 |  |
(Matt. 5: 45): That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
(Luke 16: 10): He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is
unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
(Luke 16: 11): If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous94 mammon, who will
commit to your trust the true riches?
(Luke 18: 11): The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am
not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
(Acts 24: 15): And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall
be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.
(I Cor. 6: 1): Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust,
and not before the saints?
(I Cor. 6: 9): Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not
deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind,
(Heb. 6: 10): For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye
have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
(I Pet. 3: 18): For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
(II Pet. 2: 9): The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the
unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
We may well ask, who are those who are cast into the lake of fire in Rev. 20: 15?
Are they the saved or the lost? In verse 12, John states that he saw the "dead, small and
great, stand before God". They were raised from the dead, for verse 13 says:
"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (marg., the grave)
delivered up the dead which were in them . . . . ."
If the unregenerate are never to be raised from the grave, then these referred to in this
context must all be saved people. This is the only occasion in Scripture which refers to a
resurrection from the sea of those who have been drowned. Are we going to assert that
only saved people have ever been drowned? Surely we must include the unsaved here!
In Matt. 11: the Lord begins to upbraid the cities in which most of His mighty works
were done. Regarding Chorazin and Bethsaida He said:
"But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment, than for you" (Matt. 11: 21),
and of Capernaum (verses 23, 24):
". . . . . for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."
There is surely no need to stress the character of the men of Sodom. They were
certainly not the Lord's children, yet He assures us there is a future reckoning for them
and also for the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon who rejected Him after so much
miraculous proof of His Messiahship. In the next chapter the Lord declares to the