The Doctrine of Eternal Hell — Mose Stoltzfus

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The Reality and Purpose of Eternal Hell

I'd like to speak this morning on the doctrine of eternal hell. I realize that as the years go on in all of our lives, it is easy sometimes to put it behind us, especially us as Christians. We feel like we are past that.

We wrestle with that through till we came to salvation, but it's very easy for us to neglect that teaching. I'd just like to read this scripture here in Matthew 25, and then we would like to look at this teaching in the Bible, this doctrine, this truth that we should not forget.

Matthew 25, verse 41. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from ye, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Now we may need to ask a few questions here at the beginning.

The question often comes up in witnessing and talking to unbelievers. Why did God make evil? Why did God make evil is the first one. And why would God make a hell? And why would he make it eternal? Why did God allow evil or make it that people, why didn't he just create people good and nice and lovely and friendly and obedient?

Yes, that's exactly right. Why did he give them free choice? That's right. And that brings with it risks, doesn't it? That some may choose not to follow him. Whenever God creates people, and I think the real reason is that, the other real reason is, I really believe it's the most honorable thing what he did, but he didn't want a bunch of robots where people would just do what he commanded them to do without any decision in it, without any volition in it, without any weighing the two choices that are before them and then choosing the right.

I think heaven will express that to us all throughout eternity when we get to spend with the thousands and millions of people who have weighted in the balance and made their choice to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Angelic Rebellion and the Origin of Hell

Now, why did he create hell? He created hell for the devil and his angels. And let's look at angels just a little bit here this morning as we look at this. Why did he create it for the devil and his angels?

That's right. They also had a time. It doesn't seem like it's that way now. But there was a time when he created the angels also as creatures of choice. And they were able to choose, like I say, I don't know that they are able to do that now.

The Bible is silent on where that door closed because the ones that sinned and went with the devil cannot repent and the ones that seem to make their decision with God doesn't seem to be able to choose to fall away today.

And God is silent on how he did all that. But he created hell for the devil and his angels. And let's just think about that a little bit. One of the reasons why is that angels are created an immortal being.

He created them an immortal being, which is a good thing, not a bad. I was thinking, meditating upon it this morning. And likewise, mankind. He created mankind, breathed into his nostrils a breath of life and man became a living soul, which means what?

He can never be annihilated and go to nothing. And I think that's a wonderful thing that God did. What if we would spend our three score and ten years here on earth and then all at once we would go into oblivion, into nothingness and never have anything, you know, and you'd spend this space of time and that would be the end.

That surely wouldn't be a good thing. But he created man when he breathed into his nostrils that men would live forever. Angels will live forever. They are an immortal being. Now, when angels sinned and kept not their first estate, as 2 Peter 2 and Jude gives us the facts there, and he reserved them under chains of darkness to be reserved under the judgment of the great day, what was God supposed to do with them?

Now think it out. When they chose wrong and they decided to go with the devil, approximately a third, it seems, as we take from the book of Revelation, went to follow the devil, what was he supposed to do with them?

And the question comes home to us when we realize what do parents do with a totally rebellious, obnoxious son in their house? Even in the world you will see this. They finally get so frustrated with their rebellion and them going their own way that they chase them out of the house.

They don't want them around anymore. It so vexes their soul. And God is the same way. He had to do something with them. They are going to live forever. And the other reason is that God isn't just God.

And a just God demands a punishment for wrongdoing. Now that's an important thing. I was looking for that verse. I couldn't find it. I'm sure some of you have it, maybe at the tip of your tongue in Proverbs, that it says because sentence is not executed speedily against them that do evil, the idea is the heart of them is strengthened to do evil.

And so we have that situation today. And I'd just like for us to stop and think about it for a moment. My dear brothers and sisters, there must be consequences in this world for evil doing. If not, then there would be chaos in the universe and chaos in eternity.

There must be a place reserved where God is going to take the obnoxious, rebellious, impossible son and put him somewhere, angel or person, and lock him up there so that he does not disturb the rest of the peaceful eternity that will live forever.

And like I say, I think many of you realize is that you could be pushed to the same place, even though you are quite tolerant and you allow a lot more than you should allow. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there must be consequences to wrongdoing.

Divine Justice and the Necessity of Consequences

And if there are not consequences laid out to people for wrongdoing, the sin only grows, it only expands, it only increases, it only multiplies in our homes and in our businesses and in our nations. That's the way it is.

Any nation who will have no consequence for wrongdoing ceases to be a society in a matter of years. It will totally collapse. You look at the island of, some of the islands in the Caribbean that were ruled by the pirates back in the 1700s when they would intercept the gold being shipped out of Central America into Spain.

And they would try to intercept them and rob them and then take them into an island. And that island was nothing but murder and hate and robbery and greed and avarice and everything you could imagine.

And a society totally collapses. Where are they today? There's no beautiful island in the Caribbean that's full of pirates. They have disintegrated, they have brought themselves to naught. And there are many other nations like that.

But the secret that comes home to us today, as I meditated upon it this week, that there must be consequences for wrongdoing with God and there must be consequences for wrongdoing with mankind. And that is right and just and good.

Those things have to happen. Any father who will allow sin and disobedience and lying and stealing and total defiance of authority in his home will only strengthen the heart, will only harden to do more of it.

And so that's a burden upon my heart. And I just had to look at this whole matter of eternal hell. And I realized God gave mankind potential when he made him a free choosing agent there and gave him free will.

But it is the most beautiful thing. And I long for the eternal state that will be filled with people that will be there out of free will. Because they looked at the odds. They looked at the Savior. And they chose him.

And therefore they are saved today and are awaiting their reward. And many, many have already gone to it. But I believe it will only increase as the great judgment seat of Christ takes place. And those that have done right and served the Lord will only get a greater reward in the future for that.

Man just thinks they can do whatever they want whenever they want it and still go to heaven today. But I am here to tell you that there is other news. We have a place here that is prepared for the devil and his angels.

It was not designed for mankind. But yet, like I say, when man chose and God gave him the potential and gave him the opportunity and man chose to follow the devil and follow the world and follow a life of sin God has to do something with them.

They are going to live forever. And they can't be roaming through eternity and spoiling everything for everybody else. Like rebels do today on earth. And so God has chosen to put them with the devil and his angels into a place called hell.

And therefore we have the doctrine of eternal hell. We want to look at some facts and some scriptures about this. We realize that we have, maybe should try to close a little bit early due to the group that has been here all weekend.

But I hope we can just give this and let it sink deep in our hearts here this morning. The Bible says in Psalms 9 verse 17 that the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God. And I like to give this as a universal, absolute fact this morning taken out of the word of God.

Hell is no joke. Hell is no byword. Hell is no curse word. Hell is a living reality in the universe today. We don't know exactly where it is. We believe it may be down in the center of the earth somewhere because as you look at the circle of the globe every direction to hell is always referred to as the way down.

And the righteous up. And that's a beautiful, a wonderful thing. I believe when paradise was in the earth it perhaps existed close to the proximity of hell as we have with the rich man and Lazarus. And they were able to see from one to the other.

But there was a great gulf fixed that no man could see from the one to the other. And when Jesus died on the cross for sins of humanity He led captivity captive. He took paradise out of that realm and took it into the realms of the presence of God or the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ I believe.

And from that day on it seems like hell is in the center of the earth somewhere. In this place every direction would be down. And the Bible talks about Jesus descending to the lower parts of the earth and preaching to the spirits in prison.

And we only can speculate the details of that. We are not given that detail in the word of God. And so we have to let what all happened there. But I do believe He preached to them and showed them that He was the Savior that was prophesied all through the Old Testament even to Adam that some of them accepted in paradise by faith and others rejected it and therefore are in hell today.

Hell as a Neglected Doctrine

If one were left to his own choosing a person would not preach on a subject like this. But I am beginning to realize more and more as time goes on that this is a subject that is not being preached. I sat in the last two evenings in the meetings that were held here the BMA ministers meeting and it was brought to our attention that in the seeker friendly churches this subject is taboo.

Never is a mention of hell made in a message as I understand in most of those churches throughout the world today. The large mega churches and the people are not hearing young people are growing up and are not hearing the doctrine of eternal hell that there is a reality to this that all of us need to be reminded of even for the saved.

And why would that be? Why do we have to be reminded of hell even for the saved? Yes we have relatives, we have friends, we have neighbors, we have acquaintances that are not saved and for us to put hell behind us and have the beautiful relationship with God and the assurance of salvation is a wonderful thing and that guilt and that fear does not need to grip our hearts anymore praise God, but we have many in our families and friends and neighbors that are lost people.

And for us to come to grips with the fact that if they die they had a heart attack here the other night and a man had a scrape with death the ambulance was called, he didn't survive it and we know some of us who know Mickey Hughes know how near he had a scrape with death again but all of us hang between life and death in a moment in the twinkling of an eye we can just lose it and for the individual who is not prepared to meet his God and a relative that you have though you love dearly and you can hardly speak to them about it because it's so uncomfortable yet if they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ they will be lost and they will go to hell and there are no exits there as Leonard Ravenhill once preached the message that there are no exits in hell the Bible says that hell opened wide her mouth but it never gives any indication that there is a way out.

It opens wide her mouth to receive people into it but there is no exit. And the city of heaven the Bible says that they will go in and out of the city at will but there is never anything like that in hell where men will go in and out at will they have to dwell.

There is a prison and as Jude gives it the angels which kept not their first estate are reserved under chains in hell under darkness reserved unto the judgment of the great day. Now there's different Greek meanings of that but I don't think I'll go into that I'll just say the word sheol has a double application sometimes used to designate the grave and sometimes referring to the place of departed spirits.

The authorized version the words grave and hell are each used 31 times is derived from the word sheol and then Gehenna is used 12 times. In the Greek New Testament means the place of future punishment.

We all know that it is an unmistakable subject. It's not misinterpreted. It is so often talked about so often written about. There are more scriptures on hell than there are on heaven. And God wants us to not miss that that we do not mistaken this message and this fact it matters not by what name the place may be known.

The scriptures teach that there is a place of endless punishment for the wicked. And this is the theme to which we want to speak about here this morning. The place is described in scripture as a lake of fire in the book of Revelation.

Burning with brimstone in Revelation 19 -20. Firing brimstone in Revelation 14 -10 it's called hell fire in Matthew 5 -22 and unquenchable fire in Matthew 3 -17. It's called everlasting burning in Isaiah 33 -14 and everlasting contempt in Daniel 12 -2.

Everlasting fire in Matthew 25 -41 and everlasting punishment again in Matthew 25 -46. Outer darkness in Matthew 25 -30. Damnation of hell in Matthew 23 -33. It's called a furnace of fire in Matthew 13 -50 where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched in Mark 9 -44.

Vengeance of eternal fire in Jude 7 and smoke of the torment ascending forever and ever in Revelation 14 -11 and then tormented day and night forever and ever in Revelation 20 -10. We sometimes say you know we talk about the Jehovah's Witness and they don't believe in the doctrine of eternal hell.

And they don't. But what is so far. And they have many other false doctrines and false prophecies in their beliefs. But the question is not what do the Jehovah's Witness believe. And what do they not believe this morning and the seventh day in Venice or the Mormon church which likewise the latter day saints do not believe in the eternal hell.

But the question is do you and I still believe in the eternal hell. Is that looming up in our minds. Do we think of that at times when we see a poor lost soul that unless he meets the gospel message and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ he shall be lost and there is no hope for him after the grave.

No Escape from Judgment

Men have questioned this throughout the years and have tried as I would say to find a bypass to it to somehow escape the reality. It is unthinkable when we think when we humanly speaking when we think of a soul swimming around in a lake of fire and brimstone actually being tormented and in pain like the rich man was when he says I am tormented in this flame.

That is unthinkable that anything like that would happen. But it is just and right for God to do it because he has made a way of escape through Jesus Christ. And there is we are without excuse. We are without excuse.

But do we believe that is that a reality. Do tears come to our eyes and do we get burdened in heaviness for the souls of men at times relatives especially and friends that we know and business acquaintances that are not prepared to meet God and are showing no interest in it whatsoever.

And you know many have tried to speculate a bypass and speculate another way and tried to undo it. But there are so many scriptures which I quoted here already without quoting the entire verse but it is unmistakable.

There is no escape. There is no way around it. There is no translational error. It is there and must be faced. For whom is it prepared. Well hell is prepared for the devil and his angels as we mentioned in Matthew 25 14 divine justice has prepared this place for them and it is a just punishment for the accuser and his followers to prevent them from doing evil forever.

Right now we have the prince of the power of the air. We have the spirit that is abroad on the earth that works in the children of disobedience. But there is coming a day when that will stop and cease and you will be locked up and bound up and will deceive the nations no more.

God has to have a place to put him and to hold him there. It amazes me at the demons you know especially the Galilean the spirits were strong in him and he was a powerful man that he could break the chains when they would try to lock him up or to tie him fast to somewhere and he would just break him.

And he was a strong man but he couldn't break the chain of demonism and sin in his life. But when the Lord Jesus Christ came to him the demons spoke out and said Arta come to torment us before our time.

They know what's coming. They know their doom they know their destiny and they are given time here to dwell in mankind who chose to allow them in and to cause all the havoc and the trouble they have because we are free creatures of choice.

But there is a day coming when they will be tormented likewise and they will deceive and possess no more. But I'm just amazed that how they know that they are going to be tormented and they beg the Lord to send them into some swine and they want to go from place to place to dwell in some animal or in some man and all that because they are so dreading the day when they will be locked up and be tormented in the fires of hell themselves.

A lot of people give them as to doing the tormenting and I'm not here to say whether they will do that or not. I'm sure they will make hell a terrible and miserable place just by their presence and the way they are and the way we have seen how they act and what they do.

But it seems that we also must believe that they likewise will suffer. They likewise will suffer. Hell was not prepared for man. No one with a true heart living and walking with God need have any fear of hell and I praise God for that.

He is a child of God so long as his face is set heavenward his heart is open to truth. He is walking with the Lord and he keeps his life relatively up to date and at peace with God and can put hell as far as a reality in his own fear of his own life.

He can put it besides him and does not have to fear hell and not have to live in trembling what if, what if. And thinking where are we going down over the hill. We don't know which way it's going to fall.

God has been able to give us life and life abundantly and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and that is a joyous and wonderful thing and should settle upon the hearts of all mankind.

If you don't have that because you are living in the in-between world with one foot in the world and one foot in the church or in Christ. Then you should fear. Then you should tremble and the righteous judge will do with you.

But for the most part we believe that the souls that are in this room that have given their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ they are able to put the fear of hell behind them but not the reality of it not the reality of it.

He that heareth my word the Bible says in John 5 24. And believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life. And that is a beautiful beautiful hope and blessing that we have.

The Rich Man, Lazarus, and the Second Death

You know in the situation there with the rich man and Lazarus. I heard a preacher once say that the rich man was carried excuse me Lazarus was carried and the rich man buried. Do you want to be carried or do you want to be buried.

And that is a choice that we can make by whether we are to receive salvation the gospel of Jesus Christ by faith who will go there. Well the Bible says in Revelation 20 verse 14 that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire.

The sinner unpardoned not repentant not coming to Christ is twice dead. He will die a physical death and he will die an eternal death. He is dead twice. The spiritual man the godly man will have two resurrection.

He will have a resurrection now in newness of life and he will wake up in spiritual reality with God. And then he will also raise from the dead after he dies physically and so will he ever be with the Lord and live with God.

The sinner unpardoned is twice dead and sin has dominion over him all his life. And because he makes no effort to escape death comes along and shuts off all avenues of escape. The souls dead in trespass and sins find themselves after the judgment which is the second death to be cast into the lake of fire.

Let me say that again the souls dead today in trespass and sins young people in rebellion going their own way defiance of all authority in their life are on their way to hell and they only await the judgment of God upon their life.

Only those who have submitted themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance for sin the sin nature that is in them and yielded their heart and life to God can escape the vengeance of hell. Bible says all of death and all the doomed in hell will be cast into the lake of fire which burneth with brimstone forever and ever as we mentioned in Revelation 14.

Those Who Forget God and Refuse Repentance

Another group of people the wicked shall go to hell as the scripture that we mentioned first the wicked and all nations that forget God will go into hell. They will likewise be cast into hell. Psalms 917.

They are those that delight in ungodliness following their own sinful lusts and their own sinful ways enticing others to sin trying to get them to rebel and them to disobey and them to take party in subversive dark activity rejoicing in the defeat and downfall of those who have already followed the Lord Jesus Christ and are backslidden.

Have you ever seen that? Sometimes when someone backslides or makes a little attempt at salvation then backslides his buddies just come up and just befriend him and just pull him down. And even when they try to get out of it and live the Christian life they try to drag him down and pull each other down like they are comfortable so much like they have some kind of glory and comfort to drag each other down.

But you know what? When a person is divinely born again and has a testimony of God and they shove him out they don't want him there anymore. I remember when a young a big Abe up in Ontario got born again.

You know his friends all said oh we want to come to your baptism. We want to come to your baptism. He said sure I'll tell you. When he called them up and he said here is the hour here is the day of my baptism out there in Ontario at Lake Erie.

But when the day come none of them showed up. Conviction of sin. Abe was transformed by the power of God and he is a faithful brother married and has a couple of children today and God saved him. He stood in the Niagara River one day in water up to his legs up to his groin nearly just debating whether he wanted to jump and go down over the falls and commit suicide.

But God saved him from a drunken wretched fornicating life and he came free. And now his buddies didn't want to come to his baptism because they have the smoke of hell already on them many times. And they feel so uncomfortable that they just don't want to be his friends anymore.

And that's the way it ought to be if your old buddies are still your friends and you still have your coming times together after you've been born again you better examine your new birth though the wicked sometimes fare well in time and they do as David said when he beheld the prosperity of the wicked he said my feet nearly slipped.

I saw there was no bands in their death. They seemed to prosper and they had all the money and the food and whatever you want paraphrasing it. But he said when I considered their end I saw what was going to happen to them.

I saw where they're going. He said my feet stood firm. I didn't want to go that way. I considered no exits in hell. I considered no way out and I stood firm. I didn't want to follow them. And that's the way every one of us need to do a few times and a few more in our Christian life.

Oh it's good for us to stop and consider the fires of hell at times like I said even though after 40 some years of being a Christian you're able to put that aside and not fear hell. And God took that fear away.

And we need to consider the fires of hell from time to time. They cannot escape the just punishment for their sins in eternity. Not only will the wicked be turned into the awful place but all kind of sinners.

The polite sinner is going to go there as well as the rough sinner. The moral sinner will go there as well as the immoral sinner. The polite culture the accomplished moral sinner will not be justified for he is a robber and a murderer.

He still hates people and he still has major issues with his life. And therefore he likewise even though he has polished his life up and made it look half reasonable and all that at times if he's not been born again as a child of God and has the blood atonement upon his life he can't go to heaven.

He'll go to hell when he dies for he's not even good. He is number three. Those that forget God. Oh this gets closer home to us. I've been Christians for a number of years or I made a good start like the seed planted upon the rocky soil and sprung up and there was some life there.

But when the sun came out with a burning heat it withered away. Those that forget God and follow the world and follow the devil and follow your sinner friend again and get sucked in to the sinner's life and the sinner's world.

They must fear the vengeance of eternal fire. People that forget God. Pharaoh knew not God though he had God's people in his land. When Moses came to him he says I don't know this God who is he but hardened his heart and he was destroyed.

And Pharaoh's in hell today. I believe with all my heart Nebuchadnezzar. Likewise he also had an encounter with God but he chose to depart and not to receive him and not to honor him for a length of time.

And he too went to his own place. As the Bible says about Judas he forgot God and rose up in pride and arrogance concerning himself. Men and nations in time of prosperity are prone to forget God. Individuals likewise they live in ease and drift into wickedness.

They worship one another or they worship self. We have a lot of that today. They get up and look in the mirror and worship yourself and try to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. That will not get you out of hell just because of the wickedness of their minds and hearts.

They do not like to retain God in their knowledge. Romans 1 says when they knew God they honored him not as God. We're talking to people who knew God and it's possible to have been a Christian and not honor him and worship him and give him full allegiance and then decided I don't like him anymore.

I don't want to retain him in my knowledge anymore. To those God has given him over to a reprobate mind to do these things which are unseemly and they become the wicked of the earth. I heard of a couple of boys that fell away from God recently and they are so bad.

I understand that even their sinner friends can hardly stand them. They have went to a deeper depth away from God than the common individual. And that often happens that in all nations that forget God shall be turned into hell.

Number four those who do not repent. Repentance is the gateway by which sinners escape the wrath of God and the doom of hell. Those who will not repent frustrate the love and grace of God and reject the great gift of God the Lord Jesus Christ.

And to them they will await the eternal doom of hell fire and judgment of almighty God. Likewise repentance is that first step not alone repentance. But repentance is that first step when an individual must humble himself and acknowledge that I am a sinner.

I have done wrong. I have been against God. I have not received him. I have not opened my heart. I have not confessed my sin and acknowledge him wherever there is a mind of the impenitent sinner that causes this refusal.

Hypocrites, Offenders, and Profane Speech

The root is often in hell and it leads men to all manner of sin and finally to ruin and to endless hell. Number five is hypocrites. Oh we hear so much about them. Oh I don't want to go to church. That church is full of hypocrites.

I got wounded there I got hurt there. Well there is sure a lot more of them going to be in hell. And if you don't go to church and don't be with God's people and hear the gospel. There is more hypocrites there than there were in any church.

The bible talks about them religious people scribes and pharisees hypocrites in Matthew chapter 23 that hallmark chapter against them. And he says how can you escape the damnation of hell. When he spoke about them because they were so against Christ and so resisted him and wouldn't receive him and didn't want him around.

I was so impressed again with all the reality of that blind man and how they treated that poor man who was blind from his birth and all that happened. He met the Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn't even going through the towns and causing a great disturbance.

He was just seeing and sharing his testimony when people asked him what happened to you. Well a man came by the name of Jesus came around and touched me. And now I can see how furious a man resists the reality of a changed life.

He is a hard hearted hypocrite who doesn't want the truth. And there is usually not much you can do for them until they have an encounter with God somehow to break their hard heart who are in danger of going there.

Let's look at some others. We want to look at a class of people who speak disrespectfully. The bible says in Matthew 5 verse 22. Who so ever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5 verse 22.

Christ is very emphatic on this point and points out the greatest danger of speaking disrespectfully. The Pharisees spoke disrespectfully concerning Christ asking if he were not a Samaritan and had a devil.

Another time he cast out devils by Beelzebub. They said and described Jesus speaking through the power of the devil or the greatest of devils. An awful thing. Christ declared this kind of talk blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is a sin never to be forgiven in this world or in the world to come.