The Horrifying Doctrine of Hell (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is good to be alive.

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Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. I had the lung test this week, and the lungs are even more improved than they were before, not back to what they used to be.

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But let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So thanks for praying for me. I appreciate that. Back from California, great trip seeing my son -in -law and daughter, and she is with child.

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She will have a baby boy probably in October. That's exciting. I got to see my son in San Diego.

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My daughters in Southern California, the other two, and it's exciting.

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My one daughter is going to Israel for the semester this year, and I got to see a lot of family, in -laws, et cetera.

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Preached for my friend Drew Cunningham at Santa Cruz Baptist, preached for my friend

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Pastor Bo in Carpinteria, Pastor Steve in Sacramento, and now

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I'm back here, and we will be back in Ecclesiastes soon enough. Just a couple housecleaning notes.

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I'm going to change the intro of No Compromise here soon, so we probably won't have the English beat anymore. The old intro, the current intro, sounds kind of like I'm a discernment ministry person, but things have changed, have they not?

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I also want to let you know, by the time you hear this, you could probably order the new book, Gospel Assurance, a 31 -day guide to assurance.

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I pulled up about 20 old articles from Puritans on the doctrine of assurance.

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I wrote about a 6 ,000 -word intro, and it's packaged. You can get it on Amazon, Mike Ebendroth, Gospel Assurance, a 31 -day guide.

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And then I think we have about eight slots left for Israel, and at the end of August, if my 27 slots are not filled, 25 slots, whatever they happen to be,

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I can't remember off the top of my mind, I'm going to give those slots to Pat Ebendroth.

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And as a matter of fact, he's going to be here to preach here soon, so that's enough for the housecleaning. I'm glad to have

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Scott Meadows in the studio and Pastor Steve this week, and I think that's all.

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I did get to see Grant and his family at the Law Gospel Conference—oh, I know what

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I wanted to say. Good to see you, Grant. Drove down to see me at the conference.

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The American television, American broadcasting system, AGTV, American Gospel Television, they'll have

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American Gospel 3 out, the movie, probably this fall, this winter, and I filmed a bunch for it, let's see if I make the cut, but I did film a five -part series on sanctification entitled,

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Sanctify, and what is the doctrine of sanctification, what's our response to God's sanctification, i .e.

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holiness, clarifying questions, motivations to obey, and errors. Those five I filmed here,

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Ben filmed them for me, and off to Brandon Kimber they went, and if you want to get a—I think you can get a week for free at American Gospel Television to bypass the paywall, there's a five -part series now on Law Gospel and on sanctification.

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And lastly, I wrote an article from Lordship to Law Gospel, three -part series that will be in one of my other new books, but that's on theheidelblog .net,

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I think it's .net, is it not? Scott Clark's Heidel blog, I think I've told you I've ridden in the

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Heidel Jeep, I've petted the Heidel dog, he's not sent me any

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Heidel swag yet, he told me he was. R. Scott Clark, paging R. Scott Clark, where's the Heidel swag?

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I think that's all I have. Oh, I've been called an antinomian too.

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If you teach modern justice and sanctification, I guess they call you a lot of names. If you talk about Law Gospel, they'll call you a lot of names.

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Antinomian is against the law, and I'm not against the law, Romans 7, it's holy and just and good, 1

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Timothy 1. The law for the Christian, though, is simply a guide. It doesn't condemn, it doesn't accuse.

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It's a guide. It norms, it directs, that's all. We don't have the first use of the law,

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God as judge, do this and live, be perfect as I'm perfect, any longer because of the work of the

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Son, the Lord Jesus, our mediator, advocate, friend, Savior, Redeemer, substitute, and risen

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Savior. We now relate to God as Father, and through the hands of the

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Son, we receive God's law. It's the same law, we have a relationship to the lawgiver, though, that's different than the unbeliever has, and therefore we tell people to walk in a manner worthy, not to lie, not to cheat, not to steal, and pray, and read your

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Bible, and evangelize. Are any of those things lawless? I think not, but it was

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Rome that took away assurance, and we're not going to take away assurance when we preach to Christians from the pulpit. We are going to tell them, you are secure in Christ Jesus, united with Christ, in Him, in Christ Jesus.

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And even last Sunday, I preached that if you are a fornicator, an adulterer, or homosexual, you practice those things as a lifestyle, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Don't be deceived. Does that sound like lawless? No, you are washed, sanctified, and justified, and because of that, flee immorality.

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Because of that, glorify God with your body. It's all why we do things. Become who you are, not try harder to be something that you're not.

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That's a lot of evangelicalism. Try harder to do something when you're not really able to do it, you're not equipped to do it, or you're not at least told about the one who enables you to do it.

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Be somebody who you're not. That's the call of many in evangelicalism. That's the call that they hear their pastors tell them.

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Verses, here's who you are in Christ, now become more of who you are by the power of the indwelling

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Holy Spirit. Well, anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio.

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I want to talk today about a sober subject, not one that everybody loves to hear about, but it's important.

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If you look like I did online, approximately 55 million people die a year.

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And that's like seven years ago, and so let's say 60 million people a year die now. If it's 55 million that die every year in 2015, every day that is 150 ,000 people that die every day.

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That's a lot of funerals, that's a lot of caskets, that's a lot of cremations, or whatever way you want to dispose of a body.

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Every hour, 6 ,278. Every minute, 105.

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Every second, 1 .74. Or about a person every two seconds dies and goes to eternity.

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And I know one day I'll die, last breath. And so will you, and so will everyone that you know, unless the

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Lord Jesus comes back first. Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be so wonderful.

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If you were to ask Jesus about people dying, what would he say? There were some present at that very time who told him about the

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Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and he answered them, do you think that these

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Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

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Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?

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No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

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You see the twin towers fall down, and there's all kinds of emotions that go through your mind and heart and soul and will, and rightfully so, but one of the things that we should remember when we see a tragedy, you say, oh,

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Ann Hesch, whatever her name was, she died. Yes, that's tragic,

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I'm sorry to hear about that. But unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish.

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There's going to be a death day for us, then what are we going to do? It's appointed for man once to die, and then what?

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Judgment. That's an appointment we're going to keep. I remember it was

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Christian through the plume of John Bunyan.

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It's appointed for man once to die, and then judgment. I don't want to do the first, and I can't do the second.

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I don't want to die, and I can't withstand the judgment of God without perfect righteousness.

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When I say this to you, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. What is

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He saving them from? What does God deliver people from? What does He rescue them from, or from whom?

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We are not universalists. We believe in a heaven and hell. We believe many are called and few are chosen.

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And it is important for all of us to remember that hell is real. And it will motivate you,

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Christian, to be so thankful. I need to be more thankful. And it will help you with evangelism.

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I need to be a better evangelist, because we realize people have eternal souls.

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Every person has an eternal soul. Every person that you know, spouse, parent, child, they have an eternal soul.

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And in evangelicalism, people don't want to talk about hell anymore. It doesn't fill seats up.

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It's sobering. It's scary. It's frightening. But it's true. Nothing could be more true.

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There was a young man, 29 years old, preacher, Robert Murray McShane, and he was about ready to die.

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He said earlier, before he was sick, as I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell.

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Oh, how I wish that I had a tongue like thunder that I might make all hear, or that I had a frame like iron that I might visit everyone and say, escape for their life.

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That's true. I'm going to stand up and preach this sermon on Sunday, and I'll look out and I'll see people and I'll think to myself, every person here, every person that's listening to this radio show has an appointment that they will keep.

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2 Corinthians 5, 20 and 21, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

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We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Be reconciled to God. I know why hell is underpreached. Who wants to preach on hell?

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I mean, I get it. I sense it. I feel it. Spurgeon said into hell, we dare not look.

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Perhaps it would not be possible for any man to get a fair idea of the torments of the loss without at once becoming mad.

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But my question today is if we

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Christians, we Christian pastors and teachers don't tell people about hell, who will?

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Who will? The media, celebrities, I mean, evangelical churches where they portray

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God as only love and too merciful to punish somebody forever, kind of a

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God do you worship, this monster God. No, no. We have a kinder theology.

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We have moved past hell. We have gone on and evolved from such a doctrine as eternal punishment.

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Again, what does the Bible say? That's what we have to go back to. We can trick ourselves.

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We can fool ourselves. We can be deceived regularly, even in 1 Corinthians 6 that I talked about earlier.

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Don't be deceived. These people don't inherit the kingdom of God. I thought what

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I'd do in this short little series on NoCo is to look at the gospel of Matthew and see what we can learn about the doctrine of hell in Matthew.

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We can look at all the New Testament and even back into Daniel chapter 12 and other places. But I thought just to look through Matthew, what does

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Matthew say about hell, specifically Jesus in the book of Matthew?

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People might say hell today, but I don't think most of the time they even mean it as the eternal place of judgment where people have to pay for their sins and rebellion and trespasses and transgressions and iniquities against God and against image bearers.

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You might say something like all hell broke loose or it was hell and back in World War II.

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They say the word, but they don't mean what we mean. People can't even say the word dead really half the time because we just have to lighten it up.

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It's got a finality to it. Passed on and no longer with us and pushing up the daisies and bitten the dust and given up the ghost and cashed in the chips.

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That's how we talk. How much more do people avoid the word hell? They're kind of put together too because the fear of death is really fear of meeting

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God. Why do you think the COVID issue spiraled out of control?

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Well, there's many factors, many intersection points, but one is people are afraid to die.

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People are afraid to die. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. But we know that fear of COVID is not the beginning of wisdom.

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Did you know Newsweek many years ago called hell the H word and it doesn't have anything to do with serious scholarship.

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The writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called hell an odious conception, blasphemous.

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One man said hell is the carrot and the stick and the chain letter that is the Christian religion.

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Christopher Hitchens in his book, God is not great. Nothing proves the man -made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell unless it is the sorely limited mind that has failed to describe heaven.

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Mencken, the writer said, what is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer, he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.

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It's a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake oil for rheumatism.

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Think of one writer, he said, these days, hell disappeared and no one noticed. Nobody cared.

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It's not that big a deal. I mean, who wants to hear about this uncomfortable truth anyway?

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J. T. Robertson said in 1963 in his book, Honest to God, that hell is the final mockery of God's nature.

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Thomas Talbot said, a God who can send humans to hell is altogether pagan conception of God.

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F. W. Farah, who was a canon of Westminster Abbey and chaplain to Queen Victoria said, but here declare and call witness to God that if the popular doctrine of hell were true,

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I should be ready to resign all hope, not only of a shortened, but of any immortality if thereby

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I could save not millions, but one single soul from what fear and superstition and ignorance and invariate hate and slavish letter worship have dreamed and taught of hell.

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Anglican Tom Harper said that hell is so naive, that concept of hell is so naive that the average thinking person can easily conclude the whole subject is one for children and lovers of pure fantasy.

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I guess I could summarize all those theologians with the lyric, no hell below us, above us only sky.

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So what do we do? How do we navigate? Do we listen to Rob Bell?

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Do we listen to Clark Pinnock? Do we listen to people that teach annihilationism like John Stott?

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Do you believe in hell? Do you think it's real? I know it's a temptation for all of us to somehow lower the standards of God to get our loved ones, our deceased loved ones in, but hell is real.

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And when I talk about hell today, I'll be using it as the place of God's final punishment.

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Ultimately, the lake of fire, the Greek word for hell is

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Gehenna, 12 times it's used in the New Testament, 11 of the times in the

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Synoptic Gospels spoken always by Jesus, one reference in James 3, 6.

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Punishment and eternal fire is what we're talking about. A real place.

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Westminster Larger Catechism, quote, the punishments of sin and the world to come are everlasting separation for the comfortable presence of God and most grievous torments in soul and body without intermission in hell fire forever.

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Do you talk about sobering? You talk about, oh, no laughter on today's show. Yeah, I know.

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But it's true. Chapter 31 of the London Baptist Confession, 1689, the souls of the wicked are cast into hell where they remain in torment and utter darkness reserved to the judgment of the great day.

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R .A. Torrey said something that I found interesting. If you in any way abate the doctrine of hell, it will abate your zeal.

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And I think that's really what I'm after in this show and the next, maybe the next. When you think of hell, if you're an unbeliever,

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I hope you want to run from hell straight into the arms of the Savior by faith alone. If you are a

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Christian, I want you to be thankful. I want you to have a little reset. What did I deserve? What did

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I earn? What did I merit? What do I get because of the Lord Jesus and what he merited for me, earned for me, and what's credited to my account, and I don't have to pay for sins any longer.

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There's no condemnation, no hell for the Christian. And then it's going to motivate you to evangelize. Yes, I know it's sober and it's a sad thing to talk about.

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But it's true. I guess I could pose the question like this.

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Are you ashamed of the doctrine of hell? Do you shrink from the topic of everlasting punishment?

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Well, we submit to the Scriptures in all areas. This one just happens to be harder.

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But it is very, very true. We're going to look at five passages in Matthew, seen through the words of Jesus, that informs us about the reality of hell, so that we might respond with praise and evangelism if we're

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Christians, and we respond with belief, or you respond with belief if you're not a

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Christian. Designed for you to learn, to grow, to be reminded of. These are what

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Jesus said. This is not a myth. It's not a fable. It's not a tradition. It's not an addition by man's words.

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It might be difficult. It sure is. It might be hard. It sure is. But it's in the

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Bible. The rule for our conduct, the final authority for our faith is found in the

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Bible, right? I'm going to prefer, I'm going to rather defer all my thoughts and feelings about this to the

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Word. That's what we do on No Compromise Radio. That's why you're in the churches that you're in. J .C.

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Rouse said, let others hold their peace about hell if they will. I dare not do so. I see it plainly in Scripture, and I must speak of it.

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I fear that thousands are on the road, the broad road that leads to it, and I would faint arouse them to a sense of the peril before them.

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What would you say of the man who saw his neighbor's house in danger of being burned down and never raised the cry, fire?

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Call it bad taste if you like to speak of hell. Call it charity to make things pleasant and speak smoothly and soothe men with a constant lullaby of peace.

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From such notions of taste and charity may I ever be delivered. My notion of charity is to warn men plainly of their danger.

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My notion of taste is to declare all the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell,

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I should think I had kept back something that was profitable and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.

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I just say amen to that. I say a hearty amen. I'm not over the Word. I'm not equal to the

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Word. I am under the Word, and I have a job, and that job is to minister the Word, to deliver the

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Word, to preach the Word, and to explain the Word. These scriptures that we'll look at in Matthew, probably next show now, they are inspired by God.

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They're God -breathed, and they are profitable for teaching you, for reproving you, for correcting you, for training you, right?

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That's all true. So that we, pastors and then the followers, may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

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Jesus talked about it a lot, and He didn't make any excuses. I've regularly used that illustration before, and it's probably a true story.

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The group of soldiers on the Navy ship said to the chaplain, do you believe in hell? No. Why? Well, then please resign, for if there's no hell, we don't need you, and if there is, we do not wish to be led astray.

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It is the Bible, not our feelings. It is the Bible, not ultimately the confessions.

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It is the Bible, not what everybody wants to vote and think about. It is the Bible, not what other religions say.

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What does the Bible say? And the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus taught that the hell was real.

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Paul taught that. John taught that. In the book of Daniel, it teaches that.

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And the list goes on. We have to bow to the book. We have to bow to special revelation.

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We have to bow to what the Scriptures say. Spurgeon said, it's a very remarkable fact that no one inspired preacher of whom we have any record ever uttered such terrible words concerning the destiny of the lost as our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Spurgeon. Well, when you call Him Savior, what's

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He saving you from? Ultimately, the wrath of God in hell. We have a great Savior. Dear Christian, you can be thankful and you can be evangelistic as we tune in next time to No Compromise Radio and learn from the five passages in Matthew.

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What about hell? No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.