Life after death: Hell
Introduction: I have a 2 part message on Heaven and Hell. Let's just say we will be preaching on Heaven next week. I feared I might lose some of you next Sunday if I reversed the order. I'd rather preach on the joys of Heaven but if it is in the bible; it must be preached, whether it is plain or mysterious, intriguing or dull, hopeful or worrisome; The coming of the LORD was described in Malachi 4:5 as “the great and dreadful day of the LORD.” For some, that day is great and for others, that day will be dreadful. Two sides of the same coin, we can't look at one never looking at the other. Billy Graham once said “If there was more hell in the pulpit there would be less of it in the pew.” Preachers who refuse to mention Hell for fear of offending someone should be thrown out of the ministry. After all if the Holy Ghost laid something on their heart to preach, they should preach it, but many fear offending their congregation, losing them and losing money. Carlton Pearson founded the higher dimension church in Tulsa, and you may remember he started claiming there was no hell. And many of his congregation left, and it was a good thing they did, not for his sake, but for theirs. It's astounding to me how someone can totally ignore what is clearly written in the scripture and then question God about it. A.W. Tozer remarked “The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.” So true. No hell means no consequence, no consequence means no sin, no sin means disobedience without guilt, disobedience without guilt means we can make ourselves god.
Here is a popular question that causes a lot of discussion, “Is there life after death?” And the answer is Yes, yes there is. More than you might realize. As hard as it is to explain, I believe that the spiritual life is more realistic than the physical life, the spirit is eternal the body is temporal. Heaven and Hell are so real that it will make this life seem like a dream. Our life is a vapor that vanishes as quickly as it appeared. In light of eternity it was a mere blink, a short dream. A dream you will either long to have back, like the rich man; or one you are glad is over with, like Lazarus.
You might be tempted to think how can a good God send someone to hell. The answer is he doesn't. I mentioned last week Matthew Henry's statement that God is good to all. Absolutely. When a person prays for rain in the middle of a drought, even their wicked neighbor receives a blessing. (It rains on the just and the unjust alike) but He adds this caveat: “all but devils and damned sinners, who have shut themselves out of his goodness.” and it's upon that point we begin our message. John Hannah once told someone “No one who is ever in hell will be able to say to God, “You put me here,” and no one who is in heaven will ever be able to say, “I put myself here.” You can't earn your way to heaven but you can earn your way to hell.
It isn't the fault of God that men refuse to open themselves – their minds, their hearts, their souls to him. He knocks at your door but you keep it shut and you refuse to let him in. Conviction reminds you that a Savior is at your doorstep but you leave him waiting. He won't force his love or his salvation on you, because he respects your decision, you have to decide to receive it. Some people will try to reconcile themselves to Christ at the last moment or at a more convenient time – they want the pleasure of sin now; and the promise of paradise of heaven later. If the LORD isn't good enough to follow now, why is He good enough to follow later? You want the most of sin and salvation at the same time but He reminds you that no man can serve two masters. You must choose one and let loose of the other.
But for those who refuse his grace, he says about them in Matthew 8:12:
Scripture: “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 8:12
“Children of the kingdom”
This refers to the Jews of the day who were the rightful heirs of God's kingdom, but the denial of the kingdom will extend to anyone who refuses the grace of Jesus Christ. Not just self-righteous Jews, but maybe those who call themselves Christians as well, those who think they are the Lord's sheep but on the last day they will be put to his left as goats. They carried bibles and hymn books and while their body may have been in church their heart never was. C.S. Lewis said “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” What a scary thought that we may think heaven is our destiny when the opposite is true.
Spurgeon once said that his mother told him when he was a boy “my son, if at the last great day you are condemned, remember your mother will say 'Amen' to your condemnation.” Ouch. He said it cut him to the quick! Children that are full of themselves, they may have been born of pious parents, or known or related to righteous people. They are proud of their christian stature at school, work, church, or in the community but they have no sense of humility. They condemn others but excuse and forgive themselves. Many children of Pastors, Evangelists, Missionaries, elders, deacons, or just great praying, God-fearing mothers will have to say to say 'Amen' to their children's condemnation. You can only imagine how a mother might cry “I wept for you!” “I prayed for you!” “I warned you so many times, but now you must go your way and I must go mine.” As sad as that may be, she will be comforted with eternal love and eternal peace; which can not be said about the unrepentant child, while there are no tears in heaven there are nothing but tears in hell.
How heart-breaking it is to think of those who will cry and beg and plead at the gate of Heaven “Let me in” Jesus says “why?” “because my mom is in there!” “because my dad is in there”. Your parents, your husband, your wife, may have prayed for you, but you never prayed for yourself. Your relationship to Christians won't save you. Your reputation as a Christian won't save you. Many people call themselves “Christians” and they are called “Christians” by many people. But men won't be judged by what they were called, they will be judged by what they were. One day the goats will be separated from the sheep, the tares will be separated from the wheat, false Christians will be separated from true Christians. Your reputation before men won't avail you before God. I'm not suggesting that all good reputations are false, just that God sees through the external, whenever it is false.
Transition: And what happens to these “children of the kingdom”?
“shall be cast out”
In hell there is fire but no light; not the least gleam or glimpse of it. Every treasure we thought we would earn through sin is rewarded to us in hell. Those that lived for sex suffer in constant lust with no one to exploit, those that lived to criticize will have no fulfillment in their hatred but will be left suffer rotting away in the acid of their bitterness. See what a deception Satan offers through sin. Hell is the last and final fruit of sin. Hell is the absence of God. Since God is good all the time and all the time God is good, in hell there is no good, since there is no God. There is no hope in hell there is no life in hell.
One of the torments of hell must be that there is an eternity to remember that once upon a time there was a chance, that things could have been different. That there was a time and a place when a mother prayed for them and a father or brother or friend warned them and now they suffer the thought that they are now in paradise while I am here burning in hell.
Ill. Paul Lee Tan shares a tale of Archibald Boyle In the 18th century, he was the leading member of an association of wild and wicked men known as “The Hell club” in Glasgow, Scotland. After one night of carousing at the club's notorious annual meeting, Boyle dreamed he was riding home on his black horse. In the darkness, someone seized the reins, shouting, “You must go with me!” As Boyle desperately tried to force the reins from the hands of the unknown guide, the horse reared. Boyle fell down, down, down, with increasing speed. “Where are you taking me?” The cold voice replied, “To hell!” The echoes of the groans and yells of frantic revelry assaulted their ears. At the entrance to hell, Boyle saw the inmates chasing the same pleasures they had pursued in life. There was a lady he had known playing her favorite vulgar game. Boyle relaxed, thinking hell must be a pleasurable place after all. When he asked her to rest a moment and show him through the pleasures of hell, she shrieked. “There is no rest in hell! She unclasped the vest of her robe and displayed a coil of living snakes writhing about her midsection. Others revealed different forms of pain in their hearts. “Take me from this place!” Boyle demanded. “By the living God whose name I have so often outraged, I beg you, let me go!” His guide replied, “Go then-- but in a year and a day we meet to part no more.” At this, Boyle awoke, feeling that these last words were as letters of fire burned into his heart.
Despite a resolution never to attend the Hell Club again, he soon was drawn back. He found no comfort there. He grew haggard and gray under the weight of his conscience and fear of the future. He dreaded attending the Club's annual meeting, but his companions forced him to attend. Every nerve of his body writhed in agony at the first sentence of the president's opening address: “Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore it is a year and a day since our last annual meeting.” After the meeting, he mounted his horse to ride home. Next morning, his horse was found grazing quietly by the roadside. A few yards away the corpse of Archibald Boyle. The strange guide had claimed him at the appointed time.
(Paul Lee Tan)
There is no polite removal or cordial sentence. The son who mocked his father's prayers and laughed at his mothers' tears, who refused his many opportunities to repent will be cast out or thrown out- cast down like Satan – And you will fall and fall and fall and fall. Downward never finding a place to land. As you are descending into hell, the reality of the situation is more than you can bear. The horror is so intense it takes your breath away all you can do is gasp and groan and all of your screams are drowned out by the millions of others that have been cast out before you. Where is your boasting and bragging now?
Transition: You have been cast out forever, but cast out to where?
“into the outer darkness”
This is referred to in Jude 1:13 as the 'blackest darkness'. A darkness like no other on earth. If darkness scares you, you will be horrified in Hell, because outer darkness is the highest and densest degree of darkness. It is darker than deepest and darkest cave. It is blacker than blackest black. It is a darkness than can be felt inside you, a darkness so dark that it melts your soul. It suddenly and supernaturally surpasses every dread you ever had and every doom of every horrifying report you ever received. Those are nothing compared to the realization of going down into eternal darkness.
God is called light in 1 John 1:5 so the absence of God is the absence of light. Even in creation there is light in it, because God created it. Hell was not prepared for man, it was a place prepared for the devil and his angels. Once this life is over, all of God's goodness we spoke of last week will either be magnified or subtracted. But the choice is ours.
In Dante's 'The Inferno' on the gates of hell, it is written “abandon all hope, ye that enter here.” the premise is true enough. I don't think we fully understand the great thing hope is. It causes us to go and do and work and play and enjoy. We don't know the future but we hope for the good. Love hopes all things. But in hell there is no hope, not even the hope that God made a mistake and put you in wrong place. Even in the worst of times, we have hope. You don't know what hopelessness is until you are in hell. Even during our deepest depressions, there is hope. There is always hope for better days. Those that have lost a child still have hope of being reunited in heaven. Those who lost all their property because of a natural disaster still have hope of a new life. Those that are late on the mortgage because they lost their job still have hope that they will get a new one and catch up. Those that have cancer with a poor prognosis still have hope for healing or if it is their appointed time to meet the Lord they have hope of heaven. Elijah prayed for death during depression because he hoped for a better circumstance after death. But in outer darkness – All hope is lost, even the hope of dying. It is the second death that never ends.
Transition: If that wasn't bad enough we read of the agony in Hell
“weeping and gnashing of teeth”
You may cry and cry but no one will comfort you, because in outer darkness no one will hear you, all the sympathy you desire will be met with gnashing of teeth from others. Your tears on the ground may spell out the word “eternity” every where you look you see that word, on every link on every chain you read the words “for ever”. In that place where the worm never dies, you see that word on every worm that crawls through your bones, on every flame that burns and every demon that torments you, you are reminded that your punishment is forever.
There is floods of tears to no purpose. There will be weeping. There will be those crying out of regret, a father crying out of shame, someone's sister crying out of pain, an old friend crying for another chance that will never come. Oh definitely! There will be weeping!
They may gnash their teeth in anger saying to their mother or father in hell “it's your fault I'm here!” “You taught me to hate!” “All the animosity I had toward the world, I learned from you!” “You taught me to lie, to drink, to steal” They will gnash their teeth out of anger and out of pain. They will be full of fury, gnashing their teeth at God. They will be crazed with outrageous envy of a better fate, as they reflect on those that are rejoicing in a paradise that they will never enjoy. The possibility of enjoying it with their loved ones will only add to their torment. They are reminded of their loving spouse in heaven while they burn in hell, they may see past images of a praying mother but instead of submitting to God they laughed at her prayers. They gnash their teeth out of pain. I once saw a program where a man, who was snake bit was rushed to the hospital and while he was lying in the hospital bed waiting for the anti-venom he asked to have something to bite to help deal with the pain and he literally bit through several things they gave him and actually broke several of his town teeth in the process. And in hell the pain will be more intense and there will not be any release from it.
Conclusion: I don't say this gladly, as if some great justice is being done to my enemies, if I did my fate would be the same as theirs. Remember that it is the height of malice to take pleasure in the misery of others. And malice is that final fruit of bitterness. There is a significant difference between helping someone improve and having a critical spirit. A critical spirit is never pleased. A critical spirit expects and finds disappointment wherever it looks. They are suspicious of all and trusting of none. Even in good situations they find disappointment. They are in danger of hell if not destined for it already. So I want to assure you that I don't say these things to be critical and I don't take pleasure in telling the truth about hell.
Ill. One day, when Vice President Calvin Coolidge was presiding over the Senate, one Senator angrily told another to go “straight to hell” The offended Senator complained to Coolidge as the presiding officer, and Cal looked up from the book he was leafing through while listening to the debate. “I've been looking through the rule book.” he said “you don't have to go.” (Crossroads - Issue no.7 p. 16)
Remember if you hate your life, the Lord can take it from you. If you choose to reject God gifts and his plan of salvation for your life, you choose hell. You can choose hell if you want to –I don't know why you would, but God will let you go there if that is what you want, but you don't have to go. Romans 10:13 says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Acts 16:31 says “..believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved...” Romans 10:9 says “if you declare with your mouth that “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
