Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.
On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. Once you die, your eternal destination is just that, eternal. Hell is a forever destination. Do you know with absolute certainty you're not going to end up in this terrible place Jesus the Son of God talked about?
Are you sure? Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. It's fun to dream about the rewards that await us in heaven, but you really hear very few messages about the misery of spending eternity in hell. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress talks about the sobering reality of eternal judgment in hell. It's a serious topic with severe implications. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory and the very last day in our teaching series on Bible prophecy. Over the past four weeks, we've been digging into a fascinating study of the end times called perfect ending. And while the teaching series ends today, your understanding of Bible prophecy doesn't end today. To help you learn more, I've set aside three very practical resources for you, but time is running out to request this special offer. First, I want you to have my best-selling book that complements this study. It's called Perfect Ending, Why Your Eternal Future Matters Today.
In addition, I'm prepared to send you two very practical tools that are visual in nature. If you feel like these matters of biblical prophecy and their precise timing get a little fuzzy in your mind, well, you're not alone. Many Christians feel that way. And so, I want to send you my Bible prophecy chart. This brochure will help you clearly visualize what will happen in the end times and the order in which those events will occur. And third, I'm going to send you the 72-page book called The End Times Illustrated, a panorama of Bible prophecy from Genesis to Revelation. In this handy reference tool, you'll find a clear and detailed chronology of the end time events from the rapture all the way to the new heaven and the new earth.
All three resources are yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of pathway to victory. And now, let's open our Bibles and continue a study I introduced earlier. I'll warn you again, this may be one of the very first sermons you've ever heard on the subject of hell.
It's a serious message with severe implications. Turn to Luke chapter 16 for an eye-opening study that reveals the truth about eternity. You know, when you think about it, if you're thinking about a future destination, the only reliable guide to tell you what really awaits you is somebody who's already been there before. There's only one person who's seen life on the other side of the grave and come back to tell us what awaits us. His name is Jesus Christ. And Jesus had a great deal to say about the subject of hell. Well, that begs the question, what did Jesus teach about the future of unbelievers when they die?
If you have your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter 16, verses 19 to 26. Now, there was a certain rich man and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, daily living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. And it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom, that is the presence of the Lord. And the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, the rich man lifted up his eyes being in torment and he saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And the rich man cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue for I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham said, child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise Lazarus bad things.
But now he is being comforted and you are in agony. And besides all of this, between us and you, there is a great chasm fixed in order that those who wish to come from here to you may not be able and that none may cross over there to us. I want you to notice in this passage five truths that Jesus taught us about hell, the fate of those who die without Christ. First of all, Jesus taught that hell is an actual location. It is an actual location. Again, it's popular today to try to theorize, well, hell is really just a state of mind. It's not an actual place. And yet, if you believe that heaven is an actual location, you logically have to accept that hell is a real location as well. What did Jesus teach about these places? Not only is hell an actual location, secondly, hell is a place of physical torment.
It's a place of actual physical suffering. Look at verse 24. The rich man cried out and he said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off from my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame. Turn over, hold your place here and turn over to Revelation chapter 20 verse 10. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are also. And they will be tormented, verse 10 says, day and night forever and ever. Verse 15 says, for the unsaved, if any man's name was not found written in the book of life, he was also cast into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night forever and ever.
And ever. You've heard me say before that word translated forever and ever is the Greek word ionos. And interestingly, it is the very same word, the word that refers to the eternality of hell that is used to describe the eternality of heaven as well.
I'll never forget hearing Dr. Chris will say years ago, and it was such a perceptive comment. He said, if you reduce by any amount the time an unbeliever spends in hell, you have to subtract that same amount from the time that a believer spends in heaven because the same word describes both. Fact is, the punishment of hell is forever. Here is the awful truth about hell, ladies and gentlemen. If you end up there, if you end up in hell, after you have spent 10 billion trillion years in that awful place, you will not have reduced by one second the time you have left to spend there. Hell is a place of eternal suffering. Number three, hell is filled with indescribable loneliness.
Matthew 8 verse 12, Jesus said, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast into the outer darkness. And in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you ever heard anybody say before, oh, I don't care about going to hell, that's where all my friends are going to be. And we'll just go there and party day and night forever. We'll have a great time because I'll be with my friends. Well, the fact is you may be there with your friends.
They may be there with you, but you won't know it. You won't be aware of it because hell is a place of darkness, which means it is a place of indescribable loneliness. I'll never forget years ago an article I read about hell. It was entitled Hell, That Hideous Doctrine. And in the article, the writer imagined using the scripture what hell would be like from the point of view of somebody who awakens and finds himself in hell. How would he feel? What would he do?
Listen to this description. After a roar of physical pain blast him, that is the new occupant of hell, he spends his first moments wailing and gnashing his teeth. But after a season, he grows accustomed to the pain.
Not that it's become tolerable, but that his capacity for it has enlarged to comprehend it without being consumed by it. Though he hurts, he is now able to think. And he instinctively looks about him. But as he looks, he only sees blackness.
In his past life, he learned that if he looked long enough, a glow of light somewhere would yield definition to his surroundings. So he blinks and he strains to focus his eyes, but his efforts only yield blackness. He turns and strains his eyes in another direction. He waits.
He sees nothing but unyielding black ink. It clings to him, smothering and oppressing him. Realizing that the darkness is not going to give way, he nervously begins to feel for something solid to get his bearings. He reaches for walls or rocks or trees or chairs.
He stretches his legs to feel the ground, but he touches nothing. He hangs there alone in his pain. Unable to touch a solid object or see a solitary thing, he begins to weep. His sobs choke through the darkness.
They become weak and then lost in hell's roar. Hell is a place of indescribable loneliness. You say, how could God ever do something so awful to people? Number four, Jesus said, hell is a deserved judgment.
It's a deserved judgment. Notice how after the rich man begs for relief from the agony of hell, notice how Abraham responds to his request. Luke 16 verse 25, but Abraham said, child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise Lazarus' bad things, but now he is being comforted there and you're in agony. Verse 27, and the rich man said, then I beg you, Abraham, that you might send Lazarus to my father's house. For I have five brothers that he may warn them, lest they should come to this place of torment.
Isn't that interesting? Even an unbeliever in hell, sensing the reality of hell desires that his lost brothers be saved. Father Abraham, please send someone to go and warn my unbelieving brothers. Verse 29, Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. That is, they have the scripture.
Let them hear them. But the rich man said, oh no, Father Abraham, but if somebody goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But Abraham said, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if somebody rises from the dead. And of course, that was prophetic.
When Jesus rose from the dead, people still refuse to believe in him. What Abraham was saying to the rich man was this, he said, you had many opportunities in your life. Remember all of the good things that God brought into your life? Those good things should have pointed you to God and into repentance, but you gave up those opportunities.
You didn't respond. And then when he said, well, at least remember my brother, send somebody from the dead, Lazarus, to warn them. He said, you have an opportunity too, through scripture. Scripture warns them if they don't believe, they won't believe if somebody comes from the dead. What this passage is teaching us is there is nobody who is in hell because of God's choice.
People are in hell because of their own choice. And that is the choice to reject the knowledge, the sufficient knowledge that comes from God's word. They have Moses and the prophets.
We have even more. We have even the revelation of the New Testament. And that means no man has an excuse. Hell is a deserved judgment. People choose to reject the knowledge of God's word and spend eternity separated from him. I think about Hebrews chapter 10, verse 29. You know, we get the idea, well, isn't that kind of an overreaction on God's part to send people to a horrible place like this simply because they haven't believed the right things about Jesus? But as Hebrews 10, 29 says, neglecting the gospel or rejecting the gospel is not some harmless secondary sin. I want you to notice how the writer describes what you are doing when you reject or simply neglect receiving God's offer of salvation. He writes, how much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the Spirit of grace? Will you notice the three things somebody is doing when he rejects or neglects the gospel?
First of all, he is guilty of trampling the Son of God. That word, trample, katapatayo in Greek. It is a word that was used to describe what would happen when salt had become worthless and had been thrown out because it no longer had any bite to it. It was thrown out to be what? Trampled underfoot by men.
That's the same word. In other words, you'd see salt out there. You wouldn't walk around it.
You figured if it was on the ground, it was worthless. And what the writer is saying is when you reject or neglect Jesus Christ, you are saying the death Jesus Christ died for me is worthless. It is meaningless.
It's not worth my time to give attention to. That's a pretty serious sin. But that's not even the most serious thing we do when we accept or reject or neglect the gospel. Secondly, the person who rejects or neglects the gospel has regarded as unclean, verse 29, the blood of Jesus, the blood of the covenant.
That word unclean is a word in Greek that was used to describe the mangy dogs that used to roam the streets of Jerusalem. When you reject or just neglect the gospel offer of salvation, you know what you're saying? You're saying the blood of Jesus Christ is as dirty, as filthy as that of a mangy, mongrel dog. Do you think God is going to let you get away with that? Number three, not only has he trampled underfoot the Son of God or regarded as unclean, the blood of the covenant. Number three, he has insulted the spirit of grace.
When you reject or just neglect, don't have time for the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are insulting the Holy Spirit of God, who is committing the gospel, who is continually moving and urging you to accept the gospel. Let me illustrate that for you. Let's say, guys, one Saturday morning you're looking out your window and you see your neighbor's yard across the street is flooding with water. You realize a water hose has been left on. So trying to spare him an inflated water bill, you want a warning. So you send your 10-year-old son over there to warn him. So your 10-year-old son goes across the street and knocks on the door and the neighbor opens the door, looks at your 10-year-old son and your son says, mister, the neighbor cuts him off.
You snotty-nosed little kid, get off my property. So your son comes back and reports to you what the neighbor said. Still, you feel compassion and concern.
Maybe he didn't know what was going on. So this time you send your wife over there. You send your wife over to warn the neighbor. She knocks on the front door. He opens the door, sees her, calls her every vile and profane name in the book you can imagine. She breaks down in tears and comes back and reports to you how your neighbor has responded.
How likely are you to send somebody else or go yourself? And yet the Bible says God kept coming back and back and back again. He sent the prophets. They beheaded the prophets. He sent his own son, Jesus. The world delivered him back to God on the end of a bloody Roman spear. Wouldn't that be enough to cause God to give up?
But it wasn't. The Holy Spirit of God is convicting some of you right now, speaking to you about your need to come to Christ, to receive not just a way, but the only way to be saved. And when you keep saying no, no, no, no, no, you are insulting the Spirit of God. To reject and neglect the gospel is not a harmless sin. Everyone who ends up in hell is there by his own choice. Hell is a deserved judgment. Number five and most disturbing, hell is a forever destination. Hell is a forever destination. There's some people who want to suggest that, okay, I believe hell's a real location.
I even believe it's a horrible place, but it's only temporary because eventually even the residents of hell will be convicted of their sin and they will have a second chance to accept in Christ. There are Christian pastors out there, I'm not sure they're really Christians, but they say they're Christians, who are teaching that idea of the second chance that in hell people will have an opportunity to repent and eventually everybody will end up in heaven. Does God allow for that possibility? Look again at Luke 16 verse 26.
The rich man begged Abraham to bring relief to him. And notice in verse 26 what Abraham said, besides all of this, between us and you, there is a great chasm fixed in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able and that none of you may cross over from there to us. Once you die, your eternal destination is just that, eternal. Hebrews 9 27 says it's appointed unto every man once to die and then the judgment. Before you die, you have all kind of opportunities to change, to make different choices, but once you die, all opportunities for change are over. Some people say, well that's just unfair, that God wouldn't give people a second chance. Randy Alcorn writes, fairness doesn't demand that God give people a second chance after death, since he gives us thousands of chances before death.
Listen once again, from the perspective of a new occupant in hell. As time passes, he begins to think and to do what the rich man did. His first thoughts are of hope.
You see, he still thinks as he did on earth, where he kept himself alive with hope. When things got bad, he found a way out. If he felt pain, he took medicine. If he was hungry, he ate food.
If he lost his love, there was more love to be found. And so he came out in his mind for a plan to apply to the hope that is building in his chest. Of course, he thinks, Jesus, the son of God, he can get me out of this. He cries out with a surge, Jesus, Jesus, you were right, please save me, Jesus. He waits, breathing hard with desperation. The sound of his voice slips into the darkness and is lost. He tries again. I believe, Jesus, I believe, please give me a chance, Jesus, I believe, save me from this horrible place.
Again, the darkness smothers his words. You see, the sinner is not unique. In hell, everyone's a believer. Everyone's a believer.
Let me move from the academic to the very practical. Do you know with absolute certainty that when you die, you're not gonna end up in this terrible place? Jesus, the son of God, talked about.
Are you sure? Do you have absolute assurance that when you awaken, you'll awaken in that real place of the presence of God? One writer said, five seconds after you die, you will either be experiencing eternal bliss or you will be catching your first glimpse of unimaginable horror. Either way, your destiny will be irrevocably and eternally unchangeable.
Only two choices. We can choose eternal happiness or unimaginable horror with nothing in between. This is the truth about eternity. Well, this is the final day in the perfect ending teaching series, and I'm eager to remind you that we've prepared a limited quantity of helpful resources for this study.
In order to take advantage of these study tools, we need to hear from you right away. First, I've written a best-selling book called Perfect Ending, Why Your Eternal Future Matters Today. Reports of war, moral decay, and economic turmoil fill the headlines every day. Many people believe the time of Christ's return is growing near. Well, no one knows the day or the hour, but we need to live every day with our eternal future in mind, and this book will answer your pressing questions about the end times. To go along with my book, I've also set aside a highly popular Bible prophecy chart for you. Plus, I've written another book that's visual in nature. It's called The End Times Illustrated.
If you're like me, it's helpful to have a visual representation of the end times from start to finish so that you can see with your own eyes the enormity and the chronology of God's plan for the future. So, all these resources are yours. The End Times Illustrated, my book Perfect Ending, and the Bible Prophecy Chart when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. Thanks for giving generously today.
We wouldn't be heard on your radio station or television or over the internet without the support of friends like you. David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory or when you become a Pathway partner, you're invited to request Dr. Jeffress's best-selling book called Perfect Ending. And when you do, you'll also receive the companion book called The End Times Illustrated, a panorama of Bible prophecy from Genesis to Revelation. Here's our toll-free phone number, 866-999-2965, or make your donation online at ptv.org. And as you give $75 or more, you'll also receive the entire Perfect Ending teaching series on both CD and DVD. Now, this in-depth study includes all the messages being featured this month in their original full-length form.
And it's perfect for a small group leader or for your own personal Bible study. But this offer ends soon, so don't put off calling any longer. To ask for your copy of these resources, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org.
You're always welcome to write if you'd like. Here's that mailing address, PO Box 223-609 Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's PO Box 223-609 Dallas, Texas, 75222.
I'm David J. Mullins. It's disappointing when a prayer goes unanswered. But did you know there's one request that God responds to every single time by saying yes?
Discover the one prayer God always answers. Listen Thursday to Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash donate, or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
