WHO IS GOING TO BE IN HELL?

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: REVELATION 14:9-11




INTRODUCTION:


  1. I was preaching one Sunday night and made a few comments about the horrors of hell. An unsaved man spoke to me after the meeting and said, "You scared the daylights out of me." Thank God for that!
  2. I spoke to one of our missionaries one day on the phone. He told me his pastor was getting very worldly: rock music, Billy Graham’s daughter spoke there recently, no more standards. Then he said, "And he does not believe in preaching on hell."
  3. I hate to say it but nowadays most preachers feel the same way. You can attend the average church for years and never hear a message on hell.
  4. It seems like hardly anybody believes in hell anymore. The Bible is very clear about this, but the problem is most people do not read the Bible and most people (even those who claim to be Christian) do not believe the Bible.
  5. Polls and surveys have been done and the results have shown that most people believe there is no hell, and they say that even if there is such a place as hell, they do not believe they are in any danger of going there.
  6. I am always meeting unsaved people that are quite confident that everything was alright for them and other unbelievers, Jews, atheists, etc.
  7. Beloved, many people are in for a rude awakening! I am going to speak about hell today and my message is entitled, "Who Is Going To Be In Hell?"
  1. THE DEVIL IS GOING TO BE IN HELL
    1. Notice I said, "is going to be in hell." Contrary to what many believe, he is not there now (cf. I Peter 5:8).
    2. There is a day coming when the devil "shalt be brought down to hell" (Isa.14:15), but that day has not arrived yet (cf. Rev.12:12; 20:10).
    3. Remember, our Lord said that hell "was prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt.25:41).
    4. I have heard preachers say, "If you don’t get right with God, you will die and go to the devil’s hell," but that is not quite right. Actually, it is God’s hell. God prepared it for the devil and his angels. It is God’s hell, and He owns it (cf. Rev.1:18).
    5. Have you ever wondered what Jesus meant by those words, "and his angels" (Matt.25:41)? A certain number of angels followed Satan in his rebellion against God and these fallen angels will also be in hell. These horrible fiends will make hell unbearable.
    6. What a horrible thought! To be tormented in hell for all eternity by these hideous fallen angels, these filthy demons! Think of their incessant noise, their horrible appearance, their repulsive odor, their relentless tortures.
    7. John Bunyan, famous for his Pilgrim’s Progress, said these words to his unsaved hearers: "In hell thou shalt have none but a company of damned souls, with an innumerable company of devils, to keep company with thee. While thou art in this world, the very thought of the devils appearing to thee, makes thy flesh to tremble, and thine hair ready to stand upright on thy head. But, oh, what wilt thou do when not only the supposition of the devils appearing, but the real society of all the devils of hell will be with thee, howling, roaring and screeching in such a hideous manner that thou wilt be even at thy wits’ end, and be ready to run stark mad again for anguish and torments. If after ten thousand years, an end should come, there would be comfort. But here is thy misery, here thou must be forever. When thou seest what an innumerable company of howling devils thou art amongst, thou shalt think this again, this is my portion forever." FOREVER – think about it!
    8. Worldly people like to laugh and joke and say foolish things, such as: "I want to go to hell and party with all my friends." What a stupid thing to say! They will not even see their friends. Our Lord said hell is a place of "outer darkness." "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (cf. Matt.8:12; 22;13,14; 25:30).
    9. Forget about what the world says. Forget about what the cartoons say (apparently more people get their theology today from cartoons than they do from the Bible!). Forget about what the cults say. Forget what all these liberal, unsaved ministers say. Jesus said hell is a place of outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
    10. That means lost souls will not be able to see their friends. It means they won’t be able to see anything beyond the smoke and flames. But they will feel horrible punishment as the fiends of hell torment them day and night. Oh, the horror of eternal damnation!
    11. Some of you are probably thinking, "He’s just trying to scare us." Oh, how I wish I could! Maybe you would stop playing church and get right with God! Maybe you’d seek out a good, Bible-preaching church. Maybe you would pray with your kids and read the Bible with them instead of letting him watch all that worldly junk on TV and listen to that nasty rock music.
    12. I wonder how many of you dressed your kids up like devils and sent them out begging for candy. And you say you love Jesus?
    13. Who is going to be in hell? The devil and his angels (demons) will certainly be going there.
  1. THE ANTICHRIST AND THE FALSE PROPHET WILL ONE DAY BE IN HELL
    1. Before we look into all of that, let me give you a brief history of this word "hell."
    2. Hell is God’s garbage dump. The Greek word translated "hell" in our NT is Gehenna. It is the Greek name for the valley of Hinnom, located just outside the city of Jerusalem to the south.
    3. A while back my family and I went down to Florida and saw a replica of the city of Jerusalem, circa 70 AD. The tour guide showed us the valley of Hinnom, just outside the city to the south.
    4. Gehenna was the garbage dump for the people of Jerusalem, and hell is God’s garbage dump.
    5. The Lord Jesus Christ used Gehenna as a vivid picture of hell. There is no question but that our Lord was speaking of literal hellfire because He stated three times, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (cf. Mark 9:44,46,48). In Gehenna, the worms did die and the fire eventually was quenched.
    6. Gehenna was the garbage dump for the people of Jerusalem. All day long the trash burned. The city’s sewage and refuse accumulated there.
    7. In the OT, we read that the valley of Hinnom was originally a place where backslidden Israelites worshipped Molech and other pagan idols. Human sacrifices were performed there. Under the reforms of godly King Josiah, he defiled this horrible place and turned it into a garbage dump.
    8. Because of the continual fires, and because of the horrible memories of weeping and wailing (babies sacrificed to Molech and other heathen idols), and because of the terrible stench of burning garbage and the raw sewage, and because of the unspeakable filth – it was commonplace for the people of Jerusalem to refer to Gehenna as "hell."
    9. So when our Lord used the word in this fashion, they knew exactly what He meant.
    10. I said all of that to say this: Hell is only a temporary garbage dump. The permanent location for all lost souls will be the lake of fire (Rev.20:14,15).
    11. And we are told the antichrist and the false prophet will be cast alive into the lake of fire (Rev.19:20; 20:10). So we know that the devil, the demons, the antichrist, and the false prophet will all be in hell. Who else will be there?
  1. THE WICKED SHALL BE TURNED INTO HELL (PSALM 9:17).
    1. Some people realize that the wicked will be in hell, but this doesn’t bother them because they do not see themselves as wicked. According to the Bible, all those who are not saved are wicked sinners.
    2. A preacher friend and I were out soulwinning and we spoke to a man who boasted that he was a "good role model for kids." Yet the man admitted that he drank beer and did not want to get saved.
    3. He may see himself as a good man but God says he is a wicked sinner, and "the wicked shall be turned into hell" (Ps.9:17).
    4. I mentioned that the Bible says all lost people are wicked. Webster’s Dictionary gives these synonyms for wicked: unrighteous, ungodly, godless, impious, profane, blasphemous, immoral, profligate, corrupt, depraved, dissolute, heinous, villainous. God calls them lost and on their way to hell (Rev.21:8).
    5. Unsaved friend, you may not see yourself as a wicked sinner, but in the eyes of God you are either saved through faith in Christ or you are still a wicked sinner on your way to hell (cf. Matt.13:49,50).
    6. How tragic that most people do not seriously think about hell until its too late (cf. Luke 16:19-31).
    7. So we know that the devil, the demons, the antichrist, and the false prophet, and all the wicked will be in hell.
  1. EVEN MANY CHURCH PEOPLE WILL BE IN HELL (MATT.7:21-23).
    1. There is this notion that as long as you are sincere, and join a church, maybe get baptized, and so on, everything will be OK and you will get to heaven.
    2. I am always meeting people who tell me they will be in heaven because they are nice people and they are sincere, and they go to church and do "good things," etc.
    3. Most people think going to church once in a while will keep them out of hell. But listen to the words of our Saviour (Matt.7:21-23).

CONCLUSION:

  1. Billy Sunday used to say, "You may not believe in hell now but you’ll believe in it five minutes after you get there!"
  2. Billy Sunday was preaching a revival in a city one time when a mental hospital caught on fire. Some of the inmates were running in and out of the fire and the police and the firemen had a difficult time keeping them from running back inside the building. They’d go in and jump around laughing.
  3. Billy Sunday said, "That’s the way lost sinners are. We do our best to warn them about hell but many of them are determined to go there despite everything we do and say."


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