Directly addresses the biblical concept of hell, distinguishing it from Hades and emphasizing its eternal torment. It clarifies that Hades, the place of departed spirits, was divided into paradise (for the saved) and a place of torment (for the unsaved) before Christ's ascension, citing Luke 16 and the experience of Samuel. Following Christ's resurrection, paradise was translated to heaven, meaning the saved now go directly to God's presence, while the unsaved still go to Hades to await final judgment. The sermon concludes by describing hell (Gehenna) as a literal place of fire, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, a consequence of sin that underscores the necessity of salvation through Christ's atoning sacrifice.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.42 → restored 3.77
Verses forty-three through forty-eight, please. And if thy hand thine thee cut it off, it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell into the far that never shall be quenched. Where their worm dith not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter halt into life than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dith not, and the fire is not quenched.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell far, where their worm dives not, and the far is not quench." As you can tell our subject just now is the subject of hell. What does the Bible say about hell? I think Christians need to study this as much as an unsaved does. This should cause an unsaved person to get saved immediately. And this subject should also make Christians realize how great their salvation is.
And it should also tell us how great our sinnerhood is, the awesome guilt, our awful condemnation. and be thankful to God that he has saved us. And so it is certainly most profitable that we consider what the Bible says about hell. But before we can look at hell, we have to make a distinction. And that is a distinction between hell and Hades. Would you turn it to Revelation chapter twenty and verse fourteen? If you've ever debated with a Seventh-day Adventist, you'll find that they will turn you to this verse to try to throw you.
For the Seventh-day Adventists teach soul sleeping. They teach that when you die, you're just dead. You don't exist anymore. You're asleep. And they teach that the final judgment is annihilation. that you're just burnt up and it's all over. And so they use this verse, Revelation twenty verse fourteen. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. And so they say, don't you see, hell is going to be burned up because hell is cast into the lake of fire.
And that makes very good sense. If hell... is cast into the lake of fire, then it must be burnt up. What's the object there? It doesn't make any sense, does it, really? And the reason is that it's not the word hell. And the Seventh-day Adventists know it's not hell, but they don't tell you that. The Greek word here, translated hell, is hades. And you can hear the English word for it, hades. It's not hell at all. The verses we read in Mark nine, forty-three through forty-eight, every time you heard the word hell there, it was the Greek word Ge'enna.
The Lord Jesus said Ge'enna, the Ge'enna of fire, the hell of fire. And the Lord Jesus uses that word Deanna eleven times in our New Testament. And every time he's talking about hell, and he calls it Deanna. But Hades is another word used in the Scriptures in our New Testament, and it isn't hell at all. It is Hades. Now, I'd like to bring up a big gun here to... support me in this because I know you wouldn't be inclined to just take my word for it, but here's what Doug E.
Vine says about Hades. And I'm quoting from, in page one eighty-seven from Doug E. Vine's Dictionary of New Testament Words. He says Hades, Greek, Hades, the region of departed spirits of the lost. But This is a parenthesis now, but including the blessed dead in periods preceding the ascension of Christ. Parenthesis in close. It has been thought by some that the word etymologically meant the unseen.
Some people thought it meant Hades meant the unseen, and they gathered that from, ah, negative, and idol, meaning to see. They thought Hades came from those two words put together, and therefore meant the unseen. But this derivation is questionable. A more probable derivation is from Hado signifying all receiving. It corresponds to Shio in the Old Testament. In the authorized version, it has unhappily been rendered hell.
Now, that's a man of God that we have respect for, Doug E. Vine, a real scholar who knows his grief, and has been a great help to many of us in the study of the word. And so we have to make a distinction in our Bible that our King James translators did not make. And that is, they translated two completely different words in the original by one English word, hell. And that is what causes the confusion that we sometimes get into.
Hades is not hell. Hades is the place of the departed spirits. Now, death takes the body, and Hades takes the soul of the unsaved person. And I think you'll see that the Scripture is consistent in this. Hades is in the heart of the earth. It's in the very bowels of this earth. And it's divided into two sections. Before the ascension of the Lord Jesus, the saved who died, they didn't go to heaven.
They went into Hades. But they went into the side of Hades, which was called paradise. And it was a place of comfort. On the other side in Hades was that compartment of suffering, of torment. Now let's see where we get these things. Back in Luke sixteen, of course, you have this set forth for us. Luke chapter sixteen. Verse nineteen and following. We can't read all this, but what we read is the rich man died and was buried. Lazarus died, and he was carried by a royal escort.
He was escorted by the angels into Abraham's bosom, not into the presence of God, not into heaven, but into Abraham's bosom. And we read of the rich man, and in Hades, not hell, But in Hades the rich man lifted up his eyes, being in torment. And he sees Lazarus afar off, or Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he pleads for mercy. He asks that Lazarus might dip his finger in water and come and cool his heart's tongue.
Some people have a problem with that. They say, if it was just his soul in Hades, how could he say he wanted water on his tongue? Well, I don't think there's any problem about that. He's tormented in a flame, but it's his soul that's being tormented, but he has always thought in terms of his body. For example, you've heard, as I have... of a person who has had his leg amputated, and he'll complain over and over that his foot hurts. I was in a hospital once in a bed, and on the other bed was a man who did that very thing, and he constantly complained to me how his foot was paining him and begged for morphine to relieve that pain, and he didn't even have a foot.
It would seem that somehow our spirit fleets in terms of our body. And that's the only explanation I can see for this man begging for water on his tongue when it's only his spirit that's in Hades. But Abraham says, Son, remember. And then he also tells him that Lazarus is now comforted. and that he is tormented. And he says, And there's a great gulf between us, so that they that would come from you to us cannot, neither can we pass from here to you.
An impassable gulf between the two. In this area in the heart of the earth called Hades, on one side a place of torment, the other a place of comfort. And this was before the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, having accomplished redemption, having put away sin, and went back into the presence of God. Do you remember what we read about Samuel in First Samuel twenty-eight? The woman, the witch, said to Saul, whom shall I bring up?
She didn't say, whom shall I bring back or bring down. She said, whom shall I bring up? And Saul said, I want you to bring up Samuel. Samuel had died. And then it says that Samuel said, when he appeared, why have you disquieted me to bring me up? Notice Samuel was down, and he came up to the surface of the earth to talk to Saul, which indicates again that when a person died in Old Testament days, he went down into the heart of the earth, and the Old Testament is consistent in this.
You may get very confused reading the King James because it'll use the word Shio, it'll translate it grave, and then another time, hell, and you don't know what it is. But the Hebrew is consistent, too. It uses a word Tiber, meaning the grave, and it uses another word Shio, which means Hades, the same, it's equivalent with Hades, in the New Testament. Shio is Hades. Shio, the Hebrew for the same word, as Hades in our New Testament.
And the souls of the redeemed went into Hades before Calvary, but they were not in torment, they were in the side which was paradise, a place of comfort. When the Lord Jesus died, or when before he died, that thief turned to him in true repentance and in faith, and the Lord Jesus said, Verily I say to thee, Today shall thou be with me in paradise. Well, where did he mean? Was the Lord going to heaven that day?
The Lord Jesus said in Matthew twelve and verse forty, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. In the heart of the earth. That's not on the surface of the earth. They didn't even bury six feet under. They cut out of the side of the rock. And people walked into these tombs. They didn't go down into a grave even.
So certainly he was not in the heart of the earth as to his body. But the Lord Jesus descended into Hades. But please don't get the idea for one moment. He went into the side of torment, for the Lord Jesus' suffering was finished on that awful cross once and for all. But he did go into the side of comfort in Hades. In Acts chapter two and verses twenty seven and thirty-one, David is speaking first and says, You'll not leave my soul in Hades.
Neither will thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Notice he's speaking of two different things, his soul and his body. And he says, You won't leave my soul in Hades. Now, that song, which is being quoted by David, use the word Shio. Thou wilt not leave my soul in Shio. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to seek corruption. Then Peter, who is using this quotation from David, says David was speaking as a prophet, and he was speaking of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades.
neither did his flesh seek corruption. And so he is telling us that the Lord Jesus was in Hades, but that he rose from the dead. When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, you remember he said to Mary Magdalene, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father. If the Lord Jesus, when he died, went to heaven, then why in the world would he say, I am not yet ascended to my Father? If he just came back from heaven, why would he say, don't bother me, I've got to go back to the Father?
You see, he hadn't been to heaven those three days and three nights, and he was going to be with the Father that very day. He had been in Hades in the side of comfort, where he said to the thief, Today shall thou be with me in paradise, that side of comfort in Hades. You find in the Revelation these go together, as in Revelation six and verse eight, You remember the fourth seal is open, and the fourth horseman is seen there.
And he's riding upon this pale green horse, the color of death. And the name of him who rides on the horse is death. And Hades is with him. For you see, death takes the body, and Hades takes the soul. And that's why we read in Revelation chapter twenty and verse thirteen that death and Hades deliver up the dead which are in them. Death is going to give up the bodies and Hades is going to give up the souls and the lost man is going to be reunited a whole man.
spirit, soul, and body. And he's going to stand at that judgment that we've been hearing about from our brother Stuart. Soul and body. He'll stand before God. That's why it says death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. For the lake of fire is hell. It is the inner. And every person that is in that final resurrection and stands in that great white throne judgment is an unsaved person.
And so when death gives up their bodies on that final judgment day and Hades gives up their souls, that's when death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire, which is hell. nobody is in hell tonight for no one has been cast into the lake of fire yet that is at the great white throne judgment that we find they are finally cast into the lake of fire so i hope that helps some sometimes it muddies the water rather than helping but to me I have studied it and studied it.
I found, dear brethren, that don't see this, but to me personally, I'll have to say it is as consistent as anything I have found in the Word of God. I mean, if you keep with the words in the original language and carefully study every verse, you'll come up with what I did, I'm sure. that God is telling us Hades is in the heart of the earth. You remember again a scripture I forgot to quote is Ephesians four and verse eight or nine where it says, He that ascended is he that first descended into the lower part of the earth.
Romans ten says, say not in thy heart who shall ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above nor who shall descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead you see everything is so consistent with this fact of hebes being in the very bowels of the earth and Thank God when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He translated paradise to heaven, so that now paradise is no longer a compartment of Hades.
You see, sin had not yet been judged. Those sacrifices only covered sin. The sin was still there. and it was not put away. And you say, well, it didn't make any difference. Really, they were saved by faith. Yes, they were. But my friend, the proof that it does make a difference that sin was really not finally put away until Calvary, and there was a difference, is that they did not have the Holy Spirit in them. The Holy Spirit did not come within them.
He could not, for they were not yet righteous ground. Oh, sin was only covered. It still existed. But after Calvary, sin was completely annihilated for every sinner who will believe and trust in the Lord Jesus. and therefore the Holy Spirit comes into you the moment that you believe on Christ, for your sin is put away. It is not covered. It is gone. It does not exist. It's in the land of nowhere, as far as God is concerned.
And so those souls were then free to go into the presence of God in heaven. And so Paul says, that he was caught up into the third heaven into paradise. So now souls that are saved go straight into heaven to be with the Lord because of Calvary and that glorious finished work of Christ. But the unsaved, if you die tonight and you're not saved, your soul will go immediately. into Hades, into a compartment of torment awaiting the great white throne judgment, when God will bring you back body and soul, and you will stand personally, as we've been hearing, before God and be judged for every sin you ever committed, and it will simply be cast into hell.
the hell of fire for eternity. Well, what is hell like? We've been talking about Hades. What is hell like? Well, let's turn to Matthew chapter thirteen. Matthew chapter thirteen. Verse forty-one. The Son of Man shall sin forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.
And they, the angels, shall cast them into thee. The Greek has the definite article, thee furnish all fire. There shall be the wailing... and the gnashing of teeth. This word wailing can be translated two ways. The weeping, and it can also be translated the wailing. So let's consider both. The Lord Jesus is telling us what goes on in hell. And he says there. He's not just making a statement of fact.
I will say there will be rain tomorrow. That's not the there he's using. It's the adverb there. In that place is what he's saying. There, in that place, will be the weeping. It's as if the Lord Jesus said, you think you've seen weeping there. in hell will be these weeping, all the weeping in hell. Can't you imagine it, a soul that has heard the gospel, that has heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the free gift of God, of salvation, and that person lands in hell?
Surely he'll cry, Oh, what a fool I was! What a perfect fool! And he'll weep over the awful bargain that he made in choosing some little thing in this world that would keep him from eternal salvation and send him to that horrible place called hell. There shall be thee weeping. And he said, There shall be the gnashing of teeth. A brother of mine that was gloriously saved from the very gutter of sin.
I wish I had time to tell you about Stoy Lamar, but I can't tonight. But he was telling me of an experience he had. He was going to have an operation. And the doctor said that his heart was in such poor condition that he couldn't give him any anesthetics. And that was before the spinals were known and other drugs. And so he had to take it perfectly alive to the pain. And he said, as the doctor began to operate, he began to grind his teeth for pain.
And he said the doctor told the nurse to put a towel between his teeth, lest he grind out his very teeth in pain. And the Lord Jesus, the lover of our souls, is the one who tells us there shall be the gnashing of teeth. Oh, my friend, this tells me that hell is a place of literal torment, of anguish. In the Scripture that our brother read a while ago, we read of God's attitude toward the sinner who refuses to repent.
God's attitude, we are told in Romans two eight is, indignation, and wrath. That is God's attitude toward that sinner who will one day stand before him, having refused to repent and to believe the glorious gospel of Christ. God will be furious, and he'll be so furious that he'll pour out his wrath. and that word comes from a word meaning, to stretch out the arm. God is going to pour out his fury against a sinner, and we better believe it.
The next verse tells how this sinner will feel as God deals with him in his anger and his wrath. It says, and anguish, anguish to every man that worked at evil. It's going to be anguish, my friend, in hell. And that brings us to the question, is it literal fire? Matthew chapter thirteen.
And I'll be honest with you, I have looked for something that would tell me it is not literal fire. I have a son that's not saved. He's thirty-seven years old, and he's an FBI agent stationed in New York City. And my heart Mary breaks as I think of him hanging over hell. And I wish I could find something in the Bible that would say it's not literal fire, it's just your conscience.
But as I read this book, I can't be honest with it and say, Anything but it is little fire. Matthew thirteen. The Lord gives a parable here. Immediately somebody throws up his hand and says, Oh, a parable. Why, you can take a parable and twist that anywhere you like. You can't twist this one, my friend. Because the Lord is going to interpret the parable himself. We don't interpret one particle of it. He gives the parable in verse thirty-six, Matthew thirteen, thirty-six, and he explains about this field.
I see my time's running out, so let me just say this. He explains every single detail of the parable. When he gets down toward the end and comes to where they gather these tears together into bundles and cast them in the fire, He interprets that by saying what we have just read, verses forty-one and forty-two, that his angels, he is not giving a parable now. He is interpreting every detail, and this is the last detail of the parable.
And he says the angels will cast them into the furnace of fire. You cannot interpret a parable with another parable. It just isn't good sense. It isn't scriptural. It isn't logical. And the Lord is telling us here that hell is literal fire. Oh, the horror of that. No wonder they gnash their teeth in hell. But one more thing I see here about hell, that word wailing, as this word also is correctly translated.
There shall be the wailing. In Africa, a few times I stumbled on to a heathen funeral, and it was a horrible sight. For they didn't believe in life after death. They thought this was the end. And I have seen them cutting their flesh, and the awful cry. I've never heard a cry like it. It's not weeping. It's a hollow, empty sound of hopelessness, a wail. And God says, there shall be the wailings.
And you know, I think I know what they'll probably wait. I can imagine a poor soul in hell, and as he looks up through the fire and the smoke and gnashes his teeth in pain, he asks himself, How long am I here for? Is it for a hundred years, and will I have paid my debt to God? Is it for a thousand years? Is it for a million years? Oh, no, it's not for a million. It's forever. It's forever. It's forever.
Oh, the whale of hell. It is forever. Oh, my friend, don't you see why? Sin is so terrible. If that's where I belong, if that's what I deserve, oh, what a sinner I must be. And we need to not condemn God for such a harsh judgment, but we need to see what horror sin is. If it does that, oh, how horrible it must be for you and for me to commit any sin.
All the awfulness of sin is seen in hell, and also the measure of Calvary. For standing between you and hell tonight is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For there he took, as it were, your hell for you. he drank that bitter cup of the wrath of God to me, to you, and that's the only reason we are pardoned.
It's not that God is loved, so he forgives you. No, it's that he's loved, but he judged his own son with the judgment of your sins and mine. And there he is. Between you and hell, and if you go to hell, you've got to walk over the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got to tread his blood under your feet, and I beg you, tonight, make sure that you're saved. Somebody says, well, you're trying to scare me into heaven, aren't you?
Yes, I sure am. Is anything wrong with that? You and I live by fear every moment of the day. When you walk out on the street out there, what do you look this way and that way for to see the scenery? Well, you're afraid. You know you'll get run over if you don't look both ways. We act out of fear all the time. Don't go walking off this platform in the air. Why not? I'm scared. I'll hit down on that cement and break our legs. And we are operating on that basis all the time, nor being moved with fear, building an ark to the saving of his house.
And we need to put aside the stupid nonsense of saying, I don't want to get saved out of fear. That's ridiculous. Get saved any way you can, my friend, whether it's out of fear or love or whatever it is, but... get saved before it's eternally too late.