This is our church’s 13th anniversary. 13 years ago, this week, a hand full of people met under God’s leadership for the purpose of founding a New Testament church. A bible preaching, bible believing, and the main reason this church is here today can be summed up in the simplest words…. Heaven…. Hell…. Eternity…Souls.
I want to title my message today, Church Members in Hell. Now it would be easy for me to imagine souls going to Hell from many places, but never from a church.
1. Children growing up in ungodly homes.
2. Being raised in some dark part of this world.
3. It’s hard to believe some souls have gone and perhaps many more will go to hell from this church and others like it.
4. How sad to even think of Hell, but how much more sorrowful to think going to hell as a church member.
5. I want to give you three points to consider this morning.
I. The Staggering Fact, That Church Members are in Hell.
1. I have known personally of song leaders (Bob Wills), of Choir Members (Connie) of Sunday school teachers, of missionary wives and yes even some preachers (in BBC) and a number of our church members that have been saved. Thank God for it.
2. I feel there are three basic reasons why people go to Hell, from our churches.
3. First, the rejection of salvation.
a. They don’t want God’s way of salvation. They won’t’ have it.
b. Like Galileo, Acts 18:17
c. Like Festes, Acts 26:24
d. Like Pilot, Matthew 27:24
e. But the bible says, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.”
f. There are many who are too proud, arrogant, and stiff necked to bow their knee to Christ. Proverbs 29
g. These types of people usually do not stay long at our church.
4. Second, the neglecters of salvation.
a. Come to church and hear and understand. Drawn by the Holy Spirit, then they say, “Not Today.”
b. Tonight, we will have less attendance.
c. I wish you could understand what you are doing when you reject or put off salvation. It is a total no.
d. Others come. They know about eternity, but choose to put off salvation now, to enjoy the things of the flesh for a season.
e. They say, when I am married, or at the age of forty. Just before I die, I will get saved, just not today.
f. Hebrews 2:3; Mark 8:36-37; to the neglectors, I say, “don’t’ neglect the wrong things in this life.
5. Third, honestly deceived in salvation.
a. Let me say, “you cannot be deceived if you read and apply this bible.” John 8:32; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
b. The deceived, they think they are going to Heaven, think they are on the right road.
c. How else would you interpret these verses? Matthew 7:21-23; 22:11; 25:11
d. Matthew 23; the message Jesus preached to the religious, but lost Pharisees was Hell; verse 14,15; “How can you escape the damnation of Hell?”
6. Yes, it is a staggering fact that religious people are going to Hell.
a. You may be the best moral church member in this church.
b. It has nothing to do with your work, you are on your way to Hell.
II. There is a Shocking Fate
1. Let me say, “God sees (as far as eternity, hell, judgment, drunkard on skid row) NO difference, lost church member or the woman who sells her body.
2. Let me ask and answer, (with the word of God) what are lost church members doing in Hell?
a. They are suffering in the flames of fire.
1) Luke 16:24
2) Mark 9:43
3) Revelation 21:8
4) Matthew 25:41
5) Examples of men I have known.
6) Go home this morning, try burning yourself.
b. They are weeping and gnashing their teeth.
1) Hell is a place of unbearable noise.
2) Matthew 25:30
3) Luke 16:23
c. They are enveloped in darkness.
1) Matthew 22:13
d. They are constantly falling.
1) Revelation 20:1
e. They never have time out.
1) Revelation 14:11
2) No sick leave, no vacation, no time outs
f. They are still bound by their lust.
1) The drunkard, the whoremonger, the homosexual, they will beg, cry, plead, for satisfaction.
2) They will go all through eternity with that lust, yet never to have it filled.
g. They are surrounded by vile companions.
1) Revelation 21:8
2) What an environment, folks you will have nothing to do with now, you will be with for all eternity.
3) Sad, but also our children and kids that rode on the van and did not get saved.
h. You say, preachers, are you trying to scare me? I would rather see you scared to Jesus, then burn forever in a Devil’s Hell.
III. The Senseless Folly of Going to Hell?
1. How ridiculous, how absurd, that church members go to Hell.
2. When God has made the way to escape. You accept the work of God on the cross of Calvary, in the death of Jesus. And you are saved.
3. That is the only means of forgiveness. Isaiah 53:6; Ephesians 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21
4. In the future, as days come and go, one of two things is going to happen to you.
a. You will die. Hebrews 9:27
b. The rapture will occur, saved taken, the lost left behind.
5. It will be too late then, you cannot leave this building this morning and honestly say, God I did not know.
