Runaway Earth, Runaway Sky: Sermon on Revelation 20:11-15

As I'm sure just about all of you know by now, not only do I serve as the pastor of your church, and not only do I serve as the pastor of our sister-church, but I have a third hat to wear: as the one and only archivist overseeing the archives of our entire denomination of the church of Jesus Christ. Now, if any of you ever made an appointment with me up at the archives, there's a lot you'd be able to look into. From our boxes and filing cabinets, you could pull out a folder of material about each and every church we've got, including this one. You could also find a file for each and every pastor who served this church since at least the 1920s, if not before. If you wanted, you could look at files with material from lots of past missionaries – I found one old photo album filled with black-and-white pictures taken in India, some featuring the joy on new believers' faces at the moment of their baptism into Christ. You could, of course, find files on all the committees we've ever had, and files on all our affiliate ministries, and files on all the denomination-level programs. You'll find file folders just stuffed with minutes and newsletters and bulletins and manuscripts. I have a few favorite things I've found while looking through, like a little notebook recording sermons with their dates at one of our churches over 150 years ago – it actually records who preached a memorial sermon there, and from what text of scripture, after the Lincoln assassination. (The preacher was one Rev. Leopold, and the passage was Judges 19:30, for those who are curious.) In those archives, there are many things you could make an appointment with me to see.

But there are other things there that you couldn't make an appointment to see. And the phrase we professionally use for those is 'closed files.'  The Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology explains that “a closed file carries the connotation that no one may see the file until the conditions causing the file to be closed have expired or have been removed.” I sadly add closed files on a regular basis – manila envelopes, taped shut, with a name across the top, containing the personnel records of each pastor who dies. And they're to be sealed until twenty-five years after the subject's death. When that day comes, only then will I slice open the envelope and transfer the contents into a nice acid-free file folder, label it with the name, and put it back into the drawers. There are, of course, other closed files – we have boxes full of the papers of many of the bishops who've served us, but the correspondence of some of the more recent bishops are still sealed for up to fifty years after their death, to protect the privacy of younger pastors who wrote to them and who might still be around thirty or forty years later.

We have open files; we have closed files. I've even spotted places where the two got administratively mixed-up in the past – I've accidentally stumbled across records of discipline and therapy that some of our still-living pastors went through, I've found personnel files that never got appropriately sealed before, I've found evaluations about the strengths and weaknesses of pastors who are still in denominational service. To serve as our denomination's archivist is a privilege and, I think, a hefty responsibility. There's a fantastic wealth of material for me to steward there. And not only do I go up a few times a month to oversee it, but I'm able to do research there – and yes, before I accepted a call to my second church, I went and read the open file on it! And over time, there will be even more open files of material... but in many cases, we just have to wait until the day each closed file gets opened.

We know that, in the Bible, archives had a place in the life of God's people even then. Plenty of records had to be stored in the palace or in the temple. After a long season of national backsliding, someone found a copy of Deuteronomy stored away in the temple, and it stirred King Josiah to recommit Judah to her covenant with God (2 Kings 23:2-3). When the temple was destroyed, a great deal was undoubtedly lost, though not all. When the people returned from their exile in Babylon, those who wanted to serve as priests had to be verified against the archival records listing the priestly families, to make sure they qualified for that hereditary position – and not all who thought they were could actually be found there, so some “were excluded from the priesthood as unclean” (Ezra 2:62; cf. Nehemiah 7:5). And, of course, when enemies tried to stop the Jews from rebuilding the temple of God, the Jewish elders were able to appeal to the Persian king Darius to check “the royal archives there in Babylon, to see whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king for the rebuilding of this house of God in Jerusalem” (Ezra 5:17) – and, sure enough, a scroll was found “in the house of the archives” (Ezra 6:2), which allowed the construction to not only continue but be fully funded by government grant (Ezra 6:8-15).

With a background like that, it's no wonder that, over time, Jewish thought began to imagine heavenly archives. Over time, some Jewish visionaries started claiming to have seen angel scribes keeping records in heaven, with some files filled with the names of God's friends and others with the names of God's enemies, or with some listing the good deeds of the righteous and others listing the sins of every sinner. But it all stems from a vision that Daniel saw while living in exile: “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. … A stream of fire issued and came out from before him. A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.... And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire” (Daniel 7:9-11). Much later, but just like Daniel, John would look forward to the time when “the books [will be] opened.” What John is talking about is the time of the end. So what can we really say is going to happen?

First, we look forward to the general resurrection of all the dead. Daniel had already heard that “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Jesus himself declared that “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29). And so John first sees this under the imagery of a double harvest, first of good grain and then of grapes that get trampled (Revelation 14:14-20). But John later clarifies the image by telling us that “the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them” (Revelation 20:13). “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne” (Revelation 20:12).

Friends, our eternal state does not begin as soon as we die. Because the goal is not for your spirit to fly away to heaven and leave your body in the dust forever. That's only Phase 1 at best. This passage is finally taking us to what comes after heaven. “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed; for this perishable body must put on the imperishable, this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:52-53). There will come a day when precisely zero of the graves in our church cemetery are filled. Because they will give back the bodies entrusted to them. Those bodies will be raised. Every person who ever lived, no matter how they died, will stand up again. That means your parents and your grandparents and your ancestors from thirty generations back. That means your spouse you laid to rest, and it means your children and grandchildren. It means Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. It means all the people in the missionary's photo album and all the people in those manila envelopes. So you have to think beyond the afterlife. What happens right away, away from the body, is just the start. The dead will all be given back.

Second, God appears, manifests himself, to judge. And when he does, things get... intense. Never before has God been so directly seen in his glory. “No one has ever seen God,” the apostles could write (1 John 4:12). “Man shall not see me and live,” God told Moses (Exodus 33:20). But on that day, God will fully drop the veil that keeps him from the universe's view. Every layer of protection will be stripped away. There will be direct exposure to God in his fullness. And it will send the old-creation structure scattering before his splendor. The prophet Isaiah had already known it would not be something the universe could handle: “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of Yahweh of Hosts in the day of his fierce anger” (Isaiah 13:13). “All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall like leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree” (Isaiah 34:4). So when God appears on his throne of judgment, with Jesus seated on the same judgment-throne at the Father's right hand, the skies above and earth below will recoil in terror. On “the day of God..., the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn,” we're told (2 Peter 3:12). “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a 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” (2 Peter 3:10). But when John describes the same thing, he just says: “I saw a great white throne, and the One who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them” (Revelation 20:11).

We cannot forget that God is “the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 21:6). Just as he was the Alpha and Beginning who brought those heavens and earth into being, so he will be their Omega, their End. And they try to run away and hide, this earth and this sky, but “no place was found for them.” There is a hope for them, for the whole universe, but it, too, will come only by dying to be raised as a new creation. (More on that next Sunday.) For now, just contemplate all that's impressive in the universe. The majestic heights of mountains. The sun that, from 93 million miles away, can still blind us if we stare directly into its glory. The galaxies that dwarf the measures of which our minds can conceive.

Now think that, with one glance at the appearance of our God on his throne, the sun and the stars will go blind, unable to bear to look at his brightness. Think that, overwhelmed by his immensity, whole galaxies will feel small and ashamed. Think that Mount Everest will crumble in fear at the sight of him, that Mount Rushmore will hide its faces. Think that Mars in its reddish hues will blush in worship and try to hide. No wonder no one could ever see God, truly see God as he is, and live. So when John will later go on to say that, after this coming day has passed, those who serve God “will see his face” (Revelation 22:4), know that it can only mean that the smallest and weakest believer here has, as a destiny, to become stronger than all this universe we now know – to be tougher than mountains, planets, and stars. (But more on that in the weeks ahead.) Too often we have lost our healthy awe in approaching God. Nuclear war is a pinprick next to the sight of him. The dinosaurs got off easy with the asteroid. And can we be blasé in thinking of him? God forbid!

Third, once the runaway earth and runaway sky have left the picture, once all who've ever lived have stood up and been called into court before the 'great white throne,' then the court will be in session. And for the court to be in session, the closed files can be closed no more. So, we read, “books were opened … and the dead were judged by what was written in the books” (Revelation 20:12). “They were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:13).

The scene would not have been intellectually shocking to well-read Jewish believers in the seven churches who got this first. After all, the prophets had pointed to it, and later Jewish writers had envisioned it. They knew, as an intellectual doctrine, that there was going to be a last judgment. But it's one thing to apprehend something in the abstract with the mind, and another thing to enter upon it with the heart, the core of the self. From those seven churches to our churches today, and from the first-century world to the twenty-first-century world, we all need a periodic reminder: There is a judgment. Records are being kept of what you do. No moral or immoral action is passed over by the diligent scribes in the Almighty's employ. As Jesus said, “on the day of judgment, people will [even] give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36). Every word you've ever said or written is in those books! And they will serve as evidence before the court.

We humans are so prone to put on appearances where we know we can be seen – we get dressed up, we cover up our faults, we try to manage perceptions – and yet we think that, once we're by ourselves, what happens there is our lasting secret. But there is a God who “sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4), “for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light” (Mark 4:22). Each word, each deed, is reflected in the records that are being kept. The heavenly archives have no continuity gap in their coverage. Be assured that nothing here goes unrecorded there. The heavenly files have more information about your life than you reckoned there was to know. And there certainly judgment rendered, on the basis of what's in the heavenly files.

For we know that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31). There is coming “a day when... God judges the secrets of human beings by Jesus Christ” (Romans 2:16). And when that day comes – the day John is foreseeing, the day we're talking about, Judgment Day – on that day, “we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Romans 14:10), “for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Judgment Day is coming. It is a real time. Each day crossed off the calendar reduces the count by one. It could be ten thousand years distant. It could start before I finish this sermon. Are you ready?

Ready or not, when it comes, fourth, sentence will be passed. And we know that some will not fare too well. We heard last Sunday about how John introduces the image of a burning lake, a lake of fire and sulfur, his picture of hell, the final hell. We heard how “the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet” that had deceived the world, and “these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (Revelation 19:20). We heard also about how “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). The devil does not get to reign in hell. (Maybe you remember that Miltonian line where the devil considers it's “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” (Paradise Lost 1.263)?  Well, sorry, Satan: 'reigning in hell' was never an option!) The devil can only languish in hell, suffer in hell. The devil is who the lake of fire is there for. He's not there yet. But it's guaranteed that he will be! Satan will lose. And no milder punishment could fit all the devil's crimes.

Just the same, “Death and Hades” are going to be “thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). Death will lose its power, for it will burn. The grave, the underworld, will go down in flames. All the forces that Satan's been using will not be left to keep infesting the world. No, the lake of fire is the garbage dump of all creation, the incinerator that's meant to quarantine the trash so everything else can be cleaned up. Death is trash. Into the incinerator it will go, joining Devil, Hades, Beast, and False Prophet. All of them will, as it were, be 'deaccessioned' from the cosmos. All as it should be.

But then we read a sadder twist. The lake of fire was made for spiritual realities that have to be excluded from God's good world. But through sin, we fuse ourselves to such unclean spiritual realities.  Through sin, we estrange ourselves from God and from his good world. And because sin stains our names in the books of our deeds, we're on a path to same flame. Those with un-atoned sin still on the books will similarly be “thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). The “day of judgment” will be “the day of... the destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7). For as God spoke through Isaiah to those who estranged themselves: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame” (Isaiah 65:13). “Their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isaiah 66:24).

Hell is real, and the stakes are higher than we imagine. “If anyone worships the beast..., he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:9-11). Who goes there? The lake of fire will be the destination for “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars” (Revelation 21:8). Who tells us that? It's the voice of God himself, decreeing it from the throne! And that list certainly covers the bases, doesn't it? Our impulses may tempt us to try to justify one or another of those categories, but equally they lead to fire.

What will it be like, this 'lake of fire'? Like everything else in Revelation, it's a symbol. No fire of the flesh can burn fallen angels who have no flesh, much less worldly power-structures like the beast. But what this picture shows us is destruction – a destruction for which we were not made, but which God lets us ultimately choose, if we prefer it to him. We were made to swell with life and be crowned with glory in Christ, but people have the option to say no to Jesus, to reject the Way, the Truth, the Life. If people do that, then they starve their souls even now. And that starvation will continue unabated, only there will be nothing left to mask the feeling. So those who turn away from the Life will starve themselves, forever shrinking, curving in upon themselves, withering, imploding. The best and most decent person outside of Christ will find that, when all borrowed grace flies the coop, what's left can't keep its own structural integrity. It's the natural consequence of continuing to exist in the absence of borrowed grace. The very self will endlessly diminish.

And we weren't made to endlessly diminish! We were made to receive the love of a God who is inescapable in even the grave – “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Psalm 139:8) – but to fall into the 'lake of fire' is to finally refuse redemption, finally refuse joy, and so be left with nothing but haunting shame. It is to be magnetically repelled by God's love, shamed by their permanent exile from everything that's good, all while unable to escape or deny. “Those who don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus... will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction that comes from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). Internalizing that shame and that penalty, they thus experience their own sin-shriveled souls as corrosive from within, producing a torment that yields “no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:11). For an experience like that, the burning shame of a corrosive soul amidst the smoldering collapse of a self, the loss of an ability to experience love as other than wrath, we can find no sensible image other than fire and sulfur: as the psalmist says, “fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup” (Psalm 11:6).

That is not a portion that I ever want to have! That is not a portion I want any of you to have (which is why I get up in this pulpit on Sunday mornings, after all). It is not a portion I want any of my neighbors to have. It is not a portion for which a man or a woman is made. So to realize that anybody is on a road that leads to such eternal destruction should give us deep discomfort. “Take care, brothers [and sisters], lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God! But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'Today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12-13). That serious word should lead to introspection. That serious would should lead to impassioned evangelism. And that serious word should lead to committed discipleship. But that word is so serious, it almost makes us ask if there is any hope, any way to avoid the 'lake of fire.'

If the books of our deeds were all we could rely on, we'd be in dire straits, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We “have all fallen away; together [we] have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 53:3). But there is one last book that gets opened, and John sees it as worth mentioning separately. “Then another book was opened, which is the book of life” (Revelation 20:12). Elsewhere we hear of it as “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8), and it takes a dominant role in God's court. It is precisely because the Lamb was slain that our names can be written into that book at all. It's the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, told as it unfolds throughout time, as each of us allow our old selves to be crucified to the world with Jesus (Galatians 2:20; 6:14), so long as we continue to “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4), “for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:14).

The prophet Daniel had, long ago, heard a promise of deliverance, of salvation, for “everyone whose name shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). And, to stick with that image, your name is written there, if you are really a follower of the Lamb wherever he goes. That entails more than just claiming to be a Christian, just going through the motions, just using the word and grabbing the name. John is well aware that there are people in his seven churches who are not really followers of the Lamb, and there are some who are in danger of leaving the Lamb. But for those who persist in a faith that overcomes, their name will not be erased from the Lamb's book of life: “The one who overcomes... – I will never blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels,” Jesus promises (Revelation 3:5). If Jesus is our permanent record, then the book of life is the volume that reveals our eternal destiny.

In that case, our appearance in court will not be as criminals brought up from prison to a sentencing hearing, as will be the case with those who haven't followed the Lamb. No, our appearance in court will be more like being brought down from heavenly protective custody as witnesses, coming to be vindicated by the Judge's ruling. It's true that we'll stand for a performance review: “Each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire … If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). In that sense, “each of us will give an account of himself [or herself] to God” (Romans 14:12). But so long as we stick with the Lamb to the end, ours is eternal life in place of the second death. John promises us that, if we abide in God through love, “we may have confidence for the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17)!

But ever-present to our minds and hearts, we must know that there will be a day of judgment, and that our faith must be an active following of Jesus if we hope to look to that day with confidence. These things are real. Life and death are more than biological. In the end, everyone throws their lot in with God or Dragon, Lamb or Beast, Holy Spirit or False Prophet, and will get their wish to be where their respective choice is. Sin is nothing but imitating the devil – those who back away from the Lamb are backing into the maw of a Dragon. But for those whom heavenly archives reveal to have really belonged to the Lamb, there's nowhere to go but 'further up and further in'! The name of each Lamb-follower is recorded in a book, a Book of Life, and the name is no misnomer. To belong to the Lamb is the only way to have, not just extended quantity of life, but to be promised the full quality of life – Jesus came so we “may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Real flourishing and wholeness, real enjoyment and vibrancy, will come as we “forever shall [his] love and glory know,” spending eternity in journeying wherever the Lamb leads the way. If you belong to Christ, if you have him as your Rock of Refuge, if you keep following the Lamb, then the day of runaway earth and runaway sky will be a good day for you and (I hope) me!

So be courageous. Be trusting. Be honorable. Cling to life and purity, devotion and truth. Abide in God's love and follow the Lamb. And know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, when everything is resolved, it will no more matter what this age's court of public opinion has said. What will matter is whether your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life (and what further rewards might be warranted by what's written in the books of your deeds). And hallelujah – Jesus is still taking names! Stay faithful – he will not blot yours out.  Glory to God! Amen.