Hell

Intro:

1. It was over so quickly. The last thing I remember was getting ready for work. That’s when the quake happened. Everything around me felt unstable. Trying to figure out if my house was over a sink hole or if there was a earthquake, I ran outside for safety. I was met by the most brilliant light display in my life coming from the sky. Colors I have never seen before, sights I never thought I would ever see. It was beautiful and scary all at once and I cant describe more than that using words. But in the center of all that glory above my head, were thousands of beings and they were all led by one. One who stood out as the most beautiful, the most magnificent, and the most terrifying. He galloped on his horse riding closer and closer. Now I’m here. We all are. Every last human being to have ever existed on the face of the earth. And somehow, we all knew exactly why. It was the king. Jesus had come and we all are before him now for judgement. And we all knew it was him. he called my name. His voice was as calm and as commanding as streams of water that cascaded into a tsunami. I stepped forward and begged him before he even brought any charge. Confessing my own sin that was now as clear as day in my own mind. Like it had all been brought forward in my mind through some outside force and we were having a back and forth discussion of my life events in mere moments. I confessed that I was a failure as a father and a husband and a human being. I regretted that I never got to know him in my life, never cared about him or church or any of that. For the first time, this connection made me I feel like I actually knew Him. like he was so familiar, like he was family. But it was deeper than that. He was my God. He is my God. but what he said to me will stay with me forever. “I do not know you.” I did not know fear like this could actually exist. Like it could kill me but I was being kept alive. Giving no more defense of my own, He said, “Depart from me.” I saw his light, his glory, his grace, his marvelousness and cherished every second I got to spend basking in his light. Experiencing true joy for the first time in my life. And as quickly and I took that all in, he was getting farther and farther away. The light was dimming. His light was getting softer and softer as I was cast. And with the diminishing of the light, that joy I felt was leaving my heart. And it would be gone forever. I will never see Him again.

2. we avoid and suppress things we don’t like

3. Ask a random person on the street where they will go

a. “Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it.

I. The Objection to Hell

A. Hell is not popular because we don’t like consequences

1. Bertrand Russell, a noted atheist stated, “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell.”

B. doesn’t matter if you don’t like

C. in our objection, we try to soften the blow

1. Clark Pinnock - “How can one imagine for a moment that the God who gave His Son to die for sinners because of His great love for them would install a torture chamber somewhere in the new creation in order to subject those who reject Him to everlasting pain?”

2. We want all the love and grace in the Bible but nothing else

II. The Origin of Hell

A. Its original purpose (Matthew 25:41)

III. The Reason for Hell

A. Gods Law

IV. The Punishment of Hell

A. What is the punishment? It is described as;

1. Physical pain, Mark 9:48

a. Also 2 Thessalonians 1:9

b. Is. 66:22-23, Connect to the resurrection

2. Emotional pain, Matthew 25:30

a. Weepers

b. Gnashers

1) Brugmos – roaring, biting, to grind the teeth

2) “They view God as their enemy and hate Him. That is the decision they made in life and the decision that was fixed immutably at their death. They are completely aware that God is happy and that there are souls with Him in heaven who are happy. They are also aware that it is also by their own deliberate choice that they have forfeited these joys. But this knowledge, instead of causing them to experience guilt, only adds fuel to their bitter resentment of God and their overall misery at having to suffer the consequences of their choice. The souls in hell regret that things didn’t go the way they planned but feel no remorse at having chosen evil over good, obstinacy over repentance.”

V. The Finality of Hell

A. It is eternal

1. No rest (Revelation 14:11)

a. Ever come home after a long day of work

2. No fizzing out (Rev. 14:11)

3. No 2nd chances

a. They won’t get it

b. They won’t want it

B. “Abandon hope ye who enter here”

C. The punishment seems worse than the crime?