Hell | Mark 9:42-48 | Sermon by Pastor Colin Smith

well folks you will understand that the task that I have before me today is surely the most difficult one that is given to any preacher we've been looking at the inside story of your future life we've been looking at the subject of death and resurrection and judgment and as we come towards the end of this series we're looking together at the awesome reality of heaven and of Hell think about this every person who has ever lived will personally experience either heaven or hell no one will experience both everyone will experience one or the other including you and including me all of us need to hear about Hell we either need to hear about it as a warning of what we are headed for or else we need to hear about it for an appreciation of what we have been delivered from in Jesus Christ that's why Jesus spoke about this to his disciples I believe in Hell just to start there because I cannot escape the clarity with which Jesus spoke about it hell is not as is sometimes suggested a sort of invention of sick medi evil minds you know if if that was what it was then all of us could dismiss it and you know that in many many churches today folks who profess to be Christians are doing precisely that but the inescapable fact is this that the clearest teaching in all of the Bible comes directly from the lips of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ no one speaks more clearly about the subject of Hell than Jesus does and Jesus defines truth for me I hope he defines truth for you he said I am the truth I take him for truth with regards to heaven and that must mean that I take him for truth with regards to hell it's more than personal because as a church we believe in hell if you are a member of this church or if you are becoming a member of this church through the classes one of the things that you will be asked to do will be to affirm your commitment to the Church's statement of faith and the statement of faith includes these words it's a summary of what we as a community of believers have discerned from the teaching of Jesus to be true we believe our statement of faith says that God will raise the dead bodily and that he will judge the world assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord now this is what we believe this is what is a church we proclaim this is the truth that we find in the Bible to which we bear witness in a world that does not believe it to be true and the reason that we do this is because we find as we're going to see today that this is indeed the teaching of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now these truths are are so awesome that it really is good even if you have been a Christian for many years or whatever you are in your spiritual journey it is really good to stop sometimes and to say do I really believe in heaven do I really believe in heaven do I really believe in Hell we do not think about these things every day but we are thinking about them today and that's very important now I've set a discipline for myself and in preparing for today have asked the Lord particularly to help me in this and that discipline is this to be very measured in all that I say to you today my aim is to show and to explain the words of Jesus on this subject then to try to answer a couple of questions that are most frequently asked that you have asked of me on many occasions and that I also have asked and then I want to try to point you as best I can to Jesus Christ who endured the terrors of Hell so that you through faith in Him should never never never know what it is like having said that however careful and however measured the statement of this truth there is no way in the world that you and I can avoid it sheer horror Jim Packer puts it this way New Testament teaching about Hell is meant to apollo's and to strike us dumb with horror assuring us that as heaven will be better than anyone could dream so hell will be worse than any of us could imagine and we need to hear this truth now I know it's increasingly common in our culture for people to say and even in a church like those people sometimes say well of course the only thing that should be spoken about in in church is love and that sounds very spiritual doesn't it but it is not very biblical people who are greatly loved do terrible things and remember the Apostle Paul said this on one occasion knowing what it is to fear God we seek to persuade people so don't fall into the trap of piously saying that oh love's the only thing that should ever be heard heard in in in the life of the church we're looking at what Jesus said and every word that Jesus spoke is a word that I need to hear and it's a word that you need to hear - and if you've come to trust him as Savior and to worship Him as Lord you will find that that is a natural statement and conclusion of your life now with that introduction there are three strands in the teaching of Jesus about hell and if you have them clear in your mind you really will have a framework for grasping the awesome teaching of Jesus on this subject these three strong as follows that hell is first a place of punishment second a place of destruction and third a place of exclusion let's begin here then that hell is a place of punishment Matthew chapter 25 and verse 46 at the end of the words of Jesus about the great day of judgment that we have looked at already in this series he says this and these he says will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life now I'm simply drawing your attention to this fact that Jesus speaks about punishment you may say as many people say today well I don't believe in punishment I only believe in correction and all I can say to you is then at this point you have a disagreement with Jesus because his word on this is very clear he speaks about punishment and not only punishment he speaks about punishment that is eternal now God is just we focused on that last week and what that means is that God never punishes in an arbitrary way that is why the words of Jesus from Mark and chapter 9 that were read to us are so important remember Jesus says that in verse 42 if any one causes one of these little ones to stumble any one causes one of these little ones to sin it would be better for him if a millstone if he was thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck now what what is Jesus saying here listen terrible things happen in this world and many of them to children and a large part of it is never brought to justice here and Jesus says now you need to know that God will bring this and every other sin to justice nobody who hurts a child gets away with it that's what Jesus is saying that's a very important thing that he said now notice what Jesus says in particular in this context he says it would be better for the person who sinned against a child to have died before he did that now why would that be better why would it have been better for the man obviously better for the child but why would it have been better for the man or for the woman who had done this terrible thing to have died before he did it why would it have been better for him there's only one answer to that and it is that the punishment experienced by a person in hell is a direct reflection of the particular sins that they have committed nobody we saw last week will be punished for one sin that they did not commit and what Jesus is saying is that if this person who had done this thing in relation to a child if that person had been drowned in the sea before he had committed that one particular sin it would be better for him because he would have one less sin to deal with in hell and a person would give anything to have one less sin to deal with in hell that makes us take up some notice see Jesus is talking about not about an arbitrary thing but about real punishment for real sins named dated and remembered by God as why we see in Revelation in chapter 20 that on the last day we're told the books are opened and the dead are judged according to what they have done until as a place of punishment that's the first thing we need to know about it because Jesus makes this clear and you have the word of Jesus for that now notice that the punishment comes in two particular ways Jesus says mark 9 and verse 48 their worm does not die notice that the phrase that is personal it's not the worm it's their worm so there's something uniquely going on inside every individual in hell what is there worm the worm of course is that which gnaws away at a person from the insight what gnaws away at a person from the insight conscience does and what our Lord Jesus is telling us here is that conscience will be fully activated in hell and that a person in Hell will live with a full knowledge of all the implications and all the consequences of everything that they have done that's their worm and Jesus says their worm does not die it never diminishes it never ends so here is something that is internal and unique to every individual in Hell a direct reflection of the consequences of sin in their own lives and then Jesus talks about something that is objective and and common to all he says be fire be fire is not quenched verse 48 so here is a person in Hell and they are living under the judgment of God our God is a consuming fire think of it this way the presence of God will be heaven to some and it will be hell to others for those who love Him and have found peace with him and have come to serve Him and who worship Him the presence of God is is heaven and for those who hate him and for those who resist them and for those who rebel against and the presence of God is Hell itself hell is a place of punishment the first thing that Jesus teaches us here's the second Hell is also a place of destruction just as there are many ways in which the Bible speaks about heaven so that we get a fuller picture of its glories so there are distinct ways in which our Lord Jesus speaks about Hell so that we may understand what we need to know about it it's a place of destruction and thinking here of the words of Jesus and again at each point I've chosen to focus there rather than anywhere else in the Bible I want us to hear it from Jesus he says do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul Jesus says rather fear him jesus said this fear him who can destroy notice that word both soul and body in hell fear him now here's an important issue what exactly is meant by this word destroy it's very important let me take a few moments on it some Christians have suggested that if the soul and the body are destroyed in Hell does it not follow then that in some way such a person would cease to exist if you're destroyed how can you any longer exist that's the suggestion that is made by some and so the question is raised then is Jesus suggesting in the use of this word destroy which he clearly used is he suggesting that in some way the punishment will come to an end and that there will be a point at which the body and the soul are destroyed in the sense that they will be no more the same question arises from perhaps the best-known verse in the Bible John 3:16 God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life what does it mean to perish that is a very important question do the words destroy or perish mean that a body or a soul might at some point in the future cease to exist in hell as an important question Douglas mu who for many years taught close to us here at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School he points out very helpfully and insightfully that the word action in the Bible often refers to the situation in which a person or an object has lost the essence of its nature or its function they say well that may sound a little scholarly I'm gonna try and get you insight what it means and what its significance is in just a moment but he says understand that in the New Testament where destruction the language of perishing is often used of a situation of in which a person or an object has has lost what they're really all about the essence of their nature and their function now let me give you four examples that he points out from the New Testament do you remember when Jesus says you don't put new wine in old wine skins and then Jesus says the wine will be spilled if you do that and the skins are destroyed now that does not mean that the skins ceased to exist it means that the skins have holes in them and they burst and therefore they're not able to fulfill the function for which they were designed which is to carry the wine that's how the word destroyed is used let me give you a second example do you remember the woman who poured the ointment over our Lord Jesus Christ and because it was very valuable and she performed this wonderful act of devotion and worship there were people who didn't understand and they were complaining and they said why was this ointment wasted the word that was used when they said wasted is exactly the same word as Jesus is Ewing using for destroyed wasted poured out and not not able to be used now because it has been poured out it's no longer in the flask you see same word as Jesus uses for destroyed remember the story Jesus told about the woman who lost a coin and then she found it Luke's Gospel in chapter 15 the woman comes and she says in Jesus story rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I had lost and the word that is translated lost that is exactly the same word as Jesus is using here for God who destroys soul and body in hell what does it mean in Luke chapter 15 I'd lost the coin well when the coin is lost it's no longer able to fulfill the purpose for which it was given which is to buy things and I don't have the coin it's no use to me now rejoice with me because what was last destroyed is is now found last example when the Apostle Peter lated later in the New Testament speaks about the flood he talks about how the world that then existed was deluge dwith water in the flood and he says it was destroyed same word now what is he saying clearly the world did not cease to exist because of the flood what it means was that being covered in water it was not able to fulfill the function for which God created it until the water subsided precisely the same word that Jesus uses now here's the point and I've taken a moment to explain it because it's very important wine skins with holes points once that was said to be wasted when it was poured out a coin that was lost and then was found a world that perished in the flood Douglas mu says this in none of these cases - the object ceased to exist they cease to be useful or to exist in their original intended state and you see he's making this point for a body or a soul to be destroyed in hell same where Jesus uses does not mean that a person will cease to exist it means that the person in hell cannot fulfill the purpose for which a human being was created William still says this the awful thing about Hell is the knowing burning searing agony of its unfulfillment life in that living death will be one huge aching void that's what it means that's what it means a place of punishment second a place of destruction third three strands a place of exclusion again we're back to Matthew in chapter 25 and verse 41 our Lord says this he speaks about the day when he will say to those on his left depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels what an awful phrase that is to be going to the place that was prepared for the devil and his angels now punishment and destruction speak about what a person suffers this theme of exclusion speaks about what a person misses remember Jesus said on another occasion in the Sermon on the Mount no less he said they're going to be many on the last day who will speak to me about whatever various things they have done and he listed a number of them and then jesus said to them I will say depart from me I never knew you depart from me remember Jesus spoke about a wedding banquet and he pictured all the joy of the celebration and the food and the the music and the the delights of it all and and then outside there are people outside and he said outside there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth in the book of Revelation the very last chapter of the Bible you have the same thing pictures the great city and then revelation 22 and verse 15 speaks of those who are outside now friends as terrible as the doctrine of hell is we must be very thankful that evil will always be outside of heaven we must be very thankful that evil will always be outside of heaven William still describes Hell as a completely isolated and insulated realm for the absolute containment of all evil when it is eventually banished from God's kingdom one sin from Adam has brought the ruination of our world hell is outside of heaven forever because in the new heaven and the new earth sin will be no more so punishment destruction and exclusion these are the three strands of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ it's interesting you find all three of them are brought together in one verse in the New Testament and that second Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 9 where the Apostle Paul brings the three strands of the teaching of Jesus together and he says in in this most awful of statements in the New Testament they will suffer the punishment there's number one of eternal destruction there's number two away from the presence of the Lord there's number three and away from the glory of his might now I've tried in as measured a way as I can simply to lay before you what the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said and for you to hear it and for you to receive it and for you to believe it now let me try to address two questions that are most often asked here's the first why does he'll have to be forever you ever asked that question you've thought about these things you must have asked that question as I have is it not reasonable that there should be punishment and destruction and even exclusion for the time but that at some point it should come to an end why does it have to be forever you're going to be asked that question someday how are you going to answer there are many things you could say here's one he'll goes on forever my friend because tragically sinners never stop sinning if you think that sin ends at the end of this life for a sinner outside of Jesus Christ you've really not thought about how deep the problem of sin goes and that's been at the very heart of our whole series hell goes on forever because sinners never stop sinning you find this in the book of Revelation very clearly that when the judgment of God comes sinners hate God more than they did before revelation 16 in verses 10 and 11 people nod their tongues in anguish and they cursed the God of heaven for their pains and for their source they did not repent of their deeds friends the sinner cannot change his heart the sinner cannot bring himself to love God nobody will be repenting in hell again dr. Jim Packer says this there is nothing arbitrary about the doctrine of eternal punishment it is in essence a case of God respecting our choice and continuing to us throughout eternity the spiritual condition that we chose while we were on earth the heart of the sinner does not grow softer in Hell remember that the sinner has for his company the devil and his angels and in that company sin will sink deeper into the sinner and the sinner will sink / into sin and any remnants of affection grew less and less as people become more and more absorbed with themselves and on and on Bishop rile in his book on holiness which if you've never read it it's a must read for every Christian at some point he says this most men hope to go to heaven when they die but few it may be feared take the trouble to consider whether they would enjoy heaven if they got there heaven is essentially a holy place its inhabitants are all holy it's occupations are all holy what he asks would an unsanctified man do in heaven if by chance he got there great John Owen makes very very powerfully the point that he says there is no greater fallacy in this world than the idea that a person who has not made holy in this life will somehow be able to enter into the holiness of God's presence in heaven he points out that heaven itself is a place where the blessedness is to enjoy God that's the blessing of heaven and he says unholy persons cannot enjoy God nor would God be a rewards to them would God be a reward to you well you see that's an indication of the state of your heart your own spiritual condition so here is the most awful tragedy of the sinner in hell that he could not be happy even if he was in heaven and at the same time of course he cannot possibly be happy in hell this is indeed the tragedy of sin it is a complete dead end it leaves you with no place to go of course sinners would want to be out of hell but none of them would want to be in heaven sir to the god they hit we can dunk on draws attention to the words of Jesus about in hell he says there will be gnashing of teeth you know what that is grinding well you do that when you're angry don't you and he says this in hell people are gnashing their teeth at God there is no repentance there there is no one saying I wish I were with you God there is no one in Hell who even wants to be in heaven so you see what a terrible thing sin is it leads us into this dead end where there's no place to go could not be happy in heaven cannot be happy in hell so let me ask this question are you resisting God today is there a kind of clenched fist in your soul as it where towards God a heart that keeps pushing God awaits my life listen as the tree falls the Bible says so it will lie you don't want to fall in that condition of heart and mind your prayer today should not be Lord deliver me from Hell your prayer today should be Lord deliver me the sin that leads that wash me cleanse me give me a new heart by your Holy Spirit because I can't change my own heart I couldn't do it down I couldn't do it in hell but you can by your grace and mercy and that's the offer of the gospel that's open before you today change this will oh god that is always resisting you save me save me from myself a second question and this is our last piece today perhaps the question most often asked and most poignant for many Christians how can a person be happy in heaven if they have loved ones who are in hell yes that question I have how can a person be happy in heaven if they have loved ones in hell now I cannot give you a complete answer to this question that has stretched many many many minds but let me give to you three things that I've found helpful and at least they might move you a little way in the direction of some help and some hope the first is this we're told twice in the scriptures that God will wipe away all tears from your eyes this is a promise of God to every believer that in his presence not before but there he will wipe away all tears from your eyes can you imagine God himself so close to you that he would wipe away himself tears from your eyes that seems to me to be the sort of job you would think God would delegate to an angel I mean if someone cries in my office I hand them a tissue but this is much more intimate can you imagine being as a redeemed person that close to God and not being afraid God will wipe all tears from your eyes and when God wipes tears away these tears never return they never return second thing is this friend this reading a wise pastor by the name of moderates Roberts and he points to the Garden of Gethsemane remember he says in Gethsemane where jesus is facing just this most awful of Horrors and it was so great that in his humanity he shrank from what lay ahead remember what he said about the cup he recoiled from it and then he said not my will but thine be done he was able to do that Jesus and Morris Roberts just makes this very simple comment he says in heaven the redeemed will be like Christ I found that helpful there was something that he recalled that and yet he was able to say nevertheless not my will but yours be done in heaven the redeemed will be like Christ you think about what it meant for Jesus to say that and Gethsemane you're going to be like him that leads on to the third observation and it's simply this I found it in some teaching from dr. RC sprawl he points out that the problem that we're grappling with here is that really we don't know what sin is fully and we don't know fully what God's holiness is and nor do we yet know fully what we will be when we are glorified in his presence when Jesus comes we'll see him and then we'll be like him but the scripture says we don't yet know fully what we will be it's not yet been revealed none of us can comprehend how vast that change will be but then spur all used this illustration and I found it helpful I think you might - when he was teaching his class of seminar students he would ask a student to come forward and stand in front of the class at one side of the room to represent Jesus then he would ask another student to come forward and stand at the other side of the room to represent Hitler so here we have the continuum the extremities Jesus Hitler then sprawl asked for a third student to come forward and to represent the Apostle Paul he would say that the class you know apart from Jesus Paul was probably the holiest man ever to have walked the earth so we're on this continuum between Jesus and Hitler should we place the Apostle Paul and here was his answer very close to Hitler I read that the first time and it made me do a double-take as I expect it probably does you too because our first thought of course as we see it is that there's such a huge difference between Hitler and Paul that Paul we must think must be very close to Jesus but sprawl was pointing out that the chasm between Hitler and Paul on the one site and Jesus on the other is so great as to make the difference between Hitler and Paul Luke almost negligible but when you are glorified you will be very close to Jesus and that means that there will be a great chasm between you and all unredeemed humanity sprawl draws this conclusion I'll read it and then we're just about through because we are so Hitler desk that's a good statement of sin isn't it because we are so Hitler desk we can relate to monstrous sinners more than we relate to Jesus Christ that's why we find the doctrine of Hell so repugnant that's why we feel sorry for ASSA when he's killed for touching the ark or Aaron sons who were struck down for playing at worship but the day will come when our passion and our identification with the glory of God will be so great that our sympathies will be with God and not with our fellow creatures who belittle his glory we are not there now but in our glorification we shall be beloved says John we are now God's children that's true of you if you're in Christ then he says what we will be has not yet appeared you don't know what the glorious that's going to be revealed in you but we know that when he appears we shall be like him there here's my very last thing the Lord Jesus Christ endured everything that hell is so that you would never know what it is like friends what is hell we've learned it today from the lips of Jesus it is punishment it is destruction and it is exclusion and what happened on that cross when Jesus died number 1 the punishment that brought us peace was upon him number two he entered into the destruction of death the parting of his soul from his body number three in the darkness he was excluded he was shut out from the knowledge of the love of the Father which is why from the cross in an agony of soul he cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me and I say again friend Jesus endured all this on the cross so that you should never know what it is like he took the punishment so that in him there should be no condemnation for you he endured the destruction of the second death so that in him there you may be raised to new life and he was cut off from the father on that cross so that in him you could be reconciled to the father forever so that if you're in him today you will be saying thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift and if you've been outside of Christ why would you not come to the Savior who invites you today will you pray with me Father we bow before what you have told us about eternity please now let it lead us to worship please by your spirit through the word propel us into the pursuit of more holy lives and please in your mercy and in your grace lead us to Jesus the Savior and the Redeemer who on that cross entered all the dimensions of Hell that no one in Him should ever know what it is like receive our thanks in Jesus name and everyone said you

Channel: Unlocking the Bible

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Keywords: unlocking the bible, colin smith, sermon on hell, hell in the bible, Hell, heaven, what does the bible say, what, does, holy, bible, say, illustration, sermon, hell bible, eternal, conscious, punishment, torment, lake of fire, bible study, what is hell like, where is hell, is hell real, what is hell, what does bible say about hell, what does bible say, heaven and hell

Id: 5FlPH9xHc9A

Length: 41min 16sec (2476 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 09 2012