TEACHING

On Hell

Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus Christ is the one who talked about Hell. He probably talked about it more than anybody else in the entire Bible.

Here you are, a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, and you've got to make a decision. And that decision is either going to send you to Hell or it's going to send you to Heaven. It's you who decides.

Now, what is Hell like? Jesus said it's like Gehenna. Gehenna was the city dump outside of Jerusalem. He said the fire is never quenched and the worm does not die. It was eternal burning, a place of refuse and burning, and He used that to describe Hell.

And He told us about that. He said, "If your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your hand offends you, cut it off. It's better to enter life maimed than having your whole body to be cast into the Gehenna of fire."

The other thing that He described was outer darkness. He said there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. People in outer darkness. This is, in a sense, my view of what Hell is like. It'll be filled with remorse that you could have done better and that you scorned and turned down the Gospel. You will have all eternity to have your remorse. You will be out in darkness, not with a lot of friends.

You remember Ted Turner said Heaven sounds so boring, he'd rather go to Hell? Let me tell you, being in outer darkness, launched out into space with no one there forever and ever and ever is one of the most horrible thoughts I could imagine. There's no way that our minds can conceive of anything this awful. You're there forever. No end. No turning back. No surcease.

Jesus also told the story about the rich man and the beggar. The rich man opened his eyes and he was in Hell and he said, "Send somebody, Lazarus, to dip his finger in some water and put it on my tongue for I am being tormented in this flame." So whether it's the flame of remorse, whether it's literal fire, we don't know.

But you look at the book of Revelation, it talks about the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. This thing was not meant for human beings, it was meant for a fallen spirit. And that's what the end of things is. He's going to be bound and cast into the lake of fire. No human being should want to go there. But there's no question, there's a Hell to shun and a Heaven to gain.

On the other side, there's Heaven. There is the New Jerusalem and something glorious. And the Bible says, "Eye hasn't seen. Ear hasn't heard. Neither has it entered the mind of man what God has prepared." It's too wonderful to even think of what God has prepared for them that love Him. So, it is eternal bliss in the presence of God.

That's the choice people have. But to tell them it's all sweetness and light, you can live the way you want to, I'm okay, you're okay. If you're drinking and fornicating and cheating and stealing and lying and greedy and all the rest of it, it's okay. You're okay. You're an American, don't worry about it. Boy, that, folks, is what you'd call a lie of Hell. And the one thing the devil would like to do is to keep us from believing in him, or believing in any kind of punishment because we don't like punishment.

But what the Bible says is, there will be a death, a great divide. You're either going to go to one or the other. And if you say to God now, "I don't want You. I will not receive You. I will not submit to You," then at the end of your life God will say, "I'm going to give you your desire. You said you wanted to live without me, so I'm going to let you have your wish forever." You decide.