Run from Hell (Part 3)

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The Thief on the Cross (Part 4)

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. This is
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Mike Abendroth, and this is the third show that I'm recording today. I try to do three or four at a sitting, and then that way it's about two hours here away from my full -time job.
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Someone asked me a while ago, some visitor to Bethlehem Bible Church, what's your full -time job that you always talk about on the radio?
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If no -co is not your full -time job, what is? I said, I'm a pastor. Couple different families that I've noticed lately visiting the church via No Compromise Radio ministry, so I'm thankful for that, and thankful that the
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Lord has seen fit to take the show around the world. So how many times around the world?
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We don't really know. Anyway, what we try to do on the show is it's just kind of straight talk, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
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That's our slogan. I mean, we have another slogan as well, you know, but the one we're talking about today is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
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And I don't want to compromise. I don't want you to compromise. I mean, just think of the church today, and sadly, it's coming through leadership.
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The wives of the elders, the elders themselves, pastors, pastors' wives, who have not enough discernment to know that Sarah Young's Jesus Calling would be bad, or Beth Moore's latest vision would be detrimental.
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I mean, they just don't really have any kind of clue. Voskamp's Thousand Gifts might be a good study for the ladies.
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People have no, as we say in England, discernment. So, I'm trying to help you think through that.
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Now, I know this show isn't for everybody. I think the intro, doesn't it say, if you like smooth water downwards?
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I don't really know how to do that. That's not my style. And so, there are other men who are gifted in different ways of approach.
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And so, mine's kind of the New England way. I think the Lord has perfectly placed me here in New England, because we just tackle things head on.
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I was told seven, 18 years ago when I moved here, they won't really get you from behind.
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They'll just clock you, you know, face to face. And I think that's, it's not always true, but I like that style better.
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I have kind of a working premise with people. Is this your working premise?
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Unless you hear from me, otherwise, we're good. We have a good relationship.
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If we don't have conversations, you can just assume we're good. You don't have to read anything into my nuances, or I didn't say hello to you as we passed down the hall toward one, you know, past one another, rather.
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I was thinking about something else or some emergency that came up. It was something else. So we're good until we hear otherwise.
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So it's that kind of show with no compromise radio, 24 and a half minutes of talking.
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There's an intro and outro. We're trying to perfectly plan it. So it's your iPod travel to work and back.
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So you've got 1500 shows to catch up on. And here's the amazing thing, that if you teach the word of God, this always in, always relevant, always contemporary word of God, because God himself is relevant.
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I mean, is there a more relevant word in all the world? God. And if you'll just teach the
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Bible, it can be a rerun from five years ago. Now there may be some topic, patriots win again.
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That's a current event that will come forth in the theme over the years. Did they win again?
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I think they did, didn't they? And so those things might, you know, be dated, but the word of God, if you teach it, it's not going to be.
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So that's the really neat thing. Around the world, it can go and it can go into different cultures.
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So it can go into Australia and you know how weird the people are in Australia. I mean, does anything need to be said about that?
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It can go to places where they have squirrel boils, you know, see the word of God can just go right there.
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And off we go. I don't want to be too sarcastic on the show, but we try to have a,
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I think it's more a dry sense of humor. What must that be? A dry sense of humor. Well, in all seriousness, the humor stops now.
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That's just an introduction to bring us to our third installment on this conversation that is very weighty, very heavy.
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In one sense, I wish it wasn't true, although I have to bow to scripture. I hope you're with me in saying that whatever the scripture teaches, whether we like it or not, whether it feels nice or not, we will submit to it and take
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God at his word. Isn't that what belief is? We take God at his word and if his word teaches something, well, we have to believe it, whether it's predestination or in this particular case, part three, the doctrine of hell, eternal fire, the lake of fire eventually.
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So, so far in this series, we've looked at Jesus, the theologian of hell, taught that hell was true.
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He taught more about hell than anyone else. When you use the word Gehenna, if memory serves me, out of approximately the 12 times it's used, maybe 13, it's used by Jesus in every one of those cases, except for one when in James 3, it talks about the fire and its hellish nature.
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Jesus taught that it was true. Hell is scary because God's in hell and God himself is fearful.
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He's omnipresent. You don't get God's goodness and kindness and mercy and grace in hell because you don't have a mediator and all
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God's goodness and kindness and grace goes through the mediator and comes from when you're in him.
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And so if you have a mediator in heaven, of course, you have all these wonderful things from God and you will have, if you're a believer, a mediator in heaven.
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But God is omnipresent. And so while you're away from his presence, his approval, and the good things and wonderful communion that he would give, you are in the presence of the
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Lamb, Revelation 14 says, with justice and holiness to the nth degree.
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And we're now looking at hell is awful because people deserve their punishment. Now we started looking at that last time, and I basically said, picking up from an
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R .C. Sproul article, that God is fair, so hell's fair. And since hell is
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God's hell, it's going to be fair there. And cruelty means you get something more than what you've done.
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The punishment exceeds the crime, but that's never going to happen. God is just, and he's punishing sinners, this abomination in God's sight.
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He's too pure to even look on evil or to approve evil, to use the language of Habakkuk.
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No cruel and unusual punishment in hell. Hell is a place where people get what they deserve.
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And God's holy justice meets out what they deserve. And we looked at Revelation 20, where people got judged according to what they had done,
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Revelation 20, 12. And then it goes on to say, again in verse 13, according to what they had done.
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And so if someone's name wasn't written in the book, not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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God is not corrupt. God is not unjust. God is not unrighteous. God is not unfair.
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God is not excessively cruel past what the punishment deserves.
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When you think about the fall of man and the depravity of man and the sinfulness of man, and I say man,
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I mean humankind, Genesis 6 describes it. The wickedness of man was great on earth and that every intent of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually.
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Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And people who are dead in trespasses and sins offend
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God, they're rebels. They break his law. And hell is a place where vindication takes place.
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Sin is treason against God, it's a crime. And the punishment in hell fits the crime.
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And when you look at some of the words in the Bible that discuss how bad it is, here's the punishment fits the crime.
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Punishment is talked about in Matthew 25 and Hebrews 10. Torment, Revelation 14.
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Fire is very common, Matthew 3, 5, 13, Isaiah 33, Isaiah 66.
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I think that's the most often used description of hell. It could be called lake of fire, eternal fire, unquenchable fire, called the second death, outer darkness.
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Can you imagine? No morning ever. It's cloudy all day, stormy all day, and then the sun comes out.
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And in hell, never. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. J .C. Ryle said these are awful expressions.
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They call for a reflection rather than exposition. They should be pondered, considered, and remembered by all professing
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Christians. I mean, it confounds you with horror when you think about it,
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Calvin said. If you think about this too long, you're confounded with horror. And lest I forget, there's a lot of talk about this is a metaphorical fire, and metaphorical fires are, you know, even worse than a real fire.
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I do agree with Spurgeon on the opposite side of that.
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Now, do not begin telling me that there is a metaphorical fire. Who cares for that? If a man were to threaten to give me a metaphorical blow on the head,
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I should care very little about it. He would be welcome to give me as many as he pleased. And what say the wicked?
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We do not care about your metaphorical fires, but they are real, sir, yes, real. Real as yourself.
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There's a real fire in hell as truly as you have now a real body. But see the good news for us
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Christians. We will have a consciousness, but it won't be of torment in hell. We will not have a sense of pain or suffering, it'll be a sense of bliss and wholeness and shalom.
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And instead of having no hope and endless mercy, we will have hope and endless joy.
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In my presence, there is what? Fullness of joy. We will have love and sympathy and kindness and help.
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And for the sinners in hell, they won't. Remember when David said in Psalm 51, I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me.
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Have you ever sinned a sin that you just can't forget about? You know God has forgiven you and it's just before your face all the time.
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You don't want to think about it and then you do and something in life will happen and then it spurs you to think of that.
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Blanchard said, these words will mean far more for sinners in hell. Talking about David's words.
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Every sinful word, thought and deed, all the pride, envy, jealousy, hatred, selfishness, dishonesty and impurity, every neglected opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel, every failure to help those in need, all these will be endlessly replayed, endlessly remembered, and be the cause of endless remorse.
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Justice will be given in hell and people deserve it.
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Now see, the objections start coming fast and furiously, don't they? A loving God would not send people to such a horrible hell.
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But see, God is a unity. He's not a composite, you know, six parts love and a half a part justice.
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God is just. Of course, He's loving, but He's also just. Of course,
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He's gracious, but He's also holy. And so you can't divide up God into parts.
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He can't be divided up. He is light and He is love, not partly light and partly love.
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People say, well, hell is too bad for man's sin. The response is
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God's holy and perfect. It's a sin against an infinitely holy God. We'll talk more about that later.
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One man said, how free was all this love and how free is this enjoyed glory. So then let deserved be written on the floor of hell, but on the door of heaven and life, the free gift.
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So when you remember hell, you ought to say, thank you, Lord, for paying for my sins.
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I don't have to go to hell. No matter how bad your day is, our life is, it's not your best life.
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Now, of course, if you're an unbeliever, it's true.
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This is your best life now because hell's a heartbeat away. And if you're a
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Christian and you think about hell, it should make you want to evangelize. Tell other people. You don't want other people to go to this place, do you?
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Well, let's keep working through this issue. Hell's frightening number four, because it's eternal. One, Jesus taught it was true.
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Two, God is there as judge, jury, and executioner. Well, mostly executioner there.
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Hell is a place where people deserve their punishment. And four, hell's frightening because it's eternal.
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It's eternal. John Gershner said the tendency of modern times has been to take punishment out of eternity or eternity out of punishment.
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That's wise. So whether it's conditional mortality, purgatory,
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I mean, come on, unquenchable fire, eternal punishment, eternal destruction, unquenchable fire, worm does not die day and night forever and ever.
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This is the language of Revelation 20, Mark 9, 2 Thessalonians 1, Matthew 25.
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Preacher Greenwood said, think of a million to the tenth power number of years, and then think to yourself, that's a second of time in hell.
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I mean, what's the strongest words in the Greek language that could express endlessness?
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And it's going to be eternal. So if you have a Bible, Matthew 25, 46, and these go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
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Now, people try to say that the word eternal doesn't mean everlasting. It doesn't mean forever. It doesn't mean endless duration.
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It doesn't mean forever and ever. But here, if eternal life is forever, and even liberal -ish kind of people believe that, then eternal punishment, it uses the exact same word.
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How can God be eternal? And how can heaven be eternal? If the same word is used of hell, but it doesn't really mean eternal there.
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It's the same adjective. The length and character of eternal life and the length and character of eternal punishment are the same.
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It's parallel. And this is what makes it so awful. If you break your leg, you think,
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I've got to go through a few bits of pain, and now it's going to be better. My daughter recently, a child four, just got her braces.
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Talk about a lot of money. Here's another six grand. Her mouth really hurt that first night.
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And the second day, the day after, it was her birthday that day. And we have a big celebration, thanks to my wife's creativity.
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Of course, like most everybody else, I guess, unless you're a Jehovah's Witness, don't celebrate birthdays.
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And so we just do it up. Just a great celebration. The gift of God, remembering, in this particular case, 14 years ago.
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And so she couldn't have the food she wanted to on her birthday, because you get a pick, of course, if it's your birthday.
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Finally, free will is used. But she's going to get better.
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And there's that hope. It's going to be better. And then think of the vacuum of hope in hell.
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Puritan Thomas Brooks said, Oh, but this word eternity, eternity, eternity, this word everlasting, everlasting, everlasting, this word forever, forever, forever, will even break the hearts of the damned in 10 ,000 pieces.
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Impenitent sinners in hell shall have end without end, death without death, night without day, morning without mirth, sorrow without solace, and bondage without liberty.
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The damned shall live as long in hell as God himself shall live in heaven. With Matthew 25, you can't think that eternal life is going to be infinite and eternal punishment is going to be finite.
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Carson said, if Jesus had wanted to distance himself from that view of eternal punishment and make his espousal of annihilation abundantly clear, he certainly forfeited numerous opportunities to do so.
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Revelation 14 and 20, the torment is unending. Lutheran commentator
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R .C .H. Alinsky said, the Greek takes its greatest term for time, this is in Matthew 25, eon, pluralizes it and then multiplies it by its own plural, even using articles which make these eons the definite ones.
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And so from salvation that's eternal to life eternal, redemption eternal, inheritance of the saints eternal, heaven eternal, and it never ever ends.
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And so too hell is eternal. No help, no hope.
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Thomas Watson, after millions of years, there is not one minute in eternity wasted. The damned must be ever burning but never consuming, always dying but never dead.
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The fire of hell is such as multitudes of tears will not quench it, length of time will not finish it.
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The vial of God's wrath will always be dropping upon a sinner. As long as God is eternal, he lives to be avenged upon the wicked.
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Oh, eternity, eternity, who can fathom it? It's one thing to think that the agony will eventually stop.
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Never. Edwards, nor will they ever be able to find anything to relieve them in hell.
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They will never find any resting place there, any secret corner which will be cooler than the rest where they may have a little respite, a small abatement of the extremity of their torment.
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They never will be able to find any cooling stream or fountain in any part of the world of torment, no.
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Nor so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues. They will find no company to give them any comfort or do them the least good.
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They will find no place where they can remain and rest and take breath for one minute, for they will be tormented with fire and brimstone and they will have no rest day or night forever and ever.
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Always dying but never dead. And if you think it's bad, think about the text where it talks about, from Jesus' words, cast into hell where their worm does not die and the fire isn't quenched.
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Mark 9, 47 and 48. So you've got the fire, this external torment, and then you've got the internal torment of the worm.
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Now we could talk about the shining, bright, glorified, wonderful bodies that believers get.
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But here it's the worm that doesn't die. Reminds me of the story of James' killer,
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Herod. Remember in Acts chapter 12? And on that appointed day, put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum, delivered the address to them, and the people kept crying out the voice of a
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God and not a man. And immediately an angel of the Lord struck Herod because he did not give
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God the glory and was eaten by worms and died.
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That's the same worm that Jesus talks about. Josephus, the historian, said that the light was shining just perfectly when he came out.
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And so it looked like it was an illuminating manner. Let me read it to you. And you can imagine, the voice of a man and not a
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God? No, the voice of a God and not a man. Josephus said he didn't rebuke them either when they said it.
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And so what did God do swiftly? He strikes him for not giving him glory and he's eaten by worms and died.
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The root word of that eating of worms is skolex. And Dr. Jean -Sloot
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Morton said that's the head structure of a tapeworm. And so with the tapeworm, there's a formation of cysts, according to the doctor, generally on the right lobe of the liver.
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These may extend down into the abdominal cavity. The rupture of such a cyst may release as many as 2 million skoleces.
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A literal translation of Mark 9 .44 says, where there's skolex, dieth not.
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And the really weird thing, the really gross thing, the doctor says each section of the worm is a self -contained unit, which has both male and female parts.
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It never dies. The worm dies not. According to Josephus, Herod lived for five more days in terrible pain.
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No hope in hell, no hope of dying, no hope of being annihilated forever and forever, Spurgeon said.
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On every chain in hell, there is written forever. The fires there blaze out the words forever.
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Above their heads, they read forever. Their eyes are galled and their hearts are pained with a thought that is forever.
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Oh, and if I could tell you tonight that hell would one day be burned out and that those who are lost might be saved, there would be a jubilee in hell at the very thought of it.
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But it cannot be. It is forever. They are cast into outer darkness.
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Well, we're going to ask the question next time, how could God punish forever something that was done in time?
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That'll be a good question to ask and to answer. In the meantime, are you thankful that Jesus Christ has paid for your sin?
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If you're a Christian, you don't have to go to hell and you get the opposite, heaven forever, heaven forever, heaven forever.
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On every cloud, the word in heaven is written forever. It's not too late to believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you're afraid if you're an unbeliever and you run from heaven into the presence of Jesus Christ by faith in him alone.
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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 10 .15 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.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.