Dr Greg Bahnsen - Sober News about Hell: Ultimate Pain and Shame (Matthew 8:5-13) (Part 2)

Today we come to the second installment in this series that I'm offering you on the doctrine of hell as it's found in the Bible. We should probably explain to you, if you are visiting with us, that this isn't the only thing we talk about as Christians as we come to worship God. But it is a prominent part of what the Bible tells us, and it's a necessary part if we would ever understand the good news that God has for us. And so, without any apologies, we're going to be looking at hell. This is part number two, entitled Ultimate Pain and Shame. And our scripture reading is found In Matthew the eighth chapter, verses 5 to 13, a text which I have chosen as one of many that gives us some description of the ultimate pain and shame that are represented by hell. And so hear God's word in Matthew 8, beginning at the fifth verse. And when he entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him and saying, lord, my servant lieth in the house, sick of palsy, grievously tormented. And he saith unto him, I will come and heal him. And the centurion answered and said, lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof. But only say the word, and my servants shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. And I say to this one go, and he goeth, and to another come, and he cometh, and and to my servant do this. And he doeth it. And when Jesus heard it, he marveled and said unto them that followed, verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, go thy way. As thou hast believed, so be it unto thee. And his servant was healed in that very hour. And thus far, the reading of God's word. It's not unusual for people to consider it somewhat gauche, somewhat tactless and insensitive to emphasize the teaching of hell or to lay great stress upon the wrath of God. It's looked upon in our culture as somewhat unloving. And many people would say, even many theologians would say it's contrary to the spirit of Jesus to be deep into the doctrine of hell. Well, that's a rather ignorant thing for people to say, and I don't mean to be insulting, I'm just being descriptive here. People have no idea what they're talking about when they talk about Christianity or particularly the teaching of the Christ. The teaching of Jesus as being above all this hell, fire and damnation, wrath of God and fury of God type of preaching. In the New Testament, There are roughly 1870 verses which are thought to have been spoken directly by Jesus. That may be, you know, not exactly accurate, but that's close,870. And of those verses, the subject of judgment and of hell is more frequently referred to than any other topic. There is no other topic you can find in your red letter edition of the New Testament, no other topic that surpasses the doctrine of judgment and hell in the teaching of Jesus. That if we are to judge from what evidence has been left us, was a great emphasis of the teaching of Jesus and the preaching of Jesus. The very word gehenna or hell as it's translated in English, is used 12 times in the Gospels, 11 of which are on the lips of Jesus. Jesus was a hellfire preacher. There is no way around that. You have to redo history. You have to revise the New Testament according to your preconceptions and your own projection of what Jesus is to get around them. The Bible simply does not show us a Jesus who was so loving and kind and patient. And he didn't want to get into all these ugly subjects like hell. He was constantly talking about it. In fact, let's expand our horizon. Look at the entire Bible. Maybe you would like to do this as a study and you come back and you tell me if I'm wrong in this. You will find that the Bible speaks and says more about the anger of God from COVID to cover than it does about the love of God. That doesn't mean the love of God's not important. Obviously, without the love of God, we wouldn't be here today. There wouldn't be any reason for us to live if we didn't have the love of God. But you know, to understand the love of God, you need to know the anger of God and the fury of God against sin. And the Bible says much more about an angry God than it does about his love. Look it up yourself. You know, it's all out there. It's public information, right? It's in the public domain. You can open the book and find out. Don't let the theologians give you some kind of angle on this. It really is telling you more autobiographically than it is Telling you from a literary standpoint what the Bible says. The doctrine of hell is unavoidable. The doctrine of God's wrath is unavoidable. And if your Christianity is defined by the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. And so today I want to ask, what is Hell all about? Last week we learned that hell is the destiny of the damned. It is the lake of fire, the unending torment that will come to those who have been judged out of the books that God has kept on their lives. God knows everything about us. And every day, I mean, he's going to bring everything we've done one day into judgment. And if we're displeasing to him and all of us are, what we will deserve is his condemnation and his everlasting fury. Now what does the Bible teach us about this fury that God will show? What is hell like? Well, we emphasized last week the figure of speech of the lake of fire, but there's much more in the Bible about hell. And so today, today I'd like to take you on something of a tour of God's word so you'll learn something about the way in which hell is configured and how it's to be understood. One of the best known works in Western literature is Dante's Inferno. An imaginative, indeed a highly embellished tour of hell, if you will. Very simply, that's what Dante was trying to do. And today I'm going to try to do the same for you. I'm going to offer you a tour of hell without all the embellishments. We'll try to show a lot more reserve than Dante did and our effort will be here to be biblically accurate. What specifically does the Bible teach us about hell? And in order to hear the things that I'm going to tell you about the darkness and the pit and the garbage heap and the prison and the worms that never die and the shame and so forth. I'm going to begin by reminding you that God often speaks metaphorically in His Word, and he speaks metaphorically. He uses figures of speech, likenesses, similarities to accommodate our weakness. It's so that we will understand better that God gives us an analogy, a figure of speech, to help us understand what hell is about. We tend to think in terms of analogy to things that are understood in our everyday experience. In fact, that's a very common thing. When you're introduced to something new, you usually understand it in light of some other experience related in a remote way, maybe, maybe are very near at hand way. But you tend to think of New things in the light of old things. So what you're familiar with helps you get into something new. Children often think of fuel for the car as being like food for the body, right? The same way that you eat and drink, so you put gas in the tank. Now, that's not altogether wrong, is it? Not altogether accurate either, but it's a childlike understanding of what is going on when you put gas in your car. It's like putting food in your body, you might say. And so God accommodates our childlikeness, he accommodates our need to understand in terms of something near at hand, something that's familiar in our experience by talking in that way and likening that to something that we've not yet experienced and hopefully never will. When I was younger, fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I lived and died for baseball. I loved baseball. Me and my best friend, we played baseball all the time. We were so consumed with baseball that, you know, back in those days, they had sharing, you know, I don't know if they do that anymore. We thought at that point we were too old to have share and tell time. So we took share and tell time to tell people the baseball scores and the statistics that we knew on hitters and so forth. We competed with each other that way. So, I mean, we were baseball in school, out of school, so we loved playing baseball. My friend Charlie was a better baseball player than me. I always wanted to be as good as him. But one day we were playing out on the school ground, and Charlie smacked, as we might say last week, the hell out of the ball one day, and, boy, he took off and he was quite pleased. And he took his bat and he tossed it to the side and he started to run, forgetting that his friend Greg was sitting where he threw the bat. And I was watching the ball, looked over just in time to catch that bat point right on the corner of my eye here. Split my head open. Blood gushed out everywhere. Okay? So we called Greg's mother, who was a nurse, and she did very well and hurried home and got me and got me to the emergency room room. And now the doctor is explaining to Greg, I think it was in fifth or sixth grade, that he was going to be giving him shots right here. And I'm saying, this doesn't sound like a very good idea. Maybe I'll bleed to death. Thank you. And the doctor said to me, he said, no, it'll just be like a little mosquito bite. Now, what was he doing there? He was trying to give me something. From my experience, at least he assumed That I knew what it was to be bitten by a mosquito. And though that's not pleasant, very few people would say, oh, that's just agonizing pain. He said, so it's going to be like a little mosquito bite. Of course, we're going to do it 90 times around your eye, but that's for another day. Okay, so we understand new things. The experience of getting Novocaine around the eye or xylocaine, probably in terms of old things like a mosquito bite. People who don't know much about electricity, like me, tend to think of electricity as flowing through a line like water through a hose, right? Well, it's really nothing like water flowing through a hose. But we think of the water starting here and coming out over there, and we think of the electricity starting at the wall and coming out at the lamp. And so that's just something we're familiar with. Helps us understand something new. Have you ever had mushu pork? Many of you haven't? So you might say, well, what is it? And if I say, well, it's kind of like a Chinese burrito. Now, why would I say that? I would say that because hopefully you know what a burrito is. So if you know that a burrito is something that's wrapped up. So mushu pork is something that's wrapped up. Again, we explained the unknown and in terms of what we have experienced, you know the old joke, what do frog legs taste like? Well, they're like chicken, right? Well, the reason that's that is because hopefully you've eaten chicken, you have some idea then what frog legs would be like. I'll never know if that's true because I don't buy it. Forget it. What is a computer directory? Okay, those of you who are not into computers, maybe this won't even be helpful, but a computer directory is like a cabinet of documents. Of course, if you know how computers work and you know what a cabinet of documents, there's really nothing physically in common at all. And yet you can treat a directory and the way in which you think of a cabinet of documents, you can think of your computer directory. It's not just physical things or physical likenesses or physical experiences that are similar and explained this way, but social matters as well. In this country, there are people who tend to pride themselves in being athletes and being pretty cool guys. And they make fun of those in Scotland who wear kilts. Okay, now you can imagine somebody, let's say some factory worker who just can't understand why these people, why these men wear skirts and If I were to say to him, well, when men wear the kilt in Scotland, it's like you wearing a suit to a formal occasion. You can say, well, the kilt and the suit don't look alike, but they have the same social function and the same kind of function in the life, especially of somebody who doesn't, you know, dress up to go to work every day. You say, well, there are days when you dress up in a way you think is pretty strange, but if you're going to a wedding or to a funeral or. Or something like that, you might do it. And so it is with Scottish men as well. You explain one experience in light of another. After I had open heart surgery, it wasn't uncommon for people to ask, how does it feel? Of course, to do open heart surgery, the doctor has to cut the sternum bone and then pry it back so they can enter the chest and do the work they have to do. And that is no party. I'm telling you, when you wake up, I've said, it's kind of like feeling like a train has run over your chest. Now, no one has had that experience probably and lived to tell about it, but you can imagine what would it be like if a train crushed your chest. And I'm saying that's what it felt like. So you take an experience that you have had or can imagine to help explain something that you haven't yet felt. And God wants us, us to understand some terrifying truths about this place of judgment, this place of judgment that no one has yet, that's still living anyway experienced. And no one can conceive of the terror and the pain that is there, except by comparison to events and feelings in our presence lives. And so we're going to be looking at figures of speech, not literal descriptions of hell. God's going to liken hell too, like the car eating the gas, okay, that isn't going to be literally what it's like, but the symbol, the figure of speech that you understand magnified greatly will help give you some conception of what hell is about. In scripture, as in usual communication, normal communication, the thing which is symbolized, the thing that you're trying to explain, the thing that is symbolized is always greater than the symbol that is used to talk about it. Come think about that. A flag is not more important than the nation that it symbolizes. The flag is the symbol. The nation is the reality symbolized. But we wouldn't say the flag is more important. The nation is greater than the flag, right? And likewise, when we take the Lord's supper, the bread and the wine are not as great as the body and blood of the Savior that they symbolized. And so God is going to give us some symbols, but the symbol is not as. As great as the reality that's being symbolized. What is being explained by the symbol is much more intense, much more real, much broader, much bigger than that small little picture, that figure of speech God is using. And so with that introduction to figures of speech in the Bible, their accuracy and importance and how to use them, let's ask, what kind of place is Hell? Let's do something of a quick tour of the place of the damned. God tells us, by means of a number of figures of speech which we can identify with from our present earthly experience, what it's going to be like in hell. And remember that the thing that is symbolized is going to be much greater, in this case, much worse than anything we can imagine, even from our present experience. As we begin this tour, I want to again correct some misconceptions. Last week, many of you picked up on the fact that Hades is not hell. Hades is the place of intermediate torment of the soul before Hell, which is the lake of fire, where body and soul together are going to be tormented. Likewise this week, just to begin with, a misunderstanding many people have. The Bible often speaks of a place called the abyss, or sometimes translated the bottomless pit. And it's important that you know that the bottomless pit is not hell itself. It is but the temporary holding tank and the headquarters for Satan and for his demons. So get your Bibles out. We'll try to wear out your fingers on a number of passages today. Luke 8, 8, 31. Here Jesus has cast out a legion of demons, and verse 31 says they entreated him that he would not command them to depart into the abyss. They did not want to have to go back to this holding tank for the demons. They entreated him that they would not do that. Turn to Revelation 9:1:2. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen into the earth. And there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss. And he opened the pit of the abyss, and there went up a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And then as we read on in this chapter, we see that from this pit comes this swarm of locusts, demonic beings that are there in the abyss, being held back until they're allowed to come out. Revelation 20 verse 1 says, I saw an angel coming down out of heaven having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. What this means is this angel from heaven has come down and in the abyss is chaining the demons, particularly the leader of the demons, Satan himself. Revelation chapter 11, Revelation chapter 17. Show us that it's out of the ability this that the beast arises, which is John's way of saying the Roman government is demonic in its origin because it arises from the pit of. Not hell technically, but from the bottomless pit where the demons are, where Satan is. And this holding tank called the bottomless pit is a waiting cell, like a gloomy dungeon. Look at Jude the sixth verse. And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation. He hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. The demons who rebelled against God have been figuratively chained up, they've been handcuffed waiting for the day of judgment, and they've been kept in a place that is very dark. The Bible says, Second Peter 2, 4, if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to dungeons and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved unto the judgment and spared not, etc. So the Bible tells us that when the demons rebelled against God, he, as it were, handcuffed them and put them in a dungeon that is dark, and there they are reserved in being held over to the time of judgment. Well, that then talks about demons, right? The bottomless pit, the abyss, is actually the headquarters and the holding tank for Satan and the demons. But verse nine of this chapter indicates to us that it's connected to what we have called Hades. For human beings, there's some kind of likeness because verse nine says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment. And he has just explained how the demons are being kept under and held waiting for the day of judgment. And he says this is what the unrighteous will undergo as well. God knows how to punish them until the day of ultimate punishment. And so there's some connection here. Now, what do we learn from this? That's the picture, the dungeon of darkness. Well, what I think we need to learn from this is that the imprisonment of those who are under God's judgment is an imprisonment in contrast to this life. That is for the soul as well as for the body. In fact, in this particular case, it's for the soul, not particularly the body. The body goes to the grave, the soul goes to Hades. And like the bottomless pit is reserved for judgment. The bottomless pit is like a dark prison, the Bible says. But here now we're talking about the prison house of the soul. Are you awake and listening? Are you sensitive to what I'm telling you? Stop and think about it. There have been numerous accounts throughout history, stirring accounts in many cases of people who have gone in body to prison but their souls free. It's one of the great things about cultivating the mind and of course the spiritual life, is that it really makes no difference what people do to your outward body. You'll always be free and in the presence of God, able to think and enjoy the life of the mind, that sort of thing. But the Bible tells us that those who go to the torment of Hades and the demons to the bottomless pit, they are imprisoned in soul. They don't have spiritual freedom, they don't have mental freedom, they don't have emotional freedom, they don't have their creativity, they don't have anything to enjoy internally anymore. They are now in darkness, awaiting the day of judgment. Let's look a bit more at that gloomy figure of darkness. Matthew 8:12, part of our scripture reading this morning. Matthew 8:12. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness. Look at verse 22 of the same chapter. But Jesus saith unto him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their dead. Sorry, it's not verse 22. I can read my notes better than that. Chapter 22, verse 13. Chapter 22 13. Again the figure of darkness. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness. And then Matthew 25 verse, verse 30, And cast ye out, the unprofitable servant, into the outer darkness. And Compare this to 2 Peter 2:17, 2 Peter and the second chapter, verse 17, speaking of apostate and sinful men. These are springs without water and mist, driven by a storm, from whom the blackness of darkness, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. Or turn to Jude the 13th verse. Wild west, waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved forever. And so it's said so many times in the New Testament that this is the first thing we need to get established, that hell is a dark, gloomy place. It's characterized by darkness. And the darkness is something terrifying, something that is undesirable because it's portrayed in such a way that that's what you get that's the just reward for your sin and rebellion. God reserves darkness for those who don't belong to him. Can you understand the darkness? You ever heard the expression the dark night of the soul? Have you ever had a dark night of in your soul? Some of us have had many. You know what loneliness feels like? It's intensified at night. You know what shame feels like? That too is intensified at night. Anybody who knows anything about empirical psychology will tell you this. Darkness has that effect on us many times. What relieves people from their emotional depression? What relieves them from their mental darkness or even their spiritual darkness? Are the rays of the sun in the morning so important is sunshine to us? This too is just an empirical matter. It's a passing interest that some have hypothesized that depression can be caused by by a failure to have enough of the rays of the sun. And people who live in areas like Alaska and further north that don't get enough sun therefore will have a therapy prescribed for them where they have to sit in front of certain sun lamps or whatever so they get more of that absorbed into their body. Well, I don't know enough about the details of this to make a big deal of it. But the point is we all know how important it is to see the light of day. That's important to our emotional well being, to our psychological well being. The Bible says the day is coming for certain people. Will there never be morning, never ever the dawn that chases away that dark night of the soul? Darkness is known also especially to children. They're usually the only ones who will admit it. Darkness is known for the fear that it gives us because we don't know what's out there. Most of you are not afraid of the dark. If you're grown up and you're at home and you know the doors are locked and you know where all the furniture is, then you can walk around in the darkness. You don't have a whole lot to be afraid of, but remember, you've got to really qualify that and bring the you control over your environment down to a very small space before darkness is. And by the way, even those who are not afraid of being alone in the dark in their home have second thoughts after they've been to a horror movie, even though they know the windows are locked. Now what am I telling you? I'm telling you that for all of your grown up macho courage, darkness is not something we enjoy. Darkness represents not understanding in that sense, confusion. It represents fear of the unknown. It represents no relief that the sun brings us. And the Bible says when you go to hell, that's what it's going to be like. Permanent darkness. I want you to think secondly what the Bible tells us about the people you're going to be spending eternity with. This is a very small picture for children that God will blow up bigger when the day comes. But I think this will help you understand something. I'll bet all of you have gone to a party at one time or another or visited someone's home where other people were there and you were stuck for the evening with an interminably boring, self centered, vain individual. I see those smiles. You all know what I'm talking about. The misery of having to spend time with people that are really not very pleasant people. That's happened to you, hasn't it? Well, imagine this. What if you had a room full of such social bores, people who are vain and really of a putrid personality and you can't ever go home. I don't know if you ever thought about hell that way. You can't ever get away from these people that are detestable to you. And it's not just social bores and vanity. Imagine spending time in a locked room with your most hated enemy. I'm glad to say that there aren't a whole lot of people on the face of the earth that I have just intense indignation and hatred for. But there are some. The man who ran off with my wife and eventually married her. Somebody that I disturbed. Spies. And it would be, I'm speaking metaphorically hell to me to have to spend time in a room with him unless I was able to bring my vengeance against him. But I mean, if I had to spend time with this individual, that wouldn't be just a social bore. That wouldn't just be the vanity of people you can't really stand being around. That would be intense hatred. Make it worse. What if you had to be in a locked room with the most vile of criminals? Any of us here think it would be a lot of fun to spend time with Charles Manson in a locked room. What if you could never leave the room and the most boring, disgusting, vain, hateful, vile and violent people were there? George Bernard Shaw shows how ignorant a man he was when he once said that he wanted to go to hell because that's where all the interesting people would be. What a smart mouth and a small brain to talk like that. All the most interesting people will be in hell. The Bible says they will not be pleasant companions. Matthew 25:41. Then shall he Say unto them, I, the left, depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Those who are going to hell are the cursed of God, like the devil and the demons who are with him. Matthew 13:41, 42. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels. They shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Everything that causes offense is going to be there in Hell, everything disreputable. Revelation 21:8 but for the fearful and unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So the second thing I want you to know about Hell is it's going to be a place of the most unpleasant companions that you can never get away from. You'll never be able to go home from this part and say, boy, I don't want to see those people again. You'll never be able to escape the presence of people who you find vile. Jean Paul Sarkre, the existentialist philosopher, once said, hell is other people. And by that he meant something much broader and more general than I've been talking about. Sartre meant, hell is the fact that other people stand over against my will. You know, when you deal with inanimate objects, you always get your way. I mean, maybe they're too heavy or whatever, but the point is you are the ones making the decision. But when you have to live with people, that's hell, he says, because now you have another will out there that's over against yours, stands against it, and may have to be, you know, cajoled to do what you want. And so he said, hell is other people. Well, he spoke more, more truly than he realized. That's the second thing I want you to know about Hell. It's going to be other people you can never get away from and that you find disgusting. Thirdly, the doctrine of hell is described by Jesus with this word that I've already introduced to you earlier, gehenna. Usually in your Bibles, especially in the Gospel, where you see the word hell, that's a reference to it comes from the Greek word gehenna. Let's just look at a few of the places where it's found. Matthew 5:22. But I say unto you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment. Whosoever shall say to his brother, Racha shall be in danger of the council. Whoever shall say, thou fool shall be in danger of. My translation says, the hell of fire, the Greek shall be in danger of Gehenna. Verse 29 of the same chapter. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into Gehenna. Matthew 23:33. Therefore behold, I send unto you prophets and wise. Wait a minute. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell, the judgment of Gehenna? And then Note especially Matthew 10:28. And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Be afraid of the one who can destroy everything about you, body and soul. And that place of destruction is called Gehenna. Now, what is Gehenna? The word Gehenna in Hebrew means the place of Hinnom, or the Valley of Hinnom. And in the Old Testament, the Valley of Hinnom was the place of idolatrous human sacrifice. It was a defiled, abominable place. And so eventually, because it was rejected by the Jews after reformation, and it was good for nothing because children had been killed there, and it was a defiled place, it became the city's permanent rubbish dump, the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna. Gehenna became the rubbish dump for all of the garbage and all of the filth and all of the refuse and even the corpses of criminals were thrown into Gehenna. And the smoke of its burning went up, and there the maggots and the worms ate away night and day. And the stench from the rotting bodies and the human excrement was overwhelming. Any of you have ever gone out to a landfill? I feel sorry for you. But if you've had to go out to a landfill, I want you to know that is a sanitary experience in comparison to ancient garbage dumps. These were places for open pools of urine and excrement, rotting bodies, the most filthy garbage. The stench would be enough to make you sick to your stomach. And that's what Jesus likens hell to Gehenna, a wasteland of things. And it's dreadful. You think about it, when you go to the garbage dump, you're looking at things that are of no value to their owners. And when you think about Gehenna and Those who go there. You're thinking about people who are no longer worthwhile to God. They will be the waste of the universe, not the sort of people you want to spend eternity with. I assure you they will be the things which are so vile and so repulsive that the very stench will sicken you. Those who go there will be the wasted of history. And one of the figures that comes from the image of Gehenna, thirdly, is the image of the Undying Worm. The Undying Worm. It's probably not all that difficult to understand the fire of Gehenna. That refers to the agony, probably, of the body that is undergone. But what is it about the worms and the maggots? I really hope you've been spared ever having to see this in a human body. The worms don't afflict the outside of the body. You know that, right? The worms eat the inside organs of the body. And very likely this figure of speech is supposed to teach us that the inner agony that corresponds to the outer agony of the fire, the body burning, the inner organs, the inside of ourselves being in pain. That is just incredible. Look at Isaiah 66:24 for the Old Testament image. Isaiah 66:24. They shall go forth and look upon the dead bodies of the men that have transgressed against me. For their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. And then the New Testament reference to that is found in Mark 9:48. Mark 9:48. Jesus says it's better to be maimed and live in that way than to have both your eyes be cast into Gehenna, where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. There is going to be an outer agony, the fire. There's going to be an inner agony of the worm, and they will never, ever, ever end. All of us know what it is to have our conscience bother us. All of us know equally what it is to be able to quiet our conscience. You realize that in this life, that's one of the greatest graces that God allows us, that we are able to quiet our conscience. You've done things that you're ashamed of. You've done things that make you feel really worthless, make you feel really polluted, really lacking in integrity, whatever it may be. Your conscience bothers you. But you know, what we do in this life, we tend to go on, right? We think of other things. We change the subject, change the TV channel on that inner brain of ours. Or we tend to rationalize. Rationalization is Not a good thing, but it's certainly a comforting thing. Rationalization enables us to live with ourselves, to be able to put our moral discrepancies into a different context, where we don't have to think unalterably bad things about ourselves. The day is coming when our conscience will be so sensitized and made so active and alert that what was our seat of felt guilt, our conscience will now overflow with acute, acute pain. And there will be no way to stifle it, no way to say, silence it. In this day, the worm will not die. There will be no diversions, there will be no rationalizations. And the castigation of our own conscience will be uninterrupted. I'm telling you some of the most horrible things. I don't know if you can bear to hear this. I can barely bear to tell you. You have any idea what I'm explaining? If your conscience would never let up on you, look at Revelation 14:10, 11. He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goeth up forever and ever. And they have no rest day and night. They that worship the beast in his image, and those who receive the mark of his name, no rest day and night. You have any comprehension of the psychological importance of sleep? Physical too, but also psychological. And that's why people who are facing great difficulties of various sorts, we don't have to detail all of them, will often be known to want to sleep a great deal, because it's the one way we can get away from it. We can finally quiet the mind and be in another world, think about other things, or think about nothing, whatever it is. And that pattern of sleep often is what helps us keep going. Yes, physically, but psychologically too. You know what the Bible tells you? In hell there is no rest night or day, no sleep, no escape from conscience. The lashing of that guilt will be uninterrupted. And so what will hell be like? It will be shame and contempt for us. Daniel 12:2. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of thy people. There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation. Even so to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be delivered. Every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Hell is going to be unremitted shamefulness. What do you do when you feel ashamed? You don't want to be around people, do you? When you feel contempt for yourself, you want to be alone. And hell is going and those who are there, sinners who have been consigned to hell, will totally recall everything that is disreputable about themselves without being able to forget. This is a dreadful thing to tell, but I'm telling you the truth. There are things you have done in the past, in your life, you don't think about. And you probably not that you deny it, but you'd say, oh, I'd forgotten I did that. I'd forgotten I thought that I'd forgotten I said that. But in hell you'll forget nothing and you will hate yourself for what you are. It will be contemptible and vile, the refuse of the universe spilled out, and there will be no way to look away or forget it. And so then the Bible tells us that hell will be torment, won't it? Revelation 14:10. Revelation 14:10. He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed, and the cup of his anger and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone night and day. It will be torment. In Luke 16, which we looked at last week, the rich man in Hades said, I am in agony in this flame. Romans 2, 8, 9 tells us that what is being stored up for us is great distress. Romans 2, verses 8 and 9. But unto them that are factious and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that works evil. Of the Jew first, and also the Greek. How tormenting will this place of shame and contempt be because of time? Let me just look at the text that we had before us this morning. Matthew 8:12. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast into the outer darkness, which I've already described. And now we're told there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Jesus says this also in chapter 13, verses 42 and 50. He says it in chapter 22, verse 13. He says it in chapter 24, verse 51. He says it in chapter 25, verse 30. It's said in Luke's gospel, chapter 13, verse 28. The only reason I bother to give you that is because I want you to know that over and over and over again this is the most common way Jesus described it, the torment of hell will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth. The word wailing in Greek, you must understand, is not simply crying. Crying is bad enough, but it's not just tears we're talking about here. It is extreme, hopeless, inconsolable grief. Have you ever heard anybody wail that way? I have. And it chills you when someone just has no hope left and is in such agony that they just cry out. And that's what the people in hell will do. There will be wailing of misery, torment of body, torment of soul that leads to spontaneous, not just weeping, but wailing. And this is amazing, the gnashing of teeth. I think we're accustomed to thinking of the gnashing of teeth as something that's done in pain and that is done in pain. Sometimes doctors have to put things into the jaw, into the mouth of people who are going through pain to keep them from destroying their jaw, their teeth, and so forth, because they gnash so terribly. But gnashing is also an expression of anger. We read that in Job 16:9. But you may recognize it more in Acts 7:54, where Stephen is indicting those who are going to kill him. And the Bible says they gnashed their teeth upon him. They were so angry that they clenched their jaws and just gnashed their teeth together. And in hell, people will wail in torment and gnash their teeth in anger at themselves and at their sin for what it has brought them. They will be angry at their sins for wrecking their lives. And they will be angry at themselves for what they are and for what they have become and for the pain they are now in. But I haven't told you the worst. I know that's hard to believe. If you take any one of these images, the darkness, the terrible company you will keep, the garbage dump, any of these would be terrible. The Bible tells us that the worst thing of all is that hell will represent banishment from God and eternal separation. Matthew 8:12. But the sons of the kingdom shall be kept, cast forth into the outer darkness. We've talked about the darkness. I want you to focus here on the casting forth. They're going to be thrown away. They're going to be thrown out of the presence of God. Not that they aren't tormented in the presence of the Lamb. We've read about that. But the presence of God in hell will be no comfort now. God's presence, understood as the source of. Of our lives, the source of our nourishment the source of our protection, the source of our joy, everything that makes life worthwhile. God will no longer be there for that, and they will be cast out. Matthew 22:13. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and cast him out into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It's not just that you are going to wail for your pain and gnash your teeth in anger at your sin, but you'll know that you've come to that condition because God threw you away and says, don't come near. I don't want you around. I really wish I had the time to expound the full biblical image. Let me just remind you that in the Garden of Eden, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve. That was their great blessedness, that they lived with God in this blessed place. And then God did what? He threw them out. And when God threw them out, it wasn't just like a temporary eviction, where he says, now go to your room and think about what you've done, and then come back. And God then put the angel, the cherubim there with the flaming sword. Because when God throws out, he says, you're never, ever coming back. I hope none of you ever have that experience in this life. Some of us have, but it's nothing in comparison to our Heavenly Father throwing us out and saying, don't come back. You're not welcome ever in my presence. Matthew 25:41. Then shall he say unto them that are on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. God will say, get away from me. You now have nothing to do with me in any blessed sense. In any supportive sense. In any sense. It would bring you joy. To put it very simply, God will no longer show his common grace to those who are in hell. Hell will be the removal of all common goodness to the wicked. What is common grace? The Bible says it's sunshine and rain for the wicked. Did you know that God gives happy days to wicked people? He allows them to go to baseball games and enjoy themselves. He allows them to have some measure of family life, some measure of order in a civilized community. He allows them to have clean streets and crops that grow, and sun that comes, and so forth. And in hell he will say no more. Nothing that makes this life worthwhile will be there, because God will say, depart, and the alienation will be complete. Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say unto them, on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire. Look at 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might. The destruction of hell will be away from the face of God and he will never allow us to come back in. Thomas Brooks said it very well when he wrote, if all the pains, sorrows, miseries and calamities that have been inflicted on upon the sons of men should meet together and center in one man, they would not so much as amount to one of the least of the pains of Hell. God talks to you as children who cannot understand how bad it's going to be. And so he gives you pictures and he gives you symbols and figures of speech about pits of darkness and dungeons, about undying worms and trash heaps and banishment and alienation and wailing and gnashing of teeth. What's it all about? Why is this tour of Hell available to us in the Bible? To put it very simply, as John Blanchard wrote, he said, there is no need for distorting by exaggeration. It is utterly impossible to imagine anything worse. And then another point he wrote very briefly, but this is exactly the point which you would not have understood if I would have just stated this at the beginning and been done. He said, hell is the ultimate horror. Why has God bothered to tell you this? Why does God share with us such gruesome detail about Hell? I believe the answer is that God tells us enough to give us clear and settled convictions about the true character of this terrible place. So that if we are at all sensible. Because if you believe this, if you understand what I'm telling you, if you are at at all sensible, you will take urgent and radical action regarding it. If there is any way at all for me to avoid open heart surgery again, I want you to know I'll be paying the price to avoid it because I know how terrible it feels. And that's nothing comparison to what I'm telling you about Hell. If you understand it and believe it, then you'll understand that it's not some kind of hackneyed, worn out, silly fundamentalist notion to tell you from the heart, Repent or you will perish. Let's pray. God save us. God help us not to rationalize. Help us not to divert our attention. Help us not to put our minds elsewhere so we don't have to think about this dreadful prospect. Help us to take you seriously. You have spoken so often of these things. Help us not to subordinate them or ignore them. Help us to know that there's no way imaginable that we can, as human beings, experience and know by experience the utter horror of the ultimate pain and shame that hell represents. But these pictures are enough to make us hate it, to fear it, and to turn from it. We know we deserve it, and our only hope is that you would receive us for the sake of one who underwent it in our behalf. We do ask, Lord Jesus, that you would save our lives. Save them now, but above all, save them from eternal destruction. We pray in your blessed name. Amen.