Hell, The Abode Of The Lost By Steve Miller

http://www.gospelgazette.com/gazette/1999/sep/page13.shtml

Hell, The Abode Of The Lost

By Steve Miller

Introduction:

1. One positive step we can take toward motivation for righteousness, and abstaining from sin is: To consider what the Bible teaches about eternal punishment.
2. The greatest and deepest tragedy of hell is banishment from the presence of God, and the eternal relationship with the Son.
3. Everyone needs to know that the suffering in hell will be intensified by the kind of people who will be there.
4. Many do not believe that a loving God could send anyone to an eternal hell.
5. First we must consider the character of God.

     a. How can we know the character of God? - 1 Corinthians 2:11-13.
     b. Matthew 19:17 - Jesus said “One there is who is good.”
     c. “God is love” - 1 John 4:8.
     d. “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” - Luke 6:36.
     e. We conclude that God is good, loving, just, holy and merciful.
6. There are other characteristics of God.  Consider His wrath!

    a. Romans 1:18; 2:5, 8-9.
    b. Romans 5:9.
    c. Because of sin, man deserves punishment.
7. God does not force anyone into eternal punishment.
8. It is a matter of choice with each of us.
9. “Choose ye this day” (Joshua 24:15) has always been God’s call to man.
10. God “would have all men to be saved” - 1 Timothy 2:4.

I. Inquiries About Hell

A.  What word describes the final and eternal abode of the lost?
1. Hell is rendered gehenna in twelve passages in the N.T.; 11 times the word is used by Christ himself.
2. The original application of gehenna related to the fire that was used in sacrificing children to Molech -  2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6.
3. Jesus perpetuated this element by describing the final, eternal hell as a place of fire.
4. He twice called it “the hell of fire” - Matthew 5:22; 18:9.
5. He twice referred to it as “the furnace of fire” into which the evil will be cast after the judgment – Matthew 13:42, 50.
6. He twice called it a place of “unquenchable fire” – Mark 9:43, 47-48.
7. Revelation 20:10, 15; 21:8.
B. Will those in hell have memory and conscience?
1. Memory and conscience will produce shame – Daniel 12:2.
2. Rich man in Luke 16.
C. Will hell be for eternity?
1. The punishment of those in Gehenna is unending.
2. The fire is “unquenchable” (that which cannot be extinguished) – Matthew 3:12.
3. The worm dies not – their punishment after death will never cease – Mark 9:48.
4. The punishment is eternal – Matthew 25:46; 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
5. Gehenna is one of only two places in which the eternal soul of an individual will find himself.  The other is heaven.
6. “Eternal damnation” – Mark 3:29.
7. “Everlasting chains” and “eternal fire” – Jude 6-7.
8. The fire of hell will never die.

II. INHABITANTS OF HELL

A. Assigned lesson “Hell, The Abode of the Lost”

1. Who are the lost?
2. Does the Bible reveal who will be lost?
3. “We must not permit ourselves to be sidetracked by the question of who will be consigned to hell.  That judgment does not belong to us” (Gregory Alan Tidwell, Gospel Advocate, September, 1997, p. 13).
4. We can, without playing God, identify those who will be cast into hell.

B. Devil and his angels – Matthew 25:41.
C. Those who do not know God, and…those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” – 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.
D. Revelation 21:8.

1. “fearful” or “cowardly” - They do not have a strong faith to overcome -       Revelation 21:7; John 12:42-43.
2. “Unbelieving” are those who never obey the gospel.
3. “abominable” - Their conduct and life is disgusting and offensive to God - Titus 1:6.
4. “murderers” - Hell will be their home - Abortion - Proverbs 6:17.
5. “whoremongers” - sexually immoral.
6. “sorcerers” – Caters to the flesh.  Exalts man above God. It is a lie! – Malachi 3:5; Acts 13:10
7. “idolaters” - Worship something other than one true God.
8. “all liars” - Those who are false, they lie to themselves, to others, to God. No liar shall escape the lake of fire and brimstone.
9. Revelation 22:14-15.

E. 2 Peter 2:9 – “the unjust”

1. The unjust are those who are “not in conformity with right”
2. False teachers are in the context of  2 Peter chapter 2. (See 2 Peter 2:1).

F. Those who fall away from the truth.

1. 1 Corinthians 10:12; Hebrews 3:12.
2. Hebrews 6:4-6.

G. Those who sin willfully – Hebrews 10:26-27.

1. We must strive to avoid all sin – 1 John 2:1.
2. 1 John 1:9.
3. To sin willfully is to keep on sinning, one who does not allow guilt and conviction to produce repentance.

H. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
I. Galatians 5:19-21.
J. The lawless.

1. Matthew 7:23.
2. Lawlessness or iniquity is the condition of one without law or without authority.
3. 2 John 9-11.
4. Where will these transgressors end up if they neglect repentance?

III. INTERIOR OF HELL

A. Lake of fire – Revelation 20:15.
B. A bottomless pit – Revelation 20:1.
C. A horrible tempest – Psalm 11:6.
D. A devouring fire – Isaiah 33:14.
E. A place of sorrows – Psalm 18:5.
F. Where they wail – Matthew 13:42.
G. A place of weeping – Matthew 8:12.
H. A furnace of fire – Matthew 13:41-42.
I. A place of torments – Luke 16:28.
J. Everlasting burnings – Isaiah 33:14.
K. A place of filthiness – Revelation 22:11.
L. Where they curse God – Revelation 16:11.
M. Where they have no rest – Revelation 14:11.
N. A place of outer darkness – Matthew 8:12.
O. A place where people pray – Luke 16:27.
P. A place where they can never repent – Matthew 12:32.
Q. A place where they scream for mercy – Luke 16:24.
R. A place of everlasting punishment – Matthew 25:46.
S. A place where they gnaw their tongues – Revelation 16:10.
T. A place of blackness and darkness forever – Jude 13.
U. A place where they scream for one drop of water – Luke 16:24.
V. A place where they will be tormented with brimstone – Revelation 14:10.
W. A place where there are dogs, sorcerers and whoremongers – Revelation 22:15.
X. A place where they do not want their loved ones to come – Luke 16:28.
Y. They are away from the face of the Lord – 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
Z. It is the second death – Revelation 20:14.

CONCLUSION:
In the forward to John Blanchard’s book, “Whatever Happened To Hell?”, J.I. Packer wrote: “What should we do with this teaching?  May we water it down because we find it uncomplimentary, and embarrassing, and contrary to the spirit of our age?  Surely not: it is as divine, and as authoritative, as anything else in the New Testament, and the fact that it jars with today’s humanistic unbelief makes the declaring and defending of it all the more important” (pp. 9-10).