Revelation 20:11-15 (RSV) “Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
So the Word of God does says that unless you name is written in the “book of life” you are thrown into the lake of fire. It is silent on whether God will write anyone’s name into the book of life during the judgment based on what they did. When the Word of God is silent on a subject it means that that subject is not our concern, but His.
There are many examples of people both before and after Jesus’ first coming who, obviously, have been saved. We know for sure that if we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord we will be saved and have our names written in the book of life. We know that we only come to the Father through Jesus, but there are no “magic words” that make this happen. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus was quite harsh to those who practiced a legalistic, formulaic, religion.
So do not worry about other people's fate. Accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord means that you accept God's Plan, as written. We don't get to copy edit it, or second guess it. That is what Eve did in the Garden, and that is what started this whole mess in the first place.
In the end, God is going to separate all the evil and put it into the eternal lake of fire. All that is good, and only that which is good will be present in the new heaven and the new earth. Now is the time to chose where you want to spend eternity.
A letter from an atheist You are really convinced that you've got all the answers. You've tricked yourself into believing that you're 100% right. Well let me tell you just one thing. Do you consider yourself to be compassionate of other human beings? If you're right about GOD, as you say you are, and you believe that, then how can you sleep at night? When you speak with me, you are speaking with someone who you believe is walking directly into eternal damnation, into an endless onslaught of horrendous pain which your ‘loving’ GOD created, yet you stand by and do nothing.
If you believed one bit that thousands every day were falling into an eternal and unchangeable fate, you should be running the streets mad with rage at their blindness. That’s equivalent to standing on a street corner and watching every person that passes by you walk blindly into the path of a bus and die, yet you stand idly by and do nothing. You're just twiddling your thumbs, happy with the knowledge that one day that “Walk” signal will shine your way across the road.
Think about it. Imagine the horrors hell must have in store if the Bible is true. You're just going to allow that to happen and not care about saving anyone but yourself? If you're right, then you're an uncaring, unemotional, and purely selfish (expletive deleted) that has no right to talk about subjects as love and caring.
(A letter as reprinted by Ray Comfort in “The Evidence Bible, Pub. by Living Waters publications, 1-800- 437-1893, or on-line at http://www.livingwaters.com
