This morning we start a short two-week sermon series devoted to the Bible’s picture of the afterlife. Christianity places a powerful emphasis on the world to come. I want to encourage all of you to think deeply about your eternity.
Find Romans 2 and John 3 in your Bibles. I want to examine five questions about eternity with you for the next few moments.
1. Why Should I Think about Eternity Now?
Your view of the end can have a profound effect on how you live your life in the present. If you believe in reincarnation, then perhaps you’ll view the disabled as Glen Hoddle, an English soccer coach. Hoddle believed that the sins you committed in a former life were punished by disabilities in the next life. “You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime. I have nothing to hide about that. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap.” He later apologized for his comments calling his comments “a serious error of judgment…” But he soon lost his job as soccer coach when groups representing the disabled protested his public comments.
Thinking about eternity greatly mattered on 9/11 now almost twenty years ago. Muslim jihadists diverted passenger planes into office buildings in Washington DC and New York City killing several thousand people. What made these men do this? Several reasons but chief among them was this: these men were promised reward in the afterlife, an everlasting paradise. Anat Berko sat down with Palestinian who had attempted to be suicide bombers against Israel. Berko was a Lt. Col in the Israeli Defense Army & also had her Ph.D. in criminology. She noted the many of the male bombers believed that they would be wedded in Paradise (Heaven) with beautiful young women, while the females stated their interest in achieving certain entry into Paradise to meet with Allah. They are promised they will be able to see the light shining from the face of Allah, to be able to bath in the rivers of paradise, and live forever. Your view of eternity matters and can have a profound effect on how you live your life in the present.
“Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is” (Psalm 39:4).
1. Why Should I Think about Eternity Now?
2. What Happens When You Die?
I noticed earlier this week that weather experts making predictions about hurricane season beginning June 1. Why do we say a hurricane is powerful? Because it has some of the power of death; hurricanes can kill. Of all the powers you can find in the world, there is no power like death. Mankind can harness some of the power of creation. We can split the atom. We land a man on the moon, but we will always die. Don’t you realize, therefore, death is the main power that is arrayed against us? The Bible calls it the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). But the Bible teaches us that your death is a door to eternity.
Having just celebrated Easter, the resurrection of Jesus speaks to the powerful belief of life after death. The end of your life isn’t an end at all, you simply relocate.
“For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek” (Romans 2:6–10).
“For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11)
“on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all” (Romans 2:16).
Death is a door into your eternity. And many people think they will pass the “moral test” of getting into Heaven. But anyone who really thinks carefully about this realizes they will not pass the test. Imagine as it were that God put a little invisible tape recorder around your neck the day of your birth. Romans 2 is saying God did do that and there is a little invisible tape recorder around your neck. That tape recorder only clicks on whenever you tell somebody else how they ought to be. Whenever you tell someone else, “This is how it ought to be, this is how you ought to be, this is how people ought to be,” it clicks on. At the end of time on Judgment day, God will come up to you and say, “Excuse me, let me get that tape recorder off,” and you’ll say, “Oh, what? I didn’t even see that there.” He’ll say, “Well listen, I want you to know I’m going to be very fair. So fair. I am not going to judge you by the Word of God.” Especially if the person has never heard of the Word of God. Right? Somebody who never heard of the Bible, or never read it, or never had a chance to. He says, “I’m going to take that off and all I’m going to do is judge you by your own standards. All I’m going to do is see if you were the person you demanded other people be.”
2.2 Is There a Second Chance?
Shortly after you die, the Bible says everyone faces judgment “And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27).
Having come right after the famous John 3:16, this may some of the most ignored parts of our Bibles” “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:17–19). In three successive verses Jesus helps us answer the question, “Is there a second chance after death?” Think of these as 3 steps.
Step #1: the reason Jesus came was not to condemn the world but save the world.
Step #2: belief in Christ now removes you from punishment while a refusal to believe in Christ now is to already experience condemnation. Key in on the word “already” in verse 18 for this shows God’s verdict is now been passed.
Step #3: When you refuse, you are siding with the forces of darkness. Refusing Jesus in this life is a choice to team up with darkness. So there’s no talk in the Bible about second chances after we die. Everything Jesus taught us is that this lifetime is the time to decide our eternity. Purgatory was an invention by religious teachers but you will not find it inside the Bible. So this morning in the next few moments, I want to speak about this topic, “Keep Me from Hell.”
Next Sunday will be “Take Me to Heaven.”
1. Why Should I Think about Eternity Now?
2. What Happens When You Die?
3. What is Hell Like?
Jonathan Edwards & his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of Angry God” did not invent hell. It wasn’t invented by fiery hellfire & brimstone preachers either. Almost everything we learn from the Bible about hell comes from the lips of Jesus Himself. Perhaps because the subject of hell is so difficult for us to accept emotionally that the only person we could fully accept such teaching was from Jesus Himself.
Three Biblical Pictures of Hell
3.1 Hell is a Place of Separation
“These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).
Jesus tells us that hell is a real place. In fact, allow me to let Jesus speak for Himself. Jesus says that those who have a lot of good achievements but have no relationship with him will be sent away from Him. “Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers’” (Matthew 7:23). “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).
Jesus says that those who have not placed their faith in Him will be excluded from heaven’s all-time banquet: “while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).
Jesus warned us not to damage anyone’s relationship with God because the punishment would be severe: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).
C. S. Lewis has written, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
3.2 Hell is a Place of Ultimate Justice
“And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 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” (Revelation 14:9-11).
Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But neither is hell evil. Instead, hell is a place where evil is judged. Indeed, if being sentenced to hell is just punishment, then the absence of hell would itself be evil.
God’s wrath poured out in full strength? The image is drawn from wine-drinking practices in the ancient world. When you produce wine, it comes out about 30 proof, that is, about 15 percent alcohol. It can go up or down a bit, but it is not a distilled product where you can control the amount of alcohol. It is a fermented process, so it depends on the sugar content, the temperature, the kind of berry, and so on, but commonly wine is about 30 proof. In the ancient world, however, it was very common to “cut” the wine with water, somewhere between one part in ten (one part of wine to ten parts of water) and one part in three. Most table wines that people drank in the ancient world were cut. This image is a way of saying that in the past, God's wrath has been diluted. “There’s coming a time when the wine of God's wrath poured out full strength. Any display you’ve seen of God’s wrath that you have seen up to this point … … for example, plagues in the Old Testament, disease, war… … all of these things that you have seen as horrible displays of God’s wrath… … they were the diluted form. Now God’s wrath is poured out full strength.”
The Bible says God is a good judge. And God does what good judges do.
3.3 Hell is a Place of Pain and Regret
Jesus spoke that everyone alive is traveling on one of two roads: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it” (Matthew 7:13).
Jesus spoke about a sin that leads to “eternal fire” in Matthew 18:8. And then He added, “Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41). Jesus spoke about some who would enjoy eternal joy in His presence and others who would enjoy eternal pain and regret away from His presence. Jesus also told a parable of sheep and goats where He pictured the last judgment. At the end of His parable, Jesus said these words: on screen: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46)
1. Why Should I Think about Eternity Now?
2. What Happens When You Die?
3. What is Hell Like?
4. But Is Hell Really Fair?
4.1 A Loving God Wouldn’t Do This?
This kind of question fails to really see how evil some people truly are. Pause and consider now the very worst forms of evil you or others have experienced. True evil hates God and refuses any thought of Jesus Christ. True evil demands freedom from the very idea of God.
4.2 Eternal Punishment is Unfair
Isn’t Hell an Overreaction to Sin?
4.2.1 The Power of Just One Sin
It was one sin alone that brought the entire world under the curse of God as we know it today with tsunamis and floods and pestilence and cancer and arthritis and blindness and deafness and death. One sin!
4.2.2 The Gravity of Sin
The gravity of sin is determined by the one sinned against, not by the one who sinned! If I have offended an ant, then I’m not very guilty. If I have offended a person, then my guilt is greater. But if I have dishonored a great and infinite holy God, then I am infinitely guilty.
1. Why Should I Think about Eternity Now?
2. What Happens When You Die?
3. What is Hell Like?
4. But Is Hell Really Fair?
5. How Do I Avoid Hell?
Hell is the Default Destination The Bible says Satan will be in Hell. The Bible says the demons will be hell. The Bible says the wicked will be in hell: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). “and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).
Jesus saw all of you and still wanted you. He experienced hell on the cross. He didn’t even let hell keep Him from you.
