No One Likes A Pyromaniac God Series

Background: Ill: Most awful of deaths is to be burned up or to find someone who has died this way. There is no peace found on a corpse that has been found burned.

• Read Revelation 20:11-15. The difficulty of the subject of hell is trying to harmonize the concept of a loving gracious God with a

God who is righteous, yet seems heartless to cast boys and girls, men and women into a pit of molten lava, forever to suffer and

never to burn up.

• Most Americans do not believe in a literal hell. Most Christians say they do not believe in an eternal lake of fire. (Christians – 84%

believed in heaven and 42% believed in hell) (Barna 2003 – ½ % of Americans believe they will go to hell, 64% they will go to

heaven and 5% believe they will be reincarnated.)

• The voice of Jesus Himself: All references to hell/gehenna (except 1 ) comes from the lips of Jesus. Why do you think Jesus

speaks more about this eternal place of suffering? Jesus made this place for the devil and his fallen angels (Matt. 25:41). But

because of sin, man now goes to this place because they reject Jesus (Luke 16:19-ff). Could it be that since Jesus knows how

awful this place is that He came to warn mankind? Men could not conceive of a place so awful on their own. Since death, we do

not have perspective of eternity.

• Outside the view found in Scripture, men have proposed three alternative:

1. Metaphorical hell: Hell is a symbol of God’s judgment. God may judge threaten hell, but His love will keep Him from keeping

them in hell forever.

2. Purgatory hell: Hell is a place of divine cleansing for those who may not have accepted Christ; serve their sentence and then

redeemed.

3. Conditional hell: Hell is a temporal place – either restored or annihilated.

• Warren Wirsbee speaking about the “Great White Throne Judgment”: “You will have a judge but no jury, a prosecution

but no defense, a sentence but not appeal”

I. The Lost Will Stand Before The Righteous Judge With No Jury. (20:11)

1. The Judge: The great white throne speaks of purity and righteousness. There is only one judge worthy to sit on this throne

(Rev. 4-5). In His presence, the whole world melts and all that are left before Him are all the souls of the lost.

• Jesus states He will sit on “His glorious throne” Matt. 19:28. Paul preaches that Jesus will “judge the world in

righteousness …the one who rose from the dead. Acts 17:31

2. The Jury: None of your peers to acquit you. No one to buy or pay. No one to find you not guilty. No hung jury.

II. The Lost Will Hear the Evidence and Have No Defense. (20:12-13)

1. The evidence will come from three sources:

• The Bible: John 12:48 – “…”the word I spoke is what will judge man at the last day”

• Your Blog: Ecc. 3:17 – “your works/what you did in this life will be brought into evidence. What God gave us and we

used for our own glory.

• Book of Life: Rev. 20:15 & Exodus32:32 “blot me out of the book that you have written…”

• All the evidence presented will be so damning that you will not be able to open your mouth in defense. Nothing you can

bring up will give you mercy.

III. The Lost Will Receive an Eternal Sentence With No Appeals. (20:13-15)

1. No one will escape their sentence & conviction. Sea & death are two pictures of get bodies that swallowing their victims in

which we cannot retrieve, until God calls.

2. Those whose names are not recorded as choosing to truly follow Christ and forsake their sin will be thrown into the eternal

lake of fire (20:10).

3. Hell is eternal just as Heaven is eternal. (Same language used in Scripture for both)

• Attributes: Darkness (Matt. 8:12); eternal fire (Mark 9:44) Could it be a river of lava? This flame, absence of light (God

is light) will be dark; sounds (Lk. 16:24) - gnashing of teeth, screams, cursing – there will not be one good word uttered

in hell; Eternal suffering (Rev. 20:10) To be annihilated means rest, and the bible says there is no rest for the wicked.

Godless – A place in which God has forgotten about you. Hell is that which is absent of god. All hope, mercy, grace,

love, forgiveness, joy, and peace is all taken away only the evil remain. You will not find one good thing from your

eternal stay in Hell!

• Associates: Hell does not and will not discriminate. There will be no class/social ranking in hell; all will be lost. The