Now in Luke chapter 16, turn if you would to Revelation 21. We'll come back to Luke 16, but in Luke 16 we saw the very famous story that Jesus tells where He describes the rich man and Lazarus and their eternal destiny.
One is spending eternity with Jesus Christ and with His spiritual progenitor Abraham. The other is tormented in hell in a fire and brimstone and torture forever.
But look if you would at Revelation 21, and I'm going to preach to you tonight on a subject that I really don't preach very often on this subject.
Because it's a very unpleasant subject, and believe it or not, it's a subject that I don't really like to think about very much.
Now I preach a lot of very hard sermons, and I would be described by most as a hellfire and damnation preacher.
Because I preach hard on sin, I beat the pulpit, I shout against what's wrong, but when it comes to hell, it's a horrible thought, it's a horrible subject.
It's something that I don't like to often think about, but it's my duty as a preacher, I believe, to preach to you tonight on this subject, the horrors of hell.
Now I think in the whole time I pastored, since I started this church a little less than two and a half years ago, I believe I've only preached one entire sermon dedicated to this subject of hell.
But tonight I'm going to do that, and I want to start tonight by way of introduction by talking about who is it that's going to go to hell?
Who will be spending their eternity in hell? We'll look down at Revelation 21, verse 8.
The Bible reads, "...but the fearful and unbelieving..." Of course the unbeliever will spend eternity in hell.
It says, "...and the abominable, and murderers, and foremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars..."
Well that covers everybody. "...and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
Now go down to verse 21 if you would. We're going to see a description of heaven here.
The Bible reads in verse 21, "...and the twelve gates were twelve pearls, every several gate was of one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb of the temple of it..." Talking about heaven of course.
"...and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it."
Watch this now. "...and there shall in no wise..." What's that mean? Say no way.
"...there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth.
Neither whatsoever worketh abomination..." Watch this. "...or maketh a lie." How many lies? A lie.
I've heard people say, when I showed them that verse that said all liars are going to hell, they said, well that's talking about a habitual liar.
That's talking about somebody who lies all the time. I've been telling you, there are people who are saved who lie all the time.
I've known them. I can tell you about them. But he says here, no, even a person who maketh a lie is not allowed to go into heaven.
He says, "...but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life..."
They who are saved will be granted entrance to the pearly gates of that glorious city, the New Jerusalem, which descended from God out of heaven.
Right now it's in heaven. Right now if you go to heaven you see the pearly gates and the golden streets.
One day that scene is going to descend upon a new earth and the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it.
You see, in order to go to heaven, you've got to be saved. You say, how can I be saved?
Hey, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
You see, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved from the awful punishment of hell.
You'll be forgiven of every lie that you have told, every sin you've ever committed, any murder that you've committed, any abomination you've committed.
The moment that you believe on Jesus Christ, your sins are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.
Hey, past, present, and future. Gone, gone, gone. Yes, my sins are gone.
You say, are you ever going to tell a lie when you get to heaven? Absolutely not.
The only reason I tell lies now is because I'm in the flesh.
I mean, my spirit is a brand new creature. Old things are passed away beyond all things that become new.
That's why if I walk in the spirit, I'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
That's why if I put on the new man, I'll do what's right and godly.
But right now, oh wretched man, that I am living in this sinful flesh that causes me to sin on a daily basis.
One day, the moment that I breathe my last breath, the sinful flesh will be gone forever.
My soul and spirit will be transported to heaven in a sinless condition.
And then one glorious day, my body is going to be resurrected from the dead, changed in a moment of twinkling of an eye, and I'll live forever in heaven without sin.
Sinless and perfect.
Now none of us can be there now because we have the flesh, but one day that will be the case.
So who's not going to heaven? Those who are not saved are the ones who are going to go to hell.
They'll be excluded from heaven.
What do you have to do to be saved? The Bible says you have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 3.15, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God said not that the son of the world had condemned the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
You know what I love about the word saved? It has a D on the end. It's done. It's past tense.
And so he said, he that believeth on him is not condemned.
But he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.
Somebody said this, they said, well, maybe you could lose your salvation if you stop believing.
Well, you can't lose your salvation if God's a liar because he said, I give unto them eternal life.
No man shall pluck them out of my hand. They shall never perish.
Personally, I believe that when you're saved, the Bible says the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
But let's say, theoretically, a person did stop believing.
Well, Paul said to Timothy, he said, if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself.
He cannot alter the thing that is uttered out of his lips. It said in Psalm 89,
once have I sworn I will not repent. Thy seed shall endure forever, he said of Jesus Christ in Psalm 89.
But what about this? I just quoted for you John 3.18 where he said why?
He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed. That's past tense.
He never believed on Jesus Christ. He hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.
Because if Jesus Christ said, depart from me, I never knew you, once you've believed on Jesus Christ, you're saved.
If you go to hell, it's because he never knew you. It's because you have not believed on the name of the only begotten son of God.
But let's go into a little more, the finer points of who is going to be excluded.
Look at Romans chapter 11. While you're turning to Romans chapter 11, and this is the introduction to the sermon on the fours of hell,
we better establish who it is because it's going to be in hell.
Let me quote for you Ephesians 2.8 and 9 while you're turning to Romans 11.6.
For by grace are you saved through faith. Faith and believe are the same word.
And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast.
It's not of works, it's by grace through faith. Look down at your Bible at Romans 11.6.
We're going to look at something, and this is horrific my friend, to realize that this group is going to hell.
But I'm going to show you right now that they're going to hell. Look at Romans 11.6.
The Bible says, and if by grace then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work.
What's he saying? You cannot mix faith and works. You can't do it.
He says as soon as you start trusting works, it's no longer grace.
Now let me just prove that to you right now. I shouldn't have to because that's what the Bible said.
But I'll prove it to you anyway. If I said to you, I'm going to give you a free gift.
Brother Bosco, I'm going to give you a free gift tonight.
It's totally of grace. It's nothing that you've earned. It's just a free gift.
Now, how much money would he have to give me where it would cease to be a free gift?
One cent, right? I mean, if he put anything forward of his own, that's not free.
That's not grace. You understand what I'm saying?
So God says if it's of works, if he has to lift one finger from me in order to get that gift,
it's no longer faith and grace, it's works.
And by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
So number one, we saw the unbeliever will go to hell.
Number two, the person who is trusting faith plus works is on their way to hell tonight.
I'm going to prove it to you again during Galatians chapter 5.
The person who is trusting faith plus works will split hell wide open.
Picture this. There's an airplane in an airport.
The airplane is Jesus. This is an illustration. It's a parable that I'm telling you.
The airplane is Jesus. The destination is heaven.
You get on that plane, it's headed for heaven.
What happens if you put one leg on the plane and one leg on the tarmac?
What happens when that plane takes off?
You're not going anywhere. You're going to split your britches.
You're going to land flat on your face on that tarmac.
You're not going anywhere unless you get all the way on board.
And it's just like when Noah got on the ark. God shut him in.
God shut the door behind him.
You've got to get on board, shut the door, you're in, you can't get out, you're on your way to heaven.
That's what salvation is.
Look at verse 1 of Galatians 5.
We'll see this proven further that if a person is trusting faith plus works,
faith plus baptism, faith plus church attendance, faith plus I gave up my sins,
faith plus live a good life, they're on their way to hell.
Look at Galatians 5.1.
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,
and be not entailed again with the oak of bondage.
Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Does that sound like you're going to heaven if Christ profits you nothing?
No.
Watch this.
For I testify again.
Look at how he's reiterating this.
I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever, if you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace.
Here we have people teaching the Church of Galatia that you have to be circumcised handily.
He said, you're going to hell.
Christ is going to profit you nothing.
You're not saved.
If you want to add one thing, he said, you've got to keep the whole law.
You better be perfect.
You better keep every part of the law.
If you want to go to heaven by the law, okay, keep every word of it.
It's impossible for all of sin to come short of the glory of God.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
So we see here that another category that's going to hell is those who believe in faith plus works.
Matthew chapter seven.
Matthew chapter number seven.
And this is by way of introduction to the sermon on the horrors of hell, but we've got to talk about who's going to hell.
Number one, everyone who's an unbeliever.
Number two, those who are trusting faith plus works.
Jesus plus baptism.
Jesus plus living a good life.
That's your Roman Catholics.
Jesus plus the sacraments plus living a good life.
That's your Methodists.
You've got to live a good life.
You've got to endure to the end or you're going to lose your salvation.
There's your Charismatics.
There's your Nazarene.
There's your Assemblies of God.
There's all these denominations that teach that if you get out of church and quit on God, he's going to take it away from you.
As if church attendance is a prerequisite.
As if living a good life is a prerequisite.
As if the works of the law are part of your salvation.
Matthew 7 21, the Bible reads,
Not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my Father would say,
Wait a minute, doesn't the Bible say that for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved?
Well, keep reading.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
You've got to call on Jesus Christ by faith.
Believe is what saves you.
And so he says here,
Not everyone who sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my Father would say,
You have to go God's way.
The way that the Father has ordained.
Many will say to me in that day,
Who's going to hell?
The few or the many?
The many.
Broad is the way that leads them to destruction,
and many there be which go in their act,
because straight is the gate,
and narrow is the way which leads them to life,
and few there be to find it.
And so he says,
Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
He's saying,
We preach in the name of Jesus Christ,
and in thy name of cast out devils,
and in thy name done many,
wonderful,
and the word that's going to resonate in their mind throughout all eternity works.
And will I profess unto them,
I never knew you.
There's proof enough that you can't lose your salvation.
He said, I never knew you.
Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
I'll read you two more verses.
You don't have to turn there.
Matthew 25, 41,
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.
Verse 46,
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous into life eternal.
So number one,
now we're into the sermon.
Number one,
what is the horror of hell?
You know what the biggest horror of hell is?
The duration.
How long it lasts.
That's the most horrible part about it.
I mean, if you ask me,
what is the most horrible,
fearful part about hell,
hands down,
at a moment,
I will say to you,
the length of time that you're in hell,
the fact that it goes on forever,
that's what's so horrible about it.
I mean, that's the worst part about it.
He said,
that they will depart from me into everlasting fire.
The Jehovah's Witnesses say,
they'll be burned up.
They'll be annihilated.
I show them this verse and they say,
well, but it also says they'll be burned up.
Well, I guess the Bible contradicts itself then,
if it says two opposite things,
but it doesn't say that.
It says that nowhere.
You see,
the Bible's cleared that they shall go away
into everlasting punishment.
That's not about being punished for all eternity.
I mean, a hundred years from now punished,
a thousand,
punishment that never ends,
is what everlasting punishment means.
Number one,
the length of eternity.
Let's use our imaginations for a moment
as we get into the sermon tonight.
Let's think about a person,
think about a man,
who's living his life,
and he's an unbeliever,
he's unsaved,
he's heard the gospel.
Maybe he hasn't heard it as clearly as he ought to have heard it,
but he's heard the name of Jesus,
like everybody in this world has.
I don't care what anybody says,
that's the truth.
Somewhere along the way,
they hear something somewhere.
Even somebody says,
what about people in Africa?
You know, in Africa,
I believe the population is under 400 million.
It's under 400 million.
Not even a billion people reside on the continent of Africa.
Forgive me if I'm wrong,
but I know it's far less than a billion people.
And yet,
how many tens of thousands of missionaries
are in Africa right now?
I mean,
there have been missionaries to Africa for centuries.
There are missionaries all over the world.
The Muslim knows who Jesus Christ is.
All over the world,
their sound went into all the earth,
and their words went into the world.
God asks,
have they not heard?
Yes, barely.
They've heard.
They've heard the truth.
But let's picture,
if you will,
a man,
and he's on his deathbed.
He's dying.
He's lived his life.
He's an old man,
and he's in the hospital perhaps.
And the little monitor is measuring his heartbeat.
It's slowly declining.
He closes his eyes and slips off into death.
What happens to him?
What's going to happen?
He's an unbeliever.
He's unsaved.
Well, the Bible said in Luke 16,
and you can turn there if you like,
but in Luke 16,
the Bible says,
and in hell,
he lived up his eyes.
That's how fast that man's going to be in hell.
See,
was he going to stand before judgment before God?
No.
He's condemned already.
Does he not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God?
That man breathes his last breath,
and in a moment,
from the time it takes him to close his eyes for the last time,
when he opens them, he's in hell.
What does he experience?
What is he feeling?
Well, immediately,
he feels pain
envelop his entire body.
Have you ever burned yourself before?
Have you ever stuck your finger on something that was very hot or burnt?
I remember one time I laid my hand on a metal pan
that had just come out of an oven,
and I seared the whole palm of my hand,
and it peeled and blistered.
It was extremely painful.
And even after I took my hand away and ran it into cold water,
I could still feel that burning sensation.
Another time, as a child,
I spilled hot glue on myself,
and I couldn't get the glue off.
It was an extreme pain,
and it went on for hours after I'd gotten rid of the glue,
hours after I'd run into cold water.
He's going to feel,
the first thing that's going to get his attention
is just a field of burning all over his body,
every square inch of his body inflamed in literal fire.
The Bible says,
And in hell,
look down at Luke 16 in front of you there,
And in hell he lift up his eyes,
being in torments,
seeing as Abraham afar off.
And then Lazarus in his bosom,
and he cried and said,
Father Abraham,
have mercy on me,
and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water
and cool my tongue.
Watch this,
for I am tormented in this flame.
He said,
I'm being tortured by flames.
And so,
the rich man here,
his body didn't go to hell at this point.
His body was laying there for everybody to see,
just like the man in our hypothetical story.
He's laying in the hospital bed,
he breathes his last breath,
the monitor goes,
beep,
and there he is,
his body's laying there,
just a lifeless shell of what was once the man
that lived and breathed and talked and spoke.
Now it's just a lifeless cadaver.
But his soul,
his soul is in hell.
He can feel every part of the flame.
And you say,
well, he doesn't have a body.
Well, but you know,
in a little bit of doctrine here,
in the book of Revelation,
the souls of them that had been martyred for Jesus
before the rapture,
he talks about them receiving white raiment and wearing it.
You know, they were able to wear clothing.
So we don't understand the soul,
but it's a body of sorts,
it's just not made of flesh and blood.
But it's still in the shape of a person,
and he's still going to have hands,
and he's still going to have a tongue,
because he said,
put water on my tongue.
Do you see what I'm saying?
So it's a spiritual soul,
but it's like a body.
It has the same parts of the body,
just not flesh and bone.
It's just not a physical flesh and bone body.
But the man's body is left here,
but his soul is burning in hell.
The first thing he's going to feel
is that burning sensation all over his body.
But then there's going to be an extreme fear of falling,
because the Bible describes hell as a bottomless pit.
Of course we know from Ezekiel 30 and 31 and elsewhere in the Bible
that the Bible says that hell is in the nether parts of the earth,
in the lower parts of the earth.
Hell beneath is what the Bible calls it.
And so in the center of the earth there's no gravity.
And it's a sensation not of weightlessness,
but of continual falling is what it feels like.
Because he says it's the bottomless pit in Revelation 20.
And so he's falling,
and you can imagine somebody just free falling.
And they're trying to grab hold of something,
and they don't know if they're going to hit the ground.
They don't know what's happening.
They feel like they're going to fall
and hurt themselves or hit themselves.
They're burning in flames.
They're trying to grasp something,
and it's just a continual falling.
I can't even imagine what that would be like
to just be falling forever,
but engulfed in flames, falling,
total darkness trying to see.
The light's not enough for them to see anything.
Say, I want to go to hell where all my friends are.
Nobody has any friends in hell.
This man said,
I don't want my brothers to go to hell to be with me
because I love them too much.
You won't have any friends in hell.
TV and movies try to make hell out
to be a place where sin dominates and sin reigns.
It's a lie.
You know, from the Mary Melodies cartoons
that you show your children,
and that's why I'm against all the world's TV
and all the world's garbage and movies,
because they all have an agenda.
From Looney Tunes and Mary Melodies
where Porky Pig is the devil,
and he's dancing around in hell like he owns the place,
laughing.
The devil's not even in hell, my friend,
and one day when he goes to hell,
he's not going to be laughing.
He's going to be tormented.
He's going to be punished.
He's not rolling around.
You see tables set up in hell,
and there's a couple of coals smoldering here and there
in the underworld.
Porky Pig's got a pitchfork.
Everybody's sitting around at tables playing cards,
drinking, smoking.
You know, we've all seen the images.
They're drinking.
They're cursing.
They're just committing all the sin,
and everybody's just kind of committing sin.
No, because you have to understand,
the person who's running the show in hell
is not the devil, but God.
That's who's in charge.
The Bible says in Revelation 14, 11,
they shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels
and in the presence of the Lamb.
You say, well, I believe hell is to be separated from God.
It's a lie.
I believe hell is eternal separation from God.
It's a lie.
Hell is a place where people are tormented
in the presence of Jesus Christ.
It's in the Bible.
He said they'll be tormented in the presence of the holy angels,
in the presence of the Lamb.
And so the devil's not running the show in hell.
Jesus Christ is running the show in hell.
He's the one who created hell.
It's fulfilling His will and His purpose,
not that of the devil.
And so there's falling.
The man who just entered hell,
let's say he just entered 10 seconds ago,
the man that we're talking about.
He's falling.
He's burning.
He's in darkness.
He's scared to death.
And he's waiting for it to end.
I mean, wouldn't you?
I mean, if you got into some kind of an accident,
you say, the only hope I have
is that this is eventually going to end.
That's what Jesus said when He was in hell.
In Psalm 16 10, He said,
He said,
My soul shall rest in hope,
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one of corruption.
Acts 2 31,
This spake he of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul was not left in hell,
neither did his flesh seek corruption.
But you see, Jesus' only hope is that
He was going to one day get out of hell
and reign forevermore
and be lifted up at the right hand of the Father,
of course, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.
He said, I have the power to lay down my life
and I have the power to take it up again.
But the man who's in hell,
he must be thinking,
surely there's going to be an end to this.
I mean, surely there's going to be some reprieve.
Surely it's going to end.
I mean, I just got to hang on.
If I can just hang on for 10 more seconds
or maybe just five more,
I don't even know if I can endure five minutes of this.
But maybe if I can endure for five minutes,
it'll be over.
But it goes on and on and on and on and on.
Days go by.
I mean, one day in hell is unthinkable.
Three days and three nights in hell, unthinkable.
I mean, going to hell for five minutes,
it must seem like five years.
But he waits and waits and years and years go by.
In fact, hundreds of years go by.
And he's going to start to realize and say,
this is never going to end.
This is never going to be over.
This is going to go on forever.
I'm never going to get out.
I remember when I was a young child,
maybe about 10, 11, 12, somewhere around there,
I remember just sitting down
and just trying to understand hell.
You know what I mean?
Because I was just a kid
and I knew what the Bible said.
I got saved when I was six years old
and I had a clear understanding of hell at that time for sure,
a clear understanding of Jesus Christ and salvation,
eternal life and heaven and everything like that.
But I remember just sitting down as a 10, 11, 12-year-old boy,
sitting down on the couch in my house
and just trying to wrap my mind around hell.
And to this day, I can't fully comprehend it, of course,
but I sat there and just tried to understand it.
And this is what thought ended my mind.
I looked over at the closet and I thought to myself,
what if I were locked in that closet for 100 years?
Nothing to do, nothing to see.
The closet's dark.
I went in the closet and just shut the door just for a moment
and it was completely dark.
I couldn't really move around much
because it was a coat closet.
I couldn't really move around that much
and it was totally dark and there was nothing to do,
nothing to read, no one to talk to.
And I thought to myself,
I wouldn't want to be in here for two days.
It would be terrible.
I wouldn't want to be in here for two weeks.
Have you ever been really bored?
Remember when you were in school, you had detention?
The torture of detention is just sitting there doing nothing.
That's what it was.
You'd be detained for an hour, hour and a half.
It was like torture.
You just sat there and it just went on and on.
You're staring at the car.
But I thought to myself,
to be locked in this closet for two weeks straight, torture.
I mean, torture.
We're putting aside food and water
because this is obviously a spiritual place
where people don't need food and water.
He said, I just want water to cool off my tongue.
You didn't need to eat food to exist or drink water.
But imagine just being locked up like that in a place
where you couldn't move around much, couldn't see much,
couldn't do anything.
Just the boredom.
Just the agony of just being by yourself alone.
Darkness.
And I remember just thinking about two weeks, a month,
years, horrible thought.
I thought, what if you could never get out of that closet?
That'd be awful, wouldn't it?
Just locked in the closet forever
and you knew you'd never get out.
But then, that's not even fire.
See what I'm saying?
I mean, hell would be horrible without the fire.
Think about that.
And yet, there is fire.
And I remember that.
I thought about that when I was a young child.
I said, man, we got to get people saved.
Good night.
It's terrible.
And I remember thinking to myself,
it's horrible that anybody goes to hell.
But you know what would be really horrible?
If somebody went to hell and they could have been saved,
if somebody would have told me not to,
they would have gotten saved.
Oh, well, if somebody really wants a good save,
I was going to make sure of a nonsense.
Garbage.
It's a lie.
There are people in this city and elsewhere in the world
that if somebody would take the Bible
and really give them a clear presentation of the gospel
and really lay it out for them, point by point,
they'd be thrilled to receive the gospel and be saved.
They're out there.
And if you don't believe it,
come out and show them what it would be next week.
I'll take you to them.
It might take hours.
We might knock doors for hours of being slammed in our face
or people saying no, but we'll find that one.
And they're going to be cast from death to life
and they'll never have to see hell
because we were used by God to preach him the gospel.
It's the truth.
I remember as a child, as a teenager,
these thoughts would come into my mind.
Please, can we just give them a chance?
I mean, if somebody just rejects it and brazenly says no,
I mean, maybe I could swallow that a little bit more
than somebody who would have been saved
if they'd really had it clearly explained to them or persisted.
You know how many times I had to give the gospel to my wife
before she got saved?
In excess of 20 times.
And I'm not kidding.
I mean that.
I mean, it took a long time.
It took hours of persuasion.
It took Bible and verses and talking to her
and pleading, and it took prayer and weeping.
That's what it took.
Say, oh, well, if you hadn't have gone and saved,
somebody else would have.
You really think so?
A girl that grew up, born and raised in Germany, in Bavaria,
a girl who'd never even heard the word Baptist,
never even heard of a Baptist,
she thought there were two Christian religions,
Catholic and Evangelical,
meaning Protestant, meaning Lutheran,
which is pretty much over there.
It's the same exact thing as the Catholics.
She thought anything else was a cult.
A girl who'd never heard the gospel,
never even heard anybody put forth the idea
that the Bible's creation account was actually reality.
She'd never even heard of that.
And then she was, what, 20 years old when I met her.
You can get people saved if you try.
I mean, not everybody's going to get saved,
but you can pull them out of the fire,
hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.
And so here's this man, and he's burning in hell.
He's pretty much given up on the fact of ever getting out.
After about, well, for sure more than a thousand years
have gone by, over a thousand years,
because he'd gone through the whole rest of history
and through all the events in the book of Revelation,
the whole millennial reign of Christ for a thousand years.
He's been languishing in hell this whole time.
Well, then, suddenly, out of nowhere, out of the blue,
turned to Revelation 20.
He didn't see this coming.
I mean, he'd long ago given up.
Now, he's been in hell for over a thousand years,
but it even seemed like longer than that,
which, you know, we can't even fathom these numbers.
I mean, think about how long we've been alive.
None of us even knows what a thousand years is.
None of us can comprehend that,
let alone a thousand years in hell.
But suddenly, out of the blue, here he is.
He's burning in hell.
He's given up completely.
What's he doing in hell?
You know, the only thing there is to do?
Think.
That's all you can do in hell is just think.
Just remember.
And I believe he's probably just replaying his life
over and over in his mind,
just to pass this and do something,
starting from the time he's born,
all the way until he dies, just remembering his life,
just scene by scene, act by act,
living out, reliving his life in his mind.
And I bet something keeps coming up in his mind
every time he ever heard anything about Jesus,
every time he heard anything about hell,
any time he ever heard anything about the Gospel,
any time he'd ever sat in the church service,
any time he'd ever read a Bible verse,
any time he'd ever heard somebody quote a verse,
and, you know, the Bible has become
part of our society in many ways, our culture,
and you'll hear verses.
You'll hear people make statements that are from the Bible,
out and about.
People have heard the verse, Jesus wept,
or I heard somebody say one time,
he was like on a political-type talk show,
he said, let not your heart be troubled,
but he was talking about something completely different.
Of course, that's just quoting Jesus,
let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, you give up.
You know, people speak and they talk about,
oh well, render unto Caesar the things we've been seeing.
And he's probably thinking about every time he heard
the word of God, verses, about Jesus, the Bible, God.
Maybe somebody knocked on his door at some point
and he said, I'm sorry, I've got to watch the game.
The Phoenix Suns are on right now.
It's into overtime. I can't talk right now.
And he's saying to himself, oh God, why?
Why didn't I listen?
And he's replaying in his mind over and over again.
Suddenly he's plucked from hell.
Look down at Revelation 20, if you would.
The Bible says, and then verse number 12,
when I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,
and the books were opened, and another book was opened,
which is the book of life, and the dead were judged
out of those things which were written in the books
according to their works. Watch this.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it,
and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
Our friend has just been delivered from hell.
You see this?
All of a sudden, he's transported.
Hell ejects him into the presence of God
at the great white throne of judgment.
Will we be there? Yes, everybody will be there.
The heaven and earth are removed. There's found no place for them.
Every human being in the world is there
at the great white throne of judgment.
Now we are not going to be there to be judged
because the dead were judged.
Of course, we've already been resurrected and alive.
We've been alive for over a thousand years,
those of us who were living in 2008.
We've been alive for over a thousand years,
but the dead are brought out,
and we're there as spectators at this event.
Everybody's there, the angels, God's throne,
man, every creature, everything is there.
There's no other place that exists.
There's no universe. There's no sun.
There's no moon. There's no earth.
There's no heaven.
It's just the great white throne of judgment.
They've all fled away, no place for them.
Everybody is there at this moment.
And I'm sure that man is ejected from hell.
He's shocked.
He's standing on solid ground.
He's no longer in flames.
He's saying, oh, thank you, God,
for being merciful to me.
And in a last-ditch effort, he falls to his knees
and confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
As the Bible says in Philippians 2,
that in the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow,
of things in heaven and things in earth
and things under the earth.
And that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
And he falls to his knees and says,
Jesus Christ, you are the Lord!
You are the Savior of the world!
I mean, he can't even scream loud enough.
His voice is cracking and breaking
as he cries out to be heard
among the thousands and millions
and billions of other people who are screaming,
Jesus, you're the Lord! Save me!
You're the Lord! Save me!
But there's a deafening silence as the books are opened.
Every man is silenced.
It's silent and only one thing can be heard.
God the Judge,
God the Father sitting on his throne,
opening the books.
And another book's open, The Lamb's Book of Life.
And any name that's not in The Lamb's Book of Life,
he gets out the other books.
You say, what are the other books?
The Bible. There's 66 of them.
Because you say, well, how do you know?
Well, because the dead are being judged
out of those things which are written in the books
according to their works.
And you know what?
The Bible says, this is what Jesus said on this earth
in John 5, he said, this is what you'll be judged by, Moses.
This is what you'll be judged by,
Moses and whom he trusts, to the unbelieving Jews.
He said, you'll be judged by God's Word.
And so, I've heard people say that these books
are a list of everything that everybody's ever done in their life.
Of course, of everything that Jesus had ever done in his life,
the Bible says the world couldn't even contain the books.
And so, I believe the books that are open
is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
The books are open.
And he begins to expose to them their sin
and he runs through with them their life.
And every idle word that men shall speak, the Bible says,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Every time they said something wicked,
every time they said something ungodly,
every time they committed a sin against God,
it's going to be put forth as evidence against them.
Why do people go to hell?
Because they're sinners.
Because they've lied.
Because they've murdered.
Because they've stolen.
Because they've thought dirty thoughts.
Because they've committed adultery physically or in their heart.
And so, all those sins will be listed off.
Of course, our sins will never be mentioned to us.
The Bible says, gone, gone, gone.
The Bible says, as far as East is from the West,
so far it got separated us from our sins.
Hebrews 10, 17, there's sins and iniquities,
will I remember no more.
But the unbeliever, it's not so with him.
God runs through and exposes to him his sins.
And then he opens up the book of life,
names not found therein, he says,
depart from me, I never knew you.
Apart from me he curses the everlasting fire.
Prepare for the devil's angels and the angels.
I can see a few strong angels take each one of them by the arms
and grab them and cast them into the lake of fire for all eternity.
That one little break is over.
That one little reprieve that they had from the flames and torment of hell, it's over.
And now they know it's forever.
Because God has just explained to them from the Bible that it's forever.
And there they're going to languish forever more.
Look down at your Bible and it says,
they were judged every man according to their works.
Every wicked work, every ungodly thing that was said out of their mouth.
It says in death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
So now hell is being relocated to the lake of fire and I'll prove that to you.
This is the second death and whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
See, how do you know hell is being relocated to the lake of fire?
Well, because the Bible says,
Fear not him which is able to kill the body but is not able to kill the soul,
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Now we know that the unsaved man who dies today, his body is not going to hell.
But there's going to be the resurrection of damnation
described by Jesus in John chapter 5.
And in his soul and his spirit and his body is going to be cast into hell
which is now in the lake of fire.
So it says death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life
was cast into the lake of fire.
And they'll be there forever.
The lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death.
Let me show you a few things about hell tonight.
And by the way, let me tell you a little story.
When I go soul winning, I guess I'm a confrontational soul winner,
but I'm never mean or unkind to people.
There's no reason to be like that and that's not the way I am.
I believe that we're bearing the good news of salvation.
So it should be a positive message.
The first thing I obviously tell somebody is you've got to tell them that they're a sinner.
And you've got to show them.
I show them these verses from Revelation 21.
Showing them that they're condemned to hell.
Showing them that the wages of sin is death.
Showing them that even a lie and all these other things will damn them to hell.
But I say, God loves you. He doesn't want you to go to hell.
And I explain to them the gospel and Jesus Christ, death, peril and resurrection.
I'm not going to go into that for the sake of time.
But when all I explain to them, then I go through that whole thing with them.
I give them the gospel.
And I don't go to people and you need to get saved or you're going to go to hell and you're a filthy sinner.
People who are doing that, they're not getting people saved.
They don't have love and tear in the eye.
They're just going around screaming at people.
They really love them. They want them to get saved.
So they talk to them in a way that's going to get them saved.
And I'm not talking about toning it down.
I'm not talking about trimming the message.
But the Bible says speaking the truth in love.
It says to be gentle.
The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness.
And so I gently explain to them that they're on their way to hell.
That they're without hope.
That they're damned eternally without Christ.
But I'm not just going to yell at somebody and browbeat them and everything.
Because you know, I care about them. I love them.
I want them saved.
But you know, yesterday there was an exception to that.
And I was out soloing all day.
You know, we stopped. We quit at 8.15 at night.
You know, we started at 9.30.
We took a break for lunch, a break for dinner.
But we were out soloing all day long.
We talked to all kinds of people.
And in that whole day of probably just pure soloing.
As far as forgetting all breaks and driving from point A to point B.
As far as this pure doorknob against soloing.
The actual just labor time.
You know, a good solid eight hours.
And in that time I had six people saved personally.
Okay, in that time.
In eight hours.
And you know, God was really blessing us yesterday.
Oh man.
I mean, I've been praying for this day.
I know other people have been praying about that town, Gila Bend.
And never had a good church.
We went down there and it was...
I remember, I mean literally, for the last couple of days I was thinking to myself,
You know, this is kind of a weird idea.
This is a crazy idea.
I've never heard of anything like this.
You know, another stupid idea.
You know, I've had a lot of ideas.
Some of them are a flop.
Some of them work out great.
And you never know until you try.
So I just like to try things, you know.
And so, man alive did God just pour out his blessings.
Good.
Now 27 people saved.
We had 16 people.
But 27 people saved.
That's a lot.
I mean, that's a lot.
But everybody was so friendly.
I've never been invited into people's houses so much.
I say, come on in, sit down, show it to me.
Never have I had that kind of a reception.
I believe that was just God blessing us.
That's all it was.
It was prayer.
But there was one man yesterday.
I knocked on his door.
It was in an apartment complex.
I knocked on the door and an old man, you can tell he was a bitter old man.
And he was very old and he had to kind of hobble over to the door.
He was extremely old and looked mean.
And I said, hi, how you doing?
I said, I want to invite you to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
You go to church anywhere?
No.
I said, well, if you die today, do you know for sure you'd go to heaven?
He said, there's no blank such thing as blankety-blank heaven.
He said, because blankety-blank God's a lie.
The Bible's blank, blank, blank.
And I mean, he just cursed and swore and blasphemed God, Jesus, the Bible,
everything you can imagine.
And I said, what do you believe?
I said, what do you believe in?
I said, look around.
I was trying to believe him to get saved.
Even then I didn't just scream.
I just said, look around.
And I quoted him some verses from Romans 1.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.
Even his eternal power and Godhead so that they're without excuse.
I said, look around at nature.
Look at the world.
Who made all this?
I said, where did it come from?
I said, you believe that?
He said, oh, it's like foolishness.
I said, it's foolishness that man came from a monkey.
And he said, well, you need to take a biology class.
You need to take science.
And I said, you know what?
I said, you need to take a biology class.
Because I said a single-celled organism has 28 parts.
A single-celled organism has a reproductive system, a digestive system.
It has all these different functionality.
I remember when I was in high school learning about microbiology,
I said a single-celled organism is like a city.
It's so complex.
I said, it looks like a city.
It's transportation.
I mean, it's amazing God's creation.
I said, man can't create life in a laboratory this day.
Man can't even create the simplest life form.
Nobody can bring it to life.
When they talk about cloning, all they're doing,
they take something that's already alive and just replace the DNA.
They didn't create something new alive.
They never will, by the way.
Only God can create life.
Janice and Jan Breeze withstood Moses and said,
we're going to create life out of dust.
And they said, we can't do it.
This is the finger of God.
Only God can create life.
They couldn't spontaneously create life from nothing.
I said, if man in all his wisdom and knowledge can't create life,
how could life just create itself from nowhere?
How could it come from random?
He said, well, that's not true.
They can create life in a laboratory.
I said, you're ignorant of science.
I said, you need to do some reading.
Here you are pontificating to me like you know so much science.
I said, nobody can make something come to life.
I said, what do you think, it's Frankenstein?
I said, that's what Frankenstein was about.
Taking a body and bringing it alive, they can't do it.
They can pump the blood, they can beat the heart,
they can send electronic impulses to the brain.
It won't come to life.
It's gone.
It's dead forever because God has taken life
and the spirit went back to God that gave it.
You see, and I explained this to him and he just went on
to curse and swear again and to blaspheme.
I'm not even going to repeat the stuff he was saying.
It was every four letter word mixed with Jesus and God
and the Bible combined.
The boldness of this man was stunning to me.
And I said to him, I said, you know what?
I said, if you don't change what you believe,
I said, you're going to burn in hell.
And I said, look, I said, take a good look.
This is exactly why I said look.
And I said it this way because I was a little bit angry
at this point.
I said, take a good look at my face.
I said, you're going to remember this face for all eternity.
I said, for billions of years while you burn in hell,
you're going to think about this day is going to resonate
in your mind when I came here and told you the truth
and preached you the gospel.
I said, you're going to remember this forever.
And I said, at the white throne judgment,
I said, I'm going to look at you right in your eyes.
You remember that I said this.
I'm going to look you right in the eye
when God casts you into hell.
I said, you better change what you believe.
And he said, well, I just hope that you
don't influence anybody else.
I said, we're knocking every door in this town today.
I said, and you can't stop us.
And he slammed the door and blah, blah, blah.
Whoa, what's going to happen to him?
He breathes his life.
It could be today.
It could be a month, especially after you
say that about God.
Who knows what he's going to do?
Remember when Nabal cursed David?
The next day, his heart became as a stone,
and in two weeks, he was dead.
Who knows what is going to happen?
I don't know.
It could be years.
If it's 20 years that he lives and becomes
a very old man, what if he lives 100 more years?
Is it really going to matter?
Because life is this vapor that appeared
for a little time and then vanished away
in the scope of eternity that he's
going to spend in hell.
And you know, hopefully he'll get saved.
Doubtful, pretty doubtful.
He sounded like he'd heard it a few times before.
I don't think he's going to get saved.
I gave him the gospel.
I told him the truth.
But he's probably going to spend eternity in hell.
Let me give you a few points, just quickly,
because we're getting late tonight.
Number one, hell is a place of literal flaming fire
and torment.
2 Thessalonians 1, 8, and 9,
and flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
You know, modern Bibles change that.
The NIV would change that to say,
away from the presence of the Lord.
No, destruction from the presence of the Lord.
Because in Revelation 14 says they'll
be punished in the presence of the holy angels
and in the presence of the lamb.
David said it this way in the book of Psalms.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
But not only is hell a place of literal flaming fire
and torment, as we saw in Luke chapter 16,
a man begging for a drop of water, the coolest
tongue, and the flames of fire.
Mark 9, 43, you say, why did he preach
a sermon to scare people?
Well, listen to this sermon.
Mark 9, 43, and if thy hand offend, they cut it off.
That's pretty extreme.
If your hand is going to send you to hell,
he says, just cut it off.
It is better for thee to enter into life maimed
than having two hands to go into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched,
where their worm diet not and the fire is not quenched.
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off.
It is better for thee to enter a halt into life
than having two feet to be cast into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched,
where their worm diet not and the fire is not quenched.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God
with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell,
where their worm diet not and the fire is not quenched.
For everyone shall be salted with fire,
and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
That's Mark 9, 43, and 49.
That's Jesus preaching.
Wow.
But number two, hell's a real physical place.
It has a physical location.
In the book of Numbers 16, don't turn there.
It talks about them that go down quick into the pit.
It talks about people falling into a chasm
and the earth dropping alive into hell.
If God make a new thing, it's never happened before,
Moses said, but he said, if I'm telling the truth,
Korah, Dathim, and Abiram and all their company
will drop in a chasm of the earth alive into hell.
And that's what happened.
Because hell's a real physical place.
It has a physical, real location in the heart of the earth.
And so they go down quick into the pit.
They and all that appertained to them
went down alive into the pit,
and the earth closed upon them,
and they perished from among the congregation.
They died on the way down, obviously.
As they reached the flames of hell,
it burned them up, and their body was torched
as their soul and spirit continued to drop
all the way down to the bottomless pit of hell.
Amos 9, 2, though they dig into hell,
then shall mine hand take them,
though they climb up to heaven,
then shall I bring them down to a physical place.
Ezekiel 32, 18, unto the nether parts of the earth
with them that go down into the pit.
We already talked about that they're going to be tormented
in the presence of God.
I'm going to skip over that for the sake of time.
But look at this verse.
Turn to Isaiah 30, verse 30.
Isaiah 30, verse 30.
Now, who remembers reading in the Bible
about a place called Tophet?
T-O-P-H-E-T.
Put up your hand if that sounds a little familiar to you.
Tophet.
Tophet is the valley of the son of Hinnom.
That might sound familiar to you.
It's a place that's described very often throughout the Bible.
Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom,
it was a place where wicked kings
and ungodly Baal worshippers and Moloch worshippers
would take their children and cause them
to pass through the fire.
It was a valley that was set on fire
and they would perform human sacrifice,
wicked, ungodly action that God condemned
again and again and again.
Over, I believe, 11 times in the Old Testament,
he talked about people making their children
to pass through the fire and he condemned it
and decried it all throughout the Old Testament.
But this place was called the proper name.
Our city's called Phoenix, our state's called Arizona.
This place was called Tophet.
It was the valley of the son of Hinnom.
Watch what God says here.
He's using Tophet as an illustration,
as a picture of hell here.
Read this. Verse 30.
And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard,
and shall show the lighting down of his arm
with the indignation of his anger.
This is God's anger. Are you reading this?
And with the flame of a devouring fire,
with scattering and tempests and hailstones,
for through the voice of the Lord
shall the Assyrian be beaten down and smote with a rod,
and at every place where the ground and staff shall pass,
which the Lord shall lay upon him,
it shall be with tablets and harps,
and in battles of shaking will he fight with it.
Listen to this. For Tophet is ordained of old,
saying, as from a long, long time ago,
Yea, for the king it is prepared.
He hath made it deep and large.
The pile thereof is fire and much wood.
The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone,
doth kindle it.
You see that? Hell. What did we learn here?
Hell is the culmination of God's anger.
I mean, the flaming fire of his rage and wrath is what hell is.
It's not separation from God.
It's being right smack dab in the middle of God's wrath and anger.
Turn to Revelation 14.
We've got to hurry. We're running out of time.
Turn to Revelation 14.
Let me read this for you. John 3, 36.
He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life.
Never going to die.
Breathe your last breath and be in the presence of God in heaven.
He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life,
and he that believeth not the sun shall not see light,
but the wrath of God abideth on him.
That's what hell is.
God's wrath, God's flaming fire of his anger.
We read about it in Isaiah 30 through 31.
The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone,
death kindleth.
Wow.
But look at Revelation 14.
And let me turn there myself.
We'll begin reading verse number 10.
The Bible reads, I'm sorry, look at verse number 9 to get context.
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice,
If any man worship the beast and his image,
and receive his mark and his forerunner in his hand,
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.
Remember Isaiah 30, 33?
Remember John 3, 36?
Which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation,
and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone
in the presence of the holy angels,
and in the presence of the Lamb,
and the smoke of their torment ascendeth them forever and ever.
And they have no rest, day nor night,
who worship the beast and his image,
and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
No rest.
Did you know that it's a torture method to keep people awake?
In places where people have been in concentration camps,
or maybe Vietnamese prison camps,
part of the torture many times is sleep deprivation.
There's torture when somebody's about to fall asleep and you wake them up.
They're about to fall asleep again and you wake them up.
Imagine, no rest.
Boy, isn't it good to go to sleep and rest.
Boy, there's nothing like after a hard day,
or out in the phoenix sun, in the heat of the sun,
and it just feels like it's baking your whole body
and draining every ounce of moisture out of your body,
and you're weary and tired.
And sometimes you put your head on the pillow,
that pillow feels so good.
I mean, you'd rather be laying in that bed on that pillow,
and I feel this way a lot.
You'd rather be there than being on any sandy beach in the world,
riding on any roller coaster.
The only thing that you want, better than any meal,
you just want to put your head on that nice, cool pillow.
And I remember what Daniel said,
my sleep was sweet unto me,
because he was spent awake and so tired, he talked about.
And boy, sweet rest, and whatever happened in the day,
you can just kind of lay it to rest.
His mercies are new every morning,
great is thy faithfulness, Lamentation Chapter 3.
You can lay your head down on your pillow,
and it's all over for rest.
In hell, there's no rest, day nor night.
Never to rest again.
Hell is a place of dismal darkness,
raging waves of the sea,
foaming out their own shame, wandering stars,
to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
You say, reserved, a reservation?
Well, the Bible said he shall have his part,
his part in the lake which burnt with fire and brimstone,
which is to say that blackness of darkness,
darkness I believe like it says in the book of Exodus,
which may be felt.
You remember that?
You can feel the darkness.
That's from Exodus, the ninth plague.
Hell is a place of screaming and wailing.
The Bible says, then said the king to the servants,
bind him hand and foot.
It's a place kind of like I talked about that closet.
You can't really get around much.
You can't move around too much because you're bound in chains.
The Bible says, reserved and everlasting chains
under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
But he says, bind him hand and foot and take him away,
and cast him into outer darkness,
referring to the lake of fire that is,
referring to the new location of hell
when it's going to be away from the earth,
it's going to be an outer darkness
where hell is relocated in Revelation 20.
There shall be, say, in that place,
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Men are going to be gnawing their tongues in pain,
grinding their teeth and wailing.
The word wailing is just, ah!
It's not just a scream.
It's like a wail.
It's something that, see,
screaming doesn't really involve your vocal cords.
Wailing is more of something
where you're vocalizing almost like saying something,
but you're not saying anything.
You're just, ah!
It's a horrible sound.
Imagine listening to the wails.
I remember when my wife was giving birth
in the hospital with our first child.
You could hear wailing down the hall
from other women who were giving birth.
And you hear the mixture of a couple different people
screaming and wailing.
Imagine being in hell
and there's hundreds and thousands
and millions of people wailing around, screaming.
Not only that, but hell is a place,
believe it or not, of flesh-eating worms.
The Bible says in Isaiah 4, verse 12,
it says the worm is spread under thee, in verse 11.
The worms cover thee.
I'm talking about hell.
Especially when you're covered in worms that are covered.
The Bible says the worm shall feed sweetly on thee.
You see, hell is a place of horrific creatures.
Did you know that there are living creatures in hell?
But you should remember in Revelation chapter 9,
God opens up the bottomless pit.
Actually, he sends the angel of the bottomless pit,
a polyon or a baton, which is not the devil.
I proved that from the Bible many times.
The devil is thrown into hell by a polyon in chapter 20.
You know, the angel of the bottomless pit.
He has the key, he opens it up.
So it can't be the same person.
The angel of the bottomless pit opens it up
and you remember those locusts
that come out of the bottomless pit
in Revelation 12 and torment men on the earth five months?
Remember the tales like scorpions
and the teeth like lions
and they have breastplates
and they go around and the sting is in their tails
and they torment men?
That's just giving people on this earth
a taste of the hell beneath.
Because those creatures were already in hell.
Horrible tormenting locusts,
flesh-eating worms.
Their worm dieeth not and the fire is not quenched.
It's explained in Isaiah 14 in the same book
where the quote comes from,
Isaiah 66, 24, where it talks about
their worm shall not die,
neither shall their fire be quenched.
It explains earlier about worms covering you,
feasting on you, feeding sweetly on you.
A place of horrific creatures and flesh-eating worms,
no rest day or night,
screaming, wailing, darkness, fire.
You say, why preach on hell?
And I've moved much more to my sermon,
but I'm going to close with this.
Why preach on hell?
And I make reference to hell a lot in my sermons.
This is only the second time
I've ever spent a whole sermon.
I've spent half a sermon a couple times
where I talked about heaven and hell and doctrine.
Only the second time I've put the whole sermon on hell.
Why, Pastor Anderson?
Everybody who's here is probably saved
and on their way to heaven.
We all believe in Jesus.
After all, church is for the believer,
not for unsaved people.
We go out and get them saved,
but church is to edify the believer.
Why preach on hell?
Why think about something so awful?
Why even go there in our minds?
I mean, we're not going to go there.
Why comprehend it?
Because this week,
I spent some time thinking about hell.
It came to my mind for some reason.
And as I thought about hell this week,
I just realized the need to just give it all to God.
I mean, my whole life I've been just saying,
you know what?
People are going to hell.
We've got to give them the gospel.
I mean, it's just to give you the urgency.
And I'm not up here, you know,
I'm not up here just blowing a bunch of hot air.
Hey, I was out yesterday.
I was out knocking the doors.
And guess what?
I was out last week and the week before that
and the week before that and the week before that
for the last almost 10 years now.
I mean, I started soul winning
when I just turned 17 years old.
I'm going to be 27 in July.
I've spent almost a decade of weekly
for hours a week knocking the doors.
In addition to friends, co-workers, love.
I'm not up here just rattling my cage.
I'm not up here some kind of a silver-tongued order.
I'm not up here just trying to preach a great sermon
and, well, I'm just going to blow off a bit.
Hey, I'm going to be there knocking the doors.
I'm going to be on the front lines.
I'm going to be in the trenches.
I'm inviting you to go with me.
And many of you, you've already been with me.
I mean, 90% of our church was out.
Well, not really 90% of our church,
but a lot of people were out.
It seemed like everybody was there.
I mean, a lot of people were there.
Hey, it was great.
But you know what?
You don't want to just go out one time
and just be a weekend warrior one time.
I'm going to tell you something.
I moved to Phoenix for one reason
two and a half years ago.
Didn't have any family here.
Didn't have a job here.
Had no reason to come here except one,
to give my life to one thing.
This one thing I do, as Paul said,
one thing, to give my life to preach the gospel
to every creature and to train you
and anybody else I can to do the same thing.
That's what this church is about.
Now, I'll teach you everything in the Bible
to the best of my ability.
I mean, we'll give you a well-rounded meal here.
You'll get doctrine.
You better know you'll get doctrine.
You'll get Bible teaching.
You'll get encouragement.
You'll get edification.
You'll get strength.
You'll get the truth from Genesis to Revelation.
But you better know that the one thing
that's kind of pulsing,
the continual heartbeat of our church,
the one thing that's pushing us forward all the time
is what beat in the heart of Jesus.
I believe when John leaned on Jesus' breast
and you can hear the heartbeat of Jesus Christ,
I think it beat the Son of Man to come
and is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
I must work the works of my Father while it is yet day
and the night cometh when no man can work.
The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
As the Father has sent me, even so sent I you.
Go ye therefore into all the world and preach they vows with every creed.
You wonder the heartbeat of faithful word by every church.
See, I don't understand why people go to that church anyway.
The pastor screams and yells.
He preaches all this crazy stuff that nobody's ever even heard of.
I mean, he thinks everything is wrong.
I mean, anything that people do, TV, movies, rock music,
worldliness, women that are dressed immodest,
I mean, he goes down the list.
I mean, the guy's insane.
He says it's wrong for women to wear pants.
I mean, he thinks that men are the boss in their home.
I mean, he preaches things I've never even heard.
He's a mad man.
Why would anybody go to that church to get a browbeat?
Why would anybody go to that church that's used in the old King James Bible?
Why would anybody go to that church where the music's old-fashioned?
I'll tell you why people come to this church.
The same reason I joined an independent fundamental back church when I was 17 years old.
It wasn't the music.
It wasn't the preaching.
It wasn't the standards.
It wasn't the radical preaching.
And it was there.
But that's not what got me to join.
It was the heartbeat of Faithful We're Back to Search
and it was the heartbeat of the church that I joined at that time.
Just beat solely.
Solely.
Wind soles.
Love people.
They're going to hell.
We've got to give them the gospel.
It's the driving force.
Sometimes the sermon's not always the best sermon in the world.
Sometimes it's not the most entertaining sermon in the world.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it's entertaining.
Sometimes it's not.
Sometimes you want to go to church.
Sometimes you might not.
Sometimes you're healthy and feel good.
Sometimes you don't.
Sometimes you're joyful and rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of great glory.
Sometimes you're not.
Sometimes you're in heaviness because of manifold temptation.
Sometimes you're not.
But there's one thing that never changes in this church.
The preaching may go along different themes.
The membership may fluctuate up and down in numbers of attendance.
But one thing never changes here.
It's the week in, week out, day after day.
Wind soles.
It never changes.
It never stops.
Consistency week after week.
Day in, day out.
When you're tired of it, you say, well, I'm tired of church.
This is a phase that I was going through.
But you know what?
One thing that's not a phase is hell and soling and the gospel.
And that's what keeps me going.
You know what I mean?
That's what keeps me going.
I mean, it's not preaching that keeps me going.
What keeps me going is soling.
That's what keeps me going.
I'm just being honest with you.
I mean, the thing that keeps me going is soling.
I mean, that's the thing that keeps it real to me.
That's the thing that keeps me motivated.
Because it's never, it's a job that's never going to be done
until I breathe my last breath.
It's the job that I'm going to work on.
All those maps.
What kind of stupid decoration is that?
A bunch of maps.
You know what kind of stupid decoration is?
It's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.
The map of Phoenix, the giant map of Phoenix,
spend the rest of my life making sure that we knock
every single door in the whole valley.
The map of Arizona, spending the rest of my life
making sure that we knock every small town in Arizona,
knock every door like we did in Gila Bend yesterday.
We're going to go back and finish a few doors,
but we knocked 80% of the town.
And we'll finish it, you know, we'll go down a few people
and just finish the remainder.
Knock every door in every small town in Arizona
that's under, say, 2,000 people or 3,000 people in number.
That's what I'm going to give my life to.
You know why there's a map of the United States out there?
That map represents the fact that we're going to send out
young men and men to go start churches all across America.
Because the local church should be getting after its own kind,
other local churches.
Just like I started this church here, I'm not talented.
I'm not anybody special.
I'm just a man like anybody else.
I hope that many young men will come out of this church someday
and go start churches all across that map.
We'll put their face on every place that they start and say,
there's a light out, there's a candlestick in the Gospel.
And then a map of the world to represent the people
that we support as missionaries around the world
so that the Gospel can go to the dark corners of the earth.
That's why I have the verses that say,
you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
You shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem,
that's the map of Phoenix.
And in all Judea, it's the map of Arizona.
Every small town, every village, as Jesus went to every village.
And in Samaria, the adjacent, the area around it,
the other states, the nation, America,
and the othermost part of the earth.
We're never going to finish, folks.
It's never going to be over.
Slowly, slowly, slowly.
Let's bow our heads in that water of prayer.
Father, it was an unpleasant sermon.
It wasn't one that I even wanted to preach.
It's not the funnest kind of sermon to preach at all.
It's a horrible sermon.
But God, you took me on a tour earlier this week of hell,
and I just felt like I needed to take my people on the same tour of hell
that I took a few days ago.
Driving in my car, I took a little tour a few days ago
of hell that's in my mind and the Bible.
And God, I just felt like if I was going to be in one accord with my people,
that they might have to take the same tour that I took
and look around at the same sites that I saw.
God, please just help it to be real to us.
Help us to realize that David Letterman and Jay Leno
just aren't that funny.
The sitcoms and the TV shows and the movies just aren't that cool.
The rock music just isn't that great anymore.
When we realize that there's a far greater purpose for our lives
to win souls to Jesus Christ.
Oh, what a glorious day it's going to be.
I can't wait to get to heaven.
Man, I'm excited about seeing Jesus.
Almost as much as I'm excited about seeing Jesus.
I feel like I already know Jesus because I've got the Bible right here.
It's pretty much the same thing.
The Word made flesh is Jesus.
But God, almost as much as I'm excited about seeing Jesus,
I can't wait to personally see every person that I've won in Christ.
That's what heaven is.
It's not the golden streets.
It's not the pearly gates that I'm looking for.
I'm looking forward to putting my hand in the hand of every single person
that I've won in Christ in my life.
And shaking their hand and looking them in the eye
and knowing that Jesus and I were co-laborers together
and that person's in heaven because of my life
and that my life meant something to God.
That's what heaven is to me.
It's going to be to see Jesus and to see every person that I've won in Christ.
What a glorious day that's going to be, Father.
Help us to live our lives with eternity's values and view.
Forget the things that are seen which are temporal
and think about the things that are eternal, dear God.
Love you supremely.
Take inventory of every part of our life.
We love you.