Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

            In my former congregation I had a most challenging situation.  A woman in the congregation arranged to have her husband murdered and had it carried out.  I went to the Winona County Jail to visit this woman.  In my visiting with her I caught her in her lies.  When I pointed them out to her, she said to me, “Go to Hell!”  I told her I don’t plan to go there.  Those were my last words with her.  She did not want to speak with me again.  She currently is serving a life sentence without parole in the women’s prison in Minnesota.  The use of the word “Hell” is thrown around in people’s conversation.  People have told people, “go to hell,” others have asked God to damn people, yet in the truth of the matter, most people don’t take hell seriously.  People ask, how can a loving God send someone to hell?  No doubt you have heard that expression.  But do you hear people ask, how could a just God tolerate the evil we see in the world?  Our text today we hear the words of the judge at the end of the world, "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”  Jesus has made it clear there are two results at the end of time and end of life, eternal life or eternal damnation.  People will see Jesus either as Savior or Judge.  Our focus today so that we truly understand from what Jesus saved us, is to focus on Salvation from Damnation.

I. The Existence of Hell

            Our text unfolds the very beginning of the existence of a place of eternal judgment. The Bible continually warns of a place called hell. There are over 162 references in the New Testament alone which warns of hell. And over 70 of these references were uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ! He states that a place was prepared for the devil and his angels.  These are the angelic beings that rebelled again God and brought temptation, lies and death into God’s beautiful creation.  Contrary to popular expressions, the devil is not in charge of hell, he is not the dungeon master.  Rather this is a place of torment.  In the pages of Scripture we find the following terms used, “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” and “second death”  and “place of torment”  and “lake of fire and brimstone” (KJV) And the devil…was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, Rev. 20:10,the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matt 8:12.  The Bible uses terms like Hades and Gehenna, which was taken from the valley of Hinnom where the garbage burned day and night, such are the terms to describe the place of the damned. 

            Jesus also teaches that there are degrees of suffering in hell.  This is determined by the way people have rejected him and his ministry.  Listen to what he said to the city of Capernaum.  (Mat 11:22 NIV) And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. 24  But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."  Where is hell?  The best I can answer is “somewhere.”  Simply put we should not spend time trying to figure out where hell but how to stay out of hell. 

               The pictures are vivid, eternal, everlasting, fire, punishment, burning sulfur weeping and gnashing of teeth.  But the ultimate meaning of hell is eternally separated from the love and presence of God himself.  No more grace, no more mercy, no more patience, no more forgiveness, rather totally forsaken by God.  So we hear the words, “depart from me.”  Being damned means separated from God, forever excluded from communion, fellowship with God.  Cast into outer darkness.  So the pictures we have of hell express intense agony of body and soul. 

            The question comes who will be in hell?  The challenge to the human mind is the nature of God himself.  How can a loving God send someone to an eternity in hell?  How can a holy, just and righteous God let a defiant, unrepentant, unbelieving sinner into his holy presence and perfect abode?  Such a person would ruin heaven itself.   The Scripture says, (Rom 12:19 NIV)  Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. We may have no trouble with God almighty sending to hell a Hitler, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists who have no remorse over killing people.  Those are really bad people.  But what we fail to realize is the nature of our own sin and its impact on a holy God. The Scripture makes it clear who will not be heaven.  The following verses declare: (Gal 5:19-21 NIV)  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; {20} idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions {21} and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  Paul also writes to the Corinthians: (1 Cor 6:9-11 NIV)  Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders {10} nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  All sin is a rejection of God himself, an act of insane defiance and not believing.  It is saying I don’t want you; I don’t need you and don’t tell me what I can or cannot do!  So Jesus says, “He that believes not shall be damned.”  I had a professor who said, “Hell scares me!” Rightly so!  It shows us why we need a Savior.   

How do you reconcile the wrath of God with the profound truth of Scripture that God is love?  The Scripture makes it clear that the Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  We know that the Love of God is revealed in the work of Jesus, 1 John 4: 8-10 God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  On the one hand you have the love, but realize also with Jesus on the cross; we see the ultimate in God’s wrath against sin. The love of God and the wrath of God come together at the cross of Jesus. God laid the sins of the world on his son and his son died.  Remember that the ultimate part of hell is being separated from God and his love, recall Jesus words on the cross,              (Mat 27:46 NIV)  About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  This is why Jesus is such an expert on damnation, hell, the wrath of God, he has experienced it all for us.  After suffering the agony of hell he descended to show his victory. (1 Pet 3:18-20 NIV)  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, {19} through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison {20} who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.   He showed his victory.  Because he is victorious we are victorious.  We are not damned, but saved.  Amen.