Making Time For God Vol 1-Chapter 10
What about this Lambs Book of Life that I kept mentioning?
Well to answer this I'll give it my best shot although without looking it up first and actually pointing out scripture on this there could be some things to hit the mark on; however, I said I am an overseer, so let's find out what I have seen on this. If you have a loved one who has passed and you naturally feel strongly that being the good person they were, they must be in Heaven. I'm the same way, my Brother has passed in the early 1980's and since then I have always felt that he has gone to Heaven. My Brother has gone to Heaven before me, because I am still here in the flesh on earth. The question is: Did he already go to Heaven? The answer is a two part answer; one, he is accepted by God to go to Heaven, he was a believer and a repentant man and he was saved by the blood of Jesus, so through his sinless representative Jesus, he is accepted. Part two of the answer is he has not gone to Heaven before me, but he is in a sleep that will be a resting state spiritually until the final word of God for this earth and everyone in it will play out.
Those who have already passed, no matter how huge the number, no matter how many, are all asleep in a resting place and will not see Heaven until what the Bible tells us, the rapture takes place. Actually it is believed that scripture is telling us that there is a first Heaven and all Christians and believers are raised there with Jesus after his resurrection happened. However; during the rapture, (Which to me happens to be perhaps the most profound part of God's word) all of God's believers that are still alive on earth in the flesh, will vanish. That's what God's awesome word tells us in the book of Revelation, those who rejected any belief in the word of God and or anything that has to do with it will be left behind in the flesh on earth. These people that are non-believers in our great God will be left to live on all the way to the final battle of Armageddon, these left behind people will be some, followers of the anti-Christ who is at that time the world leader, and some will be trying to cry-out to God to take them, as they have seen his awesome power when all the Christians have disappeared around them and now those desperate ones want to believe and be taken up as well.....i.e...They too changed their minds and want to disappear to where ever the others went. The Bible tells us they may still be denied even though they changed their minds.
Remember in the days of Noah, the people all laughed at him while he was building the arc, they had not seen hardly any rain in their lives and they just didn't believe what Noah told them about God, then when the rain started and thunder storms moved in bigger and bigger they all began to yell out to Noah to let them into the arc and save them, but God told Noah not to and they all perished...no matter how many, no matter how big the number of people, they were all wiped off the earth to their death, and Noah and the arc lived on after the floods stopped.
So now we have two kinds of sleeping spirits that used to be in the flesh on earth, we have the ones that refused to believe in God and his word presented to them by his loyal servants, and we have the ones who did believe in God but have also for whatever reason, passed from the flesh.
This is where God's Lamb's book of Life comes in. God Created a way to keep track of all who are accepted into his realm and to be given everlasting life on what the Bible tells us is the new earth that God will re-create, it will be known as Heaven. There, those accepted will not be living as flesh and bone as we once did but as spirits where we serve to glorify God and live everlasting in peace and bliss, but we will have resurrected bodies and be recognizable by one another. The other place that God created is Hell, it was created for the fallen Angel and his followers, and as we read God's word we learn that it may be where the other sleeping spirits are going at the end time of the written word that plays out.
So the place where the believer’s spirits are going is the ultimate and 3rd Heaven that God will create, and this won’t happen until the word is played out or lived out or as the Bible calls it...Comes to pass. At that time God will check his records where he kept track of his accepted ones, this is known as (what the Bible tells us) "The Lambs Book of Life" and it means everlasting life, the second life.We believe it is called that in reference to Jesus who is our Sheppard, he is our representative that God accepts us through, and we are the sheep or lambs. So God calls it the Lambs Book of Life. Many who are still standing on the earth after the Rapture will be removed from that book...not to sound like I don't love people because I do, but anyone not in that book I really hurt for because they are not being accepted to Heaven. So when does this all take place? When do the sleeping spirits all go to the final place where the everlasting life is? Well you know what; I want to talk about that in the next chapter.