Opening Illustration: The October 25, 1999 crash of golfer Payne Stewart’s plane was a bizarre incident. He and three companions and two crew, boarded a twin-engine, $2.4 million Learjet which left the runway at 9:19 A.M near Orlando, Florida. There were two pilots, and all seemed fine when they checked in with air traffic controllers a few minutes later.
But for unknown reasons, the pilots apparently lost consciousness shortly before they were to turn west toward their destination of Dallas.
When they couldn’t be raised by air traffic controllers, several flights of Air Force F-16 jets went aloft to investigate.
The first F-16 to investigate was from Eglin AFB and he was already in the air on a test mission when asked to intercept the Learjet. The Learjet, on autopilot, had climbed through its assigned altitude of 39,000 feet and was now above 45,000.
No one was at the controls. There was no movement in the cockpit, and the windows were fogged/frosted over, suggesting that the cabin had depressurized and become chilled with stratospheric air some 9 miles high above the earth.
One of the Air Force pilots said, “It’s a very helpless feeling to pull alongside another aircraft and realize the people inside that aircraft potentially are unconscious or in some other way incapacitated. And there’s nothing I can do physically from my aircraft even though I’m fifty to one hundred feet away, to help them at all.”
When one of its two engines finally ran out of fuel, the plane roller-coastered through the clouds, heading toward final, cataclysmic destruction. After a total flight time of 3 hours, 54 minutes, the aircraft hit the ground at a nearly supersonic speed and an extremely steep dive angle. The Learjet crashed in South Dakota, just outside Mina. All were Lost
One air safety investigator from the NTSB said that airplane depressurization can be “very insidious.” He explained that the problem, called hypoxia, could slowly deprive the crew of its ability to know what was happening. “It could be one of those things where you’re feeling good, you’re feeling happy, and you don’t know what’s going on.”(1)
Picture humanity on a runaway airplane, on a collision course with death , with only moments of time remaining. Yet people are so caught up in their pleasures and pressures and pursuits that they don’t realize the urgency of their plight.
Just like hypoxia, people do not realize, do not see, have no comprehension of the fate that awaits them.
Jesus was talking to those that had hypoxia of the soul. The Jews were plotting to kill Jesus because He had healed on the Sabbath and calling Himself the Son of God, making Himself equal with the God.
This Jesus is who is both fully God and fully human, is uniquely qualified to be the Judge of all the living:
John 5:22 (NKJV)
For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
And because Jesus is judge of all, He deserves honor from all:
John 5:23 (NKJV)
that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
To not give honor to Jesus is not giving honor to God.
To reject Jesus is to reject God. Many claim to know and worship God, but they deny Jesus. Jesus says:
Matthew 10:32–33 (NKJV)
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
To deny Jesus will bring spiritual death.
And here is the Gospel.
John 5:24 (NKJV)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Those who have heard His voice, read and understood His word, have come to faith in Jesus, bypasses all judgement and truly gains life – we would say, have been born again.
Our condition before coming to faith in Jesus, we were dead.
Ephesians 2:1 (NKJV)
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
We were dead until we heard from Jesus:
John 5:25 (NKJV)
Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
The dead here in this verse refers to our condition before Christ.
Everyone without Jesus is spiritually dead.
If you hear from Jesus, today is the day of salvation.
We read from Hebrews a few weeks ago:
Hebrews 4:7 (NKJV)
again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”
Jesus has made His voice heard. The question is whether each person will hear and understand, or they will harden their heart.
John 5:26–27 (NKJV)
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
In Jesus is life, Jesus is life. Because He has life Because Jesus is life and because Jesus is both fully God (the Son of God) and fully man (as the Son of Man), Jesus is uniquely qualified to be judge of all. And because Jesus is judge of all, all will see Jesus one day. Those who refuse the life that is Jesus, brings judgment on themselves.
John 5:28–29 (NKJV)
Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
Now, we change gears. There is coming a time in the future when Jesus will call all the physical dead from the graves. Both the spiritually dead and the spiritually alive. This is a theme repeated through Scripture
Daniel 12:2 (NKJV)
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
Some to everlasting life,
Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
This is a point to which we often brush over, because it is unpleasant, as well it should be. I do not believe we have a proper understanding of the resurrection of condemnation.
Those who do not have life in Jesus are damned to hell.
There is no sugar coating it.
But many Christians apply only the assurance texts to themselves and exempt themselves from these passages, firmly convinced that the passages have no application to them. We should remember that the New Testament books were written primarily to Christians not to point the finger at others but to take the warnings of the Bible very seriously. (2)
Throughout the Scriptures, Judgment is not passed without warnings.
those who have done good (John 5:29)
Who has done good? Good here is not good in our eyes.
In-fact, we are incapable of doing good according to the scriptures,
for there is none who does good, no, not one.
(Romans 3:12)
The only good we do is what the Spirit of God does through us. To do good is to have the Spirit of God. Doing good, spiritually good, is one of the evidences of salvation.
and those who have done evil (John 5:29)
Evil is anything that is not of God. We do not get to define what is good and right. God defines those things. Good and evil is not defined by the culture or by the government or by what is politically correct. Good and evil is defined by the Word of God.
We only have one opportunity, one life in which to be saved.
Hebrews 9:27 (NKJV)
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
Jesus says we are not the fear the one who can merely kill the body, after which there is nothing more he can do to you:
Luke 12:5 (NKJV)
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!
That person is Jesus, we need to fear Him, especially if you do not know Him.
Revelation 1:18 (NKJV)
I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.
So the question is, what is condemnation?
Condemnation is quite simply, the second death:
Revelation 20:13–15 (NKJV)
The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Who will experience the second death?
Revelation 21:8 (NKJV)
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
This second death is not annihilation. It is an eternal consciousness in eternal punishment. Eternal punishment the opposite of eternal life.
Matthew 25:46 (NKJV)
And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Hell, the place of eternal punishment is to be feared.
It is not a place where the devil rules.
The fact is, people were made for life, Hell was originally made for the Satan, the devil, and his angles:
Matthew 25:41 (NKJV)
“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
We see the terms of “lake of fire” and “fire and brimstone.” The New Testament has other descriptive terms.
Mark 9:44 (NKJV)
where ‘Their worm does not die
And the fire is not quenched.’
Matthew 13:41–42 (NKJV)
The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25:30 (NKJV)
And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Hell is a place to be feared. Those who are not saved need to know what is in their future. I would never take bet that there is no hell.
Those of us, who are saved, need to know what we are saved from, and realize that all our family, friend, friends and neighbors who do not know Christ, we need to know where they are headed.
This ought to motivate us to be more bold in our witness.
We should worry less about offending people.
What are going to do, offend them further into hell?
Next week’s sermon is “Do you really want your friends and neighbors saved?”
What we all do not realize, we all deserve Hell. We all offended a most holy God. We all have sinned and fallen short.
But God so loved the world – the people of the world, that he gave His only begotten Son. His Son who became sin for us.
Here is the gospel. We can have eternal life.
We can avoid judgment,
we can move from death to life.
Romans 8:1a (NKJV)
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,
It is all about having Jesus.
1 John 5:11–12 (NKJV)
And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
The question this morning is,
“Do you have the Son? Do you have life?”
We all will see Jesus one day. Will we see Him in Judgment or will we see Him in love and life?
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it is all about Jesus.
(1) Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 501.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash
(2) Gerald L. Borchert, John 1–11, vol. 25A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 242.
