Your Name Must Be on the List

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”  Revelation 20:15

There are several places on this earth that require your name to be on a list in order to enter.  There are some fancy and perhaps not so fancy restaurants that require a reservation in order to dine there.  There are events, such as weddings, that require an invitation.  I am reminded of the movie, “Sweet Home, Alabama”, in which the lawyer for Melanie, who had to finalize a divorce from her first husband, in order to marry her fiancé, attempted to get into the wedding to warn her that she had never signed the divorce papers.  Since she was marrying the son of the mayor of New York City, there were guards to keep out anyone who wasn’t an invited guest.  When he tried to enter the wedding venue, he was turned away because his name wasn’t on the list.  He did make it, but not without a struggle.  Had she married her fiancé, she would have been guilty of bigamy.

There is another event in the future that will not allow anyone whose name is not on the list to enter, and that would be eternal life.  There are multitudes of people today who give no thought at all to eternity.  They either believe that their “good” deeds will outweigh their “bad” deeds, and thus God will allow them to enter His home and become a member of His family, or they don’t even believe in heaven or hell.  They don’t understand that in order to be accepted by the God of the entire universe, the Creator of all things in heaven and earth, their names must be recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  In order for one’s name to be written therein, he or she must repent of sin and place faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and His work on the cross that enabled God to forgive folks of their sins and to give them the righteousness of Christ.

All people will be resurrected, saints and sinners.  The saints, those who trusted in and were committed to Christ will be resurrected, and their works will be judged to determine their rewards in eternity.  The sinners will be resurrected later and will be judged on the basis of their rejection of Christ.  Their names will not be in the book of life, and therefore, they will be cast into the lake of fire with Satan and his demons.  Some folks don’t believe in a literal hell.  Some believe that the body and soul of an evil person just ceases to exist, that is, they are annihilated into nothingness.  However, Jesus spoke too much of hell for it not to be a real place of eternal punishment and agonizing misery.  Logically speaking, if there was no hell, no place of eternal punishment, then people would find no reason to fear God.  In Matthew 10:28, Jesus said not to fear humans who can physically kill you, but “rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”.  Some may take this to mean that when a person ends up in hell because they did not repent and trust Christ, they will be destroyed, as in annihilated, poof–into nothingness.  If so, who would want to spend that split second in such excruciating torture?

No one enjoys hellfire and damnation sermons.  There used to be a lot of those when I was growing up.  However, we hardly ever hear about hell and its consequences anymore except when we hear hell used as a curse word or slang:  “the hell you say”, “what the hell?”, “Oh, hell, no”, and so forth.  If people could only get a picture of what the real hell looks like, they might not be so quick to dismiss it as some sort of fairy tale or something made up just to scare people.  Folks like those “feel good” sermons, you know, the ones that promise health and happiness, that one can be a victor over all challenges, or those about social justice and taking care of the environment.  There is nothing wrong with social justice or being a good steward of the earth.  Jesus was the most socially just person that ever lived.  He loves everyone, but He doesn’t desire for anyone to not have their name in the book of life.  When He died on the cross, He died for the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future sins, but only those who repent and put their faith in Him will have their names recorded in the book of life and will enter into eternal life with Him and with the Father.

Speaking of restaurants, when we go into a new restaurant, we see so many choices on the menu and have trouble making up our mind.  Since the prices are so high nowadays, we desire to pick something that we won’t be sorry we chose.  In life, we only have two choices.  Either we repent and receive Christ as Lord and Savior, or we attempt to please God on our own merit.  It is sometimes difficult to admit that we are a sinner in need of a Savior, but it is a billion times easier than paying for our own sins.