Anchor Devotional

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The Greater Suffering

“Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:14-15

Few people like to talk about it anymore, but hell is a real place. And just as the sufferings of this present life cannot compare to the future glory of those in Christ (see Romans 8:18), they also can’t compare to the future suffering of those who are not in Christ. It is a very hard truth, indeed, that some of our loved ones who have died may not be in heaven. There is a woundedness that comes with this reality.

Sin will not go unpunished by a holy God. I don’t think any of us want it to go unpunished. How much worse would the wounds of sin and suffering be if we knew that God was not just and would not put things right at the end? In our Revelation passage, we see that He does make things right. Alongside the wedding supper of the Lamb in chapter 19:5-9, we see the final judgment and destruction of all that was broken and malevolent in this world.

This should have been our lot as well. But thanks be to God that Jesus drank God’s cup of wrath to the dregs for us. He endured a suffering that we cannot imagine, and now, will never know.

SCRIPTURE FOCUS
Revelation 20:11-15

INSIGHT
If we take hell seriously, we will take the work of Jesus more seriously as well.

THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
2 Chronicles 33-34
Psalm 24
Mark 3

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