The books of heaven are central to the judgment in the heavenly sanctuary. What are those books? What do they contain? How does the judgment work? What does that have to do with us on Earth today? This message clarifies this core doctrine that lies at the heart of Adventism.

<p>The books of heaven are central to the judgment in the heavenly sanctuary. What are those books? What do they contain? How does the judgment work? What does that have to do with us on Earth today? This message clarifies this core doctrine that lies at the heart of Adventism.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Standing in the Judgment

Alistair Huong

The Books of Heaven

Father in heaven, we are thankful for your word and for prophecy and for the clarity in which you give us instruction for the time in which we live.

Lord, we know that you are coming soon, and may we understand what Jesus is doing now and how it impacts us and how we ought to respond to our Lord and our Savior.

We don't seek for anything new, we just want to know what's true.

Give us your truth as it is in Jesus now, we pray in Jesus' name.

You see the title on the screen, The Books of Heaven, and you will understand very quickly why we are focusing on the books.

And through this, I believe we will understand clearly the mechanics, how the investigative judgment actually works and how it impacts us today.

We see the judgment scene here in verse 9 and 10.

It says, I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure wool.

His throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire.

A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.

Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and 10000 times 10000 stood before him.

The judgment was set, and the books were opened." So here In Daniel 7, we see in vivid color painted the courtroom scene in the heavenly sanctuary, in the throne room of God.

We see the Ancient of Days, we see the books opening as sort of the marker when, okay, judgment can begin now.

The judgment was set, other translations say the court was seated, and the books were opened.

So it's very clear to me, and I believe to all of us, when we look at the passage here, that the books are instrumental, they're central to the operation of the judgment.

If that's clear, let me hear you say amen.

We're going to move on and develop this point a little bit further, but I want to mention this thing.

You see up here there are some words underlined.

Throughout this presentation, you'll see words that are underlined throughout a number of passages.

I want you to keep in mind what the similarities are between the underlined phrases, because they're gonna come back in significance later on.

But let's just mention it real briefly here, the thousands of thousands, 10, 000 times 10, 000.

Okay, so very succinctly, simply put, the judgment is not something that happens between God and, you know, the 3 persons of the Godhead and no 1 else.

There is an entire court and Millions of angels are participating as bystanders.

Keep that thought in mind, we're going to come back to it.

So in Revelation chapter 20, we see a similar scene, except this is no longer the pre-advent judgment, this is after the millennium, so the post-advent, I guess, judgment you can call it.

This is after the second resurrection, the dead have been raised and they are meeting life's record.

It says, and I saw, this is Revelation 20, verse 12.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened.

There's that notion of books and the idea, that imagery again, except we get a little bit more information about those books, okay?

The books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

So I think it's safe to assume that we're talking about the same set of books in Daniel 7, as well as in Revelation chapter 20.

How many books are there in the judgment based on what we read in this passage?

Because it says the books, plural, were opened.

And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.

There's a minimum of 3 books, and you'll see there are actually many books.

But these other books that were opened, it seems as if they have to do something with our works.

The things are written in the books are related to their works.

So the question we just asked, how many books?

And the books must contain several things.

The book of life is the first 1 and then if they're judged by their works, if what's written in the books are our works, there's got to be at least a book for the evil deeds and a book for the good deeds.

Ecclesiastes 12 14 tells us, For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

So that's the big picture, the books in the judgment.

There are at least 3, 3 categories of books.

So we're going to drill down now into each of these 3 books to understand a little bit better what they are all about.

This is perhaps the 1 we're most familiar with.

Revelation 20 verse 15 says, and whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire.

So how do you make sure you don't get thrown into the Lake of Fire?

And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." So talking about the New Jerusalem, in order for us to have admittance to be able to go into the New Jerusalem, our names must be written where?

So it seems like it's pretty important for our names to be in the Book of Life.

Here's an important statement I think that clarifies perhaps some common misunderstandings about the Book of Life.

This is from Bible Commentary, Volume 7, page 987.

When we become children of God, our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and they remain there until the time of the investigative judgment.

Then the name of every individual will be called and his record examined by him who declares I know thy works." This passage explains how do we get our names in the book of life.

What must happen or when does the name, our names, get registered in that book?

According to this, when we become children of God.

And I'm not gonna get into all the details, there's other Bible studies that can be done, but let's just say when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior by faith, claiming his life in our place, we become the children of God.

And at that point, our names go in the book of life.

We become adopted into God's family and we're in.

Now notice, do our names get removed every time we sin?

And they remain, the names remain there until the time of the judgment.

I know sometimes that this notion, like every time I slip up, every time I make a mistake, my name is out of the book.

And when it comes time for the judgment, the process of the judgment determines who gets to stay and who has to be erased or blotted out.

And we'll talk about the significance of that in a moment.

But suffice it to say, at this point, we don't have to have this constant worry, like, is my name in the book right now?

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves?

Gracious Heavenly Father, we bow before you once more asking for your Holy Spirit to be our teacher and our guide.

May you speak to us, help us to understand how to walk this Christian walk.

Help us have some clarity of some of these things that pertain to our practical Christianity.

And may your Holy Spirit guide us and teach us.

So I want to ask the question as we get started.

Is this something that we find in scripture?

How about, how many of you think it's a trick question?

When a preacher starts off with a question like this, you're like, ah, what's the twist, right?

And there is a slight twist, and we'll get to that in a moment, but when you think about this notion, God helps those who help themselves, what does that actually mean?

You know, not long ago I was reading about a survey that was done in the United States.

I don't remember what university, town it was conducted and I think it was in multiple cities actually and they went around asking people, can you name 1 of the 10 Commandments?

Right here in America, 1 of the top answers for the question, name 1 of the 10 Commandments here in the United States is none other than the statement, God helps those who help themselves.

It's not even found in the Bible, much less being part of the 10 Commandments.

But I think it does sort of reveal, the response to the survey does reveal somewhat of the, maybe the American DNA, if you will.

There is a certain cultural identifier, perhaps, of Americans.

And that is that they're very independent.

They believe in being your own person, making your own way, you know, the pioneers, going out west, right, and The gold rush, you know, making a fortune for yourself.

And nowadays we hear about entrepreneurs starting businesses and they go public and then, you know, they become billionaires and we sort of glamorize these people.

And it all sort of flows out of this idea of you take care of your business and then God will come in and sort of fill in the blanks.

The concept, this idea, God helps those who help themselves, Generally speaking, at least in American culture, Western culture, the idea is you take care of yourself.

And when you've got it figured out, then God will have a place in your life.

Then God might pay some attention to you.

It's very much the notion of pulling yourselves up by your own bootstraps type of idea.

And when we think about it in that context, maybe it's not so much of a biblical idea after all.

But we're not here to discuss American culture or politics or anything like that.

And so I want you to keep this idea, this thought in your mind.

And we're going to take a look at 3 Bible stories together as we get started.

And setting the stage a little bit, 2 Kings 4, this is the story of Elisha.

And this is 1 of, I guess I can say 1 of my favorite, I have a lot of favorite stories in the Bible, but this is 1 particularly that impacts an interest of mine and that is personal finance.

Some of you may know my wife and I, we actually write a personal finance blog and I have a couple of finance seminars on AudioVerse.

And this is 1 of the quintessential personal finance stories in the Bible.

It's about someone who's in debt and the creditors are coming after her, and she needs a miracle.

Verse 1, 2 Kings chapter 4, A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha saying, your servant my husband is dead and you know that your servant feared the Lord and the creditor is coming to take my 2 sons to be his slaves." You see the dilemma that this woman is in.

Clearly he was a breadwinner of the home.

She has 2 boys and the creditors are coming to take her boys away to be slaves to pay off the debt.

Verse 2, so Elisha said to her, what shall I do for you?

And she said, your maid servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.

Then he said, go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels.

And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons, then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones.

So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured it out.

Now it came to pass when the vessels were full that she said to her son, bring me another vessel.

And he said to her, there is not another vessel.

Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt, and you and your sons live on the rest.

So we've all heard this story before, yes?

The fact that a woman had a part to play did that in any way detract from the fact that it was a miracle?

And did the fact that the woman had to play a part in this miracle, does it in some way, what's the word?

Does she somehow get the credit for the miracle actually taking place?

But if she had not played her part, would the miracle have happened?

If she didn't do her best, she just borrowed 1, she wouldn't have had enough to live on, right?

But did the woman have to help herself too?

Keep that thought in mind, because we're going to go to the next story, and we're going to build on this idea.

Series

Standing in the Judgment

The Books of Heaven

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 3: Order

31m

The Parables

The Wheat and the Tares

41m

Unlocking Prophecy

15- Good News About Hell

1h

Look Up and Live

Let’s Go to the Library

50m

Christ Over Crisis: The October Dilemma Pt.1

51m

Plenaries with Norman McNulty

The Straight Testimony from the Most Holy Place

56m

From Laodicea to the 144,000

45m

God’s Last Message: Christ Our Righteousness

1h 17m

Forgiveness and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble

44m

What Jesus Said

14. The Rapture of the Saints

1h

The Lord’s Vineyard

39m

Amazing Discoveries Reveal the Future

This Bible Prophecy Pinpoints the Final Judgment Time

55m

Sound Doctrine