Last week I mentioned that the Barna Group research reports that 56 % of the people polled believe more in Satan than they believe in God. I wondered if they believe in the eternal hell where the devil and all unregenerate people will be going.

Barna Group records that, “Four out of ten adults believe that Hell is “a state of eternal separation from God’s presence” (39%) and one-third (33%) says it is “an actual place of torment and suffering where people’s souls go after death.” A third perspective that is one in eight adults (13%) believes that “Hell is just a symbol of an unknown bad outcome after death”. Some, who believe in the Bible passages about heaven, utterly reject the references to hell.

However, there is no escaping its truth as presented in our passage. It was Robert Ingersoll, a famous lawyer and atheist in the latter part of the nineteenth century who once delivered a blistering lecture on hell. He called hell “scarecrow religion” and told his audience how unscientific it was, and how all intelligent people had decided there is no such place. One of the intriguing findings from Barna’s research is that education and income are negatively associated with a belief in Heaven and Hell.

In other words, the more education a person gets or the more income they earn, the less likely they are to believe that Heaven or Hell exists. A drunk in the audience came up to Ingersoll afterward and said, “Bob, I liked your lecture; I liked what you said about hell. But, Bob, I want you to be sure about it, because I’m depending upon you.”…

Revelation 20 declares that one day the “books” will be opened at the “The Great White Throne Judgment. It is called a great throne, not so much because of its size as because of its significance, its authority, its majesty, its power, its comprehensive resolution of judgment. It is white because of purity and holiness and righteousness.

I The Final Judgment

1. The time of this judgment is clear. The end of the millennium is marked by the judgment before the great white throne. The word great denotes the greatest judgment ever held, and white depicts the divine purity and righteousness that characterizes God’s decisions. At this time there will be a second resurrection of the unsaved dead, small and great to stand before God (20:12). This is describes it in Daniel 7: 9, 10.

2. The Place and subjects: It is a throne somewhere in the midst of an uncreated universe because the universe has dissolved and the new heaven and the new earth are about to be created. But somewhere in there in the nothingness of that moment, the throne exists. Some special judgment throne set up in the unseen realm. You’ll notice that the scene takes place in the absence of earth and heaven as we know it.
(Isaiah 65:17-19) II Peter 3:10-13

There’s a great white throne, God in the person of Christ sitting on it, and from the glorious, divine presence, earth and heaven disappear and no place is found for them. They go right out of existence. Just as God brought them into existence they go out of existence.

All unsaved unregenerate people now must stand face to face with God and receive His judgment for his or her evil works. As the books were opened, every thought, word, and deed were brought forth as evidence so each person could be judged according to their works. It could very well be that the memory in our own minds is the record book God will call up and perhaps visually play as His objective “film” of evidence. Ecclesiastes 12:14 describe this judgment… For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.

3. The Purpose: ** John MacAuthor – There will be a swift presentation of the convicting evidence but no rebuttal, a testimony with no cross examination. There will be an utterly unsympathetic judge and no jury. There will be a sentence but no appeal, a punishment with no parole in a jail with no escape. You may ask, “Why have these judgments? It is true that the place where they will spend eternity was determined on earth by whether or not they received Christ, but at the great white throne God will determine the degree of their eternal punishment in Hell. Jesus indicated to us that there will be different degrees of punishments in Hell, not everyone will experience the same judgment of fire. It’s very important to understand there are degrees of punishment consistent with degrees of sinfulness.
Matthew 11:22-24
ä-nek-to’s in Greek conveys the idea of more or less tolerable…different degress of punishments.

4. The book of life (Revelation 20:12) is at this judgment to show that no one standing before the throne has their name written in it. This judgment is not a balancing of good and evil works, because a person’s destiny is not decided in the life to come but rather in this life by what one chooses to do with Jesus Christ. Only the various degrees of punishment is decided at the great white throne judgment.

5. The lost dead are retrieved from three places-the sea, death, and hell (20:13). The sea refers to the unburied dead. The word death is a reference to the bodies of all people who have died and their bodies decayed into dust. So, whether they were drowned, buried at sea, cremated, or buried in the earth, God will call together the atoms, which at the sound of His voice will come back into bodily form and stand before His throne in judgment.

The third word used in vv. 20:13 is hell in the King James Version, but it is actually Hades, which is the intermediate place of residence for lost spirits between death and the permanent doom of hell. The phrase death and hell (or Hades) in 20:14, therefore, refers to everyone whose body has been dead until the second resurrection and whose spirit has been in Hades. They are the ones cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. This second death is eternal separation from God.
Mat 25:41 -Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

The reason for this severe judgment is given in 20:15: And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. This implies a careful search of the record books was made to prevent any mistake. Even though these people are judged by their works, it is clear their eternal destiny was predetermined by the absence of their names in the book of life.

6. What will it be like in Hell?

Matthew 8:12 says, “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 13:42 says, “There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” They will not only weep and wail, but they will hear the countless multitudes of millions upon millions of others weeping and wailing and screaming and crying and begging for mercy.

Hell Is a Place of Fire

a) It is not popular today to preach about Hell being a place of fire. Many preacher won’t do it. The same Bible that they once believed still says that Hell has fire! ” Luke 16:23-31 tells the story about the rich man in Hell. He lifted up his eyes and said to Abraham, “I am tormented in this flame.”

b) Matthew 18:8 calls it “everlasting fire. Jude 7 calls it “eternal fire.” The fire in Hell is not quenched; it never dies down; it never goes out; it never subsides.
Revelation 20:10 calls it “the lake of fire and brimstone and is eternal fire.

c) Hell Is a Place of Darkness

Second Peter 2:4 calls it “darkness.” Jude 13 calls it “blackness of darkness.” Jesus makes it clear God has spoken His final Word in the Bible. When you die, you will immediately go to one of two places: heaven or Hades. You choose which one by what you decide to do with the truth of Jesus Christ. My responsibility as a pastor is to warn you of the coming consequences of your choices about Jesus.

Conclusion:

The vastness of God’s mercy is beyond human comprehension, but it is NOT limitless, as this passage indicates. These verses dispel all human theories of universalism-that everyone will be saved in the end. Our loving God and Father wants no one to go to hell and soared not his own so as to assure everyone a home in heaven. However, those that reject Christ will suffer an eternal hell.