After the wedding comes the war. Jesus, the true Knight in shining armor rides a white horse to victory. Everyone who sees him knows he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. After he rounds up all the forces of evil, our Lord sits down on a great white throne. There in the presence of God, all that is secret will be revealed. The evil one and his emissaries will be thrown into the lake of fire.
Do you believe in hell? Not everyone does, I know. One excellent communicator wrote a book called "Love Wins," in which he argues that God always gets what he wants, and he wants everyone to be saved, so in the end he will say, "Alley Alley in come free." Then the game will be over. No hell. It is an appealing perspective I admit. Against this point of view are Jesus' consistent teachings and John's words in this chapter. God prepared hell for the devil and his angels. Unfortunately, people will also go there.
The key is to have one's name written in the Lamb's book of life. So as the great Judge sees our names, he will take us to live with him. But what of those whose names are not written in the book? They will endure forever outside the presence of God in a lake of fire. Jesus portrayed hell with the image of Gehenna the burning refuse dump outside the city of Jerusalem. This picture defuses for me the silly bumper stickers and popular songs which imply that hell will be a great party. There is no life outside the presence of our Creator and Redeemer. We can accept God's invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb or lose the war and end up in the lake of fire. But we cannot do both. Let this truth inform our decisions about God and about how we love others who need to know Christ.
