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Now in Deuteronomy 32 we find the song of Moses and it's a song warning the children of Israel about the consequences of sin and talking about his wrath and judgment that's going to be upon those who disobey him. But the part that I wanted to focus on is in verse 22 where the Bible reads, For a fire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell and shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. And what I want to preach on this morning is the subject of hell. Now hell is a subject that I devote an entire sermon to at least once a year. And here we are in December of 2013 I realize I've not yet preached a whole sermon on hell this year so it's about that time of year once again. Hell is a doctrine that is found throughout the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament and it comes up over and over again. The word hell itself is mentioned 54 times in the King James Bible but that's not to mention all the other references to hell that don't use the word hell when it's just referred to as the bottomless pit or the pit or the furnace of fire or all the different other ways that God refers to the place of hell. Now this is the first time hell is ever mentioned in the Bible. Deuteronomy 32 22 and we see so much about hell just from this one verse. It says in verse 22, For a fire is kindled in mine anger. That's the first thing we see. Then we see anger. Now hell is often associated with anger or wrath. God's wrath is what kindles the fires of hell. And for example the Bible says in John 3 36, He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life but he that believeth not the sun shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him. We'll get to that more later but we see fire, we see anger, and then it says, and shall burn unto the lowest hell. So even just from that statement we get fire, anger, burning, and we get the idea of hell being down, the lowest hell. Then it says, and shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Now go if you would to Revelation chapter 14, Revelation chapter number 14. And the first thing I want to show you about hell is that hell is a place of eternal punishment, eternal damnation. Look at Revelation chapter 14 and verse number 10. The Bible reads in Revelation 14 10, 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 indignation is again anger or wrath, and he shall be tormented, tormented means basically tortured, 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 up 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. Now this scripture is found in the context of the end times. This is right after we had the discussion about during the tribulation, those who are not saved are going to be lining up to receive the mark of the beast in order that they might buy or sell, and that no man will be able to buy or sell without receiving the mark of the beast. The beast is also known as the antichrist, and those who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Now a lot of people will take this verse and maybe say well this is just about people who take the mark of the beast. Well unsaved people are taking the mark of the beast. Most unsaved people are lining up to get the mark of the beast. This verse applies to any unsaved person who goes to hell, that their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and that they have no rest day or night. Also in Matthew 25 the Bible says, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. A few verses down it says, these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal. The doctrine of hell is under attack today. There are a lot of people who don't believe in it and increasingly this doctrine is being questioned and a big reason why is that new modern Bible versions are slowly eradicating hell from their Bible or removing this doctrine or changing this doctrine. We saw the first mention in Deuteronomy that mentioned fire, anger, burning, we're almost to the end of the Bible in Revelation 14 and we're seeing the same concept, burning, fire, anger. There's no question to a Bible believing Christian with a King James Bible what hell is. It's not a questionable doctrine. But to those who are unbelieving, who don't have faith in the perfection and inerrancy of God's word, this doctrine is up for grabs. Now I want to focus today on the Old Testament scriptures on hell for the simple reason that the modern Bible versions, whether it be the ESV or the NIV or whatever the Bible of the month club is signed up for this month, they completely remove the word hell every single time it occurs in the Old Testament. Did you know that? So if you have an NIV the word hell doesn't even occur once in the whole Old Testament. If you have an ESV it doesn't even occur one time. I remember when I was in community college, just a secular community college when I was fresh out of high school, I took a class that was on western civilization and this is from the ungodly. This is from the atheistic godless public school system and I sat in this community college in a western civilization class and we got in the unit on Christianity and went through Judaism and Christianity and they tried to tell us that hell was not an Old Testament doctrine. That was something that was invented by New Testament Christianity. See if you don't believe the Bible is God's word, you believe that the god of the Old Testament is different than the god of the New Testament. But if you're a Bible believing Christian you must believe that the same god of the Old Testament is the same god that we have today living under the New Covenant. There is no difference. If you say that there's a difference between God in the Old Testament and God in the New Testament you just say, I don't believe the Bible. I believe it's all man-made and the people who wrote the Old Testament said one thing about God and the people who wrote the New Testament said something different about God. Look we believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's not of any private interpretation. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, therefore every word of the Old Testament is true and every word of the New Testament is true and if both of them represent absolute truth then they must agree. They must be consistent. Now hell is a pretty big concept. It's a pretty big doctrine to be completely left out of the Old Testament. And the world, this is what they want to teach you and the community college is going to tell you, hey hell wasn't even taught by the Jews. Hell wasn't even taught. Then the Jesus and the apostles came along and they got that from Greek mythology. That's what the line is today. And of course these modern Bibles aren't helping by removing hell completely from the Old Testament every time it occurs and that's what these professors are looking to because of their scholarship and education. But I don't see an inconsistency whatsoever between hell of the Old Testament and hell of the New Testament and that's what I want to show you. So before we get into the Old Testament scriptures, let's just get some characteristics of hell from the New Testament. We saw that it's everlasting punishment. We saw that it's everlasting torment. It's always associated with fire. Turn if you would to Matthew chapter 5. Let's look at hell throughout the New Testament. Let's get a New Testament picture of what hell is and then let's look at the Old Testament picture of hell and it's going to be the same thing folks. Hell is hell and there are a lot of people who don't believe in it. Seventh-day Adventists don't believe in literal hell. The Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in hell. The Mormons today do not believe in a literal hell. These cults, these false religions that started up in the 1800s with all this modern scholarship and archeology, they reject the doctrine of hell because they were started at that time. Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's false witnesses. Saturday Satan, whatever, all these churches. But also today amongst the new evangelicals, there are a lot of people who are starting to get away from the doctrine of hell, reject the doctrine of hell. Who's ever heard of Rob Bell? He's this faggoty little, oh did I just say that? He's this little queer little sissy of a preacher who says that hell is not eternal. Everybody ends up going to heaven. He wrote a famous book called Love Wins about how everybody's going to end up in heaven. He's not the only one folks. This modernistic, liberal, soft, effeminate Christianity of the mega churches is today either number one, rejecting the doctrine of hell completely like Rob Bell or they're tantamount rejecting it because they never preach about it. You see it doesn't do you any good to believe in hell on a statement of faith somewhere in a back office somewhere if you never get up behind the pulpit and teach about hell and if people don't read hell in their modern softened version. I remember when I was a teenager, this is one of the big things that got me out of my liberal church when I was a teenager. When I was 16 years old I'd spent the last four years going to churches that preach at the NIV, the rock and roll, soft, 20 minute sermon crowd and I went there for about four years and when I was 16 years old God laid upon my heart to read the Bible cover to cover and I believed that I needed to read the Bible cover to cover. I'd never done it and I knew that I just don't know what the truth is for myself unless I read it myself and I challenge you if you're here today and you haven't read the Bible cover to cover, you need to make that your goal for the new year, 2014. Forget your diet plan and your exercise plan, you need to excise yourself into godliness, you need to get a Bible reading plan and you need to read through the Bible cover to cover and start now, get a head start on it and get that done in 2014. It will change your life, it changed my life and I remember I started out when I was 16 and the first thing I did was I crossed off every book that I knew for sure that I'd already read. I knew I'd read Matthew, I knew I'd read certain books but any book that I had, I knew I'd read Genesis, Exodus, I knew that I had quit part way through Leviticus so it's good to just go through and when I say I knew for sure, I mean I knew for sure. Well I think I read this, if I thought I read it I read it again but I made sure and I only marked out the books I knew for sure that I had read and then I decided to read the rest of the Bible and to finish it. I started when I was 16, I finished when I was 17 and then I read it four times a year every year after that. Four times every year for many, many years was my Bible reading plan. But when I read through it the first time, I noticed that what I was reading in the Bible was completely different from the type of preaching that I was hearing in church and one of the main things that I noticed was that the Bible talked a lot about hell and I remember going to my dad and saying dad, I'm reading the Bible and it keeps talking about hell over and over and oh Jesus is preaching about hell, the apostles are preaching about hell, all about hell. I said I think we've been at this church for two years now and I don't think the pastor has ever even said the word hell in the last two years and he said yeah you're right and then he said oh I've got a sermon you're really going to like. He dug out this old sermon from the 1960s by a guy named Glen Shunk called The Halls of Hell and it was on a record. So we got out a record player and plugged it in and we put this record on and we listened to this sermon, The Halls of Hell and we were like wow this is a great sermon, I've never heard this kind of preaching you know and then we gave the sermon to the pastor that never preached on hell and we converted it to a cassette for him and we gave him that cassette tape and said you need to listen to the sermon and my dad flat out asked him why do you never preach on hell? And he said well I know I should but I just don't like to. Then sit down and shut up and let's get a real man of God in the pulpit who doesn't preach what he likes, he preaches what the Bible says, not what he likes or what people like. Now I preach on hell, I touch on hell in a lot of sermons, it's something I talk about every time I go soul winning for sure but let me tell you something, I make sure that I at least devote an entire sermon per year to hell, at least. Go back over our church website, I think I've preached 12 whole sermons on hell, they all have a different title, The Fires of Hell, The Gates of Hell, The Punishment of Hell, you know, I'm running out of titles. But I'm here to tell you that not only is the doctrine being attacked by false theology, it's also being attacked just simply by the fact that it's just not being taught. It doesn't do you any good to believe in it if you don't talk about it, if you never preach about it, if you never hear about it, there's no teaching on hell. And because there's no teaching on hell, a lot of people don't understand hell, they don't have a doctrinal basis for what hell is. Let's get this from the New Testament and then let's compare it to the Old. Matthew 5, 22 says this, but I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother Rekha shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Now notice, the first time hell is mentioned in the New Testament, it's right there with fire. Any preacher who says, well I don't know if there's fire in hell, is going there. He's a liar, he doesn't believe the Bible, because the Bible is real clear about this, it's hell fire. Now look, when he's mentioning some sins here, it's a sin to be angry with your brother without a cause. It's a sin to say an offensive word, Rekha, it's not really something that we throw around today, but just some offensive curse at your brother, Rekha, or to say to him, thou fool, just to basically provoke somebody, and there are people who do this, they just pick fights with people and whatever, and he's saying it's a sin and any sin will send you to hell. Even lying, just telling a lie. The Bible says whosoever maketh a lie will be outside of heaven and will go to hell. But that's where Jesus Christ comes in, you know, we've all lied, we've all sinned, we've all said Rekha a time or two, but, you know, or something equivalent, but that's why we're forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ, okay, that's our salvation. But look at verse 29, it says, if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell, and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not thy whole body should be cast into hell. So the first mention of hell, we have hell fire. The second and third mention of hell, he's saying that it would be better for you, you'd be better off ripping out your own eye or chopping off your own hand than to go there. That sounds like a pretty bad place, and he's warning people about hell. Look at chapter 10 of Matthew, 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 hell. Again, going to hell is worse than being physically killed. It's worse than having your hand cut off. It's worse than having your eye plucked out. It's fire. It's eternal torment. Going forward to chapter 18, while you're turning there, I'll just let you know that in chapter 11 we learn that hell is again downward. He talks about people going down to hell. We learn in chapter 16 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, and the reason that's significant is because he talks about the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the gates of hell, a contrast being made, heaven and hell. In the Old Testament, that contrast is often made. Heaven or hell, those are the two options for those who die. The Bible says in Matthew 18, 9, 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. Turn to Matthew 23, just a few pages to the right in your Bible. Matthew 23, it says in verse 15, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye can pass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Jump down to verse 33, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? So here we learn that hell is damnation, or condemnation is the word that we're probably more familiar with today in 2013. It's a place of punishment. It's a place where we are condemned to as a result of our actions. It's where our sins condemn us or damn us. That is hell. Now he calls them vipers and serpents. Why does he call them that? Because if you remember, the serpent is a name for the devil, and the serpent was the one who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, and so when he says you serpents, he's referring to them as deceivers. He's telling them you're a child of hell. You're of your father the devil. You are a serpent. You are a deceiver. Now we're going to skip the references in Mark because honestly they're a little bit redundant with what we saw in Matthew. No let's not skip them. Go to Mark chapter 9, because honestly let's just get it all. Let's just see it all. Mark chapter 9, while you're turning there I'll just let you know that in Luke 10 it talks about again being thrust down to hell. Then in Luke 12 5 it says pretty much the same thing about not fearing them that kill the body, but it says, I forewarn you whom ye shall fear. This is a warning. Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell, yea I say unto you, fear him. Look at Mark 9 verse 43, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, I lost my place here, into the fire that never shall be quenched. I got to turn there, I'm sorry. It says in the next verse, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, and if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter halt into life 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 the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. There's a reason why Jesus repeated that three times. Oh, a scribe made an error here and he just got carried away and just kept repeating that phrase over and over again. He's like a broken record. Jesus repeated it because he wanted to warn you that fire and hell go on forever. It's the fire that never shall be quenched. Listen Rob Bell, there's never going to be a day where the fires of hell go out and we all love each other and hold hands. Wrong. God's punishment, God's wrath, hell and damnation are eternal. They go on forever. There's no end of it. To reject this doctrine is to reject the word of God. It's to reject the gospel. The good news is that we're saved from death and hell. So the Bible is pretty consistent over and over again. Let's jump past Luke 9, 10, 12. Let's go to Luke 16, the famous passage about the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16. Now a lot of people will say about this story, they'll say, well it's a parable. Okay, let's say it's a parable. So what? What about all the other hundreds of places where the Bible says that the wicked are going to burn in hell, where you're going to be in fire that never shall be quenched. And if it's a parable, what's the parable trying to teach us? I mean parables represent something, right? I mean you've got the parable of the sower. The sower sows the word, right? And as he casts the seed, some of it falls into the wayside, you know a hardened ground. The fowl of the air come and they eat up the seeds that are sown. Some of it falls among thorns and the thorns choke it when it tries to grow up. Look that represents, okay we're sowing the word of God. Okay what's the fire represent? What's the guy who's burning represent? What's the guy who's begging for water to put on his tongue represent? Oh just a thirst for God. God has zero basis in scripture anywhere, but there's a lot of basis for people burning in hell. All different scriptures, all different places. So just sort of just write, oh it's a parable, okay expound it to me. They can't, they just say it's a parable, let's move on. They can't expound to you the meaning of the burning and the flames and the torment and so forth. Not only that, if it is a parable, it's the only parable that uses a person's name. Every other parable is just anonymous, just a certain man, a sower, a husbandman. This actually says in verse 19, there was a certain rich man, well we don't have his name, okay but keep reading, which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus. That is significant because when you're naming a name, that's a real person who existed. God doesn't just make up fictitious characters that never existed. He could say, oh it's like a guy who does this and that. Okay but when he says there was a guy named Lazarus, it's a true story, it really happened. And it says there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, moreover the dogs came and licked his sores and it came to pass, verse 22, that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried and in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments and seeth Abraham afar off and 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 for I am tormented in this flame. Look God could not tell us more ways that it's fire, fire, flame, burning, I mean how else does he have to express it? I believe that God of course knows the end from the beginning, he knows the future, he knows all things, and it seems like every heresy God has already built in all the proofs against it. For example, evolution's a pretty new doctrine, right? 1800s, Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species, and the preferment of what preferred races. Nobody reads the whole title of the book. The book by Charles Darwin is called The Origin of the Species and then something, something of the preferred races because a lot of his doctrine was about the fact that black people, and even today they always teach you, you know, well humans started in Africa, and they'll tell you that black people are lower evolved than white people. If you believe in evolution, these are the architects of evolution. People who taught that black people, and part of it was because, you know, they wanted to treat black people differently, they wanted to abuse them as slaves and whatever, so they taught that black people are less evolved, and that's what Charles Darwin taught, and it's even in the title of the book. But that's a new doctrine, yet God already built in the answer in Genesis 1 when he said really redundantly, everything brought forth after his kind, the fruit tree after his kind, the tree yielding fruit after his kind, the beast of the earth after his kind, every fowl after, I mean just everything bringing forth after its own kind, and God, I mean people in the 1700s are probably thinking, why does God keep repeating this? After his kind, we get it, okay, alright, it's after his kind, but he knew evolution's coming. There it is. I mean there's so many things like that in the Bible, and obviously God knew there were going to be people out there who questioned whether hell is real fire. So he says, okay, let's put flame burning, fire, furnace, I mean pretty much every derivative of fire, every derivative of anger, you know, every derivative of these type of words is used just to make sure you get the idea and people still reject it, okay. Where were we reading? Where did we leave off? 24? Look at verse 25. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receiveth thy good things, and likewise Lazarus, evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. And one did rise from the dead, his name Jesus Christ. And the Jews who even saw that he rose from the dead did not, still didn't necessarily believe on him. And even when they saw Lazarus, a different Lazarus, raised from the dead in John chapter 11. They went their way to tell the Pharisees so that they could plot to kill Jesus Christ. So we see in this passage that it's a place of torment. Even the guy who's burning in hell cares enough that he doesn't want his family to be there with him. He doesn't want his family to come. He hopes he never sees his family again because he doesn't want them to come to the place of torment. He's just begging, and I wonder how many people in hell today would love for you to give the gospel to their loved one that's still alive, out on soul winning, out door to door preaching the gospel to every creature. You could be an answer to prayer to someone who it's too late for them, but they want someone to come tell their loved one how to be saved. We don't need to go perform a miracle, folks. They have Moses and the prophets. Let's take Moses and the prophets and let's preach the word of God and get people saved. And if they don't hear this, well, they're not going to be persuaded no matter what. It's the word of God that produces faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Let's go forward to Revelation. I'm skipping some for sake of time, but go to Revelation chapter 20. There are a few other mentions of hell. In James 3 verse 6 we have the fire of hell, 2 Peter 2.4 down to hell, Revelation 1.18, the keys of hell and of death, Jesus Christ holds those, but let's go to Revelation 20. And again, I'm just showing you New Testament mentions of the word hell, not to mention Matthew 13 when it talks about so shall it be at the end of the world that Jesus Christ will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and then which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Let me explain something to you. People who are dead do not gnash their teeth, okay? People who are just, because a lot of people are just trying to say, well, hell is just the grave. It's what the Jehovah's false witnesses will teach, it's what the Seventh-day Adventist will teach. Well, hell is just the grave. Well, look, when you're in the grave, you're not gnashing your teeth. You're not weeping and you're definitely not wailing. You know what wailing means? If you have kids, you know what wailing is, okay? When we're upset, we cry, we weep. When children are upset, they wail. I mean, it's just a whole other level of crying. And when you look at children and they're wailing, I often say to my wife, what would it take for you to wail like that? I mean, it would have to, you'd have to go through some really extreme sorrow. But to them, it's my sucker fell in the sand. And you know, the wet sucker hits the sand, it's just covered in sand now, all the sand sticks to it. I mean, to them, for us to weep like that and to wail like that, I mean, it would be the death of a loved one, right? It would be something really extreme. To them, it's my sucker fell in the dirt, okay? And there's no water to wash it or whatever. So where are we at in the Bible here? Revelation 20? Here's one of the first verses I ever memorized this. I memorized this as a tiny little kid. My parents had it written in the back of the Bible as a verse to prove that hell is eternal. And I memorized this verse when I was a tiny little child. And it says in Revelation 20, 10, the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. Does it say where the beast and the false prophet were? Keep in mind, this is post millennium. This is after the thousand year millennium. The beast and the false prophet were thrown into the hell at the beginning of the millennium in Revelation 19. Then the thousand year reign of Christ goes by and it says that the beast and the false prophet are still there, okay? They've been there for a thousand years at this point and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Jump down to verse 14, and 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 in the lake of fire. Now let me take a moment before we go to the Old Testament verses and talk about the fact that a lot of people try to make a really big deal out of the fact that there's hell that's now in the center of the earth, down into hell, descending into hell, the lowest part of the earth, hell. But then there's also hell that's referred to as outer darkness, okay? Or the lake of fire. Now that place, the lake of fire or outer darkness, is the future home of hell. Now at this time, hell is located in the center of the earth, okay? That's where hell is. Anybody who is not saved, who has died, is in hell. They're in the lower parts of the earth. They're in the depths of the earth. But at the great white throne judgment in chapter 20, death and hell will deliver up the dead which are in them and the dead will stand before God and be judged by their works and then the dead will be cast into the lake of fire. But the lake of fire is also called hell, okay? Now in verse 14 when it says death and hell were cast in the lake of fire, those who don't believe in eternal hell will say, see that's where hell's just being destroyed. No. This is where hell is being relocated. Okay, when hell is cast in the lake of fire. So we have two different places, okay? Two different places. There's the place in the center of the earth, in the heart of the earth right now. What characterizes that place? Fire, screaming, darkness, pain, suffering, torment, okay? Then there's the future place. After the white throne judgment, okay, because the new heaven and the new earth are going to be created and the new earth will not contain hell. Now hell's going to be in outer darkness, okay? It's going to be in the lake of fire. Different place. What characterizes the lake of fire? Fire, brimstone, darkness, torment, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. So look, do we need to make some huge big deal about the difference between these two places? Do they sound that different? Okay now our King James Bible refers to both places as hell. You say well how do I know? How do I know which one it's talking about? I'm going to have to go back to the Greek. I don't know which one it's talking about. I don't know because here's it, when it says down, which one are we talking about? Okay, when it talks about people being there right now, which one is that? When it's talking about people in outer darkness? I mean there's nothing outer about the inside of the earth, okay? Outer darkness. Look, you can tell from the context. It's not that complicated. Now a lot of people make a big deal out of this and they criticize the King James Bible, That's two different words than the original Greek and you're combining them into one. So what? We combine agape and phileo into love. So what? Get over it. We're speaking English. Now look, if I were to ask somebody today, and by the way, when it comes to the definition of words, they change over time. Words mean what people think they mean. If 99% of people in a certain country use a certain word to mean a certain thing, then that's what that word means in that language. So if we were to ask 99% of people, what is the place called where it's down in the center of the earth, people are burning and in torment and suffering, what's that place called? They're going to say that place called hell. And if I said okay, what's the place called where people are going to be for all eternity, it's outer darkness, it's weeping, wailing, and ashing, they're also going to call that place hell. So in English we use the word hell to express both places. Now what the modern, and by the way, this isn't unique to the King James. How about every single English Bible before the King James did the same thing? How about every single English Bible because it's the English language word for those places is hell. You know, okay, the Wycliffe Bible, Tyndale Bible, you know, the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Matthew Bible, the Coverdale Bible, the Great Bible. Every English Bible in existence before this book all did that. It's hell. But now all these modern perversions of scripture come along, such as the NIV, the ESV, the HIV, the SUV, you know, whatever. All these new versions come out and all of a sudden they want to just say, well, that's not hell. They want to change it to Hades and they'll say, well, this is Hades and this is hell and on and on. Look, Hades is not an English word unless you're referring to Greek mythology. Now they're trying to turn it into an English word and they're creating a new word, okay, but what they're also doing when they do that is they're changing doctrine because they're trying to say, you know, Hades is not necessarily a place of fiery torment. Of course, we could look up every single time it's used and it's clearly a place of torment. It's clearly a place of fire every single time it's used, okay. So they say, oh, you know, you're King James is wrong because it doesn't differentiate between Hades. Look, man, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, if it's fire, if you're burning, if you're in torment, if you're suffering, if it's darkness, hell is a great English word to describe that. Greek English. And you know, we could sit there and go through all the times that Hades is used and all the times that Gehenna is used, but you know what, it's vain. It's not important because, you know, you can read the English Bible and get a clear picture of hell and look, did anybody, okay, who here can say, I don't know any Greek or Hebrew but reading the New Testament, I figured out that there were two different places from my King James Bible. One in the center of the earth and one in outer darkness. Put up your hand if you figured that out. Yeah, the whole auditorium because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. You can tell from the context, okay. It's pretty easy. I knew that as a small child just reading the Bible, okay. So has everybody got a clear picture of hell from the New Testament? We've seen what Jesus taught. We've seen what the apostles taught. It's really consistent. Let's go back to the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 32 is where we started, but let's jump forward to Psalms. Let's go to Psalm 9. I'm just going to hurry up and blow through these because remember the unbelievers out there, the liberals out there, the scholars and intelligentsia out there will try to tell you that hell is not an Old Testament doctrine. Doesn't exist in the Old Testament. Or they'll say this, well we just replaced, a lot of what they'll do is they just don't translate the word sheol. So they take the Hebrew word sheol and they just leave it untranslated. And then they're like, well we're just going to let the reader decide. Now that sounds good on the surface. On the surface it sounds good. Hey, we don't want to put our doctrinal slant, so we're just going to leave it untranslated and let the reader decide. Here's the problem with that. The reader doesn't speak Hebrew. So you're asking somebody to decide something that they're not qualified to decide, okay. A person who speaks English needs to read an English Bible. And you can't just mix in a bunch of foreign words and say, we're going to let you decide what they mean. Well guess what, I don't know what they mean, you know, is what the average English-speaking reader is going to say, so that's why I'm reading a translation. I mean look, if we just want to let you decide, why don't we just hand you a Hebrew Bible? Then you can decide about all the words. I mean why stop at sheol? And then some of them will leave other, you know, for example, I looked it up in the ESV and it said like, you know, where it talks about hell and destruction. And they basically left it as sheol and abaddon. I mean they're leaving multiple words untranslated. Why don't, I mean is this like a, is this like a teach you Hebrew version or something? I mean it just doesn't make any sense folks, why stop there? How many other words are you going to leave up to armchair scholars who don't know anything about the original language, have never read Hebrew, just well I'm going to figure out what sheol really means. And here's what really complicates it, because Hebrew and English are real different languages. And for example, did you know that there's one Hebrew word that is translated into 84 different English words in the King James Bible? One Hebrew word translates into 84 different English words, right? But the average reader should just be left to decide, the average English speaker should be left to decide which of those 84 words is appropriate. It doesn't make any sense folks. We need to be English speaking people who read an English Bible. If you're fluent in Hebrew, great, praise the Lord, you go read your Hebrew Bible. But you know what, if you're an English speaker, you need the Bible translated into English. Thank God we have it in the King James. Thank God they had six other great versions before that that translate the Bible into English and that all said hell. They all taught this doctrine that I'm preaching this morning, that hell is a place of fire and brimstone in both Old and New Testament. But these new Bibles come along and they want to remove hell from the Old Testament. Now some of them will just leave it untranslated as sheol, okay, because the word sheol also has other meanings. Just like in English we have a ton of words that have multiple meanings. And then some of them will just flat out change hell to the grave or death or things of that nature, okay. But let's look what the Bible says here about hell. And you talk to a Jehovah's Witness, talk to a Seventh-day Adventist, they're going to tell you, well sheol is not hell, sheol is just the grave. And that's what they're going to tell you. That's what the Seventh-day Adventist and Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you. Let's see if that adds up. Because we already saw fire burning lowest hell in Deuteronomy 32. Look at Psalm 9 verse 17. It says the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. Now look, if it's just the grave, why is it just the wicked that go in there? And why is it just people who forget God to go there? I mean isn't everybody going to the grave? I mean didn't every single person practically in the Old Testament, besides a few exceptions, you know Elijah going up in a whirlwind, didn't they all go to the grave? But did they all go to hell? No. Chapter 16 verse 10 says, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. The reason that this verse is so significant is because this is an Old Testament mention of hell that's quoted in the New Testament. And it says hell in both places. And the Greek word is identical in meaning to our English word hell. It's just fire and brimstone every time it's mentioned. So there you go. That proves right there that we're not talking about just the grave, we're talking about hell. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Chapter 18 verse 5, the sorrows of hell compass me about. Now based on that verse, is hell a good place? Okay it's a bad place, it's a sorrowful place. It's somewhere you don't want to be. He said thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, that's why I'm rejoicing, I want to get out of there. Talking about Jesus Christ of course. The wicked shall be turned into hell. Look at chapter 55 verse 15. And while you're turning there I'll read for you from Psalm 86. It says for great is thy mercy toward me, thou has delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Okay so hell is a place that you're saved from. Everybody getting this? Saved from hell. Hell's a bad place. Hell is sorrowful. Look at 55, 15, let death seize upon them and let them go down quick into hell for wickedness. Is in their dwellings and among them. So hell is down. Hell is a place that you go as a wicked person, okay? Psalm 116, Psalm 116. While you're turning there I'll read for you from Psalm 139 verse 8 where it says if I ascend up into heaven thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. Again contrasting heaven and hell. Psalm 116 verse 3, the sorrows of death compass me and the pains of hell get hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. So hell is a painful place to be. Proverbs 15, 24, you don't have to turn there, turn to Isaiah 5. Turn in your Bible to Isaiah 5. Proverbs 15, 24, the way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath. So look, is hell a place that you have to go? But if it was just the grave, we'd all be going there. No. Hell is a place that you don't go if you're saved, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a place you can be delivered from. The Bible says in Zechariah, it's not in my notes, but somewhere in Zechariah it talks about through the blood of the covenant we are delivered or saved from the pit wherein is no water. Again, another term for hell. The pit wherein is no water, the bottomless pit, the pit and so forth. Proverbs 23, 13, withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. Chapter 5 verse 14, therefore hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure and their glory and their multitude and their pomp and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it. Look at chapter 14 verse 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming, it stirreth up the dead for thee. Even all the chief ones of the earth it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. Let me stop here and say this, the people in hell are always classified as dead, always. Hell delivered up the dead which were in it. They're always called dead. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened. Now those who don't believe in hell, this is what they'll say, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, you've heard it a million times, they'll say this, you believe that unsaved people have eternal life because you believe that people live forever in hell. So they try to play word games with you because we believe that hell is a conscious punishment. Now look, are the people in hell conscious? They're conscious. They're in pain, they have sorrow, they're in torment, they weep, they wail, they gnash their teeth. They are conscious, but are they alive? No. You say, well that doesn't make any sense. No, you don't make sense because the Bible is our final authority. The Bible teaches that they're dead, okay? Now the people in heaven right now, are they alive or dead? Alive. Even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alive while Jesus walked on this earth because when Jesus walked on this earth, he said, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. He said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad. So Abraham is not only conscious, but he's alive in heaven. Isaac is alive, Jacob is alive, okay? What about the unsaved? They are dead, but are they conscious? Say I don't know, that doesn't make sense. I don't care whether you think it makes sense. It is possible to be dead in hell in a place called death and yet be conscious of pain and misery and suffering. The dead in hell will never live again. There will be a resurrection of life and a resurrection of damnation where the dead will be raised up and stand before God. The dead are not brought back to life. They're still dead as they stand before God and the books are open and they're cast in the lake of fire. Just because they are dead does not mean that they are not consciously punished for all eternity. Don't let people play games with you like that. This is what they teach. They call it, the architects of the Jehovah's false witness religion call it the immortality of the soul, meaning that the soul lives forever. No, the soul dies forever, but it is still an eternal, conscious punishment that goes on forever. This is a Bible doctrine, it's clear. Where are we? Isaiah 14, look at verse 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high, yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. Now here we see that hell and the pit are synonymous. Go to Ezekiel 31, Ezekiel 31, just blowing through these Old Testament mentions. What have we learned so far? Deuteronomy 32, 22, hell is associated with fire. In Psalms, hell is brought up over and over again as being the place where the unsaved go, the wicked go, a place where the saved are delivered from, a place where the saved do not have to go, okay? We saw that in Isaiah that hell is a place that has a physical size, it enlarges itself as more people go there. We read in Isaiah 14, 9 that hell is beneath. In verse 15, that's reiterated, down into hell and that hell is equated with the pit. It's a place of sorrow, this is all Old Testament doctrine, sorrow, pain, suffering, Old Testament. Look at Ezekiel 31 verse 16, I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit. Now isn't descend similar to the word down? Because he's showing us down to hell is the same as descending to the pit. Hell and the pit are used synonymously once again. Now look, just at first blush, looking at Ezekiel 31, 16, does hell look like a place where every, does sheol look like a place where everybody's going? Because it says with them that descend into the pit, doesn't that sound like everybody's not descending into the pit? There's this group that's descending into the pit, okay? That's because it's hell, not the grave, if it was the grave, everybody would be going there. If it was just a place of death, everybody dies, okay? And of course I realize that at the rapture we should not all sleep but we should all be changed. But throughout history 99% of people have died, 99.99%, that is not an exact figure. Keep reading, it says, the choice, all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword. And they that were his arm that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen. To whom art thou like in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet thou shalt be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth. Nether means lower. Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh in all his multitude, saith the Lord God. Now don't get confused by the trees of Eden, you've got to read the whole chapter and sometime read chapters 31 and 32 of Ezekiel. He basically is comparing all the kings to trees and he calls the kings trees, he's referring to people when he says the trees, he's talking about the kings and he explains that if you read the whole chapter. And when he talks about them being comforted, they're taking comfort when they see the other kings showing up also, you know, when they see their buddies showing up. And they say, oh you too, huh? Okay but you've got to read the whole chapter, I don't have time to go through it. But look at chapter 32, it says in verse 24, there is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth which caused their terror in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit. They have set her abed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude, her graves are round about him, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword. Though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit, he is put in the midst of them that be slain. Notice them that go down to the pit, not everybody, only those who go down to the pit, the ungodly, the unsaved. Verse 27, they shall not lie with the mighty men that are fallen uncircumcised which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war and they have laid their swords under their heads but their iniquities shall be upon their bones though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. Go to Isaiah 38, Isaiah 38, last place we'll turn in the Old Testament right now. But this concept of the bottomless pit is something that we find again in the New Testament. Remember in Revelation chapter 9 when the fifth trumpet of God's wrath sounds and the Bible says that there's an angel that comes down from heaven and opens up the bottomless pit. And when the bottomless pit is open, there's a smoke that comes out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. And then of course those locusts come out of the pit. Then later on in chapter 20, the same angel comes down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and he lays hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and he binds him for a thousand years and casts him into the bottomless pit and shuts him up into the bottomless pit. So we could look up every mention of hell, we could look up every mention of the pit, the bottomless pit, and look, this doctrine is just over and over and over. I mean to deny hell you're just denying hundreds of scriptures. Fifty-four mentions of hell, all the mentions of the furnace of fire, all the mentions of outer darkness, all the mentions of the pit, the bottomless pit. Why is hell called the bottomless pit? Well think about it, if it's in the center of the earth, I mean where are you going to fall to? Right? You know what I'm saying? If it's a pit in the center of the earth, there's not going to be a gravitational pull. You know, it's a bottomless pit. It has no bottom because it's at the center of the earth. The Bible also refers to it as being in the heart of the earth. Okay? Jesus said as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Okay? Heart, by the way, do you know how to say heart in French? We're not going back to the Greek, we're going back to the French today. The heart is core, did you know that? That's where we get our English word core. Our English word core, c-o-r-e, comes from the French word heart, core, okay? Because the French invaded England in 1066 A.D., William the Conqueror, that's why core is spelled the way it is. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the heart or the core of the earth, even today, the atheistic blasphemers down at the university will tell you that what's in the middle of the earth? The core. Right? They'll tell you, okay, you got the crust, which is less than 10 miles thick. Think about this, what's the diameter of the earth? 10,000 miles. Okay, so if we were to draw a diagram of the earth, I mean the core would just be a very faint line around the edge, okay? Very faint line. Picture it like an apple. The skin of the apple is thicker than how thick the core is. So if you were to say, okay, the apple is a model for the earth, wrong, because the skin's too thick. The crust of the earth is even thinner than that apple skin in proportion to the size of the apple. I mean, that's pretty thin, isn't it? So the crust is less than 10 miles thick, then underneath that, the scientists will tell you there's the mantle, and you know, they've decided that there's an inner mantle and an outer mantle, and that there's an inner core and an outer core. Of course, did you know that man has never even reached the mantle? Did you know that? I mean, here we are, 6,247 years into it, and we've still never reached the mantle. And they have this big project that they're spending billions of dollars that like by 2028 or something, we're going to get to the mantle. And then at the bottom of the scientific article it said, you know, this is showing man's increasing mastery over the planet. It's like you've got a sphere that's 10,000 miles in diameter and you're all excited because you're getting through the skin of the apple, sort of, maybe 15 years from now, I hope. Because underneath our soil and underneath the ground and the earth we have, there's the bedrock. And there's a layer of rock that is so thick and impenetrable, I mean, they have these giant drill bits. They're trying to reach the mantle, folks. They, you know, forget Journey to the Center of the Earth. I mean, they're just trying to journey through the, Journey Through the Crust is sci-fi. Journey Through the Crust, you know, didn't sound as cool, so he went with Journey to the Center of the Earth. But they take these drill bits and the drill bit's miles long and they go to the ocean where the core, where the crust is the thinnest, right? And they put this giant drill bit and they have to keep changing drill bits. You know how it is when you're drilling through stuff, right? Keep changing the bit. So they get a few feet, change it. You know, this just takes years and years and years and they're going to, someday we're going to reach the mantle. But those same scientists will tell you exactly what's in the core. Oh, they know exactly what's in the core. They've never even been to the mantle, okay? But you know what they're going to tell you? It's fire. It's brimstone. It's sulfur. They're going to tell you it's thousands of degrees Fahrenheit in the core, okay, in the heart of the earth. Now, how did the Bible already know that? The Bible already told you that hell is there. The Bible told you that thousands of years ago. You know, they only started talking about the core a hundred years ago. You know, and then before that they knew, okay, the mantle. And you know, what are they doing? They're, you know, they can bounce their sound wave. You can't really be sure until you go there, until you see. And they all will go there, by the way, these scientists, because 99% of them reject the Lord Jesus Christ. So they are going to go on a journey to the center of the earth, you know? Because that's where they're going, okay? But what I'm saying is that the core, or hell, a place of fire, a place of torment, people scoff at hell today. And it's funny, I'll be out soul winning and somebody scoffs at hell and I'll be like, well, when you went to school, what did they teach you was in the center of the earth? Oh yeah, it's all just fire and lava and it's thousands of degrees, but that's just a coincidence. How did the authors of the Bible know that? Because it's written by God, that's why. God's the author. There's so much that's in the Bible that's so accurate that man is just now discovering. The Bible is always ahead of the curve. Where was that last place I had you turn to? Isaiah 38, 17, Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. So according to the Old Testament, how do you get delivered from hell? How do you get saved from hell? How are you saved from that pit of corruption? It tells you right there, because your sins are cast behind God's back. Your sins are forgiven. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Of course that scripture in Zechariah that I paraphrased you earlier tells us through the blood. In the Old Testament it tells us you're delivered from the pit through the blood, through salvation. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And the Bible is crystal clear in the Old Testament and the New Testament that hell is a real place. It has a real location, center of the earth at this time. It has fire, it's pain, it's sorrow, it's suffering. Let me ask this, did any of the mentions I read for you from the Old Testament contradict any New Testament teaching on hell? Anything just jump out at you, whoa that's different? No, because it's not different. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever, there's always been heaven, there's always been hell as long as this earth has been created. Going back to the very early days of Genesis, there's been heaven, there's been hell. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, every word of God is pure. If you want to trust, because you don't speak Hebrew, you don't speak Greek, if you want to trust these new modern effeminate versions, look at the fruit of them. They're destroying our nation. Christianity is a joke today, churches are a joke. This church is considered radical and extreme, we just believe the old book and preach it. But I'm telling you, the fruit of these new versions is effeminate men, it's queers out of the closet, it's liberalism, it's modernism, it's to doubt the miracles, it's to doubt heaven and hell, it's to doubt all of the things that the Bible teaches. Look, these new versions, if you want to trust the brand spanking new, hot off the presses, Bible of the month, go for it. Or you can trust the 400 year standard and every Bible in English that came before it that will tell you hell. And if you trust it, if you trust your English Bible, the King James Bible, which I do, which I believe is the word of God without error, if you read it and trust it, you cannot deny what hell is. You cannot deny who's going there and you cannot deny how long it's going to last. This book makes it crystal clear. And you know what that means? That means we need to preach the gospel to the lost. You know, we're not afraid of going to hell, we're saved. We believe in eternal life, everlasting life. We cannot lose our salvation. We're saved by grace through faith. What about them? That's why we go out and tell them. Not because we're just trying to deliver them from the grave. They can go to the grave for all I care. You know, I'm not going to spend that much time on that. But you know what? It's to deliver them from hell. The Bible says, others saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Look, we need to pull them out of the fire. We need to save people from an eternal hell by preaching them the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is the only way they're going to be delivered from hell. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the fact that you don't change. And we thank you for the fact that the Bible is in our language, that we don't have to rely on a priest to translate it to us, but that we have the book in our hand in English. We can read it. We can study it. It's crystal clear. Help us not to be deceived by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby these serpents and vipers lie in wait to deceive us and try to tell us that hell is not real. Obviously the devil doesn't want us to believe in hell because he doesn't want us warning people. He doesn't want us fired up about soul winning. Help us to stay fired up about soul winning and to love people and care about people and want to see them saved from eternal hell. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.