The Reality of Hell

The Urgency of Evangelism and the Weight of Eternity

I want to invite you to take out your worksheet. If you have a Bible, you're welcome to open it as well. I give you the text printed on your worksheet. But if you'd like to open your Bible, we're going to be in Revelation, which you will know I've not taught a lot.

In ten years of preaching, I have not taught a lot in the book of Revelation. I've taught through the seven churches and some of the first few chapters, but we have not dealt a lot with eschatology, which is the study of end times.

And so that's an interesting thing that we're going to now memorize a passage from this book. We're going to look at a passage which should cause us to pause in our heart, should cause us to think about the reality of what is being said.

If you guys would like to sit at the table, there's room up here if you guys want to come up here. Okay, that's fine. Tonight we're going to talk about the reality of hell. And this can go one of two ways.

It can be one of those times where we just sort of just take it as doctrine, and like many other things, it kind of goes in one ear and out the other, and we don't really think much about it. We just sort of say all the right things.

But it's also a time, in the second way, if we really think about the reality of this subject and the depth and breadth of this subject, it can affect our heart. I know for me, it has on several occasions, just sitting and thinking about the reality of hell, sitting and considering the reality of hell, it's mind-blowing just to consider the reality of it.

There was a pastor who went to preach at a church. The church was calling a new pastor, and they had two men. They had narrowed it down to two men. And so they decided to let one preach one Sunday and the next one to preach the next Sunday.

They didn't tell each other. They didn't let the guys meet each other. One came in one Sunday. One came in the next Sunday. And the first one came in, and he preached on the subject of hell. So they thanked him for coming.

He went out. The next guy came up. He preached the same text. He preached pretty much the same sermon about hell. And the church called the second man. They said, we'd like to extend you the call to pastor this church.

And he said, well, I appreciate it. Thank you for calling. But I heard that the guy who came the week ahead of me preached the same text and said a lot of the same things that I said. Why are you calling me to be your preacher?

And the chairman, the representative of the church said, you both preached on hell, but you preached like you didn't want us to go there. Did everybody get that? Okay. It's not that funny, but some of you just kind of look at me like, the other guy was preaching like he wanted us to go there.

You see, that's the thing about hell. When we talk to people and evangelize, and this whole series is about evangelism, this whole series is about evangelism. When we're talking to people about Christ, we're talking to people about the most valuable thing in the world, their soul.

And we're talking to them about the most important time period in their lives, and that's their eternity. So we're dealing with two precious things. One, the most precious thing that they possess, and that's their soul.

And two, the most precious time in their lives, and that's their eternity. You see, we get so caught up in the minutia of life that we forget that we have been made ambassadors of the most precious message in the history of the world, and that we are supposed to be proclaiming the gospel as if God were making His appeal through us.

And what is the appeal? Turn from your sins and turn to Christ because your sins have but one wage, and that is death, and not physical death. Physical death is a product of the fall, yes, but the wages of sin is death in hell, meaning eternal conscious punishment.

This is serious business. It's business that should make you weep when you consider the reality of the consequence of those who live in rejection of Jesus Christ. We do all the time. We meet people, we spend time with people, we talk to people, and we never share the gospel with them.

They never hear the gospel from us. They might never hear it from anyone. And what do we do? We placate ourselves. Well, they're good people, or they'll hear it at some point, or whatever. We heard earlier about a baby that has cancer.

And we know that if that doctor hadn't been honest with the family, what would you say about that doctor? He's a monster. Had he not told them that the baby was sick, because there would be no opportunity for a remedy, there would be no opportunity for health services, there'd be no opportunity for medication, there'd be nothing.

If the doctor just said, your baby's fine, take him home, that would have been a monstrous thing to do, right? What do we do when we don't tell people about hell? The same worse. Because no matter how well doctors do, all they do is fix what is going to finally die anyway.

The best a doctor can do is keep the game going for a little while longer. But we're dealing with that which is eternal. And if you're having trouble, if you don't know why I'm being so weighty, it's because this is weighty.

Recently a book came out. I don't say recently, the last five years a book came out. The older I get, the less five years is. It's like five years is like yesterday. There was a book came out called Love Wins.

How many of you have heard of that book? Figured a couple of you might. Love Wins was by a man, I'm not going to call him a preacher. He's the pastor to Oprah, if that helps. Love Wins was by a man by the name of Rob Bell.

Now Rob Bell has rejected the gospel, he's rejected the divinity of Christ, he's rejected so much in his teaching. He is a heretic. He is a popular preacher among those who have rejected the truth claims of Christianity.

He's very popular. He's on Dr. Phil and Oprah and other things like that because they like to hear what he has to say. Because what he has to say is that Christianity, what we would call orthodox biblical Christianity is wrong.

And his version of Christianity which is not even any real type of Christianity, it's heretical teaching is right. But Love Wins was a book by Rob Bell which was intended to teach that hell does not exist because God's love wouldn't allow it to be so.

Now that's an oversimplification of his argument and somebody who's on his side might say that I'm building a straw man just to tear it down. But the title of the book is Love Wins and the argument of course is that God's love trumps his wrath.

That God's love trumps his justice and ultimately that God is love. And because God is love he cannot possibly torment or put someone in a place of torment forever. That it would be opposed to his love.

Because the Bible says God is love. Did you know that there's only one attribute of God that is ever described of him three times in a row? And it's not love. It's holy. The Bible says God is holy, holy, holy.

It never says he is love, love, love. It never says he's mercy, mercy, mercy. It never says he's just, just, just. I guess you could say holy is a type of righteousness just. But the one thing that God is called and the reason why the holy being what we would say is the trihagion.

The trihagion is the three times holiness of God. Hagias is the Greek for holiness. So the trihagion, the phrase holy, holy, holy is in Isaiah 6. When Isaiah sees God sitting on his throne, he sees the Lord sitting on his throne and the train of his robe fills the temple and he sees the seraphim and with six wings, two they covered their face and with two they covered their feet and with two they flew.

Why did they have six wings? Because they're in the presence of God. They don't look upon God, they cover their face. They don't stand in the presence of God with uncovered feet so they cover their feet because the position before God is holy ground.

There's all this regalia, the train of his robe filling the temple to represent his kingliness, his sovereignty, his power. All of that regalia simply to identify him as being absolutely unique. And that's what holiness is.

It's uniqueness. It's otherness. There's none like unto him. He is absolutely righteous. He's absolutely holy. And people ask the question, how is it that temporary sin reaps an eternal punishment? That's actually a genuinely good question from the unbeliever and it's a question you may hear.

And the answer is not difficult. It is because you have offended the infinite. Why is a temporary sin worthy of an infinite punishment? Because you have offended an infinite God. Because God himself is infinite.

And so the punishment for sin, the punishment for opposing the holiness of God, the punishment for opposing God himself is hell. We don't like to even consider the reality of it, but to deny it is to deny not even a small portion of Scripture, but whole passages of Scripture.

And so we need to understand when we go into an evangelistic opportunity, when we go into an evangelistic outreach opportunity, when we're speaking the gospel to someone, we are dealing with eternal things that have eternal consequences and thus we should be sober minded.

See, I see guys enter into evangelistic conversations as if they're sales people. They make it a game. I want to tell you a story with jokes and funny stuff. No, this is sober. I want to tell you something serious.

God is holy and you are sinful. And God's holiness will not look upon your sinfulness with anything but wrath unless you are covered in the blood of the Lamb. That's what we have to tell people. You say, well, people won't want to hear that.

Well, we're going to deal with that next week. Because next week, the last time I'm going to teach on this subject, and then the Bible memorization, I'm going to do that, and then Mike's going to teach a week, and then we're going to go to Westminster.

Next week, I'm going to do 1 Corinthians 1 .18 for the gospel, the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. That's what we've got to keep in our hearts. Because it is. This message is foolishness.

I saw Dr. James White last night on Dr. Drew. Yeah, that Dr. Drew. If you don't know who that is, he's an MTV doctor. So I'm sure he's real legit. He's a psychologist to the stars. Why they called James White, I don't know.

Well, I do know. He wrote a book on homosexuality. He wrote a book called The Same Sex Controversy. And so they had this panel of people, and Dr. White was there via satellite with the panel of people.

And they were laughing at Dr. White. This is a man who is smarter than anyone in that room. Multiple times over. He is largely smarter than most of the people in the audience. Anybody. He's certainly smarter, a lot smarter than me.

And yet they laugh at him. Why? Because he came with one simple message. The worldview of the secularist, the worldview of the person who is outside of Christ is worldly. And they're married to their worldview.

They're slaves to their worldview. And they don't even realize it. That's what he was trying to tell them. He said, you are slaves to your sin and you don't even realize it. And the only remedy for your sin is Christ.

I mean, he was preaching the gospel to a very secular audience. Praise God for that. That he was able to do that. But they were laughing at him. That's okay. It's not okay that they were laughing at him.

Don't get me wrong. But what I mean is, when we preach the gospel, we can't change our message just because it might offend. Or we can't change our message just because people won't like it. And part of the message that people don't like is the message of hell.

People don't want to believe in a God of wrath. People don't want to believe in a God who will send someone to hell. So they change their view of God. And they change God into an idol that's like them.

And hell then becomes not a reality. Hell becomes something that medieval people used to keep laity in line. That's the argument I've heard. Hell is not a biblical concept. Hell was created in the Middle Ages so that the church ecclesiastical authority could keep the lay people in line.

The difficult part is that this book was written well before the Middle Ages. And all the stuff about hell predated all that. We have manuscripts that they pull out of the ground that are 2 ,000 years old that talk about the same stuff.

It's the same book. So that's a dumb argument. But they make it. I have a relative. I told this story last night in Dads and Dudes. So if you were here, you've heard this already. But I have a relative.

It's a relative of a relative. My mother's relative. He's a Jehovah's Witness. And the reason why he is a Jehovah's Witness is because he was brought up in a holiness church. Holiness is like a Pentecostal movement, if you're not familiar with that, what they call Congregational Methodist.

He was brought up in that movement. And while being brought up in that movement, he had a lot of questions. And one of the questions he had was about hell. How can a good God be mean and send people to hell?

I'm sure he didn't ask it that way. But that's how can he be so harsh as to send someone to hell? And because he didn't get a satisfactory answer from the people that were teaching in the particular fellowship he was in, he had a Jehovah's Witness come to his door.

And guess what the answer is from the Jehovah's Witness? He wouldn't send them to hell. God doesn't send anyone to hell. And guess what happened? He became a Jehovah's Witness. I like that. That satisfies the whole problem for me.

You know, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jehovah's Witnesses will go to glory. Well, they have the 144 ,000 that will be in the celestial kingdom. There's different views on what heaven is. But they believe that they will be safe.

Those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses, those who have not received the teachings, will be annihilated. So it's not hell. It's just nothing. You just simply go away. That's what a lot of atheists believe.

They're just sort of a step down from that. Atheists believe that nobody goes on forever, that everybody stops at death, and your spirit and your body are together dead, and you go into the ground. Well, atheists would believe there's not even a spirit.

They would just believe that what you think is a spirit is just your mind's working. So all that is simply to say this. There are all these people who have problems with God. They have problems with the concept of hell.

So what they do, instead of trying to reconcile those, or simply submit to the scripture, they create a God in their own mind. Or they make God be as they wish He was. A God that does not have the capacity, or at least the desire, or the purpose of wrath within Him.

And so all that being said, I want to turn now to the text. Because this text, that was introduction. Now let's look at the text, because this is the text that I want us to memorize. You'll notice that in the ESV and the New American Standard Bible, they are the exact same words.

And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. It says it in the NASB and the same as the ESV. In the King James, it's worded slightly different, but not much.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. In the Greek, it's kai-e-tis-uk, or-e-the-en-te-bib-lo-te-s-zo-eis. Ge-gra-ma-nos, eb-le-nein, I'm sorry, eb-le-the, eis-tein, lem-nein, tu-por-os.

And it's the same, if anyone not found in the book of life written, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Just consider those words. Breaking it down is quite simple. If anyone's name was not found, indicating that the names were already there.

If anyone's name was not found written in this book, and that book, by the way, is referenced in several passages of Scripture, if you want to make some notes. In fact, let's look these up. I'm going to have a few of you read.

Philippians 4, 3. Who'd like to help me out? Mike, you want to read for me? Mike, read Philippians 4, 3. Revelation 3, 5. Dale, would you read that for me? Revelation 3, 5. Revelation 13, 8. Chad, would you read that for me?

Revelation 17, 8. I'll get you to read that for me. Revelation 20, which we just read. Well, we were in Revelation. Yeah, 2015. But it's also in 2012. Not the movie. But we're going to read all that anyway.

And then it comes up again in 2127. Let's start out. Mike, if you'll read us Philippians 4. So we see Paul references this book. He said there's a book. It's the book of life. And by saying it's the book of life, what he's saying, and in some texts it's called the Lamb's book of life, the book of life that is the names for which Christ died.

These are the people that God has, and if we're going to use the word elect, God has chosen these names, have been written from all eternity, the names in the book of life. Now this, I'm really not wanting to be a big issue of election, all that.

We know where we stand on that stuff. But the point of the matter is, because I've heard people say, well, as soon as you get saved, your name is then written in the Lamb's book of life. I think it's already there.

I think God knows who those are his. But that's another issue for another time. The point is God has this list. He has these names. And I like the fact that Paul references, here's some people that are in the church that are doing the works of Christ.

These people's names are in the book of life. Paul is affirming with apostolic authority their salvation. I can't do that with any of you. I don't have apostolic authority. I don't have a window into heaven.

All I can do, I can say you profess faith, and you demonstrate yourself as a believer before me. I can't say though that you're not a false convert. Now I can look at your life by their fruits. You will know them.

And I would hope that your life would testify to your faith. But Paul here gives holy spirit authority. These people are written in this book. I just think that's a precious truth. To me, to know for certain that your name is written in the book of life.

How do we know? Through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the only way we know. And I don't know your faith. I know what your faith does. It produces fruit. James tells us, I say I have faith, but you show me your faith by what you do.

I can only see your faith when it's put into action. The next one is in Revelation 3 .5. Who did I ask for that one? Dale, yeah?

Let me get there. Revelation 3 .5. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never plot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.

Amen. The one who conquers there is in regarding to the church of Sardis. This is the believer. This is in the church of Sardis. The church who has the reputation of being alive, but is actually dead.

It's a dead church, but there's a believer in it. That's happening all around the world. There are dead churches that have real believers in them. And you say, well, why in the world does that happen?

Well, the church itself might not be preaching the gospel. The person might be trying to effect change from inside, or might not even really understand what's going on around them, but it's happening, and there are people who are there.

And we see it in this text. It says the one who conquers, the believer, he says his name will never be blotted out of the book, even if the church, you know, because what's the context of Revelation 1, 2, and 3, where he talks about removing the lampstands, right?

The church may lose its power, but that believer will not have his name blotted out of the book. That's the promise. His name is forever written in that book. And so that's not saying that a person who's in a dead church should stay in a dead church.

Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is it happens. There are people that are in churches that go south or in churches that are not preaching the gospel, and yet they are true believers. And what I would pray for anyone in that situation is that God would lead them to a church that's preaching the gospel so that they can be comforted with other believers, you know, and to be working alongside other believers.

Because I know how hard it is to be in a situation where you feel like you're constantly butting your head up against, you know, those who are opposed to the gospel. It's so difficult to do. And so that's the situation that that person would be in.

All right, next is chapter 13 and verse 8. Who did I ask for that?

Who did? Oh, Chad, yes. All right, thank you.

This particular context, Revelation 13, I actually had to write a paper about this in school because this is talking about the Antichrist. There, of course, is the different positions, whether or not this is something that has happened in the past or this is something that's yet to happen.

I don't want to get into all that. But the ultimate thing here is the point is that under persecution, there is this thing that's happening where these people are having to worship this idol that has been put before them.

And it says everyone will worship whose name has not been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Why? Why won't they worship? Because the true believer won't bow down to an idol. It's the true believers.

And how do you know the person who's the real believer? He won't bow down to that statue or that idol or that person or whatever it is. You think about the stories from Daniel. Daniel is a very contemporary book.

If you read Daniel, especially chapters 1 through 6, and you read about the situation that Daniel was in, he was a believing young man brought out of his country, put into a country of pagans. The pagans tried to change his whole world to make him like them.

And through that, he constantly had the problem of them trying to force him to worship the idols. Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were forced to try to worship the idol. And then later, he was told, don't pray to your God.

And he did pray anyway, and they put him in the lion's den. Daniel's situations are very contemporary because we see them happening now. We see our children going off into educational systems. And what is the educational system trying to do?

Trying to conform them to the world system. This is why the world hates homeschooling because we want them to come into these public organizations where the public, and I'm not saying a person who goes to public school is in sin.

Please don't get me wrong. What I'm saying, though, is, you know, it's like, what's his name? Voti said, Voti Bacchum. He said, if you send your kids to Caesars, don't be surprised when they come home Romans.

You know, so think on that. You know, so that's something to consider. I'm not saying it's wrong to send your kids to public school. But what happens is it's a conditioning process. I work in the public school.

I work as a substitute teacher. I sit in the class where the science teacher tells me I have to put in the tape, like I've used the tape in the last thing, the DVD that's teaching these kids 4 .5 billion years ago, the earth was formed, and through a process of microevolution over billions of years, you came from stardust to humanity.

And it's not even, there's no, I remember opening up, back when I worked, when I was in seminary, I worked for the high school here, local high school. I did security and paraprofessional work. And I remember opening up the science textbook because I did, my master's thesis was on the subject of science and the Bible.

So I wanted to see what the science textbook, I opened it up, read the first couple chapters, it said millennia ago, hundreds of years ago, I forget exactly the language. It said people believe that the earth was created by a divine work.

But we now know that the earth came about through natural processes. This is the first line of the book. And this wasn't some college textbook. This was the school's book. We now know. We know? There's no doubt?

What's funny is those textbooks are always being edited. Because what we now know, tomorrow is going to be different. So anyway, having said all that, that's Revelation 13. The person whose name is written in the book of life will not bow down to the idol.

That's what the text is here saying. Moving on to chapter 17 and 8. Rob, if you would.

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come out. Those who dwell on the earth.

Okay, thank you. What does that say about the names? I mentioned this earlier. When were the names written? From the foundation of the world. I think that kind of speaks to what I was saying. Again, not trying to make an argument about election.

That's not the purpose of tonight's lesson. But the text, the names that are there are not names that are constantly being edited. They're not being written and taken out and put in. It's the foundation of the world.

These names are there. It's God's choice. He will show mercy to whom he wills. So that's an important passage. Now we get to chapter 20, where we started. And I want to read the context of the passage we're memorizing tonight.

It starts in verse 11. This is speaking of the great white throne judgment. It says, Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence the earth and sky fled away. And no place was found for them.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. Some people have asked the question, what are the books that are open there?

I'm going to give you an opinion. Because there is a lot of opinion on this text. And you know what opinion is worth? It's worth what you pay for it. Don't know that I'm not telling you this is an absolute.

When it talks about the books and then the book of life. I heard this years ago. And I thought it was a very reasonable explanation of the books. Is that it's the books of the old and new covenant. The book of the old and new testament.

It's the gospel and the law being opened. And what do we have there? Is we have that against which man will be judged. The person whose name is written in the book of life falls under what book? The book of the gospel.

The work of Christ. But the person who is not written in the Lamb's book of life, what will he be judged by? The law of God. So, I mean, that's again, I'm not here to make an argument. But that is one reasonable explanation.

It talks about the books and then the book of life. Because we see them differentiated here. So, there is that. And it says, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books. There you go. You're being judged by the law.

According to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged. Each one of them according to what they had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. The lake of fire. Just a thought. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

And the context goes on. Remember, the Bible wasn't written in chapters and verses. It was written all together. So, I moved on to the next chapter. Because here's the juxtaposition. Those who are not in the book thrown into the lake of fire.

But that's not the end of the story. Because chapter 21 says,. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.

From God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them. And they will be his people.

And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away.

See, that's the beauty. People ask me all the time, Pastor, what's heaven going to be like? I'll honestly say I don't know. I think the Bible's language is very descriptive. But it's also not as descriptive as we would like.

It doesn't tell us everything about heaven. But I'll tell you what is not there. Right here. He says he'll wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. That enemy that we faced ever since birth will be put away.

There'll be no more mourning. There'll be no more crying. There'll be no more pain. You see, those who are not written in the book will go forever to a place where that's the constant. The constant is death, pain, suffering, torment forever.

You ever been in pain? Real pain? Recently I had to go to the hospital. You remember the day I preached? And after I came down off the pulpit I said, Take me to the hospital. They found out I had a seven millimeter stone inside my kidney.

I tell you what. That was the most pain I've ever felt. And that's nothing. I didn't want that for the two hours that I had. The pain. When they finally gave me the medicine I was like, Oh, thank you.

Well, I was more like, Thank you. Because they gave me medicine. But can you imagine eternity with no relief? You can't. And yet that's what is described. It's such a sober thing. It's just so powerful to me.

I just have trouble even... That's what's here. And that's what is the reality for those who are outside of Christ. You look like you want to... Oh, I'm sorry. I thought... Yeah, yeah. Okay. I thought you were going to say something.

Okay. But the reality for the believer is none of that. But you know that's not the best thing about heaven. And I know tonight it's not about heaven. It's about hell. But we might as well talk about something positive for a minute.

The reality of heaven. The beauty of heaven is this. Not only will you not have any mourning. Not only will you have no pain. Not only will you have no suffering. But the dwelling place of God is with man.

You see right now we're separated from God because of sin in this world. We're one with Him in Christ. But there's still... We don't see God every day as a physical part of our life. But the Bible says God will be the light of heaven.

That He will be there with us. His dwelling place will be with us. That's what makes heaven heaven. What makes heaven heaven is not pearly gates. What makes heaven heaven is not golden streets. And what makes heaven heaven is not eating ice cream on Hallelujah Boulevard.

Like I heard some Baptist pastor once say. What makes heaven heaven is not seeing your parents. Or seeing your spouse. Or seeing a child who went before you. Or a sister or a brother. What makes heaven heaven is the dwelling place of God is with you.

And you with Him. That's what makes heaven heaven. And so too is it what makes hell hell. Because what makes hell hell is that you do not abide in the grace of God forever. But you abide in His wrath forever.

People say hell is separation from God. No it's not. Hell is right in the middle of the wrath of God forever. Yes you had. Well I was just. You say this is awful. Yeah. How can you. You really can't. Because you know who God is.

Yes. You got to see God. You got to know God first. Before you can understand the events. And even then it's hard to wrap our minds around. It's a concept that's difficult for us all. Even if we know God.

It's still difficult. It's a concept to conceive of. But it's still true. Even though something is difficult to understand. Doesn't mean it's not true. And I know you know that. So I'm just saying. We know it's true.

It's hard. It's hard truth. Which is why a lot of people don't want to know it. Right. Is that. Okay. You know it. I can't do it. Oh absolutely. A person outside the knowledge of God. Couldn't conceive.

Of the reality. Yeah.