Every Sunday evening, after I get home from church, I start trying to think about what to preach about the next Sunday. I go through many possibilities, and then it happens – every week the same thing. Come Monday afternoon I have one thought in my mind that just won’t go away, and after spending time praying about it, I generally find that is what the Holy Spirit is telling me to preach about in my next sermon.
This time was a little different, though. I have had this thought going through my mind for over a week, and I have tried my best to go on to other thoughts, but each time this thought comes back, it comes back stronger than before. Therefore, today, I am going to talk about hell.
America has many churches today that, to me, seem like they are so concerned with getting the huge congregations that they don’t have any more focus on preaching the accurate and full word of God. Many churches do not offer invitations anymore, and many pastors don’t even bother carrying their Bibles to church, either. Some of the larger churches don’t even give sermons, instead, they have all kinds of dramas, including secular dramas that don’t have anything at all to do with God, Christ, or salvation.
All this leads to the dumbing down of the American Christian. We are leading our people astray because we just don’t want to upset anyone anymore. If I preach on this, somebody will get offended and make nasty comments; if I preach on that, somebody else will get offended and they will make comments. In the old days, we didn’t call this being ‘offended’, we called it being ‘convicted’. I would sincerely hope that we don’t have any of those people in our congregation, as I will preach the word of God as accurately as I know how, and with as much love in my heart as I can possibly have, but nevertheless, I will preach the truth and will not sugar coat it.
If you start reading the Old Testament and continue forward to the end of the Bible, you will find many prophecies that must take place in order for the end time to come upon us. In past generations, they would quote those different prophecies and tell you which ones had been fulfilled and which ones were waiting to be fulfilled.
I would like to ask you to give me your undivided attention for the next couple of minutes, if you would. I want you to hear what I say to you. I am not a scholar and I am not the most-read student of Bible prophecy, but I happen to think that everything that needs to be in place for the Lord Jesus to come back has finally been put in place. I think the only thing we’re waiting on is for God to decide it is time. Now, that being said, we must be honest and tell you that it could be right now, or it could be thousands of years in the future. I personally feel that it will surely be sooner than later. If it is just one day away, don’t you think you’d better make sure you are ready?
It is not my intent to try and scare you, or to try and set a loose date of when this will occur. The Bible specifically says it is not our business to know the day or the hour.
In MATTHEW 24:36, Jesus says
‘No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.’
It is my intent, however, to let you know what is going to happen some day, and what might happen at any time, and that is the second coming of Jesus to gather His faithful up with Him. And it is my intention to help you focus on that so you will not be left behind.
Let’s talk about …
1. THE JUDGMENT
In MATTHEW 24:44, Jesus goes on to say,
‘So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.’
Each of us will be held accountable for whether or not we were serious about Jesus. We shall all stand before our maker and be judged for all that we have said or done in our lives.
Have you ever thought just how you might feel when you are standing in front of the Lord? I think it will be much different that we would ever think.
Imagine seeing your favorite celebrity at the mall. Imagine he walks right up to you and asks you for the time. How would you feel? Seeing him on TV or in the movies is quite different than seeing Him face to face, isn’t it?
A lady was in an ice-cream store and as the clerk gave her the ice cream cone she ordered, Paul Newman walked in and stood beside her. When she looked at him, he smiled and said hello.
She got so flustered that she opened her purse, put her ice cream cone in it and walked out of the store.
So how will I feel when I stand before my God on that Day of Judgment? As Dale sang earlier, I can only imagine. Will I stand before Him or will I fall to my knees? Will I sing for Jesus or will I be unable to speak at all? I can only imagine. Can you imagine how you will feel when you do the same?
At first it might sound disheartening that we will have to face a judgment. Yet should the idea of a final judgment scare the Christian?
In REVELATION 20:12, John describes it this way.
‘And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.’
What does this tell us? It tells us a couple of things. It tells us that we will all, great and small, stand in judgment before the throne of God. Secondly, it tells us what we will be judged on; what we did in this life. And, we all know that what we do is nothing more than a reflection of what we feel in our hearts.
In REVELATION 3:15, Jesus talks about how we feel in our hearts.
‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one of the other!’
If we go to the next verse, we hear Jesus tell us,
‘So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of My mouth.’
To paraphrase an old saying, try to imagine what you want written on your headstone, and then start living your life to fulfill that which is written. Let me ask you a question. If there was a book written about your life, after you leave, what would it be like? Would it say good things or bad things? Would Jesus be seen anywhere n that book or not?
Understand that we will all be judged some day, and that includes you. We will be judged righteous or sinful. The righteous will enter Heaven. The sinful will be cast into hell where they will continually burn in a lake of fire – forever. Which line will you be in?
Now, let’s talk for a moment about …
2. THE LINE TO HELL
In the last few years, different polls show that the majority of people in America, and that includes those who firmly consider themselves Christians, either believe there is no hell, or they just aren’t sure what to believe. These people have no real passion in their hearts because these are the lukewarm.
If the people do not believe in hell anymore, it is because the churches are not teaching and preaching it anymore. And if the churches ignore it, it must be gone, right? But, where did it go? Many churches refuse to talk about sin or the consequences of sin anymore because it upsets their congregations.
I was talking to a man at Waffle House the other day who said he goes to church every Sunday. I asked how often they preach about hell at his church. He said he has been there for nearly 30 years and they showed a film one time about hell, but he didn’t ever remember a sermon about it.
No matter how much we try to push the thoughts about hell to the other side of the universe; no matter how hard we try to ignore thoughts about the coming judgment; no matter how much we try to ignore what will happen, the truth remains, we will all stand in a line someday waiting to be judged on what we did today. And after our judgment, we will be put with the sheep on God’s right hand, or we will be put on His left. His sheep will be on His right, and Satan’s goats will be on His left.
There are many jokes about heaven and hell. We make light of them. But there will come a day when we don’t joke anymore. That day will be the most serious day of our lives, and on that day, our eternity will be sealed. Is your life today a reflection of Heaven, or is it a reflection of hell? If you will be in the line to hell, you must know what will be awaiting you.
There was a rich man and a poor man who died. The rich man was in hell and could see the poor man in Paradise. What will it be like where the rich man is?
Hell will be a place of severe torture:
LUKE 16:24 it tells us what the rich man wanted,
‘So, he (the rich man) called to him, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus (the poor man) to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
Hell will be a place of separation:
LUKE 16:26
‘And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
Many people spend their lives asking God for His help, but do not do what is necessary to get it. We are sinners, and God cannot look upon or hear sin, so He cannot hear us when we pray – unless we have Jesus as our Savior. It was the blood Jesus shed that covers our sin and makes us look righteous to God. It is only when we pray through Jesus can God answer our prayers.
Hell will be that place of unanswered prayer:
LUKE 16:27-28 tells how the rich man pleaded,
‘… then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
Hell will be a place of realization:
Reading in VERSE 28, the rich man does not want his brothers to come to that place of torment. He finally realizes what hell is, but it is too late. Those that are going to hell will realize, but with them, too, it will be too late. That is why we try our best today to give them the truth of the Lord so that they do not have to go through what the rich man had to go through; and so they might come to know the peace of knowing the Lord Jesus.
We have talked about the judgment and we have talked a little about standing in line on our way to hell. Now let’s talk about …
3. THE LINE TO HEAVEN
If you have allowed Jesus a place in your life today, you will be standing tomorrow in the line on God’s right hand side with the sheep who follow Christ. You will be entering Heaven. What will it be like? We have been given picture words to describe a snapshot of Heaven here and there.
Heaven has something called “floodgates”. That is a gate or other opening that, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, controls outbursts.
In GENESIS 8:2, it references these floodgates.
‘Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of Heaven had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.’
In 2 KINGS 7:2, it again talks about floodgates.
‘The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?”
And again in MALACHI 3:10 -
‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house. “Test Me in this”, says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
In other versions of the Bible, instead of floodgates, it uses the word “windows”. But whether it is floodgates or windows, every one of these verses give us a glimpse of what Heaven is like. It is a place of many blessings. The truth of the matter is that every blessing we have ever enjoyed only comes from Heaven, not from anywhere else. We humans are so smug in our self-reliance, but in truth, we have nothing to be self-reliant about. Everything that is good comes from God’s Heaven.
In REVELATION 4:1 John says the door to Heaven stood in front of Him, and in verse 2 it says the first thing he saw after going through the door was a throne with someone sitting on it. That passage goes on to say that surrounding that throne were creatures who never stopped singing praises to the Lord God. In chapter 5, it says that he heard the voices of thousands and thousands of angels singing praises.
That gives another little snapshot of Heaven. We will always be singing praises to our Heavenly Father, and that means we will always be joyful and happy. (A far cry from our lives down here, isn’t it?)
In REVELATION 21 it tells us that there will be no more tears, no sorrow, no death or mourning or crying or pain. Later in the chapter, John tries to describe Heaven itself. It is impossible for our finite minds to picture something as wonderful as Heaven, so John uses descriptions we can understand. He uses every precious and beautiful stone that God has ever created to describe the walls and the streets and the gates of Heaven.
Would the Victory Singers please come back on stage?
Wouldn’t it be nice to live there forever? Wouldn’t it be a place you would really love to be? The Bible says that only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be allowed in. These are the ones who have been judged worthy by God and are put on His right hand side with the sheep that followed Jesus.
Since life as we know it leaves much to be desired, doesn’t it make sense that we do today everything that is necessary to ensure us a place in Heaven’s line? Many people say that they just don’t understand how they can go as bad as they have been. Let me set you straight right now.
It does not matter where you have been; it only matters where you are, because where you are determines where you are going to go. There is a parable that Jesus gave to illustrate this point. He said that a land owner needed to hire some help so he hired some men in the morning, but later that day, he needed more help, so he hired some more men.
At the end of the day, when it came time to pay them, he paid them all the same. Whether the man worked for him for 12 hours or 1 hour, he got paid the same. This tells us that those who have chosen to follow Jesus at an early age will go to Heaven, and those that come to Jesus later on, no matter what their past, will also go to Heaven.
How about you this morning? Look back and see the life you have been living. Is it one that God would be proud of? Is it one you are proud of? You might have been one of the nicest people in town, but until you make the decision to ask Jesus to come into your life, you will still go to hell. By the same token, you might have been the worst person in town, but as soon as you choose to live for Jesus, you assure your place in Heaven.
Do you want to go to Heaven? It is a conscious choice and a thought-out decision that you have to make. Nobody can do it for you and it will not just happen automatically. God wants to know if you have personally determined to love His Son or not. This is your day of decision. This is your day to choose glory and turn your back on hell. What will your decision be?
INVITATION
