Hi Mike,
I heard a minister say that the 2nd resurrection shows two groups: one going in the Kingdom and one going to the lake of fire. I am still searching for answers on the details of the 2nd resurrection and whether or not there will be any persons going into the Kingdom from there or if all will go to the lake of fire. To me, since we all need to mature in Christ to enter the Kingdom, it necessitates that everyone must go to the lake of fireforthat maturing to take place. I look forward to continue reading your teachings on your website.
Thanks again, J____

Hi J____,
Thanks again for your question.

What we all need to see is the Is, Was and Will Be Character of Christ and His Words. Look at what Christ Himself says of His Words:

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

“Spiritual words” mean what they mean. That is how Christ can say this about His Words:

Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

When we fail to see that Christ’s Words are timeless, we think in linear, dispensational terms and try to place the wheat in one era and the tares in another. Such is not the case with any of Christ’s parables.
All of Christ’s parables are concerned with “the mysteries of the kingdom of God:”

Mat 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Christ’s parables are all concerned with the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Where is that kingdom?

Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Now the kingdom is not likened to a field alone, wheat alone or tares alone. It is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field, and an enemy came and sowed tares in with the wheat.
I have written on this on many occasions and will not rewrite this all here again, but suffice it to say that the reason the Lord says to “let them grow together till the harvest” is because all of this and every other parable of God’s Word is within you and me.
God saw the first Adam, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and even the serpent, and He said that it was all “very good.” Nevertheless it was a “very good… marred vessel, a very good tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a very good… serpent” for the purpose for which they were all created. At this time most ministers are being used of God to hide the deeper truths of God’s Word which truths are all within each of us. We will all go through the fiery sword of God’s Is, Was and Will Be Word, which guards the way of the Tree of Life.

Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

It is important that we “have a pattern of sound words.”

2Ti 1:13 Have a pattern of sound words, which you hear from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.”

So we do not want to call the fire which the “overcomers ” endure ‘the lake of fire’ which is also called “the second death.”

Rev 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

The “second death” is of course “the lake of fire.”

Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

The privilege of being in the first resurrection is the privilege of being called an “overcomer.” This really is the most exclusive group of humans of all time. This group is mentioned with promises seven times in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation:

Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Rev 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Rev 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
Rev 2:28 And I will give him the morning star.
Rev 2:29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
Rev 3:6 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my Go d, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [ which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and [ I will write upon him] my new name.
Rev 3:13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Rev 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Read those blessings and promises which are bestowed on all who are “overcomers.” They are staggering in their magnitude. “Sit with Me on My throne” is just one of many such blessings. And so we are told:

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years .

It is only those who are in this “blessed and holy first resurrection” who will reign with Christ. All others will be ruled over by the overcomers. This includes all the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs. All who are not in the first resurrection will come up at the great white throne judgment to be tried in the same fire of the “fiery trials” endured by those who come up in the first resurrection and in the first judgment:

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy

That “exceeding joy,” is commensurate with the exceeding great an precious promises give to those who endure, not the ‘lake of fire,’ but the “fiery trial” which the overcomers all must endure. This fiery trial we must all endure while yet in these “vessels of clay,” is what separates the overcomers from all others. The great white throne judgment will have every one in it who was not in the first resurrection. It is right here in this same book of Peter in this same forth chapter:

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
1Pe 4:19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

Judgment is now on the house of God. The “house of God” is where the “pillars [ are] in the temple of my God” promised to the overcomers.
Mike>