Now tonight, first of all, I have the picture that I did not have this morning.
I just wanted to bring this and show everybody the really neat picture that I have.
You thought I was making that up. Well, this is the evidence now. Don't doubt me next time.
But anyway, I'm going to leave this up here if you want to take a closer look because it's pretty interesting.
It's a pretty interesting picture.
But really tonight I just want to finish and complete my sermon from this morning
because I had so many more pages of material.
And I have tonight here five pages of material that I did not even get to or even touch on this morning.
So this is not a repeat of this morning. I'm not going to re-preach this morning's sermon.
But I'm pretty much going to pick up with it and preach more about the subject I was on this morning,
which is about the subject of hell.
And we went through a ton of scriptures, and I preached over time,
but I didn't even get close to what I was trying to preach.
And I've got plenty of material tonight.
But look down, if you would, at your Bible where we were in 2 Thessalonians 1 here.
This is from one of Paul's epistles. This is Paul preaching under the Thessalonians.
And he basically is preaching about hell. He says,
In flaming fire, verse 8, 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.
And I want to dig into this verse because it's often misunderstood.
The modern Bible versions, such as the NIV and other popular mainline versions,
they change this verse, and they make a dramatic change in the meaning of this verse by changing it.
And so here's where we're going to start tonight.
Let me go ahead and toss the NIV here to Brother Garrett,
and he's going to look up for me 2 Thessalonians 1.
Put your finger here and go to Revelation 15.
Keep your finger there in 2 Thessalonians 1.
Go to Revelation 15. You see, we always need to let the Bible define the Bible.
If there's something in the Bible where we're not sure what it means,
instead of running to a dictionary or running to man's wisdom,
we should try to compare spiritual things with spiritual.
And that's what I'm going to preach about in a moment.
But in Revelation 15, we have almost the exact same wording that you find in 2 Thessalonians 1.
Notice that phrase in 2 Thessalonians 1.
He's talking about an inflaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of his power.
And I'm going to tell you what that means, and I'm going to prove it to you in Revelation 15.
When it says everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord,
that's where the everlasting destruction is coming from, from the presence of the Lord.
That's what that means.
And you see, we've gone through it this morning already.
We saw everlasting fire, everlasting burnings, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction now.
Look at Revelation 15 and I'll show you the exact same wording to help you understand this.
It says in Revelation 15, 8,
And the temple was filled with smoke, this is talking about the temple up in heaven,
The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power.
And no man was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.
So you see there, it says the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power.
Same wording.
Is it because God was not there or was it because God was there?
It was because he was there.
So it's the same exact thing in 2 Thessalonians 1.
Look back, you're in Revelation 15, just go back one page to Revelation 14.
Revelation 14, 10 says this,
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, 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.
So is hell being separated from God?
No.
It's being in the presence of the wrath of God, okay?
So you're not separated from God, you are in the presence of the Lamb, which the Lamb of course is the Lord Jesus Christ.
With that in mind, we saw it clearly in Revelation 14.
They're in the presence of the Lamb.
Now does the Bible ever contradict itself?
No.
If it's God's word, if it's holy, it's got to be perfect and it can never contradict.
And so in Revelation 14 it says, hey, they are being punished in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is there going to be another place that says they're separated from Jesus, separated from God?
No, it wouldn't make any sense.
And that's why it's clear if we use Revelation 15 and 2 Thessalonians 1 side by side,
it's very clear that God's wrath is what kindles the fires of hell.
Read us from the non-inspired version, the NIV, Brother Garrett, 2 Thessalonians 1, 8 and 9.
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord.
Did you hear that?
He said they'll be punished with everlasting destruction and they'll be shut out from the presence of the Lord.
Now is it possible to be outside of God's presence?
I mean to be shut out from the presence?
No, and when you're in hell and hopefully no one here will go to hell,
hopefully everybody here tonight is saved and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior in our church,
but those who go to hell will be very much in the presence of the Lord.
But see, many today have tried to tone down this doctrine of hell and I've seen it over and over again.
Instead of emphasizing what the Bible emphasizes, fire, the fact that it's everlasting, the fact that it's torment,
the fact that it's torture, they try to tone that down and just say, well hell just means you're separated from God.
Did you know that the Roman Catholic Church today teaches in their official doctrines that hell is not a real place?
Did you know that John Paul II, the pope that was before the current pedophile, I mean pope that we have right now,
the pope, John Paul II literally stood up and said, you know, hell is not a place.
It doesn't have a location.
He said it's just a state of yearning for God.
It's the state of being separated from God.
And yet we have independent Baptists all over America today preaching that hell is separation from God.
It's not separation from God, it's when you're on fire in a literal place in the lower parts of the earth,
in the bottomless pit, in the presence of the lamb.
If I make my bed in hell, thou art there, I'm not going to re-preach this morning's sermon.
But we see that very clearly.
Look if you would at Colossians chapter 2.
Colossians chapter number 2.
You're in Revelation, go back still toward the end of your New Testament, but go to Colossians chapter 2.
And we're going to get into another facet of this doctrine of hell.
In Colossians chapter 2 verse 4 it says,
And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
So the serpent beguiled Eve in the garden of Eden.
He questioned God's word.
He said, Yea hath God said?
Well, God doesn't want us to be beguiled.
He doesn't want us to be deceived with enticing words.
Basically, arguments that sound really good and really eloquent things, but they're not from God's word.
It says in verse 5,
For though I be absent in the flesh,
this is Paul speaking,
yet am I with you in the Spirit,
joying and beholding your order,
and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ,
as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him,
and established in the faith,
as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Beware, this is the key verse,
beware lest any man spoil you through what?
Now listen, did you know that that is the only time in the Bible the word philosophy is used?
Now the word philosopher is used.
Remember when Paul went and preached to a bunch of unsaved, unbelieving philosophers.
They were not saved.
They did not believe the gospel.
Paul told them, you're too superstitious.
He said, you're ignorant.
You don't even know who you're worthy.
You don't even know the true God.
I'm going to tell you who God really is.
But they were well versed in Greek philosophy.
But you know what?
The wisdom of this world,
it was told under the Corinthians, which is another Greek city.
He told them in 1 Corinthians 1,
he said the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
And so here he's saying don't let anybody spoil you or corrupt you with philosophy,
with vain philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of man,
after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Now, tonight we're aware of the fact that the Bible,
the New Testament was originally written in what language?
Greek.
And what language was most of the Old Testament originally written in?
Hebrew, right?
So there's two very different languages,
two very distinct languages.
So can God only speak one language?
No, he gave part of his word in Hebrew.
He gave part of his word in Greek.
He gave part of his word in Aramaic.
And at the day of Pentecost,
he gave his word in the language of every nation under heaven.
So basically God can give his word in any language.
But today people will try to interpret the Bible using Greek philosophy of all things.
Now, is that what God is telling us to do here?
No, he said that we should compare,
you don't have to turn there,
but in 1 Corinthians 2.13 it says which things also we speak,
not in the words which man's wisdom teaches.
We don't speak in the words that man's wisdom teaches,
but which the Holy Ghost teaches,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
So if we want to understand a word in the Bible,
do we go to Greek philosophy to understand what that word means?
Do we go to Plato?
Do we go to Homer?
And the sad thing is,
people are laughing because they think it's like a cartoon.
Do we go to Homer?
Do we go to Socrates?
Do we go to Plato?
Do we go to Aristotle in order to understand God's word?
Is that our authority?
And today, that's what the institutions of so-called Christian higher learning,
the seminaries, will tell you.
Oh, to understand John 1.1,
when he said in the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God,
and the word was God,
and later he said the word became flesh,
he said, oh, you have to go to Greek philosophy.
They believe that the word was this force throughout the universe.
And no, that's going to spoil you.
That's going to corrupt you.
The wisdom of the world,
you're going to let man's wisdom of an unbelieving,
unsaved pagan like Plato or Socrates or Homer
interpret the Bible for you.
That is not God's method of understanding the Bible.
And they will do the same thing with hell
because they'll take the word hell and they'll attack it,
and that's part of what I want to talk about tonight.
Study to show thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
It's all there in front of you.
The word, study the word.
You don't have to study all the worldly wisdom out there
to understand what the Bible is teaching.
In 1 John 2.27, you've heard this many times,
but I can't repeat it enough,
the Bible says,
but the anointing, referring to the Holy Spirit,
which he had received of him abideth in you,
and you need not that any man teach you,
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things
and is truth and is no lie,
even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him.
Hey, the Holy Spirit is our teacher.
We don't need man to teach us, okay?
Everything that I preach from this pulpit
you could learn on your own.
It's all in the Bible, you have the same Holy Spirit,
but you come here to learn it faster,
to grow more, to be with other believers,
and to get more truth,
but I'm not preaching any special revelation to you
that you can't get on your own.
Now, go back, if you would, to 2 Kings 23.6,
because here's what we're going to really dig in deep tonight,
and this is a very biblical study.
I'm not going to go to some other lexicon,
I'm not trying to go to some Greek philosopher,
but I'm going to show you where the word hell comes from,
and I'm going to show it to you biblically, okay?
Not using philosophy and lexicons and man's ideas
and man's wisdom and man's opinion,
because the word hell today is often under attack.
Now, we have a lot of people in our church who speak Spanish, right?
Who speak Spanish in here pretty fluently or pretty close to that?
One, two, three, four, five, and we go out soul-winning,
and we go soul-winning, we use the Bible in Spanish.
I give the Gospel, today I was giving somebody the Gospel in Spanish,
and then we got Victor here,
he better learn how to speak Spanish fast,
but basically, you know, we go out and we preach the Gospel in Spanish,
and so we got a lot of Spanish Bibles around, right?
You know, who's got a Spanish Bible?
Who owns a Spanish Bible in South Africa?
Look, you see, you know, 20 hands go up.
So this becomes an issue, doesn't it?
What Spanish Bible we're going to use.
Now, you know, I'm not preaching in Spanish or anything like that,
but we do soul-winning in Spanish,
and some people in our church who speak Spanish,
they read the Bible in Spanish.
You want to be sure that, you know, you're reading the right thing
and understanding that there are Spanish versions of the Bible
that are corrupting God's Word and attacking it
and trying to change the meanings of a lot of our doctrines and things in the Bible.
And, of course, we have English versions that are also attacking this word hell,
basically saying that the word hell is the wrong word,
basically saying that the King James Bible is wrong when it says hell,
and they have some justifications for that,
and we're going to defeat those tonight biblically.
But before we can defeat those tonight biblically,
I have to teach you about a subject in the Old Testament
that you may not know about,
but it's very often repeated in the Old Testament.
Did I have you turn to 2 Kings 23?
We're going to learn about a place in the Bible that is referred to many times,
and that place is called Tophet.
Now, you may have never, you're like, what are you talking about?
I've never heard of it.
You know, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands.
I don't want to embarrass anybody.
But, you know, you can do an internal check.
Do I know what Tophet is?
Because it's referred to many times in the Bible.
It's also called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom.
Those two places are one and the same.
Let's look at some scriptures and get an understanding,
not of what a history book tells us about this place,
not of what some philosopher says about this place,
but what the Bible says about this place.
It says in 2 Kings 23, 6, this is about Josiah,
what a great king, one of my favorite Old Testament characters.
Josiah, and he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord,
without Jerusalem.
Basically, he's destroying their places of false worship.
Under the Brook Kidron, and burned it at the Brook Kidron,
and stamped it small to powder,
and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
This man, Josiah, when he became king of Israel, or Judah, rather,
he hated false religion.
He hated the worship of Baal.
And you're going to see why in a few minutes why he hated it so much.
But he hated this wicked religion.
And so he said, you know what I'm going to do?
He said, I'm going to destroy it.
He said, I'm going to break down their altars.
I'm going to break the idols.
And he said, I'm going to stamp them into powder.
I'm going to burn them down.
And he said, I'm going to dig up the graves of these wicked preachers
that brought this satanic religion of Baal.
He literally said, let's take a shovel, let's dig up their bones,
and let's burn them, and desecrate their grave,
and just trample all over it.
And that's what he did.
And God praised him for it.
I have a whole sermon called Josiah where I went into all this.
But look what he did next.
This part isn't going to fly with 2010.
But he said, and he break down the houses of the Sodomites.
You know what a sodomite is, right?
A homosexual, a queer, that's what the word sodomite means.
He broke down their houses that were by the house of the Lord.
He said, you're not going to have some queer living next to God's house.
So he broke down their house and got them out of there.
And he took the sodomites out of the land that were by the house of the Lord
where the women wove hangings for the groves.
And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah
and defiled the high places.
So you see how he's desecrating these satanic places?
He said, I don't think that was right for him to do that.
Wait until you see why.
Because don't be so hard on Josiah yet.
You'll understand why he was so mad in a minute.
It says, where they burned incense from Geba to Beersheba
and break down the high places of the gates that were in the entering inn of the gate of Joshua,
the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
Nevertheless, the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem,
but they did eat up unleavened bread among their brethren.
And he defiled, this is the first mention in the Bible of this place,
and he defiled Topheth.
Now notice the H on the end of the word.
That's the only place in the Bible you'll find that H and I'll explain why.
He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom,
that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Now that right there gives us a hint of why Josiah hated the worship of Baal and the worship of Molech.
Because it involved human sacrifice.
It involved infant sacrifice.
That's why he said that people had made their son or daughter to pass through the fire in this place called Topheth.
In this place, the valley of the son of Hinnom, they were offering this wicked abomination.
Look at 2 Chronicles 28.
We're going to go to the next mention of Topheth.
You say, Pastor Anderson, why is there an H everywhere else that's Topheth?
Why is it Topheth?
I'll tell you why.
Because languages change over time.
Have you ever noticed that in some places in the Bible Nebuchadnezzar is spelled Nebuchadrezzar?
Have you ever noticed how sometimes it'll be Joshua, then it'll be Jehoshua, then it'll be Jeshua,
and then in the New Testament it says Jesus?
Have you ever noticed how it goes from Elisha to Elisias when you get into the New Testament?
But even within the Old Testament, even without going to the New Testament,
you can see people's names change from Jonadab to Jehonadab, Joash to Jehoash.
Why? Because 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles were written at two different times.
Think about how much our spellings and language have changed,
and the way things are pronounced has changed over a few hundred years.
You know, when we read our King James Version, it's not exactly the way that we talk today.
And if you went back a few hundred years before that,
it would be extremely different than the language we speak today as you get into Middle English and Old English.
So this shows here, God's showing us here, you know, there's a difference in language.
You see things spelled different or a little bit of a different pronunciation.
There's a different wording from Hebrew to the Greek.
Like in the Old Testament, it'll say a virgin shall conceive,
and then in the New Testament it'll say a virgin shall be with child.
It means the same exact thing, it's just a different way of expressing it in a different language.
And so we see here in 2 Chronicles 28, Ahaz, 2 Chronicles 28 verse 1,
Ahaz was a wicked king, Josiah was a good king, but Ahaz was wicked.
It says Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign.
Now who is Ahaz in relationship to Josiah?
Ahaz is before Josiah, okay, it's his basic ancestor, okay.
And it says here, he was 20 years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem, but he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord like David his father.
For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.
Moreover, he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire,
after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
Now isn't that wicked? Isn't that bizarre?
You say, wait a minute Pastor, I don't think any human being can be capable.
Hey, it happens every day in America, 3,000 times,
when people make their children pass through the proverbial fire at the abortion clinic,
and we think that's normal, we think because nine fools in the Supreme Court have said,
oh that's okay, it's protected by the Constitution,
that we think it's okay that they pass their children through the fire onto Molech,
and sacrifice human life on the altar of pleasure to the tune of 3,000 times a day.
And so there's nothing new under the sun, is there?
But let's keep reading.
It says in 2 Chronicles 33, let's go forward many generations here, from Ahaz to Manasseh.
Manasseh was the king that was right before Josiah, okay?
So we've got Manasseh in chapter 33 verse 1, Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned 50 and 5 years in Jerusalem.
And by the way, we're looking up every mention of Topheh, just so that you know.
But he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,
like unto the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down,
and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them.
Also he built altars in the house of the Lord,
whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever.
And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of what?
Of the son of Hinnom, same place as Topheh, also known as the valley of the son of Hinnom.
Also he observed times and used enchantments and used witchcraft and dealt with a familiar spirit and were wizards.
Basically he was into Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and Twilight series, okay?
I'm just bringing this into the modern day vernacular here.
To provoke him and he had a Ouija board.
And he went out trick-or-treating on Halloween and he looked like a vampire and a goblin.
And it says that he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
And he said a carved image, the idol which he had made in the house of God,
of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son,
In my house, in this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel,
I put my name forever.
And I don't know, I had more in my notes but I'm going to jump forward for a second time.
Jeremiah 7, we're looking at every time Topheh is mentioned.
Sometimes you get in these chapters you just want to keep reading because there's a lot of great stuff coming up.
But let's stay focused here. Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 30.
We've skipped one mention of Topheh that we're going to come back to in Isaiah 30.
Right now we're just going through 1 St. Cates, 1 St. Chronicles, we're into Jeremiah now.
Because this place is mentioned in these places in the Old Testament.
2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Let's look at it in Jeremiah 7 verse 30.
For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord.
They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to pollute it.
And they have built the high places of Topheh, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom,
to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not.
Neither came it into my heart, therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord,
that it shall no more be called Topheh, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom,
but the valley of slaughter, for they shall bury in Topheh till there be no place.
Now understand the picture here so far. Is everybody following the message so far?
There's this place called Topheh, right? Is it a good place or a bad place?
Very bad. Very bad place.
This place, Topheh, which is located in the valley of the son of Hinnom,
is a place where people are basically practicing abortion or infanticide
and they're burning. They're burning human beings.
I mean, it's a horrible place. It's a satanic place, right?
That's what's going on here.
But God says that there will be a time when it won't be called Topheh,
nor the valley of the son of Hinnom.
He said it's going to be called the valley of slaughter
because he says they shall bury in Topheh till there be no place.
He's saying, look, you shed all this innocent blood.
You've reaped the wind. You're going to reap the whirlwind.
He said, I'm going to bring judgment upon you
and the children of Israel will be slaughtered in that exact place, right?
Their bodies will be everywhere. There will be no place to bury.
They'll run out of room to bury and pretty soon the carcasses will just be left out.
It'll be called the valley of slaughter.
Go to Jeremiah 19. Jeremiah chapter 19 verse 5.
He says they have built also the high places of Baal.
So remember they worshiped Molech there and they worshiped Baal there.
Both are mentioned, two different false gods.
And it says, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.
Therefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord,
that this place shall no more be called Topheh,
nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place
and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies.
See how they're going to be slaughtered by the sword in this place?
He said they'll fall by the sword before their enemies
and by the hands of them that seek their lives and their carcasses
will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.
And I will make this city desolate and in hissing.
Everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hissed because of all the plagues thereof.
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters
and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend.
In the siege and in the straightness wherewith their enemies that they seek their lives shall straighten them.
Then shall thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee
and shall say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
even so will I break this people in this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel
that cannot be made whole again.
And they shall bury them in Topheh till there be no place to bury.
Same thing, isn't it? Keep reading.
Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, unto the inhabitants thereof,
and even make this city as Topheh.
And the house of Jerusalem and the house of the kings of Judah
shall be defiled as the place of Topheh
because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense
unto all the hosts of heaven and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
Then came Jeremiah from Topheh whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy
and he stood in the court of the Lord's house and said,
and on and on we can go on and on.
Does everybody understand what's happening here?
These people have committed the abomination of burning human beings in this place,
of innocent life being burned alive in this place.
And God said, you know, I'm going to bring judgment upon that place
and what I'm going to do is cause a slaughter to take place in that exact valley
and in the midst of that slaughter
there will be so many people killed with the sword
that they will have no place to bury all the carcasses.
They'll try to bury them, but they can't even bury them.
There's not even enough ground to bury the corpses.
Go to Nahum, well, let's not go there.
I've got other material I could go there,
but I don't want to spend too much time because we're going to run out of time.
Now go to the one place that we skipped of Topheh.
Go to Isaiah chapter 30.
Does everybody have a clear understanding of what Topheh is?
The saga of Topheh?
Well, I don't know the geography.
Well, it's on the map right now.
I don't know the exact geography.
I do have this map behind me, but it's not going to do me any good for this.
Isaiah chapter number 30.
There's two mentions in Isaiah.
One mentions Topheh by name, but one is clearly speaking of Topheh.
And it's interesting because these two mentions of Topheh and Isaiah
are dramatically different than the other places that we saw.
Watch what it says.
It says in Isaiah chapter 30 verse 33, it says,
For Topheh is ordained of old.
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.
Now let that sink in. What is he saying here?
Now remember, where does the wrath and fire and destruction of hell come from according to the New Testament?
Think back in your mind to this morning's sermon.
Think back in your mind to what we read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.
The fire of God's wrath.
It's a furnace of fire kindled in God's wrath.
The first time the word hell is used in the Bible.
The word hell?
Deuteronomy 32.
He said, A fire is kindled in mine anger, and it shall burn unto the lowest hell.
And that's what he's saying here.
Look what he says again.
I'm going to prove this to you and explain to you why this is so important that we understand this doctrinally.
He says, For Topheh is ordained of old.
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.
Now let me ask you, have there been a lot of verses about Topheh or just a few?
A lot.
A lot, because it's a significant theme of the Old Testament.
It's important to understand this place.
It's not something that was just casually mentioned, right?
We went through a ton of scripture. I had a few pages of scripture.
Go to Isaiah 66 now.
Go to Isaiah 66.
So we saw that verse, and that verse kind of throws us off.
Like, wait a minute.
God's wrath is God's breath fire and brimstone is kindling the fires of Topheh?
And it's been prepared of old?
Remember he said, Depart from me, ye cursed, and the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels?
Look at Isaiah 66, and we'll see why this is important.
You're going to see a statement that's going to be very familiar to you.
Look at Isaiah 66, 24.
And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me.
For their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
Now, we see very clearly here a quote that is used in what book of the Bible?
Mark chapter 9, right?
Jesus Christ equated this place.
He equated it with everlasting fire, everlasting punishment, hell fire in Mark chapter 9.
Why?
Because this place, Topheh, is symbolic of hell.
Now, was it literally hell?
No.
It was a valley, it was a place, a physical place, where human beings were sacrificed to a false god,
which God turned into a place of great wrath and judgment where he punished them.
And there were physical bodies that could not be buried that were strewn about,
carcasses that could not be buried because there was no place.
And he said that they would look upon those carcasses and see those carcasses,
and that their worm would not die, and that the fire would not be quenched.
What is he saying?
Basically, this was a physical place, a physical battle, people died,
their bodies were laying there, and their bodies were burned,
because when you can't bury people, you burn them.
And these bodies were burned, and we could go into that, that's all throughout the Old Testament,
the burnings of people, you know, their bodies were burned.
And he said, no, you don't understand.
This is the last verse of Isaiah, by the way.
And by the way, Isaiah has 66 chapters in them, which correspond to the 66 books of the Bible.
You'll find themes of the book of Luke, you know, in the 42nd chapter and so forth.
Do I have that right, 39, 40, 41, 42?
Yeah, 42 has a quote from Luke chapter 4.
I mean, you'll find quotes from Isaiah 43 in the book of John,
quotes from Isaiah 45 in the book of Acts, quotes from, you know.
There's a lot of corresponding that goes on here.
The last verse here, God's saying, you don't understand.
The judgment doesn't end when you're slain by the sword in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
He's saying, oh no, their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched.
He's saying, you know, just because it was a temporary pain that they experienced of dying
and then worms fed on their flesh as they laid there decomposing and then they were lit upon fire.
He said, that's not the end because there's another place that we describe with hundreds of verses this morning
called hell where their worm will never die and where the fire will never be quenched.
Now you say, Pastor Anderson, what in the world are you talking about?
Well, here's what's important to you. I have in my hand here the Spanish Bible, okay.
And people today are attacking the doctrine of hell.
Now this Spanish Bible is the old Spanish Bible, okay, from the reign of Valera.
I think this one's a 1909, but let's say it's a 1602.
You know, whether it's the 1602 or the 1909 is not going to change this fact,
but what you do need to know is that the Bible is translated into Spanish in 1602 in the reign of Valera version.
Now, when was our English Bible given unto us? 1611, right? So isn't that around the same time?
Okay. Now, around that time, now in the 1500s and the 1400s, languages were a lot different.
Languages began to stabilize quite a bit in the late 1500s, which is why our English King James Bible,
we can understand it today. I mean, we understand the word. It's a little different than we talk, but we can understand it.
Just like people understand Shakespeare and everything else.
Well, this book right here, the La Santa Biblia in Spanish, let's say you have the old reign of Valera.
I mean, this is the Bible that they've had in Spanish for hundreds of years, okay.
It's translated from the, you know, received text.
You know, the 1602 reign of Valera was translated from the received Greek text,
the Masoret just like our King James Bible, you know, comes from the same source.
It doesn't come from the corrupted Catholic manuscripts.
Okay. So the reign of Valera 1602 Bible, well, it uses a word over and over again.
Okay. And that word is Gehenna.
Okay. And it uses that word. I believe it's either 10 or 11 times.
My mind is slipping right now, but it uses the word Gehenna.
Okay. In place of hell. Has anyone ever noticed that before?
Right. And I'm pronouncing things in English just to make it easier for you to understand,
because I'm speaking to English speakers.
That's because of the fact that when you're, you know, you're translating the Bible in Greek,
you know, you're translating for Greek, the Greek word for hell is Gehenna.
And there's another Greek word for hell, Hades. You say, oh, Pastor Aaron, you're going back to Greek.
I'm not going back to the Greek, because I'm telling you right now, hell is hell, is hell is hell.
It doesn't matter what it was in another language.
But it's significant for what we're talking about here with this Spanish Bible,
because of the fact that it says Gehenna, and people today will try to tell you, we were just at somebody's door.
Was that you, Brother Garrett? We were just at somebody's door.
And they were trying to tell us that hell is not a real place, because they said it's not hell, it's Gehenna.
It's a different place. It's Gehenna.
And they said Gehenna was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.
And what they were trying to refer to was this place Tophet.
And they're basically saying it's not really hell, you know, it's just a temporary place.
It's just a place where bodies are burned and so forth.
Now, I've got here a Spanish English dictionary.
Now, I looked up the word Gehenna, you know, the Spanish word Gehenna, basically.
Now, keep in mind, the Spanish Bible that's been used by almost every church in Mexico or Latin America
and these different places where Spanish is spoken has used that word Gehenna for 400 and some years.
So what do you think people think it means?
You know, if they've heard it preached in the Bible for the last 400 years in verses like where Jesus is saying,
hey, cut off your hand, you know, you'd rather chop off your hand than go to Gehenna where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.
When he said, you know, you're going to go into this place Gehenna, you know, which our English word is hell.
And on and on, all the places where Jesus is preaching, it's a place of fire and destruction and everlasting punishment and torment.
They know it means hell because it's been in the Bible that way for 400 years. Does that make sense?
Now, the more common word today in Spanish and the only reason I'm talking about this is because we have so many people with Spanish Bibles
and the Spanish Bible issue is an issue in this church and elsewhere.
They'll say, well, you know, the word for hell is what?
Infierno, you know, which is like our word inferno.
Now, is Gehenna wrong? No, because that's identical to what it says in Greek.
It's just the exact same. They just translated it. They transliterated it and created a new word in 1602.
And they have that word and it means one thing.
And I pulled out this dictionary and I looked this up in tons of Spanish English dictionaries over a decade ago.
But I looked it up. I found this in the trunk of my car. I think you left it there, right?
Yeah, it's yours. It's mine now. No, I'm just kidding.
Anyway, fighters, keepers, losers, weepers. I looked it up. I looked up Gehenna and it says hell.
It just gives one definition. And this is just like a pocket-sized, random-house Spanish dictionary.
So it says hell is the definition.
Now, there's another Greek word that's used for hell, which is Hades.
But here's the problem, my friend.
Now, I'm going to pass out some other phony Bibles. Take the NIV, Brother Garrett.
And I'm going to expose to you what people are doing with these modern versions.
I'm going to give you the New King James. Man, I know that's your Bible of preference here.
And then this right here, the New American Standard.
And then right here, now look, this is a little bit outdated.
Now, this is the recovery version.
The reason I say it's outdated is because of the fact that it comes in a case like a VHS tape.
So they need to put this in a DVD case, you know what I mean?
But this is how dumb, you know, it's like, oh, this is how we're going to sell this Bible.
Let's put it in a VHS case and you'll pull out like a video tape.
You know, wow, cool. You can put this right next to all your movies and everything.
So who wants the recovery version?
Victor? Okay.
So, oh, wait, let's not forget the Jehovah's false witness Bible.
Brother Brad, you want to take care of that for me? Okay.
The New World Translation.
Now, here's what's going on with these new Bibles.
There's another word, okay, Hades, but here's the problem.
In the English language, do we have the word Gehenna in our language at all?
No.
Do you think anyone knows what that means? Has anyone heard that word?
No.
It's unknown.
But let me ask you this, do we have the word Hades in our language?
Absolutely.
But does it mean hell?
No.
Because Hades in English, not Hades in Greek, okay, my friend, because we don't speak Greek, we speak English.
The word Hades in English means a place from Greek mythology.
And if you get any English dictionary and look up the word Hades, the English word Hades, if you look it up, the first thing it's going to tell you is a place of Greek underworld,
a Greek realm of the place after death, and it comes from Greek philosophy, and that's what Hades is.
It's not going to tell you that it's hell.
It's not going to tell you the place of everlasting punishment described in the Bible, because we have another word for that in English, don't we?
That word is hell.
Okay.
And again, I'm not going back to the Greek to give you some hidden meaning here.
I'm defending the King James translation of hell.
Hell is the right word, and I'm going to prove that to you.
Now Hades means something totally different.
Gehenna is a word that does not even exist in our language.
Okay.
Now, turn if you would to Luke 16.
Turn to Luke 16.
And those who have the phony Bibles that I handed out, turn in your phony Bible to Luke 16.
But everybody else, turn in your King James Bible to Luke 16.
And I'm going to explain to you why this is important.
Now, this Spanish Bible right here, it basically goes back and changes it to, or it has gehenna.
It's just like a transliteration of the Greek word half the time.
And then the other half the time, it says in piano.
Now, here's the thing.
There's a new version that has come out in 2010 in Spanish.
Where they basically took the old reign of Lara Bible, okay, and basically updated it.
And basically what they did is they took the old reign of Lara Bible, and they took every time that it was different than the King James.
And it was already very much like the King James, but it had a few issues in it where it differed from the King James version, which we know to be correct.
And you can see problems in it and contradictions in it in the old reign of Lara that's been around for 400 years.
And so what they did in 2010 was they went through and made a correction of it to correct it and make it match up with the King James.
You say, well, how could they do that?
Because guess what? I don't care what language you speak, the Bible should say the same thing in every language.
I mean, should it say something different in Spanish than it says in English?
One of them is right, one of them is wrong.
And so basically, it's the reign of Lara Gomez version.
And I haven't read the whole thing cover to cover.
I have read the 1602 New Testament cover to cover.
I've read the 1909 cover to cover twice.
I've read the 1960, and we'll talk about that in a moment.
I've read that one cover to cover, and I've read a 1977 reign of Lara cover to cover.
Okay, so I've read these. I haven't read the Gomez cover to cover, but I've read probably half the New Testament.
And I can tell you right now, it's like the old one, except that they seem to have straightened it out.
And I'm not saying that it's perfect and without error, because I'm not an expert in the Spanish language.
Do I speak Spanish? Yes.
Do I win souls to Christ every week in Spanish? Yes.
Do I preach in Spanish? Yes.
But am I an expert or a theologian of the Spanish Bible to know everything about the language?
No, I'm not a native Spanish speaker, you know what I mean?
I speak Spanish with a thick accent, but I can preach the gospel and get people saved and understand,
and get my yard work done by illegals and whatever I need to do.
But anyway, oh whoops, I forgot about that SB 1070 thing.
But anyway, the point is, the point is that this Bible that's come out, this reign of Lara Gomez 2010,
you know, is great because of the fact, one of the things that it does is it replaces the word Gehenna with Inferne,
with hell, with just the basic word hell.
Because your average Spanish person on the street, you know, I mean somebody's been in church,
I heard the Bible preached, they're going to know Gehenna because it's so prevalent in their Bible.
But your average Joe on the street is going to know the word hell much more clearly.
And so that's a lot better to have a Bible that's like our King James Bible in a language that's easy to be understood.
The King James Bible's easy to understand, it says hell, you know right away what hell's talking about.
And so I think that's great, and that's why when we go out soul winning and do stuff here and preach,
that's what we've been using, is the reign of Lara Gomez version.
Or we use the old 1602 reign of Lara or the 1865 or the 1909, you know, but we don't use the 1960 version.
And I'm going to tell you why we don't use the reign of Lara 1960 version.
Because it twists this doctrine of hell.
Because here's the thing, your King James Bible in Luke 16, look down it if you would,
and I'm trying not to go too deep tonight, but I want you to understand this.
Luke chapter 16, it says in verse number 23, and in what place?
Hell.
And in hell, he lift up his eyes, being what?
In torments, and seeeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.
So where was he at? He was in hell.
He's on fire, he's paying for a drop of water.
Okay, get your phony Bibles ready.
NIV, what's it say in the NIV?
1623.
I'll come back to you. New King James.
Hades.
Read it for me.
I'm reading it for a minute, it's in Hades.
Yeah, so he's where? He's in Hades now.
Okay, now in English, what does Hades mean according to the dictionary?
The Greek underworld.
So now we need to go to Plato, and it's fine.
Because if you read Plato, which, you know, obviously is the foolishness of this world, not the wisdom of God.
You know, the Greeks believed in an underworld, in a place that you go after you die, where you're punished for your sins.
But do you think I'm going to look to them and see what their doctrine is, and what they think that underworld is?
And what Plato thinks hell is like?
And there's even a place where Plato, in the Republic, even says, he says, let's deceive people about what Hades is really like.
I saw the quote from the book.
He said we ought to deceive people into thinking that Hades is not as bad as people think it is, and that there's not really fire there.
And that you're not really going to be punished for your sin.
So the Greek philosophers of this world want to deceive and lie, because they don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
They don't love God.
Many of them are homosexual and perverted and disgusting, and you're going to tell me I should go to them to figure out what hell is.
Because it's Hades.
No, it's not Hades, it's hell.
Now, in Greek, that's the word Hades, but guess what, in English, Hades is a place of Greek mythology.
This Bible's not a myth, and Jesus Christ was not quoting some Greek philosopher.
He was talking and quoting from the Old Testament of the Scriptures.
That's the only thing he quoted.
Show me where Jesus quoted anything except the Old Testament of the Bible.
You can't find it.
So we don't go to a Greek philosopher to figure out what hell is just because the NIV thinks it's Hades.
No, it's not. It's two different places.
The Hades of the NIV here, the Hades of Greek mythology, the Hades in the English language that we know,
is a made-up mythological place that's not that bad, where it's not that hot.
The hell of the Bible, the Hades of the Greek New Testament, is the place that Jesus is describing from the Old Testament.
A place of fire and torment and torture.
So New King James Version takes out the word hell, which is easy to understand,
and substitutes Hades, which is the place of Greek mythology.
What other versions have we got here? Put up your hand if you've got one of them.
What have we got here? New American Standard.
What does it say? Hades? What do you got?
Recovery version. Hades? All of them.
Do you notice how they're all taking out hell and putting in Hades, a word that no one understands,
and a word that people will actually misunderstand?
And they're going to think, oh, Jesus was talking about this mythological Greek underworld.
Let's go study that.
Do you really think Jesus was quoting Plato and Socrates?
He quoted the Old Testament only, and that is a lie to deceive. It's a twist.
Now, technically, you could say, well, it's not really wrong, because it does say Hades,
but guess what? In English, it is wrong.
Because in English, it means something else.
I looked up in the Spanish dictionary, the word Hades.
In this dictionary, and this is a pretty big dictionary. It's not even in there.
And in half of Spanish dictionaries I looked up, I couldn't even find Hades.
But when I did find it, it said a Greek mythology place.
The underworld of Greek mythology, and it referenced Plato and Socrates and Homer,
and told you to go look at them, and they'll tell you what it means.
Okay? Well, guess what?
Now, the reign of Valera 1960 version and other modern versions of the Spanish Bible,
like the new international version in Spanish, you know what they do?
Exactly what the NIV does, exactly what the New World Translation does,
exactly what the New American Standard does.
The reign of Valera takes out hell and replaces it with Hades.
Hades, which in Spanish is the Greek place.
Aves is the place of Greek mythology and underworld.
And so it's wrong. It's a wrong translation.
It's trying to confuse people about what hell is.
Now you say, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson, you seem to have a double standard.
You say, Pastor Anderson, here you're mad about them putting in Hades.
But yet you seem to give the 1602 and 1909 Valera a pass for using the word Gehenna.
But wait a minute, first of all, that's been in the Spanish language for 400 years.
It didn't just come out in 1960.
It didn't just come out today like the NIV in 1973.
But second of all, Gehenna, Gehenna is not a place from Greek mythology.
Gehenna is a place from the Old Testament because did you notice that the word Gehenna
sounds kind of like something we've been talking about all night?
Hinnom, the valley of the son of Hinnom is called Gehenna.
And you don't need to go to a lexicon to figure that out.
All you have to do is look in the Bible and see Hinnom, Tophet is the valley of the son of Hinnom,
Gehenna, and then look at Mark chapter 9.
Mark chapter number 9, I'll prove it to you.
Mark chapter number 9 here, look at verse number 43 of Mark chapter 9.
In Mark 9, 43 it says this,
And if I hand offend thee, cut it off.
It is better for thee to enter into the light maimed than having two hands to go into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched.
That's the one where it's going to say Gehenna in your Spanish, Antigua version.
In your 1602 and your 1909.
Look at the next words, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
Where? Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
What is that a quote from?
Isaiah 66 about Tophet, about the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna is the same place.
Hinnom, Gehenna, same thing.
He says,
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off.
It is better for thee to enter halt into the light than having two feet to be cast into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched.
Where their worm dieth 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 fire.
Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
Look at Matthew 18.
Matthew 18.
Notice we're not going to some Greek philosopher to figure out what Hades is.
We don't care what he thinks Hades is.
We know what the biblical Hades is. It's hell.
It's described all throughout the Bible. It's hell, it's fire, it's torment, it's torture.
It's a place of everlasting burning and punishment for your sins.
We don't need to go to some dictionary to tell us what Gehenna means.
We know that it's a reference to the Old Testament place of Gehenna, which is the valley of the son of Hinnom,
which is Tophet, which is kindled by the wrath of Almighty God and a stream of brimstone out of the Lord's mouth and fire kindles it.
We saw it in Isaiah 30.
Was Isaiah 30 talking about the physical place? No.
He wasn't just talking about a physical place where man light fires.
He said no, God's wrath lights the fire in Tophet in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
He said their worm will never die. Their fire will never be quenched.
So you see how all the answers are within the Bible.
If we compare scripture with scripture, we don't need any dictionary or any lexicon.
The Bible translates itself from Old Testament to New Testament, from Greek to Hebrew to English.
We don't need to sit there and go to all this Greek wisdom or whatever so-called.
Look at Matthew 18 and I'm going to prove to you that this is an eternal place.
Because in Mark 9 we saw that place.
We know that it's referring without even knowing that the Greek word is Gehenna.
It doesn't even matter because we know from Isaiah 66 that that's what it's talking about.
Because that's where it's quoted from.
But look at Matthew chapter 18. We see the exact same sermon by Jesus.
He says the exact same thing he said in Mark 9.
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee.
It is better for thee to enter into life, halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into what?
Everlasting fire. Is that a temporary place?
A place where you just burn up? No.
He said to be cast into everlasting fire.
Just like in Matthew 25.
We'll get there in a second but it says in the next verse.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.
It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
So what are the last two words of verse 8?
Everlasting fire.
And what are the last two words of verse 9?
Hell fire.
Right? And this is the place where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
When we compare it to Matthew 9.
Or I mean Mark 9.
And then when we compare that to Isaiah 66.
And then we compare that to Isaiah 30 verse 33.
And then when we compare that to the rest of the New Testament and Old Testament we can see that one thing is clear.
Whatever you want to call it my friend.
Call it, call it, if you're speaking in English you better call it hell.
Because that's the only word that we have in English that describes this place.
We don't call it Gehenna and Hades because we don't speak Greek we speak English.
Hey, hell if you're speaking English.
If you're speaking Spanish in piano.
Okay, if you're speaking Greek it was called Hades and Gehenna but so what?
It's the same place.
It's described the same.
It's always fire.
It's always burning.
It's always torture.
It's always torment.
It's always a horrible place.
Turn to the book of Jude.
So you see this is why I don't want to have a 1960 version.
Because I don't want to go soul-wedding with a 1960 Bible and try to show people verses on hell like in Revelation.
2014 and 15 and all of a sudden I'm showing them about Hades.
They think I'm going to put on a toga or something.
It'd be like Socrates.
You know they think I'm one of these weirdo Greek philosophers.
And you see what the NIV is trying to do.
And what the Raina Valera 1960 version is trying to do.
And what the New World Translation is trying to do.
And what the New King James is trying to do.
Is to try to say that when Jesus was talking about hell he wasn't talking literally.
It was figurative.
He was just referring to their mythological beliefs that they believed in but it wasn't.
No, hell is a real place.
It's not a mythological place.
And anybody who's telling you that needs to get their head out of some philosophy book.
And get their head in this book and read that it's an everlasting place.
And that it's a place of fire and torment.
Now you say why is it translated, why is Gehenna and Hades translated into English as hell?
Well do you know where the word hell comes from? The English word.
The English word hell comes from Norwegian.
Now I speak Norwegian.
And the word hell comes from the Vikings.
They had that word hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
And you know what it means?
A place under the earth of fire and torment.
And that's what it means today.
So you say, well I think it's translated wrong here as hell.
Okay, what should we translate it?
Some word that nobody even knows?
Some Greek mythology word?
Everybody knows what hell means.
And it's funny because you'll try to show people verses on hell.
And they'll try to take you back to these languages.
To try to tell you that it doesn't really mean hell.
Like you'll try to show them a verse on hell.
And they'll say, well no that's actually Hades.
Like you'll try to show them in Acts 2.31.
Where Jesus Christ says this take ye of the resurrection of Christ.
That his soul was not left where?
In hell. That Jesus' soul was not left in hell.
And they'll say no, no, no Pastor Anderson.
That isn't really talking about hell, that's Hades.
And then you'll try to show them.
Oh, you know right here it says, you know, come off your hand rather than to go to hell.
And they'll say, no, no, no Pastor Anderson.
That's Gehenna.
That's just a garbage dump outside town.
That's just that place, you know, where it became a trash dump.
Now, show me where we saw that there was a trash dump mentioned.
Did you see a trash dump anywhere?
I saw a place where they were burning human beings.
Right?
And then God said, well no, I'm going to punish you there.
I'm going to burn you up in hell.
That's what he said.
So he used it as an illustration.
Jesus used illustrations and he said, you want to know what hell is like?
Is everybody following the sermon tonight?
I know I'm getting a little complicated, I'm trying not to.
But Jesus said, hey, you want to know what hell is like?
It's like that place where bodies were being burned.
He said, that's what it's like.
Because that's what it's like in hell, your body's burned.
And he was using it as an illustration.
Here's another illustration that he used of hell.
And I spent way too much time on that point, so I can spend like five minutes on the rest of the sermon.
But look at Jude 1.6.
It says, and the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own avatation,
he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day.
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in light and manner,
giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
So, when God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament,
he was raining literal hell fire out of the sky.
He said they suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.
And he said that was an example so that people would know what my wrath is like.
He said they are an example set forth, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
It was like hell on earth when he rained fire and brimstone.
Because that's what's in hell, right? Fire and brimstone.
And he rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he said he was a physical example that you could see what hell is like.
We've seen fire in our lives.
And it gives us a picture when we look at fire, we can know what hell is like.
When they looked at the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah,
he said that was an example of what it is to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
Before we turn out of Jude, look at another reference to hell in Jude, verse 22.
And if some have compassion making a difference, others save with fear,
pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
You say, well you're going to scare people when you talk about hell.
You know, people ought to be scared when they hear about hell.
And he says that's what's going to get some people saved.
He said some people are going to be saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire.
When you warn them of a place called hell,
when you warn them of a place of everlasting punishment and burnings,
that will cause them to be saved.
Because the fear of the Lord at the beginning of wisdom,
by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.
And the fear of the Lord will get somebody saved when they realize what hell is.
They'll want to receive Jesus.
Hey, I don't know about you, but when I got saved,
I got saved because I didn't want to go to hell.
And everybody had thought, oh, I got saved just because I wanted a deeper relationship with Christ.
Look, hey, believe me, I want to have a close walk with God and with the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know what, when I got saved, I didn't even understand what that meant.
You know, when I got saved, it was just I understood that I was condemned for my sins to hell.
And I just believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior.
And that was the reason why.
I was saved with fear.
Look at 2 Peter chapter 2.
2 Peter chapter 2.
So we have these physical manifestations of what hell is.
It's a place of fire.
He said, you want to know what it's like?
It's like this place where these corpses are burned in the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, or Tophet,
the three names of the place.
He said, you want to know what hell is like?
It's like when Sodom and Gomorrah was burned with fire and brimstone.
He said, that's what it's like.
He said in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 4,
For God spared not the angels that send, but cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment,
and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person,
a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly,
and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overflow,
making them an example, just like he said before, an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,
making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.
You see how it's an example of hell?
See how the valley of Hinnom was an example of hell?
Sodom and Gomorrah was an example.
That's why both of those events are mentioned so much in the Bible,
because they're an example of hell.
And we'll turn to one last place.
Look at Matthew chapter 10 verse 28.
This is the last place we'll turn.
You see, you say, why all the screaming and hollering and two and a half hours of preaching on hell in one day?
Because of the fact that this is a vital doctrine.
And it's under attack like you wouldn't believe.
I mean, we go out sowing all the time.
And the biggest reason why people don't care is because they don't believe that hell is real.
And how many times Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, and even Pentecostals now.
I'm running into Pentecostals all over Phoenix who are saying that hell is not a real place.
This doctrine is key, and we need to defend our King James Bible,
because our King James Bible is right when it says hell, not Hades.
Because Hades is a mythological place that does not exist in the English rendition of Hades.
Obviously, in another language, Hades can mean something else.
But you know what? Things mean different things in different languages.
We're speaking English, folks.
And so hell is the right word.
But then many will say this.
They'll say, okay, Pastor Anderson, I got you.
Hell is located in the nether parts of the earth, and it's fire and torment and brimstone and all that.
You know, I get that.
But people will try to say, you know, the lake of fire and hell are two different places, right?
They'll say, like, well, hell and the lake of fire.
Now, look, there is a different place.
There is hell today. Hell today is in the center of the earth.
We preached on that this morning. I did about 20 or so verses to prove that, at least.
Hell today is in the center of the earth, but hell will be moved to a new place, the lake of fire.
But you say, well, that's not hell. That's the lake of fire.
No, the lake of fire is also called hell.
The Bible calls both places hell.
He calls the place today that exists today in the lower parts of the earth, he calls it hell.
And he calls the lake of fire hell.
And I'll prove it to you. Look at Matthew 10-28.
He says in Matthew 10-28,
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in what place?
Hell.
Now, that is referring to the lake of fire.
You say, well, how do you know that, Pastor Anderson?
Look, I don't just get up here and make stuff up.
Anything I preach, I'm prepared to defend it from the Bible right now, and I'm going to defend this from the Bible.
This is talking about the lake of fire for one reason.
Because of the fact that no one's body is going down into the center of the earth, into hell.
Because when an unsaved person dies today in 2010, their body doesn't go anywhere.
We bury the body. I mean, we have the body right there. We look at the body. We know where the body is.
The soul is what goes to hell with the unsaved.
And let me tell you something.
The Bible says here that God is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Well, if you go to Revelation 20, we're not going to turn there for the sake of time.
We went over it this morning.
He said, death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death.
And people say, that's where hell used to exist.
No.
When he cast death and hell into the lake of fire, he's just relocating hell to the lake of fire because the next verse says,
Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Now, wait a minute.
Their bodies were resurrected in verses 11, 12, and 13.
Before that, their bodies just lay in the grave untouched.
But in Revelation 20, 11 through 13, their body was resurrected to stand before God at the grave, wife, throne, and judgment.
And then their body and soul were cast into where?
The lake of fire.
And what did Jesus call that in Matthew 10, 28?
He called it hell.
So, basically, is there any reason, not, I mean, biblically speaking, scripturally speaking,
is there any reason why we would be wrong using the word hell to refer to the lake of fire?
Jesus did it.
Jesus called the lake of fire hell, did he not?
He did it right here in Matthew 10, 28.
He did the same thing in other places.
I'm not going to turn that.
But Jesus called the lake of fire hell.
Jesus also called the place in the lower parts of the earth hell.
He called them both hell.
Why?
Because they're pretty much the same thing.
I mean, you're burning in the one, you're burning in the other.
I mean, you're tormenting the one, you're tormenting the other.
And so let me tell you something.
Your King James Bible is right every time it says the word hell is right.
And you don't have to sit there and go to some foreign language and go to some dictionary
from some Greek lexicon that's going to other philosophers and so forth.
Don't let anybody corrupt you with philosophy, my friend, or spoil you with philosophy.
This is all you need right here at the Bible.
And in your English Bible, without the aid of any dictionaries or lexicons, you can open
it up and be assured, my friend, every time you see the word hell, it's talking about hell.
I know that's profound, but it's something you've got to state today.
When it's talking about hell, it's talking about hell.
Sometimes it's talking about the lake of fire, but it's still hell even when you're in the lake of fire.
Hell is in the lake of fire now.
Right now, hell's in the air.
It's still hell.
You're still in hell.
I mean, when we say people are going to be in hell for all of eternity, is that accurate?
It is accurate.
But, see, we need to lay out these foundations because otherwise somebody will deceive you
and say, well, hell's a temporary place.
Is hell a temporary place?
No.
Just because you get a break from it to stand in front of the white throne and they get
cast right back in, that's not a temporary place.
That's a permanent place, isn't it?
There's nothing temporary about hell.
Don't let somebody tell you hell's temporary.
Don't let somebody tell you, well, you know, not every time when it says hell, it's not really hell.
No, it's hell.
Whether it's the lake of fire, whether it's the bottomless pit, they're both hell.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much that we have the word of God, that we don't have to rely
on philosophy and seminary and all these people that would try to tell us that we need something
other than the Bible.
I mean, here we did tonight, dear God, all we did, we just studied the Bible itself with
no dictionaries and were able to translate the word hell from Greek into Spanish into
English and Hebrew and we didn't even need any dictionaries or any help from a so-called theologian.
Thank you for giving us all the answers in the Bible and thank you for the confidence
that we have that our King James Bible is right and that when it says hell, it means hell
and that's all it means.
And we love you and thank you tonight, dear God, that we're saved and that we're not going
to hell.
And Father, I pray that these words would sink down into our ears that we would love
lost souls and want to get people saved so that they would not go to this horrible place
of torment.
The rich man begged that someone would go tell his brethren how to be saved.
Help us to be those people, dear God, that would answer that prayer and give the gospel
unto the relatives of those who are already in hell.
And help them not to follow in the footsteps of their unsaved loved ones because of an
allegiance to a wicked religion, dear God.
Help them to be saved and believe on you before it's too late, dear God.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.