Heaven, Hell and Everything In Between (part 14)

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Heaven, Hell and Everything In Between (part 15)

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Well, we were looking at what the
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Old Testament says about eternal punishment and hell. We were on page 53, so it would probably be good to put us in the mind of where we were to look at Daniel chapter 12.
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I just remember when I first got saved,
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I think there were about three books I could find in the Old Testament, and Daniel was one of them.
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I mean, I could find Genesis. But it was Daniel because I think
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I've mentioned it before, but the first Bible study I went to was all eschatology all the time, and that's why
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I finally bailed on that Bible study and started going to Pastor Mike's Bible study because I was learning nothing, really nothing that would help me in terms of what
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I needed to know as a new believer. That's funny because it reminds me of my
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IBS class. I mean, I'm going to make an announcement this morning about the IBS class, and by the way, that clock hasn't been changed yet.
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You know, what are the things as a new believer that we're most interested in? I had a friend, in fact,
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Tony the Lawman. Anybody know who he is? Tony the Lawman Young. You know what he did first when he first got saved?
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What's probably the most crazy thing you can do as a new Christian? What do you do when you buy a new book?
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Start reading. How many people go to the end to find out how the story ends? That's what Tony did.
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Tony would always get a new book and he goes, I want to know how it ends. So he'd read the end. So he turns to Revelation and he starts reading and he goes,
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I have no idea what I'm reading. And I'm like, well, he does. He's a lot smarter now.
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The book of Daniel, chapter 12, verses 1 to 3. And I'll just read this while you all are waking up.
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Now that time, Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise.
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And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time.
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And at that time, your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake.
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These to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.
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Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven.
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And those who lead the many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. We made the point ultimately that this is the clearest
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Old Testament passage that says, look, there's going to be a resurrection. And there are two destinies, one that's great and one that is not so great.
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I mean, how would you like to have this describe what's going to happen after life?
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Others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. Disgrace and everlasting contempt, not the way you want to think about things.
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On the top of page 53 of the handout, James Montgomery Boyce.
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Now yours probably starts on what? 55 this month. But from last week, you can have that if you're so blessed as to still have that.
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Boyce says this. Again, the first verse of chapter 12 begins at that time, which means he's talking about the previous time and talking about the end times.
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And he says he knows that there will be a great persecution, which we believe to be the tribulation period.
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A general resurrection, a final judgment and the final eternal blessedness of the saints. And then he talks about how the
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Lord himself talked about those in Matthew 24 and 25, this end time issue.
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Point number two at this point, I want to be this is Boyce still talking. I want to be particularly cautious.
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But if what I've said thus far is correct, then it would seem best to regard these verses as a prophecy of the career of the
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Antichrist. Now, keep in mind, James Montgomery Boyce is was a
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Presbyterian, may still be a Presbyterian. I don't know how that all works.
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I don't think there are any denominations in heaven. But and of the final great battle of Armageddon that is described elsewhere in Scripture, I think in particular of Ezekiel 38 and of Revelation 16 and 19.
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How we handle Daniel 11, 36 to verses 12, 4 will depend on some measure then on how we think of the chapters in Ezekiel and Revelation.
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But taking them together, I find that they refer to a great world war immediately prior to the Lord's return.
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Daniel refers to a great battle between the kings of the north and the south. He mentions Egypt, yada, yada, yada. Big war, which in Revelation is called
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Armageddon. Point three. At the end of this period of great international turmoil, the
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Lord Jesus Christ returns, subdues his and our enemies and ushers in a kingdom that will never be overturned or destroyed.
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Interesting, too, when Jen and I were blessed to be in Israel in 2000 with the seminary, one of the things they did was they brought in.
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I mean, we got to we get to meet a few folks. I think we sat in the one of the offices there in the
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Knesset building, and we heard from the deputy mayor of Jerusalem. And it's not the other thing.
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But one of the more interesting things we did was they brought in a rabbi to talk to us. And the rabbi started talking about what he we were able to ask some questions.
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So somebody said, would you describe the Messiah? Since you don't believe Jesus is the Messiah, would you describe the
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Messiah? And he said, well, the Messiah is going to bring peace to Israel.
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He is going to rebuild the temple, you know, and he just kind of went on laying out all these things that the
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Messiah was going to do. And when I hear he's going to bring peace to Israel, he's going to rebuild the temple.
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I'm thinking anti Christ. So, I mean, you have these Jews who don't accept
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Christ as the Messiah. They're looking forward to a Messiah. And, you know, you read this in the Bible and you go, well, how did anybody fall for the anti Christ?
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How's that ever going to happen? They're ready. All he has to do is just establish peace over there, build the temple.
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And they're like, it's the Messiah. So that's kind of what we have to look forward to.
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And nobody knows when. But it seems obviously we're getting closer. And it seems soon in the sense that it could happen anytime.
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On the other hand, unbelievers will face shame and contempt. We talked about that. Or I just mentioned it. Shame. Listen to this.
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It's interesting. You know, everlasting or shame and everlasting contempt. Shame is a translation of the Hebrew term, which
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I won't try to pronounce. Which one comes here designates a plural of intensive fullness.
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Great shame. The wicked will be ashamed and disgraced as they stand before the Lord and realize the gravity of their sin.
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Particularly the sin of rejecting God's loving Messiah. And then contempt refers to an object of aversion or abhorrence.
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Something from which you would kind of divert your eyes, not want to look at. He goes on to quote here.
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And I'll just skip down to the bottom of number four. So shocking will be the fate of the lost that onlookers must turn their face away in horror or disgust.
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This contempt will be everlasting. That is, it will endure for eternity.
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Number five. The fate of both groups is, as I said before, everlasting. Daniel, therefore, was setting forth the doctrines of eternal life and eternal punishment.
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According to this text, all persons, believers and unbelievers, will enter the eternal state in bodily form.
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They'll be raised from the dust, as it says. So in summary, talking about the Old Testament, this is
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Daniel Block. It says, any hope of victory over death and a beatific...
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What does that mean? What's a beatific? If you have a beatific vision, what is that?
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Don't you know if I'm beatific? How do you say that? It looks like it should be beatitude or beat...
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Who knows how to say that? Anyway, it just means good.
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It means beautiful. Why did he just say that? I don't know. Any hope of victory over death and a beatific afterlife would require a reunion of the divorced components, body and soul, which is exactly what
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Ezekiel envisions. In other words, to a Jew and really to anyone, can you imagine an afterlife in which you are a disembodied spirit just floating around in the ether?
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I don't think that would be that exciting. And so what the Old Testament teaches then is a resurrection where the body and the spirit will be rejoined.
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Okay, now, get to really the heart of it, and you'll see why
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I say that here in a minute on page 55. Jesus on hell. Listen to these two quotes right in the beginning, really kind of set the stage.
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Yarbrough says this, If Jesus spoke as frequently and directly about hell as gospel writers claim...
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This is after a long introduction in which he says there's no reason to doubt what the gospel writers claim, which I'm always in favor of.
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When scholars tell us that there's no reason to doubt what the New Testament says, I like that. When they say, well, we don't really know what
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Jesus said, I have a problem with that. If Jesus spoke as frequently and directly about hell as gospel writers claim, that it may not be the
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Christian message that we end up proclaiming if we modify his doctrine of posthumous existence.
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Posthumous meaning post -death. So what's he saying? Who can summarize that?
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Let's see.
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If we don't teach hell as Jesus did, then we don't teach the full gospel as Jesus did.
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We don't have the Christian message. Our message is sub -Christian. McKnight says, what
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Christians have believed about hell has been constructed entirely, almost entirely, out of what
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Jesus teaches in the gospels. In other words, what Christians have believed for centuries is not something they made up.
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It's not something Paul constructed. It's what Jesus himself taught. And if the
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Lord talked more about hell than heaven, if he talked about hell frequently and he warned of hell, then our message needs to contain that.
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We've said on many occasions, people can't understand the good news, the gospel, if they don't understand the bad news.
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If you don't understand what you're being saved from, which is the wrath of God fully expressed in hell forever, then what is the good news?
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You have to have bad news to get the good news. My first one, and I thought long and deeply about this, hell is a horrible place.
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It clearly is. Matthew 5. In the
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Sermon on the Mount, again, the words of Jesus. And if you have a red -letter
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Bible, then these things will really be popping out. Trick question to see if anybody's awake.
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Which words are more inspired, the red letters or the black letters? The words in red or the words in black?
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All of them. Red. No, they're all...
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Carl's right. They are all equally inspired. I mean, they're all the words of Christ. It's just a matter of whether he physically spoke them or whether they were given to men by the
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Holy Spirit who wrote them down. Okay. Hell is a horrible place. Who wants to read Matthew 5, 27 to 30?
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27 to 30, Matthew 5. Carl. Well, you have heard that it is said, you shall not commit adultery.
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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.
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If your right eye 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.
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If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
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It's spectacular language. And I thought Morris gives us some good insights here.
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He says, since the look can be so significant, talking about gazing at a woman, it is important to use the eye rightly, not the right eye, the eye rightly, correctly.
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And Jesus uses hyperbolic language in speaking of the exercise of sight.
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His if clause puts the case strongly. For the sake of discussion, it implies that the condition is met.
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There are several different kinds of if. There are four types of if, not that we're going to go over all those.
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But in Greek, there are several different kinds of conditions. And in this case, it says, you know, if you do this and you do, then this is what happens.
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The right eye was, this is what I thought was really fascinating. The right eye was thought of as especially valuable.
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I mean, do you really ever think, oh, my right eye is so much better than my left eye? But that's how they viewed it, and we'll see why here in a second.
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For a warrior would be gravely handicapped if he lacked sight in this member. Think about it.
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You know, if you're an archer or if you have a bow, you know, what would you do? You'd draw it back this way, and you're going to be, you know, looking your right eye down the side or whatever.
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And if you don't have a right eye, you've got a problem. Jesus envisions, envisages, sees the possibility that this valuable member, why don't commentaries just use regular language, you know, like the rest of us?
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Envisages the possibility that this valuable member may in fact be the cause of sin. He does not define this further, but the lustful look of which he has just spoken makes clear the kind of way in which an invaluable member of the body may cause the bringing of evil to the whole.
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In other words, the eye is the window by which the entire body is brought into sin.
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Under those circumstances, Jesus advises that it be gouged out and thrown away. He says it is better to lose one member than to lose the whole in Gehenna or hell.
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Gehenna is a little, I mean, basically it's the city dump in Jerusalem.
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It's this little, you know, trench of land where all the refuse goes and they burn it.
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It's just constantly burning. So when you see the term Gehenna, it is just synonymous with hell.
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It's a picture that they use often for hell. Morse goes on, as in the previous verse, the nature of possible sin is not explained.
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This is talking about left, right hand, I think. But if the right hand leads one to sin, it is better to cut it off.
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Mark has a saying similar. Matthew, the eye is immediately relevant, but the hand is difficult.
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Here's the point. The point is that it is better, as valuable as your right hand might be.
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I mean, if you lose your right hand, that's a problem. You're going to switch to using your left hand, obviously, but it will be seen as a big handicap.
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The idea of voluntarily cutting off your right hand. I want to stop sinning,
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I'm going to cut off my right hand. Would that stop you from sinning? No, because let's say you stole bread with your right hand, you know, or you were a thief.
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Whatever you did, are you going to stop being a thief just because you cut off your right hand? It might stop you for a little while, it won't stop you for very long.
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If you take out your eyes, is it going to stop you from lusting? It might stop you from looking for a little while, but it won't stop you altogether.
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Do blind people ever lust? I imagine they probably do. What's Jesus trying to say?
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I mean, can you imagine? If somebody asks you, you know, how much, you know, you hear all these settlements, lawsuits, somebody loses their right foot, they get $500 ,000 in a lawsuit.
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Do you ever think, wow, that's a lot of money, I wouldn't mind giving up my right foot for $500 ,000. Doesn't that make you think about cutting off your right foot, would you do it?
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I wouldn't cut off my right foot for $500 ,000. What Jesus is saying is, these things that we have, our body parts, that we would see as so valuable, that we wouldn't want to lose them, we wouldn't want anybody to gouge our eye out, we wouldn't want to gouge it out ourselves.
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He says, listen, stop sinning. It is better for you, this right hand, as much as you enjoy being right -handed and as many things as it does for you, your right eye, as great as it is, as many things as it does for you, it is better, if you were to chop off your right hand, if it would stop you from sinning.
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You need to stop sinning, you need to avoid hell. Hell is a lot worse than losing your right hand, or losing your right eye.
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Because those things are temporary. You can adjust.
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Hell goes on forever. Kistemacher on page 56 says this.
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It would seem that the following lessons are taught here. The present is not our only life.
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We are destined for eternity. And he quotes Jesus and notes that your whole body be thrown into, or go down into, hell.
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You only go around once a life, so go for all the gusto you can.
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Of course, that's a beer commercial from 1969, I think. You know, how about, we'll just Christianize it, your best life now.
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See, you need to think about more than just the here and now. You need to have a long view of things.
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Kistemacher goes on. Nothing, no matter how precious it may seem to us at the moment, think of the right eye and right hand, should be allowed to doom our glorious destiny.
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Sin has a very destructive force, must not be pampered, it must be put to death. Temptation should be flung aside immediately and decisively.
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I love this word. Dilly -dallying. Delaying. Putting things off is deadly.
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Halfway measures work havoc. The surgery must be radical. Right at this very moment and without any vacillation or hesitation, the obscene book should be burned, the scandalous picture destroyed, the soul -destroying film condemned, the sinister yet intimate social tie broken, and the baneful habit discarded.
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In the struggle against sin, the believer must fight hard. Shadowboxing will never do.
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Even as believers, I don't want any confessions here, but does anyone ever kind of think, well, after this happens, after thus and such a date, when
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I finally feel this way, then I'll stop whatever sin. I think maybe the most common thing that happens is believers, these days, especially with young people, dating unbelievers.
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Or believers move in together to save money on rent, or whatever they do, you know, boyfriend and girlfriend.
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And they tell themselves, you know what, eventually we'll make this right. Eventually we will legitimize it with marriage, we'll do this, we'll do that, we'll stop, we'll do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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It's a compromise. It's a compromise. It's a half measure. It's dilly -dallying.
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It's vacillation. Going to kind of take half measures.
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You know, just kind of do a little bit. Just kind of soothe our conscience to make ourselves feel better.
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And that's not what Jesus calls for. He says, whatever the sin is, get rid of it.
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Whatever it is that's causing you to stumble, whether it's a person, a relationship, a thing, get it out of your life.
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Why? Because a pattern of sin... You know,
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I think there's this idea, maybe, I just heard recently of a man who, you know, was in an adulterous relationship for ten years and then died.
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And, you know, as a professing Christian, nobody knew about the adultery until he died. And so, you know, the question is, well, was this
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God's judgment on him? Or was this some kind of, you know, way of revealing sin?
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Was he a Christian, all that? I don't know. All I know is ten years is a long time to have that sort of thing going on in your life.
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And, I mean, I don't know how you... Ultimately, it's up to God, but,
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I mean, I don't think I could be confident of his eternal state.
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Ten years? That's a very long time. But Christ calls for radical dealing with sin because hell is a horrible place.
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Secondly, God himself is present. This is midway through 56. God himself is present in hell and the deliverer of punishment.
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I think we've mentioned that before, but it's kind of interesting to watch Jesus say it himself. Let's look at Matthew 10, 24 to 28.
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Who would like to read that, please? Bob Euler. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.
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It is enough for a disciple that he become like his teacher and a slave like his master. If they had called the head of the house
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Beelzebub, how much more would they align the members of his household? All the way to 28.
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Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
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But I tell you in darkness, speak in the light. What you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.
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Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
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So the immediate question comes about. Well, I mean, there are a couple of questions. Who is it who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell?
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It can only be God. And yet he can only do that if he is present.
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Nolan says this. The ultimacy of death is relativized by the image of a more fearful death experience.
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Talking about killing the body already implies that there is more to a person than the body, right? I mean, think about it.
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Here's the threat. The threat is against your life. And if all we are is a body, if all we are are, you know, flesh and bones, then when they kill us, that's the worst thing that can happen.
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And so Jesus is saying, no, there's something worse. He goes on to say, death is a dreadful reversal, but not the most extreme one possible.
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Fear of God is to displace fear of death -dealing persecutors.
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The stakes are higher with God. You know these people that you are afraid of? These people who persecute you.
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These people who chase you around with pitchforks and torches or whatever they're doing. He says, you're worried about them?
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Let me tell you who you should be worried about. You should be worried about God. Morse says this,
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Jesus speaks of authority to cast into hell and authority that only God has. The Bible never says, and this is why
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I had to put this in here, the Bible never says that believers are to be afraid of Satan. Let me say that again.
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The Bible never says that believers are to be afraid of Satan. If we are going to be afraid, let it be of the minor danger that is all that evil people or even
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Satan himself can bring us, or let it not be of the minor danger, but of the major danger involved in God's holy wrath against evil.
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Where they are not able, he is able. His power far surpasses that of anyone or anything else in all creation.
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And Jesus illustrates that power by saying that God can destroy both soul and body in hell.
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It is perhaps surprising that he should speak of the destruction of the body in hell. The body dies here on earth, but the expression refers to the whole person, and the whole person is body and soul, and Jesus is not so much speaking of the particular area in which the body suffers disillusion as of the power of God, a power not limited to this earth, like your persecutors would be, but extending to the world to come.
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The reference to hell shows that we are not to understand, destroy, meaning annihilation, but Jesus is speaking of the destruction of all that makes for a rich and meaningful life, not the cessation of life's existence.
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In other words, when you are in hell, a couple of things happen. I mean, everything that you value here in this life is gone, and any hope that you would have of happiness, of comfort, of joy, forever, all those things vanish, and in fact, you have a body that is perfectly suited to withstand the wrath of God, and it will feel as though you are being destroyed forever.
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That you should worry about. I mean, there have been some horrible ways, Pastor Mike gave us some graphic ways that people were put to death several weeks ago, but I mean, if we were to look over history, we would see that basically the history of mankind would teach a few lessons.
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Man is inherently evil. I mean, the way that people dream up things, or even the
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Spanish Inquisition, forcing people to confess of their heretics before you put them to death, burning people to stake, all these kind of things have happened for centuries, and Jesus says, look, as bad as these things are, as horrible as they might be to suffer, as Peter would say, for a little while, then what?
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I talked to a man not long ago who said he was tired of not being happy. He wanted to be happy.
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He wanted to have a nice life. And I just looked at him and I said, well, and then what?
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What happens after you die? Maybe you have to stand before God and answer for what you are doing right now.
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You won't think that on that day. You won't go, today is the day to repent.
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The next one, page 57. Religious activity alone will lead to hell.
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I mean, Jesus, when he gives these woes to these Pharisees, I mean, you can put almost any religious kind of group in there.
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I mean, I think of my own background, and a lot of great people, I was even thinking about how thankful I am that God restrained the sin of my own life while I was younger by having me involved in the
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Mormon church, the families and the friends I had and everything that really kind of held me in check.
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But religious activity alone will lead to hell. Let's read. This is not really too long here.
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Matthew 23, 15. For those who don't really like to read and want a quick one, this would be great for you.
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Just a quick verse. Well, I guess it's not that quick. All right, go ahead,
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Mark. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, because you travel about on the sea and land and make one proselyte.
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And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
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Okay, the scribes are... Lawyers. Yeah, experts in the law.
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Pharisees are these ultra -conservative Jews always trying to trap
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Jesus. But it's interesting because he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. I like what the
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NAS does here. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, and then comma, hypocrites. He's calling both groups hypocrites.
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Why does he say woe to you? Because you travel on sea and land. In other words, they were very...
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And we'll see this here in a second. They were very apt to go out and do missionary work, to try to make proselytes, to try to convert people.
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Reminds me, we used to... We had a yard sale at our house before we left, and one of our friends, in fact, used to be at Mike's Bible study, too.
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He came over, and he and his wife were there. The whole neighborhood, it was like a little cul -de -sac.
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The whole place was... Like they had one annual yard sale, and so people would come around and just kind of walk around the neighborhood.
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And these two ladies, more missionaries, were walking around. My friend
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Edwin says, So what are you ladies... I mean, they had their name tags, you know, sister, whatever her name was, and sister, also, whatever her name is.
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And so anyway, they were walking around, and everybody says, So what are you ladies doing today? Oh, we're just shopping for things.
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Well, what else are you doing? Well, we like to go around and give people the good news of Jesus Christ. He said, Oh, really? And then he gives them the
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Gospel, and they're like, No, no, that's not what we do.
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And he goes, Oh, well, then you don't have any good news, you have bad news. And that's what the
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Pharisees had. Look at what Morris says. He says, They speak of doing all this just to make one proselyte, one convert.
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They're willing to climb mountains, swim seas, do whatever. The term used only here in the
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Gospel means to make a convert to their religion. Throughout history, the Jews have sometimes been very loath to make converts, while at other periods, they have been active.
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There's general agreement that at this time, they were very active. And Jesus is saying that in his day, the
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Pharisees, at any rate, were keen to make converts. Even one convert was highly prized.
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But being a proselyte of the Pharisees meant that the person was instructed in Judaism according to Pharisaic understanding of the faith.
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And since the convert presumably knew little or nothing, and it would probably turn to Revelation, oh, they didn't have any of that, about Judaism, other than the instruction he was given by those who converted him, he was converted to Phariseeism.
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He knew nothing of any other way of understanding Scripture, so that any door that might have opened to him for a fuller knowledge of God was closed from the beginning.
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And here's where he's saying, this whole idea of, how are they twice the son of hell? When somebody gets converted, they're generally more zealous than someone who grew up in the church or grew up in a religion.
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And there's that immediate kind of burst of religious activity. And so he says, you know, you struggle to make, you go to great lengths to make these people
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Pharisees, and he goes, the truth is, then they become even worse than you are. Let's go to 58.
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The Arboretum says this, Here Jesus' teaching implies that hell exerts an influence, when he's talking about this phrase, twice the son of hell is you.
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Here Jesus' teaching implies that hell exerts an influence on people. I thought this was interesting. They can make them stand pat in their native religious and moral condition rather than respond with a whole heart to Jesus' call for repentance, personal trust, and kingdom service.
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Hell is a sphere of influence on the present as well as an eschatological destination.
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In other words, he's saying, hell right now has an influence on the people who are bound there, who are going there, who are heading for destruction, in the sense that this kind of religious insulation, you know, we talk about how even
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Roman Catholics now, since we're surrounded by them, you know, how many of them here in Massachusetts think that they're hell bound?
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Would you say many think they are? Well, they know they're purgatory bound. Oh, do they? Oh, yeah.
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I'm going to purgatory. Well, it's not a worry, yeah. That's good. They don't think they're going right to heaven, I can tell you that. Well, I mean, it'd be nice, wouldn't it?
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I mean, I like to talk to somebody who says, well, I think I'm going to purgatory, because then all I have to do is do what? Suffer for it or something.
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No, I mean, I like to walk up to a person and say, you know, do you think you're going to heaven? No, I'm going to purgatory.
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They already know they're a sinner. They already know they're a sinner. They do, but the system doesn't give them the hope of it.
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It doesn't give them hope. But what would you do with somebody who said, well, I'm going to purgatory? What happens after that?
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Okay. Other ideas? I mean, I know what I would want to do. There are a couple of things
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I would want to do. One is, I just ask them, well, exactly how would you determine biblically that you're going to go to purgatory?
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Where does it say that? And where does it say that?
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It doesn't say it. They've been taught it from... Yeah, so I mean, that's just a matter of tradition, so it's not even there.
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The other thing I would say is I would like to go to John chapter 20 and verse 30.
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Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.
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In other words, the book of John. But these have been written, the book of John has been written, so that you may believe
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Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
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Not purgatory in His name. I mean, wouldn't that be great? And that believing you may have purgatory in His name.
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Sign me up for that. No. You'd have eternal life. Didn't Jesus tell the thieves that today...
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You'll be in paradise with me, yeah. So another problem with that whole idea, I mean, what did that guy do?
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He didn't even get baptized. Well, what you don't understand is one of the Roman guards threw a little water on him.
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And he said, papas fritas, or whatever. Who knows what that means? Papas fritas, yeah.
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Any Spanish speakers? It's french fries. In case you were wondering. In case you were wondering.
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Nobody was wondering, but you know. All right. Another point here, there are only two destinations.
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We talked about that there are only two destinations, not purgatory and heaven, but heaven and hell.
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Let's look at Matthew 25. Very long reading. Well, it's not that long.
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It's actually less than half a page, so I'll read that. Matthew 25, 31 to 46.
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But this is Jesus speaking, and again, this is similar to what we were reading earlier in Daniel, just kind of an expansion on it.
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But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and the angels with Him, then
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He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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And He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the
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King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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Really? I don't want to say that's predestination, but it sounds like predestination. For I was hungry, and you gave
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Me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited
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Me in. Naked, and you clothed Me. I was sick, and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me.
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Then the righteous will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give
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You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger and invite
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You in, or naked and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and come to You? The King will answer and say,
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Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.
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Then He will also say to those on His left, Depart from Me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.
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For I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, and you did not invite
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Me in. Naked, and you did not clothe Me. Sick and in prison, and you did not visit
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Me. Then they themselves will answer, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of You?
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Then He will answer them, Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to Me.
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These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So is
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Jesus saying that it is by our good works that we go to heaven? It seems like it, right?
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It does seem like it. Yeah. So let's keep reading. Leon Morris, biblical scholar, says,
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It is following the commendation of those who have responded to Christ's love and who have lived in the way He taught them.
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There is an address to those on the left, whereas He has invited those on the right with come. The King begins
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His address to the sinners with, Go away from Me. And He greets them as, You cursed ones. They were the ones who said,
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Well, didn't we do that? We did all those kind of things. It reminds me of Matthew 7, where many will say to me on that day,
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Lord, did we not do this in Your name and that on Your name and what is in Your name and what does He say? Good job.
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High five. He says, No. Depart from Me, for I never knew you. The nature of the curse is brought out with their destination.
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They are to go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, whereas the righteous go into the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world.
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Those rejected go into a fire not prepared for them but for the devil and his angels. In line with this, the fire of hell is often said to be the destination of those who do not accept the salvation of God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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Why does this not mean that all you have to do is kind of a social gospel, feed the poor, house the needy, go visit those in prison and hospitals and you'll be saved?
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Why doesn't that work? Their motive. Their motive. That's exactly right. What do we know from the book of Hebrews?
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You can do all kinds of good works. Do people do good works without being Christians? Yes. Do Christians sometimes fail to do good works?
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Yes. So why is it the people who do good works and aren't Christians aren't going to heaven? Why can't you earn your way into heaven?
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Why can't you just do these things and get into heaven? It's God who saves.
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God who chooses. Well, and because... Their motives are to do it.
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It's like, oh, if I do this, I can get into heaven. I can get into heaven if I do this, if I do that. If I just write a big enough check.
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The writer of Hebrews said without faith it is impossible to please God. And that's what we're talking about.
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Things that might externally seem to please Him. But that's not the issue at all. The issue isn't...
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You know, in fact, there seems to almost be a little bit of surprise. But, you know, the people expressed who are going to heaven, they're like, well, when did we do that,
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Lord? And He said, you did these things unto the least of men. He's not talking about just those things alone.
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But it's an overall attitude. It's a lifestyle. It's one of service, of one that wants to obey
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Him. Getting back to number three here.
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Let me just... Scripture tells us a little about them, about Satan's helpers. I could be wrong.
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He says to see Satan as a solitary figure. There are, of course, evil angels as well as good ones.
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Angels are included among the beings that might try to separate us from God. Right?
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Romans 8, 38. There is nothing that will separate us from the love of God and Christ. Nothing created, which would be an angel.
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Could be an angel. They could be objects of worship, which means they are opposed to the one
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God. We're not to worship angels. There are angels that sinned, that fell, that gave up their estate.
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And angels associated with the dragon who is equated with the devil. Jesus is now saying that those on his left at the judgment will find their eternal habitation in the place where the evil are,
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Satan and all those associated with him. Kistemacher says this.
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This description gives rise to questions. I think these are good questions. How is it possible for the wicked to be sent away from or depart from God?
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Is not God omnipresent? Psalm 139 says, we're going to be able to flee from your presence.
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If I go here, you're there. If I go there, you're there. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Answer. Although God is indeed everywhere, that presence is not everywhere a presence of love.
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We talked about hell and the undiminished wrath that will be there.
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God will be in hell, but it will be an exclusion of his, let's just say, desirable attributes.
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He goes on. If hell is a place of fire or of the flame or of burning, how can it also be the abode of darkness?
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Answer. Burning and darkness are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, by a certain form of radiation, a person may be seriously burned while he is in a dark room.
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It has happened. And I think we just need to understand that hell is going to be a dark, miserable, lonely, painful place too.
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I mean, just imagine every sin ever committed. How many billions of people in the world now coming up on, yeah, coming up on,
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I think it's like 6 .8 billion, coming up on 7 billion and then who knows. And if we were to go over all of history,
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I mean, I don't even know. I'm sure they have some way of calculating how many people have ever existed. But billions and billions and billions of people have existed over the ages.
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Every single person a sinner. Just how many sins do each of us commit during the course of our lifetime?
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And when we think of every single one of those being worthy of death forever, being worthy of the eternal wrath of God, and we just multiply and multiply and multiply and just think about all of the wrath of God waiting to be unleashed in eternity on those who do not repent and receive the
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Lord Jesus Christ, it is quite an astonishing concept. This has been occurring in my mind as you've been talking.
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When you're saved and then you're filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the third part of Godhead, you're actually giving your life to the
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Lord. And you want to help people and you want to do everything that Jesus is talking about.
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That's right. But if there's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and you don't care about anything that the
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Bible says or God says or Jesus, then when you can accept the religious beliefs, yes, but you don't have the
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Holy Spirit in you, then you're not going to be a true Christian. Yeah, the Holy Spirit is a seal, as it were, of our salvation.
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You know, just with regard to... Well, let's put it this way. If someone says that they're a
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Christian and they give the outward appearance maybe of being a Christian, but their life and their internal life, their thinking and their hearts is not given over to Christ, then you're right.
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You know, that person does not have the Holy Spirit in them. Now, the blasphemy of the
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Holy Spirit is another situation altogether because it pretty specifically, when we talk about the blasphemy of the
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Holy Spirit, it just means to look at the works of the Holy Spirit, and the example we have is
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Christ performing miracles, and then to attribute those things to Satan.
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In other words, to say things about the work of the Spirit that are absolutely false, that they are the work of Satan and those things that Jesus said can never be forgiven.
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So, we're going to have to leave it there. And then
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I think we have Pat Eberdroff next week.
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But I guess in closing, I would just say this. Going right back to this, if we don't teach hell like Jesus did, then we're not teaching or preaching the gospel.
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You know, the bad news is that we're all sinners, that we all deserve eternal punishment in hell.
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Every single person. And if we don't present that, then the good news, and if we don't do it in a way where people understand that God's holiness is such that one sin, if we just committed one sin in our entire life and we stood before God and we could just say, you know,
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God, I only sinned once. He wouldn't say, well, that's okay. You know, go into my eternal rest.
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He would say, one sin demands eternal punishment, and you must go to hell forever.
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But God just didn't leave us in that situation where we're all sinners and we can never make ourselves right because there's no way we can make up for an infinite sin against an infinitely holy
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God. But He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, to die in the place of sinners so that every single person who believed in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, who trusted completely in Him for salvation, would be raised on the last day.
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And it is by believing in Him, in His perfect life, and in His death and resurrection, raised on the third day, that we can be saved.
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All right, so let's go ahead and pray. Father, indeed, not really a fun topic to think about, to contemplate, and yet we know that millions of people in New England are sinners in the hands of an angry
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God. So many of our family and friends who don't know you, who just, who even, as it says in 1
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Corinthians, view the word of the cross as foolishness. Lord, would you soften the hearts, open the hearts of many who do not know you.
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And Father, would you make us vessels willing to carry the message of good news?
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Would we be willing even to give the bad news to people that you might use that to convict of sin, that they might long for a
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Savior, and that they would repent and believe? Father, what a glorious thought it is that you would send your
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Son to redeem a people. It is beyond our comprehension, and we thank you for being such a loving, compassionate