Ahhh, rewards!
Who among us would not appreciate,
Gifts in return for merit, hardship or service?
Rewards recognize exceptional performance.
And qualities others could inculcate.
They’re unlike awards that serve another purpose.
Awards emphasize illustrious achievement.
Interestingly, The Bible makes no such distinction.
Both in this life, and in eternity,
It speaks of ‘rewards’ for both righteousness and wickedness.
To draw from within all of us, an enhanced edition.
In this life, there’s real practicality,
In showing onlookers the rewards of our life choices. 1
Yet there is a disturbing verse, the last in Isaiah,
About seeing the rewards of the wicked.
It says we, the righteous, will see folks in their hellish anguish!!!
Imagine that being on our eternal agenda,
After all the sinners are resurrected.
Seeing that in our (then) immortal state, we won’t be squeamish! 2
Here’s a thought that’s worth our pondering:
Might ‘seeing them’ also infer ‘knowing them’,
As in, knowing those who rejected our salvation witness??
How ‘personal’ might be our ‘seeing’,
As these folks writhe in the lake of fire mayhem,
Weeping and gnashing their teeth across the fiery lake’s vastness?? 3
In The Bible, the words, see and know, are often connected. 4
Thus, I ponder whether seeing and perhaps knowing these folks,
Might potentially be a mutual experience??
Might they also know us as, ‘Those whose witness I rejected!’
‘Ohhhh….if only my rejection of Christ, I now could revoke!!!’ ?
Is this what they might think of their life-long intransigence?
Friends,
What images and feelings does this prospect trigger?
And what thoughts about witnessing for Jesus now flood your mind?
Standing on that fiery lake’s edge, might you imagine thinking,
‘If only I would’ve, could’ve, should’ve worked harder…’??
Yes, to build The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, we are assigned.
Yet, these folks’ fates were sealed l-o-n-g before Earth came into being!
‘So why witness then?’, I can almost hear you asking.
In His foreknowledge, The Lord foreknew their fates.
Since we don’t know, He tasks us to …exercise faith.
So let’s continue to be faithful in His tasking.
Our job is like the one on Isaiah’s plate:
To share His Word Truth, as He prepares their fate. 5
The Lord’s foreknowledge of our choices, whether they’re good or bad,
Does not diminish or negate freedoms He gives us to choose.
The greatest choice He gives us is what to believe about Him.
To signal His acceptance of choices we’ve made, good or bad,
In this life and throughout eternity, He will ‘broadcast clues’,
Then ‘rewards that reveal’ to all our core beliefs about Him.
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1 This is The Lord’s ‘demonstration effect’. By His design, each life is a witness to onlookers, a ‘poster board’, advertising to onlookers our inherent, core beliefs. In life and eternity, just like magnets, our beliefs attract their due rewards. (Galatians 6:7) See: Psalm 91:8, Job 34:11, Isaiah 3:11, Hosea 4:9, Matthew 6:2 and 16:27, and lastly Revelation 22:12. See also: Kept in All My Ways for an innovative exposition of Psalm 91, my favorite.
2 In Isaiah’s day, folks had no notions of the modern day expressions, zombies and the ‘un-dead’. Thus, to convey this notion, in the prophecy given to Isiah, The Lord used the expression, ‘…their worm does not die’. As if to correct the misinterpretation that Isaiah 66:24 meant people in the lake of fire will be DEAD, rather than ETERNALLY ALIVE, The Lord, in Matthew and Luke, 5 times repeated the expression, ‘There (in the lake of fire) will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ HEY, physically dead people don’t weep and gnash their teeth!!!!!!!
See: Earth 5.0, The Final Version (Poem). Contrary to popular belief, ‘Once dead, always dead!’, every human who will have ever lived will be resurrected, and their life reviewed and judged by Jesus, the Righteous Judge. Sadly, for the majority, folks who will have rejected His gracious offer of salvation by faith, their judgment sentence will be banishment in the eternal lake of fire that burns with sulfur, along with every demon and devil, hell, and death. (Revelation 20:11-15) We, The Lord’s saints, however, will enjoy a blissful eternity in His presence, as GLOWING, immortal beings.
3 See: Hell: Is THIS the Man?! (Poem).
4 Search Biblegateway.com for ‘see’ ‘know’ to understand just how frequently these words, or variations thereof, appear together across The Bible. What does this signal to you?
