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….And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
— Revelation 20:11-12, 15

The Greek word “gospel” literally means “good news,” but to appreciate what this good news is we must first realize the “bad news” of our situation as fallen sinners apart from Christ. That is, as those who were guilty of sin we were awaiting God’s judgment, the judgment of being cast into the lake of fire for eternity.

The world today surely does not want to hear anything of a coming judgment, but at least in our own conscience we know this is what we deserve. In fact, the Bible says that we have earned it; “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). And the Lord Himself when He was on the earth often spoke of this coming judgment. For example, in the parable of the sheep and the goats He said that the goats would go away into “the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels”(Matt. 25:41). God did not prepare this fire for us, but for Satan and his angelic followers, and it is not His desire that any of us would go there, but as we can see from this parable, many people will.

But thank God, in His mercy He has made a way of escape from this judgment, which is what we will now begin to see.