We're gonna be on 820 something 820 820 820 yes flip it over Oh no! What have I done? I'm just kidding. 821, yes. 821. Brother Ramsey, what have you done? I don't know. 821. So tonight, we are going to look tonight at... The lake of fire and hell and why are they different? All right, or verse visa. Okay, hell and the lake of fire. Yeah, I know I said it wrong. It's okay. I mean, I flipped the flip the flip around, you know, yeah. All right. So, we're going to look at that, and I don't know if y'all, I don't know if you guys have seen this. If you have the book, look at this. Here's where we are, okay? This is what you guys have tonight here. Right here is the last page. All of this back here is like quizzes and stuff, assignments. That's it right there. man we started this in 2011 and then we started it over in 2014 we've been going through this book for a long time not just this this is the fourth of four books so we've been going through this study, this series of studies for a long, long time. So yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do. Not teaching landmarks, we could start over because no one here was here when we did the very first one, except my wife and brother Wilhelm was not here. Brother Holderman was not here. Yeah, the only people here that are in the room right now are the campbell's that's it when we started it now some of y'all watch the videos for the first you know uh... sections like we went through bibliology there's like twenty some weeks or so uh... but that i mean that was a long time ago that one was twenty fourteen well twenty eleven and twenty fourteen but We've done that one twice. I was telling Brother Travis we were going to finish. He said, you should do baleology again. I said, I don't know, man. If I do that, I'm going to go through the whole series again. And here we are, you know, 2035, getting it done, you know. And so I thought, well, you know, I don't know. We'll do something different. So y'all pray that the Lord will give wisdom as I prepare for something different for this. So what does that mean? Time wise, what's our What's our calendar say? Look at that. We would be finishing this series on July 27th, the last Sunday in July, and starting a new series the first Sunday of August. Now that's assuming that we get through all of this in the next two weeks. We'll see. Might take longer. Anyhow, there is a difference between hell and the lake of fire. We know this because in Revelation chapter number 20, which you can turn to, Revelation chapter 20, all the way back. You thought you were freed from the end of Revelation. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Revelation chapter 20. Yeah, we went through the book of Revelation for a while also. Four years and seven months in the book of Revelation. That's not that bad. My old pastor went through the book of Hebrews in Sunday school. It took eight years to go through the book of Hebrews. So, yeah. Revelation 20 verse 13 and 14 say, and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. So you see, death and hell are not the lake of fire. They're cast in the lake of fire. So there's a difference between the two. The inhabitants of hell will be brought to the judgment, then cast, along with hell itself, into the lake of fire. You all catch the statement here? Go back to verse 11. says, And I saw a great white throne, him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is a book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Now notice here that the distinction is best seen by a comparison. This is a comparison that I've given as well. And this is in society's justice system. A comparison that I've given. Hell is like the lock-up, right? You know jail it's where a prisoner awaits trial right you're you're in a holding cell you're in in jail there and then The great white throne here is like the trial Right, you come before the judge and the judge finds you guilty and then you are sentenced and this is the lake of fire in the word of God and then the likeness here or the the illustration is the penitentiary or the or the prison, right? Where the sentence is executed. Does that make sense? That illustration? Alright. Simple, simple illustration. That's just kind of a way to try to explain it. A criminal once captured is, quote, behind bars before and after his trial. A Christ-rejecting sinner is in torment before and after the great day of judgment. Alright, so, hell before the ascension of Christ. We're going to talk about that just quickly here for just a moment. I mentioned this before, but we're going to deal with it just a little bit more. So, Scripture also indicates a difference in hell prior to the resurrection and ascension of the Lord. Hell was initially the region of departed souls and spirits of all men, saved and lost. and consisted of two compartments." Now, don't misunderstand that. Some people will try to generalize the term and not use the word hell and use the word Hades or the grave. Now there are places in the Old Testament where the word for both is used as grave. And then there are places where the word for both is used as hell. But there was a place of torments and paradise in the same area, but two different compartments, okay? And don't know how it worked, but you didn't feel the flames of hell in paradise. There was a great gulf fixed between the two, right? As we mentioned last week and as we dealt with in Luke chapter number 16, right? Let's look over there real quick again. Luke 16. We're not going to read the whole thing. I'm just going to look at the few verses that are referenced here. Luke chapter number 16 and verse number 22. It says, And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man, Also died and was buried and then verse number 23 says and in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments and seeth Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom so you the so some people would call paradise a which was then, they'll call it Abraham's bosom. Because that's what, you know, when you see here, Lazarus says he saw Abraham and Lazarus in his bosom. Technically, Lazarus just happened to be in the bosom of Abraham. The whole area wasn't necessarily called Abraham's bosom, it was called Paradise. That's why when Jesus looked to the guy on the other cross, when he said, remember me when you come into your kingdom, and Jesus said, Today, you'll be with me in paradise, right? Paradise. There. Or what many refer to as Abraham's bosom. Paradise was the place that Abraham was. And the children of Abraham would come into paradise and they would be comforted by Abraham and rest on his bosom. Now, this is just simply because this was the You know, this was what was happening at that moment. Now, I know I probably messed a lot of things up because some people just say, that's what it's called! It's called Abraham's bosom! We've said that for years, centuries! No. No, it's just kind of the way that it's categorized. People call it that. But it's paradise. Jesus called it paradise, right? In verse 26 it says, Beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, So that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." Right? So again, this is describing what it was like before the ascension of Christ. Look at Luke 23. Sometimes I get ahead of myself and I might have already done that. Verse number 43. Luke 23, and we're actually going to look at verse number 42. This is the thief on the cross. He said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee today, Shalt thou be with me in paradise." Alright, so I referred to it, paraphrased it, here we go, right to it, there it is. Now this explains what the Bible means when it speaks of the Lord Jesus going to hell. Go over to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. We're dealing with, I don't know why, but there have been a few little controversial things that we've dealt with, but that's okay. Acts chapter 2 and verse number 27. Notice here it says, "...because thou wilt not suffer Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. And then in verse number 31, it says, He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. Alright, this is a quote or a reference from the book of Psalms to show that Jesus fulfilled that prophecy. So now, this explains though that Or rather, during the three days in the tomb, the Lord went to the paradise section of hell. Now, I know a lot of people will say that based on this information that Jesus went to hell to suffer our torment of hell. No, Jesus suffered our torment of hell on the cross. He suffered the wrath of God. All of the wrath of God that we could ever suffer, He suffered on the cross. Not at the hands of the Romans, not at the hands of Israel, but God poured out His wrath. God the Father poured out His wrath on Jesus at the cross. That's why when He died, He said, it is finished. He didn't need to go pay for our sin in hell. He suffered it on the cross. I know there's a whole other controversy about that. People say, well, no, no, no, the Bible says he went to hell. Yep. Leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer, thy holy one, to see corruption. What did Jesus say? Where did Jesus say He would be with the thief today? He says, You'll be with me in paradise. That is the section of the grave, or hell, that Jesus went to. There's another passage, and I'm probably getting ahead of myself again, but there's another passage where it speaks of Jesus preaching to the captives. That's those who were in paradise in that section of the grave. Okay? Again, the region of the dead, as the study says, as He told the believing thief on the cross, as I mentioned. Like I said, I was getting ahead of myself. Number two here says, hell after the ascension of Christ. So, since the Apostle Paul was caught up into the third heaven, which we're going to go and look at, the abode of God, or paradise, this indicates a change of location of paradise. If you turn to 2 Corinthians 12, I hear the gears turning in some of y'all's heads. So we're going to have some question time here in a few, okay? Hold your questions. Write them down so you don't forget, okay? And you can ask and it's okay. We'll talk about it. 2 Corinthians 12. We'll look at verses 2-4. I knew a man. in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body or I cannot tell, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell. God knoweth. Such an one caught up to the third heaven. I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth, how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." And he goes on to talk about some things. We know he's being modest here, it was him. This likely took place, and this is just Bible theory, this likely took place when he was taken out of the city, I believe it was Philippi? I'm forgetting which city exactly, but he was taken out of the city and stoned to death. And left for dead. Was it Antioch? I forget which one it was. I don't think it was Antioch. I don't think so. Maybe we'll do the Book of Acts next, and we'll talk about it. But yeah, we'll have to ask Paul later, or just read it in the Book of Acts. But he was left for dead, and I believe it was in Philippi, somewhere in Macedonia, in that region. Or like northern Greece is what Macedonia is like, you know. Yeah, no the Greek islands and you follow up, you know, Italy over here and that that region there is Macedonia So When he was left for dead That's my theory that that's when he that's when he went up, you know, it was a what some would call like a near-death experience He's saying hey I'm not telling you what I saw or what I heard, but I've been there, done that. But what we gather from this statement is that He that when He went to Paradise, it was up, and it was in the third heaven. Now, to explain the third heaven, just real quick, the first heaven is what you see, can everybody see out this door? The third heaven is what you see when you look outside during the day. Okay? So, y'all have seen the outside during the day, haven't you? Okay? So, you know, the atmosphere, clouds, the sky, all that, right? That's the first heaven. That's the first heaven. What Lystra? Okay, so he was he was Stoned in the city of Lystra. Okay. The second heaven is what you see when you look up at night All right. So at night We don't see our atmosphere We see past our atmosphere and we see unless there's clouds when there aren't any clouds at night and you look up What do you see? You see the celestial bodies, you see the stars, the moon and the stars and all of that, right? That's space, is what we call that, right? That's a part of the expanse or the firmament, right? That's what the word firmament means. It means expanse, right? And it starts right on the ground and it ends at the bottom of heaven. The bottom of the third heaven, okay? And so where is that? It's up, according to Paul. Right? Yeah, up to the third heaven, right? But the third heaven you can only see by faith. And it's not like our physical realm that we understand. It's beyond that. So you see the first heaven by day. You see the second heaven by night. You see the third heaven by faith. Alright? Great. Alright. So, the location changed. It says here, the souls of the dead saints are now with the Lord. Right? This change in location of paradise occurred at the ascension of Christ when He led captivity, that is, the souls of the righteous dead in paradise, captive. Turn over to Ephesians 4. Yes. Ephesians. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. This again just referring to that. Right now you could you could look here as well. Verse number nine says now he that are now that he ascended. What is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things right. And then it goes on to talk about things that he's doing for us here on earth right here that are that are alive today. And so Does that make sense? That He descended first, and He led captivity captive. So there's what He did for those below that were in the grave. He took them above, and then He gave gifts to those in the middle. Those of us that are here on the earth. Does that make sense? So, that's what happened. with that. Now, if you want to know more about Hell, we have a series, ABC's of Christian Maturity. We've gone through that. That took five years. I don't think we're going to go through that again real soon, okay? So, I can get you a book if you need one, or I can get you a link to buy one or to get a digital copy. But letter H we deal with the subject of hell and we dealt with that subject for many many weeks Brother Bella can tell you how many and he can get you a link to the playlist on YouTube for all those sermons or maybe even sermon audio potentially just the the link to that series and so That's dealing with the topic of hell so before we while we're and that was really fast and We're not going to talk about heaven today. We'll talk about that next week. Don't cut the live feed yet. I see him back there thinking about it. I can see your thoughts. No, just kidding. All right. So, what questions do you have? I'll try to answer them. I know that we dealt with some things like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Okay, yes sir. I'm still not understanding the paradise part of that. So, I try to be careful not to... So the statement was, still not understanding the paradise part of hell. I try to be careful not to just use the word like Hades or the grave except when it's used in the Bible. So, the word hell is used sometimes just to describe the grave in general. Okay, so sometimes it's not just talking about torment. And so, the way you know the difference is whenever it's talking about torment, that's talking about the torment aspect of hell, right? So you look at the difference of what's being dealt with in the context, it tells you whether it's just talking about the grave in general, or if it's talking about burning in torment, right? So, looking at it from that perspective, the paradise part of the grave or using the word hell, the grave, right? The general term or usage. The thing is, we always use the word hell to denote torment. But the Bible doesn't always use the word hell to denote torment. Sometimes it uses the word hell just to denote death, the grave, right? And so, now after After Christ's ascension, you never see it used in that way other than there in the book of Acts when it was referring back to before his ascension. Every other time after that, hell is always referred to as the torment portion. Now, even when Jesus talked about the rich man and Lazarus, He used the word hell to describe the place where the rich man was, and he did not say what the name of the place was where Lazarus was. He just said he was in Abraham's bosom, right? He said that the angels carried him into Abraham's bosom. That's why people will just say, well, that's Abraham's bosom and this over here is hell. But technically, Now, don't misunderstand this, but Lazarus and the rich man both went to the grave. I'll say that. I won't say the H-word there because people will be like, what did he say? Lazarus went to... No, they both went to the grave. But referring to the grave in that general sense, using the H-word, both went there. But it more particularly referred to the rich man in the torment portion, right? And it referred to Lazarus in the portion that Abraham was in. It was the blessed portion. He doesn't call it paradise in that passage. but he doesn't actually name it in the passage. He just says that he was taken into Abraham's bosom. And then the rich man dies and he looks over and there's Lazarus there right now. Is it wrong to describe that or to call that place Abraham's bosom? No, it's not wrong. I just think that the way the Lord described it, He calls it paradise. So it's, you know, not that there wouldn't be more than one word for it, just like the grave and hell, you know, used somewhat interchangeably within the context of whatever you would be talking about. As far as portions, it's not that there's flames over here in Abraham's bosom. That's blessedness. That's reward. But as Brother Wilhelm said, it's like a holding place. Not a holding place in necessarily a bad way, although the term the Bible uses is captivity. It's captivity. Why are they captive? Well, they're captive in the grave. Now, that's not the grave, the dirt nap that their body is taking. That's the grave, the spiritual place. That's the afterlife, if you will. And so they are at that time, up until the ascension of Christ, when He led captivity captive, He took them and said, I am taking you captive and I am leading you away from this place. And then if you connect that with Isaiah, where it says that hell hath enlarged itself, That's what's happening after paradise moves to the third heaven. Hell enlarges itself. In other words, the whole area then becomes for torment. So then when one dies, they go to the third heaven just like Paul did when he died. And also, just like Stephen, the first martyr, what did he do? When he was getting ready to die, he looked up and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. We see all through the Word of God that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. But Jesus was standing at the right hand of God, I believe, to receive Stephen. So you're coming home. I'm standing up to receive you. Come on home. And then they started throwing rocks at him and he gave up the ghost and up he went, right? And so that's what we see as far as that goes. I mean, his body didn't go up. Soul and spirit. So does that help explain that? Alright? When I'm referring to Stephen? Acts chapter 7, I believe. It might be 8. I think it's chapter 8. Like toward the end of chapter 8. Chapter 9 is when Paul gets saved. Yeah. Yeah, I'm forgetting which one. Either way, it's in Acts somewhere between 7 and 8. No, it's fine. Alright, any other questions on this topic? Brother Bella, what you got? It does not seem to indicate that. Does that mean that he's outlawed from it? No. So the question was asked, did Jesus go to the torment section of the grave at any time? And I said, as my answer was, it doesn't seem to indicate that anywhere. Now, the one place that people would try to indicate that is Acts 2 where it says, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption. Now, that other part, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption, that's talking about the body. That's why He rose again the third day, not the fourth day. Because the body begins to see corruption or decomposition after the third day. So depending on depending on how you die, you know, if you if you die, you know with some sort of disease it could begin the decomposition phase before you die, but In this case, you know, he was a healthy 33 33 year old man roughly He wouldn't have been in decomposition he would have been very very much alive to the point of his last breath and then the body would still be kind of preserved, we'd say, you know, up to that morning. And so there you go. Either that or the father just kept the body from decomposing for three days. But typically, we see that it is typically recognized that it's about a three day period. Other questions? Somebody else? Brother Bella. I was looking at Brother Bella. Yeah, you guys, I mean, you're twins. Twins. Same glasses. So no, so the grave didn't become worse necessarily. Still a holding place. Still tormented. They were still being tormented before he died. It'll be worse than the lake of fire. And it's forever. They weren't uncomfortable in paradise before. But they're most certainly not uncomfortable. They're able to be not only... So here's the thing. The grave before... Now, we don't really fully understand how that worked. We assume that they had connection with God. It wasn't the place where God was. So when Christ died, and He was buried, and He rose again, another study will show you the timing of when He took them up. It was after He rose again, but before He ascended permanently. So when He took them up to the third heaven, now they are where we go when we die. And now they're able to be with the Father. And there's a certain aspect of this that people will try to make some theological connection, and here's what it is. And they'll say, the souls of the believing dead could not go to the place where God the Father dwells until the payment was made at the cross. Okay? I can live with that. I don't know that I would necessarily try to build a whole full doctrine on it, but I can live with that statement that they were in the temporary paradise because they couldn't go to the third heaven where the Father dwells because the payment had not been made yet. They were waiting for Jesus to make the payment at Calvary. After He made the payment, and He was buried, and God the Father showed that the payment was received by the resurrection, they were then able to be moved. to the place of the Father. They're still where they are. Nothing's changed for them. The rich man is still in hell. Yes, this would be Abraham and Moses and Elijah and Elisha and all of the prophets of old, all of the believers before. They would have been there, and David, and so on. So they would all be there in the grave, and then they would be taken to be in the third heaven. Yes. Yeah, they aren't missing anything that we're gonna see, right? Um, and so, David, we'll get to you in a minute, Joe. Mhm. Yeah, that's a Hebrew word. Hebrew word for the grave. The Greek word is Hades. And that word is used in both ways. It's used to describe or to talk about the grave just in general, and it's used to talk about torment also. So it's used in both ways. You just have to consider the context. Brother Joe? Yeah, well, he descended down. Yep. And verse 8, He ascended, right? He led captivity captive, right? But then it's kind of like backward the way that we would see it as far as the timeline. But He's saying He took them up to heaven. Oh, and by the way, He had to go down and get them. That's kind of like what verses 9 and 10 are telling us. Does that make sense? Yep. It seems like there's a lot of space Oh, between the descending and the ascending? He's God though. Yeah, you think about who God is. The oceans, if He were to hold the oceans in His hand, it wouldn't even be enough to quench His thirst. It wouldn't be really even enough to fill the space if He were to cup His hand and just dump all the water on the earth in His hand. What's that? Yeah, all heavens. That's right. Beyond the stars, beyond the galaxies, further than we can see. That's right. All of the heavens. Heavens there, the Spanish word is cielos. This thing also is a cielo. This is the heaven right here. It's the ceiling, right? And so when they talk about heaven, they're talking about the ceiling of the sky or the ceiling of space, right? Or they're talking about what's beyond the ceiling, right? So, Brother Bell, are you holding your hand up or are you just holding your head? Alright, you bought it, man. The auction, you bought it. Alright, what else? Any other questions or thoughts or comments or anything? No, no. Right. That's right. The thing is, though, like right now, everybody who is in hell is is getting equal punishment, equal torment. As far as I understand, it's when they go to the lake of fire is when that that's why they're judged according to their works. You know, they're they're just simply judged according to their rejection. Now, they'll be judged according their works later. I don't know. There's a lot of theory on how that all works. Biblically, we know it's torment. We know it's flames. We know there are chains. There's darkness. All of that is referred to in reference. There's no hope because it's forever. Forever and ever. Yep, they're in jail right now. And the sentence is already It's already here. It was already written before they died. If they would have just believed, they could have escaped it. Yeah. Any other things? We're way early, y'all, so if you have questions or thoughts or whatever, we want to talk about things, it's all good. We're way early. We got done. Yeah, real fast. We're like 26 minutes early. It's okay. We can be done early. Well, we have all the signs today too. They're all here though. Right? The thing is everybody wants to see the signs. Well, God's given us the signs. They're all right here. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yep. It's that's right. That's right. But there's something we can do for those who haven't died yet. We can tell him just like the rich man kept saying send somebody send him to my father's house. We can go to the rich man's father's house. Well, we can't actually go. You know what I mean? If we were there during that time, we could go to the rich man's father's house, just like we can go to the families of those who are lost and in hell. That's why if I do a funeral for someone that I know is lost, like everybody knows they're lost or whatever, I don't tell everybody, well, they're in hell right now. No, I tell everybody I know what they want right now. They want you to be saved. Because I can say that if they're a believer, they want them to be saved because believers want people to get saved. Or if they're an unbeliever, I know because that's exactly what the rich man was begging for. Somebody to tell his family. And so I know that if they're in hell, that's what they want. They want someone to tell their family so that they can escape that torment. Sometimes when people get cancer or some serious situation, I think in a way that could be a blessing because that's what draws them to God. It turns into a blessing in disguise. I mean, facing death often helps people to see that they need to be ready for it. Unfortunately, people don't sometimes. People think that it's just the economics that you need to use it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes, sir. Anything else? Alright, let's pray. And then, if you have more, we can talk about it on the front porch while y'all eat pizza and the mosquitoes eat you. Alright, let's pray. And the mosquitoes eat you. So when we get out there, I'll say, what's eating you? And you tell me. Mosquitoes. Alright, let's pray. Lord, we thank You so much for Your goodness. We thank You, Lord, that we are able to escape the fires of hell by faith. in the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary. We thank You, Lord, that You've given us the opportunity to help others escape as well. Help us to be faithful. Help us to be faithful to preach the Gospel. all over the place, everywhere we are and everywhere we go. We pray, Father, that You'd give us opportunities to do so, and Lord, that we'd be able to lead people to You. We pray, Father, Your blessing on the fellowship and the food, and Lord, those who had a part in getting it to us, donating it, all of that. Lord, we just pray, Father, that You'd give us a good time together, give us a good rest tonight, and a very productive week in Jesus' name. Amen.