The Unquenchable Fire

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Well, you’ve probably seen either the statues themselves or photos of them, these ancient statues, where you’ve probably noticed the eyes don’t look right. You ever seen that? They don’t have the detail on the eyeballs themselves.

I remember seeing photos of this in art books when I was a kid and being really weirded out, honestly, by their eyes and asking my dad, what is wrong with their eyes? And he said, well, they didn’t carve the detail into their eyes. Okay, I remember asking a teacher once upon a time, why did they not carve the detail into the eyes?

And I was told very confidently by this teacher, well, they didn’t carve the detail into the eyes, you know, the pupils and irises. They didn’t carve that stuff because they didn’t have the technology and didn’t know how to do that. And I, okay, and I just went on.

And a few years ago, when Charla and I were still homeschooling, I was doing history and doing a unit with Benjamin and Madeline about the Greeks and Romans and about their civilization. We got to the Greco-Roman statues and my kids look at the pictures and say what’s wrong with their eyes? And I said with an equal amount of confidence, well they didn’t carve the details into the eyes because they didn’t have the technology at that time and didn’t know how to do eyes.

And both of my kids looked at me, they both looked at me like I was crazy. Madeline said, that doesn’t make sense. I said, well, why not?

And Benjamin said, they knew how to carve everything else. I went, that’s right, they did. I mean, they could carve the detail of hair.

Why were eyes so difficult. Why could they not do the eyes? I was, what, 34 years old before I put much thought into it about what I’d been told that, well, they just didn’t have the technology.

Within the last year, I’ve found out that a lot of those marble statues were painted to begin with. And so they didn’t need to carve pupils out. They just painted them on there.

And I thought, well, that makes a whole lot more sense than what I’d been told all my life. This story that, you know, just kind of gets past around and you just accept it. There have been other things like that, some that are more obviously wrong than others.

For example, I forget how it came up in conversation, but I told Benjamin just the other day, I said, when I was a kid, the older kids at church told me that baptism was so you didn’t get dirt on you in heaven. And I believed it for, I don’t know, a minute. it.

And then I thought, I mean, forget the theology of it. Why are you not getting the bath up there? Because you get baptized here and then you get dirty here.

How’s it going to keep the dirt off of you in heaven if it can’t keep the dirt off of you here? Yeah, that was very obviously wrong. There are stories that you hear as a child.

There are sometimes even stories you hear as an adult that sometimes sound good. Yeah, the baptism one didn’t sound good. But the eye thing with the statues made perfect sense to me until I had to give it a second look.

And tonight we’re going to look at something in Scripture that has a really good story that explains it that I was told, and maybe you’ve been told as well, but it’s one of those that when I looked at, when I gave a second glance to it, it’s not true. And I’m not saying Scripture is not true. I’m saying the story that I’ve heard Bible teachers give as an explanation.

Well, I can’t say it’s not true, but I can say I find no evidence of it anywhere. And I think I have a different explanation that is just as compelling and maybe even more terrifying. So not that you came here tonight to be terrified.

But as we’re studying through the book of Mark, we come to a point where Jesus is talking about eternal judgment. If you’re visiting with us tonight, I don’t spend the whole time talking about eternal judgment every service, but this just happens to be where we are as we go through the book of Mark. Jesus talks to his disciples about eternal judgment, and he uses a place called Gehenna as an example of this.

He points them to Gehenna as an example. Gehenna is a valley on the outskirts of Jerusalem. And the story I’ve always been told, the story I’ve always heard, is that Gehenna was a garbage dump where they would throw the refuse of the city, where they would throw bodies for cremation, that it was a nasty place, that it was a stinking place, that it was a place full of fire and smoke and rotting bodies, and it was a place nobody would ever want to go.

And it’s a compelling story as a picture of hell. The problem is there is no historical or archaeological evidence that Gehenna was ever used for that purpose. There was a separate valley, I believe, is it Kidron?

I’ve forgotten. There are several valleys around there. Possibly the Kidron Valley that was used as a garbage dump, Gehenna never was.

So this is where I’m saying scripture is not wrong, but the explanation I’ve been given about what Jesus is talking about is something we need to take a second look at. Tonight we’re going to look at what Jesus said about Gehenna. We’re going to look at what Jesus said about the disciples and about this eternal judgment that stood before them and stands before people today.

And so we’re going to be in Mark chapter 2, and we’re going to start at verse, I’m sorry, Mark chapter 9, and we’re going to start at verse 42 and go through verse 50 tonight. If you turn there with me in your Bibles, if you have them. If you don’t have your Bibles or can’t find Mark chapter 9, it’ll be on the screen for you.

And if you would stand with me, if you’re able to, as we read from God’s Word. We’ll read together starting at verse 42. And here’s what Jesus said to the disciples.

But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed rather than having two hands to go into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame rather than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it?

Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another, and you may be seated. So to understand this, first of all, we need to remember the context of what’s going on here. Remember, that’s been one of the benefits to me of this study through Mark.

I’ve told you before, Mark is probably the gospel I was least familiar with for various reasons I won’t go into tonight. It’s just not one I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time with. And then I thought, well, why did I tell them we’re going to study through Mark?

I think that’s why. God wanted me to get familiar with it. And then studying it in order this way, instead of just picking a story here and a story there, you get to see how these things are all woven together.

And this is the result of some of the conversations they’ve been having already where the disciples have been arguing amongst themselves about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom, who already was the greatest in the kingdom, whose ministry, whose service was the most important. Jesus tells them it’s not measured the way you think it is. The one that is greatest is the one that’s the servant of all the others.

And so they say on that basis in Matthew, well, then who is it? They still want to know who’s going to be the greatest. And to make sure their positions are secure, I mean, they’re turning away children. They’re looking at people who are doing ministry in Jesus’ name and saying, you’re not part of our group, you stop that.

They’re just doing all these things that don’t make sense from a kingdom standpoint. And so Jesus is, he’s taken steps to correct them to try to change their thinking. And this portion of, really, if you’ve got the chart in front of you, Matthew and Mark, it’s all just red letters.

It’s all just Jesus talking. It’s a continuation of what he said the last time we were together on Sunday nights where I was preaching. And Jesus talks about receiving him as a little child.

Talks about receiving the little children in his name. Then he goes on and talks about what happens if we cause one of these little ones to stumble. Jesus is trying to change their focus because they were all about their power and their prestige in the kingdom.

They were all about trying to secure those things, and they were willing to turn others away. They just had a wrong perspective. And so he began teaching them last time and tonight about the dangers of holding on to anything that is going to lead you or others astray from the kingdom.

And he makes a point throughout this text, throughout what we’ve just read tonight. He makes a point that outside the kingdom, there is eternal suffering. Now, I know that’s not pleasant all the time to talk about, and I know there are some people not necessarily in this church, but there are some people who say, well, you shouldn’t talk about hell.

Jesus is just love. Listen, Jesus talked about hell. I mean, we just read it in red and white.

And like I said about something else last time, you can disagree with Jesus if you want to, if you think you know more than Jesus. I mean, you can disagree with Jesus if you want to, but you can’t deny that he said it. I mean, I guess you can.

You can try, but it doesn’t make sense. Eyewitnesses saying that Jesus said this. Jesus talked about hell.

Oh, you should only talk heaven, you should only talk about the love of God. Jesus talked about God’s love. Jesus demonstrated God’s love.

Jesus demonstrated God’s love in the ultimate way, which was going to the cross for sinners. But Jesus also warned about the ramifications of rejecting the mercy that he paid for. Jesus warned about hell.

And so we do the world a disservice if we don’t say what Jesus said. and I know some people will call it a scare tactic. I was taught all about hell as a child.

I grew up in what I remember as a hellfire and brimstone church. And while I’m not a shouting, screaming preacher, I’ve seen guys on TV that they work up a sweat when they preach. I’m not sure I would yell if I was on fire.

Maybe if Charlie ran through here, I’d yell. I’m just not a yeller. I’m not a stomper and a fist slammer.

But I grew up hearing the preaching about hell. But I didn’t trust Christ as a child because I was scared of the fires of hell. I knew it was a reality, but I trusted Christ as a child because I was scared of an eternity without him.

That’s the childlike part of this. I just want to go where he’s going. Like if I’m getting ready to walk out of the house, if I’m not careful, I’ll have five kids glued to me with suction cups.

They don’t know where I’m going. I may be going to the mailbox. I may be going to the dentist. They just want to go with me.

They want to go where I’m going. And I think we need to understand the reality of hell. But folks, the worst part of hell is that he’s not there with us.

And I guess if God is omnipresent, his spirit is everywhere. But his love and a relationship with him and any kind of connection with him is not there. And that’s what makes it so terrifying.

But he says in verse 42, whoever causes one of these little ones to believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. He’s talking about these little ones that we discussed last time. That can mean children.

It can also just mean anybody that is vulnerable to stumbling, anybody who is weaker in their faith in Jesus Christ, causing them to stumble. That is why we look at verses like where James talks about not many should desire to be teachers because ours is the greater condemnation. We are held accountable for what we teach others to do, what we lead them to do.

And Bob made an excellent theological point in the office a few weeks ago. What in the world have I stepped into? Anybody who teaches God’s word ought to have that perspective and that kind of seriousness about it.

What kind of responsibility have I just taken on myself? And these, as leaders in God’s kingdom, as people who were being trained up by him to preach the gospel, Their attitude should have been, I need to make absolutely certain that I am not doing anything that is going to cause anybody else to stumble. And yet they were focused on their power and their position.

And there are churches today that will teach people, and I know this because there are people that I care about that are involved in these churches, that will teach people to do the opposite of what God’s word says, and that it’s okay. That when the culture says this and God’s word says this, it’s okay to change God’s word into this. Listen, Jesus said if we cause people to stumble, and he’s talking to people who are teachers or teachers in training.

Whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. Now, I mean, that’s a pretty graphic picture. Imagine having a millstone, a massive stone that is used to grind grain, tied to you and being thrown in the water.

I mean, you have no chance of escaping that, right? You are doomed. And imagine the terror of being thrown in there and in the moments that it takes to drown.

The conscious realization of what is taking place and the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Now the only mitigating circumstance in that is that in that situation, after a few moments of that terror, you die and it’s over. And Jesus said that would be preferable to the judgment.

It would be preferable to the judgment because the drowning is temporary. I mean, the death is permanent, but the drowning, the experience is temporary, while the helplessness and the hopelessness of eternal judgment are going to be far more terrifying, but they don’t end. And he assigns this punishment to those who lead others astray.

Now, I don’t have time to get into every detail of this tonight. I don’t believe this is talking about losing salvation. But he is warning against false teachers.

He is warning against those who don’t know him and leading people astray. And by the way, some of these 12 disciples were not saved. Some of these disciples led others astray.

Some of these disciples led others to do things that they ought not to have done. The name Judas Iscariot comes to mind. And I believe elsewhere, Jesus says it would have been better for him if he had not been born.

Three times here, three times here, he mentions being cast into hellfire in verse 43, verse 45, and verse 47. And describing the punishment, he uses the picture of Gehenna. Now, depending on the translation you’re looking at, I read out of the New King James tonight, you may be saying, where do you keep talking about Gehenna?

The word hell, translated here in English, comes from the Greek word Gehenna. There are three different Greek words that are translated as hell. This is a particular one that refers to, as I said, that valley outside of Jerusalem.

It doesn’t mean that some people, when they die, they go to a place of punishment in a valley outside of Jerusalem. Jesus is using the valley outside of Jerusalem as a picture for them to understand what’s going to happen. And I think the reason there are three Greek words for hell is probably they all describe a different aspect of what that experience is going to be like for people who end up there.

But he uses this picture of Gehenna, and I’ve mentioned to you, I have not seen evidence, any actual archaeological evidence or historical evidence, that Gehenna was used as this garbage dump with these ongoing fires. You know, there are places in the world that have these ongoing fires. There’s a town called Centralia, Pennsylvania that has had to be evacuated because for 50 years there’s been an underground coal fire that they set accidentally at the garbage dump and they never know when parts of the city are going to cave in.

We have some folks from Pennsylvania right here and apparently I have told you the truth because they’re shaking their heads. All right, there’s a crater in Turkmenistan that they accidentally set on fire that’s filled with natural gas and the fire’s been burning for decades. Gehenna was not necessarily that situation.

I don’t believe that’s why, again, just based on the archaeological and historical references or lack thereof, I don’t think that’s why Jesus is using the picture of Gehenna. So there must be something else, and like with being born again, we go back to the Old Testament as their frame of reference, something that they would understand. Gehenna in the Old Testament was a place of incredible wickedness.

It was a place of Baal worship. It was a place where people would go and worship the false god Baal. It’s a place where people would go make sacrifices. It was even a place where people would go and sacrifice their own children.

Jeremiah talks in a couple of places about the Baal worship that took place in Gehenna. Second Chronicles and Jeremiah both talk about slaughter. They talk about infanticide under King Ahaz, where people would go and they would force their children to pass through the fire.

I’m not saying there was never fire at Gehenna, just saying it wasn’t necessarily a garbage dump. That people would go and make their children pass through the fire, meaning they were offering their children as burnt sacrifices to these false gods, and it would take place in the valley of Gehenna. And in the Old Testament, it was a place where the judgment of God was meted out on Israel.

When the Babylonians came to lay siege to the city of Jerusalem, and eventually some of the people of Jerusalem tried to escape the siege, they ran out and they were captured and slaughtered in the valley of Gehenna. They thought there was an escape. God had sent the Babylonians to overrun Jerusalem because of the idolatry of the people as a punishment, as a way to get their attention and draw them back to them as a time of judgment.

And some people died in that judgment. Some people, their lives were just turned upside down in that judgment. But it was a time of judgment.

And some people tried to escape the siege, got out of the city, got to the valley of Gehenna. And according to the book of Jeremiah, they thought they were going to escape, but they were slaughtered there by the Babylonians. And so it was a place where the judgment was certain, even when people thought that they were going to escape it.

And so for Jesus to call it Gehenna, he is describing hell. He is describing the eternal state of those who are outside of the kingdom. But he’s using this picture they would have understood from Jeremiah’s writings and from 2 Chronicles.

A place they would have understood where the wickedness is so perverse, Where the wickedness is concentrated, where some of the things that just nauseate God go on, and then God’s judgment is spilled out, and God’s judgment is inescapable. And his disciples would have been familiar with those Old Testament stories of the things that happened at Gehenna. And so Gehenna becomes a picture of judgment.

And, you know, as vivid as the burning garbage dump picture is the reminder of, hey, you remember the judgment of God falling on this country generations ago, and you remember how the stories have been passed down and how terrifying that was? Yeah, there’s an even greater judgment coming. And so Jesus refers to Gehenna.

I think it’s these Old Testament references to the certainty of judgment, the inescapability of judgment. And temporary place, and he doesn’t describe it as a party. Sometimes that’s the idea that people have.

Well, it’ll only last a little while. No, Jesus says it’s eternal fire. He talks about the worm that doesn’t die.

Some people have the idea that it’s a party. There’s nothing in Jesus’ description that makes it sound like a party atmosphere. He said, where the worm does not die.

This is a quote taken from Isaiah, where he repeatedly says, the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is a quote from Isaiah 66, 24. And it’s talking about God’s judgment at the end of those who stand against His will.

When He’s talking to the nation of Israel. And the worm is a picture of decay. It devours things.

We know that if bodies are not embalmed, whether that’s human or any other kind, the worms cause decomposition. And so it’s a picture of decay. It’s a picture of something being devoured.

And he says the fire is not quenched, and we don’t have to search very hard to understand the significance of the fire. But all of this is a picture of punishment. It’s taken from the Old Testament.

It’s a picture of judgment for them to understand that there was nothing pleasant, there was nothing enjoyable about it. There was no chance where they were going to say, oh, well, it’s not so bad after all. You know, even most of our worst experiences, we can at least say, well, it can’t last forever, right?

Have you ever been on a job interview that wasn’t going so well, and you just couldn’t wait for the agony to be over, but you knew at some point I get to walk out of this office? Or maybe you’ve been on a date that was that way, and you just couldn’t wait to get it. This is miserable, but at least I know it’s going to be over at some point.

Or family reunion, I don’t know. We’ve all had some kind of experience that’s been like that, and we can at least say, well, it’ll be over soon. Jesus is making the case that for them, to them, that judgment is not that way.

There is an eternal separation from God. And somebody can reject the concept of eternal conscious separation from God in hell. They can reject the idea of eternal conscious suffering in hell.

But you can’t deny that Jesus taught it. Like I said early on, you can disagree with Jesus if you want to, but you can’t deny that he taught this. He says it right here.

So he makes the case that outside the kingdom there’s this eternal suffering. But he doesn’t do this just as a scare tactic. He doesn’t do this just to threaten them.

He does this to help them realize that the things they’re holding on to are not all that important in the long run. Because there’s nothing we can hold on to that is worth leading ourselves or others away from the kingdom. That’s what they were trying to do.

They were trying to hold on to this power, this prestige, and so they’re sending children away. They’re telling people to stop casting out demons and helping others, and they’re telling them to stop doing those things. And Jesus says, no, you don’t know the impact that you are having on people coming into the kingdom or not coming into the kingdom, and you’re doing it for such foolish reasons, to hold on to a little bit of power, to hold on to a little bit of prestige.

There’s nothing worth holding on to if the cost is keeping somebody out of the kingdom. He’s warning them of the dangers. Verse 42, he tells them the part about the millstone.

Anybody that causes somebody else to stumble, it would be better if a millstone was hung around their neck and they were cast into the sea. Verse 43, he says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. He says it’s better to enter the kingdom without these things than to not enter the kingdom at all. Now, Jesus is not literally commanding them to maim themselves.

For starters, it wouldn’t seem to be consistent with Old Testament law to say, yeah, just go maim yourself. I think Jesus is making a point. By the way, I want to be clear about something.

Sometimes we will use the word literal when we talk about interpreting the Bible. Well, do you interpret it literally? And we’ll say, yeah, I interpret the Bible literally.

And we use that as code word for, you know, I’m conservative in my Bible interpretation. I’m not trying to make it out to say whatever I want it to say. I don’t think literal is what we mean.

And I don’t think any of us in here interpret the Bible entirely literally. Jesus talks about gathering Jerusalem under his wings like a mother hen. We know Jesus didn’t have feathers.

Okay, he’s making a point. It’s not being literal in our interpretation that makes it right. It’s trying to find the original meaning that is the task.

Because sometimes what it says literally is not what it means. Jesus was not claiming to have feathers. So what we want to do is, as best we can, study the context of the passage around a verse.

We want to study who was speaking, who was writing, who they were writing to. What the Greek words mean, what the phrases mean, as best we can uncover those things, the history of what’s going on. and we want to try to step into the shoes of the people who were writing and the people who were reading and say, what did this mean to them?

Not what does it mean to me today. And when you’re trying to interpret the Bible, don’t ask, well, what does this mean to you? I don’t care what it means to me.

I am 2,000 years in an ocean separated from the people who wrote this. What it means to me in my 21st century Western mind is not necessarily what it meant. We need to understand what it meant to them.

So when I say don’t take this literally, please don’t think I’m a wild-eyed liberal trying to make it say whatever I want it to say. I’m saying we have to step back into the shoes as best we can into the perspective of the people who we need to, what did Jesus intend them to understand and what did they understand from it? And in context of everything else he’s saying, because none of these guys, Peter denied Jesus three times.

Did he cut his tongue out or did he go on to preach some of the greatest messages in the history of the church. It was the preaching the messages part. So he’s not telling them to literally maim themselves, but he’s making the point, you do whatever it takes.

You get rid of whatever you need to get rid of that you’re holding on to that you think is more important than you or anybody else making it to the kingdom. If you are willing to sacrifice other people’s coming into the kingdom just so you can hold on to power, then you need to get rid of that power. If your prestige is more important to you than people coming into the kingdom, you need to get rid of that.

Don’t just keep a little bit of it in a box so you can take it out and enjoy it. No, you get rid of all of it. If there’s something that is keeping you from your walk with Christ, if there’s something that you’re holding on to that is keeping other people from your walk with Christ, I don’t care how important it is, you get rid of it.

Say, well, it’s my job. If your job is more important than people coming to Christ, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario, but I need that job to live. God will provide another one, but if that job is more important to you than other people coming into the kingdom, get rid of that job.

Well, it’s going to be different for every person, but we all have that thing that if left to ourselves becomes so important that we can allow it to crowd everything else out, and we can say, God, we might not say it in these words, but this is really how it is if we’re honest. God, I know you said to do this, but I’d rather hang on to this. We went on a mission trip to a foreign country years ago, and not everybody has a Western concept of time. Keep in mind, all of this is just a joke, and I knew he was joking.

But a friend of mine was very bothered that nothing happened on time when it was scheduled to happen. And he was getting frustrated as we’d try to go to these villages and minister to people and nobody’d be where they were supposed to be. And finally somebody asked him, are you not concerned at all that these people are dying and going to hell?

And he said, again, this is just a joke. He said, I don’t care if they go to hell as long as they get there on time. I know none of us think that for real. We’ve probably been frustrated enough at times that we’ve had those thoughts.

And I know he was just kidding. I know he was not serious at all. But if he were, that would be a good example of that, of what I’m talking about, of holding on to this.

And after that conversation, his whole demeanor changed. He kind of went with the flow and we ministered to people. But that would be an example of something you’re holding on to and putting over the kingdom.

We would not say it in those terms. That God, I don’t care if people go to hell. I want this. But that’s the way we are sometimes, aren’t we?

And Jesus is telling them that there’s nothing you can hold on to that’s more important than you and others getting into the kingdom. So if it’s your hand that’s holding you back, if it’s your foot that’s holding you back, if it’s your eye that’s holding you back, get rid of it. If you’re not a believer in Jesus Christ and there’s something that’s holding you You say, I know that what you’re saying is true.

I know that Jesus died for my sins, but I’m just not ready to trust him as my savior because I know I’ll have to give up X, Y, and Z. I can guarantee you X, Y, and Z are not worth you ending up outside the kingdom. If you are a believer and God’s calling you to do something that you know is going to minister to people and bring people into the kingdom, and you’re saying, I can’t because I have this over here.

I can guarantee you that this over here is not worth keeping people out of the kingdom. And I don’t even have to know