“Spiritual Things: Hell”

Series: Spiritual Things [on screen]

Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD

First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida

May 17, 2020

Introductory Comments:

What a joy to worship the Lord through music. Now, we will worship Him through studying the truth of His Word. 

We are continuing our series called “Spiritual Things.” We are learning about Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, and spiritual warfare. Thus far, we have learned about Heaven. Today, we will shift our attention to Hell. 

I have to warn you, we have a lot of Scripture passages today and I’m moving pretty quickly. You may want to grab a pen and paper so you can jot down some verses to study on your own later. 

Before we do, let’s go to God in prayer and ask Him to speak to us. 

(prayer)

Hell is not something that is fun to talk about, or at least it shouldn’t be. At the same time, Hell is not a topic that we can neglect.The truth is that the Bible does not ignore the topic of Hell and neither should we. 

You may be surprised to know that Jesus spoke more about Hell and judgment than any other topic. If it was important to Jesus, it should be important to followers of Jesus. 

As we learn about Hell we will follow a very similar format to last week when we learned about Heaven. 

So, first, let’s answer the question . . .

I. What is Hell? [on screen]

Simply put, Hell is the place reserved for the judgment of God towards unrepentant sinners. 

We know that through trusting in Jesus we can experience the forgiveness of our sins. Well, what about those who do not trust in Jesus? 

John 3:36 answers this for us. It says, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” [on screen]

Well, what happens to those who have the wrath of God remaining on them? They go to experience the judgment of God in Hell. This truth is overwhelmingly evident in the Bible. 

For instance, Jesus says in Matthew 25:41, “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!’” [on screen]

The apostle Paul adds in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength.” [on screen]

Whereas Heaven is the place of reward for those who trust in Christ, Hell is the place of judgment for those who do not trust in Christ. 

Further, whereas Heaven is the place of life, Hell is the place of death. 

Revelation 20:14 says, “Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” [on screen]

Often, in the Bible, Jesus referred to Hell as “Gehenna.” This was a Greek term that was a derivative of the Hebrew word that means “Valley of Hinnom.” Well, why do I share that? 

You see, Gehenna was a valley near Jerusalem that was used for evil atrocities. Some of these acts are difficult for me to mention in this setting. It’s enough to say that this place was terribly evil and despised. 

Jesus uses this place to describe Hell. He didn’t mean that Hell was literally in that place, outside of Jerusalem, but He used that word to describe how awful Hell is. Listen, church: Hell is a terrible place reserved for God’s judgment. 

We don’t know exactly where Hell is, but it is often described as being below us. Heaven is described as above us and Hell below us. Now, we don’t understand these places in the context of our physical earth. These places are beyond our physical realm. They are real and they are physical, but they are in a different realm so to speak. 

So, Heaven is above and glorious, Hell is below and terrible. It is a real place where God’s judgment is poured out on sinners. 

That’s what Hell is, but let’s learn what Hell is like:

II. What is Hell like? [on screen]

First of all, when it came to Heaven we spoke of the present He