Hell
In one of the fastest growing churches in my area, I hear “Come to Jesus” preached. That pastor’s sermons always include Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, but the sermons ultimately ask, “Are you saved.” There is always an alter call with people publicly confessing. Further, this pastor not only preaches heaven; he preaches hell. A line from one his sermons, “At death, you slip like from a greasy river rock down, down into the flames of hell, but the fire does not consume you. The demons torture you day and night for there is no sleep, no rest. All hope is gone. You cannot escape it. It is eternal.” These words of this pastor’s sermon brought a number of people to the alter rail where they fell to their knees, weeped and prayed. Immediately, people from the congregation surrounded them and hugged them. Not all people ever get to realize the magnificence of such an event for only 62% of Americans believe in hell and 26% of Americans do not believe in heaven or hell.**
We all know that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Scriptures like Mark 6:4 and John 8:28 tell us that he was also a prophet. A prophet is the Father’s messenger, explainer and proclaimer of the will of God. Jesus did proclaim the Good News; He also told the Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans and Zealots of their wrong beliefs. Some of those wrong beliefs concerned heaven and hell. Today, I am going to talk about what Jesus said of hell, the wrong beliefs that some have about it.
Luke 16:19-31: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, 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.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house for I have five brothers, that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
First, I will go into some of the interesting details of this story.
1. The purple and fine linen this man wore indicate that he was unusually wealthy. The purple that the ancient used to dye their clothes with came from the little spot of purple you see in corner of some seashells. The fine linen undergarment he wore was the best one could have. Together, they stand for the ultimate in luxury, and the flaunting his wealth.
2. On the other hand, Lazarus was physically miserable. Not only did Jesus say he was hungry, He describes the sores on the man; they had to be painful, humiliating and embarrassing. Note to that Jesus said that the things such as poverty and sickness that had hold of Lazarus were evil.
3. The rich man had more than enough, and the other had noting. The least the rich man could have done was give alms and maybe some food and clothing.
4. This passage tells us nothing of the religious state of the wealthy man while Lazarus was evidently a faithful servant to of God for angels took him to Abraham's bosom.
5. Further, for the rich man, even though in hell, to ask God to send Lazarus to do a servant job shows unconscious arrogance.
6. Next, God fixed a great chasm between heaven and hell. No one could cross that chasm. The rich man could see Lazarus, but could Lazarus see him; probably not, for what would have been heavenly about watching the suffering in hell.
7. This story implies that the rich man's unpleasant situation was not due to his riches (after all Abraham had been rich), but due to neglect of scripture and its teaching. Jesus' story is serious.
One thing is for sure; hell is one of those subjects that make people uncomfortable. It should, we hear stories of hell being a place of fire, demons and endless torment. When hell is discussed by Christians, it is usually tied to either condemning someone for their sins or used to scare people into living differently. I am uncomfortable condemning anyone; that is God's job. I am comfortable using biblical descriptions of hell to motivate belief for I want no one to go to hell. If that takes scaring the hell out of people, I am for that.
Even preachers do not like to preach about it. At one pastor’s Conference I attended, the District Superintendent asked her 158 pastors who had preached about hell, and no one raised their hand. Yet, throughout history, not only is hell written about in our Bibles, many authors have written about it: Paradise Lost by Milton, Inferno by Niven and The Divine Comedy by Dante, are examples. Even Hollywood has made it the subject of many movies: “Journey to Hell”, “Hellraiser II: Hell Bound”, and “The Cell”.
Whatever people's belief, Jesus definitely taught that there is a real hell. The purpose of this message is not to judge or to frighten you but to inform you of Jesus' teachings about hell. Now I will discuss some of the different ideas people have about what lies beyond the grave.
I was in Chicago on business visiting a sales representative who worked for our company. He invited me over to his house. When I got there, he asked if I would like a tour of his home. I said, "Sure!” He showed me the living room, the kitchen where I met his wife, the dining room and then we walked down a long hallway where he showed me his bedroom. When he turned on the lights, I saw that 4” x 6” pictures covered one wall. As I drew closer, I saw one man was in a large number of the pictures. I asked who he was, and he told me he was his best friend in high school. A drunk driver killed him. I told how sorry I was and as I continued to look at some of the pictures. I said, "You sure have many pictures of him." That is when he said, "We are Reform Jews, when someone dies, we believe they drift off to nothingness. The only way to remember they were alive is through our memories and that is why I have so many pictures of him up on that wall.” My friend believed in nothingness after death.
Most Orthodox Jews have a different believe about after death than do Reform Jews. Orthodox Jews belief about death has to do with Sheol. Sheol is a Hebrew word meaning a grave or a pit. The Old Testament mentions Sheol 65 times. Most Orthodox Jews believe this was where the dead go after death. Sheol is an intermediary resting place; both good and evil people go there. These Jews believe that the dead lead a conscious shadowy existence there. They are not in torment, but have neither hope nor satisfaction. These Orthodox Jews believe that when the Messiah comes all deserving the eternal reward of heaven will rise up at once and enter heaven.
In the original Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew, two words were translated into English as hell: Hades and Gehenna. First, I will explain Hades. The original Greek of the New Testament uses Hades 10 times. The word comes from the pagan Greeks who believed that Hades was the place of the dead. The Greeks named that place after a pagan god who they thought presided over the realm of the dead, both good and bad people. However, in the New Testament, it is only a place for the bad. Some pagans thought there was an accessible passageway to the underworld. Hades is said to be a mighty city with 7 gates. In Biblical times, gates were not only defensive structures but also signs of power of that city. The fact that it had 7 gates, 7 being a perfect number, also speaks to the power of Hades.
In Matthew 16:18b when Jesus said, “... I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." When Jesus said this, He was standing at the base of a mountain near Caesarea Philippi where there was a cave and the headwaters of the Jordan River flowing out of it. A pagan temple once stood in front of this cave because the pagans believed the cave to be the entrance to Hades. That means that Jesus was saying that neither pagan beliefs nor all of the powers of evil or even the powers of death would stand against His Church.
In our Scripture today, Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus is a poor man who suffers during his life because he had been given evil things. The rich man has lived a comfortable, self-centered life. Both die. The rich man goes to Hades and Lazarus goes to heaven. In Hades, the rich man lifts up his eyes to heaven and sees Lazarus. He cries out to Abraham and asks for mercy because he is in agony in the flames. Abraham says no. Then the rich man asks if Lazarus could go warn his brothers to avoid this terrible place. Again, the answer is no.
Some say that this is a parable. However, if it is, it is unique because no other parable actually names a person. Parables generally teach a single lesson, so what could the lesson be other than to live as God commands and avoid Hades. Everything points that this is not a parable but is a real story about a real place.
Jesus used a Hebrew word translated into the Greek Hades when He was speaking of hell, but He speaks of it as more than a place for the dead like Sheol was. Jesus teaches us that hell is real place of eternal torment. Perhaps that is why Jesus spoke more of hell than He spoke of heaven and spent much time warning people of hell. If people at death just stopped existing, He would have no reason to warn them.
Some people argue that hell was a temporary place for those sent there. However, Jesus said that it is eternal. Therefore, the warning is strong. That is why Jesus said in Matthew 5:29, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." Jesus is not saying to do these things. He is saying that it would be better for something horrible to happen to you on earth than for you to go to hell.
The second Greek word translated hell was Ge-hen-na. Gehenna is translated "the fires of hell". It carries the notion of punishment. Every Jew knew that Gehenna referred to a ravine outside Jerusalem where pagans sacrificed children to the Ammonite god Molech during the reigns of the wicked Kings Ah-az and Ma-nas-seh in the 8th century BCE. Thus, it became a symbol of pain and suffering. It later became a garbage dump where the people of Jerusalem burned their trash. Gehenna symbolized the flames of eternal damnation. Gehenna was therefore a place of punishment for sinners. It is usually associated with the final judgment and depicted as being an everlasting, unquenchable fire. Gehenna came to represent the consequences of sin.
A part of Jesus mission was to straighten out some of the wrong notions the Jews of his time had. While the Greeks considered Hades a holding place for the dead, Jesus told us that it is the final destination for unrepentant sinners. Jesus said, "... and these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
In Matthew 13:41-42, Matthew 22:12-13 and Matthew 25:41, Jesus describes hell with terms such as outer darkness, a place of weeping and torment, the lake of fire, a burning wind, a fiery oven, the smell of brimstone, the second death and pits of darkness. The most terrifying reality of hell is that it is unending separation from God. Those condemned to hell experience torment, no rest day and night (think sleep deprivation), weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Why must there be a hell? Why cannot all people go to heaven? Think about a heaven where all of human kind went. That would be a place where the holy and unholy, the pure and the impure, the good and the bad, would be gather together just as they are here on earth. There would be Abraham and the Sodomites, Moses and Pharaoh, Peter and Judas, Paul and Nero, Gandhi and Hitler, Doctor King and Moa Zedong, men of renowned and murders living side by side. Do you think for one second that unrepentant murders would suddenly become saints that the evil people would suddenly lay aside their horrible ways? No sin can come into heaven for it is where God himself abides. Only those who have chosen to follow Christ are welcomed there.
Hell is real. Dr. Maurice Rawlings is a heart surgeon and professed atheist. He wrote a book, Beyond Death’s Door. In the book, the first experience of hell that Dr. Rawlings describes is through one of his patients. In his practice, he had resuscitated a number of people who had been clinically dead. As an atheist, he always thought death was nothing more than “a painless extinction". However, in 1977 that dramatically changed while he was resuscitating a 47-year-old US mail carrier, who came back to life terrified and screaming, "I am in hell!" He was terrified and pleaded with Dr. Rawlings to help him. He was scared. He had a grotesque expression of sheer horror on his face. His pupils dilated, he perspired heavily and trembled. His hair was literally standing on end. Then he said, "Don't you understand? I was in hell. Don't let me go back to hell!" He was in a panic. Dr. Rawlings said, “no one, who could have heard his screams and saw the look of terror on his face could doubt for a single second that the man had actually been in the place called hell. He asked me to pray for him and so I gave a fake prayer as an atheist to a God I did not believe existed." Then he writes, “After this was all over, I realized what really happened. It was a double conversion. Not only had this make-believe prayer converted this mailman, it converted me.”
Who will go to hell? God created hell as a place for Satan and the other rebellious fallen angels. Because God cannot be in the presence of sin, hell is the destination for those who rebel against God, sinners.
So, what sends you to hell? God wants us to know the natural consequence of separation from our Creator. Ultimately, there are two ways to go: one is hell; the other way is heaven. Idolatry, theft, swindling, discord, dissension, lying, sorcery, slander, adultery, gossip, greed, impurity, jealousy, envy, cowardice, sexual immorality, hatred, murder, prostitution, drunkenness, witchcraft, fits of rage, orgies, unbelief and selfish ambition. Is anybody completely innocent of everyone one of these sins? The reality is this list is so long, it probably describes some things that many of us have done. Salvation, simply accepting Christ, is the way to avoid judgment.
On Judgment Day, God will show people the sins that they have committed. The good things that people have done do not change or makeup for their sins. God does not grade on the curve, so all people who have been guilty of any one of the violations above but have not repented and accepted Christ as their savior will go to the lake of fire.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. He paid the price we would have paid at the Day of Judgment but if you accept that gift, believe in Him and seek to live as He did, then God forgives you and you receive the gift of eternal life in heaven rather than eternal punishment.
In the last sentence of today’s scripture, Jesus says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” He appears to be referring to himself. Do you believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead; that He was and is the Son of God? Do you confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Then you have zero need to worry about hell. The purpose of this sermon is to give you information about hell. Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
*Pew Research Center November 23, 2021
** 73% of Americans believe in heaven.
