Without Form and Void
Christianity is Reality: The Hell of Scripture • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 45:53
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· 350 viewsSunday, October 4 Sermon
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“For my people are foolish;
they know me not;
they are stupid children;
they have no understanding.
They are ‘wise’—in doing evil!
But how to do good they know not.”
I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
Jeremiah describes the coming destruction on Jerusalem as primeval chaos. These are the same words we see in...
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
It almost sounds like de-creation, an unsettling reminder that sin and rebellion against God lead to darkness and chaos. This is the Hell of Scripture.
Thesis: God is the reality, and those not accepting reality have chosen Hell.
The word Hell appears 14 x’s in 14 verses of the ESV all in the New Testament.
Hell is a destination for those who actively pursue a life without God. It is the place of their desires. Not everyone wants to go to Heaven.
Hell is an existence of: worthlessness; waste(land); emptiness; formless; meaninglessness; desolation. BDB = formless, confusion, emptiness, unreality, emptiness.
Jeremiah gives us a picture of it, and what it takes to achieve it.
Hell is achieved by lives that are formless and void.
Man in wanting to pursue his own way and not God’s way will achieve Hell. These are the ways that man tries to fulfill himself
Scripture stresses the emptiness of human life without God and these some ways we endeavor to fulfill ourselves...
Humanities attempt at Fulfillment Without God
Humanities attempt at Fulfillment Without God
Work
Work
1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
This is why one should find ways to work for the Lord and or in the Lord
Otherwise his labor will not satisfy...
7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.
5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
Work will not fulfill humanity,
We certainly do not have a world where everybody wants to work
Too many only desire to have fun but it too will only cause one to be without form and void...
Pleasure
Pleasure
5 that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless but for a moment?
uniquely earthly joys outside of the Lord will remain with the earth they cause lives that are without form and void...
17 Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man;
he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.
Have fun and make money are short sighted goals.
One must account for his soul and what nourishes it.
We know that money is not the answer...
Wealth
Wealth
10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
For some they don’t just want wealth, they want the possessions that wealth affords them...
Material Possessions are Unreliable
Material Possessions are Unreliable
You can have things and have nothing! This is the Hell of Scripture.
18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
Here again the Word of God tries to admonish mankind to the folly of the sole pursuit of material things...
7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.
Humanity is created there own religions and belief systems to try to be fulfilled.
Yet, Idols cannot deliver because they are not God and only attempt to take his place.
Science for many has become a religion and falls way short of eternal fulfillment...
False Religion
False Religion
13 When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you!
The wind will carry them all off,
a breath will take them away.
But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land
and shall inherit my holy mountain.
To fulfill ourselves we will even elevate mankind itself to help us make meaning out of the confusion, formless, void and emptiness that is every humans destiny, unless he submits to God’s will...
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
Too everyone that lives in the ways we just described, Peter has a word...
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Yet there is a hope available to mankind...
God’s Plan of Salvation
God’s Plan of Salvation
That hope we find in the Bible
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Hear - Rom 10:17
Believe - Jn 3:16
Repent - Lk 13:3
Confess - Rom 10:9
Baptized - Acts 2:38; 22:16; 8:36 what hinders me; 1 Pet 3:21 now saves us
Steadfast - Rev 2:10; Phil 2:12 work out your soul’s salvation