Great Bible Doctrines
Lesson No. 11: Rewards and Punishments

Date: August 7, 2002, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible Class
Speaker: John Phillis

We are continuing in our study on Great Bible Doctrines. In recent weeks we have looked at the doctrine of the Kingdom, that is the church, and last week we looked at the doctrine of the worship. This evening we want to look at the doctrines of rewards and punishments.

Does the Bible really have doctrine—“instruction”—“teaching”—about rewards and punishments? Absolutely! Turn over in Romans, chapter 11, and let’s look at what Paul says, beginning in verse 22. Paul is writing here to the church of Christ in the ancient City of Rome, to the Christians who were there, and he would say, “Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.” Yes, one of the doctrines of the Bible has to do with rewards and punishments! We saw there that Paul speaks of “the goodness and the severity of God.”

This thought of “the goodness and severity of God,” or “rewards and punishments,” is consistent from the beginning of the Bible all the way through to the very end. It is consistent all the way through to the great judgment scene that is recorded in Revelation, chapter 20, beginning with verse 11. Here John, having this revealed to him in a vision and recording it as he is inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes and says, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him Who sat on it, from Whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” So again, from the beginning to the very end, we see a consistency here in the Scriptures concerning the matter of God’s goodness and severity, of rewards and punishments.

We might go back also to Deuteronomy, chapter 11, verses 12 through 17 [“a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled. Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest the LORD’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you.”]. There we see that God’s instruction through Moses to the children of Israel is quite clear concerning what He will do for them in the way of rewards, versus what He will do to them in the way of punishment. Rewards—if they are obedient; punishment—if they are disobedient!

So God has shown over and over again that He punishes the disobedient and that He rewards the faithful and obedient person. For example, we might think about the flood in Noah’s day, Genesis 6, verses 5 through 8 [“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”]. What was that about? Well, that was about rewards and punishment! Rewards—to Noah and his family, those eight souls who were saved because they were found to be faithful, they were obedient; they did not meet death—but punishment in the form of death to all others.

What about Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19, verses 1 through 29? What is that about? It’s about reward and punishment! The wickedness of those twin cities was such that God had to destroy them. However, before they were destroyed, because of the intercession of Abraham for his nephew, Lot and his family were saved. They were, if you will, rewarded. So we see there God’s goodness and severity—His reward and punishment.

We see that God brings about rewards and punishments in this life and in the next life. We want to look at these two sides of God’s nature this evening, His goodness and severity, but we want to also look at the application of rewards and punishments, both in this life and in the life to come.

So first let’s look at REWARDS, specifically that God rewards those who are faithful in this life. To kind of sum this up, we think about the things in this life that form incentives for us to do things, to strive us to do good work, and so on. We mention athletes, for example. They work hard; they train; they sacrifice; they do all of these things to prepare themselves, and what is the reward? If we’re talking about professional sports, a pay check is incentive, obviously! In amateur athletics specifically, what is the reward? It is a trophy—a metal! It is that kind of thing that gives incentive to a person to do the things that he does—to work hard, to prepare—and so on.