1. The Lord Jesus Christ preached more about hell than all the other preachers in the Bible.
2. All preachers – Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist (etc.) used to preach about hell.   But not these days.
3. Billy Sunday used to say, “If there is not hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.”  People would laugh at that remark because back in those days preachers were expected to preach about hell. 
4. But these days most people are shocked whenever a preacher talks about hell.   Many church-goers report that they have never heard a sermon on hell.  Not even once.
5. After Dr. Monroe Parker preached a message about hell, a woman scolded him and told him he ought to preach like Jesus and she quoted Matthew 5:3 and following.  Dr. Parker asked her if she had read the entire Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matt. 5:29, 30).  Jesus had a lot to say about hell. 
6. Because most people do not know what the Bible teaches about hell, they have some very strange notions about heaven and hell, who is going to be there, and so on.
7. But while many sinners are ignorantly drifting toward hell, others are rushing headlong into hell.  Billy Sunday told a story about the time he saw a mental institution burn down.  The inmates kept running back into the fire.  Billy Sunday said that was a vivid picture of wicked sinners determined to go to hell.
8. Isaiah 5:14 says, “Therefore hell hath enlarged herself.”  Proverbs 27:20 says, “Hell and destruction are never full.” 
9. There is still plenty of room in hell for sinners that are determined to get in there!  But sinners do not have to go there, and that is my message this morning.
10. The great evangelist, RA Torrey said, “I wish that I could believe that there was no hell.  That is, I wish that I could believe that all men would repent and accept Christ, and that hell would therefore be unnecessary.  Of course, if men persist in sin and persist in the rejection of Christ, it is right that there should be a hell.  If men choose sin, it is for the good of the universe and the glory of God that there is a hell to confine them in.  But I wish with all my heart that all men would repent and render hell unnecessary.  But I cannot believe it if it is not true. I would rather believe unpleasant truth than to believe pleasant error.  As awful as the thought is, I have been driven to the conclusion that there is a hell.”

I. THE PEOPLE WHO INHABIT HELL (MATTHEW 23:33).

1. Jesus called them, “serpents…generation of vipers” (Matt. 23:33).
2. You are probably thinking, “He was probably talking to the thieves and drunkards and murderers.”  No, our Lord was talking to the religious leaders of His day (cf. Matt. 23:29).
3. Notice in Matthew 3:7, John the Baptist said pretty much the same thing.  He too was preaching to the Pharisees and Sadducees (3:7).
4. The leader of the Pharisees was a man named Nicodemus.  Jesus told him he had to be born again (John 3).
5. Some of the hardest people to win to Christ are religious people (cf. Matthew 23:13-15).
6. Psalm 9:17 says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”  Who are these wicked sinners that are cast off into hell?
7. According to the Bible, the wicked are those who have never trusted Christ.   Psalm 10:4 says, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”
8. The very first time we see a word in the Bible is significant.   Bible teachers refer to this as “the law of first mention.”
9. The first time we see the word “wicked” is in Genesis 13:13, “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.”
10. In II Peter 2:7 it says, “Lot was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.”
11. In Genesis 38:7 we read, “And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.”
12. In Exodus 9:27, Pharaoh said, “I have sinned this time: the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.”
13. Job 21:17 says, “How oft is the candle of the wicked put out! and how oft cometh their destruction upon them!”
14. Job 21:30 says, “The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction. They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.”
15. Job 31:3 says, “Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?”
16. Psalm 7:11 says, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” 
17. This reminds us of John 3:36.  “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
18. Psalm 11:6 says, “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.”
19. Colossians 1:21 says sinners are alienated from God “by wicked works.”
20. In Matthew 13:49, our Lord said, “So shall it be at the end of the world (age): the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.”  The “just” are those that have been justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
21. The “wicked” are those that have not been justified by faith in Christ.  According to the Bible, you are in either one of those two groups: just (saved) and wicked (unsaved).
22. Which group are you in? (Cf. Rev. 21:8).
23. Let me point out that the wicked would not enjoy heaven and are only fit for hell.  If sinners do not like to pray and read the Bible and go to church, what do they expect to do in heaven?
24. People think that liars and drunkards and adulterers and dirty-mouth slobs are all getting into heaven.  But the Bible does not teach that (cf. Rev. 21:27).
25. Some deluded sinners realize they are unfit for heaven, but they have this strange notion that hell will be one great big party, sort of like a big New Year’s Eve party.   But in fact, hell is a very lonely and horrible place (cf. Jude 13).

II. THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM HELL (MATT. 23:33).

1. People think they can escape from hell.  The devil has invented many false teachings regarding the afterlife (purgatory, reincarnation, “second chance,” soul sleep, annihilation, etc.).
2. The SDA teach “annihilation.”  This means that “unbelievers are annihilated and do not experience torment that is eternal in duration.”
3. Charles T. Russell (1852-1916) founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses movement. He was brought up Presbyterian, but as a teenager he rejected Presbyterianism and joined a liberal Congregational Church.  But soon he left that church as well. Russell denied the deity of Christ and the biblical teachings on hell and eternal punishment.
4. Russell had no formal Bible training, but borrowed various teachings that were popular at the time, such as the SDA’s denial of hell.
5. But purgatory and annihilation and the JW and all these theories contradict the plain teachings of Scripture (cf. Hebrews 9:27; Matt. 25:41, 46).
6. There is no escape from hell (cf. Luke 16:19-26).  There is a “great gulf fixed” between heaven and hell (Luke 16:26).
7. During WWII, while the Nazis were dropping bombs on London, a preacher stood on the street corner and preached the Gospel.  He preached about Jesus and about heaven and hell.  A scoffer shouted at him, “Mister, this is hell!” 
8. The preacher said, “No sir.  This is not hell.  In hell there is no preaching.  In hell there is no Bible.  Down the street is a church, but there are no churches in hell.  And furthermore, you have the opportunity to get saved today, but in hell there are no opportunities to get saved!”  There is no escape from hell.
9. If you read some of the older books and sermons written about hell, the preachers were always refuting Universalism.  Universalism is the false doctrine that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there is no literal, hot burning hell.  Some Universalists even believe that the devil will be saved!
10. Universalism has been in decline but these liberal views about hell have been adopted by most of the other denominations.   I was reading a newspaper interview with a liberal lady preacher the other day. Katharine Jefferts Schori is now the head bishop of the Episcopal church here in America.  In various interviews, she has said absolutely nothing about the Gospel, the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation, heaven or hell.
11. She speaks about diversity and homosexual marriage and AIDS and all sorts of politically correct nonsense but she says not one word about sinners heading for eternity in hell.
12. Interestingly, she claims she was the dean of the “Good Samaritan School of Theology” in Corvallis, Oregon.  Some conservative Episcopalians (apparently there is still a small handful left) did a little investigating and discovered the school does not exist.
13. Well, the “Good Samaritan School of Theology” may not exist but hell certainly does!   And hell is full of unregenerate ministers.
14. People today do not want to believe in a literal hell because they have a false concept of the character of God.  Listen to these words, written many years ago by AW Pink: “It is the deepening conviction of the writer that what is most needed today is a wide proclamation of those truths which are the least acceptable to the flesh.  What is needed today is a scriptural setting forth of the character of God—His absolute sovereignty, His ineffable holiness, His inflexible justice, His unchanging veracity. What is needed today is a scriptural setting forth of the condition of the natural man—his total depravity, his spiritual insensibility, his inveterate hostility to God, the fact that he is ‘condemned already’ and that the wrath of a sin-hating God is even now abiding upon him. What is needed today is a scriptural setting forth of the alarming danger in which sinners are—the indescribably awful doom which awaits them, the fact that if they follow only a little further their present course they shall most certainly suffer the due reward of their iniquities. What is needed today is a scriptural setting forth of the nature of that punishment which awaits the lost—the awfulness of it, the hopelessness of it, the unendurableness of it, the endlessness of it. It is because of these convictions that by pen as well as by voice we are seeking to raise the alarm” (Eternal Punishment).

III. HELL IS A PLACE OF ETERNAL DAMNATION.

1. The word “damnation” sends chills up my spine (Matt. 23:33, 14; cf. John 5:29). 
2. It grieves me to hear people use the word “damn” and “damnation” as curse words (cf. Mark 16:15, 16).
3. Decent people do not use profanity.  And only a wicked fool would use God’s name in this manner.
4. That word “damnation” is frightening enough, but what about “eternal damnation” (cf. Mark 3:29).
5. In Matthew 25:46, our Lord called hell “everlasting punishment.”
6. In Matthew 18:8 and 25:41, our Lord called hell “everlasting fire.” 
7. Hebrews 6:2 refers to “eternal judgment.”
8. In II Thessalonians 1:9, hell is referred to as “everlasting destruction.”
9. Revelation 14:11 says lost souls in hell “have no rest day nor night.”  It says, “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever” (cf. Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 15; 21:8).
10. Some people insist that “eternal damnation” does not really mean “eternal.”  They say “everlasting punishment” will not last forever.  They tell us that “everlasting fire” will not burn forever (e.g. SDA).  Even some so-called evangelicals (e.g., John Stott) are now denying the doctrine of eternal torment.
11. But when we read the Bible we must be consistent.  If “everlasting” and “eternal” mean “everlasting” and “eternal” when referring to heaven, then they must also mean “everlasting” and “eternal” when referring to hell.
12. The “everlasting punishment” of the lost will continue as long as the “everlasting life” of the saved.   Those of us who are saved will enjoy our salvation for all eternity.   But we must stress that the “eternal damnation” of the wicked will no more have an end than will the “eternal life” of the redeemed.
13. Hell is a place of eternal torment, where sinners must face the wrath of God (cf. Rom. 2:4, 5; Luke 12:4, 5).
14. On three different occasions, the Lord Jesus referred to hell as a place of “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30), a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

CONCLUSION:

1. Those of us who are saved have a responsibility to warn people that unless they are born again they will spend eternity in hell.  Let us not pass up opportunities to tell people the good news.
2. RA Torrey knew a Christian man who was eating in a restaurant when the Holy Spirit impressed him to witness to his waiter.  But the man was shy and would not talk to the waiter about the Lord.
3. After finishing his meal, he paid the cashier and started walking away when he knew he had to go back and talk to the waiter.  So he returned, only to discover that the waiter had gone out into the back alley, put a gun to his head and killed himself.
4. Oh, how horrible!  And it happens every day.

             “The Horrors of Hell”
Hell, the prison house of despair,
Here are some things that won't be there:
No flowers will bloom on the banks of Hell,
No beauties of nature we love so well;
No comforts of home, music and song,
No friendship of joy will be found in that throng;
No children to brighten the long, weary night,
No love nor peace, nor one ray of light;
No blood-washed soul with face beaming bright,
No loving smile in that region of night;
No mercy, no pity, pardon nor grace,
No water, Oh God, what a terrible place;
The pangs of the lost no human can tell,
Not one moment’s ease – There’s no rest in Hell.
 
Hell, the prison house of despair,
Here are some things that will be there;
Fire and brimstone are there, we know,
For God in His Word hath told us so;
Memory, remorse, suffering and pain,
Weeping and wailing, but all in vain;
Blasphemer, swearer, hater of God,
Christ-rejector while here on earth trod;
Murderer, gambler, drunkard and liar,
Will have his part in the lake of fire;
The filthy, the vile, the cruel and the mean,
What a horrible mob in Hell will be seen;
Yes, more than humans on earth can tell,
Are the torments and woes of Eternal Hell.