Salvation Is Free But It's Not Cheap Series

And Jesus said, “this is what it will be like at the end of the age.” When the net is full or when everyone who is coming in has come in which includes some of every kind from every people group in the world; then God will bring history to a close and the angels will come and sort out the good from the bad.

Listen, the dragnet is picture of God’s judgement that’s sweeping through the sea of men and women and bringing everyone to the shores of eternity for the final separation; the believers to eternal life and the unbelievers to eternal damnation. As the net sweeps along many move within the net as though they were free but every once in a while the net touches them and reminds them of its ever encroaching doom but they swim away and think they’ve escaped not realizing that moment by moment the net is getting closer.

I’ve seen people touch the net when a family member or friend dies or their health begins to fail; they’re startled at first but they soon forget and convince themselves they have escaped the inescapable.

Verses 49 and 50 tell of the final destination of the unsaved where Jesus said, “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, 50 and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

One Saturday morning, a 4-year-old boy and his grandpa went out to get a treat at Dunkin Donuts. And as they were driving the Grandpa asked the boy, "Which way is heaven?" The boy pointed to the sky. And then he asked, "Which way is hell?" He pointed towards the floor. And then Grandpa asked, "And where are you going?" And the little guy said, "Dunkin’ Donuts." And it almost seems like everyone we talk to have the same attitude. We’re going where we want to go and that’s all there is to it. But the Bible says, the day is coming when God is going to cast all unbelievers into the furnace of fire where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And this phrase, “wailing and gnashing of teeth” appears seven times in the New Testament and every time it was Jesus who used it.

Listen, fire has two effects in scripture because for the believer fire is a purifier. We see this with Daniel’s three friends when they were cast into the burning fiery furnace; they weren’t harmed physically but the only thing the fire burnt were the robes that held them. And in Isaiah 6 we see an angel touching the unclean lips of the prophet with a live coal from off the altar to purge his sin and in 1 Corinthians 3:13 we see the believers works are tested with fire and the trash is all burnt away.

But on the unsaved; fire is not a testing but its torture. The fire doesn’t purge sin it punishes it. Listen, there’s probably no teaching harder to accept than the reality of hell but Jesus spoke about hell more than He spoke about heaven. As a matter of fact, He mentions hell 71 times but only mentions heaven 17. Why did He teach so much about hell? Because its real and He knew this teaching would be hard to accept from anyone and His intention was never to scare us but to warn and motivate us.