The world is hurrying up to the great separation. Meanwhile, death for some could be the first initial step in that coming great separation. Death is a separation on its own but not the great separation. At death if anyone dies without Jesus Christ or dies in sin he is instantly separated to damnation with a stopover in Hell. If he dies righteous, that is, saved and secured in Christ; he is separated from among men unto a first round of bliss. Whichever way, at death man is separated! But this is not yet the great separation, just to reiterate.
For some others the coming Rapture of the saints in Christ is the first (initial) step (step into glory) in the great separation. At the rapture they are separated from the rest of humanity. The rapture is the earnest hope of the real believers (those saved, engaged in Christ-ward service and keeping themselves pure from defilement including that of immorality and this mammon frenzy or mammon worship that have settled down first in the world and now in the church so-called).
Right now, there are world events already unfolding and many more shall, and they will be in frightening magnitudes and rapid succession. From now onward the world press would be inundating us with breaking news and very large banner headlines most of which are of wars, pains, epidemics/pestilence, disasters, famines, increased iniquity et cetera as the world has never known. Corruption and immorality are already advertising themselves everywhere. Evil shall abound and multiply.
But, while that will be so, the Scriptures say that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” – Romans 5: 20, and this is available to those who possess, love, fear and obey Jesus and indeed; those who would still continue to “know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” – Daniel 11: 32; and those who will be righteous and holy shall still be (Revelation 22: 11). Believers must tap into grace, must resolve to do exploit and remain holy. This is the way of those who will overcome the days we are in and those ahead; for “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” – Matthew 24: 12.
TIME, GREAT SEPARATION AND ETERNITY
So then, horror shall sweep across the world as never known by man since Adam. All of that would be cumulating in the great separation, after the millennium reign of Christ with the saints on earth, anyway. Indeed, the ravages of these sad world events would inevitably signal a cleansing from God and an end to the old, and herald a brand new world starting with the millennial rule of Jesus Christ here on earth. And then eternity proper, either in eternal damnation with the devil or with God, His Son, the blessed or saved ones and God’s heavenly host.
The eternal separation of the wicked (with Satan and his host) from the blessed and saved in Jesus Christ with their God Who is the great eternal potentate in all of eternity, is the great separation. That will finally happen at the Great White Throne Judgment with Christ as Judge and with sinners recalled from Hell, judged and eternally separated and cast into The Lake of Fire and Brimstone where they will be in indescribable torment and horror in all eternity. The Great Separation!
The great separation then is somewhere between time and eternity. Your place that day depends on how you fared under the probationary period generally called ‘time’. Time is waning fast. Time or your life in time is very crucial in determining your lot in the great separation and eternity.
In Eternity: What Lies Ahead, we stated that “Time is a journey, eternity is the destination. Time is pilgrimage, eternity citizenship. Time is probationary, eternity the scoreboard. In time we sow, in eternity we reap. Somewhere in-between time and eternity is, therefore, the judgment. So, that, while time takes all of us, and that in this common examination hall called earth, eternity divides us (in what has been described as the great separation) after the score sheet.
In time the forces and camp of good and the forces and camp of evil dwell together, in eternity they separate to live so in the world without end because whilst in time the soul, which is inherently immortal was given a mortal body, probationary if you will, in eternity it has an immortal body to keep both ‘house and content’ forever (compare 1Corinthians 15: 33-57 and Isaiah 66: 23, 24). How you spend the time that today is, is most vital in determining your place in those unceasing ages upon ages. Good or bad today, eternity waits, and not too many days hence”, because death, the rapture of the saints, and then the millennia reign of Christ on earth which ushers it in are just round the corner.
GOD’S ARM OF GRACE AND YOU AND ME
While it is glorious entering into eternity with God, it is most fearful to drop or be cast into it with the devil. When we have all left these mortal bodies, we shall stand before the Great Potentate and Judge of the whole earth and what would matter then is how you received or treated God’s outstretched Arm in Jesus at Calvary. If it was well received, the same Arm will become an Arm of welcome and embrace. Like the father of the prodigal son (actually representing God and the repentant sinner respectively), God would, as it were, come running to receive you into eternal bliss with Him.
But if otherwise, God’s Arm will play ‘reverse’ role: It would simply wave you aside (with perfectly obedient angels on hand) to that place prepared for Satan, that place of torment throughout incomprehensible eternity, and of which we can only now say means, ‘time out of the mind’. The minds of all mortal men put together cannot comprehend eternity.
God has employed His Arm the first time: “Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the Arm of the LORD revealed?” – Isaiah 53: 1. God has revealed His Arm in and through Jesus Christ to rescue you and me. Will you accept and embrace Him? How we treat His revealed Arm in ‘time’ will determine how He employs It (His Arm) in eternity on you and me in that great separation. Shall it be welcome, embrace and well-done or a stern wave aside! Think about it!
God who is “of a purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” – Habakkuk 1: 13, and for the same reason momentarily forsook Jesus when He bore our sins on the Cross at Calvary, cannot afford to dwell in eternity with sin. The sinner must go to God through Jesus now, and that through His Cross to ask for forgiveness, exchange his sins with Jesus’ righteousness: imputed righteousness that qualifies us not only to approach God as our Father but also to inhabit eternity with the Father of lights (James 1: 17) and of spirits (Hebrews 12: 9) as creatures now made equal unto the angels at the resurrection (Luke 20: 35, 36). In eternity, it is the treatment we accord GRACE now that determines everything. And Jesus is that Grace!
We say it firmly that there is a day coming. On that day philosophy, logic, grammar and every manner of know-know (know it all syndrome) shall banish from the brain and tongue; a day that will know no freethinker. Then, the man will be stark blank when Jesus Christ; the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world for our sins and redemption sits on the Great White Throne judging all who refused grace, spurned the Cross of redemption, even all who refused to settle their sinful account with God, and who refused to serve Him in truth and spirit whilst they had the life of God deposited in them; which life they must now account for.
I say: in that moment, all grammar and isms will vanish! That day, men shall be all eyes to see their sins. It will be vision alive as they behold all life iniquities they have committed against God their Creator. It will be complete loss of words as the reality of eternal damnation or forever do
om settles in the heart. DEAD SILENCE! THEN ETERNITY! AND THEN: DESTINY BEGINS TO UNFOLD WIHTOUT STOP! And what a destiny! Can you really think of a more serious subject matter?
THE CHOICE IS YOURS
Every sin, you must be told or reminded, is always rewarded by God. Sin as seed grows and is reaped and it does not matter whether it is committed by angels or men. In God’s own plan He decided to reward man’s sin on Jesus Christ. And when you reason that man is a lower creature than angels you cannot but grab with all the heart this great grace that has appeared unto men and eschew all ungodliness by the power of the same grace (Titus 2: 11, 12). But there is no more remedy for a man who dies without accepting this grace, which include Christ’s substituted sacrifice for our sins, the forgiveness of the sins of the penitent, the imputation of His righteousness in us, His reckoning us as if we have never sinned and our adoption as God’s sons and daughters with all the promised divine protection and leadership which God is abundantly able to make good.
Dying without this grace is tantamount to refusing to be delivered from condemnation and the eternal damnation that is ordinarily the Divine and natural sentence. For such The Lake of Fire and Brimstone is the last and eternal prison; Hell (Hades or Sheol) being a stopover prison until the end of time when every disobedience will end up in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.
How do you really think any man will be excused and allowed to escape judgment and condemnation if he do not grab this actually unimaginable opportunity offered an already condemned man or if he undermines such an unimaginable Sacrifice by God Who, according to His Word, “Was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself” – 2 Corinthians 5: 19. Hebrews 2: 3 said very instructively: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…” The choice is yours!
The great separation and eternity are as sure as ‘time’ as we know it today. IT IS THEREFORE THE GREATEST WISDOM TO CHOOSE RIGHT. CHOOSE THE CROSS AND THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS, AND SO ETERNITY WITH GOD. Jesus is THE Truth (and the only truth there is about eternity). He is THE Way (the certain and only way to eternity with God). He is THE Life (and of His Life all of His redeemed have eternally; and that is eternal life). And He is THE Light that shines in the soul in ‘time’, brightens it in all eternity, and you will do well to belong on the side of illumination when light shall be separated from darkness.
The greatest foolishness there can ever be in the universe is to think of circumventing truth, way, life and light and still hope ‘to arrive’. Who does not know what their opposites of lie, dead-end/disarray, death and darkness represent. And in the Bible we even know better where all lies, confusion, death and darkness will be turned into.
Yes, JESUS, THE LAMB OF GOD THAT TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THIS WORLD, AND WHO IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, IS ALSO THE COMING JUDGE OF THIS WORLD. Again, you will do well if you allow Him, right now, to take you into His Light by allowing Him to take away your sins with His shed Blood on Calvary Cross; being the only way to be separated by The Judge, in that coming GREAT SEPARATION, into eternity with God.
The Divine work of Grace is finished and total. The Divine counsel and call are unmistakable. But truly, the choice is yours.
The subject matter of the coming great separation and eternity is too vital to be put to the background. Ministers must always make sure they give their people opportunities to make quality choices. It is high time our pastors and Christian workers dwell richly on things that count for eternity. The free and sad inroad the world is having into the church must be doctrinally checked. The almost no difference between the church and the world today must be checked with sound doctrine laced with love unfeigned. Perhaps some solution may be had if we endeavor to answer the questions this hymn of mine, Have you seen this Gate of Hell, raises.
1. Have you seen this gate of hell?
Music, wording and dance steps from hell:
A net dragging children, youths and adults!
Have you seen the engulfed multitude here?
This broad-way’s lane terminates in hell.
Have you seen these gates of hell?
Do you see their teeming captives as trees?
Where are the Christian mirrors?
Where is the heart-felt preaching?
And where is the agonizing prayer?
Or shall we say it doesn’t matter?
2. Have you seen this gate of hell?
Hell’s indecent clothing and ‘make-ups’:
A net dragging children, youth and adults!
Do you know many there be that finds it?
This broad-way’s lane terminates in hell.
3. Have you seen this gate of hell?
Hell’s drama, acting and theatricals:
A net dragging children, youth and adults!
What of the untold number on this path?
This broad-way’s lane terminates in hell.
4. Have you seen this gate of hell?
False marriages, porno and whoredom:
A net dragging children, youth and adults!
Do you see how reprobate men can be?
This broad-way’s lane terminates in hell.
5. Have you seen this gate of hell?
Secret cults and weird ‘fraternities’:
Dragnet of elite, world leaders and all!
Do you know the horde of souls webbed in here?
This broad-way’s lane terminates in hell.
6. Have you seen this gate of hell?
Forces beyond men compelling them:
Hence they so act, knowing not what they do!
How can these repent and ask for Mercy?
It’s when we earnestly pray and preach.
Yes, where to spend eternity is a personal choice, but many a pastors and Christian workers may account for some bloods somehow. If we must be free ourselves, we must preach the Truth, we must preach and teach sound doctrine: the Gospel of the Kingdom and of its righteousness. We must also live it as examples of the believers. And by both we can peradventure turn some to God for all eternity.
