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in a world of conflicting values,
when questions are more common than answers. God's Word provides
everything we need to live a God-centered, truth-driven life. Now, here's
the Word for Life broadcast, brought to you by Brookside Baptist
Church. Good morning, everyone. Thank
you for joining us on this session of The Word for Life. I'm Mark
Widmer, joining Pastor Ken Keltner. As we continue to walk through
the book of Revelation, and we've covered so much of the book in
the last months, we're currently in Chapter 20 at what is known
as the Great White Throne of Judgment. There's quite a description
of this here. The people, the unsaved people
here are being judged, the scripture says, by the books, plural. They're judged by another book. They are also judged individually. Pastor Ken, if you'll pick it
up from here. Well, Pastor Mark, let's go talk
a little bit. So, when a person today dies,
you know, obviously death claims the body. But for the unredeemed,
in other words, for those who are not believers, Hades, which
is another aspect of hell, it's the grave, has their soul and
spirit. Hades, my friends, is not the
lake of fire. Hades is like the county jail
holding a person before their final sentencing. I mean, it's
not going to be a pleasant place. Remember the rich man Lazarus,
he was in Hades and he could look across and see into Abraham's
bosom. And so, it will be a place of
pain and torment, but it's only, that's not the lake of fire.
For the unbeliever, the lake of fire is the eternal, let's
say, penitentiary. So, death has the body, but hell
or Hades has the soul and spirit. And so, here we are, Jesus Christ,
if you remember, is going to be the judge at the great white
throne judgment. And when a defendant is called
to stand before Jesus, no one, let me emphasize this again,
no one can hide from him. And so God now fits the unbelievers
with a resurrected immortal body that is eternally situated for
hell. They're able to last forever
in the lake of fire. It'll be a place of torment.
And they're going to wish they could die, but they're not going
to be able to die because they have a special body that is going
to be given to them where they will experience hell to the fullest. At this point, some of you may
be thinking, man, this whole idea of hell is just cruel, unkind,
and fair. And the Bible says over and over,
God is love. I mean, some will actually even
get kind of indifferent and possibly just angry about it and say,
well, if that's what God's like, I want nothing to do with him.
But we need to realize that the biblical teaching on the just
God, he says, or we're told in Exodus, he will by no means clear
the guilty. And my friends, we're all guilty
of wrongdoing. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. I mean, that's an unpopular message
that God is not going to clear the guilty, even in so many so-called
Christian circles. I mean, we ought to be talking
more about hell today, but we really don't talk much about
it. Friends, every individual has a decision to make concerning
Jesus Christ's gift of salvation. And that decision is made here
on this earth while a person is living. Once a person dies,
there's no purgatorial place of holding for them. The only
place of holding is Hades, and then each person will be called
to meet Jesus as the judge at the great white throne judgment.
So right now, I mean, someone said it well, they said, the
issue is not learning how to really live. You can't really
learn to live unless you really already are prepared and know
how you're going to die and what's going to happen to you. And so
it's your individual decision to receive the gift of eternal
life through Christ Jesus or not. You know, for the rich man
and all who arrive in hell, the issue is not a lack of information,
but it's a rejection of the truth. Randy Alcorn, he's written a
book entitled, Heaven. He's right, for he says this,
and I quote, the unbelievers wish to be away from God, turns
out to be his worst nightmare, end of quote. So you can mark
it down. Most people in America are so
self-confident that they're thinking they're too good to be damned
to eternal judgment. I mean, listen to this Gallup
poll. Now, this was a while back. This was 21 years ago, back in
2004, which really doesn't seem that long ago, does it? It stated
that 77% of Americans believe they would go to heaven when
they died, and only 6% believe they'd go to hell. In 2013, the
Newswire PR reported in a survey that 62% of Americans believe
that they're on their way to heaven, while only 1.5% believe
they would go to hell. The tragic truth is that most
people who end up in hell will be shocked to find themselves
there. I mean, you know, every time, you know, I start really
focusing on hell, I mean, it's just, it's horrific. You don't
want anyone to go there. God doesn't want anyone to go
there. The sobering truth though, comes here in Revelation 20 in
two verses where no one is going to escape their appointment and
their judgment. And that's in verses 14 and 15. No one escapes. We're told death and Hades are
destroyed. In other words, they're cast
into the lake of fire, and then we're told this is the second
death. Friends, these that stand before Christ are going to experience
something much worse and torment than death and Hades. So does
a person then ever cease to exist? Well, there's two popular teachings
that some people use to get around the Bible's clear teaching on
hell. One is called annihilation, which teaches that unbelievers
are not punished eternally after death, but they simply cease
to exist. However, and we brought it up
just a few moments ago, the story of the rich man and Lazarus are
in direct opposition to annihilation. Another belief that people have
is that of universalism. That idea states because God
is so loving and good, he would not condemn anyone to a place
of torment and a literal lake burning with fire. Yet if everyone
is going to be saved, then why would Jesus have to come? Why
would he have to pay for sin? God's redemptive plan called
for a perfect sacrifice to take sin away, and my friends, Jesus
is the only one who could come to this earth and live that perfect
life, meet God's standard of perfection, never sin, and be
that sacrifice for us. Hell was a place prepared for
the devil and his angels. How do we know that? Jesus told
us that in Matthew chapter 25 and verse 41. And I'll have Pastor
Mark read that for us. Mark- Depart from me, you cursed
into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
And so Jesus tells us right there, it was prepared for the devil
and his angels. we're told in scripture in Ezekiel
3311 that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The
biblical revelation here regarding hell I think should motivate
every one of us as believers to defend God's word that there
is a literal hell and then actually infuse in us a sense of urgency
in declaring the gospel message to folks that possibly are not
believers. I mean, we refer to that as evangelizing
the lost. I remember one time, Pastor Mark,
in Denver, I took some folks to the mall to witness. My problem
was, even though I took two years of Spanish in high school, I
thought I could communicate much better to the couple working
at one of those booths, you know, like in the main hallways, you
know, or the corridor of the mall. And I was trying to speak
Spanish plus English to him with the gospel. And some other worker
in another store had nothing to do, I guess, and heard it
and called for security. And after we talked to that guy,
we're walking around and security approaches us and says, are you
the people who are out here evangelizing here at the mall? And I said,
you know what? I love how you guys put that, evangelizing. Yeah, we're here evangelizing.
He goes, you can only evangelize over by that hallway over there
where nobody goes down that hallway. But I thought evangelizing the
lost, they had a good idea of it. I mean, that is warning people
of this fearful fate that awaits them in an act of sympathy and
compassion. Now, everyone not in the book
of life is punished. We're told anyone not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. To those
whose name is not in this book, they will be cast. Balou is the
Greek word here, meaning thrown down into the lake of fire. For
Christ will deliver an unpardonable, eternal sentence. You're not
gonna get pardoned from this. It's a sentence of dismissal
from the king and his kingdom. We're talking about the king
of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ himself here, totally
dismissed from his kingdom. In the lake of fire, neither
body nor soul is extinguished. Both suffer mental and physical
agonies, guilt, greed, lust, pain, thirst, hatred, blasphemy. You think they're going to be
taking God's name in vain in hell? loneliness, anger, despair, and
fear of everything that's brought on the people in the lake of
fire. Jesus in one of his sermons said,
these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal
life. You know, the Greek word that's
translated eternal here is aionos, meaning eternal, everlasting,
without end. The word that Jesus used to tell
us that hell will be everlasting is the same word he used to tell
us that heaven will be everlasting without end. I'm reminded of
what Jesus said in John 6, 47. He said, truly, truly, or verily,
verily, I say to you, he that believes in me has everlasting
or eternal life. Luke in his gospel records for
us that the disciples were sent on a preaching tour during which
they did some amazing things, including the casting out of
demons. And they came back so excited
about the ministry that they'd had. And Jesus said, do not rejoice. that the spirits are subject
to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven."
That would be recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. Jesus stated
that there are only two roads in life, and friend today, you're
either on one or the other road. We'll close here in just a moment
with Pastor Mark reading Matthew chapter seven and concluding,
but just let me say this, I've had folks ask me, Ken, what's
your greatest fear? And one man said to me, I would
think your greatest fear, Ken, as a pastor, is that people set
in the services week after week after week, don't truly know
Christ Jesus personally. They know him, you know, as far
as the head knowledge goes, but they don't really know him. And
he said, because I'm reminded of Jesus's words in Matthew 7. Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, broad is
the way that leads to destruction, and many who go in by it. Because
narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life,
and there are few who find it. And so these two roads, one leads
to eternal, the other leads to destruction. And the question,
folks, for all of us, the question we ask you today, which road
are you on today? Are you ready to meet God? Thank you for joining us on this
session of Word for Life. We hope you enjoyed today's program.
If you have a question we can answer, or would like information
on the Word for Life, would like to donate to continue to produce
this broadcast, or need resources for your Christian walk, Contact
us at Brookside Baptist Church, 4470 North Pilgrim Road, Brookfield,
Wisconsin, 53005. You can also visit us at brooksidebc.org. That's brooksidebc.org. Or call
us at 262-783-6180. That's 262-783-6180. Thanks for
listening today, and please tune in again as we bring the Word
of God to your life. you
The Book Of Revelation (A Continual Study) The Beginning Of The End
Series The Book of Revelation
Join Brookside's Lead Pastor Ken Keltner and Pastor Mark Widmer study of the Book of Revelation chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
| Sermon ID | 2925453221130 |
| Duration | 14:15 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | Revelation 20 |
| Language | English |
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