This morning, by God's grace, I want to bring you a very serious message. On perhaps the most sobering subject in the entire Bible. It concerns a word that should strike deep fear, even terror into all of our hearts. And we're not in God's holy word, we might be moved to doubt it. But it is there from Genesis to Revelation. It's the word hell. It's a word that's ignored. It's a subject that's rejected, scoffed at, people make jokes about on late night television. But godly Christians have always believed in it. And preachers that are faithful to the word of God have preached on it. John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon and millions of others. Including this preacher. But other ones don't. Could you imagine Joel Osteen preaching on this or Robert Shuler? I was raised in a very liberal church. I'm not sure if the preacher believed in it, but occasionally he'd talk about heaven and then kind of embarrassed, he would say, well, If you don't go to heaven, there is another place which isn't very pleasant. And that's as much as you would say about it. I want to go on record as saying I do believe what the Bible says. About how. And therefore, I'm commissioned by God to preach the whole counsel of God, so I must preach on this subject. And you might wonder, why should anybody believe And that old fashioned idea of hell. And the answer is simple, because God himself tells us that hell is real. He tells us in this book, his book, the Holy Bible. And some people would try to dismiss it and say, well, you know, those prophets preached about, but you know how prophets are. They kind of went overboard. And same thing with the apostles. They can't depend upon them. But I would remind you that one preacher in the Bible preached about it regularly. His name was Jesus Christ. And what do you say about that? He preached about it in stronger terms than I will this morning. And perhaps that's why God ordained that Jesus's words would be recorded there as if to stop the mouths of any skeptics. They like to think about Jesus meek and mild. And then the same Bible tells us Jesus preached about hell. And they have no answer. In John 14, Jesus talked about heaven and said, if it were not so, I would have told you. And the same thing is true about hell. Yes, the Old Testament prophets preached about it and the Jews and Jesus, they believed in it. If it were not so, Jesus would have told us. But he did tell us that it is so. For centuries, the Jews have believed in it. Roman Catholics have believed in it, Greek Orthodox, most Protestants. It's also taught even in some non-Christian religions. The Koran teaches it. That might give you an opportunity to talk to your Muslim friends about hell. Many of the Greek philosophers believed in it and they gave it a name, Hades. Someone has said that human conscience demands that there must be a place called hell. Otherwise, we are living in a universe of injustice. If there was no hell, people get away with sin, crime, and war. Conscience demands that there has to be such a place. Now, it's a broad subject, and this morning I will only give a brief survey with a few practical applications. This is number four of our five week series on the five last things. We started with death, the second coming last week. We look at the last judgment and next week we will conclude by looking at heaven. We have a good booklet in the lobby called The Terrors of Hell, and I encourage all of you to read it. Please open with me in your copies of God's holy word to Luke 16. which Brother Jim read for us earlier. Hell is real. Psalm 917 says the wicked shall be turned into hell. But many people deny it or they redefine it. They de-hell hell. They say things like, well, hell is only here on earth. There was a country song a few years ago where a man whined and said, well, She's going to heaven because she went through hell here on Earth. She's wrong. Hell is not here on Earth. Others will say hell is a myth or it's an old superstition. They're wrong. People will say it's a scare tactic that Christians dream up to scare people into believing in Jesus. Or they say it's the psychological projection of our deepest fears. Other people get clever and say, well, there is a hell, but nobody's in it. Perhaps the most common objection, maybe you've heard it, maybe you believe in it, says, I don't believe in hell. I believe in a God of love and a God of love would never send anybody to hell. But they're all wrong. Matthew 25, 41, Jesus, Jesus himself said God himself created hell. For the devil, the demons and all those that follow them, in unrepentant sins. But then we've also learned from the Bible, yes, God is a God of love and God loves us enough to warn us about hell. In this series, we've often quoted Hebrews 9, 27, where God says it is appointed unto man once to die and after that, the judgment. What about after the judgment? The judgment doesn't end things. The Bible says that after the judgment, everybody, everybody here will then go into their eternal destiny. We mentioned it briefly last week, Matthew 25, again, Jesus said in verse 46, these will go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. That tells us that there are only two eternal destinies. There's no purgatory. There's no second chance. There's no reincarnation, only two eternal destinies following the last judgment. We can define hell like this. Hell is the place where God punishes lost, unrepentant sinners in fire for their sins forever. Yes, hell is real. Now, the Bible gives several terms for it, look here in Luke 16. Verse 23, talking about these two men that died and it says one of them was a rich man. He died and he was buried. Verse 22 and verse 23 says, and being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes. Hades is sometimes translated hell. It's a Greek word that the philosophers used in Greece, but the Jews in Israel also used it. It's the good translation of the Hebrew word shale, which is found often in the Old Testament, such as in Psalm 917, the wicked shall be turned into hell. This word describes hell as it is now, and lost sinners are there already right now in torments, but they are there in their souls, not their bodies. Their bodies are still buried on earth. And one day they will be reunited with their bodies. They will be resurrected. But meanwhile, they are tormented in Hades. Now, just think of that. Every lost sinner that has ever died is there right now awaiting the last judgment. People that you may have known that died in their sins. I have done funerals for people that died in their sins, lost. They are there. People have been there a hundred years. Judas Iscariot has been there two thousand years. Probably the first person that ever went there was Cain. He has been there six thousand years. Just think of it. Centuries. No rest. Six thousand years. People will be there waiting for the Judgment Day. And then there's another word that's used in the New Testament. It's the Greek word Gehenna. It comes over from Hebrew, Gehenna. It means the place of fire and of torment. It's also parallel to the Hebrew word Topheth, which is used in the Old Testament. It's an interesting word. Gehenna, Topheth, describe the place just outside Jerusalem where they burnt the garbage and the fires never went out and they would throw dead animals on there. It was a stinking place. But centuries earlier, Gehenna was the place where pagans that lived in Jerusalem before the Jews, they didn't just go dead animals there, that's where they had human sacrifices day and night to appease their pagan God. And Jesus used this word, this word of horror to describe hell. He used it in Matthew 5, 22 and several other places. Then there's a Revelation 2015 that describes hell as the lake of fire. In other words, it's like a lake, it's like an ocean. But instead of being filled with water, it's filled with liquid fire, like like lava that comes gurgling out of a volcano and collects. Imagine the horror of being thrown alive into a raging volcano. The Bible says hell is a lake of fire. Then in Matthew 25, 30, Jesus described hell as outer darkness. People have said, how can it be a place of darkness if there's fire there? We don't fully understand it. But this was a term used in those days by the Romans, and it would be describing the worst prisons. It would be a dark, dank dungeon filled with filth and rats and no sunshine to be allowed in there. Outer darkness. And Jesus used this as if to say there will be no sunshine of the love of God in hell. And in Revelation 20, verse one describes hell as the bottomless pit, the abyss, bottomless pit, a deep place. Imagine falling, falling, falling and never hitting the bottom. That describes the indescribable of the eternity of hell. And the Bible uses many other terms and metaphors. And adjectives to describe hell, all of them awful. We're never told exactly where hell is. Some think it's inside the earth, because we know from science that The earth is burning with fire inside with just a thin crust on top. Perhaps hell is underneath us right now. Others have said it's the inside of the sun. For 12 hours a day, we're reminded of this burning globe called the sun. Burning, burning, burning. Perhaps that's where it is. Or it's another star or a black hole. Or maybe it's outside the universe. We don't know exactly. The Bible doesn't tell us specifically. But it is a real place because real people need a real place to stand on. Hell is real. It is a real place. And yet, though the Bible frequently describes it and warns us about us, about it, there are people even that claim to be Christians that will deny it and will write it off. One theory says, well, it's a place where maybe people go, but they're asleep. They're not conscious. This is a theory called soul sleep. But look here in Luke 16, 25, Abraham said to this rich man, son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things. Memory means consciousness. This rich man had a memory of back on earth. And later he remembers his family. Remember. He says, remember the good things that you have. People in hell will remember the good things that God gave them on earth. And they never said thank you to God for health, family, riches, pleasure, music, beauty, art. Don't remember that in hell, but the memory will bring them no pleasure because there is no pleasure in hell. People will be wide awake and conscious in hell, not sleeping. They will remember their sins for all eternity. Unless they forget any one of them, God will touch their memories and their consciences, and they will remember every single sin that they committed. And that guilt will remind them they are getting what they deserve. And perhaps worst of all, they will remember that they had heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only hope of ever escaping, going to hell. They heard it in church. They heard it from their mother or their father. They heard it from a preacher that loved them enough to warn them of hell. And they will remember that they said, no, thank you. They will remember rejecting Jesus Christ. And if you are here today and you are on your way to hell, you will remember this sermon. And you will remember there was a preacher that loved you enough to warn you. And there were people in this church praying for your salvation out of love and with tears. And that will come back to haunt you one day. People are not asleep in hell, they are conscious. Then there is the theory of annihilationism. The Jehovah's Witnesses teach this. Seventh-day Adventists teach a form of this and many others believe this. They say that everybody will burn up either immediately or gradually, but eventually everybody burns up. They are annihilated. Nice idea, but that's not what the Bible teaches. They will say, well, it says people die and death is like putting out a candle. It doesn't mean anything there. They go to the realm of nonexistence. Death does not mean nonexistence. Does the Lord Jesus Christ cease to exist when he died on the cross? By no means. Lost sinners in hell wish that they could cease to exist. They will beg for non-existence, but will not be given to them. And then there's the theory of universalism, usually held by liberals. But there are those that pretend to be evangelicals that believe in this, and it's been picking up steam recently. The famous preacher named Rob Bell wrote a book called Love Wins, and he says he used to believe in eternal hell and in annihilation. He says, but I believe the love of God will conquer everything and it will win out and everybody will make it to heaven. Again, sounds like a nice idea filled with roses and perfume, but it's not true. Matthew 25, 46, the words of Jesus, Jesus Christ himself said some people will go to eternal hell and some will go to heaven. And anybody that says everybody makes it to heaven is challenging the word of Jesus. He is calling Jesus a liar. Indeed, most people, according to the Bible, will go to hell, not to heaven. Jesus himself said many are called, but few were chosen in the sermon on the Mount. Jesus said there are two roads people are on. One ends up in heaven. He says few, very few are on that road. But he said the other road is very wide and many are on that road that leads to destruction. Many. Most. So there are other theories like this, and we can dismiss them all by simply saying the Bible itself, God's word teaches us hell. God created hell. But we may wonder why. Why would a loving God create such an awful place of torment? Why? Because of sin. We are guilty, we deserve hell, and God has created hell as the place where he punishes not just sin in the abstract, but sinners individually. And we cannot understand this until we first realize God doesn't send innocent people to hell. There are no innocent people. John Benton, a well-known preacher over in England, said God doesn't send people to hell, he sends unrepentant sinners to hell. And he doesn't send them there to reform them, and people might say, I don't see any good in hell. What's it going to do? How's it going to help them? And I tell them it's not meant to help them. It's not meant to reform them. It's meant to punish them. And we must all admit here from the youngest to the oldest. We all deserve to go to hell. Have you ever looked in the mirror? Have you ever read the Bible and say, I am guilty. I deserve to go to eternal hell. Those of us that are believers, we have been convicted of our sins and including in conviction of sin is the realization that we are guilty. We deserve to go to hell. You cannot be converted until you are convicted of this awesome reality. We deserve eternal hell. And those that are not convicted in this life will be convicted at the judgment day. We looked at that last week. They will be convicted at judgment day. But there will be no hope, no second chance. They will be convicted once and for all. They deserve to go to hell. Ladies and gentlemen, we are all guilty. We have no excuse. We all deserve hell. Jonathan Edwards wrote some staggering sermons on this, and I've read them all. And in one of them, he said that once a lost sinner dies in his sins, outside of the love of God, he will serve no other purpose in his very existence than to be fueled for the fires of hell. He's right. But it's not simply our guilt that reminds us of the necessity of hell, it's something else. It is the very existence of the holiness of God. Not just do our sins cry out for hell because sin must be punished, but the holiness of God demands it. And not only that, the wrath of God. The Bible says God is holy, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And sin angers God and it offends God. Once in the Old Testament, God says, a fire is kindled in my wrath. You see, sin ignites the wrath of God. God is emotionally angry with sinners. He is disgusted with sinners. And right now, God's holiness and His love restrains His wrath, as it were. He's giving sinners time to repent. But the Bible says God is still angry with sinners. And one day will burst forth like a burst dam. And in hell, all restraints will be taken off and the wrath of God will burst forth on lost sinners and they will have no hope. The Bible says that the wrath of God will be poured out unmixed, unmixed without any drop of mercy, undiluted, poured out in full strength. Those, therefore, that deny the existence of hell must logically deny the holiness of God and the justice of God and the wrath of God. And to them I say, how dare you do that? And if you say your God is a God of love that doesn't have these attributes, I tell you in the name of God, you worship a false God. Not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the God of the Bible is a God of holiness, justice and wrath. Psalm 711 says God is angry with the wicked every day and Psalm 917 says the wicked shall be turned into hell. Look again at Luke 16. If you notice how often the word torment is used. Look at verse 28. This man says, I have five brothers that he may testify to them lest they come to this place of torment. Revelation 14, 11 says those in hell shall be tormented. That means pain. There is no pleasure whatsoever of any kind in hell. Now, let me show you another staggering verse, turn over to Matthew, chapter 10. Again, I'm concentrating on the words of Jesus, not that there are any more inspired than others, but lest anybody doubt these words, I quote you exactly what Jesus said so that every mouth would be stopped. Look at what Jesus himself said. It's in Matthew 10. You find it also in Luke in words similar to this in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus Himself warning people about hell. Verse 27, what I tell you in the dark, speak in the light what you hear in the ear. Preach on the housetops. Do not fear those that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But rather, hear me closely, He says, rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body. In hell. Soul and body. The bodies of lost sinners will go to hell. They will go there. Hell is not some ethereal place. It's a real place. And sinners will go there in their bodies to suffer. Every inch of their body will be in torment forever. Internally, externally. You know, we suffer when we burn on the outside or when we cut ourselves, but there's also internal pain. Have you ever had a stomach ache? Recently, when I was in the hospital, I had a blood clot in my lung and it hurt. And I was weeping. When I was a boy, my favorite uncle, everybody loved, his name was Bubba. And he was the toughest man I think I've ever met. He's the sort of man that John Wayne used to play in the movies. He was tough. You wouldn't mess with him. When Bubba turned 50, he developed a kidney stone. And my Uncle Bubba, tough man, he wept like a baby. And he'd grab my mother and say, sis, make it stop, make it stop. It's like someone took a red hot knife and put it in my gut. And eventually the doctors took care of it. But I'll never forget that. We are capable of suffering internally and externally in our physical bodies. This rich man here in Luke 16, it says he didn't even have one drop of water to quench his thirst. About 35 years ago, I was speaking to a group of young men, not much younger than me, and they scoffed and they were laughing at me. You know, the cool bunch, riding on motorcycles, tattoos, listening to rock, thinking they're cool. And they'd make fun of me and curse me. And I still remember they're sitting around with cans of beer in their hand and they'd chug it every now and then, sometimes spit it out and laugh at me. And they'd say, you want some beer, preacher? And I said, no. Oh, come on now, what's wrong with it? So I said this to them, I said, you like beer, go ahead and drink up. Drink up all the beer you want to. And they said, why? I said, because there ain't no beer in hell. There's no water in hell. You better drink up now while you can, buddy. You like immorality, you better engage in it now because there's no immorality in hell. There's no sensual pleasure in hell. And those young men got very quiet. People in hell suffer far more than they ever did back on earth. Think of the worst pain you've ever suffered. Physical pain in the hospital. Begging for a painkiller. Waiting. The least pains in hell will far exceed anything you've ever experienced on earth. Anything you ever can experience. Anything you can ever imagine. Have you ever tried to do an experiment like hold an ice cube in your hand, see if you could hold it till it melted? I bet nobody here can do that. Try holding a live coal out of the fireplace in your hand. You're going to drop it immediately. Your instincts. Nobody likes pain. Imagine, not just for a couple of seconds in your hand, but your whole body engulfed with coals of fire. When I was in the hospital recently, several times a day, the doctor and the nurses would say, well, Mr. Daniel, on a scale of one to ten, how do you rate the pain you're going through? And I can tell you how it went back and forth. But I got to thinking, well, I guess a zero would be no pain. You're doped up on morphine and maybe one, you're having some pain, a little bit more. But I got to thinking, what would be number ten? Ten would be the limit that you can take. Have you ever hit your limit? Some of us have hit our limit. I remember once about, oh, about 35 years ago, some sudden pain came upon me. You needn't know why. But it was so intense and so sudden, I just fainted and hit the ground like that. After a few minutes, began to wake up and pain began to go away. And I went to the doctor. That was a mercy. Nobody faints in hell. There's no relief. Other people will hit their extreme of number 10 and they wish they could faint. And sometimes what happens is they hit their very limit and they go historical. Some people have gone insane when they hit that limit. They go historical. They don't remember their name. They don't think of their friends, their family, their work, ball games or politics. All they are thinking about is that pain. It is so intense. Everything in their mind is thinking about relieve this pain, relieve this pain. They hit number 10. But on a scale of one to ten, there is no scale in hell. It goes off the scale more than we can imagine. Some of you have learned this hard lesson. The human body is capable of far more pain than you can realize. When you go into some extreme pain, you say, I've never gone through anything like this. And it may get worse than that. Human body, I tell you, is capable of far more pain than you can imagine. Jesus described it as a place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. My mind goes back to June 1970. There was a young 18 year old young man in the hospital going through a serious affliction, and because of the unusual nature of the affliction, the doctors couldn't give him any painkiller. They said, we have to let the nerves heal to a certain extent before we can give you any kind of painkiller. And for several days he couldn't sleep. He was weeping. groaning, crying, screaming. Our people down the hall in the hospital could hear him and say, help that young man, do something, put him out of his misery. And in bed he'd weep and weep and he'd tear the bed sheets. And then he'd grab them and he'd put them in his mouth and grip on them and weep. And then he'd have no saliva and he'd drink the water and he'd spit it out and vomit. Put me out of my pain, Dr. Pain. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. And after a few days, the doctor gave him morphine to help him be relieved. I'll never forget that 43 years ago, because I was that young man. We never forget when we go through intense pain. But ladies and gentlemen, there are no painkillers, there's no morphine, there's no aspirin in hell. It is the place of weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth forever in our bodies. But Jesus also said in our souls. The human soul is also capable of far more pain than we can imagine, if you ever had a broken heart, going through a divorce or all your world collapses on you, loneliness, depression, fear, all these negative emotions. And in hell, the human soul will experience all of them, despair, anguish, guilt. There'll be no comfort from others in hell because everybody will be everybody's enemies, including the devil himself. There'll be no mercy. There'll be no rest, no relief, no sleep, no vacations, not even for one second of relief, continual torment and body and soul in hell. Pain. Someone asked, well, why does God choose to punish sinners with pain instead of nonexistence of some other way? One reason is because our sin personally offends God and He is emotionally offended. And because we crave sin because we like pleasure, therefore, it is poetic justice, as it were, for God to punish lost sinners, not by simply pleasure and not simply by eliminating pleasure, but by giving them the presence of pain. Jesus also said this. He said it is better to enter heaven lame or deaf or even blind. Then to go with a perfectly healthy body. Into hell fire, that's the words of Jesus. You see, he knew and promised that those that die lame and blind and deaf or even in physical pain, there are those in our midst here that have gone through surgeries over this last year and have physical afflictions and have pain every day. It's temporary, dear brother and sister. You will receive a new body that will be pain-free one day. But Jesus said there are those that will have a perfectly healthy body. Have you ever met someone in his 80s or 90s that have never had hardly any pain? But they die lost and they will get a resurrection body that will experience only pain and no pleasure forever and ever. There is more. The Bible describes hell in a variety of ways. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, outer darkness. But the most frequent description of hell in the Bible is that it is a place of fire. Hell fire. Real fire. fire that scorches the bodies of the damned and causes extreme pain. You remember 9-11 and the planes that crashed into the trade center. And you remember that the commentator said because of the jet fuel, it exploded in a ball of fire that even reached 2000 degrees temperature. And you remember those horrifying pictures where people that survived it, they were feeling pain The fire, 100 degrees, 200 degrees, 300, 400, 500 degrees, and they couldn't take it anymore. And they willingly jumped out of the windows. What would cause a person to jump out of one of the tallest buildings in the world, knowing it would be instant death? Because even that would be better than the pains of the fire they were experiencing. But the fires of hell will be far worse and nobody can jump out of it. Some people have their deceased loved ones cremated, and we know that bodies will burn. And it may take a few minutes, a few hours, but bodies will burn. They're combustible. Bodies in hell burn, but they don't burn up. They keep burning. It's like the burning bush that Moses saw and he couldn't understand it. He said the bush is burning, but it's not burnt up. That's a picture of hell. Humans and their bodies go there and they burn, but they do not burn up. They do not cease to exist. They only continue burning. Jonathan Edwards told a chilling story. Two hundred and fifty years ago, he was a missionary to Indians and had heard about an Indian tribe that had a ghastly way of executing a member of the tribe. If a member of the tribe was caught killing another member of the tribe or stealing another Indian's wife, they would execute him in a very grisly way that would serve as a warning to the other members of the tribe. They would take the man and they'd put him in this large ball or globe made out of grass. They'd put him in there and lock him. They'd have a little hole so he could breathe. And they'd suspend this brass ball by a chain from a tray. And then they'd start a fire underneath him. And the fire would heat the brass. And the man couldn't get out. And Edward said the Indian would be slowly roasted to death. And Edward said, as horrifying as that is, Sinners in hell would beg to exchange places with that poor Indian. But they won't. You say this is grotesque. Jesus himself described hell as a place called an oven. He also said it's like a furnace. Now, most of us, we have furnaces here to keep us warm in winter, usually just a few jets of gas and it burns just a little bit. But have you ever seen a really big furnace, a blast furnace like they have in the forges over there in Pennsylvania? You've seen them in TV and movies. Maybe you've been to one of those. And you go in there, and there's this blast furnace, and they bring in the iron slag mixed in with rock, and they throw it in there, and it is so hot. It is white hot. It'll melt the rock, and it'll melt the iron. They're able to separate that and mold it. The story is told of about 200 years ago in Scotland, there was such a forge, and a godly Christian happened to wander into that very room, and he saw that, and he was horrified. He knew it was hot, but he had never actually seen it. And so he was tired, and he leaned up against the wall, and he prayed, I, Lord God, if this is so hot, what must hell be like? Another worker was just around the corner and heard the godly Scotsman say that. And he thought of those words. And he couldn't get the words out of his mind, and he had nightmares. And he went to church and got his Bible out. And I understand he eventually became a Christian. Because when we think about hell, that might start thinking about Getting right with God. The Bible describes this as fire that never goes out, Mark 9. Fire that will be all around our bodies. Fire needs heat. And this fire is fueled by the wrath of God. Fire also needs some combustible materials like wood. And the Bible says our very bodies and souls will be the fuel of eternal fires in hell. And it will burn all around us. Six or seven years ago, a good friend of mine, a Baptist preacher named Tom Askell, was struck by lightning. Later, I said, Tom, what was it like? He said, Kurt, I can't describe the pain. It was this energy that soared through me. And he said, for several weeks, I felt like every inch of my body was on fire. And no amount of morphine or Dilaudid would solve it. He said, I felt like I was on fire. And I said, Tom, what happens is eventually the nerves reheal. He said, I'll never forget that. And Tom said, that's a picture of hell. Nothing burns like fire in hell. Another friend of mine sat under the great preacher and theologian, John Gerstner. This was 30-something years ago, and he was in class, and the air conditioner had broken down, and the student said, Dr. Gerstner, can we open the window? It's as hot as hell in here. Well, that got John Gerstner going. He went into a tirade and said, young man, for 15 minutes, he gave him an impromptu sermon on hell, he said, young man, don't ever use that phrase hotter than hell. Nothing is hotter than hell. Nothing is as hot in hell. You have never experienced anything one one hundredth as hot as hell. And he went into it says, I am not exaggerating it. Friends, when we think about hell, we should think about it with horror. The Bible says it's a place of fire and brimstone. You say, what's brimstone? It's sulfur. It's a combustible material like coal that will burn. But if you've ever smelled burning sulfur, it stinks, which tells us hell is a despicable place, detestable. It stinks. Everything about it is ugly and painful. There's no music, there's only the cries and the groans of lost sinners. Now, some of you might sit back and smugly say, Preacher, you're going overboard, you're exaggerating this. To which I reply, I am incapable of exaggerating this. In my wildest dreams, I can never imagine the full extent of hellfire. It is impossible to exaggerate it. If the main purpose of the Judgment Day, as we saw last week, is the display and vindication of the justice of God, then the main purpose of hell is the display and vindication of the wrath of God. You say, what's hell? Hell is the wrath of God being unleashed against unrepentant sinners forever. Romans 2 warns sinners and says, don't you know? By the way, the chapter begins, it says, do you despise God's patience and His lovingness and His kindness? Are you despising that? And it goes on to say, you that despise it, do you not know that you are storing up wrath for the day of wrath? It's like, as Jonathan Edwards said, you are collecting your own firewood for your own fires in hell. Every time you sin, you're picking up a stick. Every time you sin a conscious sin, you're picking up a log for the fires of hell. And someone will again object and say, well, yes, there is a hell. And they say, well, hell is a bad place. And people don't get out what they say. Well, hell is only the absence of the presence of God. Have you heard that? They say that's all hell is. I read one preacher on this just yesterday and he said, well, hell for me would be without God. I can't imagine anything worse. That's wrong. It's not what the Bible says. As a matter of fact, those people in hell wish it was the absence of the presence of God. God is everywhere. He is omnipresent. Psalm 139 explicitly says, if I make my bed in hell, you are there. Revelation 1411 says that lost sinners will be punished in hell, quote, in the presence of Jesus Christ and the holy angels. Hell is the absence of the presence of the love of God, but it is the presence of the white, hot wrath of God Himself. So they are absent from the love of God, but they are present with the wrath of God. Turn with me now to Revelation chapter 14. The last book of the Bible, and it isn't interesting that the last book of the Bible, before God closed out his holy book, records some of the most awesome words about hell, as if to give us a reminder that we'll stay with our consciences forever. And Revelation was written down by the apostle John. Just as Jesus was the very incarnation of love, John was the beloved apostle of love. In 1 John 4, He just gushes forth with love, love, love. He is the one I remind you that twice said, God is love. And under the inspiration of God Almighty Himself, He records these holy words. We come now to look at the eternity of hell. What one of the Puritans called the hell of hell. What makes hell, hell is simply this. Hell is eternal. It is everlasting. It is never ending. It is forever. It is non-ending. It is permanent. The Bible repeatedly, explicitly and emphatically says so. And away with those that would de-hell by saying it's temporary. In Matthew 18, 8 and 25, 41, the Lord Jesus Christ explicitly called it everlasting fire. Jude 1-7 calls it the vengeance of eternal fire. Isaiah 33-14 asks this question. Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Now, that's a good question. Before we move on, think about that question. Who among us will dwell with everlasting burnings? Who in this auditorium? Any of you men? Any of you women? Any of you children, will you be able to dwell in eternal fire, the eternal burnings of the wrath of God? Examine yourself. Now look at these two verses in Revelation 14. As explicit as human language can describe Revelation 14. He himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God. which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. That's Jesus. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. And they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image. That's the devil's false prophet. And whoever receives the mark of his name. Notice the words forever and ever. No rest. I challenge anybody to say this is not talking about eternal torment in hell. Matthew 25, 46, which we read earlier, when Jesus said at the last judgment, some will go like sheep into heaven, other will go like goats into hell. And he used the same adjective to describe both of them, eternal, everlasting heaven, everlasting hell. Hell is as everlasting and as eternal as heaven is. There is no escape, there is no back door. There is no rest in hell. There is no end. All doors are locked. There is no hope. 700 years ago, the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, wrote The Inferno. And he says that outside of hell is a sign that says, abandon hope, all ye that enter here. And he's right. There is no hope of escape. It's like a life sentence without parole. Now, as you know, many inmates around the country write to me. Several of them are doing life without parole. I know at least two that are doing two concurrent life sentences without parole. And I know another one in San Diego, in the R.J. Donovan prison. He is doing 279 years. But that's short compared to eternity. There's no time out for good behavior. There's no pardon. There's no clemency for anybody in hell. More than that. Sinners add to their torment because they continue to sell sin in hell. They die as lost, totally depressed sinners that only sin. The Bible says that in hell they continue to curse God with their very being. You'd think that they'd repent, but there is no repentance. God will give them no repentance. They are numbered amongst the reprobate. They continue to sin, not necessarily in the same ways on earth. There is no drunkenness or adultery, but they continue to curse God and they will never love God. Therefore, they continue to sin in hell, like an inmate doing five life terms and he kills another one. And so they don't add to the duration, they simply add more punishment. So a lost sinner in hell is adding not to the length, that is the duration of his sentence, but he is adding to the intensity of his torment. Follow me. They will all go through all eternity, all eternity, time without end. But they will compound their guilt by sinning every second and every minute. As it were, they're continuing to add to their torment. More logs on the fire. The intensity of their torment will increase exponentially for all eternity. It's staggering. We cannot imagine such a place. Each sin that we ever commit deserves infinite wrath, for God is infinitely holy. And because we cannot suffer infinitely, therefore we will suffer eternally because eternity is simply infinite time. Jonathan Edwards said the sinners in hell would give all the universe if they could to lessen the number of their sins by even one. But they are unable to. Just think of it. Eternity. Time without end. No need for calendars or watches. There is no half of eternity any more than half of infinity. Once they've been there a million years, they are no closer to the end of eternity than when they began. For hell is as eternal as God himself. And the Bible says our God is a consuming fire. Two lessons, number one, lessons for unbelievers. I challenge any unbeliever within the sound of my voice to hear this challenge. You stop at this. You try to forget it. What if it's true after all? Think about it. Fifty years ago, Billy Graham was preaching in Australia and he preached on hell. And I used to hear him as a boy. It gave me nightmares. I'm glad that he preached on hell back then. But the next day, An angry Australian came to his motel room and banged on the door violently like a madman. Let me in, let me in. And Billy opened the door. He said, what can I do for you? He said, you preached on hell and there is no such place. My God wouldn't do that. I hate you. I hate you. How can you preach such stuff? Billy said, but what if it's true, mister? The man calmed down. He said, now, what if you went over here to the Sydney airport to take a flight out? And there was a big sign that said, One out of every 100 airplanes that leaves this airport is going to crash until all on board. Would you take a chance on getting on any airplane leaving that airport? And the man said, not on your life. Not even one out of 100. And Billy said, do you suppose there's even just one one hundredth of a chance that hell is real? Man said, I never thought about that. And Billy said, Christians for centuries have preached about this. The Bible himself, Jesus himself said, do you think there's even one 100th chance that it's true? Man got quiet and said, I'm going to go home and think about that. I issue that same challenge for any unbeliever here. Suppose it is true. Are you going to risk your eternity on a doubt? Don't gamble your eternal destiny, my friend, when you are hanging over the flames of hell by a thin rope and that rope is on fire. As Edwards said, the only thing that is keeping you out of hell at this very moment is the sheer good pleasure of God. One day the rope will break and God will take his hand beneath you and just like that rich man in Luke 16, you will die, you will be buried. And you will wake up with your soul in eternal hell. It could happen in any minute. Jesus asked, how can you escape the condemnation of hell? Turn now while there is still time. There is no second chance in hell. Do not delude yourself and put it off. Thank God that you are already not there. There is still time. There is still hope. Now, the fear of hell itself will not save you. But it just might get your attention and move you to seek salvation through Jesus Christ. My advice to you is to run to Jesus Christ as fast and as soon as you can. If I could, I would get on my knees and beg every single lost Christian with tears. Turn to Jesus Christ and repent. I love you enough to plead with you. And if you disregard this sermon, you will have to do it over the body of this Christian that loves you and begs you to turn to Jesus Christ. He will welcome you with open arms. The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Secondly, a word to unbelievers. As horrifying as this reality is about eternal hell, brother and sister, we should all get on our knees and thank God that we will never, ever go there. God has guaranteed that not even one Christian, not one true blood-bought child of God will ever end up in hell. Has it ever occurred to you? Earth is the closest you will ever get to hell. The worse that you're going through, is now. And all that will end the moment you die. We'll look at heaven next week. But as I close, we have to solve the riddle, the puzzle of this. We plead with unbelievers to turn, and believers can thank God. But the problem is, if God is holy and just and wrathful, and there is a place called hell, how can anybody justly afford going there? And that's the good news that the Bible calls the gospel. And the answer is very simple. It's so simple that even these children could understand it. It's this. We can go to heaven because the Lord Jesus Christ took our hell for us. He, as it were, went to hell, not down there, but at the cross. On the cross, he said, I thirst, which is what the rich man in hell said. There was darkness over the face of the earth. He suffered. It says that, you know, he died, but the Bible also says he suffered for us. He suffered the wrath of God. Galatians 3 says he was made a curse for us. The very word that he himself will use at the judgment day when it will say to unrepentant sinners, depart from me, you cursed ones into everlasting fire. It's as if God the Father said to God the Son, my son, go to earth, take on a human body, suffer, bleed and die and be made a curse for them at the cross. And He drank the cup of God's wrath down to the very last drop of His people. So there is not one drop of God's wrath left for us. Hallelujah, Jesus Christ took it all for us. And that's how God can legally, justly forgive lost sinners. What should we do with this message, dear friends? Warn lost sinners. Parents, have you spoken with your children about this subject? Don't wait until they're teenagers or adults. Talk to them young in life. Talk with your relatives. And let us never, ever forget the awesome reality of eternal hellfire. before we pray and sing another song, before we come to communion. I'll ask that we take a minute or so of silence to meditate upon these facts. Think deeply about this message, the words of God, the words of Jesus. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, you have spoken clearly through your word. May your words echo in our hearts and drive us to Jesus. And Father, we as believers thank you for Jesus, who took our hell for us at the cross. And therefore, we can sing that His grace is greater than our sin. His love, His salvation has rescued us from eternal hell and opened for us the gates of eternal heaven. Father, thank you. In Jesus name, Amen.