Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15). Many people in the world today are on a fast-track to worshiping the Antichrist, and they don’t even know it. It’s only a small step from worshiping sports idols, music idols, movie stars, government leaders and the material things of this world, to worshiping the Antichrist.
Someday the Antichrist will imitate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The book of life is mentioned several times in the Bible, and there are arguments as to whether a person that professes to be Christian can have their name taken out of the book of life because of a sinful and ungodly lifestyle. No one on this earth knows for sure how all this works, but God has it all under His control.
Paul wrote, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-4). This is a good picture of what this ungodly world looks and acts like today!
In many segments of the Christian community there’s an easy belief system that says, “Say a sinners prayer, ask Jesus into your heart, join our church, and your salvation is secure for all eternity.” But there are many verses in the Bible that contradict those kinds of easy belief doctrines. Moses was begging the Lord to forgive the Hebrew people for their idolatry, and if He didn’t to blot his name out of the book of life (Exodus 32:32). The Lord replied, “Whoever has sinned against Me I will blot out of My book” (Exodus 32:33).
Jesus told the Pharisees, “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins” (John 8:24). Implying that those who have not trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will die in their sins and their name will not be in God’s Book of Life. The reason some people are not in God’s Book of Life is because they haven’t trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and God has turned them over to their sinful nature (Romans 1:24).
There are verses in the Bible that indicate that there are people who have made a verbal commitment to Jesus Christ, but their verbal commitment is not backed up by a lifestyle committed to godly living, and their name was never in God’s Book of Life, or it was taken out of God’s Book of Life. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
Not every preacher who carries a Bible and preaches about Jesus will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not every church worker or leader who always attends all the church activities will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who profess to love Jesus will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who says they have done many wonders in Jesus’ name will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who says they have cast out demons in Jesus’ name will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who goes to church every Sunday shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because their faith wasn’t a true and living faith; they continued to live an ungodly lifestyle.
Paul warns us that those living an ungodly lifestyle will not enter into the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:21, Ephesians 5:5). Jesus warned the Laodicean church that because of their lukewarm attitude toward Him, He will spit them out of His mouth (Revelation 3:14-19). Peter wrote, “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning” (2 Peter 2:20).
Have you ever sat down to think about where you will spend eternity? Everyone wants to go to heaven and not hell. It’s normal. If for example, if you attend an ungodly night club party of drunkenness and immorality and ask the question, “Who among you wants to go to heaven?” Probably all the people there would raise up their hands. They don’t want to go to hell, but unfortunately they’ve already made that decision by the lifestyle that they are living.
Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Have we taken the time to examine ourselves? Does our lifestyle demonstrate that we are a Christian? Our names may be in some church’s record books, but is our names in the God’s Book of Life? We may be known as “popular preachers” but are we known by God?
There’s a hymn that Christians sometimes sing. The first stanza and chorus is: “There’s a great day coming, a great day coming, there’s a great day coming by and by, when the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left, are you ready for that day to come? Chorus: Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready for the judgement day? “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27). Our eternal destiny is our choice.
