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Well, two nights ago I had a horrible dream. I was dreaming that I was at a very large church, a very big mega church, and I was asked to preach.
And I did something I've never done in my life, and hopefully I never will do, is I stole someone else's sermon and I was going to preach that instead.
I thought, oh, there's this really good sermon by John Piper. I'll just preach his sermon. Matter of fact,
I won't even type anything out. I'll just Xerox his sermon and put it in my notes. And I was introduced to get up to preach, and none other than John Piper introduced me.
And then he sat right behind me on the platform looking at his little booklet that he had published as I thought
I was beginning to preach. Well, this morning we won't have that problem because I have not heard very many sermons on this topic that we're addressing this morning.
If I ask you this question, do you want to obey God? You'd say, yes, of course.
If I ask you another question, is it your heart's desire to glorify God in obedience? Absolutely.
You'd say, because of what He's done for me and the Savior came and died for me? Of course.
Let me ask you another question then. What motivates you to obey God? What motivates you to obey
God? Some are motivated by duty. It's not all bad. Some are motivated by a debtor's ethic.
I have such a large debt, I better do it. Some are motivated with peer pressure or by society or by their own feelings.
But this morning I'm going to use something that probably has never motivated you very much, and that's why I want to use it this morning.
Would the reality of hell ever motivate you? Knowing that hell is real, is that motivating?
You say, well, I'm a Christian, I know. You say, hell is a little taboo these days.
It's not for educated people like us. It's kind of a tad uncouth, isn't it? We're to give happy sermons, peppy sermons.
If you preach on hell, people might vote with their feet and with their giving. Hell is just a state of mind, some say.
Kind of like the river Styx and the boatkeeper Charon of Greek mythology. Or like Sartre, the philosopher, said, hell really is people.
I would say that hell these days seems old -fashioned.
It seems naive. It seems like it's for just ignorant people. Yet, I've found something interesting.
It seems like the world talks more about hell than we do in churches. Do you know
Dateline News Magazine? 2006, August, runs a story on hell.
On TV. Did anybody see it? I guess that's good or bad. We had one see it.
Good. According to Dateline and Keith Morrison, the person who was reporting, said this, quote, a
Harris poll of our attitudes conducted a few years ago found out that 94 % of American adults believe in God, 89 % in heaven, and 73 % they believe in hell.
Three -quarters of the survey, Morrison said, felt pretty sure they were going to heaven when they die, while just 2 % expected to wind up in hell.
Lots of people believe there's a hell, but only 2 % believe they're going. And he interviewed online a, used to be a popular
TV word -faith preacher, Carlton Pearson, on network news.
News magazine, Dateline. Carlton Pearson said to Keith Morrison, God, I don't know how you're going to call yourself a loving
God and allow those people to suffer so much and then just suck them into hell. Pearson said, and I believe it was the spirit of God saying in me, is that what you think we're doing?
Morrison, you heard this voice? Pearson, yes, I said, and that's what I've been taught. Pearson said to God, God, I can't save the whole world.
And that's when I heard that voice say, precisely, that's what we did. And if you tell them that they're redeemed, you wouldn't create those kind of problems.
Can't you see they're already in hell? Pearson said, I immediately started thinking about my grandparents.
Well, maybe they're not in hell. Maybe if they're already saved in the cross and Christ and all that stuff really happened, and it is really spiritual, which
I believe it is, then he came to save the world, and the world is saved unless Jesus is a failure. Morrison said, perceptively, you mean
Hitler's in heaven? This is National News Magazine. Pearson, you think
Hitler's more powerful than the blood of Jesus? And then speaking for himself,
Pearson said, I mean, I've got to hell to put people in. I'd send Hitler and every slave trader straight to hell and a few deacons in my church if you want to know the truth.
I mean, I want to laugh, but I want to cry. I'd send people to hell, but I'm not
God. He's the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not ours only, but the sins of the whole world.
And the people in his congregation had enough sense to completely evacuate the place. But that is no different than Christian science, where Mary Baker Eddy says, hell and heaven are states of thought.
Hell is on this earth. Sung Young Moon, quote, God will never desert any person eternally.
By some means, they will be restored. Joseph Smith, Mormon, originator, the false doctrine that the punishment is to be visited upon erring souls is endless, is unscriptural, unreasoning, and revolting.
Or as a group of soldiers on a Navy ship asked their chaplain, do you believe in hell? No, why?
Well, then would you please resign? For if there is no hell, then we do not need you. And if there is, we do not wish to be led astray.
Newsflash, congregation, Jesus Christ, our loving and kind Savior, used hell to motivate people.
And he used it to motivate Christians, believers, followers of Christ.
Ralph Powell said, And since it is in the
Bible, we must preach it. How many people have ever heard a sermon preached about hell, not counting
Don Whitney's sermon on hell? Several. After all, it is one of the cardinal doctrines of the church.
And I find it funny that we hear more about it on Dateline than we do from our own pulpits. It's unutterable almost, but we must preach it.
Paul said in Acts 20, And friends, the doctrine of hell is inspired of God, and it is what?
Profitable for you to know. Jesus uses hell to motivate believers.
Of course, if you're an unbeliever today, I hope it motivates you to be scared away from hell and unto Christ. But Jesus uses hell to motivate
Christians. You say, I'm not going there. I know, but he still uses it to motivate you.
Well, if you turn your Bibles to Matthew 5, as you know, we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, verse by verse by verse, and the
Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So far, we've seen the
Beatitudes in the first 12 verses, where it's almost like a call to salvation to his followers.
Once they're saved, he discusses salt and light and how they should be that in the world, verses 13 through 16.
Then Jesus talks about the law and how he has authority over the law. He has authority over Solomon, of course, over the
Sabbath. And he says, this is my view of the law in verses 17 through 20. And then in verses 21 through 48, he gives these six antithetical black and white statements of truth.
You have heard it said, but I say to you, and I have noticed in my study, and I think you can see it as well, that there is this theme of talking about hell to people that follow him already.
See if you can spot it. Matthew 5, 21, look for the places where hell is mentioned, and I'll just read down through verse 30.
Can you spot the references? You have heard that the ancients were told, Matthew 5, 21, you shall not commit murder.
Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.
Whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the Supreme Court.
And whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
Therefore, if you are presenting your offering on the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering before the altar and go.
First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with your opponent of the law.
Jump down to verse 27. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right hand makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
He does that elsewhere in the gospel of Mark. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter life crippled than having two hands to go to hell into the unquenchable fire.
Jesus said later in Matthew 10, Do not fear those who kill the body but who are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to both destroy soul and body in hell.
Doesn't it strike you strangely that God uses hell to motivate us as Christians? And I always like it when
I go to the doctor, especially when my mother was getting sick, that when the doctor came over in a kind way and in a loving way, he sat us down and he told us everything was going to be okay.
No. I liked it when he had enough compassion for us as a family to set us down as we were all in the little conference consulting room crying and the doctor said,
This is terminal. And we can't stop the death, but we can try to give her comfort as we go.
These are the options. Don't you appreciate those kind of people more than just deceit?
Here Jesus tells us the truth. It's necessary for us to know as Christians that the doctrine of hell is certain and it will help motivate us.
You say, but how? Well, let's talk about that a little bit. I'm going to give you five reasons this morning why hell should motivate you, the
Christian, to obey. You say, once saved, always saved. I believe in the perseverance of the saints.
I believe in the preservation by God. I believe once you're saved, you're always saved. I believe in eternal security.
And I also believe that Jesus uses hell to press to the consciences of believers so they obey.
I believe it all. There's this wild society called
Grace Evangelical Society and they say, Fear of hell is not a legitimate motivation to obey
God since he guarantees eternal life apart from obedience. One cannot fear hell and at the same time believe the gospel.
Jesus disagrees. He uses hell all the time to motivate his followers. Reasons why hell should motivate you to obey spiraling out of Matthew 5, 21 and following.
Number one. The first reason that hell should motivate you, a Christian, to obey is so that you will sprint from your old lifestyle.
You will sprint away from the way you used to live. Why don't you turn to 1 Peter chapter 4 with me, if you will.
As you're turning there, when I watch the Tour de France stages come to an end, it is an all -out sprint.
They are sprinting so fast. They're sprinting to something. Here, I believe when you remember what hell is like, it will cause you to run away from your old life and your old lifestyle that would have caused you to go to hell.
And you wouldn't want to be like a dog returning to its own... Sinclair Ferguson said,
Realize where yielding to sinful lust will lead you. Jesus said that hell is the direction in which all sin leads.
Fix that in your mind, Ferguson says. You see it in 1 Peter chapter 4. When we think of our old life, we shouldn't want to snuggle back up to it closely.
We should want to sprint away. Therefore, since Christ, 1
Peter 4, 1, has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose. Because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.
So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lust of men, but for the will of God.
And very insightfully, Peter says, Verse 3, For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the
Gentiles, unbelievers, having pursued a course with all kinds of things, sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.
It's enough already. That's the way we used to live. And since we lived it to the fullness, why would we want to go back up and cuddle up next to that lifestyle again?
After all, 2 Corinthians 5 is true of us. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a what? New creature.
Old things have passed away. The old desires, the old lifestyle. Behold, new things have come.
We don't want to ignore hell. We want to think of hell so it would sober us up to the fact that the sins that we used to commit led us there.
So let's run from that. I don't want to take even a baby step towards doing those things.
I think I was 10 years old. My father drove us up to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. I think it's the highest place you can drive in America, yes?
Something like that. And my father had his wife, my mother, me in the back seat.
I think it was before car seats, so I was just probably crawling around there someplace. And my dad, there's a winding road, and he was showing us what a great driver he was by going to the very outside as close as we could so when
I looked over, I could just see the ledge going straight down. And he just said, watch what a good driver
I am. I can just go right over there. Sometimes he could even spin out a little bit and let the wheels just kind of go over and fishtail back.
Man, what a great dad he was. A, he didn't do it.
And B, it's not how close you can get to sin. You want to run from it. That was the lifestyle that you used to lead before you were saved that led you or was leading you to hell.
So why kind of get close? You want to get far away. It's not a matter of legalism. It's just a matter of honesty.
I used to know a guy in 1988. He told me he lived in Manhattan. He was married. I worked with his wife.
Kim and I stayed at their apartment one time in 89 or some other time. And he said this to me.
On Friday nights when my wife is working, I like to take off my wedding ring. And I like to go out and pick up a girl in a bar and see if she'll go home with me.
When she says yes, I tell her no thanks and leave and then go home and put my wedding ring on. And I do that just because I want to see if I still have it in me.
He's divorced, by the way. When I read of a biceless, a sinless like this in Galatians, now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, adultery, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these which
I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
I want to run from that. I want to say this is what God does not delight in but despises.
And so let me act like who I am, a Christian. I think the best thing you can do if you want something really practical to think about your old lifestyle and you're wanting to sprint away from it is just take an hour walk this week or just find a quiet place if you can't walk and just sit down and remember what it was like when you first got saved, how much you wanted to honor
God with your life and with your body and being holy. I find that a good thing to do, remembering how
I used to just hate anything that would so soil me and stain me. Well, that's not all.
The first reason hell should motivate us is so we would sprint away from our old lifestyle. Number two, so that you will be shocked and remember the seriousness of sin and the holiness of God.
So that you would be shocked, not just sprinting away from, but shocked about how serious sin is and how holy
God is. This weekend, hopefully, I'll be back in Nebraska at Omaha Bible Church visiting my brother and sister as well.
And my brother just keeps telling me, we're going to go wakeboarding on Saturday. He's got the dry suit. And it's cold in Nebraska, colder than here right now.
And you have to jump in the lake, obviously, to wakeboard. And you jump in. And I just know it's going to happen. I'm going to put this dry suit on.
It's a little bit better than a wet suit. But when you jump into the water, I know exactly what will happen. I will put my thumb in my mouth and cry for my mother.
It is going to be shocking. You just jump in. And your heart starts racing. And you're just shocked to the system.
If you begin to think of hell long enough, even as a Christian, it should shock you into the seriousness that one hell, one sin, deserves hell and that God is holy.
John Calvin said, Even if there was no hell, it would make me shudder at offending Him alone.
In the Old Testament, the word holy, we remember, is kadosh. Isaiah 6, holy, holy, holy.
Not just God is distinct and different and separate, but He is in opposition to everything that isn't holy.
In the New Testament, Revelation 4 .8, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
As those four living creatures never stop saying that. When you think of hell, you think about how serious
God takes sin, so seriously that He had to kill and crush His Son.
Heinrich Hepp said, Things are admirably arranged. God likes forgiving sin, and I like committing them.
And then I read the Bible, and I see these words, Holy ground, holy objects, holy temple, holy crown, holy ark, holy mountain, holy
Jerusalem, holy of holies, the holy habitation, the holy assembly, holy people.
God is so holy, He wants His people to be holy, and we remember what sin costs and where it was leading, and we should run from sin and run to be like God in holiness by His grace.
Exodus 15 says, Who is like Thee, God majestic in holiness? You ever want to read a good book on holiness?
Read R .C. Sproul's The Holiness of God. It will help you, and it will help you remember that sin costs hell, and I've been saved, and therefore
I want to be like God, holy. By the way, this idea of holiness answers this question.
How can a finite sin committed by a person merit eternal punishment? How can somebody who commits a sin on earth temporally cause
God to send them into hell eternally? Infinite punishment for finite sin?
How does that seem right? Well, it's right this way. The crime depends upon the object against whom it is committed, and if you kill me versus you kill
President Bush, both are bad, but one is a more heinous crime. We would even believe this on earth.
Murder takes an instant to commit, and stealing sometimes requires hours, but we know murder should be receiving the greater punishment.
And you say, I know that, but God is love. How could a good God punish people in hell forever? Because how evil sin is, how holy
God is, and God is not just holy, He is infinitely holy and eternally holy.
It is an infinite evil to offend an infinite and eternal God even once. Well, back to the sermon.
The third reason that hell should motivate you, and this is the big one, this is where it's all going to boil down. Not just that you'll sprint away from your old lifestyle, not just that you'll be so shocked about the seriousness of sin that you won't want to sin, but number three, so that you'll speak the truth in love to unbelievers.
That you'll speak the truth in love to unbelievers. You have good news, and the good news delivers men and women and children.
You say, God's sovereign, anybody who's going to go to heaven is sovereignly chosen. Yes, and He's also sovereignly chosen you to preach.
He's ordained the end, who goes? He ordains the means, you preach. And friends,
I don't really want to tell you this, I don't get any kicks out of telling you, or I don't love to get up and talk about this, it's not kind of this funny sermon today, but every one of your friends and family members, every one of your neighbors, whether it's your mother or children, everyone that you know, unless they have been born again, based on Christ's perfect death at Calvary and resurrection, everyone you know is going to hell unless they're saved.
Every single person. You say, I don't want to know that. Well, just because you don't want to know, it doesn't mean it's true.
And the bad news is, your family and friends flatter themselves, thinking they've got a way out.
If I just have this baptism, this communion, if I just do this, if I'm not as bad as my next door neighbor, then
I'm going to get out, and they flatter themselves. I don't want my friends and family to go to hell, and I think hell,
Jesus uses as a motivator, because we're afraid of men saying to them, you know, you could go to hell.
We don't like that, we want to keep our friends and relatives. But I'm afraid for them to go.
So which one's worse, them getting mad at us, or them going there? The place that Spurgeon said, into that place we dare not look.
Perhaps it would be possible for man to get a fair idea of the torments of the lost. But if he did, he would once become mad.
And we are the divinely ordained means to tell them, be careful, watch out.
C .S. Lewis said, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
And if people are going to go to hell, they should jump over our bodies as we try to tackle them, to say no.
Everyone who has ever been born will go to either heaven or hell. Everyone has only one life to determine what they believe.
And that person, everyone, must believe in Christ alone to save them. That's why
I identify with J .C. Ryle, even as I preach this today. I don't know why I'm making an apology about preaching about hell. It shows you how lame
I act. J .C. Ryle said, let others hold their peace about hell if they will. I dare not do so.
I see it plainly in scripture. I must speak of it. I fear that thousands are on the broad road that leads to it, and I would feign arouse them to a sense of peril before them.
What would you say of the man who saw his neighbor's house in danger of being burned down and never raised the cry, fire?
Call it bad taste if you like to speak of hell. Call it charity to make things pleasant and speak smoothly and soothe men with the constant lullaby of peace.
From such notions, Ryle says, of taste and charity, may I ever be delivered.
My notion of charity is to warn men plainly of their danger. My notion of taste is to declare all the counsel of God.
If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept something back that was profitable and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.
When was the last time you either thought about hell in your own life and said, God, I'm glad I'm not going there.
Or number two, even warn somebody with hell. We don't talk about it. We like our friends and neighbors.
If you really love your family, you will tell them. That's real love. That's what
Jesus did. There's no such thing as purgatory, where sins are purged out later.
There's no annihilationism. There's no universalism. There's no saved by death. I go to funeral after funeral.
And the guy gets up there and says, you know, we want to recognize that so and so here today is in heaven based on, and they give some other answer than full trust in Christ alone as their substitute.
It's not true. If it is true, the Bible is a lie. We're all wasting our time.
And what God does is he gives you words about hell that should frighten you, that should make you horrified, that should make your faculties go,
I can't take this anymore. And personally, if the Bible didn't talk about hell, I would not believe it could be true because it is that awful.
Hell is horrible. And God uses these words to confound people. Words like punishment,
Hebrews 10. Torment, Revelation 14. Fire, used very often, the most often, 21 times of hell.
The fire shall not be quenched. Eternal fire, unquenchable fire, lake of fire.
The Bible uses destruction to be used of hell. To describe it. Second death, outer darkness.
Weeping and gnashing of teeth. The pit, the worm. There's consciousness in hell.
There's a sense of pain and suffering. There's memory. There's no sense of hope. There's endless misery.
No companionship. No love. No sympathy. No kindness. No compassion. No pity. No help.
No common mercy. Spurgeon said, it is labor in the fire, but no ease, no peace.
No sleep, no calm, no quiet. Everlasting storm. Eternal hurricane.
Unceasing tempest. Therefore, we preach.
We don't want people to go. Matter of fact, when you preach the gospel to one of your loved ones, and they repent and believe, how happy are you?
It is unbelievably happy to experience that. That's why Seth Reese says, I wouldn't pay a nickel to a preacher who did not preach on hell enough to keep my children afraid of going there.
Yes, we can't scare people into heaven, but we can scare them away from hell, and then unto the only one who has basically done this.
From noon to three at Calvary, when Jesus was on the cross, and there was darkness, and God was judging,
God took an eternity's worth of hell's punishment, condensed it into three hours, and then poured it out on his son.
Jonathan Edwards said, some of you have seen buildings on fire. Imagine, therefore, with yourselves what a poor hand you would make at fighting with the flames.
If you were in the midst of so great and fierce a fire, you've often seen a spider or some other insect when thrown in the midst of a fierce fire and have observed how immediately it yields to the force of flames.
There's no longer struggle, no fighting against the fire, no strength exerted to oppose the heat or to fly from it, but immediately stretches forth and yields, and the fire takes possession of it, and at once it becomes full of fire.
Here is a little image of what you will be in hell except you repent and fly to Christ. To encourage yourself that you will set yourself to bear hell's torments as well as you can is just as if a worm that is about to be thrown into the glowing furnace should swell and fortify itself and prepare itself to fight the flames.
I don't want your friends to go. I don't want anybody to go. So how about this for strategic planning?
Why don't you pick five people this week to pray for every day that God would save and that God would give you the opportunity to speak the truth in love.
Pick five. It's kind of like the kid, you know, prays every night, God, I just pray there's no poor people in the world. It's a good prayer in one sense because the heart of the child has compassion.
But let's just pick five. Who are the five closest people that you know that you don't want to go to hell and you pray that God has two ways to save people from hell, two instruments that you can be responsible for?
Preaching and prayer. Don't be afraid to speak about hell to unbelievers.
Your loving Savior did it often. Another thing you could do is study great evangelists.
Why don't you study great evangelists? Every one of them knew that there was a hell. And in love they told people.
I'll never forget watching Larry King live and there John MacArthur sat next to a practicing homosexual man and John looked at him as they got to know each other.
Sometimes people just look at John like he's as crazy as I sound. I sound crazier,
I'm sure. John's more polished in his craziness. And John just looked at the young man and said,
I think he was the guy who played in End of the Spear. And John said, you don't want to go to hell, do you?
Without Christ Jesus, you're going to hell. You don't want to go, do you? Study evangelists who are living today or who have died.
They knew whether it was Mary Slessor in Africa, Amy Carmichael in India, William Carey, they knew there's only one
Savior and he saves from God's wrath which manifests itself in hell. And maybe a good book for you to read is, a third thing that you could do is read the book by John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell.
It will change your perspective on all this. We all just need to be motivated again, thinking, yeah, I've got that daughter,
I've got that son, I've got that relative, I've got that spouse. And they are going to go unless Jesus intervenes.
And many times, thankfully, Jesus intervenes as we speak the truth of Christ. Hell should motivate you to obey
God for many reasons. One, that you'll sprint from your old lifestyle. Two, that you'll be shocked when you remember seriousness of sin.
Three, that you'll speak the truth in love. And now, number four, so that you'll say thanks to God more often.
To be thankful. I said to myself this week, when's the last time I ever said, God, thank you that I'm not going to hell?
That will change your prayer life. And the scariest thing to me about going to hell is forever.
The text says eternal punishment.
Thomas Watson said, the wicked will always be dying but never dead. Eternal destruction, unquenchable fire, the worm that dies not.
The words forever and ever are found often. Salvation is eternal. Redemption is eternal.
Life is eternal. Inheritance with the saints are eternal. But so too is hell.
Spurgeon said, they are forever, forever, forever lost. On every chain in hell there is written forever.
In the fires there blaze out the words forever. And see, another reason why it takes forever is because it's not punitive in hell.
It's not for reformation. I mean, it is punitive. It's not for reformation. It doesn't purge anything out.
Richard Baxter said, they were wont to think sermons and prayers long. How long then will they think these endless torments?
I am delivered from the lake of fire. I don't have to go there. Jesus paid for my sins.
I don't have to go. That's why I love the Psalms where it has thankfulness.
Psalm 54, 6. Willingly I will sacrifice to thee. I will give thanks to thy name, O Lord, for it is good.
Why don't you turn your Bibles to lamentations just for a minute. I don't know about you but many complain.
Many are bitter. And we sometimes think we get the short end of the deal even as Christians.
Well, if you'll turn your Bible to lamentations, I would hope that you would be cured from that reading this one verse.
And this is my CVS verse, by the way. This is my Brooks Pharmacy verse. This is my stop and shop shaws when
I have to go to Hannaford. These are my verses. There's a debate in our family what is better.
Sorry, we have somebody at Price Chopper here. So, throw them all in. Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3 .39,
Why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins?
I'm a dead man walking but I've been redeemed. I don't have to go to hell. And so as we think about thanking
God more that we don't have to go there, it should make us not complain. We complain about the temperature.
We complain about the weather. We complain about our spouses. We complain about our kids. We complain about our jobs.
We complain about our bosses. Frankly, I need to just repent from all that and say, I deserve hell and I'm going to heaven.
How could I offer complaint? Now, sometimes I've noticed that if you look at someone else who's complaining and not thankful, it's easier to see the problems in them than it is in yourself.
So, turn to Luke 17. And let me show you a little parable. Excuse me, not a little parable, a little story that's a true story.
Luke 17, it's about ten what? Lepers. Ten lepers.
And I want to be thankful, especially knowing what I deserve and now what I have in Christ Jesus, freely, graciously, all of grace, because God is rich in mercy.
And I want to be thankful. After all, the African proverb says, even the hen lifted her head up towards heaven when swallowing her grain.
And Luke 17 .11, let me show you the key passage in the
New Testament that convicts me about showing thanks and then the negative side of bitterness and thanksgiving.
Luke 17 .11. So much here, we'll just go quickly. And it came about while he was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee.
Both kinds of people are going to be there, Jews and Samaritans. And as he entered a certain village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met him.
Leprous means scaly in the Greek and it could be all kinds of different leprosy, all kinds of medical issues, probably
Hansen's disease that disfigures people. Some say leprosy started in Egypt where there's a bacillus that was found in a mummy.
Can't even be cured today. And one of the problems of leprosy, especially back in those days, is you get numb in your extremities and you can't feel your arms very well, your ears, your nose, your eyes, and you can't notice any pain.
So if you hold on to a tool too tightly, rub your face too hard, you're going to actually just damage that and your skin just begins to fall off.
Matter of fact, Paul Brand, the leperologist, used to keep cats in the room with lepers because the rats would run up to these men and women at night and begin to eat them, but you have no nerve endings and so you need to keep the cats to get away the rats.
And it just eats the whole body. And imagine what kind of skill do they have back in these days to deal with something like that.
Good description of leprosy is found in Numbers 12. Oh, do not let her be like one dead whose flesh is half eaten away.
And of course, you've got the social stigma. When anytime a leper comes by, what do you yell out? Unclean, unclean.
Unclean, can't go to the priest's office, got to have your head shaved.
Verse 13, by the way, they were considered unclean because they're basically dead already.
They raised their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Now, I can't really give that much justice, but Dr.
Thompson said about leprosy still remaining in the East, quote, They held up toward me their handless arms, unearthly sounds gurgled through their throats without pallets.
Joint after joint of their fingers and toes shrink up and slowly fall away. So they couldn't maybe make much noise, at least enough noise though to get
Jesus' attention as they gurgled out to the Savior, have mercy on us. They'd been through those kind of horrible quack remedies with blood and urine and milk and hair and bone.
And when he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourself to the priests. Well, that's interesting. And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed.
He didn't say this time, be cleansed, be healed. He did that at another time. He says, go show yourself to the priests.
They were the ones who were on duty at the temple. He wouldn't be violating the law this way.
They would establish the miracle. But when they first were hearing, go and show yourself to the priests,
I wonder what they were thinking. Probably standing around looking at each other. What do we do? We were expecting something else.
Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back glorifying God with a loud voice.
Probably the nine heard, don't you think? He fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him.
That's real worship. And he was a Samaritan. Think of it.
He was a Samaritan, a foreigner. Jews and Samaritans wouldn't even hang out together unless they've got leprosy, because they could at least be bound together in their leprosy.
He was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered and said, were not the ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they?
I'll never forget this. Samuel Leibovitz, criminal lawyer and judge, saved 78 men from the electric chair.
And he said not one ever bothered to thank him afterward. And here these nine other lepers, who are
Jewish, basically do what the Jewish people did back then. They rejected the Messiah. Stiff -armed to the face.
And verse 18 says, was no one found who turned back to give glory to God except this foreigner?
He said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. You're temporally healed from your leprosy and now your sins are forgiven.
Your faith has made you well. One leper thankful for the temporal salvation that he experienced.
The nine just kind of, it's revolting to me to think how unthankful they were. So therefore,
I look at the nine who weren't thankful and I say, God, by your grace, I don't want to be like the nine. I've been saved from something worse than any kind of leprosy could ever be, from eternity in hell.
And therefore, I say we should be thankful. Can you imagine not having to experience this?
That a worm does not die and the fire is not quenched? There's no asbestos kind of fire for us.
We should be thankful. Psalm 109 .30 says, with my mouth I will give thanks abundantly for the
Lord. And in the midst of many I will praise Him. Well, lastly, number five, quickly.
The fifth reason why hell should motivate you to obey is so that you will savor Jesus Christ more.
Sprint away from your old lifestyle, be shocked about sin, speak the truth in love, say thanks to God more often, and so that you will savor
Jesus more. That you would love Him and cherish Him and praise Him, to think of Him as precious, your
Redeemer, Savior, friend. I love the words of J.
Wilbur Chapman. I think this is savoring Christ. Jesus, what a friend for sinners.
Jesus, lover of my soul. Friends may fail me, foes assail me. He, my Savior, makes me whole.
Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving.
He is what? With me to the end. Jesus, what a strength and weakness. Let me hide myself in Him.
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing. He, my strength, my victory wins. And then the last stanza says,
Jesus, I do now adore Him. More than all in Him I find. He hath granted me forgiveness.
I am His, and He is mine. We have all the riches of His grace bestowed upon us.
And that should make us Savior Christ Jesus. Matter of fact, maybe you could do a study on the love of God.
Study the love of God. Get a concordance out and start looking up the love of God. And you can see from His perspective what it cost
Him to love. A good illustration of this is found in the
Democratic Union paper in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. The sun had just risen on a hot August day in 1944 in the small village of Fellow in German -occupied
France. The 15 -year -old boy did not know why he and the other citizens had been lined up before a firing squad in the middle of the town square.
Perhaps they were being punished for harboring a unit of the French underground freedom fighters. Perhaps they were just satisfying the bloodlust of the
German commanding officer. But the boy knew he was about to die. He stood before the firing squad.
He remembered the carefree days of his early childhood, before the war, where he spent roaming around the green
French countryside. He thought about all he would miss by never growing up.
Most of all, he was terrified of dying. How would the bullets feel ripping through my body, he wondered.
He hoped no one could hear the whimperings coming from his throat every time he exhaled. Suddenly the boy heard the sound of exploding mortar shells beyond the limits of his little village.
The account says quickly rolling tanks could be heard. The Germans were forced to abandon the firing squad and face a small unit of army tanks with 20
GIs led by Bob Hamsley, a corporal in Patton's Third Army.
The French resistant captain had called and asked Hamsley for help. Three hours later, 50
Nazis were dead and 50 others were taken prisoner. In 1990, the town of Philo honored
Bob Hamsley on the very spot where dozens of the town's citizens would have died if not for him.
The man who initiated the search for Hamsley and the ceremony honoring him was the former mayor of Philo, the same 15 -year -old boy.
He determined to find the man who saved his life and honor him. And then the account is summarized with these words by Tim Stafford, it's hard to forget your savior.
Let's pray. Father, I would agree with a wise man who said you shouldn't preach about hell without a tear in your eye.
And Lord, may that be the case for us as we are empathetic, sympathetic, kind and compassionate to preach this doctrine that could not be true unless it was found here, taught by Jesus, taught by John, taught by Peter.
We thank you, Lord, as a body that we are not going. We thank you that we've been given the message to liberate those who are bound to sin.
We thank you, Lord, that we know by experience that you can transform the heart of a sinner who's bound and determined to go to hell because we, in fact, were that way and you saved us.
Lord, again, every week when I preach, I think we can't do this on our own. We can't muster up enough drive and energy to somehow obey.
So grant us your spirit's power that we might do these things. And Father, I think of the words of Jonathan Edwards.
After horrifying people with hell who said justice is fully satisfied in Christ.
All who believe are accepted and justified in him. Therefore, believe in him, come to him, commit your souls to him to be saved by him.
In him you will be safe from the eternal torments of hell. Not only that, but through him you shall inherit inconceivable blessedness and glory.
Thank you for those promises, Lord. And I pray for anyone here today who has just listened to the message and who is not born again.
I pray that more than getting mad at me, they would get mad at themselves and that they would see how deceived they have been and they would run to the
Savior, that they would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, that you would grant them eyes to see and ears to hear and today would be the dawning of a new day for them, a day with the hope of heaven and long gone is the terrors of hell.
Father, would you be so pleased to do that? Maybe even some of the kids sitting here today, parents or Christians, Father, I pray that you'd frighten them from their sins and then save them under the