Taking the Lid Off Hell, Part 1

When the Bible gives a warning to sinners about their sin, who's the Bible referring to in those passages? This warning happens to be, for everyone who denies the glory of a creator God, verse 7, those who place their faith in false religion, verse 8, those who worship someone other than the living Lord Jesus Christ, verse 12. This warning isn't just for all the really bad people in the world.

This warning is for the person sitting in your seat. Sometimes people think that when the Bible talks about sinners, it must be referring to someone else. You know, people who have done really, really bad things.

But not the average, generally nice person. Have you ever thought that way? Have you ever read a warning about a certain sin, and your mind went to all kinds of people, but you didn't think about yourself? That kind of thinking—that others are sinners, but you're generally good—is dangerous. The warnings God gives us in Scripture are for everyone who does not respond to the gospel. We're going to see one of those warnings today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.

Here's Stephen right now. Within the emerging church, which is changing its shape even as we speak, the consultant concludes, yes, different times do require different messages. Have you ever taken the time to read messages by some of the great 19th century preachers? If you have, you will probably have noted that men of that era addressed quite a different crowd than we do today, and so they addressed them in a very different manner. And because of those differences, I disagree with those who say that such messages are appropriate now for our time, which of course would rule out Jonathan Edwards and sinners in the hands of an angry God. He went on to write, you see, people in our culture are broken and deeply wounded. They need desperately to be healed and put back together, which obviously raises the point that evidently people in Edwards' community in 1734 weren't broken and in need of being put together.

The consultant concludes, yes, different times do require different messages. Unfortunately, that kind of consulting has won the day in the evangelical church, primarily in our country and most assuredly in our own generation. Now a host of pastors and seminary professors consider the idea of preaching on the subject of accountability before God, a God of wrath and judgment, any mention certainly of hell and fire and brimstone and the coming wrath of God to sort of be a practical stain upon the reputation of Christianity. So one pastor advertised this church, and I quote, there is no fire and brimstone here, no Bible thumping, just practical messages, as if learning how to stay out of hell isn't practical, as if learning how to avoid the wrath of God isn't something really good to know, that might come in handy one day. Another pastor said, services at our church, you don't hear people threatened with hell or referred to as sinners. The goal is to make them feel welcome.

We don't want to drive people away. Can you imagine a medical doctor applying that approach to his patients? He will never seek to offer the medication. He'll never refer to any diseases they have. That would be too personal. He'll certainly never recommend surgery.

That would be way too invasive. He'll never in fact tell them they're sick, even if they're terminally ill. His goal is to simply have them visit his practice and feel welcomed. He doesn't want to drive anybody away.

What kind of doctor is that? In a word, unemployed. How many preachers should be? One author wrote, no wonder nominal Christians and even unbelievers in our generation are leaving church feeling good about having been in service.

Why? Their self-esteem is safely intact. Their minds and hearts have been sparked and soothed with soundbite theology, Christian principles, and a few practical pointers dealing with everything from themselves to their kids and their careers. But as the word of God penetrated their comfort zone in the veneer of self-delusion and self-satisfaction.

So here's the challenge. If the goal of the gospel is to make people comfortable, then we're obviously going to have to redefine the gospel, right? Because the gospel is full of uncomfortable truths. So is it any wonder then in our generation that anything of the gospel that is personal and confrontive or distasteful is being peeled away? In fact, I read not too long ago the results of one survey taken among students who were attending an evangelical seminary. Now these are people who are expecting to go into the ministry and supposedly preach the Bible and teach it. Revealed, however, that 46% of them, nearly half of the students questioned, felt preaching about hell was, quote, in poor taste, end quote. Now somewhere along the line their professors failed to inform them that Jesus Christ had more to say about hell than all of the prophets and all of the apostles combined, which means he often spoke then in poor taste. You'd think he wanted people to know the uncomfortable truth of coming judgment. Listen, my friend, a gospel that downplays the wrath of God doesn't help people. It hurts them and it will hurt them for a very, very long time and it is another gospel. That'd be kind of like a man taking a boatload of his friends on a boat just north or up from the Niagara Falls and as they get swept into the current he tells them to worry about it and whatever you do don't listen to that.

That rumbling noise you hear up ahead, don't worry, no need to feel uncomfortable. My friends, Jesus Christ is really not concerned with our comfort. He's concerned with the conformity of our lives to the objective truths of scripture. He is not concerned of how comfortable we will feel in our own personal shroud.

He is interested in personal radical conversion. The death and life of Jesus Christ was not to save us from boredom or poverty or a bad job or a bad back or low self-esteem. He came to redeem us from spiritual slavery to sin and save us from everlasting judgment. So the apostle Paul would write it this way, the wages of sin is what?

Death. That is the paycheck for sinners is you're going to die. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel message comprising both elements, both the bad news and the good news is being preached around the globe without apology, without any advertising schedule, without any local sponsors or without any sold tickets. It is being delivered by three unique messengers. We've discovered them, their three angels and their message in the future is as important for us today as it will be then. Let's go back to Revelation 14 where we uncover the truth of these angels and their messages. Their manuscripts are provided there in chapter 14 of Revelation. The first angel is circling the globe. If you were with us in our last discussion, preaching the gospel, highlighting creationism. In fact, he declares in verse 7 that we ought to fear God and give him glory.

Why? Because the power of his judgment has come. Of course, they're in the tribulation and it is indeed in a unique way come.

So do what? Worship him, verse 7 of chapter 14, worship him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of water. In other words, acknowledge creator God, the gospel of creationism. The second angel preaches the consummation of God's reign over the kingdoms of the world. It reflects in verse 8 about this second angel speaking the news that Babylon the Great has fallen. That's a phrase perhaps of all of the kingdoms at the height of their power who would seek to wrestle away the glory of God and the worship of God. And he says effectively, they have fallen like a house of cards. The best that earth can produce, the greatest power on the planet will fall in this coming day. Then the third angel appears. He would have never been invited, by the way, into the average church in America.

Why? Because he delivers a gospel of condemnation which he describes in vivid detail as he describes the horrors of hell. Now in our last study, we began to expound on the clear meaning of this angel's final message. And by the way, you discover in this the grace of God. That God is sending an angel who will circle the globe as the time of tribulation is nearing an end, delivering the people one more opportunity to hear the gospel and believe. Those millions, perhaps billions, who are on the verge of receiving the mark of the antichrist on their right hand or their forehead, denoting that they will worship the false messiah. So he sends this angel delivering the warning of the terror and the horror of the wrath of God in this coming place called hell. Now the immediate context is then these in the tribulation who are being warned not to take the mark of the beast but follow after Christ. The fuller picture given to us in the rest of the book of Revelation points to and effectively culminates in chapter 20 for those who disregard the gospel and face this coming hell. So this third angel effectively takes the lid off of hell.

He describes it for us. It's no longer hidden. It isn't in the recesses of dusty books and a former evangelical church that will no longer deliver the news. Why?

Because we want everybody to feel welcome and we don't want to drive anybody away. Listen, this one angelic message, before we dive in, let me tell you, it has created more heartburn in the world of religion than just about any other text of Scripture for religious worlds all over the map from Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Roman Catholics, liberal Baptists, and all the other Protestants, the emergent church leaders, and anybody that doesn't believe in a conscious, eternal place of torment. They're going to have to do something with this text in Revelation 14. They're going to have to redefine the truth here. They're going to have to dilute it.

Maybe they'll come up with an escape hatch so after a certain amount of time you can get out and be free. Or maybe we'll just disregard it or choose to disbelieve it. Let me tell you in this opening comment that this angel delivers the unpopular truth that the wrath of God, we've already learned in our last session together, the wrath of God is personal. All the personal pronouns beginning in verse 9. If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he will also drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger.

So we also learn that it's not only personal but terrible. This is unmixed wrath. This is straight anger. This is straight fury.

This is 100% proof fury and wrath. It's personal. It is terrible. And this warning, by the way, is to the entire human race. This warning of a coming hell is not just for Adolf Hitler and Mussolini, people who look better than you or whoever you want to put in here. Madoff would make the list. Michigan State fans. Whoever you want to put into that list.

Those are all the M's I could think of. No, that's the startling thing about this angelic message. Had this warning come to mass murderers and serial rapists and dictators and tyrants, most people would say, yeah, they got it coming. We like this place.

Pre-job. There's got to be a place for Hitler. It's not in the same place where I'm going to be. So we believe this.

He's got to be put somewhere. No, this warning happens to be for everyone who denies the glory of a creator God, verse 7, those who place their faith in false religion, verse 8, those who worship someone other than the living Lord Jesus Christ, verse 12. This warning isn't just for all the really bad people in the world. This warning is for the person sitting in your seat. This warning is for people who stand behind wooden things called pulpits. This is then where religion goes into hyperdrive. This can't be.

This can't be true. I mean, if we're going to go along with this judgment of God thing, we've got to come up with something a lot more palatable than fire and brimstone for non-Christians. I mean, how barbaric is that? That isn't appealing to the masses. It isn't politically correct.

It isn't spiritually or religiously correct. I mean, this is going to drive people away. It might drive some to the cross of Christ. And maybe you today will run to the one who bore the wrath of God on the cross for you so that by faith in him alone you are delivered from the wrath to come. And if you are, you will be delivered from wrath and fury that is personal. It is terrible. The third point that I would use in outlining this angel's message is that the wrath of God is not only personal and terrible.

It is painful. Go back to verse 10 and notice the middle part. And he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. Now, just as sort of a side note here, you notice that the devil is not managing hell.

He is one of the occupants in the future. Demons are not terrorizing people. They're not running around sticking people with their pitchforks.

They are incarcerated. Now, hell is primarily created for the devil and his angels. Those that rose in that potential coup d'etat in Matthew 25, 41, we're told that it's created just for them. But they're not running the place. You learn here that in this descriptive phrase that hell is under the omnipotent, omniscient God, the Lamb and host of heaven.

They're managing it. It's under his control, which makes it even all the more terrifying. Now, notice the descriptive phrase that informs us of hell's torment. The angel described it as a place of fire and brimstone, the word fire, poor. The word brimstone, you could translate it sulfur, thion is the word, occur together six times in the book of Revelation. Four times they refer to the lake of fire and brimstone or sulfur that is the final destination of unbelievers. Now, this phrase fire and brimstone, if you've been in the word long or known the Lord long, it'll take you back in your mind to Genesis 19, 24, where the Lord rained down fire and sulfur or fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. The psalmist David said that upon the wicked God would rain down coals of fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup, Psalm 11 verse 6. The prophet said that the vindicating, condemning, wrathful, judging breath of the Lord is a stream of burning sulfur, Isaiah 30 verse 33.

You remember your chemistry class sulfur is that yellowish element that burns with a blue flame while all the while emitting a noxious sulfur dioxide gas. Sulfur and fire, brimstone and fire are found, just so you can get an image in your mind, in volcanic regions such as Sicily and Iceland and places in Japan. I remember being flown in a helicopter over a dormant volcano just outside of Kagoshima, Japan and we actually flew over the mouth of it and just hovered there.

Rather spectacular but somewhat unnerving and the tour guide must have noticed because he told me now don't worry the volcano hasn't erupted in about 98 years. That was very reassuring to me and I said let's just fly on, you know, move on. And imagine being brought to final judgment where we're told in Revelation 20 that all the condemned of humanity will be thrown into this permanent lake described here one of fire and brimstone. Imagine being given an immortal body that will survive this torment yet suffer in it as well. The thought of molten rock, poisonous minerals and gases, the pain of fire, the endless existence of suffering and torment should cause one to do what? To repent and to follow after Christ. I mean you're given the news as a warning. That's why the angel is being sent by God in his grace all around the globe to warn them don't follow the false Messiah, bend your knee to the Lamb. What's the result?

Okay, I hear the description. I will follow Christ. See this angel is telling them and I'm effectively delivering the message to you that this place is a place that you'd like to avoid at all costs.

The question is will you? There's no need to risk. There's no need to speak with bravado.

There's no need to shrug it off. It's the truth of Scripture. You know I hear people tell me I'm going to be in hell with all my friends.

You know we're just going to party down there. They haven't studied the record of Scripture as the angel takes the lid off hell and shows you inside. The bravado of a man like Paul Adair, an oil field firefighter, he was made famous in 1968 by a movie where John Wayne played him, a movie called Hell Fighters. An actual man, an actual firefighter after the first Gulf War, in fact, Red Adair led the efforts to cap the Kuwaiti oil wells that were set ablaze by the defeated army.

Perhaps you remember seeing some pictures of that. He joked in 1991 that it would be no different after he died than being out there fighting those flames. He said, and I quote, I've made a deal with the devil. The devil is going to let me live in an air conditioned place when I go down there so I won't put all the fires out. And everybody, of course, laughs.

Adair died at age 89. The devil, he may have tragically discovered by now, is a liar. Besides, the devil doesn't control the temperature or its punishments.

They're controlled by a God who will demonstrate his wrath forever against all unbelief. It will be sinners, not in the hands of a failed devil, but sinners in the hands of an angry God. The wrath of God will be personal to all who suffer. It will be terrible, undiluted anger. The wrath of God will be painful, fire, and sulfur. There's more to this angel's warning.

If he doesn't have our attention yet, he'll have it now, perhaps. He goes on to say in verse 11 that the wrath of God is eternal. Look at that phrase. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

They have no rest, day and night. Those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name, of course, the immediate context is those who choose to follow after this religion, rather than Jesus Christ. The broader context is those, of course, who deny him.

And one day Hades will be poured into an everlasting lake of fire. There are those that would say that the wrath of God is not eternal. And there are more and more in our generation. There are more men now filling the pulpits of churches in our country today who are denying this doctrine. That up until about the early 1800s was universally believed by those who claimed to know Christ and the scriptures.

In the last 180 years to 200 years, it's amazing to see as J.I. Packer, universalism, the idea that hell is not eternal for people in conscious torment. He said it has quietly slipped within the evangelical church.

And I don't hesitate to say names at times, but I really do in this account because I think it would be too embarrassing to be recorded and then played on the radio. The names of men who've abandoned the eternal truth of hell. And they're going to have to contend with Christ who said in Matthew's gospel that those who are condemned will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life. You might write this reference down because you'll have people asking you about the eternality of hell.

Matthew 25, verse 46. The condemned will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life. In that text, the same construct, the same vocabulary, you have a parallel between eternal life in one verse and eternal punishment, clearly stating that both are without end. You can't believe that one doesn't last forever if you don't believe the other doesn't last forever. And how many want to believe in an everlasting heaven?

Just about everybody I talk to. In other words then, the torment of the lost in hell will last as long as the blessedness of the saved, the redeemed, in heaven. Now let me ask and answer quickly three questions related to this doctrine of eternal conscious punishment. First, are these flames fire and brimstone? Revelation 14. Luke 16, the place of flame. Isaiah 66, the fire that will not be quenched. Are those flames literal flames? Is this literal? Is this really fire?

Well, you have a choice. You can either hold a sola scriptura and let the scriptures answer that question for you or scramble, as religions do, for another explanation. But let me give a further answer beyond what we've already heard from the lips of Christ in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and from the pen of Isaiah. Another insight is provided, in fact, in the parables. When Jesus Christ preached his parable on the wheat, referring to the believers, and the tares, or the weeds, referring to the unbelievers, it's interesting that as he came back later to explain it to his disciples, each element was given a figurative meaning except fire. As hard as it might be for us to conceive, hell is real. And Bible-believing Christians are often mocked for holding to such beliefs.

But it's true. And we need to believe it, and we need to teach it. People need to understand what they will face if they don't respond to the gospel. We want you to understand God's Word clearly for your own benefit and also so that you can better help others. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart with our daily Bible teacher, Stephen Davey. Stephen is the pastor-teacher of a church in Cary, North Carolina. You can learn more about Stephen and our ministry by visiting us online at wisdomonline.org. We've tried our best to fill that site with biblical resources to help you grow in your faith.

Look around and see what's there. We're always encouraged to hear from listeners. I want to thank Jeff for writing in to share this. I want you to know that God has used your teaching to help me so much in the past several months.

I listen to at least one of your messages almost every day. God has used the sermons in my life to help me in more ways than I can explain. May God continue to use Wisdom for the Heart to make an impact in our world today for the cause of Christ. Well, thanks again, Jeff.

It was encouraging to hear from you. If you'd like to send Stephen a note, you can do that from our website, wisdomonline.org. You can also address your card or letter to Wisdom for the Heart, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. Our ministry is completely funded by the gifts we receive from listeners, and we'd be grateful if you can include a gift when you write. Again, that's Wisdom for the Heart, P.O.

Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. That's all for today. Join us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart. .