Father Mike Schmitz

Because God will judge us, right?

And yes, he's merciful.

He's also just.

And we're going to hear tomorrow in our conclusion that God at some point will set everything right.

And we want to be the people that he vindicates, right?

That he sets right.

And so there's this praise of God rejoicing in heaven in chapter 19.

And that rejoicing where they say hallelujah and that hallelujah literally means praise the Lord.

You want to be among those people who are able to praise the Lord.

You know, and there's the, as I said, you know, there's the thousand years and Satan's locked up and then he's released for a little bit of time.

And those are very important things.

But ultimately we have this, this, and the end of chapter 20, the dead are judged as it says, and there's a resurrection from the dead.

If those who are first resurrected are those who are martyrs and, and they get to reign with the Lord and they get to serve as priests with the Lord.

And then everyone else, everyone else who's died is resurrected.

Yeah, I don't know if you know this, you're getting your body back.

That is the ancient Christian belief is that in the resurrection, you get your body back, whether your body is restored to you for glory or whether it's restored to you for shame, you know, whether it's restored to you for the praise of God or whether it's restored for the sake of destruction in hell, everyone gets their body back.

and there's that second death lake of fire and if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life he was thrown into the lake of fire remember it says multiple times they'll be judged by what they've done in chapter 20 verse 12 and 13 it says and i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne as the end books were opened also another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books by what they had done

And the sea gave up the dead in it.

Death and Hades gave up the dead in them and all were judged by what they had done.

And that's, that's the reality is that our decisions matter.