Sermon

Pastor Sam Storms at Bridgeway church is doing a sermon series on the book of Revelation. It is phenomenal!

Here are a few key points that I took away from yesterday's sermon:
Instead of asking, "Why do Christians suffer persecution?" we ought to inquire, "Why do Christians not suffer persecution?"
Sam quoted John Stott, "The ugly truth is that we tend to avoid suffering by compromise. Our moral standards are often not higher than the standards of the world. Our lives do not challenge and rebuke unbelievers by their integrity or purity or love. The world sees in us nothing to hate."

Thinking about hell has practical benefits. Sam quoted Jonathan Edwards, "Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell."

It is remarkable how tolerable otherwise intolerable things become when we see them in light of the "second death"! Think often, then, of the pains of hell. Think often of the lake of fire. It puts mere earthly pain in perspective. The collective discomfort of all such temporal experience is nothing in comparison with the eternal torment of the " second death" in the "lake of fire."

Jesus, in unfathomable mercy and grace, has suffered hurt by it in my place. So be faithful, Christian man or woman. Rejoice, on child of God. And give thanks that you will never, by no means ever, suffer harm from the "second death"!