23 LESSON 23 The Reality of Hell Save some, O Christians! By all means, save some. From yonder flames and outer darkness, and the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, seek to save some! Let this, as in the case of the apostle, be your great, ruling object in life, that by all means you might save some. CHARLES SPURGEON Kirk s Comment Hell is an unthinkable place for my loved ones or for anyone else. I can t make it go away, so I will do everything I can to point sinners to the Savior, who alone can save them from going there. Q UESTIONS & OBJECTIONS Could you be wrong in your claims about Judgment Day and hell? The existence of hell and the surety of the judgment are not the claims of fallible man. The Bible is the source of the claim, and it is utterly infallible. When someone becomes a Christian, he is admitting that he was in the wrong, and that God is justified in His declarations that we have sinned against Him. However, let s surmise for a moment that there is no Judgment Day and no hell. That would mean that the Bible is a huge hoax, in which more than forty authors collaborated (over a period of 1,500 years) to produce a document revealing God s character as just. They portrayed Him as a righteous judge, who warned that He would eventually 154
LESSON 23 THE REALITY OF HELL punish murderers, rapists, liars, thieves, adulterers, etc. Each of those writers (who professed to be godly) therefore bore false witness, transgressing the very Commandments they claimed were true. It would mean that Jesus Christ was a liar, and that all the claims He made about the reality of judgment were therefore false. It would also mean that He gave His life in vain, as did multitudes of martyrs who have given their lives for the cause of Christ. In addition, if there is no ultimate justice, then the Creator of all things is unjust He sees murder and rape and couldn t care less, making Him worse than a corrupt human judge who refuses to bring criminals to justice. Here s the good news, though, if there is no hell: You won t know a thing after you die. It will be the end. No heaven, no hell. Just nothing. You won t even realize that it s good news. Here s the bad news if the Bible is right and there is eternal justice: You will find yourself standing before the judgment throne of a holy God. Think of it. A holy and perfect Creator has seen your thought-life and every secret sin you have ever committed. You have a multitude of sins, and God must by nature carry out justice. Ask Him to remind you of the sins of your youth. Ask Him to bring to remembrance your secret sexual sins, the lies, the gossip, and other idle words. You may have forgotten your past sins, but God hasn t. Hell will be your just dessert (exactly what you deserve), and you will have no one to blame but yourself. This is the claim of the Bible. If you don t believe it, it is still true. It will still happen. Yet, there is good news incredibly good news. We deserve judgment, but God offers us mercy through the cross. He paid our fine so that we could leave the courtroom. He destroyed the power of the grave for all who obey Him. Simply obey the gospel, and live. By doing that you will find out for yourself that the gospel is indeed the gospel truth. Jesus said that if you obey Him, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (see John 8:31,32). Get on your knees today, confess and forsake (turn from) your sins. Tell God you are truly sorry, then trust the Savior as you would trust yourself to a parachute. Then you will find yourself in a terrible dilemma. You will know for certain that hell is a reality. When you get up the courage to warn people you care about, they will smile 155
SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL EVANGELISM passively and say, Could you be wrong in your claims about Judgment Day and the existence of hell? w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m w o t m 156 S ome who are enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season will brush off thoughts of God s eternal justice by joking, I don t mind going to hell. All my friends will be there. Obviously, those who flippantly say such things don t believe in the biblical concept of hell. They are like a slow-witted criminal who thinks that the electric chair is a place to put up his feet for a while and relax. Their understanding of the nature of God is erroneous, so it may be wise to speak for a few moments about the reasonableness of hell. Explain that the Bible tells us that God will punish murderers and rapists, and the place of punishment the prison God will send them to is a place called hell. However, God is so good, He will also punish thieves, liars, adulterers, fornicators, and blasphemers. He will even punish those who desired to murder and rape but never took the opportunity. He warns that if we hate someone, we commit murder in our hearts. If we lust, we commit adultery in the heart, etc. All are sins that will send us to hell. C. S. Lewis summed up all the terrors of hell when he said, There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord s own words; it has always been held by the Christian Church, and it has the support of reason. Take the time to tell people of the reality of hell and its biblical description. Some sinners like to picture hell as a fun, hedonistic, pleasurefilled place where they can engage in all the sensual sins that are forbidden here. Others accept that hell is a place of punishment, but believe that the punishment is to be annihilated to cease conscious existence. Because they can t conceive that a loving God would punish people in eternal torment, they believe hell is just a metaphor for the grave. If they are correct, then a man like Adolph Hitler, who was responsible for the death of millions, is being punished merely with eternal sleep. His fate is simply to return to the non-existent state he was in before he was born, where he doesn t even know that he is being punished.
LESSON 23 THE REALITY OF HELL While it is true that God is love (1 John 4:8), He is also just (Nehemiah 9:32,33; 2 Thessalonians 1:6) and eternal (Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17). God will therefore punish the evil doer (Isaiah 13:11) and this punishment will be eternal. It will also be conscious. Scripture tells us of the rich man who found himself in hell (Luke 16:19 31). He was conscious and was able to feel pain, to thirst, and to experience remorse. He wasn t asleep in the grave; he was in a place of torment. We tend to forget what pain is like when we don t have it. Can you imagine how terrible it would be to be in agony, with no hope of relief? Many human beings go insane if they are merely isolated for a long time from other people. Imagine how terrible it would be if God simply withdrew all the things we hold so dear friendship, love, color, light, peace, joy, laughter. Hell isn t just a place with an absence of God s blessings; it is punishment for sin. It is literal torment, forever. That s why the Bible warns that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The fate of the unsaved is described with such fearful words as the following: Shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2) Everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46) Weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 24:51) Fire unquenchable (Luke 3:17) Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish (Romans 2:8,9) Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 1:9) Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever (Jude 7,13) Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner: He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night. Scripture is quite clear: hell is a real place. It is not mere unconsciousness. It is not temporal. It is eternal torment. If hell is a place of knowing nothing or a reference to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus statements about hell make no sense. He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to go into hell, 157
SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL EVANGELISM into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43 48). Jesus spoke more of hell than of heaven and spent much time warning people not to go there. After all, if people just stopped existing, why warn them? If hell were temporal, they d get out in a while. But because it is eternal and conscious, we must do everything we can to warn them. However, a sinner won t see that hell is his eternal destiny unless he is convinced by the Law that he has sinned against God. He may consider hell a fit place for others, but not for himself. That s why we must not hesitate to open up the Law and show that each individual is personally responsible for his sin, and that God s wrath abides on him because of it. Q UESTIONS 1. What would be the implications if hell were not real? 2. What are some of the ways that people picture hell? 3. What are some of the ways that the Bible describes hell? 4. Why does the concept of annihilation go against our desire for justice? 158
LESSON 23 THE REALITY OF HELL 5. What will help convince sinners of the reality of hell? W ORDS OF C OMFORT You can probably understand how careful I am when it comes to touching something like Super Glue. One drop can immediately stick the fingers together, so with great care I tried to tear open a plastic packet that contained a tube of Super Glue. I stopped at the thought, I m not stupid. I m not going to tear it open and accidentally pull the top off. So with the skill of a brain surgeon, I cut the cardboard backing off the packet with a sharp knife, and carefully took out the tube of glue. Then I cautiously removed the cap and gently squeezed the tube, keeping my flesh back from the nozzle, knowing that just one drop on my fingers could mean surgery to separate them. Successful operation. I had the top off and there wasn t a drop on my fingers. There was, however, a strange feeling in my left hand. The sharp knife I had used to cut into the packet had penetrated the soft steel of the tube, and the palm of my hand was filled with Super Glue! F EATHERS FOR A RROWS When surfing first began, surfboards were much longer. Surfers would kneel on their boards and paddle in that position, rather than lying down. In large surfs this had a great advantage, enabling the surfer to stand on his board to see if any large sets of waves were on the horizon. One would often hear a surfer call out, Big set coming! Other surfers would quickly begin paddling toward the horizon, because they didn t want to get caught inside, and have gigantic waves break on them. If a surfer found himself caught within the breaking area, he had a choice. He could either hold onto his board and allow tons of water to 159
SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL EVANGELISM Memory Verse If your eye offends you, pluck it out: it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. MARK 9:47,48 break upon him, or he could get off his board, thrust it away from his body, and dive deep into the water to escape the crushing power of the waves. If he choose to stay with his board, he took his life into his hands. If the board was ripped from his hands and hit his head, he could drown so it was wise to push it as far away as possible. For thousands of years the prophets have called, Big set coming! The coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord is closer than when we first believed. All human beings have a choice. They can either cling to their sins, or thrust them far from them and dive deep into the mercy of God, which is available only in Jesus Christ. Those who choose to hold onto their sins will find that what they love will turn against them, become evidence of their guilt, and be the death of them. Last Words Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 1899), famous American lawyer and prominent agnostic, lectured on biblical inaccuracies and contradictions. His famed lecture The Mistakes of Moses led one defender of the Bible to say that he would like to hear Moses speak for five minutes on The Mistakes of Ingersoll. Standing by his graveside, his brother exclaimed: Life is a narrow vale between the narrow peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only echo is the echo of our wailings. 160