Run from Hell (Part 1)

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Run From Hell (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the
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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I get some encouraging emails, and so let me read you one.
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Once in a while I want to read those encouraging emails, because sometimes I get discouraging emails, and maybe
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I could encourage myself after I�ve been discouraged through this encouragement.
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�Dear NoCo, I�m a 55 -year -old female, not in your typical demographic pool according to your data, but totally into biblical teaching sprinkled with a lot of sarcasm.
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I know that�s a sin I should repent of, but it�s in my blood. Nurses are horribly sarcastic.
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LOVE CAPITAL LETTERS, THE SHOW, but I cannot get the archives to come up, all I can get are the new programs.
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I listen to this while I drive and tried both at home and on my phone to pull up the old shows and are unable.
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Side note, we�re working on that new website now, Jonathan, Josh, and others�
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Herculean efforts to get this new website up, and so pretty soon that�ll all be solved, it might even be solved by the time we play this show.
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All that aside, I appreciate both Mike and Steve and the solid stand they take on defending God�s work. I am in awe every day that God saved me and called me with a holy calling, not according to my works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
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What a great God we have. Thank you and hopefully it�s just me not being able to pull up your episodes.
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Sincerely, I don�t� she has not given me permission to give her name, so even though I want to,
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I just will not. But that�s an encouraging email, isn�t it? So, how about this?
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Instead of using the show as a platform to receive free Pete�s coffee or Henno mugs or something like that,
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I�m not going to ask for any gifts, but I�ll ask you to encourage somebody else. So, if you have been encouraged by your pastor because he�s faithful to preach the word, remember what you�re after is content, authorial intent, maybe he doesn�t have the pizzazz or the passion that you�d like him to have in the pulpit, but he�s faithful to the text.
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Why don�t you try to encourage him? How about a little note of encouragement? We all could use that, and if you can�t find a pastor to encourage, maybe a little note encouraging your spouse or your children.
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I wonder when the last time you�ve told your children, �I�m proud of you.� I regularly try to say that to my children and without having any daddy wounds exposed today on No Compromise Radio.
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If I could only hear my father say, �Well, he�s been dead for 25 years, but I don�t ever remember him saying, �I�m proud of It is a subject that, for many, is outdated, and it has been frozen over by the icy, cold silence of many pulpits, and it�s a subject that, for a lot of people, it�s a subject pulpits, churches, and denominations.
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And that is the topic of hell. It�s the topic of hell.
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Have you ever heard a Sunday morning sermon on the doctrine of hell? Have you ever heard a
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Bible study on the doctrine of hell? When was the last time you heard a message on the doctrine of hell?
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It is a very important topic. It�s a biblical topic. And did you know 95 million people die every year?
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So if you factor that out, every second, three people die, and that means they either go to heaven or to hell.
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Every second. And if you want to make it more personal, maybe you don�t want to, who does, but I will, every person you know, your husband, your wife, your children, your parents, your uncles, your aunts, your neighbors, your teachers, your students, your co -workers, the mail person, the butcher.
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Do you ever go to a butcher anymore? Most people just go to the regular grocery store. I like going to a real butcher, but that�s another sermon.
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Every person you know, every single one, is going to go to heaven or hell.
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There�s no in -between, there�s no conditional mortality, there�s no purgatory, there�s no annihilation. It�s heaven or hell.
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And so what I would like this message today, and probably next time, too, on hell, I�d like it to motivate you.
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When you learn a truth, there should be a response. And the responses today that I�m looking for, number one, if you�re a
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Christian, for you to say, �Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ died for my sins.
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I don�t have to go to hell. I get to go to heaven.� And I�ll do a sermon series here on the show regarding heaven in weeks to come.
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The other response I want you to have is, �If you�re a Christian, I better evangelize more.
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I need to warn people, sound the alarm.�
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And of course, if you�re not a Christian, I would like you to be so afraid of hell and offending
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God that you would run from hell into the belief that Jesus Christ dies on the cross to save sinners like you and was raised from the dead.
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This is a sobering topic. It is scary. It is frightening. But it is true.
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Nothing could be more true than the doctrine of hell. And I understand why it�s underpreached.
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It doesn�t win awards. It doesn�t give you the warm fuzzies. It�s not good for Seeker Sunday, where you bring all your seekers in.
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I should have some kind of who song for that. They call me the Seeker. Spurgeon whispered, �Into hell we dare not look.�
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Perhaps it would not be possible for any man to get a fair idea of the torments of the lost without at once becoming mad.
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I understand the emotional response to it, and it is incredible. I�ll tell you at the front that if it wasn�t for the
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Bible, I couldn�t believe in it. But if it wasn�t for the Bible, I couldn�t understand how glorified, how much glory rather,
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God has and what an awful sin it is to sin against such a great
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God. If you don�t tell other people about hell, who will?
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If pastors don�t tell people, if Bible study leaders don�t tell others, if Sunday school teachers don�t tell others about hell, who will?
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Who�s going to talk about it? And so, what we�re going to do today is we�re going to talk about the doctrine of hell, and what does the
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Bible say about it, and then you can respond with praise, evangelism, or belief.
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I mean, you know, in our society today, you might say to me, well, people do talk about hell.
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They use the word hell, but they don�t use it for the place of torment for eventually the lake of fire.
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George Patton, hell on wheels was his nickname. If there�s a lot of havoc going on, people say, oh, hell�s broken loose.
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Somebody�s hell to live with. That was sheer hell. I went through hell in war. Something�s hot as hell.
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The world uses the word hell, but it redefines it, of course. It�s a noun not describing what the
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Bible would describe as eventually the lake of fire. Actually, in fact, the world preaches against hell.
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Unbelievers attack hell, and if the unbelieving world can barely say the word dead, right, they have to have all kinds of synonyms for that, whether it�s passed on, passed away, pushing up the daisies, kicked the bucket, bitten the dust, given up the ghost, cashed in the chips, checked out.
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If they can�t even say the word dead, then hell is hard for them to utter.
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Fear of death really is the fear of meeting God, so the two really go hand in hand.
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The world is going to say hell doesn�t exist. Forget hell. It�s an imaginary thing.
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Newsweek years ago talked about hell as the H -word, �a subject too trite for serious scholarship.�
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described hell as an �odious conception, blasphemous in its view of the
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Creator.� Basically, the world says hell is vulgar, it is uncouth, it is rude, it is tasteless.
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One man said hell is the carrot and the stick in the chain letter that is the
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Christian religion. I mean, the world just cannot stand it. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, if hell were plausible, it would only have to be moderately unpleasant in order to deter.
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Given that it is so unlikely to be true, it has to be advertised as a very scary thing indeed.
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Christopher Hitchens in his book God is Not Great, nothing proves the man -made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell, unless it is the sorely limited mind that has failed to describe heaven.
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H .L. Mencken years ago, he has a way with words, but sadly, wrongly, stated, �What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world?
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Answer? He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.
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It�s a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake oil for rheumatism.�
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Pierre Bayle, a French polemicist, said the greatest scandal of our theology for philosophical minds is the concept of hell.
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I mean, this is kind of embarrassing. Isn�t this some ancient artifact? Who will then tell us the truth about hell?
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The world�s not. Who will tell us how to escape hell? The world won�t. Well, you�re not going to find liberals, theological liberals, to teach us about hell.
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John A .T. Robinson, 1963, honest to God, said that hell was the final mockery of God�s nature.
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He wrote a book five years later, In the End, God. Christ remains on the cross as long as one sinner remains in hell.
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That is not speculation. It is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God�s nature. In a universe of love, there can be no heaven that tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell for any which does not at the same time make it hell for God.
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He cannot endure that, for this would be the final mockery of his nature.
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The liberal Thomas Talbot said that when God would send, if God would send someone to hell, it would be �an altogether pagan conception of God.�
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F .W. Farrar, canon of Westminster Abbey for many years, said that hell was blasphemy against the merciful
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God. He said about the doctrine of hell, if it were true, I should be ready to resign all hope not only of a shortened but of any immortality, if thereby
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I could save not millions but one single human from what fear and superstition and ignorance and invertebrate hate slavish letter -worship have dreamed and taught of hell.
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Anglican Tom Harper talked about hell, so naive that the average thinking person can easily conclude that the whole subject is one for children and lovers of pure fantasy.
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Michael Green, the theologian, what sort of God would he be who could eternally rejoice in heaven with the saved while downstairs the cries of the lost make an agonizing cacophony?
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Such a God is not the person revealed in Scripture as utterly just and utterly loving, but it
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Scripture does not teach the conscious unending torment of those who are eternally separated from God.
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So basically, the theological liberals would echo the world with a few nuances and follow
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John Lennon's advice, no hell below us and above us only sky. I don't think the
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Roman Catholics are going to teach us and tell us, at least back in 1999, Pope John Paul II said, hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God, but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life.
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And amazingly, I mean, I get the world doesn't say anything. I get that liberals, you know, contradict the
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Bible. But now in the evangelical hemisphere, in the neo -evangelical orbit, you've got people who are denying the eternal nature of hell.
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It used to be just liberals and cults. And now you've got people even like back in the day, John R .W.
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Stott saying, I believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.
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I find the concept intolerable talking about hell and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain.
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Well, that's true from a human perspective. But if the Bible teaches it, then what are we to do?
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Clark Pinnock said hell was an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity.
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He went on to say, let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind, an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of tradition, which needs to be changed.
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How can Christians possibly project the deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may be?
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Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any moral standards and by the gospel itself.
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Rob Bell, enter stage left in the video trailer of his book,
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Love Wins. Gandhi's in hell. He is. And someone knows this for sure.
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Will only a few select people make it to heaven and will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell?
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And if that's the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or what you know or something that happens in your heart?
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Or do you need to be initiated or baptized or taking class on being converted or being born again?
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How does one become one of these few? Well, that actually is the right question at the very end.
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Bell, of course, teaches universal reconciliation. They're going to be saved eventually.
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The bad news is he's got an Oprah -like influence. God's basically going to melt your opposition.
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Even if you're an unbeliever, you're going to die and then it'll all work out.
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The Love Wins FAQs. Those who reject the invitation to salvation experience a purifying fire of judgment and hell, yet there is hope.
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Love Wins helps us have a biblical imagination that leaves room for the hope of the redemption for all while recognizing humanity's free will to continue to reject
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God. The preface of the book, there are a growing number of us who have been acutely aware that this
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Jesus story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, stories
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Jesus isn't interested in telling. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few
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Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.
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Well, Rob, then please tell me what hell is. Chapter 7. Hell is our refusal to trust
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God's retelling of our story. We create hell whenever we fail to trust God's retelling of our story.
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I mean, that is, you know what that should be? That should be a diet book. That's a diet book because this stuff makes me want to.
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See, I just didn't even fill in the blank there. I just stopped. Notice the restraint.
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Well, I had to take a drink of my monster drink is what I had to do. I mean, the lengths that people will go.
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I mean, I have some advice. Just, you know, it's a free country. You can believe in Sheila -ism if you're named
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Sheila and you just cut and paste whatever you want. It's a free country, but it's not going to change the truth.
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And by the way, if you do say that hell doesn't exist, you know, the religion
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Christianity has already taken. So just pick a different name. And so if you're Rob Bell, it's
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Bell -ism, Bell -istic, something like that. The question is, do you believe in hell?
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You, the listener, the biblical description of hell, do you believe it? And what motivates me, what convicts me, what confronts me and rebukes me is this.
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I do believe it. But then what does that say when I'm not preaching the gospel to my friends and relatives and neighbors?
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They're going to hell. Short of God's interrupting, sovereign, distinguishing grace through preachers.
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The other day, we were talking about feet. My children and I, we were talking about feet. And the longer you look at someone's foot, you know, a family member's foot, the longer
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I look at my own foot, I mean, it's just, I don't know. Can feet be beautiful?
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I mean, they're just kind of, you know, you know, my wife's feet. I think they're pretty, let me at least say that.
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But when you read Romans chapter 10, then you get an idea.
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How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
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How are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they're sent as it is written?
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How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. We're talking about the ghastly subject, but the biblical subject of hell.
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And if you're an evangelical, you have to believe in hell. I don't want you to think it's in poor taste.
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I mean, let's just do a little no -co on it. Your friend that you've been inviting to church for some time, you've preached the gospel to them, you know that you need to preach to them first before inviting them to church.
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Then you invite them because you have a desire for them to sit underneath the word. And as people sit under the word regularly and often,
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God uses that word to make alive, right? James chapter 1.
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So, you invite them. I guess maybe the worst kind of sermon would be some giving message, you know, the pastor's after the money, they think.
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But I think maybe what would trump that? It's a sermon about hell. Now, that would be good for the unbeliever to hear, but the unbeliever's perspective, maybe they don't think that's good.
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But I wonder you, the inviter, I wonder what you would think. We're going to have to talk about today the subject of hell.
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The temptation everyone has, I mean, pretty much everyone, unless you're bulletproof theologically, is we water down God's standards of salvation, and we make the narrow gate a little bit wider.
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There's a little bit of wiggle room in there. Because the temptation is spurred on by, stems from a desire to see our loved ones go to heaven.
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Love believes all things, hopes all things. Love, I want what's best for my loved ones.
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And what's best for them is to go to heaven and worship the Lord Jesus Christ. But if they're not doing that, then
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I sometimes water down God's call to salvation. In light of His Son's work,
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I water it down to get them in. But the thing is, they don't really get in. But in my mind, I just sleep better at night.
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So, I don't want that to happen. The Bible emphatically teaches the reality of and the severity of hell.
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And when I talk about hell, I mean the place of God's final, retributive punishment, the
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Lake of Fire. And when you see the word Gehenna used in Scripture, you know the origin of that word is the
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Valley of Hinnom. It's near Jerusalem. They throw all kinds of trash and garbage, and they would just try to keep it lit all the time because it just was an awful smelling thing.
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And that is an amazing symbol, that Valley of Hinnom, that south side of the city of Jerusalem, garbage dump.
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They'd throw everything there. Children's sacrifice to Molech. It was awful. Symbolically uses a place of divine punishment.
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It's a real place. Westminster Larger Catechism. The punishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation and comfortable presence of God and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission in hell and hellfire forever.
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So, what we're going to do starting next time for the show on hell, these shows on hell,
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I'm not talking about just psychological torment without physical torment.
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I'm not talking about unrighteous don't exist anymore. I'm not talking about that.
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I'm talking about conscious, physical, spiritual torment. And when you understand how bad hell is, your zeal will not be abated.
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R .A. Torrey talked about that. You're going to have thankfulness, and you're going to have a desire to evangelize.
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And I think you're going to see great sadness brought into this. I mean, how can you talk about hell without talking in a very sad way?
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And so, my name is Mike Ebenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. By now, you've probably seen our new website.
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What a great website that is. And you've gone to the YouTube to watch some videos. We're going to talk about hell and five reasons why hell is true and blood curdling.
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You can always write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, especially if you're a longtime listener, we'd love to hear from you.
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Just tell me, hey, yeah, you can read this on the air, and then I can include your name, too, without the legal team involved.
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info at nocompromiseradio .com No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.