If I were to open this door right now
and take you out there,
and I was to show you
what is described in the book of Revelation
where it talks about the wrath of God Almighty.
It talks about the smoke of their torment
going up forever and ever in the presence
of the Lamb.
If I could take you out there
and I could show you a picture of the lake of fire
as it's described in Revelation 20
on that day when the books are opened;
if I could show you the many multitudes
who are going to be frantically crying out,
"Lord! Lord!"
They already know something's wrong.
Most of them came out of a holding place
of the damned.
They have been kept in chains
for that day of judgment.
They already know something is wrong.
They are not in paradise.
They already know.
But it's like one last, frantic plea:
"Lord! Lord!"
They're trying to reason.
They're trying to find some way
to reason with the Lord
to not ultimately cast them into that lake of fire.
If I could take us all out there,
and we could look at it and we could see
what the judgment of the damned
really looks like.
If you could know it the way it really is.
What would your approach be towards the lost
Now?
Let me tell you something,
if I could take you out that door right now
and take you into Isaiah 6
into the temple the day that Isaiah went there
in the year that King Uzziah died,
when he saw the Lord high and lifted up
and His train filled the temple
and the place was full of smoke
and it was like an earthquake in the place;
the doorposts trembled at the sound
coming from the seraphim as they cried out,
"Holy, holy, holy."
And this man was seized with fear.
The prophet.
And he fell on his face,
and he cried out, "Woe is me."
If I could take you right now
and show you the vision of Christ
exalted in His glory like that,
and then come back here and sit down
you would be in stunned silence.
Some of you would be weeping.
Some of you would be shouting
in absolute terror.
Some of you not even seeing it anymore
would just be on your face,
and I don't think you would move for a day or two.
If I could take you out that door right now,
and I could show you the fullness
of what Paul meant when he said
an eternal weight of glory.
If I could take you out that door right now
and show you
you, yourself...
from a camera's perspective;
a third person perspective;
if I could show you what it will look like
when it's your turn at the judgment bar.
That's reality.
The moment's going to come
when your name will be called.
If I could take you out that door right now
and show you that moment
as it really will be in that day...
Brethren, C.S. Lewis in some small way,
he captured in one of his stories,
there is a cabbie from the 1800's or so,
he drove a cab that was drawn by a horse,
and he was pulled into Narnia in the
day of Creation.
And as he saw it,
he said this,
"If I'd have known such things,
I would have been a different man."
If I'd known such things were true,
were real, existed...
let me tell you,
the things I'm describing to you
about your judgment,
it's appointed unto every one of us
to appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
That includes the Christian.
What I described to you about the lake of fire,
about the wrath of God Almighty,
about the way Christ appeared in Isaiah 6,
this is truth.
Eternal weight of glory.
If I could show you right now
what Jesus Christ actually meant by
treasure in heaven;
when He said don't lay up for yourselves
treasures on this earth,
but lay up treasure in heaven.
If you could see what that actually was,
you would give everything away.
Everyone in this room would become that
poor widow who gave her last two mites.
If you saw what the treasure was,
you would give everything.
If you saw how short life is,
and how you live will have mattered in that day,
Jesus Christ said in Luke 14,
when you have a meal,
don't invite your neighbor
and your wealthy relative and so on,
He said, invite the lame and the maimed
and the halt and the blind.
He said you will be rewarded in the day of resurrection.
If you could see what the rewards were like,
I am absolutely convinced,
if you could see what you will feel
when you look at Christ,
to know how much of your life you wasted,
how much of it you could have had eternal reward for,
but you wasted it.
If I could show you how things really are...
but brethren, here's the thing,
the Word of God does show us
how things really are.
The problem is not that you have not been shown
how things really are,
but the problem is we're too much
like the disciples.
See, the disciples had it told to them
who Christ really was.
And yet, in the face of a storm,
they forget who He really was.
It wasn't until they saw by sight
the storm stifled that they fell down
and they worshipped Him.
But the fact is, what was true about Him
was true whether they saw the storm cease or not.
The point is this,
what is true about the treasure in heaven
is true whether I can take you out that door
to look at it or not.
It's true.