SID: John, you’re teaching on eternity, on the judgment seat of Messiah, so impacted you, you actually had a compulsion to teach on this from God for an entire year.
JOHN: I did. You know, the Lord said I want you teaching this everywhere you go because it’s an elementary principle, teaching of Jesus Christ, and yet, I’m not hearing it taught, Sid. I’m just not. And so believers are trying to build their lives off of what we need to be strong Christians. You know, it’s interesting. You know what C.S. Lewis wrote? C.S. Lewis wrote this in “Mere Christianity”, he said, “If you will read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world they have become so ineffective in this one.” He nailed our society today. He nailed our church today in America. And this is what the pastor in Brazil was talking to me about. You know, the Apostle John, I have so much respect for him. I mean, they can’t martyr the guy. They put him in a boiling vat of oil, pull him out, he’s praising God, so they put him on this deserted island. Then he gets the Book of Revelation. I mean, he’s a rock star. Okay. So he’s in his 90s when he pens these words. Second John, Verse 8, he said, “See to it that you don’t lose what we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”
SID: You don’t hear that preached too much, what you just said. Go ahead.
JOHN: I know. So here’s this father in the faith, grandfather in the faith and then he says this, in Second John 8. He says, “But see to it that you receive a full reward.” Now of course he’s talking about the judgment seat, what we’re talking about right here. But the thing that caught my attention is the word “full”. For John to specifically say, “See that you receive a FULL reward,” means what? That means there’s a partial reward scenario and there’s a no reward scenario. Now isn’t it interesting, he doesn’t say, live in such a way that you’re going to get a partial reward. Why doesn’t he say that? Because God our Father wants us to receive the full reward. You know, as a father of four sons, there’s nothing that gives me greater joy than rewarding my son, but as a wise father, I will not reward my children unless they deserve it or earn it, and so because that rewards give initiative. That’s the way we are. That’s the way God created it. And yet the more rewards we get, the more we get to throw them at Jesus’ feet and it changes the way we live throughout eternity. So David says, in Psalm 139, and it’s so important that we read this, he said, “You saw me.” This is Psalm 139, Verse 16 from the New Living Translation. “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.” So God wrote a book about every one of us before we were born. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. So God laid out every moment of our life in that book. Do you remember in Daniel where he says, “At the judgment he’s going to open up the books,” plural.
SID: Yes.
JOHN: What books? The book he wrote about our life. And so what God is going to do is say, let me see how I wrote about your life and let’s see how you lived your life. So in regard to our callings at the judgment seat, we will not be judged according to what we did, rather we’ll be judged in the light of what we were called to do. You know, we had a woman who was a pastor for 30 years and I spoke on this at a huge conference in Australia. She was at the hotel and she walked up to my office manager in Sydney, Australia, and she said to him:
Woman: He’s not serious about what he said tonight, is he?
Man: Well yeah, he is serious. Why are you so upset?
Woman: Well I had this vivid dream that I was pastoring in the Philippines. All my life I felt that’s what I was called to do and I’ve been at this church for years.
JOHN: Well do you know we found out one year later she turned that church over to her associate. She’s in the Philippines having the time of her life. You know, I could go on and on and tell stories.
SID: Is it too late for somewhat like that woman you just described to fulfill their call?
JOHN: Absolutely not. Smith Wigglesworth started his ministry in his 50s. He was a plumber up to his 50s, but then he got on with the call of God in his life and he’s one of the greatest apostles in the 20th century. So I don’t care if you’re 60 years old, I don’t care if you’re five years old, it’s not too late to begin in what God has called you to do.
SID: All right. But there’s even a bigger question, John.
JOHN: Yes sir.
SID: What if you don’t know what you, you didn’t have a dream like that? I want to find out how we can know what our call is when we come back.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth