Sunday Rewind: A Second Chance?

Some poker tournaments allow "re-buys." If you're ousted early, you can pay to re-enter before the tournament closes. You could still win, but you wind up paying twice as much to do so.

Wouldn't it be great if life worked that way? All sorts of books, movies and songs have expressed the desire for a "do-over" -- correcting the mistakes made in our childhood, romance, marriage, job or whatever.

A recent post mentioned something from the Bible which may seem surprising. It speaks of two resurrections of the dead, not simply one. The book of Revelation explains what happens to people who die for the cause of Christ:

They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. -- Revelation 20:4-5

Read on in the chapter, and you'll learn people who are in "Resurrection I" will be "priests of God and of Christ" (verse 6). So what happens to everybody else?

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.... And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. -- Rev. 20:12

Some refer to this as the "second resurrection" or "general resurrection." It seems safe to say a lot of people will be there, before the throne of Christ -- from babies killed by mysterious diseases to 100-year-olds who lived in ages before Jesus was born.

It will be their second chance to have breath. But will they all automatically be tossed into the lake of fire (verse 15), because they never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? Will they be disqualified, even if their chances for long life suffered a "bad beat" before turning a year old?

While some believers would answer yes, we tend to think God is more gracious and merciful than that. The God who gave Samson another chance to serve Him and rehabilitated the apostle Peter after his night of denial is the same God who can offer an opportunity at salvation to those who never understood it the first time.

This can be a complex and emotional subject. So if you want to study it more, we suggest reading this article -- actually a section of a book on God's Master plan of salvation.