INTRO.- This is not a popular subject. Never has been. Never will be. But it is necessary.
ILL.- On an American troopship, the soldiers crowded around their chaplain asking, “Do you believe in hell?” He said, “I do not.” “Well, then, will you please resign, for if there is no hell, we do not need you, and if there is a hell, we do not wish to be led astray.”
People need to know the truth about eternity, heaven and hell. And if we believe scripture, how can we not believe in a place called hell? We may not like the thought of it, but we must admit it’s a real place, just as heaven is a real place.
ILL.- Ted Turner, founder of Turner Broadcasting blasted the Christian faith at a speech to the National Press Club. He said, "Remember, heaven is going to be perfect. And I don’t really want to be there. Those of us that go to hell, which will be most of us in this room, most journalists are certainly going there. But when we get there 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 is perfect? Boring, boring."
Also in late 1989, Turner told Dallas Morning News that "Christianity is a religion for losers." Christ died on the cross, but Turner said He shouldn’t have bothered. "I don’t want anybody dying for me. I’ve had a few drinks and a few girlfriends and if that’s gonna put me in hell, then so be it."
Ted Turner, you may be smart when it comes to the world and making money, but you are not a smart man when it comes to the reality of eternity.
ILL.- On July 16, 1741, Jonathan Edwards stood before his congregation and preached a message titled, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. People began to shake under the conviction of their sins. Some fell to the floor, crying out for mercy. That morning, his church encountered God and the Great Awakening began to sweep across New England.
It’s quite different in most pulpits today. In one article for Newsweek Kenneth Woodward wrote, "Churchgoers take comfort: hell has all but disappeared from modern Christian theology. But this comes at a price."
ILL.- Another preacher wrote, “Hell, it would seem, has fallen on rather lean times. It used to be that the vast majority of Christians, regardless of denominational affiliation, believed that Hell was a real place where the wicked and the impenitent go when they died. The very thought of the pains and torments of Hell was enough to scare sinners straight. It used to be that ministers of the Gospel would preach on the horrors of Hell to persuade reprobates to repentance. But not anymore. Most American mainline and so-called Evangelical churches stopped preaching about Hell years ago. Most mainline ministers stopped believing in Hell years before that. Hell made people uncomfortable. Hell was too ‘old-fashioned.’ The topic of Hell was bad for the bottom line—attendance and income….”
PROP.- Let’s consider from the life of Christ what it takes for a person to avoid hell.
1- Understanding God’s will
2- Believing God’s person
I. UNDERSTANDING GOD’S WILL
Matt. 13:47-51 "Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked.”
“Can you hear me now?” So the Verizon wireless commercial goes. Jesus said, “Can you hear me now? Are you listening? Do you truly understand what I am saying?”
Prior to these words Jesus told the parable about what is called the “dragnet.” A fishing net is let down and all kinds of fish are caught in it. Some of the fish were bad and some were good, but the bad were culled and thrown away.
ILL.- I remember fishing one time with our Jerry Rhodes on the St. Francis River. Jerry introduced me to that river, which he had fished all his life and even as a kid. One day while we were fishing for bass I hooked something that nearly jerked the rod out of my hand. When I finally got the fish in the boat it thrashed all over the place, flopping around, etc. Jerry warned me NOT to put my thumb in its mouth as I always did with a bass.
Finally, when I couldn’t grab the fish, I put my foot on it to stop it from flopping all over the place. When I looked closely I saw why he said NOT to put my thumb in its mouth. It had very sharp teeth. I had never seen such a fish. It turned out it was a Grinnell. Jerry said it was some kind of prehistoric fish. I believe it is also called a bowfish.
Well, in my book, it’s nothing but a BAD fish and must be culled and thrown away. And that’s exactly what we did with that Grinnell. After I couldn’t get my bait out of it’s mouth, Jerry said, “Give it to me. I’ll get it out.” And he did.
Some fish and some things in life are not worth much. Perhaps not even worth saving for anyone. They are fit only to be culled and thrown away. And so shall it be in hell.
But the problem is many people just don’t get it. They just don’t understand this eternal, Biblical truth of God. To avoid hell WE MUST UNDERSTAND GOD’S WORD!
ILL.- Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Church in Chicago which has over 20,000 people in attendance each week, tells the story of an encounter he had with a young woman.
He said, “I recall one time being in a restaurant studying for a message, and a gal looked over from her table and saw me reading my Bible. She said, ‘Why do you study that stuff?’ And I thought, just to stimulate a little discussion, I’d try to knock her off balance. So I said, ‘Because I don’t feel like going to hell when I die.’
“I was going to be really blunt, but I took the edge off it a little bit. And she said, ‘There is no such thing as heaven or hell.’ I thought, Well, I got something going now.
“So I turned in my chair and I said, ‘Why do you say that?’ She said, ‘Everybody knows that when you die your candle goes out — poof ’ I said, ‘You mean to tell me there’s no afterlife?’ ‘No.’ ‘So that means you must be able to just live as you please?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Like, there’s no Judgment Day or anything?’ ‘No.’
“I said, ‘Well, that’s fascinating to me. Where did you hear that?’ She said, ‘I read it somewhere.’‘Can you give me the name of the book?’ ‘I don’t recall.’ ‘Can you give me the name of the author of the book?’ ‘I forget his name.’ ‘Did that author write any other books?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Is it possible that your author changed his mind two years after he wrote this particular book and then wrote another one that said there is a heaven and a hell? Is that possible?’ ‘It’s possible but not likely.’
“‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let me get this straight. You are rolling the dice on your eternity predicated on what someone you don’t even know wrote in a book you can’t even recall the title of. Have I got that straight?’
“I was playing a little Columbo act with her. She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘That’s right.’ And I said back to her, ‘You know what I think, sweetheart? I think you have merely created a belief that guarantees the continuation of your unencumbered lifestyle. I think you made it up, because it is very discomforting to think of a heaven. It is a very discomforting thought to think of a hell. It is very unnerving to face a holy God in the day of reckoning. I think you made it all up.’ We had quite a conversation after that.”
Like the young woman in Hybel’s story, many people today don’t want to believe in hell, because they do not want to change the way they live. They easily accept anything that smacks of doubt, because it gives them relief from thinking about the reality of eternity. But Jesus wanted people to think about eternity often. In fact, the Bible is almost silent about the subject of hell, except for the words of Jesus. This only makes sense, because we would expect that the One who came from eternity would know and talk about eternity more than anyone else.
Revelation 21:8 “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
There are multitudes of people who have preconceived ideas about hell or no ideas at all. But in order to avoid hell people need to understand God’s will. And the only place to get that understanding is in God’s Word.
As someone said, “Read the Bible. It will scare hell out of you.” Or will hopefully, scare a person enough to keep them out of hell.
TO AVOID HELL WE MUST LISTEN TO AND UNDERSTAND GOD’S MESSAGE. We need to listen and listen well!
II. BELIEVING GOD’S PERSON
Matthew 13:53-58 “When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. "Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor." And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”
The people in Jesus’ own town did not believe Him. They did not believe in who He was and what He could do. Many people are not much different today. Many people today are not sure they trust Jesus to save them. They are not sure He is who He claimed to be and they are not sure that His death on the cross can save them from hell.
Many people have their own ideas, which they think are better than God’s idea and God’s sacrifice.
ILL.- It’s like that old story about a man who fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down. The following conversation ensued:
"Is anyone up there?"
"I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?" "Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer."
"That’s all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch."
A moment of pause, then: "Is anyone else up there?"
This is the way we humans are. We are not so sure about God’s plan for our salvation. We’d rather have it “our” way or do it our way.
ILL.- One time the great fighter, Muhammad Ali was asked what his faith meant to him. He said, "[It] means [a] ticket to heaven. One day we’re all going to die, and God’s going to judge us, [our] good and bad deeds. [If the] bad outweighs the good, you go to hell; if the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven. [I’m] thinking about the judgment day and how you treat people wherever you go. Help somebody through charity, because when you do, it’s been recorded.”
Ali is wrong. Again. His thinking was entirely wrong according to scripture. We are not saved by our good deeds, but rather by Christ’s good deed on the cross!
John 3:16-17 “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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
II Cor. 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
I John 2:1-2 “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Ali is not the only person with the wrong idea. Many people who claim to follow Christ even get some warped ideas about salvation and condemnation.
ILL.- A preacher named Don Hawks said, “When I attended Bluefield College as a young man many years ago I was talking to a pastor of an Independent Baptist church—someone I had known for several years in my hometown.
The college had just started allowing dancing on campus about the time I started attending there. The Pastor heard about dancing on campus and informed me that everyone at that college was going to hell because dancing was now allowed on campus. I thought ‘HELLO’—dancing is not the basis for getting into heaven! But that’s the tendency we all can fall into—if someone sees something differently we might decide they are on the ‘outside’ and are doomed to hell.’”
We all do this kind of thing, but it’s bad theology. We don’t make the rules and we don’t determine who’s going to heaven and who isn’t.
Brothers and sisters, there is only one way to heaven and that’s through Jesus Christ! He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him!
(John 14:6)
We all must put our trust in Him, not ourselves, not our church, not our goodness, etc. Christ alone saves. We must believe in Him. We must believe in what He did for us on the cross…that His death is sufficient to save us. And we must continue to believe and surrender and obey Him as best we can!
“And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”
There are many things that Jesus could do for us, but He can’t because of our lack of faith in Him. And the biggest miracle of all is our eternal salvation in heaven!
CONCLUSION-----------------------
ILL.- A preacher in the Midwest tells about a young couple in his church who boasted to all their friends and neighbors that they were flying to New York City. They were only going to be able to spend one day there, but the highlight of their trip would be to go see the Broadway play, “My Fair Lady.” They were so proud of this and everyone was really impressed because no one else in that small town had ever been to a play on Broadway.
The day came and when they arrived in New York they took a taxi to the theater where “My Fair Lady” was playing. To their dismay, they found that the play was sold out for the night.
They thought, “What do we do now? Everybody knows that we came to see ‘My Fair Lady.’ We don’t dare tell them that we didn’t.” So they found a couple of ticket stubs on the sidewalk and picked them up. They bought a program that described the various acts of the play. They went home singing “I Could Have Danced all Night.” And they told everybody that they had gone to see “My Fair Lady.”
The preacher said, “That’s right. They had the ticket stubs. They had the program. They had been to the theater. They knew the music. But the trouble is, they didn’t see the performance.”
Many people today are like that. They may go to church occasionally. They may sing the songs, bow their heads and perhaps even give some money, but they never really believed and trusted Christ for their salvation. It was just an act.
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
If you are not sure, you need to make sure. You need to put your trust in Christ and in Christ alone.
