We come this evening to the third of
four questions that we want to consider together
regarding the biblical doctrine of hell.
The question before us this evening is, what
will hell be like?
What will hell be like?
It is a most awful subject.
I do approach it with a great deal
of reluctance and even dread.
I am aware of the dangers, the danger
of hurting many beloved brothers and sisters here
who have loved ones who died without Christ.
And I know that for you this may
be an intensely painful experience and I am
reluctant to inflict pain.
There is the danger of speaking in an
insensitive, crass and ugly way as sadly is
sometimes done.
It would be much, much easier not to
think of this subject.
But friends, we must deal with it.
We must think about it.
Because it has been revealed to us clearly
and extensively in scripture as we have seen
and most of all by the Lord Jesus
himself.
We dare not adopt a pious pretense that
we are so refined, so delicate, so sensitive
that we could not stoop to consider such
a doctrine.
For that would be to cast aspersions on
our blessed Savior.
We are not more sensitive than he was.
We are not more tender of the sensibilities
of God's people than he was.
And yet he spoke so clearly and graphically
about what it will be like to be
in hell.
The safeguard to which I hope to cling
is to stick as far as I can
to the teaching of scripture, the words of
scripture, the concept of scripture.
To try to rein in my imagination, to
keep a grip on myself that I or
we do not go beyond what the word
of God actually says.
We seek simply to look at the language
of scripture, what does scripture tell us about
what hell will be like.
This may raise a question in the mind
of some.
People are inclined to say sometimes, is the
language of scripture not symbolical?
We are not meant to take it literally.
It is figurative.
It is metaphorical.
It is a poetic description of the reality
of hell.
And we would agree with that to some
extent.
Much of the language of scripture is symbolical.
Although some of it is to be taken
absolutely literally, there are some of the statements
about hell which we do not understand with
crass, wooden literalness.
We are told that the devil is cast
into the flames.
The devil is a spirit.
He does not have a body.
So whatever the flames may mean, we cannot
restrict them to literal flames.
The reality of hell is so far beyond
our experience that language simply cannot describe it
comprehensively.
That is true really of most things in
life.
How could you describe the taste of your
favorite food?
How could you put it into words?
You couldn't.
How could you describe what it means to
love someone?
The poets and the novelists of the centuries
have tried.
And they have all come far short.
Words are not enough.
John Calvin says that.
He says these forms of speech denote in
a manner suited to our feeble capacity a
dreadful torment which no language can express.
We are quite happy to think of the
language of scripture to a great extent as
symbolical.
And yet, and yet, many people today will
take that admission to imply that there is
no objective reality behind these symbols, behind these
pictures in the word.
They will say to us, these terrible expressions
are just symbols.
They are pictures.
They are not to be taken literally.
Hell is not like this at all.
This is just a symbolic representation of it.
But friends that is a complete misunderstanding of
what a symbol is.
A symbol or a sign by its very
nature is always less than the reality.
The reality is always more.
In Britain we are driving along the road
and we see a sign at the roadside
and on that sign are two or three
small children crossing the road.
That is a roadside school.
Is that an adequate description of the school?
No it is not.
But the school that exists around the corner
is much more than the sign.
It is not less than the sign.
We come to the Lord's table and we
eat the bread.
And that is a sign and seal of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
But he is much more than the symbol.
It is a fine symbol.
It speaks of life.
It speaks of receiving.
It speaks of eating by faith.
But he is more than the symbol.
So there is no comfort to say this
language is symbolic.
That doesn't let us off the hook.
That doesn't make hell any less dreadful.
It simply alerts us to the fact that
the reality is infinitely worse than the worst
of the symbols.
This evening we want to try to imagine
what it will be like to be in
hell.
And I am aiming what I have to
say very directly and specifically to those people
in our midst tonight who are still unconverted.
For it concerns you most urgently and directly
and if you do not call on Christ
and trust in him you will go to
this place and you will not have to
imagine what it will be like in hell.
For you will experience what we will be
thinking of this evening.
On the 8th of July 1741 Jonathan Edwards
is preaching in the small town of Enfield,
Massachusetts.
His famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God.
And as he preached the Holy Spirit came
upon the people.
And one onlooker said the minister was obliged
to desist.
The shrieks and the cries of the congregation
were piercing and amazing.
The people started crying out in their anguish
and their despair.
What must I do to be saved?
Tonight we have been praying that God the
Holy Spirit will work on you tonight.
That this will be the night of your
salvation.
That this will be the night when Christ
Jesus delivers you from hell.
And you will look back on this night
forevermore to all eternity and say then and
there in that place Jesus saved me from
hell.
And we who are God's people will gladly
bear the pain of considering this subject.
If only God will be pleased to save
you.
I want to summarize the Bible's teaching under
four headings.
And as it happens we have alliteration here.
We will be considering hell as absolute poverty,
agonizing pain, an angry presence and an appalling
prospect.
What will it be like to be in
hell?
In the first place there will be absolute
poverty.
And to make our message flow with more
impact tonight I am going to depart from
my normal practice of giving a reference for
every statement from scripture.
I am not speaking tonight so much for
Christians who want to have a comprehensive set
of notes.
I want to be more personal, more immediate
than that.
You can find these references.
You can look them up.
I want the word of God to have
its direct impact.
Hell is a place of absolute poverty.
It is clear that hell is a place
of separation from God.
Christ will say depart from me you cursed.
He will say of the wicked I never
knew you.
Depart from me, leave me.
Go far away.
Paul says that the lost shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord.
Banished in that sense from the presence of
the Lord.
Hell is a place of separation from God.
Perhaps that is why it is so often
referred to as a place of darkness.
God is light and in him is no
darkness at all.
But the sons of a kingdom will be
cast out into outer darkness.
If you go to hell you will be
separated from God.
Now some of you may not be troubled
at that point.
Some of you may say so what?
Big deal.
I am quite contempt to be separated from
God.
I am contempt now living without God.
In fact I would be relieved to be
free of God.
I would be relieved to be away from
his presence.
It would be a burden off my conscience.
The thought of God troubles me.
And the fact of separation from God would
be good news.
Many think that.
But even if we were to leave God
himself out of the picture.
Even if we were to neglect the fact
that you will be separated from his mercy
and his salvation and his son.
My dear unconverted friends let me say to
you.
You have no idea what you are saying.
You say to me I am living without
God.
No you are not living without God.
You are not living without God.
You are surrounded and sustained at every moment
of your existence by the goodness and the
kindness and the provision and the bounty of
a merciful creator.
He causes his sun to shine on the
evil and the good and sends his rain
on the just and the unjust.
You feel the warmth and the beauty of
the sunlight on your face.
And the cool refreshing breeze on your cheek.
Those are God's gifts.
You enjoy the crusty taste of fresh bread.
The juice of a ripe peach.
The coolness of a drink on a hot
day.
Those are God's gifts.
You perhaps know what it is to love
someone.
To have your heart drawn out to them
in affection.
You have friends.
Those are God's gifts.
Perhaps your spirit has been enriched by art
and literature and music.
Those are God's gifts to you.
Some of you this afternoon have enjoyed the
exhilaration of sport, of bodily exercise and afterwards
of physical well-being.
Feeling life coursing through your veins.
As a strong man rejoices to run his
race.
Those are God's gifts.
You have ambitions in life and goals.
You find satisfaction in projects and work.
Those are God's gifts.
You laugh and rejoice and experience happiness and
rest.
You lie down in bed at night and
sleep.
Those are God's gifts.
And friends in hell, all these will be
taken from you.
All these will be taken from you.
You're not living without God.
You're indebted to God for everything that makes
your life bearable and worthwhile.
It's all from God.
And to be separated from God is not
just to be separated from that, from himself,
it's to be separated from God.
You don't appreciate them.
You don't thank the giver.
But when they're all taken away, what poverty.
More than that, hell is a place where
your personality will endlessly deteriorate.
And all the dignity that you now have
as an image bearer of God, all your
value, all your humanity will be stripped from
you.
The key New Testament word here is destruction
or perishing.
That does not mean annihilation.
It means the ruin of all that is
worthwhile.
Something is ruined so that it is useless
for its intended purpose.
We speak of a piece of rubber as
having perished.
The elasticity is gone.
The strength is gone.
It is whitened and crumbly and friable and
useless.
It looks like rubber but what made it
of value, what gave it its identity, has
perished.
And this is the word that our Bible
uses.
This is what perishing is.
It means that you as a being will
become ever more degraded.
You will become more contemptible, more loathsome, more
horrible, more lonely.
You will be surrounded by devils and wicked
men.
They will hate you and you will hate
them.
Everything in you that is bad will be
let loose.
Everything in you that is good will be
taken away.
All your most evil, wicked passions will burn
and increase and consume you until you become
utterly, utterly foul.
You will be raised to dishonor, increasing dishonor.
That will be your existence.
What a wretched existence it will be.
Nothing good, nothing beautiful, nothing joyful, nothing worthwhile.
A horrible, grey, monotone, dreariness.
Unenlivened by a single ray of light or
joy.
As you fester and stew in your loathsomeness,
that is what will happen to you.
Think of the most hopeless, derelict you have
ever seen in the gutter.
His existence is paradise compared to the poverty,
the poverty, poverty of hell.
Absolute, but there is something far, far worse.
Agonizing pain.
One of the most common expressions in the
Bible about hell is fire.
Whoever says you fool shall be in danger
of hell fire.
It is better to enter into life lame
or maimed than to be cast into the
everlasting fire.
The wicked shall have their part in the
lake which burns with fire.
Hell is a place of fire.
Why has God chosen that word fire to
describe hell?
We will come back to it later.
But one thing that it speaks of is
pain.
Pain.
The claim is often made today that fire
speaks of annihilation.
That is Dr. Stock's assertion.
He speaks of hell as an incinerator.
He says the purpose of the incinerator is
to destroy, to annihilate, to reduce to nothingness
that which is put into the fire.
And argues that when the Bible speaks of
everlasting fire it speaks of annihilation.
But the reverse is the case.
It is quite clear that fire speaks of
conscious, agonizing suffering.
The rich man in the parable we are
told was in torment in Hades and he
asked for a drop of water on his
tongue for he said I am tormented in
this flame.
It was not annihilation.
It was for the purpose of causing pain.
In the book of Revelation we are told
of the idolater.
He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone.
And the word used is the regular word
in Greek for torturing.
Fire tortures.
It causes the most exquisite and intense agony.
Think of the pain of even the smallest
burn.
20 or 30 years ago I don't know
if it is still the case.
It was the sort of test of a
real macho man that he could hold a
flame of a match in his hand.
There was a figure some of you will
remember called Gordon Liddy and his claim was
that he could hold a lighted match against
the palm of his hand.
This showed his toughness, his manhood, his courage.
He could bear a little tiny flame for
a few seconds on the palm of his
hand.
My friends what must it be like to
be cast into the flames body and soul
forever.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know what it means.
I can't imagine what it will mean for
the resurrected bodies of the damned.
But we can be sure of this that
at the very least it means excruciating agony.
That's why the words are chosen.
It will be a hideous counterpart of the
bush of which we read in Exodus.
The bush burned with fire but the bush
was not consumed.
And the wicked will burn with fire but
they will not be consumed.
Agonizing, agonizing in hell.
You my unconverted friend will be in agonizing
pain.
Our Lord uses another horrible expression.
He speaks in Mark 9 verse 46 of
the worm which does not die and the
fire which is not quenched.
He is quoting the last verse of the
book of Isaiah.
The prophet has been speaking of a new
heavens and a new earth.
God gathers together a great multitude of people
from all nations to worship him in his
temple.
And as the worshipers leave the temple Isaiah
says they shall go forth and look upon
the corpses of the men who have transgressed
against me where their worm does not die
and the fire is not quenched.
The Jews were so appalled by that passage
that in their public synagogue reading they did
a very unusual and a very Jewish thing.
They transposed verses 23 and 24 of Isaiah
chapter 66 so that the reading would not
end with that terrible 24th verse.
And in the Jewish synagogues they were very
reluctant to tamper with the word of God
in any way.
But they ended with the previous verse which
speaks of worship and glory for God.
In ancient times it was a great disgrace
for a corpse not to be buried.
The two things that you could do to
your enemy were the worst things were either
to burn his body or to leave it
to rot.
And those were dreadful things.
But at least when the fire had used
up its fuel it went out.
At least when the maggots had stripped the
corpse to the bone they died.
But here is a situation where the fire
is never quenched and the worms are never
satisfied.
And the Lord applies this dreadful picture to
the torment of hell.
The worm never dies.
In other words in hell there will be
something foul.
Endlessly gnawing at people, eating at them, devouring
them, giving them no rest.
Most commentators suggest that it may well refer
to our consciences.
We know a little bit of the pain
of conscience in this life.
It is terrible.
It can be terrible.
It can drive people mad.
It can lead people to suicide.
Many of the people who crowd into the
psychiatrists offices for treatment, for therapy.
All that is wrong with them is that
they have a guilty conscience.
They don't need therapy.
They need Christ.
And it is the pain of conscience that
is torturing them and tormenting them and disturbing
them and making them unbalanced.
And yet in this life our conscience is
comparatively hard.
And certainly in the ungodly it is seared,
it is insensitive.
But it seems very probable that in hell
the conscience of the damned will be sensitized,
reawakened.
John Flavel writes, conscience which should have been
the sinners curb on earth becomes the whip
that will lash his soul in hell.
He says that which was the seat and
center of all guilt now becomes the seat
and center of all torment.
Young people, if you go to hell, how
your conscience will reproach you.
You will think in hell, you will remember
your godly father and how every day in
your home he led your family in worship.
And how he read the scriptures to you.
And how he prayed with you and for
you.
You will remember your father in hell.
You will remember your mother.
Your mother who sat you on her knee
and told you about Jesus.
Your mother who loved you and prayed for
you and would have given anything to see
you become a Christian.
Your father and mother who are praying for
you now as they sit here in this
room.
You will remember that.
You will remember every time of family worship.
Every prayer.
Every plea.
Every appeal.
Every example.
Every church service.
Every time your pastor preached.
Every word he said.
Every conference you went to.
Every opportunity.
Every time Christ drew near to you.
Every time your conscience was troubled.
You will remember it.
And you will remember it.
And it will eat at you and torment
you.
Why didn't I listen?
It's my own fault I am here.
I am to blame for being here.
All my opportunities neglected, abused.
And your conscience will be an undying worm
that will give you no rest or no
peace.
And then our Lord says there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That is his most frequent expression for the
experience of hell.
How often have you wept in your life?
Really wept?
Your heart breaking.
In desolation.
In utter wretched unhappiness.
With the grief inside you like a big
growing weight that you feel is going to
break your heart and burst you open.
Till you can't bear it.
Perhaps the time someone you loved died.
You wept.
You wept bitterly.
Inconsolably.
When you were betrayed.
When you were misunderstood.
When you were lonely.
Weeping.
And the word which Christ uses is of
an intense wearing.
An inconsolable misery.
My friend Jesus says that in hell the
tears will pour down your cheeks.
Your whole body will be wracked with uncontrollable
sobbing.
You will be filled with bitter, bitter sorrow.
Guilty sorrow.
Not like the sorrow of bereavement.
Guilty sorrow.
Shameful sorrow.
And all the tears that have ever been
shed on this earth.
Since Eden, if they could be gathered together,
will not begin to compare with the tears
of one individual in hell.
You will weep far more than all the
world has ever wept.
You will weep and weep forever.
And not only will you weep, but there
will be gnashing of teeth.
Some suggest that this refers to remorse.
That may be the case.
But it's often used in the scripture for
anger.
We read in Job, God tears me in
his wrath and hits me.
He gnashes to me with his teeth.
Stephen's accusers were cut to the heart and
they gnashed at him with their teeth.
And so that phrase may refer to the
damned grinding their teeth in rage.
Helpless anger.
Anger at the sins which wrecked their lives.
Anger at the devil and his demons.
Anger at everyone else in hell.
Anger at themselves for choosing such misery.
Anger at God, the righteous judge.
Oh, I cannot express, I cannot express.
Listen to the word of God.
Agonizing pain.
We know little of pain in the modern
world.
We've got anesthetics and analgesics and the science
of pain control has been brought to a
fine art.
Who can imagine the pain, the torture of
fire.
The inner torment of a devouring worm.
Enraged, bitter, sobbing.
That will be the condition of everyone tormented
in the flame.
The worm does not die.
Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Will you choose that?
Is that what you want to end on?
Is that what you want to experience?
Agonizing pain.
Could there be anything worse?
Oh yes, there could.
Because thirdly, there is an angry presence.
An angry presence.
It's a common idea about hell as we've
seen that hell is a place from which
God is absent.
C.S. Lewis is typical in his book
The Problem of Pain.
Listen to what he says.
Sin is man saying to God, go away
and leave me alone.
Hell is God saying to man, you may
have your wish.
That's his view of hell.
You may have your wish.
I will go away and leave you alone.
Lewis could not be more wrong.
He could not be more wrong.
God is omnipresent.
He is present in all of his creation.
And those who are tormented with fire and
brimstone are tormented, we are told, in the
presence of the holy angels and in the
presence of the Lamb.
God is present in hell.
Now wait a minute you may say, did
you not say a moment ago that hell
means separation from God?
Did you not quote those verses where God
will say to the wicked, depart from me,
leave me, far away from me, into outer
darkness.
How then can you say that on the
one hand God is separated from those in
hell and on the other hand that God
is present with those in hell.
Well the explanation is quite simple.
We think of separation in terms of distance.
The bible however more accurately thinks of separation
in terms of relationship.
Not distance.
A man may go a thousand miles on
a business trip.
He is distant from his wife.
But if he is a true husband he
is not separated from her, is he?
He thinks of her constantly.
He wishes he was with her.
He looks forward to rejoining her.
He prays for her and his family.
He calls her whenever he has opportunity.
And many of us can testify that we
feel closer to those we love and we
appreciate them more and we value them more
highly at times when there is an enforced
geographical separation.
We are distant but we are not separated.
On the other hand my wife and I
know of a couple who are married and
who live in the same home and they
hate each other.
Their relationship has corroded and become poisoned.
And the presence of the other person is
an unbearable irritation and annoyance.
They cannot stand each other.
As we say they get on each other's
nerves.
Their proximity is torture to them.
They are relieved when the other person goes
out of the house.
They couldn't be closer physically.
But there is a universe.
Now you see my friends that's what it
means to be separated from God.
Those in hell are separated from God's grace
and from God's love and from God's mercy.
And there is a great gulf between heaven
and hell but God is very close.
Jonathan Edwards says that for everyone eternity will
be spent in the immediate presence of God.
I don't think I would have dared to
say that.
But when you think about it he is
right.
Eternity for everyone will be spent in the
immediate presence of God.
But Edwards goes on to say that God
will be the hell of one person and
the heaven of another.
Because in hell he will be present in
his anger.
The wrath of God is coming on the
sons of disobedience.
Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.
And hell is the place where God pours
out his wrath on the condemned.
Not just initially.
Not just in casting them into hell.
But forever personally and actively those in hell
will see God in his holy spirit.
They will be condemned to gaze at him
and will be unable to close their eyes.
And the sight of him in his anger
will be intolerably painful.
I well remember as a boy those occasions
when my father was angry with me.
And how unhappy our home was.
And how wretched I felt.
Miserable in my own heart and soul because
something was wrong.
I couldn't meet his gaze.
There was a tension.
It was really unbearable until I had apologized.
Until I had received forgiveness and then been
reconciled.
I dreaded the thought of being in my
father's angry presence.
How much more dreadful to exist forever in
the presence of an angry God.
What folly to say that God hates the
sinners.
But God loves the sinners.
A scholar has done a study of 33
places in the Bible where God's hatred is
referred to.
12 of them refer to God's hatred of
sinners.
21 to God's hatred of sinners.
The psalmist says the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty
and deceitful man.
And that word abhors is linked with the
Hebrew word for an abomination.
The psalmist says the wicked God so hates.
He hates them with every fibre of his
being.
And he tells us that he will express
this hatred with appalling fierceness.
In Isaiah God says I have trodden them
in my anger and trampled them in my
fury.
Their blood is sprinkled on my garment and
I have stained all my robes.
In Ezekiel he speaks of idolatrous Judah.
I will act in fury.
My eye will not stare nor will I
have pity.
Though they cry in my ears with a
loud voice I will not hear.
It is impossible to imagine anything more dreadful.
The writer to the Hebrews tells us that
it is a fearful thing.
A fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.
He tells us that our God is a
consuming fire.
I think this is the fire of hell.
I think the fire of hell is the
anger of a holy God.
The burning righteous rage of God.
In the prophet Nahum we are told that
God's fury is poured out like fire.
A mighty release of wrath indescribable and unrestrained.
People sometimes say we don't need to worry
about hell.
It is not literal fire.
In hell they will be saying if only
it were literal fire.
If only it were boiling oil or burning
coal.
If only it were something as easy and
as light as that.
Here is the ultimate horror of hell.
Not the absolute poverty.
Not even the agonizing pain.
But the angry presence of God.
The question is asked in Isaiah.
Who among us shall dwell with the devouring
fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burning?
And yet it gets even worse.
It gets even worse.
For there is an appalling prospect.
It will never end.
It is everlasting fire.
Everlasting punishment.
Everlasting destruction.
It is the blackness of darkness forever.
The smoke of their torment ascends forever and
ever.
They shall be tormented day and night forever
and ever.
Jonathan Edwards says eternity is the sting of
hell torment.
We can't take it in.
I have tried in these past weeks to
get a handle on it.
It is too huge.
Just as we cannot take in eternal life.
Just as we cannot grasp what it means
to be with God forever.
So we cannot understand eternal torment.
Sometimes we spend a sleepless night.
We know how dreadfully long that night is.
You look at your watch.
Then you lie and lie for hours and
hours.
You look at your watch again and ten
minutes have passed.
You think will it never end?
Will mourning never come?
We were singing from Psalm 130.
Those who long for the morning.
And when pain is added to sleeplessness.
How long those hours of darkness.
Because I feel so inadequate at describing this.
Please permit me to give you a lengthy
quotation.
And it is a lengthy quotation from a
far greater preacher.
From Jonathan Edwards himself.
From that great master preacher.
So mightily used.
Please bear with me as I read these
paragraphs.
I will try to read them slowly.
Please try to take in what this mighty
man of God is saying.
As he preached his great sermon.
The eternity of hell torment.
And as he preached people were converted.
May Jonathan Edwards convert you again tonight.
May he be God's instrument in God's hand.
So that he being dead may call to
you from the glory and speak to you.
Edwards says consider what it is to suffer
extreme torment forever and ever.
To suffer it day and night.
From one year to another.
From one age to another.
From one thousand ages to another.
Without any possibility of getting ease.
Without any possibility of moving God to pity
by your crying.
Without any possibility of hiding from him.
Without any possibility of diverting your thoughts from
your pain.
Consider how dreadful your despair will be.
In such torment.
To know assuredly that never never shall you
be delivered.
To have no hope.
When you shall wish that you might be
turned into nothing.
But shall have no hope.
When you would rejoice if you might have
any relief after millions of ages.
But shall have no hope.
After you have worn out the age of
the sun, moon and stars without rest or
one minute's ease.
You shall have no hope of ever being
delivered.
After you shall have worn out a thousand
more such ages.
You shall have no hope.
Still the same groans, the same shrieks, the
same cries to be made by you.
And that the smoke of your torment shall
ascend up forever and ever.
The more the damned in hell think of
the eternity of their torment.
The more terrible will it appear to them.
And alas they will not be able to
keep it out of their minds.
Their tortures will not divert their attention from
it but will fix their attention on it.
How dreadful will eternity appear after they have
been thinking on it for ages.
And shall have such a long experience of
their torment.
The damned in hell will have two infinities
perpetually to amaze them.
One an infinite God whose wrath they will
bear and in whom they will behold their
irreconcilable enemy.
The other the infinite duration of their torment.
It will never end.
It will go on and on and on.
Forever and forever and forever.
And after millions of years you haven't begun.
You haven't used up one second of hell.
Sometimes people bluster and boast about hell.
John Stuart Mill said I will call no
God good who sends people to hell.
And if such a being can sentence me
to hell, to hell I will go.
Stupid braggart.
And even if at the gates of hell
you were to summon up all your resolution
and all your courage and all your strength
and all your vigor and say I will
bear it in half a second.
All your courage would have melted away and
you would be screaming, screaming for mercy.
My friend that is what will happen to
you.
You will be screaming I can't bear it.
But you will have to bear it.
You will have to bear it for all
eternity.
It goes on and on forever.
Supposing we knew that there was one individual
in this room who was going to hell.
And supposing we knew who that individual was.
Supposing there was one person sitting here tonight
and we all of us knew that that
person was on their way to hell.
Wouldn't we be pitying?
Wouldn't we be looking at them with tears
running down our cheeks?
Wouldn't we be praying for them?
Just the thought of it, just to see
them sitting there.
A young person, a young fellow, a young
girl.
And we would look at them and we
would say they are going to hell.
They are going to hell.
But there may be many more than one.
There may be dozens here tonight who are
going to hell.
You may be going to hell.
You are still unconverted.
You are rejecting Christ.
What more can I say to you?
You may say I don't believe in hell.
You may be putting on a bold front
as I speak to you now.
Well he's a preacher.
That's what preachers have to say.
Doesn't frighten me.
I don't believe in hell.
Listen.
Listen to the voice of the damned who
are now in hell.
They are saying to you now, I didn't
believe.
I believe now.
Multitudes have gone to hell who didn't believe
that hell existed.
When they did realize it was too late.
But for you it's not yet too late.
Or you may say I don't think I
will end up in hell.
A recent Gallup poll discovered that of the
population of the United States, those surveyed, 78
% thought that they had an excellent to
good chance of going to heaven and 4
% thought that they might go to hell.
Most people think they won't go to hell.
But there are many now in hell who
didn't think they would go to hell.
They were sure they wouldn't go to hell.
Jesus says that at the day of judgment
there will be preachers and successful evangelists and
miracle workers and leaders in the churches who
will stand before him with a happy smile
on their faces waiting to receive his well
done.
And to their astonishment he will say, depart
from me.
I never knew you.
Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name.
We cast out devils.
We did many wonderful works.
We are not going to hell, but they
do.
You may say that's plenty of time.
I'm just young.
Teenager perhaps.
Healthy and strong.
How do you know it's plenty of time?
How do you know you'll see another morning?
Jonathan Edwards says the wicked are like people
walking over a pit on a rotten covering.
But in many places that covering is too
weak to bear them.
They don't know where those places are.
And at any moment, any of us could
enter eternity.
Unconverted person, the only thing that's keeping you
alive tonight is the God who is very,
very angry with you.
Very angry with you.
He's just as angry with you now as
with many people who are in hell.
If you go to bed tonight unconverted, you're
in the hands of an angry God.
What reason have you to think you'll wake
up again?
Why should he wake you up again?
Some of you may be thinking, but my
friends would laugh at me.
Perhaps there's a little in-group of young
people at this conference.
And by nods and winks and words to
each other, you have coalesced together as a
group of young people who laugh at this
a little bit.
You've been made to come by your parents.
And you know that you're a little bit
more sophisticated, a little bit cleverer.
You're not into this.
Perhaps you've made plans even for some activity
this evening or tomorrow evening.
I don't know.
And one of you tonight is thinking, but
I need to get right with God.
I am guilty.
I am going to hell.
I need to turn to Christ.
Now you think, but what would the other
fellows say?
What would the girls say?
They'd laugh at me.
It would be awkward.
It would be embarrassing.
Don't let other people send you to hell.
For if you do, you'll meet up again
in hell.
And you'll say to each other, damn you.
Damn you for your example and your influence.
And that night when Christ came near to
me, I valued your opinion.
And I wanted to please you.
And it's partly because of you that I'm
in hell.
And you'll hate each other for all eternity.
Don't let anybody else send you to hell.
Some of you may say, well I'll believe
if I have a Damascus road experience.
If God comes down from heaven and stops
me short and shakes me and converts me,
I'll believe.
God's sovereign isn't he?
He's got his elect.
None of his elects will be lost.
You can't believe unless God gives you the
ability.
Very well then.
If I'm one of God's elect, it's up
to God to act and to turn me
round.
And until he does, I'm going to go
on my merry way.
I'll wait for my Damascus road experience.
I'll wait for that special moment.
That's what the rich man wanted for his
brothers.
Lots of Christians are very keen on special
speakers.
They say now if only we could get
a special speaker at our church meeting.
Well a pastor's alright, but get a special
speaker.
Get somebody from Ireland.
That'll do the trick.
The rich man said, Lord, or to Abraham
he said, if a special speaker could go
to my brothers, they would believe.
A speaker not from Ireland or Great Britain,
but a speaker from eternity.
Supposing you could advertise that for a church
meeting.
Next week, special speaker from heaven.
What was Abraham's reply?
They have Moses and the prophets.
And if they don't listen to the word
of God, if they don't believe the word
of God, they'll not believe a special speaker.
Neither will they believe.
You ask for a special experience.
I offer Christ to you now.
And he will have you if you will
ask him.
What more?
What more should God do for you?
Right?
To ask for something else.
Perhaps you're saying, I love the good things
of this life.
I don't want to give them up.
Friends, you remember the dreadful, dreadful agony, almost
a holy sarcasm of Abraham's words to the
rich man in hell.
Some remember that in your lifetime you received
your good things.
Oh, with what mockery did that phrase come
upon the soul of that damned, tormented being.
My good things, my good things.
Yes, I thought they were good things.
I valued them as good things.
And Abraham says, what do you think of
your good things now?
Were they still good to him in hell?
Did he still value them in hell?
Was he still glad of his wealth and
his luxury and his self-centeredness?
No, no.
It was the price for which he had
sold his immortal soul.
I plead with you, plead with you.
If you're not converted, please, please turn to
Christ.
What more can I say?
God has shown you tonight what hell is
like.
I cannot believe you want to go to
hell.
I cannot believe it.
But if now, at this minute, you do
not call on Christ to save you, you're
saying, I choose to go to hell.
God's speaking to you.
God's striving with you.
God's warning you.
But more than that, the Lord Jesus Christ
pleading with you and calling you and commanding
you.
And at this very moment, hundreds of prayers
are arising to God's throne from this room
for you.
That now you will come.
That you'll turn your back on the sin
that will only damn you and ruin you
forever.
And you'll come to the gracious Savior.
Christ is here.
Believe on Him.
We would do anything to see you converted.
Anything we could, short of sin.
Anything.
If our right hands would see you converted,
we'd see them cut off.
That's not hyperbole.
Christians, wouldn't you agree with me?
Don't we mean that?
We would do anything, anything, anything to see
you converted.
We do not want you to go to
hell.
Some of you parents here, how do they
feel?
At the thought of their children in hell.
What would it mean to them?
If you were to come to them tonight
before bed and say, Dad, Mom, I've trusted
Jesus and He's saved me.
It would be one of the greatest nights
of their lives.
Oh, please, please listen to the pleading of
Jesus the Savior.
He is so kind and so gracious.
And He'll receive you and He'll forgive you.
He'll wash you clean and make you safe
forever and ever.
That you'll be holy and happy and look
forward to an eternity of bliss and joy
and glory in heaven.
Lord Jesus, please break the hold of the
devil on people now in this room.
We've been singing, come down in the day
of your power and make them willing.
Friends, let's pray.
Lord our God, you delight in mercy.
You are greatly glorified in the salvation of
sinners.
When a sinner trusts in Christ, there is
rejoicing in heaven.
Lord, we are absolutely at an end of
ourselves.
We have spoken ourselves empty.
We are helpless.
We can do no more.
But you are the almighty God.
And even now in these moments you can
enter hearts and make people truly sorry for
their sins.
Truly repentant.
And you can show them Christ.
Lord, you can cause them to flee hell.
Dear Father in heaven, hear the prayers that
have been offered in the past years and
months and days and this very evening.
And as this message has been delivered, oh
Lord, hear our pleading.
Hear our cry for those we love.
Lord, it would be worth more than all
the earth to us to see them converted.
Thank you for these dreadful warnings.
Impress them, we pray, on the hearts of
the lost.
But tonight, even at this moment, there may
be those here who will cry, God, be
merciful to me the sinner.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.
And grant, oh God, that they may not
perish, but have everlasting life.