The Brink of Hell

Hell – did you ever want someone to go there.

I bought a van from a liar. He seemed like a nice guy. So, I believed the things he was telling me about the van he had refurbished. In the end, I bought the van and eventually discovered that almost everything he told me was a lie. I can remember driving down the road in that lemon and feeling the resentment rising in my heart. This went on for almost five years. Finally, one day as I was driving along feeling angry about this fellow a strange question occurred to me.

Well, do you want him to go to hell?

The question seemed to hang in the air. Hell? Did I want him to go to hell?

What does hell mean to us? How real is it?

What did the Son of God have to say about hell?

Scriptures
Matt 8:12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Matt 22:13 "Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

"But if that person only looks out for himself, and the minute the Master is away does what he pleases-- abusing the help and throwing drunken parties for his friends-- the Master is going to show up when he least expects it and make hash of him. He'll end up in the dump with the hypocrites, out in the cold shivering, teeth chattering. Matt 24:48

A place with hypocrites -> another verse refers to them as the “Self-indulgent”.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Matt 23:15

Matt 25:41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, `Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
-- the message --
Then he will turn to the "goats,' the ones on his left, and say, "Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because--
I was hungry and you gave me no meal, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed, I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'

Lacking Jesus’ love, compassion and Spirit, we’re tempted to play religious games while our neighbor is thirsting and dying for truth.


A lot of you are going to assume that you'll sit down to God's salvation banquet just because you've been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you're going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you'll find the door locked and the Master saying, "Sorry, you're not on my guest list.'
"You'll protest, "But we've known you all our lives!' only to be interrupted with his abrupt, "Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don't know the first thing about me.'
"That's when you'll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You'll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God's kingdom. You'll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God's kingdom. And all the time you'll be outside looking in--and wondering what happened. (Luke 13:26+)

Being in Jesus presence is not enough. It does no good for us to hang around the church and go to the Bible classes unless we are actually changed. We must be filled with genuine death-to-self love. We must have Jesus Spirit living in us and empowering our lives.

In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. He called out, "Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.'
"But Abraham said, "Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented. Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.'
"The rich man said, "Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won't end up here in this place of torment.'

Seeing and experiencing the reality of hell, the rich man had a new level of concern for his brothers. That’s one important reason to turn our minds to this subject. If we’re apathetic about our neighbor going to hell, then we don’t have Jesus’ type of love filling and guiding our thoughts.

"On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.
"If your hand or your foot gets in God's way, chop it off and throw it away. You're better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You're better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.
"Everyone's going through a refining fire sooner or later, but you'll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames. Be preservatives yourselves. Preserve the peace." (Mark 9:42+)

With heaven and hell are at stake, we are tempted to take too lightly the responsibility we have to new Christians, children and any one we can influence. It was a sense of the reality of hell combined with genuine love that drove men to give their lives in missionary service to seek and save the lost from such a dreadful future.

Matt 10:28 "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Jesus tells us here that fear of God is justified. It is blasphemy for us to fear man more than God. Why do I, why do we fear men? May the Lord help us to overcome our fear of man.

A couple of Scriptures from the Old Testament
Is 66:24 For their worm will not die
And their fire will not be quenched;
And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind."---
Is 14:11 `Your pomp and the music of your harps
Have been brought down to Sheol;
Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you
And worms are your covering.' ---

Many who have been long dead and buried will wake up, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame.
"Men and women who have lived wisely and well will shine brilliantly, like the cloudless, star-strewn night skies. And those who put others on the right path to life will glow like stars forever. (Daniel 12:2)

Summary of attributes of hell

Outer darkness
Weeping
Gnashing of teeth
A place with the hypocrites (self-indulgent)
A place of everlasting punishment
Eternal fire created for the devil and his angels
Implied: Filled with demons
Place of disgrace and everlasting contempt
Some who ate and drank in Jesus’ presence
Paradise visible from hell?
There is a huge chasm between heaven and hell
It’s a Place of agony, regret and torment
Unquenchable fire
Implied: Unquenchable thirst
A bed of maggots and a covering of worms
Worms that do not die
Hell Destroys body and soul




A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. (James 3:6+)

-- By nature, our tongue is ignited by hell

Matt 5:22 -- You Fool!! -> guilty enough to go to hell.
(it doesn’t take much)

Rom 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

-- The Good News!! No wonder we can have joy in the face of any earthly circumstance.

Rom 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

– The key is Baptism into Christ Jesus and into His death leading to newness of life. Newness of life is what I seemed to lack after my baptism at age 11. It was another ten years before I was genuinely baptized into Jesus. Newness of life means taking our body away from Satan and giving it to God.

The Message: “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering.,,2Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

-- Offering body (including tongue) as living sacrifice. & our mind to be transformed.

- By power of God’s Spirit living in me
Bite (or control) my tongue
Give blessing for cursing

Rom 8:12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Romans 8:12 (The message) So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it--yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us--an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times.

Led by the Spirit = sons of God.

– The Spirit helps us put to death the deeds of the body. By nature, we tend to be hypocrites. Putting a better image on ourselves and hiding dark thoughts. The Spirit empowers us (you and me) to put the Self-indulgence of a hypocrite to death.

Lk19:10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

– Our mission in life in the Spirit = seek and save the lost.

If hell is so bad and so real, we must rescue all we can.

– BUT, Do we have the resources? I know I feel weak and inadequate.

Lk 21:1 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on."

Yes, we have the resources! God can use our poverty, our two cents of effort.

AND
– We want our friends, neighbors and even those we dislike to be saved from hell.
– We want Strangers in the jungles of Africa or in some unknown village in India to be saved.

WHAT CAN WE GIVE OR DO?

Earnest prayer for our relatives, friends, neighbors and enemies.

As I drove down the road in the van, thinking whether I wanted the liar who sold me the van to go to hell, I suddenly realized that I definitely did not want him to go to hell. Then the thought came to mind, “What could I do to help him.” I did not know his name or where he lived. Plus, it had been years since I last talked to him. Finally, I realized that I could pray for him and for God to work in his life to encourage him toward salvation. So, I began to pray for him every time I felt tempted to feel resentful. Within a few months, I lost any sense of bitterness or resentment. And, the van was damaged in an accident. God provided that we were able to get an almost new van to replace it. It seemed like I was chained to the lemon until I learned to pray for an enemy.

Missionary Attitude: Alan Bryan --> missionary to the hospital. He has influenced medical workers to come to Church.

How about Supporting your very own native missionary?
(You can provide half of full support for only $30/month)
( or full support for $60 month)

Tracts? (We're called to plant seeds. God will give the growth and the harvest.)

Anger Resolution Seminar
-- invite friends, co-workers and neighbors

Basic Life Principles Seminar
-- invite neighbors to learn Scripture principles for success.

Who can we pull back from the brink of hell?