From: REXLEX@fnal.fnal.gov
Subject: Assurance of Hell
Organization: FNAL/AD/Net
Lines: 139

I dreamed that the great judgment morning had dawned,
     and the trumpet had blown.
I dreamed that the sinners had gathered for judgment
     before the white throne.
Oh what weeping and wailing as the lost were told of their fate.
They cried for the rock and the mountains.
They prayed, but their prayers were too late.
The soul that had put off salvation, 
"Not tonight I'll get saved by and by.
 No time now to think of ....... religion," 
Alas, he had found time to die.
And I saw a Great White Throne.

Now, some have protest by saying that the fear of hell is not good for
motivation, yet Jesus thought it was.  Paul thought it was.  Paul said, 
"Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."

Today, too much of our evangelism is nothing but soft soap and some of
it is nothing but evangelical salesmanship.  We don't tell people anymore, that
there's such a thing as sin or that there's such a place as hell.  

As Jayne has said, this doesn't mean we have to come on so strong so as to hit
people over the head with a baseball bat.  Yet the fact remains, there is a
place called hell.  A place so fearful that God died to save us from having to
experience it.  Whatever you or I, as Christians, do, we should do whatever we
can to win people to the Lord, if for no other reason, to keep them from going
to "outer darkness.".  

Jesus, in Mt. 25, tells us that He didn't prepare hell for people.  He prepared
it for the Devil and his angels.  No where in the Bible do I read -anywhere,
that God predestined anybody to go to hell.  D.L. Moody use to say that the
elect are the "whosoever will" and the nonelect are the "whosoever wont's." 
Whether or not that's theologically sound, I couldn't defend, but its
practical.  Jesus said to the people of Israel, "Ye would not."  

Now, some of you may not be students of the Bible, heck -some of you may not be
Christians.  Have you ever said to somebody, "I don't believe in hell.  I
believe in the religion of Jesus."  But did you know that Jesus talked more
about hell than He did about heaven!  "Oh I believe in the religion of the
sermon on the mount."  You find hell taught by Jesus in the sermon on the
mount.  You'll read that Jesus talked about the tree being cast into the fire. 
Several times he talks about hell and about judgment.  In fact, over and over
in the synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus talks about hell.  Not Isaiah. 
Not Moses.  Not John the Baptist, though he did, but Jesus, the Son of God. 
The great Beloved One preached about hell because He loved people and didn't
want to see them go there.

Now, if there is no hell then Jesus preached in vain.  It was our Lord Jesus,
not some angry Baptist preacher, that said, "where the worm never dies, and
where the fire never goes out."  Jesus said that.  It was Jesus who called hell
a "furnace of fire."  It was Jesus that used the word, "condemnation."  "And
this is the condemnation, that men love darkness rather than light because
their deeds are evil.  Jesus said that.  

How can we get it across to you that a loving, dying Jesus preached about hell?
 Not only that, but He went through hell.  That's what Calgary was all about. 
When my Lord was on the cross, darkness fell.  He called hell, "outer
darkness."  

Do you have this idea that hell is a place where the gamblers are gambling over
here, the drunks are getting drunk over there, and the prostitutes are
prostituting their bodies over there?  That's not what hell is.  Hell's not a
party.  There's no fellowship there.  He called it "outer darkness."  "Outer"
-away from God.  "Darkness" -God is light.  

No when He was on the cross, He was made sin for you and for me.  God treated
Jesus the way sinners have to be treated.  That's is a sobering thought.  As my
son would say, an "awesome" thought.  

"My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me?"  Hell is isolation.  There's no
fellowship in hell.  There's no friendship in hell.  There's no loving embrace
in hell.  There's no hand shake in hell.  There's no word of encouragement in
hell.  

"I thirst."  It goes much deeper than physical thirst.  Hell is eternal craving
with no satisfaction.  The man whose life was lived for drugs, will crave it
eternally.  The man whose life was lived for the lust of a woman's body, will
crave it eternally -and not be satisfied.  One theologian has put it this way
and I think it deserves merit.  What is hell?  Hell is just the kind of
environment that matches the internal condition of the lost.  

In a recent post, I was trying to remember the founder of The Word of Life
ministries.  I've remembered his name, Jack Wertzen, and found that the
illustration that I gave wasn't his.  His illustration was that he was talking
to his barber and his barber's wife and daughter had just recently been saved
and he was commenting about it to Jack.  "They sing these songs and read Bible
verses, and their praising this and that -I can't stand it!  Jack, do you think
God would send me to hell?"  Jack answered by saying, "Yes I think he would!" 
Of course the barber said, "What do you mean by that."  "Well if you can't
stand living at home with your wife and daughter who sing hymns and praises to
God now, what would you do in heaven where they'll do it for eternity?  You'd
be miserable.  Because God loves you, He'd put you where it would match what
you really are."   It makes a man think.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a fact that necessitates the eternal
existence of hell because on the cross He performed an eternal act.  Don't ask
me how, I don't know.  But He is God and He is the infinite/eternal and when He
died, He died an infinite/eternal death.  It is by that eternal act that He
purchased eternal life for the "whosoever wills."  He suffered eternal
judgment.  

A lot of people would like to detour around hell by saying "Everybody is going
to be saved eventually."  -universalism.  My Bible says no, He'll separate
them.  The sheep from the goats.  ".After you die there's a probationary period
in which God prepares you for heaven."  No, my Bible says that "It is appointed
unto men once to die and then comes judgment."  Some of the cultist believe in
annihilation.  After you die, sssswish.  Just like a mosquito you're squished
out.  No, in Rev we are told that their is eternal existence in hell just as
there is in heaven.  

I don't enjoy making these kind of statements and maybe you don't enjoy
listening to them, but we have to preach the entire Word of God.  -There is a
place called hell.  If I could give one verse of Scripture that could give any
hope that people aren't going there, I'd give it to you, but I haven't found
it.  That fact that there is a place called hell, the fact that our God is a
God of holiness and must judge sin, the fact that He has made us the kind of
creatures we are and therefore we're responsible, the fact that He has placed
us in a "uni"verse that has purpose and design behind it, the fact that sin is
such an awful thing and the fact that God Himself went through hell to save us
from hell leads us to two applications.

1)  As I've already mentioned.  If you are a Christian, you must worn others. 
Its not good enough to stop and fix their flat tire and not tell them that just
around the bend the bridge is out.  "Knowing therefore the terror of Lord, we
persuade men."

2)  If you haven't accepted Jesus are your Savior, you're taking an awful
chance.  As I say to the Jehovah Witnesses (who no longer frequent my door), if
you are right and I am wrong, then I will have lived a good life and will die
and cease to exist, but if I am right and you are wrong, then you will die and
suffer eternal damnation.  I don't mean to make fun at this point, but its like
Dirty Harry said, "You've got to ask yourself, 'Do I feel lucky?'  Well do
you?"  "A man's got to know his limitations."  Don't be one of the "whosoever
wont's."  

"Because while I was yet a sinner, He died for me."
"There's no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for another."
--Rex