There is no God. I mean, look at what's going on. I am my own God. God, Allah, Buddha, whatever. He's just waiting
to destroy us all. There's like hundreds of gods. It's just like that
bumper sticker says. I am God. Dog is my copilot. There is no God. There is one true God. He's all knowing, all
powerful, and he loves you. Good morning. I'm going to miss hearing that
every week, and he loves you. I love that we
start every message on this series with that last
little bit, and he loves you. And he does. And what a joy this
has been for me to go through this series
on doctrine, on truth. I love, love, love doing it. Unfortunately, we just barely
skim a lot of these topics. Each one of these, you
could do a 10-part series in each of these topics. But most people wouldn't
want to hear a 10-week sermon or series on hell,
which is a topic we're talking about today. But let's turn in
our Bible, shall we, to the book of
Matthew chapter 25. Matthew 25. Turn to Matthew 25, but also if
you don't mind, place a marker or pre-turn and keep a
finger there in Revelation 20 and in Luke chapter
16, while you're at it. So Matthew 25, Revelation
20, and then Luke chapter 16. I'm going to venture a
guess that most of you don't know the name Joe
McCarthy, unless you are avid baseball fans. Joe McCarthy was
manager for the New York Yankees in the 1930s and 1940s. That's why most
people wouldn't really understand who he was unless
you were an avid baseball fan because he is in the
Baseball Hall of Fame. But Joe McCarthy,
on one occasion, said that he had a dream that he
went to heaven, and in heaven, standing before him were
all the players, baseball players, the greats of the
past that he would have known, people like Ty Cobb, Lou
Gehrig, Babe Ruth, all standing before him on a baseball team. He was so ecstatic. It's like the dream team, right? So here he is in
his dream in heaven, seeing this class
of greats on a team, and he gets a phone call
from hell, from the devil. And it's the devil challenging
that team in heaven to a baseball game. And coach Joe said, you
haven't got a chance. I've got all the great players. And the devil said, yes,
but I have all the umpires. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] Let me be honest with you. I have not looked forward
to preaching this message. It's not a message
I enjoy preaching. It is a message that most
people don't like to hear. In fact, of all
the sermons we've done in this series
and the 2020 series, this is going to be the hardest. It should be the hardest. It should make everyone
feel uncomfortable because no one likes
to even think of hell. It is considered
an offensive topic. I don't want you to
be offended, but you do need to hear the truth. And some of you do need
to be warned very, very stringently about it. You know, I've noticed that most
people, in general, don't want to talk about eternal things. I mean, you can
talk about anything, but if you get to
the deep stuff, especially where are you
going to spend forever, most people don't want to
have that conversation. And if they really do want
to have a conversation, it's an indication
they're about to be saved. There's a reason they
want to go there. But most people want to avoid,
especially the idea of hell, and I've noticed
a lot of preachers don't like to talk about it. Now, I say that,
but at the same time I've noticed that
a lot of people will use the term hell a lot
in their daily conversation. They use it sort of as a
fill word or an expletive. They'll say things like what
in the hell are you doing? And there's no need to
put that word in there. You could just say,
what are you doing, but it's like a fill word. I'm madder than hell. Or I've heard people say
my feet hurt like hell. I seriously doubt that. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] Or that scared the
hell out of me. Now, that's a good thing. If that happens, I'm
glad that happens. I even had a man walk
up to me on a Sunday after a sermon, no joke,
put his arm on my shoulder. He was so excited
about the message. He goes, that was a hell
of a sermon, Pastor. I did not know how
to respond to him. I didn't know if I should say
thank you or just let it go. Also, one time, I think
it was the first time I was in Israel, when I
first went there to live. It was the first time
I had Turkish coffee. So Turkish coffee is a
coffee they have in Israel. They call it [NON-ENGLISH],,
which means mud, if that gives you an
indication of strength. So it's Turkish
coffee, very strong. And the guy serving
me the coffee said, would you like hell? I said no, I don't want hell. What he was talking
about is there is a spice that in Hebrew is
hell, and hell is cardamom, and it's really good
in Turkish coffee. So coffee with hell is really
good in that circumstance. It's probably the
only circumstance. I was thinking of
all sorts of titles to call this message, clever
titles I thought I'd call it, "What's Down with Hell?" or I thought maybe I'll
call it "Highway to Hell," like the AC/DC song, or
I even thought I call it "Smoking or Non-Smoking." But the more I thought
about the title, I thought this subject
is way too serious to just give it a tacky
or kitschy or cute little clever title. So I'm just calling this
message "The Truth About Hell," because if there's one thing
you don't want to get wrong, it's this. A survey that I came
across, a Pew Forum survey indicates 87% of
Americans believe in God. Pretty high. It goes down a little
bit after that, though. 74% of Americans say they
believe in heaven, and only 59% say they believe in hell. Now, why that
really interests me is because all of those topics
have the same source material. When it comes to God
or heaven or hell, it's all come from this book. So you got a lot
of people believing in God, a few less believing
in heaven, but a whole lot less believing in hell. Rob Bell, who is a name
some of you may be familiar with, he was sort of a rock
star in evangelical circles years ago, a young upstart
pastor in Michigan, wrote books that got
a lot of airplay. Velvet Elvis is one of them,
I think his first book. Another book Love Wins. He has since his start taken a
very liberal approach to truth, so as to deny even
biblical truth. But he was asked in an interview
a very simple and forthright question. Is there a hell? Here's his answer. "I actually think there
is a hell because we see hell every day." He described hell as "greed,
injustice, rape, abuse. We see hell on earth all
around us all the time. We actually see lots of
people choosing hell. We see oppression,
we see tyranny, we see dictators using their
power to eliminate opposition, literally." In other words, Rob
Bell is saying, yeah, there's a hell, but
not an eternal hell. There's just hell on earth. It's when bad
people do bad things to hurt a whole lot of people. That's hell. What you need to
know is the Bible does not describe hell that
way but as something far worse than hell on Earth. You also need to know that your
savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, absolutely believed in hell,
and he spoke on it a lot. And one of the places that
he spoke on it is Matthew 25. I'm going to begin
reading in verse 31. "When the Son of Man
comes in His glory and all His holy
angels with Him, then He will sit on the
throne of His glory. All the nations will
be gathered before Him, and He will separate
them one from another as a shepherd divides
his sheep from the goats. And He will set the
sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then the King will say to
those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed
of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world." If you would go
down to verse 41, "Then He will also say to
those on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed,
into the everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels-- for I was hungry and you gave
Me no food; I was thirsty, you gave Me no drink; I was a
stranger you did not take Me in, naked, you
did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and
you did not visit Me.' Then they will also
answer Him saying, 'Lord when did we see you hungry
or thirsty or a stranger naked or sick or in prison, and
did not minister to You?' Then He will answer
them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you,
inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these,
you did not do it to Me.' And these will go into
everlasting punishment but the righteous
into eternal life." Let me just kind of tell
you some preliminary stuff. Some people see what I just
read as an event called the judgment of the nations. And eschatologically, they see
this as an event taking place in the future where God judges
nations after the tribulation period based on how they
treated the nation of Israel during the tribulation period
to determine their admission into the kingdom age or not. That's one way to interpret it. Other people see this as a
general description of judgment for all saved and all unsaved. I am not here to unravel that. I just really want to
focus on this topic. So I just wanted to
get that out there. I really want to
focus on verse 41, where it says "He will
say to those on the left, 'Depart from Me, you cursed,
into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels.'" Now the illustration
that our Lord uses is an illustration
they would have understood of a shepherd
separating sheep and goats. In the Middle East,
even to this very day, you can see this happening. You will see shepherds
on hillsides. They have a flock that is mixed,
some sheep and some goats, but they're walking together. But then the shepherd
will separate the sheep from the goats at two
very important times during the day, grazing
time and sleeping time. And that is because
sheep and goats have very different temperaments. Sheep are docile,
sometimes clueless. They just sort of kind of
meander around, wander around. Goats are sort of
impervious to things. They're aggressive. They're rambunctious. They'll charge things that
sheep would not do that. So when it comes
to feeding, it's not good to keep them
together when they eat. It's not good to keep them
together when they rest. They don't rest well together. So the shepherd will separate
the sheep from the goats. That's the background of this. What I'd like to do is kind
of zeroing in on these verses but mostly verse 41. I want to share five
facts about hell, and the first is that
hell is an actual place. It's an actual place. You see Jesus in this
section is speaking of an actual event that will
take place in the future. Verse 31, "When the Son of
Man comes in His glory." Now, here's a simple question. Is Jesus going to come? Literally, yes He is. He said that on a
number of occasions. So did all the apostles. So we're dealing with a
literal event in the future. And then in that
same context, He speaks about eternal
punishment and eternal kingdom. Now, if you were to do a
quick search of the word hell in an English Bible, like the
New King James version that I speak from, you'd find that
the word hell in English shows up 32 times in
the Bible, 32 times, but all of the references about
hell throughout the Bible total 162 times. And sometimes they're
just sort of plain, in your face, up
front, like Psalm 9:17. "The wicked shall be turned to
hell and all the nations that forget God." Pretty straight up. Or Daniel chapter 12,
where Daniel predicts a time that is coming the
worst time ever in history, called the tribulation
period, and afterwards he writes, "Multitudes who sleep
in the dust of the earth will awake, some to
everlasting life, others to shame and
everlasting contempt." But by far, the majority of
all the biblical teaching we have on hell comes from
the Lord Jesus Christ. More than anybody else,
Jesus spoke on hell. In fact, Jesus
spoke on hell more than Jesus spoke on heaven. It is estimated if you look at
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all the times he
refers to it, 70 times. 70 times, Jesus spoke
about or referred to hell and in the
kind of language that nobody can like yawn at. You can't go, yeah, whatever. It's the kind of language
that strikes terror, or it should into very heart. He spoke about hell as a
place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. He spoke of hell as a place
where the fire is not quenched. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke of hell as a place
where the worm never dies. He spoke of it as outer
darkness, a place where one is tormented by
flames and past memories, and He spoke of it
as a place where there's a great
gulf that is fixed between hell and paradise. Jesus in Matthew
10 verse 28 said, "Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of
the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is Jesus, man of love. Now, here's my question. If we cease to exist
after we die, that's it, we just live and we
die, and we cease to exist, then why did He
spend so much time warning people about hell? And if you think, well,
that's not very loving, I contend it's the most
loving thing you can do. If you know there's a hell, and
you don't warn people of it, that's not loving. If there is a hell, and you warn
people of it, that's loving. And He warned
people a lot of it. CS Lewis wrote in his book, The
Problem of Pain, these words. "There is no doctrine which
I would more willingly remove from Christianity than
this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full
support of scripture and, specially, of
Our Lord's own words; it has always been
held by Christendom; and it has the
support of reason." End quote. See, if there is no hell, then
the Bible is a book of myths. If there is no hell, then Jesus
was just a misguided soul. If there is no hell, then the
crucifixion was pointless. There's no significance in
dying to save us from what? If there's no hell,
then you should sin as much as you possibly
can because it's not sin. It's just fun, right? It's just all about you
getting pleasure in this life, sucking it like an orange dry
of every drop of enjoyment you can. But if there are consequences
for deeds and beliefs, then we should
receive the warning. Hell as an actual
place, and there are several words the New
Testament uses to describe it. One is the word Hades. Hades, the Greek word,
Hades, is the equivalent of an Old Testament
Hebrew word, sheol, which simply means the grave. It is spoken about a
couple of different ways. Sometimes it refers to just
the grave in the ground where bodies are buried. Sometimes it refers to life
after the grave, the soul's existence after death. That's one word, Hades. Another word is
the word Gehenna. It is used 12 times
mostly by the Lord Jesus. Did you know that
Gehenna originally referred to a valley
outside of Jerusalem? The southwest
corner of Jerusalem has a valley to
this day, a ravine called Gehinnom, the Valley
of the Sun of Hinnom. And in ancient days,
it was a garbage dump. You threw your garbage-- there was always
a fire going on. Bodies of criminals were placed
there and burned up there, bodies of animals taken
from the city that died, so the city wouldn't be defiled
thrown into hell, Gehenna. In the 8th century
BC, it was the place where under King Ahaz
and King Manasseh, people offered their children
as sacrifices to pagan gods. And because of that detestable,
horrible, smelly, burning place, it became a metaphor
for an eternal place of punishment, hell. A third word that is used
is the word Tartarus. It's only used once in the New
Testament, 2 Peter chapter 2, as a place for bound, fallen
angels awaiting final judgment. The fourth term is
the lake of fire. It's Revelation 19 and 20. The lake of fire is the name
of a place of eternal torment. You might call it
the final hell. The Bible calls it
the second death. So hell is an actual place. There's a second fact
I want you to notice, and that is hell is
an intentional place. What I mean by that
is God created hell for a very specific reason. Verse 41, "He will say to
those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed,
into the everlasting fire." Here it is, "prepared for
the devil and his angels." God did not create
hell as a place to punish people originally. It became that eventually. But it was not created
that way originally. And notice the word prepared
for the devil and his angels. Compare that with verse 34. "The King will say to
those on the right, 'Come, you blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you.'" That's what God
prepared for people, heaven. Jesus said to his
disciples, "I am going to prepare a place for you." So heaven is
prepared for people. Hell is prepared for the
devil and his angels. However, there's something
about God you need to know. God is pro-choice when
it comes to salvation. When it comes to
salvation, God lets people choose where they want to go. And if they don't want
anything to do with God, I want nothing to
do with God, God is not going to force you
to be in heaven, where He is all the time. He'll let you and
respect your choice. GK Chesterton wrote, "Hell
is God's great complement to the reality of human
freedom and the dignity of human choice." A person went up
to God and said, "God, would you send me to
hell and lock me in forever?" And God said, "No, I
will not send you there. But if you choose to go there,
I could never lock you out." So it is an intentional
place, originally created for the devil and his angels,
but here, even in our text, there are some
people that Jesus, that judgment says
you're going there. So I want you to turn with
me to Revelation chapter 20. It's a book we've been
looking at the last few weeks, and there's an unmistakable
future event that you need to see, a couple of them. Revelation chapter 20 verse 10. Here's a really good part. I love this verse. The devil, verse 10, "The
devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone where the beast and
the false prophet. And they will be tormented day
and night forever and ever." Can I get a hallelujah
on that verse? It's like, yeah, finally, he
gets what's coming to him. So that's what
Jesus meant when he said it's prepared for
the devil and his angels. That's where they go. No matter what Hollywood says,
Satan does not rule hell. That's the idea that
they always portray. Here's the devil, and he's like
the chief tormentor of hell. No, he is not. He is the chief victim of hell. He gets thrown in there, and
he is tormented day and night. But it doesn't end
there unfortunately. Verse 11 continues
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." Verse 14. "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." This is called the great
white throne judgment. It is the judgment by God of all
unbelievers, all unbelievers. It is a courtroom
scene, but it's very different than
an earthly court because here in
Revelation 20, there's no debate about guilt. There is
a prosecution but no defense. There will be a
judge but no jury. There will be a
sentence but no appeal. And there is a
punishment but no parole. And something you need
to know, it will be fair. It will be fair. I know that it will be
fair because verse 12 says, "Books were opened." So the idea behind that is a
full inventory of a person's life is kept. "Books were opened." Now I don't know exactly
what's in the books, perhaps a record
of every thought, every word, every deed. Jesus did say, if you
remember, that "Every idle word men speak, they
will give an account for in the day of judgment." Another book may be a
record of all the times that person had an
opportunity to give their life to Christ, every
time they heard the gospel but refused. Remember the time your
mom told you this. Remember the time you
heard that in church. Remember that opportunity. And that all is
recorded perhaps. One thing for sure, there's only
one person behind the bench. This is not a committee. He isn't voted in or out. There's only one person who
is the judge, one person presiding over this judgment,
and it's the only one qualified to preside over this judgment. He is qualified because he
alone has certain attributes that nobody else has,
attributes we have covered in this series on doctrine. One of the attributes is the
attribute of omniscience. God knows everything. That means he knows every
thought, every action, every motive of
every single person. Also, he has the
attribute of omnipresence. He's everywhere present in the
totality of his being, which means God alone is
the best eyewitness of every single
event in history, so he will be the judge. Buddha will not be the judge. Krishna will not be the judge. Muhammad will not be the judge. God alone is the judge. So hell is an actual place. It is an intentional place. There's a third
fact, and it gets worse before it gets better. Hell is a painful place. Back to our text in Matthew
25, you'll notice in verse 31 the word fire, 41 the word
fire, everlasting fire. You'll also notice in verse
46 the word punishment. You have a couple
of descriptive words that talk about what that
experience will be like. Fire doesn't sound fun. Punishment doesn't sound
fun, sounds painful to me. Do you know that I've
had people laugh at me when I bring up
the idea of hell? Especially in
relationship to them. Hell, I'm looking
forward to hell. I've had people tell me that. I'm looking forward to hell. Well, why is that, sir? Because all my friends
are going to be in hell. OK, you need new
friends, but it's no good reason for you to go. And they go no,
no, all my friends are going to be in hell,
and we're going to party. Have you ever heard that? That's where all
the fun is, hell. Dumb, bad, bad idea. Scrap that idea. Revelation 14
describes it as "They will drink of the
wine of God's fury which has been poured
out full strength into the cup of His wrath." And it says, "They
will be tormented, and there is no
rest day or night." Does that sound
like a party to you? Does that sound like a
party you want to go to? No. Did you know that seven
times when Jesus Christ spoke of hell, he spoke
of it this way, "There will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth," or sometimes, "There will be
wailing and gnashing of teeth." Anybody ever hit their thumb
with a hammer like I have? OK, so really, you guys
need to get hammers that and actually use
them sometime then. So I've done that,
and when I do that I have a physical reaction. I usually-- I don't cuss,
but I will squeeze my eyes shut, and I will
gnash with my teeth. My teeth will grind
because it's painful. It's my reaction to pain,
weeping and gnashing of teeth. There's something about
that gnashing of teeth, it could refer to
a person's anger. It could even refer to
the idea of gnashing of the teeth of a person
with a fist up to God still angry at Him. Because in Acts
chapter 7 when Stephen shared the truth
of the gospel, it says, "And the people that
hurt him were cut to the heart and gnashed at him
with their teeth." It's like they're so mad at
this believer for telling them the truth of the gospel. So it could be in hell the
idea of the gnashing of teeth is an anger, a hatred, a
refusal to repent forever. So it's a painful place. Now, I'd like you to turn, I had
you mark out Luke chapter 16. I think I told you that. Did I not? OK, good. I get my services mixed
up, to be honest with you I don't know if I said Luke
16 this one or last one, but Luke 16. So in Luke chapter 16,
Jesus tells a story of the rich man and Lazarus. It is not a parable. Some people call it the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus. It's a story, not a parable. And you can usually
tell a parable. Here's the telltale
sign of a parable. Jesus spoke a parable
unto them and said, so it introduces it by
saying it's a parable. Or He will say the
kingdom of heaven is like, so He's using
that as an analogy. But this is no parable. It's a story. He probably knew
about this event. In verse 19, "There
was a certain rich man who was clothed in
purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar
named Lazarus, full of sores, who was late at
his gate desiring to be fed with the crumbs which
fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came
and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died,
and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also
died and was buried. And being in torment in
Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off,
and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, 'Father
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in this flame.'" That is not a party I
want to be a part of. Among other things,
this story shows us that at the moment
of death, a person is conscious, is aware,
awake, can feel, can somehow communicate, and in this
case, have immediate torment. And the pain can't just be
confined to physical pain. It has to be also the pain of
shame, the pain of failure, the pain of regret,
the pain of remorse because there's
no second chance. So hell is an actual place,
an intentional place. Hell is a painful place. Keeps getting worse. It'll get better,
but it gets worse. Hell is an eternal place. This is where it gets
sticky with some people, and I'll share that in a minute. But look at verse 41. It says, "He will say to those
on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into
the--" what's the word? Everlasting fire. And what does everlasting mean? It means it lasts forever. Forever. It is everlasting. And then verse 46,
"And these will go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Everlasting means it keeps
going and going and going. It's perpetual. Now this is, as I mentioned,
the real sticky part about hell because somebody will hear this,
and I've heard this many times, people say, well, wait a
minute, when is enough enough? When is enough
punishment enough? I mean, if sins are
committed in a finite realm, how can the punishment
be infinite? Keep going and going
and going and going. The only reason
we would ask that is because we do not
understand how offensive sin is to a perfectly holy God. So we can't figure that out. Why is that? It's not that bad. To you, but to a holy God,
that is so utterly offensive. And if you want to
know about what sin can do, forget
judgment for a minute. Forget hell for a minute. Look at the cross. That's what sin did. That's what God
thought about sin. It's so bad that His
Son got that kind of punishment on a
cross, darkness and pain and being cut off
from the Father. So because it is hard
to understand and come to grips with the
eternality of hell, people have come up with
all sorts of other beliefs to make it better. Let me tell you
about a few of them. One is called universalism. Universalism is the belief
that nobody goes to hell. Everybody goes to heaven. Doesn't matter who you are,
doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter what
you believe in. Everybody will
eventually go to heaven. That's called universalism. Nobody's lost,
everybody's saved. I'd love to believe
that, and I would believe that if I didn't
have this book that tells me otherwise. But universalism is
everybody goes to heaven, nobody goes to hell, and they
base that on John chapter 12 verse 32, where Jesus
said, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself." All men, all men, all men,
all men and women, everybody. I'll draw men unto myself. If I die on a cross, I'll
draw all men to myself. I have a couple of
problems with that. Problem number one is
named Adolf Hitler. You mean to tell me that Adolf
Hitler gets to go to heaven and I got to look
at his mug in heaven and God's sitting there
going, yeah, well, you know, everybody makes
mistakes, but we're all here? I have a problem with
justice not being meted out. I have a problem with Joseph
Stalin being in heaven. I have a problem with
Pol Pot being in heaven. Now, if they received Christ,
that's a different issue. But last time I checked,
that didn't happen. When Jesus said, I'll
draw all men to Myself, He is not guaranteeing
salvation. He is simply guaranteeing
the availability of salvation to all. "I be lifted up, I will
draw all men to Myself." God is not willing
that any should perish but that all should
come to repentance. But guess what, a lot of
people perish, and they don't come to repentance. They don't make that choice. That's one, universalism. Here's another way that
people deal with this, and that is called
annihilationism. Annihilationism, also called
conditional immortality, simply means that only the
righteous will be resurrected. The wicked will
just be annihilated. They will cease to exist. They won't have
eternal consciousness. They'll just be put out
as though they never existed in the first place. Seventh Day Adventists
believe in that. Jehovah witnesses
believe in that. It is a cultic belief. It is not a New
Testament belief. Unfortunately now, some
so-called evangelicals say they believe in
that, annihilationism. Another way of
dealing with this is called purgation, or purgatory. It is a Catholic doctrine that
came to the Catholic Church in recent times in
the 16th century. In terms of world history,
that's still recent. It was at the Council of Trent. It does not come from the Bible. Even Catholic
theologians will tell you they can't find
this in our Bible, so they resort to a book
called 2 Maccabees chapter 12, which they have included in
their canon of scripture to-- there's one kind of offside
reference that could mean-- anyway, they get
purgatory from that. The idea is that God will
forgive confessed sins but unconfessed sins, you've got
to burn those off in purgatory, and it could take decades, it
could take hundreds of years that you will suffer
flame and pain, and then you get purified,
and you get your ticket, and you go to heaven. OK, all that aside, let's
just cut to the chase. Verse 46, notice this,
"And these will go away into everlasting punishment." The word everlasting is
the word in Greek, aionios. Anybody who knows Greek will
tell you that means forever and ever and ever, age upon
age, perpetual, never stopping, aionios. These will go away into
everlasting punishment. Now, keep reading. But the righteous into what? Eternal life, same exact word,
aionios, aionios punishment, aionios life. What that tells us is this. If hell is not eternal,
then heaven is not eternal. If heaven is eternal,
then hell is also eternal from the same verse. Now one author I
read even suggests that unbelievers in
hell will perhaps go on sinning perpetually
and also receiving punishment for their sin as they do
that but never repent, and they take this
from Revelation 22:11. "Let him who does wrong
continue to do wrong; let him who is vile
continue to be vile; let him who does right
continue to do right; let him who is holy
continue to be holy." I don't know. But I do know hell
is an eternal place. But the best news of
all is the last fact. Hell is an avoidable place. You don't have to go there. I don't want you to sit
here and go, man, hell, I guess that's where I'm going. You don't have to go there. Don't go there. I hope most of you
aren't saying that. It's an avoidable place. The context of chapter 25 is
about choices that people make. Here you have a shepherd
who is separating sheep from goats based upon choices
that the sheep and goats have made. The sheep have chosen
to do certain things. The goats have chosen
not to do certain things, and it says, I was in
prison, I was hungry, and he lists all of
these good deeds. Don't get confused. The good works mentioned
here don't save anybody. They just provide evidence
that a person has been saved. This is a separation. This is a courtroom. The good works are the proof
that salvation has occurred. I want you to really
get that drilled down. Look at verse 34. "The King will say to
those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of
My Father.'" And then what's the next word? Inherit. "Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you." Did you know inherit
is a family term? And inheritance is a gift. You don't earn it. It's given to you. Your dad or your grandparents
give you an inheritance. They pass it on. They've worked
for money or land, but they give it to you
free to the next generation. So that's how salvation works. You don't earn eternal life. You inherit eternal
life as a family member. You say, well, how do
I get into the family? Well. That's the catch. To get into this family,
you have to be born into it. Jesus said unless a
man is born again, he will never see the
kingdom of heaven. He spoke about a second birth. You were born once, but
when you believe in Christ, when you commit
your life to Him, when you let Him take
your sin for you, and you believe in that as
an efficacious event once and for all, you're
born again and born into the family of God. Listen, there's only one
person that wants you in hell. It's not Jesus. It is Satan, and
he's been wanting-- it's been his lifelong
goal to put you in hell. I think you know that, right? That's his goal for every
person that has ever lived is to fill up hell
as much as possible. It's called collateral
damage in a battle, to get as many people
to-- misery loves company. Get as many people as he
possibly can with him. Jesus said, "The thief does
not come except to steal, kill, and destroy, but I
have come that they may have life and have
it more abundantly." I want to conclude
with a little excerpt. There is a great
book that came out some years ago called
Beyond Death's Door, written by a cardiologist. Dr. Maurice Rawlings was
a professor of medicine at University of Tennessee,
cardiologist, heart surgeon, and an atheist. But he had several encounters
with patients who died. He resuscitated them, and
some told about heaven. Some told about hell. You've heard about
people who have had near-death
experiences, and they've seen the bright light and
angels and Jesus, right? You've heard that. Nobody writes about hell. Well, who would buy it? Those books don't sell. But do you know that those
experiences actually exist? So Maurice Rawlings,
after looking at 300 patients who had this
experience, said in his book, "I am thoroughly convinced
there is life after death, and there are at
least as many people going to hell as
going to heaven. I'm convinced there's a hell and
that we must conduct ourselves in such a way as to avoid
being sent there at all costs." Duh. Well, here's the
turning point for him. He said he was resuscitating
a 48-year-old patient in his office who just
dropped dead, cardiac arrest. He was a mail carrier, and he
said when he came back to life, his patient had the worst
expression on his face he had ever seen ever. And the patient
said, "I am in hell." He cried out, "I am in hell." Here's what this
good doctor wrote. "Of course, that alone
didn't change my thinking, but the fact that this
48-year-old was screaming I am in hell, keep
me out of hell each time he responded
to resuscitation efforts did caused me some concern." That's called understatement. And so he said, the patient
who was being resuscitated asked the doctor, he
said, pray for me. Now here's what
Dr. Rawlings said. He goes, "Not only
am I an atheist. That guy was an atheist." And he said pray for me. So he said he prayed some
fake prayer as an atheist to a God he didn't
believe existed. But he said, "After
this was all over, I realized what really happened. It was a double conversion. Not only had this make
believe prayer converted this atheist mailman. It also converted
this atheist doctor that was working on him." Dr. Rawlings became a believer. His son serves as an elder in
a church today in Tennessee. There is a formula I have
shared with you over the years. It's good to bring it up
right now as we close. Born once die twice. Born twice die once. That's the formula. If you're born once,
you will die twice. If you're born twice,
you'll only die once. If you're born once
physically, you'll die physically and spiritually. But if you're born physically
and born spiritually, born again, you'll only die once. And if the Lord comes
back, you won't die at all. But even if you die,
like Jesus said, "Whoever believes
in me will live." Will live. "I am the Resurrection
and the life." Great promise, great promise. Let's bow our head. Father, thank you
for being so honest. Thank you for the Lord Jesus'
upfront honesty about a place that He created,
that He prepared. Just like the kingdom
was prepared for us, there was a place prepared for
those spirits that rebelled and yet you honor
people's choices that we have day after week
after month after decade to make. We all think about
heaven and hell, death. All of us all our lives at some
point, we think about that. We wonder about that. Most of us just sort of
put it off and blow it off. But our Lord Jesus
warned us enough that we should think about it
very seriously because if there is something we need clarity
on, and we need truth about, it's the truth about
what happens when we die. Thank you for Him and for your
word giving us that clarity. Lord Jesus, I know
you love people. I know that you are
eager to forgive. You are not willing
that any should perish. So Lord, if there
are any here who are in the process of
perishing by not believing, by putting you off,
by blowing this off, they would stop right
now, right here, and say yes to the Savior. And allow them to come home
to be part of your family and to be forgiven, to
have their name written in the book of life by so doing
that, by believing in Jesus. I would be remiss if I let this
moment go by without giving you an opportunity right here right
now if you've never done it yet, if you have not personally
asked Jesus to be your Savior. If you can't think of
a time in your life and pinpoint an exact time
when you said yes to Jesus, then do it right now. Say yes to Him right
now, right here. And if you would
like that, if you are willing to surrender
your life to Christ and ask Him to come in and
be your Lord and master, our heads are bowed,
our eyes are closed, would you just raise
your hand up in the air. Just raise it up so
I can acknowledge you as we close the
service in a moment. By raising it up, you're just
saying, Skip, here's my hand. I'm over here. Pray for me. Pray for me as I pray
to receive Christ. Raise that hand up. God bless you and
you toward the back. Anyone else? Father, thank you for these who
have made that acknowledgment. And if you raised your
hand, would you just ask Jesus right here
right now into your life? Would you just say,
Lord, here I am. Take me. I'm yours. I give you my life. I admit I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died
on the cross for me. I believe He's alive
right now, that he rose up in Resurrection. I turn from my sin. I repent of my sin. I turn to Jesus as
Savior and as master. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Help me. Walk with me. Help me to live a
life that pleases you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Would you stand please? Let's all stand to our feet. I know that was a
very heavy message. If it did indeed scare the
hell out of some people, then I'm really
grateful for that. And I'll tell you what
these matters of eternity should motivate
us to share truth with people on an ongoing
basis in our community and in our world. Let's close with a song. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
