The Tale of Three Gardens

Dr. Michael Youssef. Now, here's the truth. Listen carefully. God is not going to send anybody to hell. You must understand that. God is not going to send anybody to hell. He's not going to take people to heaven against their will either. People take themselves to hell.

Thank you for joining listeners all around the world for Leading the Way Audio. You've probably heard the question, how could a loving God send anyone to hell? Well, Dr. Youssef says that it's that thought process, along with the deception from Satan, that's led many to believe that, provided someone is sincere in their search or yearning for God and spiritual things, all roads must lead to light. Well, that's an ingredient in the greatest lie. And it's a lie that is dragging many people to hell every day.

So listen with me as Dr. Michael Youssef helps shine the light of truth on this deception. The greatest lie is that Christianity is just a religion among other religions. That Jesus Christ is a Savior. He may be my Savior, some people claim, but He's not the Savior of the world. That all roads lead to God and into the light. That Christ is a mere founder of a religion.

I want you to hear me right because that's important. In many ways, there are a lot of ways I can show you how to refute this. But the aim is not to refute the greatest lie for the sake of refuting, because you can often win the argument and lose the person. And that is not our desire. Our love for them compels us to help deliver them from the judgment that's coming upon the world. But make no mistake about it, believing this greatest lie will not get people into eternity in heaven, it will get them into eternity in a place that Jesus calls hell. And by the way, I never joke about hell.

An old man told me years and years and years ago when I began my ministry, he said, don't ever joke about hell because real people are going there. And that is why our love compels us to tell them the truth, to explain the truth patiently, lovingly. And in this message and the next, I'm going to give you indisputable truth that is why Jesus and Jesus alone is the truth and the only giver of eternal life. I want to show you how that anyone who would say to you Jesus is my savior, but he's not everybody's savior, they're already knee deep in that greatest lie. And they need to discover the truth if they are to have eternal life in heaven. And the first proof about the Christian faith to be the truth and the only life giving faith is found in the unity of the scripture, in the unity of the Bible.

And I want to talk to you about this today. Most of the other religions called sacred books or sacred scriptures, they're hodgepodge of moral and ethical and rules by which you, how to live and how to do this and including every detail of your life. And even then they tell you, you really have absolutely no way of connecting with God personally.

He is so far removed. Our Bible is a compendium that has a beginning and an end. And the end reflects the beginning and the beginning reflects the end. In the opening chapters of the Bible there is a garden and 1600 years later the last writer in the Bible concludes the Bible with another garden.

In the beginning the first garden, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve bought into Satan's greatest lie and we all inherited the curse of sin. And this is a key beloved, listen carefully, and that is why God said that you cannot get to the final garden until you have gone through the middle garden. You got started with a garden, you ended with a garden but in the middle there's another garden. And that middle garden is a vital important. You see that's where the unity of the Bible comes in. The middle garden is the Garden of Gethsemane and no one can enter into the final last garden without going through the Garden of Gethsemane.

How? By following the one who went through the Garden of Gethsemane. That middle garden is the only way to the final garden. The middle garden is halfway between Genesis and Revelation.

There in the middle garden Jesus prayed before the crucifixion and he prayed with such intensity until he was sweating blood. In the first garden the first human beings fell into Satan's temptation. In the first garden our first parents disobeyed God but in the middle garden the last Adam, Jesus Christ, faced more intense temptation than Adam has ever faced and yet he was victorious over Satan's temptation.

He didn't fall for it, he had victory and he is willing to share that victory with everyone who would come to him. In the first garden Adam and Eve took from the tree. In the middle garden the last Adam, Jesus Christ, hung on a tree. In the first garden Adam rejected the will of God but in the middle garden the last Adam, Jesus, said thy will be done, not my will but yours and he said I will drink that cup if that is your will for the salvation of everyone who would come to me and in that very submission to the will of the Father he crushed Satan's head just as God said in Genesis 3.15. Jesus is not the founder of Christianity. Christianity was founded in Genesis 3.15. In the first garden Adam and Eve yield to Satan and they believe the greatest lie but in the middle garden Jesus obeyed the Father, drank the cup of judgment on behalf of everyone who would believe in him.

In Adam all of humanity receive the curse of sin and disobedience and death but in Christ the last Adam and only in Christ we can receive the gift and the blessings of eternal life that we would have peace here on earth in our hearts with him and relating to him but peace for eternity. That's the key and you see those who buy into the greatest lie that all paths will lead to heaven and all paths will lead to God they're going to spend eternity not in that final garden but in a place the Bible calls hell and everything we know about hell just about came from the lips of Jesus. You see why beloved they don't want his name in public life don't pray in Jesus name it's a controversial name don't mention that name they want to get rid of the crosses they want to get rid of Jesus name from public life because they don't want to hear the one who said there is hell. They don't want to know about their destiny but we out of love in our hearts must tell them that there is a way to escape from that horrible place because Jesus is the one who warned us about hell. In Matthew 10 28, in Matthew 25 46, in Matthew 13 40, in Luke 16 22 and I could go on under the references are too many to number but the Bible said something very important about hell that God originally designed hell for Satan and his demons for rebelling against God. That's the purpose for which hell is hell and why it's there but sadly it is a place for everyone who buys into Satan's greatest lie and I know probably some of you are sitting here saying Michael Michael Michael why do you have to get and talk about hell man all the preachers have given up preaching on hell why are you the last man standing? Because when I see Jesus I don't want to tell him that I preached half truth to make people feel good. Denying the full truth is a lie but I know so I must say to me many times I've heard it from even wonderful friends nobody preaches on hell anymore it's such a negative subject. No it is. Somebody said it's a turn off.

Turn off from what? Warn people honestly about a place that is awaiting them if they buy into Satan's lie and refuse to believe the truth. There is a sub lie that Satan is spreading around and there are many people who have easily bought into it.

He had successfully sold it to a lot of preachers and that sub lie is that the hell is just a metaphor that hell is just a concept that there is no such place as hell or that oh how can a loving God send anybody to hell? Now here's the truth listen carefully God is not going to send anybody to hell. You must understand that God is not going to send anybody to hell.

He's not going to take people to heaven against their will either. People take themselves to hell. Those who have reject God's only son as the only savior of everyone in the world. Those who have reject God's only plan of salvation for everyone in the globe as those who reject all of the evidence of the truth of the scripture. Those who refuse to believe God's word. Those who choose the do it yourself religion. Those who doubt what God has made very clear in the scripture. Sadly and painfully the Bible said they will end up in a place in the Greek it is topos. It is a place it is a literal and physical place called hell. Listen I mean that is why we spend millions of dollars every year and untold hours of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Why? Telling people to escape from hell. Urging people to accept God's only way of salvation.

Warning people of the consequences of their choices. And the most amazing thing is that God never for 2,000 years never left himself without a witness. From the time the disciples traveled the globe where Thomas went to India and there he was martyred and Mark went to Egypt and there he was martyred. From that time on missionaries throughout 2,000 years have gone into the remote parts of the world. They lost limb and life. They buried their children in foreign lands.

Why? In order to warn people to escape from hell because no one in the end is going to be accusing God of giving them a raw deal. He did not leave himself without a witness. Beloved listen to me I tell you with a severe pain in my heart and a prayer on my lips that no one at the sound of my voice would end up in that place. So what do we know about hell? Everything we know about hell comes from the lips of Jesus. The first thing about hell Jesus tells us that it is a lake of fire.

In telling the story of Lazarus and the rich man Jesus who was there before the foundation of the earth. Jesus who knows all about hell. He tells us that it is a literal place not a state of mind. It's a place of intense suffering. It's a place from which there is no return. It is a place of eternal separation from all that is good and holy and righteous. It is a place of separation from God himself. Jesus who experienced the very hell itself when he was separated from the father carrying your sin and mine.

He is the one who paid that price for you and for me. Jesus who experienced its very agony he did so so that anyone would come and believe in him escape from it. And he alone is able to talk about hell with authority. Twenty-one times in the New Testament hell and all the derivation of the word is described as a place of unquenchable fire. But that's not all.

In fact I'm going to come back to that again. But he said it's a place of confinement. In Matthew 18 21 in the story of the unforgiving servant Jesus described it as a prison. But earthly prisons confine only a person's body. Earthly prisons cannot confine the spirit and the soul but hell is. Earthly prisons cannot chain down the spirits regardless of what happens to the body. Because the spirit even in a physical prison is free to worship. It's free to create. It's free to imagine.

It's free to anticipate and it's free to hope. Paul and Silas were beaten so severely they were bleeding from every part of their body and they were thrown into the Philippian jail. But in the midst of that prison they were able to sing praises to the Lord.

Earthly prisons could not repress their joy. I will never forget back in 1986 I had the distinct honor of sitting with a man who was taking hostage in Beirut. Remember back then a bunch of Americans were taken hostages?

Well he was one of them a prominent man and was there for over three years. He told me unimaginable horror stories about his captivity. And yet he told me he survived by nurturing his inner spirit with hope and anticipation. Ah but in hell a person is so locked up their imagination locked up their thoughts their creativity all hope is locked up. Not only that but the Bible said that it is a place of utter darkness.

Those who belong to Jesus those who refuse to believe the greatest lie will be in that final garden that is already described to you from the book of Revelation where Jesus himself physically is present and where he is illuminating and light up that place. But in contrast hell is a place of perpetual darkness. Matthew 25 30 Jesus said it is outer darkness meaning that there will be no morning no evening no twilight no sunrises no sunsets there'll be no moral light. The moral and spiritual darkness all the time only dullness and ignorance.

There is no light no light to read no light to see anything or anybody. But not only it is a lake of fire and it's a place of torment and it's a place of confinement a place of darkness. The Bible also tells us Jesus said it's a place of suffering continuous perpetual suffering.

He said it's a place of gnashing of teeth there is no relief not even for a nanosecond. And that is why in the story of Lazarus and the rich man and by the way that is not a parable it's a real story. And only the eternal Jesus would know what was taking place on the other side of this curtain we call life. Jesus said that the place called hell where that selfish and self-centered man was in torment. Jesus said he looked up and he saw father Abraham far far away and Lazarus was his next to him. The man whom he ignored all his life the man who he mistreated all of his life the godly unrighteous man was right there by Abraham's side.

And so he called to him Jesus said father Abraham have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. Continuous confinement continuous darkness continuous suffering and the Bible also said it's a place of continuous loneliness complete loneliness. It was George Bernard Shaw who was quoted to have said there are a lot of interesting people in hell. A media mogul here in America several years ago made a statement he said I'm looking forward to hell because I get to spend time with Hitler and Mussolini. Let me tell you a little bit of what the Bible said about those interesting people. It's in Revelation 21 8 cowardly unbelieving vile immoral idolatrous and liars just a small list. But the most important thing is not only that this kind of dubious crew is going to be in hell but there's no fellowship there's no companionship in hell because it's a place of absolute isolation solitary confinement.

Once there all feelings of friendship and love will be gone forever. Beloved no wonder Satan is waging unrelentless war a brutal war right now against the very souls even of people who are churchgoers. He's frantically trying to persuade men and women boys and girls to follow his greatest lie and is preached by former Christian schools and and former Christian churches. I often think that all of my pleading would save one person will be worth it. But I know I know from the scripture that ultimately it is God who opens our spiritual eyes to see the horrors of sin and our desperate need to escape from it. That is why all of my pleading is with him. We need to plead with God for salvation of souls. Let me tell you something if you have an unbelieving family member and you are praying for that person don't ever give up.

Did you get that? Don't ever give up. That is one prayer God promised to hear.

And I know I've seen people come to Christ within a matter of a few years and I'm still praying for some people who still have not come to Christ. But I don't give up. Intercede. Plead with God. He's patient. But he will not tarry forever. Before I conclude this message I know that some people always ask the question.

What about those who haven't heard? This is a simple answer. It really is much simpler than you think. They are not your problem. They are God's problem.

They are God's problem not yours. Yours is that you've heard. Did you respond? What did you do with the truth?

Did you accept it and obey it or not? And the Bible said that God desires not one person not one be lost. It's his deep desire. And believers that ought to be your desire and mine. Even our enemies. We need to pray that they'll be saved. But he also not going to take people to heaven against their will. I was talking to one of those people who says you know everybody's going to make it to heaven everybody. And I said do you love Jesus?

He said no I can't stand his name. I said heaven is all about Jesus. What are you going to do with him if you end up in heaven? What do you do?

Everything in heaven is about Jesus. Your job and mine is to tell them. Understanding the greatest lie on today's Leading the Way. Visit ltw.org to stream this and all of Dr. Yusef's messages for free and learn about several podcasts that we distribute as well. The Leading the Way app and more. Now one of those engaging podcasts that I mentioned is hosted by Jonathan Yusef. He's the youngest son of Leading the Way founder and teacher Dr. Michael Yusef. The podcast is called Candid Conversations with Jonathan Yusef. And each week Jonathan introduces you to a guest or guest who bring a tough topic to the table topics that our culture is struggling with.

Topics that need to be viewed through a biblical lens. So I hope that you'll take a moment and do a quick search on your podcast platform for Candid Conversations with Jonathan Yusef. Each Tuesday another episode will drop and these episodes will offer tools helping you better engage with life and culture in 2022. Hello and welcome to Candid where we never settle for less than the truth. I'm your host Jonathan Yusef. Each week we'll tackle tough issues. Because in progressive Christianity they don't view the Bible as the word of God.

They say we're going on the all-star game and I got a phone call from Rhonda and she said Kayla's not breathing. The phone call no parent was. Yeah I mean it's like what are you talking about? A lot of people try to heal the pain that they've lived through by accolades and success and credentials and there's no accolade there's no credential there's no success that's ever going to give you what Jesus Christ will give you. If God is not sovereign then it depends on our works alone for the salvation of people which would be impossible. The Lord asked me a question he said if you stood before me tonight what name would I call and I said oh God that is not fair I told you I'm repentant of this.

As I ran back to the car I dropped the bomb I had I'd gotten close to the house up the carport with the bomb and dropped it and that was a miracle right there that it didn't explode. Can a Christian engage in that political process without selling their soul? I think it's possible. Compromise in politics always happens.

The question is are you compromising your principles or are you compromising your policy? Learn more at ltw.org ltw.org. Hey and if you have any questions and you want to order any products you can always reach out to a ministry representative. We're at 866-626-4356. That's 866-626-4356. Okay there's the music that is my cue to say goodbye but I do have just enough time to invite you back again next time right here for Leading the Way. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yousaf.