THE HOUND’S OF HELL

THE HOUND’S OF HELL

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

January 31, 2010

Those of you who have been attending our church for a while, and the folks who read my sermons afterward, know I care deeply about the ultimate fate and horrible consequences awaiting people who refuse to accept Christ’s unconditional love for them. One of my greatest desires is that none of my loved ones and certain other people leave this sin infested world still lost in their sins. Week after week, you folks echo my sentiments during the time when we publicly share some of our prayer requests. It isn’t uncommon to have folks who attend our worship service express a heart-felt desire for God to save so-and-so. I assure you our friends at Harvest Time do the exact same thing on Wednesday’s.

It can become frustrating at times knowing that most non-Christians we come in contact with are indifferent toward becoming “saved.” Perhaps more so when someone asks you: “Saved from what?” You may respond by answering: “From being separated from God and His children forever.” Even when you’re given an opportunity to elaborate on that statement, more often than not, it appears to go in one ear and right out the other, doesn’t it?

It seems to me that as far as this issue is concerned, all too often we Christians are a big part of the problem. For instance, because of a lack of a Biblical understanding of how evil God views every one of our sins without exception, we may not have as great an appreciation for our own salvation as we could have and as we should have. Peter Kreeft, well known author and professor of philosophy at Boston College explains it this way: “The greatness of salvation is measured by the awfulness of the thing we are saved from.” While I was crafting this sermon it was my prayerful hope that each of you gain a little insight into the awfulness of Hell and that it become profitable in your own personal evangelistic efforts.

I’m going to start with a spiritual nugget which is imbedded in the 27^th chapter of the Book of Job. You folks probably recall that Job, whom God Himself described as being the most godly man living on the face of the earth at the time, was being bombarded with all sorts of accusations of harboring unacknowledged sin by his three friends whom, unbeknown to them, were being used by Satan to torment him. They subjected Job to this kind of spiritual abuse while the man was in the midst of an extremely painful emotional and physical divinely ordained ordeal. Job was a married man and the father of ten adult children. He was fabulously wealthy and possessed thousands of livestock and employed many servants. Then, in a relatively short period of time, Job lost everyone and everything with the exception of his wife and several servants. To top it all off, Job was afflicted with a terribly painful illness. When his friends heard about all the evil that had come upon him they left their respective homes and went to visit him. They were so appalled by what they saw when they arrived that they were speechless for the first seven days. Then, each of them came to the conclusion that God must have been punishing Job for sins they were unaware of and for which Job didn’t ask God to forgive him. His friends went back and forth with Job concerning this issue, and now we will pick up on their discourse in the 27^th chapter.

Job 27:1-6 (ESV)
¹And Job again took up his discourse, and said:
²"As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
³as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
⁴my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.
⁵Far be it from me to say that you are right; till I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
⁶I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.

⁷"Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.
⁸For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life?
⁹Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?
¹⁰Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?
¹¹I will teach you concerning the hand of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.
¹²Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?
¹³"This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty:
¹⁴If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword, and his descendants have not enough bread.
¹⁵Those who survive him the pestilence buries, and his widows do not weep.
¹⁶Though he heap up silver like dust, and pile up clothing like clay,
¹⁷he may pile it up, but the righteous will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.

¹⁸He builds his house like a moth's, like a booth that a watchman makes.
¹⁹He goes to bed rich, but will do so no more; he opens his eyes, and his wealth is gone.
²⁰Terrors overtake him like a flood; in the night a whirlwind carries him off.
²¹The east wind lifts him up and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.
²²It hurls at him without pity; he flees from its power in headlong flight.
²³It claps its hands at him and hisses at him from its place.

Now here’s the spiritual nugget I would like us to focus on this morning.

Job 27:6 (ESV)
⁶I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart [my conscience] does not reproach [censure, rebuke] me for any of my days.

It’s as though Job is saying to his friends: “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m innocent! I have a clear conscience! And yet you guys have been attacking me like a pack of mad-dogs. Have you forgotten what I told you a little while ago?”

Job 19:3 (ESV)
³These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

In these few words Job was implying: “You men ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You’re my closest friends. You of all people know that night and day I struggle real hard to live my life in a manner which is pleasing to God. Each of you has heard me acknowledge the fact that I sin. I’m far from being perfect. Of course I sin! You men also know I’m quick to acknowledge my sins to God and plead with Him for forgiveness, and then I move on. Each of you men has to know I have peace of mind and I’m not tormented by a nagging conscience. I’m at peace with God! My conscience is clear because I know that deep down in my heart I honestly want to please God more than anyone else on earth. You men can go on accusing me for the rest of my life, but I want you to know this: with God’s help, I will not knowingly sin!”

Non-Christians may not realize it but, their God given conscience is their best friend. It’s like an Internet search engine meticulously searching and judging each of our thoughts, words and deeds, and making a record of them. Even atheists will acknowledge this fact that, barring any mental abnormalities, all human beings intuitively know the difference between right wrong. Romans 2:15 (ESV) ¹⁵They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.

We may try to ignore our conscience or run away from it, but sooner or later that best friend will catch up with us and confront as it did with King David, a good year after he had been engaging in adultery and had murdered the woman’s husband. God used one of His prophet’s, a man named Nathan to confront David by means of telling him a story. So convicted was David by that story that we read: 2 Samuel 12:13-14 (ESV) ¹³David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die."

Sooner or later our conscience will catch up with us and we will finally learn that sin is very costly. Every sin, the big and the small, has a price tag on it! This is a truth that every human being will eventually learn. However, thanks to God’s incomprehensible love for poor last sinners such as you and me, and through the shedding of the precious blood of His one and only begotten Son, the price has been paid in full for the followers of Jesus (John 3:16). Needless to say, some people such as David may have to experience awful consequences for their sins while they are still in this world just as he did. However, for the true followers of Jesus, those painful experiences will end the moment he or she enters into the next world. All those who have rejected the free gift of salvation and the forgiveness of their sins which is possible only through the Cross of Christ (John 14:6) will suddenly find themselves separated from God forever.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 (ESV)
⁹They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

As I said in the beginning of this sermon: “One of my greatest desires is that none of my loved ones and certain other people will leave this sin infested world still lost in their sins.” And I might add that includes each of you folks who are hearing this sermon right now as well as those who may read it later. Please carefully give a lot of serious thought to the following passages, most of which I’m going to let speak for themselves directly from God’s heart to yours.

Matthew 25:41 (ESV)
⁴¹"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

1 John 1:5 (ESV)
⁵This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Matthew 8:12 (ESV)
¹²“...the sons of the kingdom [of Satan] will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

Now let’s take a moment and consider the many blessings you receive from Him. For instance, ^“...he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, Matthew 5:45(ESV).

Edward Donnelly, in his excellent book entitled, Heaven and Hell, comments: “...no-one lives without God. No-one ever has or ever will. He gives you every breath you take. His kindness surrounds and sustains every moment of your existence. He makes his sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain to the unjust as well as on the just. He gives you the beauty of a summer evening, the coolness of a refreshing breeze, the splendor of mountain scenery. He delights you with the taste of fresh crusty bread or the juice of a ripe peach.’ “You may enjoy the exhilaration of sport and bodily exercise. You probably have ambitions in life, you may be fortunate enough to have work which challenges and satisfies you, projects or hobbies which you find stimulating. You laugh and feel happy. You lie down in bed at night and are restored by sleep. All of these are blessings from God. But in hell all this will be taken from you. Everyone you love, everything you value will be removed from your experience. No flower will bloom. There will be no laughter, no excitement, no fulfillment of any kind. These things are from God and to be separated from his is to be separated from all his gifts. You take them for granted now; you never thank the Giver and you have no idea of the extent of your indebtedness to him. But, when they are taken away, what poverty!’ “Think of the most hopeless derelict in the gutter. His existence is paradise compared to the poverty of hell.” (A) Hell is truly awful and it behooves all human beings to change their ways and follow the only One who can save us from going there.

Consider the following loving warning from Him as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. “...if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire, Matthew 18:8-9 (ESV), also Mark 9:43-47. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus told the story about a certain rich man who died and was “...in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. ²⁴And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame, Luke 16:23-24 (ESV).

Don’t think for a moment that with all this fire you will finally be annihilated and cease to exist. Remember the account of Moses when “...the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed, Exodus 3:2 (ESV).

Many people try to run away from their best friend. Others desensitize their conscience through constantly committing the same sins such as murder, rape, lying, sexual immorality, or the gross abuse of alcohol and/or other drugs. However, if they haven’t accepted forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice, the moment they enter into the other world it will be restored to the same condition is was in when they were born. It will be re-sensitized and they will watch over and over again a replay of their life. They will torment themselves eternally with the knowledge of the horrendous impact each of their sins had on fellow human beings and society as a whole. The weight of their guilty conscience will cause them to weep and gnash their teeth uncontrollably.

Donnelly elaborates: “If you go to hell, [O] how your conscience will reproach you! Perhaps you will remember your father leading your family is worship, reading the Bible and praying for you and with you. Or what about your mother, who told you about Jesus? She loved you and would have given anything to see you become a Christian. You will remember every church service you attended, every sermon you heard. You may recall occasions when Christ drew near, when your heart was moved and you knew that you should yield to the Savior. Fine Christians will come to mind and the attractive example of godliness which they set before you. Or perhaps you did not have the benefit of a Christian background, and yet there have been times when you were frightened or in need and you promised to serve God if he helped you. He did, but your promises have remained unfulfilled. How will such memories appear to you in hell? Will they not be bitter? ‘Why didn‘t I listen, why didn‘t I take advantage of all those opportunities?’, you will cry. ‘It is my own fault that I am here.’ Your conscience will torment you. It will be an undying, voracious worm, allowing you no peace to all eternity.” (B)

“...the sons of the kingdom [of Satan] will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matthew 8:12 (ESV) See also 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30.

They will cry out for mercy but God will turn a deaf ear towards them. “...I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them," Ezekiel 8:18 (ESV).

But why would God treat them like this?

Psalm 11:5 (ESV)
⁵The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Hebrews 10:31 (ESV)
³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 12:29 (ESV)
²⁹for our God is a consuming fire.

Nahum 1:6 (ESV)
⁶Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.

Our merciful God lovingly warns them that their torment will continue forever:

¹¹And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, Revelation 14:11 (ESV) “...they will be tormented day and night forever and ever, Revelation 20:10 (ESV)

None of us know the exact moment we will leave this world and enter into the next. There is one thing we can be absolutely certain of though; we will leave everything and everyone behind us except our God given best friend, our conscience. At this moment there is nothing preventing any of you folks, if you haven’t already done so, to flee from the wrath to come and silently accepting Christ’s unfathomable loving forgiveness of your sins. Then you will enjoy eternal peace, joy and happiness with Him. Or you can continue wanting to have nothing to do with Him. That choice is also yours. But remember, when you leave this world and enter into the next only your conscience will accompany you, and there it will become another one of The Hound’s of Hell.

(B) Ibid, 38-39.

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