Eternity (Hell)

have to say this right up front: I hate talking more about the enemy up here than talking about God but I think that understanding what hell is like and getting some information from the Bible will help us in our own lives, as well as in the urgency for us to not let anyone spend any time in hell.

So with that said, let me pray to get things started:

God help us tonight as we look at what eternity in hell looks like. Protect our minds and thoughts from the enemy, and help us to understand—to know—that this is NOT what you want for us. God, remind us that you love us, that you want us to spend eternity with You, and that You made that possible through Your son Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. Amen.

Intro:

You remember we talked about eternity last week—and that it is forever.

I know it is impossible for our minds to really wrap our heads around that idea, but as best as possible, just know that our bodies won’t last forever, but our souls will. The stuff around us is just temporary, but the spirit that God breathed into us—what makes us who we are—is eternal.

yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Remember our life is like this match. [Repeat the illustration from the previous week, lighting a match then shortly blowing it out] It burns bright for just a short while, and then its done.

Remember our life is like this match. [Repeat the illustration from the previous week, lighting a match then shortly blowing it out] It burns bright for just a short while, and then its done. All that is left is a small trail of smoke, and the rest just vanishes into the expanse out here. But this space is like the eternity our soul will live on in. It goes on forever—far beyond the life we have here now.

All that is left is a small trail of smoke, and the rest just vanishes into the expanse out here. But this space is like the eternity our soul will live on in. It goes on forever—far beyond the life we have here now.

If we choose to surrender our lives here on earth to God and receive His forgiveness through Jesus, we will end up spending eternity in Heaven with God.

But if we choose to reject God, and go through life without Him, we will spend eternity that same way—separated from God.

Next week we will look at heaven, but this week let’s take a look at what hell is like.

There are a few outlines on the tables and I would definitely encourage you to grab one of those and take some notes. In fact, right away, I know we have some creative people in the house, so flip it over and check out question number 1.

In the space provided, draw a picture of hell. Draw whatever comes to mind while I read a ton of these Scripture passages on hell. Then in a few minutes you will get to share your pictures with the people at your table. So go ahead and start drawing, as I read these verses.

The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous, 50 throwing the wicked into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(NLT

9 They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.

(NLT)

2 Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

(NIV)

4 For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

(NLT)

41 “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.

(ESV)

2 

but your iniquities have made a separation

between you and your God,

and your sins have hidden his face from you

so that he does not hear.

(NLT)

13 They are like wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars, doomed forever to blackest darkness.

(NLT)

10 Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

(NLT)

8 “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Ok stop drawing. What I want you to see is that the Bible has a lot to say about hell.

Those were just a small sample of different verse across all of Scripture that talk about hell.

So here is what I want you to do: Take your outline and pass it to the person on your left, and look at their drawing, then pass it again to your left, and pass them all around until you get your back. Go ahead, and see what others have drawn. I bet there is a lot of fire!

Teaching:

It is funny when you ask people what will happen when you die. Overwhelmingly, people believe in heaven. In fact, according to a recent poll 87% of people believe in Heaven.

What is kind of strange is the number drops significantly when asked about hell.

Only 74% believe in hell. The majority of the people who believe in hell feel only the strongest of evildoers, like murderers, rapists, and horrible criminals will ever see hell.

But what does the Bible teach us?

There is so much I could teach you about hell. I could go on and on for hours, probably, looking into what we can know about hell. For some of you, that sounds like hell!

But tonight I just want to show you four simple things we do know about hell.

Hell is not a party

One of the things that I get bugged about, when I hear people talk about hell, is that they sometimes make it seem like they want to go there!

I mean, sometimes people think that if all the sinners go there, meaning all the people who are sexually promiscuous, people who party all the time, people who drink and get high, that to them, that sounds like a really fun place!

Or people who think that hell is a heavy metal concert.

Let me tell you, I think it’s obvious based off the scriptures we read, but Hell is Not A Party. Write that down and then look up at me.

I think we can all agree on that—but one of the things we will encounter with people who don’t want to deal with any sort of consequences, is that they feel like they are actually excited to go to hell.

But that is just the thing— all of the stuff in life that is sinful does have consequences.

Pain, hurt, guilt, physical consequences, emotional consequences, you name it.

I am sure if you listed out all the sinful stuff you could think of, you could easily figure out some of the consequences.

Check out this story that Jesus told, in (NLT).

This is a parable, or a story Jesus told, to serve as a teaching point for the people.

The story is about two men who died, one was a rich man, who never cared about the consequences of his life, and the other was a man named Lazarus, who was a poor beggar. Lazarus goes to heaven, while the rich man goes to hell.

23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, 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 there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

So you can see, this man is not at a party—instead he is in anguish, in pain. The rich man goes on to beg for someone to tell his father and brothers, who are still alive, that hell is real and that they need to repent. But he is told they have everything they need to already know.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

So you can see, this man is not at a party—instead he is in anguish, in pain.

The rich man goes on to beg for someone to tell his father and brothers, who are still alive, that hell is real and that they need to repent. But he is told they have everything they need to already know.

Hell is constant guilt and regret

You see, this leads to the next thing we know about hell. Hell is Constant Guilt and Regret.

Now maybe this doesn’t sound that bad for you, but can you imagine constantly, for all eternity, just being filled with the regret that you didn’t do something about Jesus while you had the time?

Just knowing you could have done something to change your eternity, but you chose not to do so?

Maybe for you, in fact I pray for all of you here, this isn’t the case

. You know for sure that you will spend eternity in heaven because of your relationship with Jesus and your sins being forgiven

. But think of the friends you have and family who don’t know Christ. Think of them suffering this eternity full of regret.

I think when we are honest with ourselves, the emotions we experience and the pain that comes from sin is not pleasant.

That is the emotional state of someone in hell for all eternity. There is weeping, crying, struggle, hurt, pain, guilt and regret—and no hope of it ever going away.

Check out the description in [NLT]. “49 The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous, 50 throwing the wicked into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

I know at Halloween time there are some churches who put on a hell house, or some sort of “taste of hell” type event, where people are ushered through different rooms and visually see and hear some of the descriptions of hell in the Bible.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of that—I think it is catering to the majority of people who are looking for a good scare around Halloween.

But in a way, going to something like that could give you at least a small glimpse of what we could imagine—but I am sure it is even worse.

Could you imagine the sounds? The constant weeping, the constant crying out, the constant noise of anguish would be awful. But that is what the Bible talks about.

Hell is Separation from God

We could go on with talking about the description of hell, but I think the one thing we will never understand unless actually faced with it, is that Hell is Separation from God. Write that down.

We cannot experience that here because we still have the power of God and His Spirit working in us. Even if you, or the people you know, don’t have a relationship with God—there is still God’s presence working around us all.

You see, whatever you believe, God’s Spirit is constantly working in each of our lives to draw us closer to God. Whether He is orchestrating events, or even just whispering the truth into our minds,

God is constantly pursuing us. The Bible even tells us that while we are still sinners, that Christ died for us. He doesn’t wait for us to come to Him, but rather He comes to us!

On a side note—when you want to see your friends come to know Jesus, ask God to pursue them!

Ask God to make Himself known to them! It isn’t our creative way of explaining Jesus, or our logic that will convince someone.

Instead it is them responding to God’s pursuit. We just get to help that process!

What I want you to see here, though, is that hell is absent of all of that. God is not there.

Where God is not present, there is no hope, no peace, no life.

Look at [NLT] ”9 They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.”

Did you catch that? “Forever Separated.” Circle those words in your outline there. The basic definition of hell is separation from God. Hell is the opposite of God—void of anything good.

Thinking back to what I said earlier about what people generally think of hell—that only the worst criminals go there; this kind of goes along with this idea of being void of God.

People see the worst criminals, the murderers, the rapists, and feel that these people are completely absent from anything good.

So in essence, it makes sense that those people should spend eternity in the same way.

But, you see, nobody wants to put him or herself in that category.

We all want to feel like we are good enough for heaven, and not bad enough for hell.

Hell is what we deserve

But I have some bad news for you. The Bible tells us that Hell is What We Deserve; all of us.

Anyone who has chosen to sin at any point in our life will never make the cut to be good enough for God’s perfection. [NLT] tells it like it is, “23 For the wages of sin is death…”

What we earn, what we deserve for our sin, is death and separation from God. No one wants to hear that, but it is true.

You know we can get all caught up in what we think hell looks like.

We can read what the Bible has to say about death and eternity separated from God.

We could even hear stories from people who claim to have been to hell in a near-death-experience.

By the way, you could get lost on YouTube listening to those stories, and I honestly don’t believe them.

I think the Bible is very clear that we have everything we need to know, and don’t need a near-death-experience-turned-best-seller-novel to convince us.

In the end, there are only two things that really matter.

#1 Hell is a place where God is not and

#2 You don’t have to go there!

The rest of the verse in [NLT] says, “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You see, God gives us the way out. God offers us Salvation. God’s free gift of forgiveness through Jesus Christ is there for everyone who receives it.

Forgiveness is there for me, for you, for your friends, for the kids at school, even for the bullies, for the convicts, for the murderers.

God wants to forgive everyone and He wants us to live in eternity with Him.

The question just becomes, are you going to receive that forgiveness, or will you continue to live in stubbornness and face eternity without God?

Again, for many here tonight, I know and you know you aren’t going to face this.

But if there is someone here tonight—you can choose to receive God’s forgiveness and salvation.

You don’t have to be afraid of hell.

Sometimes I know people get hung up on the idea of hell, saying, “Why would a loving God send people to hell?”

Here’s what I have to say about that: I don’t think God sends anyone to hell.

Instead the question should be, “Why do people choose not to respond to God’s offer to escape it.”

It is like that scene in a movie, where one character is falling off the cliff, and the other character tosses a rope—or reaches out their hand.

The guy on the safe ground isn’t sending the other guy into the pit, but in fact, he is trying everything he can to save him!

[Leader note; The closing illustration was done with a student volunteer holding a rope, and I acted out the two options for the guy falling. It isn’t in the manuscript below.]

The guy hanging on for dear life has to choose: Do I except the help, or do I try to do it on my own, only to fail? You can try everything within you—but you will not succeed. Or, you can accept the free gift of salvation. It’s just like the gift that God offers us.

You accept that gift by asking for God’s forgiveness, and surrendering your life to following God’s way. You will mess up again, but once you have received God’s forgiveness, and are truly pursuing living a life following God, nothing can take that away.

Pray / Include Salvation Prayer

Closing comments:

Before you guys go tonight, I want to give you one final thing, one final truth. Hell has no power over you if you are a follower of Jesus. In [NLT], Jesus tells one of his disciples Peter, “18 Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”

Hell has no power over you.