Islam actually holds to something very similar. Having commenced in the 7th century, they borrowed such ideas from apostate Christianity at that time. Buddhism, and we might link that with Hinduism as well, believes with a series of cycles or reincarnation, and that people might go into a dreadful state, but that they will be reincarnated again into a higher state. And so while they may go to a place of misery or a lower order for a time, they will one day be brought into a higher order. The cults, they all deny eternal torment. Welcome to Let the Bible Speak. This is Pastor Ian Golliher, and we're on the air again to bring you the message of the gospel. Today, we're looking at a very solemn subject, the solemn subject of eternal wrath, God's punishment of sinners for all eternity. Now, who would dare teach such a thing if the Bible did not clearly teach it? And if our Lord Jesus himself, the Son of God incarnate, had not spoken so frequently, so passionately, but warning men to flee from the wrath to come, and of that place of eternal fire and torment these are the words and terms of the lord jesus and he referred to them as eternal in fact he used the same word for eternal wrath or eternal punishment as for everlasting fire as he did for heaven eternal life they are the same term they are have the same meaning and this is the doctrine of hell of punishment for the wicked who will not turn to god nor serve god And on that great day when God shall judge the hearts of men, when He will open the books, and every word will be replayed, and every act and deed will be laid out, God will assign men to heaven or hell. and it is because of this solemn reality that the gospel is so urgent it is the message that is needed by all men women boys and girls in all nations of the world and for this the lord jesus says go into all the world and preach the gospel the good news and praise god we have a gospel We have the message that God from eternity has a plan to lift sinners out of the paths of destruction into the ways of eternal life. And that plan is in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived for us, died for us on the cross, bearing our sins in his own body, taking our punishment for us on the tree, and setting us free from all guilt and condemnation. I love the verse, Romans 8 verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Now I realize that this is a very solemn subject, and one that few dare touch or teach, because it is so far-reaching, it is so condemning. And yet, when we study the Bible carefully, in a rational way, this is the message. And I want you to do that with me today. I want you just to sit quietly No need to shout or yell here today, but to look objectively at the whole message, and I'm going to give you some solid reasons why there is eternal wrath for the wicked, for those that are without God. And so, stay tuned, as today we let the Bible speak on the message of reasons for eternal punishment. Last night, about the third row back, we had Mrs. Carol Graham with us, wife of the Reverend Wesley Graham. The Graham family in the Bangor area have one or more very large posters that can be seen as you drive up one of those roads. Now, I've been away too long to remember the roads, but I've seen them. They're there. And I had a man talk to me a number of years ago that he was rather offended by such billboards and signs in County Down that warn travelers passing by of the terrors of hell. I was taken back. I knew that this man had made a profession of faith and had shown a good interest in the Bible, but he was convinced that this was by no means the way to spread Christianity nor to evangelize. Now, in between first years that I'd known him and those comments, he had just done a full course at Belfast Bible College and he had come to this persuasion. that there is no such thing as eternal punishment, no such thing as hell, and that those billboards are doing an injustice to the cause of his form of Christianity. I sought immediately to explain to him that to deny the doctrine of eternal wrath is to deny the essence of the atoning work of the Lord on the cross. Some people don't want to mention hell because they believe in a loving God. But how could God be loving if he poured out his wrath upon his son at the cross? As Isaiah 53 clearly teaches us, as our Lord Jesus cried out, why hast thou forsaken me if there is no hell? There are many attempts today to undo the doctrine of hell. And the preacher who insists upon it and the church that holds to it are really looked upon as old school, as troublemakers, and out to really hold sway over people by the power of fear. And so tonight I endeavor, by God's grace, to lay before you these five reasons to believe in eternal punishment. You're going to face In your evangelism, however you do it, whether it's to your family, friends, neighbors, or in any type of gospel ministry, you're going to face the criticism. How can you believe in a God of love that sends people to hell to be tormented for all eternity? You're going to be called a fool. But I trust tonight that we will see that The fools are those who deny what our Lord Jesus taught so very clearly and so very deliberately. Now, the eternal nature of hell is denied by so many religions. The main religions of the world do teach about a place of misery perhaps, but none hold that it is eternal. Roman Catholicism has its own notion of purgatory and they hold out to people ways and means of being delivered from purgatory. And it's usually by money and it's by masses and by penance, by the church and friends and relatives that they might be able to escape that place of burning. Islam actually holds to something very similar. Having commenced in the 7th century, they borrowed such ideas from apostate Christianity at that time. Buddhism, and we might link that with Hinduism as well, believes with a series of cycles or reincarnation, and that people might go into a dreadful state, but that they will be reincarnated again into a higher state. And so while they may go to a place of misery or a lower order for a time, they will one day be brought into a higher order. The cults, they all deny eternal torment. including the Seventh-day Adventists. They are prolific, and they're the wannabe evangelicals, the wannabe advertised as a branch of evangelicalism. But they deny eternal punishment. They believe in annihilation of the soul, and that when we die, that's the end. That's it. There's nothing beyond the grave. Liberals deny the supernatural in just about everything, and of course they deny a literal hell. I can speak for Canada tonight that there's not a mainline church, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, or United, that teaches eternal punishment. You would be very hard-pressed to find even one branch of those denominations with one minister who out of a full heart warns his congregation of the terrors of hell. Such is the apostasy, such is the modernism, and that pressure is brought to bear upon us today. Hush! Don't go there. Leave that. Let's preach the positive gospel. Let's bring the message that will be more palatable and winning. That can't be done in faithfulness. In Christianity, the existence of souls goes in a straight line. You are born once. You live once. You die once and you go out into eternity to that eternal state. One destination, heaven or hell, it's a straight line. Eastern religions particularly make it a circle, but there are souls in Macrofelt and they will live once. They will die once and they'll go into eternity, never to return either heaven or hell. It is vital tonight. that we get our feet well planted in the solid ground of what our Lord Jesus taught and of what this Bible teaches from beginning to end. And my first reason for the doctrine of eternal punishment is that it's biblical. You cannot read much of the Bible and not come to this clear warning that there is a place called hell, that it is eternal, everlasting punishment. And the strongest part of this is that it's taught so clearly by our Lord Jesus. In fact, if it had not been taught by the one who was God incarnate, by the Son of God himself, would any apostle have dared to launch out on this doctrine without having heard it clearly expounded? by the Son of God. And you read there that quote by W.G.T. Shedd. His initial stand, by the way, for wonderfully good theology, Shedd, he was an American theologian. He was a sound man, and he has given a theological work that has been a light to the Presbyterian Reformed Church for generations. And he says right there, without the explicit and reiterated statements of God incarnate, it is doubtful whether so awful a truth would have had such a conspicuous place as it always has had in the creed of Christendom. But our Lord Jesus taught it. And the account of the rich man and Lazarus here in Luke 16 is a very clear, in fact, the greatest exposition by our Lord Jesus of this situation where a wealthy man on earth loses his soul, ends up in torment, Lazarus in poverty, loses his soul, but goes to glory. What a wonderful thing. What a wonderful thing that our Lord Jesus has so taught these truths. In a little statement there also by J.C. Ryle, he points out, that this account of the rich man's eternal state and torment was given by the Lord who delighted in mercy. This is not the message of one who takes delight in destroying souls. This is not one who takes delight in the torment of men in misery. This is the one who came from heaven not to condemn, not to destroy. He came as the Good Shepherd to give his life for the sheep, that men might not perish, but have everlasting life. And so we ought to grasp here. that in the ministry of our Lord Jesus, who taught this awful doctrine of an eternal hell where souls burn in torment in a lake of fire endlessly and for all eternity, that he's the very one whose name is Jesus, Savior, friend of sinners, and the one who would take hell upon himself, in his own body to deliver the wicked from hell. Can we not see the power in the person who is speaking? The Bible is also very clear that behind these English terms, everlasting and eternal, some people debate this one. Oh, it's not eternal punishment, it's everlasting punishment. And everlasting's different. Everlasting is not the same as eternal. But in the Greek language, they're one word, the same word, ionios. And that leads to the adage which is very true. As long as there is a heaven, there will be a hell. It's the same duration. Now at the outset of this gospel treatise of the Apostle Paul, he stated the absolute reason for preaching the gospel. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And we looked at the three reasons. The first, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Number two, therein is revealed the righteousness of God. And number three, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. And Paul was so convinced That men were under God's wrath. That this now was the message that was absolutely essential. And he was not ashamed of it. He was willing to stand up and declare it at whatever cost. And that's the thrust that we need in our hearts and our ministry tonight. I know it's going to cost you to be an evangelist. It's going to cost you to be a soul winner. You may lose friends, you may lose some of the comforts of life because you become an outright witness, warning men of the wrath to come and their need to be saved and to know the Savior. But the Lord Jesus told us that he that is not willing to take up his cross and follow him are not worthy to be his disciple. So we're called out of our comfort zone. We're called out of that little area where we have a niche and say, well, everybody knows I'm a Christian. I don't hide it. I'd never say I'm not a Christian. But what we've been talking about tonight is taking the gospel with the love of Christ burning in our hearts, seeking opportunities to kindly, graciously sit down with someone and say, I want to tell you why you need the Lord Jesus in your life. That's our evangelistic calling. And this doctrine of eternal wrath is biblical. You can't read your Bible and miss it. because the doctrine of eternal punishment is clearly taught in the Reformation Protestant creeds. Now, we're going away back now to the 1500s. We're thinking about the beginning of Lutheranism and Martin Luther. We're thinking of the churches in Geneva, the John Calvin, churches in Holland, Sweden, Denmark, then men like Cranmer, who was the instrument of God to give the 39 articles in the Anglican Church of England or the Church of Ireland, it would be here. And all of these Protestant, what were once Bible preaching, teaching churches, every one of their historic creeds clearly teaches what we're talking about tonight, that there is eternal punishment for the wicked. Now I've included in the notes three sections of the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 33, and it sets out that creedal statement, that document, where theologians from the Westminster in London got together. Their desire was to commence a Presbyterian church in England, in all of the United Kingdom, And for 370 years, their document, their work, their creed has been the guiding document of Presbyterian churches all around the world. We use it today as free Presbyterians. We're not dreaming up something new. We're not going off on a tangent and saying, well, let's get radical about something that will have a special little niche on truth. No, we are following what has been the consistent, historic preaching, teaching of Protestant Bible churches for hundreds of years. You see, we're living in a day of great apostasy. I lament what has happened in Canada. I lament when I drive around Ontario and I see building after building, red brick buildings that are just crying out, I'm Presbyterian. And the pioneers that settled in those communities, they wanted houses of worship and preaching the gospel, but it's no longer being preached and we're left to continue a ministry that many think is too narrow. But here's a second reason that this doctrine is true. It has been the consistent teaching of Protestant Bible churches down through the ages. Number three, then. Because the doctrine of eternal punishment is based on the righteous character of God. And because all of his attributes are his perfections, God by nature is perfect in his justice and thereby inflexibly upright or righteous. Now let me pause there. Inflexibly upright. We learn in Sunday school that God is, what's the big word that we use in Sunday school to teach young people that God does not change? Immutable. God cannot change for the better, because he's God. And he cannot change for the worse, or he would cease to be God. It is impossible for God to change. Or as it was said of our Lord Jesus, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now that applies to his justice, as to all of his attributes, inflexibly. That means he cannot be a judge of jelly. He cannot be a judge that judges arbitrarily, depending on the mood of the day. You know, if you were a victim or accused and brought into court, and you'd be praying, Lord, I hope that judge is going to be in a good mood today. I hope that he's in a generous mood today. Well, a just judge judges righteously all the time. He never changes. And hell exists because God must declare sinful men and angels to be guilty. because of the offense against his own character. God is offended. And hell exists because God always exists as a righteous judge. He cannot change and he cannot do otherwise, but maintain his righteousness. And when we get to Romans 3.25, we'll have a few things to say about that. Call me back to that. Don't let... Thank you for listening through the message today, a very hard subject as we think of a lost world and of the many multitudes that are without the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior and as they would pass into eternity. that they will go into the eternal damned. They will burn for all eternity in a place of torment. That is the teaching of the Bible. That is the reasonable, and I say reasonable because it is the clear aggregated and consistent message of the Old Testament prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament apostles in the book of Acts, Paul the apostle, Romans 1 and onward, And Paul said, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. And as the Proverbs say, because there is wrath. And these are the consistent teachings of the Bible. You can't read the Bible and not face the reality of hellfire and eternal torment for the wicked. And so it brings us to this realization that the gospel is good news in light of the bad news of what sin has done, what man has done in his rebellion to God, and in what Satan has done in bringing sin into the world in the first place. So this sin is rebellion. It is an offense to a holy God, and His justice demands full satisfaction. Now we praise God that at Calvary, our Lord Jesus died an atoning death He died as a ransom, a sacrifice, offering up himself in the place of sinners, making an all-sufficient payment to pay for all the guilt, the debt, the condemnation that lies upon wicked sinners. And all who look to Jesus, seeing Him dying in their place. For all who can say, There Jesus died for me, there on that cross my sins were laid on Him, there is no hell, there is no wrath, because the Lord Jesus has paid it all. He drank the cup, he drank it dry, the cup of wrath became his and there's no more for those who trust and rest in the Lord Jesus. This is the wonderful good news of the gospel and we'll continue this theme tomorrow. Join with us again as we let the Bible speak. This broadcast comes to you today from the Free Presbyterian Church in Cloverdale. located at 18790 58th Avenue, Surrey at the corner of 188th Street and 58th Avenue. On our website you can find Gospel articles, links to our sermons and our Gospel booklet called A New Beginning. There you can find a link to our Sunday services that are broadcast online. For all this information, please go to our website at cloverdalefpc.ca. You're warmly invited to attend any of our Sunday services at 10.30am and 6pm to meet with us as we worship God and to hear the preaching of his precious word. We also meet for Bible study and prayer at 7.30pm every Wednesday evening. Our Sunday School for Children and Adult Bible Class meet every Lord's Day from September to June at 9.30am. You can contact us using our office number which is 604-576-1091. Alternatively, you can email me at pastor.cloverdalefpc at gmail.com. Again, for all this information, please go to our website at cloverdalefpc.ca. Our burden is that you will hear and understand the Gospel that will lead you to know the Lord Jesus Christ and his great salvation. This is Pastor Andrew Fitton. Thank you for listening today and be sure to listen Monday to Friday at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. and on Sundays at 9.30 a.m. on this station for full or church service as we worship the Lord through the ministry of His Word.