reason why you do not seek a good, loving God is because you're neither good nor loving.