Matt Carter "Hell"

well we're beginning our series today on heaven and hell it's been a three-week series and the reason that we're starting our series today and i'm going to preach on hell is we want to prepare our junior high educators for the coming year start a series called heaven and hell i thought long and hard about calling the series heaven yes hell no but i thought that maybe we probably shouldn't do that but i preached this series uh 11 years ago in my previous church and i want to tell you a quick funny story that happened the night before i preached this the first time my wife and i were in bed together we were reading the scriptures and we're reading the part of the bible where jesus talked about his resurrection as being similar to childbirth and jinn reminded me that the sunday before sammy was born my youngest child um actually the day before sam was born i preached on that text on childbirth and she's talked about how she said mad i've always thought you were kind of prophetic because there's been all these things over the years that you would preach on them and then within a day or two they'd happen and she gave me some examples sammy you know being born after i taught on childbirth she reminded me that and this is true i taught on suffering and then two days later is when i got diagnosed as uh with cancer at 31 and then she reminded me of the time that i taught i used an illustration of killing a snake and the day later i ended up killing a snake in my front yard and she's like all these things through the years you've preached on them and then within a day or two they happen and i'm not very quick-witted but i was right here i looked there and i said i tell you what here's what i'm going to do since i'm so prophetic i'm going to scrap my series on heaven and hell and i'm going to preach on marital sex for the next 12 weeks she laughed too and i told you that story because uh that's the last last time you're gonna laugh for the entire rest of this message so i want you to raise your hand have you ever heard a specific sermon not a mention but a specific sermon on heaven in your life raise your hand okay how many of you have heard a not in a conference but like in a local church heard a specific unique sermon solely on the subject of hell raise your hand okay that's a little bit older in the 9 30 service if you want to poke your head into 11 15 it won't be a third of that [Music] we have gotten to the place in our society where we've stopped doing that we've stopped talking about the eternal things of heaven and hell and so that's what we're going to do for the next three weeks next week and the following week i'm going to be teaching on heaven it's going to be fun it's going to be encouraging it's going to be comforting it's going to be an amazing couple of weeks as we get our minds around heaven but today i'm going to talk about a place called hell and for those of you that are new to sagemont i want you to know that i am not a hellfire and brimstone kind of preacher i've been in ministry for 27 years and i this will be the second time in 27 years that i've preached on this subject i've mentioned it before but only the second time i preached on it and so the things you're going to hear today are incredibly difficult they're they're at times they're almost too much to bear and so i want you to know that i get no joy whatsoever about preaching the subject but i do believe it's one that we desperately need to talk about and here's why i want to give you three quick reasons number one first reason that we need to talk about and discuss the subject of hell is because jesus talked about the subject of hell and he talked about it often i don't know if you knew this but jesus talked more about hell than any other person in the entire scripture did you know that he talked about it two he um jesus he talked about the subject of hell actually more times than he talked about the subject of heaven which is fascinating and so number one if he thought it was important enough to talk about and talk about it often then i think we need to talk about it all right and so that's the first reason here's the second reason and i think the if you look at the last three generations that have been born gen z millennials and and gen x which i'm considered gen x the overwhelming majority of preachers in those three generations have completely walked away from teaching on the subjects of heaven and hell and i think not preaching those doctrines are having a profound impact on those generations one of the repercussions that i'm seeing and i honestly don't know about boomers but as i look at gen x and below one thing i've noticed is that they are scared to death of death there's a fear of death in those generations that i i think may be more than any generation that i'm aware of before us they have a tighter grip on the things of the world than any other generation before us and i'm convinced that's happened because gen x and below have grown up in churches where they are much more likely to hear a sermon on how to have your best life now or how to have five steps to a better time management than hearing a sermon on the subjects of heaven and hell and that was simply not the case in generations before us i want you to want to read a quote to you from theologian jonathan edwards who is arguably the most important theologian in american history he was around in the 1700s but here's his quote he said i resolved to live every day as if i had already seen the torments of hell and the happiness of heaven i resolved to live every day of my life like i've already seen the torments of hell and the happiness of heaven and so again one of the if not the most important theologian in american history and he said i am going to resolve i'm going to commit myself to live in every day and light of those two realities but we don't do that we don't even think about it a lot of time which brings me to my final reason that we never talk about hell i think one of the repercussions of that is that a lot of people really are in denial of its existence we don't like to think about it we don't like to talk about it much less hear a sermon about it and i want to tell you an interesting observation that i've seen over 27 years of ministry in regards to the subject of hell guys i've been to a lot of funerals i've done a lot of funerals i've been to a lot of funerals over those 27 years and the course of my life and here's an interesting observation i've seen i've never been to a single funeral in my entire life not one where the outcome of it all was that the person probably went to hell and i get that people probably don't want to get up and you know guys laying there and casket you know what he was a jerk didn't love his family didn't love god selfish he's probably in hell but i mean that's i get why that happens but i find it interesting that every single solitary funeral i've ever been to in my entire life the outcome is it of it all is the person always somehow made it to heaven which i hope that's true but i say it's interesting because it stands in direct contradiction to the teaching of our lord and savior jesus christ turn to matthew 7 13. this is jesus speaking and he says enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few and so what jesus just said this is jesus not me but what he just said is that most people aren't going to heaven that most people are going to spend eternity separated from god in a place called hell and so for me to teach on the subject of hell if that's true what jesus says is true and i'm convinced it is then for me to teach on the subject of hell is not insensitive it's not mean but it it's not unloving but it might be the most loving thing i could ever do for you it would be like you having cancer and the doctor knowing you had cancer and it was completely curable but him deciding not to tell you that you had cancer for fear of offending you or being insensitive that's not sensitive that's cruelty and that's why we're talking about it today so let's jump in we're going to do three things today i'm going to answer three questions we'll be done number one what's hell going to be like what's held going to be like how long is it going to last and then why is it going to last that long so what's hell going to be like let's jump into that first question so what what's that going to be like before i describe what hell is going to be like i want to talk for a second about what it's not going to be like i don't think hell is going to be anything like what you've ever seen in movies or cartoons and how it's been depicted do we have the cartoon that there we go um i found this this week it's in hell oh man the coffee's cold they thought of everything there's all these depictions of hell through the years of people laying back drinking beer hanging out with their friends talking about their escapades in the world jesus in his many descriptions of hell use graphic terms they're difficult to hear and they certainly weren't humorous okay and so when we talk about this we're going to go into depth about what he talked about and what it's like but one of the things that we need to be clear on is that when jesus spoke about hell and he described hell he never talked about hell as symbolism a lot of folks out there beginning to grab hold of that theology that hell is a symbolic picture of our separation from god if we've not trusted in christ but it's not an actual real place and i want you to listen though how jesus described hell in the parable of the sower it's matthew 13 40. this is again jesus speaking he said just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire so will it be at the end of the age the son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace watch what he says he said in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth sagemont jesus never one time ever described hell as a symbolic picture of our separation from god every single time he talked about it he talked about it as an actual physical place that people go who have not trusted in christ and so it's a physical place now as he begins to describe this physical place that's what when it begins to be graphic one of the first ways in one of the most often ways he describes hell is he describes it as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth over and over again scribes in a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth what does that mean once i got my mind around it this is when i the sermon started getting difficult to me or for me when you start really thinking deeply about what he's saying this is hard to to stomach first place first thing he says is going to be a place of weeping so what does that mean what jesus is saying is that hell is going to be a place of sorrow it's going to be a place of sorrow his point and this is what hit what hit me is that you're not going to be emotionally numb in hell in hell you'll retain your ability to feel emotion and there's one emotion that over and over and over again jesus says that you're going to feel and it's sorrow which is the opposite of heaven praise god because the scripture tells us that in heaven there will be no sorrow and that he's going to wipe away every tear from our eye but that's not the case in hell there's an overwhelming emotion we will feel when it is one of sorrow he keeps going he said hell is going to be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth if you stop and think about that that is a really graphic statement gnashing of teeth what what does it mean to gnash your teeth well it's when something happens and you're in so much pain or turmoil or whatever you clench your jaw and you grind your teeth together so i was thinking about it have there been any situations in my life where i've actually gnashed my teeth and i could only think of two the first time i remember gnashing my teeth was i was loading furniture for my future wife jennifer and i fell off the tailgate of the pickup truck and when i landed my knee hyper extended and you know knees are supposed to go this way it was bent the opposite direction when i hit the ground i remember i was in so much pain that i couldn't scream i couldn't breathe the only response that i had was to gnash my teeth there's only been one other time that i can remember ever doing that and it was at the death of my mother and when she passed away i was in i wasn't in physical pain but i was in so much such horrible emotional pain but i remember that my only response was that i nash my teeth and so over and over again jesus says that this place is going to be a place of weeping and of gnashing of teeth and if what he's saying is real he's saying that that hell is going to be a place of unbearable sorrow and unbearable physical and emotional pain but he keeps going and this next way he describes hell might be worse than that so look at matthew 22 11 matthew 22 11. jesus speaking says but when the king came in to look at the guest he saw and this is a parable by the way when the king came to looking at the guest he saw that there was a man who had no wedding garment and he said to him friend how did you get in here without a wedding garment he was speechless and the king said to the attendants binding him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness for in that place there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth and so not only does jesus describe hell as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth but he says it's going to be a place of outer darkness the word outer is key he's saying that hell is going to be a place that's outside of the light that it doesn't have access to the light does that just mean it's going to be a dark place i think it has a deeper meaning than that and a more profound meaning in that here's what i mean one of the things that we know and i want you to hear this one things that we know about here on earth is that believers and non-believers alike every single day of their lives experience something that's called the common grace of god everybody that's alive right now as you speak as you sit you breathe air all day long every day you're experiencing what's called common grace now what is common grace well the scripture is clear that god is the source of all good now with me everything good in this world god is the source of it okay and because god is the source of all good even people that hate god here on earth get to experience the good things that god gives us on a daily basis it's called common grace so here on earth believers and non-believers get to experience the goodness of god through things like uh the warmth of the sun on a cold day even though they hate god they get to experience this goodness even non-believers get to stand on the beach and see the beauty of a sunset they get to experience the goodness of god who created that sunset for our pleasure and his glory even though they hate god they get to experience that it's called common grace here on earth even non-believers get to experience the common grace of god through things like good food and fellowship and community and joy and pleasure but check this out one of the things we know about hell is in hell you are completely separated from the presence of god and when you are separated from god then you are separated from the maker of all good when you're separated from god you're separated from his presence you are separated from the source of all good and so what that means is that in hell there will be no joy in hell there will be no pleasure there'll be no community no fellowship no beauty no cool breezes jesus simply called it a place of outer darkness separate from the presence of god which means that hell will be a place totally devoid of any good and then he keeps going if that were not enough and then jesus gives us one more description of hell and i think this one is haunting might be the most difficult one if you want to turn to luke 16 19. i'm in the asv luke 16 19. she said there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptually every day and at the gate was laid a poor man named lazarus covered in sores who desired to be fed which fell from the rich man's table moreover even the dogs came and licked his sores the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to abraham's side that's heaven the rich man also died and was buried and in hades being in torment watch what it says he said he lifted up his eyes and saw abraham far off and lazarus at his side so he cries out he calls out father abraham have mercy on me send lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for i am in anguish in this flame but abraham said child remember that in your lifetime received your good things and lazarus and like men are bad things but now he's comforted here and you are in anguish and beside all this between us between us and you a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from here to there and when you stop and think about what jesus is saying here it is haunting because what he's saying is this story it reflects the point and points back to the idea that in hell you're going to retain your desires that in hell people are going to retain their memories they're going to retain their reasoning they're going to feel regret they're going to long for relief but there will be no relief they're going to long to be comforted but there will be no comfort they're going to be they're going to long to leave their torment but they cannot leave their torments there's a fictional book called dante's inferno it came out a long time ago about the subject of hell and as you entered into hell there was a sign over the doorway into hell and here's what it said it said ye who enter here abandon all hope and that might be the worst thing about hell besides you being separated from the presence of god is you have no hope and that is hard to stomach and that's why i'm not gonna go into detail about the more graphic stuff that jesus said when he described it as a place of unquenchable fire as he described it as a place where the unrighteous are cut to pieces and where he described it as a place where the worm never dies i don't know what that means but it doesn't sound fun to me but that brings us to our second question how long is it going to last how long is this going to last well there's a rise excuse me a lot of christian circles of a theory called the nihilism or annihilation and it's the theology that once you die it's over you're gone you don't live eternally in hell if you're a sinner if you never trust in christ your lord and savior you just cease to exist let me show you in matthew 25 turn to matthew 25 verse 46. he's gathered this is judgment day he's gathered the whole world everybody that's ever lived before the throne of god he puts the righteous on his right he puts the unrighteous those of not trust in christ on his left then he begins to speak to them and when he speaks to them he he talks about how long hell is going to last he says it matthew 25 46 and he says these will go away talking about those on his left these will go away into eternal punishment the righteous into eternal life theologians have done mental gymnastics to try to get that word eternal not to mean eternal you know what eternal means in the greek it means eternal it means forever so that brings to the final question why why does hell last forever because if you're anything like me you're about in this point of the sermon when you're hearing about unquenchable fire unrighteous cut to pieces worm never dies outer darkness if you're anything like me you're hearing that and going uh wow god we ate an apple for crying out loud we ate an apple in and you're talking about forever jesus because of what you're saying is true i don't want to go through that for 60 seconds can i get an amen i don't want to get i don't want to go through it for one minute much less an hour much less a day much less a year and much less for eternity from a human perspective it seems like this massive divine overreaction recently were a quote from a former christian theologian he left the faith over this issue here's the the quote he said i consider the concept of hell and endless torment and body and mind and outrageous doctrine how can christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include everlasting torture upon his creatures however sinful they might have been now i get it i get what he's saying however uninformed it is i get what the man is saying but let me say a couple things first of all that is incred that's an incredibly arrogant statement because who are we to impose our sense of justice on almighty god he's god gus he's god he is the eternal almighty all-powerful all-holy transcendent glorifying god of the universe we cannot impose our sense of judgment on him it's arrogant as that can ever be but here's the other thing i want to show you really quickly is i want to show you that that the idea of eternal consequences for our sin against god actually makes all the sense in the world and it's a logic that everybody in this room lives by every day of your entire lives i shared this about a year ago but i can't think of a better illustration on how to talk about this than this and so i'm going to talk about that real quick if you don't hear anything i say today that's not true i got two things i really want you to hear but this is important check this out here's the logic we all agree with everybody here agrees with it when you sin against someone the punishment you receive for that sin is always proportionate to the authority of the person you sinned against so when you sin against somebody the punishment you receive for that sin is always equal to the authority of the person you sinned against so let's take the example of lying god said god commanded thou shall not bear false witness don't lie everybody in this room has done that i wanted to pick a sin that we've all done so every single person in this room has broken god's commandment we've broken god's law and by the way if you're here and you say matt i've never lied well you just lied and now you qualify for this illustration the punishment you receive is always proportionate to the authority of the person you sin against so let's let's say that you lied to your friend got a friend you lied to him what are the consequences for lying to your friend it's not much they probably get mad at you don't talk to you for a while the consequences for lying to your friend are not that severe because your friend really doesn't have any authority in your life and so let's do this i want to raise the authority a little bit and i want you to see when we raise the authority of the person sitting against how the consequences increase let's say when you're a kid you lie to your parents what happens if you grew up in my house you got beat down in the name of jesus right as i got older what i did my kids i took away their phone which i would have taken my kid will take a beating any day before you take away his phone but listen it's the same sin it's lying but the consequences got a little bigger you got beat down in the name of jesus why does the same sin have a higher consequence it's because the authority of your parents are a little bit higher than the authority of your friend even though it's the exact same sin let's uh let's take the sin of lying but let's raise the authority again what happens when you lie to your boss it's the exact same sin but you lie to your boss does he spank you does he take away your phone no he fires you you lose your job the consequences are higher because the authority of the person is higher let's keep going let's raise the authority again let's say you're you're a key witness in a you know a trial and you are in front of a jury grand jury something like that you're in front of a judge and you give false witness you lie it's the same sin but what happens to you well first of all the authority has gotten higher enough where they don't even call it lying anymore they got a new name for it it's called perjury what happens do you you lose your job no you go to jail it's a higher consequence than lying to your boss because a jury and a judge has a higher authority in your life than the boss does let's raise the authority again for the overwhelming majority of human history countries kingdoms were ruled not by democracies but by kings as a monarchy so what happened if you lied to a king if you lied to it off with your head that's exactly right you don't get grounded you don't lose your job king was in a bad mood you didn't lose your your job you didn't go to jail if you lied to a king he'd kill you it's the exact same sin why are the consequences higher because the authority is higher in your life and so let's raise the authority one final time god how big is the authority of almighty god is the authority of almighty god big no it's infinite it's not big you can measure big you can't measure infinite and the authority of almighty god in our lives is infinite and so listen the authority of an earthly king is literally like a single drop of rain in the pacific ocean of the authority of almighty god and so when an infinitely holy god says thou shall not bear false witness and you do it you didn't sin against the big authority you sinned against an infinite authority and the punishment for any offense is always equal to the authority of the one you sinned against so a person that's saying that god is being cruel and vindictive no matter how much a person sinned is a person that has absolutely no comprehension whatsoever of the power and the majesty and the holiness of almighty god now i'm almost done but i want to read one more verse to you it's romans 6 23 and i want you to pay careful attention to it you've heard it in church you've heard it a long long thousand times but i want you to see it and hear it today with fresh ears just gonna look at the first part of the verse in romans 6 23 it says for the wages of sin is death you now know why that statement is true the wages or the payment for your sin is not just death when you look at the greek that means eternal death so the payment you receive for your sin is eternal death and that statement ought to now make all the sense in the world to you and it should not be shocking anymore but in light of what we just learned i want us to read the last part of the verse romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death but the free gift let that sink in the free gift of god is eternal life in jesus christ our lord you want to talk about shocking that statement's shocking for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of god is eternal life in jesus christ our lord that is shocking for even though we sinned against and rebelled against and spit upon an infinitely holy god not just once but over and over and over and over every day of our lives he gives us the opportunity not to receive infinite death in hell but he gives us the opportunity to receive infinite life in heaven with him through jesus christ that's shocking and a god that was completely justified in wiping us out and sending us to hell he gives us the opportunity to go to heaven with him why because in the most loving act in the history of the entire world god came to this planet and he put on our flesh and he went to the cross and he died god died on the cross to take our infinite punishment for us that ought to shock you so we got to get to the place we stopped saying that god sends people to hell because god does not send people to hell your sin sends you to hell my sin sends us to hell and if you go to hell it's not because god sent you it's because you made the conscious choice not to receive the shocking amazing unmerited beautiful amazing infinitely loving gift of eternal life through jesus christ that's because you made the choice and i've thought long and hard about how to end this message because it's not easy to end like okay hell's real it's going to be bad let's go eat lunch like how do you how do you end it so long and hard about it and i'm gonna say something that i actually said about six months ago some of y'all most of you will remember it but i couldn't think of a better way to end it i'll try not to do that try not to repeat myself but i couldn't think of a better way she's going to hear it twice in jesus name here we go heaven and hell are a choice they really are and if you still have breath in your lungs right now that choice is right before you you still can make the choice today you have the choice to look at the lord and tell him lord i'm a sinner i have offended your infinite authority and therefore i deserve infinite punishment and so because of that i need someone to come and make the payment for my sin and take my sin away from me so that i can be forgiven and so i want to trust today in my lord and savior jesus christ who died on a cross in order to pay that penalty i trust in him to cover me and take my sin away so that i can receive the free gift that you're offering of eternal life through jesus christ our lord that is your choice right now if you still have breath in your lungs but if you do not if you refuse to trust in jesus christ as your lord and savior and i say this in the most pastoral way i know how to say it if you don't want to do that you need to walk out those doors today and while you can you need to enjoy god's common grace while you can go enjoy the pleasures of this life enjoy the warmth of the sunshine go to the beach enjoy the sunsets and the beauty leave this place today enjoy good friends and good food and community and fellowship and love and pleasure and joy while you can here on earth enjoy those things because if you don't trust in jesus christ as your lord and savior this earth is as close to heaven as you're ever going to get but for those of us who trust in christ today who have our sins forgiven i think one guy's i think i think this message as we hear it it ought to produce in us a really profound sorrow for people that don't know jesus and that sorrow ought to produce in us an urgency to go tell people about how to receive the free gift of eternal life through jesus christ our lord i don't see how you hear like oh hell that's cool learn something let's go let's leave let's go on with our life it ought to change us but in addition to it producing us a profound sense of sorrow at the exact same time this message ought to produce in us a profound sense of joy because is it hitting you today is it hitting you what this means what ought to be hitting you is this is that jesus christ has overcome what sent us to hell he's overcome sin and when he overcame sin he overcame death and when he overcame death he overcame hell and because jesus christ overcame sin death and hell if you're in him you've overcome sin death and hell and because of that and because of that christian that you are loved and saved by the one that's overcome sin death and hell christian walk out these doors and endure this world endure it endure its suffering listen endure endure it endure its pain endure its loneliness endurance sickness and cancer and nonsense and heart disease and strokes endure its trials endure its persecution endurance slander and all through that stuff that you're enduring you can praise god all the way through it and here's why because of jesus christ this earth is as close to hell as you and i are ever going to get so let's pray

Channel: Sagemont Church, Houston

Views: 541

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: Sagemont Church, Matt Carter, Heaven and Hell, Hell, August 15 2021, Matthew 13 &15, Luke 16

Id: nOUg0IwQk3o

Length: 39min 51sec (2391 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021