Sermon Tone Analysis

If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where

“their worm does not die,

and the fire is not quenched.”

Everyone will be salted with fire.

Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?

Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.

Hell has lost its fire in the minds of most Americans and brimstone no longer holds the terror it once did.

A poll conducted in January 2000 for U.S. News & World Report revealed that more people believe in hell today than believed in hell in the 1950s.

However, many of our contemporaries think of hell as a state of existence where a person suffers deprivation from God rather than as a physical place.

While 64% of respondents said there was a hell, 53% agreed it is “more of an anguished state of existence eternally separated from God” than an actual place.

Thirty-four percent said hell is an actual place where people suffer eternal fiery torments.

Not even the dramatic conversion of many people to a hope that a hell exists for terrorists has really changed the essential views of our contemporaries concerning hell.

Much to the surprise of many people, no man ever spoke stronger words about hell than the loving Son of God.

However, it is of significance that His words on this dark topic were addressed either to His disciples, as in the text before us today, or to professed religious leaders (as in *Matthew 23:33*).

We never hear of Him expounding this topic to publicans and sinners (although John the Baptist does seem to have struck this note widely [cf.

*Matthew 3:7*]).

The Master spoke of hell to professed saints—and of heaven to acknowledged sinners.

We tend to reverse the process today.

What did Jesus say concerning hell?

Perhaps it is time that we who are called by the Name of the Master of Life would review what He said concerning hell.

Join me in exploring the dark side of God’s love as we focus on the burning issue of hell.

Hell is a Real Place — /It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell/…  It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell…  It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell… [*Mark 9:43, 45, 47*].

These are the words of Jesus, our loving Saviour.

When Jesus uttered these words, He addressed one of the most chilling concepts in mankind’s ken.

The Master did not give us the luxury of debating whether there is a place where sinners are separated from the love of God—He assumed it to be real, giving us fair warning and affirming our worst suspicion.

When “free-thinkers” pose what they assume to be the unanswerable question, “How could a loving God send anyone to a place of eternal torment?” they ask the wrong question.

They should ask, “How could a holy God tolerate sinners in His presence?”

Unfortunately, modern Christians have so focused on the love of God that they have forgotten that this God is a holy and righteous God.

When were we last reminded from the Word of God that God cannot overlook sin.

It is an axiom of the Faith that all sinners must be held to account or no sinner may be held to account.

There are many sins which a man may commit.

Perhaps we think of sin as only sin against a fellow mortal.

However, I am driven to the conclusion that no greater sin can be imagined than that of rejecting divine mercy and grace.

Should the rebel show despite toward the grace of God displayed in the sacrifice of the Son of God, how much greater do you imagine the punishment will be?

This is the awesome message of the author if the Hebrew letter.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

Anyone who rejected the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God [*Hebrews 10:26-31*].

The doctrine of eternal punishment is not attacked half so much from the outside of the church as it is from the inside of the church.

You may be surprised to discover that the Bible says more about judgement and eternal damnation than it says about heaven.

You cannot come to the Scripture selectively as though it were a cafeteria line and say, “I believe I’ll have a little of this, but I don’t care for that over here, and so I’ll leave it out.”

If you’re going to accept the afterlife at all, if you’re going to embrace heaven at all, if you’re going to embrace salvation at all, it all has its meaning against the backdrop of possible judgement, possible hell and possible eternity separated from God.

When the Master concludes the account warning of the judgement of the nations (at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation Period), He appends this pointed commentary.

Then [the wicked individuals] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life [*Matthew 25:46*].

It is impossible to make eternal [aijwvnion] mean one thing in speaking of punishment but mean quite another when speaking of life.

If you wish to declare that life in Christ is eternal, then you must accept that outside of Christ there exists a punishment which is eternal.

We Christians have never said that the doctrine of eternal punishment isn’t in the Bible; we are simply silent concerning the possibility of eternal punishment.

We don’t want outsiders to think that we believe such a thing and so we refuse to warn them of eternal punishment.

Too many of our preachers have chosen to remain silent concerning the fate of the lost, thus those occupying the pews of our churches are equally silent with the complicit cowardice of the pulpit.

We have just been so frightened of the doctrine of eternal judgement and afraid of what society would say to us about such a politically incorrect doctrine in an “I’m OK, you’re OK” generation that we simply don’t talk about hell anymore.

This does not change the truth that hell is a real place.

Hell is a Place of Eternal Torment — Hell is described as a place where

 

“their worm does not die,

and the fire is not quenched.”

[*Mark 9:48*]

 

Though the KJV translates both alike, one should always distinguish between *Gehenna* and *Hades*.

The latter is the place of the dead, or simply the grave.

Perhaps the word most commonly translated as *hell* into our English tongue is a{~/dh"~/~/.

The word simply refers to the unseen world beyond the realm of human sight.

It is the equivalent of the Hebrew lwaoV].

This is not to say that there is no torment in *Hades*—there is.

Perhaps you recall an account of a rich man who died without salvation.

The rich man also died and was buried.

In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up [*Luke** 16:22b, 23a*].

The Word of God indicates that this unnamed rich man anticipated that death ends all.

However, the words of Jesus are stunning.

The rich man … died and was buried.

Then, without pause Jesus spoke those next staggering words: kai; ejn tw'~/ a{~/dh~/—and in hades [*Luke** 16:22b*].

Whatever he may have anticipated, the rich man opened his eyes in hell.

The teaching of Jesus is that torment for the lost begins immediately with the transition from this existence to the eternal realm.

If it holds true that for the Apostle Paul /to be away from the body/ is to be /at home with the Lord/ [*2 Corinthians 5:7*], then it must be equally true that for the lost to be away from the body is to enter into their eternal damnation.

Likewise, if for the Christian /to die is gain/ [cf.

*Philippians 1:21*], it must also hold that for the lost to die is loss.

The word translated hell in *verses 43*, *45* and *47* of our text is gevennan.

The Greek word is a transliteration of two Hebrew words meaning *Valley of Hinnom*.

The reference is to the deep valley on the south and on the west side of Jerusalem.

In pre-Israelite time, it was the site of child sacrifice to Molech.

Some Israelites, in times of spiritual decline, seem to have adopted the same practise [see *Jeremiah 7:31; 19:6; 32:35*; cf.

*2 Kings 16:3*].

In an attempt to stop the practise, Josiah desecrated the site [*2 Kings 23:10*].

During the intertestamental times it became the garbage and sewage dump of Jerusalem and a symbol of the place of punishment [see *1 Enoch 27:2*; *4 Ezra 7:36*] because worms and fires were always consuming the refuse [*verse 48*].

Wild dogs roamed the area seeking a rotting corpse of a dead animal which they might devour.

The smoke and the stench of burning, rotted garbage must have made a powerful impression on those who first heard Jesus’ words.

The symbol of lostness must surely have weighed powerfully upon His listeners when they heard this awful comparison.

John witnessed an awesome vision related to this frightful spectre of the eternal abode of the damned.

In the Apocalypse he wrote: /I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.

Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

Another book was opened, which is the book of life.

The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.