The Sounds and Fury of Hell — Steve Zehr

Isaiah 34 and the Coming Judgment

Turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 34, and I do want to greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I really Believe I want you to my prayers that By the time we get to the end of this Message you will Believe in that name of the Lord Jesus Christ who as the only one that can save you Has the only name of one heaven whereby must be saved.

I'll explain this later a little bit. I'd like to read this Isaiah chapter 34. I Really wanted didn't know if I should read Revelations 20 or Isaiah 34. So I decided to have Jason read one. So please listen try to get the connection between these two chapters.

Come near you nations to hear and hearken you people. But the earth here and all that is therein the word and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation indignation of the Lord is upon all the nations and his fury is upon all their armies.

He has utterly destroyed them. He has delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses and the mountains shall be melted with their blood and all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved and The heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and all their hosts shall fall down as the leaf falleth off the vine.

And as the falling fig from the fig tree for my sword shall be bathed in heaven. Behold it shall come down upon it. Um It do me It do Mia and upon the people of my curse to judgment. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood.

It has made fat with fatness and with the blood of lambs and goats and with the fat of the kidneys of rams for the Lord had they sacrificed and Bozra and a great slaughter in the land of it. Did you Mia?

And the unicorn shall come down with them. The bullocks with the bulls and their land shall be soaked with blood and the dust made fat with fatness put as the day of the Lord's vengeance from the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion and The streams thereof shall be turned into pitch and the dust thereof into brimstone and the land thereof shall be become burning pitch and it Should not be quenched night nor day.

The smoke there shall go up forever from generation to generation. It shall lie waste none shall pass through it forever and ever. But the cormorant and the bitter and shall possess it the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.

And he shall stretch out upon the line of confusion and in the stones of emptiness they shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there and all her princes shall be nothing and Thorn shall come up in our places.

Nettles and brambles and the fortress thereof and it shall be in Inhabitation of dragons and a court for owls and the wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island and the satyr Shall cry to his fellows and the screech owl also shall rest there and find for herself a place of rest.

There shall the great owl make her nest and lay and hatch and gather under her shadows. Under her shadow there shall the vulture also be gathered everyone with her mate. Seek ye out the book of the Lord and read no one of these shall fail.

None shall have shall want her mate for my mouth is made. For my mouth it hath commanded and his spirit It gathereth hath gathered them and he hath cast a lot for them and his hand hath divided it unto them by line and they Shall possess it forever from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

The Urgency of Preaching on Hell

The title of my message this morning is The sound and the fury of hell when I first started Thinking about this studying this subject on hell. I thought well, I'll just I Don't know. I forget how I kind of got started on it.

I Started thinking about and I thought well, this would be a good sermon maybe later on For a next summer when all the summer help is here. I could preach on this subject. But as I got to thinking about it, I thought that They're pretty good.

There's a possibility that summer may never come again, I May not be here when summer comes. Some of you may not be here when summer comes and the very nature of this subject is that it should not wait.

And so I felt like I should preach this subject today. I want to tell you that I may go over time. That is also the nature of this subject. It goes over time in fact, there is no time and I Will not be shouting at you.

So If you go to sleep you go to sleep at your own risk, and I just want to share what the Lord has on my heart. So why speak on hell? There's a couple things. When I've been to study this the contrast of hell.

It creates a contrast it creates a backdrop that heightens the senses for everything else spiritual in your life. It heightens the senses for everything else of the choices you make. Without the backdrop of hell everything becomes gray and you see that's many times I wrote down the word salvation then graded in here.

You can see it's very simple illustration and there's a lot of gray in the world today. There's no way to you know until we have the backdrop some kind of contrast. I'll just write choices here. Without the graying you can make clear choices.

And that's what it really did for me was with that contrast of hell as I studied this it really brought out in relief against the flames of hell this great salvation that we have and I guess is a Week ago last Saturday.

We had that burning day, but I came down over I think it's if I bond beat on i5 there I was bringing the water truck back as we had burned and I just got up on that elevated part of the freeway there and you look out across the valley it just looked like I mean you must I don't know if you could count 20 fires at once and Out ahead of me.

There was one on each side of the freeway. It's just these pillars of smoke I mean symmetrical with the freeway just almost the same distance apart and just huge pillars of smoke I mean everybody that was driving down the freeway.

In fact the one the one on the East was a very beautiful fire for a field burning. It just glowed I mean 50 feet up from the smoke column. It was glowing red. In fact, a lot of people had stopped alongside the freeway to take pictures of it.

Very beautiful, but when I came over there, I thought I've been studying this if there's ever a sign and it senses it the backdrop of hell really Sharpens the senses in the spiritual mind. Okay, so a lot of my I've been doing some study on this books that I've read.

Of course the Bible with the words of the Lord and different ones. Testimonies of the near-death experience of those that experience some of that I'll say that I myself I've told very few people but I remember when I was maybe When I thought I was even 16, I remember waking up from a dream and to this day I'm convinced that I saw hell and As I Read many of the I remember waking up with I was more terrified than anything I ever remember and completely cold sweat.

I don't remember much the dream. I feel like the Lord took some of that away from me. But it all came back when I read a lot of the testimonies of near-death experiences. Some of the things they described were exactly What I would have pictured in my mind from this so The another reason to study hell is that Contemplating death will lead to life.

Contemplating death will lead to life. So it gives the contrast to life that you properly need to understand life and What it is you are saved from. Reason I remember being down there at the Eugene celebration.

There was a group of people outside the entrance. I mean, there's probably many people as there are here. I know there's probably a couple hundred in the middle. They had these little side shows these little attractions.

There'd be juggling acts, but this one was just drumming. I mean, it was just a Intensely loud Rhythm these people were drumming these all these this whole crowd of people were surrounding them and I was holding a sign there.

I remember it just seemed to me like the crowd was almost going hypnotic. They were just it was just weird and I was holding a sign there that said it. One of the things that said on that have you ever thought about dying and during this I don't.

I just went on and on and on and People swaying and dancing and this man walked up to me and his complaint was that we should be thinking about living Not dying and I explained to him as best I could that this is the way To think about true life is when you think about death.

VH Lawrence once said Every year you pass an anniversary Unawares. It is the anniversary of your death. Have you ever really thought about that? Have you ever considered that you know every year you're passing the anniversary of your death somewhere and it is very few people that really Consider contemplate their mortality Until they come right up against it.

If you think about it, there's no. There's no practical way to prepare for this by experience. Okay, most things in life you can practice you can drive truck to Portland and by experience get better at it.

But you can't get better at death because it only happens once and like Christopher Bernier. He was a prisoner and at Buchenwald Said The best way to become a believer short of dying If you sit very quietly and Contemplate those things the best way to become a believer short of dying is to sit very quietly.

And to contemplate those things and he said that death is a word Which presents no real target to the mind's eye. Death is a word that presents no real time. You've never experienced it. And the best way to become a believer short of dying is to sit very quietly and contemplate it another reason.

2nd Corinthians 5 verse 11 says knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men. Also in Jude 1 verse 23 it says another state with fear Pulling them out of the fire hitting even the garment spotted by the flesh.

And I'm telling you I've been studying this for a little while and it does something to your head. It really does. I have a I've spent a lot of time thinking that in fact, I was up till 330 last night.

I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about it does strange things to you and One of the things that really helps you view if you don't need if you're saved this morning. This message should really help you view view people the lost in a way you never had before last night, we I'm leaving Lord willing tomorrow morning to go for a week of meetings and You think about that, please pray for me a bit last night.

We went into town my wife and I and we left the children at Trevor and Gina's place. Thank you for that Very kind of you and we went up we had we did a little shopping and ate in a restaurant there and That's all I could think about.

I see all these people. He's close to all the students. I had such a Knot in my stomach as I watched all these people until I should do something to you it should and Quite frankly some of you some of you may never come To the truth of the gospel unless you hear sermons like this.

It's like the Bible says some say with fear. Philippians 2 verse 12 says work out your own salvation with fear and with trembling and I just like to say that for the children. For those of you this is not a message to the children.

This is not about a child evangelism. You are safe with your parents until God specifically calls you to his kingdom so I want that to be clear this is not a message to the children and I Struggle with that some because I feel that's a little bit the reason I got saved and it was it wasn't a very good foundation.

But for some of you this is a message for you. Okay. So where is hell? I just want to start there I think in intuitively we just believe that hell is down there. Heaven is up there. Hell is down there.

Hell as a Real Place

I personally believe that The Bible has many different references. We could turn to them. I'll just Psalm 63 Ezra 26 Ezra 31 Ephesians 4 they all talk about hell is being the lower parts of the earth.

The nether parts of the earth going down to the pit and that is person where I believe it is. Hell is a real place. Hell is a real Geographic location. Okay when I was in Bible school, I taught the class Bible geography and that was one of the one of the places we studied when we got to the end of the.

We've started in Genesis and went through and I ended up in Revelations and that was one of the Bible geographic locations. It is as real as London. It is as real as New York City. There's real people there.

There's real things happening there. It's as real as tangent Oregon tangent Mennonite Church. It is really going on it is really happening. People really are aware of what's going on. In fact some of the people that have that have been there and back Will talk about that that they just never realized if they are down there.

They say this is a whole world that people up on the surface have no idea that it's really going on. There's that sense of desperation if they realize that that's one thing I want to tell you that is a real location.

I just wanted to do a little bit of Geography here. This is supposed to be earth. This is the First of all, I'd just like to ask you Leonard's or anybody how hot is the Sun somebody know this is a quiz because I know the answer to it.

I looked it up. Okay, the surface of the surface anyway, the figure is around 11 to 12 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Nobody know how far away we are from the Sun. Okay, Leonard 93 million miles somewhere in there.

Okay, I think that's right. I wonder if anybody wants to try to guess and this I don't have the answer to if you would just take the earth and Start shortening that distance at what point would we just go up in flames?

I mean when we got within a million miles Thousand miles a hundred miles just poof, you know, like a much marshmallow on a stick. I Don't know the answer, but I found this very interesting. This is the earth.

This is of course the surface of the earth this right here this first outer ring here is what they call the crust many of you know this and That it ranges from 5 to 20 miles thick. Okay in the ocean it can be as narrow as a few miles 5 miles a couple miles thick under that is the mantle and It is made up of a Dense but semi-solid rock depending on the heat.

Okay, and so this is approximately 1 ,800 miles Through to the mantle and then you have the inner core. Which is basically made up of liquid Rock. It's a it's just it's liquid fire it's just molten rock in there.

It's just completely liquid. This is approximately 2 ,100 miles across. I've often heard of Preachers as they described heaven that four square by so many by so many I said, well, you know. Well this fits so many people in it.

They say that hell maybe you wanted that. Now is this big enough for hell? They say that an area 100 miles through Would be plenty big enough to hold the 40 billion or so people That have so far walked the face of the earth, so this is 2 ,100 miles through.

Now The temperature in this core is I don't know how they figure this stuff out, but it is anywhere from 9 ,000 to 12 ,000 Degrees Fahrenheit. That's the same temperature as the Sun folks. We are literally On a flaming rock.

It is moving through space at about 66 ,000 miles per hour literally between heaven and hell. Literally, you are between heaven and hell and I'd like to just read a few verses to show that and these verses really stood out to me.

It says that uh. In Deuteronomy 32 verse 22 for a fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn into the lowest parts of the health. We've seen that the middle part of the hell there and shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire.

The foundations of the mountains and so you see this burning through effect. They talk about this in houses a lot of times when a house starts on fire and it finally it burns through. That's when it really blows up.

Also, it shall. Okay, now listen to this. I read this in Isaiah 34 and the stream throughout shall be burned into pitch. So that's the water. I was going to talk a little bit about how rock burns. Okay, most steel will burn at about 2 ,000 degrees a Rock depending on the rock will burn somewhere around that same temperature.

I found it interesting that the components that make a rock burn are these. What would you say would it take more or less pressure to make a rock flammable? Well, they say that it's a the less pressure the more flammable a rock.

Would you say it takes more or less humidity in a rock the humidity in a rock? They say the more humidity the easier it turns to lava. Okay, so we're up here on the surface of the earth. Lots of loose rocks kicking around plenty of water.

You know water evaporates at 212 degrees. Never mind that the chemistry makeup of water is extremely flammable. Now listen to this the Bible says in the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch. You know how pitch burns extremely hot and the dust thereof.

I often wonder about all this dirt. The dust thereof shall be turned into brimstone and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. And it's not quenched night nor day and the smoke thereof shall go up forever and ever for a generation to generation.

It shall I waste none shall pass through it forever and ever. And then of course Peter says but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass Away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein Shall be burnt up now.

I'm not going to get too hung up on this point. If you disagree with me and you think hell somewhere else, but I personally feel That this is literally the way it's going to be it's going to at the day of the Lord.

However, that all works out. It's just there's going to be a blow-through effect and this place is going to go up in flames at just the voice of the Lord and. So I'd like to look at a few things of hell itself and as I thought about these different things I thought you know if there was just one of these things about hell that you had to endure.

It would be bad enough. But when and so I'm going to go through these just one thing at a time but when you consider these things all put together it almost overwhelms your mind and. And there's no way that I can describe this in any kind of accurate Way.

The Bible gives us some things you have a testimony of the near-death experiences and just what the Bible says about it. Okay, so hell the first thing I'd like to look at is the The Terror of hell one of the things I've noticed a lot of times and people talking to people on earth here.

The Terror and Torment of Hell

Is that people will recover this over and over again that people in their situation? They say I am so tired of the drama in my life. Maybe it's maybe it's a divorce situation. It's just something something's always on just the drama that's going on.

That just simply means they're tired of the new Developments that are always overwhelming them and just always seem like there's another problem going on and. So if you would think about this the terror of hell now as you enter hell and you become the object of of the Demon's hatred and there's there's been I mean when you read revelations.

Do you see all these weird beast that's one of the reasons I chose idea 34 is there were some. These symbolisms of creatures in there these wild beasts. But these huge beasts, I mean 11 12 13 feet tall huge claws.

They talked about demons with you know. If you just imagine just let you imagine the Bible talks about the locusts coming up out of the pit to sting men. What would you think of a 10-foot long? Locust or a three foot tall spider or snakes gigantic snakes these demons I don't know they come in all kinds of shapes and hell is full of these and they have pure Hatred for man.

Now if you think about why they have hatred for man, it's because they have no access to God. They really hate God, but man. You are created in the image of God and they take out all that venom all that hatred they they will they will literally tear you apart and Bible also talks about the unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon in revelations.

And I didn't get this written down. I wanted to write this down so just go by memory here. There was a woman back earlier in the century over in England and they observed her they could there was nothing they could do about it.

But they watch and she must have been obviously demon-possessed and tormented by the demons. But they would actually watch her as she just writhe in pain from these Fang marks on her body and they could see the marks.

They could see the saliva around the marks and there was nothing they could do about it and She was being bit and she was being tormented by demons. And if I remember the story right she was eventually delivered from this a man came and prayed with her a man of God.

And I don't remember how it all turned out, but they actually observed that happening. There's reports of giant spiders rats snakes and All manner of beings that are hard to describe with nothing but pure hatred for humanity.

If you would just think about the fear that the sheer terror that would grip you I don't know about that. You know what it was in your life. It was the most scary thing, but just that sense of complete shock and panic that overwhelms your body when something maybe you've had nightmares like this and Where it were for an instant you just completely freeze up.

You can't run the Bible talks about that in hell. They will have no strength and in some of the Testaments They talk about that just just being in the cell with these huge creatures that were just hugging them and shredding their flesh off their bodies and and when they were free They just the sheer terror the almost the mind numbing terror to try to run.

But just no way to run nowhere to go just know what and just imagine that for eternity the one Tear after another. Now if you were to face a rattlesnake a huge grizzly bear I came out you know people that died and I suppose there is that crushing moment of terror and then You know they lose consciousness, and you're dead.

It's over and the bear finishes eating you. But when this can never happen when you can't even lose your mind you can't even go insane. It's just one fresh tear after another and the pain you think I talked about that the woman Kenneth brother Kenneth Berkey I've worked with him the last couple summers and many of you know he was caught in a field fire burned.

That's one thing. He told me is how that when he was running through the fire he It was unconscious. He was actually just gnashing his teeth from the pain. Field fires look vicious, but they're not that hot some of them are but I mean, I think there's a there's there's hotter fires around and Just the unconscious of the pain he was just gnashing his teeth and Some 73 verse 19 how are they brought into desolate desolation in a moment.

They're utterly consumed with tears and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever and. And That's the way I remember it my dream and many of them say like this huge Cavern you can't discover this huge.

And I don't understand how it can be on top of the outer darkness. And many of them said they can't explain it either how that you can have utter Darkness the blackness and still be able to sense and see certain things.

I don't know some of that is Metaphoric or how that all works, but there's huge cavern in the middle this glow of this pit and some of them described it Being a mile across With flames and that or the Iranian of a volcano from from what they said what I've read.

How that this brimstone is just falling can you imagine being in this? 12 ,000 degrees they say the human body will utterly in some of the human body will be was just completely vaporized in 2 ,000 degrees temperature.

You imagine being at the edge of that with a demon with his hands around your waist getting ready to throw you into that inferno. And some of the visions of just people just the pitiful screaming as they're trying to claw themselves out of this pit.

Intense because of the demon surrounding it and that just the intensity of that. From 11 upon the wicked shall he reign snares fire and brimstones and horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their cup.

One man said that as he got close. He recognized he had been in a very violent life as a young person and he got cut in a fight. And he he had a near-death experience. He says he went towards this cavern.

He recognized some faces and they pled with him Don't come here. Don't go. There's no way to get out. That was one of the things I kept saying. There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way to get out.

You don't come. There's no way out of this place. And that's one of the things he remembers. The Bible talks about being delivered to the tormentors handed over to them Matthew 18. But think about no water.

That's just another thing about hell. No water. Never any water. Just no humidity. No water at all. I Was in I was in Peru and there's some pretty dry place down there, but even in most the deserts on earth.

There's some kind of life that lives in those deserts and that just the barrenness the landscape I mean even your body with no fluids in it. You could be ripped open by the demons and no no bodily fluids.

Blood is life. There is no life. There's just a complete dryness of the place. And it is very difficult to even conceive that part of hell of no water. Just absolutely no water the barrenness. Being dead and never dying is another one.

It was hard for me to grasp as I studied this how that the flesh actually rots on you. And yet you're trapped in this body that never actually dies. Can you imagine that and just the grotesqueness that smell the Bible talks about here the stench and many people talk about that just every dead carry on the Filthiest sewer brimstone sulfur.

They talk about not being able to get a breath of air just never being able to breathe. Just never and yet you can't die from suffocation and Just rotting. They've talked about maggots just billions of maggots.

And they can imagine the boxes with a worm diet not being covered and eating constantly with maggots because you are a rotting body that is dying and Just the absolute stench of the place the toxic atmosphere of what's happening there.

You think about being naked and Interesting enough some of the most expensive and Specialized clothing is to protect against fire. Now in the garden they were all they were created naked and quite quickly.

They went soon as in came in they discovered the shame of that and say it's so interesting to me that Satan has somehow Accustomized people to that nakedness now. But can you imagine them they did that in the concentration camps?

They would strip people completely naked just to add to their shame to their vulnerability to strip them of their dignity before they actually killed them. You imagine being in this and I don't know we don't even understand what all this would be.

It's just The vulnerability that comes with it's about the righteous being clothed in robes of white and just being there completely naked. Vulnerable, I mean no leather coat to guard against claws or fire or anything just a complete Vulnerability that goes with that.

Darkness, Screams, and the Loss of God’s Presence

Like to think about the blackness the darkness. Just the intensity of blackness. I was out The other night I was doing some fieldwork rather late. It was about just a few minutes before midnight and I'd left my field was clear up by the turkey farm.

I'd left my tractor in one and walked down the road to get the other one get the other Truck as I walked down the road. It's right at the foot of the mountains down there. It was extremely dark night the beautiful night, but the moon hasn't come up yet and it's been a new moon.

Anyway, lots of stars, but it's extremely dark. Now it's walking up isn't and like I said, it does strange things to your mind this whole subject. I've odd then it's been on my mind a lot and I've been changing irrigation in the dark.

And I don't normally these kind of things don't bother me and they really don't. But as I walked down this road an Elk a bull elk up in the hills right off to my left bugle. And if you know anything about how else bugle they start out with an extremely loud scream.

There's something about the night. There's something about screams. There's something about screams in the pitch blackness, I mean it almost it makes your hair stand on end a little bit. But can you imagine these?

Screams these screams of desperation these screams of Hopelessness these screams of pain the screams of terror the screams all kind of all the screams that you could think of. Just continually piercing your mind piercing your soul the intensity of it as you hear these women just going off just Screaming and you spend all day lusting after them these beautiful women you see all these them and you lust after them.

And you go home at night and your wife can't keep the baby sleep. Well From screaming while you're trying to sleep. So you get irritated at her and you say why can't you keep that baby asleep? What's wrong with this baby?

Why does have colic? Isn't there anything we can give it? Because for eight hours this baby's screaming and it gets on your nerves. And can you imagine the intensity of forever this ear piercing screaming?

And the angel poured out his bile upon the seat of the beast and his kingdom was full of darkness and they gnawed their Tongues for pain and angels which kept not their first estate that left their own habitation.

He hath reserved an everlasting change in the darkness into the judgment of the great day. Jude 113 raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame wandering starved to humans reserved that blackness of darkness forever.

The need to be seen there's one thing about darkness. They say one of the trigger points In that when you get lost one of the trigger points of panic is that nobody is able to see you and the way they come Up with this that they've done studies on moms and little babies.

They've watched these babies interact with them on very newborn. They'll just sit there for hours and just gaze at each other and that's kind of this Emotional tie that's going on but what gets happened what gets ingrained in a human being through that?

Experience is the need to be seen by somebody else and So when you're lost in the woods all by yourself. They say and I have no way to prove this that that what you're actually reacting to in that panic panic is the fear that you will never be seen by anyone else again and That's the term.

He was never seen of he was never seen again. No one ever seen him again. That's what they say one of that. So when your little girl run to the house long, you know, where's mommy go? The they say that fear is that she will never be seen by mommy again.

Can you imagine being cut off from all might to God from the face of God? One of the things that touched my heart in this whole thing and I don't know if I convey this to you. When you think about everything that is good on earth everything that you have ever to enjoy the light the Sun rise I don't care how bad your day is.

There's something good in it. But not only you cut off from God your daddy. Never he says depart from me. I shall never see you no more. You workers of iniquity. I will never your daddy the one that created you is cutting you off that rejection from your own father that you will never be seen again by him and That not only that he sends you with a curse I don't know.

It's a terrible thing to send your children to bed with issues in their life. You should tell them that you love them give them a kiss. If you had a shouting match with them if you give them a licking.

Maybe you even remember as a child going to bed like that and there's unresolved issues the amount of fraternity. The unresolved issues in your life your daddy said I cursed you as you walk away in this darkness.

There's nothing ever pretty no pretty River bank to walk by no flowers. No green grass. No blue mountains. No burnt fields. Nothing pretty to ever see again. It's just complete desolation. I talked about the screams a little bit.

I'd like to just talk about just a little bit more because I think that is one of the most repulsive ones to me. I had the opportunity quite a few years back to Watch a replay of the video of Nick Berg.

He was a contractor in Iraq being beheaded by the al-qaeda over there and Quite frankly, it's something that completely repulsed me. I Did not think it would affect me that way. I did not believe myself to be that kind of a person.