The Power of Damnation

Matt.10:28 - And fear not them which kill the body, but arenot able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
And so the Lord gives a frightening warning about which we all have not given it it's consummate position. Jesus says that we should not fear he (or that) which can kill the body, and that is what we most strongly fear. Think about what can kill a person, a two year old with a gun; a microscopic germ; a drug overdose; a hundred different animals; an avalanche; a tornado; an infection; old age; and a "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to"(Shakespeare). Those are minor league compared to the center of the sun; a direct hit from an asteroid; no air; no water; a black hole; and a million other variations of things that can cause death to the body. But our Lord said not to fear anything or anyone that can kill the body, for the physical body is temporal, not eternal.
But against that backdrop Jesus exhorted us to fear Him who can cast the soul into hell. Nothing and no one has that power save "He who sits upon the Great White Throne". How many of us have had a dream where we jump, or fall, or are pushed, and we begin to fall to our death? It is an extremely unpleasant and frightening vision and some of us have awakened in a panicked sweat at the thought. Falling over a cliff conjures up monstrous emotions that we have been separated from the earth; we are heading for a horrible death; we cannot be helped; the situation is irreversible; our lives pass before us; and the final impact will be catastrophic and yet unclear. Upon awakening from that nightmare we experience both relief and a residue of fear.
The power to damn a soul in the lake of fire, forever, eclipses every power in heaven and earth except one - the power of the resurrection. I believe there is an incredible dearth of bone rattling and soul inspecting fear, both in the world and in the church. And it is a direct result of two realities in the body of Christ today. We don't preach it with the accompanying urgency because we don't believe it. Now we cannot compare ourselves with the "cotton candy" messages of much of the church today and thereby feel good about our own situation. That is a deception straight from the Deceiver himself. But upon laying open our hearts before the Almighty, and beseeching Him to search us, we may find that we need a revival that so revolutionizes our truth reservoir that our Biblical "creed" escapes from the "church shaped bushel" and powerfully lights up the world in which we live.
How can we say we believe the "story" of the Great White Throne, where souls are cast into the eternal lake of fire, and never act outside accepted social parameters? On the Day of Pentecost the disciples, filled and empowered by God's Spirit, spilled out into the street and preached a message they had only just learned themselves. We treat the Day of Pentecost as a benchmark of the birth of the church, but we don't even recognize that these followers of Jesus were in such powerful abandonment that they were accused of being drunk. And why does the Holy Spirit of God desire to fill the followers of Christ in such a way as to draw attention the message? Because the whole world is damned and needs salvation!!! Now if you believe that man doesn't have even the slightest sliver of free will, or if you do not even consider that there is a mystery to that, then go back to studying your Systematic Theology. With you there is no urgency. But if you just consider what has transpired in church history, and if you've ever read Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and if you've ever read the biographies of great missionaries of God, and if you've ever flipped through the accounts of great revivals, then just maybe you feel the hunger for God to use your life outside the box you now dwell in.
And if you've ever read Revelation chapters 19&20(I challenge you to read them five nights in a row) and asked God to help you believe it, then you and I could actually speak and behave as if there was an urgency that transcends this physical realm. People then might not believe what we say, but they might be convinced we do! In the rapidly approaching moment when heaven and earth will flee away from the face of Him who sits on the Great White Throne, at that moment, all history will gather and only that which was done for the redemptive cause of Christ Himself will mean anything. Jesus didn't die and resurrect to give us a more pleasurable life here on earth. That is residual.

Jesus, the Christ, alone, has the power to damn the souls of men by the application of the justice of Almighty God.

He resurrected to eternally break that power.

It must always be our clear and consuming warning shared with a loving fire.

Halleluiah!!!