If you brought your Bibles, you can join me in the book of Luke chapter 16. We're going to dig right in. This morning we're running a little bit late. I'll try and keep my teaching a little briefer than normal so that we can end on time. But we're going to begin together in Luke 16. We did read this portion last week. I'd like to reread it again. And what we're doing is we're studying through for many months now. The Bible's teaching on what is coming at the end of history, the last things, what is awaiting all mankind and all of history at the end, what God's plan is, how he intends to culminate and conclude all things. We've looked recently specifically at that final day of judgment when the Lord Jesus himself, will return to planet earth, he will cause all people, great and small, rich and poor, young and old, all that have ever lived to stand in his presence and to give an account for their lives. We've seen that he's going to separate and divide them into two categories, into two groups. Groups that he identifies as his sheep, on his right hand, who will receive eternal blessings forever and ever. And a group on his left that he identifies as the goats, those who are permanently going to experience the, and forevermore, the just desserts, so to speak, of their life lived in rebellion to his authority and to his will. And we've just recently, in the last couple of three weeks, been looking specifically at what the Bible teaches about what is waiting for them after that day of judgment. What we traditionally consider to be, or understand to be, the concept of hell. Now last week what I introduced is that hell has a history. The reason hell has a history is, and I'm just going to briefly review what we covered last week, is that hell is a created place. Hell didn't always exist. Just like heaven itself, as we'll see as we study a little bit about heaven here in the weeks to come, heaven itself didn't always exist. Heaven and hell are both created places, created for specific purposes. And because hell is a created place, it has changed. It undergoes change just like all created things undergo change. Hell has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so to speak. And what we looked at last week is the history of hell itself in relationship to what is revealed about it in the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. We identified these basic principles. Hell in the Old Testament is identified by this term Sheol in Hebrew, or Hades in the Greek, and the concept is that hell is the unseen realm. It really applies to the whole, what we call the spiritual realm. And that when all individuals died, whether they were in right relationship with God or not in right relationship with God, all people went at the point of death into Sheol. And we saw that there was even a spatial direction to Sheol. There's a location to it. And that all people, when they reached the point of death, went down to Sheol. And we identified that Sheol is located in the heart of the earth. and that this is not some kind of Christian mythology, this is real spiritual fact about the way things actually are in God's plan and purposes. But we saw that in this unseen realm of Sheol, which is in the heart of the earth, there are actually three sections or three compartments, three parts to Sheol. Those three parts in descending order are paradise in the sense of the uppermost category, the uppermost compartment. where the righteous dead go and are in the company of the other righteous dead. They are experiencing there a place of comfort and a place of blessing. We also saw that in a second compartment, a middle compartment so to speak, we have the unrighteous dead, the wicked. And they are in a place of agony, they are in a place of torment, and in a place of flame. And then we saw that there is actually a third compartment, which is not mentioned in this passage I'm about to read in Luke 16, but it is mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, and it is called or identified Tartarus, which is the lowest part of Sheol, and it is a place not for human beings, human souls, after the point of death, but it's a special holding place for a specific group of wicked angels that sinned in a particular way, as identified in other places in the Old Testament. But let's read together Luke 16, the Lord Jesus' description of Sheol and what goes on there. And understand this, what we're describing here in terms of a biblical timeline, again, is if this line represents all of history, if this line to the left, the beginning point, represents the Garden of Eden, the beginning of God's creation, and this line at the end represents the second coming of Christ, which is the end of history as we know it. Right in the middle I'm placing the cross, which is the turning point of all history, and we're going to see how hell itself significantly changes at the cross, but in this entire first section, what we call the Old Testament, what we're reading is the nature of hell, the history of hell in that first period of time known as the Old Testament. So reading together in Luke 16, Let's read from verse 19. Again, as I mentioned last week, this is a story that the Lord Jesus told, that some consider to be a parable, but there is solid biblical reason, and I personally believe also this is not a parable, but an actual description of a real event that happened in the lives of two individuals. And Jesus uses these just as an example, a teaching example, to show us, in a sense, pulling back the curtains, behind the scenes, what's going on in this location. Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. Now this location here is identified as Abraham's bosom, which again just signifies it's a place of intimacy and fellowship with the righteous dead as represented by Abraham. It's called in other places, paradise. And the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, this unseen realm, now this man is in a different location, but somewhere in relationship to the first one. In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham, key phrase here, far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue. For I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things. But now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you, there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over or come from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us. All right, one of the important and critical details here is if we were to diagram what this looks like in this location that is known as Sheol, the heart of the earth, we would have to, as I said, identify that there are three compartments. And the best way I could describe this is that underneath this bottom line we have the lowest compartment, which is Tartarus, and in this compartment only wicked angels of a particular category are currently there. In this upper section we have two parts. One side is Paradise, or Abraham's bosom. On the other side is Hades, which is a place of torment and flame. In between the two there is a great chasm, And that chasm, using just terminology that in a word picture kind of describes it as if there are two cliffs with some unpassable chasm in between the cliffs, separates paradise from Hades. There are individuals when they die that go to this location, and there are individuals when they die that go to this location. Once they're assigned a location, they cannot cross over one to the other side in either direction. Alright, that's our basics about what we're dealing with here. Now, where I'd like to start today, I know I left a lot of open-ended questions last week when we basically got this information on the board and we talked about it together. One of the issues that we need to first identify, and I want to get squared away, is this. Jesus himself comes along at this middle juncture in all of history. He dies on the cross. When Jesus dies, and he dies a real death, when he dies, his soul goes into Hades at the moment of his death. Why does his soul go into Hades? Because Hades equals, in its broadest sense, the unseen realm. But in its specific sense, Hades is only applied to this category of the unseen realm that is the place of suffering and torment. The question is, did Jesus go to this unseen realm in the heart of the earth and suffer in flame and agony like the rich man did in this story for the three days that he says in Matthew 12, and we'll turn there in a moment and re-read that, that he says for three days and three nights, in between the cross and the resurrection, In that three day time period, is Jesus in the unseen realm suffering as Lazarus himself in this story suffered? The answer is absolutely not. But it's important for us to clarify here because there is a teaching that is And maybe it's not, you don't hear it as much anymore today, but when I was a young believer and as I was growing up in the Lord, it was a teaching that I heard regularly and from various different sources, and the teaching went like this. They believed this group that was teaching this, this basic setup and scenario that I'm describing here about the unseen realm, But they believe that when Jesus died on the cross, what happened to Him is that He went for three days and three nights into the suffering section of the unseen realm. And that in this suffering section, He suffered torment and torture by Satan and his demons, and that at the end of that three-day period of time, as he was being raised from the dead, that he actually wrestled with Satan and his demons in this category, and wrestled away from Satan the keys of death and of Hades, which later, the book of Revelation does say that Jesus possesses the keys of both death and Hades. Is that a real scenario? Did that really happen? Absolutely not. It's totally made up. It's a fantastic, almost science fiction sounding story. And you can really, if you tell the story the right way, it's a wrong story, but if you tell it the right way, you can really get people pumped up about Jesus wrestling these keys from Satan. But none of that actually happened. Why not? Let's look at some things together here. First, I said we would reread this. Let's look at First of all, Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12, this is from one of the statements of the Lord Jesus himself, telling us what was going to happen to him during this three-day period. Since none of us have experienced this, none of us were there, we really need to lean on and rely on the testimony of the Lord Jesus himself as to what actually happened during that period of time. Matthew chapter 12, we'll read from verse 38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign. And yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. Now what was significant of course in the story of Jonah the prophet? Jonah, we all know the story. What do you know Jonah for above and beyond anything else? He's swallowed by this great fish and he spends three days and three nights in the belly of this fish in the heart of the sea. And so Jesus says, there's no sign that's going to be given to this evil and adulterous generation except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Okay, first issue. What? Where did Jesus go? when he died on the cross, and for how long? Jesus, for three days and three nights, I'll just say days here, which includes days and nights, for three days, Jesus went to the heart of the earth. Which is, again, not an up direction, it's a down direction, speaking spiritually. He went down from the cross. spiritually speaking, for three days and three nights, and spent all three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Now that leaves an open-ended question though, because I've already identified that in the heart of the earth there are three sections. So what did he do? Did he go to all three sections, visit, you know, like spend one day in each section? Did he go to a specific section? What actually happened? Well, we have to rely on another testimony of the Lord in another place. Let's turn to the book of Luke, chapter 23, where the Lord identifies for us His destination for those three days and three nights. Luke 23. This is one of the things, one of the important things that the Lord spoke when he was on the cross. We'll read from Luke 23 verse 39. One of the criminals who were hanged there were hurling abuse at him. We're talking here about one of the two thieves, one of the two criminals that was hanged on one of the two crosses beside the Lord Jesus in his crucifixion. One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered, and rebuking him, rebuking the first criminal, said, Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom. And Jesus responded to him and said, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. This is a wonderful story, obviously, of what we call and consider a last minute salvation. This man was really and truly saved at the very last possible moment. which is a testimony of the awesome grace and mercy of God in this man's life. He was saved as God opened his heart to see the truth about who Jesus was and to acknowledge that truth publicly and to the Lord himself as he's hanging there on the cross and the Lord in encouraging his heart gives him a special promise. And the promise is, today, I'm promising you, today, you will be with me in paradise. Well, what that tells us is something more than just where the criminal himself is going to be. It tells us where the Lord himself is going to be. So what happens is, Jesus dies on the cross. When he dies, he does descend into the unseen realm, but he descends specifically and only to paradise, Abraham's bosom. The Lord Jesus spends all three days and three nights in the heart of the earth in the location of paradise. He spends it in fellowship with all of the righteous dead who lived throughout the Old Testament time period, who waited in faith and hope and anticipation of the coming of God's Savior, the Messiah. He's waiting with them there in anticipation of His own resurrection that's going to take place at the end of this three-day time period, which is part, of course, of God's special plan. How do we know that Jesus, other than He says, I'm going to be in Paradise, how do we know, however, that He spends all three days in Paradise? How do we know that He doesn't skip over the chasm, because He says, No one can go over this chasm going this direction or this direction, but of course Jesus is Lord and He could certainly supersede this boundary line, this spiritual chasm between these two categories. How do we know for sure He never spends a moment in the suffering part of Hades? Turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 19. This is an important point and it's at this point that this teaching that I'm... arguing with here that Jesus died on the cross and then went to hell to suffer for three days and three nights after that. It's important for us to understand that that teaching is not just wrong, it's not just an error, but it's a serious spiritual error of the category that the church has historically, for 2,000 years, identified as a heretical kind of teaching, meaning it's a teaching that changes something fundamental about the essentials of the faith, and therefore is an incredibly dangerous spiritual teaching. But let's read together from The Gospel of John chapter 19, this is again the scene at the crucifixion of Jesus. We're going to pick up in verse 28. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the scripture, said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there. They put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Now, this is a very simple and straightforward description of the last moment of the Lord Jesus on the cross. And it's the last saying of the Lord Jesus on the cross, the last words that he spoke prior to his death. And the only words that he spoke were these three words, it, is finished in English. But of course we know the Lord Jesus wasn't speaking English. What we have is a translation of something that he said in another language as he hung there on the cross. And then this other language, in this Greek language, the Lord Jesus said this word. Tetelestai. It's an important word. The meaning of a single word can make all the difference in terms of what we understand about what was happening on the cross versus what would happen in the three days and three nights following the cross. It's a Greek term taken from the marketplace. It was an economic term and it was commonly used in business transactions. in such a way that if you and I were to do business and I was to purchase something from you on credit and then the time came for me to pay the bill And when I actually paid the bill, you know how in our bill-paying system today, when you get a bill that has adequately been paid, usually a company will mark with a red stamp right on that bill, and they have stamps that are pre-made with these words on it, and the words are, in our language, paid in full. That's what the word telestai served to communicate in those days. paid in full, to be finished in the sense that what is at issue here is fully and completely concluded. There's nothing more to be done beyond this point. Now the point of this is this one single question. If the Lord Jesus died on the cross and then went to hell and suffered for three days and three nights, the question would be, what would be the purpose of him going to hell and suffering for three days and three nights? Well, in this erroneous perspective, the people that taught this believed that Jesus is finishing the work that He began on the cross, which is His taking our place, suffering on our behalf what is due to us. And certainly, suffering in Hades is absolutely deserved on every one of our parts. But the question is, is that how Jesus paid the price for what we deserve? And the biblical response to that is, when Jesus finished the suffering that He endured on the cross, as the last breath, last moment, last words that He spoke, He cried out, Tetelestai, meaning the suffering that is necessary to pay for the salvation of all those He intends to save by His cross. is accomplished, so that not a single moment of suffering extends beyond the moment of the Lord Jesus' death. So he dies, and instead of going to the place of suffering, he goes into paradise, into Abraham's bosom, in comfort and in fellowship with all of the other righteous dead for that three-day and three-night period of time. Now one other point, I won't dig into this, I think I established this last week, And if you didn't get a chance, you can pick up that tape and listen to it, or listen to it on the Sermon Audio website. The issue here of, was he suffering under the torture and torment of Satan and his demons? Well, the answer to that is clear and unequivocal, of course not, because, number one, Satan and his demons aren't even here. They're not in this category of Hades. There are no demonic spirits in this section. There is, yes, torment. Yes, flame. There is, yes, suffering. But Satan and his demons aren't here at all. Some of the angels, as we've seen, are down in this lowest compartment of Tartarus. The rest, Satan included, are not in the heart of the earth at this time at all. Where are Satan and the rest of his demons? They're around us. They're on the surface of the earth. They're in the heavenly realms, which is not heaven itself, but the spiritual atmosphere surrounding planet earth. They're not in captivity in the heart of the earth, like these human spirits that have died and have gone to be punished in this way. So, Satan and his demons aren't there to torment anyone, let alone the Lord Jesus himself. Alright, so that pretty much covers that one point of what happened to Jesus between the cross and his resurrection on the third day. But I said that hell itself changes, not just an individual's experience of hell, but hell itself changes. And I said that the turning point, the great turning point in history, is the cross. Something happens at the cross and at the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus that changes this unseen realm from the Old Testament to the New Testament until the Second Coming of Christ. Let's take a look at that together briefly. Turn with me, if you would, to Matthew 27. We're going to read together one of the most mysterious passages in the whole Bible. And if you've ever happened to notice this passage before, I know you scratched your head as you were looking at it. Matthew 27, I hope to give you at least a direction for understanding where this fits in and what this all means. This is again one of the events in connection to the cross of the Lord Jesus, His crucifixion. And the mysteriousness of this event should, our understanding of this should start from this point, that this happens as Jesus is crucified. And it signifies that there's more going on behind the scenes, spiritually, when Jesus dies on the cross than meets first glance. So let's read from Matthew 27, verse 50. Again, this is the description of the last moments of the Lord Jesus as he dies. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. Then verse 52 is where it gets really mysterious. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. And then it just drops it right there. Nothing more is said. What takes place is, as Jesus dies, at the moment of his death, there's an earthquake, the veil in the temple is torn into from top to bottom. There's all these physical circumstances that are taking place and then something very mysterious also occurs in which tombs in the burial places around the city of Jerusalem are opened up and many of the saints, and what we refer to here as saints, we're not talking about some just super spiritual select group of people, we're talking about Old Testament righteous dead people, people who died in right relationship with the Lord, throughout the Old Testament time period, they are raised from the dead. And three days later, as Jesus himself comes out of the grave, these many righteous dead start to circulate among the population of the city of Jerusalem. Now, what's going on there? What is this pointing toward? Well, what this is telling us is that something major has happened to the unseen realm itself. Hades itself has undergone a radical change. In what way? Well, let's turn now to Ephesians chapter 4. Something happens to Hades at the cross and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus that changes Hades from that point in history forward. Ephesians chapter four. I'll read from. Verse seven. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, and when it says here, therefore it says, what Paul is referring to is that he's quoting from the Old Testament. He's quoting from the book of Psalm 68. And that Psalm 68 is what is known as a messianic psalm. It's a prophetic preview of something that God is going to do later in history at the coming of the Messiah. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive, a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. Now this expression, he ascended, what does it mean? Except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things. Now, there's just a ton of important stuff that was briefly described there by Paul. I'm just going to focus on one aspect of it. When Jesus died on the cross, he descended into the lower parts of the earth. He descended into the unseen realm of Hades or Sheol. He descended specifically into one compartment, the compartment we call Paradise. When he rose from the dead, He didn't just individually and personally rise from the dead and by doing so come back to the surface of the earth, leaving paradise. He took all of paradise with him. And when he ascended back to the right hand of God, some 40 days after his resurrection, he led captive a host of captives. Now the imagery here, is taken from a common occurrence in the culture of those days when a conquering general had finished his battle and had won the war and was returning back to his home city. He would lead into the home city a parade, and that parade included his own army, but that parade included the train of captives that he had brought back with him to become slaves to the city, Green City, and this whole parade would enter into the city. This imagery is applied to the Lord Jesus here, and it describes his return from planet Earth back to God's realm in heaven. As he ascends, he doesn't ascend by himself or alone. The Lord Jesus, according to Paul, when he ascended back to God, the right hand of God in heaven, he led captive a host of captives. The whole idea here is that the Lord Jesus at the point of his death and I hope this isn't too small for everyone to see, descended into the lower parts of the earth, the heart of the earth, he descended to paradise, he then took captive all of the inhabitants of paradise, which are, and what we mean by taking captive, not in a violent, aggressive way, but by way of saying, I have paid the penalty to purchase you unto myself. It is finished, it is concluded, the plan of God for your lives is now complete." And then he led them as a parade of victory in resurrection, and we see them during the period of time between his resurrection and his ascension, we see them circulating around the city of Jerusalem. to prove that this is really taking place, and then where do they go at the end of that time period when he ascends to heaven? They don't go back to the heart of the earth. They follow him as he leads them in a host of captivity, a parade of victory back into heaven itself. Now this is for the Lord Jesus to return to heaven. It's for these captives that were waiting throughout the whole Old Testament time period in paradise. It's their first entrance into heaven. Their reward is that they get to precede us into heaven itself. None of us have ever been there. The righteous dead throughout the whole Old Testament time period are no longer in the heart of the earth. They're in the presence of God in heaven. So Hades was irrevocably changed as a result. But does that mean that everything about Hades was changed? No. There are, again, three compartments to Hades. So, compartment number one, so to speak, which is paradise, compartment number one has been changed and is relocated. Compartment number one no longer is in the heart of the earth, it's in heaven itself. Compartments number two and three were left unchanged. And they remain in the heart of the earth to this day. whenever an unrighteous person, and what we mean by that is not just someone that's a little less good than someone else, what we mean is someone that is out of right relationship with the Lord, and they die, and their soul leaves their body. What happens to that person today is that they go into the heart of the earth, into the unseen realm, into the place that's identified as Hades, into a place that is a place of torment, It's a place of suffering and agony, and it is a place of flames. Is that their eternal home? No, it's absolutely not their eternal home. There's going to be one final change that will also change compartments 2 and 3, permanently, finally. I briefly touched on this last week, let's turn there, Revelation chapter 20, verse 11, this is a description. in the book of Revelation of the Day of Judgment itself. Revelation 20.11, and the focus here is on what's going to happen, especially toward the second part of this, what's going to happen to the unrighteous dead on the final Day of Judgment. Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death or what we'll see next week is actually the permanent death. This is the second death, the Lake of Fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the Lake of Fire. There's one final change that's awaiting Categories 2 and 3, or Compartments 2 and 3, of what is currently called, and rightly so, Hell, or Hades, or Sheol, and that is that Hell itself is going to be thrown into a Lake of Fire. And that includes, of course, every inhabitant of those two compartments. Now, next week what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at what the actual reality of the Lake of Fire is, what that is going to be like, what the Bible has to say about the Lake of Fire. It is, as I've talked about this whole subject before, it's a particularly uncomfortable topic, so I'm just letting you know right now, if you don't want to listen to that, don't come next week. But I'm going to cover it and we're going to talk about it in some detail. I think there's a biblical value. in the people of God understanding exactly what the lake of fire experience is going to be like forever and ever and ever. There's a value to our own hearts to safeguard us against any temptation to cross the final line and place ourselves in a position deserving such a thing. But there's also the value, even if we stay forever, the rest of our lives, in right relationship with the Lord, there's a biblical value to us being rightly motivated and stirred to do our responsibility, which is to proclaim the message of salvation to those who have not yet heard it, so that they will not have this experience in their eternal future. So we're going to stop there today. I hope I answered or cleared up some of the confusing points of this. It's a very complex subject, obviously. If I left you with any unanswered questions, don't hesitate. Seek me out either today or throughout the week. I'll be more than happy to take whatever time is necessary to talk to you, each one, to try and clear any confusing points up for you. Let's pray as we end here this morning. Father God, as we stop and consider and think about eternity and about the experience of what awaits after the point of death, both for us and for those who do not know you in the way that you've opened our eyes and changed our hearts to know you, I pray, Father God, that our hearts would be affected and impacted and that our perspectives, Lord, would be shaped and molded by an understanding of eternity, an understanding of the spiritual reality of what actually goes on, what actually does happen when a person reaches the last breath of this present life. And I pray, Father God, that we would be better servants, better suited to serve your purposes, better informed, and that our hearts attitude would be shaped and molded by what you've taught us. And I thank you for the grace that comes with each point of understanding of the spiritual reality of your word. Thank you for that, Father. And we commit our way unto you now in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. The copyrighted product of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. You are welcome to pass this message along to others, as long as it is not sold, and it is passed along unaltered in its entirety, with source credit given to Tree of Life Christian Church.