The Final State of the Wicked

Good evening. Tonight we're on lesson number six in eschatology. Last week we looked at the final judgment. And the final judgment is where Christ will divide the sheep from the goats. So it's natural that tonight in lesson number six we're going to be looking at the final state of the wicked. And next week in lesson number seven we'll be looking at the final state of the righteous. Okay. So let's begin with Bible point number one.

At the last judgment, the wicked will be cast into hell. Hell is the first blank.

The final state of the wicked is a culmination of penalty. Penalty is the second blank.

The deprivation of all good everlasting is a third blank. Everlasting torment, banishment from the life of God and the just.

The eternal misery, misery is a fourth blank, of an evil conscience and company.

And the eternal bearing of God's positive. Positive is the fifth blank. Positive curse. First blank is hell, second blank is penalty, third blank is everlasting, fourth blank is misery, and the fifth blank is positive. And we'll unpack that now and as we go through, we'll go through each one of these as we go through these Bible points tonight. First of all, the wicked will be cast into hell at the last judgment. The word that's used most often for hell in the New Testament is gehenna. Gehenna is used 11 times in the New Testament, once in the book of James and then the other 10 times in the Gospels.

If you read Thayer's Greek lexicon, it'll tell you that gehenna was a garbage dump outside the walls of Jerusalem, where they'd take the dead carcasses of bodies and all their refuse and it would burn continually. If you've ever smelt burning flesh, it's nasty, right? And then not only that, the ash and the soot would be irritation to the eyes. It'd be a terrible stinky place. If you've ever been behind a garbage truck, you know the smell of that, how awful it is. Well, this was continually burning as a reminder and as a picture of hell. Jesus used that very pointedly to be able to instruct us on the nature of hell. Now, there are some archaeologists who dispute that it was a burning dump and the reason for that is we find some earliest attestation of that in Jewish literature, but we haven't really dug it up yet, so to speak. But of course, Jerusalem is a very busy place and a lot of stuff was built on top of things and on top of things and find things all the time. However, there is another very good explanation of why Jesus would use gehenna as a symbol of hell.

Gehenna is in the Old Testament a valley known as Henam. And Henam was the place that Israel and rebellion would take their children and pass them through the fires of Molech and sacrifice their children alive, burning them alive in worship of pagan gods. You will find reference to this in 2 Chronicles 28.3 with King Ahaz doing it. Here was a king of Israel doing it. Then later Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33.6 where his sons pass through, which means they would have been offered for sacrifice. Perhaps you've seen illustrations of this. It was a large bronze depiction of Molech. Some would say Baal also. And his hands would be outstretched and he was a bronze furnace. So his hands were burning hot and he'd place the baby or the young child and it was burning and he'd be cooked alive. And they'd play drums to

drown out the screams of the child. And they did it for selfish gain. They did it in belief that God would bless their fields, their crops, and that God would bless some fertility with more children. Isn't that odd? That they would sacrifice children in hopes of getting more children, right? And that continued on. It was not just the kings, Ahaz and Manasseh, but the people followed suit. You'll find this all throughout the Old Testament. It wasn't until Josiah came and brought his reforms that that was stopped. And as a result, the Valley of Hinnom was known as something that God abhorred.

He hated the practice. It's not as will that any one of these little ones should perish, is what Jesus says, right? And it's not his will that you should worship other gods. And they were sacrificing the children that God gave them to these false idols. And so it was a dark place. It was an evil place, full of misery, full of wickedness, full of idolatry, and away from the true worship of God, right? So that's most likely why Jesus used it. That and perhaps because it was a dump as well, but that's a very good picture of what hell is. The final state of the wicked is the culmination of penalty. We will read in Bible point number two about penalty. If you think going back to hermarshology, penalty is what happens to us. It's our dessert because of our sin, right? And sin must be punished because God is holy. It's the deprivation of all good. Hell is all pleasures and all things that we enjoy in this life, even those who are not Christians enjoy by God's good common grace, pleasures, right? They know human love. They know good food. They see the beautiful sun and they enjoy the warmth that it gives them on their skin. They enjoy the taste of sweet fruit, right? All those wonderful common things, the beauty of the beach, that's gone in hell. It's the deprivation of all good, of all good company. We even, the unsaved have friends, right? And family that can comfort them and encourage them, well, there is no comfort and there is no encouragement in hell.

It's everlasting torment, which means that it is forever torment, not just one little bit of torment and then you're annihilated, but it's forever. It's banishment from the life of God and the just, one of our greatest blessings in this life is the fellowship of the saints, is it not? Having our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage one another that we can keep together to study God's word, that we can sing, right? That we can worship God, that we can serve God together. Well, in hell, it is no evil will ever come into heaven, right? That's exclusively for the saints and not in hell. They will not have those good things. It's eternal misery of an evil conscience and company. The people that you would be with in hell would be those who are in utter rebellion and in utter misery themselves. And it's the eternal bearing of God's positive curse. Now, may not be a word that you're used to hearing, positive curse. What it simply means is this, there are natural consequences of sin. If you're an alcoholic, you may drink your liver to death, right? And you may end up having physical consequences because of that. If you're sexually immoral, you might get a sexually transmitted disease, right? You steal. You may get caught. You may get shot, right? You may get harmed. You may get beaten up. Those are natural causes. Sin is self-detecting and self-punishing in that natural sense, right? If you lie, you lose trust with somebody, right? And so all those are natural things, but hell is not just the natural culmination of punishment. It is God's positive punishment, which means God himself is personally standing against you in hell. That's a terrible thing to imagine. Look at Matthew 25, 41. This is speaking of the last judgment where Christ separates the sheep from the goats. He says, "Then he will say to those on the left hand, "Depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

So it'll be eternal separation from all that is good and it'll be in the full experience of God's curse because they are cursed people. Application. Why do people use hell? Hell is a blank. How commonly or as a cuss word? Oftentimes we use hell in a figurative sense. For example, it's not uncommon and I don't think it's wrong to say that the old expression war is hell, right? Or to discuss something awful like, say, genocide or think about what happened in World War II with the exterminations of old peoples, the Holocaust, to say that that's kind of like hell on earth. In other words, it's unimaginable suffering, right? And so people will use hell as a metaphor to kind of describe that. But that's not often the way that we use hell. Pretty much we use it braggadociously, do we not? Hell no, I'm not going to go. You may hear that political slogan or something like that. Or you may hear a really odd one, "Holy hell, someone making an exclamation. That makes no sense whatsoever." And more often than not, you hear it as a curse word, right?

I grew up in Texas and in Texas we have a wonderful state and wonderful state history. You study that in school and one of the famous parts of Texas history was in 1835 where you had Davy Crockett and he was serving as a congressman there and he did not get reelected. And so he told his constituents, "I'm going to Texas. You all can go to..." And he told them where to go, right? But when you say something like that, what you're saying, you are wishing eternal damnation on that person. You are cursing them when you do so, right? And that's not something to just about, right? We are to seek the good and the salvation of all men, right? We would rather that they be blessed than that they spend in eternity and hell, right? I would submit to you that the often times we use hell in such common and careless ways is to try to erode the seriousness of it in our minds, right? Because we don't want to take it seriously. So it's easy to be flippant about it. It's easy to use it as a curse word or to use it jocularly or braggadociously because it takes a little bit of the edge off of it, right? But it's not something that we should ever seek to diminish or to deny. By point number two, all sinners come under penalty. Penalty is a necessary reaction of the holiness. Holiness is the first blank for number two. Of the holiness of God against sin. Because God is holy, he must punish sin and he must reward righteousness, right? That's the foundation of his throne is righteousness and justice, the Psalm says. Penalty is neither reformatory nor deterrent. People often think about our judicial system and sending people to prison. Well, maybe it can reform them, right? Or maybe it'll act as a deterrent. Not God's justice, not God's penalty. It's not meant to be reformatory. It's not meant to be deterrent.

But it is vindication. Vindication is a second blank of a law giver. God is not vindictive. He's not trying to squish you like a bug, but he's trying to uphold what is just, uphold what is righteous. We've gone over this before when we discussed holiness. If a judge did not punish sin, you would say he's a bomb. He's a horrible judge, right? He doesn't send the murderer to jail. He lets the person go. He lets the person with 150 felonies walk on the street, right? As we've heard and seen some terrible judges in the American landscape. What a shame that is. But God is a perfect judge, right? And he must vindicate his holy character. He must punish sin. And the penalty reserved for the wicked is the eternal vindication of the character of God. The penalty of sin is death. We know that, right? The wages of sin is death. The soul that sins will surely die.

Hell, or the second death, is a culmination and completion. Completion is a third blank of penalty.

Because remember, at Christ's coming, what does he do? There is a general resurrection of the just and the unjust. And they all stand before Christ. And he separates them as the sheep from the goats. So even the wicked, their bodies are raised, right? But they're raised not to life, they're raised to eternal condemnation. Their body and soul are rejoined together in the resurrection to experience the second death, eternal death.

In hell, the wicked are completely tormented in body and soul.

It's not just you're going to be spending hell, eternity in the dark corner of a room, thinking about the things you've done bad. It's both spiritual anguish and physical anguish combined. Exactly. And it will never end. I would even argue that it'd be more intense than any pain that you feel in this world. Because if you remember, Christ's body was glorified, right? And it was made to be eternal. Well, the bodies in hell will be able to experience death eternally where the worm doesn't die, right? And the fire is not quenched. The wicked are remanded to their deserving place. Place is the blank, Acts 1.25. Scripture indicates that people who go to hell, they deserve that. And in Acts 1.25, we see an indication of that flip over on the back. This is in regards to Judas. Remember how in Acts chapter 1, this was before the spirit was poured out at Pentecost, the disciples draw straws to see who could be the next disciple, which of course ended up being Paul, because that's Christ's prerogative to call his next disciple. This is to take part in the ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place. This place is not in heaven, right? This place was a place of punishment. It is hell. It's the place of the cursed, the place of the damned. Flip back over on the front.

Look how Ezekiel describes judgment as a vindication of the character of God. Thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I am against you, O siddin. I will be glorified in your midst, and they shall know that I am Yahweh when I execute judgments in her and am hallowed in her." He's shown to be holy in not only his salvation, but he's also shown to be holy in his judgments, that he is a holy God who not only rewards righteousness, but must punish sin.

Application for number two. Why is hell an uncomfortable subject to discuss?

Does hell ever come up at your Thanksgiving dinner with your family?

Does it come up every day at work around the water cooler? No. It's something we... It's uncomfortable to think about. Yeah, it's uncomfortable to think about, right?

Because we all have a guilty conscience, right? And those who are not Christians, they have no peace. They would soon not remember their guilt. They would soon not remember their conviction. And so they want to do anything they can to deaden that conscience, to suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So they can't hear it. So it's out of sight, out of mind. We don't talk about hell, right? But it's something we must discuss, right? So we'll see in a little while, it's part and parcel of the gospel. By point number three, the final state of the wicked is described alternatively as... We have a long list here. As eternal fire, fire is the first blank, Matthew 25, 41, Jude 7, there's other places too.

Parishing, Matthew 18, 14, Luke 3, 3, John 3, 16. What? John 3, 16 talks about hell, of course.

"For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish." It's not talking about your vegetables expiring or your milk going bad. It's talking about eternal condemnation that Christ saves us. What does he save us from? From the very fires of hell, from perishing. The pit is the second blank. The pit of the abyss, Revelation 9 verse 2 and verse 11. Outer darkness, Matthew 8, 12. The blackness of darkness, darkness is the third blank forever. Find that description in Jude 13. Torment in Hebrews 14.

Eternal punishment, Matthew 25, 46. A place of weeping, weeping is the fourth blank. Weeping and gnashing of teeth, Luke 13, 28. That's a descriptor that Christ uses often of hell. Have you ever seen a wild animal gnash its teeth? Think about when Stephen was stoned. He was preaching such a convicting sermon that the people, they stomped their ears and they charged at him, gnashing their teeth, which can't even be described as biting. It's a crazed

sense of anger and distress that's going on inside of an individual.

The wrath of God, Romans 2, 5. Destruction, Philippians 3, 19. 2 Peter 2 and 2 Peter 3. Eternal destruction, destruction is the fifth blank from the face of the Lord. 2 Thessalonians 1, 9. The lake which burns with fire and brimstone. The second death, Revelation 21, 8. An even eternal sin, Mark 3, 29. And we'll discuss that in a minute. How hell is not a morally neutral place that you're being punished for your passings. You're being punished for your current sin in hell as well. Hell will be worse than words can describe or the mind can imagine. First blank is fire, the second blank is pit, the third blank is darkness, the fourth blank is weeping, the fifth blank is destruction. Those are all very vivid words, but it's hard for us to comprehend. Well, okay, it's fire, but it's darkness. Don't those seem to be kind of contrary to each other? Many theologians and Bible expositors say that this might be figurative language, might be. In other words, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there is literal fire in hell, but on the flip side, the wrath of God is far worse than anything you can imagine. And fire is one of the most burning sensations that's common to all men, right? Even a kid knows you don't touch fire. When they talk about figurative examples, it's no different from when the Bible describes Heavens is that our minds and our heart can't comprehend the treasures and the good things that God has for us. We're going to read about that next week.

Well, if we can't comprehend the infinity of God's goodness, do you think that you can comprehend the infinity of God's wrath? I think not.

"Hell will be worse than words can describe or the mind can imagine." Finite man means limited man. We're limited, right? We have only so much knowledge and things that we can understand in our little brains. Finite man cannot begin to comprehend the infinite wrath of God. If we were to understand just a little bit of God's eternal wrath of hell, I would assert that it would drive you to madness because man can't comprehend the infinite nature of God. Who could stand before his holy presence apart from the blood of Christ? Not one of us. Revelation 14.10 says, "He himself," speaking of the rebels, "those who worship the beast and receive his mark, those who are anti-Christ, those who are anti-God, who are not worshiping God, says, "he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation." He holds nothing back. Just like he holds nothing back in his love, he holds nothing back in his wrath. "He shall be tormented fire and brimstone, sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb."

That's what we mean by God's positive punishment. You're in the full wrath of the lamb when you get to hell. How terrible that is. Flip over on the back. Luke 13, 27-28. "But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you where you are from, depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out. It's separation from all the goodness of God and it's in the full wrathful presence of God. Romans 2.5. "But in accordance with your hardness and your impotent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Right now, God's judgment is obscured. Right? Just as Christ's glory is obscured. But when Christ comes back,

he's coming back in a full manifestation of his glory and he's bringing his holy angels with him and his wrath will be revealed in full. And those who apart from Christ right now are treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath when that wrath will be revealed from heaven in the Lord Jesus Christ.

7. "As Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities around them in a similar matter to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Saying that the wicked have the same destruction that Sodom and Gomorrah faced. Jude 13. These wicked folks are described as raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. It's reserved for them. They have a reservation. Certainly as they have a reservation with death, they have a reservation with judgments. Appointed for man once to die and after this, the judgment. Right? Mark 3.29.

"But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." We talked about this when we talked about hermarchology sin and the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is the way I describe it. It's the final rejection of the Spirit of God. Right? It's to ascribe to the work of God, to demons, and to reject him and to not receive his grace. And if you die of that sin, it's unforgivable. Right? Because you've rejected the Spirit of Christ. Right? And it's called an eternal sin because it's an eternal state of rebellion against Christ where you're saying, "No, not in life, not in death. You will not change in hell. You may be sorry that you're there, but let him be filthy. Be filthy still is what the book of Revelation says." Flip over on the front.

Application for number three.

If, if, and that's a big if, if descriptors of hell are metaphors, is it more agreeable?

You can say, "Oh, it's metaphorical language. You know, fire and darkness can't really be that bad, right?" No, if it's metaphorical, it's actually worse. Right? Because you could say that, if you looked at it in that way, that God is talking baby talk to us using figures that we could understand and comprehend, such as fire and darkness and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But the reality is actually far worse because again, we cannot comprehend the wrathful presence of a holy God. Application is agreeable for number four or three. Bob, point number four.

"At the last judgment, the righteous and the wicked appear in judgment together before a final separation." Separation is a first blank.

Jesus described this final state as eternal. We find that in Matthew 25, 46. So when they're separated, this is an eternal separation. It cannot be bridged. "As eternal for both the sheep and the goats." Jesus described hell as unquenchable fire, Mark 943, and a place where their worms don't die, Mark 948, which has an allusion to Isaiah 66, 24. The idea behind that, if you've seen decomposing flesh, they have maggots, worms, but those worms will continually eat, right? And the fire will continually burn and not consume.

"Everlasting punishment of the wicked is not inconsistent with God's justice, but is rather a revelation." Revelation is the third blank of that justice. Today, you will hear some Christian theologians who will say, "Yes, eternal conscious torment is not congruent with God's loves and God who's merciful." It's not even congruent with holiness, because, hey, he committed some finite sins, but you are going to face an infinite wrath of God. So therefore, it must not really mean that you face an eternity held. It must be extinguished, perhaps. Maybe it's destruction, and they will use some phrases and scripture that don't always import to try to prove their point while ignoring things such as what Jesus just said that we read, where the fire is not quenched and the worm doesn't die. "Punishment cannot come to an end until sin and guilt come to an end." Punishment cannot stop until sin stops, until guilt stops.

"Sin is endless hostility." Hostility. That's the fourth blank. Hostility. "Against God in act, disposition, and state." Remember, we talked about this in hermarshology. We often think of sin as something we do, right? I robbed the bank, so therefore, I am a sinful person, right? But the visible sins that we do, they are indeed sin, yes.

But they are just the tip of the iceberg. What lies underneath the water? It's far worse, right? Sin is not just an action, but it is our disposition, our thoughts, right? What did Jesus say? "You hate your brother." What? "You're a murderer," right? You can harbor bitterness. You can harbor pride, and it may not be manifested on the outside. You may be able to fool people, right? But it belies a sinful condition of you, right? And it's not just a disposition, but it's an actual state as well. In other words, we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We're crooked. If you believe in the doctrine of depravity, it means that you are bent into this world, bent in Adam and away from God, right? In every part, your mind, your will, your emotions are radically corrupted by sin, right? Because you're a sinner,

and that doesn't go away in hell, does it? So it's enact transgressions. It's a disposition,

thoughts, desires, and attitudes. It's a state as wicked opposition to God. Sinful actions and thoughts spring from an immortal soul that constantly persists in defiance against God.

Likewise, guilt is endless. Not only is our sin endless, but our guilt is endless. Guilt is man's merit of punishment. Guilt is man's obligation to render satisfaction. Satisfaction is the fifth blank. To God's justice for the sins he has committed. So guilt is our obligation to render satisfaction to God's justice for the sins we've committed. Can you render satisfaction to God's justice? Can you blot out one of your sins? Can you atone for a single sin that you've done? Can you do good outweigh the bad? No.

Our guilt lies in what we are as much as for what we do.

Punishment is therefore as endless as its reasons, right? As long as you are a sinner, which is always, right? And as long as you have guilt because you cannot remove your own sins,

in hell it's too late to ask forgiveness. It's too late to repent and to trust in Christ's finished work at that point. Matthew 25, 46 says, "And these will go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into eternal life." When Jesus says this, talking about the judgment there where he separates the sheep from the goats, it's the exact same word, everlasting life and eternal punishment. It's the exact same word in the Greek here. Those who want to say that hell is not everlasting but that you're extinguished, they have no problem with saying heaven is eternal, right? We go on to eternal life. It's the same word in the same verse as Jesus described, both the state, the final state of the wicked and the final state of the righteous.

Psalm 711, "God is a just judge and God is angry with the wicked every day."

Every day in hell is a conscious experience of God's infinite wrath. I'll flip over on the back. Mark 9 43, Jesus says, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, it is better that you enter into life named than having two hands to go to hell and to the fire that shall never be quenched." And then a few verses later, Mark 9 48, "Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." I'm quoting from the NASB there, those are in all caps because it's a quotation from the Old Testament, right? Luke 5 8, remember this? When Jesus calls Simon Peter and he's fishing, when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees. Because there's a great catch of fish. And Peter was a fisherman. He knew that this was not natural, this was supernatural. He fell down his knees saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He's not confessing an act that he's engaged in. It's not a sinful thing to fish.

He's talking about the state of who he is. I am a sinful man. It defines who he is. And then Revelation 22 11 to 12, "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he was filthy, let him be filthy still. He was righteous, let him be righteous still. He was holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly. My reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work." When this is quoted, it's quoted at the end of Revelation, Christ's picture is coming soon. And the import of this is either you may not have time to repent, right? Or the case of the wicked, they don't want to repent. The righteous will be righteous still, the wicked will be wicked still because unless God sovereignly changes their heart, their course is set, right? Put that stuff on the front.

Application for number four, can you render, render is the application for number four. Can you render satisfaction to God for your guilt? No. You can't buy forgiveness. You can't earn it. You can't make atonement. Bible point number five, we must remember that men are finally condemned, not merely for sins, but as sinners. They are punished for their evil character. Their soul is permanently unlike, unlike is a first flank. Their soul is permanently unlike God. God is holy and they are unholy, right? God cannot dwell, is unlike God and cannot dwell with God. The soul that is unlike God cannot dwell with him. He's unlike him and he cannot be in God's presence. God is a consuming fire. Fire is a second blank. We find that Deuteronomy 24 24 and also Hebrews 12 29. Who can approach him? Psalm 15, a whole psalm is about how can we with wicked hands approach a holy God? Psalm 24 3 3 4, we'll read here in a minute. It's the same type of the theme. Unrighteous men cannot come into his holy presence. Holy is a third blank. Remember Isaiah six, woe is me for I am undone, a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, right? He was falling apart and except for the coal from the altar of Christ coming and touching his lips, he would have been consumed.

There will be, they will forever be separated from his love and favor. They will be in misery. The third is a fourth blank with their guilt, guilty men and guilty angels. First blank is unlike the second blank is fire. The third blank is holy. The fourth blank is misery. The old saying misery loves what? Company. Hell is full of miserable people, rebels who have no satisfaction and they can't find satisfaction in themselves, right? And they won't find satisfaction in God. So they are forever miserable and they're in the company of miserable people and miserable angels who have fallen from their estate, who could have been in heaven worshiping God and taking an eternal bliss. And now they're in eternal torment. Revelation 22 14 through 15, blessed are those who do his commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life and they enter through the gates into the city. But outside, outside of heaven, in other words, hell, outside are dogs and sorcerers, sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie. Starts off pretty good. Whoo, sorcerers. I'm not a sorcerer. Yeah.

I'm monogamous. I'm not sexually immoral. I'm not a murderer. I don't have an idol, you know, in the corner that I worship ostensibly, even though I may have idols of the heart, right? And it says that those who love and practice a lie. How many of us deceive and lie, right? Tell white lies sometimes. That's every single one of us, right? If you think through the full work, we're guilty of all those sins, right? And apart from God's grace, we would be outside of God's glorious presence and inside its full wrathful presence. Flip over on the back.

Psalm five, four through five. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. No evil can dwell with you. Some evil can dwell with you. A little evil can dwell with you. No evil can dwell with you. The boastful cannot stand in your presence. You hate all workers of iniquity. But God's love, he doesn't hate people, right?

What the Psalm says, he hates all workers of iniquity.

Revelation six, 15 through 17. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks and the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand? None can stand before his holy presence. Flip back over on the front. Application for number five. Where alone can we find propitiation for our sins? Sins is the blank. Propitiation means a covering place, right? A place to shield us from the wrath of God. You think about the ark, right? Had a covering called the propitiation, right? And there the glory of God was on top of it. And then you had the propitiation that shielded the people below from the holy wrath of God, right? But what does first John 4.10 says? It's not that we love God, but that he loved us and he sent his son to be a propitiation for us, right? To be a shield from the wrath of God, right? So we can stand before him justified, right?

By point number six, the wicked will not only be separated from God's love and favor,

but they will be under the full weight of God's wrathful presence. Presence is the first blank, number six. Those in hell will wish they were separated from God. God will be fully, fully is a second blank, fully present in his holy wrath to exercise his judicial vindication.

The recipients of his wrath will have his full attention, his full hot displeasure.

Hell is described as a finite place. It is a pit, a lake, not an ocean. It is bottomless, not boundless, but there is no limit to the suffering there. Quote, "These shall be punished from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power." Second Thessalonians 1.9. It's from the New King James version. You can translate that two different ways. Either this wrath flows from God, which is evident even in the prior verse, verse eight, because it says that when Christ appears, he is going to tribulate those who are tribulating you, right? But some people will translate this to that, just focusing on enduring wrath away from the presence of God. But it doesn't have to be translated that way. The way the New King James translates it is that they are enduring the wrath of God, but it's from the presence of God. Just as we've read earlier in these verses, such as Revelation 14.10, that it is God's positive punishment. It is the full weight and force of God's holy character against the sinners, against the rebels. As terrifying as his judgment is, we must never confuse God's judicial wrath with cruelty. God's judicial wrath is constant. He's angry with wicked every day. He doesn't fly a handle like we do, and we get raged in anger, and we honk the horn at the car in front of us, and we tell him where to go, right? That's not God's justice. It is a cool, measured, constant burning wrath that never changes, and it's not cruel. Some people say, "Well, that just sounds cruel to punish people forever," right? To treat one cruelly is to treat one fairly, and to go beyond the law and punishment. Mankind is cruel. We treat people unfairly, right? We go beyond the law sometimes. We extract our pound of flesh and then some. Man can be so cruel, but God is never unjust. He's the perfect just. He's the one, as Abraham says, "Well, not the judge of the world do what is right." To treat one cruelly is to treat one unfairly, and to go beyond the law and punishment, there will be no innocence. Innocence, as in a plural of innocent, there'll be no innocence, no innocent people in hell. And in the fourth blank, there will be no one who suffers unjustly. In this life, every now and then, someone unjustly does the crime, right? We've seen cases where DNA has overturned evidence where someone's been behind bars for years, right? And they were framed, or they just mistaken, wrong place to wrong time.

There'll be no one mistaken in hell. Everyone that is there will deserve it. Romans 3, 4 says, "May it never be, rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, speaking of God, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged." No one can ever accuse God of dealing with false weights and false measures, right? He sees things perfectly in his omniscience, and he punishes them perfectly in his omnipotence. Flip over on the back. Revelation 14, 10 through 11 says, "He himself also will drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out in full strength with the cup of his indignation. 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 sends forever and ever. And they have no rest day and night who worship the beast in his image and whoever receives the mark of his name." Because they are in opposition to Christ in life and in death, their punishment is forever. Genesis 18, 25, Abraham says, "Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you, shall not the judge of all the earth do right." This is where Abraham is interceding right for Sodom to save these towns. Deuteronomy 32, 4, speaking of Yahweh, "He is the rock. His work is perfect. All his ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice. Righteousness and upright is he. Even the best of judges might get things wrong, right? They may not hear all the evidence or understand it properly or be presented with everything, but not God. His justice is perfect. Upright is he." Psalm 9, 8, "He judges the world with justice. He governs the people with equity, fairness." Psalm 92, 15, "To proclaim the Lord is upright, he is my rock, and in him there is no unrighteousness." Likewise, Psalm 96, 3, "Before the Lord, for he is coming, he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the people's in his faithfulness." Remember, we talked last week about the last judgment, that the standard by which he judges is Christ, and the judge is Christ, right? So both the judge and the word by which we are judged is the perfect truth. Psalm 89, 14, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne." In other words, his throne is established in rewarding the righteous and in punishing the wicked. And if he doesn't do that, he's not God. He does not sit on the throne, right? It's part and parcel to his Godhood. Mercy and truth go before you. Flip back over on the front. The application for this is number six. Is God being Lord, Lord is the blank, over hell? God being Lord over hell, is that less intimidating than the devil? Think about popular depictions of hell, right? You've seen comic books and whatnot. It goes all the way back to Dante's Inferno, where you got the little red devils with their pointed tails and their horns and their pitch forks and their goading people in hell. That's nowhere in scripture, right? The devil will be in hell, right? Death in Hades will be cast into the lake of fire. It is God who executes positive punishment in hell. So it's not a relief. It's not like, "Oh, I'm glad God's in charge," because he'll be merciful. The devil's kind of mean. No, you don't understand the holiness of God. He can't change. He cannot give you a break. He cannot reward evil, or he ceases to be holy.

By point number seven, in hell there may be degrees, degrees is the first blank, of penalty in God's administration based on one's earthly works. Works is the blank. I have several different passages that you can review in your own time there. This is referring to degrees of punishment. Now, a lot of times, Baptists hear that and they'll say, "Well, that kind of sounds Catholic. That's weird. One sin sends you to hell, right? So surely one sin is as bad as the other." That's not the case. A careful inspection of scripture will show that some sins are actually

more damaging than other sins. Think about the Old Testament law.

Some sins, maybe stole something. What did you do? You'd pay restitution. Other sins required a capital punishment. You'd be killed for. All sins were the same. Would God have been just judge through that type of a judgment? No. He'd be treating things on a sliding scale.

And the reason why, there are differences in God's administration of judgment. We see that in the Old Testament, and there's hints of that in the New Testament. We don't really can't figure that out. The scripture doesn't really get into a lot of detail, but let me give you some examples. Let me flip over on the back. Luke chapter 12, 45 through 48. This is a parable, "But if that servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour when he is not aware and will cut him in two and appoint his portion with the unbelievers." Don't obey, you're not, you're an unbeliever, right? "And that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself to do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with fewer for everyone to whom much is given from him, much will be required and to whom much has been committed to him, of him they will ask the more." Look at 2 Corinthians 11, 14 through 15. "And no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore there is no great thing in his, if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." It's implying that those who do more evil works might have a more severe punishment. It's hard to imagine any punishment worse than the personal opposition of a holy God, his infinite wrath poured out to you. But scripture seems to intimate this. Whether that's a way of arresting our attention to call us to repentance in this life, like many people view the warning passages in Hebrews, right? Not that you can lose your salvation, but there are severe warnings to grip your attention so that you will walk close to God or you won't fall away so you don't have to repent, right? You'll stay close to Him. Perhaps that's what's going on or perhaps there will be some type of gradation in God's punishment.

The scriptures just aren't 100% clear, but it does intimate this. Hebrews 10, 31,

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God." That's the main point, right? And one more I want to read to you from Matthew 11. Verse 20, "Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Corazan, woe to you, Bessediah. For if the mighty works which were done and you have been done and tired and sittin, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for tired and sittin in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who were exalted into heavens, will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done and you have been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." So we see that even applied not just individuals, but to cities. It seems as if

God is accommodating judgment based upon their works or based upon their knowledge.

Can't really form a good solid theology of that because Scripture just isn't clear. But the main thing is this, and you'll see this here. "For certain, the wicked will not be in God's gracious presence at all." This is the third blank, gracious. For number seven,

"But will be in God's wrathful." Wrathful is the fourth blank. The first blank is degrees. The second blank is works. Third blank is gracious. The fourth blank is wrathful. "But will be in God's wrathful presence with no relief." Right? Remember the rich man? Sin Lazarus. He can give me a little dip of cool water on my tongue. No. There's no relief there.

Revelation 21, 7-8, "He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son." But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexual, immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, "And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone," which is the second death. Application for number seven, "Don't perish." Parish to the blank. "Don't perish, but have everlasting life in Christ." You can do something about that now. You can repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, receive his forgiveness, and he will not have to about the judgment of God as a sinner, of being cast into outer darkness. Now is a day of repentance. It'll be too late at the bar of judgment.

But point number eight, "We must never deny." Deny is the first blank. Or ignore. Ignore is the second blank. The doctrine of eternal punishment. Some people deny it. As we mentioned, there are people who are annihilationists. There was an actor from the 90s who recently went on some podcasts exploring that and had some bad exegesis going on there basically saying, "Yes, we will be blotted out of existence. It won't be eternal punishment because God is unjust and God is merciful and loving." Everything against what we've learned here tonight, right? We cannot deny that.

Nor can we ignore hell or eternal punishment. That's just as bad.

We don't ever talk about it with our children. People say, "Well, I don't want to scare my kids."

That's part of the gospel, right? You have to know you're in trouble with God to know what you're saved from, right? You have to know the depth of your sin and what you truly deserve to receive the grace of the Savior, right? That we so are undeserving. "We must never deny or ignore the doctrine of eternal punishment." Hell is part and parcel of the gospel. I have shared many times, Brother Big Mac. A gentleman was a missionary of the West Indies. He was in my home church when he died. He used to tell. At that time, he was in his 80s and I was a teenager. I'd drive him around in summers and he would say, "Remember, David, gospel is a shotgun. It's a double barrel shotgun. First blast is you're in trouble with God. You're a sinner and you're going to hell if you don't repent. The second blast is God loves you and he's provided grace in Christ Jesus that if you'll believe on him, you will not perish but have everlasting life." Right? You can't offer grace without pulling that first barrel, right? And saying, "You're a sinner and you're going to hell."

To deny it is to be similar to Satan. Satan is a second blank. Those who deny hell are satanic. To deny it is to be similar to Satan when he told Eve, "You surely will not die." Because what is hell but the second death? Is it not? The most fearful utterances of future punishment are those of Jesus. Jesus is the fourth blank. Jesus himself, he can read through these.

He talks about hell. More than he talks about heaven actually in the gospels.

People say, "Well, I don't want to hear that." There was a young man who came a few Sundays to our church full of zeal and I was excited that he came. But he ended up believing because he said that he heard too much about hell and sin and repentance. We cannot change the gospel right? To do so is to be satanic. To say, "You surely will not die." Jesus himself is the best example of that. Application for number eight. Examine your gospel proclamation. Is it complete?

Are you merely saying, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life and I sure hope you receive it?" Or do you talk about sin and that they have a judgment awaiting them if they do not trust Christ? But by point number nine, we know the enormity, enormity is an enormous, E-N-O-R-M-I-T-Y, if you have trouble spelling like me. We know the enormity of sin only by God's own declarations with regard to it. And by the sacrifice which he has made to redeem, redeem is the second blank, us from it, to purchase us from it.

Hell, as well as the cross, indicates God's estimate of sin. Hell shows the incomprehensible penalty of being an object of abhorrence. Abhorrence is the third blank. It means God's hate.

Hell shows us the incomprehensible penalty of being an object of abhorrence to God.

The cross shows the depth of his infinite love. Love is the fourth blank.

"He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God, pleased the Father to crush him," is what Isaiah 53 tells us. Colossians 1, 13-14,

"He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Christ experienced the full wrath of God on the cross. And in doing so, He transfers us out from the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His love. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." Because Christ's blood was shed for us, we can be forgiven. We can have new life. Life eternal, not eternal death.

Application for number nine, "Praise God for His amazing grace." It is by grace that we stand. It is by grace that we will hear His voice. It is by grace that when He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Even our works were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, right? So we give Him all glory and grace. I encourage you, brothers and sisters, do not deny nor disregard the doctrine of hell.