Hell Is for Real

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 7 this morning. Matthew chapter 7. It’s no surprise that when it comes to the basics of the Christian faith that some doctrines are more popular than others, some doctrines are more palatable than others, and there can be a strong temptation to say, well, I want to believe this, but I don’t want to believe that.

It becomes very dangerous to treat the Bible as a cafeteria where we can pick and choose what we want. We take the good news along with the bad. But there are some doctrines that the Bible teaches that we in Christianity have historically taught that are popular.

Heaven is one of those. It’s extremely popular. Everybody, well, I mean, unless you’re just a committed atheist, everybody believes in heaven.

They may never go to church. They may never profess faith in Jesus Christ, but they believe in heaven. I mean, we’re inundated, it seems like, every year with books about heaven, what heaven’s like, people who say they’ve gone to heaven.

Heaven is for real. However many minutes in heaven, I forget the name of the book. The books are out there. There are stories that I’ve seen on TV of people who died and gone to heaven, and this is their story.

Books are written about what heaven’s going to be like. Songs are written about heaven. I remember the country song that I heard in my sister’s car a few years back, Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now, and I thought, how stupid is that?

Yeah, we want to go to heaven, but if heaven is as great as the Bible says it is, and I believe it is, then we should want to go whenever God’s ready for us. I’ve never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. Writing songs, comparing heaven to Oklahoma.

As much as I love Oklahoma, I hope heaven’s a lot better than this. If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie. I’m saying I’m dating myself, but these songs were written well before I was born.

They sing about heaven. They make movies about heaven. I remember as a kid watching cartoons, the Looney Tunes cartoons, and, you know, characters were always getting blown up with dynamite and turned into angels.

I mean, we want to talk about heaven. We want to hear about heaven. I’ll see where people will eulogize departed family members on Facebook and say, they’re in heaven now.

And I’ll think, everything that I know about them, of their life, from their birth to their death, was nothing but hostility toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s enough to make me think that there are people out there who believe you just automatically go to heaven. We want to believe in heaven. We want to believe that everybody goes there.

We want to believe that we’re going to go there. We want to believe that it’s a real place with a real reward waiting for us, and I believe it is. Don’t take any of what I’m saying this morning to say that I believe heaven is not a real place.

I absolutely do. But as popular as it is to talk about heaven, it is equally unpopular to talk about hell. See, people want to believe in heaven, even if they never darken the door of a church, never make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They believe in heaven and want to go there.

And yet there are people sitting in churches today, there are actually churches who teach that there’s no such thing as hell. That it’s either not literal or it’s not eternal. It’s not any number of the things that the Bible teaches that it is. And I think we’ve got to be very careful about picking what parts of the Bible we choose to believe and don’t choose to believe.

That’s not to say that every part of the Bible is equally applicable. There are certain things that were written as laws to the Israelites in the Old Testament that do not apply to us today. We can still learn things from them.

But I’m not going to be in trouble with God as far as I understand it if I go eat shellfish. I’m not going to be in trouble with God as far as I understand it if I wear clothes that are made out of two different kinds of fabric. As a matter of fact, I don’t know of any clothes that I have that aren’t some kind of blend.

Those things were written to a specific people at a specific time and are not necessarily applicable, but they were true. We can’t just pick and choose, though, what we believe God said and what God didn’t say. Jesus spent an awful lot of time talking about the subject of hell.

Jesus taught on the doctrine of hell, and because Jesus taught on it, we as believers teach on it. And as much as I believe it, I had trouble this week as I’m going through my list of, okay, these are the doctrines that we’re going to talk about in this series, and okay, we’re finally to hell. I can’t put it off anymore.

As I thought about that, I thought, I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my ministry that I’ve taught specifically on the subject of hell and what Jesus said. Because a lot of times you’ll be accused of scare tactics. Oh, the preachers, they just preach hell because they want to scare us.

No, not exactly. I mean, I don’t talk about hell because I want to scare you any more than a doctor. You know, a few years ago, a doctor diagnosed me with pneumonia.

He didn’t come and tell me you’ve got pneumonia and we need to put you on an antibiotic because he wanted to scare me. He wanted me to realize the gravity of the situation because I had let bronchitis go for weeks and weeks and it had turned into pneumonia and if I didn’t do something it could kill me. He wasn’t trying to scare me.

He wanted me to realize the sobering reality. When both of my kids were born they were born premature and they had to go to the NICU. The doctor didn’t tell me that to scare me.

He told me that because they had problems that needed to be dealt with before they turned into something more serious. When I sit down with my wife and I say, hey, here’s the amount of money going out and here’s the amount of money coming in and we need to adjust something here. I don’t tell her that that we need to tighten our belts to scare her.

I tell her that because we need to face reality and deal with it. And just like the doctor doesn’t tell you your condition to scare you and just like any time you’ve sat down and dealt with a serious problem with a loved one, as much as you’re not trying to scare them and they’re not trying to scare you, that’s also not the intention when talking about hell. It’s not to scare people.

It’s because we need to face the reality. Jesus taught about hell. Now, I’ve seen where some preachers have said Jesus taught about hell more than he did heaven.

That really depends on how you classify talking about hell. Anytime he, there are some who will say that it was twice as much. That requires saying anything about judgment, anything about suffering was talking about hell.

You can use a much stricter definition and say the places where he talks about lakes of fire, the places where he talks about eternal damnation, those are references to hell. There’s still a lot of places. It doesn’t matter whether you use a broad definition of him talking about hell or a narrow one.

He still talked an awful lot about hell, more than in most churches today, and more than most people want to hear about. And so we need to understand the reality of hell because Jesus thought it was important enough to tell us about it. If Jesus thought something was important for you to know, then I, as someone standing before you to teach the word of God, need to consider it something important for you to know.

But he thought it was important enough for you to know because it gives a sobering glimpse of the gravity, of the weight, of the effect of our sins.

And I will tell you that when I trusted Christ as a five-year-old child, it was specifically after being taught in children’s church on the doctrine of hell now they didn’t call it the doctrine of hell they just talked about hell but I went home and I had a lot of questions after that and within four days I was asking my mother what do I need to do to be saved because I just couldn’t figure it out I’d heard the gospel I’d heard about Jesus from the time I was in the womb but it was after I heard about hell I really started to understand that there was a problem here with my sin and it wasn’t that they scared me as a five year old with hell fire and me being terrified it was that I finally realized that there was this other place, this bad place I didn’t want to go because I wanted to be with Jesus it’s just like as a five year old kid, I lived in fear of going into the store and getting separated from my mother, I wanted to be with her when we were out I didn’t want to get lost in Walmart.

And there was a good possibility of that because sometimes when people ask me where I grew up, I tell them Walmart. We were there every day. I didn’t want to get separated from her in Walmart.

I wanted to be with my mother. I wanted to go home with my mother. I wanted to be with my dad.

I wanted to be with my sister. Same thing. I wanted to be with Jesus.

And no matter whether this place was just kind of icky or if it was really, really bad, I didn’t want to go to this other place and be separated from Jesus. And I realized in that moment that there was a problem in my heart because I was born a sinner. And so all the little disobedient things I did even at five years old were a result of me being born a sinner.

And I recognized that that sin would separate me from God unless I trusted in Jesus Christ. And a lot of times I think our problem is we try to tell people the good news, but we shy away from the bad news that makes the good news so good. The bad news is that there is a place called hell. You may say, well, preacher, I don’t believe that.

Okay, you don’t have to believe me. I would encourage you to believe Jesus on the subject. You cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God and yet doubt what he taught about hell or anything else.

Either he’s telling the truth or he’s not who we think he is. I believe he’s the Son of God. I believe that he knows all things.

I believe that he always speaks truth. So if he says there’s a hell, I have no choice but to believe that there’s a hell. And let me take you through some of the things that he describes it as.

Because I don’t want you to take just the preacher’s word for it. I want you to look at what Jesus says about it. And I can, just for the sake of time, I’m not going to read all these verses.

I can give you a copy of them later where you can look them up for yourselves. I’d encourage you to do that. But I went through the places in the Bible where it talks about hell, and there are so many that just for the sake of time, I went through and said, okay, these are the places where Jesus describes hell.

And I know, I know, if you believe in the inspiration of the scriptures, that anything the Bible says, Jesus said, I get that. But I’m talking about the red letters. I’m talking about the things that Jesus uttered out of his mouth when he was ministering on earth.

These are things that he said about hell and how he describes it. He describes it in Matthew 5 and Matthew 13 as a place of fire. Not only fire, but in Mark 9, he says it’s a fire that can never be quenched.

in Matthew 18 and Matthew 25 he says it’s an everlasting fire he says in Mark 9 it’s a place where the worm never dies now what that meant was the worm being a gnawing, painful, irritating thing that would just torment people and he said it’s a place where the worm never dies in other words the suffering never ends he says in Matthew 10 it’s a place of destruction He says in Matthew 23 it’s a place of damnation In Luke 12 he says it’s a place to be feared In Luke 16 he says it’s a place of torment In Matthew 8 In Matthew 22 and Matthew 25 he says it’s a place of darkness I’m just giving you the chapter numbers for time’s sake In Matthew 22 he says it’s a place of weeping In Matthew chapters 8, 13, 22 and 25 He says it’s a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth in Matthew 25 he says it’s a place of everlasting punishment in Matthew 25 he also says it’s a punishment designed for the devil and his demons all of the things that we’ve heard about hell that it’s eternal, that it’s hot, that it’s fiery, that it’s painful that there’s torment, that it’s darkness, that it’s separation from God that it goes on forever, all of those things are true not because I said it, but because Jesus said it and the question that may be swirling in your mind then because I have Christian brothers who are pastors who are otherwise orthodox who say I don’t believe a loving God could send anybody there and I understand the temptation to say well he’s a loving God how could he just because my mind can’t figure all of that out doesn’t mean it’s not true if God if Jesus describes hell as a place of eternal separation and punishment.

And that’s just the way it is, whether I can understand it or not. How can a loving God send anyone to a place like that? First of all, you need to know that God didn’t create hell for you.

He is a loving God and he did not create hell with you in mind. Now he knew that people would go there. But that wasn’t the purpose of it.

As I said, Matthew 25 verse 41 says that hell was a place created for the devil and his angels. This everlasting lake of fire was created as a place where God would house and imprison Satan after his time of rebellion. It was a place to punish Satan.

It was not created as a place to punish us. And yet, through our disobedience, through Eve’s disobedience and Adam’s disobedience in the garden of listening to Satan, instead of listening to God and siding with Satan instead of siding with God. And through the decisions that we make every day as a result where we say, God, I hear what you say, but I want to do this over here.

I want to follow this temptation. I want to listen to Satan and side with him instead of siding with you, God. We have cast our lot in with Satan by rebelling against God too.

So before we think, well, how could a loving God send anybody there? God didn’t create that for us.

God created us to be with him and we chose something different but also it’s important to know that God loved you enough that even though we deserved hell even though you deserved hell and don’t get offended because I can say me too as much as I deserved hell God loved you God loved me God loved all of us enough that he made another way he made a way out he didn’t have to do that God could have looked at us and said enjoy your sin good luck and help but he didn’t do that he made a way out he made a way out with you in mind that gets us to Matthew chapter 7 we’re going to look at two verses today as I said we could look at any number of things on the teaching of hell but I just want to focus in on these two verses this morning Jesus is teaching the crowds this is part of the sermon on the mount and he gets around to the subject and he says in verse 13 enter ye in at the straight gate For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat.

Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. So there are a few things that he teaches here. He tells them to go in at the straight gate because he tells them there are two gates leading to two ways.

And he says there’s a wide path and a wide gate, and all you’ll find at the end of that path through that gate is destruction. There’s nothing but heartache at the end of that path. And he says there’s another straight gate and narrow way that leads to everlasting life.

And he doesn’t say that these are two of many paths. He says these are the two paths. And he says pick this one, not that one.

He says, pick the straight gate and the narrow way, not the broad gate and the broad way. Because one leads to life and one leads to destruction. And unfortunately, and I don’t preach this as a happy thing, I preach it filled with sadness that God’s word says that this road that leads to destruction will be found by many, many people.

And the road that leads to life will be found by relatively few. We should never, ever, ever look at that and say, hooray, we’re on the straight way and the narrow way, the straight gate, and we’re the few that found eternal life. We should celebrate the fact that Jesus has given us eternal life, but never from the standpoint of look at us and what we’ve found and in your face to the rest of the world.

If anything, this ought to make us work harder to tell other people and warn other people about the road that’s being chosen. Because he says there are relatively few who find eternal life. That doesn’t make us better than anybody else.

That just means that God got the message through to us sooner. And there’s nothing for us to boast about in that. But he identifies these two gates.

And just like to these people 2,000 years ago, Jesus is telling us, he’s telling you, that your journey will end in either life or destruction. The journey of your life will end in two ways. It will end with everlasting life, or it will end with everlasting destruction.

Those are the two options. The way that leads to life and the way that leads to destruction in those two verses. He gives us here two and exactly two options.

Be very careful to see what he says and not see what he doesn’t say. He’s not saying, oh, these are two of the options. Like with my children, if I say, go to your room, one of them says, go to my room forever.

Did I say that? Or one yesterday in my office, getting the bulletins ready, I said, sit down in that chair over there. and lay down?

No, I said sit down. There was one option. Don’t add more options than what I said.

Take seriously what Jesus said, not read into what he didn’t say. He says there are two options. The world likes to play fast and loose with those numbers.

I don’t think it’s common core math because these other options have been floated around for a long time before that. But some people will try to tell us no, there are zero options. There’s no such thing as life after death.

You know what? There are a lot of smart people out there. Can I admit this to you?

There are a lot of atheists out there who are a lot smarter than I will ever be. And yet I’m going to take the word of Jesus over this. I’m going to take what Jesus said because he was there when he created all this.

And I’m going to take his expertise on this. There are some who tell us there’s no such thing as life after death. Folks, I believe the resurrection historically, scientifically, medically, logically, conclusively disproves the notion that there’s no such thing as life after death.

Jesus defeated death with eternal life. There is such a thing as life after death, and I’m going to take his word for it. So those who would tell us that there are zero options stand in direct opposition to Jesus Christ. Some would say there’s one option.

Everybody goes to heaven. It’s called universalism. The Bible clearly does not say that.

Jesus just said there will be many who do not find the way to everlasting life. So I can take the word of the universalist or I can take the word of Jesus Christ. I think I’m siding with him. There are those who say that there’s a third option.

That there’s a holding place where we’re judged and our sins are dealt with. Our more serious sins are dealt with and then we can go on to heaven. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing in the Bible that leads me to conclude that purgatory is anything other than a myth.

Folks, Jesus says there are two options. And the way we choose in this life will either lead us to everlasting life or everlasting destruction. Folks, hell is a very real destination.

And until we understand the reality of these two choices, these two destinations, we will never grasp the gravity of our situation. We will never realize fully the importance of dealing with the problem of sin. We will never understand how costly our sin is and what danger we are in when we stand before a holy God.

Because God is loving. God loved us enough to send his son to die so that we would have a way out. But God is also just. God will not look at our crimes and ignore them.

And I give the example all the time that if I were to stand before a judge, and I love having a judge in the congregation so I can put a face on it, if I were to stand before Ralph and be charged with murder, and I said, well, yeah, I killed him. I did it on purpose, and I enjoyed it. But can’t you let it go just this one time?

What would you think of Ralph as a judge, not to mention a human being, If he said, that’s fine, just try not to do it again for a while. We would be calling for him to be thrown off the bench, wouldn’t we? Ralph, you’d never do that, would you?

If we expect justice out of a human judge, why would we expect anything less from the great judge of the universe? God won’t just look at our sin and say, that’s fine. The law was broken and a penalty needs to be paid.

but he’s also still loving because he sent his son to pay the penalty for us. You can’t ignore the love and you can’t ignore the justice. They go hand in hand.

But until we realize that sin is so serious a deal that Jesus came to die for it, until we realize how serious that sin is, until we realize that there is a hell as a punishment, we won’t realize how serious that sin is. And we have no incentive to deal with God about it. Folks, hell reminds us how seriously God takes this.

And your life, your journey will end in either eternal life or eternal destruction. Eternal suffering. And he says that the way to destruction is easy to find.

He says, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in thereat. in this metaphor that he uses, you’ve got to picture just a massive highway that’s easy to find.

And there are certain roads that are easier to find than others. You can’t drive through Seminole and miss 377 or 99 or Mill Phillips, whatever you want to call it. It’s the big road that runs through town.

You’d have to work really hard to miss that. At some point, you’re probably going to cross it. The town’s not that big.

it’s easy to find. As you’re driving through the state, I-35 is pretty easy to find. I-40 is pretty easy to find.

These are big roads, and people find them easily. And I can’t tell you the number of trips I’ve been on as a child with my dad and his tremendous sense of direction. They got lost many times in some of the scariest parts of the scariest towns in America.

And I remember as a child him saying, if I could just find my way back to I-55 in East St. Louis, we could go, you know, where we needed to get. In Nashville, if I could just find my way back to I-40, we had friends that lived in Chicago, and when we’d go up to visit and we’d get lost, there were two roads, two major, I think, north-south roads, Cicero and Pulaski.

I don’t know anything about those two roads, except I remember him as a child saying, if I could just find my way back to Cicero or Pulaski, I could find my way to their house. And he always found his way back to those roads because they were big and they were well-known and they were easy to find. And the Bible teaches that the road to destruction is a lot like those roads.

Although in my story, those roads would lead you to the destination you wanted to get to. Those roads will eventually help you find your way home. In this scenario, those big, easy-to-find roads lead to somewhere we don’t want to go.

Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Now, I don’t think Jesus decreed it this way. There are some people who believe that.

That’s not what I understand scripture to teach, that God said, yeah, I pick you for hell, I pick you for hell, I pick you for hell, you get to go to heaven, I pick you for hell, heaven, hell, hell, hell, heaven, most people are going to choose the other way. Because God knows the future. God knows our choices, and God is just speaking what reality is here.

Most people will choose to reject his offer of mercy through Jesus Christ. Most people, while wanting to go to heaven, will choose the road that leads to everlasting destruction. And again, that’s nothing to celebrate. But most of the people who have ever lived, I’m not going to put a percentage on it or a number, I don’t know what it is, but for him to say more or relatively few, it’s got to be more than 50%.

But suffice it to say, a large number of the people who have ever lived will have chosen the way that rejects God and leads to everlasting destruction. The way to destruction is easy to find because we’re on it by default. We’re on it by default.

You’re a born sinner. I’m a born sinner. If you want to go to hell, just do nothing.

Just continue to sin and never repent. Continue to sin and never ask God’s forgiveness. Continue to sin and love it and reject God at every turn.

Just continue to do what comes naturally. And we can pick that destination and get there by default. We’ll never have to do a thing.

The only way to life, the only way to everlasting life is through Jesus Christ. Is through Jesus Christ. Now you may be thinking, where do you get that from this passage? I’m glad you asked. He said, straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads unto life and few there be that find it.

Jesus talked about doors a few times in his ministry. Jesus talked about doors that led to life in his ministry. And when he did, he was talking about himself.

There’s a parable in John chapter 10 where Jesus is talking about sheep. And I’ve preached on this passage, I think, just in the last few months. I don’t remember exactly what I preached about or when it was, so I don’t fault you if you don’t remember either.

But you’re probably familiar with the saying where Jesus says, the thief comes not but to steal and to destroy. but I’m come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. If you’re familiar with that passage, it’s the same place.

He’s talking about the sheep, and he’s talking about the sheep being guarded in the sheep pen, and the false teacher is trying to come in and get the sheep, and he talks about the shepherd going in and out through the door, and he talks about the sheep coming through the door and going in and out and finding pasture. And in the story, he’s both the shepherd and the door that’s used by the shepherd and the sheep. But he says there in John chapter 10, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.

See, if the sheep wanted to get where they belonged, they had to go in and out through the door. If they wanted the blessings of God’s pasture, they had to go out through the door. If they wanted the safety of God’s sheep pen, they had to go in through the door.

And Jesus says, I am the door. Folks, Jesus is the door. The narrow way is the way that he prescribes.

And the narrow gate at the end, the door that leads to everlasting life, is Jesus Christ. And he said in John chapter 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And he says, do you remember the verse, who comes to the Father? Anybody?

Bueller? No man comes unto the Father but by me. Nobody.

Nobody gets down that path to life, that straight narrow path. Nobody gets to the Father except by going through that door. except by going through that narrow gate, except coming through Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Folks, this morning, we’ve looked at all the things, well, all the things that I could find that Jesus said in red letters about hell. We’ve seen the description and what an awful place it is. And we’ve seen that Jesus says it’s one of two options and how easy it is to get there.

We are condemned already because of our sins. You and I were each born sinners, and we exercise our job description really, really well. We follow through in that sinful behavior every day.

We make those choices that reject God and rebel against Him. And yet, God still loved us. We deserved hell.

We deserved fire and eternal torment and separation from Him in outer darkness. We deserved all those things. and yet God loved us enough to send his son to die for us.

I can’t explain that kind of love. Folks, I love all of you, but I can’t imagine having one of my children die for any of you or all of you. And I would hope that anybody in here with children would agree with that sentiment.

I can’t imagine that kind of love, especially with how holy God is and how sinful we are and how we’ve rebelled against him and spit in his face and shaking our fists at him as a human race, that God would look at us and still love us as something that I can’t come to terms with and completely understand. But I accept and acknowledge the fact that God is love. I may not be able to understand that kind of love, but I recognize it’s part of his nature.

You and I didn’t do anything to earn or deserve heaven and never could. But because God loves us, because God is loving, He looked at us in our sin. He looked at us with our filth all in us and on us.

And he looked at us and he loved us still enough that he sent Jesus, who had no sin of his own, to come to earth and be ridiculed and be mocked and be beaten and then to be nailed to the cross to shed his blood and to die. And every drop of blood he spilled was a payment for the sins that we had committed. that life that he laid down on the cross they didn’t take it from him he laid it down that life that he laid down was payment for our sins and as he died he shouted out it is finished it was paid in full the sin debt was paid in full he bore all of our punishment now God looks at us and because of Jesus who laid down his life and then took it up again God looks at us and gives us the opportunity for the slate to be wiped clean.

That God will look at us and not see our sin. That God will look at us and choose to remember our sin no more. God will look at us and choose not to hold our sin against us because he can look at us and see the righteousness of Christ. But we’ve got to go down that narrow road to the narrow gate.

and we’ve got to come to him through that gate which is Jesus Christ. Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that you can do enough good stuff to avoid hell or get to heaven. You can’t. One sin is enough to condemn us to hell beca

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