How many of you believe in Heaven? [Pause.]
Dumb question? Well, bear with me.
How many of you believe in Hell? [Pause.]
How many of you believe that Hell is a real place and not just some concept or metaphor? [Pause.]
You would think that the concept or belief in a real Heaven and a real Hell would be a given among Christians, wouldn’t you? But you would be wrong. In a national survey conducted by USA Today several years ago:
• 67 percent of American adults said that they believe in a Hell. That’s American adults, not just Christians.
• Less than 25 percent believed that they would end up there … but 25 percent were certain that their friends would end up there.
I understand. It’s not a pleasant or nice thing to picture you or someone you love ending up in a horrible place like that. While it’s bad enough to think that such a place could exist and bad enough to think about ending up in a place like that … it’s even worse to think of ending up in a place like that for all eternity … for ever and ever … with no relief from your suffering … and no end of your suffering in sight. It is, as I said, too horrible to think about and the concept of an “eternity” in Hell is too vast and too horrific to wrap our minds around, amen? Why, in Heaven’s name, would a “loving” God create such a horrible place and then condemn people to live … exist … forever in a place like that?
To save themselves and to save God’s reputation as a “loving” God, some people have developed a concept known as “universalism.” People who believe in “universalism” believe that EVERYBODY goes to Heaven. Movies like “Hereafter” portray the “after life” as this wonderful place where EVERYONE goes after death to be surrounded by family and friends … one big, eternal party and family reunion. I have no doubt that Heaven will be a thousand … a million … a billion … a trillion times more wonderful than anything that you or I could imagine. The problem with universalism, however, is that it denies the existence of Hell. I mean, if there is no place like Hell … if EVERYONE goes to Heaven … then it completely nullifies the need for Jesus to die on the cross … or it suggest that Jesus died on the cross for EVERYBODY whether they believe in Him or not … but that’s not what the Bible says, amen? I mean, what does the most well-known and famous verse in the Bible say? “ For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16; emphasis mine).
The story is told of an Army chaplain who reported to a new duty station. Upon arrival, some of the men came to see him and asked him this question: “Do you believe in a literal Hell?” He replied that he did not. The men asked him to be re-assigned. When he asked them why, one of the soldiers explained: “If there is no Hell, then we don’t need you … but if there is a Hell, we don’t want you leading us astray.”
As far as the Bible that I read is concerned, Hell is a very real place. One of the most graphic and haunting descriptions of hell in the Bible comes from Jesus Himself.
[Read Luke 16:19-31.]
A man once had the following epitaph carved on his tombstone:
“Consider, young man, as you walk by …
“As you are now, so once was I.
“As I am now, you soon shall be.
“So prepare, young man, to follow me.”
Beneath it was scratched the following:
“To follow you is not my intent until I know which way you went.”
C.S. Lewis was once told about a gravestone inscription that read: “Here lies an atheist all dressed up and no where to go.” Lewis quietly replied: “I bet he wishes that were so.”
The Bible teaches us that this life is not all that there is. After death there exists two realities. All of us shall spend eternity in one of two places. Everything that we see around us is temporary as the rich man in Jesus’ story found out … his wealth … his fine clothes … his fancy house … the feasts … his reputation … all temporary … everything around us right now is, in fact, temporary … but we are not.
We were made to last forever, did you know that? One day your heart is going to stop beating and that’s going to be the end of your body … your physical life … but it is certainly not going to be the end of you … as Scrooge is about to learn.
“A Christmas Carol,” as you may recall, starts out with the stark fact that Scrooge’s partner, Jacob Marley is dead … dead as a door nail. Scrooge was even one of the people who signed Marley’s death certificate. And yet … right before Scrooge’s eyes is Jacob Marley standing before him “with his pigtail, usual waist-coat, tights, and boots (Dickens, C. 2014. A Christmas Carol. New York: Global Classics; p. 12).
What Scrooge and the rich man in Jesus’ parable learn … and what we should know already … is that Hell is a very real place. It was not something that the church invented to frighten us into behaving or a horrifying fantasy created by story tellers to sell books or get us to jump out of our seats at the movie theater. As Jacob Marley attempts to explain to his former partner, Scrooge, Hell is very real place … but it’s not a place of punishment but a place of choice.
You see … aside from Marley’s customary pigtail, waist-coat, tights, and boots, Marley is wearing something else … a chain. Dickens described it as “long, wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel” (Dickens, p. 12).
As we learned last week, Scrooge didn’t start out as the Scrooge we met in the opening scene … “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (Dickens, p. 3) and he didn’t get that way in a day or overnight. He got there by degrees and turns … one decision, one choice … followed by another and another … like the links in a chain. Marley says that chain he wears around his waist he forged in life. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I gird it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it” (Dickens, p. 14).
“Is its pattern strange to you?” asks Marley. “Or would you know …. the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!” (Dickens, p. 14).
My beloved … Hell exists so that people who choose to exclude God from their lives can have what they wish for for all eternity. Hell was prepared for those who, like the Devil, choose to run from God.
Hell exists because of God’s love. I know that may sound like a paradox but it is the truth. God, in His infinite wisdom and out of His great, deep abiding love for us, gave us the gift of choice … the choice to love Him back or not. Love is not love if it forced upon us. If we are programed to love Him like robots then that is not love at all. Love, to be love, has to be a choice, a decision. Free will is God’s greatest gift to humanity … and, as many have found out, our worse curse. Because of His great love for us, God gave us the ability to choose our own destiny … the very point that Marley is trying to impress upon his former partner, Ebenezer Scrooge. “I am here to warn you,” he explains to Scrooge, “that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer” (Dickens, p. 15). As terrifying an experience as this is for Scrooge, this is an act of kindness and charity on the part of Jacob Marley who is trying to rescue his partner from the same eternal fate that he now suffers.
In Jesus’ parable about the poor man, Lazarus, and the rich man, Jesus doesn’t say exactly where either of them are but it is certainly inferred, amen? It says in verse 23 that the rich man “looked up” and saw “Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.” The idea may be that “Heaven” is above and “Hell” is down below but it may also be a matter of proximity. The rich man appears to be alone while Lazarus is at Abraham’s side. It says that the rich man was being tormented. You have to stop and think about this for moment. The people listening to Jesus’ parable lived in an arid region where water was precious … where water was life. What greater torment for a person who has spent all of their life living in or near a desert than to spend eternity perpetually dying of thirst. The rich man begs for a mere drop of water. His wealth, his status, his influence, his power … all gone. He has absolutely nothing. He can’t even buy a drop of water. He has to beg for it … like Lazarus had to beg for scrapes of food and water just to survive in this life.
To understand what “Hell” is, you have to understand what the word or name “Hell” means. The Hebrew word for “Hell” is “Gehenna” in the Old Testament. It is a compound word made up of the word “gehee” … which means “valley” … and the word “hinnon” … which means “sorrow.” The name “Gehenna” … or “The Valley of Sorrow” … was first given to an actual, physical place. It was a valley to the south of Jerusalem when the inhabitants burned their garbage and dead animals. The smell and sight of burning decay and death must have been terrible … and there was so much garbage that the valley burned constantly day and night. For a Jew, it was the most unclean place on the face of the earth … so the worst thing that they could think of as a punishment would be to spend eternity in a place that’s worse than the worse place on earth … burning forever in a pile of garbage and dead, rotting animals.
The Greek word for “Hell” in the New Testament is “Hades” … which is also a compound word. The word “ha” means “not” … and the word “eido” means “to see or perceive by any of the senses.” “Ha-eido” … or “Hades” … which literally means “no senses” or “without sense” … describes a place of great emptiness and loneliness.
The image created by these two words … “Gehenna” and “Hades” … is one of eternal physical torment and eternal isolation. Jesus said that the rich man was in “agony” because of the “flames” (Luke 16:24). The Greek word that Jesus used was “odunao” … which means “sorrow” or “anguish.” It is usually translated as “torment.” It describes a pain that is intense and on-going. The fire not only creates pain but it also creates thirst. The rich man asked that Lazarus dip his finger in water and cool his tongue to relieve his “agony” … his physical torment. This image of perpetual fire and perpetual thirst harkens back to the image of Gehenna. But there is also the “Hades” … or eternal isolation aspect of Hell … no sight, no touch, no sound, no taste, no smell … forever.
The pain of Hell is not just a matter of intensity but also a matter of duration. Marley complains to Scrooge: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere .... The whole time ... no rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse" (Dickens, p. 14)
Hell is a place of physical suffering. It is a place of eternal suffering. It is a lonely place … a place of complete darkness and isolation … a place of eternal remorse and regret. In Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man was still able to see out of Hell … but the Book of Revelation tells us that Hell itself will one day be closed and thrown into the lake of fire – again, the image of “Gehenna” and eternal banishment from Heaven and earth.
Some people have an interesting idea of what Hell looks like or what it’s about. Mark Twain said, “I’ll take Heaven for the climate … and Hell for the society” (www.quoteinvestigator.com). In a speech to the National Press Club, Ted Turner said … and I quote:
“Heaven is going to be a mighty slender place and most of the people that I know in life aren’t going to be there. There are a few notable exceptions … and I’ll miss them. Remember, Heaven is going to be perfect and I don’t really want to be there. Those of us who go to Hell, which will be most of us in this room … most journalists are certainly going there … but, when we get to Hell we’ll have a chance to make things better because Hell is supposed to be a mess and Heaven is perfect. Who wants to go to a place that’s perfect? Boring! Boring!”
That speech got him a lot of laughs … but I wonder if he’ll be as inspired or as funny when the gates of Hell up and he sees Mark Twain standing there. I don’t think they’ll find their situation so amusing or entertaining, do you?
Hell is no party! Picture yourself in complete darkness … no sight … no sound … no smells … no touch … just complete nothingness. Think about what that would be like for an hour … then a day … a week … a month … a year! Actually, you would have no sense of time or the passing of time because there is no light … no day and night to help you measure the passing of time. Just you … and the darkness … for all eternity. As C.S. Lewis put it: “Hell is nothing but yourself for all eternity” (www.rforh.com/resources/know-it/diving-deeper/c-s-lewis-problem-hell). I shudder to think of it … surrounded by utter darkness and forced to spend an eternity alone with myself.
Hell is real … Hell is bad. It is a place of physical suffering. It is a place of darkness and emptiness … and it is a place of emotional suffering. Jesus described it as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 13:42; 13:50).
Jacob Marley cries out to Scrooge: “Oh! Captive, bound, and double-ironed…. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! Such was I.”
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge.
“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”
It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of my fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” (Dickens, p. 15).
There is no amnesia … there is no Alzheimer’s in Hell. Like Jacob Marley is trying to explain to his former business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, everyone will have a crystal-clear memory … not only of their deeds and misdeeds … but all the actions they should have taken but didn’t. Hell will be a place of eternal remembrance and regret.
What I mentioned earlier is that Jacob Marley has come to give Scrooge a hope and chance to escape his fate and, as long as you are alive, there is always a chance and hope for you and for me to escape Jacob Marley’s fate, amen? You see, once you get to Hell, you’re done … you’re cooked … you’re stuck there for ever and, like the rich man in Jesus’ parable or Jacob Marley in Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol,” you are stuck there for an eternity … an eternity of physical suffering … an eternity of darkness and emptiness … an eternity of remorse and reliving your regret. As bad as all of this sounds, this is not the worst of it. The worst is the spiritual suffering.
The Bible says that as long as we live on this earth, the LORD will cause His Son … that’s S-o-n … to shine on us all … the evil and the good. While we live and breathe we will all benefit from the goodness of God. We will benefit from His compassion and patience. But there will be none of that in Hell! No light … no hope … no compassion … no creativity … no inspiration … no patience … because there is no God. Hell is a place where we’re separated from God forever. It has been said that the pain of Hell is not so much caused by the presence of evil as it is by the absence of good. Darkness is not dark because of the presence of darkness … darkness is dark because of the absence of light.
Hell is real … Hell is bad … Hell is eternal. When the rich man called to Abraham to have Lazarus bring him a drop … a mere taste … of water, Abraham explained to him: “… between you and us a great chasm has been fixed so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us” (Luke 16:26).
As Jacob Marley’s ghostly visit come to an end, Marley’s spirit begins walking towards a window which, says Dickens, raised itself with every step that Marley’s ghost took. Scrooge hears this awful, pitiful sound coming from outside … “incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
“Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity, he looked out.
“The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle …” (Dickens, p. 16). Now pay attention … I want you to hear this … the familiar old ghost with the monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle “cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door step. The misery of them all,” says Dickens, “was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever” (Dickens, p. 16). They had lost the power to do what? They had lost the power “… to interfere, for good, in human matters” (Dickens, p. 16).
When the rich man was alive, he turned a blind eye to the poor beggar at his doorstep. Bear in mind that Jesus is not using this parable to condemn the rich … nor is He suggesting that all the poor people will go to Heaven just by the virtue of being poor. If you notice, Jesus doesn’t mention how the rich man got his money … either through good or evil means. Jesus doesn’t criticize the rich man for being rich or having money. The rich man isn’t necessarily a bad man … but whatever else he was, Jesus’ point was that he was blind to the need of a person who was covered with sores and had to beg to survive while living right outside of the rich man’s gate or front door. Walked past him day after day after day. In “Hell,” the rich man now “sees” Lazarus just as the condemned spirits and phantoms in Dicken’s story can now “see” the misery that they and their kind have caused but can do nothing about it except moan and wail in frustration because a chasm exists between them and those who are suffering and they have lost the power to be able to do anything to alleviate the misery that they’ve caused or to right their wrongs … which leads me to my final thought about Hell. If you have been dozing or fading in and out, here’s where you need to wake up and really pay attention.
Hell is real … Hell is bad … Hell is eternal … but Hell is also avoidable. The rich man begs Abraham to send someone back to tell his five brothers that Hell is real! This is why Marley has chosen this night to appear before Scrooge … to warn Scrooge that Hell is real and to let Scrooge know that he has “yet a chance and hope” of escaping Marley’s ghastly and ghostly fate (Dickens, p. 15).
The greatest truth about Hell … are you paying attention? [Pause.] The greatest truth about Hell is that it is completely avoidable. Isn’t that good news? Great news? Hell is a choice. You don’t have to go there.
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 presiding officer. Coolidge looked up from the book he had been leafing through while listening to the debate and wittily replied: “I’ve looked through the rule book … and it doesn’t say you have to go.”
In Dicken’s story, Marley gets a chance to go back and tell his former business partner the truth about Hell and the path that Scrooge was on if he doesn’t repent and change his ways. In Jesus’ story, the rich man does not get to go back and warn his five brothers. Abraham tells the rich man that his brothers have Moses and the prophets. “They should listen to them.” “No, Father Abraham,” says the rich man, “but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent” (Luke 16:30).
I want you to listen to what Father Abraham says and remember Who is telling the story! Abraham says to the rich man: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). That “someone” was Jesus, amen?
If God’s prophetic Word cannot convince and crack a hard heart, neither will miracles. Jesus’ own resurrection is proof that only an open heart sees the evidence for God’s Presence and hears His pleading voice.
Scrooge has a chance and hope, but only if his hard heart can be convinced that Hell is real … that Hell is bad … that Hell is eternal … and then believe and understand that he has a choice … he doesn’t have to go there. Marley tells Scrooge, “You will be haunted by three spirits” (Dickens, p. 15) … not the kind of thing that Scrooge is hoping to hear. “Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” “It is,” says Marley’s ghost. “I … I think I’d rather not,” says Scrooge. “Without their visits,” says the ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread” (Dickens, p. 16). The same is true for us when it comes to Jesus. “I am the way, the truth, the life,” said Jesus. “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
When you leave this service today, I want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are going to Heaven. If you have any doubt, you can settle the issue right now, so I want you to listen as if your life depended on it because the truth is that your eternal life does depend on it.
Hell is real. Hell is bad. Hell is eternal. But Hell is avoidable. The good news is that through Christ our sins have been paid for. In Christ there is hope. How can you be sure that you’re going to Heaven? Here is what are known as the “ABCDs” of salvation …
A … Admit your need. Admit that you are in need of a Savior. That means admitting that you are not perfect … and that’s okay … no one here is perfect … only God. Admit that you’ve blown it and made mistakes. Owning up to it and recognizing your need of a Savior is the first step.
B … Believe that Jesus died for you … that His body was sacrificed for you [break the bread] … [hold up the cup] that His blood has washed you clean of all sin. He did all of this for you and for me. Place your trust in Christ. Reach out to Him. Rely on Him. Surrender your heart and your life to Him.
C … Commit yourself completely to Him. Making someone the lord of your life means they call the shots. Surrendering your life to God means you give Him complete control. This needs to be true in your heart but it also needs to be done in public so that others can hold you accountable.
D … Depend on God’s promises. In order to remember that promise you made, God gave us two symbols: Baptism and Communion. He gave us these sacraments so that we would remember what God has done for us … what it cost Christ to get us into Heaven … and so that we can remember the decision that we made to make Him Lord over our hearts, our minds, and our lives.
If you would like to make that decision today, then now is the time. You can know today that you are going to Heaven. Let us all come to the LORD’s Table to receive and remember the grace of God that makes that choice possible …
