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