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August 31, 2003 |
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Saved from What…?"
2 Thess 1:1-10; Luke 16:19-31
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I. |
It was a fire. The congregation had lit it. They were burning the parsonage
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because they were mad at their preacher. Let me pause to thank you for not expressing grievances in like manner. I love talking to people even who are mad at me. Come, let's talk. Let's find our way through to the source and seek the cure. You know why they were mad? He insisted on preaching the Word of God, Sunday after Sunday. His wife led Bible Studies in the home and people, 200 or more and some of them servants were meeting Jesus and following him. But now the parsonage was in flame. The large three story structure was being engulfed. A 20 year project, a commentary on the Book of Job was burning. And as the couple counted their children, one was missing and to their horror, there he was, leaning out the upper window, 2 stories up. Some of the few who loved the pastor quickly made a human ladder, it took three of those humble men, feet upon shoulders they stood against the warm building as the flames raged, and reached the window, snatching the small boy from the window. "I was snatched as a brand from the burning," this boy would say in years to come. That boy was John Wesley. And that my friends is a picture of the rescue Jesus came to do for us.
Last week we looked at how Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath and from the present wrath. And today we will look at how Jesus rescues us from spiritual death as experienced in the fires of hell.
| | II. |
This morning I will cover with you just point one and will mention the other points
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on your outline. You can dig deeper as you want and I invite you to read the whole of the message on our website. Also I have published many, many Scripture references on your hand out for your study.
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| III. |
The Gospel lesson John read spoke about two men: One wealthy, the other poor.
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The wealthy man lived in luxury, wore the best clothes, ate the best foods. He lacked nothing of material comforts. The poor man lived on the street, was only clothed in rags, sores and the slobber of dogs, and had no food. He lacked everything needful.
Jesus says both men died and entered eternity. He does not say they died and entered an unconscious existence. He does not say they died and were annihilated. No, they both enter actual places where they can still think, feel and remember forever. Angels carry the poor man, Lazarus, to a place of comfort, peace and security, "to Abraham's side" the Bible says. In contrast the rich man dies, is buried and his soul goes to hell, "where he was in torments."
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God first brought up the possibility of death to the couple in the Garden at the
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beginning of the world. And death we see there was their responsibility to avoid: God said, "You may freely eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die" (2:16-17). Some say this was too stringent of God, too hard on the man and woman, except when you remember that they had a garden full of every imaginable and unimaginable fruit available to them, and there was no need to seek more. And also these were no puny humans, but super-humans by comparison to our weak abilities to resist temptation. It was a test. Would they remain in submission to God or not?
"You won't die!" the serpent hissed, (3:4) to the woman in the garden. And that lie, that we will not die, has come to this day-- if you do this exercise, if you eat that food, smoke that cigarette, or drink this beverage, you will live forever looking like that strapping young man or this beautiful woman.
But, with that first act of rebellion, as the woman and then Adam took from that tree and ate, came death. First came immediate spiritual death and then, eventually, physical death as well.
To Adam and the woman in that garden that spiritual death meant they lost the life of God within them-- that life that had caused them to shine with the brilliance of the likeness of God. They lost relationship with God, so that they feared his fellowship. And they lost the presence of God in their lives, they were separated from their best friend as they were expelled from the garden.
They went dark and the entire creation went dark with them. Humanity came under a curse at that point. Our lives were tainted from birth by that action. We are born with a genetic disease, so to speak, we are born spiritually dead, separated from God, desperately needing life (Ephesians 2:1-3).
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And unless we hear the voice of God calling to us to exit that tomb and enter life;
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unless we receive the salvation God offers by His mercy; unless we believe in Jesus and receive the right to become children of God, we will die in our sins just like that rich man in the story and go to hell.
Notice some details of the place the rich man goes:
1. There was no way out of torment, no way to make amends, no chance for him to say: "God, I deserve better." And notice, you don't see this rich man defending his own cause. He seems to know he deserves it.
2. You also see that his selfishness continues in hell. To be in hell will not change a person's character -- bad on earth will mean worse in hell. A man who is rejecting Jesus on earth will reject Him even in the torments of hell, which is demonstrated in the book of Revelation. There again and again men and women suffering under the wrath of God refuse to repent and curse God because of his judgments (Revelations 16:11 and 21).
3. The rich man does not have remorse for how he treated Lazarus, instead, he wants Lazarus to serve him (whine) "have him dip his finger in water and cool my tongue," or (whine) "send him to warn my brothers."
4. There is a great chasm between heaven and hell-- the two are separated. This chasm can be bridged prior to death by turning from sin to God and giving our lives to Jesus. After death it cannot be bridged. "It is appointed unto men to die once and then face judgment" the book of Hebrews says (9:27).
5. The punishment experienced after this life, without Jesus, lasts forever. As Jesus said in Matthew 25:46: "…(the wicked) shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
And listen again to the words used with this rich man:
"He was in torments" -- the word is used in the plural form, more than one torment. It is used twice in this passage (v. 23 & 28) and only one other time in Scripture in the Book of Matthew (chapter 4:24) where it describes the suffering of the crowd coming to Jesus to be healed. They suffered from various diseases and "torments" the Bible says and then lists the demon-possessed, lunatics, and the paralyzed. Terrors of mind and body are thus described.
"He was in agony"-- (this is the word the man uses to describe his own suffering in v. 24 and which Abraham uses again of his sufferings in v. 25). This term is used in two other places in Scripture. In the book of Luke it is used to describe the feelings of Mary and Joseph as they franticly look for Jesus when He was lost in Jerusalem at age 12 (Luke 2:48). And again this term is used in the book of Acts (20:38) to describe the suffering felt by Paul's friends in Ephesus because he is leaving and has said they will not see him again.
You know what deep loss feels like -- when a dear friend dies, or a child is lost and you have the sense of panic inside -- that is the kind of suffering which constantly, unendingly is experienced in hell.
The man is "suffering in this flame" -- (v 24) while the other terms describe sufferings of the soul and mind -- perhaps from unending "vain regrets, self condemnation and anguishing remorse, cursing one's stupidity in bringing upon himself such a fate, and cursing God too for allowing it -- fire brings in the reality of bodily suffering."
(Rev W W Sprouse, Staunton, VA, '97 CDLF1@mindspring.com/-iom)
Since Jesus never tried to frighten by exaggeration, and He uses fire to describe the terrors of hell 10 different times in Scripture, we need to ask: Did Jesus mean literal fire? Well he chose a term, which throughout the New Testament is also used to describe an ordinary fire, the kind we know. And the same term used by Jesus was also chosen by John the Baptist, Jude, and John in the book of Revelation to describe the burning tortures of hell.
Jesus speaks of the "hell of fire," being "cast into fire, the furnace of fire," "the eternal fire," "the fire of hell that is not quenched" (see: Matthew 5:22, 7:19, 13:40,42,50; 18:9 & 18; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:48). In John 15:6 Jesus says: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
I'd say, fire means fire.
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The word used in this parable for hell is the word "Hades" which is often heard
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in English. It refers to all the suffering we have mentioned. It is a realm of the dead where whole cities were sent in Judgment, Jesus says, for their rejection of Jesus (Matthew 11:23). Hades will not win over Jesus' church, though it may be powerful. Jesus says, the "gates of hell shall not prevail against the rock of faith upon which the church is built" (Matthew 16:18).
But only Jesus has the keys to death and Hades, which means if you want to avoid them, you best be with the man who has the keys. You and I need Jesus!
That is only one word for hell in the New Testament. The other two are similarly terrible.
A. The word "Gehenna" referred to a physical place, the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.
1. In the days of the Old Testament, the Israelites sinned against God by burning their children alive in the fire to worship Molech, the god of Sidonians in this valley. So the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 7 verse 31, saying: "They have built pagan shrines of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where they sacrifice their little sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!"
2. Later, this valley became the city's trash dump, and constantly burned in Christ's day. So, Jesus chose to use this physical place as a graphic image of the reality of the kind of punishment that awaits the wicked and the unrepentant dead. Of the 11 times the term is used in the New Testament, Jesus uses the word 10 times always in connection with punishment of sin, always in warning, always with fire prominent in it, and strongly emphasizing its eternity.
3. In how sin is judged, Jesus makes it clear. It is not only keeping a commandment like, "Do not murder," or "do not commit adultery" that matters; but to keep it in the whole of life.
In Matthew 5:22 Jesus intensifies the commandment "do not murder" by saying, "If you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell." In other words, murder happens with our mouths. Hence the awesome need to confess and be forgiven with the same mouth!
In Matthew 5:29 and 30, Jesus warns men: "I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Men, guard your where you look with your eyes and what you do with your hands! Jesus says if you want to avoid hell, you best be dealing with sin: "So if your eye -- even if it is your good eye causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand -- even if it is your stronger hand -- causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."
Since not many of us here are maimed, what is Jesus saying? Gehenna is a real threat. Therefore, don't let anything into our lives, however dear to us, however comfort-producing, however pleasurable, which will keep us from Heaven, and send us to Hell. It must be sacrificed at all costs: end the relationship, throw out the alcohol, destroy the magazines, get a block on your computer or stop using the internet, flee from the temptation. "FLEE!!!" the Bible says in the Old and New Testaments. In other words, take decisive action against sin.
4. Why take such action? Jesus tells us in a similar passage included by Mark (9:43-48) where he describes the horrors of Gehenna as being filled with "unquenchable fire" "where the worm never dies and the fire never goes out." In other words: we live forever in torment.
5. In Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:4-5, at two events six months apart, Jesus
warns: "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill the body; they cannot do any more to you. But I'll tell you whom to fear. FEAR GOD, who has the power to kill people and then throw them into hell."
That Jesus repeats this solemn warning at two separate times, six months apart, underlines how deeply He felt the need for people to understand and heed the warning.
This Gehenna cannot be seen simply as a realm, but as a place of severe, intense judgment.
B. The final word, Tartarus, translated often as hell in Scripture is used only once and is a place that is reserved for wicked angels. They are chained in prisons of darkness waiting for the day of Judgment, Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:4.
Death and Hades will one day be emptied into a lake of burning sulfur -- the Lake of Fire. Gehenna is perhaps a foreshadowing of this ultimate judgment Jesus said God prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). The Lake of fire is the second death. People were not made for hell, they were made for heaven. Look at the first people, they were made for eternal fellowship with God, however, they rejected, rebelled, refused the offer and in consequence, as Paul writes (2 thessalonians 1:8-9): God " will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes…,"
Jesus came to rescue us from going to hell, He prepared eternal dwellings, a place, a home in heaven for his people as described in John 14:1-3.
However, God does not want anyone to perish (Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:9). That is why Jesus was sent, "for God so Loved the world that he gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life."
What a Savior who can rescue us from God's wrath and from spending eternity in hell! Jesus comes to rescue me and to rescue you. What a great salvation we are offered in Christ.
The book of Hebrews asks the question: "How shall we escape if we ignore this great salvation?"
The answer is we won't. No one will escape the fires of judgment without being IN Jesus. And the only means of being in Jesus is to believe. Belief in the New Testament does not mean just to nod at God and walk on your merry way, it means to set your whole weight down upon him, it means to allow Jesus to be every experience, every moment. Salvation is by faith but we work it out by our actions.
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"Saved From What?" Main passage: Luke 16:19-31
I. I am saved from ____________________ in Jesus.
Romans 6:23; Genesis 2:16-17, 3:4; Ephesians 2:1-3
A. Write down one thing that was lost in the garden:
B. What do you learn about the rich man in hell?
(Revelations 16:19,21; Hebrews 9:27; Matthew 25:46)
1. He was in torments (Luke 16:23,28; Matthew 4:4)
Like:
2. He was in agony (Luke 16:24,25; Luke 2:48; Acts 20:38)
Like:
3. He was suffering in the flame (Luke 16:24; Matthew 5:22, 7:19, 13:40,42,50; 18:9 & 18; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:48).
II. Words for Hell in New Testament:
A. Hades "the unseen world" Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 11:23, 16:18,23;Acts 2:27; Revelations 1:18; 6:8; 20:13-15)
Fire? Why fire?
B. Gehenna refers to the Valley of Hinnom where…
Jeremiah 7:31: The Israelites had sinned there greatly
And it was a garbage dump in Christ's day, always burning.
Matthew 5:22 -- Murder is about the heart and mouth!
Matthew 5:29,30 -- Adultery, men, centers around what you are
doing with eyes and hands! Deal decisively with sin as if your life depended upon it.
Matthew 10:28; Mark 9:43,45,47,48; Luke 12:5; Matthew 23:15,33;
John 15:6; James 3:6
C. Tartarus refers to a place of bondage for angels 2 Peter 2:4
D. The Lake of Fire may be what Gehenna foreshadows.
(Matthew 25:41, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelations 20:14-15)
III. How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?
We won't.
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