Spring Camp Meeting 2017

Is Hell a Place of Unending Torture?

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Doug Batchelor

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Series Code: 17SCM

Program Code: 17SCM000022A


00:14 Welcome to 3ABN Spring Camp Meeting 2017,
00:19 Exposing the Counterfeit.
00:24 Hello, and welcome back to 3ABN Camp Meeting.
00:27 We've been having a wonderful time, haven't we?
00:28 Amen.
00:30 I'll tell you what,
00:31 I felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit
00:32 this whole week but we are winding down.
00:35 We just have a couple more sermons.
00:38 And then afterwards
00:40 we're going to have little after glow we call it,
00:41 little time of renewing
00:43 our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45 How many are thankful
00:47 for what Jesus has done for you?
00:49 And I just praise the Lord for each and every one of you
00:51 and for those of you at home,
00:53 thank you for your love
00:54 and your prayers and financial support
00:56 because without you,
00:57 we couldn't take this gospel to all the world.
01:00 And all of you here, you guys you're the die-hards,
01:02 we call that 3ABN die-hard.
01:04 Somebody said,
01:05 "They're the ones that's right on the frontlines."
01:07 You're the one that's taken these books and pass them out,
01:10 those of you at home that are doing
01:11 that too they couldn't make it and joining with 3ABN.
01:15 Thank you because Jesus says when this gospel of the kingdom
01:18 goes into all the world, guess what happens?
01:21 The end comes which is really the beginning, right?
01:24 It was my privilege tonight
01:26 to introduce Pastor Doug Batchelor.
01:28 And Doug is a household name,
01:30 been on 3ABN for well over 25 years,
01:34 speaker director of Amazing Facts.
01:37 He's an author and speaker.
01:39 And Doug as I would say,
01:42 I can say this through all the speakers
01:44 that we've ever had on 3ABN.
01:46 I'm sure we have seen thousands and thousands of people,
01:51 letters that people have written us,
01:53 emails over the years that said,
01:55 "Thank you for 3ABN and I came to the Lord
01:58 through Pastor Doug Batchelor.
02:00 Thousands of people all around the world,
02:02 and so we praise the Lord for his ministry,
02:04 for he and his wife
02:05 for what they're doing for Amazing Facts.
02:08 And right after Brother Tim Parton,
02:10 I think we're going to have to come out
02:12 and to do special music for us.
02:16 And right after that,
02:19 the next voice you'll hear is Pastor
02:20 Doug Batchelor.
02:32 I'm kind of homesick
02:38 For a country
02:43 To which I've never
02:50 Been before
02:56 No sad goodbyes
03:02 Will there be spoken
03:08 For time won't
03:15 Anymore
03:21 Beulah Land
03:27 I'm longing for you
03:33 And some day
03:39 On thee I'll stand
03:46 There my home
03:51 Shall be eternal
03:58 Beulah Land
04:04 Sweet Beulah land
04:11 I'm looking now
04:17 Across the river
04:22 To where my faith
04:28 Shall end in sight
04:34 There's just a few
04:39 More days to labor
04:45 Then I will take
04:51 My heavenly flight
04:56 Sing with me if you know.
04:57 To Beulah Land
05:03 I'm longing for you
05:09 And some day
05:14 On thee I'll stand
05:21 There my home
05:26 Shall be
05:29 Eternal
05:34 Beulah Land
05:39 Sweet Beulah Land
06:05 Beulah Land
06:12 Amen.
06:17 Amen. Thank you so much, Tim. That was a beautiful song.
06:20 Amen.
06:22 Well, this is have been a wonderful time together
06:26 this week is gathering together
06:28 with brothers and sisters and hearing the Word of God.
06:30 And it's just been a joy, I was thinking about it.
06:34 And I have been coming to 3ABN for over 20 years.
06:39 I remember Mitch just met me backstage
06:41 and prayed with me.
06:43 I remember when he would be show up,
06:44 you know, I get in late from California
06:46 like one in the morning
06:48 he'd be upstairs in master control
06:50 and he was sort of the innkeeper also,
06:53 he give me my key to my little room upstairs
06:55 and boy, things have come a long way,
06:57 I'll tell you.
06:58 We didn't even know
07:00 what the Internet was back then.
07:02 But it's just so exciting to be back.
07:04 Almost every year we do something with 3ABN,
07:07 Amazing Facts and 3ABN partner.
07:09 And this fall,
07:10 we're going to be doing another special program
07:13 called Foundations of Faith.
07:15 So I hope you'll be watching for and praying
07:18 for that event it's November 3-11.
07:21 And it's going to be up linked
07:23 from the General Conference world headquarters.
07:26 It's going to be very interesting
07:28 right after October 31,
07:30 the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
07:34 I understand some interesting things
07:36 are going to be happening in Rome
07:37 during that time.
07:39 So I expect to have something to talk about.
07:41 So I already have something to talk about.
07:49 You know, after both of the programs tonight,
07:53 they were telling me
07:54 that we're going to gather together
07:55 as they often do during the camp meeting.
07:57 And they said,
07:59 "We're going to have this so, Doug,
08:00 make sure that you don't forget that after your sermon
08:03 we're going to have an after glow."
08:05 I said, "My sermon tonight's on hell,
08:06 what do you mean by that?"
08:13 But it's actually not directly after my sermon,
08:17 but Pastor Rafferty will preach and he'll make sure
08:20 there's no confusion
08:21 what our after glow is all about.
08:25 Our message tonight is dealing with the subject of hell.
08:29 And is hell a place of unending torture?
08:34 And this actually is one of my favorite subjects
08:36 because when I understood this,
08:39 it enabled me to love God.
08:42 And I will say more about that.
08:44 But let me pray with you before we begin.
08:47 Loving Father,
08:49 we are so thankful for the truth of Your Word
08:51 that helps us see
08:52 who You are and how we can love You.
08:54 And we just pray right now
08:56 that Your Spirit will be present.
08:57 I pray that my mind will be clear,
08:59 my sins forgiven and ultimately
09:01 that it will be Your voice that we hear.
09:04 And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
09:06 Amen.
09:10 It made me shudder
09:12 when I saw the news back in 2015,
09:16 a Jordanian pilot was either shot down
09:20 or there was a mechanical problem
09:21 and he went down in Syria, and he was captured by ISIS.
09:25 Well, ISIS went through the charade of pretending
09:27 they were going to do a prisoner exchange
09:30 with this man and some prisoners
09:32 that were held in Jordan.
09:33 And it turns out they had other plans.
09:38 The man thought he was going to be set free,
09:39 and they brought him out,
09:41 and they had him say some kind of confession
09:42 or something on tape,
09:44 and they put him in a metal cage,
09:47 and they doused him with diesel or gasoline not exactly sure,
09:52 and then ISIS,
09:54 if you don't think they're wicked,
09:56 they then rolled video as they set it on fire.
10:00 And, yeah, I was wondering
10:03 whether or not I could even share this with you.
10:05 But the reason I'm sharing it with you
10:08 is anything natural within you
10:10 unless you've got some kind of sadistic problems,
10:15 you would recoil at the thought of somebody...
10:18 I could not even watch the video,
10:20 I couldn't bring myself to do that.
10:21 I'm sure it would cause nightmares.
10:26 We're horrified by that.
10:29 And we think that the people that would do that,
10:33 that would put a person in a cage
10:36 and burn them alive
10:37 while they videotape it, it's Satanic.
10:42 Now with that in mind,
10:44 what do you exactly think it is
10:46 that most Christians say about God?
10:50 What is He going to do to the lost?
10:52 Is He going to burn them for 10 minutes, 5 minutes?
10:54 I don't even know how long His sufferings lasted.
10:57 Let's hope not long.
10:59 No, they say that, "God if you don't know Jesus,
11:02 if you're born and you die lost.
11:06 That He will then put you in this place of torture
11:09 where you will feel
11:10 the writhing flames of brimstone and fire
11:13 and burning all over every nerve of your body
11:16 in completely indescribable agony.
11:21 Not for 10 minutes, or 10 hours,
11:24 or 10 days
11:26 but for ever and ever and call that justice.
11:32 Now, I remember I used to go to a couple of Catholic schools
11:36 and that's where I was taught you're good you go to heaven,
11:39 you're bad you go to hell.
11:40 And so what's hell?
11:41 Well, it's a place where you burn
11:43 for ever and ever.
11:45 And I thought, now wait a second,
11:46 you're telling me everybody in the world
11:48 since were all born with this bent toward sin.
11:53 And if we don't figure out how to do it right
11:56 that God is going to take the objects of His creation.
12:00 And for the sins of maybe 50, 60, 70 years
12:02 maybe 15 years burn them through ceaseless ages.
12:07 When I heard that, I thought,
12:09 I don't think
12:11 I'd ever want to serve a God like that.
12:14 So our subject today is on trying to understand
12:19 what is the punishment of the wicked,
12:21 and actually I'll be sharing
12:22 with you the good news about hell.
12:24 Matter of fact, I might even tell you
12:26 the good news to start with right now.
12:28 First of all the good news
12:29 is no one is burning in hell now.
12:31 Amen.
12:32 I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you
12:34 then I'll tell you what I told you.
12:37 No one is burning in hell now,
12:39 no one is going to burn there forever.
12:42 Hell fire will put sinners out of their selfish misery.
12:46 Hell will purify the universe.
12:50 And the really good news is, you don't need to go there.
12:54 Whenever I talk about this,
12:56 I'm surprised how many people ask me
12:57 a lot of questions afterward
13:00 and they don't ask me near as many questions
13:02 about heaven
13:04 which makes me wonder where they plan on going
13:07 because it seems like you
13:08 want to prepare more for your destination.
13:12 All right, first question.
13:14 What two cities are given in the Bible as an example
13:17 for the destruction of the wicked?
13:20 It says here, "Sodom and Gomorrah,
13:22 and the cities around them in a similar manner to these,
13:26 having given themselves over to sexual immorality
13:29 and going after strange flesh..."
13:32 We talked about that earlier today,
13:33 what that means?
13:35 "Are set forth as an example,
13:36 suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
13:40 And people are wondering,
13:42 well, there you have it, Pastor Doug.
13:44 And I don't want to deny,
13:46 there are some difficult passages
13:47 but I think they are easy to explain.
13:50 And there are a lot more passages
13:52 that make the subject clear.
13:54 And so you need to weigh the preponderance
13:57 of evidence on this.
13:59 Now just to go back to what the story was,
14:02 if you look, you remember that in the Old Testament
14:05 there in the Book of Genesis, Abraham and Lot parted ways,
14:09 Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom.
14:12 The Bible says the people of Sodom were sinners
14:14 before the Lord exceedingly.
14:17 And eventually God sent two angels
14:19 because they were going to judge Sodom.
14:22 And he gave Lot an opportunity to escape, the angels,
14:28 you know, after the people in the town
14:29 tried to accost them
14:31 and they were stricken with blindness,
14:32 they said to Lot and his daughters and his wife,
14:35 "Escape for your life: look not behind thee,
14:39 escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed."
14:43 What was going to happen to those
14:45 that stayed in the city?
14:47 They'll be consumed. What is the fate of the wicked?
14:50 The Bible says,
14:51 "Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth
14:53 as an example of those
14:54 who are suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,
14:57 while it says the eternal fire consume them."
15:01 And then of course it says the Lord rained upon Sodom
15:04 and Gomorrah brimstone
15:05 and fire from the Lord out of heaven,
15:08 and the Lord looked toward Sodom and he,
15:11 he and Abraham look toward Sodom and Gomorrah,
15:13 and, lo, the smoke of the country went up
15:15 as the smoke of a furnace."
15:18 But you know the story,
15:20 "His wife looked back behind him,
15:22 and she became a pillar of salt."
15:25 And so this is very important story
15:27 about what judgment is for the wicked,
15:29 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah explained.
15:32 And now notice what Peter says, we read what Jude says,
15:34 look at what Peter says,
15:36 "Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into what?"
15:40 This eternal fire burned them up forever.
15:44 The reason it's called eternal fire
15:46 is 'cause the result of the fire was eternal."
15:49 Have Sodom and Gomorrah ever been rebuilt?
15:51 Matter of fact number of prophets point
15:53 back to Sodom and Gomorrah
15:55 and use them as an example of a city
15:56 that would never be rebuilt.
15:58 And he said this regarding Nineveh,
16:00 he said it regarding Babylon, he said, they'll be like Sodom,
16:03 it'll never be inhabited again and it never was.
16:06 "Making them an example under those
16:08 who should after would live ungodly."
16:10 So if we want to know
16:12 what the fate of the lost or ungodly is,
16:15 the Bible says,
16:16 "Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of that,
16:18 they were consumed,
16:20 they were burned up with eternal fire,
16:21 and they perished."
16:23 This is the picture of that region,
16:24 I've been down to the Dead Sea
16:26 in the southern part of the Dead Sea.
16:30 It's nothing there.
16:31 Matter of fact,
16:33 I've got a friend
16:34 who's made several trips down the area
16:36 and he says,
16:37 "He digs the sulphur balls out of the ground,
16:41 that you can take
16:42 and put a match to and they'll lignite."
16:44 Yeah, I've got one, I've tried it before it works.
16:45 I don't do it in church 'cause it stinks.
16:47 But I did it once that's how I know.
16:50 But it's real,
16:52 I mean it's the only place in the world
16:53 you can find these sulphur balls
16:54 embedded in the ash,
16:56 in the ground
16:57 that you can pop out of the ground,
16:59 put a match to it and they burn.
17:00 So quite literally
17:01 there is a least sulphur in brimstone in that place.
17:04 Second question to consider,
17:05 "When will the wicked be destroyed in hellfire?"
17:09 2 Peter 2:9,
17:11 "The Lord knows how to reserve the unjust..."
17:15 What do they do?
17:16 They're reserved.
17:18 When you call ahead to a restaurant you say,
17:20 "Can you reserve me a seat?"
17:22 That means they're holding a place for you.
17:25 Are the wicked burning in hell now or are they reserved?
17:28 "How to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment..."
17:31 When will they be punished?
17:32 The day of judgment to be punished.
17:35 And again Jesus said, John 12:48,
17:38 "The word that I have spoken,
17:39 the same will judge him in the last day."
17:43 You can read John 6, John 11.
17:46 Over and over Jesus is the judgment,
17:48 the last day, the last day.
17:50 So the idea that as soon as people die,
17:52 they go to hell
17:54 and they start to burn is not biblical.
17:56 First of all why would you give a person the punishment?
18:00 And then when the Lord comes pull him out of hell,
18:02 in judgment say,
18:03 "Sure enough you were guilty
18:05 and put him back in hell again."
18:06 That wouldn't be very just.
18:09 Jesus tells a parable
18:11 and, you know, the parable of the wheat and the tares.
18:14 I remember when I first read this,
18:16 I said, what is a tare?
18:18 Tare is where it's another crop,
18:20 it's actually weeds
18:21 but when they first sprout up,
18:23 they look very similar to wheat.
18:25 As enemy sows the tares
18:27 and the servant says, "What do we do?
18:28 We go pull up the tares."
18:30 He says, "Let them grow together
18:31 until the harvest, then you separate the two."
18:34 And Jesus makes it pretty clear,
18:35 He says, "As therefore the tares are gathered
18:39 and burned in the fire,
18:41 so shall it be in the end of the world."
18:44 When were they gathered and burned?
18:46 It will be the end of the world.
18:48 And he says, you read on,
18:49 "The Son of man will send forth his angels,
18:51 and they will gather them that do iniquity.
18:54 And they'll cast them into a furnace of fire,
18:58 where they are consumed..."
19:00 And the Bible says, "They are devoured,
19:01 and they are burnt up."
19:03 These are words
19:04 that the Bible uses to describe that.
19:06 You know, I remember years ago,
19:09 I was a long, must been 30 years ago,
19:12 I think I can be very honest with you now.
19:14 I was listening to family radio,
19:17 and they have a Bible Answer program
19:21 as called Open Forum, and Pastor Harold Camping,
19:25 the late Pastor Harold Camping was answering Bible questions.
19:29 Now I'm up there, I've no telephone,
19:31 all I've got is a radio up on the hill same place
19:33 where we have our cabin now but this was a long time ago,
19:35 was a lot more primitive, these kerosene lamps back then.
19:39 And I used to love to listen to the radio,
19:43 they had some great Christian music
19:45 and they'd read the Bible.
19:46 And they really had some nice programs.
19:47 But then he would come on,
19:49 now you know who Harold Camping is.
19:50 He predicted the second coming two or three times.
19:52 And obviously he was wrong.
19:55 And he would get on, and he would answer questions,
19:58 and I used to listen that,
19:59 he used to get me all worked up.
20:00 But I remember
20:03 one particular day a college student called up
20:08 and she said,
20:09 "You know, I've been reading the Bible
20:10 and I'd like to believe in God,
20:12 I'd like to believe in Jesus
20:13 but I just don't understand how a God of love and Jesus
20:16 seems so loving,
20:17 He would take the creatures
20:19 that He's made and torture them if they don't love Him.
20:21 It's like basically saying, "Love me or burn in hell."
20:24 And the student was thinking,
20:26 you either can love me
20:28 or I'm going to torture you and that was her question.
20:30 And his answer was,
20:31 "Well, who are we to question God?
20:33 And this is what the Bible says and...
20:34 Oh, that made me so mad as I hear someone searching
20:36 for the truth
20:38 and they're being fed this nonsense.
20:40 Immediately after that a lady called.
20:43 And she said
20:44 and you could tell her voice was breaking.
20:47 And she said, "My son was not a Christian.
20:51 He had a problem drinking,
20:52 he died instantly in a car accident.
20:56 I just need to know is he burning in hell now.
20:59 Very direct question.
21:01 He tried to evade it for a moment
21:03 and finally he came right out and said,
21:04 "Well, according to the Bible there's only two destinies,
21:06 he's either with the Lord in heaven
21:08 or he is burning now in hell."
21:09 And you could hear the lady kind of choke.
21:12 And she hung up the phone.
21:13 Well, at this point I'm jumping up and down.
21:16 I don't have a telephone. No cell phone back then.
21:20 And so I jumped in my car and I drive 12 miles
21:24 a very bad dirt road to the nearest telephone
21:27 it was at our member's house,
21:29 her name was Dr. Lolita Simpson and I came charging in.
21:32 It was like 8:30, 9 o'clock at night.
21:34 And I knew it was a one hour program
21:35 and I needed to get on the air
21:37 'cause I thought I've got to hope
21:38 those people are still listening
21:40 'cause I'm gonna see if I can get through
21:41 and I'm going to give the answers to these things.
21:43 And so I got to her house and I said,
21:45 "Dr. Simpson, I got to use your phone real quick."
21:48 And I had the number and I called,
21:49 and I got a busy signal,
21:50 I've been praying all the way down
21:52 that I get through.
21:53 And I called again and they picked up they said,
21:55 "Oh, please stand by and you'll be taken in line
21:58 and I said, Lord, Lord...
21:59 Next thing I knew I hear his voice
22:01 "Welcome to Open Forum.
22:03 May I have your question please?"
22:05 I didn't even know what I was going to say.
22:08 And I said, "Yes, sir, Brother Camping,
22:10 I said I'm a Christian and then I said
22:13 I'm a Seventh-day Adventist Christian."
22:15 'Cause I hope that whoever is listening
22:16 would know where to go for the right answers.
22:19 And I said, "And I believe the Bible clearly teaches
22:21 that first of all the dead are sleeping in the graves
22:23 until the resurrection
22:24 and that no one is burning in hell now.
22:26 And hell does not burn forever and ever.
22:27 Can I please share a few scriptures?
22:29 Thank you."
22:30 You got to keep talking or he cuts you off.
22:33 And so I started saying,
22:35 it says, "That they will burn up,
22:36 and they are consumed, and they perish.
22:37 And there's no more pain."
22:39 And I've given him all
22:40 these verses and pretty soon..."
22:42 She had a radio and I could notice,
22:43 I didn't hear my voice anymore.
22:45 He kind of cut it.
22:47 He responded a little bit then he let off the mute button
22:50 and he let me respond again, I said, "Yes,
22:52 I've heard those verses before and here's what this
22:53 and this means
22:55 and I've given him all the answers
22:56 and then he cut me off,
22:57 he didn't take another phone call
22:59 for the last 20 minutes of the broadcast.
23:01 He just kept trying to untangle the scriptures that I've given.
23:08 And I remember driving home that night,
23:09 I was praying that those people were listening and I said,
23:13 "Lord, boy, I would love to have a radio program
23:15 where I could give people the answers."
23:17 Amen.
23:18 And you know for the last 20 years
23:20 we've had Bible Answers Live.
23:21 Every week we're calling people
23:23 and hopefully hearing the truth.
23:26 And we meet people...
23:28 We meet people all the time that say...
23:30 I've got the letters from kids and, you know,
23:32 it's the ones that break your heart are the teenagers.
23:34 "Said Pastor Doug, I couldn't sleep at night,
23:36 I lived in terror that I was going to die lost.
23:39 I go to church and they preach about the hell.
23:41 And I was so afraid of God and I was so afraid I die lost.
23:43 I was in misery and then we heard your program,
23:46 and we did the lesson,
23:48 and I have peace for the first time in my life."
23:50 Those, that just brings me such joy to know that.
23:53 Now before you take it too far,
23:58 we do believe in hellfire.
24:01 And there is a punishment
24:02 for the wicked and it does burn.
24:05 So don't misunderstand that.
24:07 Number three, "If the wicked who have died are not in hell,
24:10 where are they?"
24:11 Well, we sort of touched on this.
24:12 They're in their graves. John 5:28, 29.
24:15 "The hour is coming Jesus said
24:17 in which all that are in the graves
24:19 will hear his voice and they will come forth,
24:21 they that have done good will come forth,
24:24 or they that have done evil
24:25 unto the resurrection of damnation."
24:27 It's the resurrection of the just
24:29 and the resurrection of damnation.
24:31 And so the dead in Christ rise first.
24:33 In the second resurrection,
24:35 you've got to lost
24:36 and they're brought forth for their judgment.
24:38 The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction.
24:41 Yet he will be brought to the grave
24:43 and remain in the tomb until that day,"
24:46 until the judgment day.
24:47 So nobody is burning in hell now.
24:50 You know, that's driven some people
24:51 to absolute distraction.
24:53 Christian believing parents,
24:55 they've got children that die
24:56 and they question their salvation.
24:58 And the idea that all the time they walk the earth
25:01 that they're writhing
25:02 in some diabolical torture chamber.
25:06 You know, how many of you have heard that,
25:08 you know, hell is down under somewhere.
25:12 That's not really taught.
25:13 There's four words
25:15 that you find translated hell in the Bible.
25:18 The most common is Sheol.
25:20 Sheol is a Hebrew word and simply means the grave.
25:24 Then you've got the word Hades.
25:26 Hades comes from Greek mythology
25:27 and it's a place of darkness,
25:29 Pluto was the god in charge of Hades.
25:31 And then you got one time it mentions the word Tartarus,
25:34 and that just means again a place of darkness.
25:37 And then you've got Gehenna,
25:39 there was a valley outside of Jerusalem
25:42 called the Valley of Hinnom and it was the city dump.
25:44 And it was often smoldering and full of worms
25:47 and dead things and...
25:48 And you'll see how
25:50 that fits into some of the scriptures that come up.
25:52 So what is the reward, or punishment for sin?
25:56 The Bible says,
25:58 "The wages for sin
26:00 are everlasting burning in fire."
26:03 Is that what it says?
26:04 No, the wages for sin is death.
26:07 But the gift of God is eternal life.
26:09 See in the very beginning God told
26:11 Eve if you sin, you will die.
26:14 And yet the sad thing is and here it is in Genesis 3:22.
26:18 "Lest he put forth his hand
26:20 and take also of the tree of life,
26:21 and eat, and live forever."
26:23 God said, "Man was not to have eternal life."
26:28 And the devil said to Eve, "You will not surely die."
26:32 And this lie goes all the way back to the devil
26:34 that you don't really die,
26:35 you sort of die
26:37 but you really transmigrate you instantly
26:39 go to be with the Lord before the judgment
26:41 or you go to a place of torment,
26:43 or you go to limbo, or purgatory,
26:45 or Abraham's bosom
26:47 and they get all these other scenarios.
26:49 But the Bible is pretty clear, they're dead,
26:51 and they remain in their graves.
26:53 Now you know it confuses people,
26:56 it's because you read these verses and say,
26:57 "To be absent from the body
26:59 is to be present with the Lord."
27:02 And that's true for the Christian
27:05 when you're saved,
27:07 your next conscious thought after you die,
27:10 is the presence of the Lord.
27:11 Thousand years could go by but you're not there yet.
27:15 King David, Acts 2, Peter says,
27:17 "David is dead and buried in his grave
27:19 is with us to this day."
27:22 And then he goes on and said,
27:23 "David is not ascended to heaven."
27:25 I mean how much more clearer it could be.
27:27 He's dead, buried, not ascended to heaven.
27:29 And we all agree David will be saved, right?
27:32 Bible is pretty clear on that.
27:34 So here's a saved person who is dead, buried,
27:35 not in heaven and Peter says this,
27:37 "After the resurrection by 40 days..."
27:40 Some people say, "Well, at the resurrection,
27:42 then all the Saints went to heaven."
27:44 They would still dead, buried, and not in heaven.
27:47 But for David when he died about 3,000 years ago,
27:50 how long will it seem?
27:52 David slept with his fathers and next thought
27:54 he has it's going to be the moment
27:55 the twinkling of an eye absent from the body,
27:58 he'll know the resurrection and the presence of God
28:00 but it hasn't happened yet because we live in time,
28:04 we live in the dimension of time.
28:05 When you're dead,
28:07 you lose all consciousness of time.
28:08 Any of you sleep like that in the night?
28:10 I mean, maybe you know somebody
28:12 who sleeps like that if you know.
28:14 Well, yeah, you go to sleep and it says 10 o'clock,
28:16 you wake up and it's 7 o'clock
28:17 and it feels like two seconds went by.
28:21 That's pretty nice when that happens.
28:26 "What are the only two choices that all people have?"
28:31 John 3:16, "For God so loved the world
28:35 He gave His only begotten Son
28:37 that whosoever believes in Him believes in Him,
28:41 believes in Him, should not perish,
28:45 but have everlasting life."
28:46 So what are the two options we have?
28:49 Perish or everlasting life.
28:53 The idea that the punishment for sin
28:57 is everlasting torture well, how in the world...
29:01 If Jesus died for our sin,
29:03 if He did not suffer forever how did He pay our penalty?
29:06 You see what I'm saying?
29:08 If the penalty for sin is death that Jesus died.
29:11 But if the penalty for sin is not perish,
29:13 you know, death,
29:14 if the penalty for sin is everlasting torture,
29:16 well, Jesus was in the grave and He rose after three days.
29:21 And Jesus said, there's two options,
29:25 "So the penalty for sin is not eternal burning."
29:28 Number six,
29:30 "What will happen to the wicked in hellfire?"
29:33 Proverbs, I'm sorry Psalms 37:10, 20,
29:36 "For yet a little while, and the wicked will not be,
29:40 the wicked shall perish into smoke
29:42 they will consume away."
29:44 They'll perish, they will consume away,
29:46 they will not be, Malachi 4:1 and 3,
29:48 "The day that comes will burn them up
29:51 as an oven,
29:52 all that do wickedly shall be stubble.
29:55 Leaves them neither root nor branch,
29:57 the day that comes,
29:59 that you will tread down the wicked,
30:00 for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet."
30:03 It is so clear, they perish, they're consumed,
30:05 they're destroyed, they're burned up,
30:07 they're burnt with an eternal fire
30:09 because the results of the fire are eternal.
30:13 You know, God is so merciful, He's trying to make it clear,
30:15 this is the final fire, there's no second chance.
30:19 Now this is what confuses people,
30:21 "Where will hellfire be?"
30:25 People say, "You know down in hell."
30:26 I remember one time I was...
30:30 Well, I'm a little embarrassed to admit it
30:32 but when I stand in line and I'm at Walmart,
30:37 where I buy all my finer clothes.
30:39 And I was actually just bought a nice tie
30:43 it sounds like a commercial, isn't it?
30:45 Anyway I read the covers
30:51 of the tabloid magazines.
30:54 I would never buy one,
30:55 unless I do it
30:57 as a sermon illustration like now.
30:58 But I read the covers
30:59 and I remember a few years ago,
31:01 I saw one and it said,
31:03 "Oil drillers in Siberia drilled deep well
31:07 and reach hell,
31:08 demons are escaping or something like that."
31:12 But, you know, a lot of people think
31:14 that's way down under, hell is down under.
31:17 But Bible is pretty clear
31:19 that fire rains down on the earth
31:21 and that becomes hell just like Sodom and Gomorrah.
31:24 You can read in Revelation 20:9.
31:27 "Speaking of the wicked Gog
31:28 and Magog they go up on the breath of the earth
31:30 and they surround the camp of the saints,
31:32 the beloved city," and the Bible says,
31:35 "Fire comes down from God out of heaven,
31:37 and devours them."
31:40 They're devoured, they're all eaten up.
31:43 Again 2 Peter 3:10 says,
31:45 "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
31:47 in which the heavens will pass away
31:48 with a great noise,
31:50 the elements will melt with fervent heat,
31:53 the earth also and the things
31:55 that are in it will be burned up."
31:57 Now at this point the dead in Christ have risen.
32:00 All that's left is the lost.
32:03 That's why Jeremiah says,
32:04 "I behold the surface of the earth
32:06 and it was broken down, and all there is no man,
32:10 all the birds of heaven
32:11 had fled at the coming of the Lord."
32:13 So there's desolation left behind.
32:16 So will the devil be in charge of hell?
32:20 No.
32:22 You know, how many of you when you picture the devil,
32:24 you see something like this?
32:25 You got this guy
32:27 he's, you know, sometimes has bat wings
32:28 and he's got the horns of course
32:30 and he got a goatee
32:31 which is why it won't grow on anymore.
32:33 Beards are back in, aren't they?
32:35 And it seems like everybody, all these pastors have beards.
32:37 And I grew a beard years ago, and people told me,
32:40 I look like a sinister minister.
32:42 And so, not so bad one, it's a great one.
32:45 But when I was younger it was black,
32:47 and I did look kind of devious.
32:49 So I thought, that's not good.
32:51 Get rid of it if you're an evangelist,
32:52 we already have a bad reputation, don't we?
32:54 Evangelists, yeah.
32:56 So anyway how to get off that, oh, the devil's got a beard.
32:59 And he's got the red leotards,
33:01 you know, and he's got the tail
33:02 with the point on it,
33:04 he's got the pitchfork, why, because he's in charge of hell,
33:06 and he wants to make sure everyone cooks evenly.
33:08 And, or he's like bales of hay,
33:10 he's heaving the lost sinners into hell.
33:12 And this is actually
33:14 a combination of Greek mythology
33:17 with Christian myths.
33:19 Nothing in the Bible says
33:21 that the devil is in charge of hell.
33:22 What does the Bible say?
33:23 Revelation 20:10,
33:25 "And the devil that deceived them
33:27 was cast into the lake of fire
33:30 and brimstone which is the second death."
33:34 Satan is cast into the lake of fire.
33:37 And Bible tells us again in Matthew 25,
33:42 "That he declares to the lost,
33:43 depart from He cursed into fire prepared
33:46 for the devil and his angels."
33:48 God didn't prepare it for you,
33:50 He's going to prepare a mansion for you,
33:51 if you don't get the mansion
33:53 it's be because
33:54 you didn't want to follow Jesus,
33:55 but you wanted to follow the devil
33:57 so you'll get his reward.
33:58 But if you want what Jesus has prepared,
34:01 then you need to trust and surrender your life to Him.
34:05 So will the fires of hell ever go out?
34:08 Or does it just burn on through endless eternity?
34:12 Isaiah 47:14,
34:14 "There will not be a coal to warm at,
34:17 nor fire to sit before it."
34:20 It goes out, it's consumed, they're burnt up.
34:24 "Are both the soul
34:25 and the body destroyed in hell?"
34:28 You can read this in Matthew 10:28,
34:31 "Fear not them that kill the body,
34:33 but are not able to kill the soul,
34:35 but rather fear him
34:37 that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
34:43 And I remember hearing people say before,
34:44 "Well, yeah, Pastor Doug,
34:45 your right that it is true
34:48 that the bodies are burnt up, but the soul is immortal.
34:52 The soul is burned forever."
34:54 And we have immortality,
34:56 you will either be in heaven with the Lord
34:58 or you're going to be burning forever.
35:00 And I ask where in the Bible
35:02 does it say we have immortality?
35:05 Paul says, "We are seeking for immortality."
35:08 Paul says in 1 Timothy, "God alone has immortality.
35:14 And when Jesus comes,
35:15 the saved will hear Him say
35:17 this mortal puts on immortality.
35:21 But we're not gods, we don't have immortality.
35:24 This is what the devil said to Eve,
35:25 "You cannot surely die.
35:28 You are gods.
35:30 You are going to live forever."
35:31 Let's see what the Bible says,
35:33 "Eternal life is promised to the redeemed,
35:35 death is promised to the lost.
35:38 Two choices, life or death."
35:40 Quick story.
35:42 I was driving back from Lubbock,
35:45 Texas to Dickens,
35:46 Texas where I was living at 70 miles
35:49 across the Texas plains.
35:52 And at Christmas Eve, I was with the family,
35:55 came on this great big, I'm driving a little Mazda GLC.
35:58 And I came across
36:00 one of these big old Texas Buicks,
36:03 and there was a family,
36:05 a father, mother, and two daughters
36:06 and their car broke down.
36:08 Well, I actually used to do mechanic work.
36:10 I mean, I've gone in the crank
36:12 all the way up building engines.
36:14 So I pulled over to see if I could help.
36:16 And he said, "You know the lights went out,
36:18 the alternator is so and so..."
36:20 So I looked at it and I said,
36:21 "Yeah, let me tow you over to my house."
36:24 It was the funniest thing you've ever seen
36:25 this little Japanese Mazda
36:28 with my family towing him and his car
36:30 with his family with big rope.
36:32 And anyways we towed him about 20 miles.
36:36 I had the poor little thing wide open.
36:38 And they came and I looked at his car I said,
36:40 "Look your alternator brushes are bad,
36:43 it's Christmas Eve,
36:44 we can't do anything until the stores are open.
36:47 So why don't you stay with us?"
36:49 So he and his family stayed with us,
36:51 it turns out he was a baptist pastor.
36:53 And so, you know,
36:57 it's a lot easier to witness people
36:58 when they sort of owe you, you know.
37:02 That's why I pick up hitchhikers
37:03 and they say, "Oh, you're so nice.
37:05 I say, oh, good,
37:06 you've listen to me preach now."
37:08 And anyway so we started talking and he said,
37:14 "Well, you're Christian, I'm a Christian.
37:15 What church? I'm a Seventh-day Adventist."
37:17 He said, oh, I know a little bit about Adventist,
37:18 you guys don't believe in hell.
37:19 I said, no, I believe in hell.
37:22 And as I like to think Pastor John stole my line
37:23 the other day, I said,
37:25 "My hell is hotter than your hell."
37:27 I said, "Your hell just kind of roast people forever,
37:29 mine burns them up."
37:32 So we started talking about that subject.
37:34 We talked about a lot of things,
37:35 but I remember
37:37 while we were talking about the subject of hell,
37:39 there was a very friendly conversation.
37:42 I just gave him one scripture after another.
37:45 And he got real quiet
37:47 and he said, "You know, brother Doug,
37:49 " he said,
37:51 "I've seen these verses before and it's really made me wonder
37:53 but he said 'I'm afraid if I were to tell my people
37:57 that they wouldn't come to church anymore."
38:00 If I were to tell him the lost is burned up
38:03 and then they're gone.
38:04 He said, "If it wasn't the fear of hell,
38:06 are they want to come to church anymore?"
38:10 I said, "Brother, you telling me
38:11 they're coming because they're afraid,
38:13 that's the wrong reason."
38:15 "If they want to come because God is love,
38:18 not because fire insurance of some sort."
38:24 I mean, who wants to serve a God,
38:26 the only thing, reason you're serving Him
38:27 is because you don't want to burn in hell
38:29 because if that's the only reason
38:30 you're serving Him should you ever get to heaven,
38:32 you've now lost your motivation.
38:36 Then you'd be a real threat in heaven
38:37 because you say, no more hellfire.
38:39 We're having good time here, right?
38:42 No, you got to serve Him because you love Him.
38:46 All right, number 11.
38:49 "For whom will hellfire be kindled?"
38:51 It's as I mentioned
38:53 before it's not for he doesn't want it for us.
38:55 Matthew 25:41, "Depart for ye, cursed, into everlasting fire,
39:00 prepared for the devil and his angels."
39:02 And I've told you before the everlasting fire,
39:04 the eternal fire is reminding us
39:06 that the results of this fire are eternal.
39:09 There is no second chance.
39:11 Amen.
39:12 "How does the Bible refer to God's destruction
39:15 of the wicked?"
39:16 God is not willing that any should perish.
39:20 It says in Isaiah 28:21,
39:22 "The Lord shall be wroth
39:24 that he may do his work, his strange work,
39:27 and bring to pass his act, his strange act."
39:31 It's a strange thing for the Lord,
39:33 God is a God of love.
39:35 And Jesus is a loving God, He wants to create life,
39:38 He wants to give life, He wants to save from death.
39:41 The punishment of the wicked
39:42 and the destruction of the wicked,
39:45 it breaks His heart.
39:48 Yeah, some of you had to do this before.
39:51 We had a couple of dogs,
39:54 I remember bringing a brother and sister
39:56 two dogs home years ago
39:58 when our boys were young, the older boys.
40:01 And we named one Duffy.
40:04 And Duffy he was very clumsy dog.
40:08 And Daniel sort of adopted Duffy
40:10 and Michael wanted Candy.
40:11 Candy was a beautiful,
40:12 that you would never believe they were related
40:14 but they are brother and sister.
40:15 Candy was a chocolate brown dog with the yellow eyes,
40:17 very sharp, very tender.
40:20 Duffy, he just went,
40:22 he bit a rattlesnake or something.
40:24 He wasn't very smart dog.
40:26 And he didn't last very long,
40:28 we never quite found out what happened.
40:30 Candy was with us 16 years.
40:33 And she was just,
40:35 you know, one of those pets
40:36 that'd become a part of your family.
40:39 In fact, Candy outlived our son that adopted him.
40:44 And so finally when Candy got to that point
40:46 that dog's typically,
40:48 you know, people outlive them generally.
40:51 She was in pretty bad shape.
40:53 And I went back home one time
40:55 and I saw Candy was just dragging around,
40:57 looking just miserable
40:58 and I know in the city you go see the vet,
41:02 that's not what you do in the country.
41:06 And I realized the time was coming
41:07 and I told the family,
41:08 I said, you need to say goodbye to Candy
41:10 'cause I got to do something,
41:11 it's going to break my heart
41:12 but it's going to be the loving thing to do
41:14 because she can't get up, she can't walk around,
41:15 she's laying out there in the mud right now,
41:17 and it's quite literally what was happening.
41:20 And so I needed to take her out into the woods
41:23 and do a strange act.
41:27 And it made me cry.
41:29 And I thought,
41:30 you know, when God punishes the wicked,
41:31 He loves His lost children.
41:35 God is love,
41:36 infinitely more than we love our kids,
41:40 let alone our pets.
41:42 And so if it would break my heart like that
41:47 to have to put down a dog.
41:50 The idea that God would find any justice
41:54 or any kind of satisfaction in torturing
41:57 the lost objects of His creation
41:59 through endless ages.
42:01 And, you know, there's no justice in that,
42:02 that would mean
42:04 if people burned forever and ever
42:05 that would mean that Cain
42:07 who died about 5,000 years ago,
42:11 who killed one person that we know of his brother
42:14 has been burning 5,000 years longer
42:16 than Adolph Hitler and Stalin
42:18 who were responsible for millions of deaths.
42:22 That would mean that the confused teenager
42:25 that reaches the age of accountability,
42:27 but they commit suicide.
42:30 And they die without Jesus.
42:31 I know it breaks your heart but sometimes that happens
42:34 that they would get the same punishment as Hitler.
42:38 The idea there's justice in that.
42:41 But the Bible is pretty clear
42:43 to whom much is given much is required.
42:47 And those who knew their masters well
42:48 and did not do it
42:50 they are beaten with many stripes.
42:52 And those who did not know
42:53 and did things worthy of stripes,
42:54 they are beaten with few stripes.
42:56 So the Bible is clear there are varying rewards.
43:00 Indeed the Spirit of Prophecy says,
43:02 "There are some
43:03 who have been born into and live
43:04 such miserable lives in such ignorance
43:08 that they will just be as though
43:09 they had not been.
43:10 God out of mercy for them
43:12 because they had no light at all,
43:13 they lived in total pagan darkness,
43:15 they will be as though they had not been."
43:18 That's mercy.
43:20 God is a loving merciful God.
43:22 People are going to get what they deserve.
43:25 Now you need to behave because you know too much.
43:28 Number 13.
43:31 "Does the Bible phrase unquenchable fire indicate
43:34 that the fire never goes out?"
43:37 As it's unquenchable fire.
43:39 Well, let's look at some examples in the Bible
43:40 that explain that Matthew 3:12,
43:43 "He will thoroughly purge the floor,
43:45 and gather his wheat into the garner,
43:47 but he'll burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
43:50 And I believe these are the words
43:52 of John the Baptist.
43:53 Burn up the chaff,
43:55 it's like the wheat and tares, unquenchable fire.
43:57 Jeremiah 17,
43:59 "The prophet here warn the people of Israel,
44:01 if you will not hearken to me to hollow the Sabbath day,
44:04 and not to bear a burden,
44:06 even entering in the gates of Jerusalem
44:08 on the Sabbath day,
44:09 then I will kindle a fire in the gates there of,
44:13 and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem,
44:15 and it shall be burned
44:17 with a fire that is not quenched."
44:19 It says, it shall not be quenched.
44:21 And again he says in Mark 9:47, "If your eye causes you to sin,
44:26 pluck it out.
44:28 It's better for you to enter the Kingdom of God
44:30 with one eye, rather having two eyes,
44:32 to be cast into hellfire
44:34 where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'
44:37 " By the way here is where he uses the word
44:39 be cast into Gehenna, the city dump,
44:41 they kept it burning all the time
44:44 so that it would keep the gases down
44:46 and they were thrown in old baskets and trash,
44:48 they were burning it.
44:50 And they had dead animals in there.
44:51 There was worms, he talked about the worm doesn't die,
44:53 it's always a place of revolting.
44:57 But he says the fire is not quenched.
45:00 If you're burning garbage do you call the fireman
45:02 to put it out or you let it burn?
45:05 Why do they call it unquenchable fire?
45:09 Because you don't want to quench the fire.
45:13 There's no firemen in hell.
45:17 Isn't that right?
45:19 And when the wicked are burned,
45:22 they're going to be burned according to what they deserve.
45:24 Some is going to be quick, some it's going to be longer.
45:27 The Bible actually says,
45:28 "Satan, day and night for ever and ever."
45:30 And you're probably wondering, what does that mean?
45:31 We'll better get to it.
45:32 Number 14.
45:34 "Doesn't the phrase everlasting fire mean unending?"
45:38 Jude tells us in verse 7, we read this,
45:40 "Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth
45:42 for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
45:46 That means what happens through the fire is forever,
45:50 there will never again be any wicked.
45:53 And you can go down
45:54 to the lowest part of the earth now.
45:56 It's there in the Jordan Valley
45:58 where Sodom and Gomorrah were once located
45:59 they're not burning today, there's nothing there.
46:03 When Revelation 20:10 says,
46:04 "That the wicked will be tormented
46:06 for ever and ever,
46:07 doesn't that indicate endless time?"
46:11 Read in the Book of Jonah 2:6,
46:14 Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster
46:17 and I bet you that felt like Hades.
46:20 Can you imagine that?
46:21 I used to think
46:23 if Jonah somehow was still alive inside
46:25 the digestive system of that sea creature,
46:28 there might have been other things
46:30 that were on the menu still alive in there.
46:32 Had to be bad enough
46:34 if you can just imagine being inside some monster
46:38 you're all in one piece and then he decides to have
46:40 an appetizer and some dessert,
46:43 and in comes the sea urchin in this stinking jellyfish
46:47 and bioluminescence flashing and scaring you half to death.
46:51 And you're in there
46:52 and can you imagine three days like that,
46:56 how long would have that had seemed to you?
46:58 Have you ever said to someone
47:00 why I haven't seen them for ever?
47:04 And then you might say and they came over to my house
47:06 and I thought they were going to stay forever.
47:12 But Jonah says,
47:14 "The earth with her bars was around me forever."
47:16 But how long was he there?
47:18 You keep reading same, in chapter 1 it says,
47:20 "Three days and three nights."
47:21 It did have a limit on it.
47:23 You can also read in Revelation, it says,
47:25 "The smoke of their torment ascends up.
47:27 Revelation 14:11, "Forever and ever."
47:29 What does this mean?
47:31 Now first of all we talked about the smoke.
47:32 I remember when I used to drive across Texas I would see the...
47:35 Every 10 miles they had a city,
47:38 is started out as a big farming state.
47:41 And all the cities had their own dump
47:45 and people would burn the trash in the 55 gallon drums
47:47 and eventually when it filled up,
47:49 they take it all, and they dump it.
47:50 But frequently it was still smoldering
47:52 and wherever the dumps were,
47:53 you could see little rivulets
47:57 of smoke ascending up out of sight forever and ever.
48:01 And so the smoke,
48:04 you remember what I said about Sodom and Gomorrah,
48:06 Abraham looked and he saw
48:07 it was like the smoke of a furnace,
48:08 it ascends up to heaven.
48:10 And so when the wicked are all burned,
48:13 it's going to look like Sodom and Gomorrah,
48:14 the smoke ascends up forever and ever.
48:16 So what does this expression forever and ever mean?
48:18 Now you got to be careful
48:20 'cause as soon as you try to say,
48:21 well, forever doesn't always mean forever.
48:23 People gonna say,
48:24 "Well, aren't we getting life forever?
48:26 Does that mean our eternal life is not forever?"
48:29 Now we're gonna get eternal life,
48:30 you need to read it in its context
48:32 but you can't deny there are examples in the Bible
48:34 where it uses the word forever and it had a definitive end.
48:39 For example, Exodus 21:6,
48:43 "If you had a servant that you liked,
48:46 and he wanted to stay with you
48:47 even after he was allowed to go free,
48:49 you went through this ceremony and he says
48:51 he would be your servant forever."
48:54 Well, that doesn't mean even on into heaven,
48:55 it meant until you die.
48:58 When Hannah brought Samuel to the temple,
49:00 she brought him to abide there for ever.
49:03 Well, that was then she goes on,
49:05 she says in verse 28 and that was 1 Samuel 1:22.
49:07 Go to 1 Samuel 1:28.
49:09 That means as long as he lives, that's what it says.
49:12 So forever meant what? As long as he lives.
49:16 And the reason the Bible uses a vague term
49:18 to describe the punishment of the wicked
49:20 is 'cause it's different for everybody,
49:22 people are going to get different rewards, right?
49:25 Are there different rewards even in heaven?
49:28 That's right.
49:29 And there are different rewards for the wicked as well.
49:32 "Forever and ever is a biblical expression
49:35 which means until the end of the age,
49:37 it's not necessarily an infinite,
49:39 unending length of time."
49:41 You need to read that in its context.
49:43 Now when you run
49:44 into difficult verses like this,
49:45 you need to explain them.
49:47 Someone's going to say to me, Well, Pastor Doug,
49:48 what about the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?"
49:52 And it seems like that poor beggar died
49:55 and the next thing he knows he's in Abraham's bosom
49:58 but the rich man dies
50:00 who would not share his crumbs,
50:02 he goes to Hades and he's in torment.
50:05 And he says he's in the flame
50:06 and he sent Lazarus with a drop of water to cool me
50:09 from tormented in this flame.
50:11 And you can read about that in the Gospel of Luke.
50:13 It only appears in Luke 16:19.
50:18 "That is a parable,
50:20 and Jesus uses incredible paradoxes
50:24 in that parable."
50:25 You've got Lazarus who represents the gentiles
50:28 who is outside hungering for the crumbs
50:32 that fall from the table of the rich man,
50:34 the Jewish nation that has the bread of life.
50:36 They're feasting on the word and arguing among themselves.
50:39 And the gentiles were dying around them,
50:41 hungering for the crumbs.
50:42 Remember the gentile woman came to Jesus, she said,
50:45 "Yeah, even the puppies get the crumbs."
50:47 So it's pretty clear.
50:49 But what Jesus does is very ironic,
50:51 it says,
50:52 "The poor beggar who represents the gentiles he dies,
50:55 he goes to Abraham's bosom,
50:56 only time that's used in the Bible.
50:58 Every Jew wanted to be with father Abraham.
51:00 They want to sit down
51:02 in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
51:04 And here Jesus has got,
51:06 the gentile going to Abraham's bosom,
51:08 and the rich man dies
51:09 and he goes to the Greek place of torment Hades."
51:13 All the Jews understood Greek mythology.
51:16 If I were to tell you a story right now and say,
51:18 "All right one day Alice was walking in Wonderland."
51:21 You all know right away
51:22 because you're acquainted with English fairytales
51:26 that I'm not serious,
51:27 I'm using an illustration, right?
51:30 Jesus used the term
51:31 they all understood, it's a parable.
51:34 So the idea that you die
51:36 and go right to heaven or hell is not what He was teaching.
51:38 He was saying,
51:39 if you don't believe Moses and the prophets,
51:41 then you won't be persuaded that one should rise
51:42 from the dead
51:44 because remember in the story, they said, oh,
51:46 but if Lazarus would rise from the dead,
51:48 then my father's house would believe.
51:51 He said, "Let them read Moses and the prophets."
51:52 Jesus, it was a parable for the Jewish nation
51:55 and for the church
51:57 that if we're not feeding those
51:58 who are hungering for the truth that falls from our table,
52:00 we might find that we're on the outside
52:03 and the ones who love the truth are in the inside."
52:06 Has nothing to do with the state of man and death
52:08 or hellfire in that parable.
52:11 And someone else is going to be wondering
52:13 about the thief on the cross
52:16 and there we've got some of these...
52:17 Oh, by the way
52:20 there's a website,
52:21 it's very popular, it's called helltruth.com.
52:26 It's got all kinds of studies and videos
52:28 and you can recommend it to anybody helltruth.com.
52:31 We get a lot of people that come there
52:33 and they learn the truth about this and are happy.
52:36 Number 16,
52:37 "After sin and sinners are destroyed,
52:40 what will Jesus do for His people?"
52:43 Nevertheless we according to His promise look
52:45 for a new heaven and a new earth
52:48 where indwells righteousness.
52:51 "And God will wipe away all tears from their eyes,
52:54 and there will be no more death,
52:56 no more sorrow, no more pain, no more crying,
52:59 neither shall there be any more pain
53:01 for the former things are passed away."
53:03 Bible says, "No more pain. No more crying."
53:07 How can all things be made new
53:09 and there will be a torture chamber
53:10 full of sinners crying in pain?
53:13 God is trying to cleanse the universe from pain.
53:16 He doesn't want an eternal place of pain.
53:18 He wants all things to be made new.
53:21 And so the more and more people even from other churches
53:25 are learning the Bible truth about this.
53:27 This all came down to us from mythology,
53:30 and church tradition to try to scare people.
53:32 A lot of it was used to manipulate people
53:35 and try to get resources from them.
53:37 I remember years ago, when I lived up in the cave.
53:40 That my cat caught a little kangaroo rat,
53:44 it was right around dinnertime, had a campfire going on.
53:47 And, you know,
53:49 cats are kind of sadistic, a dog,
53:50 if he catches a rat, one gulp it's gone.
53:53 A cat likes to play with its food,
53:54 they like the entertainment before dinner.
53:58 You know, they catch, and they let it go,
54:00 and they battle, and they jump on it again,
54:02 and then they let it go and they carry it over
54:04 and they show you they've got it,
54:05 and they let it go, and they pound...
54:07 And I, you know,
54:08 my cat had to eat so I didn't interfere
54:09 but he brought me this kangaroo rat,
54:11 the poor thing was,
54:13 you know, all beat up and dazed and my cat let go of it again
54:17 and it gave one final hop
54:18 except it hopped into my campfire.
54:22 Listen to you.
54:26 I just talked about the rat fallen in the fire,
54:28 you could not bear the thought of a rat falling on a fire.
54:33 And yet some people think this is what God's going to do.
54:38 Years ago,
54:42 my mother was very worried
54:43 because her daughter used to walk two miles to school,
54:46 this was back when the country was safe
54:48 and you could send your kids off to school,
54:49 when the weather was good
54:51 she had her kids walk to school,
54:52 and she noticed that afternoon the thunder clouds came up,
54:56 and there was a tremendous lightning storm,
54:58 and she figured based on the clock
55:00 that her daughter was going to be caught
55:01 right out in the middle of the plains
55:03 in this very fierce violent lightning,
55:05 so she thought she's going to be scared,
55:06 she's going to get struck by lightning
55:08 and she hopped in the jalopy
55:10 and went down the road to try to pick up her daughter.
55:12 And as she could see over on the hills
55:14 her daughter walking on the trail,
55:15 whenever there was
55:17 one of this terrifying flashes of lighting,
55:18 her daughter would standstill,
55:21 she turned up to the sky and she'd smile,
55:23 and then she start walking down the road.
55:25 She saw two or three times her daughter,
55:26 lighting would flash she'd stop,
55:27 she look up where the flash came from,
55:29 and she'd smile, as she keep walking.
55:30 Finally she got up to her daughter
55:32 and, you know, at this point rain's coming on she said,
55:34 "What in the world were you doing?
55:35 I saw you every time there's lightning
55:37 you turn around and you'd smile."
55:40 She said, "Well, I figured that God
55:41 was taking pictures and I wanted to look pretty."
55:48 Now there is a kid
55:50 that has the right idea of her heavenly Father.
55:55 She was not afraid,
55:57 God doesn't want us to live in fear.
56:00 And you know my heart goes out to people,
56:02 that's why I love this message
56:03 because when I learned the truth about this,
56:05 for the first time in my life I thought,
56:08 "I could be a Christian.
56:10 I think I could love a God like this."
56:13 And I was so happy to learn that the Lord Jesus died
56:18 to save us from the lake of fire
56:20 because He doesn't want us to perish,
56:22 He wants us to have eternal life.
56:25 And that He's going to purify the universe
56:27 and there's going to be no more pain.
56:28 The wicked are going to be gone.
56:30 How could you ever enjoy eternity
56:32 if lost people that you may have known
56:34 and loved are outside some torture chamber,
56:38 burning through eternity?
56:39 Will God erase all natural emotion
56:41 from our hearts?
56:43 No, God is going to deal with it in a just
56:45 and a loving way where we will be able to trust
56:47 and love Him all through eternity.
56:49 Amen.
56:50 And don't you want to do that, friends?
56:52 Amen. God is good, God is love.
56:55 And we need to get the truth about this out
56:56 'cause a lot of people are living lives of fear
56:58 and they can't trust and love God.
57:01 And I'd like to just pray with you as we close
57:03 that we can have that relationship.
57:06 Father in heaven,
57:08 we are so thankful for the truth,
57:10 that shows You are a loving God,
57:12 the truth that sets us free.
57:14 Help us all come to know Jesus in that way.
57:17 I pray for all those that are listening,
57:18 or watching that they might know
57:20 that You are just a God of love.
57:22 There is a reward to be had,
57:24 eternal life and the lost will perish.
57:27 Help us to choose Jesus in life,
57:29 in His name we pray...
57:30 Amen. Amen.


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Revised 2023-05-02