INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• Life is all about making choices. Our lives are what they are based on choices we have made throughout our lives up to this point.
• Generally if life is good, it is because we have made wise choices and if our life is a mess generally it is because we have consistently made bad choices.
• Sometimes things happen of no fault of our own, BUT how we deal with what life gives us is still up to us, it depends on how we choose to deal with what has happened to us.
• If you have raised or are raising your children, the issue of choice is a bit scary at times.
• Imagine that you have done all you could possibly do to raise your child right, then you send them to college and you HOPE! You HOPE they make the right choices.
• You pray for them, and you most likely bring your own parenting skills into question wondering if you did enough.
• As a parent, you can feel the joy of seeing your child grow up loving Jesus, having a great marriage of their own and seeing them succeed.
• For some you have felt the agony of seeing your child make bad choices all along the way, you feel pain for them, you hurt, cry and pray for them.
• Let us look at our John 3:16 passage again.
• SLIDE #2
• In this eye-opening passage we have thus far learned that God loves us, and His love for us led Him to give us His Son.
• We have learned that we are to respond to that love by believing in Him.
• Today we learn WHY we need to respond to Him in faith
• Just as this life is about choices, the next life is.
• WE have the choice between to eternal realities, hell (perishing) and Heaven (eternal life)
• On the bad side: Max Lucado states: Some people want nothing to do with God. He speaks; they cover their ears. He commands; they scoff. They don’t want him telling them how to live. They mock what he says about marriage, money, sex, or the value of human life. They regard his son as a joke and the cross as utter folly. They spend their lives telling God to leave them alone. And at the moment of their final breath, he honors their request: “Get away from me, you who do evil. I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23 NCV). This verse escorts us to the most somber of Christian realities: hell. (3:16- The Numbers of Hope- p.94)
• On the good, we find that God desires all to be saved, to be with Him for eternity! 2 Timothy 2:4
• Today let us begin by looking at the tragedy of hell.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. THE TRAGEDY OF HELL.
• This subject is one that people do not want to talk about; it is something that we make light of in many ways.
• We do not want to think about the possibility of an eternal punishment, and as for me, I do not like the thought either.
• Atheist Bertrand Russell states “I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”
• Or, as is more commonly believed, “A loving God would not send people to hell.”
• Before we go too deep we need to examine with is hell.
• SLIDE #4
A. What is hell?
• Hell is a place, it is a place that is totally void of God and totally void of any goodness, kindness, compassion or love.
• We look at just a few of the passages that give us insight as to what hell is all about.
• SLIDE #5
• Matthew 10:28 ( ESV ) And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
• Jesus is speaking in concrete terms, not hypothetical or using some cryptic figure of speech.
• He speaks of a real event in a real place.
• In Luke 16:19-30 we have the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In the story Jesus relays to us, the rich man was in eternal torment and Lazarus was in paradise at the side of Abraham.
• Listen to what the rich man had to say about where he was.
• SLIDE #6
• Luke 16:24 ( ESV ) And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
• Words such as body, finger, and tongue presuppose a physical state in which a throat longs for water and a person begs for relief—physical relief.
• The rich man is in such torment that he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers of their impending doom if they do not change.
• Abraham gives a startling response.
• SLIDE #7
• Luke 16:31 ( ESV ) He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
• This isn’t Jesus’ only reference to hell. In fact, he spoke of hell often. Thirteen percent of his teachings refer to eternal judgment and hell.3 Two-thirds of his parables relate to resurrection and judgment.4 Jesus wasn’t cruel, but he was blunt.
• Jesus speaks of hell being a place of outer darkness.
• SLIDE #8
• Matthew 8:12 ( ESV ) while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
• This does not sound like a good place to be.
• The apostles said that the betrayer of Christ, Judas Iscariot, had gone “to his own place” (Acts 1:25 NASB). The Greek word for place is topos, which means geographical location.
• Hell, like heaven, is a location, not a state of mind, not a metaphysical dimension of floating spirits, but an actual place populated by physical beings.
• Paul speaks of the eternal nature of hell.
• SLIDE #9
• 2 Thessalonians 1:9 ( ESV ) They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
• SLIDE #10
B. What makes hell so terrible?
• There are so many reasons that hell is so terrible.
• When you look at John 3:16 it says that if we believe in Jesus we will not perish.
• The word perish would seem to give us hope that the punishment is momentary, but it does not.
• SLIDE #11
• Revelation 14:11 ( ESV ) And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
• How does someone gnash teeth if they no longer exist? How they hunger, thirst, feel pain or anguish if they no longer exist?
• What does perish in hell? Hope, goodness, kindness, love, purity. What perishes is ANYTHING that is good.
• We cannot imagine how it would be to be somewhere for eternity where NOTHING good exists. We have caught glimpses at various times in the world, but even in the worst of places, something good existed.
• Maybe one of the most difficult aspects of this hell is found in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
• SLIDE #12
• Luke 16:26 ( ESV ) And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
• The rich man could see what was going on, but he could NEVER go, there would be no field trips, no visits, no winning a vacation to Heaven. He would NEVER be able to cross over, yet he saw how great it was to be there.
• Much perishes in hell. Hope perishes. Happiness perishes. But the body and soul of the God-deniers continue outside. Outside of heaven, outside of hope, and outside of any possibility of change.
• SLIDE #13
C. What God has done to try to keep us out of hell.
• God has given us warning after warning, God has sent His Son to take away our punishment, He loves us so much that He gave His only Son so that all who believe can have eternal life and NOT perish!
• Max Lucado eloquently states:
• God has wrapped caution tape on hell’s porch and posted a million and one red flags outside the entrance.
• To descend its stairs, you’d have to cover your ears, blindfold your eyes, and, most of all, ignore the epic sacrifice of history: Christ, in God’s hell on humanity’s cross, crying out to the blackened sky, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
• The supreme surprise of hell is this: Christ went there so you won’t have to. He died so we can have life. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)
• God does not send people to hell, we volunteer by rejecting Him!
• Where hell is horrible, Heaven is wonderful. Let’s look at the triumph of Heaven!
• SLIDE #14
II. THE TRIUMPH OF HEAVEN.
• If you choose to believe in Jesus and give Him your life, you will get to experience joy in this life and indescribable joy in the next.
• SLIDE #15
A. What is Heaven?
• Listen to what John says in Revelation 21.
• SLIDE #16
• Revelation 21:3-4 ( ESV ) 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.”
• There will no more death, no more suffering, the lame will be whole! We will be in the presence of God for eternity!
• Heaven is where God dwells and Jesus said something neat to us before He left us.
• SLIDE #17
• John 14:3 ( ESV ) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
• Heaven is a prepared place, Jesus said His mansion has many rooms; he is at this moment preparing this place for us!
• Revelation 21:21 tells us the streets are made of gold, that everything is beautiful. I think John gave the description he did because he could not put into words what he saw!
• I could go on and on about Heaven. We will be praising god forever and we will want to do so!
• SLIDE #18
B. Why is Heaven so great?
• Here is my one word answer to this: duuuuuu.
• No suffering, no pain, no evil, the absence of anything bad, no crying, no tears, no TAXES, no recessions!
• Really? Is there a real choice to make here? How could ANYONE turn this down?
• If this were ALL you would get when you die, this would be great, BUT for those who accept Christ, eternal life starts NOW!
• SLIDE #19
III. THE TIME IS NOW!
• God is a loving God, He will not make you love Him, follow Him, accept Him or live for Him.
• As I said in the beginning, we can scoff at God; reject Him spit at Him if we choose. We can just ignore Him because He does not fit what we want to do with our lives.
• There will be some who THINK they are alright who will not be.
• SLIDE #20
• Matthew 7:21-23 ( ESV ) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
CONCLUSION
• The choice is yours, eternal life in a wonderful heaven that Jesus is preparing for you, or an eternity separated from God.
• God makes the offer. We make the choice.
• Why did Jesus die? Why do we get to celebrate Easter next week? Because He provided the way for you to avoid perishing!
