Five Minutes in Hell
John 16:22-24
Intro
The title of my sermon today, “Five Minutes in Hell” is the flip side of the sermon we heard two weeks ago, about how we would change if we had the opportunity to look into Heaven. I suppose it is a impossibility to actually take a tour of hell, but we can take a tour via the scriptures. It is not the ideal will of God that anyone go to hell. The Scriptures teach that hell was prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). The whole redemptive program of God is motivated by the dual desire to save people from a destiny in hell and to save them to an eternal fellowship with God in heaven.
Have you ever speculated concerning what you would learn if you could make a five minute visit into the destiny of the doomed? Have you ever examined your heart and been convicted of the calloused, cold-hearted indifference of your heart toward the spiritual welfare of those for whom our Lord died?
I must say to you that there have been times when I have felt, at least momentarily, that a five minute trip to hell would be very profitable for my ministry. I must also confess that there have been times when, if I could have sent some of my church members to hell for five minutes and then brought them back, that I would have done so. I say this without malice or hatred or desire for revenge. These thoughts were motivated by a desire to help parents see the awful danger to which they were exposing their children by and attitude of total indifference concerning their spiritual and moral well-being.
So today I want us to take a short Scriptural trip to Hell, so we can learn five ways we might just be changed.
I. We would learn that hell is real.
a. Hell is not a myth or bad dream or the creation of some fantastic fiction writer.
b. Hell was a reality to our Savior to the extent that he died on a cross to save people from it.
c. Hell was a reality to the apostle Paul to the extent that he suffered great privation and hardship and martyrdom that he might communicate the saving gospel to the lost.
d. Hell was a reality to the rich man mentioned in the story by Jesus.
i. He was in possession of his consciousness
ii. He described his feelings
iii. He retained his memory
iv. He was in a hopeless condition
v. He had a concern for his five brothers, that they might come into the same torment.
II. Such a trip would cause the church to be aroused from a state of complacency.
a. The church is not a social club.
b. The church is not just a service organization.
c. The church is our Lord’s rescue squad charged with the responsibility of persuading people to forsake their lives of unbelief and rebellion against God that will eventually put them in hell.
d. We greatly admire heroes.
i. The newspapers contain stories week after week of those who have greatly endangered themselves to save someone form great peril.
ii. If the members of the contemporary church really believed that all of those who died outside of Jesus Christ would spend eternity in hell, we would become a community of compassionate concern unlike anything the world has never seen.
III. Such a trip would cause us to recognize the value of being genuinely Christian in all of our conduct.
a. The most effective sermons ever preached are not those that are uttered over the pulpit.
i. Unless the gospel is demonstrated in life, the testimony of the lips and the sermon from the pulpit will have no weight or influence.
b. By referring to his disciples as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, Jesus was emphasizing the value of influence.
i. People will not believe in our Savior unless we demonstrate that he makes a difference in our lives.
c. Paul was emphasizing this truth when he said, “Wherefore, if meat make my brother stumble, I will eat no flesh while the world stands, lest I make my brother stumble. (1 Cor. 8:13).
i. Our conduct must always be guided by our motive to attract people to our Savior.
IV. Such a trip would vastly influence our personal spiritual growth and discipline.
a. Prayer would take on a new meaning if we realized that it brought us into vital contact with the eternal God and that through prayer God would be able to work his work within us so as to make us more effective in our witnessing.
b. We would become diligent students of the divine Word that we might more effectively meet the personal needs of those to whom we would seek to bear a winning witness.
c. We would respond to the church with a much deeper love and with a greater loyalty, because the church is the only institution God is depending on for the evangelization of the world.
V. Such a trip would enable us to learn why people go to hell
a. Luke 16:30 “They will repent”
b. People do not go to hell because of the desire or design of God.
c. People do not go to hell because they have sinned so greatly that God is unable to save them.
d. People got to hell because they refuse to repent.
e. People go to hell because they live a selfish life of sin.
f. People also go to hell because of our neglect to witness and to tell others of God’s love
i. By obedience to our Lord’s command to be witnesses, we become the means whereby people hear the Word and seek forgiveness, and consequently they escape an eternity of hell.
1. For us to neglect to witness is to involve ourselves in guilt for their remaining in their sins.
2. It is almost too terrible to contemplate that people go into eternity unprepared to meet God because of the indifference, unconcern, and failure to bear a witness on the part of those who consider themselves followers of the Lord.
Closing
God does not want anyone to go to hell. He has given his Son Jesus Christ to prevent people from going to hell. God has done all within his power to save people. Every Christian should cooperate with him in his work of saving people form a hopeless eternity.
If you have not yet received Christ as your Lord and Savior, do so immediately that you might be prepared for an eternity of fellowship with God.
