Beyond the Flannelgraph | The Reality of Hell

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

In this episode, Brody walks through Mark 9 and discusses the reality of sin and hell. For those of us who are in Christ, we don’t have to fear hell. But, the reality of hell should motivate us to share the Gospel with unbelievers. 

Brody walks through 3 key things Jesus teaches us about hell in the Bible. Hell is a place of punishment and destruction, and it separates people from God.

Because of Christ and what he’s done for us on the cross, we are free from the punishment our sin has earned. Let’s fix our eyes on Christ and share this good news with those around us. 

Resources:

• Mark 9
• Romans 8:1
• Heaven by Randy Alcorn 
• 2 Thessalonians 1:9
• 1 John 3:2

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Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

In this week's episode of no Sanity Required, I am going to tackle a most difficult topic and we're going to walk through this together. We're going to go beyond the flannel graph and we're going to look at the reality and the seriousness of sin and hell and the fact that the Bible teaches us and Jesus most specifically, repeatedly and more often than he spoke on heaven, talked about hell. I'm going to tell you a story and then we're going to get into what may be one of the heaviest topics we've ever discussed on this podcast. So thank you for listening. Welcome to no Sanity Required.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.

Speaker 1: 1:01

So the tone today is probably going to be a little heavy. We're going to come back next week and in the next episode actually I'm going to be interviewing a couple of people. Actually I'm going to interview Tucker, lord willing, and then Amy Davis is going to be interviewing me for her podcast and I want to drop that as an episode here on NSR. I don't know if it'll be a bonus episode or just the weekly episode, but to try to get some momentum for her podcast. But I do want to do a follow-up to this, a couple of follow-ups to this episode. We're going to talk about hell today and then I want to follow up with a discussion on just religious piety and the way Jesus, as much as Jesus, addressed hell. He also talked a lot about the emptiness and the vanity of religious practice without fruit and without true heart change. And I'm going to tell you what I believe in that episode is the funniest story in my personal life that has ever happened in the context of the local church, and I'm telling you it is an outrageous and hilarious story. So that's coming up, an episode on empty religion and the vanity of it, and we're going to I'm just going to be honest. We're going to focus on the United Methodist Church a little bit, talk a little bit about what's going on there, but the uplifting excitement of the newly established global Methodist church that has come out of that, and then pray for an upcoming episode that I'm going to try to put together. It'll probably be after summer. I want to sit down with a family member of mine. She is one of my favorite people in the world, it's one of my aunts and she has an amazing story and she's a true mountain lady that I love so much. And I have not even told her yet that I want to sit down with her, but I believe she'll go for it and I want to share a huge part of her life. That is just a picture of God's grace. So got some no sanity stories coming up between that and maybe a sit down with Tuck. Got the thing with Amy Davis Looking forward to that and some Beyond the Flannel Graph stuff coming up down with tuck. You got um the thing with amy davis looking forward to that and some beyond the flannel graph stuff coming up.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I'll come back at the end of the episode and give you an update on what's going on at swo and I think I mentioned that we're trying this new podcast equipment. It's a mobile, it's a mobile setup and I did notice in listening to a recent episode that there's there's a little bit of background buzz and noise, but bear with us on that. It is summer camp. We still don't have a studio and the area that I typically record on my primary podcaster and soundboard with headsets and microphones, that is set up in a high traffic location at SWO, and so we picked up Austin Scott, who runs our media department. He works directly under Hank Parker Jr and Austin got me a mobile unit. So you've probably seen a little difference, a dip in the quality, the audio quality, but it's because of the equipment we're using. But it's made it easier because I can get remote a lot easier and I can record. So that's what's going on in the world of NSR.

Speaker 1: 4:31

But today I want to dive into a most heavy and difficult topic and passage, and it's a topic that most people don't want to talk about. It's not something that people care to talk about and probably, frankly, tend to avoid, but it's something that we need to talk about and it's something that we're committed to talking about here and so we're going to talk about it this morning. For me this morning because I'm recording in the morning I want to read from Mark, chapter 9, and we're going to look at Jesus' words in Mark, chapter 9, and he's talking about hell. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to read the bulk of this episode, and most of this work is coming out of a sermon that I did sometime back, and the response that I got from that was positive, and it was positive in that people were saying to me hey, we appreciate the way you handled that.

Speaker 1: 5:39

We've needed to hear something like that, because I think for Christians, the doctrine of hell is something that we all wrestle with. And then I think that for non-Christians, the doctrine of hell is something that they typically don't get their head wrapped around and it's like it's just so repulsive and, to be honest, for me, as a Christian, it's repulsive. I'm just going to be honest as a Christian is repulsive, I'm just going to be honest. The idea that there is an eternal punishment, that is, literal torment, for those that receive it and endure it and go into it, that's an overwhelming thing to think about. So I'm going to just walk through this as faithfully as I can. Now, the text that we're looking at is Mark, chapter 9.

Speaker 1: 6:27

And before we get into this, the last thing I want to say by way of introduction is, for some of you, this may be something that you've wanted to hear or be taught or that you struggle with or wrestle with for a long time, and maybe this will bring some clarity, and I and I do want to also say this should motivate us in our own lives to constantly check ourselves and check the work of the Holy spirit and wrestle through the reality of our own salvation. And in that that next, beyond the flannel graph episode that we're going to, that I'm putting together right now we're going to look at and both of these, by the way, have come out of the Mark series that we're teaching through at Red Oak but the next one that we look at is going to be considering just religious vanity and emptiness and asking the question does my life bear fruit? Because the fruit of the Spirit in my life is what gives evidence to Jesus being at work in my life, and that's what gives evidence to just legitimize my own salvation, to give proof that I'm a child of God, that I've put my faith in Jesus. So the text that I'm going to look at this from is one that most people probably it's not the primary text that people are going to go to when they're going to consider hell. There are a lot of texts where hell is referenced and mentioned, primarily in the teaching of Jesus, but then also in the book of Revelation, when we think and study and consider the things that pertain to the end. But this is the text that I want to work through because of the severity.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Jesus is talking about hell in a context of hey, you need to understand that if you go down a certain path or do certain things or cross certain lines, there is eternal condemnation awaiting you to this podcast for a period of time, and if you also have um been set under any of my my teaching ministry, the teaching ministry of SWO, and been to events here where I've preached, I almost always find my way to Romans eight, one which is my favorite verse in all of the Bible. It says there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For those that are in Christ, we don't have to fear hell. We don't have to. If I know that I'm in Christ and I know that I am. I'm not afraid of condemnation, and hell is condemnation, it's judgment, and this should motivate us to pray for those that we love who are headed for hell, and to share Jesus with those that we know or don't know, who are not in a relationship with Christ.

Speaker 1: 9:36

So let me read Mark, chapter nine, verses 42 to 50. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, to the unqu, salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

Speaker 1: 10:36

So let's consider this passage of scripture and let's do that in a way that we would be edified and lifted up and encouraged as children of God, as sons and daughters of God and disciples of Jesus Christ. So let's unpack this Again. It's the most difficult task and I want to be real, precise with my words, so I'm going to read the majority of this and I want to start by giving you two what I would call dangers or warnings, as we consider the teaching of this. And I want to start by giving you two what I would call dangers or warnings, as we consider the teaching of hell. The first one is what I think a danger that I think was something that I saw growing up, and that's the constant and continual preaching of a message of hellfire and brimstone. Some of you might've grown up with that, where hell is constantly preached and talked about and I don't want to discredit that. There's value to mentioning it often and teaching on it often. But sometimes it felt to me like people were taking the doctrine of hell and using it as a battering ram and a scare tactic. And again, there's a fine line here, because it should scare us, it should sober us, but at the same time we need to trust the convicting power of the Holy Spirit through the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. Holy Spirit, through the teaching and preaching of the Word of God In the independent, fundamental world that I grew up in, or in a lot of the primitive Baptist world, which is what's predominant in Southern Appalachian churches and where I live and where I've grown up in Southern Appalachia and Western North Carolina and these mountains, so often in the churches the majority of teaching and preaching is Old Testament teaching and preaching and I think it's because so much of the preaching of the prophets in Israel was sort of this heavy, aggressive, condemnatory preaching and I noticed some years ago, it dawned on me that if you go into a primitive Baptist or free will Baptist or independent fundamental Baptist church, and particularly in the Southern Appalachian mountains, I would I would like to know the percentage, just by percentage, how many of the sermons are preached from an Old Testament context.

Speaker 1: 13:07

It's a high percentage and I think it's because it aligns with the way much of the preaching of the prophets was. And it's important that we don't fall into the danger of constantly preaching hellfire, brimstone, judgment, condemnation, but that we remember to preach a message of grace because of that text that I talked about earlier, that verse Romans 8, 1,. There's no condemnation when we're in Christ Jesus, the joy that we have because of the gospel and the covenant of grace that we're under now, the new covenant, that's the covenant in Christ's blood. This is what we need to proclaim. So it seems as if some Christians enjoy talking about the coming judgment for preaching it at people rather than edifying the church. And we got to remember that Jesus wept over the loss of man. He laid down his life. It's as if to say you have to crawl over my broken body, you've got to crawl past the bloody cross to get into the fires of hell. We need to remember it's not God's desire that any should perish. It's why Jesus came into the world. It's why the gospel is a reality.

Speaker 1: 14:18

The second danger that I think we have to consider, on the other hand, is that most churches today veer away. You get outside of those circles I mentioned earlier and churches veer away from it. They shy away from teaching on hell because they either don't believe it United Methodist church or they're afraid that it'll come across as unloving. Uh, the reality is, if we're going to be loving, then we have to teach the whole counsel of Jesus In mainstream, what I think you'd call attractional Christianity. It's just not popular to speak of hell and the false teaching and demonically influenced new age progressive brand of quote unquote Christianity. Hell is rejected outright.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Listen to this quote from Alistair Begg. The fact is true that if you remove the bad news of hell, you actually interfere with the balance of theology and you gut any significance from the good news of heaven. Read that again, alistair Begg. The fact is true that if you remove the bad news of hell, you actually interfere with the balance of theology and you gut any significance from the good news of heaven. Jesus said I'm the truth. We believe that Jesus has all authority. We believe he speaks with authority. So when we consider hell from the perspective of Jesus and his teaching, then we can trust that it's going to be truthful and what Jesus says about hell can be trusted. Again, this is a quote from Alistair Begg.

Speaker 1: 15:54

The strongest words of the Bible concerning hell come from the lips of Jesus, who died in order that we don't have to go there. So here's what we know to be true about Jesus and his teaching on hell. Jesus. This is just some bullet points. Jesus spoke of hell more than he spoke of heaven. Here's what we know to be true about Jesus and his teaching on hell. There's just some bullet points.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Jesus spoke of hell more than he spoke of heaven. Jesus was very clear in his teaching and so we want to be very clear in our understanding and precise in our teaching on hell. So we simply want to say what Jesus said. Jesus spoke of hell more than he spoke of heaven. We said that. But he doesn't speak of hell when he's dealing with the downcast and broken and hurting sinners that he engages. So consider this the woman at the well, the man born blind, the lepers, the lame, the destitute, the downtrodden. Jesus comes to those people in their brokenness and in their destitution and humility and he speaks life and hope, but he uses sharp and clear words to speak of hell when he's addressing those who are religious. This is a conversation he's having with his disciples here in Mark, chapter nine. So it's, it's those who have a religious or or a spiritual understanding.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Now, at my church, I pulled, uh, I pulled from the red Oak statement of belief, um, and I want to read you what we hold to. We believe that Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden, perverting God's image in mankind and fallen from uh in man and mankind falling from his purpose. In this way, the corruption of sin entered mankind, bringing death and judgment. This corruption and its penalty have passed down to every subsequent human being. Because of this innate corruption, every human naturally stands as God's enemy and are subject to God's just wrath and an eternity in hell without the power, without hope of power outside of God's divine work of restoration through Christ Jesus. So the church that I'm a part of, that's our statement on eternal judgment. So we see what Jesus teaches For me, I see what we adhere to and submit to at our church.

Speaker 1: 18:05

And then I want to give you a quote from JI Packer on hell. New Testament teaching about hell is meant to appall us and to strike us dumb with horror, assuring us that as heaven will be better than anyone could dream, so hell will be worse than any of us could imagine. Which, by the way, I can't wait to do the follow-up episode on this podcast about heaven, because it is glorious and wonderful. And I'm reading Randy Alcorn's book on heaven. I'm both reading it and listening to it right now and I'm just. I keep repeating chapters and going back through portions of it. It's just amazing. So let's consider the words of Jesus here in our text, verse 42,.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Jesus is warning of the seriousness of getting in the way of salvation or sanctification of a person who doesn't know better Children, new or less matured and developed Christians, particularly in light of how they're being led or manipulated. This is why I'm so mad at what the United Methodist Church has done in the last year. I'm so mad at what the United Methodist Church has done in the last year. They're manipulating people who don't. People put their faith and their trust in spiritual leaders and advisors and shepherds and under shepherds, and the United Methodist Church has rejected the Orthodox and historic teachings of scripture in the last few months, and so that's a warning to people like that, or to people that I read no, I watched.

Speaker 1: 19:36

A thing from this was from a couple years ago. Well, what happened? There's a pastor out in Texas that some of y'all might've followed recently of a mega church I think it's one of the biggest churches in America. It's not Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen Osteen, it's not him. That guy's a knucklehead. Um, he's a piece of work, but it's not that guy. It's another dude that it came out that he had been having sex with like a 12 year old girl from when she was like 12 to 16. He'd been having sex with this girl and he's a grown man and it came out, and so he's quit his job, or they told him he had to step down from the church, but I don't think he's had to go to jail. Apparently there's a statute of limitations on raping a kid, which is insane. But anyway, that guy, this is for that guy, this passage is for that guy, when we think about the warning to cause a little one to stumble.

Speaker 1: 20:36

And that led me down a rabbit hole of another pastor, where some of y'all might've seen this two years ago. The pastor gets up and he confesses to his church that he had committed adultery sometime back in the past and apparently and everybody was like standing with him in solidarity and we support you and no one's perfect and you made a mistake, but we love you, and so on and so forth Well, it comes out. Well, what happens is then the woman that he had committed adultery with it wasn't a woman at all. He had been a youth pastor, and this was a lady that was in his youth group, like 20 years before. And she comes forward in the church, her and her husband, and she confronts the pastor in front of the whole church. She says when I was a little girl I was 15 or 16, something like that you took my virginity. She says right out to him. You had sex with me in the floor of your office and took my virginity and my innocence and I mean she confronted that sucker right in front of the whole church. It was crazy. I don't know if y'all saw that, but it was one of the most intense things I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 1: 21:45

That's the height of causing little ones to stumble in terms of children, or that. That's where it comes together. It's not just children, but those that are under the care of shepherds and pastors and disciples. And so, anyway, jesus is warning and I think we could go less severe by saying someone who teaches a weak doctrine that might not ground a person like we, as as a pastor and a teacher of the Bible and as a father of children and a discipler of of people like this is a sobering warning to how we teach and instruct. This is a sobering warning to how we teach and instruct. And then Jesus says that basically, sin is so serious and hell is so real that it would be better if I lost a hand or lost a foot, if it kept me from sin and kept me from hell. That's a man. That's a big thing to say. You know, I'd rather lose my hand, have it cut off. Big thing to say. You know, like I'd rather lose my hand, have it cut off.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Um, and I think something for me strategically that helps me remember, um, like the day to day, something that strategically helps me is to remember that sin is. There's five things that I want to think about sin in my life. Number one it's temporary, at least the fulfillment that it brings, the gratification, so sexual sin it's temporary. So when you think of sin being temporary, one of the things I always try to remind myself is that the scripture says that there's a quote and I don't have the reference in front of me right now. There's a quote and I don't have the reference in front of me right now, but I try to remember this. Where it references the quote, fleeting'm believing the.

Speaker 1: 23:46

The lie that sin is that something's going to satisfy me, or or I'm justifying it Well, it's not going to really hurt anybody, or what's it matter to indulge a little bit, or better to ask forgiveness than permission, um, which that mindset works sometimes in life with people. You know, I remember years ago the old Goliath swing at camp. We were looking for a place to put that swing and the guy from the ropes course company that was here we were going to do the work and he was going to supervise it, and so it was going to be like a a three person crew, four person crew me and little, and I think Sean Clark maybe was the other person and we needed and then this guy, dan, was going to basically run the project. We had hired him to come in and we needed a certain configuration of trees, and where we found it was just off of Snowbird property and onto the property that still belonged to Little's grandmother, and I remember the. You know, let's just do it, and after it's up and she sees kids having fun on it, it'll be. You know, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Speaker 1: 25:09

So in a situation like that, you know, I don't really have any regrets, but but we can't approach a holy God with our sin, with that mindset. And Paul addresses this and, excuse me, um, the last verse of Romans five and the first verse of Romans six. It really explains how to appropriate that mindset where it goes. I think I might have memorized it in the King James, I mean the new King James, maybe ESV, I don't remember, but I don't have it in front of me. But I'm going to try to. It goes like where sin increased like in my life, increased or abounded. Where sin increased, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more, or grace increased all the more. So, no matter where my sin takes me, if I'm in Christ, then grace is greater than that sin and I can receive forgiveness and there's a lot of hope in that. And that that begins the setup to that. Romans eight, one verse that'll come a couple of chapters later.

Speaker 1: 26:19

The very next verse in Romans is Romans six, one that sort of brings us back into reality and it says so what, what am I saying? Should we keep on sinning so that grace can abound? In other words, well, since grace is going to come in abundance if I sin, then why wouldn't I just sin so that I get more grace? He says may it never be. And the phrase he uses in the King James it was, it was. It was translated God forbid. And it comes from a Greek phrase, meganoito, which means it's like the strongest affirmation to the negative, like absolutely not, you can't do this.

Speaker 1: 26:59

So I need to remember that sin is temporary and that I'm held responsible for it. And then the second thing I need to remember about sin is that it's untruthful I need to remember that. It's painful, I need to remember that it's consequential and I need to remember that it's destructive. Each one of those could be its own sermon. So sin is temporary, it's untruthful, it's painful, it's consequential and it's destructive. You think about all of that.

Speaker 1: 27:33

To me, I always just think of the story of David and the untruthfulness of sin the temporary pleasure of having sex with Bathsheba, the lie that it would fulfill him, the pain of knowing later that he lost a child and that he killed his friends and committed murder multiple times over. The consequences that affected the rest of his life, and then the destructive nature of that sin. I mean it destroyed relationships in his family. So what will the devil say? He'll tell me it's okay, just go on. He'll lie about these five things. Just go on, enjoy it and make the most of it. You only live once. You deserve this. So he'll lie.

Speaker 1: 28:22

And the way that I need to then deal with my sin is let me give you four things here how do I deal with my sin? I need to deal with it immediately. And when I say deal with it, when do I deal with it? Well, when conviction comes this is another evidence that I'm a child of God is that I'll have a convicting, overwhelming sense of guilt good guilt, like I'll feel the guiltiness of my sin. I'll feel the conviction in my conscience. Conviction defined is simply a conflicted conscience. It's a disrupted conscience in my soul as a believer. So how do I deal with sin? I need to deal with it immediately, decisively, radically and consistently. Four things Immediately, decisively, radically and consistently. So Jesus is saying if your hand calls you to sin, cut it off. That's an immediate action, it's a radical action, it's a decisive action and it's a consistent action. You're never going to have that hand again and we know that. That's a teaching that's trying to paint us a picture of the severity of how to deal with sin. I use an illustration here to try to just take a little break and paint a picture.

Speaker 1: 29:44

When Little makes her famous buttermilk pie, which is just so wonderful, it's so good. She got it from a lady who died gosh, probably 20 years ago, and that lady was, you know, had been making those buttermilk pies since around the world war two era. You know like this is an old recipe and it's so good. When she's making that pie, I cannot stay in the other room if there's a pie sitting in the kitchen. I'm telling you y'all, I can say no to a lot of things, but there's some things I cannot say no to, and Little's Buttermilk Pie is one of them. And so I'll repeatedly walk into the kitchen and get more Right, and I can tell you that I've eaten more than once. Many is the occasion I've eaten an entire pie, and I didn't do it in one sitting. It took me 30 minutes or an hour. I just kept going back in there and get a piece of pie and a big glass of milk, and, you know, the only thing that would have kept me from doing it would have cut off my hand or foot, and so I always think of that, as you know, kind of lightens it a little bit, but also paints a clear picture. So let's turn to the rest of our time.

Speaker 1: 31:00

In this episode I want to consider what Jesus teaches, specifically about hell. Okay, and we're going to. We're half hour into this thing, so I don't want to drag it out, it's just. But but I want to be thorough. So three things, if we step out of this passage that we're in in Mark nine and, and, and we look at some other areas where Jesus gives us more clarity on hell.

Speaker 1: 31:27

Let me give you three clear teachings and then unpack each of these. Number one Jesus says that hell is a place of punishment. Number two Jesus says that hell is a place of destruction. And number three Jesus says that hell is a place of separation. So number one hell is a place of punishment. Where do we see this? Matthew 25, 46. Jesus says these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. God never punishes in an arbitrary way, but punishment is sure to come.

Speaker 1: 32:03

And in verse 42 of our text, in Mark 9, the punishment that they receive is a direct reflection of the sin that they committed. So drowning in the sea is a lesser punishment than hell. So drowning in the sea is a lesser punishment than hell. So there is, I think, a biblical teaching that there are levels of severity to hell and eternal punishment. There's specificity of sin. Jesus is naming specifics here. So if you've ever thought man, it seems like a person who has molested, raped, murdered children, surely children, or like, surely hell is going to look different for that person than someone who just was a good, moral person who rejected the gospel. And I believe the scripture teaches that, yes, that is true. There's specificity to the sin. The punishment comes in two different ways, and Jesus will use the image of the ongoing and continual fires of Gehenna to illustrate.

Speaker 1: 32:59

Gehenna was a place just outside of Jerusalem, it was think of the landfill, but there was a constant fire that was lit and burning in Gehenna. I remember, years ago, little and I hadn't been married, but just a few months, and I got a job at a camp before we'd started Snowbird, and we built a lake, we cleared seven acres of land and we cut a five-acre surface area of five acres, this lake. And I remember when we were clearing that land, we dug a massive pit, a huge pit. When we were clearing that land, we dug a massive pit, a huge pit. We had a dozer and we had a track loader which is like a dozer but with a scoop bucket, and we dug a massive pit and we got a fire going in that and y'all, I'm telling you, for six straight weeks that pit burned and it got so hot and it got so hot it was knee deep in a bed of coals that was probably 15 feet wide by 30 feet long and the walls of that pit were about 10 feet high and I could just roll stumps and logs and trees over into that and it would burn day and night and Gehenna was like that. But it was burning trash and apparently, you know, there would be bodies thrown, livestock thrown into Gehenna, they would throw whole animal carcasses.

Speaker 1: 34:26

And so the literal picture when Jesus says, you know, when Jesus talks, he paints a picture about their worm will not die, y'all have heard that. Right, where their worm will not die, which is, I mean, like a really graphic, grotesque picture. But the literal worms in the landfill of Gehenna would be maggots. This is graphic. And so the maggots would eat on the flesh. But then when there's no more flesh to eat cause it's all consumed by the fire or the maggots have eaten it up, then there's no more maggots, right?

Speaker 1: 35:03

So a spiritual and illustrative picture would be that the worm of a sinful nature and a conscience that rejects Jesus is a reality in a person who goes to hell, is a reality in a person who goes to hell, and so the worm never dies because the conscience I think the comparison is the conscience that gnaws and eats away at a person who has rejected Jesus. It deteriorates your ability to understand right and wrong. And then so Matthew 25, jesus says that these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Well, in our text here, mark nine, he, there's a phrase there in verse 48, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. That's where the literal picture of the worm is like a comparison to the flesh-eating worms in the fires of Gehenna, because some of those carcasses would be on the outer edges of where the fire would be burning, and so the maggots would eat away at the flesh. And so it's an illustrative picture of the conscience that just continues to remain active. There's a conscious awareness in the fires of hell. So people aren't consumed, they don't die, they don't cease to exist. This flies in the face of a doctrine called it's a heresy, called annihilationalism. This says well, you go to hell, but then you just burn and you're gone and you're no more. No, the worm doesn't die.

Speaker 1: 36:42

The conscience, the maggot, keeps eating away at your conscience. Your conscience keeps eating away at your reality. And then, so it's personal he's being very personal in the way he's describing this and then he's, and then, and then the experience of hell. So it's personal in that each person has a conscience. A conscience is assigned to one person, but then he says it's common because he says the fire, this is a fire that will be consuming and burning forever and all who are thrown there will experience it. It's a common experience for all.

Speaker 1: 37:15

So the clear teaching is that the fire will be both internal and external. The conscience is at work, there's an awareness, there's a memory, there's a recollection, and then there's an external torment and in heaven, the presence of God and others and the perfection of relationships and the love that we'll share with people there. That is also conscionable, it's conscious, it's eternal. In hell, the presence of God is tormenting and wrathful. In heaven, the presence of God is joy in heaven. And so the first thing that Jesus teaches is that hell is a place of judgment and it's both internal and external. Is that hell is a place of judgment and it's both internal and external, personal and common. Number two he teaches that it's a place of judgment, it's a place of destruction. Okay, so it's a place of judgment, as in punishment, but it's also a place of destruction Judgment as in destruction.

Speaker 1: 38:10

Matthew 10, 28,. Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul rather, fear him, who can destroy both body and soul and hell. So is Jesus teaching here annihilationalism? We just addressed this a second ago. No, he's not teaching that.

Speaker 1: 38:28

So what does destruction mean in this context? Well, it means to cease to exist as we know it. So, for instance, the earth was destroyed with water during the flood. Right, the alabaster ointment that was wasted. Quote unquote. Wasted, it's the same word destroyed. So when the lady's being scolded for pouring out the ointment on Jesus, they're like you destroyed this ointment? Well, it wasn't destroyed. The flood didn't destroy the earth. Same word is used in the story where the lady loses her coin and searches for the coin the parable of the lost coin destroyed the destroyed coin. So all of these are the same word. So think of John 3, 16, that everybody who believes in Jesus would not perish. Does that mean to cease to exist? To help us understand this, I want to give a quote from Douglas Moo.

Speaker 1: 39:25

Douglas Moo is a commentator that's one of my favorite guys to use his commentaries. He gives this definition of destruction the situation in which a person or an object has lost the essence of its nature or its function. Situation in which a person or an object has lost the essence of its nature or its function, that is to destroy Again. Flood, wasted ointment, lost coin. In none of these cases do the objects cease to exist. They cease to be useful or to exist in their original, intended state.

Speaker 1: 40:00

Hendrickson, another commentator, says this these people whose lives are destroyed in hell, their hopes are destroyed, their joys are destroyed, their opportunities and riches have all perished and they themselves are tormented by this and that forevermore. So it's a totally unfulfilled eternal existence. We were created as image bearers of God with the purpose to reflect his existence and bring him glory that is destroyed. So that's what the destruction of hell looks like. It's a place of judgment by way of destruction. And number three Jesus teaches Matthew 25, 41. Then he will say to those on his left depart from me. You cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So it's a place of separation and exclusion.

Speaker 1: 40:51

The first two speak of what a person receives, namely punishment and destruction. This speaks of what a person misses. There's the separation and exclusion from fellowship with the Lord. William still describes hell as a completely isolated and insulated realm for the absolute containment of all evil, when it is eventually banished from God's kingdom. So those three aspects, by the way, are brought together in 2 Thessalonians 1.9. It says they will suffer punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. 2 Thessalonians 1.9,. All three aspects brought together, they will suffer the punishment. There's judgment by punishment of eternal destruction. There's judgment by destruction, away from the presence of the Lord. There's separation and exclusion and from the glory of his might. And so there's the three things that Jesus teaches about hell.

Speaker 1: 41:56

Let me close by giving, I think, the two questions that people will most often wrestle with and ask, and this is going to bring us up close to an hour of content. It's a long episode, but what a heavy subject. The two questions that people have to wrestle with, and it's important that we go ahead and wrestle with these two questions and come to a faithful and biblical answer. Most of us have already wrestled with these, but if you haven't, you need to, because some, sooner or later, somebody's going to ask you these, somebody's going to bring these objections up to you and you need to have an answer for your own mind and your own conviction, but also for those that will ask you, and it's going to grow your faith stronger and help you be more intimate with the Lord in understanding this.

Speaker 1: 42:40

So, number one why is hell eternal and infinite? Why does it have to be forever? Why does it have to be forever? Now, listen closely and as our listeners, this is so important. I hope for some of you it is going to be a light bulb. I'm going to give you a quote from Colin Smith.

Speaker 1: 43:01

The objection of the question is why is hell forever? If I commit a finite number of sins, I live for 50, 60, 70 years in rebellion to God and I reject the gospel, why would I have to spend eternity suffering judgment? Here's why Hell goes on forever. This is a quote from Colin Smith. Hell goes on forever because sin goes on forever. Sinners never stop sinning, even in hell. That's a staggering thought. Where do we get that? Revelation 16, 10 and 11.

Speaker 1: 43:38

People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and their sores. They did not repent of their deeds. He's talking about people in heaven. So the punishment's eternal because the sin continues eternally the gnashing of teeth, the grinding, the gritting of the teeth and the clenching of the fists against God. Even in hell, people don't repent of their sins. Jesus says that in hell there is sheer, venomous anger and rebellion towards God. So no one's repentant. Ji Packer says this there's nothing arbitrary about the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is, in essence, a case of God respecting our choice. As that choice continues through eternity the spiritual choice we made while we were on earth, people will exist there in a constant state of rebellion. People don't soften in hell. They don't become humble. Colin Smith also says people in hell have as their company the devil and his angels who will not submit to Christ in repentance. A person who is unsanctified, who has rejected the gift that Jesus offers, would have no desire to be in heaven. No, desire whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 44:46

Nobody in hell wants to be in the presence of God. In heaven we're enjoying God forever, we're rejoicing, we're spending time with one another, but no person who is unregenerate, unsaved and undesiring of holiness could ever be fulfilled and find joy in the presence of God. And the tragedy is that, as much as he would never be happy in heaven, it's also impossible for him to be happy under the judgment of hell. It's a stark reminder that, in the end, to choose sin and to reject Jesus will leave you at an eternal dead end with nowhere to go to find fulfillment. So there's the answer to choose sin and to reject Jesus will leave you at an eternal dead end with nowhere to go to find fulfillment. So there's the answer to the first question why is the punishment eternal? Because the sin and the rejection and the hardened heart and the gnashing of teeth is eternal. It goes on forever. So here's the second question. Maybe an objection how will we be happy in heaven if people we love are not there because they're in hell? So someone might say I'm going to heaven, but my grandfather or my husband who rejected the Lord, my son, my daughter, my wife isn't going to be in hell. How can I be happy in heaven if that's reality.

Speaker 1: 45:51

First off, there's three things here, and I got these from RC Sproul. First, god will wipe away our tears. He'll wipe away our tears Revelation 7, 17,. For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living waters, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. When God wipes away our tears, they're wiped away forever.

Speaker 1: 46:14

That's another Colin Smith quote Revelation 21, 4,. He will wipe every tear away from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. In the presence of the Lord, we will have joy, our tears will be wiped away and we will have a comfort that is greater than anything we could feel in terms of sorrow or sadness. It'll overwhelm it and Christ will remove our tears. Second, there's going to be a Christ-like embrace of the will of God. That's so supernatural that it might be hard for us to understand it now, but we'll embrace the will of God. We'll just trust it all. And then, third, this is actually the RC Sproul illustration. He said if you and he told a story about going back to a seminary or Bible college and he's in the.

Speaker 1: 47:05

The professor would bring the students down and get three students and he said this guy over here represents Jesus, this guy over on this other side of the room represents Hitler. So he's got Jesus and Hitler standing up front and he says now we're going to add a third person, the apostle Paul. Who is he going to be more like? And he makes Paul go over and stand beside Hitler and he says the apostle Paul is more like is so far from who Christ is that he's like Hitler. And he's saying that we are Hitler-esque in our fallen and sinful state. So we can relate to monstrous sinners more than we relate to Jesus Christ. And that's why we find the doctrine of hell so repugnant. That's why we feel sorry for Uzzah when he's killed after touching the ark, or the sons of Aaron when they play at worship and they're struck down. But the day will come when our passion and our identification with the glory of God will be so great that our sympathies will be with God and not with our fellow creatures who belittle his glory. That's from RC Sproul. You see what he's saying.

Speaker 1: 48:10

Right now it's so hard for us to grasp and not be repulsed by the idea of hell, because we're still falling, and falling Like. We still experience, you know, a sinful nature. We're justified and we're being sanctified and made holy. But when we're with the Lord we'll be like him. We'll understand as he understands. So there are some questions now that we can ask, but the full answer won't come until then. Right now it's hard to imagine. But when we are glorified we'll get it, we'll understand it, we'll embrace the will of God, we'll be like Jesus. First, john three, two says. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. So today is here's what we need to know. It's because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done that none of us have to worry about or face the reality of hell. You don't have to worry about it, you're free from it, because Jesus himself has made a way for us to be glorified and to be with him forever.

Speaker 1: 49:06

And how did he do this? Jesus himself endured our punishment when he hanged on the cross under the weight of sin. Isaiah says that the punishment that brings us peace was upon him. It is by his wounds, the wounds of punishment, that we are healed. He entered into destruction when he was buried in the grave and descended in death. He experienced separation from the love of God, a separation he had never known. When, from the cross, he cried my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because Jesus became sin for us. He endured hell and all of its facets for us so that we may never have to endure hell ourselves. Think about this. There's three things. Hell is for punishment, destruction and separation. Jesus endured our punishment when he hanged on the cross. He endured our punishment when he hanged on the cross. He endured our punishment. He entered into destruction when he was buried in the grave and descended into death. And he experienced separation from God on our behalf when he said my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Speaker 1: 50:09

So hell is reality, hard as it is to grasp. Just fix your eyes on Jesus and grasp the reality of what he's done to free us from what hell is and will be. So we've received heaven and eternal life and freedom from punishment and destruction and separation. And what a glorious Savior, what a wonderful Savior we have, and we should celebrate that. Thank y'all for listening to this. It's heavy, I know, and um, and I'm really grateful that you would. If you're still with me, if you've, if you're still hanging in there, uh, then if you're still hanging in there, then it means a lot and I'm I'm grateful because I know it's such heavy content oh my goodness, it's so heavy and it should motivate us to to share the love of Jesus and the and the strength and reality of the gospel with those that don't know, with those that have not put their faith in their trust in Jesus. It's so important. Hell is real, heaven is real, and Christ has made a way for us to to reject the one and enter into the other, to be with him and one another and to celebrate.

Speaker 1: 51:19

I was watching a here's a little teaser to the heaven thing. I was watching some of the Olympic trials yesterday. It was just highlights. Um, it was after the worship service at at SWO last night. I just took a break, got a bottle of water, sat down like just got done preaching and the building kind of cleared out and just kind of looking at some sports highlights, just kind of decompressed, maybe an hour after the service or whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 51:45

And I'm watching the gymnastics highlights. You know, gymnastics and swimming and track and field. Well, not track and field so much, but gymnastics and swimming, that's two of those sports. I watch them every four years. That's probably how most of us are Watch them during the Olympics, and I'd watch some of the wrestling qualifications. I watched a guy that I know I've met, named Jason Knopf, beat Jordan Burroughs. Jordan Burroughs is the greatest wrestler of the last 20 years and he kind of got dethroned.

Speaker 1: 52:23

I was watching the guy that was the highest qualifier for men's all-around gymnastics, watching this dude, that bar where they spin around and around and around and they're hanging on the bar by their hands and then they spin around and they do flips and twists and come back down and it's just mind blowing to me what they're capable of In heaven. Y'all, we're going to all be able to do that. You're going to be in such a perfected physical state. It's wonderful to think about. And so, as harsh of a reality and as heavy as hell is, heaven is that much greater. And so let's fix our eyes on Jesus and fight sin and remember the warning of Mark 9. Jesus is saying if you live in this sin and you cause others to stumble because of your spiritual input or misleading, hell awaits, and that's a sobering reality. So, thank y'all.

Speaker 1: 53:23

Come back with a couple of no sanity stories coming up and hopefully that will be a little bit lighter for you, but we needed to go beyond the flannel graph in this episode. I've been wrestling with sharing this for about two months now, so I feel like it's what we needed to work through this week. I hope it's encouraging and helpful for you and insightful. We'll see you next week. Keep praying for SWO. We are in week six right now. We've got four more weeks to go after this in our summer program. It's going great. Just this morning I know of a young man that prayed to receive Christ before breakfast in a small group Bible study that met and several stories like that this week. So continue to lift us up and pray for us, and we appreciate it. God bless y'all. See you next week.

Speaker 2: 54:09

Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.