It was December 7, 1941.

The surprise was complete. No one saw it coming. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the unsuspected attack on Pearl Harbor as “a date which will live in infamy.“

This horrible and terrifying day in world history drew the United States into World War II.

By the end of the day, many lives were lost; and those left living must have felt deep gratitude for survival.

December 7, 1941 pales in infamy to the God’s Big Day.

Life and resurrection will be eternal. Death and destruction will be total.

Scripture—from Genesis through the Book of Revelation—shows both God’s immense love for the obedient and His wrath awaiting the disobedient. I must choose between the two. There is no third path.

The good news from Jesus is if I place my trust in Him, I don’t have to be perfect—just obedient. It is love that produces my obedience—as frail as it might be.  Jesus is my defender before the Father. Because of my acceptance of Jesus’ blood He covers for me. God accepts me in the camp of the obedient.

At that Big Day, when God divides the sheep from the goats, because Jesus takes responsibility for my sin, I will get to enter God’s garden with all judged obedient—a state I can never claim on my own merit.

God’s 66 books of Scripture close with the Revelation to John, one of the original 12 Apostles. Written in the tradition of Jewish Apocalyptic Literature—without keys for the 21^st century reader to unlock all of its symbols—there are times that the Book of Revelation presents flashes of profound truth understandable for today’s reader.

In chapter 20 verses, 11-15, begins such a section:

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great, and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The truth is—this is not a new Revelation. It is a mere summary of Scripture from beginning to the end.

God is not the God depicted in the 16^th century sermon of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. God does not hold His children over a hot roaring flame with a cobweb string hoping they will fall to their burning destruction.

The theme of Scripture as it moves toward the Big Day is one of a God who loves all people. It pains Him when the choice is to live far from His presence.

I surmise God is full of emotion as He anticipates the Big Day. His joy will be beyond what I can imagine as His children of all history move into total, complete, and loving fellowship with Him for all eternity.

At the same time, He will deal with a completely opposite emotion. He will send to eternal condemnation those He loves but who were unwilling to love Him back during their stay on earth. There is no word to picture His sadness.

It won’t be easy but God will be true to Himself. He will be love and He will be just. Would it be irreverent to ask God to pray for Himself on the Big Day?

Stay tuned. – Gary J. Sorrells