Hell is REAL

Hell is REAL!

Mark 9:42-50

I. The Connection Between Fathers and Hell on Father’s Day (and it’s not your kids)

A. Happy Father’s Day

1. Here it is, Father’s Day, and in the providence of God, our text this morning, as we are working our way through the gospel of Mark, is Mark 9:42-50, the focus of which is hell.

2. Who wants to skip hell today?

a. Father’s Day? Skip hell

b. I want to skip hell

c. Even Jesus wants us to skip hell

(1) Mark 9:43-48 (ESV) And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

(2) Dad, Jesus says,

(a) Using hyperbole - a rhetorical device where an extreme examples highlights the extreme importance of a simple principle

i) simple principle - it would be better for you to continue in life crippled, lame, and blind than spend eternity in hell.

ii) simple principle - You would do well to even go to the greatest extreme in order to avoid hell.

(b) If you want to be the best dad, husband, son, brother, uncle possible, do everything you need to do to keep yourself and your lived ones out of hell!

3. There is a connection between fathers and hell on Father’s Day: for the best Father’s Day ever make it your life commitment to skip hell.

B. Four Truths You Have to Embrace to Skip Hell

1. Hell is REAL

2. Hell is Ready

3. Hell is Relevant

4. Only Jesus can Rescue from Hell - There is no other name under heaven by which you can be saved from hell, the wrath of God, and the justice we all deserve for sin

II. Four Truths You Have to Embrace to Skip Hell

A. Hell is REAL

1. How do we know hell is real

a. I could say the sky is green with purple dots but that wouldn’t make it true.

b. How do we know hell is real?

2. Jesus said it was, and he was raised from the dead

a. Implications of the resurrection on the teaching of Jesus

b. Because God raised Jesus from the dead He certified that all Jesus was and taught was the authentic, accurate, perfect will of God

(1) If there is a heaven, hell must be real

(2) If there is a resurrection, hell must be real

(3) If there is saving, sanctifying faith, hell must be real.

3. Don’t waste your time on “back from hell” stories.

a. Jesus’ testimony is all you need

b. His sinless life and substitutionary death and subsequent resurrection affirm the absolute truthfulness of His teaching

4. Hell is a real place filled with real people suffering real agony for a really, really long time.

a. Luke 16 Lazarus and the Rich Man

(1) (Really about the Rich Man)

(2) Luke 16:23-24 (ESV) 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.’

(a) Hell is a real place with a real name

(b) Hell is a real place with real conditions

(c) Hell is a real place with real position relative to the physical realm of creation and the spiritual realm of glory

b. Hell according to Jesus

(1) Mark 9:48 (ESV) ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

(2) The worm of pride and selfishness eating away at the soul forever

(a) Internal agony

(b) External agony

(3) God is present in Hell in two sovereign ways

(a) Psalm 139:7-8 (ESV) 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

(b) God is all that He is everywhere He is

(4) As love without return

(a) A primary longing of the human heart is for love and acceptance

(b) Imagine knowing the presence of unconditional, eternal, glorious love and being eternally, irreparable separated from it

(c) Pride, which thinks it deserves such love, would arise unfettered in bitterness and rage and evil

(d) Imagine spending eternity festering in selfish, broken rage without at love you can observe but never experience.

(e) That is hell.

(5) As justice without reprieve

(a) Imagine being absolutely aware that in that loneliness and rejection and judgment and condemnation, you are getting exactly what you deserve, that the separation from the love you can observe but not experience is truly and fully your own choice and your own fault

(b) Imagine that there is no one else to blame for your eternal condition than yourself

i) Your parents did not send you to hell because they failed in some way

ii) Your teachers did not send you to hell because they sent you away from God rather than toward Him

iii) God did not even send you to hell, He simply gave you exactly what you wanted, freedom from any relationship with or responsibility to Him.

iv) Imagine if, in the midst of unrelieved, never ending misery and pain,

a) you realized you did this to yourself,

b) you sent yourself to hell

c) you are getting the justice you deserve because you refused to take the steps necessary to skip hell.

d) That is hell,

1) finally and eternally suffering the consequences of your own choices and getting the justice you deserve,

2) finally getting what’s fair and knowing you really wanted mercy all along, and now you can never have it.

(c) The wrath of God

i) Someone was explaining to me their concept of God’s response to human sin, and how bad they think God must feel whenever we reject Him.

ii) Hell is real.

iii) Romans 1:18 (ESV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

iv) The right response of our holy God to the offense of human sin against His glory is wrath and justice fully realized on the perpetrators of the crime in a real place that is as awful and eternal as the crime itself.

v) Hell is real.

B. Hell is Ready

1. God is not waiting until everyone is done sinning to figure out what to do with the human race

a. Matthew 25:41 (ESV) “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

b. Revelation 20 The Great White Throne

(1) Revelation 20:10 (ESV) and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

(2) Revelation 20:14-15 (ESV) 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

2. Just as Jesus has prepared a place for His people, God has prepared a place for those who turn their backs on him

a. John 14:1-3 (ESV) 1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

b. On hearing the faith of the centurion: Matthew 8:10-12 (ESV) 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

C. Hell is Relevant

1. Unless you do what is necessary to skip hell, you will go there.

a. Romans 1:19-20 (ESV) 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

b. No one can say they didn’t know.

2. Two Reasons Everyone is Doomed to Hell

a. Adam’s Sin (original sin imputed by God)

b. Personal sin (engaged by the will at the behest of the sinful nature)

(1) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

(2) The wages of sin is death

(a) Physical death

(b) Spiritual death

(3) It is given unto every man once to die, and then comes judgment

c. Every human being will be judged both for Adam’s guilt and their own!

D. Only Jesus can Rescue you from Hell

1. Hell is the inevitable destiny of everyone who sins, who fails to be exactly, by nature and intention at all times and in every way, what God created them to be.

a. Be ye prefect for I the Lord your God am perfect.

b. Perfection, as God defines it, is the only course through which we can skip hell on our own.

(1) “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

(2) All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned each one to our own way.

(3) The soul that sins it shall die.

c. We are, every one of us in a bad way, headed to hell that is real, ready, and relevant.

d. We need to be rescued!

(1) Our personal moralism will not save us

(2) Our personal efforts will not save us

(3) Our personal philosophies will not save us

(4) God requires perfection and there is not a one of us, even on our best day, that comes any near close to what God requires of us.

2. Only Jesus satisfies the requirement of God for a perfect sinless life lived in unbroken fellowship with the Creator.

a. Jesus satisfies the demand of God for a holy life

b. Jesus satisfies the justice of God for a substitute death

c. Jesus satisfies the love of God offering Himself in our place on our behalf.

d. Through Jesus God offers mercy and forgiveness of sin and guilt to those who take God at His word and put their trust in Christ and commit themselves to living in and through and for Him.

3. You don’t have to cut off your hand or foot or gouge out an eye to skip hell.

a. You do have to confess your sin, repent and turn to Christ, and submit your life to Him.

b. You do have to surrender your will and devote yourself wholly to Him

c. You do have to believe God’s promises and trust Christ and Christ alone to be the sufficient sacrifice to satisfy God’s righteous justice on your behalf.

4. There is not a discomfort, inconvenience, or sacrifice in this world worth going to hell for.

a. Hell is real.

b. Hell is ready

c. Hell is relevant.

(1) Skip hell.

(2) Trust Christ.

5. A man who is ready to skip hell by trusting Christ with his whole heart is well prepared to be the best dad, the best husband, the best son, the best brother, the best uncle, the best everything he can be.

a. Trust Jesus now!

b. Show Christ now!

c. No second chances: Luke 16

(1) Lazarus could not comfort the rich man

(2) Death separates the dead from hope

(3) Therefore, trust now and proclaim now, for today is the day of salvation, now is the appointed time.

(4) Beyond death, there are no second chances.

(5) Make today the best Father’s Day ever.