The Eternal Destination of the Damned

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 25th chapter of the book of Matthew.
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And we are going to read verses 31 to 46.
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The title of today's message is The Eternal Destination of the Damned.
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When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
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Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
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Then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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For I was hungry, and you gave Me food.
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I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink.
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I was a stranger, and you welcomed Me.
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I was naked, and you clothed Me.
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I was sick, and you visited Me.
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I was in prison, and you came to Me.
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Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You? And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.
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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.
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For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food.
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I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink.
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I was a stranger, and you did not welcome Me.
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I was naked, and you did not clothe Me.
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I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me.
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Then they also will answer, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick and in prison and did not minister to You? Then He will answer them, saying, Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.
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And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
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Father in heaven, we have heard the word of the Lord.
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We have heard the words of Jesus Christ Himself as He gives clear and compelling statements regarding the eternal destiny of the righteous and the wicked, of the lost and of the found, of the sheep and the goat.
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Father, this morning I pray that as I preach, Lord, that You would fill me with Your Holy Spirit, that You would set my heart afire with preaching the word of God.
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And Lord God, that that fire would flow out, that it would set ablaze the hearts of men and women in this room.
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Lord God, that You would keep me from error.
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Lord God, that You would compel us toward a closer walk with Christ.
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And Lord God, that You would take those here that are in this room that are headed for hell and Lord, that You would frighten them in Your power, that You would remind them of the death of sin and make them have regard for Your holy nature.
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Lord God, make this a sermon that saves souls.
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For Lord God, only You can do that, in Christ's name.
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Charles Spurgeon said that we rob the gospel of its power if we leave out its threatenings of punishment.
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Today I am preaching on the subject of hell, the eternal damnation of the soul.
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Someone might ask, why in our modern age, with our contemporary sensibilities, would any preacher choose to speak on hell? Well, the answer is simple.
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Our modern age and our contemporary sensibilities may have erased hell from the minds of men, but it has not erased hell from reality.
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Hell is real.
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To not preach on it would be foolish, and to preach on it too lightly would be blasphemous.
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Were I not to speak about hell, I would be like the prophets in Israel who cried peace, peace, when there was no peace.
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But also I want to challenge you this morning on another reason for preaching on hell.
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Certainly we should preach on hell because it's in Scripture.
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Certainly we should preach on hell because it's true.
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But also we should be reminded that some of the greatest revivals in all of church history were set aflame by the preaching of the fires of hell.
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Probably one of the most important revivals in America, certainly one of the most important revivals in America, was the Great Awakening, and it was set afire by the preaching of men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, men who were not afraid to preach on the flames of hell.
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Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
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And in that message, Edwards explains how the impenitent sinner is like a person who is walking on slippery ground.
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He used a text from the Old Testament, their foot shall slip in due time.
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And he used just that one short verse, their foot shall slip in due time, to remind everyone of the precarious purchase upon which they walked.
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And at any moment, their life could give way, and were they not consoled and protected in the person of Jesus Christ, they would fall forever into the pit of hell.
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And he appealed to his hearers to recognize that the judgment of God is more fearful and more painful than they ever could comprehend in this life.
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In an article about that sermon, Josh Moody writes this, recounting the story.
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On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish.
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Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon.
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Instead, the pastors went down among the people and prayed with them in groups.
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And many came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that day.
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This is my hope for today.
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I truly fear that there are some of you who are headed for hell.
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You have yet to bow the knee to Christ, to repent of sin, to place your faith in Him, and you're living every day with the expectation, more time, more time, more time.
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But one day, your time will end.
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Your foot shall slip in due time.
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And I want you to know the desperation and the damnation that awaits those who remain apart from Christ.
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Just about every year, somewhere in the state of Florida, there's a threat of a hurricane.
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Whether it be in the Panhandle or in the South, or even in our neck of the woods, there's a threat.
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And usually we have a few days to prepare.
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Five days, seven days, and you get those satellite images, and they say, it might go this way, it might go that way, but you need to get prepared.
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And so people go out and spend copious amounts of money and time preparing for the storm.
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They board their windows, they fill their pantries, they purchase fuel, they procure an electrical device that will keep their house running.
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They hunker down for the time to come, because they believe the storm's coming.
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Not sure if it's going to hit them, but they believe it could.
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And so they prepare.
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So precious few make preparations for eternity.
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It must be that we don't believe that the storm is coming.
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Men do not believe that hell exists.
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In fact, one pastor said this, he said, our preaching has become so weak that we've air-conditioned hell.
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It's just not a place of fear anymore.
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And I want you to consider something as we study today.
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I want you to consider this.
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The reason men reject hell is not exegetical, meaning it is not derived from the text.
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The reason men reject hell is not exegetical.
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The reason men reject hell is emotional.
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They cannot fathom the reality of hell, so they change the text to fit their feelings.
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They don't want hell to exist, so they reinterpret the text to fit their want.
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I listened this week.
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I listen to a lot of sermons as well as reading commentaries and studying.
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I listen all the time.
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Sometimes Pat gets to listen to them with me too.
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I just play them when I'm at my desk and we share an office.
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But I listened to Leonard Ravenhill this week.
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I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
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He preached for 90 minutes on the subject of hell.
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And this is one of the things that he said.
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The Bible says there is in the end going to be a rise in heresy.
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And we've seen that.
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The Jehovah Witnesses do not believe in hell.
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The Mormons do not believe in hell.
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The Adventists do not believe in hell.
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And I've got news for you.
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You don't believe in hell either.
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If you did, this place would look different.
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That was what he said to his congregation many, many years ago.
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It's a powerful thought.
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Do we believe in hell? Do we? We say we do, but are we willing to really believe it and act upon it? My desire for today's message is simple.
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I want to teach you what the Bible says about hell, and I want to answer some common questions that people have about hell.
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But understand this.
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My ultimate goal is not to fulfill your curiosity.
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My ultimate goal is to challenge you with the reality of hell and make you ask the question, Am I on the broad road that leads there? So, yeah, we're going to answer some difficult questions.
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We're going to dig into some texts.
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But the reality is this is not about satisfying your curiosity.
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This is about challenging your soul.
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You see, if you're on the broad road, I want you on the narrow road.
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That's what I want to see.
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I can't do it, though.
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I can't change your heart.
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Only God can.
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But I can point you the right way.
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So as we begin, we're going to start in Matthew 25 where we were.
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We're going to look at a few texts, but this is going to be our primary text.
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And we're going to see that this text gives the two destinies of man that I have discussed in our last sermon.
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This is part of a longer series on heaven and hell.
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Last week I talked about the fact that there are only two destinations.
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When a person dies, he is separated from his body.
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His soul is either in torment or in comfort.
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We see this in Luke 16.
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But there is coming a day when there will be a reuniting with the body.
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Somebody asked me this week, why is that? Why is there a torturous time and then they're raised to another torturous time? The reason, I believe, is this.
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It's very simple.
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The judgment of Christ and the judgment of God is an event.
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And what's happening now? When the soul leaves the body and it's either with the Lord or it's in Hades in torment, Luke 16, it's waiting.
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It's waiting for the event.
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See, it doesn't have millions and billions of little events.
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It's one big event.
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We're looking forward to that one thing and they're waiting.
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Either in torment, Luke 16, the rich man, or in comfort, Lazarus and Abraham, who are now with the Lord.
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Paul says, the absent from bodies, the present with the Lord.
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They're one of these two places and they're waiting.
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The people in torment are going to go from hell to hell.
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They're going to go from hell to the lake of fire.
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The people in comfort are going to go from comfort to even grander comfort in their new bodies.
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But that's what's happening now.
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But there's coming a day, there's coming a great moment, where the kingdom will have its culmination in the judgment.
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And in that judgment, there will be a division.
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The sheep and the goats will be divided.
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And that will all happen on one great and terrible day.
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That's why they're waiting.
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They're waiting for that one great and terrible day.
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And this is what's pictured here in Matthew 25.
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We look first at the separation.
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This is verses 31 to 33.
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It says, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
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Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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And He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
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Alright, that's the separation.
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We see the participants in this narrative as the Son of Man.
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That's Jesus Christ, the King of Glory.
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That's He is the Judge.
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We have the angels who are the ministers of heaven, who are operating as those who are doing the duty of the Son, the duty of the King.
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They are the ministers of heaven.
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And we see the nations.
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This word here is the word ethne in the Greek.
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It simply means the nations or the different types of people coming.
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The Bible says every tribe, tongue, and nation will stand before Him, and He will have His elect, His saved in every tribe, tongue, and nation.
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So it's not as if He is saving nations and leaving out another nation.
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There are people coming from every nation who are His.
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They are standing before the throne, His majesty.
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And there is a great party.
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He takes those who are His, who He calls His sheep, and He places them on His right, the place of honor.
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Remember when Jesus had the two brothers? Right? They want to sit, one on the right, one on the left, one on the place of honor.
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Well, the right side is the place of honor.
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We see this throughout Scripture.
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And then they have the left.
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The left, that's the ones who are the wicked.
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That, in this scenario, called goats.
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The picture is the sheep and the goats.
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Verses 41 to 45, He talks about those who are on the left.
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And rather than reading it and giving commentary because of time today, I simply want to point out a few things.
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One, I want you to notice the distinction between the two in regard to the call.
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He says to those on His right, come.
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But to those on His left, He says, depart.
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He says to those on His right, blessing.
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To those on His left, cursed.
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To those on His right, He says, there is prepared for you a place before the foundation of the world.
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To those on His left, there's a place prepared for you that was prepared for the devil and his angels.
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So you see the parallel.
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There's a parallel.
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Come, depart.
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Blessed, cursed.
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Prepared kingdom, prepared destruction.
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And then we see the works are mentioned.
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This makes some people really nervous.
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Because He doesn't say, come to me you who had faith and you who didn't have faith.
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He says to those on His right, you fed, you clothed, you visited, you comforted.
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Those on the left, you didn't feed, you didn't clothe, you didn't visit, you didn't comfort.
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And what's interesting is both of the groups say, well, how? Even the ones who did good, what do you mean? He says, the ones who have done this to my brethren have done it also to me.
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The ones who have done not to my brethren have not done it to me.
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Jesus is not teaching justification by works here.
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But He is teaching a principle that we see in the book of James.
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And it's very simple.
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Our faith is demonstrated by what we do.
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And so the ones on the right are the ones who have a faith that has been lived out.
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And the ones on the left have no faith.
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And it has not been lived out.
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So it's still justification by grace alone, through faith alone.
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But the works demonstrate the faith.
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Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're saved by what you do.
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You are saved by what Christ has done alone.
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So that's important.
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But how do we know that we trust in Christ? He changes our life.
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We fall in love with Him and with the brethren because that's His body.
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That's why people say, I love Jesus but I hate the church.
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Can't do that.
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You can get frustrated with the church, I get frustrated with the church.
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But I tell you what, we still love the church.
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Because this is Christ's body.
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When Paul was on the road to Damascus, he was imprisoning Christians.
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And he was seeing them be tortured for their faith.
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Jesus appears to him and He said, what? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Because Jesus' connection with His church.
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We are His body.
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We are His body.
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So when He says, you've done it to one of these, you've done it to me.
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You've not done it to one of these, you've not done it to me.
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This is a picture of the relationship of the individual with the body of Christ.
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And then we see the final verdict.
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This is really the verse I want to focus on.
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That's context.
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I'm bringing you to verse 46.
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This is the key.
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Verse 46 he says, and these, that is those on the left, the cursed, will go away into eternal punishment.
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But the righteous into eternal life.
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That is the final decree which has been pronounced.
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And the eternal destiny has proceeded.
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For those on the left, the eternal destiny is punishment.
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For those on the right, the eternal destiny is life.
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And notice the word that is used, aionion in the Greek, is the same for life as it is for punishment.
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It is eternal punishment and eternal life.
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You may have noticed in this passage that the word hell is not there.
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It doesn't say the word hell in this text.
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Yet I would argue this is one of the clearest passages on the doctrine of hell in the whole Bible.
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It identifies in several key realities.
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Number one, it identifies why hell was created.
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It tells us hell was created for the devil and his angels.
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The kingdom of God was created for God's people.
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Hell was created for Satan.
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And those who will follow after him.
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We see also its function.
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It says very clearly it was created as a place of punishment.
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Punishment.
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It's not a place.
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And I want you to think about this.
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Hell is not a place to get, you know, people go to prison and they get, I just lost my words, excuse me, rehabilitated.
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That's right, thank you, thank you.
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Hell is not a place of rehabilitation.
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Hell is a place of pure punishment.
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You're not going there to get better.
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You're not going there to get purged.
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You're going there to get punished.
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That's key.
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This passage should be enough to make us believe certain things about hell.
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One, it should be enough to let us know that hell exists.
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But also it should be enough to let us know that hell is forever.
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And it should be enough to let us know that hell is not a place we want to go.
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Compound this with the fact that this is Jesus speaking.
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As I mentioned last week, I think the reason, I think John Gerstner hit the nail on the head when he said this, he said the reason why Jesus is the one who speaks about hell more than anyone else in the Bible is men wouldn't believe it if it came from anyone else.
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It's such a powerful reality that it would be hard to believe if anyone else talked about it.
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So God gives us Christ to preach on hell more than anything else, even heaven.
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And this one passage from Jesus should be enough to convince us, but it's not all we have.
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The Bible is replete with passages about hell.
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But I want to mention something, and I don't want to make this too much of a study in the sense of language and all that, because I don't want to get us bogged down in the particulars.
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I don't want us to lose momentum.
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But I do want to mention this.
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Your English Bible uses the word hell a lot where the underlying word is different.
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And so it is important because you might have some people coming rap, rap, rapping on your chamber door on Saturday morning, and they don't believe in hell, and they might try to confuse you by saying, well, the Bible doesn't really use the word hell.
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It uses the word Gehenna or Hades, or sometimes we would say Hades.
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That's, I think, the more English way of saying it.
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You may even hear the word Tartaros.
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Those are the words that are translated as hell.
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In fact, I will say this.
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If you have a King James Bible, all three of those words are translated hell.
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It doesn't even give you an option.
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Tartaros, Gehenna, Hades, it's all hell.
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Now, the ESV attempts to make a distinction by making Hades or Hades as its own word.
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We heard Brother Gary read this morning.
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You read, and it said Hades, right? That was the word that was used.
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It didn't say hell.
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All right? So you say, well, what's the difference? Well, it's important.
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Just a little history.
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Again, I'm not going to get bogged down in this very quickly.
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Gehenna is the Greek way of saying the Valley of Hinnom.
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The Valley of Hinnom was a place just on the south side of Jerusalem, which was basically like a dump where they would burn refuge.
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And so it was a place where burning was always happening, and it was a place that smelled bad and looked bad, and nobody wanted to go have lunch in Gehenna.
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It was a pretty awful place.
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And so Gehenna was a physical place, but it had a spiritual connection.
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Even among the Jews, it was understood that the final judgment was to take place in the Valley of Hinnom because it was the place where there was this awful, awful environment.
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And so when Jesus talks about the fires of hell and the worm not dying and all of those things, those are languages of that place, an awful place that has a physical representation there in the Valley of Hinnom.
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Now, I'm not saying that hell isn't literal.
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What I am saying, though, is there was a literal place called Gehenna, and that was used metaphorically for hell.
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Hades is different.
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Hades was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol.
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You've heard of the Hebrew word Sheol or Sheol, I guess is how it's sometimes said.
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Sheol is the Hebrew place of departed spirits.
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And the Greek had a similar equivalent, and they called it Hades.
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In the New Testament, Hades is always seen as a negative.
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In fact, when the rich man dies in Luke 16, it says he opens his eyes in Hades or Hades, so we would say this is negative, even though it can represent just a general departed place of the spirit.
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In the New Testament, it's always used in the negative.
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Tartaros is profoundly negative.
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It's only used once in the New Testament, 2 Peter 2, verse 4, and it represents what the Greeks believed to be a sublevel of hell, an even worse level of hell, which is a place of torment.
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And people say, well, why isn't the New Testament writers using all these different words? They use these words, and again, this is what I think, and I know it's dangerous just to tell you what I think, but I have to tell you sometimes what I think.
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The reason why they use these words is because they were words the people would have understood.
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They were language.
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Like if I walk out today, and I go out and preach, and I say, be careful, for Gehenna is your future.
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People would say, what does that mean? That's nuts.
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Or if I say, be careful, Hades is your future.
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They might have some tie to that, but they're going to think of some Disney film where Hades was a part of the Hercules mythology.
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But if I say, you be careful, because you're on your way to hell.
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Hell is a term that people understand today.
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Well, the term Gehenna was understood among the Jews.
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The term Hades and Tartaros was understood among the Greeks.
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Words that are being used so that the people understand the terrible nature of the future of the damned.
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They're language so that people understand the awful nature of the damned.
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And again, I think for us to, I think the King James writers, when they used the word hell in these places, I think it is, that's almost a modern equivalent.
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It's interesting to think of the King James as a modern translation.
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It's only 400 and something years old.
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But in this sense, it modernizes the idea by simply placing the word hell in these placeholders, because that's how we would understand it.
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Now, having said that, I want us to move to Revelation 20.
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This is going to help us understand some of what Revelation 20 has to say.
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In Revelation 20, we go to verse 11.
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This is what Brother Gary read for us this morning, but I want to reread it simply to remind us what it says.
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Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.
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From his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them.
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And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.
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Then another book was opened, which is the book of life.
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And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.
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And the sea gave up the dead who were in it.
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Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.
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Remember, we said Hades can be used simply as the place of the departed spirit.
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So here we see that.
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Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.
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And they were judged, each one according to what they had done.
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By the way, now that we've read Matthew 25 in this, we see the comparison.
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The nations are brought before the throne.
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The judgment is being done.
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And then, what? Verse 14.
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Death and Hades, those who were already in torment, are thrown into the lake of fire.
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This is the second death, the lake of fire.
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And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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One of the first questions people ask when I preach this, or when I talk about it, or teach about it, or share about it in an evangelistic interaction.
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One of the first questions people will ask.
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Do you really take that literally? Or do you take that symbolically? Well, let me say this about that.
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The book of Revelation is written in symbolic language.
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And so, there is a sense in which we translate and interpret the book symbolically.
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But the next question, because a lot of people go, oh wow, okay, it's not real.
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It's just symbol.
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Well, slow down.
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My question, if it is symbolic, what does the symbol represent? And I want to answer that by giving a loose quote of R.C.
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Sproul.
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R.C.
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Sproul said this, the symbol is always less than what it represents.
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So, if you're hanging your hope on the symbolism of a lake of fire, know that if it is a symbol, whatever it symbolizes is worse.
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But when I go back to Luke 16, and I point to that passage a lot.
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The man who woke up in Hades wanted nothing more than to have a drop of water placed on his parched tongue.
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Sounds pretty hot to me.
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In the final state of the damned, we are told a few things.
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We're told outer darkness, and we're told lake of fire.
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And you say, well, how do you rectify those two? Because if you're in darkness, fire is bright.
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How do you rectify the two? That's where I have a hard time.
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I don't have an answer perfect.
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I'll say this, it can be hot and dark at the same time.
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But ultimately, I think the Bible is giving us language of something that we do not have the capacity to fully understand.
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And so it is trying, as best it can, using the language of men to help men and women understand how awful it is.
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And I can't think of a place worse than a fire that you can't escape, and that burns but doesn't consume.
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I can't imagine a place that's worse than simply being...
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Here's the thing about it.
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People get sick, and they get hurt.
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Somebody gets injured.
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What's the hope? I'm going to get better.
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You break your leg.
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You get put up in a cast.
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Now I've got six months of Scooby-Doo reruns.
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I'm going to be uncomfortable, but at least at the end of six months.
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Or I'm going to go through treatments, and it's going to take several years.
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But at least at the end, I'll be better.
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Or, you know, people say, well, death is a relief for some who are very, very sick.
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And that's true.
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Maybe.
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For the believer, for certain, death is a blessing if you're in pain.
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But the person in hell, there is no relief.
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Whatever it is, the awful nature of it does not end.
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There's no hope for tomorrow.
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There's no hope for a year.
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In fact, as I was preparing for this message, and I don't ever, hardly ever do this, I actually asked some people to give me questions about health.
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I wanted to know what people really asked.
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Because I wanted to prepare, and I want to know what's on people's hearts.
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So I just posted online, and I said, ask questions.
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If I get a chance, I'll answer.
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And I want to tell you the number one question.
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I had some come to me privately.
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Some were posted publicly.
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The number one question was this.
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Will hell ever end? Now, it was written in different ways.
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There was almost different ways that people described it.
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But they wanted to know, is there parole? Or is there at least annihilation? The desperate hope.
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And that was the question.
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And it was more than once.
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And there are several groups that will teach you that God does simply do away with the souls of the damned.
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He does not, there is not continual punishment.
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It's just, and you're done.
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You're out.
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It's like a light that goes out.
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It's just empty and over.
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This is called, by the way, if you want the technical theological term, it is conditional mortality.
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Conditional mortality says this.
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The only people who live forever are those who trust in Jesus.
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Everyone else, the light flickers and goes out and you're done.
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That's called conditional mortality.
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Sometimes known as the doctrine of annihilationism.
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Because the soul is annihilated at judgment.
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They'll say the picture of the lake of fire is the picture of somebody's soul going in, lights out.
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They don't feel anything.
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They don't hear anything.
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They don't see anything.
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They simply cease to be.
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Well, let me say this about that.
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I understand the reasoning for that hope.
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I really do.
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I understand why people would want to hope for that.
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Because it's impossible to imagine the opposite.
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The torturous consequence of hell forever is really hard to take.
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And, you know, as I said, we go through trials in this life.
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At least we know one day they're going to end.
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We can't imagine an endless suffering.
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But I want to say this.
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Even though I understand it.
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Even though I can, in a sense, sympathize.
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I do not believe the Bible extends that hope.
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I think it's an emotional plea.
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Not an exegetical one.
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We've already seen in Matthew 25, 46, the same word for eternal punishment is used for eternal life.
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Matthew 3, 12 calls hell an unquenchable fire.
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2 Thessalonians 1, 9 calls it eternal destruction.
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Jude 7 uses the term eternal fire.
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And in Mark 9, Jesus is speaking.
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He says if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
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It's better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go into hell to the unquenchable fire.
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And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
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It's better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.
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And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.
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It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
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I believe it was Ravenhill that mentioned on that passage.
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He said the reason why he believes that he mentions worm not dying and fire not quenching.
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He says because in the ancient world that was the two ways that were used to dispose of bodies.
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Bodies were buried and therefore they were eaten by worms or they were burned.
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And in that sense their bodies were destroyed.
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And he says he uses those two pictures of how we destroy the body and say but here's the deal.
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The body won't ever go away and the worm will continue to eat forever.
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The fire may burn and burn but it will never go out.
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And it's Jesus' language of using the language of eternality.
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Again Revelation I realize is symbolic language but I want to use Revelation 14.
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It says the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.
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And they have no rest day or night.
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They're worshipers of the beast and it's image is the mark of his name.
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This is referring to those who receive the mark of the beast.
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It says the smoke of their torment forever and ever.
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And they have no rest.
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There's no coffee breaks in hell.
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There's no midnight hour where you can go and get some sleep.
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Revelation 20 verse 10.
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And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were.
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And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
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This raises another question.
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I did ask for a little extra time.
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So we cut the songs a little today shorter just so I'd have a little extra time.
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Because I wanted to be able to preach a little longer.
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Button up.
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Here we go.
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Because I have a few more things I want to say.
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Because the question now becomes if hell is eternal why? Why is hell eternal? I want to say this.
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The only way that you will ever understand.
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And I can't say I fully understand it.
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But the only way you will ever come to grips with the duration of hell is if you understand the dreadfulness of sin.
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That's it.
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The only way to understand the duration of hell is to understand the dreadfulness of sin.
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Sin is an offense against an infinite God and it requires an infinite punishment.
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And I want you to understand this.
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The person in hell doesn't cease to be worthy of hell just because they're in hell.
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That's something to consider.
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You don't go to hell and get saved.
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You don't go to hell and get sanctified.
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You go to hell as a hater of God and guess what you remain? A hater of God.
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And your hatred of God that goes on forever makes you worthy of hell every day that you're there forever.
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Somebody asked the question.
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Do I believe that someone in hell would repent if he could? That's a difficult.
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That's almost an angel dancing on the head of a needle question.
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You know, that's a theological question that I can't answer fully, but I'll say this.
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I don't think he would repent because repentance is a grace gift of God.
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And hell is a place where the grace of God is completely removed.
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Therefore, he cannot want to repent.
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I think he's going to hate God forever, and I don't think it's ever going to stop.
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And therefore, he's always going to be one who is worthy of hell.
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He's going to continue to hate God.
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There was a group of atheists that were having a gathering.
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And one of the guys who came here and preached one time, a friend of mine, went to the conference.
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And he was talking to the atheists.
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And he asked them point blank, if you knew for certain that God exists, would you worship him? To a man, every one of them said no.
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Even if I knew God exists, even if I was looking him in the face, I would not worship him.
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I hate God.
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The hatred of God and the natural heart will not stop because of the fires of hell.
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Therefore, the deserving punishment of hell will not cease.
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So, to reiterate, hell is what we would refer to as eternal conscious torment.
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That's the position.
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That's the position I'm preaching.
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That is the position we espouse.
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We do not hold to conditional mortality.
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We do not hold to annihilation of the soul.
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We hold to the eternal conscious torment.
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It's the hard one to hold to.
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But I believe it's the exegetical one.
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In fact, William Shedd said this in his comments on this passage.
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He said, the mere perusal of Christ's words when he was upon the earth without note or comment upon them will convince the unprejudiced that the redeemer of sinners knew and believed that for the impenitent man, the devils, and the devils, there is an endless punishment.
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Basically, what he's saying is this.
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If you didn't have any notes, if you didn't have any commentaries, if all you had was the words of Jesus, you wouldn't come away with anything else other than a belief that there is an unending eternal punishment for the soul.
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It takes really clever men to get out of it.
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In San Francisco Bay, there is an island.
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And on it sits a federal penitentiary that hasn't been used for many years, but it was in service for over 30 years.
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It's called Alcatraz Island.
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During its 30 years of service, 36 prisoners made 14 escape attempts.
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Most of them were caught.
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A few of them were shot, and several of them drowned.
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However, five of the men who sought to escape were never found, and they were presumed drowned, but no one knows.
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Many have speculated about the escape of those men.
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Maybe they made it to shore.
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Maybe they were able to start a new life.
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Maybe, just maybe, they made it off Alcatraz Island.
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Maybe they did.
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But know this.
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No one has ever escaped the fires of hell.
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There is no exit sign in hell.
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Once in hell, all opportunities for repentance are gone.
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There is no second chance.
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There are no more evangelistic appeals.
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And Mr.
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Ravenhill said this.
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He said, the person in hell will remember every sermon he's ever been preached, but all opportunities for repentance will be gone.
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Furthermore, and this is key, God will not repent either.
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God will not repent of sending someone to hell.
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We serve an immutable God, and He will not send someone to hell only later to change His mind.
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That may be hard for us to understand.
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That may be hard for us to believe.
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But this belief requires that we understand the weight of sin.
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If you have a God who winks at sin, you will not have a God who can send someone to hell.
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If you have a God who does not take sin seriously, you do not have the God of the Bible.
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If you understand sin as cosmic treason against the King of the Universe, the severity of hell's penalty at least begins to come into focus.
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Some people describe hell as separation from God.
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You ever heard that? In fact, that became very popular when I was younger.
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I'd hear people say that all the time.
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They would be explaining heaven and hell, and they'd say, well, heaven is when you get to be with God, and hell is when you're separated from God.
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Well, I think that language was employed almost as a way to sort of soften the blow.
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Because nobody wants to be a hellfire preacher anymore.
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By the way, what I'm doing this morning is very unpopular.
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Even mentioning the fires of hell, I would be called so out of step.
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You know, I'm a dinosaur.
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But the reality is, when you tell somebody hell is separation from God, it's not actually true.
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Psalm 139, verse 7, Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
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And if I make my bed and she, oh, you are there.
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What is hell? Hell is a place where you experience the presence of God's fury and justice and judgment.
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It's not that he isn't there.
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It's that he is.
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And some people take the unbiblical view that God is in control of heaven and the devil is in control of hell.
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Like the devil were a warden or some other kind of legal authority in hell.
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No, the devil is going to be punished as well in hell.
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Hell has only one master and it is the master of the universe, God.
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And so I want to begin to draw to a close.
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I want to ask one final question.
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Is it wrong? Is it wrong to use hell to frighten people? Well, that accusation is leveled against many preachers who preach on hell.
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I mentioned earlier, hell, fire, and brimstone preachers.
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Your old school evangelists who tent meetings, who had tent meetings and they would come in and they would preach the fires of hell.
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And there were those who came and said, you just can't do that in a modern world.
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You're hurling threats of fire and brimstone just to scare people.
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You should win people with love and not fear.
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Let me say this about that.
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I think Jesus wanted us to be afraid of hell.
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I really do.
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I think that's why he gives it to us in such graphic detail.
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He said, if your hand causes you to go to hell, cut it off.
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That was hyperbolic language, but it was still pretty serious language.
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He said, this is serious.
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Imagine when you go into a doctor's office and they have the pictures of the diseases up on the wall.
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That's a warning.
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You go into the dentist's office and they have pictures of people with bad teeth and they're like, this is what happens when you don't brush.
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That's a warning.
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Warnings don't negate love.
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We preach about hell because we believe it's real.
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And we love the person enough to tell them.
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John Gerstner said this.
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He said, anybody who isn't afraid of hell is out of his mind.
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I don't want you to come to Christ because you're afraid of hell.
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I want you to come to Jesus because he's worthy of your love, but I will say this.
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If hell scares you and turns your eye toward the Lord, then it's done its job.
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If you come to Jesus because of a fear of hell, that's a good first step because that's what you deserve without him.
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He's the only one who can save you from it.
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He's the only one whose hand is extended to you to reach down and save you.
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And his hand is not short that he cannot save.
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You deserve everything I've preached about today.
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You may not think you do, but you do.
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Your sin is high treason against the God of the universe and he is not one who trifles with sin.
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Therefore, there is but two options.
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Receive the punishment that you have deserved or receive the grace that he has provided.
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That's it.
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I'll finish with this.
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Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled Hell Doesn't Seem Real to Men.
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That was the title of the message.
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You can go listen to it.
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There's somebody who read it into a recording.
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You can go listen to it.
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Hell Doesn't Seem Real to Men.
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That was 150 years ago, y'all.
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He was preaching.
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And he said, hell doesn't seem real to them.
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It doesn't seem real to men today.
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But he gave this illustration.
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He said, imagine a man were given two lifetimes.
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We're all given one.
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You know, we always say we only have one life to live.
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He said, but imagine a man were given two lifetimes.
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The first lifetime was 50 years.
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The second lifetime was 1,000 years.
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And he had a choice.
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He could make one comfortable and the other tormented.
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He said, only a fool would make his 50 years comfortable to spend 1,000 years in torment.
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Certainly, 50 years of difficulty can't be compared to 1,000 years of comfort.
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But this is what men and women do every day when they want this life to be their joy without concern for the next.
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And guess what? The next life is 1,000 thousands of thousands.
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World without end.
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Are you desperate for the comforts of this life and ignoring the life to come? What fools are we to make the 50 great and abandon the 1,000 to torment? What fools are we? May we repent.
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If we're not in Christ, may you turn to him today.
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There is no other way.
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There is no other name under heaven given among men.
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There is no other name than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And you will bow in this life or in the next.
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May you bow today.
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May you bow the knee to him today.
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Hell is real.
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Its torments are real.
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They are just.
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They are terrible.
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They are unrelenting.
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They are inescapable.
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And if you die without Christ, they will be yours.
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Father of mercies, Lord, I pray that you would save souls today through the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Lord, may we bow our knee to him.
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May we trust in him for all of our salvation.
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Not only part of it, Lord, but that it would place our whole selves in his hands.
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Knowing that there is no salvation outside of him.
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Lord, I pray that what I've said has been true.
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And Lord, that you would write it on the hearts of my hearers, Lord.
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Your people.
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That the believer would be comforted that he has escaped hell through Christ and that the unbeliever would be confronted with the reality of his condition that he might turn.
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He or she might turn to Christ.
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In his name we pray.
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Amen.